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
Party Crasher
Conflicted about Kirk. He's bad but he doesn't do much. Just a few, undeniable heinous acts.
Howell, on the other hand, I think is a keep ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
I think Howell and Kirk may be yeas, and I'll say yea to cutting Jake Roberts
Doesn't even like this username
As promised, here's G4 Tirek's case (EDIT: That is the official spelling):
(Spoiler alert, by the way!)
Who is he?
Tirek's a demonic centaur-like being who came to Equestria a long time ago with his brother Scorpan in order to steal all magic in Equestria. However, Scorpan started befriending ponies and underwent a Heel–Face Turn, betraying his brother to the Princesses. This led to Tirek's depowering and supposed-to-be eternal imprisonment in Tartarus.
Now, a thousand years later (give or take a century or two), Tirek manages to escape from Pony Hell and seeks to regain his power and drain Equestria of its magic. That's not a good thing for a place that runs completely on Painting the Frost on Windows.
What does he do?
His main thing is sucking the magic out of ponies. As I mentioned above that's really bad for Equestria, but it doesn't kill you or leave you a soulless husk or anything like that (robs you of your cutie mark, though, and I'm pretty sure it takes away your flight if you have wings).
When he first appears he's but a shadow of his old self, but he keeps sucking the mana out of ponies until he's a faithful representation of his G1 self. Discord is sent to stop him by the Princesses, but Tirek convinces him to betray them and help him round up the populations of entire towns to be drained. Then, when Discord is no longer useful he's next on the menu.
Now, Celestia, Luna, and Cadance (the three non-main character Alicorn Princesses) realized they couldn't let Tirek get their magic too, so they gave all their strength to Twilight before the villain could get to them (he still throws them into Tartarus for their insolence). Naturally this leads to a classic finale-worthy hero-vs-villain battle, souped-up Twilight Sparkle vs. Tirek, and it's brutal, far more so than anything before it in the show. Tirek tries to outright kill Twi several times (both physically and with some manner of hellfire), but when he realizes he's having trouble with it he offers her the classic "your friends for your powers" deal.
She accepts, but only 'cause she's figured out how to unlock the season's Plot Device. That gives her and her friends super-gaudy lasting-until-end-of-episode transformations and allows them to give a friendship speech and blast the bad guy with a rainbow (how completely original of you, show, I never would've expected that). Tirek's back in Tartarus, everyone gets their magic back, Twilight gets a new playset I mean house, end of season.
Does he have any excuses or redeeming qualities?
It's possible that he might have cared for his brother back in the day, but whatever the case he doesn't care for anything now and openly disdains friendship. While he teams up with Discord and promises him all he could wish, it later turns out to be meaningless as he drains the draconequus of magic too. He's not redeemed, either (and doesn't show any sign of that being possible), but ends up back in Tartarus, once again depowered.
However, he doesn't seem interested in killing his victims (other than Twi during their showdown). He's probably fully aware that Equestria won't survive without magic, though. He also honors a deal to release Twilight's depowered friends in exchange for the quadruple alicorn magic within her, but that's probably for entirely practical reasons rather than any sense of honor.
How does he measure up to the other villains?
He's much worse, no question. He has far more on-screen evilness than any of them and is cruel and destructive. Maybe Sombra could've come close had the show bothered to develop his character.
Does he count?
He meets the heinous standard of the show without question, but that was never extremely high. Are his actions enough to beat the baseline, though? Just depowering his victims without killing them (not counting his battle against Twilight) is the major point against him, it sort of makes him lack G1 Tirek's aura of being an actual monster, and there's nothing like turning ponies into striadons (those freaky dragon monsters). And not once does he threaten to decapitate Spike. I'll abstain from voting for now, but as intimidating as he was I'm leaning ever so slightly towards a no.
edited 10th May '14 10:24:06 AM by LordXavius
Well, since "My Little Pony" is on the Never Again List...
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Tirek, since this is a kid's show.
edited 10th May '14 9:07:38 AM by BigBertha
Amazing discovery
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
it also seems to leave some of them barely able to move.
edited 10th May '14 9:11:25 AM by doineedaname
Sigh...tha'ts not how the never again list or this thread works.
the Never Again list is 'never again without new info.' an entirely new character wouldn't be subjected to it. Nor is "it's a kid's show" anything close to resembling a good argument here, any more than being a Disney film disqualifies Frollo or being kids' series disqualifies every Shonen manga example.
I haven't seen the ep yet, but we'll see
Party Crasher
RE: Tirek. I don't know much about the show but that description isn't very convincing.
edited 10th May '14 9:28:01 AM by LogoP
It is sometimes an appropriate response to reality to go insane.
Okay now that the cut pages are restored, is Sandbox.VG Monsters ready to swap? Or is there anything else we need to do?
@ 25142, we have had Complete Monsters in kids shows before though, most of the western animation and some of the anime examples would be in kids shows.
on Tirek.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I don't know; what are we doing with the Blizzard, Bio Ware (and Konami) pages?
And Face Palm: Just because something is a kids' show doesn't mean it can't have a CM; otherwise we'd have to cut Western Animation and most of the assorted subpages.
![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
We can wait and see what Luceno does with Tarkin, but in reading Death Star it seems like he does indeed care for Daala (it also says he was fond of Jaim Helaw).
As for Jake, we have 2 cuts (Shaoken and Lighty), and one lean towards keep (me).
I tweaked Randolph's entry, and lean towards a cut for Baron Bloody. Nikita...no idea (does anybody know that series?). 
edited 10th May '14 11:48:12 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
I'm on the fence about Tirek. I've seen what he does, immobilizing ponies, betraying Discord his partner in crime. Just because he doesn't rip apart ponies like G1 Tirek, doesn't mean he doesn't qualify. The fact is, he drains all the energy out of the ponies similar to Grubba from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door which in itself is pretty heinous. But at the same time, he doesn't have much of a personality outside of just continuously kicking the dog and one Moral Event Horizon in taking all of Twilight's powers in exchange for her friends. I think that's a decent enough qualifier. He meets the heinous standard all right. Unlike Sombra though, Tirek isn't killed and is instead imprisoned in Tartarus. I'm actually leaning towards Tirek qualifying. I can't make a good argument for him, but he sounds like a qualifier. A Complete Monster doesn't necessarily need a personality.
Fair warning: I can get pretty emotional and take things too seriously.
Having seen the episode myself, Tirek for me. He was causing the End of the World, practically killed most of the ponies of the world (they're all paralyzed and unable to move, which would have been an Inferred Holocaust since they can't feed themselves) and was quite brutal in his actions.
Less inferred and more outright stated since I'm pretty sure they mentioned his actions would leave them unable to make it rain or for Earth ponies to tend the land.
for Tirek.
edited 10th May '14 1:07:11 PM by doineedaname
Lizzid people!
I'm back from my cousin's graduation. Having read about what G4 Tirek had done, I'm ultimately on the fence about him. To be honest, I'm kind of disappointed that he didn't go to the extremes like his G1 counterpart. However, I can honestly say that this may be the only time that a villain from MLP: Fi M passes the heinous standard.
I'm thinking that he may be a possible CM, because his goals are different from the other Fi M antagonists. Nightmare Moon only wanted respect, and presumably didn't think the whole The Night That Never Ends thing through. Discord's just a sadistic troll who makes it rain chocolate. Chrysalis most likely did what she did in order to provide for her people, and Sombra's just a flat character and a failed Sauron Expy. From what I've read, this version of Tirek is simply out for himself, and he holds no honor to anyone, even sucking out Discord's magic powers after he had switched sides. Overall, while this version of Tirek is not as extreme as the G1 incarnation, he is still a potential candidate for this trope especially when you compare his motives with the other antagonists' motives.
edited 10th May '14 1:09:25 PM by AustinDR
What I meant is that their paralysis would have left them to starve to death before the weather and no crop growth would have offed them.
I'm not sure an inferred holocaust is good enough if the show never...acknowledges that seriousness. It's like Pokemon. Or in shows like the Fairy Oddparents when villains shut off all the world's electricity
Celestia flat out says there will be no more rain, that the Earth ponies wouldn't be able to tend the land, and Luna adds that the power to make that happen would belong solely to Tirek if he wins so it's mostly acknowledged.
edited 10th May '14 1:15:25 PM by doineedaname
Well...tht does add a new element to it
I'm honestly leaning on a for G4!Tirek. He does meet the heinous standard on the series compared to other villains but I didn't think he was cruel enough to qualify.
Based on that description, I'm voting no on Tirek (with some relief, I might add).
The description really isn't thorough enough. He was basically committing world wide genocide.
A total has-been.
to Tirek, since this is a kid's show.
We've been over this before. No use repeating what others have said.
Tirek, I'm honestly stumped about. With G1 Tirek, my thoughts were "not sure if he counts, but if anyone in the franchise could be called a Complete Monster, it would be him." G4 Tirek, on the other hand, sounds a bit toned down in comparison, and being an alternate universe version applies here since Scorpan's his brother rather than a prince turned into a monster whom he enslaved. He doesn't go as extreme with torture (torturing ponies and turning them into beasts for his chariot is easily more heartless than draining them of their magic), he doesn't go as extreme with attempted murder (threatening to kill Spike, who was both an innocent and working for someone who works for him, is more despicable than trying to kill a hero who's standing in his way), and IIRC, the rainbow in the original G1 short film destroyed that Tirek, whereas this one just needed to be imprisoned again.
His goals were definitely worse than past G4 MLP villains, and he (once again) IS the heinous standard of this series, no question. But is that enough? I think the decider would be more info on what he was ultimately wanting to do with the world after he had total power. The description just talks about him wanting to drain all of Equestria dry of it's magic, but why? In G1, Tirek's goal was a worse version of what Nightmare Moon was going to cause: a world of night and darkness. Does this Tirek want Equestria to die so that he can rule over a dead world that's more susceptible to his darkness? I actually want to give this guy a , but that description makes him sound about as heinous as "the G-Man" from Pokemon Black 2 And White 2, and if he didn't pass, I can't see Tirek passing.
edited 11th May '14 9:39:38 PM by ANewMan
Well folks, the cut pages are back and better than ever
You're welcome. I also reworked Fable.
Potter and Power Rangers are next (along with cutting Jake Roberts? Still need a verdict on that).
edited 10th May '14 7:59:24 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts