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
Got a nice, good old fashioned pulp horror novel or two a-coming!
First...
What's the work?
The Torturer is a novel by Peter Saxon (A pseudonym for the duo of W Howard Baker and Wilfred Mc Neilly)...the premise is simple: a film crew has arrived at an old castle in Castile, Spain, the old holdings of the extinct Delmorte family...and the place's been abandoned in a hurry, for sure...in fact, it turns out the place isn't abandoned. It's been occupied by young Conde Pedro, last of the Delmortes! Who...
Doesn't he....look a lot like his ancestor's portraits...?
Who is Pedro Delmorte?
No surprises for guessing, Pedro is the original Conde, "The Torturer" in a nutshell....when Max Grant and crew arrive, Pedro reveals himself and it soon becomes clear some funny business is going on. And boy, is it! Long ago, Don Pedro Delamorte was a conquistador who did some pillaging in the new Americas, except he met the cult of Quetzalcoatl and learned of dark blood arts, sacrificing numerous natives, including the wife he had taken from them....returning to Spain with his servants, Pedro kicks off a torture spree.
Basically "Bathory-But-A-Guy", Delmorte draws power from torture. By using it, he takes the lifeforce of others and steals it to transplant into himself, extending his life and youth with a magi ring as long as he avoids the sun as well. He had a tendency to offer young peasant girls jobs...but none ever came back....
One father, a man named Diego, followed his daughter and found her bound to a torture rack, being cruelly tortured until nothing remained but pulped meat. Delmorte had him imprisoned, but Diego bit through his wrist to escape the shackle, escaped and roused an army of peasants. Delmorte sacrificed his loyal servants and seemingly died, but persists even so, long after his supposed end...returning in modern day, he begins killing the film crew, torturing them to death.
All but....max's sadistic wife Petronella who reminds him of his own beautiful wife and he wants her to be his evil consort. The battle with him...oh, god, the ending...
Now, it turns out one of the film crew, John, is actually a priest and knows how to fight back...now, Pedro is fine torturing Petronella to death if he has to, but when they decide to consummate their relationship, she playfully makes him chase her...after taking the ring. It takes so long, he realizes he's out in the open when the sun is dawning and despite his frantic attempt to get back in safety, he's reduced to dust before the castle burns down.
Yes. REALLY.
Mitigating issues?
It's called The Torturer, how bad do you think the standard is? He goes well over the edge. Yeah, the only thing to discuss is his feeling for Petronella, who he's taken with...though this is only for his love for her beauty, sadism and reminding him of the wife he remorselessly sacrificed. He makes pretty clear he'd kill Petronella if he had to....yeah, not much good here.
Conclusion?
Yea to the Conde Pedro Delmorte.
The other...from the original novel The Howling by Gary Bradner...
What's the work?
The novel features Karyn Beatty, a happy suburban woman, married to a loving husband named Roy...when her idyllic life is shattered by a violent rape and miscarriage, resulting in Karyn being taken to the retreat called Drago to recover...
Shame it's full of werewolves, right? There's one villain who can keep, but in a twist? He's not part of the werewolf village.
Who is Max Quist?
A violent misogynist and handyman who's a lower class lout and vicious prick. Quist only features at the novel's intro, but we learn he has a number of rapes in his past, triggered when he witnesses women he thinks have more than he does...and his victim of the day? Karyn.
Max breaks into her home, beats her, rapes her and beats her bad enough that she has a miscarriage, beating her dog Lady for good measure and threatening Karyn's life into silence, before leaving. Karyn exposes him and tells the police. Max is arrested, connected to the other rapes and confesses, being incarcerated for the remainder of his life.
Mitigating issues?
He's a serial rapist who beats a woman so bad she miscarries. This is so short because, well...Max is barely in the novel, but he has a sequence from his POV revealing what he's done and his mindset. Shockingly, the werewolves don't get up to nearly as much evil. The only people who might are a mad scientist in book 3 (haven't read it yet)...and Marcia, who kills several people and wants to torture Karyn to death for shooting hr and destroying Drago at the end of book 1.
But yeah...nada.
Conclusion?
Kind of a basic one, but yes.
Pedro.
Max Quist.
So I have a few horror related EP's in mind for the Halloween season. Originally I was gonna do an EP for the BloodRayne comics, since I'm reading them for the MB thread, but for this thread ? I'll be EP-ing Comic!Kagan when I'm ready.
In the meantime...I might as well get this r/No Sleep guy off my chopping block. I've been sitting on this one for a while.
From the two part story Someone Tried to Kill Me When I was Young
. Monster Saved Me
(side note: I really hope No Sleepers can think of shorter titles at least, but that's just a nitpick of mine). The story's protagonist Walter, recounts an incident that scarred him as a child; while going over his troubled home life, he finds comfort in a teacher by the name of Mr. Gilad...which unfortunately segways into a scarring incident at school that left Walter and his community shaken.
Who is Mr. Gilad ? What does he do ?
So much of the first part of the story is Walter going over his troubled homelife, having an emotionally distant and verbally abusive father, and an alcoholic mother who not so secretly resents her son. Walter feels more at home in at school, especially when it comes to his friends teacher Mr. Heinrich Gilad; a friendly caring seeming man who wants the best for the students, even when they're not his (Gilad is the teacher of Walter's friend Oscar, but is friendly with Walter). One day, when Walter was late for school, Gilad takes Walter aside and listens to his problems; Gilad gives Walter advice about how people are in control of their own choices and shouldn't let others hold them back - as well as how he felt he was just "playing a part" for so long. He even invites Walter to take part in an upcoming Trivia Competition he was hosting with his class.
Notably, one of the questions for the competition is how flammable Nitrate is.
So, where do things go wrong ? On the night before the competition, Walter awoke in the middle of the night to his mother planning to kill him, before she leaves the house and her family. Already scarred by this incident, Walter's disgruntled father refuses to drive him to school, prompting Walter to walk there by himself. By the time he reaches the school, he sees the staff and students gathered outside, with a rapidly spreading fire that consumes the school and collapses it's belltower. Twenty three students were missing, along with Mr. Gilad. No one quite knows what happened at first, and Walter is sent home to his remorseful father.
Despite Walter's father trying to shield his son from this, Walter soon finds out those twenty three missing students were taken by Gilad to the basement, Gilad set the fire using a storage of film reels (nitrate) and trapped the students with him, where they all burned to death. Walter witnesses a news report getting a statement from the Principal, who says he checked the basement, but it was silent. Right as they're questioning how a basement full of children with a spreading fire could be quiet, an autopsy report reveals that Gilad scared the other students into silence by slashing the throat of Walter's friend Oscar. While Walter's father tries to keep him from watching the news, Walter learns enough and thinks back to two things; one Gilad's speech about himself feeling like he was "part of a play" and how no one should hold back on their instincts; the other being the answer to the Trivia question; Nitrate burns hotter than gasoline.
Mitigating Qualities
Not really. When Walter interacts with Gilad, the good teacher puts up a front of being a caring, fatherly man, who listens to Walter's problems and gives him uplifting advice. But as Mark Jefferson taught us, being a Cool Teacher is an easy mask. When Walter finds out the truth, he recontextualizes this advice Gilad gave him; about feeling like his life was part of an act, and his desire to act out on his "instincts''; at the end of the story, Walter realizes that Gilad was talking about his murderous instincts. He also realizes that his friendly interactions with Gilad were in the context of him luring Walter and his other students to a death trap.
Gilad briefly brings up his parents, saying they weren't nice to him and were only "holding him back", but that's about it.
As for heinousness ? He passes it for a Spree Killer, having a body count of twenty three children, immolating them and slashing one's throat to keep them quiet. Only reason he didn't get Walter was because Walter was late for school.
Is it just short schlock ?
Far from it. Length and characterization isn't an issue. The story is a two parter, with a total word count of 7029. The characterize everyone just enough; Walter's dad is a disgruntled and short patient man, but at least tries to pull through when his son is nearly killed, while trying to shelter him from the news; his mother is a resentful, passive aggressive bitch who feigns affection; all the teachers are well meaning, ill prepared and concerned for their students saftey. Pretty much all the bases are covered.
The story's focus isn't primarily on Mr. Gilad or his massacre, but rather Walter. Specifically, it puts quite a bit of focus on Walter's troubled home life, having a short patient workaholic father, and a passive aggressive alcoholic mother. In fact, Walter's mother is a Red Herring for the person who tries to kill him. According to the author, the "monster" who saved Walter's life was his mother - if she hadn't left him and his father, Walter would have ended up killed by Gilad. We don't even see the massacre itself. When it happens it doesn't go for the "LOOK HOW EDGY THIS! TWENTY THREE KIDS BURNED ALIVE!! AREN"T WE SO DARK ANF GRUSOME, GUYS ?" The focus is on how it affected everyone involved (particularly Walter) and how it shook the community. We do see the school burning and collapse when Walter arrives, and the subsequent coverage on the news.
Edited by Beast on Oct 7th 2021 at 1:16:24 AM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."Uhh…never mind.
My post original said: "Breaking some news that may have an impact later pertaining to future candidates: Sabrina's gonna crossover into Riverdale."
For one thing, it may already be known and for another, it's the show crossing into the show and not the comic.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Oct 7th 2021 at 1:45:27 AM

Btw There's Someone Inside Your House now has a page (it's supposed to be a combined page with the film).
So I guess we can crosswick for David.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."