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
- Sundown: The Vampire in Retreat: Ethan Jefferson is a psychotic vampire supremist. Viewing Mardulak and his repentant vampires as 'domesticated abominations', Jefferson hatches a plan to wipe out the entire town using special wooden bullets and an army of crooks he's converted into vampires, who he doesn't care if they live or die. In the process, he condones Shane's desire to rape and claim his old flame as his own. After Jefferson's attack kills much of the town and results in the deaths of many of his men, Jefferson takes one of Mardulak's friends hostage to force them to stand down, only to try and execute them all anyway. Jefferson embodies everything Mardulak seeks to get away from, and enjoys every second of it.
Edited by Godzillawolf on Nov 14th 2021 at 2:52:20 PM
for Mercer. He kills 4 in the films.
As for Grief, my thoughts are that he doesn't quite meet the mark though he comes close by trying to establish worldwide apartheid (and I had strongly considered him years ago). Strong candidate for Hate Sink though since he's primarily defined by his racism.
Edited by k410ren on Nov 14th 2021 at 2:59:35 PM
"I'll show you the Dark Side." CM actors and killsRight, so, here's the thing on that Price of Freedom's take on Beckett: if we took the book into account for Beckett, Beckett wouldn't be counting anymore. He's given a very rough backstory courtesy of pirate torment and his father being an asshole, and a rock solid redeeming feature in regretting his older sister and mother's deaths.
But here's the thing: best I can figure from research and the fandom, the novels often contradict each other in areas, and while Beckett's backstory itself I don't think is ever properly contradicted, enough details amidst the novels are working against each other that I think we're fine chalking this up to Depending on the Writer for Beckett and just not mentioning him or his crimes from the novel in his film entry.
Mercer I'm giving full credit for being pretty much the exact same character in both book and movies just with added crimes, but Beckett is written considerably different in several areas from "muh tragic backstory" to even just personality, so I'm not really keen to cut film!Beckett over it. He counts in the movies, and can stay on for the movies alone, imo.
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Yes, because as I said, Mercer is played as the same and written very similar to canon with this being one of his only novel outings, while Beckett is given a very weird backstory and written different even personality wise across other novels, too...we do with this comics all the time with Depending on the Writer, counting the actions of a villain in an arc where another villain might not quite land. If we want to be nitpicky about this, then we can just list Mercer based on Price of Freedom, but I'm not seeing the issue, and am absolutely not gonna see film!Beckett get cut over it.
Edited by Ravok on Nov 14th 2021 at 12:17:43 PM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
to Conrad and Mercer.
Hey guys so got a candidate from a movie I just saw called No One Gets Out Alive so lets talk about it
What’s the Work?
No One Gets Out Alive is a movie based on the novel where Lighty found and proposed Fergal. Basically, the film revolves around an undocumented Mexican immigrant who moves into a boarding house in Cleveland Ohia after her mother’s death. However Ambar discovers the darks secrets of the house she’s currently staying at that eventually traces to this man, Becker.
Who is He? What Has He Done?
Becker is one of the landlords of the boarding house that would sacrifice the tenants in the house to the monster, aka the Aztec goddess, Ītzpāpālōtl. He would have his brother Red, whom Becker abused and forced Red to partake in these killings lure poor and desperate women into staying in house where Becker would sacrifice them to the monster having it devour his tenants heads and in return Becker is given good health.
Also all of tenants that Becker fed the monster to are trapped in the house as ghosts unable to move on to the after life with the high number of ghosts trapped in the house (probably in the dozens) confirming that Becker has a very high body count, long before Ambar arrives becomes an tenants of the house.
When Ambar learns of Becker’s atrocities and the women he killed, Becker imprisons Amber in a room along with two Romanian woman, one of whom Becker already feeds the monster to and when Amber’s uncle Carlos comes to the house and tries to save Ambar, Becker would proceed to brutally beat Carlos until he dies.
Becker would then take Ambar to be sacrificed to the monster, only for the monster to spare Ambar. Ambar would then try to save the last Romania girl from becoming Becker’s latest sacrifice, only for Becker to smash Ambar’s ankle and throw the Romanian woman off the balcony, killing her.
Becker would then personally tries to strangle Ambar to death taking great joy watching her slowly suffocate to death by his hands, only for Ambar to find a way to kill Becker, thus ending his atrocities for good.
Frudian Excuse? Redeeming Qualities? Other Militating Factors?
All that was known about Becker was that his father was an archeologist who found the box containing the monster which Becker would use to sacrifice countless women so that Becker may be supplemented with good health. That’s it!
Becker himself has never shown to love or care about his father and mother, having killed them so that he can be in charge of the ritual sacrifices while showing absolutely no love for his brother whom Becker constantly abuses into submission merely views Red as a tool for Becker can use and dispose showing no concern or care about his brother when he’s seemingly killed.
Red does say that Becker does suffer from some kind of physical sickness, but that’s never been given any proper detail and is never regarded as a proper justification on why he commits his atrocities in the least especially since he could have easily gone to a hospital who can treat whatever sickness he has.
Plus Becker has no problem wasting potential sacrifices for the monster such as brutally beating a man to death along and throwing a woman off a building and taking sadistic joy strangling Ambar, showing that Becker commits his killings out of enjoyment as much as the benefits his sacrifices give him, if not more.
Heinousness
Now Becker’s parents may have found the box and started using it to kill women, but it’s Becker own choice to continue feeding innocent women to the monster all for his own selfish gain and showing no remorse, having a body count that far exceeds anything that his parents have done, while forcing Red to help Becker lure women to their house for Becker to kill, despite Red wanting to end the sacrifice after he and Becker killed their parents.
Now Ambar herself is revealed to have killed her mother and the ending remains ambiguous on if she’ll continue the sacrifices or leave the house, but still she doesn’t even come close to Becker’s crime who has the highest body count in the movie, along with killing his own family member, no regards to his brother’s seemingly demise, and along with the cruelty that he inflicts himself, such as beating an innocent man to death, breaking a woman’s bones, throwing another woman off a balcony, and his joy in trying to strangle Ambar to death.
Final Verdict
I will leave the verdict up for you guys to decide.
My sandbox of EPs and other stuffI mean, it’s odd but it’s basically just Depending on the Author applied to the whole franchise - for one character they’re played consistently as a monster and the novels just make him worse, while in one he’s a CM in one medium and not the other. If we’re cool using Depending on the Writer, then we’re just doing the same thing for both of them and the worst case scenario is we just slap a qualifier in front of their entries to explain where they both count
Yes to Becker
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Nov 14th 2021 at 3:19:44 PM
I guess I could go with that I mean it still feels a bit weird but I haven't exactly read the novel. But I do feel if we are going to do this we should only list Mercer based on what he does in the novel so it doesn't seem like a Double Standard.
I wouldn't remotely call it a Double Standard but whatevs, I'm cool with just listing him from the novel I suppose, he's more than bad enough there and while I still don't see the issue attributing his film crimes to him, if we want to be extra strict about this case of Depending on the Writer as I predicted some would be, alright
Sure to Becker
Edited by Ravok on Nov 14th 2021 at 12:25:35 PM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Yes to Becker. No, I'm not inclined to cut Beckett on dubiously canon novels, but at the same time it needs to be specified Mercer only counts from the books. This isn't a case like Rango where it's literally a difference of one line between the character keeping in the movie that the novel makes explicit; if Beckett counts in the movies but doesn't in the books, then the books should be treated as a wholly different entity and Mercer should be counting by those standards.
Insofar as I can tell, Mercer does.
Edited by Scraggle on Nov 14th 2021 at 1:58:19 PM

Yes to Mercer, should Beckett's write up be updated to include the novel stuff?