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
From my experience of the Pitt, I wouldn't call Wernher a good or nice person, but he's not exactly a CM either.
edited 28th Aug '12 4:09:45 PM by rmctagg09
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.Well, for future reference, it's actually pretty easy to see if we've discussed an example before. Just go to the box above that's next to "Google Site Search" and type in the name of your candidate and "Complete Monster" next to it. It'll bring up on the first page all the places in this thread that we discussed the example.
For Wernher, he was brought up in @1195 (which was back in June - we have had a lot of work since then) - I think we may have been distracted because that was both in the middle of "does a Split Personality count as a Complete Monster if only one of the personalities is that bad?" (I was the only one who voted yes; so no Split Personality cases unless every personality is that bad) and the flare-up of folks pushing for Avatar The Legend Of Korra inclusions (one of our classic Single-Issue Wonk issues). I note that very few people actually gave opinions on him - I apparently didn't either. Oops.
Anyhow, based on the fact that he does apparently show some concern for a baby (leaving it for a nice family to raise it), that sounds like Wernher has at least some kind intentions and thus not a CM.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.I have an example that I would like to bring to the forum.
The suspected which (she doesn't have a name) from Black Death does many horrible things.
- Tortures and kills outsiders to cement her power over the village
- Gives them the choice to renounce God and live only to be hung out of sight once they do so
- Drugs a girl and buries her alive to be able to bring her "back to life"
- The above girl was the girlfriend of the protagonist. She shows him his girlfriend's "corpse" when he comes to town, makes him watch the "raising" ceremony and then uses her as bait to get him to renounce God.
- She gleefully informs the protagonist that his girlfriend was never really dead and killing her was murder
All of the horrible things that she does are to cement her control over the town. She provides them with "miracles" because she wants people to worship her not for anything approaching altruism.
edited 29th Aug '12 8:22:14 AM by SophiaLonesoul
Well, all the factions have been taken off the sandbox, except for the Omertas, in which I changed the entry so that the bosses would be on the list rather than the family as a whole. Also removed Wernher (although I still do believe he's a bigger asshole than Ashur*); I'll be inclined to agree with the reasoning here. Any possible cruft to remove from there before hollering a mod about the changes?
edited 29th Aug '12 8:29:18 AM by EarlOfSandvich
I now go by Graf von Tirol.I thought only The Phantom Tollbooth had a Which. Most other books have witches.
Beyond that, I need to know more about the world of Black Death. In some universes, that'd be enough. In others, it wouldn't.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Perhaps for the Enclave example we could change it to the people behind the Enclave, or would that still break the rule against organizations?
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.The setting does appear fairly dark but the only other thing that happens onscreen is the Knight Templar leader killing a woman who was going to be burned as a witch and one of the Christians gets the plague and is mercy killed. The Knight Templar kills the woman because he thinks she is innocent but that the townspeople will just burn her the minute that they leave. He clearly thinks that it is an act of mercy.
I saw the Black Death a while ago, the tone of the movie was definitely Grimdark, but the witch, her name is Langiva, was easily the worst character in the movie. She has nearly all of the heroes killed in horrifying ways including: crucifiction, disembowlment, and has Ulric torn apart by horses.
No sweat.
@32Footsteps: Thanks, also, I agree with your opinion that split personalities could count as CMs. Depending on the circumstances, of course.
@xie323: I thought the Fallout arguement seemed familiar. Sorry about that, I should've commented earlier.
edited 29th Aug '12 8:54:07 AM by OccasionalExister
Just thought that I would note that someone tried to add Leviathan from the Mass Effect 3 DLC of the same name.
First, is Complete Monster supposed to be listed on YMMV pages or just on the Complete Monster subpages?
As for why I don't believe that Leviathan is an example: the character is actually the representative of a group of Eldritch Abominations who ruled the galaxy with an iron fist millions of years ago until they created the series' main villains, who wiped most of them out. Aside from the fact that the person tried to add the Leviathans as a whole as an example (which violates the "no organizations or groups" rule), no justification was given for adding Leviathan. His/their main crimes were kiling or brainwashing people to prevent people from finding them and wishing that they were the dominant race in the galaxy once more. Suffice it to say, there are villains in the franchise who have done far worse.
edited 29th Aug '12 11:13:19 AM by lrrose
Even if you grant that the Reapers are the work of the Leviathans, evil-by-proxy (or via being Neglectful Precursors) doesn't count for Complete Monster. And a single individual that is strictly representative of its species despite being distinctly identified cannot meet the "no groups" requirement of being a CM.
edited 29th Aug '12 11:16:00 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Well the overall salient points about Complete Monster have been covered by others above, so I'll just give my agreement that the Leviathan from Mass Effect 3 does not belong on the list.
I'm thinking of combing through this thread and writing an FAQ for folks on some of the things that get covered in this cleanup. Thoughts?
Also, since I did promise - while I haven't done a playthrough of Final Fantasy II recently yet, I did refresh my memory by reviewing summaries of the game and some choice bits from the scripts. In the end, I'm going to propose we cut Emperor Palamecia from the Monster.Final Fantasy page. He is out to Take Over the World, and he's quite willing to raze kingdoms to do so. But he's not the mass-murdering psychopaths evident elsewhere in the series, he's not nearly as cruel as he could be, and he isn't out to destroy the world at all (even after he comes back from taking over Hell).
So thus, referring back to @2178
, my proposal for the page is (in order of main series, then release):
- Emperor Palamecia of Final Fantasy II - Cut
- Exdeath of Final Fantasy V - Cut (As per discussion in @2459
)
- Cagnazzo of Final Fantasy IV - Cut
- Dr. Lugae of Final Fantasy IV - Keep
- Zemus of Final Fantasy IV - Keep
- Kefka Palazzo of Final Fantasy VI - Keep
- Professor Hojo of Final Fantasy VII - Keep
- Judge Bergan of Final Fantasy XII - Keep, expand
- The Occuria of Final Fantasy XII - Cut
- Ba'Gamnan of Final Fantasy XII - Cut (not heinous enough)
- Dysley/Barthandalus of Final Fantasy XIII - Cut
- Jihl Nabaat of Final Fantasy XIII - Cut
- Orphan of Final Fantasy XIII - Cut
- Folmarv of Final Fantasy Tactics - Keep
- Algus/Argath of Final Fantasy Tactics - Cut
- Dycedarg of Final Fantasy Tactics - Keep
- Barrington of Final Fantasy Tactics - Cut
- Shinryu of Dissidia Final Fantasy - Keep
This has been pending for 27 days. If there are no objections to any of this in the next 72 hours, I'm going to do the above edits and request to lock the page. It would be nice to take care of a huge subpage in one shot.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Well, I'd put it in this thread at a suitably easy number to remember. I'm not going to do something silly like start a new thread to serve as an FAQ for the old thread. That results in folks getting hung up on various nitpicks and going there to debate the finer points of the rules, until said thread either gets sidetracked and no longer serving its purpose, or said thread loses its focus and becomes another debate on this trope, which would be redundant.
Also, it'd be much easier to say "Oh, check post @whatever in this thread for answers to those questions."
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Editing the FAQ into the OP is eminently reasonable. Or we could reboot this thread, whichever works best.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Re thread reboot, I'll try and make a reasonable FAQ for this to put in the OP, wait a mo...
What is a Complete Monster?: A Complete Monster is the most heinous villain by the standard of the story with no positive traits (including redemption or motives) whatsoever.
Why is this trope No Real Life Examples Please?: Because as the strongest Evil Trope, it's also the most controversial. Plus, there is no such thing as a 100% bad thing in Real Life.
Is the capability of making moral choices required for Complete Monster?: Basically, yes. Someone who is controlled by someone else, programmed or an animal is not a candidate.
What tropes do not go in Complete Monster?: Several. You Monster! is by the character's standards and not the story's. Nightmare Fuel and The Scrappy are about "scary" and "disliked" not "heinous".
Does Offscreen Villainy count?: No. Never. It needs to be shown or else it's not likely intended as a CM. Gory Discretion Shot can still count, though.
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Some answers to that post.
[ETA: Typo fix]
edited 10th Mar '13 12:28:18 PM by SeptimusHeap
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanI'd rather not reboot the thread - beyond the unsettled matters still present (which presents problems in a new thread, as we've seen a couple times with other scattered examples that we debated from other threads... which sadly included Syndrome of The Incredibles twice), I'd be afraid of losing much of what we have in this thread if something culled this thread by accident.
If you can edit the OP though (since Paireon doesn't participate anymore), it'd be a good place to put an FAQ.
So, topics to cover for the FAQ? Here's what I can think of (EDIT - with some expansions on what I think should be included):
- Offscreen Villainy and how it gets weighed - it doesn't count unless it's shown. "Evil actions" cannot be an informed attribute.
- Why we disqualify groups - Individuals have moral capacity. Groups do not. It is possible that each member of a group could qualify, but each one must be shown to qualify on their own.
- What the "heinous" standard means. This means that it has to be both beyond forgiveness and that nothing can eclipse how horrible such a character is in-canon. If a character is worse than anyone else but could be conceivably forgiven, they do not count. It is possible for a work to have multiple Complete Monsters, if they are more or less as bad as each other (possibly in different respects).
- The difference between You Monster! and Complete Monster.
- Can we put a character on the works page but not the trope page? Never. This is against wiki policy for any trope, not just this one. Either they qualify for the trope in both places, or they qualify in neither.
- On Alternate Character Interpretation. What is shown in-canon is all that is considered. No suppositions about "but they could have been lying" or the like is accepted. Either it's shown or it doesn't count.
- Who determines what belongs? Voting amongst all participating tropers.
Anything else?
edited 29th Aug '12 12:24:03 PM by 32_Footsteps
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

That said not having played the Pitt, I can't really say too much what is right. Looking over the page it does need a good cleaning if only to get rid of the word-cruft and get rid of the massive groups.