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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:

     Previous Post 
Complete Monster Cleanup Thread

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] 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

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#27126: Jun 27th 2014 at 9:39:56 AM

Did you read what I put? Churchill was the one who helped set the operation up, and throw in the torture and murder he gets up to.

There's no overshadowing issues here. I'd say equal heinousness all around, especially as Penny was prepared to give Paul her own son

Morgenthaler Since: Feb, 2016
#27127: Jun 27th 2014 at 10:09:09 AM

Here's another film I think needed to be discussed: the Jean-Claude Van Damme action movie Death Warrant. Reviewing the villains, I think it manages to have three seperate (technically four) keeps who all independently qualify.

The plot concerns an organ harvesting operation taking place in a prison that Van Damme's character Burke is sent to investigate as an undercover cop pretending to be an inmate. He discovers that the authorities and the guards are in on it for a lucrative scheme to sell life to the highest bidders.

There are about five villains: the attorney general who masterminded it, the warden, the doctor who collected the organs, a serial killer known as "the Sandman", and two cons who conspire to kill the victims with the guards. The mastermind is an easy cut, as he did it mostly to save his beloved wife, who badly needed a new heart but couldn't get one. The doctor is less sympathetic, but he's mostly a nebbish guy who is outclassed by the other guys and probably also felt he was doing something good.

First candidate: the Sandman is a psychotic serial killer who is caught in the opening by Burke for killing his partner. We see a hacked-up victim in Sandman's lair, while a bloodied doll lying around subtly implies that he also killed children. He's shot and arrested, but is sent to Burke's prison near the climax to off him. He takes the opportunity to release all the prisoners and start a riot against his masters' wishes, knowing all the death that will ensue. He kills one of Burke's friends inside, and threatens to kill another (previously wounded) one if they don't have a duel to the death.

Second candidate: The Warden is a sadistic, racist bully who serves up his own prisoners to the doctor for their organs, apparently solely for profit. He abuses his power constantly and has no problem killing anyone else to cover this up, hunting Burke and his two allies down near the end to kill them. He also ordered all the murders of the two below.

Third candidate: This is actually a duo, but we also have candidates like Captains Frye and Darrow and the Salamanca twins written-up, because for the purposes of the plot they're completely interchangeable and would make no difference if it were just one person. They're a white and latino inmate who perform most of the murders for the organ harvests and kill most of the snitches who revealed their plot, burning one alive and stabbing most of the others to death, including a tranvestite inmmate they carved up.

They're all utterly vile, get no redeeming traits and don't overshadow each other. The only motive any of them ever get is greed and sadism. It's not even a work that is so dark that no one can qualify: it's contemporary America, not a near future Crapsack World setting or somesuch.

edited 27th Jun '14 10:19:07 AM by Morgenthaler

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#27128: Jun 27th 2014 at 10:41:45 AM

[tup]Warden (especially as he orders the killings done by the duo)
[tup]To said duo.
Leaning [tup] for Sandman, but not as confident as the others.
Although (and this is more to Lighty's examples), we wanna avoid having a glut like for Eight MM; I don't remember the details of the discussion, but Eddie Poole and Dino, who procured the "talent" and directed the snuff films, were cut; only the actually killer The Machine remained.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#27129: Jun 27th 2014 at 10:59:50 AM

Three fleshed out entries is not a glut, IMO. 8MM listed literally every villain with practically no content

Morgenthaler Since: Feb, 2016
#27130: Jun 27th 2014 at 11:12:03 AM

And in Death Warrant's case, there are obviously disqualifiers, like the mastermind for redeeming traits and the doctor for failing on heinousness. In a (usually) non-serial medium like film it just takes a real balancing act to have two stand-outs, let alone three. The only other one I currently see on the list that managed that is District 9.

edited 27th Jun '14 11:12:45 AM by Morgenthaler

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#27131: Jun 27th 2014 at 11:25:19 AM

Rewrites for Secret Circle, with Word Cruft and spoilers removed (Blackwell could use more detail):

  • Eben is the leader of the witch hunters. He's bad enough when we first see him in a flashback that reveals that he and his men murdered the members of the old Circle by pretending to want peace and tried to kill John Blackwell, but he gets even worse when he turns out to have survived the fire, only with nasty scarring, and proves bent on killing every witch alive, even those who have never heard of him, for absolutely no good reason. He doesn't bat an eye at using magic provided by a resurrected and psychotic Nick to brainwash Cassie into trying to kill her father and to escape an attack by the Circle that should've killed him outright. Later, he summons and absorbs multiple demons for their power, no doubt driving him even crazier. This is after he sacrifices one of his own men to a demon and using him to lure Blackwell and the Circle into a death trap that just barely fails. According to another witch hunter, he's even killed off Isaac. Then he kidnaps Faye, fully intending to murder her and her covenmates.
  • We also have John Blackwell. Season 1's finale, "Family," reveals his master plan to use the Crystal Skull to kill all witches without Balcoin blood and create a truly dark Circle. He even tries to kill Adam, who's already dying from the spell, in front of a helpless Cassie and Diana.

edited 27th Jun '14 11:29:47 AM by ACW

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#27132: Jun 27th 2014 at 3:28:51 PM

TV is now all done and re-folderized; I left the entries needing work by themselves on the bottom.
Question: Which looks better? Having Buffyverse (Angelus), Buffy (Caleb), and the Angel entries by themselves, or as follows?

  • Buffyverse: Described by one of the most ancient, powerful and evil vampires (Buffy's Season 1 Big Bad The Master) as "The most vicious creature he'd ever met" Angelus set the standards for evil in the Buffyverse. For centuries, Angelus was the scourge of Europe with countless murders, rapes and torture to his name. Angelus kicked off a career in evil with the murders of his own family. Refusing to kill a longstanding nemesis vampire hunter, Angelus contented himself by murdering the man's wife and baby son, turning his young daughter into a vampire to force her own father to destroy her. His self-admitted masterpiece was seducing a pious, tormented girl with psychic powers, murdering her family and driving her to a convent before slaughtering everyone in the walls and turning her into a vampire to preserve his insane, broken work of art forever. When his soul is lost again, Angel delights in psychologically tormenting his former beloved Buffy's friends and family out of disgust for the human feeling Buffy gave him. The ultimate culmination of this was his brutal murder of Jenny Calendar, leaving the corpse for her lover Giles to find in a parody of a romantic rendezvous. Angelus's evil extended to his hope of awakening a demon to suck all of humanity into a hell dimension for eternal torture, solely for the fun involved.
    • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Season 7's last five episodes introduced Caleb, the only villain in the series to rival Angelus in depravity. A defrocked priest turned Serial Killer of young women, Caleb 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. He also gets a real kick out reenacting his murders with the shape shifting First. Perhaps the most frightening thing about Caleb, however, is that he is human, with nary a supernatural excuse, nor a Freudian Excuse, in sight.
    • Angel:
      • Marcus from season 1's "In the Dark" is hired by Spike to extract information from Angel on the whereabouts of the Gem of Amarra, a magical ring that gives Vampires complete invulnerability from harm and their usual weaknesses, such as sunlight. A man obsessed with the "art" of torture, Marcus is rumored to have inspired some of the more favored and gruesome techniques used through history. Serenely, playing Mozart in the background, Marcus falls into a rhythm of torturing Angel, impaling him with hot pokers then asking Angel what he truly wants. When Angel refuses to answer, the cycle begins again, each time with Marcus hoping to truly break Angel and lay his soul bare. He also burns Angel with sunlight and forces him to suspend himself in the air with his chains in order to avoid being incinerated. Marcus is also a pedophile who specializes in feeding on and molesting children, and, after Marcus betrays Spike and takes the ring for himself, the first thing he does with his newfound invulnerability is attempt to murder a group of boy scouts, only being stopped due to the timely arrival of Angel.
      • From season 1's "I've Got You Under My Skin," Angel and his gang try to exorcise a demon from Ryan Anderson that had been causing him to start fires and attempt to murder his own sister. The twist comes when after being ejected from the boy, the demon reveals that it was trapped inside the child's body and the boy was so twisted, cruel, and malevolent that the otherworldly monster was actually afraid of him. Angel barely manages to get to the boy's home to stop him from succeeding in burning his sister alive.
      • Billy Blim from season 3's "Billy" appears to be a normal young man, but he is actually a demon filled with an extreme power of misogyny and had the power to turn any man he touched or who came in contact with his bodily fluids into someone extremely savage and brutal toward anyone female. He had no real reason to be doing this; rather, he appeared to do it only for his own sheer amusement. The fact that the normally very cold and amoral Lilah took him out says volumes as to how horrible he was.

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#27133: Jun 27th 2014 at 4:08:46 PM

[up]That isn't very easy to read.

Cakeman Since: Dec, 2012
#27134: Jun 27th 2014 at 4:11:52 PM

Should we add Tabitha's Parents on the Total Drama Letterz YMMV page? They're abusive parents that brutally beat their daughter for years to the point of permanent scarring. They also took the interns in the fanfic hostage and threatened to kill them all if she didn't submit to their demands.

Tabitha's Father also admitted to hiring hitmen to murder fellow businessmen, though that was offstage villainy.

I noticed that a bunch of entries were removed from said page and wondering if they counted...

edited 27th Jun '14 4:12:52 PM by Cakeman

Serocco Serocco from Miami, Florida Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
Serocco
#27135: Jun 27th 2014 at 4:48:52 PM

I, uhhh, can't edit on the subpages.

In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.
Irene (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
#27136: Jun 27th 2014 at 4:56:52 PM

Are the subpages locked? If so, bring the item to the "Edit Requests for Locked Pages" thread, with the exact writeup.

Shadow?
Serocco Serocco from Miami, Florida Since: Mar, 2010 Relationship Status: Faithful to 2D
Serocco
#27137: Jun 27th 2014 at 5:21:41 PM

Eighinn Stossuhl has now been added to the Complete Monster page under Other Media and Web Original.cool

edited 27th Jun '14 5:22:27 PM by Serocco

In RWBY, every girl is Best Girl.
TheOverlord Since: Jan, 2015
#27138: Jun 27th 2014 at 8:38:05 PM

I say [tup] to the trio of villains from Back to Brooklyn.

Also here are a few things that need some clean up:

Superman Animated Darkseid has a Pet the Dog moment in his character sheet:

"Pet the Dog: As unbelievable as it sounds, he does this at one point. After Bruno Mannheim installs an explosive at an important laboratory with the help of a few Parademons on Darkseid's orders, Darkseid leaves Mannheim to die in the explosion, but right before doing so, he uses his Omega Beam to teleport the Parademons to safety."

That seems more like Pragmatic Villainy then an actual Pet the Dog moment, why allow 3 perfectly useful and loyal warriors to die for no good reason, Manheim was left to die because Darkseid had no more use for him. Darkseid has no problem sending Parademons against various heroes and villains in the JLU finale and the villains were willing to kill them, Darkseid did not seemed concerned, so I doubt he truly cares about the Parademons.

Also there is this for CM Transformers villain Dylan Gould:

"Even Evil Has Standards: He tells Soundwave to ease off on using his tentacles on Carly. Perhaps even he was squicked out by them."

I have not seen that movie, I stopped watching the Transformer movies after the second one, anyone care to comment on this?

Also just to discuss him, I assume that Parallax from the Green Lantern movie is more of a Generic Doomsday Villain rather then a true CM. Would anyone agree with that?

edited 27th Jun '14 8:43:07 PM by TheOverlord

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#27139: Jun 27th 2014 at 8:48:33 PM

[up] Gould was apparently in lust with Carly so it could be that he wanted her for himself. I've never seen it though.

edited 27th Jun '14 8:52:12 PM by HamburgerTime

TheOverlord Since: Jan, 2015
#27140: Jun 27th 2014 at 8:51:33 PM

[up] That makes sense, we should amend Gould's character sheet to reflect that then. Has anyone here been brave enough to sit through the entire movie to confirm this?

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#27141: Jun 27th 2014 at 8:56:19 PM

@Lightysnake

If Paul wasn't interested in raping his nephew does that qualify as a redeeming trait, however slight?

TheOverlord Since: Jan, 2015
#27142: Jun 27th 2014 at 8:59:59 PM

[up] I have not read the comic in question, but maybe Paul was simply not attracted to his nephew, that seems more like a matter of taste then morality. A Serial Killer doesn't have to kill everyone they meet to be a CM, you make the same argument for a Serial Rapist. I still think Paul counts as a CM.

edited 27th Jun '14 9:37:35 PM by TheOverlord

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#27143: Jun 27th 2014 at 9:17:22 PM

Given Paul was willing to use Michael as a hostage and possibly murder him? Doubt it.

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#27144: Jun 27th 2014 at 9:45:58 PM

[up][up]Lightysnake had not specified it was a whim, and the way he'd written it, made it sound like Paul passed up the opportunity for ethical reasons. A serial criminal doesn't have to hurt everybody they meet in order to qualify, but they can never refrain from a crime for moral reasons.

Anyway, since I think we had enough votes, here are the write-ups for novel!Jerjerrod and Jenna Zan Arbor.

  • Few Star Wars villains have had a career as varied as that of Jenna Zan Arbor. A Mad Scientist fascinated by The Force, Jenna first appeared in Jedi Apprentice, where she captured, tortured, and killed in an effort to work out how their abilities operated. Found out and pursued by the Jedi, she fled to the planet of Belasco, where she infected their water supply with a bacteria that would kill millions unless she was paid to "discover" the cure. Arrested and imprisoned, Jenna escaped custody in Jedi Quest, and allying herself with gangster and terrorist Granta Omega, set herself up as a drug dealer, before joining his effort to poison the entire Galactic Senate. When Omega died, Jenna joined the Separatists, manufacturing chemical weapons—including the gas that Durge used on Naboo's moon—for them, before changing her allegiance to the Empire at the end of the war. At the time of her eventual execution by Darth Vader, Jenna was part of the Death Star project, and was engaged in experiments in mind and memory manipulation. Void of ethics, and interested only in profit and fame, Jenna Zan Arbor was prepared to do anything, however depraved, to satisfy her curiosity.

  • The non-canon novelization of Return of the Jedi has its version of Moff Jerjerrod. Portrayed as an arrogant, self-important Sociopathic Soldier who joined the military for the violence, Jerjerrod saw the Rebel Alliance as something smaller and weaker than himself that he could bully with impunity. As commanding officer of the second Death Star, Jerjerrod was an enthusiastic participant in Emperor Palpatine's plan to exterminate the Rebels, viewing it as an exercise in total annihilation; his one regret was that the end of the Rebellion would mean the end of the war he loved. When the Emperor and Darth Vader were slain, Jerjerrod, enraged at the Rebels for fighting back ordered Death Star II to obliterate Endor, intending to butcher not only the Rebels and the Ewoks, but his own men, and every other sentient lifeform on the moon, out of a desire "to incinerate something green and living, gratuitously, meanly, toward no end but that of wanton destruction. A small act, but deliciously satisfying." A petty, sadistic man with a big gun, Jerjerrod was among the cruelest and most vindictive officers the Imperial Navy had to offer.

How do those look?

TheOverlord Since: Jan, 2015
#27145: Jun 27th 2014 at 9:58:43 PM

[up] Fair enough, I just interpreted what Lighty wrote in a different way, that Paul chose to spare his nephew in that instance on a whim.

Also those are very good write ups.

edited 27th Jun '14 10:09:29 PM by TheOverlord

Snailfish Silver Shamrock's Halloween three from Santa Mira, California Since: Oct, 2013 Relationship Status: Love is for the living, Sal
Silver Shamrock's Halloween three
#27146: Jun 28th 2014 at 5:34:37 AM

I'd suggest a rather overlooked example from Batman:

  • While Clayface/Matt Hagen from BTAS is regarded as a grotesquely tragic figure, his first comic counterpart, Basil Karlo is something else entirely. Once a famous horror movie actor, Karlo was enraged when his best film was being remade, and proceeded to murder the cast and crew in revenge. Years later, Karlo is freed from prison by two other "Clayfaces" (Sondra Fuller and Preston Payne) and together the three seek revenge. During this, he has Fuller torture Batman in an attempt to drive him insane, and later betrays his teammates so he can steal their powers and become "The Ultimate Clayface." Before Batman and Looker defeat him, Karlo horrifically melts the doctor who helped give him his powers and tries to do the same to them. In "No Man's Land, his antics are even worse, kidnapping and torturing Poison Ivy and forcing the innocent children she rescued to grow valuable vegetation for him. A recent one-shot story even has him starting a suicide cult of the kids who still idolize him. Unlike the other "Clayfaces", Karlo enjoys every moment of being a monster and only cares about glorifying himself.

All witches, all skeletons, all jack O Lanterns, gather round your TV set, put on your masks, and watch...watch the magic pumpkin, Watch...
AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#27147: Jun 28th 2014 at 6:26:44 AM

[up]Bad, but probably outdone by Joker and Black Mask in the heinous department.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#27148: Jun 28th 2014 at 6:40:49 AM

[up]Well...I think Joker probably outdoes the other 3; while as Serial Killers Zsasz and James Jr. are worse, but how many victims does Black Mask have compared to Clayface?

[nja]For Buffy Verse I got rid of the subheadings, but still have Angel below Buffy since it's all the same franchise.

edited 28th Jun '14 8:25:09 AM by ACW

Morgenthaler Since: Feb, 2016
#27149: Jun 28th 2014 at 8:56:26 AM

For the trope misuses that Overlord brought up on the previous page, I'll second a cut.

Similarly, Darkseid contains this:

  • Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Darkseid really did love Sulli. It's the only reason he always gives their son Kalibak another chance to prove himself.
    • Subverted when one of his concubines recognizes his Hidden Depths. He promptly kills her because she found them, and no one must see Darkseid's emotional weakness.
  • Even Evil Has Standards: Even when you're the god of evil, you have to draw the line at Sleez hypnotizing people so he could film sex tapes with them. Possibly not because it was too evil, but because it was too petty.

And for Mr. Sinister under X-Men Villains:

  • Even Evil Has Standards: The reason he betrayed Apocalypse in the first place was the fact that the latter wanted him to engineer a genocidal plague to unleash upon humanity. Sinister didn't really do this out of any sense of morality however; he just considered it ignorant and bad science.

The last one looks like clear misuse, but are Darkseid's entries accurate, is it just misuse or is this another case where it's Depending on the Writer with comics?

edited 28th Jun '14 8:57:02 AM by Morgenthaler

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#27150: Jun 28th 2014 at 9:12:02 AM

Yeah, absolutely misuses.

I think Clayface there may count


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