Talking about : Complete Monster

Simple. Their motives should, at heart, be fundamentally selfish. Their idea of righteousness is 'what benefits me and my own desires'. They should not have a shred of altruism or remorse for their actions. A religious Complete Monster, for instance, is trying to game God into getting him a place in heaven for his depravities, not committing evil out of a misguided desire to help others.

Alternately, one could be homicidal to the point of Ax-Crazy, adopting religious or moral convictions to justify themselves/fit in better with society, but, ultimately, they're in it for the killing and don't really believe in what they're preaching. A character like this, with a thin veneer of morality covering true evil beneath, is going to be pretty much irredeeemable- they're certainly not lsiten to an appeal to their better natures.

The Well-Intentioned Extremist, in my mind, will never be a Complete Monster because their goals are constructive, even if their methods are evil, but the Knight Templar- who is all about punishing and destroying evil- can be (albeit rarely) if their motives and morality are skewed enough.

A Knight Templar believes in their "righteousness" without necessarily actually caring about other people.

edited 8th Aug '11 2:09:19 PM by KSonik

I just cut this Criminal Minds example from the Live Action TV subpage.

"And the Prince of Darkness, Billy Flynn, who attacked during blackouts and left the weakest of the families/friendship groups he attacked alive to tell the tale, having forced them to watch the rape and/or murder of their loved ones and if they're female, raping them too. The fact he's portrayed by a particularly devilish Tim Curry gives him an additional dose of High Octane Nightmare Fuel."

This is a pretty accurate summing up of the character but it leaves out a key factor: Flynn has enough empathy left, that when JJ points out that he and Ellie (the girl he's kidnapped) are Not So Different, he lets her go. Not to make things easier on himself, not because she was threatening him, but because for that brief moment JJ was able to reach through the wreckage and find the human being underneath. He commits Suicide by Cop soon afterwards, and it's strongly implied that it's connected to what JJ said. Is he a monster, absolutely. But there's enough left underneath that he doesn't count.

Sounds like a good call. If you can hit 'em in the altruism, they don't apply for the trope.

Glad to hear it. I've also cut him and Frank Breitkopf (who can't feel emotions like love, compassion, etc, but desperately wants to) from the Criminal Minds YMMV page. I figure that if a character doesn't want to be a monster, they probably don't count for this. Both characters are utterly vile, don't get me wrong (and in Frank's case the poster boy for Smug Snake'') but they're just not selfish enough or pleased enough with themselves for this trope.

I think it should be mentioned in the Professional Wrestling page that Face and Heel characterizations of wrestliers differ so strongly that only the Heel incarnation should need to qualify. Take CM Punk as a prime example of this, Heel Punk is firmly in Complete Monster turf and has a massive superority complex due to his "I'm straight edge so I'm better than you" way of thinking. On the other hand, Face Punk is a pure face who never flaunts his straight edge lifestyle and is as far away from his Heel persona as physically possible. Kane is another example of this, he's one of the biggest Complete Monsters in the WWE while his face persona is a Noble Demon who is actually fiercely protective of his friends. So I think there should be a distinction.

Is there any reason this is still in TRS? Since we're down to talking about individual examples, shouldn't we move it to Special Efforts, or maybe Trope Talk, so we can get the banner off the page?

If we move it the banner will still be there. To remove it would would have to start a new one.

Though isn't there usually a connecting storyline in which a Heel becomes a Face? I think that would qualify as the sort of redemption that no true Complete Monster would be allowed.

Admittedly, not a wrestling fan, so correct me if I'm wrong.

Varies. Sometimes Heels have a gradual Heel–Face Turn, other times, they just suddenly flip over to the good side. Most of the time truly evil Heels change their personalities so drastically the fandom normally treats them as seperate characters all together.

Ah, right, so it's a case of one character walking off the stage and another character walking on? Yeah, if there's that much of a disconnect, treating 'em as different characters might work.

Not that I have a problem with the trope's name, but if you need something to make its meaning clearer, might I suggest something like "The Irredeemable"?

Complete Monster should be able to convey that.

Except that it obviously doesn't, as people keep thinking that Cartman is any where near being an example.

A character can be irredemable without be a Complete Monster.

Exactly, that's why Moral Event Horizon and Complete Monster are two different tropes.

edited 15th Aug '11 3:02:24 AM by JustaUsername

@Aquillion: It doesn't say that a Complete Monster can't gloss over their acts or present them in a positive light, it says that the story can't. Also, a Knight Templar can only be redeemed if they realize they're evil, and it can be very hard to convince them of that.

A Knight Templar can be a Complete Monster very easily, actually, as long as they are deluded and extreme enough in their zealousness. Being a Knight Templar: a) makes feeling remorse difficult, since they always believe that whatever happens to anyone who goes against them is justified and b) makes it very easy to cross the Moral Event Horizon, since they don't even believe that they are close to it in the first place. Fanatical devotion to an ideal doesn't necessarily make you a good person if that ideal is twisted or screwed up enough; look at any horrific act in Real Life history that was based on racism, religious persecution, and brutal repression due to devotion to an ideal. If you want to see a Knight Templar Complete Monster done well, read The Chrysalids by John Wyndham; full of fanatics who could all be called Knight Templars to a degree, but one stands out as a Complete Monster.

edited 26th Aug '11 3:08:20 AM by tropetown

To me, it seems like a lot of people pothole this trope because a character crossed their personal Moral Event Horizon. It's very subjective, to me anyways.

One of the biggest qualities that a Complete Monster has is that they tend to darken the story by their presence and deeds. If the story would remain more or less as dark without the character, they probably aren't one, though this is just a side effect of having the character type present in the first place; a story full of Complete Monsters will probably not show this as noticeably as a story where there is only one.

This. If you look at the Disney example section, you'll notice that Disney movies with Complete Monsters tend to be darker than other Disney movies; arguable exceptions are Aladdin and Sleeping Beauty, but I'm not sure Jafar and Maleficent belong on the list anyway; their villainy is taken a bit more lightly than that of the other characters on the list, and applying the Complete Monster label to Jafar and Maleficent arguably diminishes the value of applying it to characters like Frollo and Lotso.

Exactly. Just because a villain doesn't have any redeeming qualities in-story, doesn't necessarily mean that they are a Complete Monster. It takes a Moral Event Horizon to push a character in that direction, and such an act will noticeably shift the tone of the story, especially in a work that is meant for kids. Jafar is not a Complete Monster, since he doesn't do anything to cause the story to become darker beyond standard villainy; there is no specific act which he commits that serves to damn him irrevocably in the eyes of the viewer. Same with Maleficent; although I haven't watched Sleeping Beauty, from what I've heard, she doesn't quite cross the Moral Event Horizon, either.

edited 26th Aug '11 9:39:49 AM by tropetown

More to the point, they have motives other than Pure Evulz.

You do not have to operate For the Evulz to be a Complete Monster. Your motives just have to be wholly selfish.