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
So, I'm gonna make my first attempt at a CM proposal. I have a solid idea of what I'm doing considering I've been on sites like the Villains Wiki, so I hope this goes well!
What's the work?
Patrick Melrose
is a black comedy series starring.... well Patrick Melrose. Played by Benedict Cumberbatch, Patrick is victim of domestic and sexual abuse as a child, who turns to drugs to deal with the trauma of his childhood. As you can guess, since this is a black comedy, there are tons of comedic moments, mainly from Patrick's snarky attitude
. However, the character who I'm discussing today would fit perfectly well in a serious drama.
Who's the candidate and what does he do?
David Melrose is the posthumous main antagonist of the series. As you can guess by his surname, he is related to Patrick. He is Patrick's father, and a successful doctor who is the former patriarch of the rich Melrose family. But of course, underneath all that wealth and sophistication, lies a depraved and abusive man who made everyone's lives a living hell....
We eventually learn that he would physically, mentally and sexually abuse his wife and Patrick all through out Patrick's childhood. It's also learnt that he had raped Anna, Patrick's childhood friend as well, not to mention it's implied he's used his status as a way to easily rape other children as well.
He's also just a horrid person in general, frequently taunting and belittling people who he employs to work with him, and views everyone (even those who have an equally wealthy status) as inferior to himself. He eventually dies of old age when Patrick is in his twenties, but David's constant abuse would impact Patrick for the rest of his life, and make him turn to a life of drugs.
Any mitigating factors?
It is implied that David's own father was sexually abusive as well. But nevertheless, it is merely an implication, and never really explored on. Patrick's the real tragic one here.
Now, the thing is, there is one scene where Patrick stands up to his father and calls him out on his actions, which actually causes David to feel some remorse. The thing is it's heavily implied David gets over this, and continues to abuse Patrick until adulthood, so that's the only potential redeeming quality he had thrown out of the window.
And well, yeah, it's a black comedy series, but David and the actions he commits are taken dead seriously. He may be charismatic and witty, mainly thanks to Hugo Weaving's performance, but there's nothing about him that is played as a joke.
Heinousness?
David is the heinous standard! Nobody even comes close to the crimes he commits and he easily stands out for his sexual abuse of his wife, son and other children.
Verdict?
I hope I've done this well. Anyways, I think David is a solid yes!
Edit: Ok ummmm... I think I've made a mistake on the criteria, I don't know if there is a way to delete or cross out messages or not, but either way, pls ignore this proposal, I regret making it.
Edited by Not-Mr-77 on May 25th 2022 at 8:44:32 PM
Patrick Melrose has a page, and leaning for approval towards daddy dearest.
That said, ACW has a question below.
Edit: abstain per OP request.
Edited by SkyCat32 on May 25th 2022 at 9:38:46 AM
Also I may as well give these so ACW can pothole. I'd go Pious first, the Ancients that count and then anyone else who happens to get put up.
- Eternal Darkness:
- The Roman Centurion Pious Augustus serves one of three evil Ancients in exchange for power and immortality. Over the course of two millennia, Pious causes numerous tragedies for humanity: destabilizing the Holy Roman Empire by killing its emperor; building a monument to his Ancient out of the bodies of countless slaves he has captured; and engineering a conflict in World War I within a hospital to feed many injured soldiers to his bloodthirsty demon servant. Using a time of planetary alignment, Pious tries to bring his Ancient master into reality, putting the whole world at risk of destruction to maintain his power.
- Chattur'gha, The Ancient of Body, is the most straightforward and brutal of his kin. If chosen, Chattur'gha empowers Pious with the superhuman strength and demands his servant go forth to conduct sacrifice in his name. Wishing for nothing more than to enter the human realm to destroy it, Chattur'gha has Pious murder thousands to appease his bloodlust and comes forth and feed humanity to his demonic minions in apocalypse to prove his supremacy.
- Ulyaoth, The Ancient of Spirit, is seemingly the most intelligent yet arrogant of his kind. Should he be chosen as Pious' god, Ulyaoth gluttons the liche on knowledge and sends him forth to cause turmoil and conduct mass sacrifice. Wishing to control all that exists, Ulyaoth means to enter reality and feed mortals to his infernal machines, leaving them in endless nightmare while he empowers himself.
I put the Ancients by order of how they're listed off in the game and on the character page.
Where will Lighty's ancient go?
EDIT: Also, I think I'll remove the Eldritch Abomination pothole in Pious's writeup and do this:
- Eternal Darkness has The Heavy and the three evil Ancients he can choose to serve:
Edited by ACW on May 25th 2022 at 11:40:17 AM
Alrighty, after some talk with Scraggle, I think I've got one for the Batman page, specifically one from Batwing. That comic's already given us one keeper from the early issues, but now I'm here with one from the Luke Fox days - his Arch-Enemy, The Menace.
Who is Russel Tavaroff/The Menace? What does he do?
Russel was once a pathetic teenager who befriended Luke Fox. He was bullied incessantly by his peers, but his attempt to rectify this through learning martial arts also falls through, and it comes to a head when a bully leaves a dead rat in his locker. That day, he snaps - first he tries attacking the bully, then he pushes Luke away, and soon enough he starts trying "snakebite", a Venom offshoot that bulks up his muscle. With this, he kills his bully and, during the Zero Hour event, starts heading towards his school to destroy a levee and flood it. Luke tries to stop him and explain why his actions aren't justified, but soon enough the police arrive, and their misunderstanding of the situation leads to Luke accidentally triggering Russel's explosives, supposedly killing him.
Unfortunately, he survived, now with two main differences - a burning hatred of Luke Fox for "wronging" him so severely, and taking the martial arts teacher's motto of "life isn't fair" and turning it into his new criminal manifesto - if life couldn't be "fair" for him, then he'll make it miserable for everyone else.
By the time he reappears, he's allied with the Ratcatcher and gained partial control of the city underneath Gotham's streets, using its people as slave labor to produce his drug, viper, en masse and spread it up top. Within three weeks, people start becoming vegetative, and his control of the market leads to a rise in gang violence across Gotham. Of course, he's also got his personal vendetta against Luke, so he targets Luke's sisters - he kidnaps both of them after killing the people with them, and in Tamara's case, he gives her so much viper that she's put in a vegetative state before releasing her to torment Luke's family.
Luke manages to track him back to the underground city, stumbling upon his forced labor operation in the process, where a slave who tries to rebel gets subdued by robots with sonic screams, but eventually, after Luke captures one of the heads of the other factions, he finally finds Russel, who's going by the name The Menace now. Menace kills the other faction leader and the other faction directly, slaughtering them in droves, before engaging Batwing in a brutal fight. It's long and bloody, but Luke eventually manages to kick Russel into a lake, where he's then eaten by the monster inside it.
Young Tiffany, meanwhile, manages to escape the Ratcatcher, find Luke, and escape the underground, though Tamara is of course still catatonic when all is said and done.
Any mitigating factors? Freudian Excuse?
Nah. His backstory is slightly sympathetic at first, but it's made clear as day that it doesn't justify any of his crimes. He just couldn't handle some schoolyard bullying and decided that instead of improving himself, he'd take it out on everyone else, mostly people who didn't do anything to him to begin with. Basically, textbook Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse. Other than that, there's a brief moment where it seems like he might have a standard against hurting a child, but in reality it's just that it's more fun for him to imagine Luke going nuts finding his baby sister while nothing is actually happening to her and she's more valuable as a hostage. He's clear here.
Is he heinous enough?
Dude crawls his way up from nothing, and when I say nothing I mean literally some random puny kid who gets bullied, into taking over a section of an underground city, creating forced labor camps, spreading a harmful drug that puts people in vegetative states across the city and leading to gang wars, and forced Tamara into a vegetative state out of spite towards the one person who was kind to him. Even considering the competition (including the other CM from the comic, a dictator who uses child soldiers), Russel is easily bad enough for his tier.
Final verdict?
Easy keeper, and Scraggs will be handling the writeup - what about you?
Yes to the Menace, handily. All sympathy he could have kept from his first issue vanishes the second he plans on destroying an entire school and most of the surrounding town to get back at his bullies. Add that, he throws Luke, his best friend, away for nothing.
Like maybe possibly the Snakebite is fucking with his mind like Fox brings the possibility of up, but Tavaroff himself pretty much shoots that down and there's no other indication he's delusional or anything. Even for a New 52 title he's wretched.
I assume the viper is much worse than the snakebite he himself takes?
Also, even if the bullying isn't disqualifying, what about the fact that he...you know, was almost killed in an explosion? I feel like that could've made him snap. Even if it was an accident, him hating Luke after that isn't entirely irrational. Is there any indication he would've been convinced to stop the flood before the explosives went off?
Edited by ACW on May 25th 2022 at 1:38:38 PM
Nope, Luke tries to stop him peacefully by appealing to his better nature, and Russel's response is to straight up try to murder him for it. There was no chance of him surrendering peacefully, and the explosion only happened because Russel's first solution to his problem was to wipe it off the map entirely.
Basically, Luke was already on his shit list for basically no reason even before Luke accidentally blew him up. Hell, the accident only happened because Luke got his hands on the detonator and was just trying to run away with it so Russel couldn't use it, but the cops make him trip and he accidentally presses it.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on May 25th 2022 at 1:49:07 PM
Yeah. Chronologically Menace trying to murder Luke for preventing him from committing mass murder comes before the explosion. When I mean Tavaroff throws him away like nothing, I mean it—the Menace immediately tries to kill Luke when the latter tries to stop him, shrugging off Luke's horrified comments that he'd murder his own best friend with a "heh, yeah."
Edited by Scraggle on May 25th 2022 at 11:48:03 AM
Ah, so he would've destroyed the school anyway, and it becomes Never My Fault? Yes to him then.
I still need a New 52 CM. I got a Pre-Crisis; Post-Crisis (Abattoir); Elseworlds; and other (Vandal); but no New 52, Rebirth, or whatever the hell the current continuity is.
Edited by ACW on May 25th 2022 at 2:06:32 PM

Edited by Beast on May 25th 2022 at 4:07:53 AM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."