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
@ACW: Yeah like Lighty said, Arthut doesn't hit, he's way too complex and the trope page is plainly extrapolating a lot to say he doesn't care about his brothers. Samuel doesn't either, way too loyal to Arthur and frankly not particularly bad enough.
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Yes to Lawrence, no to Avalon.
Smug Snake is a trope about a character's personality. They can win thanks to events working in their favour and still be an asshat with an inflated ego ACW. I have trouble seeing Lou Bloom as the devious mastermind he thinks he is even if his reckless decisions don't catch up with him in the story.
That is what it means, what I'm saying it that would pertain to someone's character, not what happens around them in the story. If he wins by outwitting everyone then it's probably incorrect; if he's a smug piece of shit and he happens to come out on top at the end, it doesn't make him any less of one.
Leaving drac's writeup to Papyru per our discussion on split, and have another vampire themed fellow before I get to some others off my to-do list:
What's the work?
30 Days of Night is a film adaptation of the original comic when vampires besiege an Alaskan town during the long, long winter. Now, in the filmverse, Lilith from the sequel is up, and the leader of the vampires in the film Marlow is disqualified due to care for his protege. However, there's one other who may keep: The Stranger.
Who is the Stranger?
A willing collaborator with the vampires who serves them in hopes of immortality, the Stranger is a ratty little man who arrives on the vampires' ship and sets off to Barrow where he proves himself a nuisance. In actuality, he's both a scout and spy. The Stranger proceeds to murder all the animals in Barrow and disable everything he can, providing an open path and to leave the town defenseless for the oncoming vampire attack. Ensuring everyone will be cut off, cornered, massacred.
When he starts a row at the bar over not being allowed alcohol or red meat, the Stranger is arrested and gloats over the coming slaughter, knowing his sabotage has resulted in one casualty when a lookout station goes dark. He proceeds to tell the sheriff "That cold ain't the weather. That's death approachin'."
And oh boy, is it. The vampires spring into action and the town is positively butchered, almost everyone within torn apart and drained, or dragged off to horrific fates. The few survivors are those left hiding...the Stranger is found by his masters in the jail cell after another ruckus left him tied there. Marlow acknowledges he did everything asked of him and "we will take care of you." Before mocking him over thinking the vampires would actually turn him and snapping hims neck
Mitigating issues?
It turns entirely on if you think he's nasty enough. The Stranger does everything he can to screw Barrow over and gloats viciously over how they're all going to die horribly. He knows exactly what he's doing. "Board the windows! Try to hide! They're coming. This time, they're gonna take me with 'em. Honor me! For all that I have done!"
His motives are entirely selfish. He just wants to be immortal and honored by the vampires. Just a no-account scumbag willing to let vampires butcher an entire town if it means he profits.
Conclusion?
What say we?
Edited by Lightysnake on Apr 30th 2023 at 2:55:08 AM
Sure to the Stranger. I know we've had some like him. I wanna say the dude from Underworld?
EDIT: 43, fair enough. Just to confirm, that DOES apply to the Marquis, right? If so, I think it works better than Ambition Is Evil. I also added his full name.
Edited by ACW on Apr 30th 2023 at 6:32:27 AM
Based on the EP,
to the Stranger.
@Scraggle Maleficent didn't even put the kingdom to sleep. The fairies did so that no one would find out Aurora went to sleep—so they could wake everyone up once she woke up. So yeah, she doesn't even have that going for her.
Having not seen the fourth movie yet, the Marquis clearly is bad enough—or at least unlikable enough while lacking standards—to be the one character in the movies to count for this, so there you go. Been marathoning the first three movies this weekend—definitely enjoying myself—and going to the fourth one tomorrow night after work too.
Had an unexpected dream about an unexpected EP from an unexpected Troper last night. Haha. PM me if you're curious.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 30th 2023 at 3:47:19 AM

Avalon
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