Old Complete Monster cleanup thread
Welcome to the Complete Monster proposal thread! This is the thread where new Complete Monster examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here
Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.
Here is how the process works:
- If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential redeeming qualities will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.
- After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".
- Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the CM subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!
Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:
- To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!
- No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
- Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
- Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
- Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.
- If a work is already reserved by another user, please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!
- Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite CM" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest for that.
- Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.
- If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
- If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
- Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
- Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.
If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:
What is the work?
This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, the crimes they commit, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some villains, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.
Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?
This is where any potential redeeming characteristics or tragic backstory should be discussed. Do they have a tragic past? Do they show that Even Evil Has Standards or Even Evil Has Loved Ones? Maybe a Pet the Dog moment or two? This is where these should be discussed in full. Not every potential redeeming moment is a clear-cut disqualifier, but we should hear of any potential issues to ensure the character is discussed in full.
Are they bad enough?
A Complete Monster has to be particularly vile by the standard of the work they appear in. Therefore, you should look at what the character does compared to similar characters in the same work. This takes into account things like:
- Their resource level (a human Serial Killer can't stand up to an alien Omnicidal Maniac, but they can be bad by the standard of other human serial killers)
- The amount of time they have to work with (such as a one-shot character versus long-running antagonists)
- The quantity vs. quality of their crimes compared to others (someone with a lower victim count but far more visceral and personal crimes could be considered as equally bad overall as someone with a higher body count but less horror involved)
Essentially, this section is an analysis of the kinds of villainy shown in the work and an explanation of why this particular character's villainy stands out within it.
Final verdict?
This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.
IMPORTANT NOTICE: This thread tackles very serious and dark matters on a daily basis. We will be discussing things like murder, rape, torture, human trafficking, crimes against children, and in particularly dark cases, several of these issues at the same time. We keep a lighthearted air, but all candidates carry the general assumption that these are awful individuals committing disgusting crimes. We ask that if you participate, you do so with the requisite seriousness such dark topics require; exclamations of how gross something is, whether serious or sarcastic, are disrespectful to the topics at hand, and if you cannot handle such topics, please do not participate.
And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!
Edited by Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:42:49 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Technically, I'm only proposing three of the four (the Snake, the Scorpion annd the Bear), since the other one (the Wolf) is clearly a non-keeper.
I think the Snake is the worst of the lot and the one who has the most chance of counting, but I'm not sure for the other two (the Bear doesn't have much screen-time, while the Scorpion isn't as sadistic as the Snake).
Edited by Mimic45 on Oct 13th 2023 at 3:07:32 PM
Alright, I know I promised I'd never EP again, but I'm considering. Anyone believe that it's okay if I cover the Boos from the Mario fan animation, Power Star? Id propose them on the spot had it not been for one thing and that is they're not exactly a single individual, but rather a whole group of Boos that share the same mind and consciousness. A Hive Mind if you will.
Yes to Lavos.
From what I'm reading on the Dragonheart effort post, I'll give an easier ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to the Snake if it's shown she tortures people.
I'll give a ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to the Scorpion since he seems flat out less bad than his sister. I'd also say going through the trouble of rescuing his sister goes a bit beyond simple Pragmatic Villainy to me.
I'm going to lean to the Bear if, and only if, the movie makes it clear he's a cannibal, as that's a rather unique niche to separate him from the Snake.
....Phenomenal
for Lavos.
Going to echo 43 and abstain on the Dragonheart gang, I'm confused about their individual rapsheets and it really feels like they shouldn't have been EP'd together.
There remains a foothold out of this mire — now climb.
to Twilight Princess Manga Ganondorf and Zant. The vivid, graphic description of Ganondorf's desire to kill Link slowly goes from the standard Card-Carrying Villain Magnificent Bastard version to wow, they really want to make Ganondorf pure evil.
Also to Lavos but abstain to the Dragonheart villains since the EP has too many candidates to make a decision.
resident girlfail
Yes to Lavos, abstain on Dragonheart.
RIP Toriyama
From what I'm getting from the EP I'll say Yes to the Snake and the Bear, but yea...Scorpion sounds kinda lacking and Wolf seems to have actual tragic qualities.
Reserving The Fall of the House of Usher (2023), btw.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Lucas the Dreamer
I have a proposal in mind now that I think about a character I never considered previously. Plan to write it in the morning.
Edited by TheLivingDrawing on Oct 13th 2023 at 1:09:20 PM
Why waste time when you can see the last sunset last?
Harbinger of Cringe
Random question but. Has The Last Guest ever been brought up or talked about on this thread? Cause I got two candidates I have in mind, but before going through with them I wanted to ask if this series has been talked about before.
My mere presence makes everyone's day worse.
for Lavros. Still a bit uncertain because we never hear his side of the conversation but I guess the responses from the characters are just enough to establish him as a character with his own personality.
Now for Dragon Heart baddies: The main issue I’m having is that it's four people who committed the slaughtering of the villages together. Unless the rules have been changed without me noticing, four characters would violate the no-group rule, even if one of them has redeeming qualities. So for the Snake, the Bear and the Scorpion to count, they would have to commit some unique crimes that make them stand out. Therefore I’ll give all of them a for now.
The MILF Virus
Got a new candidate to propose, another Playstation 2 JRPG candidate and a series I've propose before. Time to return to Growlanser and talk about the candidate from the final game of the series, Growlanser VI: Precarious World and talk about a piece of crap. A corrupt military leader, Major Wellber.
The series:
Growlanser VI: Precarious World is last game of Growlanser, and the direct sequel to Growlanser V: Heritage of War. Part of the overall story, Growlanser VI focus on the world of The Esgrenz continent, neighboring land of the previous game. Story's of the nation having a three way war between the Formeros, the Hingistan, and anti-goverment in Hingistan, with the corporate nation Monopolis a neutral party of the three. There's a looming threat with time being distorted, cause by an ancient evil in Monopolis, dragging all kingdoms and the previous world together. The party is a group of former Monopolis soldiers, and heroes from other countries teaming to stop the evil.
There's many more threats then the evil, the seperate conflicts of the nations are involve, with the party stopping them to unite them to stop the main threat. Our conflict today is the one in Formeros, a corrupt president and his military dog inflicting a war to their own personal benefit. The main perpetrator is who we're talking about, Major Wellber.
Wellber and what does he do?
Major of the Fomeros army, Wellber's the previous commander of Hofman, and the true culprit behind the crime Hofman is framed for, embezzlement of military weapons. Right hand of the president of Fomeros, Wellber is the man responsible keeping the nation in the civil war of Hingistan. Pro-war with the president's cabin, Wellber was tasked to eliminate the candidate against them, Hofman's brother's who's anti-war. They did this by framing Hofman, and using his criminal status to discredit his brother to win the election.
Wellber had Hingistan soldiers raid the Formeros base Hofman's unit is at for weapons, unaware Wellber stole them setting them up, having them kill each other, leaving Hofman the only survivor. Blaming Hofman and having him arrested, Wellber became Major, continue the war that the president set up while chasing Hofman. New authority allowed him to try raid Hingistan land for resources for himself, dishelving the people, continuing the war creating terrorism and deaths, eliminating those a threat to him.
Then the game events takes place where the party meet Hofman, defending an attack caravan from bandits. Realizing Hofman's situation, they teamed to protect the Formeros army from Monopolis, using their own attack to lure Fomeros away from the Admonisher's blast. Knowing they'll need Formeros and Hingistan to defeat Infinitor, the party worked to solve the issues plaguing both countries, dealing Formeros by getting Hofman's brother to win the election by exposing the president's corruption. They done it by finding the weapons Hofman was framed for in the black market and exposing it was Wellber resposible.
Knowing he's been caught, Wellber ordered the entire black market and the party killed. The party manage to deflect and save the people, leaving Wellber to run to protect himself, giving his men up. He didn't escape and Hofman manage to capture him, with the incident exposing everything. Wellber is court martialed for this, strip of his rank and trialed, implied a life sentence for his actions.
How bad?
Growlanser has a lot of war doing horrible things, but many are in the moral grey section. It's for the country, the people, and the betterment of a world that's in chaos. Not many do it for purely selfish reasons. Wellber's one of the rare examples.
Traitorous snake, that's Wellber. Part of the president's scheme to continue the war for profit, Wellber acts to continue the war. Embezzling military weapons for cash, and framing Hofman to stop his brother's presidential campaign, having his unit killed from Hingistan soldiers, Wellber schemes his way to many crimes, raising taxes unreasonably and having witnesses killed. When the embezzlement is proven, Wellber had the black market killed, and later tried to leave his men to die when it fails by abandoning them.
The attempted body count just onscreen is 50+, Hofman's units, the Hingistan soldiers he tricked, the witnesses, the black market populace, and party and commander. With the men he left to die to escape and to kill Hofman, that's even higher. There's the victim of wars too which Wellber is continuing. Closest in Wellber's lanes are generals in wars in other games, but it was war, Wellber's had it done personally in smaller scopes. Those higher are eldritch abominations with power above him like Vestor, not a reasonable level.
Redeeming qualities?
Not really. Only one perhaps is getting his men out from a mass destruction weapon in the sky to safety, but that's not redeeming. It's dumb for him to leave his men to die needlessly when they can all escape, and chasing Hofman was pointless since he's gone. When he had it again, he left his men to escape so he'll do it without hesitation. No true loyalty for his people. His work for the president is also his own purpose, getting promoted as a result.
Final Verdict:
A really strong keeper.
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Please elaborate more on the heinous standard. How bad are other villains? Especially this game's President and current keeper Vester?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
The MILF Virus
Vester's an ancient evil dimensional conqueror in a different world who controls monsters, uncomporable. President is a background character who doesn't appear in person, Wellber's the main representative of the corruption. The others? Infinito and Zafreed are my other candidates I'll talk about, but Infinitor is an ancient godlike alien and Zafreed is comparable to Wellber but has some big differences.
Past games, villains like Ludwig, Isaas commit war but are country leaders and well-intentional extremist who don't hurt their own nations like Wellber does. Rest are mindless monsters like Queen Screaper or enemy generals.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Up there, most onscreen attempted at least. Few in there, but all are unique. Zafreed's one but that's later.
Edited by TheImmortalAngelNewton on Oct 14th 2023 at 9:35:42 PM
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Okay, seems like a keep. Of the warmongers, he seems the worst it seems?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Not the Eye
Wellber
Lean to Snake, abstain on other two.
Lies and Violence!
Yes to Lavos and Wellber. I'm going to say no to the Dragonheart trio. Even if the Wolf doesn't count, he still does all the stuff they do, and while stuff like the Snake being a sadist makes her worse, I don't see anything that makes her or the Bear overtly stand out from the rest of the group.
What's the work?
Ninjago just released its latest season a few days ago, and we're going to have a fun one to discuss in a couple of weeks. Until that time, I decided to skim through some of the show's non-canon graphic novels. Mir will be going over one of the two keepers from these comics later this week, while I'll be covering a character from the show that they made significantly worse.
To go over the setting once more: the titular land of Ninjago is protected by the Ninja, a team of elemental masters formed by Sensei Wu to combat his evil brother, Garmadon, who has overthrown the king of the Underworld and turned its skeletal army to conquest. Garmadon himself is the farthest thing from a keeper—on top of being corrupted into villainy by the setting's resident Satanic Archetype, he also genuinely loves his son, and the incessant urges to destroy that come from the evil venom in his blood are constantly at war with that love. Eventually, the evil was purged from his body, and he happily joined his son in protecting the world.
And then he remembers one of his old plots.
Who is Samukai?
The King of the Underworld who Garmadon forced into his service. In the show, he was a standard Starter Villain and The Starscream who got himself killed the moment he tried to betray his master. Unfortunately, his treachery didn't end there.
Back when Garmadon was still evil, he designed a doomsday weapon for the sole purpose of ending the world should Wu ever defeat him. Samukai helped in this plot—even personally building one of the weapon's four pieces—and argued that they should just activate it now and crush their opposition. Garmadon refuses, since it's only a failsafe; if they sent it out now, then there wouldn't be much of anything left to rule over. Samukai reluctantly relents and helps hide the weapon's pieces all over the world, and, as an extra layer of security, Garmadon brainwashes both of them into forgetting about the plan.
Fast forward to when Garmadon is restored to good. While training, one of the Ninja unwittingly says the trigger words that undo the mind wipe, and Garmadon scrambles to stop the weapon before it can assemble itself—his turn to good was enough of a "defeat" for it to automatically activate. Once it does so, it will begin manipulating tectonic plates and underground magma flows, drowning the planet in lava.
The parts of the weapon created by Garmadon prove to be too indestructible to sabotage, so Garmadon tracks down the part built by Samukai in the hope that he was a shittier engineer. Sure enough, there's a way inside the massive thing, but once there Garmadon finds that his designs have been completely changed—one last betrayal by the Skeleton King, so that not even Garmadon would know how stop the weapon. Fortunately, he manages to figure out what connects to what and deactivates it anyway, destroying the machine.
Mitigating qualities?
Samukai was, again, a generic Starter Villain in the show. Here? Collaborates in a doomsday plot, and though he wasn't the mastermind, he went the extra mile of sabotaging it so that even Garmadon couldn't deactivate it if he ever got cold feet.
Even if this was a tie-in to the later seasons, he would stand out easy. But since it's only a non-canon comic released after season 2? His only real competition is Pythor releasing a giant serpent god to devour the world. Which... you know, is still pretty bad, but the doomsday weapon matches it with little difficulty.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure, since it's non-canon.
Who's this Skeleton King?
Any reason Python doesn't keep?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Not the Eye
Lies and Violence!
The Skeleton King was Samukai, and Pythor befriends a rat.
Ultimate Moral Compass
Samukai
Goku Black
wellber and Samukai
Uh even with the Rat thing. I don't think Pythor would keep. His respect to his the deceased elders seemed pretty genuine.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Yes to Wellber and Samukai.
Mimic, my advice here is that most people seem to be abstaining due to the confusing group nature of the proposal. At this point. I'd advise doing a separate effort on the Snake alone. She seems to be by far the worst of Ruthven's mercenaries.
Put down what she does specifically on her own, while still pointing out if she shares a particular crime with another villain. In particular, emphasize that she tortures people before killing them as your effort post makes it seem like she's the only one who does that and it's a very unique niche.
For the record, I'm still yes to her but I'm changing to abstain on the Bear. In hindsight, his claim to cannibalism is somewhat dubious. Him calling a character meat may well just be a generic taunt.
Edited by LoreDeluxe on Oct 14th 2023 at 8:14:54 AM
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Also, since me and Wet disagree on the order of the Expend4bles duo: Marsh is The Man Behind the Man, but only shows himself to be that near the end. Rahmat is subordinate, but is very clearly The Heavy, and it is only after he is killed that we discover Marsh is Ocelot. Who should go first? I say Rahmat; Wet says Marsh. I think we've more or less agreed to see what everyone else says.
Edited by ACW on Oct 14th 2023 at 11:25:19 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
It is... then it says it's mostly about one... then it kinda posits another two could count. I'd rather something either focused on the actual potential candidate(s) and when they could land or a more tightened neutral EP that weighs out why the character(s) may or may not land. Again this just feels like asking the thread to figure out who's who.