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
The Ultimate Lifeform
Showtime!
I'd like to hear what the other villains actually do for Nemeth
For Frollo... I guess? I don't like voting on dead fics
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
- The Sacrifice Game: Maisie leads the Christmas murderers and Jude is her most sadistic henchman. Maisie once found a spellbook as a student at Blackvale Academy to summon the demon Ciroc and assembled a group of killers including Jude who go on to massacre families as a blood sacrifice. Jude himself performs most of the murders and believes himself an incarnation of Ciroc due to the bloodshed he's caused. The two infiltrate Blackvale, killing and torturing any in their way before attempting their ritual to gain ultimate power.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
- Small Saga: King James XLV, unlike his noble ancestors, is the spoiled and apathetic ruler of Murida. Showing no concern for the surrounding nations, King James seals off trade and commerce with other cities while also refusing to help any of the citizens within his own city, even as Murida slowly descends into poverty. Upon learning of the Yellow God possibly approaching the city, King James has Plaguemaster Aquila and his other subordinates divert all their resources on finding a way to defeat the new threat instead of helping the population of Murida. When the Yellow God finally makes its way to the city, King James orders Aquila to drop a warhead onto Murida in order to kill the Yellow God while he takes shelter, not caring that thousands of innocents and even his own troops will be killed by the blast.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Aight here's my second SJA proposal! From the episode "Warriors of Kudlak", meet Mr Grantham.
Who is Mr Grantham and what has he done?
A slimeball of a human. Grantham is a collaborator with the alien warrior Kudlak and is the one setting up the kidnappings of human children for Kudlak to use as Child Soldier in a war among in space. Setting up "Combat 3000" airsoft arenas around the UK, Grantham has it set up so at the end, Kudlak can take the winner to his station in space. Grantham is first seen offering Luke and Clyde tickets to an arena to coerce them to it.
When Sarah and Maria investigate Grantham's office, Grantham stops them and then holds them at gunpoint when Sarah asks about the 24 missing children — although the pair escape. After a while, Kudlak confronts Grantham in the viewing office and berates him for compromising his mission and goes to execute him if not for the intervention of Kudlak's higher up "The Mistress" saying that they need more children to be kidnapped. Grantham then smugly says to Kudlak that is seems that he's needed still.
Grantham heads to Sarah's house to kill her — laughing about how he's been sending children away to a war for the simple case of profits before being knocked out by Maria. Sarah then forces Grantham to take them to the teleporter to Kudlak's ship with the threat of him going to prison and outright stating about how other prisoners wouldn't take kindly to him being responsible for the kidnapping of children. Grantham teleports Sarah and Maria to Kudlak's ship not before remarking how they won't return snidely. Grantham then pulls a runner and escapes offscreen and that's the last we see of him although Sarah muses that it won't be long before karma catches him.
Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Yep nothing for Grantham, just a vile Smug Snake who's well aware of the scheme being knowledgeable about The Mistress' existence and how Kudlak serves her.
Kudlak doesn't count, he's genuinely horrified when he realises his mission has been a lie and offers his life to be in Sarah's hands for her decision for his crime and has general standards and even regards Grantham's death at his almost execution as a blessing for both his and the human race.
The Mistress I think lacks agency as she's a machine specifically built for war but because of there being a peace treaty prior to the kidnappings, she couldn't see a purpose for her so she had Kudlak kickstart the scheme. It's not like she's a machine who went bad, her logical purpose was rendered null.
Heinous Standard?
So the standard is bad... Grantham? I think just scrapes it through. He's in on the scheme of sending children to a war so he can get rich and he's actively a part of it — with him behind Combat 3000 and he's not adverse with attempted murder himself. Another factor about Grantham that makes him loathsome? When Kudlak halts his execution of him, Grantham immediately starts talking that he's still needed to kidnap more children instead of trying to GTFO out of there.
The scheme is mentioned to have been happening for a few years know by Kudlak when he asks the Mistress how many children that have been sent off have survived and Kudlak alludes to the fact that children have died because of this.
And the 24 kids were only mentioned to be recent and there's only about 10 on Kudlak's ship that got saved so there's enough here to make it apparent IMO.
Child specific crimes are fairly unique in the show (with the biggest being an Expy of Pennywise who MGD will get to) but the Child Soldier niche? Stands out within the show.
Final Verdict?
The Quisling slash Hate Sink just pushing it to Complete Monster? What say we?
Edited by WetFlannels on Dec 13th 2023 at 5:10:01 PM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Caesar
Big Yes to Grantham!
Second of mine from Sarah Jane comin' in hot! This episode shares a title with its main villain:
Who is the Nightmare Man? What has he done?
- A deliciously hammy, extradimensional being known as a Vishklar, the Nightmare Man feasts on the fear and pain of nightmares, and has done so for many ages. Reaching out and latching onto the powerful young Luke as his latest victim, the Nightmare Man slowly drives the boy to despair and pain through constant terrible nightmares of his friends and family betraying and hating him. Luke tries to stay awake to avoid the terrors, but he finally falls into such a deep sleep that the Nightmare Man is able to physically manifest himself into the world.
- The Nightmare Man then reveals his master plan: to plunge the entire Earth into an unending sleep where every human is forever tormented by him in their dreams, so that he may feast on their terror forever. "The end of the world! An eternal sleep of nightmares for me to feed on!"
- Luckily, though the Nightmare Man begins his conquest by putting the entire neighborhood into coma-like sleeps to be tormented, he is overcome by the collective power of Sarah Jane and our heroes' dreams of one another, and the Nightmare Man finds himself dragged into a dream-cage to be trapped forever.
Mitigating features?
None; he's a delightfully giddy Card-Carrying Villain who is just happily sadistic. No agency issues to speak of either, and his "feeding on" nightmares is done for cruel glee and not sustenance.
Heinousness?
As has been made clear, the standard is high, but the Nightmare Man is out to put all of humanity into an And I Must Scream unending nightmare of pain and terror so he can gorge on them forever. It's a uniquely sick niche.
Final Verdict?
Yessir!
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Classy, Refined, Unstable
And a yes there! Also yes to Nemeth, Frollo and Aamon
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Yes to Nemeth, Aamon, Griffith, Nightmare Man, and Frollo. I... heh heh... don't think Rasputin counts honestly. Kids movie or not, unlike Judge Doom where he's not a Butt-Monkey, he's just got too many funny moments from him and I'd rather not vote yes on a "funny" CM despite how much I want to. He literally sings a ridiculously hammy song that has "and a dash of cologne" as a lyric.
Edited by Klavice on Dec 13th 2023 at 10:39:39 AM
Goku Black
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
aamon and Graham and nightmare man
Woagh
to Grantham and The Nightmare Man.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
As someone who used to listen to his song alot, i'm really failing to see how it makes him "too funny" other than the cologne quip.
Edited by DoodSlayer136 on Dec 13th 2023 at 10:39:07 AM
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE
It's more like the quip comes right out of nowhere and it's almost like a Big-Lipped Alligator Moment for what it's worth. I'm not completely against his inclusion, hell I'm 99% sure he's a contender. But my remaining 1% is reasonable. It's kind of like, how in the MB thread we've disqualified people for having a small freak out. Granted, if they recover from it we generally let it slide. Except when they are the Big Bad and don't have enough time to recover.
Edited by Klavice on Dec 13th 2023 at 10:46:54 AM
The Emperor of Evil!
I'm not sure how disqualifying someone on MB with small freak outs has anything to do with Rasputin or how it relates to him being funny?
I remember watching the film more than once especially this song, I don't see it being that funny to be mitigating especially when it's about him wanting to torment and kill a girl just to complete his Family Extermination.
to Aamon, Graham, and Nightmare Man.
Edited by Powermaster201 on Dec 13th 2023 at 1:53:26 PM
....Phenomenal
It's important to remember that, while CM and MB both use the effortpost structure, they are not the same thing, and use different standards. An undignified moment for an MB is disqualifying because it's part of the trope - the Magnificent Bastard must retain their, well, magnificence, and there's nothing magnificent about something blatantly undignified.
A CM, on the other hand, has no such requirement at all. They just have to have monstrous elements and no redeeming features, which Rasputin fulfills. A few silly or undignified moments are allowable as long as their crimes are still suitably nasty.
Edited by TheGrayFox on Dec 13th 2023 at 11:03:00 AM
There remains a foothold out of this mire — now climb.
Griffith, Charlie, Azura, Zartus, Ruby, Nemeth, Frollo, Aamon, Grantham, Nightmare
Caesar
So, Godzilla Minus One discussion time is here...I thought long and hard on this one and while I think there's potential for an argument to be made on Godzilla himself, I've ultimately settled on him not counting for now. He's a very malicious, sadistic creature in the film who is already violent and territorial before being irradiated, but the film does have light—emphasis on light—undertones that Godzilla is suffering, and indeed, in the novelization of the movie written by the director himself, he flatout says that Godzilla is meant to be seen as a victim. While the novel isn't the movie and Godzilla being a victim doesn't fully translate onscreen, the movie does heavily indicate he's suffering and lashing out because of said suffering.
I don't think moral agency or intelligence is an issue, because Godzilla is a kaiju who have always been sentient throughout the franchise. And he's more than bad enough as he kills tens of thousands of people. But small tidbits like the human characters saluting Godzilla in respect after they've killed him, or a line shown in promotional material saying "how could Godzilla ever forgive humanity?", does ultimately indicate to me that he's meant to have a measure of sympathy to him, however small, and be seen as something more nuanced than "pure evil giant monster."
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Not the Eye
to Grantham and Nightmare man
Messenger from another dimension.
I also believe that this movie might actually get sequels and who likely we will see more of Godzilla's positive side. No to Godzilla. Great movie though.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Aamon and the two SJ villains.
Do Frollo's genocidal plans actually go beyond plans?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
to Frollo, Aamon, Grantham and the Nightmare Man.
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Graham and nightmare man
Kids movie or not. I still feel it's to offscreen for my taste.
Gun shoots, fleeing people, screams in the background... That's all good but not enough for me. The line about so many "lives were destoryed" could work but for all I know that could just mean that people have lost their homes and are now living in porverty or were forced to flee the country.
for Aamon
for Mr Grantham
the Nightmare Man. Eternal torture makes him stand out.
Best Smile
Aamon, Graham, Nightmare Man.
@ACW: It's a curious case in that regard honestly, given he is locked away in solitary confinement his only resource to make his plans a reality is Frank himself, but he lost it when the latter disobeyed him (wouldn't say betrayed as Frank genuinely believes that what he's doing is an even better way to honor his father, whether said father can see it or not) before Frollo's plan started to come into fruition. I'd personally say that given the way he spend literal years molding Frank into what should have been a completely obedient soldier and how clear are his orders in the regards of what he wants Frank to steal are just barely enough to make it past the "plan" bar if ONLY given how nearly-ridiculous low his resources are.
Edited by ASghhrv6ub on Dec 14th 2023 at 9:33:03 AM
I am the one, I am the one, the godlike terror train, superior artificial brain, feel free to call me Blaine
Grantham, Nightmare Man
I don't really see how "people screaming getting cut off by gunshots" is Fridge Horror, that just sounds like a Gory Discretion Shot
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Yeah, I've gotta say I really don't see the Fridge Horror on Rasputin... it's a kids' movie and that softens how much they'll show but confirmed deaths in the chaos is enough to verify it's not just a generic riot.