Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

you found another example of things that have been gone over before and are complaining again about 'wall of text' approved entries based upon nothing more than a personal dislike? If you have a major issue, then read the series yourself and write a new entry for us to approve.

And no, Hagoro doesn't have redeeming features.

edited 27th Sep '14 5:50:35 PM by Lightysnake

'valor' means bravery.

I've watched The Maze Runner and The Boxtrolls. While nobody in either the book series or the film of TMZ counts, The Boxtrolls might actually have an example in Archibald Snatcher.

Be warned, that since this is a recent movie, there are going to be massive spoilers ahead. I'd suggest seeing the movie first if you haven't already.

Who is he?

Snatcher is the Big Bad who wants to rid the town of Cheesebridge of Boxtrolls as to secure himself a position in the White Hats, primarily due to a motivation of wanting power, forcing people to bow down to him, and his cravings for cheese, which he's allergic too, oddly. To this end, Snatcher leads a long search through Cheesebridge's street to hunt down and kill every last Boxtroll, which essentially amounts to fantastical genocide.

What has he done?

As said before, Archibald wants to kill the Boxtrolls; he and his cronies forge tales and lies to keep the town in a constant state of paranoia, painting the Boxtrolls out to be baby-murdering monsters and he and his gang the heroes. His cronies are seen picking off and capturing dozens of Boxtrolls, rounding them up in his base of operations. This includes the fatherly figure of the protagonist Eggs, Fish. Eggs was a boy raised by the Boxtrolls, and it's that action that leads to him into conflict with Snatcher.

His true colors come to form around the middle of the movie. In a flashback, we see Egg's father, who was the only one who knew the truth about the friendly Boxtrolls, harassed by Snatcher. Snatcher is trying to force Egg's father to build him something, or else he'll take his infant son and presumably kill him. When he defies him, Egg's father sends Eggs to the Boxtrolls to save his life while Snatcher apparently kills him with a wrench. Egg's father isn't actually killed by the blow, but Archibald does something even worse; he captures him, and locks him in his base for several years until he's reduced to little more than a gibbering, insane wreck. Archibald's greed extends to Eggs himself, and for the time being lies to the townfolk that Eggs was killed by the Boxtrolls which he now obviously knows are nothing of which he claims.

Snatcher, in the present, is building a giant crusher to round up the Boxtrolls. He confronts Eggs in a public dance part at the White Hat Rind's house, disguised as a supposedly attractive actress. Snatcher drags Eggs into a closet and seems ready to silence him, but not before revealing he intends to murder every single one of the Boxtrolls at once.

After a series of events which leads to Eggs outcasting himself, Snatcher ambushes him and the Boxtrolls, destroying their underground base and rounding up all of them. He forces Eggs to watch him crush the Boxtrolls using his machine, gloating about it all the while. From there on, Snatcher dresses up Eggs as a Boxtroll and returns to the surface world, presenting the crushed boxes to Rind and forcing him to give up his White Hat. While this is happening, he has his gang lower Eggs, forcefully dressed up as a Boxtroll, into a giant burning furnace installed into the machine to burn the boy to death. Upon being thwarted, Snatcher snaps and rampages in the giant machine, destroying the town square and attempting to crush Rind to get his hat, uncaring of the masses he could also kill.

That approach too doesn't work, and Snatcher falls into a massive cheese wheel. Now bloated to sickening extremes due to his cheese-based allergies, Snatcher kidnaps Rind's daughter and holds her hostage to make Rind give up his hat. He succeeds, and gets a bite of the finest cheese in the town. Eggs tries to offer him a chance at redemption, but Snatcher has none of it, eating the cheese and blowing up because his body can take it no more. Ultimately, it was his own greed that does him in.

Any mitigating factors?

If he had any, they're gone by the end of the movie. Snatcher initially appears as little more than a bumbling, Laughably Evil poacher. Then we see him apparently killing Egg's father, and his comedic qualities quickly shed until he's a full-blown Knight of Cerebus. He has henchmen, but he doesn't really care about them. He's not really a straight Bad Boss, but he still pushes them around and verbally chews them out; two of them perform a Heel–Face Turn. As for being evil enough, I think that attempted genocide, his repeated attempts to kill a child, one attempt by burning him alive, forcing him to watch as he apparently kills all of friends, and the destruction of two populated areas with nary a care of who he kills makes him a contender.

Conclusion?

See above. I think he might count.

edited 27th Sep '14 6:37:01 PM by Scraggle

That might be the most amusing villain death I've ever seen. Here lies Archibald Snatcher - Cheesed to Death.

This sounds like a comedy. I mean, making people bow to cheese? Dying of a cheese allergy? I'm sorry but I can't take that seriously. I have to vote no.

Found another maybe from a very old film. It's the version of Mephisto from the 1926 version of Faust, directed by F.W. Murnau, the same man who brought us Nosferatau, and our oldest film entry, Graf von Orlok.

Who is Mephisto? What has he done?

He's the same devil that he is in most productions of Faust, but with a higher rapsheet. At the start of the film, Mephisto has released the Four Horsemen to trouble the earth. An angel appears and orders him, on behalf of God, to stop it. Mephisto instead challenges the angel to a bet—if he can corrupt the sole of Faust, the world is his. The angel takes the bet.

Faust is a doctor living in a village. Mephisto spreads his wings over the village, bringing plague to the inhabitants; he also kills the village priest when the latter notices his presence. Faust, desperate to help his neighbours, turns to Mephisto for help. Mephisto grants Faust the power to heal the sick, though anybody wearing a cross is unreachable. When the townsfolk notice this they trap Faust in his home and prepare to stone him. Mephisto offers him youth, and a beautiful wife as a means of escape.

Faust takes the deal, and, now young, travels to Parma alongside Mephisto. Mephisto forces the Duchess of Parma to fall in love with Faust. As soon as Faust has left with his new bride, Mephisto kills the Duke of Parma in a duel. He then threatens to take away everything he has given Faust if Faust does not sign a deal for eternity.

When Faust grows board with a life of debauchery and wishes to return home, Mephisto takes him there, where he meets and falls in love with Gretchen. Mephisto forces Gretchen to fall in love with Faust. When Faust visits her at night, Mephisto informs her brother, who goes there and engages Faust in a duel. Mephisto also travels to the house where he kills Gretchen's mother, and stabs her brother, Valentin, in the back, framing Faust and Gretchen.

Gretchen is put on trial and then burned at the stake. Faust, realizing what a bad deal he has made, curses Mephisto, loses his youth, and then commits suicide. Mephisto tries to claim the wager, only to be told by the angel that Faust and Gretchen had actually come to love each other, costing the devil the bet.

Are his actions heinous by the standards of the story?

Yes. Unlike other takes, where Faust is a colossal douche, this version was a likable scholar who was concerned about his neighbours and sought to help them. He becomes a bastard later on, but that's entirely due to Mephisto's influence. Over the course of the film Mephisto kills dozens with the plague, murders four more people (the priest, the Duke of Parma, Gretchen's mother, and Valentin) personally, and has Gretchen burned at the stake. He gets Faust to rape the Duchess of Parma (Faust, for the record, doesn't consider the implications of her being under Mephisto's control at all), then drives him to suicide. And it's all done as part of a plot to Take Over the World and make it as miserable as possible.

Does he have any redeeming qualities?

Not that I can think of. There's a bizarre scene where, while Faust woos Gretchen, Mephisto woos her middle-aged aunt, but this seems to be done for his own amusement, and it never goes anywhere. It could be a Pet the Dog (she's a lonely old lady) but that doesn't fit his characterization, and his motives are never elaborated on.

Freudian Excuse or other mitigating factors?

Mephisto's the devil, which as always, brings us to the Made of Evil argument. The film doesn't offer any backstory for him; he's just the devil, here to tempt people and make the world a worse place. That said, the fact that he's pictured with the same wings as the angel we meet, would suggest the film is going with the Fallen Angel backstory, in which case he's not Made of Evil, but rather a rebellious angel who wants the world for himself. Nothing suggests otherwise, and that would be the version of events most familiar to Murnau's audience.

Final thoughts?

I think Mephisto passes our criteria. Other opinions?

edited 27th Sep '14 6:30:51 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

to Mephisto. And while the film is a comedy, that argument doesn't hold a lot of water seeing as Snatcher is a Knight of Cerebus and his evil actions are played seriously.

Yeah, I say yes to Mephisto...

But I think you're dismissing Snatcher way too easily. Comedic traits have never been a bar as long as the character is serious and it seems he is here.

Mephisto and Snatcher

The Snatcher sounds bad .

edited 27th Sep '14 7:41:15 PM by AustinDR

To Mephisto. Sounds like an interesting film. Also, reminds me in weird way of the Once Upon A Time Peter Pan- definite Adaptational Villainy of a character (Mephisto is a Noble Demon in Goethe and to an extent in Marlowe's version), but in a way that doesn't feel like derailment of the character. Instead, it just elaborates on the negative traits the character already had.

I think we should cut this entry from Anime & Manga:

• In Mawaru-Penguindrum, up until the first half, those opposing the Takakuras were revealed to have at least a sad or sympathetic background, I.E, Masako chases after Kanba relentlessly, but she also wants to save her brother Mario; Sanetoshi is a Manipulative Bastard, but he lost his "special person" and still longs to find her again. However, in episode 15, we see that the latest "antagonist", Yuri Tokikago, is a thoroughly broken person, and a Complete Monster was to blame. Said monster is her own father, a famous Mad Artist who carved his daughter's body with a chisel to make her "look beautiful" and be worthy of his love, while telling her that no one would ever love her because of how "ugly" she was. This happens in a flashback and that, in these scenes, Yuri is no older than 8 years old. And it's really not helped by the huge sexual abuse vibes and the implication that Mr. Tokikago either killed or drove away Yuri's Missing Mom because she lost her "perfect beauty" after giving birth to Yuri. No wonder said person developed some of the biggest issues in a series that's already very complicated.

Butterfinger provided a good reason to cut the entry here.

edited 27th Sep '14 7:59:19 PM by TVRulezAgain

Cut that one

31089: Is that one of those cases where he works to stop another villain purely out of Pragmatic Villainy?

No. It's him directly disposing of a threat to his own life when a man he raped and murdered comes back from the dead as an ogre to kill him in retribution. The most you can say for Haguro is his deciding he represents humanity, but this is hollow on multiple levels.

edited 27th Sep '14 9:46:32 PM by Lightysnake

Please don't laugh, but I think there might be this one villain from a lighthearted show that might qualify. Please read all the way through before judging. And lease don't Facepalm. I assure you the villain is surprisingly heinous.

The Dark Princess from Rainbow Brite and The Star Stealer. She is this greedy evil princess that, in a case of Stupid Evil, wants to steal the planet Spectra, a planet made of pure diamond. All light in the universe must pass through it or the universe will freeze to death in darkness. The Dark Princess wants it for money, even though removing it from its foundation will cause her death. She is told on multiple occasions that the universe will die without it, but she does not care. She has giant ropes tied around the planet to pull it out of its foundation. The Earth is shown to have already been affected, being thrown into a permanent winter, and we are told it will soon spread to the rest of the universe. When Rainbow Brite tries to reason with her, she has her locked in a dungeon. This may seem like an act of mercy given that she could have killed her, but since Rainbow Brite would soon die anyway when the planet was out of orbit... yeah. At the end, after her ropes are cut and her plans are foiled, she takes the "if I can't have it no one can" route, and tries to crash a space shuttle into it to destroy it out of spite. However, her spaceship is destroyed and she dies.

Before you make your votes, bear in mind that G1 MLP was a show targeted at little girls, and that G1 Tirek qualified.

edited 27th Sep '14 11:02:33 PM by bobg

I mean, making people bow to cheese?

Eh, this was never said. Scraggle said "making people bow to him". That was followed by mentioning his cheese cravings being a motivation for him.

I lean more towards for Snatcher, though. I'm not sure why, but something would seem off about his inclusion. He almost seems like a deconstruction of a typical cartoon villain, with his Gargamel-esque vendetta against an entire species for no good reason and his attempts to kill a Kid Hero being played with seriousness rather than taken lightly or Played for Laughs. Makes him an extreme case of cartoon villainy, but not extreme enough to be considered truly heinous.

Looked up the Dark Princess and she seems to be a surprisingly Vile Villain, Saccharine Show kind of character. But I'm undecided since it depends on how much damage she caused in her quest to do even more damage and if she had any redeeming features. Also, how does she stack up against the King of Shadows, the other dark villain in the series?

edited 27th Sep '14 11:07:26 PM by AnewMan

I've been reading Mother Keeper and I believe Silas Edwards would count as this.

Who is he?

Silas is a character who appears in most of the backstories in Mother Keeper. He's rich and he is part of an illegal death ring in for the sake of fun and betting. He doesn't seem to care at all about the people around him and it doesn't matter who dies.

What has he done?

Silas buys a teenage girl as a slave, as she meets the requirements he set of needing someone pretty and strong. He takes this girl and drugs her repeatedly until she's addicted before dressing her up and releasing her into the death ring. She is forced to kill countless opponents for the sake of surviving while he watches amused and not really caring if she dies other than the fact he'll have to buy someone new. After about two years, the girl is put against the person she loves most and Silas takes it as no more than a challenge. He is arrested during this fight just as the girl manages to kill the person.

He later bails himself out and decides to blame the man who sold the girl to him for the fact he got caught. He has the man, who he's meant to be very good friends with, kidnapped and tied up by the neck. He threatens this man with rape, chokes him, pours acid down his face, slices his arm off and eventually gives the orders to have him executed.

Heinous in story?

Yes, even the guy selling him the slaves was disturbed by what he was doing. The girl is basically traumatised by the events and even the character who's supposedly the villain is disturbed by Silas's actions.

Any redeeming factors?

None, he does everything for his own amusement and cares about no one else.

Conclusion?

I think he's likely to count.

@ Anew Man, the closest thing she has to a redeeming quality is this large gem she carries around and treats like a pet, telling it at one point "I won't let anything harm you" I am not sure if showing affection to a nonliving thing is a redeeming quality, but it does not matter as at the end, she uses the gem up as fuel for her ship. The King of Shadows is probanly a lot more3 frightening than her, but she tried to do far worse than him. At least the king is not an Omnicidal Maniac. The king turned one place into a nightmare world, while she tried to destroy the universe. Her only migrating point is that she does not do anything real evil outside of her final plan. She still has no redeeming qualities and what she tried to do was far worse than anything any other villain in the series did.

Contesting Torchwood entry.

Torchwood: Children of Earth "The 456, while being Starfish Aliens, are very definitely examples of this trope. After taking control of all the world's children in order to communicate, it turns out that they use human children in some nasty symbiotic way in order to get high and are bargaining to take 10% of the world's children to use as drugs or else they Kill All Humans. This is a protection racket, and they would almost certainly have been back for more later. One child is seen hooked up to one of them and it's shown that he's been a human reefer for over 40 years. It's really twisted and nasty."

They seems to be an Always Chaotic Evil race. I also quote "Can a group be listed under Complete Monster?: No. Groups lack moral capacity - only individuals have that. It is theoretically possible for each individual member of a group to qualify, but they most be shown and described as such individually."

for Mephisto, Snatcher, and Silas.

While I haven't watched that season of Torchwood myself, others here have noted that the 456 are a Hive Mind. Perhaps that should be reflected in the entry.

BTW, the Who Sandbox will be swapped Wednesday.

on Pighead (he barely has a personality, and I'm not sure if it should be taken in continuity with Hoffman's bodycount, which seems larger) for Syura and Champ, abstaining on The Maze Runner (planning on seeing it), to movie Faust's Mephisto. Need more info on Silas before making a vote. Are the other contestants slaves and how big is the institution of slavery? How many people are involved in organizing the underground fights? How villainous is the slaver that he kills?

@ Ambar: Then I'll agree to cutting Wynn and keeping only Clown from that adaptation. Might be the first time I've seen a redeeming trait established in a single facial expression. Even Hopper (who's not an example, of course) was discussed and cut based on an actual line of dialogue.

Here's a write-up for Clown, and a rewrite for Katsuragi as well.

• Spawn: The film incarnation of Clown/Violator is as monstrous as his comics counterpart. The devil Malebolgia's chief lieutenant sent to Earth to start Armageddon, he's a revolting demon who gets off on violence and depravity, even at the expense of his allies. He makes a deal with black ops security chief Jason Wynn by offering him dominion of the world in exchange for creating a bioweapon that would kill most of humanity, after first having it tested on thousands of people. Malebolgia can then use the souls of the dead as his army to invade and destroy Heaven. Clown initially orders the death of Al Simmons/Spawn at Wynn's hands, recruiting Simmons after his return to Earth to lead Hell's army. He convinces Wynn to attach the virus to his heartrate after letting Spawn kill Wynn's Dragon, Jessica Priest, then manipulates Spawn into killing Wynn to release the virus. When this fails, the frustrated Clown tries to rape Spawn's ex-fiance Wanda in front of Spawn while forcing him to watch, and promises that he'll slaughter the rest of his family (including Spawn's 4-year old daughter Cyan) when he's done.

• Sakura Gari: Dr. Katsuragi, the Saiki clan's doctor and one of Souma's lovers. He initially appears to be a polite, helpful doctor, but is soon revealed to be a disgusting pedophilic rapist and multiple murderer. When Souma informs him that his stepmother Sakurako was sexually abusing him, Katsuragi drugs Sakurako and forces the traumatized young Souma to slit her wrists and kill her, not to stop the boy's suffering but so he could have Souma for himself. He regularly rapes and tortures Souma for years, before doing the same to Masataka, Souma's lover, out of jealousy. He gives his wife Asayo the same treatment, turning her into a battered Broken Bird. He later tries to poison Souma's ill father Lord Saki as well, one of the few people still remaining to him. Out of the many horrible people in this story, he's definately the worst.

• Complete Monster: Walter certainly counts. Even before he is revealed to be a pawn in Mathias's plan, he still kidnapped Leon's betrothed and held her as a hostage. When she is rescued, and all seems to be well, she is suddenly revealed to be succumbing to vampirism given to her by Walter. Leon is left with no choice but to kill her before she turns. The reason he does these things? He's bored with his eternal life, and likes playing games.

How does he compare to other villains in this series? It sounds like he does no worse here than cross the Moral Event Horizon.

• Complete Monster: While he's more nuanced than many examples of this trope, Shyamalan arguably qualifies. He thinks his "chosen" status gives him the right to use the Ryunka to wipe out most of the human race, despite being human himself, and he has no problem lying to, deceiving, and betraying everyone when it suits his aims, pausing only to lust after his colleague's teenage granddaughter who is also the Ryunka. And as for said colleague? When he refuses to cooperate with his plans, Shyamalan murders him with his bare hands! It says something that in a series that's crawling with dangerous alien criminals with powers beyond human capability, it's Shyamalan who stands out as by far the scariest villain in the series.

Examples Are Not Arguable, first of all. The work page mentions a Pet the Dog moment, possible Well-Intentioned Extremism (under Knight Templar; not sure if it's misuse), and that he has a significant Freudian Excuse.

• Complete Monster: Par for the course with the villains. Teridax, Zaktan, Vezok, Hakann, Pridak, The Shadowed One, and Vultraz. The worst part? More than one along the ranks of the good guys. Tuyet, Botar, Miserix, and especially Tobduk have all shown themselves of very little redeeming quality, indeed.

Well this is going back, because this example has been discussed on and off since page 148. Here are Dr. Psyche's posts breaking down the numerous villains that are listed there: [1], [2]. I'll support the general consensus: cut everyone but Teridax.

• Complete Monster - Czar Baldy Bald/Tsuru Tsuruina III, he led a Badass Army to conquer the world in a matter of days in which he ruled with tyranny to which is referred as the darkest period of the empire and is only stopped by an even more insane madman and the Hair Kingdom. His immediate action after reawakening is destroy a city for amusement. He is not played for laughs, being extremely serious despite the comical things happening to him and has no hint of a redeeming trait. His fight with Bobobo starts off with the former immediately trying to kill him with his staff, and only spared him for last after realizing he had the Hair Ball he coveted. He then orchestrated an roulette attack that would kill the cast one by one, earning Bobobo's wrath when it targets Beauty. He then spends the rest of the fight trying to sadistically kill Bobobo, and/or weaken him enough to take the Hair Ball. And when that failed, he absorbed him. Aside from this Hair Ball obsession, he desires the extinction of the human race because he finds them inferior, and being an android doesn't help matters. Even the Narrator in the dub finds him irredeemable, and the soundtrack in his fight involves a lot of moments which there is a low organ that plays during his Lack of Empathy moment instead of the Leitmotif of the usual Chrome Dome elites.
  • He gets even worse after getting Bibibi's Hair Ball, using its power to create an even more powerful empire. He orchestrated a school to teach the youth to be Hair Hunters, had soldiers humiliate the shaven even further by adding ramen on top of their heads, develop drugs to make them pure evil and forced the former members into slavery only to be executed once it was completed

Briefly brought up here. Unless someone can present a solid case, I'll say cut as well because of Played for Laughs concerns and the rest of his villainy sounding fairly generic. It's usually a warning sign when you have to mention the Narrator expounding on how much of a dick the villain is and the scary soundtrack as evil traits worth mentioning...

• Complete Monster: Aarfy. Among the novel's nastier characters, Milo really can't be defined by human morality and Colonel Cathcart is so over-the-top he becomes funny. This guy has no excuse. He's a serial rapist who kept one of his victims locked up in a closet for an hour before just murdering her outright, and enjoys bragging about his, ahem, "conquests". When a loophole in military policy allows him to pull a Karma Houdini, Yossarian realizes that the United States Air Force really is corrupt beyond redemption.

Consensus was to keep, but he got buried and forgotten about. Can someone who's read the novel rewrite him so he can be added to the Lit subpage?

edited 28th Sep '14 3:59:24 PM by Morgenthaler

Those two writeups will have to wait; I've got enough for tomorrow
I read Catch 22 a LONG time ago; I don't remember a Serial Rapist (I do remember that the book was quite nonsensical-probably deliberately). I did some research and it doesn't seem like he's a Serial Rapist, just with that one rape and murder to his name (which may be offscreen). Not to mention, Milo may be worse; I'm gonna vote for all Catch-22 characters.

@Morgan Thaler for Silas

Are the other contestants slaves and how big is the institution of slavery? The other contestants are all slaves, the deathring looks to be about under 100 people from what we see of it

How many people are involved in organizing the underground fights? From what we can tell roughly 3

How villainous is the slaver that he kills? Not really villainous at all, he's more just doing what he has to to make a living and to protect everyone else working there.

edited 8th Oct '14 11:35:51 PM by MarineHaddock

At one point, Aarfy gives a fairly detailed retelling of how and and his frat brothers kidnapped underaged girls and blackmailed them into sleeping with them. I vote .