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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Cady
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to absolution
to Max Cady.
Funny enough I was going through that book to see if he qualified myself. Glad to see he does.
Wild Child
Cady.
Cady
- Soma Spirits: Form and Dissonance compete to conquer the world of Soma and impose an order of joyful emotions or sorrowful emotions respectively. Coveting the Sun King's power of Absolution, Form and Dissonance start a world war against him, with the resulting cataclysmic battle splitting the world and people into joy and sorrow halves. After Form and Dissonance each take over their own half of the world, they manipulate the spirits Heart and Soul into gathering fragments of Absolution's power, intending to corrupt the spirits into living weapons in order to destroy each other's domain and people. When Heart and Soul ruin their plans by recombining the two halves of Soma, Form and Dissonance team up and use Absolution to suck all of Soma into a void, seeking to kill everyone on Soma for failing their "utopian" ideals.
I’ll give a to cady
Yes to Candy
Yes to Candy, John Stearne, Ivan Moser, and Llewellyn Caswell.
No to Craster.
I have a question about the balance between a villain who is too humorous to count or not.
There was series of adventures games from the 80s and 90s called Space Quest and there was a villain named Sludge Vohaul who was the closest thing to a Big Bad the series had.
He was the secret villain behind Space Quest I, where he developed a weapon to destroy planets, but the planet he lived on Xenon, planned to use it to create suns to help out world's with dying suns, so he had aliens called the Sariens steal the weapon and planned to blast Xenon into bits. Foiled by the series main hero, Roger Wilco, he came back in Space Quest II with a silly plan to destroy Xenon with traveling insurance salesmen.
Then Space Quest 4 happened, in the far future, Vohaul takes over Xenon's supercomputer and kills almost everyone on the planet. He also turns people into cyborg slaves and that is played for horror and not laughs, with scary scenes:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khBxkEjVGhg
Now Space Quest 4 is still comedic, with Wilco traveling through sequels and Vohaul's minions being called Sequel Police. Vohaul's program is also hosted on a Leisure Suit Larry game, but in Space Quest, 4 Vohaul himself is played fairly seriously, him destroying Xenon is played for horror, not laughs and he is pretty sadistic, at one point he takes over Roger's son and says he will have to kill his son or be killed himself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khBxkEjVGhg
So would Vohaul's silly plan from Space Quest 2 to be silly for him to count or could he have evolved into a CM in Space Quest 4 or is this series too silly, despite some genuine moments of drama and horror?
There was also Space Quest 5, where a Captain Kirk parody, Captain Quirk, tries to start a zombie apocalypse, this game also has some genuine moments of horror, despite the zombies being called Pukoids. A big problem is I am sure he has moral agency, because he became a Pukoid zombie, even though he was a creep before that and the zombie apocalypse is mostly due to his corruption.
Edited by Overlord on Aug 30th 2021 at 7:48:20 AM
RIP Toriyama
Oh, also have a quickie cut suggestion, sad because I love Jeffrey Combs, but alas:
- Would You Rather: Shepard Lambrick is a seemingly-philanthropical corporate executive who invites people in financial trouble to his dinner parties so that he can make them perform unpleasant acts for his entertainment. Determined that Every Man Has His Price, Lambrick offers his guests money to play a game of "would you rather?" with every choice being a sadistic one. He has one man slowly beaten presumably to death over a stress-induced outburst at Lambrick's son; makes another slice his eyeball open; causes a third man to die of a heart attack after having his hand blown off by an M-80 firecracker; and has a woman's head held underwater until she drowns, after taunting her with the implication her husband had killed their daughter in the same manner. While Lambrick does make good on his promise to the eventual winner, it's made perfectly clear that she's been badly traumatized by his "game", something he is apathetic to.
Having just watched the film, Lambrick is a sadistic dick, but:
- 1. The entry itself says that he does keep his word at the end of his "game", and Lambrick is consistently fair through the entire outing. He offers people the real chance to leave at the start of the game before it gets bad, shows genuine respect and admiration to players succeeding or standing up for one another, and at the end, when Iris wins, he cheerfully gives her the winnings while noting that she'll be given bonuses beyond what the original prize was, noting "See? We keep our word." He's still rather arrogant about it, but there's legitimately no way to view this other than him keeping his word for honor's sake. "She's traumatized from the ordeal" matters not here—at no point does Lambrick or anyone else imply he's showing her Cruel Mercy by letting her live. He's truly impressed with her victory and shows it.
- 2. And most damningly, when his psycho son Julian tries to rape Iris, Lambrick is genuinely shocked and repulsed, taking time to pull Iris aside and say in a completely comforting, gentle tone "I am dreadfully sorry for what took place in that basement. Since the loss of his mother...my son lacks, well...restraint. Please. My apologies." There is zero hints of Lambrick's normal Faux Affably Evil nature in this scene, and he even seems to not kill Iris for trying to escape—which he is fine doing to other players—specifically because she had just endured the Attempted Rape. He's not pissed at her for stabbing his son for it, he's not shouting at her for trying to escape, he's actually apologetic.
So yeah, an already-questionable personality trait of being fair and following through on his word coupled with genuine remorse for his son's Attempted Rape of Iris, he's gotta go, methinks.
Edited by Ravok on Aug 30th 2021 at 7:47:07 AM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Goodbye, Shep
The Emperor of Evil!
Cut Shepard
Edited by Powermaster201 on Aug 30th 2021 at 10:48:42 AM
That sounds damning, so cut away (not like Combs has no other villains)
@Overlord This isn't a for certain answer, but from what I'd seen say both those guys to kinda have enough.
Edited by nwotyzal on Aug 30th 2021 at 7:55:05 AM
The Draftsman of Doom
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oh, they have the deeds and are easily the most heinous villains in the series, the only issue is whether Space Quest is too silly to have keepers or not, Space Quest is pretty silly, but it did blend comedy with horror later on. Quirk may have agency issues, but Vohaul does not.
Edited by Overlord on Aug 30th 2021 at 7:57:59 AM
I can sort of understand how he still got up with that first bit, but how was the second bit never mentioned?
Yeah, cut Sheppard
to Stearne, Moses and Cady.
RIP Toriyama
The original effortpost mentioned the rape but brushed it off with "he's just upset the game was disrupted."
Completely ignoring the extensive, actually shocking (given who he is) apology he delivers to Iris over it. Which even the trope page tries to brush over by saying him being sadistic in other areas means he's a Hypocrite about it and it's not redeeming...soooooooooomehow.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Showtime!
Cut Shep
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Is anyone gonna address Overlord's plight?
Edited by nwotyzal on Aug 30th 2021 at 8:09:19 AM
Lizzid people!
Probably depends on how it's conveyed in response to Overlord's question.
Cut Sheppard
Is there any point in E Ping Vohaul, he is too silly in Space Quest 2, he might have a shot by Space Quest 4.
Space Quest 5 has the same blend of horror and comedy Space Quest 5 had, but I wonder if Quirk becoming a Pukoid zombie affected his agency, most people cured of the virus return to their normal moral state, though Quirk dumping toxic waste caused this problem in the first place and he just did that for money.
Edited by Overlord on Aug 30th 2021 at 8:16:55 AM
I'd say he goes from serious, to silly, to serious again So I'd say at least an EP would be nice.
Fair enough.
Captain Quirk is kinda interesting, more competent than Zapp Brannigan (another Kirk parody), but still incompetent, but more actively evil.
Lizzid people!
Also a yes for Book!Cady.
Switching to a![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]")
on Absolution.