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
That was one of the reasons but most people used the heinous standard of the MCU as their main argument.
I think the thing with Gobby was a mix if agency and heinouness, but that was just for him counting in the MCU, if the crossover is just a one-off thing I don't think Argost has to count on Ben 10's heinousness
"We'll meet again" | 🏳️⚧️Yes to Blodge
Nah, even if I was heavily inclined to stack Argost against Ben 10's standard (which I'm not really from a one-off crossover that aired years after Saturdays and Argost's story officially ended, when the connections between series up until then was tenuous at best), Argost is a serial killer who becomes a threatener of entire cities then all of humanity, compared to Ben 10 villains he'd easily be falling flat in resources power-wise and still stand out.
Edited by Ravok on Mar 10th 2022 at 7:21:34 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!That is a fair point but I am not sure if he really would though considering how stupidly high Ben 10's heinous standard is to the point where attempting large-scale genocides is the norm.
I can see the argument for treating it separately for that reason but that does feel a bit odd to me that we would judge Green Gobling that way but not Argost.
For Goblin the MCU heinousness had nothing to do with him not counting in his original movie, he wasn't heinous enough for the MCU but met it for Raimi movies, he just didn't have agency there
"We'll meet again" | 🏳️⚧️Argost is fine. In No Way Home the Goblin is an antagonist within the MCU and hence his credentials as a villain are happening in the MCU setting. Argost is a villain from one show, has a whole storyline where he's the Big Bad which concludes with his death and is then used as a villain in a crossover written years later, no we're not questioning his heinous tier for that and even if we were to, the resource argument helps him plenty with what he attempts for his power level compared to most of the Ben 10 keepers.
Better than I can say it!
Edited by 43110 on Mar 10th 2022 at 10:32:15 AM
There aren't any double standards going on. Goblin doesn't count in the original Raimi trilogy because his agency isn't as clear. The agency is there in No Way Home, but he then does nothing worth standing out except unintentionally threatening the multiverse, which is not enough without him explicitly addressing it: which he does not.
And yes, as someone who has seen both shows aplenty, Argost would still count if he was more explicitly rooted in Ben 10's standard and setting. I did the CM rewrite for him here, his MB proposal, and handled several Ben 10 posts on both threads, I know what I'm talking about.
Edited by Ravok on Mar 10th 2022 at 7:31:21 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
Blodge.
And Doflamingo is definitely still a keeper, as he clearly loves the idea of a family and having a family he can call "HIS family", but he has no true love or value for anyone as people and would cast even his current family aside like broken toys when he saw no further use for keeping them around, as he could always find replacements. A morally bankrupt, sociopathic narcissist at his very core.
Dafoe Green Goblin's issue is that he's a literal Superpowered Evil Side Split Personality who IS all of Norman's worst traits but totally crazy by default due to that lab accident with the formula that created him, with no way of turning off the crazy, which effects his sense of agency. So I don't think he's quite a Yami Marik type case where he can keep.
Edited by ANewMan on Mar 10th 2022 at 9:32:13 AM
These situations are also... not similar at all? Like with Green Goblin, we were judging him based on his one appearance in the single crossover movie, not across his entire tenure as a villain - it was specifically "he appears in this movie, does this in this single movie, is he heinous enough for the franchise this single movie is placed in". It's a completely different situation and I'm not sure where the comparison is coming from, tbh.
Like it might be an issue if we were judging whether or not Argost specifically counted in that single crossover, but that's not what's happening here.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Mar 10th 2022 at 10:42:40 AM
My idea was that his appearing in the MCU had us judge him by the standards of the franchise even when he was from a different universe. I didn't think the situations were exactly the same but I thought it might be somewhat similar to that, I can see the points for why it wouldn't be an issue though now that they have been brought up.
I don't see how that comment is warranted 43 I found something I thought might be a genuine problem so I brought it up. The rules don't exactly cover crossover situations in depth and I only really had Green Goblin as something to possibly go off of. Sometimes my suggestions do get rejected but they also do often get approved and I don't mind if they are.
Edited by Ordeaux26 on Mar 10th 2022 at 8:26:25 AM
Not knowing anything about either show—or having watched either show or the crossover—would we really take heinousness for a one-off appearance into account for a show that's otherwise separate? …I feel like I answered my own question.
I would LOVE for Goblin to count for only the Sam Raimi film. It's just not so though.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Mar 10th 2022 at 8:27:03 AM
My concern was the attempt to draw what others found to be a false equivalence. You might remember the approvals more but it's a fact that these suggestions come at a rapid pace and many are rejected. I'm not insulting you, I'm pointing something out.
I'm gonna leave it here... suggestion is open, you can take steps if you'd like or keep doing what you're doing.
Edited by 43110 on Mar 10th 2022 at 11:27:29 AM
Argost is a child-murdering serial killer who tries to genocide humanity. Without the resources of someone like, IDK, Z'skayr? He'd keep even if the crossover wasn't in dubious canonicity.
One other minor Marvel baddie I wanna get up from Warren Ellis's Hellstorm featuring Marvel's edgelord demon anti-hero/anti-villain/whatever's convenient for the writers. This guy is from issue #15...
What has the Bailiff done?
Long ago, a Mad Artist made a deal with a demoness named Inanna for inspiration, promising not just his soul but his exquisite mansion too—the house would become an embassy of Hell. But the artist screwed Inanna over and kept her out with a diary enchanted with runes. How's this relate to our candidate? Well...
The Bailiff is Inanna's head servant; a dapper, humanoid creature with mouths for eyes and a studious fascination with torture. Decades after the Mad Artist made his deal, a writer named Jack Wintergarden bought the mansion and invited all of his family and all of their friends for a massive party. Exvept the diary is accidentally destroyed...and the Bailiff comes to collect the house. With all the people inside it.
The Bailiff decides to "inspire" Jack with real episodes of violence and torture—all of it committed upon his family and innocent guests. The Bailiff forces Jack to watch as his little daughters burn alive in a brazen bull. Guests are hung from the ceilings by their necks by spiked Chinese iron collars, leaving them in constant groaning agony. Others are bound with Persian eye cups forced over their eyes so acid can be slowly dripped into their retinas—"the sizzling is quite soothing, I find." Another is strapped to a chair with only a ringing bell directly over his head for company; the ringing drives him irreparably mad after days. Not even Jack's two-year-old son is spared from this.
All of this, the Bailiff gloats, "because I felt like it."
Any mitigating factors?
For a complete nobody of a demon in Marvel? Yeah, holy shit, Ellis does not spare the brutality. Inanna herself doesn't qualify; she may or may not be the same character as a goddess who previously appeared in Marvel canon (that's the issue when you borrow etymology from real world mythologies) and in either case, the Bailiff does literally all of the torture; Inanna appears for one or two panels before being killed.
It's worth noting the Bailiff doesn't even need to be this much of a dick. We see another "Bailiff" in the employ of another demon later—they appear to be artificial servants—but it's far meeker and without cruelty. The Bailiff is a monster because it loves it.
Conclusion?
Easy keeper, I think.
Edited by Scraggle on Mar 10th 2022 at 9:57:29 AM
