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
Non-CGW pending:
- The Bad Seed: Bessie (43110)
- Black Rain: Sato (Lighty)
- Stratton (2017): Grigory Barovsky (Lighty)
- East of Eden (Ravok)
- Hirikones (Swiss666)
- Bob Morane (Silverblade2)
- The Nefarious Foes of Sherlock Holmes (Mir/Jackie)
- Fables (Scraggle/Lighty)
I’ll get to Bessie’s writeup later on but for now I just wanna be sure we understand the heinous standard for Rhoda before we go forth with an EP: she’s eight years old; by the time Bessie was seven she already had the very personal punch of killing both her younger siblings, so that’s murder of children + the personal villainy her whole villainy is covered with; Rhoda has three, one of whom is a child, the other two adults (one Asshole Victim fwiw) and a dog she got bored of as a pet. Additionally the criminal case paints Bessie as though she had a master plan from the start to use and dispose of people. Rhoda is a budding psychopath, no question there but idk if she makes it beyond the “budding” part and it’s hard to give her Ur-Example points when she’s sharing the work with her monstrous granny. I don’t want to dissuade an EP but I would like to gauge if we’re still so keen on one understanding it’s not a super clear cut case thanks to heinousness, even beyond just baseline which I brought up before. I do firmly stand behind her having agency on the other front though.
Hinowa ga Crush! ended suddenly and well, I reserved it.
For CM, nobody keeps. Kyotetsu and King Zuou pass the Heinous Standard, with one being a taxidermist Serial Killer military general and the other being The Emperor with a historial of Rape, Pillage, and Burn in where he personally indulges in graphic detail.
However, both have clear redeeming traits. Kyotetsu develops a genuinely friendship with other villain that mourns him when he dies while Zuou is a Benevolent Boss to his elite soldiers, who treat him as basically a drinking buddy.
So yeah, two 90% Monsters.
Watch me destroying my country- The Bad Seed: Bessie Denker, born Schober, was a sociopathic Serial Killer, who systematically murdered her family members as it suited her. Dispatching her younger siblings as a child, Bessie soon after took the lives of her grandfather and both parents. Marrying a wealthy man to enrich herself by convincing him to take out an insurance policy, Bessie then killed him as well, careful to keep up the facade of a sweet, caring community member to avoid suspicion. Later marrying the father of heroine Christine, Bessie kills him too, before being finally exposed by her cousin, killing said cousin and three of her own children—Christine herself barely escaping her wicked mother—hoping to frame her dead cousin and escape justice until being caught and executed. Even long after her death, Bessie's memory haunts Christine well into adulthood and her genes give way to Christine's own daughter Rhonda taking up her grandmother's mantle as a budding psychopath in her own right.
Technically they're no longer medical terms but using the prior definitions: every psychopath is a sociopath, sociopaths would be the traits of a psychopath "lessened", Bessie and Rhonda seem to be both, at least from an authorial intent standpoint.
Also if you'd like clarification on the effort post/writeup I've done do you have a vote on it?
Edited by 43110 on Jun 29th 2022 at 9:09:32 AM
Do you think Villainous Legacy around "taking up her grandmother's mantle as a budding psychopath in her own right." Would work better than Black Widow?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."Hey, so a while back I posted this one off Regular Show baddie
. Now I know this seems silly to bring back up but what makes me reconsider is that most RS villains are supernatural beings or cosmic entities with the means to cause mass-destruction.
This guy is one of the few who's just an evil human being, and what he does is exceptionally vile given his resources. I can't think of anything in the show that's equivalent to enslaving someone by sealing them in a box for years that renders them an emaciated husk, all for profit, and killing anyone who sympathizes with them. Most of the other one-offs were just Jerks who'd at worse try to kill the heroes, and even the Big Bad types like Anti-Pops and Ross didn't do anything as sadistic as trapping somebody in a life of horrid confinement and abuse while dehumanizing them as property, to the point where any hope for a normal life is destroyed. Additionally he sic s his goons on the trio in an armed car chase that leads to several of them apparently dying and he doesn't care.
He might be a very minor character but he's a callous one, especially since he's a human businessman rather than a supervillain like many others.
All witches, all skeletons, all jack O Lanterns, gather round your TV set, put on your masks, and watch...watch the magic pumpkin, Watch...I to just finished seeing Black Phone. Really enjoy it and Looking forward to discussion about it
Edited by G-Editor on Jun 29th 2022 at 4:05:06 AM
My sandbox of EPs and other stuffNot a pothole guy, perfectly happy for those to be changed.
@ Awesome, Only thing I can think of is her being written off on Offscreen Villainy rules or the fact she's dead in present... neither of which stand up, even before rule amendments imo.
Edited by 43110 on Jun 29th 2022 at 10:02:48 AM
I'm fine with keeping the "spinoff game" part to Dodgson's entry unless Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous Season 5 or another official source confirms whether or not Jurassic Park: The Game is canon or non-canon. Apparently, there might or might not be an answer in Camp Cretaceous as to how Dodgson got back the can of embryos.
Edited by Misry6 on Jun 29th 2022 at 8:50:44 AM
Just an empty void…Yes to Sato, Bessie.
No to the twins.
I read another DC Icon novel, called Harley Quinn: The Reckoning. Where Harley is a teenager who is part of gap year program between High School and College and works in a lab at Gotham University. She also joins a girl gang to fight sexist pigs on campus, but Gotham University has a predator on campus.
Who is Dr. Aaron Nelson? What has he done?
A seemingly kind professor who is Harleen's mentor and seems to want to encourage women to succeed in science, Dr. Aaron Nelson is actually a vile serial rapist. Nelson is getting fear gas from an unknown party at Arkham Asylum, in exchange is sending blood samples to the unknown party. Dr. Nelson invites young co-eds to interview for scholarships, sprays them with fear gas, rapes them and the fear gas prevents them from testifying against him. One of his victims, Kylie Pierce reacts badly to the fear gas and dies. Kylie was in a feminist girl gang Harley and others formed to attack sexist pigs on campus, so Harley wants to catch the party responsible.
Also being sprayed with this fear gas essentially ruins your life, Harley has a girlfriend in this series, Bernice whose sister Stella was attacked by Dr. Nelson and would have panic attacks whenever she thought who attacked her, she ended up living in Arkham Acres, the version of Arkham for non-violent mentally ill people.
Dr. Nelson has a victim list of at least 10 women and was going for an 11th victim until Harley and her allies step in. Dr. Nelson locks Harley in a wine cellar and Bernice manages to capture Dr. Nelson and hook him into a trap where he is standing on a stool, with a noose around his neck and a can of fear gas in front of his face, essentially an elaborate trap that will kill him. Bernice and Harley argue whether to kill Dr. Nelson or not, with Harley not wanting to throw her future and Bernice wanting revenge. Bernice kicks the stool and Nelson is about to die, until Harley hits the rope with a throwing star, saving Nelson's worthless life. The cops take Nelson and Bernice away.
Is he heinous by the standards of the work?
This book is full of creeps, a frat boy tries to rape Harley and another frat boy successfully rapes her girlfriend Bernice. But Nelson is a serial rapist and also mind rapes his victims. Harley's dad is an abusive asshole who locked Harley in the bathroom when she was 7 for 3 days, almost killing her.
This book is part of a trilogy and clearly, Scarecrow was providing Nelson with the fear gas, but it would take a lot in the upcoming books for Nelson not to be heinous enough, given the niche he is on.
Any Freudian Excuse or other redeeming qualities?
No way, his nice-guy persona is an act and at one point when Harley and Bernice are about to kill him, he bursts into tears, saying that he didn't mean to kill Kylie. But only seems to regret getting caught, he tries to rape and gas women after Kyloe dies and had a lock of all his victims, including Kylie as a trophy.
Final Verdict?
Keep him.
Edited by Overlord on Jun 29th 2022 at 9:24:12 AM
@Misry Then I guess we keep the VG reference out then in that case.
The comic version is not canon to the movie and Dominion is the one that made him count for the trope by means of heinousness. It's not like where Lane was definitely heinous enough with Rogue Nation, but Fallout eliminated the ambiguity of anything redemptive.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jun 29th 2022 at 8:48:54 AM

Bessie.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."