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
I'm gonna abstain, because while what he does with Lee is bad (and the Kick the Dog to the doctor), only having 5 victims when there's keepers like Weston, Wade, Lane, Turner and Cross, Flannery and Kahari, Bell, Crowley...hell, you said the same season had one with double the body count.
I'm actually leaning no.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Not the Eye
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Calvin withous Hobbes
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Well, there is also thing with the drones
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
That's true, but I'm still unsure.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
King of the Koopas
So Archie Eggman is never gonna count due to that goddamn care for mecha I can’t counter argue against it so someone has to find a CM incarnation of Eggman from a Fan Work to replace him but I think I managed to find one that might be worth a shot.
Whats the Work?
What If Sonic Lost His Memory? is a Sonic the Hedgehog What If? Web Video by The Sega Scourge as part of his Sonic: What If? series of videos and the only one to be completed thus far
The playlist is here
This What If? is a Role Swap Plot where sonic is the one who falls to earth instead of shadow.
But much like shadow he survived but lost his memory.
Another notable thing about this story is that Silver the Hedgehog makes an Adaptational Early Appearance at the end of Sonic Heroes Ariving from a different Bad Future where an army of bio-Mechanical androids are responsible for said future instead of ibis devastated the world seeking out and wiping out all organic life for 2 centuries with only an handful of survivors left.
The one responsible for all this is a villainous egghead scientist who’s a bit more unsavory than usual.
Who is Dr. Eggman What has he done?
Having recovered the blue blur Eggman uses his research of Sonic while in his slumber to create the androids and exploit his amnesia to get him on his side.
Eggman manipulates sonic with a story that he created him as the first of his line but was different from the rest having free will being one of his greatest allies in the fight for freedom.
At that point Metal Sonic having survived the egg fleet’s destruction wants to be back at his creators side but is struck by eggman who tries to destroy him in order to earn sonics trust. With metal fleeing the scene and Eggman getting sonic on his side telling him that metal was made by tails to tear them apart.
When Shadow and Silver encounter Eggman Silver tries to warn him about the danger these androids posses but he doesn’t care he plans to restore Sonics memories after he tricks him into mowing down his friends in an attempt to break him to his lowest then after he restores them he’ll destroy the hedgehog.
The heros arrive at one of Eggmans Bunkers only to find out that the pods are empty and that Eggman has already moved the androids out on the world.
Eggman then fires a few missiles on the bunker splitting the ground in 2 trapping them allowing Eggman to release his hundreds of sonic android on to the unsuspecting world from his battleships.
Tails and the other heroes try to recover sonic as they battle the androids eggman taunts tails about haveing told Sonic about him tails snaps saying your lies are going to come back and haunt you.
Eggman brings out his Egg Dealer with the heros attacking but it they initiate Sonic Fever which Eggman has used to power up Sonic with chaos energy though it was originally for the androids Eggman repurposed it for the organic counterpart.
Before Sonic can finish the job the black arms show up and invade station square.
Eggman decides to go after their leader but sonic wants to go after shadow eggman grins and agrees know that he would want that.
Eventually Shadow manages to restore his memory leading Eggman to recall the androids to protect him and fall back but both hedgehogs destroy every single android left.
Eggman attempts to flee after his plans been foiled but shadows having none of it and attempts to kill him even as he begs for mercy but sonic stops him not wanting him to die even after everything he did to him so shadow decides to take him into custody on the black comet as a prisoner where he won’t hurt anyone on earth again averting the dystopian future.
Freudian Excuse or Redeeming Qualities?
Ok for one thing his care for his own creations is absent here as he discards Metal Sonic once he has the amnesiac Sonic on his side not to mention his worship for his grandfather Gerald robotnik at the canon finale isn’t brought up
Second thing he recovers sonic but it’s only because he wants to bring him to his lowest point by manipulating him into destroying his friends by making him think his friends are his enemies and he’s a good guy after that’s done then he’ll destroy the hedgehog.
And finally when Silver warns him about the possible damage the androids would unleash leading to the Dystopian future he comes from he shrugs it off and doesn’t care.
Heinous Standard?
all entrees in the sonic what if web video series take place in there own canon so the standard is its own.
Eggman sets it he recovers sonic to manipulate him into attacking his friends in an attempt to bring him to his lowest point before he brings back his memories and ends him creates an army sonic androids that wipe out all organic life in the Bad Future where Silver comes from thus Eggman is directly or indirectly responsible for the events of that Bad Future.
We even see a couple of glimpses of that future and it’s presented as awful as silver makes it sound.
He attacks metal sonic in an attempt to further manipulate the sonic.
Leads Sonics friends into a trap inside one of his bunkers then fires missiles onto said bunker.
Uses his egg dealer to give sonic a power up to destroy his friends effortlessly.
Final Verdict?
Your call.
Edited by Godwriter on May 14th 2024 at 10:54:14 AM
The Ultimate Incarnation of Evil
Abstain on Calvin for now to see what other people think
Sure to Eggman
Caesar
- Thundarr the Barbarian:
- Gemini is the only recurring villain that Thundarr ever faced. A tyrannical wizard subjugated a small civilization of humans, Gemini has enslaved the Groundlings under threat of death to terrorize the humans in his stead. In his quest to find the Black Pearl, Gemini takes Princess Ariel hostage and nearly destroys the humans with destructive flame. Though seemingly beaten, Gemini returns and lures Thundarr into a trap by trying to bury a train of people alive. Once he has captured Thundarr, Gemini reveals his plan to turn Thundarr into a statue and leave him trapped for all eternity.
- "Treasure of the Moks": Captain Kordon is "Queen of the River Pirates", who has made a dreaded name for herself by raiding villages and killing innocents. Seeking to claim the lost fortune of the Moks for her own, Kordon scavenges the ocean to find missiles that she dubs "fire lances" so that she can unleash them on the Mom civilization and slaughter them all, including the children. She attempts to feed Thundarr and his allies to a giant crab beast, and nearly kills the chief of the Moks for trying to warn his people of her incoming attack.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Eggman... assuming his care for Gerald isn't just not mentioned. Can we assume it not to be there?
Also, the Drafts are clear for now.
Edited by ACW on May 11th 2024 at 6:24:47 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
King of the Koopas
It’s definitely not there so yes we can assume because at no point does he mention his grandfather Gerald Robotnik once throughout the entire story.
Edited by Godwriter on May 11th 2024 at 3:35:12 AM
The Ultimate Incarnation of Evil
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Considering other events have changed, I'll allow it.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Not the Eye
Caesar
What's the work?
Strangled is a 2016 Hungarian crime thriller based on true events, of a serial killer running around during the height of the country's community party in the 1960s.... it's extremely similar to Citizen X in various ways, and a pretty solid flick with a nasty individual for our villain:
Who is Pal Bognar? What has he done?
- A seemingly meek shoe factory worker who has a wife and kid at home, Pal Bognar is actually the "Martfü Monster", based on real life killer Peter Kovacs.
- Bognar gets his start by stalking a co-worker and trying to engage in sex with her in the middle of a field—when he "fails to perform" and the woman laughed at him, Bognar responded by viciously attacking, raping and strangling her to death. Letting the victim's guilt-ridden, drunken boyfriend Reti Akos take the fall and be put on death row, Bognar lays low for awhile...and when he realizes he's not been caught yet, he decides to repeat the murder for sexual thrills.
- Bognar becomes a serial killer who attacks women alone at night on the road, offering them rides or just cornering them. He sexually assaults them, strangles them to death, then violates their corpses. In one case, Bognar knocks a woman unconscious, rapes her, then tries to leave her body on train tracks so she'll be bisected, the woman only narrowly escaping and winding up in a hospital; another instance sees Bognar chop off a woman's breasts and strangle her.
- In one case, Bognar attacks his own wife with a hammer while she's out in the city, but is chased off by nearby citizens before he can kill her. It's left ambiguous if Bognar knew it was his wife (she was wearing a wig at the time), but he later shows no remorse for the attack and even gets sexual thrills over her reliving the traumatic attack.
- Raping and murdering even a young teenage girl, Bognar is eventually found by the incompetent government and sentenced to die by hanging while Reti is freed. When confronted with all his crimes, Bognar reminisces over it all with a smile and smugly remarks that the detectives will never know nor understand why he committed his crimes.
Mitigating features?
None. While he has a family, he barely interacts with them and when he (either accidentally or on purpose) bludgeons his wife, his only concern is the spotlight it draws to him, while in private he gets enjoyment from her suffering.
Heinousness?
Attacks and sexually violates—varying before or after death—around half a dozen women, including a child, and while 2 of them live, the others are killed. And he does it while trying to let an innocent man take the fall and hang.
Final Verdict?
Keep
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Bognar
Not the Eye
Goku Black
bognar and Calvin.
Is there any way to ensure that I can cover an upcoming series even if there's no confirmed release date yet? I don't want to miss out on the opportunity given the different time zones, though I guess I should wait until we have confirmation
Yeeesh, Bognar
to Dr. Eggman and Pal Bognar.
Any more votes for Calvin? Only got two and two abstains so far.
I'll stress this is a guy who forces his eight year old son to help him to murder five people, out of narcissism and the desire to groom him into also becoming a serial killer, destroying his life.
Edited by MGD107 on May 11th 2024 at 4:49:43 AM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to Bognar.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
After thinking about it, I’ll give to Calvin
Calvin
Dunn, Eggman and Bognar
Thoughts on this quote?
Ultimate Moral Compass
he ain’t no Pal of mine Bognar
Vykos quote
Wow we've had a lot of candidates over the last four days. So feels like a good time for one of mine.
Now Silent Witness is a long-running forensic drama that we've spoken about before, which has produced a multitude of keepers in the past, and one that despite having just aired its twenty-seventh season is amazingly showing no signs of slowing down any time soon.
For the shows most recent, we actually have two possible candidates to discuss. My good pal Atlantis1930 will be handling the second at a later date, but let me start us off with our first.
The season premier “Effective Ranges” see’s the team arriving in an odd case when an infamous serial killer appears to come out of retirement after a twenty year lull. However, things are not what they seem.
Our candidate of course being said Serial Killer, I give you Calvin Dunn.
Who Is he:
On the surface, Dunn appears to merely be a smug, smarmy yet polite and charming software engineer and proficient outdoorsman, who presents himself as a loving father and family man. However, in secret Dunn was actually a major figure involved with the US military's drone projects for the Iraq War, designing the software behind multiple successful drone strikes and that is the least bad thing you can say about him and his secrets.
What Does he Do:
A narcissist with a god complex, his job and by extension ability to “reign fire from the skies” and “look down upon mere mortals” feeding into his egotism, Dunn began his killing spree in 2003 with no fixed victim type, abducting and murdering four victims, two men, and two women all of different ages and several with different ethic background. Scoping out his victims once he had one selected his MO was that he would either lure them in from or flat out ambush them late at night in isolated locations from behind, using a ligature to choke them into unconsciousness, and then imprison them in a cage, within a shack in Markham Woods. Keeping them bound to torment and brutalise until he was ready for them, Dunn would slowly choke them to death by tying and tightening wire around their neck.
Then he would dump the bodies in a church, setting it up by hanging a dozen or so dead ravens from a nearby tree on fishing wire, and leaving the body surrounded by candles, so it looked like they were kneeling in prayer at the altar. Defiling the holy place and turning it into a tribute to himself.
Even worse Dunn always brought his eight-year-old son Lee with him, raising the boy to revere him as a god, Dunn forced Lee to watch and participate in every step of his twisted practice even making him help tighten the knot that killed all the victims, all to ensure Dunn always had an alibi for each other murder and out of his desire to groom him into becoming a serial killer like him.
The police’s investigation into the murders led to Dunn being brought in for questioning four times, but each time they were unable to get anything that connected him to the murders. Dunn ensured he deliberately kept turned up on their radar just out of how much enjoyed manipulating them.
Doctor Charles Beck, the pathologist who was involved in the case, made several public appeals for help with the case. Unfortunately, this inspired Dunn to make Beck’s wife Zoe his next victim. After murdering her he deliberately hid her body within the Fordham Reservoir less than a mile from their home, even wrapping her body in the sail from Beck’s own boat (called the Zoe after her). Knowing it would torment him to be deprived of his wife yet have her so close by.
Less than a month later, Dunn was in the process of going after his sixth victim a young sex worker Dominic Johnson. Luring him into his car under the pretence of being a client, Dunn abducted and beat Johnson senseless. However, Dunn underestimated Beck, who knowing he was responsible had been following him.
Overpowering him when Dunn went to get some cord to bind Johnson, Beck kidnapped Dunn and imprisoned him within his cellar for the next twenty years. The effect of this eventually left Dunn irreparably insane. The Police managed to match Dunn’s DNA to the murders, but by this point, he had seemingly disappeared.
Unfortunately, the damage Dunn had done to Lee proved to be much, thus twenty years later unable to cope with the fact his father was still out there he first tampered with an OD victim to make it look like his father had returned and when they still failed to find him, attempting to kill himself making it look like he was yet another of Dunn’s victims.
Any Freudian Excuse or Redeeming Traits:
Not really. All we know of Dunn’s childhood is that his mother used to clean for the local church (and may have had an affair with the vicar). Dunn does have a family, but whilst presents himself as a loving family man, it's transparently false with it being clear the only member he's interested in is Lee, and that’s solely out of his twisted desire to groom him.
Dunn is incredibly polite, but it barely hides how utterly smarmy and insincere he actually is.
When we meet Dunn in the present its clear that twenty years of isolation have utterly broken him, to the point he's incapable of speaking and its acknowledged he's pretty much going to be irreparably insane for how ever long he lives. Thing is, whilst everyone in question acknowledges what a horrible fate it is, its not played as a point of sympathy, with as much as they disagree with it, none of them can say for certainty if Dunn didn't truly deserve it.
Heinous Standard:
Now five murders whilst certainly above the norm is especially high for this series, Dunn is likewise not the most prolific serial killer (the season even has another serial killer who more than doubles his count). His MO that he puts his victims through, however, is pretty brutal, with it being clear he got off on holding power over them and stands out in a series where most serial killers have quick kills.
However, the key detail that puts him over is what he does to Lee. Whilst there have been a number of abusers throughout the series, flat-out forcing an eight-year-old child to assist each step of a murder spree out of ego and desire to groom them into a fellow serial killer is beyond the pale and utterly unique.
Really it says a lot about Dun that his day job is building cutting-edge weapons that he deliberately designs to be as lethal and dangerous as possible (we even get some pretty graphic images of the explosions and devastation that his drones have caused, with a narcissist like him deliberately keeping his signature in the code), and that is arguably the nicest part of his person.
This coupled with his flourishes of psychological torture we feel is enough for him to count.
Conclusion:
A brilliant smarmy performance from Leo Staar, Dunn is easily one of the evilest and most twisted killers and abusers within this entire series, and thus we think Calvin Dunn is an easy keeper.
So, what do you think?
Edited by MGD107 on May 11th 2024 at 2:22:04 AM