Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Okay, thanks, that makes a lot more sense, though I don't necessarily agree with it.

So, how can a couple of characters who don't appear in the anime eclipse one who does?

edited 19th Apr '13 11:42:15 AM by AnotherDuck

On an unrelated topic, I think I can probably put a CM entry on Tabletop Games. Here's a rough draft.

• Mage: The Awakening has an example in the Banishers sourcebook: Aaron Murphy, leader of the Huntsmen. In a book where most of the adversaries are portrayed as deluded but well-intentioned or troubled souls driven by a Freudian Excuse, Murphy stands out for being a rapist and torturer who uses the Banisher ethos as little more as an excuse to indulge his sick desires. He is presented as a total sociopath, willing to deceive and betray anyone for his ends— including his fellow Huntsmen, who don't know how horrible their leader is. While Aaron Murphy has a backstory of abuse and a fear of female Thyrsus, these traits fail to create sympathy for him.

Well, this is mostly here since I never got news on the original request. I'd particularly like to ask for help from someone who knows the New World Of Darkness.

edited 19th Apr '13 11:48:21 AM by Icarael

@Another Duck: Thank you so much for addressing this issue. It's disagreeable another part of the CM criteria that had me confused.

@Icarael: That example sounds sufficiently heinous to me. RPG sourcebook characters tend to be fairly one-dimensional, though, unless fleshed out in EU material. I know that World of Darkness does its best to avert this, but there are only so many pages they can dedicate to any given character. I'd feel more comfortable if there's tie-in material that fleshes him out, like an authorized novel or a published adventure. Otherwise it's a case of Offscreen Villainy.

edited 19th Apr '13 12:01:40 PM by Fighteer

One reason why "the evilest" is not what Complete Monster means is because it can vary with the tone of the work.

Technically speaking, for example, Jurassic Park. Dennis Nedry is the most evil character in the film. His is the naked greed and ambition to engage in industrial sabotage. That said, he's petty, he's short-sighted, and while he might be the worst character in the film morally, he's not blazingly "let's eat kittens in orphan's blood for breakfast" evil.

This is why we never say "most evil" in any description. This is why "heinousness in regards to the story" is only one qualifier out of three for this trope.

If anyone thinks that Complete Monster is simply "the evilest," then they aren't reading the trope. They aren't bothering to understand what's even written on the trope page, let alone what we're doing in this thread.

Another Duck, here's how I can best explain it. When you have multiple villains doing horrid things, there's a standard they're going to need to meet to stand out in the world. A murderer is heinous, but a murderer in a world of murderers is mundane.

Let's take DC comics. Evil sorcerers are mundane. Dime a dozen, plenty even have redeeming qualities. Now look at Anton Arcane and Felix Faust. Anton performs Grand Theft Me on his niece's husband and rapes her before damning her soul to hell. Felix Faust sacrifices innocent children to demons for power. They come across as far more heinous and evil than other evil sorcerers in the works. Neither overshadows the other because their methods of evil are distinct from one another.

Or in Zeta Gundam, Bask Om is a brutal commander who orders innocent colonies to be gassed as an example. Yazan Gable is a brutal Blood Knight who loves killing people, ignores the rules and conventions of war and has an enormous kill count while relishing every death he causes, and the only reason he ever displays 'standards' is "what's a more fun way for me to murder people?" Neither overshadows the other, they're very distinct flavors of monster and if you gave Yazan Basque's level of authority and power, he'd be just as horrendous.

In a work, both a genocidal conqueror and a murderous rapist can qualify. One is a broader scale CM and the other is more personal. But if you have multiple conquerors and murderers, one is gonna probably outshine the others and make them seem less impressive by comparison. Or comparatively none outshine the other

I added a new entry to the FAQ to address this repeating question:

• Can there be more than one Complete Monster per work?: Yes. However, each candidate must stand out in terms of kind or degree of villainy. A CM is always remarkable in some way, and second place doesn't count if both characters are in the same race.

I think the problem with that is that two characters does not a standard make. Unless there are two or three characters of the type. There's a difference between standing out in the story, and standing out from one or two other characters, who may not even appear in the same arc/book/season.

I don't think anyone said or thought that was the only qualifier, and in the case used, "evil" was used synonymously with "heinous".

edited 19th Apr '13 12:24:25 PM by AnotherDuck

@Another Duck

Let's sort some things out regarding the specific example of Kuradeel, since that's what is currently bothering you.

In the light novel, Kuradeel definitely cannot count. XaXa, Johnny Black, and PoH all come off as significantly worse, and Kuradeel couldn't even commit his crimes without Johnny having provided him with the means to do so.

In the anime, they might not be named, but that trio does appear briefly, during the murder mystery plotline. Their behaviour and attitude exactly match the one that Kuradeel displays, with the added effect of being a lot more threatening. We also meet several other player killers, most notably a group that lures a little girl into an ambush with the intent of killing her. Kuradeel himself appears for two episodes. In the first one he's a dick who says mean things to Kirito and loses a non-fatal duel. In the second, he outs himself as an ex-Laughing Coffin member, kills two people, tries to kill Kirito, and is unceremoniously dispatched. He's not notably worse then the other Laughing Coffin trio, or the gang (Titan's Hand) that went after Silica. Honestly, Rosalia from the Titan's Hand roused more of my ire.

In short, Kuradeel is completely overshadowed in the light novels, and doesn't stand out from the crowd in the anime.

edited 19th Apr '13 12:27:22 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

In the anime, he was one of few characters I remembered at all, so for me he stood out. Getting his own little plot helps a lot in making him stand out.

As for the others, I think they're eclipsed by Suguou, and they don't really stand out from each other, as far as what you wrote goes. I don't see how they add significantly to what he already had done. They kill, and they're sadistic. Which is basically my impression of Suguou as well, only worse.

You click the symbol. Or write [ bugs ] without the spaces.

edited 19th Apr '13 12:38:07 PM by AnotherDuck

11804: More Laughably Evil maybe.

How do you do the Just Bugs Me emoticon?

I'm not gonna join in the Sword Art Online debate because my knowledge is limited and I'm going off of quick research. That said, though, one character can cause another to be overshadowed utterly if they go far enough. Bask Om goes so insanely far that no other guy in the series stacks up to him in the same tier. We have other nasty commanders who have civilians murdered, and commit war crimes, but Bask goes further than all of them and all of them look pretty tame next to him.

Or the Batman mythos. Let's say we introduce a character like Nightstalker who likes stabbing people, and he has no redeeming qualities...but he's going to pale next to The Joker and Mr. Zsasz who are far more vicious, prolific serial killers. By contrast, we had James Gordon, Jr. who was not only a terrifying serial killer, but had unique, far reaching plans that distinguished him from the lot and got him on this list

Or a more recent example, The First Law series...I was initially in favor of keeping Benna Murcatto, but even removing the ambiguity over Benna's love for his sister (love in creepy ways but still, the problem is...Benna is a nasty monster who commits evil actions, but the world he's in is so awful we have other people doing the same things he does left and right. Compare to the real CM of the series who manipulates these actions, wipes out thousands of men without a thought, cruelly betrays and manipulates others throughout and openly continues pointless wars just so he can have a minor chance of killing a man who wants to bring him to justice for his crimes.

Bayaz's evil does not preclude Benna from counting, but Bayaz is a unique villain in the series. IF Benna stood out more from those like him, I'd put him on the list easy.

edited 19th Apr '13 12:50:12 PM by Lightysnake

On the Nanoha examples, definitely cut Precia. She's too tragic and was doing it all to revive her real daughter. Quattro should probably go, since she's loyal to Scaglietti and was programmed by him. Jail himself is the tricky one, since I think there are some arguments that say he didn't actually care about his cyborgs. Still, he does seem to treat them and Lutecia with some affection. That, plus his questionable agency makes me lean cut for him.

Just a note on that, programming means "soft" programming, as in nurture rather than nature (or hard-coding as the case may be with cyborgs). All numbers did have free will to my understanding, and they're cyborgs, not gynoids. I'd mainly base that on what technology Jail had created, which was a form of override to control people. He never seemed to use that on the cyborgs, probably because there was no need for it. They were loyal anyway. However, that loyalty is also disqualifying to me, as it shows they can have compassion for someone (or, well, Quattro).

The arguments that Jail didn't actually care about them are more speculations than facts. Whether it was an act or not, all of them believed it, and there wasn't a reason for them not to. Nor did anyone else claim or hint as much in-series.

edited 19th Apr '13 12:56:05 PM by AnotherDuck

@Another Duck

Actually Suguo doesn't kill anybody. He's guilty of mass kidnapping, torture, attempted rape, and one attempted murder. XaXa and Johnny Black are guilty of eight counts of murder/attempted murder, ten once you throw in Johnny's indepdendent attack on Kirito and Asuna, and that's without getting into XaXa's penchant for torturing his prey or Johnny's having equipped Kuradeel and the other members of Laughing Coffin. He's a rather classic Big Bad chessmaster, they're a pair of serial killers who carried over their in-game actions into the real world. They also don't have near Suguo's resources.

edited 21st Apr '13 10:52:02 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Honestly, I'm in favor of cutting the Nanoha big bads

He doesn't? I thought at least a few people died directly because of him.

I still don't see how the other two stand out from each other, though, and a pair is a group.

edited 19th Apr '13 1:10:07 PM by AnotherDuck

We don't judge 'group' that strictly...a small group can apply if all of the members meet the criteria. And by 'all' I'm talking less than 5. A pair is no problem at all.

Still sounds iffy to me, since if they all qualify, they must be distinct from each other. If they aren't, all of them don't qualify, as they eclipse each other.

There are other people who killed significantly more, and they don't stand out with regards to torture, so the only thing left is that they did it in real life too, where they were more successful than Suguou's attempt. They stand out in the plot, but I just don't see how they stand out in what they actually do. They might very well do that, but from the descriptions given, I've just not seen it.

From my perspective...there are a lot of villains and several standouts. If two villains eclipse number 3, then the first two can count. It just matters they not be just two guys in a large crowd of similar evil. Like...Criminal Minds, with the Roycewoods, both of whom kidnap and murder children pretty horribly. Just because theyr'e a pair doesn't disqualify them.

I thought only the Anita Roycewood qualified, not Roger.

edited 19th Apr '13 1:45:20 PM by randomtroper89

Ok, bad example on my end. Better examples: The Klinefelds from CSI and The Cousins from Breaking Bad

This is like the US constitution. One paper where it's written down, and a bunch more to explain what it really says.

It's not really too hard.The general rule is just "cannot be overshadowed" so two or three people who do it all together and don't overshadow the other can count together. If someone else is more heinous and overshadows the action, you can't count

Theres also Hansel and Gretal from Hoodwinked too!.

By the way, I cut Icabod's father.

Also, did we ever make a decison for dr Psches example? Or the pirates of dark water example? Just reminding people so these are not forgotten.