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
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
I'm okay with the Olivier version getting his own write up.
Edited by Bullman on Jul 15th 2023 at 3:09:12 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Richard.
Yes to Richard
Yes to Louis and Richard
....Phenomenal
for Louis and Richard.
to Louis and Richard
Caesar
@ACW: Funny you say...
- NIMONA (2023): The Director is the seemingly benevolent leader of the Institute, who proves herself to be the only real monster in the Kingdom. Fanatically adherent to the traditions of Gloreth, the Director is so stoutly dedicated to maintaining the status quo that when the Queen tries to knight a "commoner", Ballister Boldheart, the Director views it as an affront. She murders the Queen and frames Ballister for it, chastising his societal status as proof of his villainy and using it to further oppress the citizenry. When Ballister and his new "sidekick" Nimona discover the Director's treachery, the Director orders them both killed and shows herself willing to murder the loyal Ambrosius for questioning her. Due to the Director's prejudiced actions, Nimona is driven to a despair-induced transformation into a leviathan; the Director proceeds to turn one of the Kingdom's giant cannons onto Nimona, uncaring it will kill thousands of her own citizens. Even when Nimona is shown to be harmless, the Director refuses to be redeemed, and personally attacks her own Knights so the cannon can fire. Despite her claims to care about the Kingdom, the Director only values its conservative, oppressive tyranny, and shows herself willing to wipe out half the population to slake her bigotry.
The entry should be spoilered on the YMMV.
Edited by Ravok on Jul 15th 2023 at 1:52:12 AM
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
What is the work?
Pedestal is a rpg maker game by made by Uri who made the strange man series which is about a girl named Shori Natsume supposedly dying from suicide which is something Aoi can't believe as Shori was the popular girl surrounded by family and friends while being rich so Aoi goes on a investigation to find out the truth being her death with her friend Akari.
Who is Akari Abe?
Akari Abe is Aoi's lazy "best friend" who hates being bored who unknown to her is the true reason behind almost wrong everything in the game.
What does Akari Abe do?
Akari Abe before the events of the story being annoyed by a mentally ill suicidal teacher she convinced the teacher to kill herself which Akari used as experience for her next plan to cause the pedestal that Shori is on to collapse by destroying her relationship with other not caring if Shori kills herself in the process. Not believing that her plan actually killed Shori she helps her "best friend" look into the case so she can be sure if her plan did actually lead Shori to end her own life.
When being done meeting Midori on the school roof to question her Aoi goes back and sees Midori trying to kill herself and goes to save her but ends up in danger herself, Abe not wanting her "best friend" to dying now tries to convince Aoi to let go, but when Aoi doesn't Abe tells Midori to climb up or she will ruin Shori further make Midori get up.
Sometime later Aoi finds papers what Shori and Midori wrote to each other in Abe's room pushing Aoi to find out the real truth with her learning that Abe convinced a old lady to kill many cat and when Aoi finally confronts Abe on this she feels no remorse and tells her almost everything she thought is true, and then decides to cut off all communication between her and Aoi and leaves telling Aoi that she will treasure Aoi's face of despair and leaves.
Redeeming Qualities?
While she does seem like a real friend with Aoi in reality she is only with Aoi only because Aoi's presence entertains her and nothing else only letting Aoi keep the book she gave her because she didn't care about it anymore in ending 2 and when she finally leaves with a smile on her face the thing she treasures is Aoi's face of despair in ending 3.
While she does help save Midori from killing herself not only is she indirectly the cause of that happening, but she only saves her because Aoi would die as well telling Midori to kill herself alone. She is said to be polite and does help around the library but not only does she hate getting punished her reading books is something she enjoys anyway with the librarian barely knowing anything about her. She does say its too bad Bottles isn't here for her to say goodbye but excluding the fact that she has caused him trouble that could get him fired she seem all that broken up about it.
She does provide plenty of comedy but this is before who she truly is revealed and when her true nature is shown all of the comedy disappears. And she does say she will cut of communications between her and Aoi but it is shown that she mainly doing this so it doesn't become a issue for her as well.
Is she bad enough?
This game is never shown to be connected to any of the series Uri has made, and outside of characters some characters being rude, and a cat lady mass killing cats which she is the cause of not one is as bad as her. She caused a teacher to kill herself, tried to break everyone image of Shori even if she might kill herself which lead to Shori carelessly endangering her self by breaking her friendships, and indirectly causing Midori to try to kill herself and she does all of this while just being a normal high schooler and no one comes close.
Verdict?
You decide
Edited by umaprasis on Jul 15th 2023 at 3:04:46 AM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'll read that, but dude, please start linking to the work pages.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Writeup:
A House For Alesa: Mr. Bob is a demonic being from Alesa's past. Failing to capture Alesa when she was a child, Mr. Bob corrupted one family and turned them into mutated deranged lunatics, who tortured and killed people. Enjoying watching them do this, Mr. Bob would then tries to capture now adult Alesa, when she sneaks into his house, mentally torturing her and should Alesa fails to bring holy candle upon confronting him, Mr. Bob would thank her for killing his "boring family", before mutating Alesa into a grotesque blob, who is fully conscious, but unable to move.
So there are a few problems.
The teacher who wanted to kill herself wanted to 24/7 and Akari even admits she's not sure she did anything other than speed up the process?
Manipulating an old lady into killing cats is cruel but otherwise isn't animal cruelty typically not heinous enough for this?
Shaori was never going to kill herself, it only happened because of a freak accident and even Akari admits her orchestrated bullying might not have done anything.
One or two of her worst acts are just threats.
Her helping Aoi keep Midori from killing herself, even if only for pragmatic reasons, does take away from her heinousness, she also never planned to have her kill herself.
I played the game myself and thought about this more than once, there just isn't enough for her personally. Leaning no.
Edited by Mediamagician on Jul 15th 2023 at 3:40:22 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
While it is true that the teacher already wanted to kill herself Akari by telling her to do it while she knew the state she was in puts her blood on her hands, and while it is true that Shori didn't kill herself she what she did to her while knowing that was a possibility as well as the fact that Shori and Midori beforehand went up to the school roof before hand multiple times when Shori wasn't the most happy person to begin with and it was only after Akari went out of her way to damage her life that Shori did something that could lead to her death and when told this she doesn't care.
Edited by umaprasis on Jul 15th 2023 at 3:53:05 AM
It's too indirect for me, Shaori is literally reconciling with her friend on the rooftop and only dies because she isn't careful on the railing. I am also not comfortable saying she's heinous enough when she isn't sure her plan would even work. Even then, it's just two victims which is barely baseline.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Right so Atlantis: The Lost Empire... has a script which was ...shall we say more adult (for reference Milo admits in a moment when he thinks he's dying that he's sorry for spying on his cousin changing). While following the similar story of a group expedition discovering the ancient continent of Atlantis... there's a few changes such as a few characters omitted from the film such as Preston Whitmore's whiny grandson and a character called Zoltan. Character personality traits have changed too so there's enough difference here IMO. I've got two possible candidates here, one more sure than the other so lets start with my more easier one and someone that's even worse than their film counterpart.
Who is Rourke and what has he done?
Rourke is the commander of the expedition to Atlantis who is a much higher Jerkass compared to his film one pre-evil reveal. Showcased as he points a gun at Milo when Milo says they should turn back after they fight the Leviathan within the sub. Now unlike film Rourke who at least had the decency to do the memorial for the fallen crew members, Rourke is much more callous, demonstrated when the crew are crossing a cavern filled with heated mud and geysers and tell the others to keep moving on when one of the transport machines with crew members in it catch fire and sinks into the mud. During the script version of the firefly scene where in this case, the fireflies are much more destructive and kill several crew members, Milo uses the vehicles water hoses to save them, Rourke merely yells at Milo after for exhausting the water supply.
When the crew finally reach Atlantis, Milo and Script!Kida (called Serena) overhear Rourke and Zaltan discussing about looking for something within Atlantis, later revealed to be the Atlantean power crystal. Now while Preston Whitmore, who financed the expedition wants it for the good of mankind due to it's power, Rourke is willing to get it and allow the whole of Atlantis to die for one simple reason, cash. During this scene reveal also? Yeah Rourke kisses Helga who's in on the scheme... thank fuck we didn't need to see that animated.
Rourke then holds Serena at gunpoint to force Milo to translate the remaining pages of the Shepherd's journal. Eventually discovering the crystal chamber, Rourke has Zoltan attempt to become a host for the crystal's power, which results in Zoltan horrifically dying. Told by the king that the crystals only accept a vessel composed of "peace and serenity", Rourke goes to have the king merged with the crystal but Serena offers to take his place. After Rourke tosses Milo into a funnel-like pit with rising lava, noting about his claustrophobia with glee, he then threatens the other crew members at gunpoint who were getting uncomfortable with Rourke's actions. When Rourke sets off with Serena's crystallised body, the city is noted to start decaying with the inhabitants all crowding out of fear.
Then plot stuff happens and the next time we see Rourke he's at the base of a volcano shaft, oh and he's actually a German agent with his Zeppelins having the iron cross insignia intending on using the Atlantean crystal to usher in a "New World Order", something Helga and Willy were unaware of, and Whitmore and his crew who were meant to be meeting Rourke at the volcano just got sunk by a German U-Boat. Then the heroes arrive! A vicious fight ensues with Milo and the Atlanteans fighting Rourke's German forces. Rourke fights Helga and then shoots her and throws her off the Zeppelin. As Helga is mortally wounded, like in the film, she uses her flare gun to shoot at the Zeppelin to prevent it from raising, causing it to crash.
Rourke emerges from the inferno and uses a piece of the motor to fight Milo as the volcano around is starting to erupt. During the fight Rourke shows off his sadistic side by pulling this quote out (after lighting a cigar with lava.)
Fortunately though, Milo ends up slashing Rourke with the crystal in which this then causes the crystal to painfully take over his body, allowing to Milo to just straight up kill him with a sword, shattering Rourke's body. Milo even pulls a Pre-Mortem One-Liner to him. '
Oh and because of the volcano erupting, it causes a tsunami above which wipes out the German U-Boat.
Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
No lol. The script showcases Rourke's callousness and manipulations over the other crew members. Even his relationship with Helga is shown to be manipulative since she had no idea he's actually a German agent. Yeah it's actually impressive how they made Rourke less worse in the film.
There's a moment when the crew are exploring the crystal chamber which was aligned with the previous kings, noting that even Rourke maintains an air of reverence which falls flat since the script then notes as he leaves with Serena's crystallised body, the kings all decay so yeah that falls flat.
Heinous Standard?
Blows past it since Rourke intends on leaving a civilisation to die and intends on allowing 1914 Germany acquire the crystals' power to unleash a "New World Order". Now would this be bad? Obviously ignoring the time period and said faction, Serena explains this about the crystals:
And the script shows that Rourke has Whitmore radioed to the location where the German U-Boat would also be so Rourke sets up his death there as well.
Final Verdict?
What say we?
Edited by WetFlannels on Jul 15th 2023 at 12:15:44 PM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
to King Louis and King Richard III.
Abstain on Akari Abe.
It's Rourke again so yes there lol.
BTW guys there's another proposal.
to Rourke (I take it Helga is the 2nd candidate with some Adaptational Villainy)
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Akari
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Given that Wet was also the one who started that discussion I don't think it's a coincidence
LOL, I thought you were getting ready to propose script Rourke and came across the entry rather than the other way round
Edited by Agentofchaos on Jul 15th 2023 at 7:16:39 AM
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Believe it or not no. It's a new character completely in the script although a similar one appears in the film.
Helga was shown to have some genuine feeling for Rourke (before the Iron Cross schtick) and even calls him out for throwing Milo into the lava tunnels saying they've gotten what they wanted it's unnecessary to do anything else like this.
ROURKE: "Do it!"
And for the first time, Helga hesitates.
HELGA: "Is this really necessary? We got what we came for."
ROURKE: "What's the matter? Goin' soft on him?"
Edited by WetFlannels on Jul 15th 2023 at 12:11:27 PM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Not the Eye
to Rourke, funny coindicence with disscusion we just had on cleanup thread.
to Akari
V
Jürgen Voller
to Rourke.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Abstain on Akari
Yeah I ended up finding the script when I was trying to search about the query in the other thread.
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
I'd be cool with the Olivier one getting his own write-up, too.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!