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
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Well, personally, I think lighthearted and comedy shows can have monsters, which is also why I'm in favor of keeping Katz. Katz has only one funny moment, when he falls into his own giant taffy-puller (that he intended to use to make taffy out of people) at the end of his third episode and got turned into a talking stick of taffy. I won't contest the community's decision, but that's just my opinion on the issue.
edited 4th Feb '13 12:49:10 PM by HamburgerTime
@8074 I didn't watch a ton of the show (most of it falls under "it's what's on right before Code Lyoko"), but I'm fairly certain that I did see multiple villains perform "this could kill lots of people if it was carried out" deeds. Plus, some of what you describe falls under Offscreen Villainy. Feeling more like she should be cut.
@8075 I totally understand that, and it doesn't help that the current example needs a very heavy rewrite (there's some gravedancing as well as some Fridge Horror that ought to be removed). This is the kind of example where I can see this always being a YMMV trope. I think the question is, at what point do the actions in question have you going "This isn't funny anymore"? At what point do the actions make you forget some of the tropes normally in play in-universe (like forgetting how much Slapstick and Made of Iron apply in Ed Edd And Eddy)?
This is why I noted that Eddy's Brother is my personal litmus test... he's the point where I can see myself finally answering that yes, it can and does go far enough. At the same time, I totally understand that you don't feel comfortable with that opinion, and you should be allowed to confidently vote no if that's how you feel.
EDIT: Actually, thought of another reason to cut XANA of Code Lyoko - the "Marabounta" episode. That's the one where Jeremie tries to create a monster to help them fight XANA, but it goes wild and they end up in an Enemy Mine scenario. That part isn't why I'd recommend a cut - it's that afterwards, even though XANA is potentially in a situation to strike back against Team Lyoko after the threat is done, XANA withdraws its troops in peace. XANA seems to have some semblance of honor, so that'd also be a positive trait.
edited 4th Feb '13 12:53:21 PM by 32_Footsteps
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Re Beckett: Beckett only cares about domination an control.
Also? No. Hanging children was not the norm. Using Sweeny Todd as an example is a self defeating point because that scene highlights how evil the good Judge Turpin is supposed to be. Turpin even says he doesn't even know what the boy did
edited 4th Feb '13 12:54:40 PM by Lightysnake
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I had exactly that reaction to Helga and Jacques, actually, which is why I added them in the first place. That does reveal my bias, but I'll also cast my vote to cut the oneshot Scooby villains, as they don't really stack with some of the genuinely supernatural villains later on, like the Moonscar Island crew or the Ravencrofts from the second movie.
edited 4th Feb '13 12:53:21 PM by HamburgerTime
Right, here's one that I know. Him is definitely not a Complete Monster. He's a pretty standard villain who specializes in messing with the girls' minds, and (despite being an embodiment of pure evil) never does anything that's more evil than any of the other villains in the cartoon. Never shows any particular sadism, never kills anyone or anything like that. He's even something of a Punch-Clock Villain—we see Him a couple of times when He's not plotting evil schemes, and He's doing stuff like cooking at a diner or working out to an exercise video.
Dick Hardly is...closer. Probably the reason he makes a stronger impression is cuz despite being a "normal" guy (as opposed to a supervillain or a monster), he actually does go further than the other villains, evil-wise, and it's played seriously. A lot of the bad guys do evil things because they're evil, and they hate the Powerpuff Girls because the Powerpuff Girls are always foiling their evilness. Dick kills the Powerpuff Girls and doesn't even care. There's a whole scene of the Professor crying over their lifeless bodies, if I recall. There are also some rather gruesome shots of the flawed clones he produces, and a scene where he sees a perfect copy of Buttercup and is all like, "Melt this down for scrap, it's not defective enough."
Beckett shares a series with Barbossa, a pirate who is strongly implied to engage in rape and murder. While Barbossa himself doesn't qualify because his worst actions are Offscreen Villainy and he does a Heel–Face Turn, I don't consider Beckett to pass POTC's heinous standard.
I agree with Sweeney Todd having no examples because its setting is a crapsack world.
I'm going to trust others' votes on Sweeney Todd; doesn't seem like I really need to weigh in on any character from that anyhow.
@8081 Ah, thanks for the update on Him. Though I don't know if Punch-Clock Villain is the right term, unless Him actually is friendly to the girls when he's not doing his job - that sounds more like Villains Out Shopping (I make the distinction because any villain can do the latter, but only an Anti-Villain will be the former, so that's a disqualifier).
For Dick Hardly... to be honest, I'm not so concerned about what he feels when killing the heroes (or trying to), as long as it isn't some sort of apology. Callousness is not any better or worse, for these purposes, than glee when it comes to emotions to show when killing off heroes. I'm still not sure he goes any further than, say, Mojo Jojo.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.And home, so some responses.
@ Hodor
It really isn't good to order the deaths of anyone remotely associated with piracy. Beckett making it a crime to so much as associate with pirates, punishable by death would mean the condemnation of those press ganged into service (pirates did that often), cabin boys, illegitimate children, prostitutes, innkeepers, bar owners, freed slaves, all of whom would historically have had a great deal of contact with pirates through necessity. And even then, you were entitled to a trial, which Beckett removes in the film.
Furthermore, Beckett's attempts to stamp out piracy is out of a pretty clear desire for dominance as opposed of duty or morality. Beckett murders perfectly innocent people, cuts off due process and prevents Governor Swann from sending a perfectly legal messenger to the King, which is Swann's right as a British subject. None of these are the actions of anyone with good intent. Pirates are competition and bad for business. He's just a different flavor of monster.
And this goes to Footsteps and you guys as well: This was not 'proper law' of the time. You did not give summary execution to everyone remotely connected to pirates, especially children. And suspension of due process to expedite it was not the norm whatsoever.
Now, as for Footsteps, RE: Mr. Brass
No, they are not just informed by Shunka. I do not feel comfortable cutting his most heinous act simply before we don't see him penetrating and knifing the runaways. We see him merrily enjoying a meal and then see two naked, bound and mutilated corpses in his bed. Shunka helpfully elaborates on what happened later, but that is not Offscreen Villainy. This is not remotely ambiguous and it is spoonfed to us precisely what he did. The fact that we don't see him plunging a knife into someone and fornicating with the wound means nothing to me there.
Pullman is the same. This is only ambiguity if you need things spoonfed in. We see multiple murders he commits onscreen (including smothering a child to death), and we see him snarl at Gilgamesh that he used a woman he was lusting for like cattle after returning alone to her hut.
Anyways, feel free to give your thoughts on Pullman whenever you choose. The vote is in his favor right now regardless.
Also, Symbionic-Titan was canceled a while ago.
For others on the list, I'm inclined to keep Atrocitus. Despite his freudian excuse, he has no qualms killing other peoples' planets and inflicting the same pain he suffered on them
Pong Krell is another keep for me. Man kills or gets a lot of clones killed, in the episodes where they're explicitly defined as human beings with feelings, and planned to betray the Jedi Order for the sith while doing as much damage as he was capable of.
Inclined to keep Slade and the Lich
As for Courage, Hamburger Time makes this case well, but Katz is never played for comedy or laughs in what he does. He runs a hotel and feeds guests to giant spiders for...no reason but thrills. He's an Ax-Crazy serial killer played totally straight.
As for Callahan, the Smiler from Transmetropolitan...gonna go ahead and say keep. We see the direct result of his actions by his orders, and the fact they can't prove it in a court of law is irrelevant. He confesses to Spider when he's bugged. I'm not a member of the jury, so the knowledge we gain from that as readers is more than sufficient
edited 4th Feb '13 2:01:23 PM by Lightysnake
On Atrocitus, I've never seen it, but it sounds like he's similar to Lotso in that he actually makes effort to invalidate his own Freudian Excuse via putting others through exactly what he did. After all, if his excuse was intended to be a redeeming quality, certainly it's something he wouldn't want others to go through?
Slade... not sure on him, as the fourth season finale seemed to portray him as overshadowed by Trigon.
edited 4th Feb '13 2:01:12 PM by HamburgerTime
RE:Prof Impossible - There are worse bad guys in Venture Bro, vote cut.
RE:Eddy's brother - I am very much borderline with this one. The violence is still pretty cartoony to me. I lean towards cut, but only barely.
RE:Metaloclypse - Yes there is indeed at least one dead baby. In fact a dead baby is eaten by a man, on screen. IIRC the character who does it also skins people to make clothing and is considered pretty digusting even by the protags, who are all pretty terrible people. I have no strong opinions on this either way, but while the show is definately a dead baby comedy I am not so sure I would write off the entire show. Like, the dead baby eating scene is anti-comedy rather than actually funny. It is just a guy eating a dead baby. There is no punchline. It is "funny" because you expect it to be funny, but it is not, it is just a guy eating a dead baby. I have no idea if that sort of thing counts or not.
RE:Him (Powerpuff Girls) - Played for laughs too much to count, I think. Also he is like a devil or something, I think that would make Him lack moral agency? I vote cut.
edited 4th Feb '13 2:23:54 PM by willthiswork
I disagree on Slade and Eddy's brother qualifying. Ed Edd and Eddy is dead baby comedy and while it might not have made people laugh, I'm pretty sure it was meant to be abuse played for laughs.
Slade is kind of a generic Evil Overlord. The one thing that I can see him qualifying is the whole rape subtext. But we're never shown him raping anyone so I'd say it falls under Offscreen Villany.
Everyone else I agree with Footsteps on.
On Cartoon Network, I'll do a run down on who to keep.
- Ed Edd N Eddy: Keep Eddy's Brother. The beating, while cartoony in itself, is still treated heinously in-universe. I mean the Kankers Sisters, Sarah, and Kevin were all disgusted by it. And since he did this to Eddy for as long as he could remember, Eddy thought that if he acted like his brother, he would be well-liked by his peers.
- Courage The Cowardly Dog: Keep Katz. While the show is a Black Comedy in itself, there's hardly anything funny about Katz. I mean, he's implied to have killed people before as evidenced in the episode when he tried to feed the Bagges to his pet spiders. We even see the bones of his victims.
- Codename Kids Next Door: Keep Grandfather. I mean, he made Father traumatized of a piece of broccoli for God's sake.
- Power Puff Girls: Keep Dick Hardly.
- Code Lyoko: Keep XANA. If you would've read the article, it mentions how there was nothing in its programming that implied it turned against its creator. Plus, his attacks on the Earth are very nightmarishly brutal.
edited 4th Feb '13 3:35:22 PM by AustinDR
I'm not sure on KND as the entire 'verse runs on ridiculousness, and thus Evil Plans and indeed everything else come off as incredibly silly. Grandfather and Chester are at least close though; Grandfather in particular is practically a Zombie Apocalypse-engineer played straight.
I'd say despite the whole idea of turning someone into broccoli being ridiculous, Grandfather is played extremely heinously for a show that basically runs on Nonsensoleum.
EDIT: And on the question of Metalocalypse not being funny... it's not whether or not you, personally, find it funny. (Having spent way too much in the emo-glam-goth-metal-whatever-wasn't-coffee-shop-guitar scene in high school, I find it absolutely hysterical.) It's whether the scene is INTENDED to be funny. Metalocalypse, being a very unsubtle satire of metal culture, is intended to be funny about 99% of the time.
edited 4th Feb '13 4:05:11 PM by LargoQuagmire
Re Beckett, I wouldn't argue he's well intentioned, just that he's insufficiently heinous. I think it is true that he's against piracy because it presents competition rather than for moral reasons. However, he stil causes less destruction/personally committs less evil than the pirates in the series, even the "good" ones. I would still say that the execution was at least somewhat lawful- and it's not so much that it was lawful that is important- it's more that while he had bad motives, he was still punishing criminals.
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wikiMost of those people were clear civilians. Beckett was only punishing criminals because he redefined the law to make them criminals.
The worst we saw from the pirates in Beckett's time was Barbossa ravaging Port Royale, and that's nothing worse than what Beckett was doing. Also, there's a fair argument to be made that as an imperialist in those days, Beckett was far more evil and impactful than any pirate could dream of being, but that's just as much Offscreen Villainy as the pirates. The Black Pearl is the most feared ship of all, but Barbossa doesn't do much beyond standard villainy...and it's not without purpose. Everything they did was to get at the final Aztec gold coin.
again, acting under color of law doesn't make you less a CM. Especially when Beckett just added a new list of crimes that were punishable by death and suspended any chance to challenge it. If he made powdered wigs punishable by death, he'd be executing people lawfully, too. It doesn't excuse having a child executed with only satisfaction his plans were working.
Also at points, Beckett outright breaks the law. He has an innocent man killed because he was a messenger to the King and Parliament. Perfectly legal messenger,and he was going to potentialy disrupt Beckett's plots.
I don't particularly see his death as Alas, Poor Villain either. It just shows his mind absolutely collapses and he's too in shock to understand what happened.
edited 4th Feb '13 4:12:48 PM by Lightysnake
The last thing I'll say about Beckett is that I'd be comfortable cutting him if, even if he did everything else the same, he was actually loyal to the Crown. As it stands, he pretty clearly isn't, which paints his actions in a whole different light and is why I want to include him. Give him a total rewrite, though.
Concurred on that note. It's pretty clear Beckett's loyalties are to Beckett. The movie goes out of its way to portray him as such a sleazy, vile, self serving bastard.
Rightyoh, time to wrap some of this up. Dwarfstar has votes from me and Shaoken, at least, while Footsteps is against. The Plutonian's been voted to remain on page. Noriko from Usagi Yojimbo as well.
The first writeup is Mr. Brass from Scalped
- Mr. Brass, the Torture Technician of the Hmong gangsters is a short, mild-mannered man with one arm who's also a terrifying sadist. When introduced, Mr. Brass informs a prisoner he never asks a question twice and has him 'pick a number', one through ten. The man selects a number which turns out to be the body part Brass removes. Brass proceeds to remove his eye before even asking a question. Brass spends his time torturing his way through the residents of the reservation, largely for his own pleasure. His most vile act is how he satisfies his admitted 'peculiarities.' Two young runaways are found handcuffed on his bed and, as it's later described that Brass has "stabbed and fucked them to death, all at once," an act that disgusts even the ruthless mob boss Lincoln Red Crow. In the gritty, dark Grey-and-Black Morality world that is Scalped's Rez, Brass is the worst the world has to offer.
the second is Lord Aratsu, the Big Bad of Crossing Midnight
- Lord Aratsu is one of the most powerful Kami alive, the God of Swords. He is also a vicious, usurping, tyrannical megalomaniac who considers it his right to steal a girl named Toshi from her parents and twin brother because their father prayed at his shrine before her birth. When she refuses to become his slave, Aratsu brutally murders the family dog he dismembers her mother to use her life to force Toshi's hand. Once Toshi agrees to serve him, Aratsu repairs her mother, but doesn't even bother to mend her soul, leaving her an empty shell Once Toshi is his slave, Aratsu uses his swords to cut away her past and future, leaving her to exist in only a moment in time. Should she ever displease him, he would allow time to lapse and her to vanish. Aratsu's cruelty is revealed as the story goes on: he slices apart the souls of those who displease him for imps to devour and is not even the proper ruler of his domain. Instead, he gained his power by treachery and murder, having severed his predecessors memory and condemned him to exile on earth. A violent egomaniac, he also kills any who do not give him the blind worship he feels he's entitled to.While many Kami are alien creatures, Aratsu is an all too familiar and understandable being, and eclipses any human, dragon, demon or Kami in the story with his evil. By the time the rebellion against his rule rolls around, he has no compunction sending the amnesiac Toshi to kill her own brother.
Tujiro
- Tujiro, the vampiric Kabuki dancer of the second incarnation of Grendel' puts any of the masked vigilantes and crime lords to shame in the evil department. For all his evil deeds, the first Grendel, Hunter Rose, never harm children physically or psychologically. Tujiro, on the other hand is a serial killer who specializes in young boys. First he drains them of their blood while taking one of their eyes as trophies. The other he eats. Tujiro runs a human slaving operation where people are kidnapped for forced servitude and he has easy access to any child he wants. Escaping justice at the hands of the mother of a victim, Tujiro ends up as the pope in a dystopian future where thousands are worked to death and enslaved to him. Tujiro gruesomely murders those who discover his true nature and uses his position to continue his disturbing feeding habits. His ultimate goal is to create a gun to blot out the sun and establish a reign of vampires where humans are nothing but cattle.
For Pullman of The Unwritten
- Pullman is the most visible member of the Ancient Conspiracy in ''The Unwritten,' a sadistic murderer who kills multiple people with relish, including a little girl he smothered to death with a pillow. At times he goes out of his way to kill when he has absolutely no reason to execute the victims. Pullman admits his hatred for storytellers and goes out of his way to make such targets deaths as painful as possible. Seven thousand years old, Pullman has had time to wrack up an impressive count of misdeeds, including when he was travelling with Gilgamesh himself, and raped or killed a woman that he sneered he 'used as cattle ought to be' when confronted. Pullman is ultimately revealed as attempting to say the Leviathan, the creature behind all stories, in order to achieve his own death, as his own story as Cain, the first murderer, will not allow him to die. however, he has no intention of dying alone, and when he's dealt with deathblow by the heroes, he gloats to hero Tom at 'dragging his bitch' with him, having murdered Tom's girlfriend before receiving the final blow.
And a new writeup for the Archmage from Gargoyles
- The Archmage was once an Evil Sorcerer trying to usurp control of Castle Wyvern from its rightful ruler. He was the master of a young Demona, and his horrible abuse of her helped shape her resentment towards humanity. After being defeated by the heroes, the Archmage achieved ultimate power and became The Man Behind the Man to many events, manipulating Demona and king Macbeth through his proxies, being responsible for over a thousand years of suffering, pain and death to lead to the fulfillment of his plans. In the present, the Archmage attempts to destroy the Gargoyle clan in Avalon, an act tantamount to genocide with the number of Gargoyles left. When fighting the Avalon Clan's protector Goliath, the Archmage reveals himself as a cruel sadist who opts for torture, instead of killing the gargoyle. When asked why he won't just kill Goliath, the Archmage gleefully responds he's just having too much fun.
Also, Requiem Chevalier Vampire has one standout. Lady Claudia Demona. In the series, the way you get to be a vampire is to be the most evil bastard possible while you were alive, but Claudius, above all, knowingly and willingly did what she could to insure that, and sacrificed her own daughter in her prequel series.
As for Pong Krell...here's his entry from the CW YMMV
- Pong Krell. When introduced, he seemed to be the standard General Ripper, just following orders no matter what the casualties. This is unexpected from a Jedi, but there have been some like that in the past (like how the Jedi Exile and other Jedi were in Mandalorian Wars, or in the last Sith War a thousand years prior) and thus seems like a case of Good Is Not Nice. Then he orders the death of Jesse and Fives, as well as a court martial for disobeying orders after they saved the day by doing so. Then he truly crosses the Moral Event Horizon-he plays two armies of Clone Troopers against each other by saying that there were infiltrators, having them kill each other. And shortly after that, he confesses that he's been trying to lose as many clones as possible because his plan was to sabotage the Republic war effort from within in order to ingratiate himself to Count Dooku and become the Sith Lord's next apprentice.
To describe how utterly horrible this is...the arc Krell is in has the clones really caring about one another and being people. Krell played upon their loyalties to the Republic and one another to force people who considered eachother brothers to kill one another. No good intentions: he just wants to join the Sith, save his own ass and gain as much power as he can because he thinks the Jedi are a sinking ship.
The other examples from the Clone Wars...Darth Sidious of course, I don't need to say anything except that when he fights Savage Oppress and Darth Maul, he makes damned sure Maul is watching before he kills Savage, fully using Maul's brother to make his ex-apprentice feel pain before he tortures a Maul begging for mercy..
The example I'm not sure of is Pre Vizsla. I'll explain more of him in a future post shortly.
edited 4th Feb '13 4:42:11 PM by Lightysnake
On KND I think Grandfather and to a lesser extent Chester would be horrifying in any other story, but the setting is just so over-the-top I find it hard to hate them or anyone.
There was one episode that had a Dirty Cop who IIRC is the only villain other than Dick to never be played for laughs, but he seems kinda smalltime (he wants to kill the girls because he feels with them around the police, specifically him, never get any credit for saving the day).
edited 4th Feb '13 4:52:54 PM by HamburgerTime

@8073: Trigon from Teen Titans: Agree with the cut for that reason.
XANA from Code Lyoko: Fails to meet the generic heinousness count, I think. He's a fairly typical AI villain—he has a thing against humans, and especially against the Lyoko Warriors (as they're directly opposing him), but he's not particularly sadistic or anything.
edited 4th Feb '13 12:42:14 PM by Nocturna