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
Professor Gigachad
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
As far as I know the original Sigma never nearly doomed the multiverse.
Edited by Ordeaux26 on Mar 21st 2021 at 1:38:45 AM
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Going with a yes.
Goku Black
So I just watched Detention.
Is Sanders played seriously enough for this. Like the whole film is over the top to a Black Comedy insane degree.
We get scenes where the hero's casually just walk past the corpse of one his victims like nothing, him joking with the other student to blow up the school, one where he tries to stab the heroine but his knife gets weirdly stick in her suit even him killing his girlfriend is a weirdly bloody moment where he just casually does it before they go give next scence. This Is just a few I can name.
Edited by miraculous on Mar 21st 2021 at 1:49:58 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Sure for Sigma, wouldn't mind hearing more there mir and here's one of a few from an anime that's been brought up before:
What's the work?
Yotoden is an 80s anime OVA series that spawned a few different versions. Nobunaga, in lust for conquest, is ruthlessly slaughtering his way across Japan to rule it and in particular is targeting ninja villages to murder members of the three clans with the weapons foretold to be able to kill him. After heroine Ayanosuke "Ayame" Hayami's brother and village are wiped out by his demon army, she sets out for revenge, joining up with fellow ninja to take the mad warlord down.
Who is Oda Nobunaga? What has he done?
In actuality a pawn of his seeming right-hand man and current monster Ranmaru Mori, Nobunaga is a vicious coward out to smite anything that might threaten his power or life. Sending the vile Jinnai—also worth a post—to massacre villages aplenty, including Ayame's—he also has Buddhists murdered and destroys their holy objects to prevent prayer from interfering with his unholy army. After Jinnai is killed during one of his village attacks, an infuriated Nobunaga demands the demon Oboro ninjas serving him commit more massacres to protect his own life, easily being manipulated by Ranmaru at the mention of the threat the heroes pose to enact more bloodshed.
Sending his son to lead an army to eradicate Iga, Nobunaga's campaign is one of horrific cruelty, starving out the fortress while we're treated to shots of the dying and dead villagers being eaten by flies. Having his demons observe the battle to ensure it goes his way, Nobunaga declares to Ranmaru that when his flag flies over the captured place not a single blade of grass should be left as a show of power. At the Koga pass, Nobunaga conducts a burning of the whole village to keep his promise, with one screaming woman being cut down even as she pleads they as villagers have nothing to do with the ninja he's after.
In the third episode he survives an assassination attempt using body doubles and proceeds to have the castle devoured by his demons when his own son asks too many questions. Sending his minions to massacre any sent for him when the ninjas assault his village, Nobunaga is manipulated into transforming into the mighty Black Demon as per the Oboro's design. Engaging Ayame while rampaging, the combined efforts of the three heroes destroy him, opening the portal for Ranmaru's scheme and bringing the work to its final act.
Mitigating factors?
None whatsoever. He treats his son as a tool for conquest and he's a demon out for his own power motivated by greed and cowardice. He's an Unwitting Pawn but his ideals are his own.
Heinousness?
Ranmaru might be the Big Bad but as far as pawns go, Nobunaga is quite nasty. He's far more visceral, ordering the mass murder and won't stop until Japan is his. Even if he's not an otherworldly abomination trying to end the world.
Verdict?
Keeper one of the three.
Goku Black
Edited by miraculous on Mar 21st 2021 at 1:59:53 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Ultimate Moral Compass
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Nobunaga
Yes to Sigma and Nobunaga.
Okay, so I didn't really get much response on this one and I myself am dubious, but she's definitely worth some consideration.
What's the work? The Once and Future King is T.H. White's adaptation of the Arthurian Legend mythos, taking heavy influence from Le Morte d'Arthur and focusing on King Arthur from his childhood to the fall of his empire in Britain. There is, of course, Lancelot, Guenever, Mordred, all the classic figures of the mythos... and then there's a figure who gets a bit more emphasis than usual. Morgause.
Who is Morgause? What does she do? Morgause is one of the Cornwall Sisters, half-brother of Arthur, and the queen of Lothian and Orkney. Married to King Lot, she is a major driving force in a war against Arthur's kingdom based around the pretense of a grudge, as Arthur's father Uther raped Morgause's mother Igraine. Morgause conducts this war, and even when it ends still plots against the kingdom. She is introduced boiling a cat alive to discover the secret of invisibility on a whim, is the plotter of the war against Arthur's kingdom. She forces Lot to love her unquestioningly via a magic spell which risks killing him, mostly ignores yet at times is overly affectionate to her children when a particular boredom strikes her, and in this process convinces Arthur to have sex with her to produce a new son, Mordred, even though he is only nineteen and does not know he is her half-brother.
Morgause is horribly abusive to her sons, and after Mordred is produced, to be so controlling that the children are socially stunted and corrupted, with even Gawaine, the most noble of them, being a murderer who has to fight past her influence. She plots the downfall of Arthur's kingdom all the while satisfying her whims, killing dozens and seducing countless men before tossing them away with no regard. In one particularly notable case, her four sons grow so desperate to please her that they hunt down a unicorn to amuse her, with her not even noticing they're gone. When one of them impulsively kills the unicorn, they endure the traumatizing, painful, bloody ordeal of cutting it apart and dragging its head back to the castle... where they are promptly dismissed by Morgause, who doesn't care for her childrens' suffering whatsoever, before days later growing bored and showing them great appreciation only to switch interests again.
Eventually, Morgause finally dies while having sex with one of her newest husbands years after many of the events of the story, only for her sons to walk in, so enraptured with their abusive mother and her "purity" that Agravaine beheads her and her newest lover alike, putting an end to her.
Except she's not quite done— her effects on Mordred are so lasting that he plots the downfall of Arthur's kingdom, starts the Thrasher regime which commits some off-page ethnic cleansing, splits Arthur and Lancelot forever, and ultimately leads to the deaths of every named character in the book. All of this is explicitly stated to be what Morgause conditioned him to do— Mordred has no freedom of his own, instead carrying on her wrath and will, even adopting her mannerisms. As the narrative states, Morgause "ate him like a spider." Everything Mordred does, she shares responsibility for.
So... is Morgause heinous? You bet. I initially thought this was an issue, but let's look how she stacks up to the other characters:
- Plenty of generic villains with generic villainy, a few murders to their name. Worst of these is a serial torturer, who's awful, but his torture is offscreen and he has a code.
- Arthur himself, who is responsible for many babies dying in an attempt to kill Mordred... he did this as an error at age nineteen and spends the entire rest of the story feeling horrible about it and trying to atone.
- Merlyn and Uther, who aided and committed respectively the rape of Morgause's mother Igraine; the former is an outright good guy who only did what he did to aid prophecy, and all of Uther's deeds are offscreen.
- Elaine, who rapes and manipulates Lancelot but is a mentally broken young woman who eventually commits suicide.
- Mordred, the one who gives her real competition, who implicitly murders his own brothers, brings the end of Arthur's kingdom, takes perverse delight in wanting to see Guenever die and tries to force Guenever to marry him and establishes a fascist regime that commits entirely off-page, almost entirely uncommented on ethnic cleansing that gets one line of reference... easily the worst of the lot, but everything he does is due to what Morgause conditioned of him, and even then, Morgause's rapsheet is pretty astounding.
Morgause is an Abusive Parent, forces a man to love her via magic at risk of murdering him in cold blood, boils animals alive on whims, starts a war and plots the end of another kingdom, causing thousands of deaths, and shows no empathy for anyone else. Her abuse of her children is so horrible that most of them turn out horrible, with Mordred being the standout... after twenty years with his mother, he develops a massive Oedipus Complex, with it all but outright stated that Morgause deliberately groomed sexual feelings for her into him, and, once again, Mordred's will is hardly his own even after she's passed, as he carries out her will and kills countless people, with the narrative making a huge point of how little choice Mordred has in the matter and how everything awful he does can be traced back to her. Morgause also has conclusively at least two rape victims to her rap sheet, as she forced King Lot to love her and most certainly didn't stop having sex with him once his consent wasn't a part of the equation, and arranged for herself and Arthur to have sex while her true identity was unbeknownst to him. Morgause is noted for the fact that everyone who falls into her clutches has their own identity stripped away and is essentially consumed by her due to her utter narcissism.
She passes Mordred just barely in this category, mainly helped by the fact she's partially responsible for many of his deeds and he himself is treated as little more than a Tragic Villain and her tool. She ends up with the highest amount of on-page villainy as well, as most other characters have their worst deeds almost entirely restricted to maybe a paragraph casually describing it with little to no detail provided.
Does she have any mitigating factors? Okay, this is where things get... complicated. Morgause does not have loved ones. I just finished the novel a week ago, and while she has a pretense of loving her sons and husband, it becomes very clear that her false love is something she gives out due to boredom. She's a cold-blooded sociopath who couldn't care less about the trauma her children go through and her "affection" is merely a manipulative tactic or a result of her finding things dull. Even any care she may have for King Lot is nullified— while the narration says she loves him, the narration is biased from her perspective at that point, and also makes a point of completely subverting that only paragraphs later, using magic on him that risks killing him. When he does eventually die, Morgause isn't shown having any visible response and indeed goes on to move on very quickly, not to mention having raped Arthur while married to him as part of her plan. It's her sons that are upset by Lot's death. She's plotting Arthur's downfall long before he tries to kill Mordred as well, as she had Mordred primarily for that very purpose.
However, what is a bit more debatable about Morgause is Gawaine's stated motive for the war: That Uther raped her mother and Merlyn aided him in the process, which is a damn legitimate grievance— Arthur, the hero everyone loves, and his kingdom, are literally built on the rape of her mother. Now, Gawaine is a child when he says this, Morgause telling them this story is entirely off-page and Gawaine is the only one invested in it, and Morgause is known to lie to her children. The narration gets inside her head at several points and never once does she bring this up as a motive for destroying Arthur's kingdom. It doesn't go to any lengths to justify any of the cruelty she enacts outside of the scenario either. Nowhere in "wanting to avenge her mother's rape" is "commit rape yourself, abuse your children horribly, bring about the deaths of countless innocents and unrelated people, risk murdering your own husband." Oh, and none of her other two sisters were even a little invested in this, and none of her wrath is aimed at the people actually responsible. Morgause couldn't care less about Merlyn and aims all her wrath and planning at Arthur.
Still, while it's only mentioned once, and only by someone else, I suppose nothing necessarily contradicts it. Mind you, even if she is motivated by the grudge, there's motives for that beyond genuinely loving her mother, as the setting of the story makes a huge point out of the fact that evil nobles basically had these kind of wars as a big game to preserve their family pride, which isn't a sympathetic motive unto itself. That said, again, if we are to assume this is actually her motive, it is a completely legitimate motive, even if what she does in pursuit of Arthur's ruination goes far, far beyond what his legacy ever did to her.
Honestly, I personally can't see it— she commits so many heinous deeds entirely separate of her supposed motive and never even thinks about it herself that it comes off as a pretense, an excuse to have a bloody war and commit vile deeds for her vanity and amusement. That said, again, there is no moment where she definitively declares that her motive was totally false, so despite all that I'd say there most definitely is an argument that her grievance is genuine. I don't see it that way myself, buuut far be it from me not to put that evidence directly on the table.
Conclusion? I think this is one where the thread should decide.
Nobunaga and Our 4th Morgan Le Fey (assuming that's who Morgause is supposed to represent)
Can I ask a few questions.
1. what happened to the Cioccolata video, I don't remember a discussion about cutting that.
2. would the avatars Mephisto is said to have taken (Vlad the Impaler, Billy the Kid, Stalin, Idi Amin, Jerry Springer, etc.) in Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance count as incarnations?
Edited by nwotyzal on Mar 21st 2021 at 2:06:09 AM
Yes to Morgause and have some more Yotoden:
Who is Jinnai? What has he done?
The first of the demon "Oboro" ninjas serving under Nobunaga to help the power-hungry psychopath conquer Japan, Jinnai takes it upon himself to eradicate the schools of shinobu whose fighting styles threaten their bloody campaign. Using a three-headed Orochi and bird-like demon foot soldiers, he takes it upon himself to kill the villages of the ninja to the man. The first OVA starts with him having completed one violent job in the hometown of the kunoichi Ayanosuke (or "Ayame"), with her as the only survivor.
Encountering her later along with another ninja whose fighting style is problematic for his boss, Jinnai kills all of the latter's men before trying to have them both murdered. The two manage to survive with the help of a priest's prayers. Later sending his demons to a village where the shinobi attempt to hide out, Jinnai again orders a massacre, killing the lord and his denizens. Wounded in combat against Ayame, the dying Jinnai spitefully tries to use throwing knives to kill her, before the young Kikyo takes the shot for her, tragically dying while Ayame finishes off the wounded Jinnai. His rampaging serpent is dealt with after, ending the first of Nobunaga's demon lieutenants.
Mitigating factors?
None at all, he's a Starter Villain for the first episode but he's nasty and is a full-on sadistic agent of Nobunaga's campaign. He laughs like a psycho while killing humans he looks down upon and shows no concern for his subordinates, using them like glorified Cannon Fodder.
Heinousness?
Now like I said he's just an underling for bigger villains but he's got quite a bit of pronounced villainy, taking out Ayame's village and leading to the death of her older brother. Also flourishes like trying to take a distracted Ayame with him, massacring helpless bandits for being too close and leaving his Orochi to flatten a village as he dies add a nice nasty punch to what he does.
Verdict?
Keeper.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Sigma, Oda, and Jinnai; I'll read that other one later.
Edited by ACW on Mar 21st 2021 at 5:09:58 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Just gonna note that Morgause and Morgan are completely different characters in The Once and Future King. They're actually sisters.
Yea to Jinnai.
Edited by Riley1sCool on Mar 21st 2021 at 2:10:18 AM
Goku Black
Morgause and Jinnai
Edit : Yes that they are.
Edited by miraculous on Mar 21st 2021 at 2:10:31 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
The Draftsman of Doom
Yes to Nobunaga, Jinnai, and Morgause. Abstain on Morgause.
Mir: It has been a long time since I have seen that movie, and at the time it seemed like he was played seriously overall. Now that you mention it, I was concerned that the tone was too dissonant at the time.
I honestly could go either way on Sander, but I will not be sad to see him go.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Mar 21st 2021 at 5:19:21 AM
Feels good, don't it?
Yes to Jinnai, but having read Once and Future King and in my knolwedge of Arthurian mythos...
I have a VERY hard time with a yes to Morgause. The Rape of Lady Igraine is so intrinsically ingrained to the character that even if her actions are disproportionate...Arthur is still the result of that rape. Her disproportionate actions don't change that. It might be told to us elsewhere, but this is perfetly in line with previous well known myth.
I hate saying nay, but...I have to here.
Goku Black
So Sanders anyone else going to comment ?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
I think that's very fair, Lighty.
Pothole suggestions:
- Juan Alvarodo: greed at "enriching himself", Glory Hound at "gaining glory", Spiteful Spit at "spitting in his face"
- Colonel Jun: Dressing as the Enemy at "dresses up in the uniform"
- General Schlemer:
- Von Krugger: And I Must Scream at "kept alive in agony", A God Am I at "the Nazis are gods"
- Cain: Cop Killer at "has them all killed"
- Ryan Weaver: Hostage Situation at "hostage"
- Unga Khan: superweapon at "superweapons"
- Knifeman: Cruel and Unusual Death at "torturing her to death"
- Doctor Doom: "Freaky Friday" Flip at "switched bodies with Reed Richards"
- Mole Man: The Resenter at "resented", The Man Behind the Monsters at "lead them"
- Dario Naumov: Driven to Madness at "manipulating them to insanity",
- Talon: Fate Worse than Death at "torture him for eternity"
And that's all I have right now
Yes to Sigma, yes to Nobunaga and Jinnai...I think, TBH, I have to say no to Morgause. I've talked to Lighty about the exact same character before.
I got us a character courtesy of Duck from a series I thought had been plucked dry—Ghost Rider. This specifically is from the 90s Blaze series, that had Johnathan Blaze as less "ghost rider" and more "normal human dude riding around on a bike solving crime."
Anyway, the villain of the first three issues—Ice Box Bob.
Who is Ice Box Bob? What has he done?
Ice Box Bob got his name from his methods as a serial killer; an icepick and some tongs. This is all Bob needed to start brutally murdering people for years on end, with a special proclivity for little boys and girls.
Ice Box Bob once went after a woman named Mary, a mother with a three-year-old child—she couldn't fight him off for long but managed to stab him with a scalpel that, unbeknownst to her, was magically enhanced and would keep Bob's soul from moving on when he was finally caught and put in the electric chair. Mary survived the torture; her three-year-old kid didn't, and Mary went insane with grief and killed herself in an insane asylum. For a cherry on top of this tragedy parfait, Mary was pregnant with another kid. The soul of this boy, Holden, grew up disembodied and seeking revenge on Bob.
Bob's own soul, meanwhile, manages to possess an innocent shopkeeper and proceeds to pick his old habits right back up. When Johnny Blaze finds Bob—or rather the man he's possessing—with Holden's help, Bob has turned the shopkeeper's basement into a horror show; rotting meat everywhere, a refrigerator clogged with human body parts, still-living victims who have been nailed to the wall after having been flayed—"mewling, gibbering, gasping, screaming." Blaze manages to stop Bob before he can kill another victim, but all that results in is the death of the shopkeeper and Bob's soul getting away. He's not satisfied with merely possessing people; he wants a real body to return to the living world to so he can start murdering people all over again.
Bob capitalizes on his "child murder" thing and kidnaps both of Blaze's young kids, Emma and Craig, gleefully imploring the hero to come find him with no intention of sparing either Blaze or his kids. Holden's soul manages to put the same scalpel that Mary fixed into his skull in life into Bob, killing Bob down to his soul this time.
Any mitigating factors?
Bob doesn't have any redeeming qualities. The only thing, of course, is Ghost Rider's apocalyptically high heinous standard. The keepers we have up now are bad and they need to be, given Ghost Rider as a rule is generally one of the darker, grittier Marvel properties. The villains get up to shit that (typically) doesn't fly in the average Spider-Man.
With that said, villains who target children stand out. It's the only reason Clarisse Van Ripper is on the list and it's the worst addition to the rapsheet of the mass-murdering Blackout. Bob is a yokel serial killer in life and a yokel serial killer who can possess the living with immense effort in undeath. With that, he still racks a huge body count, one indicated to mostly consist of children. I think for where he's at, he distinguishes himself easy.
Conclusion?
Keep him.
Edited by Scraggle on Mar 21st 2021 at 3:19:47 AM
Goku Black
Bob
Switching to abstain leaning no on Morgause
Edited by miraculous on Mar 21st 2021 at 2:20:24 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Ultimate Moral Compass
Jinnai and Icy Bob
The Draftsman of Doom
Yes to Sigma, Oda, Jinnai, and Bob. Leaning no on Morgrause, and Sander sounds like a possible cut.
Yes to Bob and the Yotoden ones. I'll have the last Yotoden up soon
and can we please focus on Mir's question? How unserious is this played?
@Ordeaux: How does this incarnation of Sigma stand out as different from or worse than the original incarnation?
Also, why does this have to top the page?
Edited by SkyCat32 on Mar 21st 2021 at 5:07:21 AM
Feels good, don't it?