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
Shin Megami Tensei IV
RIP Toriyama
Now, with thanks to Lighty for hashing this one out with me, I've got one of my own to talk from The Twilight Zone (1959), of a guy I've long thought counted but was shut down a couple times over the years:
Who is Peter Craig? What has he done?
- Hailing from the episode "The Little People", Peter Craig is the ambitious copilot to William Fletcher. Having long chafed under Fletcher's command, remarking that "I'd like to be the number one straw boss, I'd like to give the orders!", Craig's ego is built up early in the episode as our two astronauts land on a seemingly lifeless alien world, stranded until Fletcher can repair it.
- All changes when Craig stumbles across an entire civilization on the planet...an alien civilization of "little people" as tiny as ants, whose whole world is localized in a small patch of area no bigger than a living room. Craig establishes a method to communicate with the people via mathematics and the like, and quickly, his ego inflates to bigger than ever as he forcefully establishes himself as their god, forcing them to worship and idolize him to spare themselves from his wrath. On a regular basis, just for fun? Craig smashes entire sections of their civilization, killing them in scores and delighting in the power he holds over an entire race.
- When Fletcher discovers this, he confronts Craig, denouncing his insane claims to godhood with "You're no god, Craig. By now, you've probably gotten them to believe in the devil!" Craig continues to terrorize those under his boot, forcing them to build a massive statue in Craig's likeness. Even when Fletcher repairs the ship, Craig pulls a gun and threatens to shoot Fletcher dead, cheerfully driving him off the planet while revealing he has no intention of ever leaving. He's satisfied with living the rest of his days as the god he's always wanted to be.
- As Fletcher leaves, Craig flings a rock into the middle of the civilization, delighting in their screams. "That's a reminder, little friends, there must be discipline here! Discipline above all! There'll be periodic moments where I must remind you that you must not anger me. That's important now. You must not anger me!"
- In the kind of hilarious twist of fate that the series is known for, of course, Craig is horrified when two giant aliens stumble across him. Shrieking that "I'm the god! I'm the god!", Craig is picked up and accidentally crushed to death by the giants with about as interest as if they had crushed a bug. The "little people" then end the episode tearing down Craig's statue, cheers from all as their tyrant is no more.
Mitigating features?
As the episode goes on, it's driven home that Craig is nuts, but not of any genuine insanity. He's a sadistic creep with a god complex who just wants to live out his fantasies with an entire civilization as his puppets. He doesn't kill Fletcher, I guess you can say, but he demonstrates with a smile his willingness to and doesn't treat it as a "mercy" that he's forcing Fletcher to leave the planet without his co-pilot. He just pulls a gun and smugly orders Fletcher to leave, or be shot where he stands.
Heinousness?
The reason Craig has been shot down in the past is because of a lack of onscreen "weight" to his crimes since the "little people" are invisible to the naked eye so we don't see them dying under Craig's heel, but we hear their screams and see their civilization, and the entire episode revolves around this nutbag holding wholesale genocide over their heads to make them worship him. Even if we don't "see" the people, they are there, they are suffering, and they are thrilled when Craig is killed and they are freed from him. So the effects, imo, are plenty onscreen.
And as for the standard of the show itself, Craig is plenty bad enough as just some random dickweed who finds a civilization weaker than himself and immediately subjects them to mass murder and devastation to force them into seeing him as a god, all while holding annihilation over their heads.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Craig
Ultimate Moral Compass
Craig. Classic episode.
I'm fine with Craig on retrospect. That, compared to our other mass murderers from the show, he's not a tyrant or a concentration camp commandant but literally just some schmuck who happens on an alien society and immediately decides "squishing time" helps him stand out.
Excellent job detailing the nuances to his crimes and I admit I long thought he didn’t count but you’re correct in what I missed: Rod Sterling even points out how crucial the “little people” are as characters to the story and it adds an impact to their plight. Yes there, happy to be proven wrong!
Edited by 43110 on Aug 4th 2023 at 10:41:04 AM
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Craig
JW but would the other Twilight Zone series (the revivals and whatnot) be held under the same heinous standard or would they be kept within their own individual standard (like how we deal with anthologies)?
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Lies and Violence!
I think it would make the most sense to treat them individually. Yes to Craig.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Damn, another one. Yes to Craig, man is quite literally A Jerkass God
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
Barb / Temporary Kylo
Yes to Craig
The First man
Mr.
To Craig. It’s interesting what you’re capable of if nobody can do anything about it.
What is the work?
Paladins is a animated series by Jazza that starts with a someone named Rhadiel on a tower unleashing the undead on a city killing almost all of the people except a baby boy named Auron and a priest who rescued Auron by hiding under the church and raised as well as trained Auron who is now a man to wield the sword of ancients which the priest says has untold power to fight the forces of the undead and when he wields it he gains the look of the god of strength Fendhar.
Who is Khognor and what does he do?
Knognor is the god of the undead who in his plan to take over the earth tricked a child named Rhadiel into becoming his servant by teaching him magic only to possess him and to used him to attack the 100 kingdoms of the world and lock out Fendhar from the world, and with his undead army with him being responsible for killing the people in the city where Auron lived and cursing the world. As Auron and his bird friend a go through a passage
When Auron and Melaha confronts Knognor he insults Auron for saying that he will stop his reign of evil when he sees him hesitating. When Auron calls him out for destroying the world, Khognor talks back and tells Auron that he truly truly doesn't care about the world himself and rants about how the world had nothing with no magic and no power and then says Auron has no motivation to fight him. To give him one he forces Auron to watch as he slowly kills Melaha telling him about how that was fun. And right after he brings his priest father as an undead and forces him to fight him.
An enraged Auron attacks Knognor but he dodges and Knognor blast him off and disappointedly thinks that he has killed his toy too early only for Auron to fly with Auron telling Knognor to come catch him with Knognor going on the hunt and after a collision Auron loses his armor and part of his arm and with Knognor losing his dragon but with himself unharmed.
He restores part of Auron's arm thinking that Auron would thank but Auron decides to cut it off which leads into Knognor revealing that he can control dead parts of peoples bodies. He then pushes Auron attack him only for him to reveal that the Rhadiel body he was using was not his real body and with him leaving Rhadiel's body after his transformation was complete, considering him to be a disposable fool that easily trusted him. And when after seeing this when Auron tries to take him down he grabs and squeezes Auron, calling him a weak moral given power by the gods and slowly kills and taunts by saying that his screams might beat him.
However Knognor makes one fatal mistake and by grabbing the sword of ancients to finish Auron off and the sword blows of his arm making him fall to the ground and release Auron. Auron rushes to the sword, grabs it and strikes down Knognor with a final blow killing them both and restoring the world by to what it used to be.
Redeeming qualities?
He does complain about the world not having power and magic but he never talks about wanting the world to be like that to benefit anyone while before hand everyone was living just fine in the world before. The only issue I have is that there was a bonus dvd for the series that had character interviews and went more into the world and the production but I could not find it any where but in the Paladin game which is a retelling of the story which was released after the dvd doesn't give him any redeeming qualities.
Is Knognor bad enough?
The worst in the entire story with him being responsible for everything wrong that happens in story with people from 100 kingdoms being killed and the world becoming a dead wasteland.
Verdict?
You decide
Edited by umaprasis on Aug 5th 2023 at 1:03:30 AM
Yes to Peter Craig
What's the work?
Criminal Case: World Edition Is an facebook puzzle game where the player goes through the world to solve crimes in a 'object-finding' style of minigames.
Who is the Candidate?
Hector Montoya the Main Villain of The season, is an columbian man and the the leader of SOMBRBA, the main antagonistic group of Season 3. an former orphan who were groomed to be successor of Arsenio Castillo, The founder of SOMBRA. Once Arsenio gives the seat as the leader of SOMBRA, Hector decides to create an new world order underneath the Ideals of Arsenio and commits various crimes across the world.
Those including spreading anarchy in Europe being outright attempting to Bomb the entire region, conspiring to start a wave of treason in Sahara before trying to spark a war in order to establish a new continent under his command, launching a satelite in order to take control of the world's technology in Eurasia, Bribing multiple Innocents to create an plague to spread across the South Asia, causing millions killed, Creating an army of brainwashed children into killing each other to pick the best, brainwashing and experfimenting on them to make them follow the orders of SOMBRA, and attempting to use that to start a new nation and outright spark a World war 3 in order to Rule the planet.
His crime spree would end in Canada, where he would murder Canadian prime minister Jason Stone and with investigations, cause him to be arrested, he would be sent to the international court is sentenced to life in prison without a chance of parole. Few days later, he would hear the news where his criminal group have been disappeared after the death of his second-in-command, Sarah Bennett.
Freudian Excuse / Mitigating factors?
None. While it is true that he had a dark past of losing his parents, he shreds the tragic factors stating that he knew that their deaths were nothing but an test, and while he is confirmed to be insane, he has clear moral agency to know what is right and wrong.
heinous Standards
Yes, He meets the Heinous standards of criminal case, as he is responsible for some of the most heinous actions committed in the season, with attempts to bomb Europe, Attempting to start TWO Wars, (the latter being world war 3) Causing the virus apocalypse in south asia, mass child abuse and experimentationg, Hector meets the ludicrous heinous standards of Criminal case.
Final Verdict?
Yes to this man.
Didn't he just order the other guys and doesn't do much himself? I remember this guy being brought up and he wasn't approved. You didn't mention all the other atrocities are ordered (the Saharan one is Omar Bahir for example) either.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 5th 2023 at 2:24:08 AM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I did, I said he wanted to start two wars, the one Omar did was Hector's idea.
The Emperor of Evil!
I mean, him ordering these atrocities is still the same as him being directly causing them even if they're being carried out by someone else (now if they did more than simply followed orders and/or go beyond what they were told, then that would be a problem). Now I'm not too familiar with these games but he sounds plenty bad enough imo. to Hector.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Uh, I don't recall Ryuk ever ordering Light to do anything at all. Light does everything by himself, Ryuk just gave him the book just for fun and does nothing do much beyond sitting by and watch if I remember. That's the big difference.
Edited by Powermaster201 on Aug 5th 2023 at 3:36:25 PM
He doesn't seem to participate in the atrocities himself though, sounds way too laid back for me. I think you need to at least try to do something of your own to count (otherwise the OG Ryuk would had been counted and not just Light Yagami).
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 6th 2023 at 3:33:56 AM
he tried to start a ww3
Yes? But he doesn't participate in any of the stuff. Just ordering the attacks isn't enough, you have to do something yourself.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 6th 2023 at 3:45:21 AM
Goku Black
Honestly sounds like a Hector. We don't dock say Edward Longshanks when most of the worst he does is orders to minions among many others. Don't see an issue.
Peter
The Emperor of Evil!
I'm really not getting this, because this guy is directing his minions in this and personally overseeing these atrocities through. From what I'm hearing this isn't even the case where he's being too hands off on this, he's directly making them happen. That's like saying a dictator ordering the deaths of thousands shouldn't count because they're not doing the action themselves.
That's not how this works, Ryuk gave him the book and that's it. He doesn't order Light to go on a killing spree like he's his boss. All Light does is on his own, Ryuk never orders him around and tell him who to kill and not to kill.
Edited by Powermaster201 on Aug 5th 2023 at 3:57:56 PM
x2 Reading the entry doesn't Longshanks do something on his own as well? He did make rape legal and is a horrific Abusive Parent.
If that is so why something like say, Ryuk can't count in the first place? As far as I know (and I did read the manga before), Ryuk did give Light the notebook and enabled him to kill millions and did nothing else and that's the reason why he didn't count. I thought it was out of agency issues but it's seemingly not the case.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 6th 2023 at 3:54:17 AM
Not the Eye
to Peter, Khognor and Hector
- Street Hunter:
- Walsh
- Angel is a Columbian criminal who leads the Diablos gang in trying to take control of the city. Angel hires Walsh and his pack of mercenaries to wipe out dozens of other gangsters, with Angel personally executing a rival after forcing him to beg for his life. A sniveling sadist in contrast Walsh's stoic sociopathy, Angel threatens the families of police officers for arresting him and launches a rocket at incapacitated cops to kill them for fun. Angel captures Logan and his lover Denise and plans to bury Logan alive, but not before forcing him to watch as he rapes Denise.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.