TVTropes Now available in the app store!
Open

Follow TV Tropes

Following

Complete Monster Proposal Thread

Go To

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:

    Process 

  1. 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.

  2. 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".

  3. 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:

    Ground Rules 

  1. 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!

  2. 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:
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.

  3. 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.

  4. Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").

  5. 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.

  6. '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!

  7. 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.

  8. 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.

  9. If you are suspended from parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
    1. 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.
    2. 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.

  10. Please keep all discussions "in-house".
    1. What other wikis use for CM equivalents is irrelevant here.
    2. 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.
    3. 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:

    Effortpost Template 

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

Echidna from Ontario, Canada (Striking Back) Relationship Status: Two-timing
#6676: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:38:54 PM

[tup] to Governor and Pink Hat Girl.

Edited by Echidna on Mar 4th 2023 at 4:39:21 AM

therealjackieboy from Austin, TX Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#6677: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:47:17 PM

I'm about to head out to work, so how about my second and final EP from the Last Airbender game?

We've covered the console and handheld version of Zhao, but feast your eyes on the one, the only, Ozai...'s DS Version.

Who is He?

Fire Lord Ozai is the leader of the Fire Nation, and Zuko’s abusive father. While nothing to write home about in the console versions, the DS version, however, adds a few crimes.

What has he done?

Introduced forcing his son to fight in a match after speaking out against an attack strategy that would’ve involved the sacrifice of an entire battalion of Fire Nation soldiers to defeat some Earthbenders, Ozai chooses to fight Zuko himself in the match. But despite Zuko forfeiting the match due to not wanting to fight his father, Ozai commences the fight to teach his son respect, permanently scarring him in his left eye.

Ordering his men to imprison any Earthbenders and kill any Airbender they find to wipe out the Avatar, Ozai plots the invasion of the Northern Water Tribe, and when Zuko is caught rescuing the captured Aang, Ozai orders Zhao to kill him by making it look like an accident. And that's it for Ozai, never to be seen or heard from again, spared from having a painful boss fight like Zhao.

Redeeming Qualities?

None.

Heinousness?

Unlike the console version, DS!Ozai is willing to sacrifice an entire fleet of his own men to win, and orders the death of his own son for supposedly betraying him, showing no love or loyalty to anyone but himself.

Plus, he keeps his crimes from the movie, like his tyrannical leadership, and his plan to attack the Northern Water Tribe, making him also responsible for everything Zhao does.

Conclusion

Keeper

It's Spooky Month!
Powermaster201 The Emperor of Evil! Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
The Emperor of Evil!
#6678: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:48:47 PM

[tup] to Ozai (again)

WetFlannels Classy, Refined, Unstable from Nearby, on a cosmological scale. Since: Oct, 2021 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Classy, Refined, Unstable
#6679: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:50:03 PM

@Sailor If you've got multiple possible images, an IP thread would be your best bet.

[tup] Ozai I'm guessing his carnage is shown despite the system limitations?

What's wrong D-16? Rise up!
Echidna from Ontario, Canada (Striking Back) Relationship Status: Two-timing
#6680: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:50:21 PM

[tup] to Ozai. How many Ozi and Zhao are we getting?

Ravok Son of Liberty from Big Shell Since: Jun, 2015 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Son of Liberty
#6681: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:52:07 PM

And that's a Yes for DS!Ozai, unlike someone like, say, the DS!Transformers games, we blatantly hear about and see lives being lost under Ozai's orders and command, so he's golden. The dialogue is even more blatant that every last waterbender is going to die if Ozai wins.

[down] Correct, Zhao goes behind Ozai's back in the Wii version to bomb Zuko's ship, and Ozai is not only missing even more screentime/presence than the film, he also doesn't have the explicit reasoning for scarring Zuko in that version—that being Zuko's horror at Ozai willing to sacrifice an entire battalion of troops as cannon fodder. So it's both consoles for Zhao, DS only for Ozai.

Edited by Ravok on Mar 4th 2023 at 1:54:41 AM

No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#6682: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:52:39 PM

So Zhao counts in both; Ozai only counts in the DS version?

EmperorGeode from A Galaxy far, far away Since: Oct, 2022 Relationship Status: On the prowl
Agentofchaos A God Am I from Somewhere in the Universe Since: Dec, 2021
WetFlannels Classy, Refined, Unstable from Nearby, on a cosmological scale. Since: Oct, 2021 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Classy, Refined, Unstable
#6685: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:54:39 PM

I'm gonna hazard a guess that Zhao's lacking for heinousness in the cartoon?

What's wrong D-16? Rise up!
therealjackieboy from Austin, TX Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#6686: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:55:02 PM

[up][up][up][up]Yep. Console version leaves some stuff out.

[down]DS!Zhao's final boss fight is actually pretty simple. Total far cry from the console version.

Edited by therealjackieboy on Mar 4th 2023 at 1:58:33 AM

It's Spooky Month!
Michealthehero21 Since: Jan, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#6687: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:55:26 PM

[tup] Video Game!Film!Ozai. Curious to know if Zhao's boss fight in the DS version is easier or harder than the console version, cause I saw that footage of the boss fight and….. Yeah, Dark Souls is easily more fair than that, and the bosses in that game were actually fun to fight.

Agentofchaos A God Am I from Somewhere in the Universe Since: Dec, 2021
#6688: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:56:02 PM

Show Zhao is second fiddle to Ozai, plus he's a big Butt-Monkey

"We'll meet again" | 🏳️‍⚧️
G-Editor The 47th President Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
The 47th President
#6689: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:56:29 PM

[tup] The Governor, The Pink Hat girl, and another Ozai (looking forward to Lighty’s Ozai)

My sandbox of EPs and other stuff
SailorVenus372 Since: Nov, 2019 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
#6690: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:57:07 PM

IP Thread? So use the one or make my own?

Get Snuck-Up On.”
Arawn999 Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Having tea with Cthulhu
#6691: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:58:00 PM

Switching to abstain for Kang the Exile. Let's wait and see if he returns — since the "Kang will return" blurb could just be referring to his variants in the Kang Council.

WetFlannels Classy, Refined, Unstable from Nearby, on a cosmological scale. Since: Oct, 2021 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Classy, Refined, Unstable
#6692: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:58:11 PM

[up][up] I'd hold on that thought for a sec Sailor, the IP Thread limit has been reached.

Edited by WetFlannels on Mar 4th 2023 at 9:58:20 AM

What's wrong D-16? Rise up!
EmperorGeode from A Galaxy far, far away Since: Oct, 2022 Relationship Status: On the prowl
#6693: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:58:41 PM

[up][up][up][up][up] Actually it sounds like Movie and Game Zhao is less Independent from show one. But in the show there is no indication that he guns for flat out genocide of the Northen Water Tribe.

Edited by EmperorGeode on Mar 4th 2023 at 1:59:21 AM

SailorVenus372 Since: Nov, 2019 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
#6694: Mar 4th 2023 at 1:59:04 PM

Alright.

Two of them I’m proposing are anime collages and the other is a Manga Panel.

Get Snuck-Up On.”
MGD107 Since: Feb, 2015
#6695: Mar 4th 2023 at 2:02:28 PM

[tup] to Adolphus, Cell, Reuben Barclay, Blue John, Commander Zhao, Governor, the Girl in the Pretty Pink Hat and DS!Fire Lord Ozai.

Ravok Son of Liberty from Big Shell Since: Jun, 2015 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Son of Liberty
#6696: Mar 4th 2023 at 2:03:03 PM

Yeah, show!Zhao is outheinoused in many ways by later villains and it's telling that of any major Arc Villain, he suffers the most Played for Laughs humiliating moments even when he's trying to be "serious". Even the memory of him is mocked and played for a joke when the characters of Korra find him wandering the spirit realm as a broken, ranting shell meant to be laughed at.

No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
WetFlannels Classy, Refined, Unstable from Nearby, on a cosmological scale. Since: Oct, 2021 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Classy, Refined, Unstable
#6697: Mar 4th 2023 at 2:08:28 PM

[up] Ah makes sense, really got to watch it sometime.

What's wrong D-16? Rise up!
Snoketrope Barb / Temporary Kylo from California Since: Oct, 2020 Relationship Status: Waiting for Prince Charming
Barb / Temporary Kylo
#6698: Mar 4th 2023 at 2:08:55 PM

He does go for genocide in the cartoon, IIRC, directly saying it will be like what Sozin did to the air nomads. His issue are the villains after book one. Namely Azula dropping 'Lets scorch the Earth kingdom continent' as a suggestion and Ozai taking it up. To the villains in Korra(Varrick, a mere businessman who is as far from a keeper as can be, tries to kickstart a world war for money)

[tup] to Game!Ozai

Edited by Snoketrope on Mar 4th 2023 at 2:15:50 AM

Bow to the Prototype
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#6699: Mar 4th 2023 at 2:16:28 PM

Tomorrow (?) I'll try and whip up a template for the page.

SailorVenus372 Since: Nov, 2019 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
#6700: Mar 4th 2023 at 2:28:36 PM

Im also curious of Sera Myu Pharaoh 90.

While he wants to make a second mother planet for himself and Daimons, he also doesn’t give a rats ass when all of his minions get killed (which could imply he only wants another mother planet for power and/or he sees Daimons as extensions of himself which is why he wants to take Earth and turn it into another mother planet here), and we have a similar keeper in Black Doom.

Do you think he’s worth the EP?

Edited by SailorVenus372 on Mar 4th 2023 at 2:36:29 AM

Get Snuck-Up On.”

Total posts: 60,500
Top