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
I must say many fairy tales have some seriously screwed-up morality, likely due to being written down in screwed-up times. As sanitized as Disney's versions can be, at least modern audiences can comfortably watch them without being blindsided by the values of the 1600s or whatever...
I'm not even talking about Values Dissonance, really - more the way how they're not at all realistic in character actions and motivations.
Yeah, but fairy tales in general? Tom Thumb tricks an ogre into chopping off the heads of seven little girls. The big bad wolf kills Red Riding Hood's granny, makes her into meat for her granddaughter to eat, then eats her, too...the witch of Hansel and Gretel cooks and devours children.
It's a dark, dark, DARK standard
I would hesitate to call the villains of any traditional fairy tale a Complete Monster; by the standards of the genre, the villain is always a horrible, terrible, nasty person, often either a cannibal (if they are human) or an anthophage (if they aren't human, like giants, ogres, dragons), and some of the heroes aren't any much better.
I think Tong Fo needs to be cut. In Mind Over Manners, it was shown that he had a grandfather that was also a crime boss, and that he wanted to make him proud by succeeding where he had failed.
Did he ever say or even indicate that he loved his grandfather, though? A villain could want to live up to/surpass his predecessor and make him proud of him but not actually care for that predecessor on a personal level.
Actually, I do think the Queen's heinous is worse compared to other fairy tale villains. Essentially what I mean is, that it is true that most fairy tales quite simply have very f****ed up stories, but again, I actually think that the Queen's actions are more realistic, and to be honest, I can actually see someone cannibalizing someone and feeding said person to an unsuspecting victim in real life. As for the ogres story, while bad, it's not as believable, because, again, it has fictional creatures murder children. And, unlike other fairy tale characters, the Queen has no supernatural powers, nor had she had any influence over Talia's eternal sleep. In fact, no one did. It was only a prophecy that a servant gave to the king. The Queen is also a very sadistic character who is absolutely without mercy. For example, when she was about to sentence Talia to death, she actually commanded her to strip herself of her clothes so that she could keep them herself. Overall, the Queen is a rather realistic take on an evil monarch because her actions are more believable than say an ogre killing children.
edited 4th Jun '14 6:04:24 PM by AustinDR
...That makes her feel way more heinous than less. She's not a creature that is often Always Chaotic Evil like an Ogre(and they are very often shown as that), but a completely sadistic person with no redeeming qualities.
I'm giving an easy
for the Queen. That's just beyond horrible. Random monsters are poor examples as they are hard to tell if they have a moral agency period.
Is your argument that she has no moral agency, Very Melon? Because I highly doubt that, as she's not some supernatural creature, where that often comes up. She's a regular human that acts pure evil out of choice. At least from what I can tell by the explanation.
Shadow?This is going a while back, but did we ever reach a consensus on Serph Sheffield?
I will give a
to the queen as well. On a side note, I never knew fairy tales could be so screwed up, seriously, in one version the big bad wolf made Red Riding Hood eat her grandmothers remains? WTF?!
@ A New Man: Judging by the way Tong Fo refers to his grandfather as "grampypa" (gram pee pa), I think he did love him.
jjjSerph's sheet
. On the one hand, it sounds like he really only targets one person. One the other, he really, really, really targets her...

But are her actions necessarily heinous by standards of fairy tales?