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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
A long awaited ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Granny Goodness
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
PAL (not heinous enough, not played seriously enough, and her backstory I think is genuinely mitigating)
Professor Gigachad
Also, YMMV tropes aren't allowed to be potholed so that should not be there even if accurate.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Granny.
Also if it he's confirmed to have died it would be Ascended Fridge Horror anyway
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
The Draftsman of Doom
Chaos: Second writeup works. Also, Gunman with Three Names works great for George's name/alias.
mu
to granny goodness
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Post I'm not so sure about because of Off Stage Villainy so who knows how this will turn out
What is the work?
Broken Sword II: The Smoking Mirror is the sequel to the first Broken Sword game, a point and click adventure following George Stobbart and Nico Collard in an adventure to stop smuggle lord Karzac from freeing the god Tezcatlipoca and dooming the world and said god is who I want to discuss.
Who is Tezcatlipoca and what has he done?
Tezcatlipoca is a South American deity who tricked Quetzalcoatl and gained his powers. From there, Tezcatlipoca demanded many blood sacrifices for him before being imprisoned in a mirror by Quetzalcoatl's priests where he was imprisoned for many years.
Seeking to break out and unleash a nightmarish reign of terror on humanity, Tezcatlipoca spoke to Karzac in his dreams and told him how to free him and stop the stones that can keep him imprisoned being united. Tezcatlipoca told Karzac to get Professor Oubier hooked onto drugs and use him to find the stones.
Tezcatlipoca is finally seen in the final cutscene being freed by Karzac. When freed, Tezcatlipoca screams and lets out an energy wave which stripped anyone near the pyramid of their flesh, killing them. (There's only one confirmed kill but Karzac's goons were all around the pyramid so make of that what you will.) Tezcatlipoca then stabs Karzac with his spear, dissolving his flesh with sadistic glee. Tezcatlipoca is then stopped by George when he uses the mirrors to imprison him for good.
Freudian Excuse?
Nope the sadistic blood sacrifice god doesn't have a Freudian Excuse
Mitigating Qualities?
Agency issues aren't a problem I think, he's just an evil god but not a specific God of Evil so he made his choices with deceiving Quetzalcoatl for his power.
Nothing redeemable for him so here's the biggest problem, Offstage Villainy. Well him stealing Quetzalcoatl's powers for himself and having the mass sacrifices are told via a story by a village shaman. Thing is Tezcatlipoca is shown to be very real and in the game's opening cutscene it occasionally cuts to a sacrifice, presumably to him so I think there's enough information to clarify these things actually happened.
Heinous Standard
Well he spoke to Karzac (already a CM) in his dreams and told him about drugging Oubier to break him (Karzac says this in a cutscene that Tezcatlipoca told him to) so he's defintely got a sadistic edge. Him speaking to Karzac led to a lot of Karzac's actions (doesn't disqualify Karzac since he acted on these actions and is shown to be a terrible person already with his smuggling.) Mass sacrifices and it's obvious he doesn't have a happy outcome for humanity when he's briefly released, since the first thing he did was release that energy wave and impaled Karzac with a sadistic smile and a half on his face.
Final Verdict
Eh tentative thoughts?
Ultimate Moral Compass
A long awaited to everybody’s favorite Granny
A total has-been.
Ringo, Combs, Granny Goodness (thought there were versions of her that qualified, so how was the pre-Flashpoint mainstream version of her not on the trope all this time?. "Goddamned mystery" is right.)
PAL
Abstain on Tezcatlipoca.
Edited by ANewMan on Mar 1st 2022 at 6:26:15 AM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Granny.
Should we put her, Desaad, and Darkseid under a New Gods tree?
Does Granny or Desaad go first?
xie, any changes to the current Trails keepers?
Edited by ACW on Mar 1st 2022 at 7:40:08 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Wild Child
Granny Goodness.
Professor Gigachad
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I had actually been thinking of the same idea.
@anewman. Same
to Granny Goodness
Professor Gigachad
Let's not ignore Wet's EP. Leaning on a Weak though I could be convinced otherwise.
Weak to Tezca, that's pushing it but it seems barely enough
Edited by Agentofchaos on Mar 1st 2022 at 7:51:25 AM
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
So:
- New Gods has these denizens of Apokolips:
- Darkseid, born Prince Uxas, is the the Trope Codifier for Dystopia Justifies the Means. As ruler of Apokolips, Darkseid subjects its denizens to hellish conditions with the overwhelming majority of the population ill-treated slaves. His Elite fare no better as Darkseid is all too willing to subject them to hideous tortures or obliteration should they fail him. Darkseid detests all that is good in the universe and seeks to extend his influence everywhere he can. While he once loved someone, his mother, Heggra, wanting to make him evil, killed Suli, helping turn Darkseid into the Galactic Conqueror we know him as—but not before he had Heggra poisoned. During Final Crisis, Darkseid is dying, and so wants to destroy the multiverse and all life in it as a final gesture. He kills his son Orion to gain dominion over Earth. Once there, he enslaved the minds of everyone he could touch, turning them into savage parodies of themselves, intending to as he said "murder their souls and take them to hell without end." His ultimate motive is to use the Anti-Life Equation to rob everybody of free will and turn them all into mindless zombies who worship him as a god while he tortures them eternally, all for fun. Just as bloodthirsty and monstrous as any of those who serve him, Darkseid combines urbane sophistication, limitless cruelty and insatiable drive for power, and is the one single villain who all the heroes despise and fear.
- Desaad, the God of Sadism and Darkseid's chief inquisitor, is a vicious sadist and one of the most wantonly cruel deities of all Apokolips. Having assisted Darkseid's rise to power, Desaad murdered Darkseid's first lover Suli before bargaining for his life with Darkseid by murdering his mistress—and Darkseid's mother—Queen Heggra. Desaad proceeds to enact ghastly tortures on a daily basis, basking in the pain and fear of his victims while never letting them die, even reaching across the cosmos to murder hapless mortals whole basking in their helpless, terrified agony. Desaad keeps whole groups enslaved in twisted amusement parks of torture with intent to create countless more across the cosmos. Ever the opportunist, Desaad has been willing to let all of Earth die to get what he wishes, has tried to spark a war with New Genesis and has even tried to betray Darkseid himself to make himself the supreme deity with the Multiverse becoming his playground and all who live his playthings.
- Granny Goodness, the consumate child abuser in all of DC...
Professor Gigachad
Looks good.
No to PAL but yes to Forensic Files Zsasz, Firebug II, Pre-Flashpoint Granny Goodness, Riggs, and Tezcatlipoca.
Fun fact from me, the mythology nerd: in the actual myths, Tezcatlipoca was a bullseye-gray character capable of both great heroism and savagery, as were most of the gods. Modern media portrays him as the "bad one" due to a common tactic of Christian missionaries in the 14-1600s - namely, they'd take any assemblage of four gods the people they were subjug- ahem, "saving" had and going "Guess what, these aren't actually your gods, they're the Holy Trinity plus Satan!" In the Aztecs' case these were Quetzalcoatl, Huitzilopochtli, Tlaloc and Tezcatlipoca, with the latter getting the short straw because of how he butted heads with Quetzalcoatl, the most overtly benevolent and "messianic" one. 
Yes to Tezcatlipoca and Granny.
No to Pal.
I wonder if 616 Cameron Hodge is worth another look, he never has had a redeeming quality and I know X-Men has a high standard, but he sounds like a nasty SOB.
Edited by Agentofchaos on Mar 1st 2022 at 8:06:02 AM
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
Oh I forgot, late Anton zsasz ( thought he was victor’s brother at first) and firebug ll
Edited by mariogalaxy on Mar 1st 2022 at 5:16:15 AM
Professor Gigachad
Cameron Hodge's animated version did count so I guess his 616 one could as well.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
Been wondering about Hodge for a while now. Wasn't he originally the man behind Genosha's mass lobotomy program, before a retcon made it Sugar Man?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]")
X6 Unless its some Lighter and Softer show that doesn't really dwell on consequences for anything I don't think you need to confirm that the kid died after being skinned alive
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her