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
A happy yes to Mr. X. I'll be researching soem Marvel ones as well.
Also...
What's the work?
Tenebre is a 1982 Giallo film directed by Dario Argento. The film is set in Rome when novelist Peter Neal is there to research his next novel...only to become embroiled in a hunt for a serial killer who is evidently utilizing his works as inspiration. Thre's a ton of metatextual stuff in Tenebrae, informed by criticism and death threats Argento had received. The film was considered a "video nasty" in the UK, but it's since been Vindicated by History and critics consider it one of Argento's best. Now let's talk the true monster...
Peter Neal.
Who is Peter Neal?
The seemingly very respectable novelist working on his novel "Tenebrae." Neal is friendly with his agent Anne, seemingly a decent fellow...but this is a mask for an insatiable and brutal bloodlust within. W Hen he was a young man, a girl humiliated him and he murdered her. The murderer at first is a book reviewer named Christiano Berti who runs amok on a series of murders...
Entranced by the killings and feigning disgust, Neal instead reaches out to Berti to assist, deciding this is all a beautiful work of "novel" like his works. Upon a number of killings by Berti, Neal secretly dispatches the murderer, who's now a loose end. But Neal isn't satisfied and begins stalking and murdering others where Berti left off, with no purpose. He murders his wife Jane's lover, then his wife Jane. His assistant Gianni realizes something is up and Neal garrotes him in his car.
Neal also murders another cop before being cornered by the remaining inspector and his assistant/lover Anne before slitting his throat. However it turns out he used a prop and impales the inspector from behind, deciding to murder Anne with an axe...but happenstance wins out and she accidentally dislodges a metal sculpture that collapses and impales ashocked Neal, killing him but also leaving Anne traumatized by all the events of the film.
Mitigating issues?
Added all up, Neal has about six personal and very brutal murders, coupled with assisting another spree and a plan to keep going...I don't think heinousness is an issue, particularly with a Giallo that was so influential to the genre.
The twist he's the villain is quite vital, but it exposes Neal as a depraved sociopath who only cares for crafting his "novel" through bloodshed and depravity. He seems to care for Anne, only to plot to murder her without remorse and most of his kils are people who trust him.
Conclusion?
Keep him
Yes to X, honestly no to the Thrax image - I can't tell what's going on in it
Also, ACW, I just realized that Sauron's recent character page doesn't actually include his film incarnation - that's still kept on the film's separate character sheet. The page only includes his various literature incarnations, so you should probably not link it on the Film section of the page since it's technically going to the wrong place.
Of course a big 'Yes' to Neal, great work! And with thanks to Lighty for watching the movie together and collaborating, here's Neal's opposite in the film:
Who is Christiano Berti? What has he done?
A fanatical fan of Peter Neal's work and his novel Tenebrae in particular, Christiano Berti takes inspiration from the novel to become hellbent on punishing the "deviants" of society, and functions as the Disc-One Final Boss of the flick.
Berti opens the film by spying a woman caught shoplifting...following her home, Berti sadistically nonfatally stabs her, stuffs pages of Tenebrae down her throat, then slashes her neck so she drowns in blood and suffocates on the pages.
Beginning to send taunting letters to Peter Neal about the slaying, Berti continues. He invades the home of a lesbian journalist who has been very critical of Neal's work, where he slashes her to death with his trademark razor blade, after which he attacks her lover and butchers the woman.
Continuing to stalk more women and make lists of his upcoming victims, Berti stumbles across a young teenage girl who stumbled into his home by accident and found his secret room, where he keeps creepy snuff photos of the women he's killed and other paraphernalia. Berti grabs a hatchet and hacks the girl to death for her trouble.
Berti ends up trying to burn all his evidence while, to his delight, apparently "allying" with Neal for further killings, his work having "inspired" Neal... unfortunately, even as Berti gleefully brags to Neal about how he "killed them all!", Neal buries an axe in Berti's head to dispose of him so he can take his place as the killer...see above for details on that!
Freudian Excuse or other redeeming features?
Nada, Berti's just a creepy Knight Templar hack who claims to be totally PC in public, but harbors deep-seated prejudices that he "relates" to in Neal's book.
Heinousness?
Neal's got him beat in total innocent victim count here, with Berti having at least 4 compared to Neal's at least 6, but Berti's slayings are brutal enough to stick out and he's got intent for many, many more, he just never gets there—unlike Neal who had a set amount of targets, Berti just intended to kill kill kill until his raging phobic/ist side was content.
Final Verdict?
Methinks a Keep!
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!On Sauron: Fair enough (same applies to the Shadow of Mordor incarnation too I think). I'll just use Evil Overlord.
Yes to Neal (I hate those accidental deaths).
Berti himself a candidate?
Edit: And as I was posting that, he was proposed
Yes to him.
Edited by ACW on Sep 20th 2021 at 11:02:34 AM
Just a heads up, some guy keeps rewriting my recent Damon entry, mainly replacing the last sentence with this one:
- Damon Ricotello is a former game designer and CEO of Utopina who previously beat his co-worker Dr. Juvenile to near death to seize control over the video game Serious Moonlight because he didn't want his work going to waste. A petty businessman who remade Santa Destroy to his liking with hopes of ruling the world, Damon summons his childhood friend Prince FU and his Galactic Assassins to Earth to take revenge on Travis Touchdown for beating him into submission. While supposedly uneasy over FU's plans of Earth's destruction, Damon lets it all slide, willing to put the entire world at risk just as long as Travis is killed. Once Travis makes his way to FU and defeats him, Damon kills FU in his child form, coldly dismissing him as nothing more than a tool before attempting to kill Travis himself.
Thing is? I actually prefer this last sentence better than what I came up with. Mind if we replace what I had done with this one?
Edited by therealjackieboy on Sep 20th 2021 at 11:04:17 AM
It's Spooky Month!Uh, first call the troper here for engaging in an Edit War without justification, but heck, if you're good, I'm good.
Saying yes to Paul. I sadly am gonna say no to Berti—copycat killer types are always tricky for me because the copycat's gotta really stand out compared to the original, and in this case Paul has him beat in body count snd equally matched in genre sadism. When it's the two killers in direct competition, I'm going for the guy that inspired and helped out with the first rampage (thus putting at least a partial culpability for them on Paul's head as well) and then decided to become just as bad if not worse on his own.
That Berti "intends" to keep killing isn't convincing me because that a killer intends to keep killing is usually a given in most murder-mysteries/horror flicks; I'm not including theoretical victims on his rapsheet unless he actively attempts to kill them onscreen.
Edited by Scraggle on Sep 20th 2021 at 12:16:29 PM

to X
HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA