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
I have a new quote for Bellatrix Lestrange.
- —"You have been brought here before the Council of Magical Law, so that we may pass judgment on you, for a crime so heinous that we have rarely heard the like of it within this court. We have heard the evidence against you. The four of you stand accused of capturing an Auror - Frank Longbottom - and subjecting him to the Cruciatus Curse, believing him to have knowledge of the present whereabouts of your exiled master, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named... You are further accused, of using the Cruciatus Curse on Frank Longbottom's wife, when he would not give you information. You planned to restore He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named to power, and to resume the lives of violence you presumably led while he was strong. I now ask the jury to raise their hands if they believe, as I do, that these crimes deserve a life sentence in Azkaban!"—Barty Crouch Sr. detailing the torture of Frank Longbottom by Bellatrix Lestrange, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
quote.
Wait, Beverly from The Big Bang Theory was actually put up at one point? And she had to be voted down? Can someone please link me to the discussion where she was downvoted? I HAVE to see this- the idea of someone as non-heinous and Played for Laughs as her getting up is the perfect indicator of how bad this trope used to be. Please ignore what I said and I apologize for my continuous screw ups my accidental derailing.
Edited by MasterN on Jan 29th 2020 at 5:46:29 AM
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.Without derailing anything, SIMPSONS had a page for crying out loud at one point. Yes, there's a reason this cleanup was made. I think an example can exist in a sitcom like the Lab Rats example but they'd need to be extremely heinous (no, A character responsible for someone's Start of Darkness isn't enough, nor is a character which is over the top evil, they have to be BELIEVABLE in the setting and again, it boils down to the heinous standard, if everybody commits genocide, nobody counts. Simple.)
Yes to the quote btw.
Edited by Klavice on Jan 29th 2020 at 7:15:17 AM
Why does Monster.Xeno exist, since it is neither a franchise (it is for all intents and purposes three separate franchises) nor a comprehensive list of Monsters from all the works from the three franchises' creator?
Okay, final Achtung! Cthulhu post. Major Wolfram Engel from Kontamination.
Who is Major Engel? What has he done?
A vicious, sickly-looking Nazi who climbed through the ranks at an early age, Engel is now the mastermind behind Operation Kontamination, the plot of the title. In league with his mad scientist Dr. Fehling, Engel experiments in making people conduits for madness, harnessing the powers of an eldritch plane simply called the Beyond. All of Engel's early experiments have resulted in men completely losing their minds, becoming mindless and insane, and eventually dying. Engel's master plan is to use these conduits to spread madness all across the Allies during a major operation, resulting in countless thousands losing their minds and ensuring Engel can slaughter them all—taking out even his own duped allies in the process.
Major Engel is keen on torture and execution on anyone in his way, fully willing to have the investigators (who are working for Engel in this campaign) exposed to the Beyond and having them killed to keep cover for himself in the end should they stay loyal. Engel has a number of US officers kidnapped and experimented on, destroying their minds, with one soldier potentially even escaping and attacking a slew of civilians. Engel even has the madness unleashed on an occupied German town to utterly massacre their base there, throwing the entire town into chaos. Unfortunately, while Engel's bodyguard can be killed, there's no situation described involving Engel's potential demise.
Any mitigating factors?
Nada. Engel is a nasty son of a bitch who doesn't even care about his own side, happily exploiting and even betraying his own German allies. Engel's potential body count is one of the biggest in the setting and his mind-destroying experiments are a touch nastier than most other SS officers in the setting.
Conclusion?
Keeper.
Engel
The next...
What's the setting?
I know we all know the Avatar: The Last Airbender universe, a popular fantasy franchise originating with a groundbreaking animated series telling the story of the Avatar, the reincarnating embodiment of peace capable of mastering all four "bending" elemental abilities (Firebending, Earthbending, Waterbending, and Airbending). The show and its sequel series Legend of Korra brought us two candidates. I'm taking a look at the Darker and Edgier prequel novel, The Rise of Kyoshi, 412 years prior to the first series and telling the story of the Avatar Kyoshi.
Our candidate is the leader of the Yellow Necks, Xu Ping An.
Who is Xu? What has he done?
Xu is a bloodthirsty, superficially-charming Firebender with the unique ability to harness lightning. A megalomaniac who believes he is beyond judgment and the world must cater to his every whim and decision, Xu founded a group of savage bandits called the Yellow Necks as an announcement of how much he hated law and order, pledging death to all "abiders."
Xu, on a good old-fashioned campaign of Rape, Pillage, and Burn, scourged the Earth Kingdom and murdered thousands of innocent people. Villages are rendered as razed shells, bodies stacked up in enormous piles when Xu and his men are finished with them, and even children were butchered without regard. Xu was finally stopped by Big Bad Jianzhu, and his Yellow Necks all buried alive, but Xu was kept alive so Jianzhu could study his ability to harness lightning. Bad mistake: Kyoshi, later in the novel and eight years after Xu's initial path of slaughter, unknowingly frees Xu alongside Xu's brother Mok. Xu heartily proclaims his gratitude to his brother by violently strangling him.
Xu is disheartened to learn the world is already forgetting his name, so he figures it's time to scar his name into history in a way nobody will ever forget, starting a brand-new and even bloodier path of slaughter than the last time. Xu and his followers immediately converge on a random civilian family, where Xu forces the family to watch as he tortures the husband by slowly lowering him, feet first, into a pot of scalding hot water.
Xu fully intends to slaughter the nearby village of Zigan afterward to warm up before continuing onward across the Earth Kingdom, and Kyoshi only stops him by forcing him into a duel—which Xu makes incredibly lopsided anyway, showcasing clear disgust at the notion of being forced to an honor duel—and attempts to torture Kyoshi to death with lightning while proclaiming himself absolute. Unfortunately, the only thing that does is trigger Kyoshi's Avatar state, which leads to her carrying Xu a few-hundred feet into the air...and letting go.
Any mitigating factors?
Okay, just one thing out of the way first...Rise of Kyoshi is bloody dark, easily the darkest property in the Avatar universe. The Big Bad, Jianzhu, probably has just enough in the way of loyalty to his old friend Avatar Kuruk to keep him off the list, but his massacre of Xu's Yellow Neck's is admittedly godawful even if the Yellow Necks totally deserve it. Jianzhu promised all of Xu's thousands of soldiers whoever could dig the deepest trench by the end of the day would be spared—and then proceeded to fill up the trenches when he'd driven the Yellow Necks to a point where they were killing each other over shovels.
Now, with that said, Jianzhu still has a notable case of Even Evil Has Standards toward Xu Ping An himself, and rightfully so. Xu Ping An is a relatively minor villain in the actual novel—his crimes are detailed in flashback, and Xu Ping himself only appears for a few chapters—but he's one of the most vile characters in the entire franchise right now. His body count puts most of the rest to shame, he has intentions to one-up himself even further, and he's totally bereft of any redeeming qualities. He only shows superficial regard for the deaths of his other soldiers and uses it as a convenient excuse for his revenge (when really he just wants to blow off some steam over being chucked in a prison for eight years), and his friendliness to Kyoshi is acknowledged as a total lie.
Conclusion?
Keep him.
Edited by Scraggle on Jan 29th 2020 at 9:24:32 AM

As far as monsters appearing in sitcoms go, the closest we got as far as I remember is Victor Krane; mainly because Lab Rats had a Cerebus Syndrome Genre Shift that happened to coincide with Krane's arc. Actually it was happening well before Krane's arc if I recall correctly, he just made things more hardcore, but the fact remains that Lab Rats is supposed to be set in the same Shared Universe as multiple Disney Channel sitcoms. So make of that what you will.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."