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
Accumulating Filibuster Counters
Most of the other continua enthusiasts are more akin to normal hobbyists and enjoy the novelty of speaking to people from the past or tasking them with jobs in the future under the cover of a game (such as piloting drones, robots, etc) and Vespasian has a reputation among them as a sadistic psycho. While there isn't an explicit statute of limitations on stub-meddling, Lowbeer basically is the law, and given that she has to deal with the post-Jackpot world's nasty kleptocrats on a daily basis, killing him instantly in the manner she does is something exceptional.
The effects of his cruelty aren't as apparent in The Peripheral itself, but the repercussions of his actions continue into Agency (2020), which is set in one of the worlds he performed the butterfly-effect manipulation on, and is on the brink of descending into nuclear war, averting which is a significant part of the plot. This makes it very apparent that the inhabitants of the 'expendable stubs' are indeed people which he killed God knows how many of.
Sorry should have added the latter to original post.
Edited by Azorius24 on Jun 19th 2023 at 11:23:44 AM
"The only thing which is certain, is that something will happen".
That sounds like enough, sure to him then
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Goku Black
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Vespasian
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Eh, I dunno. Seems somewhat out of focus.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Not the Eye
to Vespasian
If there's a spin off book set in a world he caused to go to shit that sounds like enough to me
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yeah, I guess so, especially if there's a pattern there.
How bad are the other villains?
Edited by ACW on Jun 19th 2023 at 5:18:07 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Accumulating Filibuster Counters
The main foes are a Big Bad Triumvirate of rich asshole types more typical of the Klept — Daedra West (a Spoiled Brat Femme Fatale who doesn't kill anyone herself), Hamed El-Habib (a unpleasant Smug Snake who murders one person) and Sir Henry (their backer, who has even less 'screen time' than Vespasian himself). Their Evil Plan, which fails, would have killed a couple of hundred people at most if successful. None of them display any of Vespasian's spectacular level of sadism or go out of their way to commit evil deeds — indeed, the Evil Plan was basically a giant real-estate scam.
Lowbeer would be a Magnificent Bastard if she wasn't more-or-less omniscient and thus unable to display the 'adaptability' trait.
Edited by Azorius24 on Jun 19th 2023 at 10:44:59 AM
"The only thing which is certain, is that something will happen".
....Phenomenal
for Vespa
Ultimate Moral Compass
So with a new Alone in the Dark game coming out this year, why not look at one of the most infamous installments in the franchise?
What’s the Work?
Alone in the Dark is a 2008 re-quel that's kind of a reboot but also a sequel to the first game. Released in two different versions across many consoles (I'll be mainly covering the HD version), the game was plagued with clunky controls, a meandering story that leans more towards religious horror than the Lovecraftian horror of the previous games, and hilariously edgy, narm-filled dialogue with cheesy voice acting to boot. It's also one of the only games with a required blinking mechanic. The soundtrack's A-fucking-Plus though, go check it out.
Edward Carnby (here voiced by Max Payne himself), wakes up after an almost century-long coma to find himself in modern day New York with amnesia. Edward learns that he's in possession of one-half of the Philosopher's Stone, which if combined with the other half, will reawaken Lucifer himself and doom the entire world. Joined by the obnoxiously annoying Sarah Flores, Edward must travel across Central Park and battle the demonic forces of Lucifer's army with the power of light and fire. Oh, and evil roots that the game forces you to kill in order to proceed.
Two foes come to mind, so let's start with the biggest one.
Who is He?
Lucifer, the Lighter Bringer, is the unseen, but heard, Devil himself who seeks the Philosopher's Stone in order to rule the world.
What has he done?
Having planned to kill God, take control of Heaven, and use his power to enslave mankind many centuries ago, after the coup failed, Lucifer was banished from Heaven to live amongst the humans as a mortal. Lucifer then created the Philosopher's Stone using the remains of his magic and parts of his throne as a way to transfer his soul across time to remain immortal, waiting ages for the right moment to get his revenge.
Over the centuries, Lucifer corrupts many great historical men with the Stone as he took possession of them, while also influencing them to build a portal under Central Park that acts as a gateway to the afterlife, where he would one day regain his powers via reincarnation and summon his legions through the portal to enslave mankind and become Earth’s ruler. But with the medallion split in two by the immortal alchemist Hermes Treismajice, Lucifer’s side of the piece wound up in the hands of Edward Carnby, who he would take possession of. Edward became Lucifer’s "most prized puppet," since he was a suitable enough vessel able to harness his abilities should he make his grand return.
Released in 2008 thanks to the sinister Crowley forcing Theofile Paddington to exorcise him out of Carnby, Lucifer seeks both pieces of the Stone in order to kickstart his reincarnation scheme. Upon Lucifer's awakening, he proceeds to lay waste to all of New York City, creating a Hell on Earth as the city crumbles and people die from his surplus of demons, best scene in the game's first chase level. Lucifer himself is first seen possessing a woman and snapping a dude’s neck, acting as one of Lucifer's many hosts he endangers and tosses aside upon defeat.
With more and more people dying from his armageddon, Lucifer finally shows up again in the finale, where the player must make a choice after Sarah foolishly takes the whole Stone for herself: either allow Sarah to become Lucifer's vessel and leave her sealed away underground with the still-alive Hermes, or shoot her and allow Lucifer to possess Edward.
Option A has Lucifer taunt Edward about losing his love interest. But Option B has Lucifer reawaken inside his favorite vessel, where he says this. And then Lucifer uses Hermes to open up the portal to the afterlife, promising to summon his horde of demons to conquer the Earth.
And that's it. Both endings work out pretty well for Lucifer all things considered, and the game never got a proper follow-up.
Redeeming Qualities?
None. Nothing good about Lucy at all.
While Lucifer himself is never seen in person, he's able to communicate among those he's enslaved, displaying immense egotism, sadism, and selfishness as he views humans as mere puppets and slaves.
Heinousness?
For this game, Lucifer nails it, being the force of evil that influenced Crowley into awakening him with hope of bringing him to full power. While his plans to enslave mankind are mostly talk, his destruction of New York upon his awakening is front and center.
Now if we were to take into account the first game (the events of the sequels are never mentioned), Lucifer still makes it, since he lays waste to New York and promises to do far worse to mankind once he's fully awakened. He's far more powerful than the likes of Ezechiel Pregzt.
Conclusion
I think he keeps
"No running in the halls!" to Lucy-fer
Not the Eye
to the fucking universe!
Vespasian and Lucifer
To Vespasian and Lucifer
Goku Black
Lucifer
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to the fucking universe.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Yes to the Narmbringer.
A nice swimmer
to the fucking universe.
RIP Toriyama
Yes to Lucifer!
Got several candidates from this work to talk on MB but first I got one for here:
What's the work?
Criminal (2006) is an excellent series of comics by Ed Brubaker and Sean Phillips, set in an unnamed city and following a litany of characters across decades' of time who are immersed in the criminal underworld and get up to all kinds of noir adventure.
Who is Walter Hyde? What has he done?
- The Predecessor Villain and father to Big Bad Sebastian Hyde, Walter clawed his way to the top of the mob in a bloody coup; he convinced powerful enforcer Clevon to team up and wipe out multiple mobsters across the city, leaving an open space for Walter to step in with Clevon as his right-hand. For decades after, Walter oversaw the city's crime, with regular beatings, extortion, murders and prostitution going on.
- Walter raised his son Sebastian in his footsteps, willing to physically abuse the boy while verbally trashing him and molding him into a ruthless monster like his dad. Walter truly crossed a line when he learned that Sebastian had fallen in love with Danica, a black woman, and gotten her pregnant; sneering that "you're not marrying the first n****r you knock up", Walter forced Sebastian to stand aside as he had Danica kidnapped, her baby forcefully aborted, and her womb torn to such bloody shreds that she not only bleeds for days after, but is never able to have children again.
- This event and the constant abuse hardened Sebastian into the monster he is today, and it is Walter's later influence that pushes Sebastian to kill Danica and torture multiple people to death after they knock over a Hyde stash house. Walter died sometime after, leaving Sebastian to take over the family business and keep the cruelty flowing.
Mitigating features?
None at all. He convinced Clevon, a black man, to ally with him in what is said to be "unheard of" in the 50s crime scene, but Walter keeps Clevon as his mere muscle and right-hand, and shows his true colors when he derides Danica with racial slurs right in front of Clevon. He's a nasty racist who just has Clevon as an ally out of convenience.
Heinousness?
This is a dark, dark world.
- Currently-listed CM, Delron Krumsky, is a psycho who kills an elderly woman, tortures her adult daughter to death, then takes the latter's child daughter to be sold to human traffickers.
- "The stalker" is a serial killer of women who turns out to be a loving couple staging the killings to eventually bump off an abusive POS and leave police befuddled.
- McGinnis is a human trafficker and pimp who raped a teenage girl into catanioa; he has no characterization beyond being a rapist, no dialogue, and is only on-panel twice before he is shot dead.
- Sebastian himself is a vicious crime lord who will torture and kill anyone in his way; beats his wife into a coma; kills Danica for knocking over one of his stash houses...
Walter though, I think stands out for both moulding Sebastian into the monster he is—Sebastian regularly remarks he's "doing what my old man would have done" right before doing something godawful—and what he does to Danica being a particularly cruel Kick the Dog against his son and Danica herself. His initial massacre of multiple mobsters is also nothing to sneeze at, remarked to be a bloody affair in which we see just part of it involving restaurants shot up and men strangled to death, and Walter's grip on the city is shown to make it a decidedly worse place that Sebastian carries on.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Goku Black
Walter
Sure to Walter
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Not the Eye
to Walter
To Walter.
Could Sabastian also count since he killed his love interest and seems bad enough or is his dads abuse on him too much of a militating factor?
Edited by G-Editor on Jun 19th 2023 at 1:11:47 AM
Gentle Laborer
Lightbringer/The Universe and Walter
How does Vespasian compare continua enthusiasts? How much detail does the book go into the destruction he causes? If he 's only on a single page is just "he caused a bunch of wars that killed a shit ton of people" and that's it?
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her