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
You see this I get. I am sorry if I brought up something unnecessarily. I feel stupid for bringing it up.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadThen I'll abstain again. If he’d instilled that torture far more—or been shown doing so—I'd be happy to keep my yes.
I'm tempted to suggest a Both Animated and Live Action category. Probably wholly unnecessary though since most examples fit into one or the other and Osmosis Jones just happens to blur the line enough I think to have two entries, one in each.
No need to be sorry Bull. It was in good faith.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 16th 2021 at 4:51:56 AM
Hey-o, so having just finished Buffy, I wanted to take a shot at rewriting Caleb's entry - I believe he was grandfathered in, but either way his entry is a little clunky and is actually missing a few noteworthy things. Here it is now:
- Caleb is a defrocked priest turned murderer of young women, who uses the trust that people have in him to get closer to his victims, before torturing and killing them. In his first appearance, he guts one of the Potential Slayers and leaves her at the side of the road, as a message for Buffy. He then kills another one of the girls during a battle, mangles the arm of another, and puts out Xander's eye, cracking bad jokes the entire time. He also coordinates the actions of the Bringers, organizing the bombing of the Watcher Council's headquarters, resulting in most of their deaths; arranging the assaults on numerous Potentials; and trying to have Faith killed while she was in prison. A misogynistic sadist, who believes that all women are whores and deserve what he does to them, Caleb is The First Evil's right-hand man, and lives for the oncoming apocalypse, seeing the end of the world as a way to dispose of all those who do not share his mad religious convictions.
And the rewrite:
- Caleb is a defrocked priest who serves as the right-hand man of the First Evil. Having already been a serial killer of young women, Caleb uses the trust people have in him to get close to his victims, utilizing the same trick in his first appearance to gut a Potential Slayer as a message for Buffy. As the First's primary conduit, Caleb slaughters a church of innocents in search of the Slayer Scythe, blows up the Watcher's Council to kill most of its members, and coordinates the attacks on the Potential Slayers, resulting in numerous deaths and Faith being attacked in prison. When Buffy tries to fight him, he nonchalantly kills multiple Potentials himself, then gouges out Xander's eye for no reason, all while making sadistic jokes about his methods. When Buffy finds the Scythe, Caleb willingly lets himself be bolstered by the First's evil power so he can take her on one more time, then murders the last Guardian of the Scythe to spite her. As a vile misogynist, Caleb believes that his victims deserve what he does to them and willingly sets the apocalypse in motion, wanting nothing more than to annihilate all who don't share his insane beliefs.
Thoughts?
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Jul 16th 2021 at 8:02:30 AM
"…gouges out Xander's eye" could be potholed to Eye Scream.
Serial Killer can be potholed, as can "of young women" to Would Hit a Girl. And I think Psycho Supporter works instead of The Dragon.
Please add to the Drafts. I'll tweak it there.
I've copied Osmosis Jones to the live-action page. Who Framed Roger Rabbit has the same issue, but considering it's at Disney, I think that's fine (Thrax and Judge Doom are the only two in that situation).
P.S. Scraggle, mind writing up Murray and Strack this weekend? I wanna clear those trees of the Drafts if possible.
Edited by ACW on Jul 16th 2021 at 8:17:59 AM
Okay, I fixed my Bluray player (hurray). So, here's my next Darkman candidate, Dr. Alfred Hathaway from The Return of Durant.
What's The Work?
Darkman II: The Return of Durant is the sequel to Darkman. Darkman's synthetic skin research is progressing, now working with another skin scientist Dr. David Brinkman to pass the 99-minute barrier. Just as Dr. Brinkman finds the way to help Peyton's work, he is killed by a returning Robert G. Durant, who survives his fiery crash and wants to retake the city. Enter Dr. Alfred Hathaway (played by a great Lawrence Dane).
Who is Dr. Hathaway & What Has He Done?
An old friend of Durant's, Dr. Alfred Hathaway is a scientist, specifically a weapons maker of "science fact-ion." Hathaway is broken out of the mental asylum by Durant and is recruited by him to work on his pet project, the Vigilante. To show his control over the city, Durant enlisted the help of Dr. Hathaway to have had him start mass-producing one of Hathway's Vigilante.
Showing off the weapon to Durant, who watches a building blow up from its sheer power, Hathaway is thrilled, knowing he could bring a great level of destruction to the city with a new weapon. "The dawning of a new age" he puts it. He is greeted by Ivan Druganov, a former KGB agent who gives him a plutonium battery. Hathaway is pleased over the idea of using a power cell akin to a nuclear reactor for the weapon and rolls out the weapon upgrade by week's end.
When the weapon is updated, Durant has a Neo-Nazi group keen on being one of its first buyers. Mr. Perkins, the leader of the group, doesn't believe in science fiction, to which Hathaway tells him it's built-in factional scientific means, and that the weapon would be able to track and kill its intended target within 3 kilometers. Hathaway doesn't even bat an eye when Whitey, a Durant henchman, is killed after touching the plutonium carbine battery.
Hathaway shows off a successful Vigilante to Perkins and his group while singing The Battle Hymn of the Republic. However, when Darkman shows himself as Ivan and Perkins tries to leave with both Vigilantes and his money back, Hathaway shoots him dead before being killed himself.
Any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuses?
None, he may act like your Mad Scientist but beneath his exterior, Hathaway is a well-thought-out, merciless inventor whose weapons would bring the dawning of a new age.
Heinousness Standard?
Prior to his arrest, Hathaway was working on a futuristic particle assault rifle called the Vigilante. With its unlimited range and unstoppable power, it would explode anything in its direct path, houses, buildings, and people. He later updates the weapon with a plutonium carbine battery, essentially having it powered by a miniature nuclear reactor.
When Druganov shows him the power cell that basically amounts to a mini nuclear reactor, Hathaway only wants to know if "they are stable" and makes the targeting quite adapt to kill someone within a mile. The beam being able to track its track through anything, distorting their bodies like from Timecop and exploding them.
When Whitey, one of Durant's men, takes a hold of the Vigilante PAR's plutonium carbine battery, Dr. Hathaway watches as the device kills the man and only remarks he should have paid more careful with the battery.
Oh, he would be able to make a hydrogen bomb in his spare time and hates meatloaf.
Final Verdict?
Although he is a supporting character, compared to Durant, he is an easy Yes. Hathaway's weapons are thought out and merciless that would destroy entire cities and enact gang wars, all with a push of a button.
Alright, after when I am done with my next Darkman candidate, I am going to take a break from monster hunting, a lot of things are going on in my life. Best friend health, I got a job, and my mom's been sick with arthritic pain.
Edited by TBNY on Jul 16th 2021 at 8:49:04 AM
Holy crap! Thrax really did set a record! Even if not the one he intended.
Also, yeah!
to Hathaway finally!
@TBNY Good luck with all that.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 16th 2021 at 5:51:29 AM
Regarding me posting the same thing three times, it was just because for the first two times, I didn't see really see any posts commenting on if they were good enough for the page, so I decided to post again, but now I won't post again because the Dormammu one is okay, but the Zola one is meh if anyone thinks either is good enough for the page then please send the link to where the quotes would go.
Maybe. I almost didn't catch on to what was happening.
So yeah his designing the weapon also helped establish his history of messing with or literally creating his own WMDs too. Totally makes sense. I did worry making the weapons alone wasn't enough and sure enough, there was more to uncover.
@TBNY You mind if I do the writeups for both him and Rooker—in the event the latter is also approved?
@Powermaster Cool. Which ones?
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 16th 2021 at 6:02:02 AM


Abstain on Verone.