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
Eager Yes to the Prince of Darkness himself, Jack Spicer!
Not feeling CM from Cad at all, he seems like a pretty generic Jerkass in a kids' movie.
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!When it comes to Cad, consider Lotso. His MEH was allowing the toys to potentially die in a fire. Before that though, Lotso regularly left the toys to get tortured and brutalized without any though for their well-being to the point that to keep this going before that, he had Buzz brainwashed and Chatter Telephone beaten.
I'd thought of Cad a while ago since his MEH was similar. Before that moment, much like Antwan, Cad is just an annoying jerk until the moment that he nearly gets a lot of people killed. Neither has the seriousness or repertoire that Lotso does.
For that, I'll say
.
Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Nov 25th 2021 at 4:41:12 AM
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Thank you for the tip; I'll be abstaining from the proposal so I can think things through. BTW, I only have two votes for my Metal Beak rewrite:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=6vic3f9h1cy5qivsenw8llok&page=11604#comment-290088
Edited by Misry6 on Nov 25th 2021 at 4:37:56 AM
Just an empty void…Unfortunately, yeah...Could Cad count? Yes. but I genuinely don't think he does from what we see here.
So, on Thanksgiving...I wanna do a Western of my own now. ...
What's the work?
Texas Jack is a European comic written by Pierre Dubois and illustrated by Dimitri Armand. Texas Jack is a legendary hero, a crack shot and the greatest friend the disadvantaged have ever known. In truth, Jack is little but a showman who knows fancy trick shots. All the rest is just fun. Jack's never killed anyone, he's never been out west...
But when the government asks him to hunt down a dangerous outlaw...well, Jack is reluctant but eventually takes the job. Our villain? Henry Saul. AKA... Ironsmoke.
Who is Ironsmoke?
"The Ogre" Of Wyoming, Ironsmoke is a towering beast of a man. A terrifying, imposing monster with eyes of fire. Ironsmoke has been hired to clean out the local valleys for the forces of industry. The ways he does this? Ironsmoke takes his men, rides to the settlements at the best of corrupt businessman and politician Archie Passendale...
The people are butchered, one and all, old and young. Ironsmoke gives his orders to slaughter everyone and burn the church down...not clear if he means with everyone inside as they're all in, but everyone is dead, save a crying baby on the ground whom he approaches with a knife...
And later returns to Passendale and his boys with the baby's severed arm. When one of the fine gentlemen objects, saying "there are limits," Ironsmoke shoots him in the heart. Then massacres everyone but Passendale, noting he was skimming from their funds and didn't want to pay them back...and to make it more believable Passendale survived it, he shoots him in the arm.
The heroes, consisting of the performers and the Marshals, track down Ironsmoke who lures them into a trap...he's spread a fake rumor the army was gonna help them, lures them to town, murders their allies and takes everyone hostage. Ironsmoke has fallen in love with his own legend and wants a duel with Jakc...knowing a recorded fight? Everyone'll know Ironsmoke won and his own infamy will spread. He intends to be the most terrifying man who ever rode the west.
Amy, Jack's sort of girlfriend, is also along and Ironsmoke cautions any sign of rebellion? He'll gun them down and throw Amy to his men for the night to be gang-raped.
Ironsmoke's theatrics do him in, though...this allows for, in the duel with Jack, the Marshals, to have gotten a foothold. Jack is able to fire and guns down some of Ironsmoke's men, wounding the beast himself...in the ensuing firefight, Ironsm oke's gang is wiped out and Ironsmoke is shot in the back when advancing on Jack by the top marshal...denied the duel he craved.
Mitigating issues?
Oh, hell no. Ironsmoke is a mon strous brute. He kills tons of people, introduced slaughtering a town of settlers, which he's done multiple times. He kills a baby to take its arm as a "souvenir". He slaughters all of Passendale's crew...just because, really.
No real issues with heinousness. Not remotely. No good qualities whatsoever.
Conclusion?
Very easy keeper.

Not getting a CM vibe from Cad Spinner. Asshat, sure, but the EP's focusing waaaaay too much on tangential, pointless details and the only potentially qualifying deed I'm seeing I think is burdened way too much on him being an Unwitting Instigator of Doom.
If he's deliberately started the fire, gone out of his way to sabotage every measure to save his customers? Sure. But as is he's presented as a generic, greedy CEO jackass Hate Sink, not a horrifically evil, murdering Complete Monster in the same way Axlerod and Zundapp are. Firm "no" to Cad.