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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Protagonist, Phantom Orb, Sherwood, Dreyfuss, Mr. Nasty, Cruella, and Honoria.
Caesar
Alrighty, Scrags' post on this fuckwad coming in hot!
What's the work?
Fargo is an anthology series based on the film of the same name, each season following different characters as they find themselves in criminal circumstances and desperately try to worm themselves out of it.
The latest season, the fifth, follows family gal Dorothy "Dot" Lyon as she is seemingly-randomly kidnapped by thugs working for a corrupt sheriff. But when Dot proves herself far more capable in fighting back than her kidnappers presume, it begins a season-long hunt of her across Minnesota by villainous forces seeking to reclaim her for a certain someone...
What has Roy Tillman done?
- "A Hard Man For Hard Times." Sheriff Roy Tillman, third-generation owner of the Tillman Ranch and sheriff of Stark County, Minnesota, Roy is the dirtiest cop ever seen in the show, a particularly nasty constitutional sheriff who runs Stark County like a medieval fiefdom. Roy is racist, ableist, and—this most of all—a vicious misogynist.
- Even before he debuts onscreen, Roy is under investigation for a slew of disappearances in Stark County, victims of Roy's criminal business who are all revealed to have been disposed of in a mass grave on the Tillman ranch. The FBI are hesitant to advance openly on their investigation, however, because Roy has been making money peddling arms to far-right militias (with the backing of his father-in-law Odin). The FBI knows that with a snap of his fingers, Roy is ready to incite them to terroristic violence.
- Roy's personal life, particularly his married one, is absolutely horrible:
- His first wife, Linda, lived under brutal, bone-breaking abuse for any infraction whatsoever, or simply whenever Roy needed a punching bag to "make himself feel big." Eventually, shortly before moving to his second wife, Roy murdered Linda and buried her in the mass grave.
- His second wife was the season's protagonist, Dorothy Lyon. Back then she was a 15-year-old runaway named Nadine Bump who Linda took into the Tillman household with good intentions. Roy groomed Nadine, then eventually started raping her. After killing Linda, Roy made Nadine his next wife, then continued to rape and brutalize her in the same way he had Linda for the next two years, until Nadine finally ran away at the tender age of 17.
- His third wife, Karen (Odin's daughter), has completely broken beneath Roy's thumb after years of this abuse. Roy beats her and their twin daughters regularly, for reasons as petty as accidentally nicking him with scissors, and Karen is so afraid of Roy's abuse that she preemptively arranges to guide Roy's anger onto Dot when they recapture her (more on that below).
- In the series' present (in 2019) Roy learns that "Nadine" has renamed and remarried herself to a down-to-Earth man named Wayne Lyon, and that they have a nine-year-old daughter. Roy responds to this by hiring hitmen first to capture Dot—failing this, Roy attempts to execute the surviving hitman, Ole Munch.
- Next Roy orders his men to barge into Dot's own family home, and then eventually has them try and kidnap Dot's husband so they can torture him and lure out Dot. Roy's men accidentally kidnap someone else instead, and after hours of torture, Roy realizes they have the wrong man. He responds by blowing the man's brains out without a second of hesitation.
- Roy finally manages to recapture Dot at the season's halfway point, locking her in the ranch's shed. His obsession with Dot has attracted the ire of Dot's mother-in-law Lorraine Lyon, who also happens to be an uber-wealthy loan shark, who arranges via her right-hand Danish Graves to have Roy humiliated in a public debate (by hiring three men to legally change their name to "Roy Tillman" and then parrot him at the debate stand—seriously, words do it no justice). Roy takes out his frustrations by beating Dot within an inch of her life and, shortly after, ordering her murdered and dumped into the mass grave.
- Danish Graves, having a stroke of conscience, goes to the Tillman Ranch and tries to arrange the release of Dorothy by promising to undo the political damage he's done to Roy. Instead, Roy kills Danish Graves in a fit of petulant rage ("If you're so smart…then why are you so dead?"). This, alongside his kidnapping of Dot, provoke Lorraine enough to get dozens of cops and armed SWAT officers to storm the Tillman Ranch. Roy responds by rallying up his alt-right militia and announces to the officers that he doesn't intend to go quietly, implying indeed a full-on Suicide by Cop…except Roy secretly has an escape route planned, planning to sneak off when the bullets start flying while the cops and his militia wipe each other out.
- Shortly before this, Roy's oldest son Gator is blinded by a vengeful Ole Munch. While Gator is desperately pleading for his "daddy," Roy instead leaves him there, alone and blind: "if there ever was a point to you, it's gone now." When Odin finally loses his patience with Roy wasting the militia's money and manpower on a suicidal Waco-esque firefight with the cops, Roy just cuts the old man's throat open, and when Karen sees this, Roy attempts to kill her as well.
- Dorothy shoots Roy in the gut right after this, forcing him to flee down his escape tunnel. Roy is cornered by a heroic cop named Witt Far, but Roy manages to kill Witt before emerging out of his escape tunnel. Right into the waiting hands of the FBI. One year later, Roy is a permanent inmate at a Minnesotan jail, and just to grind him down even further, Lorraine personally arranges things so that Roy will forever spend his sentence at the bottom of the prison ladder, abused and forced to feel every humiliation his wife felt by other prisoners Lorraine is paying off to make him suffer.
- Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
- Nothing, and the show takes pains to deconstruct anything that could remotely be construed as one. Roy presents himself as a Family-Values Villain who introduces himself beating a man who abuses his wife for "pleasure" rather than "correction." Later on, when this lesson doesn't take, Roy kills the abusive husband and promises to pay his abused wife in her deceased husband's stead…on the condition, of course, she never betrays him or tells anyone about the murder, with an implicit threat veiled at her as he bribes her into silence.
- Roy might play at having some kind of sense of honor, or value system, but the show repeatedly demonstrates he's a shallow hypocrite in every regard possible. Lorraine points out that his "freedom with no responsibility" philosophy makes him a "baby," a Psychopathic Manchild whose reasons for abusing (and eventually murdering/trying to murder) all of his wives are exactly as petty as those of the other aforementioned abusive husband he kills.
- In the end, Roy has nothing. He claims to be a man of God, but spits on the altar when his plans go south. He claims he'll die for his cause, but runs with his tail between his legs while his militia is wiped out. He tolerates Gator's stupidity until Gator's stupidity outweighs his usefulness, at which point Roy throws his own son away like garbage.
- If Roy is somewhat lacking in the body count of villains from other seasons—One-Man Army Lorne Malvo from season 1, who at one point single-handedly massacres a building full of people; Hanzee Dent from season 2, who provokes a shootout between the mob he's ostensibly loyal to and the local police department, getting dozens killed; and "angel of mercy" Oraetta Mayflower from season 4, who has a cabinet full of trophies from patients she's poisoned—Roy makes up for it with a more down-to-Earth, realistic cruelty that the show never sugarcoats. Roy is a child rapist and an abusive husband, to grotesque extents never matched by other villains in the show (even fellow misogynistic Psychopathic Manchild Dodd Gerhardt from season 2). I don't think he has any trouble standing out from his fellow big bads.
Roy Tillman, what a scumbag
Roy….. Jesus, this prick is fucked up.
for Honoria Waynflete and Roy Tillman.
Roy.
Cruella. I'm a little surprised to see a version of her going up, especially considering the sillier version in that 90's cartoon.
Honoria.
Edited by Beast on Jan 31st 2024 at 7:11:14 AM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
Ultimate Moral Compass
Roy
to Roy Tillman
Edited by Troperuser21 on Jan 31st 2024 at 7:32:13 AM
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
for Roy Tillman.
Goku Black
Roy and honoria.
....Phenomenal
for Honoria and Roy.
Barb / Temporary Kylo
to Roy
Caught on on Poppy Playtime, DM if you wanted to talk there.
The First man
Yes to Honoria and Roy. Also... I get this is another pothole, but anyone think Would Hurt a Child work when talking about Jim being 15?
to Sheriff Roy Tillman.
Honoria, Roy
Insanely busy week over here and have spent the whole morning in a warehouse, but anyways I guess the L-kay is M-kay
- Island of the Lizard King: The Lizard King, once a chieftain of the lizard men of Fire Island, took over the island's penal colony and converts it into a slave camp, forcing hundreds of prisoners to toil away in the island's gold mines resulting in their deaths. Eager to ensure his dominance, the Lizard King bonds with a powerful Gonchong to make himself invincible and immortal, and launches raids across numerous islands around Fire Island over the course of several years, abducting more slaves when his current batch runs out and leaving numerous coastal villages in ruins, as well as conducting inhumane experiments on prisoners and even his own lizard men servants to ensure total control over his subjects and his eternal dominance.
Edited by RobertTYL on Feb 1st 2024 at 1:36:23 AM
Captain of USS Bajor
Roy, Cruella
to Roy and Cruella
So, this is just me asking, but with the new CM rules (the whole heinous standard thing) set in place do you think it’s okay for me to give Cackletta from Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga a shot?
Edited by Fireball246 on Jan 31st 2024 at 11:56:08 AM
The Ultimate Lifeform
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Imma stop you right there as I know Cackletta shows concern for Fawful at several points, and has moments of comedy.
Regarding that, no, she doesn’t show genuine care for Fawful. The most she shows is her looking shocked when Luigi hammers him into the ground, but that’s it. It’s not like she has any Pet the Dog moments.
As for the comedy, first of all, Forgo, the new rules set give some leeway towards comedy and Cackletta is Laughably Evil at most and isn’t Played for Laughs.
Edited by Fireball246 on Feb 1st 2024 at 12:00:05 PM
Not the Eye
I should mention that the baseline stuff doesn't affect the heinous standard so Cackletta needs to still complete with the other Mario and Luigi villains.
Caesar
No new rules were made for comedy. That was discussed but dismissed for the time being. The only "changes" made were to not be so strict with genre baselines, not in-universe baseline. What disqualified Cackletta before hasn't been changed, she doesn't stand out
![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
'd by
Edited by Ravok on Feb 1st 2024 at 12:25:38 PM
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Fair enough. That’s all I wanted to know. Thanks!
Jogo
Honoria and Roy
Wait, 101 Dalmatians Street Cruella finally came up? Absolute![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
and it's about time too! 