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
Lighty, Thriller A Cruel Picture rewrite? And I think the Arrow examples are both
just need rewrites.
Side note: What's the current status of Arena!Arcade (the character)?
Solid
to Hades. The only times he's being humorous is when he's not being evil. When he is he becomes a Knight of Cerebus and a threat serious enough to take seriously on all accounts. Considering the fact that the only other candidate to even come close to his crimes is the Chaos Kin (who, like the Shadow Queen, demonstrates absolutely no personality or motives whatsoever to bolster their crimes) Hades in my eyes is a firm qualifier.
edited 10th Sep '14 12:10:35 PM by Scraggle
The 10th and final issue of Avengers Undercover is out. If we're gonna talk about Arcade, we can do it now.
For the record, I'm going to abstain on Hades until/unless I can see a playthrough of the game myself. But I'm inclined to suspect he's not an example - in my past experience with this thread, it's far more common for members of the audience to take a villain too seriously then the other way around.
@ 30400 ACW, yeah Brainiac was essentially an Omnicidal Maniac in that show.
edited 10th Sep '14 2:07:25 PM by TheOverlord
In response to Scraggle.
Actually, Medusa, the Disc-One Final Boss manages to maintain an aura of far better then Hades. Hades literally jokes ALL the time, even when in mortal kombat with Pit, the two exchange jokes
Hades is constantly cracking jokes, when eating souls mentioning talking about they taste like candy with characters being childishly grossed out by his description of the taste. As said earlier, pretty much only Pit opposes him on moral grounds. Even then when Hades ask why eating souls is bad, Pit can't come up with a good response
As for the bad boss entry, Medusa was more pissed about Hades pulling a Hijacked by Ganon, and demoting her to Disc-One Final Boss status. Hades only attacked Medusa right after she had betrayed him and literally punched off his head!
All his other subordinates such as Thanatos and Pandora he's shown to have a friendly working relationship with and he constantly cracks mutual jokes with them.
Also in the Kid Icarus Universe, even the natural creatures in the Underworld are Always Chaotic Evil, this might rule out a moral agenda for Hades of the Kid Icarus universe.
His other actions are done by other characters as well. Medusa killed humans onscreen simply For the Evulz, Reapers who are the natural soul carriers for the Underworld like to eat souls, Viridi nuked an army of humans and was Easily Forgiven for it despite showing no remorse at any point.
With the exception of the reaper, Hades actions are shown in less detail then the above, and are more indirect. He's never seen killing humans onscreen, while he does cause human deaths its in an indirect fashion via spreading rumors about a treasure that end up causing a war. He also has the motive of either wanting power from the souls like the reapers, or to revive a Orphaned girls parents. No one believes him about the latter, but given the kind of series it is, it isn't out of the realm of possibility that he's telling the truth.
The Character breaks the Fourth wall constantly, to the point where he knows he's in a video game.
Another point against him being a complete Monster is he is's heavily based off Disney's portrayal of Hercules, even having blue flaming hair in the final confrontation.
edited 10th Sep '14 2:39:52 PM by Monsund
How is he being based on the Disney character mean anything?
Also, most versions of the Joker know that they're in a comic book/cartoon and would have fun with it. That, and the Joker also pitches jokes around, mostly because he enjoys committing heinous acts.
edited 10th Sep '14 2:29:49 PM by AustinDR
You don't see Tim Burton's Joker showing up after the end credits asking the audience to share the popcorn, or about his chances in the sequel
The audience can laugh at the Jokers black humor, but Batman, and those around him, take the Joker and his crimes seriously.
We also get a firm view of the Joker's victims and the damage he does. Aside from Magnus, Gaol, and to to a much lesser extent the little orphan girl, humans aren't really shown in any detail in Uprising. Only Pit is shown to be really concerned about the humans.
edited 10th Sep '14 2:35:20 PM by Monsund
Hades may be Laughably Evil, but when the time came (for example, the revelation of what Hades was doing with all those souls) you could still recognize him as an actual threat. All the character in-universe treated him as such, a detestable, genocidal creep who needed to be stopped as soon as possible. Hades was treated seriously enough to qualify as a threat, even during the moments when he was cracking out jokes. Arguably, in a vein like the Joker's case, his demented jokes only serve to punctuate his evil. That's a textbook case of Faux Affably Evil. So while one might think that the Laughably Evil aspect might imbalance or even detract from his villainy, I say he's treated seriously enough by characters in-universe and out to still be a serious threat, never mind the fact in some cases they might bolster his evil.
Bad Boss: Hades treated his henchmen as expendable puppets. Right down to having Medusa replicate this behavior by recreating her generals as mute cannon fodder while Medusa herself was being used as generally the same thing. Hades had no good behavior with his minions: he ate Underworld troops and was more than willing to axe off Medusa the instant she decided to try and get herself some free will. He never shared any friendly relationships with his generals, or should I put this in a general statement, "disposable puppets."
Hades has more than adequate moral agency. He's fully sentient, and is treated like an fully developed actual character, rather than something like the Chaos Kin or the Aurum who's moral agencies are questionable.
All those other people never did it to the severity of Hades. Viridi was a Well-Intentioned Extremist who's nuke was essentially acting to stop the chaos about the Reset Seed, the Reapers are all under Hades' command (never mind the fact that if the soul process needed to make Underworld creatures also applies to them, they're made of abominated human souls as well) and as for Medusa, again, Hades was essentially using her as a puppet to master out his evil deeds without actually having to do anything himself. And besides, what's worse? For the Evulz, or an explained motive that's arguably even sicker than just "for fun?"
Onscreen villainy: We see the humans fighting over the Wish Seed in full view in chapter 11. That indirect result was a rumor he spread with the sole intention of a war happening. We can link that back to him just fine, so that means the war is onscreen villainy and applies to Hades just fine. As for being a Bad Boss, we see him murder Medusa and kill his own troops again perfectly on-screen. And it's blatantly obvious that Hades is just being a jackass when he says that he wants to revive a little girl's parents. We learn the true reason why he wants the Wish Seed in the same chapter.
For an overall heinous standard, those who weren't being controlled by Hades lacked sufficient Moral Agency, were well-intentioned, or simply weren't evil enough. Every surviving faction (subtract the Underworld Army) wants to kill Hades, as he's ultimately the biggest threat in the game.
The fourth-wall breaking doesn't really do anything to strengthen your points or make Hades any less of a Monster.
You don't really need to know anything about the humans but know that they're dying en masse to qualify it as a heinous act. Just before the first Reset Bomb, you see the war in full effect. Hades is engineering wars to slaughter people by the thousands, if not millions so he can abominate them into more disposable troops, when, of course, he's not eating them and destroying them outright.
That last tidbit about the Disney Hades literally does nothing to invalidate anything.
There.
How is Hades not taken seriously?
- His first appearance out of nowhere draws an Oh, Crap! from Palutena.
- He immediately manipulates the humans to war on themselves, which is taken as a sign that he's more dangerous than Medusa.
- Viridi declares him even worse than the humans destroying her precious nature, and she's got a very low opinion of humans already.
- The minute after the Aurum (invading aliens that caused all 3 factions to team up) were defeated, Palutena declared they were going to concentrate on Hades.
- When they realized he was molding souls into his army, everyone was condemning that, albeit for different reasons. Pit and Dark Pit because it's wrong. Palutena because it upset the balance. Viridi because it was gross and and a waste.
He's taken very seriously. It's just a little buried under all the humor the game has. Plus, most of the important characters are gods. Even the nicer ones still look down on everyone else. So Palutena and Viridi bantering with him doesn't mean much except that gods are dicks. Hades is a bigger dick than everyone else though. Pit meanwhile banters with him because Hades keeps egging him on. He's got his pride.
As for being a Bad Boss, well he kind of is. Medusa hated him because he was reviving and using her, controlling her in essence. He didn't care when Thanatos was beaten, even though it left his army leaderless. He barely even remembered who Pandora was. He just took her trying to beat Dark Pit in stride.
There's no evidence pointing Hades to being Always Chaotic Evil. In fact, a large part of why he's seen as so evil is because he's going against his duty. Instead of ferrying souls to the Underworld and prepping them for reincarnation, he eats them or turns them into his monsters.
Hades cracks a lot of jokes. They don't mean anything, unless having a sense of humor became a redeeming factor. Others may find him funny or right occasionally, but when they joke about him, they're laughing at him, not with him.
I'm not convinced there's a reason to cut him. He is taken seriously in context of the story and treated as such, has plenty of on-screen crimes of steep magnitude, has no redeeming qualities, and actively cements himself as the biggest and evilest villain in the Kid Icarus universe. Being funny and breaking the fourth wall are irrelevant to all that.

Even in the final confrontation, Pit, and Palutena are still making jokes with Hades. Calling his heart cute, asking if he eats junk food, having a name shoutting match, ETC.
Most of his acts are also done by others as well.
Viridi kills humans enmasse, and the natural soul carriers for the underworld, Reapers are mentioned several times to devour souls for power.
edited 10th Sep '14 10:50:05 AM by Monsund