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.
- Don't delete an EP unless you intend to swiftly repost it. We know that there are reasons why you might want to delete an EP, especially if it's being downvoted - rejection is hard, even in a low-stakes environment like this. However, deleting it renders the current discussion null and void, makes it impossible to reference the discussion in the future and can confuse tropers who didn't read it before the deletion. If the issue is temporary (such as formatting problems or a post getting overlooked as the thread moves on), then deleting and quickly reposting the EP is a valid option, but to fully retract an EP, please use the [[strike:]] markup instead.
- 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 Mrph1 on Jul 12th 2024 at 3:13:36 PM
All right here comes a big one. Attack on Titan has been brought up years ago, with the nasty Gross added only to be removed for a small detail covered up by mistranslation. More recently the actual first king of Eldia was added.
Now I will try to add the supposed First King of Eldia.
Who is Karl Fritz/Reiss aka the First King?
Seen as an ally to the people of Eldia and an enemy to Marley when it was quite the other way around. The people of Eldia were waging war with Marley from generations until the King decided to put things to a stop.
What does the King do?
The King of Eldia conspires to destroy the Nation of Eldia through the Tybur family. Despite having the upper hand he retreated to the island of Paradise where he constructed the three walls. Said three walls contained Colossal Titans waiting to be activated. The Tybur family sided with Marley who managed to take the Titan powers resulting in the fall of Eldia.
The Eldian people left behind in Marley were then subjected to systematic mistreatment. They are forced to live in ghettos, and face harsh punishments for leaving said ghettos. Grisha is beaten by Eren Krueger, who stated that Grisha and his sister would be turned into Titans if they removed their armbands. Which leads into the fact that Marley has been exploiting the Eldian people's unique abilities to maintain their position.
The people within the walls fare little better. The walls divide the people by class with the lower class people in the outer walls facing more danger. Karl erased everyone's memories resulting in Eldia regressing in culture and technology. Since the Asian and Ackerman people are not affected by such mind control, Karl had them wiped out. Kenny Ackerman notably became a Serial Killer, due to the fact that he and his family were being targeted for extermination.
To maintain such a status quo any science and technology had to be gotten rid off, such as a couple who invented a hot air balloon. Erwin Smith as a boy spoke of his father's theory of altered memories resulting in said father's death. Military Policeman Djel Sannes committed those above crimes, as well as the brutal death of Pastor Nick who was going to reveal the truth of the walls.
Karl Fritz changes his name to Reiss and leaves a puppet on the throne. To maintain his rule Karl placed the "Vow to renounce war"note on his child. When any of his ancestors receive the Coordinate, they are brainwashed into submission. The island of Paradise grew infested with Titans from Marley but Karl and his ancestors refused to do anything about it, nor do they help out the people stuck in Marley when Grisha reports the conditions they face.
The Royal Government continues Karl’s policies after his death, even if it will lead to the deaths of everyone on Paradise. After the outer wall, Wall Maria is breached, the government has a pointless attack on the Titans that has over 20% of the population killed. When the middle wall is supposedly breached the government refuses to take in the refugees, instead leaving them to their fates.
After Grisha kills the Reiss family, he gains the Coordinate without the brainwashing and passes it down to his son Eren. Once Eren is revealed to have Titans powers, the government tries to take Eren into custody to return the Coordinate to the Royal family. The last surviving family member Rod kidnaps Eren along with his surviving illegitimate daughter so she can bear the will on his behalf.
Years later Eren, desperate to find life outside of the walls finds it hostile towards his people. He conspires with his brother the Beast Titan to bring about the Rumbling, which involves unleashing the Titans from the wall to trample all of mankind.
Ultimately Karl Fritz/Reiss seems less like a pacifist and more like a genocidal bigot. He used violence, both at the hands of the Titans and his military police to keep control over Paradise. Any claims of maintaining peace were a lie to keep the status quo that would lead to the people being wiped out entirely, which he would die peacefully before it happened. The cruelty of his regime and of Marley lead to Eren Yeager breaking down and trying to exterminate the world.
Heinous standard?
The story has a high heinous standard but Karl Fritz is behind a lot of it. He was the one who set up Marley as a genocidal empire, trading one cruel regime for another. His brainwashing of his descendants is what led to his Government’s cruel policies towards his people. He does have to compete with the actual First King, but both were responsible for mass genocide. Eren Yeager himself tries to exterminate nearly all life, however King Karl set up the walls so he is indirectly responsible.
Afterthoughts
I understand why no one E Ped King Karl since there is no clear end to his character arc, but the more the manga went on the more we see just how responsible he was.
- Lord Norland von Lunebelg, the White King of the Einberg Order, is a misanthropic clone of the late Emperor Charles zi Britannia. After the fall of the Holy Britannian Empire, Norland forms the fascist terrorist group Neo-Britannia, eliminating political rivals with his child assassins Ash and Nichol Phoenix, later coldly kills Nichol after one botched mission, and has any commanders who fail their assignments kill themselves. Using Neo-Britannia to conquer Hokkaido, Norland allows for his minions to terrorize or massacre the Japanese at leisure, while slaughtering any delegates sent to negotiate. Assassinating his own pawn child-Emperor to instal a more convenient replacement, Norland also has one sadistic underling torture countless people to death to discover the secret behind heroine Sakuya Sumeragi's Geass, eventually capturing her and wiping out her allies in the resistance. Revealing his true plan to use his L.O.K.I. kill drones to eradicate all mankind, Norland betrays and murders his own Neo-Britannian followers to complete his plan. Fighting Ash in his personal Knightmare, Norland even dies killing himself in an attempt to guarantee his apocalyptic plan is complete. When Sakuya demands to know the reason for his crimes, Norland simply states he utterly despises humanity, later observing his genocide with bliss.
- Sir Christoph Scissorman, the Black Rook of the Einberg Order, is Norland's most depraved and arguably closest servant. A senior figure in Neo-Britannia, Christoph helped Norland come to power by brutalizing a child Ash to "train" him as an assassin. In the present, Christoph acts as a depraved experimenter, slowly torturing to death those influenced by Sakuya's Geass to learn about its capabilities. Eventually capturing Sakuya herself, Christoph sends the intel to Norland to slaughter her resistance allies before trying to force Sakuya to demonstrate her Geass on a massive supply of Japanese prisoners—including children—agonizingly killing batches of them when she refuses.
I'm unfortunately a
to Fritz. He is a vile bastard but his overall character is just generally nebulous and always felt that the reason he created Paradis was generally to atone for the horrid crimes his bloodline and the Eldian Empire have committed which irrc, fhe series itself entertains the idea as possible.
Don't get me wrong, the series still rightfully portrays this as unacceptable as it is still forcing the current generation to bear for the sins of their ancestors, despite then having never partook on this in the first place, and so they are suffering undeservedly, but this is considered a sort of spot on humanity for Fritz and fits the recurring theme of "is the greater good a valid excuse for horrible crimes" that is clearly embodied in many of the villains throughout the series and it's characters in general
Edited by Dude-of-Wealth-And-Taste on Sep 22nd 2024 at 6:18:25 PM
Till all are one.
verduga, doll maker and cenci
@Revenant: Hitler from rise of evil was already down voted for redeeming qualities
Cenci
Abstain on Fritz and Little
Saw Transformers One, P Ms are open on potential discussion!
Edited by WetFlannels on Sep 22nd 2024 at 12:49:40 PM
What's wrong D-16? Rise up!

Okay. I've just found what might be the most aggressively CM candidate I will ever cover. Read the work he's from tonight, and my mind is still reeling. I had to get an EP out.
What is the work?
The Cenci is a 1819 verse drama by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Unfortunately Based on a True Story, this play depicts the tragedy of Beatrice Cenci, a Roman noblewoman who suffered greatly at the hands of her father, Count Francesco Cenci.
Who is Cenci? What has he done?
- The Count is first seen being confronted about a man he recently killed by Cardinal Camillo, who will mercifully hush up the case if Cenci gives him a third of his possessions. Cenci refuses, having no issue with being openly evil. The Cardinal asks if there isn't a flicker of contrition within Cenci, to which the latter gives an absurdly card-carrying monologue about how much he relishes the frozen terror of his dead and dying victims:
Cenci: Till I killed a foe, and heard his groans, and heard his children's groans, knew I not what delight was else on earth,— which now delights me little. I the rather look on such pangs as terror ill conceals— The dry, fixed eyeball, the pale, quivering lip, which tell me that the spirit weeps within tears bitterer than the bloody sweat of Christ. I rarely kill the body, which preserves, like a strong prison, the soul within my power, wherein I feed it with the breath of fear for hourly pain.
- Cenci is a horrific domestic abuser, but he doesn't stop at abuse. He flat-out tortures his family. Trampling them, beating them bloody, making them drink ditch-water and eat rotten, diseased flesh, making his daughter watch as he puts her most innocent brother, Bernardo, in rusty chains, etc, etc.
- One time, he borrowed his son Giacomo's wife's dowry... only to spend it on prostitutes. This has left Giacomo, his wife and their children impoverished and starving, which Cenci only mocks them for.
- Suffice it to say, Cenci isn't on good terms with his family. In fact, he more or less wants them all dead. He sends two of his four sons, Rocco and Cristofano, on a mission to Salamanca, Spain, with 0 funds, predicting correctly that they'll starve to death. Once they do, he holds a public feast to celebrate.
- At this feast, he demands the guests remain to drink the wine, which he ecstatically describes as "his children's blood". When the guests, understandably horrified, start backing out, he threatens to slaughter them all along with their children.
- Annoyed by his party's less-than-stellar reception, and paranoid that his daughter Beatrice and wife Lucretia are plotting against him, Cenci decides to punish the two by locking them in his remote castle in Petrella (a place in which Cenci brags many have been subjected to unspeakable tortures before death) to rot away. This arrangement will also enable him to indefinitely get away with his most depraved crime...
- Cenci rapes Beatrice, his own daughter, utterly traumatizing her. Once in Petrella, he plots to do this again and again. When Beatrice hesitates to enter his chamber (Cenci regards Beatrice entering his chamber as her "consenting" to be assaulted again) Cenci reflects on ways to break her will; beating her, keeping her awake until her brain can stand no more, and chaining her up and starving her into submission are some of his ideas.
- But Cenci doesn't just do this for sexual gratification. His greater goal is to "poison and corrupt her soul". As a punishment for her ever defying him, this is the fate he has in mind for her:
Cenci: When dead, as she shall die unshrived and unforgiven, a rebel to her father and her God, her corpse shall be abandoned to the hounds; Her name shall be the terror of the earth; Her spirit shall approach the throne of God, plague-spotted with my curses. I will make body and soul a monstrous lump of ruin.
- Cenci's long-term plans are as follows; kill Lucretia, continuously rape Beatrice until she dies of despair, let Giacomo, one of his surviving sons, live a life worse than Hell (along with his family), and have Bernardo's innocence shattered by the memory of his father's deeds. As for Cenci himself? He intends to burn all of his possessions in a great bonfire, just so no one on Earth can gain from his death.
- Speaking of his death, Cenci is soon assassinated in his sleep. Good riddance.
Redeeming qualities?- HA HA HA—No. The play rams down your throat that the Count is devoid of any redeeming qualities, as much as the other characters repeatedly try to wring a morsel of love or remorse out of him. His final monologue is literally him saying that conscience is a sham which the fiends of Hell will ridicule while he sleeps like a baby:
Cenci: Conscience! O thou most insolent of lies! They say that sleep, that healing dew of heaven, steeps not in balm the foldings of the brain which thinks thee an impostor. I will go, first to belie thee with an hour of rest, which will be deep and calm, I feel; and then— O multitudinous Hell, the fiends will shake thine arches with the laughter of their joy! There shall be lamentation heard in Heaven as o'er an angel fallen; and upon Earth all good shall droop and sicken, and ill things shall, with a spirit of unnatural life, stir and be quickened—even as I am now.
Heinousness?Final Verdict?![[thumb up] [tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png)
![[thumb up] [tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png)
???
Yes???
Edited by BTF on Sep 21st 2024 at 10:11:32 AM