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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:

     Previous Post 
Complete Monster Cleanup Thread

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. "[tup] 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

therealjackieboy from Austin, TX Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#301576: Feb 14th 2022 at 4:58:15 PM

[tup] Quan-ChiZarr

It's Spooky Month!
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#301577: Feb 14th 2022 at 4:58:56 PM

Yeah with Nasu I would say we should wait for one more before making it.

[up] Good one

[tup] Quan

Edited by Ordeaux26 on Feb 14th 2022 at 4:59:09 AM

TotemGenitor Bye Since: Apr, 2021 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Michealthehero21 Since: Jan, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#301579: Feb 14th 2022 at 5:06:42 PM

@Scraggle WHAT?! Man, was there ANYTHING that did not make it past the PG censors during the old days?

Also, [tup] Quan Zarr.

Edited by Michealthehero21 on Feb 14th 2022 at 5:07:17 AM

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#301580: Feb 14th 2022 at 5:06:51 PM

[tup]Quan zarr

Cut Escobar.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
PurpleEyedGuma Since: Apr, 2020
Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#301582: Feb 14th 2022 at 5:22:30 PM

It's kind of funny that throughout the years the censors towards sexual content has gotten more strict but violence has gotten more loose.

Siegfried1337 Calabash. from The Eastern Luminant Since: Sep, 2018 Relationship Status: Will you go out with me to the End?
Calabash.
#301583: Feb 14th 2022 at 5:22:39 PM

Hmm fine, I'll wait for one more entry for the Nasuverse. Good timing btw, because I have a potential CM idea coming up, but I would prefer to discuss with one user in D Ms first before effortposting. You mind?

Eh, good enough.
WetFlannels Classy, Refined, Unstable from Nearby, on a cosmological scale. Since: Oct, 2021 Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Classy, Refined, Unstable
#301584: Feb 14th 2022 at 5:41:55 PM

[tup] Quan, Evil Overlord,Yoon Gwi-nam, Wolfstan, the Kamaitachi Killer

What's wrong D-16? Rise up!
43110 (Striking Back) Relationship Status: Reincarnated romance
#301585: Feb 14th 2022 at 6:17:22 PM

Yes to Quan-Zarr, cut Elio and Nasu has been asked about before and we also elected to wait and see. Let's just leave it for now.

ANewMan A total has-been. Since: Apr, 2013 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A total has-been.
#301586: Feb 14th 2022 at 6:26:05 PM

Had Valentines Day stuff to tend to so I missed the Volo discussion. Lemme look back at it 'cause even I wasn't sure where I stood.

The tricky thing with Volo is that he's got some qualities and moments that seem vaguely mitigating, but then he firmly establishes his stance of "I want everyone and everything dead so that then I can play God and fully understand life, the universe, and Arceus.", and it's not even a "I'll bring you back into existence but stripped of your heart" like Cyrus, it's just straight-up "I want you dead", since he wishes to create brand new life afterwards. If he fully intends to never revive all of the people and Pokemon with whom he previously had some positive interactions, it sort of makes all of those positive interactions ring hollow, empty and insincere in regards to being mitigating or redemptive in any way.

His last scene is probably the hardest to judge since he acknowledges how and why the Player Character succeeds where he fails and gives them the final plate, making his respect for them seem sincere. But then he throws that Graceful Loser attitude right out the window and expresses disgust at the Player Character, expressing how unrepentant he is and vowing to accomplish his heinous goal and satisfy his god complex no matter what or how long it takes, and then just....walks away. That could be seen as mitigating and breaking the "hold nothing back" rule but...Volo attempted to destroy the Player Character three times - once with his team, once with Giratina, and lastly with Giratina Origin Form. He'd exhausted all options and as insane as he is, he's not fool enough to go like Ghetsis in US/UM and, with just his bare hands, try to kill a trainer who Arceus itself has chosen and sided with. So it strikes me more as Know When to Fold 'Em.

And being a Karma Houdini is nothing new. Prior to Platinum, the blatantly unrepentant Cyrus was allowed to just walk away in Diamond and Pearl (and the remakes as well), to say nothing of how the likes of Giovanni and Colress get to walk free despite their crimes.

I think the tipping point for me here is that not only does Volo end on a note of resenting rather than respecting the Player Character and explicitly vowing to stay unrepentant and carry on with his evil ways, but his explicit lack of care for his own Pokemon as anything but weapons, and that he wants to destroy every living thing, the Player Character and Volo's own Pokemon included, and not' even resurrect them.

There's overall nothing explicitly redeeming or mitigating in Volo. Therefore, I vote him a keeper. [tup]

Oh yeah, also [tup] Chronos, [tup] Glaxx, [tup] Yoon, [tup] Wolfstan, [tup] Kamaitachi Killer, [tup] Quan-Zarr, and a VERY enthusiastic [tup] the Dark Overlord. grin

Edited by ANewMan on Feb 14th 2022 at 6:26:22 AM

nwotyzal Since: Sep, 2019
#301587: Feb 14th 2022 at 6:26:43 PM

[tup]Quan

[tdown]Elio

Also, I think I will do a Marvel guy some time soon (thank you Scraggle), I just need to get schoolwork out of the way.

Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
Enid Sinclair
#301588: Feb 14th 2022 at 6:26:55 PM

Yes to Quan.

Someone added an unapproved entry to YMMV.Nightmare Alley 2021:

  • Ezra Grindle. to the point where he actually makes Clem look nicer by comparison. Not only did he force his lover, Dorrie, to have an abortion but when it resulted in her death, Ezra became a horrible abuser of women. And then when he finds out Stan faked being able to raise spirits from the dead, he completely loses it and tries to kill Molly and even vows to “destroy” Stan.

I have never seen the movie but I am guessing that this was not approved by the thread. Am I good to cut?

Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Siegfried1337 Calabash. from The Eastern Luminant Since: Sep, 2018 Relationship Status: Will you go out with me to the End?
Libraryseraph uu~ from Canada (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: Raising My Lily Rank With You
uu~
#301590: Feb 14th 2022 at 6:37:07 PM

[tup] to Quan and the Dark Overlord (I think this movie is actually fun, if very stupid)

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA
G-Editor The 47th President Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
The 47th President
#301591: Feb 14th 2022 at 7:00:40 PM

[tup] to Quan, Evil Overlord,Yoon Gwi-nam, Wolfstan, the Kamaitachi Killer

Cut Elio

My sandbox of EPs and other stuff
Zuxtron Berserk Button: misusing Nightmare Fuel from Node 03 (On A Trope Odyssey)
#301592: Feb 14th 2022 at 7:08:50 PM

Recently got into Warframe, and I wonder if there are any good candidates in there.

I'm still pretty early in the game, but it looks like Nef Anyo might be a potential CM. He's a Corrupt Corporate Executive turned Up To Eleven. Nef is the ruler of Fortuna, a Venusian debt internment colony where workers are kept in debt bondage, forced to slave away for their whole lives with whatever money they earn going towards ridiculous interest rates on their debts or cybernetic upgrades that are necessary to meet their quotas.

He's willing to do whatever it takes to earn a bit more money, whether it be exploiting Venus for resources with no concern for the risk of catastrophic environmental damage, or stripping his employees of the most basic human rights (up to forcibly removing their head and replacing it with a cybernetic one), using the threat of the Fate Worse than Death known as brain-shelving to motivate workers.

His folder on Characters.Warframe Corpus does not seem to contain a single positive trope about him (there's Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas, but the example starts with "...Not quite", and Graceful Loser which has an incorrectly-indented Sore Loser example right underneath it)

I would need to progress a bit further into the story before I can actually make a good write-up, but maybe someone else who has played that game could take care of that for me.

Edited by Zuxtron on Feb 14th 2022 at 10:09:55 AM

Bruhmpex Space Chameleon from Where do you think? Since: Jan, 2020 Relationship Status: The Skitty to my Wailord
Space Chameleon
#301593: Feb 14th 2022 at 7:30:43 PM

There was a character I tried adding an entry for before I knew that Complete Monsters had to go through this thread, and for that I admit fault. Nonetheless, now that the 2 week minimum of existence time has passed, I think it's about time I suggest the character here properly. I believe that Legion from The Blueballs Incident would fit the trope well, considering how remorselessly sadistic and cataclysmic he proves to be with a backstory not nearly sympathetic enough to make up for it. Is it worth making an effort post for him?

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#301594: Feb 14th 2022 at 7:34:34 PM

[up] I'm all ears.

So I got a candidate I want to put up from a series that has a long documentation on this thread's history, partially because of how many crazy nasty villains it had.

What's the setting?

Redwall is a Funny Animal High Fantasy series from the late master writer Brian Jacques, and a childhood favorite of mine. It's got twenty-two books (not including spinoffs, like the Jacques-penned cookbook—hey, the books were drowning in description of food, it had to happen) that document the sprawling history of the forest region Mossflower, as well as surrounding region like the badger-ruled mountain of Salamandastron. This isn't coming from the TV series, like my post on Cluny; we're going back to the books for this.

Mattimeo was the third story released in the series, and the first to be a direct sequel; Mattimeo takes place after the first Redwall book, after Cluny's attack, where Matthias' son Mattimeo is kidnapped by a slaver who turns out to be a minor antagonist from the last book. That's all well and good, but we're not interested in the slaver (Slagar; he counts, and he's counted for years). I wanna talk about the guy he works for.

What has Malkariss done?

Malkariss is the shadow emperor of a vast, subterranean kingdom inhabited an endless cult of rats known as the Blackrobes and an equally endless array of child slaves. Malkariss is never seen, acting through his Mouth of Sauron Nadaz who speaks from a hundred-foot statue of Malkariss.

The Greater-Scope Villain of the entire novel, Malkariss is building himself a kingdom beneath the ruins of Loamhedge—the precursor to Redwall—and to do this he's conscripted hundreds, perhaps thousands of child slaves from across Mossflower using the service of slavers like Slagar. All these slaves are starving, whip-scarred and broken into cruelty, usually spending their first days without food or even light to prepare them to live the rest of their lives as tools for grueling labor. All over Malkariss' kingdom, children constantly work to build up the kingdom evermore until they give out, and the rate of child death is insane; all over the kingdom, it's described how "sometimes a young creature would cry out and fall over exhausted, only to be beaten by the rats until he or she got up, or lay permanently still." Malkariss appoints a monstrous hybrid being known as a Wearet as the slavemaster.

The truth, however, is that Malkariss is no supreme being. When Matthias unveils him in an attempt to find Mattimeo, to whom Slagar is trying to sell to Malkariss along with many other children, Malkariss turns out to be a withered, frail, nigh-blind old polecat disguising his pathetic nature under an empire of child cruelty. Though he's quick to try and slay Matthias, seeing Malkariss for what he is rallies the slaves to pelt him with stones until Malkariss is literally buried beneath the barrage.

Any mitigating factors?

Malkariss is a cruel old fiend without a single redeeming quality. Par for the course with Redwall's villains. The obvious hiccup is the heinous standard; Redwall has one of the highest ratio of pure evil villains in children's literature, period; in general, villains from the series kill their own minions as a matter of course, enslave woodlanders, and either attempt to or succeed in mass murder. Mattimeo already has two other qualifiers and you can read about the guys who actually qualified here. Non-qualifiers include:

  • Ferahgo the Assassin, who not only slew the Badger Lords of Salamandastron but has a talent for flaying his victims alive and keeping their skins in a collection
  • Ublaz Mad Eyes, who had a clan full of otters massacred and hypnotizes his own minions into killing themselves for no reason whatsoever
  • Damug Warfang, a savage, mass-murdering warlord who ended his tenure as a villain about to kill a bunch of POWs
  • The Marlfoxes, a clan of insidious backstabbers with no reservations murdering their own family members all over
  • Vilaya and Zwilt, who likewise engage in child slavery and even murder children or try to personally

I think what kept me back from posting Malkariss for this long is his lack of a personal touch compared to, say, Slagar, or even Ironbeak, both of whom also are child-killers. However, I will note child death is rarer than adult-on-adult cruelty—Mattimeo is, bar none, the novel in which the Would Hurt a Child is the most concentrated—but I wanna call attention to something that I think makes Malkariss makes unique. The dude's slaves are purely children. No adults; the dude has one of the biggest slavery operations in the entire series, bigger than Badrang's or Vilaya's or any other vermin warlord in the series who has a preference for slavery, and he bases it entirely off the suffering of thousands of little broken kids. And they make it clear as all get out children are being worked to death by the goddamned hour.

Malkariss doesn't have that personal touch because he really can't be personal by nature of being a Dark Lord on Life Support. But he still masterminds the single widest-scale instance of child cruelty in the entire series, and furthermore, the child-slaughtering engine he's created is nothing more than a means of propping up his own pathetic ego. No one villain in the series has killed as many kids as Malkariss—and though I can't believe it's only that which allows him to qualify in this series, I firmly do believe it's enough.

Conclusion?

I'm gonna say keeper. Maybe the very last from the books. If anyone's wondering about his animated counterpart, TV!Malkariss is nasty, but they excised the actual death in his slavery operation or any implication of it, so he's not quite pulling through there.

Edited by Scraggle on Feb 14th 2022 at 9:35:38 AM

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#301595: Feb 14th 2022 at 7:41:37 PM

@Bruhmpex: I know nothing of this, but hey, go for it!

And a huge yes for Malkariss...I got my Legens of Tomorrow soon, and a relitigation, plus...well, Ill do an unexpected one next.

therealjackieboy from Austin, TX Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
DoodSlayer136 It's Him from SAGE (Snick Amateur Game Expo) (Experienced, Not Yet Jaded) Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
It's Him
#301597: Feb 14th 2022 at 8:07:29 PM

[tup] to Malkariss.

Er, I hate to be that guy, but The Blueballs Incident is a Friday Night Funkin' mod that's heavily based of a Trollface meme. Based on that alone, I'm a bit skeptical that this isn't a really subtle joke mod.

Ordeaux26 Since: May, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#301598: Feb 14th 2022 at 8:08:57 PM

I have seen weirder things played seriously so maybe. Though that is a bit concerning.

[tup] Redwall one.

STARCRUSHER99 The Moron from one of my unhealthy obsessions (Captain) Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
The Moron
#301599: Feb 14th 2022 at 8:09:00 PM

Yes to Malkariss

Lemme clear out my pending, because now that I've just finished a show I was deep diving, it's time for quite a few potentials. Away we go:

  • More Fun Comics #87, "The Case of the Confident Crooks": Jagin is a ruthless crime boss who tricks all of his employees into killing themselves in order to protect himself. After telling all of his henchmen that he had escape plans for them, Jagin then sabotages all of them, ensuring that all of his men are gunned down by the police instead of rescued. With Green Arrow and Speedy forced to organize a prison break in order to protect them, Jagin then tries to massacre all of his former crew when they return to his hideout.

AustinDR Lizzid people! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Lizzid people!
#301600: Feb 14th 2022 at 8:10:32 PM

Yeah, not seeing that as being conducive to having a candidate.

[tup] Malkariss


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