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
@ TV Rulez Again: I was referring to Jack the Ripper's supposed Pet the Dog moment and whether it is offset by uses of Pragmatic Villainy by Jack in other chapters. However, considering he simply hacked off the friend's foot to use as proof of hostage-taking, killing the hostage afterwards would have made no sense since Dr. Frankenstein might demand proof of life at later points. The hostage-taking in itself I think is conclusive enough that he's simply not of the Stupid Evil mindset. Frankenstein also doubting if he'll keep his word further makes it questionable if Jack has "keeping his word" as any sort of redeeming trait. Still not sure on the first victim he regretted, though. Do his kills just get worse from there until he definately advances into Complete Monsterdom by the end?
@ Paireon: That's a very interesting interpretation on downright godlike entities and makes a lot of sense for someone like Nyarlathotep. I've mentioned the issue of possible Omniscient Morality Licence with such cosmic entities before, but I'd say the way creator Gods are portrayed in most setting would qualify them instantly for creating morality, while a lot of other Gods depend on attunement to their concept.
Entity!Freddy looks like a definite no for now. With no one to compare him to and his origin completely vague, there's just no way to discern his possession or lack of moral agency.
That still leaves Majora, which has the same issues as Freddy due to its vague origin before the ancient tribe and strong hints of an alien moral compass.
Re: Sarone: Does he meet the heinous standard or not? He does try to gradually murder a boat crew of seven people to use as bait on a hunt, has a bunch of successful murders under his belt (although success is not a criteria with any candidate) and tries to feed people to a giant snake so they can be slowly digested alive...
edited 19th May '14 10:43:59 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Well, I vote yea to Sarone still. I think he crosses the line in feeding Ice Cube and J-Lo to a giant snake so he can catch it. Otherwise, for jack...honeslty, I think the fact he plans to kill Frank's wife removes any doubt.
And remind me on Malekith?
edited 19th May '14 10:40:26 AM by Lightysnake
Fine by me
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I modified it a bit.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
@Morgenthaler Regarding Jack's remorse after his first kill, the spell didn't work because of said remorse, since he has to enjoy a murder in order for the spell to work.
Although he does say, "And while I still don't know if it'd be right to cut up a queen or a noblewoman, I figure I'm easily worth the lives of a few whores."
edited 19th May '14 12:36:55 PM by TVRulezAgain
Going to say no on Exdeath. The whole "tree containing evil" makes me doubt he's got any real choice in the matter. I'll also say no to President Shinra, because despite all of his unpleasantness, he does far less than Hojo, Sephiroth, or god forbid Jenova, and given that he heads up one of the worst Mega Corps in fiction, those are entirely fair people to compare him to.
Lost in Space
President Shinra is barely even characterized; he's about as generic as an evil corporate overlord can be. He gets what, a dozen lines? Hmm, wait, a few more than that. He taunts AVALANCHE outside the second reactor. Still, his whole reason for existence is to commit an atrocity and then be offed by Sephiroth so that Rufus can take over. He's got zero chops as a Complete Monster. A jerk, sure, but not a CM.
edited 19th May '14 2:02:53 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
I'll have to oppose classifying Emperor Gestahl as a complete monster. Although his mad lust for power is not mitigated by any redeeming features to speak of, he fails to fulfill the criterion that a villain be presented as truly heinous by the standards of the story. Saying that the atrocities committed by Gestahl are profoundly outmatched by those of Kefka is an understatement.
I'm not so sure about President Shinra; I don't get the sense that enough his known about his personality to warrant inclusion.
Unfortunately, it's been many years since I played Final Fantasy V, so my opinion regarding Exdeath is one of ambivalence.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Can we move James Bond to the main film page and lock?
Also, for Complete Monster Live Action TV, have all the "A" entries been discussed and approved?
edited 19th May '14 3:59:59 PM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
^^^^ The thing with Exdeath is that despite how he was created, he takes actions that are way beyond what you'd expect from a generic force of evil. He has a full understanding of how to hurt, torment, and enrage the heroes. There's no need for him to attack Bartz's hometown, but he does so just to be an asshole. Same with the moogle village and taunting Galuf about killing his granddaughter and friends in front of him—he's got too much of a personality and force of will. He could just wreak generalized destruction and go for the Void out of evil instinct, but he doesn't—he makes it really personal, enjoys the hell out of it, and gains the loyalty of other villains. Plus he's clearly a single personality rather than a Voice of the Legion composite being.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
The point your missing here is that it doesn't matter whether he enjoys it, whether he makes it personal, whether he has a personality, or anything to that effect. What matters is the question of if he could be anything else.
And doing some research the answer to that would seem to be no. He's a tree that was used to imprison hundreds if not thousands of evil souls. Eventually the evil of those souls leached into the tree and brought it to life, as Exdeath.
Exdeath is a being who has no understanding of positive emotion, because he is incapable of experiencing them. He's an amalgamation of a legion's worth of evil beings, fused together after centuries of imprisonment. It's no surprise he's evil; there's no way he could ever be anything but evil, not without any good souls in the mix.
When we talk about Made of Evil beings getting disqualified it isn't because they aren't sadistic enough or fail to make it personal. They fail to qualify because at the end of the day they are literally forged from evil. With no good in the mix they lack the ability to make moral choices the way that actual people do. I'm saying no again, and that isn't going to change.
edited 19th May '14 7:18:34 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
How's it make him different from Naraku from Inuyasha then?
I'd make a case for [[{{Series/24}} 24 live another day]] villain Margot Al Harazi. She's a leader of a terrorist group who plans on hacking drones to launch attacks. She also has her daughter brainwashed into her plot. When her daughters fiance (who's suppose to pilot the drones) has second thoughts about killing innocents, she punishes him, by having the daughters finger's cut off!
I'd advise waiting until the series is a bit more than 1/3 over.
Ahh, I see then.
How's that work for insane villains? IIRC with Kefka it was the magitek infusion that turned him into an evil git rather than personal choice.
Insanity isn't the same. Kefka was driven mad, but crazy doesn't mean you lack the ability to make moral decisions. I'm willing to still vote yea on Exdeath, though, as nothing indicates he's a slave to his nature. Essentially, it's like the Joker or Deathwing: A madman might be inclined a way, but they still have a choice in the matter
edited 19th May '14 8:16:57 PM by Lightysnake
Gotcha. The only other times I've done this was back near the beginning with a sane human villain and then with other sane human villains (well, Word of God says that Roger went nuts during his tomb vacation, but he did most of his evil before then) so I'm not as familiar with the parameters around eldritch or insane baddies. 
Well, they need some sort of moral core we can define. When you get to, say, Cthulhu, he's so unbelievably alien you can't possibly understand him, as he operates on an entirely different plane of reasoning.
Compare to Nyarlathotep who does understand human beings and is capable of reasoning as we do. He's just a dick who likes fucking with them for a laugh.
For insanity, a handy guide...if they're so crazy they genuinely cannot understand reality? Disqualified. Someone so nuts they think by killing people they're saving the world, or they think they're just cutting up flowers or squeezing lemons or something.
By contrast, someone who's demented enough to think "If I torture a bunch of people to death I will rule the world!...wouldn't be. And just being unhinged doesn't absolve you of responsibility. The Joker is our go-to example. Utterly nuts, yeah.
edited 19th May '14 8:28:18 PM by Lightysnake
That clarifies it a lot! In that case I can see how Kefka still counts since he wouldn't be enjoying himself half so much if he didn't know how much pain and suffering he causes.
In that case we may want to consider removing Victor Zsasz, because that's him in a nutshell. He really does believe that he's doing everyone a favor by liberating them from life.
That's a case of Depending on the Writer, but yeah, I've seen Zsasz portrayed as a (demented) Well-Intentioned Extremist who thinks he's helping people shuffle off the pain of their miserable mortal lives.
@Lightysnake
I don't see how Exdeath possibly could have moral agency. He's made of a conglomeration of evil souls, with no good in the mix. Even before that he wasn't human, he was a tree, a being with literally no sense of good and evil.
If you take an inanimate object with no sense of good and evil, and fill it with nothing but evil, what a surprise, it turns out evil. We've certainly disqualified villains with lesser Freudian Excuses than that.
As for the Naraku comparison, haven't seen the show (watched the first couple episodes and hated it), so that's lost on me. Though reading up on him, the fact that he deliberately expels what little good he has in him would tip the scales; Exdeath doesn't have a moment like that.
@eowynjedi
An example of a character who would be disqualified due to genuine insanity is Two-Face. Due to the nature of his mania, he literally cannot make moral choices without flipping his coin. His every act is determined by that coin toss; take it away from him and he shuts down completely (at times even becoming catatonic). Another example would be Hunter Zolomon, aka Zoom, who thinks that by tormenting the heroes, he's making them into better people (making him a very screwed up Well-Intentioned Extremist).
Kefka doesn't have that going for him; he's a psychopath, not legally insane by any existing definition.
edited 19th May '14 9:01:55 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
For Zsasz...honestly, he's more of a vile sadist more often than not. . The page image is him having done something with zero rhyme or reason to it save to be a monster.
edited 19th May '14 9:12:25 PM by Lightysnake
Not really accurate. Dormammu's race have full moral agency. IIRC, he and his sister were pretty much exiles for being power hungry nutjobs. Darkseid...well, he's evil because he chooses to be and likes it. The fact his blood son is a heroic warrior (albeit slightly on the vicious side sometimes) and his foster son was one of the most good-hearted people around?