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
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Found it. I think Ravok's a yes to the Professor; count me as a weak yes.
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
thank you, I will also switch to a yes. Current tally.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
: Geode, Clean, Gryphon, moctezuma, MGD, Ravok, ACW, Larry, jlvs, (9)
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
: Jackie, Passing, Tyk, Grey, Scraggle(5)
Abstain: turtles, (2)
Edited by LarryT on Apr 3rd 2024 at 12:23:07 PM
In honor of Akira Toriyama
Jogo
Lark and I think I'll switch to a slight on the Professor due to the major continuity errors within the movie and the fact that we've kept the EMH version of Loki due to said continuity errors within another movie giving us enough precident to treat the films as a separate continuity.
Abstain on MagicGum
"Stand proud, Sukuna, you are strong." | He/Him
A coupla mammals makin' gravy
I'm saying no to the Professor. Honestly, even without it being a Shared Universe, I don't think the Professor clears baseline. I think it's reasonable to expect that a supervillain will rack up some civilian collateral in a Darker and Edgier PG-13 superhero movie, and "civilian collateral" seems to be literally the only thing pushing the Professor.
Yost-verse or not, I don't think any of that is exceptional for the usual standards of Marvel's darker DTV animated films.
- Danger Girl Dossier: Ripper started off as a particularly sadistic enforcer of the Maelstrom with a noted history of torture and murder, before Warlock promoted him and gave him control over the Maelstrom's scavvers. Ripper began subjecting scavvers to excruciating "tests" so he could weed out the strongest and promote them to proper members of the Maelstrom; only one in twenty on average survive these "tests," and invariably come out both physically and psychologically maimed because of Ripper's sadism. In one exceptional moment of cruelty, Ripper forced a scavver to fish a knife out of molten aluminium with just his bare hands in order to prove his mettle. Completely untrustworthy and nursing ambitions that may one day lead him to stab Warlock in the back, Ripper is the cruelest member of a gang already reputed as Night City's worst.
- Tales from the RED's "Unreaping the Reaper": "The Reaper" is an A.I. downloaded from the Old Net that quickly begins killing and manipulating Netrunners for nothing but its own amusement. The Reaper begins by insidiously manipulating Netrunners to insanity and eventually suicide, leaving no less than seventeen bodies in its wake before it finds a new way to control its victims: hollowing them out from the inside-out and reducing them to empty meat puppets called "Biodrones." Turning dozens upon dozens of people into Biodrones and using them to kill even more people, the Reaper hopes to hijack an old radio tower and broadcast itself into the minds of anyone and everyone for miles, allowing it to wreak chaos and destruction to its heart's content.
Edited by Starkrafty on Apr 3rd 2024 at 1:27:22 PM
Now we're cookin'! While nobody's lookin'! We're family! Culinarily!
So here's some Final Fantasy Write Ups. I will put them on the Clean Up Thread as well, then the drafts:
- Final Fantasy VII Remake and Final Fantasy VII Rebirth
- Professor Hojo is as despicable and cruel a Mad Scientist as in the Original Continuity, if not more so. Responsible for countless human experiments, including the SOLDIER program whose members eventually degrade into Sephiroth's puppets, Hojo pushed Aerith's mother, Ifalna, to such an extent that the last Cetra died after escaping his lab. Undeterred, Hojo had her body recovered and dissected, rubbing this in Aerith's face years later when he captured her again, as well as suggesting his plan to forcefully breed her with SOLDIER members. Happily allowing Sephiroth to kill Shinra personnel and take Jenova's dormant body without interfering, Hojo would personally bring monsters to Costa Del Sol to merge with the Black Cloaks, endangering the whole town and once again trying to kidnap Aerith along with the rest of the party; insinuating he intended to have Tifa impregnated. He is also shown to have painfully branded Red XIII, fully knowing he is a sapient and sentient being. Determined to demonstrate to the world his genius, Hojo remains the franchise's gold standard for heartless scientists.
- President Shinra is the leader of Midgar and the President of Shinra Electric Power Company, which powers Midgar with the Mako Energy from the planet's Lifestream, with Shinra uncaring of what will happen to the planet if the energy runs out. When AVALANCHE fights back against Shinra, he has his men destroy Mako Reactors 1 and 5, endangering many lives while framing AVALANCHE for the crimes. In order to get rid of AVALANCHE for good, Shinra orders Sector 7 to be destroyed, resulting in the deaths of many innocent lives, while framing AVALANCHE and accusing them of being allies for Wutai in order to have a excuse to go to war with them. After Aerith is captured by the Turks, Shinra plans on using her to lead him to the "Promised Land," while also allowing Hojo's plan on having Aerith raped by SOLDIERS in order for her to reproduce to "mitigate the risks". Afterwards, he plans on abandoning Midgar and its people and then building a new Midgar in the "Promised Land" with unlimited Mako Energy for him to rule. After the party leave Midgar, they see the scars of war from Shinra's destruction of the Republic of Junon, with the company bulding the city of Junon over "Under Junon", blotting out their sunlight, and building the Undersea Reactor, poisoning their waters and fish. It is also revealed prior to his death that President Shinra was conspiring with "Glen Lodbrok" - in truth Sephiroth having stolen the late Glen's identity - to trigger a war with Wutai. A cruel and vile businessman who believes that truth, justice, honor, and freedom are "vain indulgences", President Shinra will gladly kill anyone in order to achieve his own personal desires.
- Don Corneo, the lord of Wall Market, is a ruthless Mafioso fully on board with Shinra's plan to bomb Sector 7 to oblivion with the promise of a new and improved Wall Market to reign over, and has no compunction calling himself a "villain". A sickening pervert, Corneo is known for claiming nightly brides, from willing and unwilling women alike, passing others to his men to be "enjoyed" by them. Once he is done, the women are fed to his monstrous pet Abzu, a pattern that continues for a very long time, with not even the loved ones of his own subordinates safe. Further, Corneo is a particularly cruel Loan Shark, targeting vulnerable individuals and giving out loans in exchange to shipping them off to be experimented on by Shinra.
Edited by PolarPhantom on Apr 3rd 2024 at 12:59:33 PM
Gentle Laborer
Linden Lark
Hill
Having discussed this... unique situation with a few of my fellow tropers, I got a GTA candidate of my own for us to discuss.
What is the work? Grand Theft Auto 2 is, as some of you know, the Oddball in the Series. Set in the Cyberpunk retrofuturistic Anywhere City, a crime-ridden hellhole where multiple groups—ranging from rednecks, the Yakuza, and The Mafiya to escaped mental patients, mad scientists, and a powerful MegaCorp known as the Zaibatsu Corporation—are trapped in turf wars, keeping the entire city in a constant state of chaos. The player takes control of a local thug who, according to the official website, was recently awakened from cryogenic sleep. Seemingly wanting to make as much money as possible, the Player Character begins working for all sides, always betraying them and moving on to the next.
We're not going to be exploring the actual game, but rather the official live-action adaptation that Rockstar made to promote the game, with the game's opening sequence being pieced together with scenes from that movie. The name "Claude Speed" actually comes from the movie, the player character is called many "names" and none of them are Claude Speed, but they are confirmed to be the same person. The movie, however, differs from the source material with its contradictions, including Claude's personality and fate. Let's discuss the Villain Protagonist himself.
Who is he?
- Claude Speed, here depicted as a complete psychopath with a clear history of Chronic Villainy instead of a mute hoodlum, is shown to be just as violent as his game counterpart. Working for rivaling gangs at the same time—the setting is meant to represent Anywhere City but looks nothing like it, just regular New York City in the late 90's—Claude is introduced running from the rednecks and assaulting a random man—who turns out to be an operative of the Zaibatsu Corporation—to steal his van. When Claude discovers boxes of drugs inside the van, he laughs with joy, seeing an opportunity to sell the drugs himself.
- After escaping from the police and almost making their car crash, Claude meets the local Russian mob boss and asks for his help in killing one of the rednecks—supposedly as payback for having tried to attack Claude earlier—Claude then gives a couple of drugs he stole from Zaibatusu to the boss to seal their deal. In a reckless act of celebration, Claude begins driving under the influence of drugs.
- Next, he meets the Yakuza boss and delivers the same drugs to him, leaving to complete another task as a man is seen getting tortured by a couple of Yakuza thugs. The Yakuza boss sends Claude on a mission to rescue a young man—presumably the boss's son or protégé—Claude finds the boy being held captive inside a van along with other people—all of them are in the process of becoming Hare Krishna, a gang of monks—Claude shoots the van owner thrice and spits on his corpse.
- In his most destructive act of villainy, it's revealed that all of Claude's exploits were part of a plan to provoke one big bloodbath. With the Russians having agreed to help Claude settle his score with the rednecks, Claude drives them to the club where the rednecks and Yakuza members are celebrating the rescue—The Russians open fire against everyone inside and their rivals shoot back at them, leading to a complete massacre... And Claude walking away from the scene, with a smile on his face.
- Still not satisfied with all of the chaos he has created, Claude decides to break more laws, quickly going back to crime despite having just discarded those that could have posed a threat to him... Except he's found by one of the Zaibatsu sleeper agents—as revenge for stealing their van, the corporation activated an assassin to eliminate him—Claude tries to break into a car and, while he's distracted, the assassin ironically shoots Claude thrice in the back. A man so addicted to crime that he dies in the middle of committing a crime.
Mitigating Factors? Game!Claude is bad but lacks the personality to count. This Claude is an aggressive, sadistic thug who takes pride in being an irredeemable jerk, no issue here.
Heinous? This evidently being a non-canon adaptation of the game, we luckly don't need to take the heinous standard of the entire 2D universe into account. The movie excludes some of the worst crimes of the OG Claude—like burning gang members alive with a flamethrower and kidnapping people to turn them into hot dogs—but he's still got the most important aspect of Claude, using gangs for his own plans and organizing conflict to get ahead in the criminal underworld.
Conclusion? to our first GTA protagonist!
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Apr 3rd 2024 at 7:16:47 AM
Well. That is certainly a unique situation - yes to Claude.
Sure to Claude
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Ultimate Moral Compass
Claude
Huh. for Claude Speed.
Caesar
Yes to Claude, great find!
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
The Ultimate Lifeform
Not the Eye
Unsure on this Claude. Most of his crimes in the short is mostly killing other thugs, and the short itself is hard to follow — it doesn't have any dialogue or anything, just having a score playing throughout; I can't even say for sure that the massacre was something Claude even set up or just something that sprang out because "plot". We don't get any insight on Claude's plans or motivations.
Speaking of, Rockstar has said that Claude (the game version at least) is meant to be purposefully vague for the player to project onto. Since the film was meant to be a preview/introduction for the game — wherin Claude awakes from a coma — it seems like the could apply to Film!Claude.
Edited by Beast on Apr 3rd 2024 at 1:31:09 AM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Gentle Laborer
The film is... really not hard to follow, it's a sequence of events that begin with Claude messing with Zaibatsu and ends with Claude getting killed by them. It's made clear that the massacre was Claude's intention all along, his smile says it all—he gave the Russians a target and then used the rescue of the Yakuza boy to get them all in the same place. Game!Claude and Movie!Claude are too radically different from each other—only one of them is shown to speak—OG Claude lacking personality is the exact reason why I didn't propose that particular version. Also, the written previews specifically state that OG Claude was in "enforced cryogenic sleep" (as in a form of prison) before the events of the game, not a medical coma.
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Apr 3rd 2024 at 12:26:57 PM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Eh, sure to this Claude, but only if it is in fact non-canon.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Claude. I think we need a GTA Page at this point since this makes 8 if I remember correctly.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Wow, that is a bit more than I was thinking.
Edited by Michealthehero21 on Apr 3rd 2024 at 2:13:27 AM
9.
Claude.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Pending:
- Carl Reissman (Atlantis)
- The Night in Question: Ashley Henderson (Bozzy)
- Sound of Freedom (Ghal-Sur):
- Death in Paradise:
- Stanley Drake (WRITTEN UP)
- Garfield Tourné (MGD109)
- Stanley Drake
- The Lord of the Rings Online: Karazgar (NTG)
- Hank (Passing)
- Devereaux (Ravok)
- Caine (Splonk)
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Wow, i didn’t even think of this version.
Yes to Film!Claude Speed. And this is our only Villain Protagonist candidate from a GTA property or even rockstar game
x 7. Also I’m pretty sure Rockstar referred that specifically to Claude from the third game as that ws when Grand Theft Auto really embraced their story mod mission aspects
Edited by MermaidEyes15 on Apr 3rd 2024 at 5:34:07 AM
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
....Phenomenal
for Lark and Claude.
Abstaining on MagicGum.
There remains a foothold out of this mire — now climb.
Abstain on Magic Gun
Edited by EmperorGeode on Apr 3rd 2024 at 11:27:32 AM