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Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

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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

AustinDR Lizzid people! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Lizzid people!
#281226: Sep 28th 2021 at 9:44:08 PM

[tup] Governor

Edited by AustinDR on Sep 28th 2021 at 9:45:35 AM

KazuyaProta Shin Megami Tensei IV from A Industrial Farm Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
Shin Megami Tensei IV
#281227: Sep 28th 2021 at 9:45:04 PM

[tup] The Governor.

Edited by KazuyaProta on Sep 28th 2021 at 11:45:34 AM

Watch me destroying my country
nwotyzal Since: Sep, 2019
#281228: Sep 28th 2021 at 9:46:16 PM

[tup]Governor (first heard of this movie on Three Hundred Sixty Six Weird Movies, is the movie fuckin weird?

Edited by nwotyzal on Sep 28th 2021 at 9:48:22 AM

therealjackieboy from Austin, TX Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#281229: Sep 28th 2021 at 9:47:25 PM

[tup] Gov Bill Moseley, another keep for him and director Sion Sono.

It's Spooky Month!
Riley1sCool Since: Dec, 2014
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
KazuyaProta Shin Megami Tensei IV from A Industrial Farm Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
RobertTYL Since: Oct, 2019 Relationship Status: Holding out for a hero
Ravok Son of Liberty from Big Shell Since: Jun, 2015 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Son of Liberty
#281234: Sep 28th 2021 at 9:53:43 PM

Easy yeah to the Governor, nasty prick, he is.

No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
Powermaster201 The Emperor of Evil! Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
The Emperor of Evil!
#281235: Sep 28th 2021 at 10:04:59 PM

Well I guess here goes

What's The Work?

Beverly Hills Cop III is the third film in the Beverly Hills Cop movie trilogy, where Axol Floyd set to avenge the death of his boss and takedown a counterfeit dollar operation in Los Angeles. The film is not as overtly comedic as the other films and has some serious moments.

Who's Ellis De Wald? What Has He Done?

Ellis Dewald, a Villain with Good Publicity, was a former police officer turned head of security of the Wonder World theme park who uses it as a memes to hide his counterfeit dollar scam operation. When the theme park designer, and close friend of the park's founder was learning of Ellis's operation, Ellis has him murdered.

He goes to a illegal chopshop to acquire a van for his scheme, ordering the massacre of all the mechanics in the shop when they served their purpose (they killed 8 mechanics onscreen). When the main character along with other cops including his boss Inspector Todd shows up, a shootout started with Ellis being the one who would kill Todd and escape. During the car chase, one of his goons got shot, and Dewald only response was to throw him off the van to be run over and accidentally killed by the protagonist.

Later on in the film, when Axol starts investigating the Wonder World theme park to find evidence of Ellis's operation, Ellis sends his goons to find him and kill him. Not caring that his men was endangering the lives of innocent people, as his men sabotaged a theme park ride that nearly killed two children and endangering the families trapped in the ride just to kill Axol. He once again endanger public lives in the park when he has his men try to shoot Axol with silencer guns in the midst of a thronging park with a lot of people in it.

He also shoot the innocent, elder creator of Wonder World, "Uncle Dave" in the gut when Axol uncovers more evidence of his crimes, and frames Axol of it, Uncle Dave would've actually died if he weren't sent to the hospital. Later kidnapping and threatening to kill the Love Interest of the protagonist if he doesn't give him the piece of mint paper they use to print the counterfeit money, heavily implying he would've killed them anyway. During the final battle, he tries to kill the main character while his men kill anyone, especially cops, they see, Dewald was later killed by Axol at the end of the film.

'Migitating Factors

The closest he ever gets to one was the fact it was mentioned he washelping underprivilage children and seen setting with them smiling in a Man of the Year ceremony. It's pretty obvious this was a ploy to keep his good publicity and a positive in front of the crowd and is not treated as redeeming by the film.

Other than that, nothing. The film sets him up as a Hate Sink and while the film has some comedy, it's kinda downplayed compared to the other films and it has more serious moments, especially Dewald being taken very seriously by the film with zero comedic moments with even the main character showing nothing but contempt for him due to the fact he killed his boss.

Heinous Standards

He's the only truly heinous villain in the film, the other villains from the previous films are standard crime lords who don't kill anyone or only having one murder (that we know of at least). Ellis on the other hand has a clear bodycount of 11, killing every mechanic in a workshop (8 to be exact), and killing a cop (thus making him a Cop Killer), and the theme park designer, who while offscreen, his death played significant importance to the film onscreen. There's also the part where he has one of his own men killed by throwing them off the van and have them run over by a car (He was shot but the man was clearly still conscious and living still).

There's also the part where he was fully willing and aware that he was endangering public lives and only gave a mere sarcastic chided to the main character, which he also made clear he was aware he was endangering the lives of children and families like the one moment his men sabotage a ride that trapped the adults and families in them just to kill the protagonist, which nearly cause the death of two children.

Final Verdict

I'll leave it up to you.

Edited by Powermaster201 on Sep 29th 2021 at 9:20:17 AM

Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
futuremoviewriter Since: Jun, 2014
#281237: Sep 28th 2021 at 10:34:05 PM

Based on the EP, [tup] to The Governor indeed.

My friend and I funny enough actually saw the trailer to Prisoners of the Ghostland this past Saturday. THAT LOOKED LIKE A FAKE MOVIE! HAHA![lol] We couldn't believe what we were seeing was real!

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Sep 28th 2021 at 10:36:06 AM

Powermaster201 The Emperor of Evil! Since: Apr, 2019 Relationship Status: A cockroach, nothing can kill it.
The Emperor of Evil!
#281238: Sep 28th 2021 at 10:39:38 PM

Almost forgot, yes to the Governor.

DemonDuckofDoom from Some Pond in Hell Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#281239: Sep 28th 2021 at 10:51:29 PM

[tup] Governor and Dewald

Edited by DemonDuckofDoom on Sep 28th 2021 at 10:51:38 AM

Clown-Face Wild Child from Canada Since: Dec, 2015 Relationship Status: In another castle
Wild Child
#281240: Sep 28th 2021 at 10:51:42 PM

[tup]Governor.

Why so serious?
magnum12 Since: Aug, 2009
#281241: Sep 28th 2021 at 11:01:17 PM

I wish to bring in counter evidence to reinstate Bernkastel as an example (her quote was an excellent page header). More specifically, counter the 3 claims used to delete her.

1. Blue-and-Orange Morality: The EP 8 Tea Party is not proof of it for one very specific reason. Bernkastel is a metafiction character with full awareness of the fourth wall, and one of the original metafictional villains before Flowey and Monica made it mainstream. More specifically, a metafictional deconstruction of how authors treat their characters. Hence a lot of her cruel 4th wall comments directed at the audience (including the page quote we originally had). Umineko has A LOT of Meta Fiction elements.

The Tea Party in question was Bernkastel making a jab at the author for reusing his characters and character archetypes.

Lambdadelta on the other hand is unambiguosly Blue-and-Orange Morality. Also aware of the 4th wall but not to the degree Bernkastel is.

2. Boredom is toxic: The counter evidence here is HOW Bernkastel deals with boredom. In cotrast with Beatrice (deconstruction of The Gad Fly and with the motivations of a Trickster Mentor) and Lambdadelta (her brand of Blue-and-Orange Morality is essentially a sentient messed up Don Bluth narrative), Bernkastel CHOOSES to inflict as much pain and despair as physically and emotionally possible.

Bernkastel is a Hope Crusher, one of the definitive Complete Monster tropes.

3. Love: Bernkastel along with Junko Enoshima is a VN text book psychopath. Psychopaths are incapable of love. The only emotions psychopaths are genuinely capable of are anger, hate, and sadism. Bernkastel’s relationship to Lambdadelta is best described as a Joker (Bernkastel) Harley Quinn situation.

Best demonstrated in EP 8 when instead of backing up Lambadelta (which is what she would do if her love was sincere), she coldly ditches her and leaves her to die.

RobertTYL Since: Oct, 2019 Relationship Status: Holding out for a hero
#281242: Sep 28th 2021 at 11:06:34 PM

Yes to Ellis.

[up] From which movie again?

Edited by RobertTYL on Sep 29th 2021 at 2:06:42 AM

Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#281243: Sep 28th 2021 at 11:08:04 PM

By the way, in case anyone is wondering the only time Ellis was talked about was in the early years of the thread with it just being an entry cut that barely described hs worst crimes

AustinDR Lizzid people! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Lizzid people!
#281244: Sep 28th 2021 at 11:10:42 PM

[up][up][up] The issue is Bern's moral agency is questionable.

RobertTYL Since: Oct, 2019 Relationship Status: Holding out for a hero
#281245: Sep 28th 2021 at 11:22:17 PM

Have Nicolas Cage played a CM at any point? Because after Ghostland, he had opposed at least twelve of them like seriously there's no end is there?

Edited by RobertTYL on Sep 29th 2021 at 2:22:55 AM

RobertTYL Since: Oct, 2019 Relationship Status: Holding out for a hero
#281246: Sep 29th 2021 at 12:00:17 AM

(misplaced post by accident, pls ignore).

Edited by RobertTYL on Sep 30th 2021 at 3:01:57 AM

G-Editor The 47th President Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Silverblade2 Since: Jan, 2013
#281248: Sep 29th 2021 at 12:10:10 AM

Possibly a contentious one but here we go.

What's the work?

Nightbooks is a recent "family friendly" horror movie (similar to The Witches or Coraline) on Netflix. It's about a young boy from Brooklyn named Alex who loves writing horror stories in a journal. One day, he sneaks out of his apartment and ends up abducted by the witch Natacha.

Who's Natacha?

The Big Bad of the movie, Natacha is a Wicked Witch who lures children in her apartment, an Eldritch Location, to enslave them into doing her chores or reading scary stories to her.

What has she done?

Once an innocent little girl, Natacha was abducted by the cannibalistic witch from the tale of Hansel and Gretel along with other children. Watching the others getting eaten one by one, she planned her escape and secretly wrote about it in many books in the library. Successfully putting her captor under a sleeping potion, she escaped the candy house. However, she ran back home only to find her parents had moved away. Alone and feeling like she had nowhere else to go, Natacha went back to the witch and then studied witchcraft under her. Until one day, she subdied the witch in a coffin, keeping her asleep in order to harvest her powers.

Taking over her Pocket Dimension, Natacha became just as evil as her predecessor. Basically, M.O is using her appartement to travel over the world and lure children in. Those who are no use to her are promptly killed. She keeps their clothes in a closet which by the beginning of the film is quite full. Those who earn her grace are either forced to perform chores in her apartment or read a scary story every night. Because in order to keep the original witch asleep, she needs her to hear a dreadful tale which are like lullabies to her, especially those with a Cruel Twist Ending. Children who earn her ire for the slightest screw up - and they all inevitably do - are transformed into figurines frozen in an expression of terror to decorate Natacha's cabinet.

So, Yazmine and three other friends were lured in. Hoping to escape, Yazmin blocked the pipe and left a note for the plumber. It failed as the witch found the note. One of her friends took the fall to protect Yazmin. By the beginning of the movie, she's the only kid left.

Natacha then seizes the protagonist Alex, needlessly scaring the kid shitless first, before asking him if he has any talent. Upon his silence, she promptly proceeds to kill him until he says he can write scary stories. She demands he write her stories and read them to her each night, or she'll kill him.

On the first evening, when Alex ends his story with a Bittersweet Ending almost causing the original witch to wake up, Natacha threatens the kid until he quickly improvises a Downer Ending. Anyway, Natacha is always unimpressed and very picky about the accuracy of the supernatural of which Alex is obviously unfamiliar.

One day, Alex and Yazmin accidentally unleash monstrous spawns in her garden and narrowly escape with their life. Natacha, using her powers, threatens them both until Alex takes the blame beofre promising that she will no longer give second chances.

Alex and Yazmine make a sleeping potion with the unexpected complicity of the cat Leonore who slips it in her perfume. It conveniently kicks in once she runs out of patience and about to transform the children.

They escape the apartment but alas the surrounding woods are just another area contained within the dimension. Natacha wakes up and holding Yazmine and Leonore hostage, she reveals both the original witch and her own backstory. She compels the boy into revealing why he almost burned his journal. Alex complies and then concludes on a happy note to wake the original witch up. The hag is obviously pissed off at Natacha and the two fight while the kids and the cat escape. The original witch overpowers her former pupil leaving her under the ruins of her lair and runs after the children.

Anyway, Alew and Yazmin leave the apartment, kill the candy witch and safety return to their parents.

However, the final scene reveals that Natacha survived and she cackles as she rises up.

Heinous Standard

I think she's over the baseline. Even though, we only see her targeting two kids because of the film Minimalist Cast, the pattern is firmly established with clothes in her closet and multiple figurines of her previous victims on her furniture.

Now for the sake of honsesty, I will admit that being turned into a figurine isn't explicitly And I Must Scream but it's strongly hinted at. Yaz warns alex that "You'd be lucky if [Natacha] kills you" and the figurines are all frozen in an expression of terror. Even if we count those as just death, then she racks a solid body count along with systematic slavery.

In-story, her competition is the first witch who ate children enough to decorate her crypt with their bones. The problem is that she only appears for the climax and only has a few lines while Natacha is the main threat and presence for the bulk of the work.

Mitigating Factors

Ok that is the trickiest part. Now for like 95% of her screen time, Natacha is a colossal Witch with a Capital "B". When she's not threatening the children or sadistically scoffing at their distress, she's physically, verbally and emotionally abusive and never grateful for their work. Even her familiar cat Lenore who snitches for her ends up on the receiving end of her abuse.

That is until we get her Freudian Excuse and I would be dishonest if I just write it off. She was once a sweet and innocent girl who loved her parents and after being abducted by the witch, she wanted to escape to see them again and was terribly hurt when they left. when she tells her story, she's uncharacteristically sad and in-universe Alex seems to have empathy. That said she brutally ends her story with "Who cares about them (my parents)?". This might imply that she's over it.

The film doesn't explain why the parents left the house. Natacha seems to jump at the conclusion that they forgot about her but, as far as we know, they could have decided to move on because they were sad about her disappearance.

Neither does the film explain why Natacha felt like she had no choice but return to the witch and then takes her place. Couldn't she try harder to find her parents ? Couldn't she try to find a new family and friends to move on with her life? or, even better, warning others about the witch and actively stop her. As far as we know, Natacha made the worst decision.

I also note that the film literally ends up with her Evil Laugh. It doesn't look like she's planning to atone for her sins and open a charity...

Anyway, I can still understand why people would find this mitigating and therefore downvote.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#281249: Sep 29th 2021 at 2:39:43 AM

Yes to the Governor.

Ellis seems like a yes, but how does he compare to the villains of the other 2 films?

Leaning yes on Natacha.

coolmaneditor Since: Nov, 2019 Relationship Status: In love with love
#281250: Sep 29th 2021 at 2:54:36 AM

[tup] to Ellis. [up]He blows the 2 previous Big Bads out of the water. One ordered one murder and attempted a few more, other just led a series of robberies and killed one of his guys to leave him behind as a scapegoat. Compared to a 10+ person bodycount... yeah no.


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