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}
Kerian
To Kerian and a tentative for Kudal I think
RIP Toriyama
Yes to Kerian, good find!
Ok, thanks to Scrags for talking over with me, have a potential from Young Justice, the DC animated show with a troubled history about the youthful heroes of tomorrow trying to live up to the likes of Superman, all while going up against such villainous organizations as the Light. This one comes from the first 2 seasons before its initial cancellation:
Who is the Brain? What has he done?
- A French Jerk who is, quite literally, a brain in a jar, the Brain serves as the resident Evil Genius for the villainous group known as the Light in the first two seasons. It is the Brain who oversees the harvesting of a piece of Starro, dispatching Klarion the Witch Boy to cause worldwide chaos by transporting all adults and all children to mirror worlds where they cannot interact with one another, leading to mass destruction and many children being put in harm's way. The Brain used this as nothing but a distraction to oversee the theft of a Starro limb from a secure location, after which he worked with Klarion and recruited Professor Ivo to weaponize it into "Starro-tech", which the Light uses to try to mind control all heroes of Earth.
- For his personal endeavors, the Brain enjoys tampering with nature. Years ago, he arrived in the jungles of Bwunda, where he captured entire troops of gorillas and subjected them to painful experiments that increased their intelligence and sapience, but also made them suffer all the more under Brain's vile experiments—Brain's right-hand gorilla, Mallah, was the first of these experiemnts. Brain also created the Ultra-Humanite when he carved out the brain of a beloved gorilla and implanted the mind of a colleague of his inside its body.
- Along with using torturous "Kobra-Venom" that the Brain has helped reverse engineer to agonizingly empower the gorillas ever stronger, the Brain keeps them all in line by kidnapping their many infant babies and holding them hostage, threatening to kill them all of the gorillas don't continue to serve him and round up more victims to be experimented upon. As a personal Kick the Dog, the Brain named his testing grounds "Gorilla City" as a cruel joke to his captives.
- In the series proper, we witness more of the Brain's experiments, as the Team heads to India and encounters many, many mutated animals with high intelligence, control collars on them to enslave them as killing machines. The Brain uses them to attack and kill any humans who wander too close to his testing grounds, and he plans to use Kobra-Venom on a mass-scale to further "enhance" animals for enslavement. The Brain's work on Kobra-Venom is further used by the Light as a whole to mutate plants that devastate the earth under the "Injustice League" banner.
- When the Team finally find the Brain, he captures Captain Marvel and plans to carve open his skull and examine his brain while he's fully conscious, paralyzing him only from the neck-down while leaving him still able to think and speak because "your reactions may be informative during le procedure!" ; when the lovable tiger Mr. Tawny risks himself to save Marvel, the Brain painfully electrocutes Tawny for disobeying him.
- Luckily, the Team manage to save Marvel and free the many enslaved animals, leading the Brain to flee. The Team are then instructed to hit his "Gorilla City" in Bwunda to shut down his operations for good, where they run into the enslaved gorillas and are captured. The Brain cheerfully ponders to the Team whether he should perform Kobra-Venom experiments on them, carve open their skulls to examine their brains, or send them all to Cadmus to be subjected to cloning experiments; he decides all of the above will be suitable.
- With the help of Grodd (decidedly more heroic here than many iterations lmao) and the other gorillas, the Team escape, to which Brain sets the entire base to self-destruct to wipe out all remnants of his research, nearly killing all the gorillas and their babies in the process, but the Team saves them all and sends the Brain running.
- The Brain spends the rest of his screentime as a background member of the Light, endorsing all its schemes and helping with his brand of technological expertise but mostly relegated to secondary status until he is finally captured in a big ambush that also takes down other members of the Light.
Mitigating features?
None, because the cowards at DC wouldn't make him Mallah's lover as is truth ahem as I said, none to speak of. He's just depicted as a self-serving mad scientist who is part of the Light for self-gain, and he never shows any care or concern for his allies—even Mallah is only ever treated by Brain as a convenient ally and "muscle", who he tortured and experimented on to make what he is today.
Heinousness?
The major hiccup here would be that YJ's standard is jacked and there's several planet-destroyers in the series, but I wouldn't compare them too much to Brain since he's...uh, a brain in a jar. I'd say Brain's main competition is Bedlam, whose write-up is this, for reference:
- Frederick DeLamb is the security chief and brother to the Queen of Markovia; he is also secretly Baron Bedlam, leader of the heinous Bedlam Syndicate. Bedlam masterminds the capture and trafficking of countless young metahuman children and teenagers, having them torturously experimented on and drowning them in a thick tar of his own creation to awaken their metagene. Killing enough of them to warrant regular mass burials of failed experiments, those who do survive are mutated and auctioned off as living weapons to the highest bidder. In his own grab for power in Markovia, Bedlam has his own sister and the King assassinated before killing the Quraci assassin himself, throwing pressure onto the Quraci populace as a convenient excuse to screen for more metagenes. Bedlam even has his own niece and nephew, Tara and Brion Markov, subjected to the experiments, mocking them later for how he's orphaned them. Bedlam attempts a coup in the season 3 finale, attempting to have his nephew Gregor's loyalists killed while snidely vowing never to stop trying to kill his family and take Markovia's throne—a sentiment that prompts Brion to kill him.
On top of Bedlam, the Reach aliens also kidnap many teenagers and experiment on them to create metahumans, and Granny Goodness is...well, Granny Goodness.
The Brain I think just squeaks by with what he's got and up to. He's a major member of the Light in the first 2 seasons whose work on the Kobra-Venon and Starro-tech lead to all sorts of mayhem, and it was him who directed Klarion to throw the world into chaos by separating all adults from all children.
That's ultimately just window dressing, though, and what really is notable and unique is that he's invading forests, kidnapping hundreds of animals, then experimenting on them to "enhance" their intelligence to that of genuine sapience, then torture, mutate and enslave them on a mass scale. He's noted to have several of these operations around the globe, with the intent being to create an army of mutated, sapient slaves, and he goes a step further with the gorillas of Bwunda by kidnapping their babies and threatening them with death—then trying to wipe out all the gorillas and their infants in one fell swoop when he's beaten.
While experimentation on innocents and even Would Hurt a Child isn't exactly rare in the series, the Brain's niche is a pretty fucked up, unique one and I think he can land when it's taken into account alongside his stint in the Light. Especially with his predilection for carving at people's brains while they're awake and aware ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Ultimate Moral Compass
Brain
I'll say yes to the Brain. Barely, but I think he makes it.
Lies and Violence!
Was actually thinking about him a while ago, yes to the Brain!
Also yes to the king of zils, Avartagh, Ursulina, Tiamat, Josiah, and Ethnarch.
Sure to the Brain, counting just like in Teen Titans because a Brain in a Jar being gay with a talking gorilla is too much for kids to handle.
If it makes you feel any better Ravok, the new series My Adventures with Superman both fully depicts the Brain's homosexuality and completely removes all his villainy.
Edited by LoreDeluxe on Aug 22nd 2023 at 8:09:04 AM
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
The Draftsman of Doom
Sure to Brain.
Feels good, don't it?
The Brain.
Self-Declared King of Everything
to the Brain. Slightly disappointed that he can’t be portrayed as both a loving partner and a nightmare-inducing villain at the same time, but it is what it is.
To The Brain
Lizzid people!
Lies and Violence!
What's the work?
Harleen is a visually amazing retelling of Harley Quinn's origin. Seriously, it's great, I cannot recommend it enough.
Harley is a young psychiatrist with a thesis to prove: she believes that repeated exposure to conflict causes a chemical imbalance that erodes the part of the brain capable of empathy. In other words, she thinks she can predict how sociopaths are made. Seeking to prove this theory, she takes a job at Arkham Asylum, where the worst of the worst can regale her with how they came to be what they are now.
Let's not beat around the bush any more. We all know who we're here for.
Who is the Joker?
The Clown Prince of Crime, the gleefully irredeemable embodiment of madness and murder with a million different backstories, each one of them fake. The Joker is the infamous arch-villain of Gotham, who has murdered countless people throughout the city. And as Dr. Quinzel is walking home one night, she gets to meet him face to face as his gang gets their hands on a massive gun shipment and blows up several police cars. As he strides out of the flames, the Joker sees Harley and holds her at gunpoint... before leaving her alone, content that the experience will haunt her nightmares for the rest of her life.
Naturally, it's at this point that the Batman intervenes. One of Joker's goons is injured—to which he responds by just killing the mook—and the mad clown is beaten before he can continue with his plans to "paint the town red." The Joker is sent to Arkham—where he notices his usual guards are missing, to which the security chief informs him that they all died in his last breakout. And he notices something—or someone—else as well. A new, familiar psychiatrist, who (after a few sleepless months of nightmares) decides to finally face the devil and interview him.
Intrigued by her determination, the Joker bribes a guard to bring him Arkham's files on her—specifically her thesis. Realizing he can use this, the Joker tailors his usual stories to perfectly match her theory; a man who slowly lost his compassion as he tried to survive in the cesspool of Gotham. Vague enough on details that she doesn't immediately call him out on a new fake backstory, but just enough reluctant sincerity to hook her interest.
I think most of you know how the rest of this story goes. He gets more and more hooks into Harley, appeals to the image of him he's painstakingly crafted in her mind, and slowly seduces her into mad love.
As all this is going on, Harvey Dent is going through his own origin story to become Two-Face. After he's scarred by a mob boss, a gang of police officers decide to band together to become "The Executioners", dealing out lethal force to the criminals of Gotham. Soon, they approach Harvey to be their leader. The now-insane Harvey accepts, and begins reminiscing over a prior case with the Joker: after the clown killed a dozen people in a gas attack, he was once again sent to the revolving door that is Arkham by recommendations from psychiatrists. Angered by this, Harvey learned that even the judge thought he didn't belong there, but that they knew he would be an even worse threat in a normal prison. And in that moment of anger, at the idea that this murderer wouldn't get the death penalty that should have awaited him, Harvey contemplated... what if everyone in Arkham were to escape? To drown the city in death, to show the world what monsters they are, to prove what final, fatal fate they all deserve?
The Harvey of the present, horrifically injured, brain damaged, and enabled by a bunch of fanatic fascists, remembers this idle thought from so long ago.
The Executioners proceed to efficiently take over Gotham, releasing the inmates and quietly escorting them to the city. At least, that was the plan. The Joker, upon hearing of what they want, instead yells at the top of his lungs: "HEY, PSYCHOS! THESE GUYS ARE THOSE EXECUTIONERS AND THEY'RE HERE TO KILL US ALL!"
You can probably guess what happens. The villains immediately riot, catching many of the Executioners up in their carnage: Zsasz begins stabbing people, Freeze freezes people, and Killer Croc runs through the halls eating whoever he can get his hands on. The warden managed to call the cops to quarantine the area, so their rampage doesn't reach outside the Asylum's ground, but it's destructive enough that the entire police force arrives to keep a lid on things while Batman tries to restore order.
After getting the security guard he bribed earlier killed by Zsasz, the Joker finds Harvey holding Harley at gunpoint in the midst of the chaos as he rants about his motivations. Not wanting to lose his carefully cultivated minion, Joker attacks and begins bashing the non-scarred half of Harvey's face with a brick, laughing over how he won't kill him, just "even him out." Harley gets him to back off...
Right as the security chief comes by and sees two other guards that Two-Face killed. Thinking it was the Joker's fault (again), he attacks, and in sheer panic Harley picks up Harvey's gun and accidentally fires, shooting the chief through the head. The moment following that, a few thoughts go through her head in an instant—even more panic, grief, whether or not to shoot herself—before settling on... well, snapping and going insane. The Joker comforts her and they make their escape. Some time later, they reemerge: the Joker his usual self, and Harley? Now his loyal lover, a Hair-Trigger Temper psycho he aims to maim and murder whoever he wants, and who will bash in the brains of anyone who lays a hand on her "puddin."
Harley herself, years after all this, is little hazy on everything that's going on. Whether from the constant fights of the supervillain lifestyle, or exposure to the Joker's laughing gas, her mind is fuzzy, and she's not quite sure what's real and what, of any of this, is a dream. But there's one part of her mind, buried deep, deep inside, that remains lucid. And she can't stop screaming.
Fortunately, that's not Harley's final fate. A short story later on reveals that, like in canon, she eventually breaks up with the Joker, entering into a much more healthy relationship with a formerly genocidal plant lady. And anyone who knows anything about the Joker knows that sentence is completely sincere.
Mitigating factors?
It's the Joker. All of his previous psychiatrists concluded he was a sociopath incapable of genuine emotion. All his tragic backstories are blatantly fake, and any kindness or Pet the Dog moments he displays are solely to make himself look good in Harley's eyes.
Alfred, upon witnessing footage of the two kissing, notes that the action looked to be genuine from both parties. But he also notes that saying the Joker is "in love" would be too strong a description. He's "crazy about her," and only after he's molded her into a murderous, "honest" version of herself. If there's any genuine feeling, it's squarely In Love with Your Carnage territory, and a snippet of their inevitable breakup shows him fighting her with a smile still plastered on his face.
Heinous enough?
Once again, this comic is its own continuity, so no Superman or Justice League villains or what have you to compare him against.
Now, to be clear, this comic is mostly focused on Harley's descent into madness. While we get a lot of interactions with the Joker, his many past crimes aren't depicted, merely relayed through dialogue. That said, what we do hear about is still given weight by the story. To summarize:
- Gassed a dozen people in one of his prior attacks. We don't get to see this attack, but that his only punishment was being sent back to Arkham was what planted the seed of the breakout plan in Harvey's mind.
- Introduced blowing up three police cars. Only two cops are shown alive, the fates of the rest aren't revealed. He does this while running away with a bunch of guns he intends to use to "paint the town red." Harley is only spared when he runs into her so she can be traumatized by the experience, and he kills one of his own minions in the subsequent fight.
- His many breakouts usually involve the murder of a lot of guards, so much so that the security chief finally gets sick of his friends constantly dying and tries to kill the clown in the climax.
- When the Executioners try to escort the rogues into the city in a controlled, orderly fashion, the Joker sets off a riot that results in many goons being killed on the spot, and the staff at Arkham are left to the mercy of the villains as they begin rampaging. The Joker leads one guard to be killed by Zsasz.
- Because of his manipulations, Harley kills the security chief and proceeds to go insane. The Joker molds her snapped psyche into a murderous henchwoman; one flashforward shows her bashing in the brains of a guard at a bank that tries to shoot the Joker, and Catwoman indicates this was only one victim in a very, very long line of people she's brutalized on the Joker's behalf.
All in all, I think it's enough to pass baseline.
The only competition within the comic itself is Two-Face, who tries to release all the villains onto the city. But he has the backing of the Executioners, a gang of experienced and well-connected cops who can get into Arkham and manipulate the system to make their infiltration easier. The Joker just has a gang that isn't indicated to be anything special; they can bribe an Arkham guard with a gambling addiction to help their boss, but that's the extent of their reach we're shown. Plus, even as just an inmate, the Joker is able to make the Arkham breakout go disastrously wrong for the Executioners, putting everyone in the asylum in danger of the rogues' wrath.
Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Aug 26th 2023 at 8:25:56 AM
to the Clown Prince of Crime. Sad that I don't think we see much Joker CMs being nominated nowadays.
Also I don't think competing with Supervillains is the issue here since Joker operates on a unique resource tier like most Batman villains.
Mr.
Just one question, does this version of Tiamat care for her children, or not?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Well, I DO a potential Joker CM from DC Superheroes 2019, but I'll have to rewatch the episode he is in, just to be for certain.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Yes to The Joker as always.
Well well well, Finished binge watching The Anime Adaptation of Ace Attorney. Manfred and Redd White do not count (The former has some Pet the Dog moments towards Miles and Franziska and the ladder’s worst crimes were Adapted Out), and I’ll talk about Dahlia later on. However, I think one guy, or GAL, gains some more factors which pushes her.
Who’s Morgan Fey?
Morgan Fey is the head of the Fey Family Clan, being the sister of Misty Fey, mother of Pearl, Iris and Dahlia, and the aunt of Mia and Maya Fey. A seemingly soft spoken and benevolent woman, she is in reality a petty and envious woman who wishes to get rid of Maya Fey out of vengeance and get into the main family again.
What Does She Do?
- Morgan abandoned Dahlia and Iris purely for their lack of spiritual powers in favor of Pearl’s spiritual powers, determined to make her head of the Fey Clan. She isolated and controlled Pearl a lot as a child, with Pearl even saying that she hit over the slightest mistakes.
- As opposed to the game where her Resentful Guardian status is more implied, the anime shows that Morgan hated bother mother and her nieces, in a flashback episode outright insulting Maya’s mother and calling her, Maya and Mia disgraces to the Fey Clan.
- When Mimi informs her about Turner Grey attending a Spirit Channeling, as opposed to working with Mimi in the games, Morgan outright blackmails Mimi, threatening to expose her true identity as she orchestrated the murder of Turner.
- She has Mimi dress up as Maya and incapacitates her when locked in the room with Turner and has Mimi murder Turner Grey while dressed up as Maya before quickly having Mimi de dress and switch the bloody clothes onto Maya, panning on having her take the fall and get arrested so Pearl can become the next Head.
- While imprisoned, Morgan came to Dahlia while she was on Death Row and Brought up her idea. Morgan would have Pearl bring herself and Maya to Hazakura Temple which would lead Pearl to channel Dahlia Hawthorne and murder Maya Fey, pinning the blame on Iris, her own second daughter. This gets thrown as Godot informs Misty Fey and Iris about this and Misty channels Dahlia’s spirit instead, which leads Godot killing Misty to try and kill Dahlia, and Iris getting possessed and eventually leading to Dahlia getting exorcised, with Morgan’s last plot being eliminated.
Mitigating Issues?
None in particular. The closest thing she has is her relationship with Pearl, who she presents as caring and protective over and wishes for her to be the Kurain Master's seat. However, this isn’t portrayed redeeming, as it’s shown and said that Morgan’s love for Pearl is mostly self serving In her own right, as not only does she only really see Pearl for her powers (As it the only reason she decided to stick around and raise her as opposed to Dahlia and Iris, who lacked those spiritual powers) and only wishes for her to be the next master so she can get back into the main lineage, she also shows on qualms in disregarding her feelings, controlling her and even having her be possessed by Dahlia to kill Maya. Overall, her relationship with Pearl is purely self serving for Morgan to get her own way.
Otherwise, no other redeeming qualities, as she’s portrayed as an envious women who would sacrifice her own family to get into the main clan.
Heinous Standard?
Now, thankfully the anime only covers the original trilogy, so we don’t have to deal with the likes of Damon Giant, Joe Dark, Simon Keyes, Kristoph Gavin and various other low resourced villains. So right now, she has to compare to the villains in the trilogy. Let’s round off the first few ones who she easily clears:
- Frank Sahwit and Richard Wellington: One off characters who killed one person each in a spur of a moment and pinned it on a random stranger, and both pretty comedic (Wellington especially played for laughs); She clears them.
- Dee Vazquez: Film Producer who has mob ties who killed Jack Hammer after blackmailing him over the death of an actor simply for her amusement. Not fully enough the way I see it.
- Yanni Yogi: A completely sympathetic vicitim who simply was a pawn and killed one person.
- Mimi Miney: A simple vengeful woman who is blackmailed into helping commit a murder.
- Acro: A former acrobatic who attempted to kill the ringleader’s daughter out of revenge but accidentally killed the ringleader himself, which he feels remorse about.
- Luke Atmey: Ace Detective who murders a man blackmailing him and orchestrates a gambit to get himself off as he gets the Mask theif Ron De Lite as the murderer.
- Furio Tigre: A loan shark who suffers from offscreen villainy and ultimately kills one person to settle his debt while framing one person.
Overall, the main competitors are Manfred Von Karma (Who kills Gregory Edgeworth and causes the DL 6 Incident), Matt Engarde (who drives an innocent woman to suicide and kills his competitor while hiring an assassin to cover his tracks and make sure he’s out of prison), and Dahlia Hawthorne herself (murdered her step sister and Doug, manipulated Terry into committing suicide, poisoned Diego and causing him to be Godot and attempting to get her cousin Maya to be killed).
So, with this said, I think the lower heinous standard and her other crimes can help Morgan here. Morgan Fey shows extreme Family Cruelty, framing her niece for murder before attempting to get her daughter to be possessed to kill the niece and frame her other daughter for the murder all in order to usurp the family, and before that, as opposed to being an accomplice to murder, she blackmails Mimi to force her to kills Turner Grey to frame Maya. With the former, she outright comes up with the idea of having Dahlia posses Pearl and get Maya killed, leading to Dahlia paving the way for her actions later on.
Overall, with the much less heinous standard, her orchestrating the latter two plots and her sheer cruelty towards her own family, I think Morgan sticks.
Verdict?
Gonna go with a yes
Edited by MermaidEyes15 on Aug 22nd 2023 at 2:24:48 PM
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A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
And now for the other one
Who is Dahlia Hawthorne? What Does She Do?
Dahlia Hawthorne, the main antagonist for Season 2 of Ace Attorney Anime, keeps her sociopathic nature. Manipulating her and her step sister’s Tutor, Terry Fawles, the three of them staged a fake kidnapping in order to steal the jewel. However, Dahlia cuts out Terry and throws herself off a bridge, faking her death and making Terry take the fall for it, sentencing him to death.
In order to cover her tracks, she murders her sister when she was planning on coming clean and when Terry Fawles, who escaped prison, was put on the stand for the murder of her, Dahlia manipulated him into committing suicide via poisoning so she can get off scott free.
Around six months later, she poisoned Armando, a defense lawyer and friend of Mia Fey, which leads him to be comatose and later rendered unable to see well and turning him into the prosecutor Godot. To keep herself off the way, she manipulates Phoenix Wright into becoming her boyfriend, gifting him the poison on a necklace so he could take the fall.
She wished to kill Phoenix to get the necklace back, only stopping when her sister Iris promises to get the vile pack. Eight months later, however, Dahlia haven’t gotten it leading her to plan on poisoning Phoenix using his cough medicine laced with poison. However, seeing her ex boyfriend, Doug Swallows, attempting to talk to Phoenix about Dahlia, she decides to have him killed. After Phoenix knocks Doug out and leaves, she proceeds to electrocute him and place the bottle of cough medicine him his hands to frame Phoenix.
When Phoenix finds Dahlia standing over his corpse, Dahlia proceeds to strongarm Wright into keeping quiet about it, and Phoenix is held as the suspect. However, Dahlia’s guilt is proven again by Mia Fey, and Dahlia is lead to be executed.
Before her execution, however, she was approached by her mother Morgan and they had a plan. Dahlia planned to posses Pearl, her half sister, and use her to murder Maya and frame Iris for the crime to spite Mia. This goes wrong as Godot learns and ropes Misty and Iris into the plan. Misty channels Dahlia’s spirit and Godot murders Misty to get rid of Dahlia, who uses the earthquake later on to posses Iris and lock away her spirit. Later in court she attempts to say Maya committed suicide, almost convincing everyone before the truth gets revealed and Maya turns out to be alive, and Dahlia loses it before she proceeds to exist her soul out of Iris and go back to the hell she came from.
Mitigating Factors?
Absolutely Not. She doesn’t even have the sympathy from Iris like she had in the game, staying to be the same manipulative petty and vengeful Sociopathic teen like always.
Heinous Standard?
Cleared it in the games and clears it here. Murdering her step sister and ex boyfriend, manipulating Terry into committing suicide, and possessing her sister to get her framed, she’s overall one of the most cruelest characters in the entire anime.
Verdict?
Ayup
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Not the Eye
to Kerian, Brain (it feels so weird after watching MAWS), Joker, Morgan and Dahlia
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Kerian.
Slight yes to Brain.
Unsure on Joker. I'm not inclined to be lenient on Offscreen Villainy in such a visual medium as a comic book. I'm not even inclined to hold the riot against him; he WAS correct about what the Executioners wanted.
Yes to Dahlia, but unsure on Morgan, as Dahlia seems quite a bit worse (to say nothing of Karma).
Edited by ACW on Aug 23rd 2023 at 4:38:55 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
I think Morgan passes all things considered as she was the mastermind who brought the plan to Dahlia and before hand Blacmailed Mimi to killing Grey. Plus her sheer cruelty to her family such as her daughters and nieces
Edited by MermaidEyes15 on Aug 23rd 2023 at 4:44:09 AM
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Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
....Phenomenal
for Kerian, Brain, The Jokah Baby!, and Dahlia. Tentatively to Morgan as well, given the limited nature of the adaptation, though honestly I could go either way.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Unfortunately not. Manfred in the original episodes which shows the past of characters does show Manfred be an actually decent and nice father to Franzika and showing respect to Edgeworth and even shows some amount of remorse for Gregory’s death, seeing him adopting his son as karma for his actions.
Edited by MermaidEyes15 on Aug 23rd 2023 at 4:54:36 AM
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