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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
Messenger from another dimension.
Never played Daggerfall but I trust Exister and gotta vote Akorithi down.
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
Foreign Troper
Hm, it's been a while since I played Skyrim, but nothing there struck me as THAT much of a Crapsack World compared to, say, The Witcher, which has several candidates. Then again I also don't particularly remember many NPC's, because writing memorable characters isn't really Bethesda's biggest strength
edited 27th Jan '16 7:55:44 AM by Forenperser
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
OE, do you still think the other 2 (Mannimarco and Camoran) count?
Anyway, as for Sora, there's nothing that says a CM has to be a SORE loser, but there might be an issue if they're a GRACEFUL loser (see: Yujiro).
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Akorithi
Wild Child
So, I suggested Selene's image here. Votes are appreciated.
Lizzid people!
It looks pretty good.
Messenger from another dimension.
ACW, based on the description and having played Oblivion myself, I will defend Mankar Camoran and Mannimarco to the death on being on this list.
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
Lost in Space
Oh, I thought we were discussing Skyrim specifically. I can't speak to the other games.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oh trust me, I DEFINITELY agree on Mankar and Mannimarco counting. I've played Oblivion as well, and can vouch for the both of them being real pieces of work (Mannimarco even moreso with all his crimes in Online). If you need to defend their positions somewhere down the line, I'll be right behind you! 
found those entries written by Tropers/huntdaddy
- Complete Monster: Michael Foster is a terrifyingly realistic example of just how depraved child kidnappers can be, and he is shown to make no qualms about murdering not only his victims, but people in his way. What's worse, his entire motive is structured upon his rather unhealthy obsession with his dead sister.
- Complete Monster: Bo is established to have been a deranged, sadistic creep since childhood, and he is not only verbally abusive to his simple-minded twin brother, but he manipulates him into murdering people to turn into wax while lying to him about their deeds being done in the name of their deceased mother.
by London Purple Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
- Complete Monster: The Lady of the Castle of the Plucked Eye and Heart. Judging by Norrell's comments she is sadistic even by the standards of the faerie race, choosing bloodshed and death as her amusements.
- Lascelles, who murders and maims on a whim, and seems incapable of caring for another. He and the Lady were made for each other.
- Complete Monster: Bob aka Beadie, New Hampshire's most notorious serial killer. Despite his claims, he is incapable of love and is a depraved animal driven by his sick lusts.
I'm not familiar with those works though.
edited 27th Jan '16 10:10:48 AM by Silverblade2
I'm working my way through Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell, so I might report back on those people when I get to them, but I can't comment yet.
@Forenperser: I didn't think this in the beginning but after reconsidering it, the setting is pretty Crapsack when you think about it with a lot of terrible stuff going down. In addition to the more malevolent Daedric Princes like Molag Bal and Mehrunes Dagon, even the "benevolent" Daedric princes can do some pretty cruel shit when people offend them in some way. Stiff villain competition in the series includes Alduin, who's destroying the world before his prophecized time; the Nazi Elvish Thalmor whose leaders at the very least want to destroy the world so their race can become gods; Lord Harkon of Clan Volikhar who sacrificed a thousand innocents to become immortal, eats people alive (along with the rest of his Clan), is implied to have allowed Molag Bal to rape his wife and daughter and plans on sacrificing his daughter so he can forever blot out the sun and allow his vampires to rule and feed on the world; Dagoth Ur who unleashed a plague that leaves people in a state of And I Must Scream; Potema the Wolf Queen who started a massive civil war that nearly tore the empire apart and eventually turned everyone in her castle into undead slaves to serve her; the order of kill-crazy assassins, the Dark Brotherhood, who take way too much joy in their work; mass murdering necromancers like Reezal Jul and Angoff the Gravesinger, as well as an abundance of run-of-the-mill necromancers who imprison sentient souls in gems for power or raise aware dead as thralls, and unnamed bandit mooks big on torture and decorating their lairs with corpses of their victims. The only reason the setting isn't completely dark and depressing is because most non villains are usually friendly, normal people.
Btw, I will say while I agree with you for the most part on Bethesda not really making a lot of memorable characters, their settings are usually vastly more interesting than the people populating them, I do want to say I think they are getting a bit better in that department. Not great, but still improving.
@ACW: Oh yeah, Mannimarco and Mankar are the two examples I'm most sure of. Their actions would result in Nirn turning into a nightmarish hellscape of a world, so they cover the large scale crimes, and they also have enough smallscale crimes of personal cruelty under their belts that help them stand out. They feel like characters made to be on another tier of evil, to be repulsed by and hate.
EDIT: @Silverblade 2: If all of those examples were added without the forum's approval, they should all be cut. As for the Jonathan Strange and Mr. Norrell examples, having read the book I can say it has no examples. If I recall correctly, Lascelles only kills two people, one of whom was an asshole victim, the other was implied to be due to an enchantment. The Lady of the Plucked Eye and Heart is an unseen character who enthralls men to become champions to challenge, fight and kill others for her honor until they become so jaded to the practice they are killed and another takes their place. That's Lascelles fate in the end. As an unseen character, she can't count since we know nothing about her. The closest character to count from that book is the Gentleman with the Thistledown Hair and he doesn't count for his Blue-and-Orange Morality and a genuine affection for his mortal "friend" Stephen.
edited 27th Jan '16 1:18:10 PM by OccasionalExister
Hello everybody. I've just watched Eobard Thawne's episode (as if I recall well, you made the compromise to not put him back in Complete Monster's category until his arc is over). So I propose to discuss about him once again. Let's see what he's got.
"The character is truly heinous by the standards of the story"
Compared to the series itself, the only one villain who can possibly come close to be as heinous as him would be Zoom.
Compared to the Arrowverse as a whole ? The Complete Monsters in this universe. I'm not if he can compare to them.
"The character's terribleness is played seriously at all times, evoking fear, revulsion and hatred from the other characters in the story"
Well, he's pretty much the Knightof Cerebus, so he kind of qualifies.
"They are completely devoid of altruistic qualities"
...I'm still trying to find them ! No really, Eobard Thawne is all but altruistic. The reason he became evil in the first place was selfish. His Pet the Dog moments towards the main cast still doesn't make him any sympathetic (to me at least) : pretty much all of them are thrown out of the window when we learned about his true motives, so he needed to gain their trust at any price. Also far outweighted by the fact that he's willing to kill them if they try to keep him from achieving his selfishes motives. He did allowed Henry Allen to be released, but he only did so to prove to Barry that even then, he'll never be truly happy, turning it in a Kick the Dog moment instead.
Grodd ? He had an Even Evil Has Standards moment on Eiling's treatment on Grodd, but he himself turned him into a metahuman and left him on the main cast to distract them, not caring for what happened to him afterwards.
"They show no regret for their crimes"
To be fair, he apologized to Cisco for turning him into a metahuman. Then again, he doesn't feel any remorse for killing him in another timeline and wanted to do it again when his plan was foiled, so whether he was being sincere or not is debatable.
So, can he qualify ?
edited 27th Jan '16 1:25:41 PM by MiraiYuji
He clearly sincerely cares for Cisco (not enough not to kill him, but that means he's evil; not that that feeling is insincere).
And he has a Pet the Dog moment in confessing so as to allow Barry's father to be freed from prison- there's no real ulterior motive for his doing that.
So no, he doesn't qualify.
Edit- Did he appear again in the show since being erased from reality or are you just re-litigating him?
edited 27th Jan '16 1:20:20 PM by Hodor2
A total has-been.
Reverse Flash recently reappeared on the show. I saw promos for it.
Doesn't even like this username
He did reappear, but it was an earlier version of him, sort of. Timey-wimey...
The Eobard Thawne from last night's Flash is from a point in time before he committed any of his season 1 crimes. While this means he lacks the redeeming qualities that got him cut, it also means this version of Eobard Thawne doesn't have enough of a rapsheet to bother making an effort post for.
At least not right now, and I only say this because I don't want someone to rebuff what I brought up just now.
edited 27th Jan '16 1:53:11 PM by VeryMelon
Technically isn't he from a later time, since he's from the future?
.... Wibbly wobbly
No, he's quite specifically from earlier in The Revers Flash's life. This Thawne didn't even know what time period the original Flash was born in, far and away from the season 1 Reverse Flash that knew enough about Barry to try and murder him as a kid at home.
Ah. I see (didn't watch the episode). So yeah, this version wouldn't lend further support to Thawne!Wells counting.
edited 27th Jan '16 2:14:58 PM by Hodor2
I'm back.
The reason I brought up Eobard Thawne from the last episode was to point out his reason for being evil, which was unknown until now. I don't expect much from this version, otherwise.
"He clearly sincerely cares for Cisco (not enough not to kill him, but that means he's evil; not that that feeling is insincere)."
That's precisely my point. If he can discard that easily someone he consider as a son just to keep him from being an obstacle for his selfishes motives (episode 15) or announce that he'll kill him just to spite the one who precisely did that (episode 23), how can we say for sure that he really cared about him ? I wonder...
"And he has a Pet the Dog moment in confessing so as to allow Barry's father to be freed from prison- there's no real ulterior motive for his doing that."
In the same moment, Thawne said that Barry will never be truly happy, and to prove it, he allowed his father to be freed, so he clearly expected bad things to happen to Barry afterwards, turning this into a Kick the Dog moment instead. At least, that's how I've interpreted the scene, but think about it :
Thawne hated Barry, enough that only thing which kept him alive was because he needed him to get back in the future. Besides, he was stuck in the past because he was after kid Barry's life in the first place. So I think it make sense.
edited 27th Jan '16 2:35:07 PM by MiraiYuji
I think you should wait to see how this turns out first. Second Slaine example...Elfric Serpent-Eye
Who Is He?
Elfric is another servant of the Dark Gods of Cythrawl, and one of the 'El,' a race of mystical beings from beyond the fabric of space and time, known as 'Els-where'. The evil members of these are known as the 'Dev-Els,' the more neutral ones are the 'Ang-Els'...
Elfric is a leader of his people and a sadist, known for the third eye on his forehead which he uses to induce horrible pain in victims. Elfric is, like Slough Feg, into harvesting human souls for the dark gods, but Elfric does so by infiltrating humanity as a warleader and constantly sparking wars to harvest human souls. Elfric's first appearance is leading a group of northmen to destroy a village. To ensure he isn't remembered, Elfric orders every human above the age of five put to the sword...it isn't long before he and Slaine clash.
What's He Done?
Well, this is his and Slaine's first clash...the two become bitter enemies and Elfric becomes obsessed with hurting Slaine. Now, one of Slaine's best features is he is genuinely devoted to his goddess, Danu, who sends him to time travel to fight in causes important to her. However...when she sends him to aid the Celts against Rome, Elfric is already there. Elfric seduces Emperor Nero and becomes a favorite of his. When he heads to Britain, Elfric cheerily sets about with atrocity after atrocity on the populace, culminating in flogging Queen Boudicca himself. When he decides this isn't good enough Elfric personally rapes her daughters...also, it's implied Elfric is gay and says he's going to have to 'force' himself to rape them, but it's going to be worth it to create the war he wants. He then sets to his task, singing cheerfully as he does so.
Elfric murders any Romans who might try to modify him and then has a merry time slaughtering everything he can on the field. When he sees Boudicca's daughters again, he murders them and presents their heads to Slaine. And to piss of Slaine and Boudicca, Elfric sends his demon servants to gather up masses of druids and druidesses and crucify them. He also has his forces ambush the Britons who are slowed down by women and children and spare none. In the end, Slaine is victorious and kills Elfric for a final time.
Heinous Standard?
Compares favorably to slough Feg. Elfric has a lot of personal atrocities under his belt, only matched by Balor and Moloch (effortpost forthcoming), and his scale rivals Feg, as both have similar lofty aims. Their methods differ, but Elfric brings a ridiculous sadism and wicked sense of humor there.
The closest thing to a standard Elfric has is not wanting to rape Boudicca's daughters, but this is entirely due to them not matching his sexual preference, not morality. Given he does it anyways while singing cheerfully it's nowhere near a redeeming factor.
So yeah, Elfric's another keep from the mind of Pat Mills.
edited 27th Jan '16 2:56:08 PM by Lightysnake
Lizzid people!
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Elfric.
Re The Elder Scrolls: Both Sild and Arondil came up during the video game subpage clean-up. They were decided not to count because they weren't heinous enough. The Elder Scrolls has a pretty high heinous standard as its a series filled with necromancers, torturers, mass murderers, warmongers, and would-be world destroyers. Even exploring the lairs of common bandits can turn up some horrific crap. I've been playing Elder Scrolls Online recently and a lot of the Arc Villains of each region have killed tons of innocent people and have had little to no redeeming qualities. I think The Elder Scrolls is somewhat like Dragon Ball Z, in that you really need to go big in order to qualify for the trope.
This leads to me say that Queen Akorithi from Daggerfall should probably be cut for insufficient heinousness. The murder of her son was offscreen and I don't believe her conquering Bergama and Hammerfall are portrayed as incredibly heinous actions. She doesn't really come across as a character meant to be especially despised, she just seems like another horrible person in the Daggerfall setting and doesn't really stand out.