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
@Beast I said “one of”, but yeah, he’s still pretty awful.
Woo. Got a Joker, got a Palpatine. Edited a Joker, edited a Palpatine. I’m on a roll lately. I’ll try not to let it go to my head though.
Without links:
- "What If Qui Gon Jinn Trained Anakin Skywalker?"/"What If Qui Gon Jinn Was In Revenge of the Sith?": Sheev Palpatine is the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Rebublic and is also Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith. He incites the Clone Wars, betrays his apprentices and allies left in right and instigates the destruction of the Jedi all as he did before, but in addition to all that, Palpatine emotionally manipulates Anakin Skywalker into fighting and helping him kill Mace Windu and helping orchestrate the death of Anakin's pregnant wife Padme, tricks Anakin into thinking he's revived her to convince him to become Darth Vader. Palpatine's actions further result in Anakin receiving life-threatening injuries and killing Qui Gon Jinn. Palpatine then continues to keep Anakin in line with the false promise of Padme being alive and staying alive, making him one of the cruelest incarnations of the character in existence.
With links (this one will be drafted):
- "What If Qui Gon Jinn Trained Anakin Skywalker?
"/"What If Qui Gon Jinn Was In Revenge of the Sith?
": Sheev Palpatine is the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Rebublic and is also Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith. He incites the Clone Wars, betrays his apprentices and allies left in right and instigates the destruction of the Jedi all as he did before, but in addition to all that, Palpatine emotionally manipulates Anakin Skywalker into fighting and helping him kill Mace Windu and helping orchestrate the death of Anakin's pregnant wife Padme, tricks Anakin into thinking he's revived her to convince him to become Darth Vader. Palpatine's actions further result in Anakin receiving life-threatening injuries and killing Qui Gon Jinn. Palpatine then continues to keep Anakin in line with the false promise of Padme being alive and staying alive, making him one of the cruelest incarnations of the character in existence.
- "What If Qui Gon Jinn Trained Anakin Skywalker?
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Feb 26th 2020 at 8:56:24 AM
@Cr0w I suppose you're right. I'll edit it now.
After all, he's the bad guy. Duh.
- "What If Qui Gon Jinn Trained Anakin Skywalker?
"/"What If Qui Gon Jinn Was In Revenge of the Sith?
": Sheev Palpatine is the Supreme Chancellor of the Galactic Rebublic and is also Darth Sidious, the Dark Lord of the Sith. He incites the Clone Wars, betrays his apprentices and allies left in right and instigates the destruction of the Jedi all as he did before, but in addition to all that, Palpatine emotionally manipulates Anakin Skywalker into fighting and helping him kill Mace Windu and helping orchestrate the death of Anakin's pregnant wife Padme, tricks Anakin into thinking he's revived her to convince him to become Darth Vader. Palpatine's actions further result in Anakin receiving life-threatening injuries and killing Qui Gon Jinn. Palpatine then continues to keep Anakin in line with the incredibly cruel false promise of Padme being alive and staying alive.
- "What If Qui Gon Jinn Trained Anakin Skywalker?
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Feb 26th 2020 at 9:40:51 AM
Hey I noticed an old image proposal
for the IDW version of Firefly from GI Joe Reloaded. It got a bunch of yes votes but didn't go up. I'm not really sure what happened but its a very good image that probably should go up/
to Palpatine
I now want to propose a character who will turn heads of some, I am doubtful he will be upvoted but I think he should be discussed in full.
What is the work?
The TRON franchise started with the 1982 movie about a man (Kevin Flynn) creating and being sucked inside a virtual world called the Grid, populated by human-like being called Programs. As shown in the original movie, Flynn saved the Grid from a villain called the MCP, and went on to try to create the perfect system, an ideal that is embodied by CLU 2.
Who is CLU 2? What has he done?
CLU (Codified Likeness Unit) 2, better known as "Clu" for short, is a Program created by Kevin Flynn in his likeness with the directive to make the "perfect system."
Clu at first goes along with Flynn in leading the Grid peacefully, but as shown in the comic Tron: Betrayal, Clu grows disillusioned with Flynn's repeated absences from the Grid and the rising presence of entities known as ISOs, beings of the Grid who arise with no inputted programming. Clu, seeing them as a threat to his "perfect system," desires to eliminate them from the equation, despite repeated protests and attempted teachings from Flynn to accept them.
Eventually, Clu secretly begins staging a coup against Flynn, starting out by orchestrating a variety of terrorist attacks around the Grid, killing many innocent Programs, before poisoning the entire Sea of Simulation from which ISOs are birthed, effectively sterilizing the Grid from producing any more of them. Clu then massacres his own men who he ordered to do this, framing them as rogues and making himself look better to both Programs and ISOs.
Clu soon enough betrays Flynn, trying to kill him but being stopped by Flynn's loyal Program partner Tron.
In TRON: Evolution, Clu kidnaps an ISO and horribly turns him into an insane virus named Abraxas. Using Abraxas to kill and corrupt many Programs during a public event, Clu uses this as propaganda to frame all ISOs as potential viruses, before leading the Purge of ISOs, involving Grid-wide genocide of all ISOs, from blasting buildings full of them to sending his men to their homes and killing them.
Cornering the leader of the ISOs, Radia, Clu very sadistically mocks her over the genocide of the ISO people, asking her if she can "feel" them dying one by one with a smile. Then forcing Abraxas, who was once a close friend of Radia's, to brutally kill the woman, Clu chuckles at the display before annihilating the entire sanctuary ISO city of Arjia City, leaving Abraxas to die in the process.
In TRON: Uprising, Clu sends his armies across the Grid to conquer it, taking over entire cities with force and martial law. Clu institutes the Games across the Grid, forcing Programs to fight to the death and then having the losers systematically executed to weed out the "weakness" of the Grid. Clu also has Programs brainwashed by the hundreds to become parts of his army, and hands a captured Tron over to Dyson to be horribly tortured and mutilated.
When Dyson brings news to Clu that Tronus is still alive in the present, Clu has Dyson execute the sole soldier standing by to keep the information silent.
As seen in an official storyboard for the unreleased second season of the show, Clu eventually gets tired of the failures of the show's Big Bad General Tesler and has his arms slashed off as punishment.
In TRON: Legacy, Clu has successfully captured and brainwashed Tron into being his his personal bodyguard, and lures Flynn's son, Sam, to the Grid to draw Flynn out, capturing the young man and putting him through the Games. Sam eventually escapes, and Clu tracks him to a nightclub where, after interrogating the owner, Clu bombs the building and kills everyone inside.
Later obtaining Flynn's personal identity disk, Clu prepares to lead a full-on invasion of Earth, planning to eradicate its "imperfections" which is explicitly pointed out to mean killing all humans in supplementary material.
Flynn, Sam, and the last surviving ISO Quorra arrive and steal the disk from Clu, with Sam and Quorra preparing to escape the Grid. When the brainwashed Tron manages to break free of Clu's control, Clu flings him to his seeming death, before focusing his sights on Flynn. Though Flynn offers to embrace Clu and work things out, Clu, faking friendliness momentarily, brutally attacks his creator, before realizing Sam and Quorra are about to escape the Grid with Flynn's disk. Clu makes one last attempt to murder Sam and Quorra and take the disk back, but Flynn sacrifices himself to destroy Clu for good, allowing Sam and Quorra to escape and saving the world.
Does Clu have a Freudian Excuse or other mitigating qualities?
Clu was created to make the "perfect system", and while you could say he is just following his programming, I do not think this holds up. No Program is shown to be lacking in free will, and Clu repeatedly outright refuses to listen to reason or Flynn's more open-minded nature towards the ISOs. Flynn says that Clu doesn't know any better because Flynn didn't when he made Clu, but Programs are fully capable of learning and changing their attitudes and choices, even the heroic Tron, another Program copied and upgraded by Flynn, shows the capacity to be far more cruel and murderous in Tron: Uprising.
Clu is extremely arrogant, sadistic (as can be seen especially in his interactions with Radia), cruel, and vicious in his actions, things that Flynn is none of nor gave Clu orders for. Clu was told to make a perfect system, but he then ignores Flynn's other attempts to change Clu's thinking, instead stubbornly deciding that he himself "is" the Creator, and deserves to rule over the Grid. For all of Clu's supposed motives to bring order and perfection, Clu orchestrates genocide, the routine mass murder of innocent Programs to further his plans, and empowering villains like Dyson, Tesler and Pavel from Tron: Uprising to torture and kill at their leisure.
Clu does hold resentment towards Flynn for siding with the ISOs and "betraying" Clu and perfection, accusing him of "breaking his promise," but Clu outright rejects any attempts to make up with Flynn, attempting to murder him in his coup and later brutally assaulting him when Flynn tries to reconcile and embrace Clu, with Clu even faking reciprocation before striking.
Flynn makes many excuses for Clu, but with Clu himself we never see any. Flynn feels personally responsible for Clu, and tries to chalk up Clu's actions to "he doesn't know any better, I based him on myself when I didn't know any better," but Clu is, quite literally, based on a human being and capable of changing his mind on things, showing emotion, and having free will, and he is consistently, unfailingly shown to be a psychotic overlord who enjoys dominating and eliminating what he deems to be "imperfections", even taking the personal leap to say that anyone who resists him is "imperfect" and deserves to be brainwashed into serving him
Is Clu sufficiently heinous?
Definitely, Clu has genocide, mass murder, dictatorship, forced brainwashing of countless people, orchestrating terrorist attacks, and planning the eradication of the human race all under his belt.
Final Verdict?
I know there is Alternate Character Interpretation with Clu for some, but I think that his personality is established enough to say he is a brutal, monstrous dictator who willingly chooses to hone in on his "perfect system" directive—blatantly ignoring attempts by Flynn to correct Clu on his Nazi-like rhetoric, instead coming to view Flynn as weak and not deserving of title of "Creator", something Clu instead brags he himself should possess—and any feelings of resentment towards Flynn only seem to extend to Flynn not valuing "perfection" like Clu does and thwarting his plans for years, not actual care or sadness that Flynn 'betrayed' him.
Clu is a complex character, but I also think he may very well be a pure evil one.
However, I doubt he will be upvoted, but I feel like he is really worth discussion when taking all of his appearances into consideration.
Edited by AgeOfTropeEmpire on Feb 26th 2020 at 11:05:19 AM
CLU and Palp get a
from me. Nice work.
Edit: abstain on Xerosic even given my experience with the Pokémon franchise.
Edit 2: having watched the Eurogamer D&D series "The Break Quest Club", I can safely say nobody qualifies from the first story. The duo of baddies do genuinely love one another and the bandits are just standard encounters for DND fare.
Edited by captainmarkle on Feb 27th 2020 at 2:23:14 AM
Trans rights are human rights. If you don't think that, please leave.Here's something about Xerosic no one has pointed out yet though: Even destroying the world isn't unique in the anime, and not just because of Lysandre. Cyrus also tried to obliterate the universe, even his own allies, and Hunter J was complicit with that like how Xerosic was with Lysandre's plan. And my memory's foggy on these two, but didn't Mewtwo try to wipe out humanity as well? And didn't Zero try to destroy the world?
Edit:
CLU
Edited by KingofNightmares on Feb 27th 2020 at 3:00:49 AM
"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?"

Having seen the episode. Yes to Palpatine.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread