Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Possible rewrite of Jail's Complete Monster entry to be more informative:

• At first, one would not expect Dr. Jail Scaglietti from the same series to qualify, given his Freudian Excuse of being a tailor-made Mad Scientist... until you remember the sheer number of characters in the setting who turned out to be thoroughly decent folks despite very similar backgrounds. Without that excuse, then, we are left with a sadistic megalomaniac who terrorised a planet with a Doomsday Device (literally) Powered by a Forsaken Child for little reason beyond shits and giggles, whose escape plan involved what was, to all intents and purposes, Parental Incest, and who not even the famously open-minded and understanding personnel of the Time-Space Administration Bureau have managed to make any headway in successfully rehabilitating. Oh, and he was the technological backer for Season One's Big Bad, Precia Testarossa, possibly the most despised villain in the series, so there's that.

I think we need to answer a question to justify the continued existance of Precia on the list. Does the "complete" in Complete Monster mean "complete forever and ever"? Do they have to be pretty much born evil? (And why don't we have Born Evil as a trope? Or do we?) Or is the part I stuck in during the last rewrite, that someone can become a Complete Monster through Character Development, valid?

I'd say that you can't become a Complete Monster through Character Development, only cross the Moral Event Horizon. That doesn't mean they're Born Evil, but it means that they can't actually be shown as once being nice people.

i think silver makes a good point. it's not that Complete Monsters have to be Born Evil, they can technically have been perfectly nice until the circumstances affected them or until they snapped; for the purposes of the trope, they need to have crossed the MEH, which means they can't go back, but it doesn't necessarily tell us where they were standing before.

however, when we're shown that a villain used to be a good person, and we see that they were nice and compassionate and stuff, it's usually to draw us in to the Freudian Excuse or to make us feel sympathy for him or her— the dreaded "aw! he was such a cute kid! see, he can't be that bad, maybe there's a chance he'll go back to that?" which goes directly against the definition of Complete Monster.

i would say in most cases, actually seeing the "innocent beginnings" of a villain will disqualify him/her from Complete Monster status. but it's not a hard rule, it depends on many factors such as the tone of the work, the other criteria, and i'm not familiar with every example out there. a case-by-case analysis is never a bad thing.

Here's the thing with Precia which may make her an exception: in the end she was offered a chance by the TSAB to surrender and possibly be rehabilitated, given they were well aware of her history. She refused and let herself fall into the big spacetime rift (partly because she thought it led to a world of powerful artifacts, partly because she was just that hateful). If ever there was any doubt she was irredeemable, that should have sealed it.

It may be one of those things like the Freudian Excuse rule: One might exist, but it's ultimately too flimsy to adequately justify everything else.

Honestly, I think everyone should consider adding Sigma from Mega Man X, to this list. In X4 he had a floating city full of innocent people dropped to the ground and had the Repliforce blamed for it. It caused them to create a Kill Sat, and when Mega Man X defeated the General, he used the said Kill sat himself and would have wiped out humanity if X or Zero had not stopped him (also requiring a heroic sacrifice from the General) Not to mention, if the player played as Zero, the Colonial was your girlfriend's brother, and when you had to kill him, she went insane and you had to kill her too. Then he mocked her death! Then in X5, he had a space colony dropped to the ground causing many innocent lives lost(unless you stopped it) just to corrupt Zero and force you to kill him. Luckily this was not Canon. Honestly, this guy might be worse then Doctor Weil.

NO. Sigma had a sympathetic motivation at one point, didn't he?

In his dying moments in Mega Man X. He claimed he wanted to make a new world with only reploids. Sounds like Hitler.

edited 30th Nov '10 4:51:04 PM by randomtroper89

... OK. after a nice (if inarticulate) demonstration of Godwin's Law (), I just noticed something with the Fate/Stay Night Anime and Manga entry: someone added Kotomine (and got his name wrong). Wasn't there an earlier discussion discounting him (though IIRC it was about how in the game his alternate route actions exempted him from CM status, I think)? I'd like to hear arguments from either side before deciding if he stays or goes.

Oh, and someone on the Anime and Manga discussion page made a very good point in favor of removing Dekim from Gundam Wing, so he stays out.

• What, no mention of Queen Metaria? It's thanks to her that Beryl and the Dark Kingdom screw completely with the Earth and the Moon...

Sorry, but that's just Standard Sailor Moon Big Bad Operating Procedure; just another corruptive Eldritch Abomination, and one who acts in a far more impersonal manner than Wiseman or professor Tomoe.

• Dr. Hell from Mazinger Z.

What? That's it? Just a name and a series isn't enough; there's not even the slightest attempt at justification here. (which reminds me, I should probably put up UFO Robo Grendizer's Big Bad King Vega here; he qualifies in full, especially in the manga)

And about Higurashi No Naku Koro Ni and Umineko No Naku Koro Ni, I get the feeling that maybe we should transfer them over to the Video Games section (or at least do a copy-paste), since that's what they originally were. Thoughts?

edited 28th Nov '10 10:56:26 PM by Paireon

OK, except for the questions in my last post, the Manga and Anime subpage is cleaned up. Most others shouldn't be quite as long to do. Comments and constructive criticisms are (as always) welcome.

@Frodo Goofball Co TV

First of all, from the Knight Templar trope page: Very prone to Its All About Me. Because Knights Templar usually have high-minded goals, many are resistant to the Complete Monster treatment, though they're not immune, especially if the acts they commit in pursuit of those goals are truly heinous and horrific.

'So no, being a Card Carrying Villain is not necessarily a requirement to be a Complete Monster. Having obviously sympathetic traits, not being Obliviously Evil, is what really keeps you out of CM territory. But even a nonsympathetic character is not necessarily a CM. A nameless mook may not generate sympathy, but they are not a CM! A CM must ALSO commit acts that would cross the MEH.'

'In the case of Gaston, his Knight Templar tendencies do make him marginally more sympathetic, mitigating but not excusing the seriousness of his crimes against Belle. This is where the MEH comes into play. Even in a G-rated musical, IMHO he doesn't ever actually reach my MEH.'

I see your point about Nuclear Man, but I still don't think you answered my question about Gaston. Why does the fact that he thinks he's helping Belle's family matter to his CM status or lack theroff? Disney's version of Frollo thinks he's doing the right thing too (he'd argue that all Gypsies are evil and that genocide of them is God's will, which to him makes it the right thing to do) but no one disputes that he's a Complete Monster. So is a villain automatically exempt from the Complete Monster label by virtue of his/her belief that he/she's doing the right thing, or not?

edited 29th Nov '10 2:55:05 PM by 411314

I'm wondering if we need a trope along the lines of Big Bad Standard Operating Procedure / Villain Standard Operating Procedure, just so we can define it and set the "what a Complete Monster isn't" bar. I wonder exactly what it is myself.

"In the case of Gaston, his Knight Templar tendencies do make him marginally more sympathetic, mitigating but not excusing the seriousness of his crimes against Belle. This is where the MEH comes into play. Even in a G-rated musical, IMHO he doesn't ever actually reach my MEH."

I don't know, I'd say he crosses it when he tries to kill Beast after Beast spares his life. I would not consider his evil deeds heinous enough to be completely monstrous though...

EDIT: And the idea that Frollo thinks he is doing the right thing is somewhat disputable. To some extent it seems to be more about convincing himself that he is in order to feel better about what he does; from the very intro we see someone saying to him "you can lie to yourself and your minions" etc... as in, that he has to convince even himself that he is doing the right thing, not that he is inclined to actually believe it.

edited 30th Nov '10 7:56:22 AM by neoYTPism

i'd argue that there's a difference between a monstruous creature that can snap a human like a little twig, and, well, gypsies.

not saying gaston isn't evil. he certainly is. what he did to belle and her father certainly can't be considered good, and i can say, personally, that i don't like the guy one bit. but his wanting to kill the beast was arguably the most normal reaction he had in the whole movie; the beast is a monster— physically, at least. most people in the town would've agreed that killing the beast was a good idea, but none of them dared try. and considering how much of an urban legend the beast was, it's no surprise "but he's not really a monster! he's really nice, i swear!" was not enough to stop the pitchfork mob. heck, it's a feeble argument even for more open-minded people.

frollo, on the other hand, claims literal Word of God says gypsies are evil and should be taken out. but what did the gypsies ever do to him? he wasn't afraid of the unknown, he just wanted them out of the way because they didn't fit into his neat little mental box of what should and shouldn't be; that wasn't xenophobia so much as outright racism. he didn't "believe he was doing the right thing," he was just spouting out a somewhat convincing justification to make people (and maybe himself) think that he's not really evil. seeming evil is not something particularly good for his job description, so he had to twist it around to make his actions seem in the right.

it doesn't seem to me like he was particularly convinced gypsies were evil simply on account of being gypsies. wasn't he all over esmeralda, too? so apparently, either they're only evil if they're not hot, or they're all evil, but associating with them doesn't make one evil. either way, his "belief" is very skewed— because it's not really a belief, just him trying to excuse his horrible actions. he's not a Well-Intentioned Extremist, he's just trying to pass himself off as one. even to himself, because it would allow him to live on without regrets after commiting genocide.

something like Villain Standard Operating Procedure isn't necessary, IMO. a Complete Monster goes above and beyond; if the villain is not a Complete Monster, then he's just a Villain. there's really no need, i think, to have a trope just for a character that's "evil, but not quite CM." that tells me nothing about the character that other tropes in the Villain index don't.

The Disney page needs a special clean-up. Shan-Yu doesn't get enough development to be considered a CM (even if he has a high body count, it's a friggin' war), and Hopper doesn¡t even cross the MEH.

I think we should put on the main page how the villian needs enough development to be a CM.

Frolo, I've said before, is difficult because of the flurry of Alternate Character Interpretation surrounding him. He is definitely above and beyond any other Disney villain, and to be any more explicit in his portrayal would have taken the movie out of "for kids" territory. But unlike other candidates to the title (Maleficient for one), he is not For the Evulz, which is as far as the motivation for most Disney villains goes.

Replace Frolo for a moment with his nearest counterpart, the Spanish Inquisition. (No, not that one.) This is medieval Catholicism we're talking about after all. Gypsies are evil because they're a: heathen, b: sinners who tell fortunes (consort with demons) and dance and party and indulge in excess (several of the other Seven Deadly Sins), and c: subject to racist stereotypes that were not novel at the time, a reputation for being cheats and theives (Frollo automaticly assumes the bundle Quasimodo's mother is carrying is stolen goods). Esmerelda is a dilemma for him: he lusts for her and he turns around and blames it on her, saying she's bewitched him.

There's where the interpretation gets hard. Does he think/know his feelings are wrong? Does he care? Does he have regrets initially and the conflict pushes him over the edge into Complete Monster territory? I hesitate to say that's the Moral Event Horizon crossing because he arguably crossed that in the opening act of the movie. Or did he? Did he accept the decon's instruction to raise Quasimodo as penance, or is that nullified by his musing that someday Quasi "may be of use to me"?

You could almost argue Frolo off the page except for, I think, a few things:

• Some rather obvious sadism. "Wait between lashes, otherwise the old sting will dull him to the new."
• The fact that monstrous (complete or not) Church Militants tend to occupy a special place in Hell in many people's eyes, because their work, even their existence, profanes what many hold to be holy. (See again, Spanish Inquisition).
• He had his shot at penance with Quasimodo and he blew it. His hold on Quasi dribbles into More than Mind Control territory, though without the supernatural mind control.

"Shan-Yu doesn't get enough development to be considered a CM (even if he has a high body count, it's a friggin' war), and Hopper doesn¡t even cross the MEH." - alfredo

A CM doesn't need to cross the MEH. Let's run through the checklist for Hopper.

• Heinous evil deeds: Terrorizing a peaceful colony, taking so much that they face starvation, holding terrified children in front of barely-restrained attack grasshoppers, burying his minions under piles of grains just to make a point about ants having potential strength in numbers, holding a child by the head to try to root out whose idea something was, (and dishing out a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the one who DOES come forward) and later trying to strangle that same character. That's pretty heinous.
• Revulsion from other characters: Hopper is feared by most of the ants most of the time, and hated if not feared by some at some times. Even his own minions visibly fear him... see the "buried in grains" scene.
• No justification... Hopper's expressed motives are all about "keeping those ants in line." Hardly a good intention, let alone would it justify the means he enforces it with. Oh, and no Freudian Excuse is presented here either.
• No remorse... well, no expressed remorse anyway.
• No chance at redemption... none is presented in the movie.

As for Shan Yu:

• Heinous evil deeds: Well, there's his massacre of civilian villages including the children. That alone is pretty heinous.
• Revulsion from other characters: This one is a bit shaky. He obviously evokes revulsion from the Chinese army, authorities, and however much of the public is aware of his existance, but the Hun army doesn't seem to have much of a problem with him. I suppose it depends on whether you interpret the Huns' respect for him as reflecting highly on him or reflecting poorly on the Hun army... alternatively, you could say it is an army of complete monsters.
• No justification... again, it's all about power for Shan Yu... well, that and maybe his own ego-trip too. In any case it is hardly a noble goal, let alone one to justify what he does. And again, no Freudian Excuse is presented by the story.
• No remorse... indeed no remorse at all, and he seems proud of his evil deeds. He even seems to enjoy it, as exemplified by having a soldier shot as he ran away, just because it only took one man to deliver a message.
• No chance at redemption: again, none presented by the story.

If either of the characters is shaky in terms of CM status, it's Shan Yu. But Hopper probably belongs. He is clearly portrayed as a remorselessly, inexcusably and irredeemably evil tyrant. The closest thing to a redeeming quality he might have is sparing a henchman's life because he promised his mother he would, and even then, the Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas trope is not the only explanation for this; it could very well be that he didn't but that he had to obey her for some other reason anyway.

EDIT: Removed spoiler tags.

edited 1st Dec '10 12:57:56 PM by neoYTPism

"No chance at redemption" implies "crossed the Moral Event Horizon". The difference between that and Complete Monster is that the actual crossing doesn't have to be shown.

Also, could you ditch the spoiler tags? Very little of that is actually spoiler material and they only serve as annoyance.

i agree with Elle in that there's definitely a lot of subjectivity surrounding frollo— more so, there's a lot of subjectivity surrounding this trope as a whole. and you make a good point: it is possible that frollo actually believed what he was preaching about the gypsies. i didn't get that feeling from the movie, but we aren't really told otherwise.

the thing about him, though, is: is that enough to make it a justifiable excuse? like you said, this is medieval catholicism we're talking about. distrust, racism and even violence against non-catholics was nothing new for them, it was pretty much the order of the day. but even so, frollo is the only one we see planning a mass attack against the gypsies. the archdeacon himself told him he was lying to himself, and later calls frollo's actions wrong, tells him he's gone mad. if other members of the clergy, who would have the same excuse, don't go to such extremes, it tells me the "god told me do do it" excuse is hardly an adequate justification. it's like saying a serial murderer is not a monster because he was abused by his parents— thousands of people go through that and don't become serial killers, so while it might make some understand that person better, that doesn't make it adequate justification.

whether he's better or worse than the spanish inquisition, it's irrelevant. we don't determine who's a Complete Monster by comparison, at least not if we're comparing outside of the proper context.

hopper seems like the epitome of an evil dictator to me. i don't know if i'd consider him a Complete Monster, as i think most of his deeds, while terrible, were pretty much scare tactics aimed to keep potential opposers in fear of him. he likes his power and wants to keep it that way, so he seems fairly generic to me. BUT disregarding the subjective angle he DOES fit the criteria, so i'm not going to contest his presence on the list.

as far as shan yu goes, i don't think he's a CM. he's presented in a thoroughly negative light, sure, but one could argue they were at war, and it's more that the huns are a Planet of Hats than shan yu standing out from other "regular" evil characters.

Clarification: Comparing Frolo to the Spanish Inquisition is just that, a comparison. Knowing the later informs understanding of the former.

Agree that Shuan Yu should be dropped, mostly due to the lack of Even Evil Has Standards disgust and the "evil warlord" acts and motivations being pretty standard. Pillage, then burn...

If them being a group of villains disqualifies them from being CM-types, what about Titus Andronicus where the entry for CM says "more like decide who is not the CM"?

In any case I scrapped Shan-Yu from the list as per "when in doubt, edit it out."

As for Frollo being the worst Disney villain ever, it depends on what kind of worst we are talking about. His villainy is definitely taken more seriously than that of most Disney villains, though on the flipside he also does seem to be given more excuses for his villainy (insufficient as they may be) than other villains on the Disney CM list...

being a group doesn't disqualify them of being Complete Monsterss, it just disqualifies shan yu as an individual. and the huns would fit better under Planet of Hats because the whole race is portrayed as such.

i'm not familiar with Titus Andronicus, but after reading the description (oh shakespeare, you clown, you. -reaches for the Brain Bleach-) my guess is it's way too over the top to fit— although one could make the note that shakespeare probably intended the characters to come across as this, but given there's no appropriate horrified reaction from other characters (as far as i can see from he description, they keep going "i can't believe you did that, you monster! you just wait, i'll kill your offspring and feed them to you in a pie!" -rolls eyes-), they can't really fit all the criteria for the trope.

They are in the anime/manga section already, but I wanted to ask if I could put down this trope to Captain Kuro & Enel in the One Piece character sheets. Both fit the five qualifications, and I can elaborate via PM if need be.

I ask because I saw it for Kuro, but it was taken down sometime afterwords.

as i understand this, since this is a subjective trope, it should only go in a work's YMMV tab. apart from that, if they're already on the anime CM list, a reciprocal link in the work is encouraged.

Kuro and Enel are not C Ms. Kuro falls under Standard Villain Operating Procedure. Enel starts out pretty evil but becomes the savior of robotkind.