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
After thinking for a while, I'll give a weak yes to Barry. Even with the presence of other villains who inflict horrific violence on their victims, Barry still seems quite unique and terrifying in his own right. Very good work MGD 107.
Edited by Ghal-Sur on Apr 11th 2024 at 9:37:40 AM
Gentle Laborer
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Barry
@ACW Good question. "Follow Your Instinct" is the name of one of their songs, but at the same time we're talking about an ARG. I guess "Web Serial Novels" is the best option.
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Apr 11th 2024 at 2:06:41 PM
Write-up for Karazgar is done. As for where to put him: Most of his apperances are during the Black Book of Mordor storyline. He does, however, also appear in a bunch of flashbacks during the next story (The Legacy of Durin and the Trials of the Dwarves). So I guess below Shelob?
- Karazgar the Weeping Warrior is the self-proclaimed greatest of Sauron's Gúrzyul. In the past he gained the trust of Fram, the ruler of the Éothéod, and performed a ritual on him, that made him distrustfully of his dwarven allies. When Fram became aware of Karazgar's manipulation and confronted him, Karazgar was awaiting him next to a group of dwarves he had killed and then murdered Fram as well to make it look like they had killed each other. Karazgar was also responsible for tricking the dragon Smaug into attacking Erebor and killing many dwarves when placed the heads of five dragon whelps with dwarven axes stuck in their heads next to his lair. After Sauron's demise he again manipulated a group of dragons into attacking Erebor and when the dragons lost, subdued their injured leader to gain control of his army. He then met with a dwarven expedition sent into the Grey Mountains to proclaim his rule over the North and told the dwarves that they could either leave Erebor and the Iron Hills or would be destroyed . When the dwarves refused, he had the expedition camp attacked by his dragons, killing most of them and only called his army back because he had promissed them to return two more times. Even after he lost control of the dragons and was severely wounded he proved to be a formidable foe, when he attacked the expedition camp alone and killed over a dozen more dwarves before the Wizard Gandalf stepped in and managed to chase him away.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
So like this?
Please add to the Drafts.
Edited by ACW on Apr 11th 2024 at 1:47:50 PM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Since he appeared in two story lines and will most likely return at some point in the future I think it's best if we just add him without any mention of his appearances. Kinda like we already did with the other recurring villains (Sauron, Saruman, Shelob).
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Fair enough.
EDIT: Pending:
- Carl Reissman (Atlantis)
- Cyberpunk: Brightman (Jackie)
- Linden Lark (Orangutans)
- Palpatine (Powermaster)
- Black Phillip (Ravok)
- Ivo Shandor (Ravok)
- Gaunt (Ravok)
Edited by ACW on Apr 11th 2024 at 3:34:21 PM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Ultimate Moral Compass
I have another Cyberpunk candidate planned, but it's taking me a while to get to it, hence why it's been taking forever for me to post my Brightman writeup.
So I'll just post him now to make up for the wait.
- Joshua Brightman is a former electronic store manager who moonlights as "The Night City Stalker". With a fondness for "spooking" his victims before murdering them, Brightman racked up 32 kills before his arrest for kidnapping and attempted murder. Released from prison 17 years later, Brightman resumes his murder spree, racking up more kills as he attempts to eliminate the fixer Carole Medina before she can reveal to the public his true identity as the Stalker.
....Phenomenal
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
for Jack.
Leaning for Barry.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
So should I not create the page yet?
Frolaytia X Qwenthur of Heavy Object
Flint
Goku Black
Next up from NYPD blue.
This one comes from dead meat in the new Deli. And is bad guy of the b plot. Pretty short one.
Who is Hector Santos?
- A pimp who runs a prostitution ring. Hector purchased a teenage Louise Lopez from a coyote.
- He than forced her into prostitution for years. Keeping her addicted to drugs and beating her into compliance. He keeps her in line and the rest of his girls by threatening to kill their families.
- Anyway Lopez's brother comes to the us and NYPD and try and save her as Hector's errand boy /main lackey is conning him into thinking (I could do him too if people want for the con job but uh not sure) he'll give his sister back if he pays him. We'll planning no such thing. He's arrested and Lopez is free.
- After the cops threaten to pin it all on him. He turns on Hector and testifies against hom. It's revealed Hector has actually done this multiple times to at least five other women.
Mitigating factors?
Nah.
Heinous standard?
Sex slavery is pretty uncommon for this show. The only case Rosa is someone Overlord will do. But yeah easy Pass. Forced prostitution off several girls and keeping them in line by threat hing there families.
Conclusion?
Easy pass
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Jogo
Jack and Hector
Not the Eye
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Seems like an easy enough yes.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
to Hector.
Ultimate Moral Compass
Hector
pronounced 'Scraggle'
Yes to Hector.
Having finally seeing Poor Things, there's a character I want to discuss. This character was proposed back in December and voted down, but the briefness of the discussion and the EP itself (which missed some details I think are crucial to litigating) means I think he deserves a more thorough discussion before he's put to rest.
To quickly recap the setting, the main character is Bella Baxter, a woman created Frankenstein-style from the body of a dead pregnant woman in a strange Science Fantasy alternate history of Earth. Victoria goes on a fantastical journey to find herself...but the identity of the dead woman whose body she was brought back in, Victoria, has a ghost from her past who comes to haunt Bella...
What has General Alfie Blessington done?
- Alfie Blessingnton is a Sociopathic Soldier and the husband of Victoria Blessington—Victoria being the identity of Bella Baxter's previous life. Alfie only debuts in the last quarter of the film, and his presence is only foreshadowed in the unanswered question of why Victoria chose to commit suicide with her unborn baby, but Alfie's introduction to the movie quickly clears up those questions.
- A total sadist with a suggested history of torturing amnesiac soldiers in his employment to get them back on the field, we get to see shades of Alfie's true character in how he treats his household servants—that is to say, reprehensibly. In one instance, he scares a maid whose arm he's broken into spilling hot soup over herself for a cheap laugh, and shortly after he threatens to shoot one of his manservants in the face for improperly preparing a meal. Alfie abuses his servants regularly enough to the point most have been cowed into terrified into meek silence, although he casually suggests "he fears an uprising!" in response to how much he abuses them.
- Moreover, though, Bella quickly deduces the reason Victoria killed herself. Alfie is a grotesquely abusive husband who regards Bella as nothing but "territory" for him to take and do with as he will. Disgusted that Bella has prostituted herself for a living, Alfie tells her his plans for her. He's going to keep her prisoner, cut out her clitoris to kill her libido, and then rape her as many times as he needs to in order to impregnate her with a son. He coldly states that should she ever try to escape, he'll shoot her in the head—"the back, as to be sure you were leaving and I was not being rash."
- Unfortunately (for him!) Bella splashes him in the face with his own chloroform/gin combo, and in the resultant struggle Alfie accidentally shoots himself in the foot. Unwilling to let him bleed to death but acknowledging that even if she saves his life, Alfie will never change, Bella saves his life…and then swaps out his brain with a goat's so she and her new husband and wife can keep him as a pet out in the backyard. Couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.
- Absolutely nothing. Alfie indicates he married Victoria out of a shared love of cruelty (more on that below) at best, and when he locates "Victoria" again, he demonstrates he has no regard for her as a person or anything except a method of continuing his legacy.
- Alfie is, bar none, the worst character in the movie. To wit:
- Godwin "God" Baxter, the Mad Doctor who created Bella in the first place, has a…curious sense of morality. He keeps Bella uninformed about her situation for a long time and tries to keep her as a sort of prisoner, and when Bella eventually leaves, he brings another dead woman back to life so he can attempt to replicate the experiment. That said (despite all his Exact Words) Godwin undeniably values moral agency and the ability for humans to govern their own lives. When Bella demonstrates she's more than just a mindless experiment, Godwin lets her go because he believes it would be wrong to infringe on her autonomy (and likewise, it's strongly implied that his second experiment will eventually develop self-awareness too). Bella forgives him in the end and he dies in peace.
- Madame Swiney is a Miss Kitty who runs a brothel. Although she's a Mean Boss (she's seen ordering one of her charges to sleep with a man without pay in one instance), like Godwin, to dismiss her as "evil" would be overly simplistic. Swiney's prostitutes are never portrayed as unwilling (the movie even mocks this notion; when Bella is insulted over being a prostitute, she casually shouts back "we are our own means of production!") and Swiney even serves as something of a Trickster Mentor to Bella, helping to round out her worldview and helping Bella to mature her own sense of sexuality and bodily autonomy.
- Duncan Wedderburn is a jerk, an attempted murderer, and the one who ultimately reintroduces Alfie back into Victoria's life out of spite, but he's also a pathetic, impotent loser whose "crimes" are always Played for Laughs.
- Alfie Blessington is the only character in the movie portrayed as Evil with a capital E, with no other dimensions to him beyond his love of cruelty for its own sake, his utter misogyny and disregard for any sense of bodily autonomy (easily one of the film's most important themes) and to show an example of a truly unchangeable character in an otherwise morally rounded cast. By the film's relative standard, he stands out.
- Now, I do want to talk about if he's heinous enough in general, which the original EP wasn't convincing of (mostly on account of some missing information). In brass tacks his rapsheet amounts to:
- abusing and tormenting his servants regularly, to the point of breaking their arms and threatening to kill them for no reason whatsoever
- he plans to sexually mutilate Bella by ripping out her clitoris and use her as a breeding slave until she gives him an heir, and threatens to blow out her brains if she resists him—the original EP didn't even mention his attempt at the Marital Rape License, which IMO is the thing that takes him over
- it's strongly implied that Alfie played at least some part in driving Victoria, with their pregnant child, to suicide
- The last bit is what I mostly want to talk about. Victoria wasn't, or at least was strongly implied not to be, just an innocent victim. Alfie remarks that Victoria killed herself because of the baby, not him, and that she was also a cruel sadist who tormented the servants, and the official screenplay supports this a bit when Bella asks one of the servants if Victoria was nice to them; the servant only laughs in response (this doesn't make it into the final movie, but FWIW). While Alfie is a slimy bastard, he doesn't seem especially motivated to lie about Victoria's moral character.
- That said, even if Victoria was evil herself, the absolute worst interpretation is that she was A Lighter Shade of Black than Alfie. And there's enough in-universe evidence pointing to the contrary that Bella herself deduces, in-universe, that Alfie is an Unreliable Narrator and Victoria killed herself because of him and his cruelty.
- It hinges a lot on Alternative Character Interpretation, but the film itself seems happy to imply Alfie was responsible to at least some degree for Victoria's suicide, and even totally ignoring that, Alfie is still a cruel sadist who maims his own servants for giggles and tries to mutilate and rape a woman so he can sexually dominate her. I think, considering the low in-universe heinous standard and the sheer grossness of his extant crimes, that he probably passes muster, but what say we?
Edited by Starkrafty on Apr 11th 2024 at 4:15:16 AM
Watch for the sign of the Saint — he will be back!
Not the Eye
General Alfie
Goku Black
Alfie
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I...think yes to Alfie, JUST enough.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
for Hector Santos and General Blessington.
....Phenomenal
for Hector and Alfie.
Alfie, Hector
Sorry to bring this up yet again, but following the latest vote tally for Barry Flint
they have:
Seven![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
votes (Sky, Tyk, Austin, Larry, Vengeful, Turles and Mir).
Four![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]")
votes (Passing, Jackie, Dood and Agent)
And two abstains (ACW and Emperor).
As that still leaves them in limbo are their any last votes either way, so that we can put this matter to bed?