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
ATT
told me to take these examples from YMMV.The Grisha Trilogy
- Complete Monster: The Darkling, also known as the Black Heretic and Aleksander Morozova, is a narcissist who deceives Alina, who desperately wants to see the good in him, into believing he is a good man despite his cruelty. A narcissist, stalker, and abuser, the Darkling exploits the emotional, psychological, and sexual vulnerabilities of Alina and the other Grisha, while blaming others for his own failings and for the violence he inflicts upon them. He sexually harasses and stalks Alina; blinds his mother for warning Alina about him; mutilates Genya for helping Alina escape; threatens to torture Mal and Alina in front of one another to ensure their cooperation; hunts down and kills Alina's only maternal figure; and erases an entire town from the map in a demonstration of his power. Aiming to destroy all nations besides Ravka, Darkling reveals that his goal is not to empower the Grisha, as he had claimed, but to rule the world in his own name with Alina as his enslaved, mentally-broken bride.
- Unintentionally Sympathetic: The Darkling already got this in the text proper due to the ambiguous nature of how he was written. But when you come to know that the Grisha were essentially the Ravkan equivalent of the Jewish community, he goes from a Complete Monster to a liberator of his race who is unfairly persecuted and pushed into villainy by an oppressive monarchy. Plus both in this trilogy and in later books in the series, we learn just how horribly other countries in this world treat Grisha, from vivisecting them or killing them for their blood to enslaving them or burning them as witches, and later developing a drug to further control and enslave them which makes the Darkling's desire to build a truly safe refuge for his people much more understandable.
The seem incompatible as CM has been vetted to be beyond any valid sympathy which US is about. (I guess they could overlap if it was before they fully cross the line but this doesn't seem the case.) The CM entry states the "Sympathetic" stuff is done out of self-serving lies/motivations. The US entry may be more an un-cited Unfortunate Implications over making one undergoing such racial prejudice pure evil, or Draco in Leather Pants / Misaimed Fandom without the explanation how it's whitewashing.
Should the US be cut as CM is vetted to a higher standard? Or what?
This may also be relevant to talking about the Darkling
- Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas: Played with. He sees his mother as someone who can share his immortal life, but blinds her when she helps Alina. But then later when she commits suicide, he not only tries to stop her, but Alina feels him grieving through their link.
Fuck, I REALLY liked Overarching Villain ![]()
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I don't even know what to replace it with for, say, Makarov. Actually, for him, Renegade Russian may work nicely.
Yes to Extus, Eagleton, Vinh Moc, Hudram.
Regarding this
, I've taken care of it and also chopped the Overarching Villain pothole.
I've also taken care of some other OV potholes, but others I'll need some help on.
I'll move Tan to the Batman comic page, but I noticed on DC animation someone changed Baron Bedlam, from
- Frederick DeLamb is the security chief and brother to the Queen of Markovia; he is also secretly Baron Bedlam, leader of the heinous Bedlam Syndicate. Bedlam masterminds the capture and trafficking of countless young metahuman children and teenagers, having them torturously experimented on and drowning them in a thick tar of his own creation to awaken their metagene. Killing enough of them to warrant regular mass burials of failed experiments, those who do survive are mutated and auctioned off as living weapons to the highest bidder. In his own grab for power in Markovia, Bedlam has his own sister and the King assassinated before killing the Quraci assassin himself, throwing pressure onto the Quraci populace as a convenient excuse to screen for more metagenes. Bedlam even has his own niece and nephew, Tara and Brion Markov, subjected to the experiments, mocking them later for how he's orphaned them. Bedlam attempts a coup in the season 3 finale, attempting to have his nephew Gregor's loyalists killed while snidely vowing never to stop trying to kill his family and take Markovia's throne—a sentiment that prompts Brion to kill him.
- Frederick DeLamb is the security chief and brother to the Queen of Markovia; he is also secretly Baron Bedlam, leader of the heinous Bedlam Syndicate. Bedlam masterminds the capture and trafficking of countless young metahuman children and teenagers, having them torturously experimented on and drowning them in a thick tar of his own creation to awaken their metagene. Killing enough of them to warrant regular mass burials of failed experiments, those who do survive are mutated and auctioned off as living weapons to the highest bidder. In his own grab for power in Markovia, Bedlam has his own sister and the King assassinated before killing the Quraci assassin himself, throwing pressure onto the Quraci populace as a convenient excuse to screen for more metagenes. Having his niece Tara Markov trafficked and subjected to the experiments, when her brother Brion has his own meta gene activated, Delamb tries to frame him for the crimes of the Bedlam Syndicate to paint himself as a hero. Breaking out of prison in the Season finale, Bedlam attempts to have his nephew Gregor's loyalists killed in a coup, during which he cruelly mocks Brion and Tara for his orphaning of them and snidely vows never to stop trying to kill his family and take Markovia's throne — a sentiment that prompts Brion to kill him.
Edited by ACW on Feb 4th 2022 at 6:06:25 AM
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I KNOW it wasn't. I reverted it and said to bring any changes here.
Ordeaux got a lot of the Overarching Villain ones, while I got most of the rest. I asked Scraggle about the Call of Cthulhu and Hellboy ones, but there are a few I'm not sure what to do with:
- Charmed (1998): The Source of All Evil (he seems to flip between GSV, Big Bad, and The Man Behind the Man)
- Criminal Minds: Korean Reaper (Big Bad???)
- Simon R. Green: Adrian Drood
Saw this in ATT, and as I understand it Unintentionally Sympathetic does not require it to be "valid" sympathy, and therefore isn't mutually exclusive with CM. It's merely listing that a significant number of fans had that reaction - or at least, that's the criteria its own cleanup thread has used.
(Not to say that it's not worth revisiting this specific character.)
Yeah, Unintentionally Sympathetic may not be an issue.
The Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas, however...
Yes to Hudram. Welcome back, Bale.
Also, ~J Voorhees: This is not the kind of situation where blanking your effortpost would have been necessary. You made a good faith post which we declined, and some people dogpiled when they should not have.
In general, deleting effortposts isn't in the thread's best interest, because then discussion on a particular work is not preserved.
I only bring this up because this appears to be your first effortpost, and I don't want you to feel that deleting posts is necessary.
Say, Lighty, didn't you say something last week about a possible Legends of Tomorrow relitigation?
Also, any replacement for Overarching Villain for Source of All Evil or Adrian Drood?
I mean, the Source can just be Big Bad, Adrian maybe Hidden Villain
And yeah, I'll get to Legends. Not a super high priority, I owe some others first.
Much appreciated, but I think we got most of them. See if they need help at the MB thread.
By the way, since the effortpost has since been deleted, the work that Voor evaluated was called WebAnimation.Pretty Blood.

Thank you. You get the pick of course.
And yes to Hudram. I did have an EP planned tonight, but that's a lot in short order, so I'll save to tomorrow.
That should probably be a sign to let things rest for a few hours now and let folks catch up, all.