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
@Michael The Hero Btw... I noticed that you want to EP Pariah Dark from Danny Phantom. Mmmmm... Sorry to say this but this villain... I kind of hesitate to call him a CM. I dunno, maybe because he feels rather generic compared to say, Dark Danny or Vlad Plasmius. But if you want to EP him, he's all yours but I'm a bit conflicted on him because he feels rather standard from what I recall despite him being a Knight of Cerebus type of a villain.
Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on May 31st 2019 at 6:45:44 PM
"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."Pariah Dark? I don't think he counts. Too little character, too little atrocity, particularly in comparison to Dan Phantom which skips over little of his sadism and murderousness. It's easier to lump in Pariah Dark with a lot of the other more generic villains which cropped up more and more as the show went on rather than a truly unique CM.
So, I got one courtesy of Mir from a genre I don't tap often... a Ravok-style crime novel.
What's the setting?
The First Victim from J.B. Lynn focuses on Emily Wright, a woman who, fifteen years ago, was kidnapped by a mysterious psychopath who kept her as his captive until the day she escaped. Emily eventually returns to her hometown of Lakeside Acres when her father ends up in the hospital, reuniting and rekindling a relationship with her old teenage sweetheart, detective Bailey O'Neill. Obviously? This is all precedent to a new wave of slaughtering from the same sick psycho who kidnapped Laura in the first place: the Baby Doll Strangler.
Who is the Strangler? What has he done?
The Baby Doll Strangler is a sexually-depraved psychopath with a very clear motif; for about a decade-and-a-half, the Strangler lures in two teenage girls into his clutches to torture them, rape them and strangle them to death... then posing their bodies as "sleeping dolls", always with a little calling card stuck into their orifices in the form of lollipops. Two girls every year; Shauna, Bailey's sister, was tortured into a coma that's lasted sixteen years, and Laura herself was kidnapped and subjected to molestation and torture for days before she broke out. In the present day, not long after Emily returns? The Strangler claims another victim, the friend of Emily's younger sister, Laurie, strangled and with a lollipop left in her... erm, orifice.
All this? Interspersed with POV shots from the nameless killer stalking Laurie and Emily, desiring Emily as his "perfect" victim. More girls are kidnapped or killed; the next girl is Mandy, murdered and left as one of her baby dolls, and another girl named Anna is kidnapped. Bailey comes home to find his own grandmother mothered, a dozen lollipops stuffed in her mouth. Eventually, Emily gets a ride with one of Bailey's friends on the force, Williams... and things quickly come to perspective.
See, Bailey? He's lived a pretty awful life. His father was a jackass and it turns out he was the one who shoved Shauna down the stairs in a coma... but he's not the killer. Instead? That turns out to be Bailey's own uncle and cousin—the brother of Bailey's father, Oliver, and his son, Billy/"Williams." Together, the two of them have been raping and torturing teenage girls to gratify their own sexual lust, with Oliver preventing his father from saying anything by threatening to expose him for what he did to Shauna. This ends up being a moot point anyways—the two of them murder the comatose Shauna to torment Bailey, and top it off by murdering their own mother/grandmother, leaving her body full of a dozen lollipops stuffed in her mouth to greet Bailey. All of this? Precedent to them finally getting their hands on Emily when she takes Williams' ride.
Billy and Oliver have kidnapped Laurie as well, and Anna, to torture and rape the lot of them to death while Billy gleefully explains he's wanted to do this for years... Oliver was the one who kidnapped Emily, but because he was impotent? He was unable to rape her—that all comes down to Billy, as Oliver captures, molests and tortures the girls. Billy was the one who lured Emily back home by trying to murder her father in a boat explosion, hospitalizing him, all in preparation to make Emily his perfect doll... of course, Emily isn't having that, and escapes with the girls when the police arrive. Oliver is swiftly subdued and arrested, but Billy tracks Emily down, attempting to rape her on the spot in frustration while musing in disappointment that "this isn't the way I imagined doing this—I wanted this to last a long, long time." Eventually, Bailey comes to the rescue, and Billy is gunned down trying to gut Bailey while a sneering, unrepentant Oliver is taken away.
Any mitigating factors?
None. The two have equal culpability for what they do even if Billy is clearly the dominant one of the duo, and there is not an inkling of love shared between them; Billy browbeats his own pathetic father and treats him like a tool, and Oliver's only response to the death of his son is a sneer. Billy's upraising isn't even treated as an excuse; he's always been a little psychopath with a liking for dissecting animals, and he's simply moved on to applying that to people.
Nothing else stands. Obviously they're far past the standard.
Conclusion?
Keep them.
Thoughts?
Speaking of which, I think that’s first time we have Ra’s al Ghul as a CM. Usually the guy’s a well intended extremist, but here he’s monstrous person without any redeeming traits. Shredder of course was already an CM in the 2003 TMNT show, so I think this is the second Shredder to count. (Third of we’re counting Tengu Shredder.
Yes to the Baby Doll Strangler.
Edited by Bullman on May 31st 2019 at 7:58:14 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadI think that Darkseid had something of a genuine sense of honor he demonstrated with Batman proving himself a Worthy Opponent in the climax, there... close but no cigar.
You want a Brainiac? Take the one from DC Universe Online. He should be a pretty easy keep and my investment in him (or any version of Brainiac, who IMO is honestly one of the single dullest of DC's major rogues period) isn't to the point where I think I'll be getting to him any time soon.
Edited by Scraggle on May 31st 2019 at 6:18:01 AM

@ACW Malevolent Masked Man doesn't sounds bad tbh... As I got another Smug Snake from the same series I will bring in the future if he ends up counting (Read: It's Gelmud's boss ofc)
"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."