Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Ambar, we've had issues with others cutting items from the page too quickly without discussing things. I personally do object to completely cutting American Psycho from Complete Monster, and I object in general with cutting an example from the page less than 9 hours after it was brought up when you've had only one other user offer comment. I don't think it's too much to ask you to wait either for more time or more opinions before cutting an example.

Seriously, one of the reasons that the trope became problematic in the first place was people taking unilateral action without consulting with others on an extremely controversial trope. Part of fixing this is making a process and sticking with it. (By the way, this is for you too, flamemario 12 - you did not consult with anyone regarding the examples in @3467.) Also, if we want others to respect and go through the nomination/discussion process for this trope, all of us must also respect that process. No exceptions for having participated in this thread, or "knowing this trope."

For Bateman of American Psycho, I think he does all of his actions, even the seemingly nice ones (like the aforementioned donating of money to a homeless person) as pure experiments to see what happens - he isn't nice because he think he shoudl be; he's nice because he's curious as to what will happen. He's purely sociopathic, regardless of whether or not he does what he claims. As such, it hinges entirely over whether or not he actually does. It's a low-level intentional Mind Screw as to the factual truth of those deeds, which is why I think a highly qualified entry about the book is warranted.

Thoughts on a few other subpages:

• Monster.Disgaea: ... Good god is this bad! I mean yes it did have three real entries, but ninety-five percent of the text, including the names, are covered in spoiler markups.
• Monster.Kirby: A stern rewrite would be necessary if worth keeping at all (looks like most of the examples are bad anyhow). The problems I have with the last entry (the Nightmare) is that not only did the text make him out to respect his employees, but that it also states that what he does places him above the rest of the entries.

Still waiting on thoughts for Monster.League Of Legends (which I still flat-out favor cutting entirely without transfer)

edited 28th Sep '12 1:03:24 PM by EarlOfSandvich

I think the Gul'dan entry on YMMV.World Of Warcraft can be moved to YMMV.Warcraft. I'll take a look at it.

Okay, this made me chuckle out of pure "You expect me to even entertain this as bad enough for the trope?"-ness.

edited 28th Sep '12 12:51:17 PM by rmctagg09

Is that really an actual example?

I agree that Monster.League of Legends should be cut completely. None of them count as described.

Haha. That Kirby example is just ridiculously bad.

Kirby examples yay.

First off, that Kirby example is overly dramatic, not in a cool way, not in a funny way, but in one of those annoying ways. Second off, that example is bad; monster tries to kill kirby, sure he's creative, but... I think almost every villain tried that.

From the YMMV page

• Complete Monster: Yep, you saw it coming; Drawcia of Kirby: Canvas Curse. To get her wish to have a world of paint, she turned Dreamland into a painting and Kirby into a ball - none of which her paintbrush wanted to see happen. Yeah, this Wicked Witch is a monster.
  • Meta Knight's Mirror Counterpart, Dark Meta Knight, may have shades of this; to wit, he never gives you a sword so you can fight him, having almost no honor or chivalry.
  • Necrodeus, You Monster!! How could you!? Splitting Kirby into ten and killing all but one and not even caring about it. Good thing you didn't notice that one Kirby you left getting away thanks to the Hero's Heart. What a dick you are.

Okay, this over dramatic rendition of Necrodius is over dramatic in a funny way, still, I vot to cut.

Dark Meta Knight: I played Amazing Mirror, and I don't even know if Dark Meta Knight had sentience, like Shadow Kirby, he just shows up, attacks Meta Knight and attacks you. If he does have sentience, then he fails the heinous standard.

Drawcia: I think she was an Eldrich Abomination. Other than that, turn the world into paint for some reason. I don't think she counts.

edited 28th Sep '12 2:40:40 PM by DrPsyche

They're even worse than the Marx example I deleted!

By the way, if no one objects to adding Kiriyama, I'll go ahead and send a request to add him...

Uhhh, how do I do that?

I'm calling Poe's Law.

edited 28th Sep '12 2:51:24 PM by nrjxll

Righty-ho, here's the skinny on Caius. As mentioned, I do not believe he qualifies, so this is a just-in-case explanation for the thread's future usage.

Caius Ballad is the immortal bodyguard of a seeress called Yeul, a young girl who has the power to see the entire timeline. However, there's a problem. Remember how I said Yeul is a 'young girl'? That's because her powers exert a massive toll on her mind and body, burning her out and killing her in her early teens (specifically, when she's between ten and fifteen years old). Then she gets reincarnated and does the whole thing again, ad infinitum. Each Yeul has the same appearance, the same memories, and an essential Yeulness that's passed on from one vessel to another, but each also has their own, distinct personality. Thus, it's equally accurate to say that Caius has seen his surrogate daughter die (unpleasantly) and be reborn again over and over for all of recorded history (and then some), and that he's seen thousands (if not millions, or even billions, depending on just how old he is) of different girls cut down by the same ancestral curse before they could even have a proper life.

Needless to say, he's not happy about this. His solution? Create a perfect, timeless utopia where every Yeul that ever has existed or ever will exist gets to live the long, happy lives they never had without fear of death (and the rest of humanity gets to do that too, though that's just a nice little bonus from his point of view). If someone tries to stop him... well, he doesn't hold a grudge. He'll just shove them into his utopia early.

Now for the bad news.

To create his utopia, Caius has to kill Etro, goddess of time, death, and rebirth. There are two ways to do this. Plan B is to have someone kill him - he's immortal because he's been granted the goddess's heart, which will heal any wound except in very specific circumstances (so suicide isn't usually an option). Stop his heart, kill the goddess. Since that's pretty fiddly and difficult to pull off, though, Plan A is to kill enough people at once that Etro gets overstrained by the massive influx of souls, causing reality to collapse with the same overall result. He plans to do this by crashing the gigantic world-city of Cocoon into the earth, wiping out its millions of inhabitants and triggering the slow extinction of humanity from the fallout. It's implied that he believes this isn't such a big deal because everyone (including the dead citizens of Cocoon) will end up in his perfect timeless utopia, but he can't be considered the most reliable source on this, because his perfect timeless utopia... isn't.

In reality, it's a creepy Lotus-Eater Machine where you're surrounded by two-dimensional echoes of your loved ones. It's an OK-ish facsimile of a perfect life, and you can live and even be happy there, but you'll always be stuck with the nagging feeling in the back of your mind that something isn't right. Caius is either unaware of this, doesn't see it as a problem, or refuses to acknowledge he might be wrong... because if he's wrong, then the last, best hope for Yeul is a great big dead end. Not only that, but Yeul herself makes it clear to him that she isn't cool with his plan, and he refuses to stop - the way he sees it, she's the one who's mistaken, and it's his job to save her from her own suicidal selflessness.

So... Caius Ballad. Not a Complete Monster. He's got a hell of a Freudian Excuse. His goals are warped, yes, but altruistic to the point where he'll lay down his life to save another's (he survives suiciding to destroy the Heart of Etro, but it's not clear that he knew he would when he stabbed himself). Not only that, but he's honourable and merciful to his enemies (as he sees it), and so completely bugfuck insane that it's hard to say he can exercise proper moral judgment - he's just too detached from reality.

*Slow Clap* Bravo! That was a very well-written synopsis of the character, his deeds and motivations. I'm certainly convinced he doesn't count.

@3147 & 3148: Thank you both for responding. So with Umarill, destroying the entire world definitely fulfills the heinous standard… buuuut if it’s true that he’s only met once in person and the player doesn’t even get an actual conversation with him, I’m thinking he doesn’t have enough of an established personality to count. I’m leaning towards cut.

I figure since I’m talking about Elder Scrolls examples I should probably just bring up examples I find lacking to save time:

• Jagar Tharn: The entry says he imprisons the Emperor in a hell dimension, betrays people, and tries to sell out the world to Mehrunes Dagon. I never played Arena but the lack of specifics makes him sound like a typical Evil Chancellor. If he’s helping Dagon to destroy the world, that’d be one thing, but it sounds like he’s just made a deal with him. Leaning towards cut, or at least a rewrite.
• Queen Akothori: Apparently, the ending of the game does have her do some warmongering, coupled with murdering her son, I’m leaning towards keep.
• Kurdan gro-Drugal: He uses his loan shark persona to trick his client into being prey for a Hunting the Most Dangerous Game scenario the rich participate in. It’s a cruel thing to do but he only kills one person and attempts to kill the player. I’d say he fails the heinous standard, being a murderous thug in a world of tyrants and world destroyers. Vote cut.
• The Black Wood Company: Their an entire group so they can’t count, whoever leads them, however, may qualify. It sounds like he has no reason for tricking new recruits into slaughtering entire towns. I’d be willing to hear more about this person’s character, but for now cut I’ll cut the group at least.
• Festus Krex: He only does Offscreen Villainy. He’s part of the Dark Brotherhood which, in Skyrim, treats each other like family. He even describes himself as the “cranky old uncle.” The only thing he does in the game is act like a jerkass, and even then he eventually acts kindly to the player. Easy cut.
• Skyrim’s Necromancers:
  • Malyn Varen eats souls to remain immortal. It’s generic Immortality Immorality and it’s only Offscreen Villainy. Say cut.
  • Naris the Wicked only kills one man onscreen and that’s it. He enjoys the killing but he’s not defined well as a character. Also vote cut.
  • Arondil and Sild the Warlock: These two I’m a bit iffier about. Arondil kills girls to resurrect them and keep them for his zombie harem. Sild the Warlock is a Serial Killer who likes torturing people to death and then enslaving their aware but helpless souls to act as his guards. These two are definitely the worst of the necromancers listed… but I’m just not sure they meet the heinous standard. Honestly, I’m on the fence.

Anybody have any opinions on the rewrites for Mankar and Mannimarco I offered here?

@3448: In regards to World Of Warcraft, I agree with cutting all of those listed except for Gul’Dan, though he should probably be moved to Warcraft.

@Footsteps: Regarding SHODAN, fair enough. I just wasn’t sure if she was always evil, she just didn’t have the capacity to act on it, or the accident caused her to turn evil. For the Ace Attorney examples you brought up, I agree with all your decisions and with removing Von Karma.

@Ambar: I actually agree with 32 on keeping Bateman, sorry. In post 3462, I agree with most of the rest of the cuts. Though I'd leave the Joker from Murder On The Ballarat Train, and the child rapist if someone can provide a longer write-up.

@Dr Psyche: I think Lockdown does count. Villains give the We Can Rule Together offer all the time. If he just saw Prowl’s skills as something that could help him in his job, I don’t think that’s much of a Pet the Dog moment as it is pragmatism.

edited 28th Sep '12 4:54:27 PM by OccasionalExister

@ 32 Footsteps (love the new picture by the way)

I have no problem with keeping Patrick Bateman. I have a problem with the way the example was written. We've cut other examples immediately for being badly written, or containing qualifiers, and we generally haven't had a lot of discussion about them. I cut him at the same time that I removed that very sparse Mitsuru example and a couple of others. If he's going to be on the page, that's fine by me, but let's make an actual good example.

As I said before, I have no particularly strong feelings about Bateman either way. I haven't seen the movie, and I've read the book once (found it kind of dull actually, but I've never had time for Mind Screw). What I do have a problem with, is examples that due to the way they are written, encourage others to add further bad examples. That's why I cut him.

Anyway, the only real questions I have then are these: a) do we really want any qualified examples? And b) if we must have them, can we make them better than what was originally there? Instead of opening with "Patrick Bateman might count" how about "Patrick Bateman claims to be one of these"? Noting that the character himself acknowledges that he's one makes more sense, and is less likely to encourage bad examples than saying he might count.

On that note, I stand by removing his quote from the top of the page. Page quotes are supposed to sum up the trope. Let's get one from an unqualified monster.

I've edited the one about the child rapist down to just include him (I excluded the rest of the gang because 1) no groups, and 2) they aren't the ones doing the rapes). I'm actually tempted to cut it still if only because the original poster didn't even have the decency to give us his name. I also cut the grandfather. "Joker" I've left alone, if only because it's the best written of the examples, and I can see how he could actually count. I've removed some of the others that I brought up that don't have enough information. If someone actually comes here with a better description, we'll put them back on, but in the meantime they're just wasting space.

Does anybody, by the way, have any thoughts about the examples I posted a page or two back from the Millenium Trilogy? I know nothing about the series, but there's a string of entries for it on literature, some of which sound like they count, and some of which don't. I'd like to prune them down, but I just don't know enough about the material in question to do it with confidence, and the entries aren't badly written enough (they have actual crimes listed and don't contain qualifiers).

EDIT: I don't play Kirby, but looking over the discussion, I'd agree with the decision to axe most of those examples. Sounds like somebody trying to make Wile E. Coyote sound evil.

edited 28th Sep '12 5:08:35 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

@ nrjxll: Good call

@Occaisional Exister: Even if you don't think it's a pet the dog moment (which it doesn't seem like), many of his actions (with all the dead transformer equipment he has) are off screen (like killing Prowl's master). Here are his actions: Capturing Arcee, an intelligence officer. Kncking out Ratchet, a combat medic, and taking a piece of his arm off. Wiping Arcee's mind was either Ratchet's doing, or an accident (it was a discretion shot). He kidnapped Optimus Prime and tried to sell him to Blitzwing, after cutting out Pieces of Prime's arms, the grappling hooks, and trying to kill ratchet.

2nd appearance: Tries to capture Starscream, teams up with Prowl to do so. Betrays Prowl after Prowl turns on him, and then leaves with the deal turning south (Offering Prowl a job on his way out, but Prowl declines, again mostly pragmatism).

3rd Appearance: Hired by the Autobots (Specifically Sentinel) to capture several Decepticons. Sells out Sentinel for more money from one of the cons. Captures and tries to kill Prowl (reveals he killed Prowl's master), fights Prowl, gets beaten, and runs off.

To me, he sounds like a standard villain, maybe above standard, but not the heinous standard.

RE: Caius, nice write up, I agree with you not keeping him.

edited 28th Sep '12 5:43:26 PM by DrPsyche

I've only seen the American version of The Girl With The Dragon Tattoo film, but if it's true to the book then I'd say Martin Vagner and his father count. We actually see Martin try to perform one of his kills after he's told us how he's killed other women. We also see Gottfried attempt to rape his daughter in flashback. We don't see Gottfried actually conducting the killings, but we do see their mutilated bodies. Also, Martin also raped his sister.

• Nils Bjurman: Again, if the film's true to the book, then we actually see him violently sodomizing and raping Lizbeth. Given the level of detail that went into how sickening that scene was, I want to say keep. However, later it's revealed Lizbeth "let" him rape her and recorded the whole thing so she could have blackmail material on him. She also gets revenge by bloodily tattooing "I'm a rapist" onto his stomach, and then makes him her bitch, threatening to destroy his entire life if he doesn't go along with her desires. While I want to say keep, his progression into a pathetic wretch at Lizbeth's hands, and the fact that Martin and Gottfried do so much worse, makes me think he might not count.
• Alexander Zalachenko: He sounds like a standard pimp/drug dealer/Abusive Parent. Also it makes it sound like him wanting revenge on his daughter for setting him on fire is unreasonable. In lieu of rewrite and expansion, I vote cut.
• Dr. Peter Teleborian: Just reading about this guy makes my skin crawl. It says he's a pedophile and he abuses his patients, it also says he has child pornography. However, it never clearly states that he's raping and abusing children. If he is, then hell yes keep him. If he's a pedophile that's abusing adults, then maybe not, as weird as that is to say. The only confirmed crime he has is abusing Lizbeth but the exact details of that aren't given.

edited 28th Sep '12 5:53:48 PM by OccasionalExister

Okay seriously, how do I send a request to add an example to a locked page?

Here.

On the whole "cutting without talking about it first" thing, I have to agree with Ambar on this one. If an example is plainly against criteria or is horribly written there's no need to go through a commitee on removing it. So one entry is about a group? Instacut. One sentance entry with no description? Instacut, it's on the supporters of that character's inclusion to write up a better article, not for us to bring it here and talk about wether or not they count first (and since all the pages are getting locked after cleanup they should get in the habit of doing that now). The entry contains the words "might," "probably," "depending on your interpretation," or some variant? 8 out of 10 cases instacut, or at least cut out the offending section.

So yeah, I pretty much second Ambar removing the American Psycho example since it these actions may or may not have happened, and as per the agreement of everyone here there can't be ambigiouty about a character being a CM.

@Earl: The Complete Monster for Disgaea is easy. If it's spoilers, just remove the spoiler tag. Of course, the reason why there is a huge spoiler tag is because there's a big spoiler to what the villain in Disgaea 3 does. I have not played 2 so I wouldn't know if that's spoiler worthy, but three is definitely spoiler worthy because of his identity in the game and all the things he has done is supposed to be a huge shocker. (His character page is basically half spoilers).

32 Footsteps: With the examples listed for Ghetsis, can he be put back on the Complete Monster list? (it's on page 139). The fandom does exaggerate Ghetsis being the Pokemon equivalent to Hitler but he's still very evil by Pokemon standards so even if a lot of things he does is speculated, he has still done and said things onscreen to show how evil he is and Cheren and Alder call him one in universe. I also didn't like how the quote he said was removed because that's pretty much what sealed the deal for how evil Ghetsis is in the Pokemon fandom.

@3489

Going off of what you've said, I'm down with cutting Zalachenko and Bjurman. I looked at the trope page for the series, and Zalachenko, while bad, doesn't seem to quite measure up to the others. As for Bjurman, a CM can be pathetic, but since he's in a series with two who clearly aren't than I'm inclined to cut. From you and the page say, it sounds like Gottfried and Martin both outdo him in evil.

The thing about American Psycho though is that the book does go into the bloody details of the murders... it just leaves it open as to whether it actually happened or not. It's right at that blurring of in-story fiction and reality that has me feeling like either a full cut or an unqualified entry does it a disservice.

As for Ghetsis... Akirax, I know this might not be completely obvious, but I don't need a description of Ghetsis' actions from anyone. I was 18 when I first started playing Pokemon Red And Blue (Started with Bulbasaur in Blue), and I've caught them all way more times than I care to remember. I've literally spent the equivalent of entire months of my life playing Pokemon games. I know the Pokemon fandom because I'm in the Pokemon fandom.

Yes, I know that, in terms of the various region continuities (Kanto, Johto, Hoenn, Orre, Sinnoh, and Unova) that Ghetsis is the most evil character you'll find. That said, he fails the trope in two regards.

One, while he might be the most evil in the world of Pokemon, this does not mean he automatically qualifies. He has to reach a certain baseline of evil acts, and his acts don't hit it. This is addressed in the FAQ in the first post of this thread - read the part about "heinous by the standards of the story."

Two, his actions are not the most vile in the series. That actually falls to Cyrus, who essentially wanted to mindwipe everyone and reprogram all of existence. Honestly, comparatively, Ghetsis falls short (and Cyrus doesn't count due to Freudian Excuse - he comes off a bit like a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds).

I know how histrionic the Pokemon fanbase is - it's what happens when a huge chunk of your fanbase is preteen and teenaged, and folks lack both the proper context for actually judging evil and are prone to wild emotional swings. I'm 33 now. I've seen monstrosity of all shapes and sizes when it comes to entertainment, and I have the distance to understand when a property I like has a Complete Monster and when it doesn't. And honestly, Ghetsis doesn't qualify.

EDIT: @3487 Thanks. I got it from this video. Dear God, Grover as the Eleventh Doctor, Cookie Monster as The Incredible Hulk... my inner child and my outer geek were having a contest to see which could flip out more.

edited 28th Sep '12 9:28:38 PM by 32_Footsteps

Hello, this is Austin DR, and I would like to elect Miss Power from Word Girl as a monster for the western animation page. In her debut movie, The Rise of Miss Power, what she does throughout the movie is the following: 1) she treats the other villains like garbage by insulting them, manipulates the entire town into bullying each other, throws Word Girl's mother in jail, over a disagreement thhey had, severly beats up WordGirl, and calls her nothing special going so far as to remove her star insignia, and lastly, she crosses the Moral Event Horizon by attempting to use her laser eyes to kill Dr. Two-Brains and essentially becomes the first villain to try to kill someone. She would've succeeded in murdering Two-Brains had ==Word Girl== not intervened. Though, like I said before, it's all your decision, and I wouldn't mind either.

Based on how the show is described, to put a character from there as Complete Monster sounds like, uh... overreacting...?

She seems like more of a Knight of Cerebus than a CM to me.

Does dialogue count as on-screen justification for being a CM? Because if so Ghetsis shouldn't be disqualified even if backstory villainy isn't a qualifier.

Any last words on the League of Legends examples? I'd like to hear more before removing it entirely.

edited 29th Sep '12 12:08:21 PM by EarlOfSandvich