Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Because they're too impatient to wait and don't realise they have to? And because they still conflate Complete Monster with "I hate that guy"? I swear we need to find a way to better advertise this thread. We could head off a lot of bad examples that way.

I'd agree that a show with that message isn't likely to have a lot of CM candidates, or even a CM candidate. Provided of course, that it presents the message effectively (we certainly seen writers fail at that before). Never having seen the show I can't judge either way, though I'm sure the debate will be interesting.

edited 19th Sep '13 6:21:13 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

anyways, the only complete monsters in BB were the Twins thus far. the only two who can even be considered otherwise are Jack and Todd and we're putting them on hold

Was it decided to cut Bernie Bernbaum from Miller's Crossing?

• The Duke in Moulin Rouge may seem comedic, but it soon turns out his obsession with Satine is no joke. He is willing to murder people in order to eliminate the competition, beat her in order to get her to submit, threaten her loved ones to make her agree with his plans...and during the Tango Roxanne, it's HEAVILY implied that he would rape her if she did not agree to have sex with him.

Hm. Never seen this, but he's listed as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.

• Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: As monstrous as the Duke is, the betrayal he feels is very real.

• Bollywood is known for its cartoonishly evil villains. But in Murder 2, which is The Remake of Korean film The Chaser, the villain is a Villainous Crossdresser who likes to sadistically torture and kill women for fun. He has no Monster Sob Story. He is just a. Sick. Fucking. Bastard.

Wow is that badly written.

Was Mr. Accident ever discussed?

• Duxton Chevalier from Mr. Accident is a surprisingly serious and evil villain for a comedy film. He forces his brother to hand over his egg company by threatening to chop the leg off of his beloved dog and gets more sinister as the film goes on. It's revealed that he murdered his own brother after already getting the company, stuffing his body in a refrigerator and sending it through a recycling machine. At least viewers can assume the brother is already dead. He then spikes the chicken feed with nicotine in order to produce nicotine-spiked eggs to get people addicted to the eggs so he can bring in the cash. He does love his girlfriend, Sunday - in the way of the homicidal Stalker with a Crush -kind. As a result, when he discovers Roger is her new boyfriend, he stuffs him and his best friend in another refrigerator and tries to repeat what he did with his brother with them still alive. He then moves on to try to murder Sunday with an ax (which, frighteningly, he has on him at all times) after her rebuking his affections one last time. After Roger confronts him on his plan, asking if baby food is next, Duxton reacts by saying: "We're working on it." In the end Duxton gets his comeuppance when Roger sends him falling to a messy Disney Villain Death.

• Detective Stansfield in The Professional is a manic psychopath, who thinks nothing of murdering a family, including the children, for shits and giggles while listening to classical music. Even though he seems upset about his henchmen killing Mathilda's little brother, he is really more worried about answering to his superiors for killing the little brother and his compassion seems to be more about finding out who sent Mathilda. Also, his voluntary going through lots of pills is to be taken into account, for any emotions he shows might be because of his wild, drug-addled mood swings. When one of his henchmen responds with disdain after the little brother is killed, Stansfield himself seems to have no concern one way or the other. As he later puts it "I take no pleasure in taking a life if it's from a person who doesn't care about it."

Okay Stansfield sounds horrible, but I can't find any discussion on him.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:23:57 PM by TVRulezAgain

Stansfield is an easy keep. Absolute bastard.

The Duke as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds really? Oh, boo hoo. It's like they ignore a scene where he attempts to freaking own Satine and screeches "I don't like people touching my things!" He didn't 'love' her.

Moulin Rouge. Seriously? Someone tried to list a CM in Moulin Rouge? The Duke's only crime is trying to have his romantic rival killed. Bad, but standard villain fare. They can't claim he tried to rape Satine because guess what, he never tries to rape Satine. As for his belief that he has the right to sleep with her...his agreement with the theatre is that he backs their play so long as she sleeps with him.

The Duke is an Axe-Crazy lunatic, but aside from one attempted murder, his only crime is being a possessive dick and threatening to close a theatre. Hardly CM fare.

edited 19th Sep '13 7:23:12 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

He threw Satine to the ground during the Roxanne number and was making movies on her until her bodyguard knocked him out. It is definitely played as attempted rape.

he didn't just try to have her sleep with him, he basically blackmailed the Moulin Rouge's owner to have Satine transferred entirely to him. In essence, he was making her his own personal concubine

Satine makes a living sleeping with people for money. His thinking he can hire her to sleep with him isn't coming from nowhere. I would also really hesitate to call that scene an attempted rape. I'd call it physical abuse, certainly, and it's a very uncomfortable scene, but rape? I don't know. He's knocked out long before it can even approach that point.

As to blackmailing the theatre...they transferred ownership of the theatre to him as collateral in the event that Satine backs out. His then collecting on said collateral when she refuses is not only something they all saw coming, but something that was anticipated in the contract.

I'll add, by the way, that I hated everybody in this film. The Duke, Satine, her jackass boyfriend, the theatre owner, everybody.

Note: I edited my first post on this subject because I was trying and completely failing to express my thoughts on the subject, ultimately presenting an argument that did not at all read the way I would want it to.

edited 19th Sep '13 7:30:20 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Contracting to sleep with Satine is one thing. Screeching how she's his possession and trying to rape her is quite another.

If the bollywood guy is like Young-Min at all, that means he kills a lot of people.

Also, yeah, cut Bernie Bernbaum. He's a loathsome snake, but he's far from the worst.

edited 19th Sep '13 7:35:41 PM by Lightysnake

Screeching about how she's his possession marks him as a douche and says unpleasant things about his character. It's not actually a qualifier though, anymore than Andrew Cross' viewing people as things is a qualifier.

And once again...I'm sorry, I really can't see an attempted rape in there. They dance, he's physically abusive, and then he's knocked unconcious before he can do much more than behave suggestively. Hell, he doesn't even say he's going to rape her/take her/whatever language it is that rapists use these days.

I have no issues with qualifying say, Frank having sex with Jill in Once Upon A Time In The West as a rape, despite the fact that she appears to be willing. Hell, I have no issue with calling what Deckard did to Rachel in Blade Runner a rape, and he's the hero of the piece. This...? I just don't see it.

EDIT: In any case, The Duke has one attempted murder to his name, and is allowed to walk away at the end of the film. This is treated as a perfectly fine resolution to the conflict, which makes me really doubtful as to his supposed CM status. A genuine CM getting away would not be treated as a happy moment.

edited 19th Sep '13 7:41:07 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I have to point out that she tries to run, he catches her, begins feeling her up, then begins ripping her clothes off and bites her shoulder as well before throwing her on the bed

That for me goes way beyond just suggestive

edited 19th Sep '13 7:40:07 PM by Lightysnake

For the sake of not getting into a debate about rape and what qualifies and what doesn't (because if nothing else it'll leave one or both of us looking really bad by the end) let's assume you're right. It's attempted rape. That still leaves him with one attempted murder and one attempted rape. He's still allowed to get away at the end, and this is treated as a perfectly fine resolution to the conflict.

I'm reminded of the discussion of Angelo from Measure For Measure who has almost the exact same rapsheet and is also allowed to get away. We determined he didn't qualify. What exactly makes this one different?

EDIT: I think it's also worth noting that the film is set in a time period when somebody contracting a prostitute to have sex with him and then trying to force her to go through with it, probably wouldn't have been regarded as wrong. We in the audience can look at what he's doing and be completely disgusted, but I'm not sure we can honestly expect the character/s to do the same. As in the case of other period works we've discussed, I'm uneasy about qualifying somebody on the basis of the social mores of the time.

edited 19th Sep '13 7:46:39 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I'm not entirely certain the Duke's 'allowed' to get away. While all he gets is a punch, he just quietly leaves as opposed to Angelo being judged and given clemency. With Angelo, the suggestion is that he may be redeemed by love of a good woman, in Hodor's words, but the Duke runs off while everyone is preoccupied.

I'm also not entirely sure on the second point. It's treated as quite frightening and heinous for Satine, hence why her bodyguard has to rescue her

edited 19th Sep '13 7:48:39 PM by Lightysnake

It would be quite heinous and frightening for the person living through it. I never said it wouldn't. However...

Remember our discussion of Django Unchained? Being a slave was undoubtedly an awful, awful experience, but we still cut the various slaveowners for being products of a time period that teaches them that keeping people as property is okay. I think the same thing is at work here. The experience being awful for Satine doesn't change the fact that The Duke is the product of a time period in which people of his class and profession would be entitled to do that to people of her class and profession. If you wanted to, you could honestly read the entire film as a commentary on prostitution in 1900 (which would improve it a lot in my personal opinion).

Nobody raises an outcry when he gets away. No one goes after him, or calls the police, or suggests he might come back and cause problems. No, the plot just moves right along, and we stop worrying about him, and start worrying about Satine's consumption.

And finally, I will once again state that I think he fails the bare minimum heinous standard. He tries to kill his romantic rival and force the girl to comply. Under this logic we could list not only Angelo, but Gaston. It's bog-standard villainy.

EDIT: And regardless of what conclusion we come to, the entry needs a rewrite. At the moment it exaggerates his crimes significantly (acting as though he threatens multiple people, for instance).

edited 19th Sep '13 7:59:43 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Actually, the movie ends right there. Nobody goes after him becaue they're more worried about Satine dying on the ground. By the same token, we could liken it to Mayuri Kurotsuchi from Bleach who is not only allowed to get away, but openly continues working for the good guys, with even the guy whose grandfather he dissected not raising an objection despite having sworn a blood oath to kill him.

and Django Unchained examples weren't just cut for that. Candy and Stephen, despite being the worst, have redeeming qualities and their behavior would be seen as barbaric even within the contexts of their own time. The Duke being a classist who thinks he'd be entitled to treat people like dirt doesn't excuse him if the movie doesn't properly portray or explain those standards. Nobody to my memory brings up "He's a noble, they're like this", nor have we given classist assholes passes for being classist assholes before.

Take William Hamleigh who feels very entitled to Rape, Pillage, and Burn when he doesn't get his way.

Or Kamiya from Speed Grapher who feels entitled to sell a five year old kid into sex slavery because their parents defauled on a loan to him.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:01:00 PM by Lightysnake

I wasn't referring to Stephen and Calvin. I was talking about our decision to cut the other slave owners who were listed, both for not being as bad as Calvin and for being products of their time period.

William Hamleigh is repeatedly called out within the text on his extreme brutality. The rest of the characters think he's disgusting, and he's portrayed not as a typical member of the nobility, but as a psychopath. I haven't seen Speed Grapher but I'm going to go out on a limb and assume that the rest of the cast (outside of Kamiya's group, perhaps) think he's vile, yes?

Nobody does that regarding The Duke. Nobody calls what he's trying to do to Satine a rape. Some of the other people in the theatre want her to go through with it for the sake of the company. Those who oppose her doing it do it not because she's being used and abused, but because she has a boyfriend and they don't want her to be unfaithful to her so-called true love. When characters discuss The Duke's bad points they always talk about either a) the threatening to kill her boyfriend or b) the fact that he could close them down. Nobody ever says, "Holy shit, he's a rapist." Given everybody's silence on the subject, I think it's safe to say that either the idea hasn't occurred to the characters, or worse still, it hasn't occurred to the writers.

I'll also add that Satine's supposed true love? When she breaks up with him and claims to not have loved him, his reaction is to humiliate her publicly and go off on a tirade about how "I have paid my whore" throwing money at her the entire time. Then somebody says she wouldn't do that, they look at each other, sing a song, and it's forgiven. This guy is our main character. He's the one we're supposed to sympathise with. So I'd say this film's standards for jackassery that can be forgiven are pretty low.

The Duke (and on a sidenote, the heck is he supposed to be Duke of? This is France. They guillotined most of the nobility) is less a character then he is an obstacle to the film's romance arc. He's treated not as the threatening sexual predator that you've persuaded me he should have been portrayed as, but as a douchey romantic rival. And that, coupled with the social mores on display, and the fact that he really doesn't meet the heinous standard, makes me think he doesn't qualify.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:14:02 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I haven't seen the movie, but the Duke sounds like your stock aristocratic and/or chauvinistic douche (compare Cal from Titanic or Gaston). He doesn't strike me as fulfilling baseline heinousness, nor is he particularly heinous by the norms of the setting.

Well, no other Slave Owner breaches the heinous standard and Big Daddy didn't do much beyond try to murder the heroes and employee the Brittle brothers.

Actually, pillaging and burning is portrayed a bit in Pillars otherwise, but my point is William also feels entitlement because of hi class and nobody can say boo about it. Likewise with the Duke and Satine where she is clearly terrified and traumatized. Regardless of how the story dwells on it, we have a scene where he rips her dress off and throws her on the bed. Now, up to this point, the Duke has just been a dick, yes. Satine doesn't mention it and nobody knows. That doesn't mean it didn't happen. Regardless of whether the writers realized how serious this situation was, we're left with what happens onscreen.

The Duke, I presume, was visiting from England, too. Yes, he's a petulant little dick most o the film, but the number Roxanne happens when he and Satine are the only ones around and she doesn't bring it up again to the others.

As for Kamiya, yes, it's agreed he's a sickening individual and he's the worst of the upper class, but he still feels entitled because he's a wealthy man and that means he can do whatever he wants.

To Hodor:

If not for Roxanne I'd agree. Gaston is simply an arrogant jerk. Cal is a bit worse, being an attempted murderer on someone he knows is a human being (Granted Gaston tries to murder the beast when he spares him), but neither ever goes to the point of attempted rape which the Duke does.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:25:53 PM by Lightysnake

Nobody comments on the scene during the Roxanne number on account of their not being there. True. However what that part of your argument fails to take into account is that the entire film is built around the notion that the theatre company has, as a whole, sold Satine to The Duke in exchange for a shot at fame and fortune. They all know that, for the contract to be fullfilled, she is going to have to sleep with him, something that they also know she is having second thoughts about now that she has a boyfriend (prior to her having a boyfriend she was actually quite gungho about the idea; there's an entire comedy scene based around her trying to seduce her future boyfriend while believing him to be The Duke). They also know The Duke is a slimy jackass.

Yet none of them care about this. The head of the theatre company encourages her to go through with it, and those who don't want her to base their objections solely on the fact that she would be cheating on her boyfriend. Her boyfriend bases his objections solely on the fact that she would be cheating on him. Nobody says "It was wrong for us to force you into this. Don't do it if you do not want to."

I am not disputing that the scene portrays what The Duke is trying to do as attempted rape. What I am disputing is whether anybody within the film proper thinks of it as such. None of them seem to. Either the film is commenting on the treatment of women at the time, or it is one of the misogynistic movies I've ever had the displeasure to watch. Either way, I don't think The Duke stands out from the social mores of the time as expressed in the movie.

I also don't think your dismissal of Gaston and Cal stands up. They don't try to physically force the girl to comply, but they never get the opportunity to. Under the reasoning you are presenting here, every user of the Scarpia Ultimatum—heck every jackass who tries to force the princess to "marry" him—would have to go up.

As for William...his men don't call him out, but every other viewpoint character who meets him finds him revolting. People don't call him out to his face either because of his title or out of fear, but that doesn't change what's going through their heads. In this film we don't have that. We have a bunch of people who seem pretty okay with selling their friend to a rich douche so long as they all profit from it (and who have, let's face it, profited from Satine's prostitution in the past; she's their main attraction). When the people we are supposed to root for act that way, I can't see The Duke qualifying.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:32:03 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Actually, the one who saves her is a member of said company. He doesn't peek in and decide "righty-oh, contract's going right on," he runs in and punches the Duke unconscious and saves Satine. Yes, everyone expects the Duke to sleep with her, but everyone expects she'll be willing for it. The problem is, when she gets second thought, the Duke attempts to rape her against her will, and the only member of the troupe to see it rescues her. Regardless if it's the intended message, we get "women can be abused, and bad people will never face consequencs no matter how vile if they're rich and influential enough."

Regardless of what the film intends, I'm going by what's onscreen. Regardless, though, I think we've both made our points, and I'm not particularly attached to this one, so I'm fine to allow voting to commence

As for William, the one guy who has a handle on him is Waleran, as Waleran is the only man William seems genuinely frightened of, as he views Waleran with the power to condemn him to hell, but Waleran never really brings it up either (granted, Waleran is not the most moral individual around, nor are William's parents and anyone else.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:34:45 PM by Lightysnake

I'm going by what's onscreen too, thanks all the same. One person in the entire film expresses an objection, and only after he sees The Duke get physical. Satine's concerns and her relationship with her boyfriend (what is that tool's name again?) aren't exactly hidden, yet the troupe still expects her to go through with, or raise objections only on the basis of its being adultery. As for their thinking she's willing...only if you ignore the fact that they have put the entire future of the company on the line, then told her that either she sleeps with The Duke, or they lose everything. No pressure there at all. The whole damn company is complicit in what happens to her; they sold her, then pressured her into going along, all so they could get famous, and it isn't till things get physically violent that one of them decides "Huh, maybe we done screwed up here."

The message I would take is "Everybody involved is complicit in the victimisation of prostitutes." Nobody—not The Duke, not the rest of the company, not her boyfriend, and not even Satine herself (who is a thoroughly unlikeable character for reasons unrelated to the rape/prostitution subplot) comes out of that film looking good, and they all play a role in getting Satine alone in a room with a man they know is slimy Axe-Crazy whacko.

I'm not quite sure where this discussion of William is going now. You are citing what other villains (and that's how I'd class Waleran) think of him. The actual good guys, the people we are meant to sympathise with? They think William is vile.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:41:00 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

She is, however, a courtesan. Sleeping with rich men is what she does. A lot of people want her to go through with it, but none of them are shown to say "lie back and think of England if he exceeds the boundaries."

the Duke thinks she's willing. When she isn't, he gets violent. We don't know how the theater company thinks, except for the guy who saves her and Harold, who punches the Duke out at the end.

Harold doesn't punch The Duke because of Satine. He punches him because he tried to shoot somebody.

Sure she's a courtesan. But they all know she has a boyfriend, and that she's having doubts (her having doubts is one of the points of the movie) and pressure her into it anyways, on the basis that they will lose the theatre. That's rape by threat, and not particularly different from the whole "sleep with me or I kill your Love Interest" business that a lot of out and out villains get up to.

Your comment about The Duke thinking she is willing until the scene itself doesn't exactly help his CM credentials either. The rest of the cast know she doesn't want to do it, but try to get her to do it anyway. The Duke doesn't know she's unwilling, then gets violent when he finds out she is. He stands out from the rest of them, how exactly?

EDIT: If anybody else has anything else they'd like to talk about, I'd love to hear it. I can still use more votes on the write-ups provided for Cal Leandros on the previous page, the Agatha Christie examples 670, and the Elementary!Moriarty one on 665.

edited 19th Sep '13 8:52:09 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I have to agree with Ambar on this rape issue, in that I don't see one. I vote for the Duke to be cut.

btw, Ambar and I realized that Gauron and Gates from Full Metal Panic! were voted as keeps, but we never got around to writing them up. I thought I'd give that a shot.

• Gauron from Full Metal Panic! is a terrorist of the highest caliber, sponsored by the organization Amalgam and is as known for his depravity and brutality as he is for being incredibly difficult to kill. Getting his start as a soldier in the Khmer Rouge, Gauron would enjoying arranging the corpses of the people he and his colleagues killed. In Afghanistan, he met The Hero Sosuke, then named Kashim, and developed a terrifying sexual fixation on him and wished to make him suffer endlessly. After numerous war cirmes in Afghanistan, Gauron resurfaces in modern day Japan highjacking an airliner, and carrying out multiple terrorist attacks without heed to innocent life. When he and Sosuke clash again, Gauron expresses desire to destroy everything Sosuke has ever loved and make him as depraved as Gauron himself. Gauron is revealed to have raised a pair of Creepy Twins with strong insinuations he had sexually abused them to make them both incestuous and dependent on him. He has them go with full intent of dying, while he has a final encounter with Sosuke, relishing in breaking Sosuke's mind and trying to turn him into a killer, leaving behind a bomb to attempt one last attempt to drag him into death with Gauron.

It's not so much that I don't see it as a rape attempt, as I see everybody in the film as being complicit in it.

You gotta love how those two managed to get lost in the shuffle. I noticed a few grammer, style and sentence problems in the entry; rather than nagging you about them, I've taken the liberty of touching the entry up a bit below.

As for Gates, I think my original post on him from way back when will work, with a few touch ups; I've also added Gates:

• Full Metal Panic had two of these:
  • Gauron, aka Mister Iron, is the main villain of the first season of the show. A former mercenary from Hemaljistan (Afghanistan in the light novels) Gauron was the archenemy of main character, Sosuke Sagara long before the series began. In flashback, we are shown that Gauron was responsible for killing all of Sosuke's comrades in Afghanistan. In the present day Gauron kills a KGB agent he was working for when the man argues with him. He then hijacks an airliner after killing the captain, threatens to murder all the high-school students onboard if the authorities refuse to cooperate, and kidnaps Kaname, whom he has subjected to experiments. When that plan fails, Gauron returns months later, working as a nuclear arms dealer. When Sosuke and his new team try to interfere, Gauron kills all of them except Sosuke gloating the entire time. He later hijacks the entire Tuatha De Danaan submarine, planning, again, to kidnap Kaname, and threatening to sink the entire sub. That's in Season 1. In Season 2, we find out he's the one behind the actions of Creepy Twins Yu Fan and Yu Lan, whom he sends to kill Kaname as a means of screwing with Sosuke, before blowing himself up in a final attempt at Taking You with Me. In all of his appearances, he is incredibly proud of the number of Sosuke's friends he has killed, constantly rubs it in his face, and seems to be trying to push Sosuke into killing him. A truly sick individual, Gauron is engaged in a game of psychological warfare with a sixteen year old kid, all because of a warped Stalker with a Crush obsession.
  • Gauron's sucessor and head of Amalgam's Execution Squad, Gates (aka Mister Kallium) is completely and utterly off his rocker. In his first appearance he shoves a man out of a helicopter for questioning his predictions about how a battle may have progressed, has all his former allies slaughtered, then has a Freak Out and kills the men who did it. He later tries to ambush the heroes and kill them, using an attack in a public place as a way to draw them out. He's a truly warped sexual predator as well; he's heavily implied to be taking advantage of teenage girls Yu Fan and Yu Lan, admits to being a necrophliac, and is seen masturbating to images of kittens and squirrels. A spectacularly Bad Boss, he drowns one of his men in a pool for bringing him bad news. In the Season 2 finale, after Leonard Tesstarossa has killed one of the twins, Gates uses her corpse as part of a puppet show to taunt the surviving twin, whom he then murders, before making his final assault on Mithril.

How do those look?

edited 19th Sep '13 9:28:46 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar