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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Yes to Randolph, nice find.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to Randolph.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Indie games are a gold mine for this. Yes.
Yes to Joseph Randolph
To Randolph
...Phenomenal
for Heatwave, Sergius, and Randolph.
Leaning ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
for the Manager, having read the story, he's only described secondhand in an email, and the story's narrator notes that it's ambiguous whether the email's writer was being entirely honest or not.
The wifi here sucks
Yes to Randolph, the tooth one yeugh
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
Lizzid people!
Okay, watched Haunted Mansion. Open to being asked about it in PMs.
Randolph
Edited by AustinDR on Aug 5th 2023 at 1:45:28 AM
Randolph. I've never heard of this game but it sounds interesting.
to Randolph, given his character is basically symbolism of the real life atrocities that happened in institutions (complete with removing organs against peoples will) I can't think of a trope more appropriate.
The Merry Monarch of Darkness
Doctor Randolph. Sounds like a character after Uncle Howard's own heart!
And speaking of nasty doctors, here's our next Xenosaga candidate...
Who is Dr. Yuriev? What has he done?
Another of the feuding faction leaders squabbling over the Zohar supercomputer, Doctor Dmitri Yuriev is essentially to the political world of Xenosaga what Sergius is to the religious one - the guy you do not want to mess with. Several centuries old, he was first heard of as one of the proverbial "test pilots" in the early days of UMN faster-than-light travel. Given that Hyperspace Is a Scary Place, this was a job that had a shockingly high mortality rate, but young Dmitri came back not only alive, but with an astonishing discovery - the energy field that powers the UMN, called Upper Domain or U-DO (these games like their acronyms!) is a sentient being, the very same entity that ancient humans on Earth once called "God." Regardless, since he'd cracked UMN travel, Dmitri became an overnight sensation, even serving a term as Chairman of the Galactic Federation (read: Space President) and with his time if office long over, still controls one of the most powerful factions in the government. All of which masked the horrible truth:
Dmitri Yuriev, darling of the galaxy, was completely, utterly, afraid.
Twisted by his fear of the overwhelming power of U-DO, Dmitri embarked on a single-minded crusade to destroy it, and chose a particularly twisted way of going about it - he cloned 669 "children" for himself, seeing all as nothing more than weapons, and modified them in all kinds of bizarre ways. His masterpieces were the last four: #666 "Rubedo" and #667 "Albedo," created to destroy U-DO, and #668 "Citrine" and #669 "Nigredo," created to kill the previous two should they go rogue. When the Federation went to war with U-TIC at planet Miltia, Yuriev gladly sent his clone army to reinforce the Federation. It went, to use the common phrase, tits up. In addition to the carnage of the war itself, Albedo lost his mind from looking directly into the Zohar, a horde of Gnosis showed up, and the aforementioned Professor Mizrahi, who was actually an okay guy given an in-universe Historical Villain Upgrade, sacrificed himself to drop the planet and the Zohar into the black hole so none of the warring factions could have it. Nigredo killed Yuriev in disgust at his abuses, and that, it seemed, was that. Nigredo and Rubedo moved on, with Nigredo assuming the identity of Eccentric Millionaire Gaignun Kukai and Rubedo, nicknamed "Junior" due to being unable to age due to the modifications Yuriev gave him, posed as Gaignun's son (yes, despite actually being his OLDER brother).
But you can't keep a good mad scientist down - Nigredo/Gaignun had another purpose: a backup body for Yuriev, and Daddy Dearest assumes direct control after Albedo releases Miltia from the black hole. He quickly reaches out to his old pals in the government and soon has the Federation wrapped around his finger, and leads them into full scale war with U-TIC over the Zohar once more. With the Federation's blessing, he has Sergius' superweapon, the Omega System, delivered to him after the old man's death, under the supervision of a mysterious young doctor named Roth Mantel. However, Yuriev doesn't give a damn about the Federation, of course; all he wants is the Zohar and Omega to turn himself into a god powerful enough to challenge U-DO. To further power up Omega, he steals the twelve artificial Zohars from Gaignin's flagship, massacring its entire crew in the process, including making use of the Shapeshifter Guilt Trip by pretending to be their "loving" boss Gaignun before having them all pumped full of lead. He crashes Durandal, the Omega, and the Zohars into the colossal Gnosis Hive Queen, Abel's Ark, combining them all into one immense battery for his apotheosis - Omega Metempsychosis.
And much like with Sergius, this is where our actual big baddie Wilhelm intervenes to keep things from going too off script. "Doctor Roth Mantel," as it turns out, is really Kevin Winnicott, Wilhelm's right-hand man and leader of the Testaments, who joined Yuriev's operation to ensure things escalated to this point, after which Wilhelm has no more use for him. Also in the Testaments now is a remorseful Albedo, who fights Yuriev one on one, and after a complicated series of techno-mysto-babble, Yuriev's mind, Albedo's body, and Gaignun's body and mind die completely, while Albedo's mind ends up dormant in Junior's body. Sic transit Doctor Yuriev.
Heinous standard?
As you might be able to tell, the personhood of Artificial Humans is a big thing in Xenosaga, and it contains many types, from robots and clones to the more unique Realians, and lays it on thick that anyone who denies their personhood is a villain. Yuriev is basically the culmination of this theme - he cares nothing for his creations despite the fact they are, biologically, his own children, sending them off as cannon fodder for the government's wars and stealing their bodies to survive the centuries, Gaignun being far from the first. And the Durandal massacre is one of the most chilling scenes in the entire trilogy.
In terms of people he's harmed (both natural and artificial), Yuriev is rivaled only by Sergius and surpassed only by Wilhelm, and the latter has some damn good reasons for doing what he does, which I'll explain in the coming days in his MB post.
Mitigating issues?
The only Freudian Excuse Yuriev is offered is that he's afraid of the power of U-DO and wants to destroy it. Unlike Albedo, whose contact with the entity resulted in legitimate and sympathetic insanity, however, Yuriev is treated by the narrative as a reprehensible coward willing the let the whole galaxy burn just so he can sleep easier at night and live forever.
Verdict?
Easiest keep in the trilogy.
The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."
Not the Eye
Goku Black
Yuriev
Yes to Dr. Yuriev
The Merry Monarch of Darkness
By the way, as you might be able to tell, Xenosaga has a lot of conflicting villains. So if you're having trouble keeping track, here's a summary:
- All the villains want the original Zohar supercomputer.
- Albedo and Margulis are the Arc Villains of the first game. They want the Zohar to deliver it to...
- Patriarch Sergius, who is the Arc Villain of the second game. He wants the Zohar to power a big robot to conquer the galaxy.
- Dmitri Yuriev is the Arc Villain of the first half of the third game. He wants the Zohar to become a god.
- Lastly Wilhelm is manipulating all of the above to get everything where it needs to be, but only becomes the direct main antagonist after everyone else is dead, in the second half of game three. As to why he wants the Zohar... that's a story for another thread...
Edited by HamburgerTime on Aug 5th 2023 at 4:29:57 AM
The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."
Yuriev
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
does Albedo and Margulis count? (I doubt Wilheim will since you mention you’ll EP him in the MB thread)
to Yuriev
Edited by G-Editor on Aug 5th 2023 at 5:34:45 AM
The Merry Monarch of Darkness
Albedo, as mentioned, is legitimately mentally ill from Yuriev's abuse and from making contact with U-DO, and Margulis is a Well-Intentioned Extremist who has a Ho Yay-tastic admiration/rivalry relationship with Jin, one of the playable characters.
Goku Black
Nah Aledo is both too crazy and kind of tragic
By the way Dr Yuriev appears in Xenoblade Chronicles 3: Future Redeemed as a cameo. But didn't do much their but help link that series to this.
Edited by miraculous on Aug 5th 2023 at 2:39:13 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Dr. Yuriev
Alrighty, Last candidate for now, as I’m tired out lol, and I wanna get some pages done^^
Here’s one from a fanfic.
What’s The Work?
Inkopolis Chaos is a trilogy of fanfics (as well as a few one shots) created by CrystallicWolf108. It centers around a group of Inklings and Octolings working together to fight against the bigotry within the city of Inkopolis, the first fanfic centered around the group, Samuel, Luke, Sylvia and Melody trying to clear the name of an framed Octoling teen, Natalie, while dealing with a vindictive bully Scarlet. The Second fanfic (which we’ll focus on primarily on) centers on the group dealing with a number of disappearances, leading to them fighting against the terrorist group Octobusters, who is lead by Samuel’s former friend Cyalux Clover, and the last story focuses on the group fighting the genocidal Obsidian.
Who is Magentark Clover? What Does He Do?
Magentark Clover is the unseen, long dead, older brother of Cyalux, and is overall the main catalyst for much of the trilogy, being specifically mentioned in Inkopolis Choas 2 as well as the One Shot “Octolings Burden”. Cyalux paints Magentark as a caring and nice person, however, the story makes it very clear Magentark is simply a violent, manipulative and extremely racist person. He gaslit and lied to his brother for years, feeding him that Octolings are untrustworthy and evil (with even Cyalux saying Magentark always told him to “Never trust anything with eight tentacles”) and fueling Cyalux’ own xenophobia.
Not wanting to share the Surface with Octolings after the first Turf Wars championship, Magentark steals a new weapon and frames an innocent teenage octoling Natalie, which leads her to being a homeless girl for a year while on the run from the law, which made Natalie’s life a living hell. With his new weapon, Magentark attempted to mass murder as many Octolings as possible who were coming up to the surface, but was stopped and killed by Ruby in self defense. This served as the nail in the coffin, however, as his gaslighting and lies messed with Cyalux’ head enough to blame Ruby and all Octolings, leading him to form the racist terrorist group Octobusters with intent to force Octolings back into the underground, while also driving the other stories with Ruby’s guilt about what’s happening as well as Natalie meeting Samuel.
Mitigating Factors?
While I was hesitate to propose him because he is not seen in the story, due to being dead before the first one, Magentark has enough characteristics in the story from what everyone else has to say and his actions, portraying him as a incredibly racist and violent person, feeding his younger brother lies and gaslighting him about Octolings to drive him to hate them as well, targeting Natalie for simply being a helpless Octoling and completely unwilling to share the surface with Octolings to the point of trying to kill them. Magentark is presented with no redeeming qualities and as the most hated villain in the fanfic, with a set motive from him, the actions he commits and the influence they have gives him more than enough character for me to say he’s comfortable in that regard.
Heinous Standard?
Now, Inkopolis Chaos does have a high heinous standard. We have the genocidal dictator of Rebecca Obsidian and her right hand Blakeson, the sadistic serial killing Scarlet, and even his own brother Cyalux who attempted to keep octolings seperated and force to stay in Octo Valley, to the point of nearly crashing a train full of dozens of Octolings.
However, Magentark does as much with almost zero resources compared to the others, as Obsidian had power in numbers as well as artillery and weapons, His brother Cyalux leading a group of terrorists, and even Scarlett having access to Obsidian’s resources to do her worst crimes.
Magentark meanwhile was on his own and only had a ambiguous weapon, and drives the conflict of the Trilogy, as he wanted to mass murder innocent octolings simply to not share the surface with them, while also framing Natalie for the theft and causing her to go homeless and on the run, making her life hell for that entire year, and also his influence on Cyalux causing his own villainy and becoming the leader of The Octobusters, which is said that Magentark would’ve done it himself if he didn’t die and would’ve been a worst group.
Verdict?
Can say yes, but I leave it to you.
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
...Phenomenal
@ miraculous Yuriev doesn't really appear in Future Redeemed, he's only mentioned as part of some background exposition, along with references to Xenogears and Xenoblade X. It's sort of ambiguous, it seems all the Xeno- games are Broad Strokes canon to each other, but it's not really explained.... but either way the reference isn't relevant to him being a CM, he has nothing to do with Future Redeemed's plot.
for him anyway.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Durandal...I'm leaning yes, but is it ever explained why he's afraid?
Magentark...how does he compare to the 2 current keepers?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
As said in heinous standard he’s good as he’s simply on his own with no help, espically as Obsdian is a dictator with armies and Scarlet has access to those resources so she uhas stuff like helicopters and weapons and such. Plus, Magentark help kickstart the series
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'll give a cautious yes then.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Not the Eye
Lean to Magentark
