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
I meant Frieza has guys like Ginyu Force who do power ranger poses and play rock scissors paper. I don't think a minion being goofy mitigates CM potential.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Lucifer
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
x2 It's less of CM goons being goofy than are there any consequences described in detail. The conseuqneces described looks like it's below the bare minimum or just there, it's still nowhere near as explicit as some of the (classic) Disney villains or Digimon villains I've seen.
For all I see it's trying to blow up the sun, one offhand remark and one heinous crime that isn't given much of a consequence on?
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 13th 2023 at 10:53:37 PM
That's true. Take Owl House for example. The guards from the Emperor's Coven can be silly at times, but that doesn't detract Belos' seriousness and threat as a villain at all.
Edited by Michealthehero21 on Aug 13th 2023 at 7:52:11 AM
Nah don't compare this to Belos, he's way more explicit than DBZ Lucifer and the consequences are laid bare to see. There's zero holding back there and it can't be just summed up as kid's show crimes.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Yeah this is why I said comparing this to Belos and Freiza is an unfair comparison.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 13th 2023 at 10:57:17 PM
I just don't feel like the tone is there. Frieza and Cooler and their minions appear when the series is very Dramatic and series.
Ultimate Moral Compass
Lucifer
I mean, if a villain acts as a Knight of Cerebus in a previously very goofy work, that helps their case too. While he isn't given as much screen time as King Piccolo, Lucifer felt much more like he belonged in that era with his threat level.
RIP Toriyama
People can make whatever comparisons they wish ex, Michael is valid in his statement and telling him or others "no, do not compare (X) to (Y)" is vote-policing.
I'm maintaining my Yes to Lucifer, not swayed by the counterarguments and looking at the film dub myself I think it's made explicit enough that his plans threaten billions of lives.
Edited by Ravok on Aug 13th 2023 at 8:02:17 AM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
The Moron
Am I missing something here? What do either of those things have to do with Dragon Ball?
But he wasn't comparing Lucifer to Belos - he was comparing their respective guards in terms of being Played for Laughs. There was also nothing about "Kid's show crimes" so I'm very confused about where that came from.
For the record, I am not invested in this at all - literally the only things I know about DB are stuff I read on the Monster page - but I have to admit some of these counterarguments are starting to raise some concerns, not about the general opinion behind them but in the way they're being argued.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Aug 13th 2023 at 11:03:38 AM
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Slavemaster Graaf
Leaning yeah on Lucifer but mainly the dub one since it has the possible death toll emphasised.
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
To Graaf
Woagh
Just gonna go with a sure on Lucifer and leave it at that.
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE
x4 The point is that there is a difference between some plan to blow up the sun that may or may not have the detail enough to pass the bare minimum of detail and one off-handed heinous crime that isn't held with enough gravitas by the narrative, compared to literal genocide by the thousands and some very explicit And I Must Scream. There is a difference.
Talking about Belos, who also took place in a kid's show. The actual DBZ genocides are a different story altogether.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 13th 2023 at 11:26:45 PM
We don't need to compare them to guys who did genocide of thousands since those guys don't exist here. It's a full reset on the HS, like say the terrible live action movie Dragon Ball Evolution
Classy, Refined, Unstable
The Dub exchange Snowy pulled up says that everyone's lives are at stake from the sun being destroyed? I'm not sure where the concerns about it being too vague are coming from?
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Lizzid people!
Belos has nothing to do with this. I don't understand name-dropping other shows.
Sure for Lucifer.
x2 Are there any more details than that? Maybe if we see images of people dying by the droves or it's described with way more gross detail than just "everyone's live is at stake" it can fly.
The reason I compared this to other kids show villains who do pass is because those have all the consequences laid bare to see, both visual and dialogue wise and not just a single line or two.
Belos was pulled out because Micheal mentioned him.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 13th 2023 at 11:33:35 PM
The Moron
According to dialogue in the dub, they literally say "You're going to blow up the sun? But that's crazy! We need the sun for us to survive!". They pretty clearly say "this is going to kill all of us". I don't really know what more you want but that frankly seems perfectly explicit enough in terms of establishing a potential body count for me. If you want to argue the tone then sure (cause I like said, I haven't seen anything, I'm only going off of this discussion) but the body count seems spelled out in plain language, and at least from the examples brought up here, I haven't heard anything that seems outright disqualifying.
Again, the Belos comparison was referring to their guards being Played for Laughs. You've taken that and are just now comparing Lucifer and Belos in terms of their crimes which doesn't make any sense from where I'm standing. I'm very confused by how this point is continuing to come up.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Aug 13th 2023 at 11:37:55 AM
I wasn't trying to compare Belos to Lucifer. I was trying to make a point on how humorous minions don't detract a serious villain's seriousness and overall threat. I'm sorry if I came across the wrong way.
It's the tone that mattered yeah.
From what user (who watched the show) said he himself also doesn't sound like a non-standard villain.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 13th 2023 at 11:42:03 PM
Reading everything over sure to Lucifer.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Uncle Graham Writeup:
- Rare Americans: “Hullabaloo”: Uncle Graham is the ruthless head of the controversial Lemming Corporation, which he dismisses the controversies and the protesting as hullabaloo. Acting as a friendly and fair boss, he is an exploitative and abusive individual who overworks, drugs and fear mongers his employees into submission, forcing them into agreeing to “shake his hand” to seal their fates, before he turned into a giant monster and starts to eat his employees.
What is the work?
Mononoke is a Surreal Horror and Mystery anime series created as a spinoff from the anthology series Ayakashi: Samurai Horror Tales, receiving its pilot in the final segment, “Bakeneko”. The story surrounds a man known only as “The Medicine Seller” as he slays various mononoke spirits created from the fusion of Ayakashi spirits with the negative emotions and grudges of humans, requiring he knows their physical form, the truth of their creation, and the reason for their existence. The series is episodic in nature, with the only constant character being the Medicine Seller himself, but takes place in one universe, as confirmed by a character in the pilot appearing in the 3rd arc.
Who is the Character? What Have They Done?
The Toudaiji is the principal villain of the second-to-final arc, the “Nue Arc”. It is initially referenced as something the suitors are competing in a game to receive it along with the hand of Lady Ruri in marriage. In truth, the Toudaiji is simply a piece of rotten wood that is possessed by an ayakashi that thrives off the attention it receives, which causes it to develop into a Mononoke. In this midst, it murdered the original 3 suitors, after one of them killed another suitor and another Lady Ruri in obsession with it, and trapped them in an eternally recurring "Groundhog Day" Loop that lead to them dying over and over again, necessitating the Medicine Peddler to use a horrific game in order to kill them and make them realize the truth that they had already been dead for dozens of years.
Not content with merely killing these suitors and trapping them and Lady Ruri and her maid in an infinite loop, the Toudaiji has claimed the spirits of hundreds over the years, including a young girl. When the Medicine Peddler finally manages to destroy it by breaking it, it’s revealed to have hundreds upon hundreds of gravestones around the house it is located in. Unlike every other Mononoke seen, the Medicine Peddler takes absolutely no sympathy towards it, viewing it as the narcissistic monster that it is.
Mitigating Traits?
I initially thought the Toudaiji didn’t count when watching the episode, and that it was simply a thought spirit created from humans, but after the final lines of the series I realized I had made a misconception of the series. The Mononoke aren’t simply constructed out of human grudges, but are rather the fusion of human spirits, negative emotions and grudges and the spirits of Ayakashi that possess them. All Mononoke are Ayakashi, but not all Ayakashi are Mononoke. Therefore, the thought form comprising the Toudaiji existed prior to being manifested by humans, and the obsession humans formed with it allowed it to develop into the Nue Mononoke.
Additionally, despite literally not being physically manifested, it does maintain a clear personality, being narcissistic to the extent that it takes pleasure in trapping people in an infinite recursive loop of death, it can take the physical forms of its victims, and the Medicine Peddler’s dialogue makes it pretty clear that it is sentient.
Heinousness?
This is fairly easy. Nothing in the series has killed nearly as many as people as it has. Deaths in the series are measured in the handfuls, and not the dozens to hundreds that the Toudaiji caused.
Verdict?
Unless I misinterpreted something I think it counts. From what I took from the Medicine Peddler’s final monologue, the actual origin of the Toudaiji is such that it has enough autonomy to still qualify for this trope.
Edited by Snoketrope on Aug 13th 2023 at 7:38:14 AM
The First man