During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
Yes to Claire Carter, Gout, Linda and Xhatan.
Abstain on Jayce
No to Queen of Fables.
It's been two weeks since the end of season two of Picard and we may have keeper...
A little background, Q has messed around with time and changed the timeline, the Federation is gone and replaced by the Confederation of Earth, a brutal empire that enslaves alien species and commits genocide against any alien species that defies them. Picard and his allies have to go back to the year 2024 to save the future, but someone wants to stop them.....
Who is Dr. Adam Soong? What has he done?
Dr. Adam Soong is a billionaire and a geneticist in the year 2024, a member of the Soong family, throughout history they have been scientists and kinda control freaks.
Adam Soong is introduced as a seemingly sympathetic, trying to find a cure for a disease afflicting his daughter Kore (weird name, more on that later). But Soong wouldn't be E Ped if that was the whole story, Kore is a clone, and there have been several others, Persephone, Proserpina, and Despoina, all named after the daughters of Zeus. Kore isn't a daughter, she is Soong's life's work and legacy. As soon Q gives Kore a cure for her disease, she leaves Soong and he snarls at her You don't get to walk away from me. You don't exist without me!
Soong is informed by Q and later the Borg Queen that his life's work will be made obsolete if Picard's ancestor, Renée Picard makes a space flight and a discovery that will save Earth's environment, if she doesn't make that flight, Soong's legacy is secured, turning to his work to solve Earth's environmental problems and ultimately creating the Confederation of Earth. The dark timeline even statutes of Soong gracing cities, repeating the Confederation's pro-human, fascist dogma. Soong hits Picard with his car outside of a gala celebrating the upcoming space flight, putting Picard near the brink of death, until his allies help him recover from his injuries.
later Soong hires mercs to take out Picard and his allies and allows the Borg Queen to turn them into proto Borg drones. Soong, the Queen, and the mercs attack Picard and his allies. Soong claims he is creating a future where humanity is prosperous and beloved throughout the galaxy, Picard corrects him, saying humanity is feared throughout the galaxy in the future and Soong says Loved, feared, what is the difference?. Picard and his allies defeat the mercs and Soong flees.
Soong being wealthy is able to access the launch site and shakes Renée's hand, but his hand is covered in fake skin and a fast-acting poison. But Picard's ally Talon took Renée's place and used holograms to disguise herself as Renée, dying so Renée can complete her mission. As a backup, Soong has 4 drones launched from his house, designed to take out the shuttle, Picard's allies take out the drones.
Soong's schemes are foiled and he returns him, throwing a fit. He is then contacted by Kore, who deletes all his computer files on his genetics research. Soong then pulls out a physical file, named Project Khan, hinting at even darker things in his future...
Is he heinous by the standards of the work?
In theory, he is kinda generic, he tries to kill Picard, kill Renée, and blow up a shuttle.
In practice, he has one of the highest body counts in the franchise, ensuring the peaceful Federation is replaced by the blood-thirsty Confederation and we see enough of them in the future to see their brutal policies in action.
Picard tells Soong humanity will be feared by the rest of the galaxy in the future he wants to create and Soong doesn't care, as long he gets his legacy, so he knows the price his legacy will cost.
Soong pulling out a file about Khan seems to suggest Soong's ill intentions have not ceased after this.
Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming qualities?
Nah, Soong treats his daughter as a means to obtain a legacy, not someone he actually cares about, and says she is nothing without him, no other redeeming qualities are present.
Final Verdict?
Keep him.
Edited by Overlord on May 19th 2022 at 9:47:26 AM
While Soong sounds like a
either way. I am wondering how the heinous standard will be treated for this series, I know that we treat most shows separately but from what I know this one has heavy ties to Star Trek: The Next Generation so is it on the same heinous standard as that one?
I would like to make a case for The Mother from Jade Empire. I think she fits.
She is an ancient evil that had been fighting the morally gray Forest Shadow for ages and made her look heroic. She eats human flesh and manipulates people to become cannibals with dark promises of power, showing she is sapient enough to act beyond her primordial instinct and is aware of what she does.
And unlike both corrupt Sun brothers, who upset the balance of nature partially to help humanity, the Mother sickens trees and destroys the forest the stronger she gets and also wants to destroy humans.
Is she heinous by the standards of this work?
She is a menace to both humanity and nature, has turned many humans into vile beasts, siding with her children is the evil option gameplay-wise in spite of her rival turning people to stone and burning her own forest, and overall this creature has no redeeming qualities.
Does she have any excuse?
I don't remember if she has any at all.
Edited by Pan_2000 on May 20th 2022 at 5:09:04 PM
The cannibalism manipulation and attempted androcide does seem to give her an edge, I will say that much based on the effortpost.
Jade Empire has a page, BTW.
Edited by SkyCat32 on May 20th 2022 at 10:33:44 AM
I thought the Mother was already on the YMMV page, but it turned out her entry from back then was put up without going through this thread
.
I could see her possibly counting, but personally she feels kind of generic for an evil spirit. It's been a while since I played the game though.
"I squirm, I struggle, ergo I am. Faced with death, I am finally, truly alive."
Soong
- Sofia?: Dr. Claire Carter was the head of Project Gen, a government operation involving experimenting with the idea of cloning as a form of immortality. Requesting to use humans as test subjects, Carter would coerce her colleague Dale Jenkins to birth her a son, Fio, making him a guinea pig for her cloning experiments, killing him and his hundreds of clones whom she deemed failures, even doing the same to Dale’s wife Sofia and a man named Crow. The co-creator of Icarus, an intersex clone made from the DNA of Fio and Sofia, Claire would perform the same torturous experiments on them, causing them to turn rogue and kill her and Dale in retaliation.
@ Ordeaux 26, I think you would have to allow for some differences in heinous standards between the shows, given different things happen in the shows and they are often set centuries apart from each other. Deep Space Nine would be the darkest of the old shows because it involved the Dominion War, where the Dominion committed several war crimes and that was a brutal war that lasted a couple of years, nothing like that happened in the other shows. Also, the newer shows are trying harder to be darker and edgier than the old shows.
I also think this thread gives an inflated sense of the heinous standard, we usually talk about the worst of the worst Star Trek villains, but the vast majority of Star Trek villains do not aim that high in terms of body count. Next Gen doesn't have a huge standard, IMO, it's why the two keepers from that show are more low level. I think the baseline standard for Star Trek was trying to destroy one starship, the Enterprise D had a 1000 people on it, including children, and everything from natural disasters to technical issues to random Romulan commanders, and would try to blow it up almost every week, so you have to do something worse than that to count, IMO.
Soong in creating this future would have a body count equal to the Dominion.
@ papyru30, Picard told Soong that humanity would be feared by the rest of the galaxy in the future he wanted to create. A morally responsible person would ask to follow-up questions, and a psychopath would not care. That and the fact that he has a god complex in the way he names his daughters and is involved in the creation of Khan and there are statues of him throughout the Confederation era spouting fascist propaganda, I think the narrative is saying Soong trying to create this dark future is a heinous thing for him do.
Edited by Overlord on May 20th 2022 at 10:21:56 AM
Yes to Soong. And:
What's the work?
Lady Snowblood is a rather grim mang. The heroine is Yuki, a warrior bred and raised for revenge. Her mother was an innocent, whose husband was murdered by several men and a woman who rape her. She killed one, arrested for the crime, and proceeded to conceive a child before her own death to be left with relatives and raised for revenge. Yuki has committed herself to mastering combat, stealth and more...hunting those who hurt her mother and doing mercenary work on the side.
This is not a nice world. One villain I think sticks out: from chapter 13.
Who is Seiki Nishiomi?
a mild-mannered photographer with a burning hatred of women. In truth, Nishiomi is a woman posing as a man and sells her skills to high profile women with the new photography technology. Nishiomi, however, does not merely photograph them in beautiful clothing. She hires out men to attack the women she photogrphs, has them violently gang raped and blackmails them with the photos. The story opens with one such woman so traumatized she commits suicide and her distraught husband hiring Yuki for revenge. The women she targets also end up giving her new victims and the embarrassment keeps many silenced.
Yuki knocks out another woman to take her noble clothes and manages to render Nishiomi smitten for a new victim. Yuki reveals herself when Nishiomi unleashes her men. Yuki cuts them down, but Nishiomi reveals that she has pictures of Yuki's killings there, which go to a safe spot and will be sent to the police if she dies, meaning to blackmail yuki into servitude, and into bed. Yuki manage to coax from her that Nishiomi keeps her blackmail photos in the house...then gets out of bed and grabs her sword, stating she'll just burn the place down, before executing Nishiomi.
Mitigating issues?
Nobody else in series gets up to stuff this atrocious, no. Serial gang rape and blackmail there? Nishiomi is unique. Even as bad as Yuki herself is. (she'd be an easy MB if one of her plans didn't involve having a woman raped as part of a scheme. Yeah.)
Conclusion?
easy keeper.

Xhatan
Watch me destroying my country