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 Emperor of Evil!
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Joe and Film!Father (forgot to vote on him ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
)
Edited by Powermaster201 on Jan 17th 2023 at 10:12:03 AM
Lies and Violence!
Last for Twig.
Who is the Infante?
A ginormous Fat Bastard and the highest-ranking noble to take up the residence in America the Crown States—somewhere around the tenth or sixth in line to the throne—the Infante is referred to as "The Judge." It is his job to evaluate troublesome territories of the Crown and determine whether or not they are worth the trouble of reining back under control; if the costs outweigh the benefits, then the Infante evacuates everyone of value and condemns the land to complete and utter genocide, wiping out everything so that the Crown is free to repopulate with loyalists when the land recovers in about a century.
After a few minor appearances throughout the serial that set him up as A Big Deal, the Infante begins preparing to bring judgement on the Crown States when rebellion and plague start consuming the continent. To do this, he has his forces cultivate and direct the spread of the plague to wipe out entire cities, while releasing humanoid monsters called "Tender Mercies" to hunt down any survivors and keep things in order until the Crown can return centuries later. Because the Crown is still ostensibly supposed to be helping out its citizens, he also approves of the use of "Black Wood," a cancerous growth of charcoal-like wood that continuously expands and turns vegetation into dust, as a quarantine around plague sites. This, of course, makes things even worse by plunging quarantined areas into a nuclear winter, but the Infante quickly abandons efforts to stop the Black Wood from entering inhabited areas once they near the deadline to leave. He also gets infected by the plague himself, but he's a bit of a Humanoid Abomination and his bioengineered body allows him to keep it under control.
Skipping over some stuff to the climax, the Lambs are intent on taking over the States themselves and are marching on the Academy at the city of Radham, using an army of the remaining Crown forces who have been duped into thinking Radham has turned traitor. The Infante goes to confront them—as well as their ally, the Duke of Francis, who he orders to march to his death on threat of sending everyone he and his personal doctors love to be worked to death in the Crown's pits back in England. Furthermore, he personally infects the duped army with the plague after getting them back under control; unwittingly or not, they still betrayed the Crown, and so they must suffer.
Fighting ensues, with the Infante personally cutting a bloody path through the city in pursuit of his enemies. The Lambs manage to convince his personal doctors that he's become too insane with bloodlust to be worth keeping alive and get them to turn on him, while Sy humiliates him in front of his forces by carving "TITS" into the back of his head, breaking the illusion of unflappable invincibility surrounding the Crown. With his troops either recognizing he's gone too far or too confused to bother helping, the Infante is ultimately killed when one of the Lambs, Helen... *checks notes* climbs into his mouth and forcibly twists his head 360 degrees. Hm.
Any mitigating features?
Now, the story makes a big deal about how the Crown is not the true ruler of the empire; the Academies, the institutions of science and innovation that produce the Bio Punk technology this world runs on and create the nobles that serve as the empire's figureheads, are the true masters. The nobles have more power than any individual professor, of course, but not even the Lord King can do away with the genocidal, child trafficking practices they've engraved into his society. As the Infante puts it himself:
Men in black coats bowed and scraped before him, and obsequiously they addressed him with honorifics and careful mind to his tastes. But at the end of the day, when all else was said and done, the Academy ruled.
A farce, really. It was a farce he entertained and played a supporting role in, but a farce nonetheless. Maddening.
That said, while the Infante chafes under their influence, he has absolutely no issue in supporting the destructive aspects of this farce. His personal professors still "steer" him, of course, but he has a lot of pull and control over conducting the genocide. In fact, when the sheer chaos surrounding the States gives him more freedom to do what he wants, he starts going insane in his efforts to present the Crown as the ones on top; infecting the armies with plague is entirely his own decision that even his professors are horrified by, and it's implied that after the war was wrapped up he intended to bring the plague with him back to England to see everything burn. A cog he may be, but he's nonetheless a nasty cog who does whatever he can to make the situation worse to feed his ego.
As for any redeeming qualities, he has a "son," Augustus, who he's nominally polite and appreciative towards, but from what little we see of their relationship it's only in terms of his ability to kill things. He drops out of the story after a while, so we never get to see if there's any real affection between them.
Killer Joe...yep, saw it, and maybe the only time I've ever seen a candidate use KFC as a tool of assault. Creepy, creepy performance.
Nicely done, too, Emerald!
I'm thinking next I'll do Singularity, then Ishmael, then Melmont, and the God of War folks. Cabinet of Curiosities will follow that. By this time next week, my new release backlog'll be cleared.
Edited by Lightysnake on Jan 17th 2023 at 7:14:39 AM
Man in the Yellow Hat
@ACW: Yeah, that's Laurel's problem, in addition to the fact her words and what we see of them implies the rest of her family is just as awful, with Crackstone standing out because he started the whole thing in my eyes.
Anyway, Crackstone easily counts in my eyes-he burned dozens of people, started the Gates family, and tried to burn down the entire school. He did marry judging by his wedding ring, but given how he treats women and its all we see, its 'most certainly not mitigating.
He/Him
Wait. The 24 hour rule apply to every candidate from now on or was it only just the first 24 hours?
Also, no keepers in She-Hulk by the way.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jan 17th 2023 at 7:19:00 AM
Goku Black
Uh Sinister? Blanket votes like this are not allowed. We were having issues in the past with them as it made tracking candidates impossible.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yeah, the villain is nowhere near close to being as heinous as most Marvel villains.
Goku Black
Anyway next group,
Voight, Trevor, Friederichs, and Kano.
Professor Gigachad
Catching up on voting on what I can.
Dr. Ziggurat, The End, Rafal, Herod, Boniface de Montferrat, Father, Roland Voight.
Also there are other ones available to upvote now.
Kano, Friedrichs, The Third Reich duo, Chameleon and Frank
Edited by Ordeaux26 on Jan 17th 2023 at 7:31:47 AM
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Showtime!
to Kano, Freidrich, the Bloodrayne guys, Chameleon and Frank
Yes to Kanos, Frieddy, and the Bloodrayne guys. Lordy, Uwe Boll has his share of CM's.
And yes to Chameleon.
Edited by Lightysnake on Jan 17th 2023 at 7:34:51 AM
Bye
Dr. Ziggurat, The End, Kano, Friedrichs, Frank, Brand and Mangler, Chameleon
The Ultimate Lifeform
To Zig, Voight, The End, Father, Boniface, and Herod.
Goku Black
Uwe Bowle Nazi Bloodrayne duo, Ziggurat, The End and Chameleon
The Ultimate Lifeform
Does anyone know what the current tally for 's for each candidate is right now? Not trying to be pushy I just figured that would be a good thing to keep track of. @ACW, since you made the list of voting dates do you have any input?
Professor Gigachad
It probably won't be needed to keep track for most of them since most are just getting a bunch of unanimous upvotes. There are cases where it will be needed though.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Goku Black
Anyone else want to comment on Mixter? I know Silver brought up a heinous standard concern.
Edited by miraculous on Jan 17th 2023 at 7:47:00 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Not the Eye
Hm I think making sure that chucky becomes rummorseless killer, plus helping with Dolls plan is just enought
Yes to Kano, bloodrayne duo, Frank, Friedrichs and chameleon.
Edited by EmperorGeode on Jan 17th 2023 at 7:53:06 AM
Yes to Bloodrayne duo and Kano
Mixter's a tough case. It's borderline because Chucky and Tiffany are such an enormous bar to themselves
Goku Black
Yeah but the issue is Chucky has had tons of chances across this film series and tv series to at least try and have something positive. And he's always subverted it on his own because hes just a psychopat. I dunno like can we really say she's responsible for everything he does when he's chosen several times of his own free will to do this?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Kano and the Bloodrayne movie 3 duo (Truthfully, I was curious to why the third movie villains weren't discussed, though I guess that can attest to the Uwe Boll films being INCREDIBLY terrible, seriously that last fight was the ultimate example of a Anti-Climax Boss).
Lies and Violence!
Yes to the Bloodrayne ones, Chameleon, Frank, and Friedstein.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'll update the list when I get home, but yes to Kano, Friedrichs, Blood Rayne duo, Chameleon, Frank, Jackie's.
EDIT: Joe seems like he BARELY scrapes by, quality over quantity.
Infante seems like a pure Psycho for Hire.
Edited by ACW on Jan 17th 2023 at 11:08:35 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
What's the work?
Killer Joe is a Black Comedy crime movie by William Friedkin based on a play of the same name. With a minimalist cast, we are told of the titular Rabid Cop who moonlights as a hitman. Called in to assist with drug dealer Chris Smith and his father Ansel's plot to kill Chris' mom/Ansel's ex for her insurance policy, the psychopath quickly proves that Evil Is Not a Toy.
Who is Joe? What has he done?
Played chillingly by Matthew McConaughey, Detective Cooper is an officer known by Chris to casually commit murder for the right price. A handsome, eerily quiet man, Joe meets with Chris and Ansel and refuses their job when they reveal they lack the funds to pay him in advance, before casually commenting he wouldn't mind being "given" Chris' sister Dottie as a "retainer".
After Chris reluctantly agrees to let Dottie on a "date", Joe arrives at the house and quickly goes full creep, forcing Dottie to undress in front of him. In a very uncomfortable setting, he has her imagine herself as a 12-year-old while he makes her roleplay his sexual whims before having sex with her.
Scared for his sister and realizing he's in over his head, Chris asks Joe to leave, only for Joe to reveal he's already killed Chris' mother and has Chris help him dispose of the body. Unfortunately, the next day Chris discovers he'd been set up by his mother's boyfriend Rex, the real beneficiary to her policy who'd also told him about Killer Joe to set Chris up.
Arresting Rex, Joe discovers his affair with Ansel's current girlfriend Sharla and reveals this to Ansel at dinner, choking Sharla into submission as he terrifies the couple. Implying he murdered Rex after taking him in, Joe starts beating and sexually assaulting Sharla with a chicken drumstick in front of her now apathetic husband, threatening to skin her face and wear it if she doesn't let him have his way with her. Knowing Chris means to return and take Dottie, Joe threatens Ansel and Sharla to help him stop Chris lest he murder them all.
When Chris returns home, Joe forces Ansel and Sharla to stage a family dinner and announces his plans to marry Dottie, intending to leave with her right after the meal. Chris tries to stop him, resulting in Joe trying to beat him to death with Ansel and Sharla's assistance. A distressed Dottie grabs Chris' loose gun, killing Chris, wounding Ansel and training it on Joe before saying she's pregnant, her finger hovering over the trigger as the film ends with an overjoyed Joe approaching her.
Heinousness?
Minimalist as the setting is Joe's still an infamous hitman, even if his exact bodycount is never given, we do know he killed Chris' mom and her boyfriend Rex and threatens to kill the family of four if they try to help Chris stop him from taking Dottie. Besides he's a ruthless sociopath abusing power dynamics to have sex with the mentally ill and impressionable Dottie and later viciously rapes Sharla while sickly enjoying making Ansel watch.
Mitigating factors?
Joe is a bizarre human being, the only time he really shows happiness is at the end when Dottie announces her pregnancy. That being said, he's characterized as a controlling monster who threatens and kills anyone who gets in his way, Dottie is just someone he thinks would make a submissive partner easy to control.
He has some strange Family-Values Villain traits in insisting the table be set up for a grace after brutalizing Sharla and his initial seduction of Dottie is just plain creepy, forcing her to undress in front of him before making her almost mechanically have sex with him. His rape scene with Sharla has him seeming to achieve ejaculation by stimulating oral sex after savagely beating her. I can't see this as anything but another step towards Joe getting a mentally broken mistress for him to lord over.
Verdict?
Nice creepy keeper and great performance!