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
Frolaytia X Qwenthur of Heavy Object
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Fang, Xiao and Vor.
I would like to apologize for having brought up the incident with... you know who. I really wasn't thinking straight and I just looked like a jerk for it.
Alright, a long while back we got the title character from I Am Mother put up as seen here. Now Lighty made the brief point that he felt her view was too much of a warped kind of care for humanity for her to count but it got almost completely ignored in favour of attention for how heinous and hypocritical she comes across. Having just seen the movie I can confidently say she's a cut.
We see her teaching ethics of all things to Daughter at the very beginning and it's clear her creation process has left instilled in her a version of wanting to see mankind get to live on. Though she may have killed the children who failed her tests, writing that off as just a maniac with a god complex ignores that she was created with the intent of making humanity as a whole live on and responded to what she saw as unending destructive behaviour by wiping out the bulk whom she feared would destroy each other to create a newer, more fine tuned culture of people who wouldn't get into conflict with one-another under her guidance. She does seem to care for Daughter as a person and drops whatever she's doing to protect her anytime she seems threatened. She also has one of her more touching moments at the end when Daughter destroys the robot body she had used to raise her in and tells Daughter if she ever wants a Mother again, she will happily look after her once more.
Now, we've had cases where Alternative Character Interpretation can lead you to see a CM as not as CM (Hell, from me alone we've got at least Mars from Hostage, Zorg from The Fifth Element, Kray from Promare, amongst others) but this literally feels like a case where ACI is being forced onto someone who blatantly doesn't fit under this hat and only gets forced under it through an abusive series of "But if we assume..." Put it this way, VIKI from I, Robot ostensibly disobeys her programming to try to force mankind under her tyrannical reign but she's still a clear non-keeper because as violent as she may get, she is still just acting under the jurisdiction of the "Three Laws" she was made with, just a twisted variant, still ultimately with people's final survival at heart. Mother is a Totalitarian Utilitarian made to see that humanity goes on and does absolutely nothing to indicate she's doing anything but (admittedly violently) acting out her programming.
Edited by 43110 on May 5th 2020 at 12:02:21 PM
I've got exactly one candidate from a series that seems to have been untapped up to this point but mostly just seems bone-dry of keepers in general.
What's the setting?
The Duncan Regehr Zorro series from 1990 is one incarnation out of many in a very, very long-running franchise (it was one of the inspirations for Batman—which itself begun in the 1930s). The 1990 Zorro is a rather stale, family-friendly interpretation of the swashbuckling, masked Spanish hero with mostly standard fare plots and standard fare villains. Only one guy went to any kind of extreme, and that was Pablo Zaragosa from season 3's "Siege."
Who is Zaragosa? What has he done?
A cackling bandit who rides into Los Angeles—back in the 19th century, when it was just a small Spanish town known as a pueblo—Zaragosa introduces himself by gunning down a bunch of Los Angeles' guards and harassing the townsfolk. Zaragosa's demands are very clear: every single bit of money the townspeople have.
To prove he's serious, Zaragosa cuts off the water supply to the town to force them to either surrender or die of thirst. A daring mission results in the water coming back, to which Zaragosa loses patience and decides to ride out with his men to the town and kill everyone. Man, woman, child, no prisoners whatsoever. Zaragosa arrives at the town, even stopping to feign surrender just to shoot the first guy who tries to arrest him dead for a cheap laugh. When Zorro finally arrives, Zaragosa is bested and Zorro spares his life. Zaragosa, being the fiend he is, tries to literally backstab him and Zorro dodges in the nick of time. Zaragosa trips and—in a very Redwall-ish death—falls on his own knife.
Life's a bitch, Zaragosa.
Any mitigating factors?
Pretty much nothing. Zaragosa is not going to be winning any medals dubbing him the most interesting or the worst keeper that's come through this thread or even the worst that's qualified from the Zorro franchise. The 1990 Zorro, though, was a soft, tame show. The standard ran the gamut from robbery to the occasional murderer or slaver—the violence was no worse than, say, Lois and Clark. Lois and Clark still squeezed in five keepers. Zaragosa is as bad as it gets for the 1990 show.
Conclusion?
Keep him. Due to Overlord for initially bringing this guy up to me way long ago—few if any others appear to qualify, even from the original stories.
Edited by Scraggle on May 5th 2020 at 9:47:17 AM
Ye to Zaragosa...and yeah, Mother is a cut, and I was always against her being up
Yes to Zaragosa and I had your back man, she really, really doesn't belong and people claimed to have "researched" this one while happily slapping down upvotes so lets... do a bit more digging when "Well there's X, Y and Z but I swear they don't actually mitigate" pops up.
Ultimate Moral Compass
Zaragosa
And yeah, cut Mother. Something about her just seemed... off to me.
"No running in the halls!"
Oh, yes, absolutely cut Mother. The VIKI comparison seems a very apt one.
Yeah I mean... even the writeup itself gave an off feeling to her.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
There's an issue there, check out the thread if you wanna know what's going on on that end.
Edited by 43110 on May 5th 2020 at 11:51:18 AM
Yeah, Mother is a bit iffy to me, but I'll just abstain for now
Zaragosa
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
is she still a Magnificent Bastard though? Edit: just checked
Edited by nwotyzal on May 5th 2020 at 9:11:22 AM
Stay on topic, please, nwotyzal.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
a little late but condolences to both lighty and mir
Lizzid people!
Funnily was going to bring up Mother myself after looking at an ending explained video. But yeah, cut her.
@Scraggle sorry
@Bullman I'd say the film is alright. Not the best but serviceable.
Edited by nwotyzal on May 5th 2020 at 9:06:52 AM
I'll just stay out of Mother since I was the one who EP her here and it looks like she's going to get cut.
Also to Zaragosa
Mother sounds more like A.I. Is a Crapshoot if you ask me, but your call.
Zagarosa
I fail to see how that's the case when she literally does nothing against her programming, she seems like A.I. Is a Crapshoot but much like VIKI whom I already compared her to but she quite clearly grows to actually does not grow independent of her directives and cares for Daughter with her last words being to seek her out if she ever wants a mother again before leaving her and her younger brother.
Edited by 43110 on May 5th 2020 at 12:35:09 PM
Yes to Zagarosa. Late yes on Xiao.
Cut Mother.
Abstain on Rose.
I will say I think there are other Zorro works that could have keepers, like this Zorro animated series:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_New_Adventures_of_Zorro_(1997_TV_series)#Episodes
Edited by Overlord on May 5th 2020 at 9:36:40 AM
Cut Mother asap
Oh almost forgot, condolensces to Lighty and Miraculous. Sorry for your losses (Didn't notice the news until I scrolled back randomly)
Edited by RobertTYL on May 7th 2020 at 2:29:30 AM
Zagarosa
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Mother
Zaragosa. Cut Mother.
Unrelated topic, but... is it possible to link The Port of Peril and Stealer of Souls to the Monster/Gamebooks page?
They do not have pages before, but they have now
Edited by RobertTYL on May 7th 2020 at 2:32:15 AM
Just in case I have to re-vote, yes to her.
Edited by falcontalons on May 5th 2020 at 4:49:46 AM