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
To be a Master
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Klaber
I hate spoilers
to Dr. Regal. When an already unrepentant villain gets Adaptational Villainy, you know he counts.
Also, just bought game called Gravity Circuit that came out 2 days ago, so I'm calling the discussion on the 27th
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Wild Child
Sure to Bristol.
Officially calling Mavka: The Forest Song with its US release a month away.
Why so serious?
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Hey, I got one now that I think deserves a discussion:
What's the work?
The Man Inthe Iron Mask is a 1998 adaptation of Alexandre Dumas' The Vicomte of Bragelonne, the last of his Musketeers trilogy. But, uh, it's happier and much less grim. 20 + years after their heroic exploits, the Musketeers have retired: Aramis is a priest, Porthos is a drunk, Athos is chilling with his beloved son Raoul and Raoul's loving fiancee Christine. D'Artagnan is captain of the Musketeers. The only problem? Young King Louix XIV is a sociopath and a konster. People starve, treason echoes and Louis charges Aramis to find the head of a conspiracy. A conspiracy that ends up centering on a mysterious prisoner in the Bastille in the iron man.
Except Aramis is the secret leader of the conspiracy and the man in the mask is Philippe Bourbon, Louis' own brother. Now, let's discuss our CM candidate: louis
Who is Louis?
A cruel, ruthless hedonist committing his men to bloody wars across Europe, Louis busies himself at Versailles with his own personal pleasures. Lavishly feasting and bedding any woman who catches his eye, Louis meets Raoul and Christine and is instantly smitten with the latter. Athos is furious at Louis attempting to seduce Christine, who is faithful to her betrothed. As Raoul is a soldier, Louis deals with this by putting Raoul on the front lines in front of the cannons. Raoul, too honorable to refuse, goes to his death to Christine and Athos's utter devastation while Louis swears innocence and that he ordered Raoul placed far from the fighting. with her mother and sister ailing, Christine is coerced by Louis into becoming his mistress by the promise of his personal physician.
When Louis learns of rioters, D'Artagnan quells the mob peacefully by promising to speak to Louis. Louis has ordered rotten food sent to them which makes things worse. When this occurs, Louis simply names a new chief adviser and orders the last one executed for it (when the poor guy had actually tried to dissuade Louis from sending it out). Louis' next order? Next time there are rioters, shoot them all. With France a powder keg and Louis fully willing to massacre his own. Aramis reveals his plots to the others and retrieves Philippe from the Bastille. The plan? Swap 'em. Freeing Philippe, they clean him up and teach him Louis' manner. Unfortunately, things soon go awry when they kidnap Louis and sneak in Philippe to a party. Christine,unfortunately, has elarned the truth and brokenly confronts "Louis" before everyone. A horrified Philippe can only try to comfort her in a VERY un-Louis like manner before she flees inconsolable, which twigs D'Artagnan that this isn't Louis.
D'Artagnan recovers Louis while the Musketeers escape and Louis decides to give Philippe a fate worse tha death: back to the mask. "Wear it until you love it!"
Realizing how far gone Louis is, D'Artagnan betrays him and sides with his old friends, rescuing Philippe where D'Artagnan reveals a truth: Louis and Philippe are his children, not the last king's. He and Queen Anne had loved one another for years and she never told him about the second child who was sent away, until he was sent to the Bastille...Louis leads his troops to kill them but the valor of the legends wins out. As they charge their enemies, the King's forces close their eyes and fire away as none want to kill the men they admire so much.
Louis is finally captured, but pulls a knife to murder Philippe, only to stab D'Artagnan who takes the blow fatally. Louis tries to slip away, only to be captured by his own and placed in the iron mask as Philippe becomes King.
Ultimately, Louis is broken by the mask and sent to exile in the country, never to harm another soul.
Mitigating issues?
Honestly, Louis is an interesting villain. He's easily bad enough, starving his people and ordering them shot en masse. Being a warmongering prick with so many personal nasty moments.
Now, Louis has some moments of human vulnerability.He expresses a few moments of care to Christine. But whenever Louis is even slightly pressed, he reveals a much more horrible side. He does want love, because Louis is someone who always wants what belongs to someone else. When he seduces Christine, it's made clear there's a massive power dynamic between them and Christine later brings up if she hadn't given in to his advances, he would never have shown her family "mercy." When Christine says she believes she'll burn in hell for her sin with him, Louis instantly loses all affection and hisses "No, my love. YOU will burn in hell. I will not. I am the King. Ordained by GOD!" When Christine ultimately commits suicide, Louis is briefly shocked and then yells "Get rid of it!"
His mother? He ultimately discards any hint of affection, yelling that her love means nothing to him. He kills D'Artagnan (his own father) without a flicker of remorse. The onlym rub is the ending title crawl reveals Louis was pardoned and sent to live in the country where the queen visits him, but it's implied the mask breaks his mind
Conclusion?
Leaning yea.
It seems like Louis does eventually subvert his redeeming qualities, so sure to him
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Yes to Louis
Edited by Snowy66 on Jul 15th 2023 at 12:32:31 PM
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Not the Eye
to Louis (man I remember this movie)
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to Louis. First for Leonardo DiCaprio?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Ultimate Moral Compass
Louis
I remember him being proposed and rejected before.
I give a tentative yes.
Edited by Silverblade2 on Jul 15th 2023 at 9:39:02 PM
Standards have changed, I honestly couldn't even remember him being proposed. An I'd missed the whole "mask broke him" thing.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Seems like more Even Evil Can Be Loved than the opposite anyway.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
RIP Toriyama
Frankly I don't see the point in bringing up "this character was discussed and downvoted 5 years ago" unless there is pertinent information to be brought forth in said discussion. Opinions change and so do thread standards.
Got one now that hasn't been listed, I assume, because of the "too similar" rule; well that's long gone so let's tackle him:
What's the work?
Richard III is an adaptation of the classic Shakespeare play of the same name, starring Ian McKellen in the titular role as Richard, as well as a litany of familiar faces in his supporting cast, from Annette Bening to Robert Downey Jr.!
Given a setting update from the medieval 1400s to a budding fascist empire of the 1930s, we follow our pal Richard as he plots and schemes his way from mere Duke to the King of England, no matter the cost in blood.
Who is Richard? What has he done?
- Richard, Duke of Gloucester, is introduced leading a brutal, machine gun-laden assault on King Henry's compound, where he personally executes Henry and his son the prince. This ushers in the reign of Edward, Richard's elder brother, and though Richard plays the part of supportive sibling, in private he expresses to both himself and the audience his utter contempt for all around him, and promises to prove himself a villain, proclaiming that he can "smile, and murder while I smile!"
- Richard first seduces Anne, the wife of the prince Richard has just murdered. He uses humble words and lavishes her with kindness to turn her hatred of him into romance, seeming genuine in his attraction; only to reveal to the audience he's only doing it for fun and power:
"I'll have her. But I will not keep her long. What? I, who killed her husband and his father, to take her in her heart's extremest hate, with curses in her mouth, tears in her eyes, and yet to win her—all the world to nothing! Upon my life she finds, although I cannot, myself to be a marvellous, proper man!"
- Richard subtly turns Edward against their other brother, Clarence, having him locked away in the dungeon-like Tower while maintaining appearances as caring about Clarence. Richard conscripts the cold-blooded James Tyrell to be his personal assassin, and sends him to kill Clarence in the Tower, Clarence's throat slashed. Taking advantage of Edward's growing sickness and infirmity, Richard divines the perfect time to break him completely and drops the news that Clarence is dead, blaming the entire thing on Edward and making him believe he gave the order to end Clarence's life. This is such a shock that Edward promptly dies, leaving Richard the Lord Protector of England until an heir is chosen.
- Of course, Richard has no plans on there being any ascension to the throne but his own. He has his sister-in-law Queen Elizabeth's brother, Earl Rivers, horrendously stabbed to death in bed, and begins planting seeds of not only supposed treachery amidst his political rivals, but also that Elizabeth's children and the heirs to the throne are bastards. After using trumped-up charges to hang the Prime Minister just for questioning his leadership, Richard has the two potential heir apparents, both young children, locked away in the Tower while he secures his position of power.
- Richard winds up coronated King of England, at which time he more firmly begins Putting on the Reich and instituting his total dictatorship. He orders his most loyal ally, Buckingham, to have the two princes killed. When Buckingham is hesitant, Richard reneges on a long-time deal they had to give Buckinghama province, betraying him. Buckingham tries to flee to join the growing rebellion against Richard, but Richard has him captured, tortured and killed; he also simply orders Tyrell to kill the kids instead, which is accomplished.
- After murdering his wife Anne once she has outlived her usefulness, Richard plans to marry Queen Elizabeth's daughter, the princess...uh, also named Elizabeth. He lobbies threats against the Queen and her daughter to try to force their hand, pushing for the Queen to convince the princess to marry and bed Richard so as to give Richard heirs, lest both women be punished. Richard also is so distrusting of one of his other allies, Stanley, that he takes the man's young son hostage to ensure he doesn't try to join Richard's enemies. Richard plans to wipe out every last foe to his rule, numbering in the thousands.
- Ultimately, all falls apart for Richard. The Queen and her daughter defect to the enemies of Richard and she is married to his rival Richmond, while Stanley does indeed turn on Richard despite his hostage son. As soon as Richard sees the treachery, he orders the boy's head be lopped off, but has no time to see the order through as his enemies arrive. Richard is forced to flee the encroaching Richmond with his two remaining loyalists, Tyrell and Catesby...only to immediately shove Catesby's wounded body from the vehicle when he's shot, and then when Tyrell tries to urge Richard to retreat, Richard responds by shooting him in the head and snarling he'll never retreat.
- Richard gets into a final firefight with Richmond, and upon being cornered at the top of a high balcony by Richmond, Richard chooses to end things his way, and leaps from the edge of the balcony as Richmond opens fire, falling into flaming wreckage below with a wicked smile on his face at all he accomplished despite his defeat.
Mitigating features?
Richard is a Card-Carrying Villain, of course. He's an Evil Cripple who has some moments of heavy implication that his villainous ways are a result of his deformities giving him a worse lot in life than his healthy brothers, but nothing concrete is shown and Richard happily embraces the villain he is to the very end. Even in the night before the big battle, when he is confronted in his dreams by the memories and ghosts of those he has killed, Richard expresses no remorse for his actions, chiding his conscience through the film as "weak". By the end he betrays and even kills his most trusted allies, and dies happy with everything he has done.
Heinousness?
He's even worse than in the OG play, as he has the same level of familial annihilation down to children, but also is a damn Nazi whose rule is shown to be a miserable one, and he kills even his Co-Dragons Tyrell while shoving a wounded Catesby aside with contempt.
Final Verdict?
Yes!
Will be good to now be able to remove that weird "besides Richard himself" opening from Tyrell's entry, when this Richard wasn't even listed, so "besides Richard" made no sense ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Edited by Ravok on Jul 15th 2023 at 12:52:38 PM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup. to Richie
Not the Eye
to Richard.
Hah, I assumed he was just already up by virtue of this, yeah. Should I do a writeup for the Laurence Olivier one or is that already assumed up?
To Louis and Richard
Ultimate Moral Compass
Nazi Richard
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Richard. Ian's first?
I'll assume Tyrell urging a retreat is Pragmatic Villainy, but ye gods does his entry need de-potholing.
Edited by ACW on Jul 15th 2023 at 4:08:53 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Goku Black
Richard and Louis (Remember that film)
