You are correct that Retired Monster fits better for Totenkinder and Gepetto (although in the latter case it was entirely forced, and as demonstrated in his war planning session, he would gladly have slaughtered all the people of Earth through High Octane Nightmare Fuel biological warfare, and is in no manner repentant... he isn't the least bit better than all the worst tyrants in human history, and even Max Piper pales in comparison, parody of Skysaber or not).
You are right that Bigby is more appropriately put under The Atoner... However, if you read his origin story, he used to literally gleefully eat throngs of innocent people alive, including children, going by his role in Red Riding Hood... so it is easy to see what he has done as absolutely unforgiveable. Still, it is much better that he attempts to make up for it, but when taken to this ridiculous scale, that kind of thing always leaves a very conflicted impression.
I'm not sure if Hansel quite manages to live up to complete monster status, as he is a Knight Templar, and most of those tend to simply be very overzealous Well-Intentioned Extremist types... but he was willing to help Gepetto put entire worlds to the torch, or work with the worst types of the people he claimed to despise, while persecuting much more harmless ones, so I suppose.
YMMV on whether Bigby eating Red Riding Hood counts as murdering children. She was his first actual contact with humanity and given that he was pretty much a pup himself when that happened and the correlation between human years and dog years, it's possible that he was even younger than her. As to his crimes being unforgivable, no act of good ever actually erases a crime, it's just natural to put more weight on what someone just did for you than what they did against somebody else, or even yourself, a long time ago, which is the concept we call forgiveness, and Bigby has certainly earned that from the rest of Fabletown. In my mind, he's is firmly in Retired Monster territory, with a subverted entry under The Atoner since he hasn't changed out of guilt or remorse.
Well, put yourself in the position of somebody watching a sentient talking being gleefully eating alive other sentient talking creatures for sport, which happened to be your own friends and family, that he didn't feel the slightest bit of remorse, and remained much the same afterwards, while never ever being legally punished for his crimes. Would you consider him worthy of forgiveness without legal punishment to start with? Personally I reserve it for after the karmic scales have been balanced, and if said person felt genuinely sorry.
In addition, your definition isn't "what we call forgiveness", it is what we call amoral opportunism.
Edited by 77.234.43.180
So, I deleted some of the examples of Complete Monster characters. I haven't read more than the first bit of the series, but Bigby is the hero of the story and is presented very sympathetically, which definite rules him out. Similarly, while there are some complete monster protagonists, Jack is a series protagonist who is presented humorously, which rules him out too. In general, lot of the Fables are given a Retired Monster characterization, having dark pasts, but someone you can root for now.
Thus, I'm not really sure that the remaining Complete Monster examples count either.
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