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
Emperor Georgie Artémis Enkoom Evulz II
88 words? That's more than enough.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)
Professor Gigachad
You just need to add it to the Complete Monster Drafts page.
CM Sandboxes, MB Sandboxes
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Bertram Garvay, William Afton and Chernobog.
Barb / Temporary Kylo
to Chernabog and Imma assume Mr.'Cannot get a hard on without thinking of Raping and killing people' is not potrayed as a morally complicated character and vote keep for Todd for now.
Edited by Snoketrope on May 21st 2022 at 4:09:37 AM
The First man
to Bertram Garvay, the “Harold Saxon” Master video, the Skeletor quote, William Afton, and Chernobog. Keep Todd Bowden.
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Scar, Numb Chandelier, and the William Afton quote (too long).
RIP Toriyama
Busy busy day but Yes to Chernabog and indeed not swayed even in the slightest on Todd, his nightmares and being "forced" to comply with Dussander are not remotely portrayed as anything nearing sympathy, redeeming or anything remotely disqualifying for the sadist who literally bangs his girlfriend while fantasizing about torturing and killing Jews in the Holocaust. Todd ends the story going on a shooting spree and ffs, Dussander is a grown-ass adult former Nazi, I'm not gonna use him pulling off a few kills for himself to disqualify a young preteen/teen for matching and exceeding that lmao
I'll put in a rewrite soon, but naturally saying Keep him.
Edited by Ravok on May 21st 2022 at 5:21:57 AM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
- Lady Snowblood: Photographer Seiki Nishiomi is a woman disguising herself as a man, along with being an expert photographer. Despising higher-class women, Nishiomi lures them to her photography sessions and has them gangraped by her thugs, recording the photos and using them for blackmail to set herself up for life and to force them to lead her to new victims.
- Off Limits: Sergeant Dix is the serial killer who murdered his general's foreign-born wife in retribution for denying Dix a promotion years ago, in an attempt to force the man to feel the pain he felt. Unsatisfied with other foreign women about, Dix took to slaughtering Vietnamese women around Saigon, stopping for a time before starting up a new killing spree.
- The Croning: "Bronson Ford" is one of the Children of the Old Leech, a cult dedicated to a monstrous Dark One. Having been on earth for centuries, including as Rumpelstiltskin, Ford sows devastation, chaos and murder simply because he savors the taste of human pain and anguish. When hero Don is on his trail, Ford makes clear that there is nothing Don can do and forces a horrific choice on him: to become one of the Children with his wife Michelle forever, or Ford will kill and torture his entire family. The pact is to be sealed with Don's baby grandson, as Ford and the Children find children to be a delicacy. Ford admits he could take whatever he wants, but he enjoys the suffering of humans too much not to make the bargain.
- On Stolen Land: John Milton Chivington, disgraced colonel in the US army, murdered numerous settlers to frame the Cheyenne and other Natives. Leading his men to Sand Creek, Chivington butchered hundreds of innocents, mostly women and children, with many of them tortured and savaged, trophies cut from the corpses. So horrific were Chivington's crimes that the land itself rebels against them.
I say keep Todd, he's at least as heinous as Dussander and those mitigating qualities don't seem even slightly redeeming.
Chernobog write up
- Spinning Silver:Chernobog is a firey demon with a ravenous hunger for lives. Chernobog living inside tsar Mirnatius and possesses him and force him to find people so he could drink up their lives. Chernobog then makes Mirnatius marry Irina so he could taste her Staryk blood, he agrees to let her live in exchange to capture the Staryk King so he could feast on him forever and force him to allow him into his kingdom. Once there he begins to devour everything there, planning on consuming all of Lithvas as well once done, all to feed his insatiable appetite.
Also these quotes didn't get much feedback so what do you guys think of them?
-
Staryk King: Though you feast on me to the end of days, I will never unlock my kingdom's gates and you will have of nothing of me you do not steal.Chernobog: I will steal everything! I have you chained, I have held you fast. I will steal all the fruit of your white trees and will devour them whole; I will drink your servants and your crown, I will bring all your mountain down!
-
Chernobog would drink up the whole mountain and all the Staryk in it, and then he'd go back to Lithvas and suck everyone dry there as well. I recognized that hunger: a devouring thing that would gulp down lives with pleasure, and that would never be satisfied.—Miryem on Chernobog Spinning Silver
Keep Todd
Chernobog
Keep Todd
I'm not sure how much I'll be here tomorrow because it's my birthday but if anybody here wants to PM me films to EP as a present I'd appreciate it greatly. All I ask is no sequels.
Edited by DemonDuckofDoom on May 21st 2022 at 10:20:49 AM
So next I've got a complicated candidate, but she's at least earth a shot
The work
The Skinjacker Trilogy by Neal Shusterman is about the "Everlost" a place where kids that get lost on the way to the light at the end of the tunnel go as "Afterlights", who can end up forgetting everything about themselves and some have special powers. Objects and buildings can also cross over when they're destroyed, which are needed since afterlights will slowly sink to the center of the earth if they're on normal land.
The protagonists are Nick and Allie, and Allue is a "skinjacker" who can possess the living and the reason why she can is because her body is still alive and but a coma.
My candidate starts out as an ally but ends up becoming the Big Bad of the series, here is Mary Hightower.
Who is Mary and what has she done
Originally Megan Mary Mc Gill she lived in the early 1900s and died while playing with her brother Mikey after getting hit by a train.
She would be there for awhile, taking the name Mary she created a sort of sanctuary for aftetlights in the ghost of the Twin Towers. She would also began spreading advice around, half true half lies.
Everlost
So Nick and Allie stumble upon the towers and enter Mary's sanctuary at the cost that they toss away the coin all afterlights inexplicably have.
They spend weeks there and realize that everyone there falls into a routine that they will repeat beat by beat everyday. Mary knows about this and thinks it great. Nick and Mary also start to fall for each other.
Allie hears of a guy who can rip stuff from the living and drags Nick along to see if they can learn. The guy captures Nick but Allie manages to escape and goes to Mary to see if she can launch a rescue attempt. She refuses, saying she won't put her kids in danger.
Allie goes off on her own to try to rescue him, but he's been taken by an infamous afterlight known as "the Mc Gill" onto his ghost ship. Stuff happens with him, Nick gets free and has him lured to a spot and goes to Mary to try to convince her to launch an attack on him and rescue everyone he's captured.
Mary has a different plan, shows up there in the Hindenburg and reveals that the Mc Gill is her brother Mikey. He ends up beaten, Allie goes off on her own and Mary and Nick take all the kids to the towers.
On the way there Nick realizes what the coins are for: if you're ready to move on just hold one of them in your hand and you'll go. Nick has all the kids go while Mary is busy. Once he's done he confronts her and she admits she's always known what the coins were for, she just didn't want to let them go.
Angry over his "betrayal" Mary kicks him off and rushes off to the towers, but Nick beats her there and has most of the kids go before she arrives. There Mary decides to go around in the Hindenburg collecting kids to "protect" them from the "Chocolate ogre" (Nick died while eating chocolate so his face is permanently stained with it), as he goes around to get kids to pass on.
Everwild
A few years go as Mary lays traps to grab kids so she can can "rescue" them and collect them before Nick does, with the goal of getting every afterlight there is under her.
Eventually she reaches Chicago which is controlled by wannabe gangster Pugsy Capone, where she's captured by him but manages to negotiate a partnership and quickly and silently usurps him before having him tossed into the earth.
She finds out Pugsy had a skinjacker named Jill that was collecting a lot of afterlights for him by skinjacking people and causing accidents. When she learns about she's delighted and has Jane do it more often. Also another skinjacker Milos arrives, falls in love with her and becomes her dragon.
Mary plans to cross the Mississippi River, but there's no bridge in the Everlost to cross. She then learns Nick is in Memphis, gathering an army to try and stop her, so she has everyone under her care rush there to get them.
Once there, she sends a message to meet her at a spot so they can negotiate, which Nick agrees to. The spot is a vortex, a weird place there that does strange stuff to afterlights, and this one enhances whatever traits they have. She plans to have it enhance Nick's chocolate, which had already started to grow over him and have him just become pure chocolate. She's not worried about herself because as she puts it, she can't possibly be more right about what she's doing.
They meet, Nick melts into pure chocolate, but he had a plan, since he had someone who can rip stuff out of life, or shove it in and has Mary shoved back into life.
Allie is there and briefly skinjacks her and learns what her ultimate goal is:to end all life on earth.
But she already had her skinjackers prepare something else: blow up one of the bridges over the river, which they do and over 50 people die as the bridge crosses over.
After that Milos finds Mary in life and she has him kill her and he does. Since new afterlights go through a 9 month hibernation before waking up, Milos takes over while she sleeps.
Everfound
So Milos goes west with Mary in a glass coffin and he keeps up the reaping of people through skinjacking, though a bunch of their followers run off or fall into the earth.
Then a living guy Clarence whose a Scar wraith (partially in Everlost, his touch erases afterlights from existence), accidentally erases an afterlight which causes every hibernating afterlight to wake, including Mary.
She takes charge back from Milos and is disappointed for him losing so many aftetlights and says to make up for it they'll need to reap a lot more people.
A guy called Jix had shown up to bring Mary to his "king" and Mary agrees to see him... only to have Jix's boat capsize on the way, dumping him and a few dozen other afterlights into the sea.
After that she arranges for several gas lines to explode in a town to kill people, telling her new skinjackers that she's trying to stop it. It fails when Allie kills Milos's body, meaning he can't skinjack anymore.
Mary immediately replaces Milos and just tells him to find something else to do.
She then causes a toxic gas leak that kills everyone in a small town. After that she learns Jill is feeding Allie info on where the skinjackers bodies are, so she forces her into the body of a pig and traps her in there until she's stuck.
After Jill told the new skinjackers the truth about the accidents Mary manages to keep them on side after realizing that she has the power to charm people into her will.
From there she heads to the Trinity nuclear test site and learns what nukes are, and tells her skinjackers to find out who are in charges of handling nukes.
After Allie and Clarence show up she has Clarence knocked out and plans on dumping Allie into the earth. She then tells Milos to touch Clarence to force another awakening like before, and he does.
Then stuff happens, giant beam of light that has everyone that's ready to go disappear, strips her of her charm power, and she's left without any followers. Nick (he got better) tries to appeal to her, to have her turn a new leaf.
Mary instead lets herself sink into the earth, as she'd rather spend eternity there than be in a world where she's not always right.
Mitigating qualities
So Mary is complicated here. She acts as a mother to those under her care, but her love and care has very possessive quality to it. She lies to all of them that the coins are worthless to make sure they never leave, she slanders Nick as a soul stealing monster to get them running to her, and when she learns she's magically charming them she thinks it's wonderful.
Her relationship with Nick is also complicated as it's shown she does still hold done feelings for him, but she still tricks him into melting into chocolate with no regret, and when he offers her a second chance she rejects it.
As for her brother Mikey she soes everything she can to not acknowledge his existence and never spares him a thought.
With Milos it's explicitly stated she never loved him and she replaces him the moment he's no longer useful before having him erase himself for her.
She hates the living world and calls killing them "freeing" them, but she's so utterly self-righteous about it she flies into Knight Templar and Tautological Templar, with the book making clear she can't stand the idea of her not being always right.
Heinousness
Sets it. There a few side villains that toss people into the earth, but she actually kills people and still had a bunch dumped when she tried to get rid of Jix. When Mikey was the Mc Gill he had people strung upside but it wasn't presented as And I Must Scream but just perpetually boring them.
Milos does kill a number of people when he was in charge, but he was doing it for her and she kills a lot more people than him with an entire town being poisoned cause of her. Plus, while she didn't really get far into it she was planning on nuking the world to end all life.
Conclusion
So Mary is a bit complex with her "love", but I think it's a case of possessive owning love, so .
Professor Gigachad
Chernabog and a weaker one to Mary.
Yes to Mary.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Mary seems complicated. Abstain.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Chernabog.
Also, today is my birthday. Shame I don't have any E Ps at the moment.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Happy birthday!
Boggy boy
Mary
Happy BDay to DemonDuck & Micheal🎂
The Draftsman of Doom
Abstain on Mary. Happy Birthday Ducky and Micheal.
Rawr.
Happy Birthday Ducky and Michael! Switching to abstain on Mary.
I got a case for a Cronenberg we probably missed from back in the day, but I talked about this guy with a few others and I'm confident he's worth at least a post. It's gonna be a pretty tough case, but I think he's worth scrutiny.
The work of origin is one that we've tapped here a few times before over the years—Fargo, the Coen-produced Minnesotan crime drama where everyone is either:
- A. a goody two-shoes
- B. some kind of Machiavellian criminal
- C. a blithering idiot
- D. some creative combination of any of the above
In season 3, the big bad criminal organization of the week is the enigmatic corporate entity "Narwhal," led by a gluttonous, anti-Semitic parasite named V.M. Varga. Varga already counts, and as well he should, buuut I've been taking a look at his Co-Dragons recently. See, every season we get a pair of Bantering Baddie Buddies, and season 3 has possibly the most vicious out of any of them; Yuri and Meemo. The fact Varga was simply willing to let these two do their thing was actually a major argument for his qualification back in the day; Varga knows wherever these two go, death follows and lots of it.
Unfortunately while I'd love to propose Meemo, I think he's lacking the flourishes Yuri has. I'll expound below, but...
What has Yuri Gurka done?
The more sadistic of Varga's Co-Dragons, Yuri is a misogynistic, faux-affable Cossack who takes a singular delight in terrorizing his victims. Not just the people Varga has him pick off, either; the very first episode begins with a flashback twenty years before the main day, after a younger Yuri had strangled his girlfriend Helga to death for "talking too much." Yuri framed some poor, innocent rando named Jakob Ungerleider for the murder, leaving to Jakob's life being destroyed, and him facing imprisonment and/or imminent execution at the hands of the corrupt legal system.
Alongside Meemo, Yuri is the one Varga dispatches to take care of threats, even if "threat" is defined as "harmless old attorney," whom Yuri sadistically mocks and torments by telling him about his Cossack heritage before he and Meemo toss him off a large building:
- Yuri: When I saw your name...you searched for Mr. Varga, yes? I thought, 'I know these Blumkins. We rode them down like animals back in old days, raped their women, ate their babies...'
Yuri continues to hurt people on and off Varga's order through the rest of the season. He viciously beats up Nikki, terrorizes a poor security guard who walks into Yuri's business, and personally makes Stussy's assistant Sy drink out of a mug Varga just rubbed his dick in with a long, sadistic smile. When Varga decides Nikki has to die, Yuri derails an entire prison bus before advancing on it with Meemo and another minion, resulting in the death of many police officers and prisoners. Nikki escapes, and as Yuri pursues them an innocent hunter and his teenage son mistake Yuri for a wolf (TBF Yuri is literally wearing a wolf pelt). Before they can explain their mistake, Yuri murders them both to let off some steam.
Ultimately, Yuri's attempts to kill Nikki and her companion Mr. Wrench (the latter being one-half of season 1's bad guy duo, actually) finds him one less ear. Yuri stumbles into a bowling alley owned by the mysterious Paul Morrane (heavily implied to be the Wandering Jew). Paul informs Yuri that he has a message from Helga—and from the thousands of Jews who died in Cossack pogroms Yuri loved waxing about, whose souls Yuri sees staring at him...
Yuri is never seen again after this.
Any mitigating factors?
Alright, let's work this down.
Firstly I think actual redeeming qualities are a joke. He does spare one security guard, but presumably out of pragmatism; he still can't help veiling a threat toward the guy and terrorizing him.
Likewise I've also seen it floated that he's genuinely friends with Meemo, but that to me is a reach. The friendliest they get onscreen is them playfully kicking each other around after murdering poor Irv, but this is just them sharing a sadistic moment together. Weirdly enough it's the only time Meemo ever seems to indulge in the same sadism that Yuri practically oozes, and they otherwise never expand on their feelings past this moment. Their relationship is bereft of the actual affection that characterized literally every other evil duo in the series—Mr. Wrench, Gale Kitchen, and Zelmare were all respectively shown to be aggrieved when their partners die. Yuri and Meemo never get a moment like that.
Between him and Meemo, I would contend Yuri is worse. This would be a double post for them both otherwise—aongside what he does with Yuri, Meemo slays two innocent witnesses to the prison bus massacre, then after Yuri vanishes he kills two more people on Varga's order—but one thing makes me reluctant to post Meemo compared to Yuri. As aforementioned, Meemo totally lacks Yuri's sadism, pettiness and pointless cruelty; he's literally just a minion who kills at Varga's order and only on Varga's order. He barely even talks. Compare the two in the scene with the mug; Yuri is acting as sadistic as Varga himself is on that scene and personally makes Sy drink out of the mug Varga just rubbed his dick in, while Meemo literally just sits there in the background listening to tunes until it comes time to threaten Sy (at Yuri's behest, no less). This really accentuates the difference between them; it's, at most, a difference of a single victim between them and Yuri goes to every length to salt the wound that Meemo doesn't.
That's really the edge I think Yuri has going for him; sheer, pointless sadism. Other psychos match or exceed (rarely—notably, Zelmare and Swanee waste a whole subway full of innocents and cops in the fourth season, though they have pronounced redeeming qualities) his body count but only actual Big Bad types like Lorne and Varga himself match him in cruelty. Even fellow Brute-types that fill a similar niche rarely get as cruel as Yuri; I'd honestly argue he's worse than both fellow murdering psychos Dodd (S2) and Gaetano (S4). He matches and exceeds their body count in most instances and compounds it with a total lack of redeeming qualities; even Dodd and Gaetano had loved ones and moments of remorse and genuine humanity among their murders. Yuri is the kind of animal we haven't seen since Gaear Grimsrud, and I'd argue Yuri's worse than him, too.
Yuri won't just kill you; he'll do shit like make you drink out of a mug of piss first or murder you for inconveniencing him. Not just because he was ordered to, but because he really genuinely enjoys it. That's a flourish usually reserved for Malvo and his expies.
Conclusion?
What do we say? I'm neutral toward his qualification in the end, but for a villain who in the end is just a glorified co-Dragon (and one who dies well before his partner, at that) I genuinely can't shake off Yuri's sadism and how much of a hollow animal he is compared to other secondary antagonists. He's easily the worst member of the Those Two Bad Guys so far, and while his crimes are genuinely sick even in the world of Fargo, I'll let you all decide if he goes far enough.
Edited by Scraggle on May 22nd 2022 at 12:03:17 PM
Ultimate Moral Compass
Yuri
Slight for Yuri
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Hmm, tricky...FWIW, this has Yuri with 4 murders, Meemo with 3 (both include a shared one). Maybe that's off, but even for a dragon, that seems low. I know he's higher-up, but Malvo apparently has damn near 40.
So...abstain for now, but I'm willing to be convinced.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
"Four murders" may be underestimating the guy he framed for Helga's murder (who, if he's not slated for execution, is at best going to spend the rest of his life wasting away in a corrupt prison system) and the sheer number of people who get caught up in the bus accident (which—while it's a team job—he personally derails).
Edited by Scraggle on May 22nd 2022 at 12:07:02 PM
Umm okay haven't done something like this so here is my first attempt:
Arthur is a sociopathic con man who had made a deal with the darkness in the house after murdering his wife and kidnapping his brother and keeping him in the mansion. He manipulated unstable people into committing crimes as he also manages to trapped souls into the house in a state of imprisonment. He hid in plain sight as he had the youtubers pick themselves off through various means, such as electrocution and poisoning. In the end he attempts to murder Joey, Eva and Oli after being exposed.
Lemme know if it is good!
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.