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
Kodai still goes well above the heinous standard of the Pokemon anime in terms of what we normally see in terms of evildoing, and meets the baseline sufficiently enough. He's not getting cut.
On tragic Monsters, Zoom, Kilgrave, Koba, Lotso, Light Yagami, Griffith, Ardyn, Commodus, OUAT Jafar, and Richard III are the ones that always immediately spring to my mind.
@Matt L Shini: Lotso's problem is that his backstory doesn't justify or even adequately explain why he'd lie to Big Baby and then drag Big Baby and Chuckles along with him through his further suffering because he's such an Entitled Bastard. The way he flat out turned on his two closest friends (outright betraying Chuckles by throwing him to the Caterpillar room to be broken and warping Big Baby into a hardened thug to carry out his dirty work for him) and then rejected the concept of love between toys and people entirely, essentially giving up on his owner rather than the other way around, completely kills any sympathy his backstory evoked.
And Shere Khan didn't quite reach the baseline, and had fairly understandable motivations for his pursuit of Mowgli and all he did in the name of that.
edited 27th Jul '17 8:18:59 PM by ANewMan
In what way? I never really felt disgusted by Kodai's actions, mainly because I don't remember watching the film. I mean, yeah I get that Kodai used electroshock torture on Zorua, but other antagonists also use electroshock torture. I guess really the only real difference is that it's nearly fatal in Zorua's case, fatal in Zoroark's, and there is the whole "electrocuting a child in front of its mother thing."
edited 27th Jul '17 8:20:50 PM by AustinDR
Ardyn's a case where his Freudian Excuse sufficiently explains why he went bad, but does not even begin to justify or rationalize away why he went THAT bad, as much of his atrocities were needless to his actual stated goal.
"Murdered Zorark in cold blood, tortured her child, and destroyed Crown city's plant life" are bad enough by the anime's standards, and that neglects that he also strangled Celebi to force power out of it, lied to the city about innocent Pokemon in order to make them hunted and shunned, and his every interaction with humans and Pokemon in the last third of the movie had him intending to do them harm. He's got no redeeming qualities and his actions are nasty enough to pass the standard.
He's still one of the absolute worst the anime has given us, so saying he shouldn't count because you weigh him against higher standards than the standards of animated movies made for children doesn't make a lot of sense to me.
edited 27th Jul '17 8:27:06 PM by ANewMan
I think Kodai is unique enough in his crimes that he warrants being kept.
Barely.
Also, the whole "terrorising the city to make himself look good while he destroys the economy and ecosystem for his own gain."
While I opposed Ardyn's inclusion, I did not bemoan his being listed. He's easily heinous enough and his FE is quite strong, but not enough. You know, considering we never see what Ardyn was like before he went bad, I am very tempted to start supporting his inclusion. Save some self pitying lines ("I've been in darkness for centuries!" Yeah, and you've condemned innocents, who never did anything to you, to the same fate out of spite) there isn't much to make a case against him.
I'm going with a very tentative
for Zeebad. I managed to find the American dub Doogal and I couldn't even get to any portion with Zeebad it was that bad.
For tragic CM, I always go with Lotso and Koba (sounds like I have to get round to Jessica Jones), but as I may have said before, a big part of what makes them unsympathetic in the end is that nearly everybody else in their respective stories has been through misery and Lotso and Koba are either callous and uncaring towards them at best or actively worsening their misery at worst.
As for Shere Khan, we're told he hunts for sport, but it breaks the rule of "show don't tell." Even if they did something like mentioning in his opening scene that he's killed before drinking to establish his hypocrisy and that the other animals are too scared to do anything, it would still be a "show don't tell" problem. Also after he kills Akela, he stops being an active threat until Mowgli returns, yes, he passive-aggressively threatens Raksha's cubs and it's a disturbing scene, but he didn't exactly have them scared to go outside again.
edited 27th Jul '17 10:51:26 PM by TellAll111
So it appears we are at the fence on wether Grings Kodai should be cut or be kept.
For those in favor of cut: Username 2527, Austin DR and myself
For those in favor of keep: A New Man and Pholarphantom.
Here's the link
on my opinion on Kodai
edited 27th Jul '17 11:09:48 PM by G-Editor
My sandbox of EPs and other stuffKeep Kodai. A case where you can be a repulsive Hate Sink and a Complete Monster.
Kodai
- Jack-O: Walter Machen was an Evil Sorcerer in the 1910's. Lynched for prior murders, he summons the pumpkin demon Jack-O as his automaton of destruction to massacre the leader of his killing, his family and anybody connected to the family. Jack-O kills one family, and his nemesis's wife and teenage son before being imprisoned. Decades later, the demon is released while Walter psychologically torments Sean, the youngest member of his hated family, with nightmares of his past crimes and the warlock mind controlling his parents. Jack-O proceeds to kill the teenagers who freed him, and goes on a killing spree of the rest of the neighbourhood on his master's command. The demon then finds Sean, who's the only one who can kill him, and has him Buried Alive to eliminate the obstacle, killing Machen's niece in the process. Despite his Non-Action Big Bad status due to being an incorporeal being, Machen manages to cause much destruction with his demonic slave.
So far as I know, this is the first CM we have listed to be played by John Carradine.
I'm gonna do Zeebad's writeup now, he has been voted up a fair bit at this point.
- The Magic Roundabout 2005 adaptation: In this Big Damn Movie version of the classic British cartoon, Zeebad makes his first appearance noteworthy by freezing several people in the roundabout, locked in an icy cage. Zebedee, his Good Counterpart, reveals that millenia ago, Zeebad was the creator of the first ice age, encasing the entire world in ice for hundreds of years before being locked away. In the present day, he attempts to use three magical diamonds to freeze the sun itself, which would have huge reprocussions on the world. When his Elite Mook falls in battle, fatally wounded, Zeebad leaves him there, opting not to save him. He is perhaps the only antagonist in the entire franchise to be a true threat, and by far its most evil villain.
I rewatched some clips, of Roundabout, it's made perfectly clear what his Evil Plan would do, and its reprocussions, and also what he did in the past. there aren't any issues there. DON'T watch Dougal it's one of the worst movies ever made spare yourself
And if you worry about him being taken seriously: I watched as much as I could find, and yes he is. at most, he's Laughably Evil, but none of the jokes are at his expense, or treat him like a joke. I had thought of this guy for a long, long time, never sure, but I do think he counts now.
Keep Kodai, never watched the Pokemon movies and don't have any intention to but he sounds rather horrifying.
edited 28th Jul '17 12:28:15 AM by MahStache
Well the majority seems in favor of keeping Kodai. I'm actually not really surprised here though I manage to warn people that Kodai only managed to barely count so if there someone in the future of Pokemon that manage to set the heinous standard higher a discussion like this about Kodai will mostly likely discussed here again and the consensus will probably be in favor of cut
edited 28th Jul '17 1:16:09 AM by G-Editor
My sandbox of EPs and other stuffTragic CM's for me, already mentioned here, that immidiately spring to mind are Zoom and Kilgrave (both of whom I opposed when they were put up).
Lotso, yeah he too, but not to the same extent.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianYeah, I concur that what keeps Shere Khan from going up is that what would make him truly bad enough is never shown explicitly to the audience.
Say that at least two villains from the Nikki Heat book series (or any of the Richard Castle works) were suggested and voted up. Would that justify Castle getting its own page?
Actually, come to think of it, I don't see why we can't just use that link for Markus's images and add that to the page:
- Markus "Siegfried" Jung
from Über.

Speaking of which I'm starting to second guess Grings Kodai qualifying. Sure he murdered Zorark in cold blood, tortured her child, and destroy Crown city's plant life but that is pretty much all his crimes stem to. Like Shere Khan he only murders one victim said victim comes to life, and only tortures one victim while Jervis manages to torture Ash and all his friends and pokemon. It also doesn't help that All he really just did was destroy Crown City's plant life where many other antagonist including, Jervis who attempted to destroy the plateu full of innocent pokemon out of spite and former CM Iron Mask Marauder, a committed more destruction on a grander scale and some threatening to destroy the world like Cyrus and Lysandre and some become willing accomplice like Hunter J in these grander schemes. It also doesn't help that Grings is a wealthy business man so not having much resource is not a problem to him.
To me Grings Kodai is kind of like Shere Khan, Solomon and even Ghetsis, an unrepentant Hate Sink but doesn't necessarily meet the standard of a CM.
edited 27th Jul '17 6:40:13 PM by G-Editor
My sandbox of EPs and other stuff