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
Does anyone think Big Smoke from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas can qualify? While Tenpenny is the ultimate mastermind, Big Smoke still goes along with him willingly enough, and betraying the people who trusted him and called him a friend and running the day-to-day operations of Tenpenny's drug empire might be enough villainy to pass the bar. Also, I found no real sympathy in his death, as even though Smoke acknowledges that he was drawn in by money and power, he still has no real regret or remorse for betraying his former friends, openly saying "I don't give a shit", and with his last breath, he expresses satisfaction that he's made a name for himself and everyone will remember his name. The only difference between Smoke and Tenpenny's final moments, perhaps, is that Smoke is more honest and doesn't pretend what he did was really for the good of anyone else.
Edited by Maxide on Feb 4th 2024 at 2:06:32 AM
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Fox and Naiper.
Edit: Thomas.
Nah on Smoke — he felt like too much of a Puppet King to Tenpenny, who also had nastier personal crimes over Smoke. Also CJ briefly laments his death, so it feels pretty clear they were going for an Alas, Poor Villain moment.
Edited by Beast on Feb 4th 2024 at 2:26:36 AM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
If only CM stood for Complete Meme… he’d be the easiest yes ever ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Honestly, Big Smoke isn’t a bad candidate honestly. He is almost bad enough and I don’t exactly buy the sympathy prevention (he doesn’t feel any remorse for his actions and Kendl and the others object to his sympathetic death, basically saying it was his own choice and selfishness) but by in large, Smoke was a spawn in Tenpenny’s drug operation and while he does get points in corrupting Ryder and betraying CJ and Sweet, I don’t think he has enough to separate himself from Tenpenny to make me say he counts
That said I am looking into another candidate who I had an eye on for a while. Might try him out
Edited by MermaidEyes15 on Feb 4th 2024 at 5:24:55 AM
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
to General Grievous, Thomas Orosco, Patrick Napier and Mr Fox.
On the other hand I think we could do with some pruning for villains that have been allowed up when the narrative is hinting pretty strongly at an Alas, Poor Villain moment. Father clearly brought all the trouble he finally faces at the Gate of Truth upon himself and Acnologia comes from a narrative that accidentally undoes any chance his past had of giving him sympathy but there are other cases I think we've gone a little too far in despite the work's implications and that's something we want to avoid too or else we'd be winding up with characters like Yuda on the list when his end spells out clear pathos for him.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Can you name some specifics there? You sound like you're coming in hot with big ideas here.
The Salesman’s Stolen Mask
Arkham Joker gets the Alas, Poor Villain treatment, with Batman pointing out that he would’ve saved him, Harley weeping over him, and Batman silently his body on the hood of a police car. That said, Joker still qualifies since he expresses no remorse for any of his actions, dies exactly how you’d expect him to, and in Arkham Knight, Batman ultimately takes solace in the knowledge that Joker will eventually be forgotten.
Goku Black
I don't think that's comparable. Only Batman felt bad he died since he you know tried to kill him before this and his death is his own fault. Thats more the good guy pities the bad guy which isn't what an alas poor villain is.
Edited by miraculous on Feb 4th 2024 at 2:51:52 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
In the context of this conversation, I'm merely stating that I feel the narrative tries to draw sympathy to Big Smoke as a character, in contrast to the Joker showing how much Harley is bent and broken for him and how big Batman's heart is.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Fair, it’s just hard for me to see it as an Alas, Poor Villain moment somewhat due to how quick it is and stuff.
It’s just kinda brief and undersold and goes away quickly once Tenpenny comes in. But I could see your perspective on it
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
Lord of Space
I can't say much since I have yet to read that part, but from what I've heard the Big Bad of Jo Jos Bizarre Adventure Jojolion has an Alas, Poor Villain death, and he's currently approved as CM.
Edited by CapitanoNox on Feb 4th 2024 at 12:26:42 PM
I do feel like this will be relevant soon to a discussion.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Milady de Winter from The Three Musketeers also arguably has this type of death, yet she still qualifies as a CM, because the story still makes it clear her execution is well-deserved and only d'Arthanan feels bad for her.
Edited by WatTambor on Feb 4th 2024 at 3:22:49 PM
Formal EP this time, two characters in one.
Work
Metal Fight Beyblade. The Metal Fury season.
Candidates
The two people at the top of the Nemesis Bladers, Pluto and Rago. Either or both of them. The Nemesis Bladers want to use the God of Destruction, Nemesis, to destroy the world and reshape it in their image, according to the prophecy of the ancient King Hades. Nemesis itself feels like a Generic Doomsday Villain and a glorified weapon, possessing a questionable level of intelligence, no personality beyond wanting to destroy everything, and is possibly Made of Evil, so it's less likely to count.
- Pluto is the brains of the Nemesis Bladers, doing most of the thinking and plotting. He stays on the sidelines for the most part, ordering his subordinate Johannes to go out into the field to recruit as many of the other Legendary Bladers as possible to revive Nemesis, using false promises and hiding the true goal of the Nemesis Bladers.
- Rago is the Legendary Blader who actually wields Nemesis. He only appears when Nemesis's revival is at hand, alongside Doji. When Nemesis's revival is complete, Pluto, Rago, and Doji raises Hades's kingdom out of the ocean and goes there to enact their endgame. Rago defeated and killed Ryuga when the latter came alone to challenge him, then fights the remaining Legendary Bladers to decide the fate of the world.
Mitigating factors
None. They want to destroy the world and rule over the ashes in the name of King Hades and his prophecy, but that shouldn't qualify as real loyalty to another, since Hades is long dead and not around to give actual orders. They show nothing but glee at the destruction they cause and show no hesitation at injuring or killing anyone who gets in their way. They also display no real care for each other as people.
Heinousness
I mean, they want to destroy the world and kill everyone living on it. In the finale, their efforts are shown on-screen as cities being destroyed and natural disasters tearing up the landscape, though it's not played up for immediate lethality, as no body count is confirmed by the end of it all. Also, the Dark Nebula organization and Hades Inc. from Metal Fusion and Metal Masters respectively are both backed by the Nemesis cult, so perhaps Pluto shares the blame for everything that happened during Metal Fusion and Metal Masters. (Rago wasn't active at that time.)
Verdict
Admittedly, I can see reasons for them not counting, though I'm not sure which one counts the most, or if they can make it through despite those factors. I'll list them in this section.
- Group mentality: the goal of destroying the world is shared by all the Nemesis Bladers. Although Pluto and Rago are at the top of the pack and the other members are pretty much their lackeys.
- Less screentime than Doji: Doji, also in the Nemesis group and currently listed as a CM, has been around since Metal Fusion, where he runs Dark Nebula and works with Ryuga to spread darkness and destruction using L-Drago, and establishing his own rap sheet before the Nemesis group showed themselves. Doji is important enough in the Nemesis group to accompany Pluto and Rago when they go to enact their endgame (though he doesn't accomplish anything beyond insulting and mocking Ryuga at that point), so maybe that means Pluto and Rago are out-heinoused by Doji, though I still feel like Doji himself is less important than the other two.
- Too similar to another villain: the movie Metal Fight Beyblade VS The Sun: Sol Blaze The Scorching Hot Invader features a villain with a very similar plot. The Big Bad of that movie also wants to destroy the world and rebuild an ancient civilization from the ashes. I don't know if that movie is canon to the rest of the series, however.
Goku Black
Yeah sure from memory. I can Pluto and Rago.
Not the Eye
Pluto and Rago
Preemptive no to Ratigan. Scroop and Sykes going up isn't a free pass to get up any villain who is just midly over the MEH
Zoran, Black Puddle, Grievous again, Thomas Oro, Napier, Fox, Pluto and Rago
- Mercenaries: Grigori Babishkov is a former mass rapist and Ulrika's sadistic right-hand man who joined Ulrika to satisfy his bloodlust and sadism. Introduced leading an ambush slaughtering Elise' security detail and capturing Elise, Grigori later taunts a captured Elise by slashing open the throat of a lunchlady who showed kindness towards Elise; when the lunchlady's teen sister was caught breaking in Grigori had her subjected to being raped before imprisoning her. Capturing two of the mercenaries, Kat and Mei-Lin, Grigori subjects them to Cold-Blooded Torture in a prison filled with his personal sex slaves, and when the mercenaries managed to free everyone Grigori grabs a minigun to gleefully massacre all his captives, even trying to force himself upon Kat when she relived him of his weapon.
to Pluto and Rago.
Okay, now a short while ago, Wet and Ravok went through the brilliant Sarah Jane Adventures and found a wealth of memorable candidates. However, having discussed it it was decided that the series might have at least one, and as I'm also a fan of the series Wet has very kindly let me propose this one.
"Eye of The Gorgon" involves Sarah, Luke, Clyde and Maria investigating a local retirement home where residents claim to have seen a ghostly nun, this however, leads them to discover the truth of a millennia-old myth and uncover a terrifying plot.
And at the centre of it all is our candidate, the titular Gorgon.
Who Is she:
The last survivor and apparent leader of three gorgons who first arrived on earth 3000 years ago, the first was slain by Perseus, whilst the second meanwhile died in 1950’s at the hands of Professor Edgar and Bea Nelson-Stanley in an incident that also lost them the Gorgon Talisman.
A parasitical species the gorgon managed to survive the millennia by possessing the bodies of a series of victims, drastically mutating them and enhancing their lifespans, then discarding them when their bodies wore out.
What Does She Do:
Two hundred years before the events of the episode the Gorgon possessed the abbesses of St Agnes Abbey, and mind controlled all the nuns into serving her. Using them, they endeavoured to bring about their plans of opening a portal to allow the entire Gorgon race to come to earth, where they would possess all of humanity.
However, without the Talisman they were unable to do so, so for decades they searched for Bea, finally finding her as an old woman suffering from Alzheimer’s at the retirement home. However, Bea had the lucidity to still hide the Talisman beforehand knowing how dangerous it was, so they resorted to bribing one of the caretakers Mrs Gibbs into watching her, hoping she would eventually show where she hid it.
During another moment of lucidity, knowing they were closing in, Bea entrusted the Talisman to Luke to keep it safe from the Gorgon. Enraged at Mrs Gibbs's failure when she reported this development, the Gorgon had her brought before her and then turned her to stone.
The process which involves it taking over an hour for it becomes permanent, with the victim still conscious and alive the whole time but utterly unable to do anything about it. The Gorgon had subjected an unknown number of people to this fate during their time on earth, to the point that simply out of their victims since they started to reside at the Abbey, they had already amassed an entire garden full of “trophies.”
Dispatching the nuns, the Gorgon had them kidnap Luke and attempts to force Sarah into giving them the Talisman, and when Sarah threatens to destroy it unless they release him and Clyde, the Gorgon attempts to turn her to stone, only for Maria’s father Allen to walk in at the wrong moment and get petrified.
In the confusion, the Nun’s steals back the Talisman and escapes. As the Gorgon’s latest host is nearly used up, they quickly work to open the portal. Sarah breaks back into the Abby but is captured by the Nuns. Needing a new body, the Gorgon decides to make Sarah their new host.
Thus, on the verge of victory, the Gorgon begins to transfer its essence out of the Abbess into Sarah. However, Maria barges in at the last minute having learned from Bea that the Gorgon has a weakness to mirrors. Holding one up in their face reflects their own petrification straight back at the Gorgon, transforming them into a statue.
The effect of this shatters their control of the nuns and they're able to close the portal right before the other gorgons arrive.
Any Freudian Excuse or Redeeming Traits:
Nothing given. Even when discussing the other Gorgons, they don’t express anything that could be taken as missing them, treating their deaths in an utterly matter-of-fact manner.
Now being completely fair the Gorgon can’t speak only hiss, and being confined in a dying barely alive body is overall limited in what it can physically do. However, we get a good insight into its mindset from its mind-controlled nuns, and from its little reactions, it's clear it is a sadistic and cruel beast.
Heinous Standard:
Now this is the issue. As it has already been made clear the series does have a pretty high heinous standard, and it does touch upon niches that others have already covered.
However, what pushes the Gorgon over the line is that it subjects its victims to an utterly nightmarish And I Must Scream demise (and heavily implied to do so to any poor souls at the slightest provocation), and the fact its overall plan is condemning all of humanity to horrific puppeteer fate.
It doesn’t hurt there is only one other Puppeteer Parasite in the entire series, and their method is both non-fatal and non-permanent.
Conclusion:
An utterly nightmarish beast, both in appearance and habit, I feel the Gorgon just crosses the line to stand out for this series.
Still, what do you think?
Edited by MGD107 on Feb 4th 2024 at 6:09:55 AM
Goku Black
gorgon
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Pluto and Rago.
Also big yes to the Gorgon, great work there bud!
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
for Mr. Fox, Pluto, Rago and the Gorgon.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Gorgon
Pluto and Rago
Patrick Napier. Because the high bodycount—all of them children—for a normal human with no ties to cults
Said this, I'm personally torn regarding Thomas, because...
Like I said before, abusive parents and parental figures are nothing new to Silent Hill—Dahlia Gillespie burned her daughter alive; Leonard Wolf forcibly indoctrinated his daughter into a cult; the founders of the Wish House Orphanage owned a a prison for the sole purpose of torturing children; the leaders of Sheperd's Glen sacrificed their children, etc... It's clear that Would Hurt a Child is definitely the norm in this franchise, but an incestuous Serial Rapist? That's extreme even for Silent Hill
Let's be honest. Mentioning all of those things actually makes Thomas look less bad in comparison. Now, I still agree he keeps because he is a complete normal human in a game that narratively distances itself from everything related to the Cult Myth Arc. But seriously, putting your daughter into A Fate Worse Than Death to kickstart the apocalypse or massive ritualistic child torture and sacrifice is so bad that I can't say that sexual abuse is exactly worse than that.
Thomas's argument for a Keep is because his lack of resources and existing in a game that actively avoids the Order Myth Arc (the Order itself just massively amps the Heinous Standard), which I understand.
But also, if we put all games under the same HS, then honestly Thomas get outheinoused by Patrick, who is a Serial Rapist that kills his (multiple) victims.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Feb 4th 2024 at 10:54:01 AM
Watch me destroying my country
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
to Napier... blegh... and also to Mr. Fox.
"Us weirdos have to stick together!"