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
Sorry, I know it's technically not the weekend anymore, but I'll just get Mark's writeup finished now. This writeup might seem a little convoluted, but, well, Mark's whole Evil Plan is rather all over the place, so if anyone has any idea how to write it better, let me know. Also of note: I know that ACW has been potholing works that don't have a page on this wiki, so I figure I should mention that there is a Film.Dont Look Down page on here, but it's not the same movie.
Don't Look Down (1998) Mark Engel plotted Carla's death in order to inherit her family fortune. When her sister Rachel fell to her death instead, Mark began killing Carla's new group of friends and planting evidence pointing to her as their murderer, drugging her drinks with hallucinogens and using her inherited schizophrenia against her to make her believe that Rachel is still alive and behind the killings. Tormenting Carla's friends with their pasts and digging up dirt on her therapist to drive her further into insanity, Mark confronts her and her therapist at the cliff where Rachel fell, revealing his plan and making one final effort to throw the both of them off.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Stellarvore: Sunday's still the weekend ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Yes to Sam.
Still not voting on Agatha until the EP gets trimmed.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Yes to Sam
Goku Black
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Sam
Agatha, Sam
EDIT: Found unapproved entry on Outriders, see below but spoilered out.
Captain Monroe of the Caraval Expedition. He arrived on Enoch decades before the Flores and, upon seeing the powers that the Pax wielded, he became both extremely covetous and paranoid about it. He enslaved the Pax and when they began to fight back, began a campaign of genocide against them, eventually driving them to mutate themselves into monstrous Ferals in order to fight back. He's directly responsible for Enoch turning into the Death World that it is, and by the time you find him decades later, he's completely unrepentant about it.
Have deleted and pinged the user to come here in future.
Edited by captainmarkle on Apr 18th 2021 at 11:40:35 AM
Trans rights are human rights. If you don't think that, please leave.
to the Anti-Monitor if I'm not late.
Yes to Sam, and switching to a yes on Agatha.
Anti-Monitor, Sailor Sam, and change to to Agatha also.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
So Hazel seems a close keep; Shandor a consensus cut; what's the decision on Dark Danny?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
An Eldritch Troper
Yes to Sam, not voting on Agatha (I didn’t read the EP thoroughly) and I think Dark Danny is a consensus cut considering the twofold disqualifications of agency and heinousness concerns.
Humanity is defined by its absurdity, and I am no exception.
for Galton, Anti-Monitor Sam and a tentative one for Agatha
Edited by TellAll111 on Apr 18th 2021 at 6:36:59 AM
to Karl Galton, Brainiac, Anti-Monitor and Sam 'Sailor Sam' Choksey.
Tentative to Agatha.
No more discussion beyond this? Alright then, last one for this weekend:
Tonight's Film
Remember several years ago, when Nicolas Cage and Hayden Christensen went to China to film a historical epic? No? That's okay, chances are they've forgotten this movie roughly 3 years after getting their paycheck. Either way...
Outcast is a 2014 American-Chinese-Canadian historical epic film; Christensen and Cage plays a pair of Paladins, Sir Jacob and Sir Gallian, during the Crusades, and after witnessing the horrors of war, decide to desert their army. Parting ways, Jacob travels east and ends up in China during the Han Dynasty, where he ultimately helps a princess and her younger brother reclaim their throne from their evil big brother.
So, the Candidate being...
Prince Shing is the eldest son of the Emperor, a feared Warrior Prince known for his ruthlessness, a Blood Knight on the battlefield; in the first scene, the Emperor announced his intentions to have the throne be given to the boy-prince, Prince Zhao, due to Shing's tendencies of being a Sadist and growing too much in power. An enraged Shing, confronting his father, usurps the throne in front of the Emperor's captain, Lieutenant Wu; as Wu tried to stop Shing, the Prince instead forcefully takes over the Captain's Elite Mook squadron, the feared unit called the "Black Guards"; where Shing threatens Captain Wu to "known his place," lest he "have the Captain's children nailed to walls in pieces while letting the Captain's wife pleasure ALL of his men" (yikes!)
The Emperor's two other children, Prince Zhao and his elder sister, Princess Lian, fled the palace grounds with the Imperial Seal on the night of their father's assassination; taking over the throne, Shing announces to the royal army that it's the boy prince - his own brother - who killed the Emperor, having colluded with the Princess to start a rebellion, and orders a nationwide hunt for his father's killers (it's implied the palace's generals and commanders are well aware of the truth that Shing is the true assassin, but because of their fear towards Shing, are unable to do anything). Without anybody in his way, Shing then claims the throne, the first thing he did which is ordering his Black Guards to hunt down his siblings.
Princess Lian and prince Zhao, made it to as far as a tavern, where surprise, surprise, Jacob is Drowning His Sorrows just as both Lian and Zhao are surrounded by Black Guards. One thing leads to another as Jacob saves their lives by killing the entire platoon; after some convincing from the princess, Jacob eventually agreed to escort Lian and Zhao to a nearby village. No luck, unfortunately, the neighbouring village's civilians have been massacred by Black Guards under Shing's orders, their crimes being "suspecting of harboring the Emperor's killers"; Jacob ends up killing a Black Guard sergeant to save a little girl, and the trio ends up being pursued by Shing's minions.
Fleeing from Black Guards from a countryside inn to a desert, Jacob, with Princess Lian and Prince Zhao in tow, ends up in a mountain region, where they're saved by a La Résistance unit. One led by - to Jacob's surprise - Jacob's old mentor, Gallian, having arrived in China before Jacob. After marrying a local woman, Gallian is now a well-respected warrior called the "White Ghost", and states how he's unable to escape from horrors of war, now that Shing rules the country as a dictator. But their reunion only lasted for a day; from the palace, Prince Shing decided to launch a full attack force, sending all Black Guards to the hills to hunt down everyone who opposed his tyranny.
The final battle in the La Résistance's hills strong hold between the resistance and the Black Guards, ends with most of the the resistance massacred despite killing plenty of Black Guards; Shing, of course, stays at the back of his army, gleefully overseeing the bloodbath. Gallian, witnessing his wife killed, decide to stay back and Hold the Line, as Jacob the remaining resistance reluctantly drags Lian and Zhao to a retreat. Shing deliberately taunts Gallian, who despite killing dozens of Black Guards in his last stand, gets skewered by numerous spears, a few feet away from Shing, the last thing Gallian sees being Shing gloating.
Nowhere to run, Prince Shing had the resistance flushed out; seeing the badly injured Jacob (having fought off platoons of Black Guards by himself earlier) Shing decides to "put this white man in his place" by personally challenging Jacob to a mano-on-mano duel, knowing full well that Jacob is at a disadvantage.
For most of the finale, Shing deliberately drags out the process cutting up Jacob, slicing his stomach, thighs, shoulder... without killing him. Jacob momentarily gets the upper hand when Shing stops to gloat, only for two of Shing's Black Guard archers to nail him in the shoulders... but at this point, Captain Wu finally, finally took a stand, ordering the Black Guards to stand back and not interrupt Shing and Jacob's duel. Shing is pissed over Captain Wu regaining control of his army and forwards to kill Jacob; Princess Lian, to save Jacob, intervenes by throwing herself between the two warriors, but Shing, completely unrepentant, attempts to impale Princess Lian - his own sister - on his sword, heavily injuring her.
Luckily, Lian's distraction was enough to give Jacob that Heroic Second Wind; getting back on his feet, Jacob continues his duel, stabbing Shing dead. In the aftermath, Lian (despite appearing to have died after getting stabbed by Shing) and Zhao rides back to the capital, escorted by Captain Wu, Jacob, and the rest of the reformed Black Guards.
Any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
... really? No. Prince Shing is denied the throne by his father for good reason, the moment he takes over, it's Tyrant Takes the Helm, and he made it clear that he's indulging in abusing his power.
As for the Heinousness Standard?
Given the movie's settings in the crusades, the film opens with a battle between various Paladins - Gallian and Jacob included - fighting an Arab army who didn't really have much screentime. Either way, their only purpose is for Jacob and Gallian to witness the horrors of war and desert the Paladins, nothing else.
The Black Guards are a ruthless bunch, but they're treated pretty much as mooks. Mooks just doing their jobs, by the way... Shing fabricated that his father was assasinated by his siblings and ordered the manhunt, and the guards are given orders from Shing to have the Emperor's killers captured so that Shing can deal with them personally. Even though, you know, Shing is the killer himself. And once Captain Wu regains control of the army, they stopped serving the evil prince.
Yeah, despite the setting in a time of war, Prince Shing's actions sticks out, from killing his own father to usurp the throne, to framing his siblings for the murder. He stops at nothing to have his former siblings hunted down, even if it means having entire villages massacred (we see the aftermath in one scene, but as Jacob rendezvous with Gallian and the resistance, it's revealed Shing's army did the same to several other settlements) and even tried to kill his own sister in the finale. Nobody else really tops his HS.
Should We Count Prince Shing Then?
Easy yes.
Goku Black
Shing
A Nicholas cage film is always a goldmine for cms
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Yes to Shing.
The Emperor of Evil!
to Shing
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Sure to Shing.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Shing and Sam, updated for Agatha
A total has-been.
Hell yes to Shing.
@ACW: What's the issue with whether or not an EP is "trimmed?" The EP is not the writeup, so I don't see why it would need to require a word limit.
Edited by ANewMan on Apr 18th 2021 at 8:49:17 AM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
No requirement, but 2k+ effortposts can be a bit of a chore to read (even for a quick reader such as myself, and even if the effortpost is written well). I'm probably not alone here.
That said, I did read the whole thing, so sure to Agatha.
Though, how many resources did Ghetsis have again?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Goku Black
Agatha.
A total has-been.
Though, how many resources did Ghetsis have again?
Ghetsis had six Sages, three personal servants, an amoral scientist colleague and his technological devices, a large organization, a son he made into his puppet and figurehead through an abusive upbringing, a giant underground castle, many powerful Pokemon, captive Pokemon. control over Legendaries like Zekrom, Kyurem, and the Weather Trio, a flying airship that he used to go around decimating at least seven cities and freezing whole buildings and living creatures either to death or a Fate Worse than Death, and his own twisted ambition and intellect to drive him. And unlike in the games, he made the absolute most of all of those.
Despite being a Pokemon League affiliate, Agatha was working with considerably less resources, making it impressive that she's arguably on Ghetsis' level of heinousness just as Ghetsis himself carved his own niche to stand out as truly heinous even among the more omnicidal villains like Lance, Archie, Cyrus and Lysandre.
Edited by ANewMan on Apr 18th 2021 at 9:37:06 AM
Yes to Sammy, Agatha
Edit: Oh great, page topper again?
Edited by RobertTYL on Apr 18th 2021 at 1:14:26 AM