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. "
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
Anyone else want to weigh in on the Red Flood guy
? I already gave my input, inasmuch as while I lean yes, I'd like more info.
Given he's gotten most (all?) of the Hearts of Iron mod keepers, lemme ping ~xie323.
Again, I'm doubting Bats's heinousness level. Clerk and Arms Dealer excluded, all of his body count were nameless armed guards.
Edited by HighfalutinQuelea on Apr 27th 2021 at 7:30:04 AM
Aight, well I'm dropping my hat in the ring for the PF candidates. The blatant double standards regarding treatment of Word of God input here VS someone like David is apparent and it's obvious that people are going to see what they want and not what's objectively there and blatantly in their face. "Oh well it doesn't matter that the director flat out confirmed the already-likely victim onscreen that we've arbitrarily decided is too ambiguous to count towards heinousness IS a victim and cleared that up, they don't SAY it in the movie so we still feel it shouldn't count."
Let's go ahead and strike the sentence of David planning to rape Ellie from his entry since Word of God doesn't matter and he might have just intended to kill her at the end. Sure, plenty of dialogue and actions make it damn apparent to anyone actually paying attention to in-game content, but that's not enough unless he says "Hi, I'm a pedophile who wants to assault you.", right guys?
I'll be posting my write-ups soon and then will be taking a long sabbatical from this thread to focus on MB. The double standards being shown are frankly absurd, and I have no immediate desire to be an active part of discussion for the next couple weeks in a place that has shirked all feelings on Word of God or pattern establishment in the past just for these candidates because they "don't feel it." Especially when, even now after I've tried repeatedly to get discussion done on it, no one seems to care to address the unique nature of Zed and Maynard's crimes in the context of the film, instead claiming they don't mean heinous because oh no, a couple characters shoot some other criminals, the horror, the heinous standard is just too high for a pair of serial rapist and sex slave owners to count!
Edited by Ravok on Apr 27th 2021 at 10:15:12 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!I'm keeping my not to the Pulp Fiction duo, I really don't think the script or the Word of God should have been brought into this discussion since both add implications that are not very strong in the film and now some people are likely to vote based on stuff that isn't in the film which is exactly why we don't allow extraneous information in discussions. I'm sorry if this is rude but honestly I'm getting really pissed over this discussion.
Can you please stop targeting me Ravok? I wasn't here for David (and straight up don't know the game, so there's a good chance I would have voted no on him if Wo G was all we had for him) and have been as polite as possible.
Edited by LargoQuagmire on Apr 27th 2021 at 8:07:59 AM
This discussion is getting too heated for my liking. As stated before, I do not care how people vote as long as people can manage to avoid being unnecessarily abrasive. Since this discussion has become unnecessarily tense, I am dropping out of this discussion until it is resolved.
Please excuse me. I need space.
David is a serial killer and cannibal, who at the very least, tries to butcher Ellie. Even taking away the attempt to rape Ellie, that's not my issue. The issue for me is all they do on screen is one rape and one attempted, with little time by the film to establish a pattern, that this is regular, with the only indications being ambiguous beats by the director and script that are not in any way even clear for the finished product.
That is my difference. Maynard and Zed are a pair of creepy hillbillies who maybe should count but I don't think there's enough there for them to do so. I'd like them to, but I have reservations about it.
Look, if people upvote them, fine, no problem, but I don't think I've done anything wrong here. If you think they count, upvote them.
Edit: Sigh, hell with it, I'll just upvote to get this done with, could be worse as ane xample.
Edited by Lightysnake on Apr 27th 2021 at 8:20:31 AM
to the Killer Bunny.
I think I'm also gonna be taking a hiatus from this thread... I've just got too much going on at the moment to be worrying about discussions becoming this heated. I will be back at some point, but yeah, you can find me on MB for the next while.
"For a second there, I mistook ya for a threat... but you're just a dirty little man!"No to the rabbit, not sure on Red Flood, not going to touch the two rapists.
I just went from "I'm thinking of posting a new EP tonight" to "What the hell just happened, the previous few pages looks like the final ten minutes of a John Woo flick"... and because of that, I'm saving my EP in a Word file to be posted tomorrow around lunch, hopefully when the smell of gunpowder have subsided.
Good nite

My only issue... "It doesn’t quite play this way in the movie, but in my mind when I wrote it"
When all they do in film is rape Marcellus and plan on raping Butch, too, everything here has to depend on implication and script, when even Tarantino says it's only an idea he had when writing it, one he says doesn't play out that way in the film.