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
Lies and Violence!
Yes to asshole Dr. Amino.
To answer wet’s question from earlier, nah, heinousness isn’t an issues. The backstory alone has him creating a giant death snake to eat all life.
Goku Black
That snake is also responsible for like half the villain plots in the show alone. None of which would have happened if it didn't exits which gives him an insane rapsheet.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Yes to Claude and Reed. Sorry to hear about your father Michael, wishing him a full and speedy recovery!
Not familiar with Ninjago so Imma just have to hear this one out, it does sound like there's an argument though.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Dr. Gavin Reed.
Sorry to hear about your father Michael, I wish him quick and painless recovery.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Gavin. Though him stabbing his wife to death seems more Kick The Son Of A Bitch.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Lies and Violence!
Okay, one last thing on the Overlord that came to me last night. For those of you who've watched the show... doesn't he absorb the power of light in season 3? Like, not just wield a weapon made of light/good/creation/whatever, like Garmadon, but straight up injects that stuff straight into his veins?
I mean, they never explicitly say this stuff should grant agency, but everything else supports this stuff being pure good/light/whatever, and is the exact same stuff they used to purify all his corruption the season before, but the Overlord—the embodiment of darkness and evil—manages to absorb it without any apparent changes. I feel like I'm missing something there, because that feels somewhat agency-y, and if it really is then I feel really dumb for not noticing it earlier.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Also, that One Tree Hill candidate was voted down, right?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Gavin
Cheers for answering the heinous standard question Emerald.
If the Overlord basically goes Junkie mode with light and he remains unaffected, I'd say he's fine because if he was just pure Made of Evil surely that'd hurt him?
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Not the Eye
to Dr Gavin
Yeah Overlord did absorb some of the Lloyd’s golden power (same one which has beaten him), planing to absorb it all to get his body back and after that failed has his new body upgraded with remenants ofthe golden weapons (stated multiple times to captain the power of creation).
And he is still as evil as ever with some of Lloyd’s power.
To Gavin
Ultimate Moral Compass
Gavin
Absolute to Dr. Gavin. Rape Is a Special Kind of Evil after all.
I’m still split on Fecto because him merging back with Elfilin is far too vague in whether or not Fecto did it willingly implying a sorta redemption or if he was forced to do it against his will. Regardless, I’d still ultimately say no to Fecto though he does come closer to CM status more than ANY other Kirby villain, but it’s just not enough.
Edited by Fireball246 on Mar 11th 2023 at 7:58:52 AM
Woagh
to Dr. Gavin (Insert "aw shit i'm here" quip here)
I'd be down to discuss The Overlord tbh, it sounds like there's more than enough evidence in his favor.
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE
To Gavin
For Overlord I believe he has agency enough to qualify for CM
Edited by Echidna on Mar 11th 2023 at 11:24:03 AM
Zande from Final Fantasy III flunks the heinous standard that was set by villains of the other 2D Final Fantasy games.
Edited by DecafGrub47393 on Mar 11th 2023 at 11:54:06 AM
Man in the Yellow Hat
Okay, with the new argument for Overlord, I honestly feel he counts now. Might rewatch the scenes to be sure, though.
Edited by Purgatoryisof2 on Mar 11th 2023 at 12:05:40 PM
He/Him
For the RWBY Arrowfell video game I would like to propose the games main antagonist Bram Thornmane.
Who is Bram Thornmane? What has he done?
Bram Thornmane is the main antagonist of the RWBY video game RWBY Arrowfell. He is a former candidate to be a member of the Ace-Ops, He sought revenge against General Ironwood for rejecting his acceptance to the ranks claiming his semblance did not fit well with the team (Though it’s implied that it was because of his personality that he wasn’t accepted). So he decided to create a conspiracy across the kingdom to get revenge on Ironwood and get glory that he thinks he deserves.
He manipulated Mantle’s union leader Hanlon Fifestrone to kidnap Faunus workers and use his semblance to painfully extract their emotions and put them in orb devices that are used to attract Grimm, and distribute them to the Atlas arms dealer Amoncio Glass to spread them all across the continent. Leading to Grimm attacking the cities of Mantle and Atlas as well as outside villages.
He later has Lieutenant Colonel Olive Harper send team RWBY to a trap having them to be attacked by her soldiers. It’s later revealed that he hired Team BRIR earlier and that he set them up trying to paint them as greedy mercenaries, when in reality they were the guardians of Arrowfell and that he stole the technology for the orbs from them. And tricked Team BRIR into thinking that Team RWBY were the ones responsible for stealing the technology and causing the Grimm attacks.
When confronted by Team RWBY he claims that he sought to dirty Ironwoods name so he could be blamed for all the Grimm attacks in order to gain his rank in the Ace-Ops and be seen as a hero, not caring for any of the innocents he put in danger or all the people he used and betrayed.
Mitigating features? While he at first appears to be a benevolent and noble guardian of Essen that aids Team RWBY, this is all an act and has been manipulating everyone from the start. While he does give Team RWBY a chance to turn away before the final boss fight, he shows no hesitation to try and kill them when they refuse, even laughing during the boss fight showing that he enjoys the idea of fighting and killing them.
Heinousness? He is the mastermind behind all the events in the game, while most of his followers truly wanted to help fixing the problems in the kingdom Thornmane only cared about his revenge. His actions threatened the lives of everyone in the kingdom and already caused the Grimm to destroy outside settlements. Overall I believe that his heinousness could rival that of the previous RWBY video game villain Dr. Merlot whose experiments with Grimm contributed to the destruction of Mountain Glenn, while Bram Thornmane’s plan could have lead to the destruction of the Kingdom of Atlas.
Final Verdict? Overall I say that Bram Thornmane is a yes.
No to Thornmane, I considered when the game came out, thing is his plan is endanger but not destroy Atlas with a grimm attack, he wants to be heralded as a hero for saving the day after all. He's essentially a diet-Watts, Watts was trying to destroy the kingdom but Thornmane wanted to attack but not destroy, Watts summoned the grimm by having people murdered and then sentencing all of Mantle to freeze to death while Thornmane is just using these fear orbs
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Not the Eye
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Bram
Edited by Fireball246 on Mar 11th 2023 at 9:37:17 AM
Lies and Violence!
No to Bram.
What's the work?
Ninjago again. To recap: ninjas, elemental powers, Power Rangers format of a new set of gimmicks, mcguffins, and villains every season. Season 13 centers around Shintaro Mountain, where a beautiful kingdom is built on the very top, and tribes of goblins and trolls scurry about in the massive network of caves and dungeons underground.
Who are the Skull Sorcerers?
King Vangelis is the ruler of the city sitting at the peak of Shintaro Mountain, a paradise of gold, riches, and heavenly aesthetics, with pretty much everyone outfitted with golden wings that allow them to fly. However, all this comes at a steep, incredibly expensive cost. Vangelis hired an adventuring party to travel into the dungeons below the kingdom and retrieve the skull of the ancient necromancer, Hazza D'ur, allegedly so he could destroy it. In truth, Vangelis betrays the adventuring party when they return, dropping them down a massive trap door where they will either die or be trapped within the mountain's unending system of caves for the rest of their lives.
With the skull in his possession, Vangelis made a pact with Hazza D'ur, whose soul was bound to his remains. Becoming "The Skull Sorcerer", the two reanimated Hazza D'ur's ancient legion of undead warriors and set them to hunting down the goblins and trolls in the caves, enslaving them to mine vengestone—a rare stone that can absorb elemental powers. Vangelis would sell this vengestone on the black market, ensuring a steady flow of cash to maintain his kingdom's perfection.
After years of this brutal slavery system, which he has kept hidden from his subjects in his benevolent persona as king, Vangelis faces a setback when his beloved daughter, Vania, invites the ninja to the city for her birthday. Inevitably, they find their way to the mines, where he encounters them as the Skull Sorcerer and attempts to enslave them. They lead a riot that escalates into a mass prison break, while one of the ninja, Cole, and Vania go to tell Vangelis about the evil necromancer beneath the city.
Vangelis, being a moron, reveals himself, angrily lamenting he wanted to keep Vania safe from all this and dropping Cole down the trap door. When Vania grabs a wing pack to fly down and save him, Vangelis snarls that she is now nothing to him, and sets about framing her pet dragon for her disappearance. On a semi-related note, halfway down through the (fucking massive) pit they fall in is a giant spider web, with the skeletons of several Shintaro soldiers littered about. They never really draw attention to it, but when Vangelis states that his people avoid the caves as much as possible, and... well, the fact that they're right below the trap door, it's heavily implied he's killed his own soldiers.
Anyway, the other ninja attempt to organize a truce between the goblins and trolls, who absolutely despise each other after Vangelis stole their respective prize artifacts and framed the other tribe for it. Hazza D'ur gets wind of this and resurrects an ancient dragon, Grief-Bringer, to attack. The two give the tribes a simple offer: surrender the ninja, and they will all be allowed to go back to work in the mines, enjoying a life of peace and healthy, hard work. Refuse? Grief-Bringer will murder them all. The ninja negotiate for the tribes to go completely free with their surrender... and Vangelis, obviously, immediately goes back on this deal and enslaves them all again.
Our heroes, ladies and gentlemen.
Vangelis and Hazza D'ur prepare for a public execution, intending to have Grief-Bringer tear the ninja to shreds in front of the enslaved tribes to crush their hope forever. Fortunately, Cole and Vania managed to escape from the pit and lead an attack. Hazza D'ur's skull is destroyed in the fight, depowering Vangelis and returning their undead legions to rest. Vania has her father arrested while she becomes queen...
Until he's broken out by his vengestone buyers: Harumi and the Overlord, the latter of whom you may or may not recognize from the previous pages' discussions. After Vangelis was busted, Harumi managed to smuggle out the remaining Shintaro vengestone he was able to mine but never got the chance to sell, which the Overlord uses to construct a stone army to march on Ninjago and petrify the citizens into crystallized zombie slaves. As part of the Overlord's Legion of Doom, Vangelis helps lead this army to attack the remaining refugees, targeting Cole in particular for turning his people and daughter against him. Cole of course points out that was all his fault and punches him in the face, the good guys win, yadda yadda yadda.
Redeeming qualities?
First off, Vangelis' entire motive for becoming the Skull Sorcerer is to ensure the prosperity of his kingdom. This rings a bit hollow to me when he talks about ensuring "perfection" and "glory." He's just trying to boost his own ego.
Secondly, there's his daughter. I do genuinely think he used to love her, at least at first—he seems legitimately saddened when he realizes she knows too much, despite his best efforts to "protect" her. That said, he still throws all that away to satisfy his greed, angrily disowning her when she disobeys and immediately moving on to planning how to frame her disappearance on her pet dragon. I attached the most intact version I could find of the scene, 4:26 to 6:08.
Hazza D'ur, of course, has nothing. He's just an asshole lich, and even influences Vangelis into severing any attachment to his daughter in the scene just after the above.
Heinous enough?
The slavery of the mountain tribes, while bad, isn't enough, as there's no signs of mass death from the conditions or horrific torture. It sucks for the victims, but it isn't passing baseline.
What does pass baseline is when the two attempt to use Grief-Bringer to slaughter both tribes for their defiance, only relenting when the surrender of the ninja puts them off guard enough to recapture them and put them all back to work. This definitely helps Vangelis stand among the other collaborators of the Overlord, who either don't have enough distinguishing crimes or have redeeming qualities:
- Harumi resurrected Garmadon, risking the destruction of the city in her devout service to him, and leads the Overlord's followers in crystallizing Ninjago. Vangelis doesn't really have any beings powerful enough to call on to cause the same amount of damage for the former, and he helped construct the army Harumi used to accomplish the latter.
- Pythor tried to release a giant snake god to devour everything. The closest thing Vangelis has to a snake god is Grief-Bringer, which... yeah, no, it's scary but it isn't a snake god.
- Aspheera attacked the city with an army of flame snakes, but this was standard PG take over the world stuff.
- The Mechanic trapped people in a video game where they would be converted into energy if they died, but this was standard, easily reversed PG villain stuff. Nothing like the Omega petrifying people into a "deep slumber" in the build up to its omnicide, which, while also easily undone, is clearly framed as a Fate Worse than Death, and the characters are explicitly fighting for their very survival.
- Mister F is just a robot mook.
Hazza D'ur is destroyed before he gets the chance to participate in the Overlord's omnicide, but he still stands out for enabling Vangelis' crimes while just being... you know, a head. Sure, he can reanimate stuff, but he's still just a head, who apparently needs a wielder to channel his power. Or. You know. Move.
Not the Eye
to Skull Sorcerers
The Emperor of Evil!
to Reed and Skull Sorcerers.
Edited by Powermaster201 on Mar 11th 2023 at 1:59:51 PM
For Fecto wasn't the reason for saying no just because of agency reasons and some ambiguous decisions, not waiting for DLC?
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her