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
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Mir, you still creating the page for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles vs. Street Fighter?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Goku Black
Yep. I'll get it up by Sunday.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
What is the work?
Silverwing, Sunwing, and Firewing are the first three books in a series by Kenneth Oppel following Shade the silver-haired bat, Marina the eastern red bat, their son Griffin, and Goth the spectral bat.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
Cama Zotz is the malevolent bat-god worshipped by the Vampyrum Spectrum (spectral bats) of South America, who revere him as the one true god and creator of bat-kind. While Cama Zotz doesn't appear in Silverwing, Goth devoutly worships him, says that Zotz ordained the social darwinist ideology the spectral bats live by, and believes Zotz is guiding him to the Silverwing colony with the intent of enslaving them as an endless supply of food and sacrifices; expositing that even the humans of his homeland used to worship Zotz — leaving offerings in the hopes of being blessed with good fortune and long lives... and that when they die Zotz judges them and brutally rips the heads off those who displeased him in-life.
In Sunwing, Cama Zotz orders Goth to allow the humans to capture him as part of a plot to escape the Underworld so that he can conquer the world of the living, kill the Sun, and bring about an age of eternal darkness; healing the injuries Goth sustained being struck by lightning. When Goth returns to South America with a mini-nuke sutured to his belly, Voxzaco — the high priest of the spectal bats — tells him that Cama Zotz is the twin brother of Nocturna, the goddess worshipped by the bats of the north, and was imprisoned in the Underworld by his sister for seeking to bring about an eternal night, merge the Underworld with the World of the Living, and reign over everything. Zotz then speaks through Goth, ordering the spectral bats to sacrifice 100 hearts to him during the coming solar eclipse; declaring that once he is free Goth is to lead his army of living and dead spectral bats to wipe out the humans, conquer the world, and enslave all the other bats, birds, and beasts. As for the how — Goth is to use the mini-nuke the humans sutured to him to blow up Bridge City — killing millions of bats and as many humans in one fell swoop. When Shade tries to stop Goth and Voxzaco from making the sacrifice, Zotz uses his limited influence in the world of the living to buffet him with winds and shred his illusions.
In Firewing, it's revealed that in the ancient past Nocturna and Zotz ruled the World of the Living and the World of the Dead respectively, and for a time Zotz was content with the knowledge that the dead would outnumber the living. But Zotz grew envious of his sister and desired to conquer the World of the Living for himself, and so they fought for dominion of the cosmos. Zotz killed his sister, but was left trapped in the Underworld and Nocturna's corpse manifested as the Tree to give the souls of the dead to escape. Zotz has absolute control over the Underworld and rewarded his deceased loyal followers by building a shining temple-city and rainforest for them to "live" in and glorify him, gaslighting the souls of other bat species into believing they're still alive to keep them from seeking out the Tree, and doing things to make the pilgrimage to the Tree as arduous and dangerous as possible — such as making them feel the pains of whatever killed them and encasing them in stone if they stop to rest. After Shade thwarts Zotz's plan to use the mini-nuke to escape the Underworld, Zotz sends his followers to enslave the souls of other bats — including spectral bats who've displeased him, like Throbb — to manually dig a tunnel from the Underworld to the World of the Living, intending to use it to claim the 100 sacrifices needed to escape. When Goth — killed by the mini-nuke — arrives in the spectal bats' temple-city, Zotz orders his chief builder, Phoenix, to have him bound with the other slaves. When Goth escapes and demands an audience, Zotz manifests as a colossal Animalistic Abomination and berates him for letting his grudge against Shade distract him from carrying out the order Zotz had given — and worse, the mini-nuke destroyed the pyramid. Zotz devours Goth to spend eternity being endlessly digested alongside Voxzaco and the countless other damned souls who've incurred his wrath, but Goth begs for Zotz to give him a second chance. Zotz further humiliates Goth by excreting him and orders him to return to the mine, stating that once the tunnel is built Goth's labour will be rewarded by re-joining Voxzaco in the hell of his stomach. Begrudgingly impressed by Goth's audacity in attempting to bargain for a second chance, Zotz sends him to sacrfice Griffin — Shade's son who'd been sucked into the Underworld by a fissure — as a test of his loyalty, being unable to harm the living himself. When Goth encounters Shade, Zotz stops him from consuming Shade's life force and reveals he intends for Phoenix to have that honor, to Goth's indignation. Declaring he has altered the deal, Zotz tasks Goth with consuming Griffin's life force, returning to the World of the Living with Phoenix, and mating with her to rebuild his cult. Zotz then taunts and gaslights Shade in an attempt to break his spirit, though he overplays his hand and Shade is able to escape to the Tree.
Any redeeming qualities? Freudian Excuse?
When trying to gaslight Shade, Zotz claims that he is a benevolent god who loves his subjects and only seeks to ease the pain of his subjects, giving them [the illusion of] life after death; and that all he wants is to restore the balance that was broken by his sister Nocturna — who he says was the evil tyrant for refusing his humble request to allow the restless dead to return to the World of the Living and Zotz to rise to continue governing them. They fought, and Zotz was regrettably forced to kill his sister — who in a last act of defiance transformed her corpse into the Tree so that the ungrateful souls of the dead could forsake the paradise he'd made for them — her disembodied spirit happy to simply watch her worshippers suffer the pains of life until their descent into Zotz' kingdom.
However, when Zotz admits his plan to rule over everything involves having the spectral bats commit genocide on the owls and beasts — declaring it revenge for their persecution of bats — and ultimately commit omnicide by extinguishing the Sun, Shade calls him out on his BS and escapes.
Are they bad enough?
Cama Zotz is the Greater-Scope Villain to Goth's Big Bad across the first three books. Goth is his loyal(ish) worshipper and acolyte, and almost everything he does is with the intent of freeing the dark god from the Underworld during the next eclipse so that he can be rewarded with power and status.
While Zotz does reward his followers for loyally serving him, he hides the existence of the Tree and gaslights the souls of other bat species to keep them from leaving his domain, and punishes those who displease him by eating them — trapping them in a timeless whirlpool of acid to be digested for all eternity.
Final verdict?
Yes.
Edited by Arawn999 on Nov 30th 2023 at 10:07:17 AM
Yeah, Camazotz keeps, was planning on that since I had started covering the series, but upvoting
Ultimate Moral Compass
Abstaining, as Lighty didn’t give Arawn permission to EP Cama despite saying he was going through the series himself.
"No running in the halls!"
It’s cool. I’m fine with it
Not the Eye
Woagh
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Devil Palpatine, Goth and Cama Zotz.
Edited by Arawn999 on Nov 30th 2023 at 4:34:07 AM
Nah you did it. Leave it it’s fine.
Also I am so calling Furiosa when it’s out. And also rebel moon to split now. Formal
Yes to Cama.
The reservation rules are confusing me at this point.
Edited by LoreDeluxe on Nov 30th 2023 at 4:39:29 AM
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
IIRC the rules are that upcoming works can only be reserved one month prior to their release.
Edited by Arawn999 on Nov 30th 2023 at 4:40:06 AM
I'm not reserving it now, I'm saying I'm going to. Rebel Moon is kosher, though
I'm just...trying to preemptively catch the kinds of things that got the old thread shut down. When the second post below the effort post abstains because Lighty "didn't give permission", it instantly brings me flashbacks to the kind of culture that got us collectively scolded by the mods.
Reservations aren't a thing I personally think should cause any drama, and I'm thankful to Lighty for being so upfront about it.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
The Moron
The abstention is because Lighty literally just covered the book and stated a possible intention to propose the character before somebody else jumped in and did it themselves. There's a difference between that and the stuff that got the thread shut down.
Personally I'm only abstaining cause I don't know the work but I get the hesitation.
Camazotz. Points for uniqueness - "Literally Devour the Dragon and then crap him back out" is a new one by me!
And now...
- The Sprit Bares Its Teeth by Andrew Joseph White
- Ernest Forrester is Headmaster of Braxton's Finishing School for Girls, where rebellious young female and feminine-presenting mediums are send to be "corrected" into obedient wives for the Royal Society of Speakers, the British government's official organization of mediums. An extremely powerful spiritualist himself, Ernest is revealed to be a prolific murderer who binds his victims' souls to the Creepy Souvenirs he takes off their bodies, as well as a sexual predator who allows his friends to abuse his young students. Worst of all, Ernest is in league with Bedlam House in a scientific study to perform live dissections to prove the biological basis of mediumship, and happily offers up his own students to go under the knife if they prove too much of a bother.
- Dr. Bernthal is Ernest's quiet but deadly partner in his vivisection experiments. Unable to get adequate results studying cadavers while researching mediumship, Bernthal decides to team up with Ernest to carve up his most rebellious students while they're still alive in hopes of a breakthrough, something he indulges in with a cruel glee belying his soft-spoken nature. Bernthal is also one of Ernest's aforementioned sexually predaceous friends, raping and impregnating 14-year-old Agnes and forcing her to marry him to legitimize the child.
Happy birthday ACW!
Edited by HamburgerTime on Nov 30th 2023 at 7:25:11 AM
Lore that’s not the issue here. Also I’m confused how Cama Zotz was proposed by someone planning to reread a multi book story within a day of the troper indicating they’d do so..
Yeah, my concern is that Arawn said they were meaning to reread the books and then a little less than 3 hours later had a full EP ready. Like reading through multiple novels and then writing in an EP in that short of time is insane
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Caesar
Likewise kind of unsure on how things proceeded with this EP and am not sure how to take it at face value.
- The Price of Fear:
- "Specialty of the House": Sbirro is a seemingly pleasant restaurant owner who hides a malicious secret. Under the guise of serving only the most elite of society, Sbirro fattens up his patrons over months' time, gains their trust, then lures them into the kitchen to be killed and cooked into the very food that is served to others. Countless people have been cannibalized by Sbirro and his unwitting patrons, and the story ends with him inflicting the same fate on Vincent's close friend Harry.
- "The Waxwork": Dr. Bourdet is a sadistic killer who murdered at least a dozen innocent people "for the devlish thrill of it" before he was caught. Escaping imprisonment, Bourdet disappeared but somehow continued his killings, and what is heavily indicated to be Bourdet's spirit haunts and terrorizes Raymond to death while laughing giddily.
Can confirm it's all fine, there's no issue with the EP!
Your vote's your vote, I'm not comfortable giving one. Going to abstain.
Rictus, Gunner, Cooler, Peking Duck, Fanscription duo, Devil Palps, Goth, Camel Toes
- Blood Knights:
- Countess Blood Fox is a literally bloodthirsty Vampire Monarch who unleashed her werewolf army upon Godskeep, slaughtering the population to take over control and gleefully leaving a trail of corpses and dismembered limbs to have Jeremy and Alyssa Lured into a Trap. Far more sadistic than other members of her kind, wiping out human populations not for food but for her pleasure, Blood Fox proves her ruthlessness when confronted eventually, fought in an arena filled with impaled, still-alive civilains whose blood she will periodically drain to intimidate the heroes.
- Medea is a succubi who took over Castle Pikehold and made its occupants her undead thrall. After killing every one of the castle's defenders, Medea turns their leftover armor into her own animated army, joined together by strands of bloodied flesh, and uses her Glamour to lure unwary adventurers into Castle Pikehold beforehaving them devoured.
I think we need some sort of sandbox maybe fire how different a Hate Sink and a Complete Monster is. Like how one can be a Hate Sink without being a Complete Monster and how one can be a Complete Monster without being a Hate Sink because I think things can get muddled sometimes as they both lack sympathetic qualities.
Edited by Furygildeman on Nov 30th 2023 at 6:02:45 AM
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Moving so it doesn't get missed.
Edited by WetFlannels on Nov 30th 2023 at 2:23:11 PM
Yes, yes, old boy, we'd like nothing more than to stay and be a part of your primitive, barbaric society, but duty calls, duty calls...
Oh right hunger games ballad of songbirds and snakes. Expect an ep from lighty.
I'm handling write up.
Edited by miraculous on Nov 30th 2023 at 2:04:05 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."