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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Eminence, Kassen and Trochin
Yes to Eminence, Kassen and Trochin.
Now, this is an old one of Bob's and he's not coming back to fix it:
- All Superheroes Must Die: Rickshaw places the four heroes, Charge, Cutthroat, Shadow, and The Wall, in a deadly "game" with over a hundred innocent civilians. For every "challenge" the heroes successfully complete, Rickshaw will let some hostages go. For every challenge they fail, he will set off bombs and kill hostages. If the heroes refuse to play, forfeit, or try to escape, he will blow up the town and kill them and all the hostages. To prove he's not bluffing, Rickshaw kills a hostage without even giving him a chance to be saved. When the heroes successfully complete their first challenge (losing The Wall in the process), Rickshaw kills 10 hostages anyway. In the second challenge, he'll spare a civilian for each of the remaining heroes who will commit suicide themselves to save three hostages (Charge kills the three hostages, as he figured Rickshaw would kill them anyway, and he wanted to prevent the others from making a Senseless Sacrifice). In the third challenge, he gives Cutthroat the Sadistic Choice of killing one of his teammates to save his sister (both Cutthroat and his sister and up dying, the latter by Rickshaw's hands). In the fourth challenge, he tells Shadow and Charge that one of them must kill the other. Finally, after being shot, his final act before dying is to set off a detonator to blow up the city.
- All Superheroes Must Die: The villain Rickshaw forces four heroes into a sadistic game wherein he will kill hostages for each of his challenges they fail, murdering one just to prove the severity of his threat. Throughout the challenges he puts them through Rickshaw: murders hostages anyways against his word; tries to make the heroes commit suicide; attempts to force one to kill the others lest Rickshaw kill his sister; and at the end tries coercing the two surviving heroes to fight to the death. When mortally wounded, Rickshaw activates a detonator to spitefully take the city with him.
There are awkward parentheses shoved in all over the place and as can be seen below, I can literally truncate the same crimes that had been listed in under half the words.
Thoughts?
The Draftsman of Doom
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Much better.
Definite improvement.
The MILF Virus
Eminence, Kassen and Trochin
So I just finished Uncharted 4. Amazing game, but it sucks the candidate who I absolutely believe would make it if he actually showed up. It's Captain Avery, a long decease historical figure who turned out to be a gigantic con artist who back stabbed and murdered thousands, his own island nation, just to amass probably the biggest trove of treasures in history.
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
Thank you gents, will draft.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'd just replace "The villain Rickshaw" with "Rickshaw". Also, "Throughout the challenges he puts them through Rickshaw" seems odd; maybe "During these challenges, Rickshaw murders hostages anyways against his word;..."?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Trochin.
@ ACW, That's fine... I just liked "The villain" since the film makes a contrast between him turning it up from a comic-book like badguy to the heroes being put in a dangerous, real-life-like situation.
Also this is one I had you combine years ago of mine and looking back, I really shouldn't have asked for that, the two have virtually no overlapping crimes, despite being a Big Bad and The Dragon duo:
- Syndicate (2012): Jack Denham, EuroCorp's power-hungry CEO, and Agent Jules Merit, his bloodthirsty enforcer, are a monstrous duo. While Jack kidnaps babies to turn them into soldiers and eliminate any competition to his corporation, Merit happily leads his men and guns down any unfortunate civilians caught in his sights, encouraging his subordinates to do the same. Wishing to take the whole world under their grasp, Jack has a block of rioting civilians starved to death for opposing him, and when they learn of a scientist under them going rogue, Merit uses Electric Torture to mentally break her.
- Syndicate (2012):
- Jack Denham, the CEO of EuroCorp, gained immense power with his DART chips—which work like computers inserted into the brain—and will do anything to maintain his dominance. Forcefully drafting agents by finding babies with good combat genes and killing their parents, Jack uses his agents to terminate any opposition to EuroCorp, uncaring if civilians get involved. When a section of Manhattan rioted due to food shortages, Jack responded by sealing off the poverty-stricken area and leaving them to starve.
- Agent Jules Merit is Jack's head enforcer and a callous killer. Encouraging his protégé, hero Miles Kilo, to not worry about killing civilians, Merit goes on to shoot an unarmed man just moments into their first mission. While the duo escape by train, Merit makes a point of shooting each and every passenger he comes across in a car, before tricking the conductor into opening the locomotive room and killing him too. When a EuroCorp scientist, Lily Drawl, turns traitor out of disgust with the company's practices, Merit happily tortures her to mentally break her so her DART chip can be extracted.
I'm just looking at the combined one I asked for and it's like... "Okay, literally each sentence is saying they both doing different things, so...: my bad!" I changed Player Character pothole in Kilo's name to "hero Miles Kilo" since I assume that's getting dewicked in entries alongside The Hero/The Protagonist.
The wifi here sucks
The split looks better, as does the Rickshaw rewrite
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Wait, Player Character's getting de-wicked??? Did I miss something?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
That was a guess, idk man lol
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I hope not. That'd be a mess ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
EDIT: Also, was this rewrite approved?
- Rahgot is a Dragon Priest who, in life, managed to survive centuries after the end of the Dragon War and hid with his servants in the remote temple of Forelhost. When High King Harald's forces discovered their hideout and began to siege the temple, Rahgot came up with a plan to save himself by forcing most of his followers to commit mass suicide, including having them kill their own children and poisoning their water supply for good measure, murdering his head alchemist when she objected. Once the legion succeeded in breaking through the entrance of Forelhost only to find so many dead, followed by half their forces succumbing to the poisoned well, they retreated, allowing Rahgot to live out the rest of his life in the deepest halls of his temple.
EDIT 2: Yes it was.
Edited by ACW on Apr 23rd 2020 at 11:27:53 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Meh, fuck it, I'll leave it in and add that now.
Again, how do you feel about a "Fan Work and New Media preservation project" to prevent future cases of having to cut candidates because of inaccessibility?
I'm agnostic towards it, won't stop you if you'd like to undertake it.
The wifi here sucks
I support that. Probably should go to Ask the Tropers so more people will hear about it.
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
That's a good idea; I'll throw in my support for it.
Edited by falcontalons on Apr 23rd 2020 at 9:27:22 AM
Showtime!
There might already be one of those off-wiki. I'd be surprised if the Organization for Transformative Works didn't have something similar
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Frolaytia X Qwenthur of Heavy Object
@Imperial: I'll throw you a penny in your wishing well.
IPP Wick Check created.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
All right, so, having chatted about it with Ravok, I think that Fletcher "The Icepick" Nix from Justified should get cut. Now Nix is a vile dude—he's a hitman, he's ruthless, and he tried to kill Raylan and his wife mostly out of spite. And he's got low resources, which is understandable.
He's also only got two kills and two attempted kills under his belt.
There are a lot of Villains of the Week in this show. Typically the show will spend half a season dealing with one-shot villains, then the second half will focus on arresting/killing the Big Bad and/or Arc Villain. Now it's been a while since I've seen this show, but from the top of my head, I can recall:
- A couple from Season 3 who told Dewey Crowe to raise thousands of dollars because they (allegedly) cut out his kidneys. They later drug Raylan and try to harvest his organs.
- A man and his partner from Season 2 who kidnapped a pregnant woman. Said man killed his partner, took the pregnant woman hostage, and threatened to kill her unborn child.
- A hitman from Season 3 who killed a corrupt lawyer...banker...salesman(?) and also murdered two prostitutes as collateral damage.
And these are just the random one-shot villains. I'm not even including everything Boyd has done, everything the major players in the Dixie Mafia have done, everything Mags Bennett and her sons have done (namely Dickie murdering Helen while she was in her bathrobe at night), and so on.
Fletcher is just another Villain of the Week honestly. Admittedly, a much-more memorable villain, but in terms of the heinous standard, he really doesn't stand out.
Unless it's outright mentioned that he has a bodycount of 50+ victims or something—thus establishing a pattern with his kills—I feel like he should be cut.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
Hmmm, fair points. Just for everyone's own edification, here's The original effortpost
Ambar is no longer on the site, but his old argument for heinousness:
Now there are some single episode bad guys who wrack up a decent bodycount. Delroy's a serial abuser who tries to murder several prostitutes to cover his tracks. Jodie Adair kills two people while trying to escape, then attempts to hunt down Raylan. Glenn Fogle makes his henchmen play Russian Roulette when they fail him (though the gun wasn't actually loaded). What makes all of those somewhat less heinous in my eyes, however, is that they're almost always done for a reason. Delroy wants to cover up a crime. Jodie kills while trying to escape. Fogle's punishing failure (and doesn't actually kill the guy till he tries to turn the gun on Fogle). Even the various cartel hitmen from Season 1 are at least trying to follow through on a contract.
Nix isn't doing that. He was hired by Arnett to steal watches, and instead tries to kill four people (killing two), and he does it in such a sadistic, ritualised way that I think it might just push him over the line. He justifies having to kill Coates and the pizza guy on the basis that they've seen his face, but as he admits, he could just wear a mask, but doesn't like to as he's "too pretty." Worse yet, we discover that the FBI and the Marshals have Nix's very distinctive MO on file, meaning that the minute Nix plays his game, he's blown it anyway (and he knows this too). In short killing them was not only not what Arnett hired Nix to do, but it was an utter waste of time and effort, or would be for anyone who doesn't just get off on killing.
Worse yet, Nix's MO is based around giving his victim's apparent hope, when there actually isn't any. He stages an apparent fair fight, then violates his own rules to win. To me, that comes off as worse than if he'd just killed them. What he does to the pizza guy strikes me as particularly bad because he wouldn't even be at Coates' house if Nix hadn't ordered a pizza—not so he could gain entrance, but so that he would have someone to referee the duel. In short Nix kidnaps a man and subsequently murders him so that he can have a referee for a game he intends to cheat at from the start. He later tries to repeat this same pattern with Raylan's ex-wife.
Nix's bodycount might not stand out enormously (though it's still in the upper echelons), but I think his MO makes up for that. It's a form of sadism that is unique on the show thus far.
Edited by Lightysnake on Apr 23rd 2020 at 11:00:33 AM
Cut Nix; I was skeptical of him, and was planning on possibly bringing him up as a a cut myself when I got around to watching the show.
Cut Nix... Ambar gave me his points for keeping him and I was never really sold.
I thought sharks were my friends.
Cut Nix
RIP KissAnime.