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
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Highblood.
Not the Eye
Switch abstain Highblood, don’t think there are OV problems or geniune respect, but it seems standard is really jacked.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
Can we please get more info on the heinous standard in Homestuck? Because the EP basically just says "it's pretty high, but the Grand Highblood clear it given resources."
How high? What full context of resources? What do the other villains do? How many villains are there? Do the heroes/anti-heroes contribute to this? Elaborate.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
The Ultimate Lifeform
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm not sure but I am aware of @Sailor Venus 372 who does know what it is. PM'ing them now.
I don’t remember much about the Grand Highblood but I know for a fact the heinous standard is enormous, with Doc Scratch’s plot to destroy two multiverses to create the Green Sun and Lord English cracking reality and destroying parts of the afterlife, being a massive Omnicidal Maniac to everyone in existence, and killing the Author Avatar or the story.
Edited by SailorVenus372 on Jan 1st 2024 at 4:38:00 AM
I’m plotting my schemes wherever I go! They’re perfect in every way…
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
I think I'm just gonna vote on the Grand Highblood for now.
Mintsplash I'm still not sure about.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
Here's a candidate who was discussed way back but might merit a second look.
The work?
Artemis Fowl is a book series by Eoin Colfer, focusing on the titular Teen Genius who discovers the existence of the fairy world, at first trying to exploit them, but later becoming one of their allies. The candidate is Briar Cudgeon, a treacherous elf who is friends with LEP Commander Root, but quickly betrays him in a bid to seize power.
Who is he and what has he done?
Cudgeon first appears in the first book where he's one of those assigned to deal with Holly's kidnapping. He tells Commander Root that they should simply bio-bomb Fowl Manor even though this would kill Holly as well, dismissing this as a "minimal loss" and suggesting she was useless anyway due to being a female recruit, but Root overrules him. He later manipulates the Council into giving him Root's position, then sends a troll in to attack the manor, hoping to either kill the humans or terrify them into asking for help, which the fairies can take as an invitation to come in. The troll mortally wounds Butler, but Holly heals him and the troll is driven off. When informed he's been relieved of his position, Cudgeon flies into a rage and assaults Foaly, and is then sedated by Root.
In the second book Cudgeon returns and is intent on revenge against everyone he blames for his humiliation and subsequent demotion. It's also shown that the sedative reacted badly with some illegal drugs he was taking, which disfigures his face and causes him to become more deranged. He plans to arm the B'wa Kell goblin triad with illegal weapons and exploit the crisis to kill his rivals and take over the entire Lower Elements, allying with the pixie Opal Koboi to pull this off. He promises the goblins to free their brethren who are in prison and that they will be treated better with him in charge, but coldly intends to betray them the second he has what he wants, and also intends to murder Opal once he doesn't need her anymore, as he has no desire to share power.
Cudgeon mesmerizes a human, Luc Carrere, to supply the goblins with batteries to power their weapons (causing him permanent brain damage in the process). He then sends Carrere a fairy blaster, telling him it's a camera, to trick him into killing Artemis and anyone else who comes with him, gleefully telling Opal that Carrere will be left to take the fall for this and be locked up. When Butler asks Carrere about the batteries, Carrere tries to shoot him but Butler subdues him and he is taken into custody.
Cudgeon then learns that Artemis, Root, and Holly are travelling to the Arctic Circle to rescue Artemis's father. He sends a goblin hit team to assassinate them and has Opal knock out all LEP weaponry so they can't defend themselves. Cudgeon then meets with Foaly in the Operations Booth, hijacking its systems and locking him inside. Revealing his treachery, Cudgeon gloats that his goblins will attack the LEP capital city, Haven, then dispose of the Council, and just when things are at their most desperate, he will betray the goblins and appear to have saved the day, while Foaly will be blamed for everything, with Cudgeon hinting that he'll have him killed afterward and make it look like suicide. He then activates the plasma floor and blasts Foaly unconscious. He leaves the booth's windows open so Foaly has to watch the impending slaughter.
As the goblins overrun the LEP headquarters, Cudgeon pretends to be on the fairies' side and comes up with the idea to meet with the goblins and negotiate terms, making it appear that he's nobly sacrificing himself. The goblins blast through the doors moments after he leaves and start to overrun everyone. Cudgeon meets with Opal to discuss their plans, telling her that once they have the might of the LEP behind them, they will take over the world and wipe all the humans out.
As he watches the goblins' assault from Koboi Laboratories, Cudgeon is startled to find Artemis and the others survived his hit on them and have broken into the building. Artemis is able to reveal to the goblins that Cudgeon intends to betray them, and they demand an explanation. Cudgeon cooly admits he was using them and activates the DNA cannons, blasting them unconscious, then holds a gun on Artemis, telling him he's achieved nothing. Butler and Root then arrive and Cudgeon uses Artemis as a hostage, and when told that it's over, he decides to shoot Artemis anyway. As he's about to pull the trigger, Artemis receives a call from Foaly, and hands his phone to Opal, who hears Cudgeon confess his plan to kill her. This provokes Opal to attack Cudgeon, and he's sent crashing through a plasma stream, incinerating him.
Heinous standard?
He's shown to be a power-hungry psychopath from the start as he has no problem murdering several people along with Holly, making sexist remarks about her and dismissing her possible death as an acceptable loss, then backstabs and betrays Root out of his own ambition. In the second book he's the one who comes up with the entire plan for the goblin rebellion, while planning to betray them and Opal the second they're of no further use. He gleefully tries to murder anyone involved in his demotion (including Artemis who's thirteen at the time) and when the goblins suggest several particularly graphic ways to kill Root, Cudgeon tells them to do "all of these things." He's also very sadistic in how he frames Foaly for the coup and forces him to watch the entire assault while he's trapped in his booth just to twist the knife further.
He has strong competition from Opal herself in later books, but after re-reading his scenes I think he stands out enough, as he states explicitly that he intends to "rid the earth of these tiresome Mud Men" indicating he intends full-on genocide. He also has a high attempted kill count as he has the goblins besiege the city and destroy numerous businesses, and attempts to have Police Plaza massacred and by the time it's stopped, the fairies are out of magic and we're told the next one to get shot would have stayed down, so there would have been many deaths had things gone as he intended. In fact, while Opal becomes a lot worse later, in the second book alone it's Cudgeon who seems the more evil of the two.
Mitigating traits?
Not really. He seems to be friends with Root at first, but this soon goes out the window as he backstabs him to get his job, and by the second book he hates Root's guts and wants him dead by any means necessary, so it's safe to say he subverts this. The book does indicate that he's become more deranged due to having brain damage from the drugs he was taking, but it was his choice to take the drugs knowing they were illegal, plus the first book shows he was already a psychopath and if anything it only loosened his inhibitions, and there's nothing to suggest that he lacks agency or doesn't know what he's doing.
Verdict?
I think he might count.
Edited by Javertshark13 on Jan 1st 2024 at 7:50:40 AM
Goku Black
cudgeon
If if was the first like three books he could count. But opal is both worse. And theirs also root (tried to wipe out the city) and Leon (nearly wiped out his own species)
I do not think his genocide attempt is elaborated in enough if it's a single off line.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Best Smile
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Puff Balls, First Firmament, John Smith, Magnus, Harry, Nolan, Carter, Golden State Killer, Njoror, Kuo, Kirihara, Hitchhiker, The Leader, Wallington, Iago, Preissen.
Abstain on Mintsplash.
I am the one, I am the one, the godlike terror train, superior artificial brain, feel free to call me Blaine
Not the Eye
to Cudgeon
So, Homestuck heinous standard: both Lord English and Doc Scratch are basically gods, so while they are the most heinous villains, they also have so many resources that of course more mortal villains are going to be lesser. Jack Noir also gains those god powers and while the Condesce does not, she still has the backing of the two and is given exceptional powers of her own. The Grand Highblood, by contrast, lacks those powers, resources, and information.
Here's the scene with him as mentioned prior. Trolls have different blood colors, so the blood stains on the wall give an indication of how many individual trolls he has killed.
....Phenomenal
for Cudgeon, he may have been nasty for so early in the series, but he's decidedly out-heinoused later on, and even being genocidal isn't really a unique niche.
Abstaining on the Highblood.
There remains a foothold out of this mire — now climb.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Cudgeon
Since MGD successfully EP'd the guy, how's this for a quote from Oddbob?
Now that Rasputin qualifies as a CM, perhaps you can add this to the list of quotes.
- Nicholas II: How dare you return to the palace?!
Rasputin: But, I am your confidant.
Nicholas II: Confidant? Ha! You are a traitor! Get out!
Rasputin: You think you banish the great Rasputin? (pulls out his magic reliquary) By the unholy powers vested in me, I banish you with a curse!
(everyone in the palace gasps in horror)
Rasputin: Mark my words: you and your family will die within a fortnight! I WILL NOT REST UNTIL I SEE THE END OF THE ROMANOV LINE FOREVER!!
Edited by WretchedDog on Jan 2nd 2024 at 2:20:12 AM
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Preissen
- Abbott, written by Saladin Ahmed: In her years fighting against the Umbra and its followers, Elena Abbot fought some truly vile enemies that lived up to their role as enemies of life itself.
- Original comic: Professor Bellcamp.
- Abbott 1973: John Smith is a mysoginistic murderer that uses his influences and supernatural powers to kill countless woman since "before this continent had a name" while tauting cops and journalists by leaving a pin with his initials near the corpses of his victims. In 1973, John works alongside Hunter and Madame DeCadillac to break the spirit of Elena Abbott, killing mafiosos to kidnap Elena's girlfriend and trying to use Elena into another of his "toys".
Edited by KazuyaProta on Jan 1st 2024 at 11:38:25 AM
Watch me destroying my country
The wifi here sucks
- Ticker: Alex Swan is a charming Irish terrorist and bomb maker who sees himself as an “artist.” For years Swan has supplied bombs to terrorists, including an incident where he set off a bomb that killed countless innocents, police, and his own terrorist allies. Arriving in San Francisco with his trio of followers, Swan coldly guns down a cop who discovers them before his follower Claire is arrested. Needing Claire’s bracelet for his “masterpiece”, Swan holds the entire city hostage, bombing several populated areas and promising that if Claire is not released he’ll continue “until every man woman and child in this city is either dead or in mourning.” Swan also nearly kills a squad of cops with a trap and tries to steal the bracelet and abandon Claire in police custody. Swan’s masterpiece is a chemical bomb which would kill everyone in the city, with a backup strong enough to wipe out three square miles.
Lord of Space
x6 Yeah, it's unfair to say the Highblood doesn't stand out because there are planets-destroying fellas when he doesn't have their same godly powers. Plus, he should be considered responsible for more or less everything his cult did (which includes enforcing a dictatorship and committing sacrifices).
Caesar
- Indiana Jones and the Staff of Kings novelization: Magnus Völler, former Adventurer Archaeologist and rival to Indy in his student years, is by the time of the novel an ice cold Nazi officer. Magnus seeks the Staff of Moses for Nazi Germany, and to this end launches a bloody attack on a holy city that his old mentor Professor Kingston is living in. In short order, Magnus massacres dozens of people in the city's temple, kills Kingston himself, and is stopped only seconds before he can have his warplanes fire upon a gigantic crowd of men, women and children. Magnus is scarcely any better to his own allies, executing hem for failure, for being wounded, or for giving him key information about Indy and his allies.
Caesar
And one of my last from Mutant X now:
Who is Wolf? What has she done?
- From the episode "Sign From Above", Wolf is the leader of a group of energy-based aliens that scheme to take over the world. She discovers that mutant spinal fluid increases her people's strength capacity, and so begins a spree of kidnapping mutants, subjecting them to the long, painful process of draining their spinal fluid until they die, then dumping their bodies.
- Through the episode, various bodies of mutants are found, from 3 in a river to a corpse hidden in a hospital waiting to be found, and Wolf's lair has evermore tubes of the stuff representing mutants killed. Kidnapping Shalimar and implanting a mole into Mutant X, Wolf tortures Shalimar with an alien device and reveals her scheme: to access Mutant X's records of all mutants on Earth, so Wolf can round them all up to be drained to death, then lead an alien invasion of Earth.
- Murdering her human ally when he tries to back out of the deal, Wolf nearly drains the spinal fluid of several Mutant X members, but is ultimately beaten and captured by the government, locked away in "something like Area 51" for good.
Mitigating features?
Zilch.
Heinousness?
She's out to genocide the entire mutant race through the very nasty process of draining their spinal fluids, has done so to many already, and is planning to use the power she gains to invade Earth and conquer it through violence. It's one of the widest-spanning plans in the series, so even if she's lacking in the unique nastiness of Bosch's experiments or the Warden's sadism, Wolf makes up for it with sheer scope.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Lord of Space
to Wolf.
But anyway yeah, I feel like people regarding the Grand Highblood are largely ignoring the huge difference in resources he has compared to other villains, alongside the fact he's responsible for an entire violent religion which at least partially even influenced one of the comic's main characters (Gamzee) to commit his crimes.
Edited by CapitanoNox on Jan 1st 2024 at 6:57:12 PM
Yes to Wolf.
No to Cudgeon.
Easy no to Highblood.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Wolf
Cudgeon. I had considered him at one point, but after Book 4 he is ridiculously outheinoused by Opal despite their similar resources.
Highblood
Barb / Temporary Kylo
Think I'm fine giving a to Highblood with clarifications. to Wolf as well.
Goku Black
Let me just swap to abstain on high blood
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Lord of Space
Also, repeating it one more time just in case: yes, Lord English and Doc Scratch are Omnicidal Maniacs, but they're also gods, and the Condesce is essentially a demigoddess with an entire empire under herself. It's not really fair to compare them to the Grand Highblood, who's an average dude (well, average for his species at least) controlling a cult, and saying he has offscreen villainy when he's clearly killed people and greatly influenced subjugglators' culture... yeah, no.
