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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Eh, if they're pretty much the same, they probably can be proposed together.
Also, yes to Scraggle's Conan duo.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Well, after another reread I'm even less convinced Veran's going to count, but hey: a promise is a promise.
What's the work?
Building off my Onox effortpost, the work I'm covering is the manga adaptation of The Legend of Zelda: Oracle of Ages which takes place soon after the Oracle of Seasons manga, and opens with Link and Princess Zelda's assistant Impa visiting Nayru, the Oracle of Ages. And what follows is a nearly beat-by-beat retelling of the game's beginning: Link destroys a rock barring the way to Nayru's hiding place, which just so happens to be exactly what a certain villain was hoping to have happen... said villain of course being the manga's version of Veran.
Who is Veran?
An evil body-jumping witch who serves Twinrova, and with a hell of a sadistic streak to boot. Because they're afraid of Link derailing their plans after the death of Onox, Twinrova employs Veran to eliminate Link. And the witch herself is more than happy to do so, and in the process goes even further than that.
What has she done?
After possessing Impa and having Link lead her to Nayru, Veran does exactly what she did in the original game and possesses Nayru before sending herself hundreds of years back in time, where she inserts herself into the court of Ambi, the queen of Labrynna and poisons her mind with her silver tongue and dark magic. Taking advantage of the queen's desire to create a tower that reaches high into the heavens as a declaration of love to her long lost boyfriend out at sea, Veran twists it's intended purpose by enslaving Labrynna's men and forcing them to build it, and has them whipped, beaten, and threatened with death if they even sort of look outwardly tired. Ultimately, Veran wants to use the Black Tower as a symbol of oppression that she hopes will inspire not just despair, but violence between rebellious subjects and her own loyal soldiers in order to brighten up what she calls a boring country.
When Link arrives in the past and sees for himself all the misery the conscripted construction workers are put through, he tries to warn the guards and workers alike of Veran's treachery before the guards attack him. After fighting them off and being knocked out by Raven, a particularly respected knight who looks a lot like an adult version of Link, he's hauled off to Ambi's dungeon where Veran urges her to execute him immediately. Ambi complies (And thanks to Veran's influence, she makes an off-handed comment about enslaving woman and children to work on the tower as well) but Link escapes thanks to some assistance provided by Raven.
Link soon realizes that Raven is truly a good person who knew something was fishy about the Veran-possessed Nayru, and the duo set out to a hidden village full of rebels that were secretly rescued by Raven due to their questioning of Veran leading to her ordering them all to be executed. Link learns that they're planning to march on the Black Tower, demolish it, and overthrow Veran... and he also learns that Raven is his ancestor to boot. The pair learn that a few rebels jumped the gun and decided to try to tear down the tower before everyone was ready, so Raven and Link set off, with Raven trying to calm the rebels while Link tries to defeat Veran and save Nayru from her grasp.
Unfortunately, it turns out that Link can't kill Veran without killing Nayru in the process (A fact that she happily taunts him over), so he retreats and searches for a hidden weakpoint of Veran's. Meanwhile, Veran learns about Raven's relationship with the rebels and follows him back to the hidden village by way of possessing Ralph, Link's obnoxious nobleman ally. And once she's in the village and learns that Link found her weakness in the form of special seeds, she has Ralph destroy the seeds, and on top of that summons an enormous stone monster to destroy the village and kill everyone in it. Link easily destroys it, only for a bunch of royal guards to storm the village and force Raven to surrender on threat of harming the other villagers.
Raven surrenders and Veran tries to have him publicly executed, hoping to use the despair of all the people that looked up to him to further Twinrova's plan to revive Ganon with the added bonus of killing Link by way of erasing him from the timeline with his ancestor's death. However, Link is able to save him and after getting through to Queen Ambi by appealing to the love she holds for her lost boyfriend, successfully gets her to stop the Black Tower's construction. Veran panics knowing that the jig is up, but then improvises by possessing Ambi herself, sending the tower's construction into full swing, and forcing Link and friends to retreat.
After regrouping and grabbing more seeds grown by the freed Nayru, Link, Raven, and Ralph all go back and confront Veran, with Veran trying to goad Ralph into killing her, which will not only kill Ambi but also Ralph due to him being her descendant. But Link is able to force her out of Ambi's body, which forces an angered Veran into her true monstrous spider form, and the two have one final showdown. She vows to torture Link to death for his interference, but Raven saves the boy and both great-great-great-great grandpa and great-great-great-great grandson strike the witch down together... though of course she gets in one last "fuck you" by transferring her essence and all the grief and suffering she amassed to Twinrova, which allows them to resurrect Ganon. Thankfully, he goes down before anything too bad can happen and the world is saved for good, leading to Link and Raven parting ways with the former heading back to his own time period.
Is she heinous by the standards of the story?
Well, this is exactly what I've been unsure of. Because in the game version of Oracle of Ages, Veran was bad. Mass enslavement, attempting to murder a sentient sapling/child tree, destroying a village through a volcanic eruption, wiping multiple people out and/or turning them to stone through timeline fuckery, and poisoning the ocean and endangering all life in it makes for one hell of a rapsheet.
And in the manga, most of those crimes are slashed, leaving Veran with her mass-enslavement (Which to be fair, is shown to be awful), and trying to wipe out an entire village full of people she already tried to have executed. That's about it, really. I mean, she is ultimately contributing to Twinrova's goal to bring back Ganon... but so was Onox, and he has not just the attempted murder of a child as well as a successful one on his hands, but also an attempt to kill all life in Holodrum with it made explicit that he's aiming higher than that.
Then again, he also wasn't enslaving people and having them brutalized as they worked which may work in Veran's favor. And it doesn't help that she does want to inspire violence and infighting between Labrynna's citizens with Raven fearing that it could lead to a bloody civil war. This stuff does feel like it'd help her stand out from Onox since she's trying to spread suffering as opposed to killing all life outright, but still: I couldn't help but feel that she came off as kind of generic. But maybe I'm letting her game counterpart's crimes color my opinion of her: I'll let you decide.
Redeeming qualities or a valid Freudian Excuse?
Didn't have them in the games, doesn't have them here. She's every bit as sadistic and cruel as she was in canon.
Last thoughts?
Not sure how I feel about this heavily watered-down version of Veran, but in the context of a one-volume manga where she at least keeps her mass-enslavement, she could probably fit the bill. Let's see what you guys think.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Eh, hesitant yes to Manga!Veran. Funny how they made Onox worse and watered down Veran.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
@ACW thank you!
The Draftsman of Doom
Abstain on Veran.
Feels good, don't it?
Abstain on Veran as well.
Emperor Georgie Artémis Enkoom Evulz II
Leaning yes to Veran, albeit weakly. Sounds like the slavery stuff is unique, and it's probably the only thing that makes her a potential candidate.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)
The wifi here sucks
The MILF Virus
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Veran. I think the closest we have to slavery is Zant, but he really didn't enslave anyone despite wanting to rule, just transformed everyone into monsters. Slavery is pretty bad, and since she's the only one who seemed to do it, I'll say yeah.
Lizzid people!
Slight yes to Manga!Veran.
Eh, it's probably a yes and I just find myself getting pulled to a no thanks to how bad her game incarnation is. Provided she's the only mass slaver in the manga adaptations I don't see an issue.
@ Georgie, Odd, Clown had it phrased as though she did and he wrote the fic, anyways, with that amendment:
- Kids World: After a Depopulation Bomb fatal to those older than twelve devastates society, Annis inserts herself as a tyrant and abuses her "friends" Caroline and Riley, forcing the former to set a building full of kids on fire and beats her for stopping Annis from feeding an infant to a pack of dogs. With Caroline seemingly killed, Annis mocks the heartbroken Riley and later throws her off a bridge for trying to stop her despotic rule. Enraged when Caroline and Riley survive, Annis burns multiple buildings to the ground, uncaring if they're populated, ultimately intending a devastating attack on Minnesota to spite Riley and when her control of her followers is broken, spitefully vows to kill Riley and reassume power.
Goku Black
Small manga veran.
Switching to ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
on Veran, for not sticking out compared to Onox and her game counterpart.
to Veran.
Manga is in a different continuation dude.
Wild Child
I meant that Annis took advantage of the disorder caused by the Depopulation Bomb, but yeah, I can see how that got misinterpreted.
Veran.
Edited by Clown-Face on Apr 20th 2020 at 8:37:47 AM
Why so serious?
to Veran
"Annis is a power-hungry preteen who uses a Depopulation Bomb fatal to people older than twelve to rule over the remaining children."
...
Yes, I can see why that would get misinterpreted.
Speaking of fanfics, what are the rules regarding Ron the Death Eater, because the fanfic Goosebumps United has a mild case of this with the candidate posted up Sarah Maas. She was kind of a bitch in the book, but wasn't evil. I do wonder what any of you have to say about it.
Edited by nwotyzal on Apr 20th 2020 at 8:59:53 AM
Also Gohda's entry is a little general and we haven't heard from Iac about changing it so I'm going to offer this rewrite:
Current:
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Kazundo Gohda is the director of the Cabinet Intelligence Service. A smug, charmless, callous, and amoral Manipulative Bastard, Gohda's (largely self-inflicted) Inferiority Superiority Complex and obsession with Great Man theory led him to kill hundreds with the terrorist-producing Individual Eleven virus, come within inches of starting a genocidal war, and try to nuke a crowded city-state half a mile off the coast of Japan just to show that he could. To give some impression of how severely he eclipses the other villains of the series in heinousness, one of his minor crimes was deliberately exposing labourers to a dangerous work environment (he asked them to excavate a buried ruin, but didn't tell them it was a heavily-irradiated nuclear facility), and then covering it up with a string of murders.
Mine:
- Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex: Kazundo Gohda is the scarred, pitiless and self-embiggening director of the Cabinet Intelligence Service who callously exposes workers to an irradiated environment and covers up his crimes with strings of murder. Infecting Japan's postwar refugees with the cyberbrain "Individual Eleven" virus, Gohda raises tensions as the infected are willed to carry out terrorist attacks, believing they are acting of their of volition. As tensions rise, Gohda's actions lead to the emergence of a "hero" who goes rouge and seeks to arm the aggressed refugees with plutonium, Gohda manipulates events such that the hero's attempts to empower the refugees will fail, leaving them powerless in the face of a potential genocide. Ultimately seeking to restructure society to his own liking regardless of how many deaths are caused, Gohda's reprehensible nature is sealed by his only motivation being to take credit for the atrocity to allow himself a sense of importance.
Edited by 43110 on Apr 20th 2020 at 12:13:05 PM
Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it)
Generally there's a thing where giving a charachter Adaptational Villainy isn't a bar to this unless it was clear bashing.
Things are really about to get Fun around here
That being said, wasn't that fanfic's interpretation of Sarah EP'd by the author of said fanfic? (It was either Clown Face, or Austin. Not certain) 'Cause another rule of ours is that creators can't EP characters from their own work.
Edited by Awesomekid42 on Apr 20th 2020 at 12:18:23 PM
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That was brought up with Kid's World, dismissed as a grandfather clause, as it was EP'd before that rule was put in place
Just a question. When it comes to an Evil Duo who have the same personality and pretty much commit the exact same crimes, do they have to proposed separately or can be done together?