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
Ultimate Moral Compass
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Earle
Frolaytia X Qwenthur of Heavy Object
Earl
Insert title here
The Emperor of Evil!
Earle, always those damn tie-in materials ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Edited by Powermaster201 on Oct 30th 2023 at 1:01:37 PM
Lies and Violence!
Yes to Satan, Gene Wolfe as himself, and Earle.
To continue with the Halloween posts!
What's the work?
Specter Inspectors is a fun little comic miniseries about a team of ghost hunters investigating the haunted town of Cape Grace, only to get trapped when one of their number is possessed by a demon. Said demon reveals that someone stole its name, and therefore much of its power, and it will let them go if they help it out.
The culprit behind all this?
Who is Virgil Von Brandt?
The former mayor of Cape Grace a century or so ago, Brandt was massively unpopular while in office, with much of the town blaming his incompetence on various misfortunes. Knowing he'd need something supernatural to have even a chance at reelection, the mayor found and bound a demon, using its infernal powers to twist public perception and make himself beloved. And he came to greatly enjoy the powers it brought him.
Eventually, the mayor decided to absorb the demon into himself so he could have "all the powers of Hell." Unfortunately for him, he was interrupted by the town's local bookkeep, who had become suspicious of his research at the library. However, the interruption came too late, and though the ritual to absorb the demon was ruined, it had nonetheless turned the mayor into something inhuman, which proceeded to murder the bookkeeper and fake his own death.
Over the next century, the undead mayor:
- Began possessing civilians in order to maintain his hold on the mortal plane, quickly rotting the bodies to nothing over the course of months; in the modern day he's taken the body of a great grand nephew, their shared bloodline allowing him to stay intact for years.
- Set up a loyal cult, warning them of the town's demon and claiming he knows how to exorcize it, in order to trick them into helping him redo the ritual.
- Hid his journal chronicling all his evil in a well, and murdered a child who saw him doing this.
When the titular ghost hunters show up and one of them gets possessed, Brandt leads his cult in trying to kidnap them so he can "exorcize" the demon—in other words, kill the host and become a demonic being himself. The demon, amnesiac and thinking he's sincere in trying to save the town, bluffs and threatens to destroy the town if Brandt doesn't let them go, asking "What's a human life worth to you?" To which he, of course, replies by revealing his monstrous form and saying "Absolutely nothing."
The demon eventually sacrifices itself to save the host, and the now-demonic Brandt becomes even more terrifying as he tries to kill them all. The ghost hunters, however, empower the demon by giving it a new name, allowing it to buck Brandt and throw him down to hell before departing in peace.
Mitigating factors?
Monstrous wannabe-demon body-hopper that has taken dozens lives in order to preserve his own soul. He proudly admits he's lost any redeeming qualities; the closest thing he gets to respect for others is writing the below in his journal, and it's blatantly ego-feeding.
Yes, and the first of my Halloween four...
Well, it's very traditional to start with a Dracula, right?
What's the work?
Dragon is a comic by Saladin Ahmed, set in medieval timems near to a war-torn Wallachia. Adil is an old Muslim warrior traveling with an envoy through the lands, and Marjorie is a young nun whose faith is tested. Brought together, they fall afoul of the grim evil that is...
Dracula
The Dragon himself. Vlad Dracula was the prince of the Wallachians, who grew up with his brother Radu. Vlad was a cruelly abusive brother who tormented Radu to the point of murdering his pets, which gained the approval of their aloof father, the "Dragon." Upon being sent to the Ottomans as hostages, the two were educated and Vlad became even worse. Becoming a cold murderer, he began to find ways to express his sadism up to and including widespread death in battle or for sport. Radu grew terrified of Vlad and equally hateful of his cruelty.
Vlad eventually split and vanished when he returned to Wallachia and made a pact with darker forces to become a mighty vampire. As such, he terrorizes the land, slaughtering innocents and corrupting others. Adil finds his patrol butchered by Vlad and Dracula likewise preys on Marjorie's convent, corrupting one nun into a bloodthirsty beast who destroys the others.
Marjorie's pure faith acts as a repellent to vampires, and she is soon teamed with Adil. Traveling, the two encounter Radu who recognizes the dark signs of his brother. Forcing a fellowship, they strike into the heart of Dracula's fortress where he faces them and mortally wounds Adil, before Marjorie's faith helps them in striking Dracula down. The Dragon dies...
But years later, a pair of gravediggers hunting for treasure happen on his grave and when one greedily murders the other, the blood revives Dracula who bites the other's throat out and proclaims as long as there is evil, the Dragon will never die.
Mitigating issues?
Zilch. Dracula is as evil as evil gets. Massive body count and it's pointed out he was a vile monster even as a human long before he gained supernatural power.
Conclusion?
Keeper.
Ultimate Moral Compass
My man Drac, back at it again
And a for Virgil as well
Edited by therealjackieboy on Oct 30th 2023 at 10:47:38 AM
"No running in the halls!"
Goku Black
Earle, Dracula and von Brandt
Lizzid people!
Yes for Dracula.
As for myself, had one I was contemplating on, so here it is: from Housing Complex C since we have had some Lovecraftian theme going. As a refresher, it was a Toonami original series about a seaside town called Kurosaki where strange events start happening when a group of Middle Eastern interns are brought in leading to animosity.
Who is she? What has she done?
Keiko Koshide is the wife of Seichi and the mother of Yuri who does the daily reports for the Tsurie Fisheries. While seemingly a pleasant woman, she is a descendant of the fish people that worshiped the god Kuzululu, a Cthulhu-Expy, and is assisting her husband in trying to resurrect their dead god by sacrificing the residents of Housing Complex C.
With her husband, she starts murdering the residents and Middle-Eastern interns one by one whilst pretending to be concerned over all the strange occurrences while flaming the fans of distrust. During one time where she was sick, the elderly Wada offers to deal with her daily reports leading to the events of the fourth episode.
Seichi and Keiko succeed at murdering nearly all the residents and interns at Housing Complex C with Keiko personally killing Wada. Keiko tries to murder Kan only to get him to almost drop his guard by claiming that she was just an unwitting pawn of her husband...only to say that she wouldn't get praise from him for a job well done, attacking Kan.
Kan manages to bruise her arm leading to Seichi convincing her to fight him again after questioning her loyalties. However, both conspirators end up killed by Kimi who turns out to be the god Iyoyoloki Soyohosu who they tried to appease.
Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?
A pretty bizarre scene between her and her daughter: when Kimi is distraught that her attempts at getting everyone to get along goes awry, she comforts her about it. Would be a mitigating factor... except for the fact that they were the ones who were killing the residents and causing the surreal phenomenon around the complex. That, and they were the ones deliberately sowing distrust in everyone with them putting the mummified dog's head in the syrup pot. So, yeah, no hints of remorse on their ends.
Now for anything else, her relationship with her husband. The Koshide family at first appears to be a benevolent unit who are just trying to make everyone see eye to eye, but they act more like a cult with Seichi being the leader. Keiko tries to claim that she was a pawn of her husband only to instantly reveal that she was lying. I don't sense much, or any love between the two beyond both being crazy cultist fanatics trying to resurrect their god with the "praise" Keiko wants from her husband being the chance at being apart of the new world Kuzululu would usher in.
When Kan injures her arm, Keiko shows it to Seichi who expresses apathy towards it telling her to deliver the same thing to the [manchild] ten fold. He then questions whether she was more scared of Kan than him and their god. This would imply that she could also possibly follow Seichi out of fear, but the show does not try to sympathize with her. She is just depicted as being as murder-happy as Seichi. She is a willing accomplice who does what she does out of her own free will up to and including making friends with an old woman who offered to help her only to kill her as part of an elaborate sacrifice. Kind of a dick move.
Is she bad enough?
Shares her crimes with her husband with nearly massacring all of Housing Complex C. As for Yuri herself, she only has the one single attempted murder on Kimi who she faked having a big sister relationship with only to throw her own parents away in two seconds when Kimi kills them saying she would kill more people to appease Kimi once she realized that she was a god having only been in on her parents' scheme simply because she was a sadist.
Edited by AustinDR on Oct 31st 2023 at 11:09:39 AM
Mr.
To Behemoth, Dracula, and Earle! Happy Halloween!
Windom, Virgil, Drac, Keiko
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Okay, I'll read the effortposts soon, but since we're gonna get a shitload of proposals, PLEASE, PLEASE add your stuff to the pending page. I don't wanna have to come home from work and have to add like 20.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Not the Eye
to Earle, Virgil, Dracula, Keiko
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Windom, Virgil, and Drac.
Why does Keiko comfort Kimi in the first place?
Yuri only has one attempted murder? Her character page makes it seem like she has more.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Lizzid people!
Ultimately, the scene was there likely to be a red herring. The first episode plays with the idea Kan was responsible for the murders whilst keeping the Koshides true role hidden.
As, again, they actually don't care about the residents.
Goku Black
keiko
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Ah, makes sense. Alright, I'll give a yes.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Earle.
Virgil.
Dracula.
Keiko Koshide.
Yes to Keiko as well
Goku Black
Anymore thoughts on my quote
Showtime!
to Earl, Virgil, Dracula and Keiko
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Actually, not only do I like that quote; it may make a better page quote than the current one.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Works for me
Goku Black
Okay I'll go propose it in the quotes thread as a replacement.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Hey folks, it's officially Halloween where I live, and you know what that means. Having discussed this with my good friends Ravok and Scraggle, it's time for a big, big reevaluation of a certain villain from a certain Cult Classic.
What is the work? My favorite TV show of all time, Twin Peaks, as some of you know, is the Genre-Busting magnum opus of David Lynch and the grandfather of all modern Mind Screw-y pieces of media. From the page itself:
While at first glance Twin Peaks appears to be your run-of-the-mill Detective Drama, it is gradually revealed that the show is actually a Cosmic Horror Story. Laura's murder and most of the mysteries surrounding the town can be traced back to the Black Lodge, an Eldritch Location of pure evil and malice, filled with demonic beings that literally feed off misery. We'll be discussing Dale Cooper's Archenemy and the primary human antagonist of the show.
Who is Windom Earle?
Mitigating Qualities? Nope, My Life, My Tapes tries to give him the Freudian Excuse of being corrupted by the Black Lodge but that was eventually retconned in The Final Dossier, which was written by Twin Peaks co-creator Mark Frost. He's also got some genuinely comedic moments: his "disguises" are terrible and he kidnaps Major Briggs while wearing a cow costume. That being said, that's all just part of his Laughably Evil persona, all of his crimes are Played for Drama. His own wife meant absolutely nothing to him and he casually jokes about her murder with nothing but glee.
Heinous? So, for the longest time I believed that Earle was vastly outheinoused by Killer BOB and Mr. C (the latter being the villain of the third season) but honestly? With the supplementary material in mind, I think Earle passes. Killer BOB and Mr. C are responsible for untold amounts of rape, torture and murder but both of them are supernatural creatures from the Black Lodge, and they're seemingly content with living their lives as depraved hedonists, completely lacking the ambition to become threats to humanity despite having otherworldly powers at their disposal. Windom Earle is a human serial killer who explictly wants to absorb the powers of the Black Lodge to turn the world upside down and rule it as some kind of uber-evil demon god.
Conclusion? A long-deserved![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Oct 31st 2023 at 4:12:16 PM