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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yeah, he did. Sorry about any confusion.
Professor Gigachad
It is a new page but reminder to wait a bit longer before posting EP's since it hasn't even been close to an hour since the last ones.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I did it. I rounded the discussion times to the nearest half hour (whether rounding up or down).
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
RIP Toriyama
Thanks for the work, ACW!
Btw gonna claim JoJo's Bizarre Adventure Part 9: Jojolands here since it's about a month from its start time.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Lies and Violence!
Glad to be back—
Jesus fuck, the thread just opened and we're already at 6 pages.
What's the work?
Twig is the third doorstopper novel from Wildbow, author of the infamously long and dark hit web novel Worm. Set in 1921, in an alternate universe where Frankenstein's Monster became king of Great Britain and effectively took over the world, the series follows Sylvester and his fellow Lambsbridge Orphans, a group of young experiments and artificial lifeforms who quickly find themselves being sent off as child soldiers to quell the stirring embers of rebellion against the Crown Empire. Along the way they find themselves rebelling as well, coming into conflict with both the Academies of science behind these leaps in biopunk technology and the extended family of sadistic, inhuman nobles at the top of of the Crown.
Who is the Baron of Richmond?
A dyed in the wool sadist, the Lord Baron Richmond is already infamous prior to his appearance in the story for being the archetypical embodiment of the Crown's evil, regularly unleashing his bastard twin sisters to cause murder and havoc to their hearts' content. After making an early cameo, the Baron is properly introduced participating in the Duke of Francis' efforts to completely exterminate the city of Lugh, which has recently become the home base of the rebel leader Mauer.
Because of unrelated reasons and shit luck, the Lambs (still loyal to the Crown at this point in time) just so happen to be in the city when the extermination order is called in. When Sylvester approaches the Baron's camp with information on Mauer, he decides to cut the Lamb's eye out simply to spite the Duke, then threatens to kill him if he gets it fixed before giving him over to his sisters. Sy convinces them to help him find the other Lambs so the twins don't have to "share" him, but the Baron makes clear that, should either of his sisters die, he'll take his annoyance out on the other innocent occupants of the Lambsbridge orphanage:
Oh, but don't confuse that with actual care for his sisters.
"They were yours to begin with, brother."
He made a sound, dismissive.
Long story short, Sy gets away, kills one of the twins, and blows up the Baron. Mauer, meanwhile, manages to assassinate the Duke of Francis, leaving the injured Baron in command of the extermination. Fortunately, he's convinced to spare the city for two reasons. First of all, there's this aristocrat girl named Emily who got a rare procedure that functionally made her immortal; she offers to marry the Baron if he lets them all go and leaves the Lambs alone, allowing him to study her and find the secret of immortality for himself. Secondly, Mauer vows to specifically only target other nobles for assassination, ostensibly so the face of the Crown's rule can become the Baron—an unhinged madman that will drive more people to rebellion and bolster his forces. The Baron accepts against his remaining sister's demands for revenge, happy to see more of his political rivals be removed.
Of course, this doesn't mean he's forgotten about Sy. The Baron slowly begins ruining his life, getting started by sabotaging his girlfriend's career solely because of her connection to him. Sy decides to put a stop to this before it can escalate any further and travels to the Baron's city, Warrick, to kill him.
What he finds is a town of nightmares. The inhabitants of Warrick are utterly terrified and perpetually on edge, being the Baron's preferred "stress balls" he randomly has killed or taken to be hunted down in the woods when he's bored. Abandoned, rundown churches litter the neighborhoods to mock the faithful, with their pews filled with the corpses of people he had nailed down and left to starve. Every family in the town is required to always be accompanied by a "Firstborn" monster, which have infamous Hair Trigger Tempers—should any disturbances occur, the Firstborn will attack everyone in sight, even if said disturbance is three houses away. What's worse is the origin of the Firstborn: once families are forced together, they are required to give up their first child to the Baron. I don't think I need to explain further.
...Well, actually, I do. Sy discovers the Firstborn aren't actually the, well, firstborn. A few arcs after the Baron is dealt with reveal that the children are taken to be auctioned off, ending up as either experiments or transformed into the next generation of sadistic nobles depending on their quality. They are then replaced in their families by artificial lifeforms designed with physical similarities to the children.
Anyway, the Baron decides to celebrate his marriage by consolidating his power, inviting several upper-class families to Warrick. The Baron absolutely knows this will result in mass death, whether from the spoiled aristocrats upsetting the Firstborn or from rebels targeting the large gathering, and so is utterly delighted when Sy sets off a chain reaction of chaos when he assassinates the remaining sister. The two duel in one of the churches as the Baron tries to slit Emily's throat, ending in Sy stabbing him with a syringe of an insanity drug. The Baron uses his last moments before his mind is ruined to laugh off Sy's demands to know the fates of the firstborn, a petty madman to the end.
Any mitigating factors?
The Baron is easily the biggest Hate Sink in the series. He's a self-centered narcissist obsessed with climbing to greater power no matter what, dismissing the fates of his sisters and setting up countless other members of his family to be slaughtered just to leave himself with a few less roadblocks. He only cares for his sisters as a matter of pride (a "how dare you hurt a noble, bow before your betters" kind of thing) and because he wants to maintain two dangerous killing machines, and his treatment of his subjects is horrendously petty in its soul-crushingness. There are two other villains who count for CM, one noble who attempts to genocide America and one gangster who stands out as being a pretty prominent human trafficker, but neither even come close to the Baron's pointless cruelty.
Now, he does have a Freudian Excuse in that the revelation that the nobility is a lie, that they're all just peasant children taken off the streets and experimented on to become puppet kings for the Academies, is what drove him insane. It's a bit weak to me; the Duke of Francis also found out this dark secret, and he remained an honorable Noble Demon despite it all. The Baron himself admits, at the end of the day, he's ultimately just a sadist who loves to see people suffer at their lowest.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Question: "A few arcs after the Baron is dealt with reveal that the children are taken to be auctioned off, ending up as either experiments or transformed into the next generation of sadistic nobles depending on their quality."
Was the Baron a product of this, or did he start the whole thing?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Sounds like a product Emerald is arguing is sadistic and knowing enough he doesn't feel it's mitigating.
Lies and Violence!
The Baron was a product of the process, but it doesn't make him sympathetic—the Duke of Francis, like I said above, had the same thing happen to him but remains a Noble Demon.
The Baron is also one of the few characters shown directly contributing to the process. It's an entire institution that is rooted deep into the Crown, so it's hard to ascribe any one character to being directly responsible for the system—not even the king approves, but even he doesn't have enough power to uproot the Academies who instituted the practice decades ago.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
I think now its ok to post? I put a timer to wait for the right time.
Setting
Uncivilized Planet is a manga by Jiro Matsumoto (here known for The Rabbit from Tropical Citron) that follows the lives of three childhood friends: Starving Artist Colo, Belly Dancer Cookie and Sweet Baker Naomi, living in a occupied city during a grand space war and being shaped because a legend that despite being created by Colo, might be more real than it shows about the spaceship that crashed on their planet centuries ago.
The plot starts during a nasty fight between the friends during their work with The Resistance, which ends on Naomi being humilliated and beaten down by the resistance members For the Evulz and with Cookie's authorization, as she is beloved for all the male resistance members after she was insulted by Naomi's dismissal of her dreams to become a dancer in a galactic stage and the fact she was caught flirting with Colo, something that angers Cookie as she thinks on Colo as her property (not even romantic jealously, she genuinely thinks in Colo as a servant that should always obey her).
This leads to Naomi distancing herself from the group, moment where a soldier from the Occupation (Matsumoto's works are like this, avoid giving Nouns) who offers her to become part of the harem of The Colonel in exchange for earning money and stop living selling bread.
It sucks.
Who is The Colonel of The Occupation
A Colonel occupying the city-planet of our protagonists, the Colonel rules it as a crime lord, overseeing drug operations in a mafia backed by his soldiers while he profits from the misery. Citizens who protest against his rule are threated with lethal force when lucky and those confirmed as resistance members are publicly executed, with their corpses left to rot in public spaces with Cookie's parents among the victims.
What is more notorious, The Colonel is a huge pervert that has a harem of impoverished girls that are subject to constant sexual abuse and opium. For example, while Naomi initially believes it would be merely having sex with a rich man, she is inmediately raped by the Colonel's servants while watching in horror how other girls are outright chained and bruised.
The Colonel orders his men to continue their drug smuggling until Cookie and Colo manage to disrupt his trade routes, moment where a drugged and resenstful Naomi uses to directly accuse Cookie. This leads to Cookie being tortured, with plans to execute her too.
Eventually, Naomi—despite having being hospitalized because a opium overdose—manages to stop the execution...or so she says. See, Naomi genuinely begged the officers to stop the execution but the real reason was that the original goverment of the city managed to win the war, making the Colonel and his men flee with their stolen riches while Naomi chooses to stay because her love with Colo. Sadly for her, she is publicly executed for being a Collaborator despite Colo's attempt to reunite with her and escape from their planet, which as Colo realizes with pain after discovering Naomi's last gift, is the real Uncivilized Planet unlike the sci-fi worlds that he loved.
Heinous standard?
Serial Rapist, Drug trafficker, public executions. Yeah, he passes handily. Many characters notice that The Colonel is far from the only powerful men taking advantage of desesperate woman to have sex, but even other corrupt men like Colo's boss (who fired him because Colo was friends with his mistress) are far from the level of brutality of the Colonel, who constantly brutalizes his mistresses and puts them in deadly situations like Naomi's opium overdose.
Redeeming traits?
He actually paid Naomi and—we suppose—the other members of his harem. Which might be redeeming...if not the fact that he clearly doesn't even care for their lives, as their injuries and opium addiction shows.
Aside from this, nothing. He stops Cookie's execution, but its clear that is more for the fact that his army is retreating than for any fondness towards Naomi.
Verdict
You decide
Edited by KazuyaProta on Jan 16th 2023 at 12:04:40 PM
Watch me destroying my country
Not the Eye
Yeah it looks like he subverts any sympathy that could come from it
The Ultimate Lifeform
Scusa? If I may be so bold, since the original Japanese version of The End is sincere about it's desire to bring order, does that mean it's dub version can't be a keeper? I know that adaptations of Characters can result in CM's (Hell my first proposal and the third one in the thread is just that), but since it isn't actually a different work adaptation, does that actually count?
And speaking of my first proposal, does anyone have any questions there? Or do you all feel like that version of Philip distinguishes himself from Canon!Philip enough to get a separate entry?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Hmm, seems like the Baron MAY have enough additional crimes (the whole mass death thing, at least, seems solely his).
Why does the Colonel even bother paying them?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
The Moron
Versions from different dubs can absolutely keep on their own if the dub changes enough of the character, so I don't see why this character couldn't keep based on the English version.
Professor Gigachad
We don't have that rule on the thread anymore, so as long as that version of Philip is a keeper (which it seems he is) it should be fine.
Edited by Ordeaux26 on Jan 16th 2023 at 9:05:21 AM
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
The Ultimate Lifeform
Oh, okay. Didn't actually know that. My bad!
Huh, could have swore that was still a thing. Okay then.
Edited by ForgoLight on Jan 16th 2023 at 9:06:54 AM
"Us weirdos have to stick together!"
Goku Black
The game (sonic frontiers) was written in english first and than dubbed into japanese. Sega gave the writing job to the guy who does the the sonic idw comics. This IS the original version.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Not the Eye
Yes stuff in fits version of season 3 sounds different enought.
We actually have a case of villain counting only in a dub. Simeon from Octopath Traveler
Shin Megami Tensei IV
To ACW: Its basically prostitution, the Colonel rules the entire city-planet as a giant mafia and its useful to keep the families of the girls that he abused silent and without ideas to join the resistance.
To Mir: Then the Japanese version counts as Adaptational Heroism. Wow.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Jan 16th 2023 at 12:08:25 PM
Watch me destroying my country
Professor Gigachad
It was a thing for a while but due to it having no real basis on the rest of TV Tropes we got rid of it as a whole.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Ah, Pragmatic Villainy.
Incidentally, Belos seems different enough in the fic anyway (I assume we're awaiting the show's finale before proposing OG Belos?).
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
We still allowed to vote for who we want when the 24 hour period allows it for the applicable candidates? I mean a Troper would likely be posting more than one vote since they likely read more than one EP even if they didn't read every one that came through.
I also got at least one candidate from Malice coming soon too. One that's long overdue.
The Ultimate Lifeform
Thanks for the replies! Sorry if both of my questions were kind of dumb. I guess the lack of talk on my proposal was a sign that people agreed he was a keeper.
"Us weirdos have to stick together!"
RIP Toriyama
That Belos indeed can count just fine, good work!
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Professor Gigachad
Nah it's fine, that is what the thread is for to discuss candidates.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
I'm working with Lighty on both Black Adam and Wednesday. When all those candidates are approved, I'll post the writeups. I only read the Smile and Don't Worry Darling ones right now. Whichever other ones I read in the next 24 hours remains to be seen.
Also, wow. Frank would be the first for Chris Pine when approved.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jan 16th 2023 at 8:15:42 AM