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
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Alrighty time for something or another
What’s The Work?
3 Terrifying Tales is a Trilogy of Web Stories created by an Orphan Account, centering around three stories (that aren’t really horror but like, fine). The first story centers around two gay teens facing against a elderly Nazi, the second story centers on a serial killing psychopath, and the turd centers on a group of military dealing with a cult leader inside a apocalyptic New York.
We’ll be focusing on the first story.
Who is Danielle Drivas? What Does She Do?
Danielle Drivas is the secondary antagonist of 78 Years Later, a former friend of protagonists Luke and Micheal, and the daughter of the town mayor. She initially seems like a sweet Lesbian Girl and an pro-LGBT and Civil Rights activist. However, she is revealed to be simply masked to hide a psychopathic serial rapist, who raped 12 girls while filming it for her own pleasure, keeping the tapes in her room. When the 12 girls accuse her, she uses her good reputation in the town and her status to paint the 12 girls, including the main accused Amy, as lying homophobes, which lead the 12 others getting arrested, their lives getting ruined and the girl Amy killing herself in her cell, with Danielle showing zero remorse for, only saying she was “the best one” yuck.
When Micheal and Luke turn their back on her, Danielle proceeds to mock Micheal over the death of his grandfather’s suicide, almost leading to a fight. When Danielle leaves to her house and room, she is confronted by Heinrich, blackmailing her with tapes she kept. Unwilling to get her secrete out, she helps Heinrich and leads Luke and Micheal to the house so they can be sacrificed, however, Heinrich simply killed her.
Mitigating Factors?
Haha. Nope. A complete Dirty Coward and sadistic rapist who hides it under a good persona and shows no love for anyone else.
Heinous Standard
Okay, we have a pretty bad heinous standard, with the Sadistic Nazi Heinrich who attempts to restart the Third Reich, the serial torturing Vincent, and yes, even Natalie who attempts to conquer the world through mutants. However, Danielle gets by herself, as she has little resources compared to the three (Natalie who has an entire army of Mutants, the head of her own parents company and a magical staff; Heinrich being resurrected and having access to the likes of a prison warden and Vincent being his right hand) and Danielle raped 12 girls and filmed them and proceeded to ruin their lives and caused one’s suicide. That’s niche enough imo to have her count.
Verdict?
Yes
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
The Merry Monarch of Darkness
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Bully. I feel like there's got to be some symbolism with all the weird names, such as the human named "Rat" and her literal pet rat with a normal human name, but I couldn't tell you what.
Yes to Greg, Hess, Mother, Mongul, and Bully.
No to Scourge.
Here are the Flashpoint writers:
- Flashpoint (DC Comics):
- Legion of Doom: Heatwave is far darker in this universe than the prime DC universe. A pyromaniac psychopath, Heatwave confronts the duo that makes up Firestorm and sets Jason Rusch, and tries to force Ronnie Raymond to merge with him. Heatwave is defeated by Cyborg, who holds a grudge against Cyborg after this point. Heatwave is sent to Queen's Row prison, a flying fortress. Heatwave escapes and sets everyone who opposes him, prisoners and guards alike, on fire. Heatwave gets to the control room and intends to crash Queen's Row prison into Detroit, Cyborg's hometown, in order to get revenge on him.
- Grodd of War: In this universe where the Flash does not exist to oppose him, Grodd takes over all of Africa. Grodd slaughters half of Africa but is upset that most of the world ignores this in favor of paying attention to the war in Europe between Aquaman and Wonder Woman. Grodd slaughters a loyal ape warrior for his amusement and kills several children who oppose him. Grodd decides to attack Europe and take it, willing to sacrifice himself and his army in order to relieve his boredom.
Edited by Overlord on Aug 9th 2023 at 9:15:47 AM
Lizzid people!
Um, you voted yes and no for Bully.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Sorry. I was tired, I correct myself.
RIP Toriyama
- Berserk: The Golden Age Arc: Griffith is a power hungry warrior whose physical beauty masks a monstrous inner self. Believing himself destined to reign over a land of his own, Griffith leads his Band of the Hawk in countless bloody, successful campaigns to serve his ambitions, and goes so far as to dispatch Guts as an assassin against political rivals, uncaring when a child is caught up in the crossfire. After forcefully seducing Princess Charlotte in a failed attempt to marry into power, Griffith is subjected to crippling torture by her horrified father; Griffith's only real concern is that he can no longer exert power and respect on those around him, and so when the opportunity arises, Griffith eagerly allies with the Godhand. To complete his ascension to their monstrous ranks, Griffith condemns his entire Band to horrific deaths that damn their souls, while he personally rapes and tortures the most loyal Casca and forces her lover Guts to watch and be mutilated, out of nothing but spite at them for having independence from Griffith's control. Griffith openly proclaims he feels nothing for his supposed friends and the fates he bestows upon them, valuing his own godhood above all else.
And now got one worth some discussion but who I ultimately feel hits, from one of the greatest fantasies of all time Tolkien's Legendarium...
Who is Shelob? What has she done?
- "(S)he was there, who was there before Sauron, and before the first stone of Barad-dûr; and she served none but herself, drinking the blood of Elves and Men, bloated and grown fat with endless brooding on her feasts, weaving webs of shadow; for all living things were her food, and her vomit darkness."
- A spawn of the ancient abomination Ungoliant, Shelob is a mighty creature, "an evil thing in spider-form", who has lived for thousands of years, gorging herself on life of all kinds. Shelob made her "lair" in the mountains of Cirith Ungol on the border of Mordor, where she has lured many a hapless victim to their demise, poisoned by her to the point of paralysis before she binds them up and hangs them for hours or sometimes days to wallow in their fear before she devours them. Countless among Elf, Man, and Orc alike fall prey to Shelob over the years, her bloodthirst earning her a prized spot as Sauron's "pet"—"his cat, he calls her, though she owns him not"—who is regularly fed those who displease Sauron or prisoners of war.
- Shelob's appetites aren't restricted to other species, either. She has birthed many children, mated with said children to have more children, and made a habit of eating her own spawn on a regular basis, while others are unleashed onto Middle-Earth to stalk places like Mirkwood and devour evermore hapless victims. The only victim that has truly escaped Shelob is Gollum, who was spared by Shelob on the condition that Gollum bring her more and more "tasty morsels".
- And so as some of her latest victims, Gollum leads Frodo and Sam, Hobbits on the journey to destroy the One Ring, into Shelob's lair as a trap. Shelob strikes, paralyzing Frodo to consume later, before trying to rend Sam apart for fighting over Frodo's life. Luckily, Sam strikes Shelob true and deep, and uses the Phial of Galadriel to drive her into retreat.
"Shelob was gone; and whether she lay long in her lair, nursing her malice and her misery, and in slow years of darkness healed herself from within, rebuilding her clustered eyes, until with hunger like death she spun once more her dreadful snares in the glens of the Mountains of Shadow, this tale does not tell."
Mitigating features?
As a character, none; Shelob is wholly evil and self-serving, outright described as having no interest in wars, or the One Ring, or anything else, for "she only desired death for all others, mind and body, and for herself a glut of life, alone, swollen till the mountains could no longer hold her up and the darkness could not contain her." She's also got plenty personality for a thing that doesn't speak, noted to have a "hideous delight" at her prey that she seems to "gloat over", with the novel directly comparing her to Sauron in wickedness.
For agency...as a spawn of Ungoliant it might be ehhhh murky, but there's nothing in the text that suggests she lacks agency, and our feelings on agency in recent years would require a lot more detail than just "she's the spawn of a dark, mysterious being" to disqualify.
Heinousness?
This is where she might stumble, but I do think she passes. Middle-Earth has a lot of nasty "big monsters", from Glaurung and Smaug who both razed towns, to the Balrogs who have decimated whole kingdoms. Thing is, while Shelob is a giant spider birthed by Ungoliant, she's by no means one of the more powerful beings in Middle-Earth; she's literally a large spider who winds up beaten back by a single Hobbit, as opposed to something like the Balrog which required Gandalf the wizard; or Glaurung and Smaug who are powerful dragons capable of laying waste to swathes of land.
Shelob isn't a city-destroyer, but she's a nasty serial killer who has preyed on people of all races for thousands of years, her lair full of bones and overwhelming in the smell of death. She regularly pumps out offspring that she propagates with, turns sometimes kills, sometimes sends out to further feast on the land and kill many people. She's a hella nasty beast who takes joy in her actions and would like nothing more than to gorge herself on all life—even if she doesn't have the capacity to do so.
Edited by Ravok on Aug 9th 2023 at 10:33:07 AM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
I'm honestly not sure. The MMO version of Shelob had a lot of extra crimes tacked on that pushed her over. She feels so small potatoes compared to every other major villain in the literature.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Yeah, ditto.
RIP Toriyama
The thing is that she's not some powerful dragon like Smaug or Glaurung; she's, quite literally, a giant spider who nonetheless has devoured "endless" people for thousands of years, propagated and killed her own offspring, and unleashed them into the land to eat evermore people. She's small-scale in crimes, yeah, but she's also small-scale in power yet is a monstrous serial killer who torments her victims and kills her children. Personally don't see a major hiccup for heinousness myself, she's doing all she can with what she has.
Edited by Ravok on Aug 10th 2023 at 12:19:33 PM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Barb / Temporary Kylo
Yes to Shelob
The First man
RIP Toriyama
Like, for a full compare and contrast, from the current Legendarium Keeps?
- Morgoth and Sauron are practically gods, not even comparable to Shelob on a power level-basis—but nonetheless the text directly compares Shelob's evil to Sauron's, referring to them "so they both lived, delighting in their own devices, and feared no assault, nor wrath, nor any end of their wickedness."
- Glaurung is a gigantic, flying, fire-breathing dragon with the armies of Morgoth at his aid. Shelob does not have the destructive capabilities of Glaurung, nowhere near it.
- Ar-Pharazon is a human, true, but also the ruler of an entire kingdom—again, not really comparable to Shelob.
So you're left with villains who are all uniquely awful, yeah, but they have way more opportunities, power and resources at their disposal for what they get up to than Shelob. She's, again, gravely wounded by one, singular Hobbit; she's not capable of leading devastating wars on kingdoms like Glaurung. She's the work's equivalent of a low-level serial killer appearing in Marvel Comics, who nonetheless has unique nastiness of regular Offing the Offspring; a bodycount indicated to be ridiculously high; and a routine of dispatching her surviving youth to devour evermore people across Middle-Earth, which we see in full-effect in The Hobbit and its ilk.
Edited by Ravok on Aug 9th 2023 at 11:02:04 AM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Not the Eye
to Shelob. Great find Ravok!
lean to Danielle
Yes to Danielle and Shelob
...Phenomenal
for Danielle and Shelob.
for the quote from To Kill a Mockingbird
for Danielle.
for Shelob. So the part about her feeding on her own offsprings wasn't just something them MMO made up. Good to know.
Just a heads-up: It took a while but it’s only going to be a matter of days now until I’ve completed the newest entry of the Jagged Alliance franchise. And unless there are any last minute redemptions I’ve got two candidates I’m going to EP next weak.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
to Shelob
Danielle and Shelob
Messenger from another dimension.
Tentative yea to Shelob but it’s just the book version? Or movie version?
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
From what I recall, it's the books that give more backstory and insight to her personality. Not sure if Film!Shelob would count.
Is the film version even sentient?
To Danielle and Shelob
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
Bully
Watch me destroying my country