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
Prothero
- Destroyer (1988): Ivan Moser is a psychopathic Serial Killer. Convicted for the torture, rape, and murder of 24 women and children, Ivan survives his execution as an undead killing machine and causes a deadly prison riot killing 13 more people. When stunt woman Susan Malone gains his lustful attention, Ivan massacres the entire film crew and anyone else unfortunate enough to cross his path in all manner of brutal and sadistic ways, including burning alive, dismemberment, and disembowelment. Finally having her to himself, Ivan attempts to rape and kill her as he did the rest of his victims. Ultimately, the only things that matter to Ivan are his own lust and sadism.
One other I wanted to get as well...
What's the work?
True Blood is a rather...trainwreck of a series that began with decent quality from HBO. Taking place in the fictional Louisiana town of Ben Temps, the heroine is Sookie Stackhouse; a waitress with strange psychic abilities. Vampires have come out to the public now, seeking equal rights and subsisting on a synthetic blood substitute called True Blood...the issue being that tensions are high, many vampires not wanting coexistence and many humans not either...Sookie runs into a vampire named William "Bill" Compton, a 250 year old soldier who she's taken with...also involved are Sookie's overly promiscuous brother Jason, her shapeshifter boss Sam Merlotte, her best friend Tara Thornton and the owner of the local vampire bar, a 1000 year old viking named Eric Northman..
Now, season 4? A minor villain I think who makes it, from flashbacks? Don Santiago.
Who is Don Santiago?
A elderly vampire in both looks and age, a powerful killer who infiltrates the Catholic church with his progeny Luis Patino, Santiago continues a vampire tradition of ingratiating themselves to places of power. Unlike many others, Santiago is a brutal sadist who gleefully preys on the innocent. Utilizing the church to his benefit, Santiago has innocent women rounded up, including witches since the church can actively persecute them. Keeping them imprisoned, Santiago and his followers proceed to torture them, feed on them and rape them.
One of these witches was Antonia, a powerful witch subject to regular torture and forced to see her friends torn apart...Santiago also had them burnt alive when he was through. At one point, he specifically orders Luis to violate Antonia in the church, laughing all the while...taking advantage of this to do so for who knows how long.
In her final moments, though, Antonia prepared a spell to strike at the vampires who abused her, forcing them to follow her into death by forcing them to walk into the sun. Santiago was one of them, forced into daylight where he burnt alive, screaming in agony. Luis survived by virtue of being away at the time.
Mitigating issues?
Heinous standard...hoo boy. Yeah, um...yeah. We have Lorena, Bill's maker, who's a gleeful serial killer and kept Bill in that life with her. Queen Sophie-Ann of Louisiana who procures humans to keep as concubines she eventually disposes of when she's bored...there's Russell Edgington, the craziest vampire around who conducts most of the nastiest crimes, from numerous killings (murdering a man on camera) ...there's the entire Sanguinista religion where vampires believe humans to be food...this reaches to the vampire Authority Council where three members are coSanguinistas and commit numerous mass murders. Not even getting into the final seasons when humans hit vampires with concentration camps.
This said, Santiago is replicating some of the worst of this in the 1400s. HE's abusing the church's authority to round up innocents so he and his can feed. Which doesn't need to be fatal, and Santiago is shown overseeing it while cackling insanel.y If that wasn't enough? Throw torture and rape in the bargain. And for a guy who's 'only' a one off vampire as opposed to a godly Maenad...he's conducting mass rapes, burnings, slaughters and flashback minor baddie or not, guy is awful
He has no shown good qualities either. Luis actually seems pretty aggrieved at Antonia centuries later for killing Santiago, but Santiago doesn't demonstrate much affection beyond ordering Luis to rape Antonia while laughing about it.
Conclusion?
Probably the barest scrape by in a setting as nasty as True Blood...but still a keeper.
Edited by Lightysnake on Aug 31st 2021 at 7:28:44 AM
Has anyone took dibs for Mortal Kombat Legends: Battle of the Realms yet? I watched the movie and there are at least two candidates there.
Edited by VeryVileVillian on Aug 31st 2021 at 6:12:16 PM
So Craster's a bust. Honestly, that's mostly what I expected; I just decided to toss him out there just to be sure. This is the writeup for the actually interesting candidate.
What is the work?
Darth Vader: Hero of Naboo is the #1 most favorited Star Wars fic on FF.net, and for good reason. Basically, the story is that Darth Vader somehow gets sent back in time to the invasion of Naboo by the Trade Federation. As you can probably guess, his presence sends canon completely off the rails. Particularly the plans of one Senator Palpatine, who is the subject of this writeup.
Who is Darth Sidious? What has he done?
To the public, Sheev Palpatine is nothing more than the mild-mannered Senator for Naboo. However, in secret, Palpatine is Darth Sidious, Sith Lord and would-be conqueror of the galaxy. Palpatine was the mastermind behind the Trade Federation's invasion of Naboo, as part of his master plan (technically his and Darth Plagueis's, but Sidious plans to kill him anyway, so...).
Only problem? Sidious hadn't planned for the appearance of Darth Vader.
Vader is the one to make the first move against Sidious, by thoroughly beating Maul in a duel on Tantooine, telling him personal information on Sidious that no one should know about, and letting him escape. Maul reports back to Sidious, and tells him what Vader knew. Sidious is so enraged that he kills Maul with Force Lightning, taking him to Plagueis to be resurrected afterwards. He suspects Plagueis might have trained Vader in secret to replace him.
Upon meeting Vader in person, Sidious attempts to force his way into Vader's mind, but Vader shuts him out. All he gets from Vader is that Vader knows Plagueis's identity, which leads Sidious to assume his suspicions were correct.
Sidious, in his Palpatine guise, manages to restrain himself from doing anything rash...for now. While he engages Vader in a psychic battle of wills, the two discuss politics with Padme. Palpatine suggests calling for the impeachment of Chancellor Valorum in order to take his place. However, as he plays politics within the Senate, he remains distracted by Vader.
The next day, Vader brings almost the full power of the Dark Side of the Force against the Jedi Temple. Not as an act of war, as he actually doesn't kill anyone, but as a message to the Jedi. While Plagueis is seemingly distracted, Sidious murders him. Or so he believes, until Plagueis reveals that Sidious was never actually holding his lightsaber, but rather an illusion of one.
Sidious realizes that he's fairly screwed, so he tries to escape, while leaving a number of traps to try to kill or stall Plagueis. The results are...less than ideal. However, Plagueis doesn't immediately kill him, which Vader realizes. Vader, in hopes of ensuring Sidious's demise, tears away the Veil of the Dark Side, which had enabled the Sith to hide themselves from the Jedi.
Sidious wastes no time in flooding the minds of the Jedi with horrific visions. How horrific? Well, Master Phara Nannar describes visions of her kind being eaten by other sentient beings as the tamest of what she witnessed. Meanwhile, Sidious kills a group of Jedi who had left the Temple to spy on Vader, including Depa Billaba's sister Sar Labooda, whom he tortures to death very painfully in order to make Billaba feel her pain through the Force.
Naturally, several (22 total) Jedi Masters go after Sidious. When they get to him, Sidious gloats over having killed Ronhar Kim, a Jedi who had believed Palpatine to be a close friend. As he fights the Jedi, he uses several deadly tricks that he hadn't been able to use against Plagueis, managing to kill some of the Jedi. Vader, however, enters the fray. Sidious, intent on revenge, drops him into a vat of industrial acid, but Vader uses a Force barrier to protect himself.
Unwilling to die without taking Vader with him, Sidious uses the remains of his power to unleash a massive Force Storm, in order to destroy Vader, Plagueis, the Jedi, and at least a tenth of Coruscant (keep in mind that Coruscant has a population of between two and three trillion inhabitants, so the death toll would statistically be up to three hundred billion). Yoda is able to hold it back for the moment, and he and Vader try to close the rift Sidious had opened. Sidious fights to keep the rift open, but Vader succeeds in closing it. And before Sidious can try anything else, Darth Maul kills him.
Heinousness?
He sets the bar for the fic, but I know that's not the real question. Does he stack up to the canon standard?
Well, I'd argue he does. Sure, Sidious was responsible for far more death and suffering in canon and attempted to cause even more than that, but that was when everything was going well for him, with his plans going undiscovered until it was too late. Here, Sidious is a Villainous Underdog, with Vader already knowing his plans and being several steps ahead of him at every turn. With that taken into consideration, causing a disaster that would have carried a death toll measurable in hundreds of billions, sadistically gleeful as he does so? Yes, I would say he definitely holds up even to the sky-high Star Wars standard.
Mitigating Factors?
None that hold up. He does have a few moments where he internally acknowledges Vader as a Worthy Opponent, but he also acknowledges that it only makes him hate Vader all the more. And by the time he goes all-out, he is already dying from a Force-severing virus Plagueis infected him with, but I think we can all agree that isn't an excuse for trying to take billions of people with him.
Verdict?
I'm comfortable calling this one a keeper.
Check out my current fanfiction project.VVV, I'd delete that post. Didn't Battle of the Realms just come out, like, TODAY? Also, shit, I guess with Ordeaux banned, I'm doing that alone.
ALSO also, it won't be available to went digitally until the 13th/14th, so discussion may not be until a little after the 2 week period (don't worry, I'll try not to procrastinate like I did for the film EP
).
Yes to Sidious.
Hey thanks for that Ravok. I was feeling uncomfortable seeing Antwan getting so much support but didn't really have the confidence to speak up too much - as ever you put the points better than I ever will. Heck I forgot a lot of the funnier things he said because I was so sure he wouldn't be proposed, so when he was I was like "wait am I missing something here???"
Yes to Don Santiago and I must confess I've never read the comic of V For Vendetta. I know. I was under the impression Moore specifically wanted the villains to be fleshed out, so that there'd never be a CM from it, but I guess this guy is the exception - but I shall abstain on Prothero for my stated lack of V knowledge.

Switching to a
for Antwan
It's Spooky Month!