Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

@ACW: Ya, from the IDW comics. Soon, don't worry.

Alright, my last before Sorsley Ende: lemme update us on Kamen Rider OOO, since I saw no contention on an early discussion. The tenth anniversary movie debuted this month (Core Medal of Resurrection) and it brought back the Predecessor Villain of the original series, who already has an entry here:

• The long deceased original Kamen Rider OOO was the greedy king of a long lost civilization. Desiring immortality, the king had his alchemists create the original Greeed, before betraying them and leaving them as conscious but immobile Cell Medals for millennia. Stealing the Core Medals from the Greeed even though this would kill them, the king used this power to try and Take Over the World, causing countless casualties in the name of his avarice, as revealed in the prequel novel by Nobuhiro Mouri. Double-crossing his own ally, the king seals all the Greeed away just to keep all their Medals for himself.

We verified this dude counted and rewrote his entry years and years ago, but I don't think we ever really gave him a formal EP and honestly, after the additions to his rapsheet the tenth anniversary movie gives him, I think he's due one.

What has Kamen Rider OOO/the Ancient King done?

Eight-hundred years ago, a nameless tyrant ruled over a nameless land. That was the the original Kamen Rider OOO, AKA the Ancient King. The greediest being who has ever lived, the King had his four Alchemists use the ancient Core Medals to create the original five Greeed just so he could kill them and absorb their powers for himself; furthermore, as soon as he was done with his alchemists, he turned them into conscious Core Medals, keeping them in a state of And I Must Scream for centuries. The Ancient King even double-crossed the one Greeed that was genuinely loyal to him, Ankh, in an attempt to take his power too. Further details provided to us by Nobuhiro Mouri illustrate his rule was not a pretty one; the Ancient King slaughtered villages full of innocents, wiped out entire armies, and, in some cases, destroyed entire countries using the monstrous might of his Core Medals, killing countless millions of people.

The Ancient King's days of havoc came to an end when, in attempting to absorb the Greeed, he was instead overwhelmed and petrified. That's where he stands in the vanilla series; merely the Predecessor Villain, a relic of an ancient past.

Well...somehow, in Core Medal of Resurrection, years after the main series, the King attains enough power to come back to life. The Ancient King proceeds to resurrect the other four Greeed—Kazari, Uva, Gamel, and Mezool—and immediately cuts a swathe of slaughter through humanity. Flashbacks show him massacring a street full of fleeing, screaming innocents; by the time Ankh is revived and we catch up to the present day, the King has exterminated most of humanity and taken over the world, reducing mankind to a few pockets of resistance he sets about systematically exterminating with his Greeed. His first proper appearance in the modern day shows him doing just this, wiping out dozens of resistance fighters.

The King's evil came to a head when he manages to even slay Eiji, AKA the modern Kamen Rider OOO—the hero of the original series. After giving Eiji a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown, the King spitefully attempts to murder a weeping little girl, forcing Eiji to take the bullet. By the end of the movie, amazingly enough, Eiji's death sticks.

At the middle of the movie, the King proves old habits die hard when he once again murders the quartet of Greed and absorbs them for their powers. He promptly attempts to do the same to Ankh in his battle against him, only for Ankh to extract the powerful purple Core Medals from within King and give them over to the Greeed inhabiting Eiji's body, giving him the power to finish off the Ancient King once and for all.

Any mitigating factors?

I'll keep this short and simple and say absolutely not. The King is the most wicked character in the Kamen Rider OOO continuity, standing heads-and-tails over even Dr. Maki by the end. He's the epitome of Selfish Evil and accordingly he never even comes vaguely close to a redeeming quality.

Conclusion?

Yep. Still a keeper—a far easier one that he even was to begin with, really.

TBH, on a slightly unrelated note, I'm dubious that we should keep current qualifier Kazari/the Feline Greeed, and it all comes down to him not being particularly heinous anymore. He's a treacherous snake, but he's also been the butt of one Eviler than Thou moment after another; he's outdone particularly hard by Dr. Maki in the original series, the Ancient King subjects him to a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness moment no less than twice, and he really only stands out from the other Greeed at this point due to a lack of actual redeeming qualities. The other three still want to destroy the world and they participate equally in the King's genocide on humanity—if anything, Uva is far more vocal about wanting to Kill All Humans by the end.

Edited by Scraggle on Mar 19th 2022 at 1:29:38 PM

Happy birthday mir

Wouldn't that be greeediest?

Yes to 000.

OOO.

I guess Cut Kazari.

to Scraggle’s candidates and Solheim

I’m probably against the majority right now but I think I’m going to give La Touche a . As someone who plays the AC games and has knowledge on its Heinous standard, I think La Touché is heinous just enough to be considered with his mass crippling on people MO and La Touché has less resources than Addin. Definitely looking forward to seeing the other two potential AC candidates posted up

Edited by G-Editor on Mar 19th 2022 at 3:55:14 PM

Kamen Rider OOO

So I guess that means Ejji joins Takumi from Kamen Rider 555 as the only main rider to die (though it was only implied with him).

Wonder if Eiji will in fact come back to life; or if the King is in fact really dead.

to OOO.

I think Kazari is still a keeper. He doesn't just betray his comrades, he subjects them to one of the most cruel and painful deaths imaginable. He and Maki have different goals, but Kazari is still very destructive and even willingly helps enable Maki at several different points.

Ancient King OOO.

Yes to sick fuck Solheim, Jeff and Nat and OOO... I'm willing to hear Scraggle if Kazari is iffy, his writeup isn't filling me with confidence that he makes it.

Triple O

Abstain on Kazari. I’ll wait till more arguments show up.

Mr. Solheim.

Jeff and Nat.

Ancient King OOO.

to solheim, jeff, nat, and OOO

ACW, I forgot about that rule. Sorry about that. I think I'd rather turn praetorian guard into plain-text "bodyguards" and get that And I Must Scream pothole in there, that good?

That's fine.

to Kamen Rider OOO.

Kamen Rider OOO

Solheim

Jeff and Nat

Edited by KazuyaProta on Mar 19th 2022 at 4:39:46 AM

My issue with Kazari is that every example of him being a disgusting smug snake who kills his own allies tortuously (which is all true) can flipped back on him, to the point where I struggle to call his betrayals truly unique.

Yes, the way he tricks and kills Gamel/Mezool is bad, but Maki and King are just as bad if not worse here. Maki manipulates Uva into becoming a mindless vessel for the Core Medals, resulting in a prolonged and painful Death of Personality for Uva, and then Maki dispatches Kazari in a way just as cold and underhanded as what he did to Mezool/Uva; stabbing him and leaving him to crawl away and slowly die in total ignominy. And King takes the Chronic Backstabbing Disorder way beyond them both; he created the Greeed for the sole purpose of murdering them and devouring them.

I think the one thing that does genuinely distinguish him from the other Greeed is his nasty way of turning people into a Monster of the Week—they're aware the whole time until they're saved—but again, King's got him licked in the And I Must Scream department by a solid mile. Beyond that, nothing he does is unique; his desire to destroy humanity is matched by literally every other major villain in the show plus a few of the movie ones, and his tendency for betrayal stops being unique as the show goes on. It's extremely telling to me the 10th anniversary movie no longer depicts him as the nastiest or even the leader of the Greeed anymore in favor of having King subject him to another Eviler than Thou moment.

I always had genuine trouble buying that Kazari stood out compared to Maki, but even past the series they continue to grind in that Kazari's ultimately just a second-rate schemer or mainly exists to die to show off who the real villains are. He's unabashedly nasty, but I can't support him anymore than I would support Sid from Gaim (who also has the issue of being a douchebag with zero redeeming qualities, but never really being able to punch up with the show's nastiest).

I'm officially motioning we cut Kazari.

Edited by Scraggle on Mar 19th 2022 at 3:54:20 AM

Cut Kazari.

Edited by DoodSlayer136 on Mar 19th 2022 at 2:36:54 AM

Sure Cut Kazari

Regarding "King's got him licked in the And I Must Scream department by a solid mile"...are resources a factor here, or not enough to make up for it?

Not enough to make up for it. OOO is obviously more powerful, but Kazari's no slouch in the power department either. The idea he'd destroy the world is no less implausible than King taking over and exterminating humanity. Yet that still doesn't help, because everyone from Maki to the Greeed to the villains of the movies usually have "destroy the world" as their default goal.

In terms of the specific crime, too...there's an inherent silliness to me in comparing "possessing people and leaving them aware, but always able to be saved at the episode's end" equally to "turning people into immobile, conscious objects for eight straight centuries."

Edited by Scraggle on Mar 19th 2022 at 3:57:46 AM

Hmm, in that case, I'm fine with a cut.

Maki still a keeper? And if so, should he be moved after King?

Yes to King/OOO, Cut Kazari with it all laid out, sounds bad but not really pushing it past the standard anymore.

Alright, Lighty and I have plans for more from this franchise here and especially over on MB, but I found this simple one recently and I think he's a quickie Keep:

What's the work?

Vampire: The Masquerade is a popular tabletop RPG that's spread out into literature, comics, video games, and more! It takes place in the "World of Darkness", a setting much like our own with a few differences, the biggest of which is that vampires—here called Kindred—have their own underground, secretive society that they maintain with the "Masquerade" to ensure humanity never learns of their existence.

There's plenty CMs already, as can be seen over on the subpage, but I think this one rings in just fine for his tier:

Who is Ghivran Dalaal? What has he done?

"The Dead God" Ghivran Dalaal was once a mortal man with a specific set of interests. That being, indulging in the most vile tortures and actions he could concoct purely for sadism's sake.

Using his sociopathic, downright magical allure to amass an entire group of brainwashed cultists, Ghivran would regularly torture his own cultists to death, eager to repeatedly witness the moment the soul left the body of his victim. So regular and horrible were Ghivran's ministrations to his cultists that their greatest hopes were that Ghivran would end them quickly when their time came.

Ghivran was found by the Kindred Markus Kozier during one of Ghivran's particularly vile rituals: forcing his cultists to hand over one of their own children for him to strip, skin alive, and force his cultists to cannibalize. Shocked and impressed by the mortal Ghivran's evil, Markus Embraced him and transformed into a Ravnos Kindred.

Ghivran would travel with Markus for a time before growing bored of his sire, prompting Ghivran to tie Markus up and order a group of his devoted cultists to eat the regenerative Markus's flesh right from the bone. By the time the powerful Markus was screaming for death, Ghivran granted it by drinking Markus's blood to the point of death—a Kindred taboo known as diablerie—before slaughtering his entire group of cultists in a bloody celebration of his power.

Ghivran now continues to prowl the lands of New Delhi, amassing an entirely new cult dedicated to worshipping him as "the Dead God" as he continues to subject his brainwashed slaves to regular lethal mixes of torture and pleasure...and all while he hunts his new favorite prey: his own Kindred brethren, happy in the idea of getting to torture those who are the hardest to kill for as long as his heart desires.

Mitigating features?

Nah nothing, he's depicted as an especially godawful Kindred in his love for pain and suffering, and nothing is remotely stated to be positive about him.

Heinousness?

So Vampire absolutely has plenty of nasties with hundreds or thousands of deaths on their hands, people like Sascha Vykos or Hardestadt ringing high as some of the worst in the setting and engaging in nasty torture themselves, but Ghivran was a normal fuckoff cult leader who tortured people to death regularly and flayed and cannibalized children alive, and now runs the Cult of the Dead God expressly meant to indoctrinate countless people he can subject to his sadistic whims on a daily routine. The dude is running an industrialized torture-sadist cult that subjects even children to the horrors and that's unique enough for me to be good with listing him as a lower-resource Kindred than many of the ones on the page at the moment.

Final Verdict?

I'd say Keeper

Edited by Ravok on Mar 19th 2022 at 3:00:19 AM

Ghizan

I guess cut Kazari

Having heard Scraggle's arguments, I'll change to . Hearing this makes me wonder if it might be worth reexamining other approved Kamen Rider CMs.