Old Complete Monster cleanup thread
Welcome to the new Complete Monster (CM) cleanup thread! This thread is where we clean up or cut already-existing entries.
If you're looking to add new entries, please see the approval thread.
IMPORTANT: Before you begin any discussions on this thread, please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List. Here, you'll find explanations of the criteria for the trope as well as our rules/procedures for approving and cutting candidates.
What goes through this thread?
- Cut requests. If you believe a CM has been approved and they do not count, this thread is where you propose their removal. To know how to go about this, please see the FAQ folder on the Administrivia page, where the process is explained in detail.
- If we ever need to consider cutting multiple examples without individually reviewing them (e.g. if we discover widespread plagiarism with a particular troper's CMs), the initial discussion will be on this thread and we'll then escalate to the mod team (as described here) to get a formal consensus if we decide to recommend a mass cut.
- If an entry was put on the wrong subpage/YMMV page, you may propose where they should be moved to.
- Full rewrites of existing entries, including expansions, trims, and ground-up rewrites. If your rewrite is approved by the thread, feel free to add it to the drafts page so that other users can check grammar and the like before it is included with the rest of the weekly swaps.
- If an entry on a work's YMMV page doesn't match the entry on the media subpage, you can bring it here to discuss which entry works better.
What does not go through this thread?
- New candidate proposals - as stated before, those are done on this thread.
- Unapproved wicks - if a Troper encounters either of these kinds of wicks, they can be cut with no approval.
- Any CM link on a non-YMMV page - as a YMMV trope, it should not be linked on those pages regardless of any cleanup effort. The only exception is if the wick is being used within the definition of another trope.
- If an CM link on a YMMV page refers to an unapproved character. If it refers to an approved character on any such page, the wick can stay. On the other hand, if the unapproved character being linked to sounds like they might have promise (and you don't feel like checking it out for yourself), feel free to mention it on the approval thread - someone may already know why they don't count, or it could invite a brand new discussion!
- Proposals for images, quotes, and videos of already-approved CMs - quotes and images are proposed on the approval thread, while videos can be uploaded normally as they are screened for approval by the moderation.
- Crosswicking examples to YMMV pages - if an example has already been approved and added to the main page, you do not require any special permission to add the example to a work's YMMV page (assuming the work has a page already). If a YMMV page doesn't exist yet, then you can make it yourself, but either way, feel free to just add the example without asking.
- Small changes to existing entries - these can simply be done on a Troper's own prerogative with no approval.
- Spelling and grammar fixes.
- Pothole changes.
- Minor rewordings.
- Spoiler tags.
While these changes do not require any kind of approval, it is requested that should you make any of these changes, you do one of the following:
- Make the same changes on the relevant Sandbox page, then add the Sandbox to the list at the bottom of the drafts page. This will add the Sandbox to the weekly swaps and ensure that the edits end up on the relevant locked page. If the Sandbox is already listed, then once you make the edits, your job is already done!
- If you don't know how the Sandboxes work or simply don't have the time to find it, then you can simply post on the thread about the changes you made. Someone else can then make the edit on the relevant Sandbox and add it to the weekly swaps.
- Alternatively, you can simply request that the change be made directly to the locked page on the Locked Pages thread. Members of this thread keep track of that one, so we will ensure that the changes are made in the Sandbox so that it doesn't get deleted during the next swap.
Again, these changes don't require any approval, but we prefer to keep the entries on the YMMV pages and the locked pages the same in order to avoid any miscommunication or errors between entries, so if you do make the change, we would greatly appreciate it if you could ensure the change is made on the locked page as well.
As a final note, we do not care what other sites have to say regarding whether or not a character counts. We have our own criteria and they have theirs for their CM equivalents; while they are similar, they are not exactly the same and should not be treated as such. Another site removing a character from their equivalent should not be a reason why a cut is proposed here, and if this is the case, it will likely lead to mod intervention.
Other than this, once again, welcome to the cleanup thread, and we look forward to your contributions!
Edited by Mrph1 on Jan 14th 2024 at 11:30:03 AM
Lies and Violence!
Sorry to double-post, but I finished up a reread on A Practical Guide to Evil a while back and wanted to put down some thoughts. There wasn't anyone I missed, nor are there any cuts, but Neshamah the Dead King is a lot closer to this than I initially realized.
- One of the major beats I emphasized before was his Villainous Friendship with Dread Empress Triumphant. She visited his city to negotiate an alliance once, but after her death, Neshamah closed off the palace she stayed in and declared it "the Silent Palace." I saw this as a sign of genuine respect, but while I'm still iffy on it, I'm probably overthinking things. More likely he just respected her sheer power—notably, when Cat begins approaching godhood, he allows her to stay in the same palace.
- The biggest issue was his love for his mother, as a flashback to when he was a child shows him feeling bad for reminding her of their family's misfortune. It's heavily implied she was the only person who ever cared for him, and she was the only person he cared for in turn.
- In my reread, I noticed a few lines that imply he rejected any love for others, but none are strong enough to invalidate his care for his mother in my opinion.
- When rival Big Bad, the Wandering Bard, asks him about his Freudian Excuse, she wonders if it was his mother's early death. Neshamah responds with the below statement that such a thing would be an insult, but it's less about his mother and more specifically the idea he needs a Freudian Excuse in the first place; he sees all the mass murder he's committed as "the only lucid option" to gain free will and escape the Gods' control. Nothing to do with his feelings about her.
"Your father did not look Below when he earned his Blessing. But you did, at an age where most children worry about the nature of supper. Was it your mother's death? Ugly affair all around, I've been told."The man smiled. "You think it kindness to offer me an excuse," Neshamah said. "But it is an insult, Intercessor. There is nothing in what I have wrought that deserves excusing."
- As Cat reaches closer and closer to godhood, Neshamah encourages her to let go of her loved ones.
"You have," I murmured, "taken my friend and now bargain with his life while scheming the death of others dear to me. You arranged the destruction of my armies, of near everyone I've ever cared for. But for my intervention, you would have buried Iserre in death and borrowed Hierophant’s hand for the deed.""You clutch the remains of what you once were, Black Queen," the Hidden Horror said. "It does no favours to what you have since become.""It was never really personal to me, before," I told him. "You were a foe, but in some ways an ally as well. In principle I thought it tragedy that others died to your invasions, but no one weeps for faces they never knew nor loved.""A taste," the Dead King said, "of what is to come. They will be strangers, Catherine Foundling. One day, and sooner than you believe, they will all be strangers."
- But it's delivered with the general vibe of "we're immortals; care all you want, these people are going to die in the blink of an eye anyway. If you want to truly embrace godhood, learn now to accept that and not get emotional over their inevitable loss." Notably, when Cat pretends to give into this mindset, Neshamah is left satisfied that she's willing to see a friend die even though she clearly still loves him; love is fine, but attachment is the thing he thinks gods like them need to sever for themselves.
No, let him see how the prospect of my friend being snuffed out like a candle grieved me. Let him believe I was willing to fight him anyway. "If that is what it takes," I roughly said. "Gods forgive me, if that's what it takes. Too many lives are on the line.""Ah," he smiled. "There we are. One more mooring, snapping for the tide. How many would be needed, before you truly took the plunge?"
- Maybe the reasoning is a little flimsy... if this wasn't a major recurring beat. The Bard, in her own schemes to manipulate Cat into taking her place on the cosmic hierarchy, espouses a similar mindset: "love always fucks you over", to quote verbatim. But she displays multiple moments of love and care herself; she'll show genuine grief over the deaths of old and new friends alike despite having orchestrated said deaths down to the smallest detail, sending them off to their dooms without hesitation or guilt. Cat herself, while never fully succumbing to this worldview, comes dangerously close to it when skirting the edge of godhood, culminating in her killing her adoptive father and nearly her best friend in order to get what she thinks is best.
"I could love them all I wanted, but I had buried people I loved before. Gods damn us all."
- All in all, I think the idea of gods rejecting their attachments without abandoning their love is too strong a plot point to say that Neshamah's care for his mother is 100% invalidated—especially when all the above statements are aimed at Cat's apotheosis, rather than explicitly reflective of his own experiences.
- On a semi-related note, I made a big talk a year ago about how Neshamah would almost certainly be a crossover. Obviously that didn't pan out, but looking back, I was definitely getting a little tunnel-vision. Neshamah gets up to some seriously evil stuff—not too bad to be an MB in his Crapsack World of a setting, but probably too bad for a crossover... maybe. Dude's still a brilliant and affable mastermind, and I personally think he'd just barely squeak over, but I'm fully aware that I'm not the best suited to judge those kinds of examples; if he ever did count for this trope, I'd probably ask for him to be cut from MB just to be safe, at least until I could get a second opinion to verify whether he'd work.
Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Sep 10th 2023 at 6:43:28 AM
RIP Toriyama
It was brought to my attention that Arnim Zola's write-up, btw, could stand to have a couple crimes slipped in if possible. Not doing a full rewrite but I'm going to embolden the changes I'm recommending. Current:
- Arnim Zola was a Nazi biochemist in his human years. To escape mortality, Zola used his cybernetic brilliance to digitize himself and survive inside robotic shells to continue his experiments. One of his worst acts was to create the monstrous Hate-Monger, and afterwards he continued to complete multiple experiments for the Red Skull, his usual employer and master. It is later shown that Zola was a monster just waiting to cut loose. When he and Captain America were lost in Dimension Z, Zola becomes its dictator, and its God. He inflicts horrible experiments among the people, overwriting their minds to be loyal to him alone, and turns others into horrible mutants that he sics on those who don't accept his rule. Even his own children there are nothing but pawns, his affection to them fake to manipulate them, and he is more than willing to kill them if they do not conform to his wishes. Zola, to end his long war with Captain America, created a way to get back to Earth, with a bomb that would kill countless innocents before Zola sent his mutants, with the intent of overwriting the minds of the people of Earth and mutating others, a process that would kill billions.
Suggested rewrite:
- Arnim Zola was a Nazi biochemist in his human years. To escape mortality, Zola used his cybernetic brilliance to digitize himself and survive inside robotic shells to continue his experiments. One of his worst acts was to create the monstrous Hate-Monger, and afterwards he continued to complete multiple experiments for the Red Skull, his usual employer and master. When he and Captain America were lost in Dimension Z, Zola becomes its dictator and its god. He inflicts horrible experiments among the people, overwriting their minds to be loyal to him alone, and turns others into horrible mutants that he sics on those who don't accept his rule. Zola tried to forcibly impregnate his wife Mary to give him heirs, and when she refused, Zola engineered a car crash that left her a paralyzed victim for him to artificially inseminate and use to give him children that he sees as nothing but pawns, his affection to them fake to manipulate them, and he is more than willing to kill them if they do not conform to his wishes. In one notable outing, Zola turned many orphan children into mutated beasts that had to be put down. Zola, to end his long war with Captain America, created a way to get back to Earth, with a bomb that would kill countless innocents before Zola sent his mutants, with the intent of overwriting the minds of the people of Earth and mutating others, a process that would kill billions.
Thoughts? I think his treatment of his wife and what he did to multiple children is well worth the mention.
Edited by Ravok on Sep 13th 2023 at 12:17:53 PM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Yes to the Zola expansion but still not feeling the Dead King tbh... bad as he is I don't actually see anything invalidating his care for his mother and the vibe I'm getting is still a genuinely Affably Evil one.
Not the Eye
Yes to Zola expansion.
Agree with 43 on Dead King
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to the expansion.
The quote from Doctor Psycho may work for Wonder Woman.
EDIT: In the Drafts, this rewrite for Betrayal at House on the Hill:
- Voodoo: Always Zoe Ingstrom unless not in play, this Traitor is a Voodoo Doll artist who creates dolls in the likeness of the people they befriend, as well as collecting their essence to make the dolls cause pain to the people they're based off if the doll is damaged by anybody except for the original person. When the Haunt begins, an explorer discovers a journal that's owned by the Traitor and finds out that the journal contains a large amount of photos of voodoo dolls of the Traitor's previous victims, with a red mark slashed on the pictures of every doll of a person that was killed. The explorer discovers that along with the other explorers sans the Traitor, they're next. The Traitor has the voodoo dolls hidden around the mansion, several in areas that will slowly torture the explorers the dolls are based off of such as slowly being burned alive, or suffocating more and more with every passing turn. If the Traitor wins, they cross off the dolls of their newest victims before getting bored and deciding to go and find new "friends".''
Rewrite:
- Voodoo: Always Zoe Ingstrom unless not in play, this Traitor is a Voodoo Doll artist who creates dolls in the likeness of the people they befriend. The Traitor then lures them to the mansion and kills them through their voodoo dolls, keeping a scrapbook filled with the dolls of her previous victims. When the haunt begins, The Traitor has the voodoo dolls of the other explorers hidden around the mansion, several in areas that will slowly torture the explorers the dolls are based off of such as slowly being burned alive, or suffocating more and more with every passing turn. If the Traitor wins, they cross off the dolls of their newest victims before getting bored and deciding to go and find new "friends".
Edited by ACW on Sep 11th 2023 at 3:48:56 PM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Harbinger of Cringe
Alrighty, noticed some slight issues with Kyle Allen!Red's Writeup.
- Kyle Allen Music's Among Us songs: The Red Impostor is a vicious alien that tries to kill all crewmates wherever it goes. Introduced having massacred almost everyone on the Skeld, Red kills White—the last crewmate left—just as they send a message to Mira HQ to warn them of the imminent threat. Red then infiltrates the Mira HQ to resume its slaughter, culminating in it killing Black by tossing him into the reactor core. Landing on the Airship, Red then frames a Blue crewmate when he catches onto it, and when the said crewmate is ejected, Red quickly finishes off the remaining four crewmates before stowing away on a shuttle to Polus. Its killing spree is cut short when Green exposes it and pushes it into lava, but after being freed by the Blue Impostor, the now vengeful Red corners Green and pushes him into the lava as payback.
- Kyle Allen Music's Among Us songs: The Red Impostor is a vicious Spree Killer that aims to accumulate as high a body count as possible. Introduced having massacred almost everyone on the Skeld, Red kills White—the last crewmate left—just as they send a message to Mira HQ to warn them of the imminent threat. Red then infiltrates Mira HQ to resume its slaughter, culminating in it killing Black by tossing them into the reactor core, causing the entire place to explode, likely killing the two children who were left alive in the process. Landing on the Airship thanks to the explosion, Red then frames an Indigo crewmate when they catch onto their ruse, and when the said crewmate is ejected, Red quickly finishes off the remaining four crewmates before stowing away on a shuttle to Polus. Having its killing spree briefly cut short when Green exposes it and has it presumably killed via pushing it into lava, the Blue Impostor, having come in from another world, frees them so that they can continue where it left off. The now vengeful imposter proceeds to team up with its savior, killing off the rest of Polus before cornering Green, and punching them into the lava as one final act of vengeance.
Edited by Splonk on Sep 12th 2023 at 12:10:00 PM
My mere presence makes everyone's day worse.
Buzz
As the original proposer of the candidate, yes to the changes
My only suggestion is that you reword the line below
Having its killing spree briefly cut short when Green exposes it and has it presumably killed via pushing it into lava, the Blue Impostor, having come in from another world, frees them so that they can continue where it left off
To
Its killing spree is cut short when Green exposes it and presumably kills it by pushing it into lava, but the Blue Impostor comes in and frees it so that it can continue where it left off
Edited by Paperfly on Sep 12th 2023 at 12:25:46 PM
Image Pickin' Backlog
Barb / Temporary Kylo
R.I.P.D. 2: Rise of the Damned has it's own trope page now. So Astaroth's entry should probably go there.
The First man
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'll take care of it. Page needs to be indexed though.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
I have a request for the Monster entry for Diagnosis: Murder related to the entry for "X Marks The Murder"'s antagonist, Michael Dern. The biggest issue is that the page currently says the killer goes after an "Dr. Andrea", but in the episode, Dern actually hunts down series main character Dr. Amanda Bentley.
I'd also like it if the page referenced his nickname of "The Casanova Killer", but primarily it's the Andrea/Amanda thing.
I have a removal request for Gloryhammer 's Zargothrax. I don't think he counts as a complete monster:
He's portrayed somewhat sympathetically in a later album, especially in Keeper of the Celestial Flame of Abernethy. Here, he's depicted as peaceful, basket-weaving peasant who was (quite understandably) upset at being displaced when Dundax, Angus Mc Fife's ancestor, built a palace where his home used to be. He makes a pact with Chaos to get revenge, though his behavior depicted in the music video seems to indicate that he regretted his decision, shortly before he was consumed by evil. Even so, his rather sudden switch into utter depravity is too sudden to take all that seriously if it was completely on his own free will. These lead me to conclude that his moral agency is too compromised for him to really count here.
Edited by Mikey34 on Sep 12th 2023 at 10:07:10 AM
- Clement Mansell, the main antagonist in City Primeval, is a racist, misogynistic homophobe with a Hair-Trigger Temper who just kills people and steals shit because he feels like it and that's all.
I dont think this one has been approved.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Definitely not.
Jacoby: I'll take care of that.
- "X Marks the Murder" Part 1: Michael Dern, aka the Casanova Killer, is a misogynistic Serial Killer who, due to his own self-pitying, has made it his mission in life to hunt down and kill women. Using his job as a gas station attendant, Michael charms women into letting him near them before murdering them. Gaining an obsession with police consultant Dr. Mark Sloan, Michael targets Sloan's friend Dr. Amanda Bentley and gleefully reveals how he plans to kill her. Michael ultimately reveals he aims to increase his victim count by two or three a day just to bask in the attention, and is happy to mock Sloan with how much his victims suffered, just to mess with him.
Edited by ACW on Sep 13th 2023 at 6:48:19 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
ACW, I see the edit on the episode's YMMV page, but not on the Monster page for the show proper.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
It's at Monster: Diagnosis Murder. It'll be at the actual page with the swaps on Monday.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Found what appears to be an unapproved CM on YMMV.Lord Edgware Dies.
- Complete Monster: Jane Wilkinson is a Gold Digger who killed three people just so she could be considered a widow rather than an ex-wife, because the rich man she wanted to go after next wouldn't marry a divorced woman. She shows absolutely no remorse for this, considering the murders to just be another thing she has to do to make herself happy and feeling that Poirot was wrong to uncover her crimes because murder is okay when she does it.
Cut?
Edit: Cut and PM'd the OP.
Edited by MojoJoJoke on Sep 13th 2023 at 1:50:01 PM
I haven’t heard Gloryhammer’s new album but this may be an issue with Zargs. Evil is portrayed as a force that does kind of switch your alignment.
His clone may be a potential though
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Cut, PM the troper.
RIP Toriyama
Yeah, Mansell almost absolutely counts, but I haven't finished the season yet so can't say one way or the other.
Another quickie edit I wanna make to an entry, for Dirty Harry:
- Charles Davis, better known as the Scorpio Killer, is a psychotic madman who kills for money, but mainly for his own amusement. After sniping a swimming woman, he demands $100,000 in payment or he will continue his killing spree. After he is foiled in another killing attempt, he murders a young boy and then tries to kill a priest, killing a police officer in the process. He then kidnaps a 14-year-old girl and buries her alive, demanding a ransom in exchange for her life. When "Dirty" Harry Callahan arrives with the money, Scorpio strikes him down and reveals that he was going to let the girl die anyways before trying to murder Harry out of sheer cruelty, and shooting his partner Chico Gonzalez when he rescues Harry. The police find the girl, but are unable to save her life. Scorpio's final gambit is to hold a school bus full of children hostage, planning to kill them all. Upon being foiled by Callahan, Scorpio threatens to shoot a young boy fishing.
Firstly as part of the "remove psychotic and similar terms", I wanna cut the bit about him being psychotic. But secondly I think it should be added that Scorpio didn't "just" bury the 14 year-old alive—he raped and tortured her first, including removing one of her teeth. So, simple fixes on both fronts:
- Charles Davis, better known as the Scorpio Killer, is a trigger-happy madman who kills for money, but mainly for his own amusement. After sniping a swimming woman, he demands $100,000 in payment or he will continue his killing spree. After he is foiled in another killing attempt, he murders a young boy and then tries to kill a priest, killing a police officer in the process. He then kidnaps a 14-year-old girl who he rapes and tortures before he buries her alive, demanding a ransom in exchange for her life. When "Dirty" Harry Callahan arrives with the money, Scorpio strikes him down and reveals that he was going to let the girl die anyways before trying to murder Harry out of sheer cruelty, and shooting his partner Chico Gonzalez when he rescues Harry. The police find the girl, but are unable to save her life. Scorpio's final gambit is to hold a school bus full of children hostage, planning to kill them all. Upon being foiled by Callahan, Scorpio threatens to shoot a young boy fishing.
Edited by Ravok on Sep 13th 2023 at 12:16:59 PM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
So are we using that Dr. Psycho quote for the Wonder Woman page? If not, anyone got a better one?
We also need one for Walking Dead and Ninjago. That's really all that's holding up the official launch.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Lies and Violence!
I like the rewrite.
For Ninjago, this is the best quote I could find. I am not married to it, and if anyone has something else I will happily switch it out.
For a header (again, if someone has something better, feel free to change it):
The land of Ninjago and the Sixteen Realms have been host to many a maniacal villain. A select few of these enemies stand out from the rest as far darker and depraved in their ruination of the realms.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Quote works. Also good for Cruel Mercy.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Classy, Refined, Unstable
I'll toss in some possible Ninjago quotes as well
Harumi: Then I must find a way to bring the ninja to you.
Crystal King / The Overlord: No. I will handle that.
Harumi: How?
Crystal King / The Overlord: I will strike at their precious city. They will do what they always do. They will come to me.
Lloyd: Power? Father, what is he talking about?
Garmadon: What do you think? Power of your grandfather, the power of Creation.
The Omega: Soon, there will be nothing, but Destruction.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
The first is decent; the second is more Omnicidal Maniac.
Edited by ACW on Sep 13th 2023 at 8:19:56 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
I found this as a potential for Wonder Woman.