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
Okay, got a proposal to make from a movie I just watched. Said movie is....agonizingly bad, but never mind that.
What's the Work?
The Knight & the Princess is a 2019 Egyptian animated movie inspired by a real-life 7th century Arab warrior. The film centers around a young adventurer named Mohammed bin Alkassim, featuring his exploits, from rescuing women and children from pirates in the Indian sea, to leading the Arab army to free Sindh from a brutal despot....
....that we will see virtually none of, as the movie spends most of its runtime focusing on the humorous hijinks of these annoying as Hell jinn who are basically a fusion between the Genie and Pain and Panic. But, I digress. Who's the candidate?
Who Is He? What Does He Do?
King Daher is the vicious ruler of Sindh. At the start of the movie, Daher is responsible for having pirates raid the ships of Arabian traders, taking their gold, as well as their women and children as slaves, all the while crushing any armies that attempt to rescue them. Daher is warned by his priest of destruction of a prophecy foretelling a young man that will oppose him, but initially brushes it off until Mohammed rescues the captive women and children from their imprisonment. Daher takes his fury out on the Arab merchants of Sindh, torching their settlements and slaughtering them, including women and children, with attempts by the Arabian armies to stop him ending in crushing defeat. In the meanwhile, the priest and the jinn dispose of Mohammed by....marrying him off (yeah, that'll get him out of their hair) and tell Daher they successfully killed him.
Eventually, Mohammed takes command of the Arab army and manages to turn the tide of the battle. Daher finds out about the priest's lies and sends him to kill Mohammed, only for the priest to be killed by the reformed jinn. As Mohammed's army lays siege to Daher's fortress, they attempt to offer peace, which Daher quickly rejects, whereupon they break into his fortress and force Daher and his army to retreat. They have their final confrontation in the wilderness, with Daher attempting to entrap Mohammed's army. However, Mohammed outsmarts him and the two armies clash. Mohammed faces Daher in single combat, ultimately defeating him, but nonetheless showing mercy by sparing his life and taking him away as their prisoner.
Mitigating factors?
None.
Heinous standard?
Mass murder, raids, enslaving and slaughtering women and children, etc. Pass. He's also the only villain in the movie that's actually taken seriously; the priest is rather pathetic and the jinn are just....ugh.
Final Verdict?
Your call.
Edited by Clown-Face on Dec 23rd 2021 at 9:41:04 AM
Why so serious?What's the work?
Grantchester is a mystery drama where local police inspector Geordie Keating works with the local Anglican minister (Sidney Chambers until Series 4 and Will Davenport after). They've dealt with their fair share of murderers throughout the work, but none of them have been anywhere near as vile as the Sinister Minister I am about to propose.
Who is he? What has he done?
Reverend Nick Byatt, from Series 6, is the prison chaplain where Leonard Finch is being incarcerated for gross indecency. During bible study, he takes every opportunity to pull the moral authority card on homosexual prisoners, including Leonard, but then a murder happens, and Leonard's cellmate, Joe Davies, is accused of having done the deed. The victim: another homosexual, one Elroy Hastings.
As the plot unravels, we learn that there's a protection racket going on within the prison. If a prisoner's family fails to pony up some blackmail cash periodically, a guard at the prison, Cameron Lynch, will rough up said prisoner in his cell and make him wish he was never born.
On the day of a service where Leonard is to assist Byatt, he does some safecracking based on a code hidden among Elroy's belongings and discovers Byatt is behind the protection racket. When discovered and confronted, Byatt does a Wounded Gazelle Gambit to get Leonard in solitary. It turns out, Byatt knew exactly how Joe's mother was supposed to have been murdered, allegedly by Joe, and when Elroy had discovered the racket earlier he murdered Elroy himself and staged it to look exactly like the murder of Mrs. Davies, knowing that Joe would be framed instantly. Thankfully, Will and Geordie confront him with the facts and call him out for the god-playing hypocritical Slime Ball that he is.
Heinousness?
The staff at the prison is full of homophobes, including Warden Milton. However, Milton, as nasty as he is to Leonard and other "pansies", is just a cog in the machine that is the corrupt British prison system. Lynch, Byatt's partner in crime, is just as sadistic as he, but he never seems inclined to actually murder anyone. Byatt, on the other hand, will not hesitate to kill anyone who finds him out, as poor Elroy found out the hard way, and not only engages in a cover-up of his and Lynch's violent protection racket but also makes prisoner families suffer. He isn't just part of the system, he uses it to satisfy his God complex.
Mitigating factors?
Oh, hell no! This guy is a Slime Ball through and through, which says something in a system full of Slime Balls. He doesn't just make prisoners and their families suffer, he outright relishes in it as part of his Holier Than Thou act.
Final verdict?
An easy second Masterpiece Monster from yours truly.
Preemptive writeup
- Grantchester: Reverend Nick Byatt is the chaplain at the prison where Leonard is being held for gross indecency. Introduced shaming Leonard for his homosexuality during bible study, he later murders another prisoner, Elroy Hastings, in the exact same way Leonard's cellmate, Joe Davies, is said to have murdered his mother. As Leonard's investigation of the murder, assisted on the outside by Will and Geordie, proceeds, he happens on a protection racket through getting roughed up by Byatt's muscle, Cameron Lynch. When Leonard stumbles upon evidence of Byatt's involvement in the protection racket, Byatt fakes injury to put him in solitary, where he can more easily finish him off like he did Elroy. A Holier Than Thou thug who considers himself above moral reproach and God's equal, Byatt turns out to be a Straw Hypocrite who abuses the corrupt British prison system to not only make the prisoners suffer but also crush their families and friends under his heel through blackmail and violence.
Edited by ryanasaurus0077 on Dec 23rd 2021 at 12:42:43 PM
Yes to Daher, but...Byatt seems bad, but not CM level bad. Not enough by way of torture or murder for me here.
May have a Charles Dickens and a possible Claude Rains for Christmas to go with Zhan Mc Clarnon, Ben Kingsley and Peter Mensah. Stay tuned.
I'm pretty sure it's more than just murdering one prisoner. I believe it's the way he runs his quite illegal protection racket, and the methodology he employs to make specific prisoners and their families suffer. I don't think a protection racket run by an Anglican chaplain was particularly common, but think back to two episodes before, when the judge who sent Leonard to the prison told him as his reason for putting him away for gross indecency, "You are a member of the clergy. Others trust you, they look to you to set a good example." By the judge's exact same reasoning, Byatt's crimes are particularly heinous for the setting.
Edited by ryanasaurus0077 on Dec 23rd 2021 at 12:57:18 PM
Maybe not, but consider the aggravating factors, including, like I said earlier, his profession. It was even treated in-universe as the aggravating factor that got Leonard locked up for gross indecency in the first place earlier in the series!
Edited by ryanasaurus0077 on Dec 23rd 2021 at 1:01:27 PM
Still not bad enough for you, eh? Well, I can't recall another murderer in the series who played God just to make a quick buck off of suffering families and had thugs beat up any prisoner whose families fail to cough it up. Also, the evidence Leonard discovers that firmly pins Elroy's murder on Byatt is a list of specific prisoners to involve in his protection racket, based on what he knows about the entire general population. That's calculated blackmail right there. And the guy he framed for Elroy's murder? Also on the list.
Edited by ryanasaurus0077 on Dec 23rd 2021 at 1:09:58 PM
There's also the final summation from the heroes to Byatt: "A man of God or playing God? To everyone it seemed like Milton was weak. That he turned a blind eye to the rot in this place. But you were the rot, Chaplain. And Elroy was going to tell everyone what kind of outfit you run here. And you couldn't let that happen. And now you had to find someone to blame."
Then by that logic Lucifer, for example, shouldn't qualify, as his sole kill was just one stinkin' lawyer.
Edited by ryanasaurus0077 on Dec 23rd 2021 at 1:28:30 PM
OK, how about... Niander Wallace? He's another Monster who shouldn't count as such if we were to go strictly by onscreen killcounts.
No to Blytt, a Hate Sink does not a CM make and Niander is a weak comparison considering he's deals in slavery, and is responsible for multiple different counts of torture and murder.
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Because they, like Byatt, have a low killcount, and someone here said Byatt shouldn't count on account of his having only killed a single person. And why's everybody getting his name wrong except for me, Lightysnake, and Triple D?
Edited by ryanasaurus0077 on Dec 23rd 2021 at 1:54:29 PM

Oh yeah I saw Mahito get EP and I give him an easy
. So would Lighty or Riley do his Write-up or have they done it already?
My sandbox of EPs and other stuff