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'm not seeing it for this one. Someone who only exists in theory isn't doing it for me. I want an actual character who exists to qualify them for this.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
If it helps either way, the story does make it seem quiet likely that Noah’s theory is true
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
It’s a special, so it’s all self contained and thus nothing left out btw
Edited by MermaidEyes15 on Aug 20th 2023 at 10:10:15 AM
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
But it's not confirmed and the show was canceled before it got there.
The Moron
I’m willing to let it pass on Show Within a Show grounds (I have someone similar up on MB), but I don’t think he’s heinous enough - even if he’s the only rapist, he’s competing with Piper and Kieran and they set the bar super high, so I can’t really say yes to him either way
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
nFair enough on that end. Heinous Standard is a concern for me. I just thought he might cut it due to his significant lack of screen time (flashback) and his crimes of attempting to force himself on a teen and killing a young child.
Showtime!
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
To the Professor
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
To Reginald, not heinous enough at the show within a show complicates things
Alright, it's time. Formal calls: Continental, It Lives Inside, and Castlevania Nocturne.
To the Professor
To Reginald
The Draftsman of Doom
Unsure on Whitten. On the one hand, he is the only character alleged to be blatantly sexually abusive towards a child, even if only once, and I don't want to dismiss that outright. On the other hand, Piper may be ambiguously responsible for grooming Kieran over an extended period of time, depending on how old they were when she started her "relationship" with him, and they both eclipse Whitten in alleged body count, at least.
I don't remember the show specifying, but presumably Hollywood Provincialism is at play regarding consent laws.
Also, Kieran has sex with Emma under false pretences, for whatever that's worth, as I'm sure she would have never hooked up with him if she knew he was murdering her friends.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Aug 20th 2023 at 11:23:23 AM
Feels good, don't it?
Lizzid people!
Reginald
Lies and Violence!
Yes to the Artist and the professors, official no to Ubik and Reginald.
What's the work?
Wonder Woman: The True Amazon is a graphic novel that set out to answer one question: What if Wonder Woman... were a total asshole?
Somehow, this won two Eisner Awards. I'm going to choose not to question that, and move on to the reason for this post. As usual, the Amazons were a tribe of warrior women who earned the ire of the Kingdoms of Man, fleeing to the refuge of Themyscira when they came to put them in their "rightful place." The main mover behind this crusade, as often depicted in DC continuity?
Who is Hercules?
The legendary hero of myth, Hercules (or Herakles, here) was approached by a Greek king whose daughter was being swayed to join the Amazons. Seeking to show her the "error of her ways," the king asked Hercules to humiliate and conquer the Amazons by stealing Queen Hippolyta's Golden Girdle.
Hercules was delighted by the idea, setting out with his armies to challenge Hippolyta to a duel—only for one of her companions to take her place. Undeterred after slaying their champion, Hercules and the Amazons went to war, driving the latter from their ancient homelands to the sea in a wave of bloodshed and cruelty. With seemingly no other choice, Hippolyta decides she'll agree to Hercules' duel if he agrees to spare her people. Cut to Hercules partying with his men.
Hera and Poseidon, disgusted by all this, summon a boat for the Amazons to flee on, with Hippolyta leaving behind her girdle to distract Hercules from pursuing.
Heinous enough?
Diana releases a bunch of monsters that accidentally kill a bunch of Amazons, and Zeus intends to have his way with Hippolyta after Hercules captures her. But Hercules himself is easily the worst, leading the forces of man in their war, and while they don't directly come out and state it, it's obvious what his men intend to do with those they capture.
Mitigating factors?
No focus on his usual heroic exploits; he's portrayed as simply an arrogant, misogynistic warrior.
I also have an Ares, a Joker, and a Lex coming up.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
As ridiculous this is, Hercules.
Seriously though I hate it when characters like these are inexplicably portrayed as pure evil jerks.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 21st 2023 at 12:10:15 AM
That goes back to the 40's in Wonder Woman's first appearance, and continued for much of DC Hercules' existence as a counter to the Amazons' Historical Hero Upgrade—in their origin he was unable to conquer the Amazons by force and seduced Hippolyta into lowering her guard, using Aphrodite's weapon, love, against them. The Post-Crisis version was much the same (albeit with more implicit sexual content), though his story continued way after that and IIRC he was eventually redeemed.
Having read the whole book several times, I'm honestly not sure if this Hercules counts given how sparse his page time is (4 full pages and 1 panel of a fifth page of 137 total) and Zeus being, well, Zeus, but I guess you don't need a lot of space to be irredeemable, and as said there's nothing heroic about him.
Tentative .
(And in case anyone is wondering, the Eisners were for the artwork, which is gorgeous.)
Edited by lalalei2001 on Aug 20th 2023 at 1:02:40 PM
The Protomen enhanced my life.
Hercules. Always found it funny that Marvel and DC Hercules are essentially a Decomposite Character of the mythological one, the former getting his good traits (being a lovable Boisterous Bruiser) and the latter his bad (being an insatiable sex maniac).
Lies and Violence!
Ah, that makes sense for the awards.
Yeah, Herc is pretty much just a brief Starter Villain, but we get enough detail on his campaign in both imagery and dialogue to lend his actions weight and characterize him sufficiently for this trope.
I tried looking for a Zeus, but so far no dice. The one from this comic only has an attempt to rape Hippolyta; the one from Historia tries to wipe out the Amazons, but is enraged by the death of Hercules there (that Hercules also doesn’t do enough, btw); and the one from The Legend of Wonder Woman tries to wipe out the planet, but is outshined by Ares (who I will get to in time).
Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Aug 20th 2023 at 12:56:06 PM
Ok here's a candidate from a work of fiction that already has one. I am not sure about this candidate given the HS and the fact that they actually get Historical Villain Downgrade, but I think they are unique enough in the niche they occupy. My views after reading the chapter where he appears have changed from "definite yes" to having a bit of doubt because I remembered him to be worse—turns out I remembered wrongly, but I do think this candidate is worth a discussion.
What is the Work?
Romance of the Three Kingdoms is one of the four great novels of China, covering the Three Kingdoms period. It is arguably the most well known of the four classics, due to a shitton of adaptations western audiences are aware of.
The novel paints Liu Bei and his allies as the hero of the story, even through that title is arguably one of the biggest cases of Historical Hero Upgrade ever, yet refrains from painting most characters as pure evil enough for this trope. The original novel as far as CMs gives us Li Ru, Dong Zhuo's equally vile sun-in-law. While Dong Zhuo himself does not qualify due to love for his mother, there is another totally vile warlord wayy further in the story, long after all the villains, morally grey characters, and heroes have long since gone to the grave.
I am of course talking about the Distant Finale epilogue, Chapter 120. Chapter 120 has been ignored by all adaptations of the series thus far, which usually spans up to Zhuge Liang and Sima Yi's death(The Japanese Sangokushi novel retelling, the 2010 TV adaptation, Dynasty Warriors 2-5note ) or the fall of Shu in Chapter 119(the Sangokushi manga, the 1994 TV adaptation, the 2009 Chinese animated series, Dynasty Warriors 7-9), with the Sangokushi anime and a few lighthearted Off the Rails adaptations ending in Chibi. As far as I recall, none of the grand strategy games(Koei's Romance of the Three Kingdoms and Total War Three Kingdoms) covers the events of that time. Chapter 120, while mostly a epilogue, would introduce perhaps one of the worst characters in the story.
Children's storybooks and abridged versions of the story in China do tend to cover the epilogue, but even then they tend to gloss over this character, whom honestly is a very nasty piece of work, even if Dong Zhuo is worse in some aspects.
Who is the Candidate?
Sun Hao is the last Emperor of Wu, coming to power after the death of Sun Xiu. While initially hoped to be a just emperor, Sun Hao quickly becomes a horrific tyrant.
What does he do?
Upon showing his true colors, he indulged in every form of vice and excecuted both Prime Minister Puyang Xing and General Zhang Bu along with their families when Xing and Bu spoke up against him. He would use the finances of Wu to fulfill his own hedonistic desires, leaving the entire population starving without a central government managing food and water supplies. Entire storehouses were empty. When he was told to not attack the kingdom of Jin(Wei's successor state) by Lu Kang or to prepare for such a battle and to be a virtuous ruler instead, Sun Hao accused Lu Kang of plotting with the enemy and demoted him into Marching General. Later on his reign became even more wanton and vicious, with him killing Prime Minister Wan Yu, General Liu Ping, and Minister of Agriculture Lou Xuan for opposing his sadism. Within ten years more than forty ministers were put to death for doing their duty. Eventually Sun Hao gave great banquets whereat intoxication and orgies were common. He appointed people to observe all the faults committed by guests, and after these banquets all offenders were punished, some by flaying the skin off their faces, others by gouging out the eyes.
Because of his actions, Wu was heavily depopulated and lacking proper military talen to the point where when Jin invaded, it was a curb-stomp battle for Jin that saw the kingdom quickly overrun. Sun Hao tries to kill himself, but was convinced not to in order to save his own skin by emulating Liu Shan when Shu fell. Infuriatingly he ends the story as a Karma Houdini, being allowed to live out his life by Sima Yan in the now reunified China, dying of natural causes.
It gets worse considering the fact that while Liu Shan getting off the hook wasn't that fucked up as you can make a strong case he was subject to extreme demonization by the author and the folktales the author used for his research because "Shu lost under him" to the point where you can argue his more sympathetic Dynasty Warriors portrayal where he is portrayed as a tired man understanding the cost of war and wanting peace(and conversely Jiang Wei being the arguable final Big Bad of the Dynasty Warriors story as a General Ripper War Hawk) for himself and his people is a fresh change of pace, Sun Hao was a legit nasty piece of work that escaped comeuppance even in defeat.
Freudian Excuse and Other Redeeming Qualities?
Not at all. He isn't even portrayed as legitimately mentally insane or clinically psycopathic so there are no moral agency issues either.
Heinousness?
Here's where it gets a bit iffy. Sun Hao actually, after reading the epilogue, gets hit with Historical Villain Downgrade. Chapter 120 actually tones down Sun Hao's cruelty vs. his historical self. Historical records note that he was worse than Dong Zhuo in some cases, having killed off his own family when they tried to rebel against him, boiled people alive, and subject people to death and torture based off of superstition. A lot of this wasn't in the book. So you have Dong Zhuo and Li Ru's crimes seemingly eclipsing him, and of course all of the warlords have their own skeletons in the closet even if the author has a faction that he views as the Doomed Moral Victor.
However, what the book notes—namely the willful and deliberate starving of his own people, many of whom are dying of hunger and thirst, and abuse of money all to fund extravagant parties, the punishing with them being flayed alive or being made blind, the rampant executions of anyone that dared to speak out against him in a time of relative peace since Jin was taking its' time at most rather than rushing to attack, I do think barely allows him to carve out a niche here.
Verdict
Up to you. I at least think this character is somewhat worth a discussion even if he is actually toned down compared to his IRL counterpart.
Edited by xie323 on Aug 21st 2023 at 7:41:16 AM
Being familiar with the fic myself, to him unless there is proof that the historical villain downgrade thing affects the heinous standard. Heck if I were there at that time I doubted Li Ru can count either. The guy only has like several pages? lines? and as far as I am aware Dong Zhuo does most of the work on his own but this guy is an entire arc.
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 21st 2023 at 1:25:12 AM
Switching to for Ubik.
for Lefeuvre
for the Professors Fascist, but Inefficient strikes again.
for Reginald, due to the fact he's a Show Within a Show villain we don't see on-screen.
Hercules. Reminds me of the time where Wonder Women met Marvel's Hercules who is a heroic character and thought he was the same as her universe’s Hercules.
for Sun Hao
Edited by NTG on Aug 21st 2023 at 12:08:56 PM
Not the Eye
to Profesors, Hercules and Sun Hao
to Reginald and switch to Ubik as well
I'm low-key concerned about you bringing up the Historical Villain Downgrade thing, TBH, especially since you just posted in another thread not too long ago to complain about the Shu characters getting whitewashed. It's not remotely relevant and feels a bit like trying to get around the ban on RL examples.
That said, that's more of a general concern for future reference. I don't actually have an objection to listing Sun Hao.
Bye
Sun Hao, Hercules, The Professors, Arnaud Lefeuvre, Clane
Reginald
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to Sun Hao and the Professors.
Heracles as well (Hercules is actually his Roman name).
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
....Phenomenal
for the Professors, Herc, and Sun Hao.
for Reginald.
Yes to the professors and No to Ubik
What’s The Work?
Scream is a television series based around the titular horror franchise created by Wes Craven in the 90s. Set around the fictional sleepy town Lakewood, it centers around the story of Brandon James, a deformed teenager who murdered several people (however, heavily implied to be framed by someone else) with new murder sprees happening, as protagonist Emma and her friends help to try and find the titular killers.
The episode of today is the 2 Part Special Halloween, which is canonically the last episode before the cancellation. The group decides to go to Shallow Grove Island for Noah and Gustav’s book deal, which is known for the deaths of the Whitten Family and the serial killer, Anna Hobbs. The official story was that Anna was a psychopath who murders her family and Reginald before committing suicide. However, when seeing several clues, Noah comes up of his own story (via flashback) to explain the legend of Anna Hobbes, which we’ll talk bout.
Who is Reginald Whitten (Noah’s Theory)
Reginald was the head of Whitten family, and according to Noah, had an affair with Anna’s mother Lilly. However, Reginald’s eyes went to the teenage Anna Hobbes. After attempting to have his way, Lilly attempts to defend her, leading to Reginald murdering her with a pair of shields. Seeing Anna’s little brother coming in, he brutally murders him as well before stabbing Anna and proceeding to try and rape Anna, resulting in her killing him in self defense with the shears. Horrified and distraught by her families death, she cuts her head off and Reginald’s wife frames the situation to save her family’s reputation, leading to the infamous legend of Anna Hobbes.
Mitigating Factors?
Nope, adulterer who showed interest in a teenage girl and murdered her family before attempting to rape her.
Heinous Standard?
Okay, soo, I’m not exactly sure here because he is technically fictional within the story? But either way the guy is the only attempted rapist, and of a teenager at that and killed her family including a very young boy. So he might pass this imo.
Verdict?
Up to you. Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.