Hate Sink cleanup

Aaand since IT got proposed and accepted, I feel pretty content to do this candidate now. Only seems fitting to do at least one Eldritch Abomination candidate in a thread seeing how my name comes from a song that seemingly personifies a black hole as one.

What's the work?

"Cold Print" is a short story taking place in Ramsey Campbell's offshoot of the Cthulhu Mythos, known as the Severn Valley Mythos. A closeted pervert bookseller by the name of Sam Strutt is lured to a bookstore by a mysterious, sinister presence. I'm going to mark its name as a spoiler from here on out, and if you are wise, you will not click the spoiler tag, lest you condemn the earth to eternal depravity. No, but seriously, I'm just doing it to keep up with the Running Gag of not saying his name. Go ahead and click them.

Who is Y'golonac? What has he done?

Y'golonac. The Defiler. The Violator. Squick and Fan Disservice incarnate. A Great Old One all too human for his own good, so horrible and depraved that not even the servants of Cthulhu dare to speak his name. By way of a homeless man, he lures Strutt — who is searching for a volume of the Revelations of Glaaki — into the bookstore owned by his current host body. When the protagonist reads a segment of the Revelations, he makes himself known, revealing his horrific visage as an obese, headless man with mouths on his palms. He reveals to the bookseller that he's lured many victims into the bookstore with the promise of pornographic magazines, including children, and devoured them. Then he tries to force Strutt to become his priest, threatening his life if he refuses. Of course, even the perverted Strutt is terrified out of his mind and wants nothing to do with him, so Y'golonac uses his Power Palms to devour him whole.

What makes him personally despicable?

Unlike the majority of the Lovecraftian — and post-Lovecraftian — pantheon, Y'golonac is pure evil. He's essentially a cosmic serial killer/rapist who is the embodiment of the worst perversions that extend far beyond humanity itself. Later stories — including one written by one of our very own tropers — and RPG supplements showcase some of the more human perversions he and his worshipers indulge in. It's ... not pretty.

Evil Is Cool traits? Freudian Excuse? Complexity?

Unlike Nyarlathotep (one of the only other Lovecraftian gods that can be called truly evil, barring Eihort), no, he's not cool in any sense. He is the worst of the worst. At least Nyarly just likes to sew discord and isn't too personal with his deeds, IIRC.

As for his Freudian Excuse, his ultimate intent is very much the same as any other Great Old One/Outer God: escape from his prison. But the thing is, there is a damn good reason he's sealed away. The same could be said of Cthulhu, Shub-Niggurath, Dagon, etc, but he just takes it Up To Eleven. Whereas most of his kind are more or less just trying to gain followers fanatical and stupid enough to free them from their earthly prisons when the stars are right, the Defiler thoroughly revels in bringing out the worst in his followers.

By Eldritch Abomination standards, he's not all that complex. He doesn't operate on Blue-and-Orange Morality. The only really complex thing about him is that he personifies perversion on a cosmic level.

Authorial intent?

I can't speak for Campbell himself, but the story begins with a passage from the Revelations of Glaaki stating that even the servants of Cthulhu don't dare to speak his name. Granted, the big C isn't truly "evil", although his worshipers certainly are, at least in the sense we understand evil. But that he's shunned by one evil cult should probably say enough. Hell, even Revelations itself describes him as evil. Although in fairness, the Severn Valley Mythos are quite different from Lovecraft's Yog-Sothothery (which Derleth later renamed the Cthulhu Mythos).

Verdict?

I'm leaning on keep.

Edited by Stellarvore on Sep 22nd 2019 at 6:37:32 AM

Yes for good ol' Ygy.

Defiler.

Anyone who's read "Only A Lonely Heart" know if he qualifies there, too? From the sound of things, he probably does, but I'll have to read it myself eventually.

In regards to Henry being the Villain Protagonist, well, Patrick Bateman is an easy Hate Sink. From what I understand, the whole point of the book/movie was to show what a shallow, despicable individual he is.

Edited by Stellarvore on Sep 22nd 2019 at 6:06:52 AM

Y'golonac.

Y'golonac

• The Crucible (1996): Abigail Williams is a teenage girl in Puritan Massachussetts who had an affair with the much older John Proctor. When he realized what he was doing, he dumped Abigail, causing her to attempt a ritual to kill his wife. When she and her friends are caught, they blame a slave woman, causing her to be hanged. To keep the lie goung, Abigail bullies her friends into helping her accuse more people of wotchcraft, starting the Salem Witch Trials in the process. After John Proctor himself is accused, Abigail offers to bust him out of jail to they can run away together, but coldly leaves him to die when he refuses.

Shadao, I want to emphasize that this goes on the film page, not theatre.

I'll do Otis later.

Edited by DemonDuckofDoom on Sep 22nd 2019 at 7:02:31 AM

Can I get some more votes on my Marcus Cole ep? I got three upvoges so far. Not sure if that is enough for him to go up.

I'll throw in a yes there.

Link? Also, I still need one more vote on Henry.

I'll say yes to Henry. Even though Otis is more of an outright abomination of a character, I'll give Henry a yes to that he is awful.

@Username

3 is enough.

Also to Ygonoloc.

I thought you already did? Unless you were referring to a different "both".

Yes to Ygonoloc.

Time for Mumkhar's Hate Sink Effortpost.

What's the work?

Xenoblade Chronicles is the third game (if you count Xenosaga) in the Xeno series and the first one made by Nintendo and Monolith since they bought the rights to the series. It features the blonde idealistic 18 year old Shulk as the protagonist. The game starts during a battle between the people who live on two separate giants, the Bionis and the Mechonis. Our candidate is a war veteran from that war.

Who is Mumkhar/Metal Face? And what makes him so despicable?

Mumkhar is a war veteran who quickly shows his true colours when he leaves Dickson and Dunban to die in Sword Valley, running off to save his own skin. He's quickly taken in by the Mechon and seemingly killed. We don't see him until the present day attack on Colony 9 where he is reborn as the Faced Mechon Metal Face, who leads an assault on Colony 9 murdering plenty of innocents. As he tries to kill Shulk, one of Shulk's best friends and Dunban's little sister Fiora shoots him in a mech, but Metal Face crushes the mech, killing Fiora in the process. At least until much later.

As Metal Face is encountered once again in Sword Valley, he reflects on the "sweet sounds of Fiora's screams" that he heard when he butchered her and prepares to slaughter the party, relishing in a chance to hear more screams. Later, Shulk kills him by knocking him off the Bionis into the abyss below. Let's just say he wasn't missed.

Evil is Cool? Complexity? Mitigating Qualities?

Ah ha ha ha ha.... My God, You Are Serious!. Well let's just say the fact he killed hundreds of innocents as a faced Mechon, loves the sound of screaming, forced a young lass of 18 to use a mechon style body crippling her and it's not until the end she gets her real body back. Not even going into the fact when it seems like Dunban and Dickson are cornered, he ditches them literally to save his own skin. The only thing that could be considered tragic, and this is nitpicking, is his horrific "death" at the hands of the Mechon. Of course any sympathy we might have had for him is all gone when he becomes a faced Mechon and cripples Fiora seemingly killing her.

Verdict?

Hell yes.

Edited by Klavice on Sep 23rd 2019 at 12:39:50 PM

Mumkhar.

Mumkhar

Ygolonac

By the way, opinions on my overview of Shin Megami Tensei's Page?

Here it is

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 23rd 2019 at 8:19:27 AM

Mumkhar

• Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer: Otis is Henry's former cellmate who's letting him stay with him as he passes through town. Implied to have been in prison for rape, Otis is introduced perving on his own sister Becky while helping her escape her abusive husband. After witnessing Henry murder a couple prostitutes, Otis joins him in killing, though Henry has to regularly stop him from raping women. However, he pushes the envelope as far as he can without crossing the line, including molesting the mother of a family the two massacre. Eventually, Otis gives into his urges and rapes Becky, only to be stabbed to death by her and Henry, who has gotten sick of his perversion gettimg in the way.

Shadao, I will set up the tree in the drafts.

Edited by DemonDuckofDoom on Sep 23rd 2019 at 5:16:26 AM

Alright, like the Woobie thread, I'm not so sure this is the most pragmatic way to be handling this trope. There seems to be something of an effort to stretch its definition beyond the "unite audience hatred with everything about them" that's literally written on the trope page. Keeping track of who's going up is one thing but an effort post-voting procedure seems needlessly complicated and strikes as being more a facet of what people think is fun to do as opposed to how best to approach this. Nine times out of ten, we're dealing with a simple summation of a character not having anything that goes against this. We don't need to go on for paragraphs explaining how even though they've got traits not designed to insight hatred, they mitigate them and still count, that's going to promote trope decay.

I get some examples might need a bit more discussion but this bureaucratic process seems to just slow thing down for a trop who's process could be simplified for a much more fluid cleanup thread. Also, that some examples (MCU!Mysterio) only got an EP after being downvoted for MB makes me question how sure we are characters qualify for what should be an objective trope.

I'd agree with 43100 here, and it kind of came to me after (what I assume to be) this thread's curator, SkyCat, messaged me after the Woobie thread dropped the effortpost system and we had something of a mixed response to the kind of bureaucratic system spreading to other cleanup threads in the format of CM/MB.

I understand people like the effortpost system. It can be great fun to foster discussion at times, but I think people are focusing too much on that and shoehorning simpler tropes into more specific specifications for the sake of it. Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard are not one-way streets (what constitutes as "pure evil" and "magnificent bastard" for each?) and because of the trope's once-vague definitions, they degenerated into misuse that at its worse nearly resulted in the former trope getting axed. Stuff like Hate Sink characters and woobies are another matter because the emotional response they're supposed to evoke (loathing and pity respectively) is a simple relationship that didn't need a set of criteria to be defined. The definition of these tropes were broad enough that they didn't need a set of rules and applications to be understood.

Are there more contentious candidates? Well, yes, but mostly because of bleedover into tropes like Evil Is Cool and Love to Hate. Scar I can see being controversial, for example. I'd rule him as a Hate Sink, others might not. But what I find is that about 95% of these examples are open-and-shut with the exception of a slight few that might not be as obvious. The trope is nominally objective, but there's that very minute part of it dependent, perhaps, on audience reaction that I think this thread is overplaying. I could say anything I have about this trope as I could with the Woobie trope—some shades of Jerkass Woobie are more controversial than others—but that didn't warrant a full bureaucratic system, merely a cleanup thread as a cleanup thread is supposed to be run (i.e. bring up a bad example, bring up whether or not to cut, etc.).

This is another thread I really don't see the need to have an effortpost system. Why adopt the bureaucratic system, if not just to invent a couple of rules and square hole the trope into a definition it doesn't need to be in?

I think Sky Cats points last time this question came around say it better then I could

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=15476140760A75581300&page=61

As this is the 3rd time this question has been asked, and this time with better reasoning...Perhaps a Compromise.

Whenever there's a super easy keeper, like say "Abusive prick from Charachters backstory" we can Qualify them no EP required, like with say Xanatos in the early days of the MB thread.

But with Charachters who warrant a bit more discussion then that(Or if you do just want to make an EP for fun. I've noticed some people who EP Charachters here cause they couldn't on the CM cleanup for one reason or another) an EP would be necessary. Manfred from a couple pages back definitely seamt like he needed a full on discussion.

I have 2 Charachters, Felix from Red vs Blue and Susie Campbell from Bendy and the ink machine I wanted to do some time and they're DEFINITELY Gonna need an In-Depth look.

One thing I will say is that as the person who suggested the Bureaucratic process....I find the accusation of only starting doing that for fun rather then it being helpful to the trope a bit offensive. I know you don't mean anything by it, just wanted to let you know.

Also @43 the reason I didn't EP Mysterio til he was E Ped on the MB thread is that I felt him being Listed as a Hate Sink would be a Challenge to whoever was E Ping him there, Wich I didn't think was fair.

Also I...really don't see how discussing how they have Charachteristics that go against just being Hateable and how they mitigate that would in any way promote trope decay.

Edited by Kylotrope on Sep 24th 2019 at 12:13:06 PM

I think for blatantly obvious candidates, you may have a little leeway, and may not have to do an effortpost per-se, so long as you make it official that you are discussing them, but I'm personally inclined to take note of anything that possibly casts a shadow of a doubt on the author/narrative intent, even if only to point out that those factors are de-emphasized in favour of the character's negative traits, especially because outside the cleanup thread, certain people will use the flimsiest logic to suggest that their Draco in Leather Pants isn't meant to be detestable.

~Shadao is technically the guy who keeps the Drafts, To-Do Lists, Dates, Pending Writeups in his signature, so you probably want his input as well.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Sep 24th 2019 at 6:50:35 AM

I am inclined to agree a bit with Scraggle and 43 here...there hasn't been much rampant misuse there. I mean, the EP system can absolutely be fun, and I'd encourage continuing on that, but I don't think it's strictly necessary to add examples, or force every hate sink to have one.

I mean, in theory, it's a simpler trope than MB and CM with character designed to be despised.

I mean yeah if people want to make one that's fine but it shouldn't be forced to do so.

Here is a paraphrase of my original response to when Klavice made the suggestion.

Now, like I was saying in my previous post, the reason I wanted to keep the effortpost system around is due to the nuances of narrative intent; while I can be on board with just listing the worst traits of an obvious candidate, I don't think we should scrap effortposting altogether, and I definitely believe there should be consensus as to whether a candidate fits the mold. Furthermore, the reason that we have even bothered to ask about traits such as Freudian Excuse, Evil Is Cool and Complexity is because, as I stated in my previous post, we want to acknowledge anything that casts even the slightest shadow of a doubt on the creator's intent, and we want to clarify whether those factors are de-emphasized in favour of the character's abhorrent behaviour.

There are, after all, people on this website who, as I mentioned, will look for the flimsiest excuse to claim that their Draco wasn't meant to be loathed.

In any case, thanks for paying us a visit.

Edited by SkyCat32 on Sep 24th 2019 at 10:12:43 AM

The reason for the Effort Post format is less out of some sort of Criteria the Charachter must follow, but more to provide evidence that the author intends for the Charachter to be despised.

Yes the Trope itself is simple but discussing wether or not the Author intends for them to be the trope isn't always simple. Look at the Conversation about Griffith awhile back, He was downvoted because while he was loathsome, the work emphasizes his intelligence and afterwards he's portrayed as still a Calculating Manipultor with Pragmatic Villainy contrasting other, Stupid Evil Charachters.

Edited by Kylotrope on Sep 24th 2019 at 10:30:10 AM

• The Loud House fanfiction.
  • Cruel Summer: This fics portrayal of Chandler is of a vicious bully and wannabe ladies man who thinks himself above other men and from such has an Irrational Hatred of Lincoln for being "weak" and nerdy. Wanting to take away Lincoln's girlfriend Nikki on that principle alone, he tries spreading rumours about Lincoln being a pervert to woo her over. Failing that, Chandler lets his hate for the happy couple get the better of him and plans to lure them into the woods and kill them; during the attempt he tortures Lincoln with a swarm of bees and tries to force himself on Nikki while trying to kill her.
  • Obesssion: In this Teacher/Student Romance story, Maya's ex-husband Norman Derringer is a cruel abuser and sexual deviant who enjoyed humiliating and controlling Maya, even causing her to loose their baby because he thought it wasn't his. His inner thoughts show him to be a raving racist, narcissist, misogynist and homophobe, who makes it a point to silently dehumanize everyone around him, even killing his previous partner on the police force - a hispanic who shown more authority than him. On top of that, Norman is a Serial Killer and Serial Rapist dubbed "The LA Ripper" who targets and brutalizes prostitutes who remotely remind him of Maya. Later he decides to track Maya down; stalks her sister Elena before torturing her for Maya's location; and attempts to execute a teenage Lincoln when he finds out about Maya's secret relationship with him.
  • Regrets: Nick Lambert is the primary source of Leni's problems in this story. A popular student and trusted friend of Lori's, Nick sexually assaulted Leni at a party on camera, forcing her to give a "consenting statement" on camera by threatening to harm Lori, to edit a "sex tape" and hold it over Leni's head. Leni never revealed the truth to anyone, with seemingly no one to turn to and the incident left Leni with a Pregnancy Scare, which led to her initial attempt at suicide. When Carol saves Leni and tries to repair her wounds in their relationship, Nick continuously stalks and harasses Leni, simply because he hates seeing her happy and loves seeing her miserable. Nick's thought process elaborates this further; he thinks of himself as some sort of twisted author and wanted to write a tragedy out of Leni's life, and wanted her suicide to be a tragic end. Simply put, Nick is a human representation of how some wounds of depression refuse to heal, constantly haunting Leni as she tries to get her life back together.
  • What is a Person Worth?: In a story where a constant theme is that people aren't perfect and make mistakes, but that doesn't make them bad people, Chandler is the only main character to be an exception. Portrayed as a smug and cruel bully, Chandler initially just picked on Lincoln over his situation, but later crosses a line when he physically attack Lincoln's six year old sister Lana by throwing her into a pond. After this and Chandler's subsequent beatdown goes viral, rather than learn his lesson, Chandler's ego is so wounded he plans to ruin Lincoln's reputation and relationships by framing him for cheating on Ronnie Anne. Failing that, he simply hires out a group of jocks to beat up Lincoln out of spite; he also hires them to attack his former partner Connor to tie up loose ends.

Edited by Beast on Sep 24th 2019 at 12:10:20 PM