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
It's not on the dates page.
Goku Black
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
hikawa.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I don't mind all of us splitting that show.
Not the Eye
Me neither.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to Hikawa.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Hikawa
Cell
The Iris
Also, for Analog Horror...I can reserve The Painter?
Edited by KazuyaProta on Jul 10th 2023 at 1:40:16 PM
Watch me destroying my country
Gentle Laborer
I was thinking of reserving that one but eh... It's not really my cup of tea. Go for it.
Anyway, speaking of reserving stuff, I'll take the opportunity to reserve Gemini Home Entertainment—I know we've already upvoted the Iris, but I decided to follow Scraggle's advice—reserving GHE will keep the writeup at the back of my mind.
Ultimate Moral Compass
Here's a nice lil EP from a game I just found out about yesterday.
What’s the Work?
Popful Mail is a 1991 side-scrolling fantasy action RPG by Falcom originally released for the NEC's PC-88 home computer, later for the Sega CD. The Sega CD version actually has some interesting history. Sega had originally intended to remake the game as Sister Sonic, replacing its protagonist with a relative of Sonic the Hedgehog's family, a bounty hunter who was to be "flirtatious" and "sexy". Japanese fans of Popful Mail didn't like this idea, and heavily requested Sega just make a faithful Sega CD remake of Popful instead. And that's what happened.
The Sega CD version's the only version of the game to see a western release, courtesy of the fine folks at the defunct Working Designs. With spiffy new cutscenes and decent English voice acting for the time, this will be the version I'll be covering for this EP.
The plot's pretty simple. The gold-hungry elven bounty hunter Popful Mail (basically Lina Inverse if she had pointy ears) sets out to arrest wanted sorcerer Muttonhead, who is worth over 2 million gold. Along the way, Popful stumbles upon a plot that could threaten the entire world. Teaming up with the friendly sorcerer Tatto and the mini-dragon Gaw, Popful sets out to save the world and claim as much treasure as she can. Who's threatening the world you may ask?
Who Are They?
Ulgar "The Overlord", Necros (Master of War), and Morgal (Lord of Beasts), together forming the "Three Masters of Evil", are a triumvirate of evil gods who’ve orchestrated the events of the entire game.
What have they done?
Once a trio of angels who were thrown out of Heaven eons ago for their villainy, the three waged war against the entire world in order to conquer it for themselves, sending armies across the entire land to kill everybody in their path, while blackening the world with their dastardly magic. All life on Earth was forever trapped in an endless war, filling those with insanity and despair. That is, until the three gods were thwarted by three mortals, a dwarf, an elf, and a human whose names were lost to time. Humiliated, the Masters of Evil retreated to another dimension, forever sealed away with the Black Seal to protect mankind from their wickedness.
But enough time has passed, and the three want out. Forcing the sorcerer Kazyr to act as their enforcer, the three give orders to Kazyr to acquire three magical orbs and destroy the Black Seal needed to secure their freedom, allowing Kazyr's troops to raid several villages and cause chaos throughout the land. Promising other members of their army anything they’d want so long as they help them out, the three gods manipulate Mail, Tatto, and Gaw into acquiring the orbs under the promise of stopping them, only for them to act as the key to their release. Warping our heroes into their dimension after the death of Kazyr, the gods three try to kill them, believing they’ve outlived their usefulness.
But history repeats itself, as the three gods are once again vanquished by three mortals, and the world is saved. Oh, and Mail gets her treasure.
Redeeming Qualities?
Zero.
Heinousness?
So there's several other villains in this game I want to go over.
Kazyr: Despite being the gods' second in command, and the one behind an attack on Bountyville, it's heavily implied through his final words that he was forced to serve them, and is happy to be liberated from their bonds upon his death, even believing our heroes have what it takes to defeat his former bosses.
Muttonhead: He's an asshole who works with Kazyr in his plan to release the three gods, but he's kind of a joke not taken that seriously, and at the end he performs a Heel–Face Turn after the trio's deaths who regrets being evil. The only reason he became was a criminal was to earn people's respect, which subsides at the end.
Nuts Cracker: A Mad Bomber who speaks in an over the top Italian accent who is far too jokey to be taken seriously, even if he doesn't have any real redeeming qualities and who's only vile act is assisting Muttonhead in the gods' release (which isn't even uncommon in this game). The Character page makes him out to be way more evil than he's presented.
Venuncio, real name Klabberdeen Klotchsniffer Leetzlewiffle Poopiewouffen von Venuncio Krakenlichter Ratchetface XIV: As his long name implies, Venuncio is a foppishly comical villain who, while he lays waste to a village to break the Black Seal, did so because as the leader of a resistance gang, he genuinely wanted to create a better world, and was manipulated by the gods' servants into doing their bidding.
Sven T. Uncommon: This is a weird one. While Sven is a Fallen Hero who helps the gods for the sake of power, and was the one who lead Venuncio into committing a raid to destroy the Black Seal, his English version makes him a weird Schwarzenegger parody. Plus despite a city attack, he doesn't do much different than any of the gods' other minions (even Kazyr's responsible for a town's destruction). So I'm just gonna label Sven as an IDK.
Meanwhile, Ulgar, Necros, and Morgal are almighty gods who were responsible for a massive war against mankind, the actions of everybody I've just listed, and an attempt to continue their world-wide war. While the trio are the game's Greater Scope Villains, we see in the game's intro cutscene the destruction they've wrought upon the world, and are each given dialogue to help make them stand out. And while Ulgar's the leader of the pack who calls the shots, Necros and Morgal contributed much destruction and death during their previous war, and are shown to be just as bad as their boss.
Conclusion
Simple, yet easy, keeps
Edited by therealjackieboy on Jul 10th 2023 at 12:00:13 PM
"No running in the halls!"
Not the Eye
to Masters of Evil
Yes to another weird-ass '90s Sega console keeper (three for the price of one). Odd we got this one right after Megas.
Woagh
to the Masters of Evil. Also:
- Sega had originally intended to remake the game as Sister Sonic, replacing its protagonist with a relative of Sonic the Hedgehog's family, a bounty hunter who was to be "flirtatious" and "sexy".
My relief that this wasn't done is immeasurable.
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE
for Fanfic Cell.
About Iru: Okay one half of the Big Bad Duumvirate wants to destroy the world but is a tragic character that can be redeemed, the other one only wants to rule the world but has no sympathetic qualities. So that means Saeko has much more higher potential body count. Going with my gut feeling I give Hikawa a ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
.
for the Masters of Evil.
@Lightysnake: They are already working on Baldur's Gate 4? Man, they're really fast. ;)
Okay the only one of these I’m familiar with is Baldur’s Gate 3.But I don’t mind if you want to reserve any of these.
Goku Black
masters of evil
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to the Masters.
Scraggle, you gonna write up Megas and the others?
Also, if Atlantis isn't back, I'm gonna create The Bill page this weekend.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Good day!
I've decided to continue the string of posts about Trace monsters. Today it's the episode called "Head Hunters". So fasten your seat belts and get your bags and bowls ready. It's going to be a rough ride.
Who is Nikita Golikov?
29-years old graduate of Moscow State University of Medicine and Dentistry aka "The 3rd Med Uni"
What are his crimes?
The episode starts with the photoshoot of Linda Gushchina, famous Instagram (or how it is called in-universe) model. Then we see her beheaded corpse with the head in her hands. One of FES detectives (Yuliya Sokolova) is truly horrified (she even calls it an installation artwork). The first suspect is Mark Budin, whose daughter was Linda's fan and died of anorexia nervosa. Then, FES squad finds out that there were at least twelve people murdered the same way. All of them had serious neurological diseases (ALS, SMA, etc.). Most of them sold their flats before their death. And they were decapitated with a very precious blade. Another suspect is Roman Lomakin, shell-shocked surgeon who had PTSD attack when FES was at his cabinet. He helped FES to identify the murderer as 3rd Med Uni graduate (due to some technical aspects) and was interested in experiments.
FES detectives go to the big nurological center near Moscow. They find there Eduard Mnevnikov, the doctor who worked with the victims. He was working with Diana Timchenko, woman suffering from muscular dystrophy (remember that name - it is important). He studied at the said university, so he becomes the prime suspect. But he commits suicide by drug overdose when FES knows that he was a fraud. He was giving his patients mix of hormones and stimulating drugs. He was making money, cheating with expensive drugs that aren't imported to Russia. Said mix made them feel better, but not for long and with horrible effects after the medication. It was the head of the medical center, Kirill Pyaltsev, who drove him to suicide by threating his family. Pyaltsev wanted to cover his ass before leaving Russia.
FES forensic experts see that mediacl histories were accessed from Inna Golikova's (doctor who worked there earlier) home PC. But she has been dead for 18 months! They find out that her son, Nikita, is MGMSU (the university in the disclaimer) alumnus who had three-year academic leave. He wasn't at home for a few days. And Diana Timchenko is missing, too. Detectives find USB flash card (in a shape of vertebra) with videos of victims' decapitations. Diana is saved at the eleventh hour (and Nikita explains, how to save her).
And then, during the interrogation, the living hell bursts out. The victims were just lab frogs for Nikita. He chose them because he wanted to see the reflexing bodies. And he had some victims before. His mother once caught him during one of the murders, and Nikita freaked out like he was wanking (not murdering people). His mother sent him to asylum for two years, but he returned, simulating heavy medication poisoning and, in turn, poisoned his mother ("staged a heart attack", by his words). He chose patients from the clinic to show the fraud of his mother and other doctors. It was his vengeance to them. Episode ends with Rogozina looking horrified and devastated (and it's UNBELIEVEABLE in-universe), but Tukaev (forensic examiner) says that Diana will be cured overseas.
Mitigating factors?
Maybe, his will to help Diana, when he got that the experiment is spoiled. And his complete insanity, leading to Blue-and-Orange Morality (but I doubt both).
Diagnosis?
I think Nikita Golikov may pass as a Complete Monster. So, what's your opinion?
His will to help diana and his total insanity? I'm going with a no here.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
"Three Masters of Evil"
Just got out seeing Indiana Jones 5, my P Ms are open if you wish to discuss!
Yes, yes, old boy, we'd like nothing more than to stay and be a part of your primitive, barbaric society, but duty calls, duty calls...
....Phenomenal
for Cell, Hikawa, and the Masters of the Unive- err, I mean, Evil.
Not sure on Nikita, can we get a little more context on that "helping Diana" thing? Because it sorta sounds like a Pet the Dog moment, is it not?
There remains a foothold out of this mire — now climb.
Caesar
Yes to the Masters, likewise want more info on the possible Pet the Dog and insanity there.
- Final Fantasy XVI:
- Ultima is the progenitor of mankind and the puppetmaster of Valisthea's miseries. Ages ago introducing magic to reality, Ultima's tampering brought the Blight into existence, threatening all life. Ultima responded to the threat by creating humanity to be his subservient slaves with no wills of their own, desiring to use them as nothing but worshippers and breeding stock to one day grant him a new vessel to inhabit, "Mythos." After slumbering for hundreds of years and using parts of his essence to create the Mothercrystals, Ultima awakens in the present, so horrified that humankind has developed consciousness that he decides to punish them for evolving beyond the scope he created them for. Ultima uses disguises, powers and simple words to manipulate various factions across Valisthea into bloody carnage. He has Hugo Kupka annihilate the Hideaway by cutting off the head of Kupka's lover and framing it on Cid; takes the form of the Holy Empire prince Olivier to push the bsystematic genocide of the Bearers; uses Barnabas's memory of his mother to fool him into turning countless people into the monstrous Akashic; and forcefully activates Eikons to have the users decimate their own kingdoms. Despite his claimed intention to save humanity, Ultima's true goal is to wipe it out entirely and start over with a new creation that will worship him for all eternity as the god he believes himself to be.
to the Evil masters
Yes to Hikawa, Cell, Iris, and The Three Masters of Evil. I thought of that trio for this before at one point.
Edited by Mediamagician on Jul 10th 2023 at 4:45:50 AM
Hikawa and the Masters of Evil (I am sure they're a group of very morally complex individuals)
to Hikawa and the Masters of Evil
Well, "helping" is a long stretch. When he was busted by FES detectives, he (among other things) started giving advice on stopping the bleeding from Diana's neck (is he wasn't busted, he would have finish her as a part of his decapitation experiments).
Insanity... Well, it's hard to see the man who was performing SUCH experiments as a sane person. He is beyond screwed up, with his Blue-and-Orange Morality (helping to find the fraud by brutally murdering the victims of the said fraud). And the murderer is actually played well (with Creepy Monotone Slasher Smile vibes, that make Criminal Minds "Drive" look like a sitcom episode), so you can feel his insanity. He performs his main goal (For Science!, without thinking about anything else). Golikov even claims that Sergio Canavero knows about his "experiments" (he wrote anonymously, so he can't be found and proclaimed insane). Nikita doesn't get what's wrong with him (he actually says that neurological center's personnel (including his mother) are the true evil in the story). Well, they are evil (messing with horribly (and basically terminally) ill people has no excuses and may be CM-worthy alone), but... He doesn't get what's wrong with him.
P.S. It's a very screwed up story, as you can see. There are two sides, that may count.
Edited by PS83147 on Jul 10th 2023 at 12:43:45 PM
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Jul 10th 2023 at 3:21:14 PM