Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Again, while the Tortured One was one of the main pawns in SpongeBob's game, all of his victims (except Krabs and Plankton, who even then weren't commited directly by him) and the plan of rampaging across the ocean were entirely on his own. And there hasn't been a single hint the Tortured One has moral agency issues. Although he talked rarely, he's shown to be fully intelligent and not a mindless killing machine.

EDIT: I don't think I fully understand what you mean, but the Tortured One still has some goals of his own and isn't just Sponge's pawn in every single thing he does. And his excuse is being tortured, and compare that to trying to rampage across the entire goddamn ocean because one city fed on him.

Edited by RK93 on May 11th 2021 at 4:00:42 PM

Leaning yes on Surtur, but being sadistic and being Made of Evil aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

Tortured One

They are, when he goes against his supposed "Ragnarok" thing (by leaving New Earth alone), just to torture one guy for eternity.

Edited by VeryVileVillian on May 11th 2021 at 4:59:19 PM

to the tortured one but to Surtur

Going with a Nay to The Tortured One. There were indeed a few times where the comic points out that its rampage made absolutely no sense, even aside from Spongebob, there's still the fact that the thing's clearly batshit insane from the torture.

On the other hand, here's a to Surtur (Damn, these tales just keep giving, don't they?)

Edited by DoodSlayer136 on May 11th 2021 at 7:09:35 AM

Yes to Surtur if he goes far enough away from his primary goal to prove agency.

6ub, you’re correct that I had an Unintentionally Unsympathetic candidate that went up - Gabriel Kruger. He was approved because meta reasons made his Freudian Excuse not work first and foremost, not just because other characters shut it down. Plus, RK, you didn’t even detail how Sponge shuts it down or why it’s not valid - you were just like “it exists, but it doesn’t matter” - that gives me nothing to go off of and I’m voting to the Tortured One on general principle as a result

Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on May 11th 2021 at 10:09:28 AM

I'm saying no to the tortured one due to moral agency concerns.

That, and he is ultimately on 'Bob's leash, more or less.

If it were characters other than a villain calling him on it, I'd take it with less salt.

Edit: Being eaten alive would not be beneficial to one's mental health, either, come to think of it.

Addendum: Yes to Surtr.

Edited by SkyCat32 on May 11th 2021 at 10:16:02 AM

Sutur

Tortured One,based on other's posts but also because a Freudian Excuse was mentioned (that getting shot down by another CM is, uh, weird to me)

Surtr

Tortured One (You try having a piece of yourself used as fast food and constantly being aware and in pain because of it)

Fun Fact: the way the Tortured One thing eats people in the comic is how Starfish actually eat in real life, by drenching it in chemical secretions and devouring it.

Surtur

Tortured One

As of today, I have finished my semester, with only one more to go before I graduate college and become a free man (in a sense anyway). So let’s celebrate with a pre-planned EP for a work that’s now appropriate to discuss.

What Is the Work?

Justice Society: World War II is the latest installment in the DC Universe Animated Original Movies line.

After trying to use his speed to rescue Superman from a kryptonite bullet fired by Brainiac, the Flash, Barry Allen, ends up teleporting to an alternate timeline. Where you may ask? Well, read the title of the movie. Here, Flash encounters the Justice Society, America’s first team of superheroes, with president FDR having approved of the idea after it was pitched to him by Steve Trevor.

In this timeline, the Nazis have acquired special technology that has allowed them to conquer most of Europe and Russia. It’s up to the JSA, comprised of Wonder Woman, Hourman, Black Canary, Hawkman, Jay Garrick, and the Flash to stop them and save the world from the Nazi’s reign of terror. They later get some help from Aquaman, the ruling king of Atlantis, but find that he’s… not quite himself. The reason why?

Who Is He?

The Advisor (this universe’s Psycho-Pirate) is Aquaman’s Evil Chancellor who uses his resources to support the Nazis’ takeover of the world.

What has he done?

Originally a modern day pirate with the power of mind control who was rescued by the Atlanteans after his ship was sunk, the Advisor decided to repay them by brainwashing Aquaman into acting as his loyal puppet. Siding with the Nazis because they appear to be winning the war, the Advisor supplies them with Atlantean weapons in order to assure their global takeover, with full plans to betray them once they eventually succeed. 


Knowing that the JSA were sent to stop the Nazis, the Advisor lured them to Atlantis with a special message, having Aquaman trap them once they reach the underwater city. The Advisor plans to use Aquaman’s powerful trident to awaken underwater sea monsters, and then have them and the Atlantean army storm the United States from the shore and destroy the country, all so that the Nazis can easily take over America.

So the Atlantean army and giant water monsters arrive on land and destroy a majority of Los Angeles. After Wonder Woman breaks the Advisor’s control over Aquaman by destroying his trident, Aquaman, feeling guilt over what has happened, retreats back into the ocean with his men.

But that doesn’t stop the Advisor, who impales Steve Trevor from behind using Aquaman’s broken trident. Feeling that there was a chance Aquaman might lose the battle, the Advisor made a backup plan in the form of calling in Nazi airships to bomb the rest of the city and the entire country. As Steve slowly succumbs to his wounds, the Advisor smugly tells him “I always win,” before getting knocked out by Flash. His plan is later stopped by Superman, and the Advisor… is arrested, I guess. He’s never seen again after Flash knocks him out.

Redeeming Qualities?

None. The Advisor goads Aquaman into igniting a war against humanity by telling him that humans want to destroy his home and enslave his people, but he’s only saying that just to strengthen his control over Aquaman some more.

Heinousness?

The movie takes place in the same universe as Superman: Man of Tomorrow, but I think the Advisor settles it with his plan to destroy America, his cold murder of Steve Trevor, and his disloyal partnership with the Nazis, whom he's assisting to take over the entire world.

Conclusion

Easy keep.

surtur and Psycho-Pirate

Yes to another Psycho-Pirate

Tortured One. I know from experience that, even if a candidate is heinous enough and they have the personality to go with their actions, they will get downvoted if they have a strong enough Freudian Excuse.

Speaking of The Bikini Bottom Horror, would Mr. Krabs count or is he not heinous enough?

Oh, and Surtur and Psycho Pirate.

Edited by CaptainPinkiePie on May 11th 2021 at 11:32:07 AM

Krabs is a pawn in Spongebob’s master plan (what the fuck did I just say?)

Psycho Pirate

Yes to the Adviser/Psycho-Pirate

Sure to Advisor.

'Yes' to Surtur and Psycho Pirate, but 'No' to the Tortured One. Yes, he goes over the top in carrying out mass murder, but the dude was subjected to literally being tortured unendingly for years and fed to people unknowingly, that's a horrible backstory and he's insane by the present. Let's also not forget that his final words give him Alas, Poor Villain vibes.

Krabs I would love if he could count, but unfortunately he's operating with exactly one notable crime—subjecting the Tortured One to, uh, constant torture to sell his meat for profit—and it's definitely horrid, but I think in a world where the Tortured One is trying for oceanic genocide and SpongeBob is manipulating events to wipe out most of Bikini Bottom so he can swoop in as savior, it's a bit too low in acts.

Aaaaanywho, I've got one I've been meaning to discuss for awhile, and with my recent discussion of a version of him over MB, I decided to take the leap. Some might immediately see the name and feel he's a no, but I do implore all to read the whole effortpost and take everything into consideration first and foremost.

What's the work?

Star Wars, we all know it! I don't even need to go too in-depth on the setting itself lol so lemme just cover the basic gist here...from the new Disney canon:

During the "Prequel era", the galaxy was in turmoil during the "Clone Wars." As the Separatists used their droid army to try to take worlds under their wing by force, the Galactic Republic, the Jedi assisting it, and their commissioned army of cloned troopers fight back against the Separatists, all while the manipulative Darth Sidious/Palpatine plays them all to his tune.

Today, I wanna discuss someone who has never been properly discussed, but who I think has been unfairly overlooked for far too long. Meet the second-most powerful, commanding member of the Separatists behind its leader Count Dooku.

Who is General Grievous? What has he done?

A former Kaleesh warlord-turned-Separatist commander who clawed his way to status of General through countless wars and battles, Grievous is a cyborg monstrosity, more machine than man who believes his combination of droid and organic parts both make him superior to all, and he serves as The Heavy of the entirety of the "Clone Wars" saga.

Now, first and foremost, Grievous is the commander in chief of the Separatist droid army behind Dooku himself, and the franchise makes clear that a vast majority of droid invasions, attacks, etc. can all be laid at Grievous' feet, giving him a heavy hand in a bevy of deaths across the galaxy, and is known for invading whole worlds and leaving them burned and barren in his wake.

Our boy Grievous has two defining characteristics of villainy: his abuse of his own droid minions, and his penchant for killing Jedi.

• Droids, even if not all to the point of total individual personalities, all have some level of consciousness and sentience. Grievous regularly and brutally takes out his anger—or even just mild inconveniences—on droids, tearing them to shreds to punching their heads off. And while often portrayed as a somewhat humorous abuse, the side story "A Droid with a Heart" recontextualizes Grievous' treatment of his droids, as a noble droid grows increasingly horrified at Grievous destroying no less than nearly 200 droids with his own bare hands in a very short time span, and when Grievous tries to send thousands of droids to die in a suicide mission as cannon fodder, the noble droid disobeys orders long enough to save his brethren. Grievous repays this act by butchering the droid in front of his kin, who honor the fallen ally's memory for years to come, giving Grievous' abuse of the droids more weight than ever.

• And secondly, Grievous is—in no uncertain terms—a Serial Killer of Jedi. He has murdered dozens of Jedi and Padawans over the years, decorating his lair in Padawan braids while keeping lightsabers for his "collection." Age nor skill nor honorable combat matters to Grievous—he will hunt Jedi until they're weary then blitz them, he once tried to kill a group of young Padawan children with glee, and he has one of the highest personal killcounts of Jedi in the entire Disney canon.

Now then, let's move onto Grievous' more specific crimes, many of which come from Star Wars: The Clone Wars.

In the "Malevolence" arc, Grievous uses an ion-cannon armed warship to wipe out dozens of Republic fleets across the galaxy and the hundreds—if not thousands—of troops aboard them. On his master, Count Dooku's, orders, Grievous refuses to let even escape pods survive these attacks. When Dooku gives Grievous a new target—a Republic soldier medical outpost housing over 60,000 wounded clone troopers—Grievous happily takes the jump, bragging that he wants to get to the outpost as soon as possible "Before too many wounded Clones escape!" Once there, Grievous specifically targets fleeing medical ships first, caring the most about racking up as many casualties as possible. He later uses Senator Amidala as a hostage to try to escape capture following these atrocities.

In another arc of episodes, Grievous uses a spying outpost to strike critical blows against a variety of Republic outposts, killing many Republic forces as Grievous moves to take over planets. When the slimy droid dealer Nachkt tries to sell Grievous Anakin Skywalker's R2-D2 unit for classified info, Grievous promises to make a deal with Nachkt...then summarily executes the man while laughing in his face "There's your bonus!"

In a new showcase of his brutality towards Jedi, Grievous raids the ship of Jedi Master Eeth Koth, slaughters his crew, and captures the Jedi, broadcasting a message of Grievous subjecting Koth to vicious torture to his fellow Jedi while promising to keep him alive and in agony as long as possible before killing him. With this torture of Koth as impetus to lure Republic forces into a trap, Grievous tries to wipe out Obi-Wan Kenobi and his clone squadron.

When the Galactic Senate nearly reaches a peace agreement to end the Clone Wars, Grievous giddily accepts a mission from Count Dooku to ensure peace talks fall through, with Grievous sending in infiltrator droids to murder their way through Republic soldiers and even simple computer technicians. Grievous has the droids suicide bomb themselves to wipe out a massive chunk of the Republic capital, Coruscant's, power grid, causing city wide chaos, explosions, crashes and death, all to destabilize peace talks and ensure the war continues.

Grievous—after launching several attempts to wipe out the Kamino cloning facilities, their staff, and personally slaughter as many clone troopers in the process as he can—later tries to take over the planet of Naboo in bloody conflict, and murders the Gungan Captain Tarpals when he attempts to capture Grievous and prevent this.

Later, Grievous is dispatched by Dooku to commit genocide against the amoral Nightsisters witch tribe for aiding and abetting Dooku's former apprentice Asajj Ventress in hiding from him. Grievous sadistically carries out the massacre, confronting Ventress near the end and taunting her over the annihilation of her people as he kills the entirety of the Nightsisters with relish.

Other notable crimes by Grievous in The Clone Wars itself include blasting a pirate ship and killing many of its occupants for fun and "target practice", trying to subjugate and/or slaughter Hondo Ohnaka's group of space bandits, and killing a buttload of his own droids and enemy clones with his own hands throughout the show.

In Darth Maul: Son of Dathomir, Grievous subjects the criminal-infested world of Ord Mantell to orbital bombardment because of itse syndicates allying with Maul—wiping out a massive chunk of Maul's allies and their armies—later uses his bare hands to tear apart a group of Mandalorians who tried to imprison him, and ends the comic by helping Darth Sidious and Dooku kill Maul's surrogate parent Mother Talzin, with Grievous striking the killing blow.

In yet another comic, Kanan, Grievous tries to use a professional bomber to wipe out the entire Jedi Temple on Coruscant, gleeful of the countless Jedi and young Padawan children who will die and uncaring of the innumerable innocent civilians who will go down with it.

In his finale major appearance, Revenge of the Sith, Grievous "kidnaps" (actually part of the plan since he's evil) Supreme Chancellor Palpatine from Coruscant—being noted to have killed his way through Jedi in the process—and kickstarts a massive firefight above the planet. When Obi-Wan Kenobi and Anakin Skywalker arrive to rescue Palpatine, Grievous tries to kill them both and—failing at this—takes advantage of his warship's system damages to launch all of its escape pods and abandon his own crew to die while he flees, leaving the ship to nearly crashland directly into Coruscant until the Jedi save the day.

With Dooku dead, Grievous believes he will assume command of the Separatists and continue dragging out the war until he comes out supreme, continuing to have his droid armies stage strikes across the galaxy... unfortunately for Grievous, Palpatine, aka Darth Sidious, sees no further use of him, and leaks his location to the Jedi. Confronted by Obi-Wan Kenobi once again, Grievous tries one last time to kill the Jedi, only for Kenobi to take advantage of Grievous' last remaining organic parts, tear open his metallic shell, and shoot his organs with a blaster, igniting all of Grievous's insides and ending the droid general once and for all.

Freudian Excuse or other redeeming features?

Unlike Legends where he has a sad backstory and a very questionable moral agency, nothing of the sort here. Grievous' past is limited to "was once a warlord" who got in a crash and began augmenting himself with "improvements" to make himself superior to all life. He's a raging, egomaniacal sadist and proud of it by the present.

The closest thing to sympathy you can get from Grievous is a tie-in story that notes that he feels weak and empty inside beneath all the blustering, and he makes up for it by being a monstrous dick, but that's about as sympathetic as it was when Naraku did it, and it's dwelled upon even less Oh, and his character page mentions he has a fondness for his pet monster "Gor"...no, there's really no explicit care there, he gets in a rage when Jedi kill Gor but this was mounting frustration that the Jedi consistently were taking down everything he could throw, Grievous doesn't show an ounce of genuine sadness at Gor's loss specifically.

Heinousness?

The trickier part here...Star Wars, even in the far less jacked up standard of the Disney canon, is filled with nasties who threaten entire planets, enslave races, etc. But while Grievous may lack the kinds of massive "kill an entire planet" schemes that let, say, Wat Tambor count? I absolutely believe he more than makes up for that with the sheer consistent quantity of crimes you can lay at his feet.

There's no attempt to downplay that Grievous is arguably the most prominent reason droid armies are as successful and aggressive as they are, and the many, many attacks droids carry out over the course of the Clone Wars are often attributed to Grievous in one way or another. Being the commander of an army that's constantly razing entire cities, bombing Republic fleets, and doing other war crimes galore already puts Grievous in a damn high tier, even if he's not always personally on the scene directing things.

And just to add on to that, as a quick recap/summary of the standouts? Grievous kills hundreds of Republic troops with his Malevolence scheme—attempting to wipe out tens of thousands of wounded or dying soldiers at a medical facility as well—is a vicious Serial Killer of Jedi with dozens of victims who can include children, tortures Koth and plans to continue to death, his abuse and casual destruction of his own droids is given heavy emphasis in a side story, he tries to wipe out the Jedi Temple and its hundreds of occupants, he blacks out a chunk of Coruscant and causes chaos citywide in a scheme to prolong the war, genocides the Nightsisters, abandons his entire crew to die in RotS while ensuring no one else can take escape pods...

Grievous is one of the most consistently, brutally horrible villains in all of Star Wars, and while someone like, say, Darth Maul might get a bit more visceral with his crimes in The Clone Wars—see the time he murdered an entire village of men, women and children just to draw out Kenobi—the sheer scope of Grievous' actions absolutely overwhelm most other villains', and even when Grievous is "following orders" from Dooku, he's a total willing Psycho for Hire about it who's doing it all with glee.

Final Verdict?

I think Disney!Grievous passes with flying colors, under the same reasoning as (to bring up Inuyasha again, lol) the Infant does. No, they don't have one massive, notable "this pushes them over the line" crime, but they rack up a very large rapsheet with thousands upon thousands of victims, and have plenty of personal, nasty villainy to their name as well.

As a massive component to droid wars across the galaxy, as a regular mass murderer, as a serial murderer of Jedi, as the most prominent commander of the Separatists and their armies bar Dooku? I say Grievous hits.

Edited by Ravok on May 11th 2021 at 8:48:35 AM

to Grievous. He may not have destroyed a planet, but I think if you add up all his crimes in total he has at least a similar body count to the population of Alderaan, or at least a remarkably high personal kill count, especially considering he's alluded to have murdered Jedi children.

Yea there, and now...one new horror novel one:

Whats the work?

The Sorrows is a novel by Jonathan Janz, along with its sequel Castle of Sorrows. Ben Shadeland is a film composer dealing with quite a bit in his life. His ex-wife has remarried and plans to move away with their son, and he's got to score a new horror film called House of Skin. The film's having some major issues, so the infamous director Lee Stanley has an idea: fly the folks there down to a spooky island with an old castle once owned by the super rich Blackwood family. Perfect place for inspiration, right?

Well, a massive pileup ensues, as there's something in the castle, something very old and very hungry...let's talk Gabriel Blackwood.

Who is Gabriel?

Known by many names over thousands of years, Gabriel was found by the Blackwood family in the forests near The Sorrows as a little boy. Gabriel was taken in and demonstrated a talent for music as a boy, in about the early 1900s...but things began to get weird as Gabriel grew, growing worse and worse, while Gabriel began to refuse to write any music with a major concert approaching...the furious patriarch of the Blackwoods ordered Gabriel walled up in a tower, angrily declaring they'd taken him in as a child, prompting Gabriel to smile and remark: "What made you think I was a child?" ...things began getting worse with Gabriel supposedly walled up. People going mad, people missing, people dying...until the Blackwoods abandoned the home...and deep in the catacombs below the castle, Gabriel slept until awakened by the film crew and others...

Gabriel, being a malicious monster, begins to torment everyone on the Sorrows, seducing the women there, Claire and Eva with darkly erotic dreams and eventually luring the former to sleep with him before he reveals himself to attack and rape Eva, torturing her for hours while ravaging her face and body into little but bloody meat. Gabriel begins to hunt and slaughter everything else he gets his hands on while demonstrating something of a powerful psychic ability to conjure up visions of someone's dead loved ones or sins to hurt them even more while killing them (such as pure hate sink Lee Stanley who Gabriel grants a sadistically agonizing karmic death). Everyone dies, except Claire and Ben who escape and Gabriel is seemingly killed, plummeting into the sea...

Cue the sequel, when Claire and Ben are married with a baby named Julia. A pair of FBI agents investigating vanish on the Sorrows (Gabriel devouring them), and a combination hits: Ben is being investigated with agents checking the Sorrows, but also the remaining Blackwoods needing to check it out and also the mob they're in debt to. Perfect storm...made even worse that it turns out Claire's baby is actually Gabriel's, who possesses one man to slaughter Julia's babysitters and deliver Julia to Gabriel who swims back to the Sorrows to use her as bait.

Gabriel drags one arrival down to torture for info while pulling his old shtick...Slaughter ensues when he emerges, gabriel savagely murdering or killing his way through everything, using Julia as bait. Only Ben survives while managing to save Julia, but Gabriel possesses the one other survivor to try to murder Julia, forcing Ben to kill her. Gabriel is bested by him on the boat, blown up and Ben manages to get to safety with Julia in a buoy...but the novel ends with Gabriel, also known as the great god Pan, reforming...and deciding for some payback, reaches out to control the mind of Claire's father where Claire is staying, having him murder Claire's mother...

The novel ends on a cliffhanger with him attacking Claire, Gabriel snarling "I'll have all of you" and ending as he and Claire struggle for the knife...

...Book 3, when? We can only hope.

Heinousness?

Uh, yeah. Gabriel is a rapist, a torturer, has a gigantic, ginormous bodycount who sadistically butchers everything he can get his hands on with pure relish. No issues here.

Mitigating factors?

No, Gabriel isn't a demon or made of evil: he's a God. Namely Pan, referred to as the Son of Hermes in The Sorrows with one line and later confirmed as Pan. All of this is apparently done because he's bored, malicious and likes hurting people. He's bound to the Sorrows but anything that comes there? Is his. He repeatedly showcases a savage and brutal personality, manipulative, intelligent and quite vengeful....he is possessive over Julia as his daughter, but...he is fully willing to let her die of exposure and thirst, using her only as bait and then trying to have her killed.

Conclusion?

A very, very easy yes.

General Grievous

I think with everything together it's more then enough.

A happy to Grievous. to Gabriel as well.

Edited by DoodSlayer136 on May 11th 2021 at 8:23:32 AM

to General Grievous, the fact that he has no problems in committing war crimes such as killing children or blowing up medical stations is really awful

'Yes' to Gabriel, easily. Damn good work, mate!

Gabriel