Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

I honestly think any situation in which Vecna shows redeeming qualities is hilarious, but that's a discussion we can leave for whenever 5 comes out.

Nothing's impossible, but the show's making it VERY, VERY clear that Vecna is gonna keep trying to torture and murder everyone, so it's highly unlikely he'll be cut. The Oberhauser version of Blofeld ran sex trafficking including women and children, so it came as a shock to NO ONE when the next film showed him doing nothing of any sort that would call for him to be cut. Funny enough, Vecna comes off as a way better version of the Fant4stic Victor Von Doom who is also listed.

I'll take a look right now. Sorry.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 16th 2022 at 10:13:01 AM

Anyway, can we ignore speculating on Vecna and actually vote on the guys last page, please? Yea to Marie but no to Gillick.

@Scraggle I have to disagree with that, the group does treat the situation as an urgent matter especially Morag who outright said if the plan works, the destruction of Mor Adain will hasten it's already dying state so much faster and will endanger everyone in the Titan.

And how is killing one of the most populated Titans in the game not extra visceral especially compared to the many different Blade Quest villains? Yeah Gillick does not act as overtly sadistic as Alex and Castrofari, but his actions are still taken very seriously.

Also the whole Amalthus comparison to Gillick is kinda off, one Amalthus is far more direct with his approach of trying annihiliate the Titan while Gillicks is a secret terrorist attack by poisoning the Titan, and second Amalthus is an event in the main story while Gillick's is in an optional Blade Quest that can be miss, so naturally they'll present Amalthus' actions in a grander and flashier scale compared to Gillick. The fact Gillick is attempting something of the same scale as one of the Big Bad is doing despite being a minor villain honestly gives him a stronger case.

Edited by TheImmortalAngelNewton on Jul 17th 2022 at 1:02:31 AM

Marie

Abstain on Gillick.

Because I just got done saying how the game isn't putting that much dramatic weight on it. Not compared to when the same threat crops up again during the main game. The heroes just go "oh no, we have to stop this!" without any big gravitas or mention of potential death. It's essentially Fridge Horror that's not given the weight any good Omnicidal Maniac should have.

I think Castrofari's more "visceral" than Gillick because he occupies such a blatantly awful niche. I guess his attempted body count is lower than Gillick's, but the game is a hell of a lot more upfront about the idea he wants to commit mass murder than Gillick, who again only qualifies if you allow for that technicality. Which I do not think we should be doing, when there's other mass-murderers in this series whose actions are given a lot more emphasis than Gillick's. Literally all we get for his plan:

"If they use the Thanatitan there, they'll be able to accelerate the Mor Ardanian Titan's degradation![...] If they get away with their scheme, Mor Ardain's gonna be in big trouble!"

That's literally it. No big focus on the stakes of the actual civilian casualties. Like, at all.

How does that automatically bring him up to Amalthus levels of omnicidal mania? Where in that dialogue is this threat being played with the same weight and the same level? This guy is the definition of "bad on paper but totally generic in execution."

Edited by Scraggle on Jul 16th 2022 at 11:10:26 AM

No to Gillick, looking into this one leads me to the same conclusion Scraggle's finding. Yes to Marie if I forgot to vote. Seconding we can leave aside opinions about Vecna's quality as a villain and speculation for another time.

Based on the EP, unsure, but unsure on Gilick due to how vaguely the threat is represented. Based on the EP, leaning to Marie, though would that moment of her saying a scary black man attacked her be considered too racist for her to also be an MB?

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 16th 2022 at 10:13:13 AM

It would be Fridge Horror yes, if the game did not outright said what the consequences are, it'll kill the Titan quicker and endanger everyone in the country and Gillick said his plan is to destroy Mor Adain with the poison. The way I understand your argument is it doesn't seem like it's given the same gravitas as Amalthus for attempting the same thing.

The game still treats the whole thing seriously and urgent, not like a throwaway joke side quest so their still weight and again in comparison to where Gillick stands, he blows most of them out the water, even compared to Alex and Castrofari, his actions is in a bigger scale since it's killing the Titan and will destroy the country.

Look, I never even plan to compare Gillick and Amalthus, but putting that aside, Gillick is still a very outstanding candidate compared to the villains in sidequest since again nobody reach his scale. He's just a psychotic mercernary with few scenes, but what he's doing is something nobody in his category touch.

If he's downvoted fine, but honestly i don't really understand your argument since to me it just comes of as you don't think it's treated serious enough which I disagree.

Edited by TheImmortalAngelNewton on Jul 17th 2022 at 1:13:08 AM

Gillick

Yeah, that's kind of the meat of it. It's hard to give the proper dramatic weight to that kind of evil when you're a one-off sidequest villain instead of the Big Bad, but remember: what works as exceptionally heinous for another villain might not for another, depending on how that crime is played. And in this case, I think the rushed, optional manner of the sidequest really does impact the weight we're supposed to feel from his Evil Plan.

This is exactly why tone and dramatic gravitas matters a ton for the qualification of a CM. In this case, the idea he wants to kill everyone on the Titan is too much of an inference for me.

I won't argue this anymore, but my "no" is final.

Throwaway joke and CM are not the only two options. Even if it's serious, "we'll be in big trouble!" does not have CM weight

I misread the situation with Marie. She was being tried for MB simultaneously and not already approved there. Either way, I'm still a yes.

Then based on what I'm reading with Gilick, to him. The idea he's doing the same thing as the actual Big Bad is given nowhere near the same weight from the sound of it. I wanted to give an example of someone we approved more explicit with only so many actions, but their arc is not yet finished, so can't at this time.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jul 16th 2022 at 10:22:50 AM

• Ghost Rider fanfic Hearts of Fire (link): Mephisto is the same demon lord responsible for the damnation of numerous souls. In his first appearance, Mephisto is shown brutally beating his own son Blackheart, proclaiming him a failure, and trapping in an ice wall along with Judas and Marcus. Mephisto begins his plan to create a Hell on Earth to expand his domain and wipe out humanity in one go. Mephisto would take his daughter Malinda to be The Antichrist for him, which he would use to bring about the apocalypse. Mephisto would begin collecting the seven seals that he needed to break open the barrier, as well as sending numerous demons after Johnny Blaze, Lillith, and Blackheart to stop them, not caring when most of them ended up killed.

Hey ACW should I use the comic book page or the franchise one since this is a fanfic specifically of the comic book.

Yes to Marie and no to Gillick. Second for the Skulduggery batch:

Who is Martin Flanery?

A nauseating Trumplica that the author insisted on making an important part of the climax despite no one liking him, I've actually gone over him before. He was downvoted as, despite being a nasty piece of work with grand ambitions, he was ultimately a minor pawn who had no chance of getting those ambitions off the ground.

Until now.

So, long story short, there's this demigod lady named Abyssinia ("people choose their own names" is only going to work as an excuse for so long before you start running into really stupid ones) who wants to create an Unmasqued World and start a war between the normal humans and the sorcerers, the chaos of which will allow her to conquer the world. To do so, she needs a human pawn, so she goes to the stupidest moron she can find and gets him into office. Flanery, being a narcissist, clings to every idea she and her allies suggest to him and claims all the credit for it, gladly going forward with whatever horrible acts they want him to do while insisting it was his idea the entire time.

Anyway, the plan is for Abyssinia to stage an attack on a naval base that will expose magic to the world on live TV, with Flanery gladly giving up soldiers to be massacred. From there they'll go to war, with Flanery's opening move intended to be the bombing of the American Sanctuary (magic government). After a bit of fighting they'll call a truce, with Abyssinia ruling over the sorcerers while Flanery sets up his own dynasty.

...Well, that's the plan he was told. In truth, once he reveals the footage of the naval attack to the world, Abyssinia will kill him on live television. Flanery is approached by a different villain, Crepuscular Vies, and informed about the double-cross. Vies takes over the military operations and double-crosses her first, but, against Flanery's wishes, deletes the footage of the attack to delay the global war. Before that can start, they need a way to level the playing field.

Vies takes Flanery to a creature called Doctor Nye, who has figured out a way to give magic to mortals... at tremendous cost to their physical and mental well-being, with many, many fatal rejections of the process. Flanery goes ahead with incorporating this into the military anyway. Fast-forward a bit to the apocalypse, and unending hordes of giant monsters have emerged from the core of the earth to wipe out humanity, with the sorcerers finally unveiling themselves to defend the mortals. We'll get to that later, don't worry. Flanery immediately paints the sorcerers trying to protect innocents as the enemy, unveiling his magical super-soldiers and declaring war. The ability to make said super-soldiers is also provided to many of America's allied nations... so long as they can pay for it.

Thanks to Flanery's fearmongering... well, everything begins to suck. All cops and military, enhanced by Nye but also so roided out that they're just as likely to kill each other as they are the giant monsters, begin hunting down sorcerers, executing them via firing squads or brutal hangings. Innocent people are whipped up into a frenzy and begin burning sorcerers at the stake, and the fight against the giant monsters gets so brutal that they eventually drop bombs on cities, with eleven million dead in the initial attacks alone.

When finally confronted by Skulduggery, Flanery states that he's given orders to bomb Ireland should he ever be killed and hands the detective off to Nye to be tortured, making clear his endgame goal of escalating to dropping nukes on every Sanctuary in every country in the world once he finds their locations.

...And then the void incarnate erases reality. Whoops. Everything gets set back to before the giant monsters attacked and, without some big threat to "lead" the world against, Flanery loses his second term.

Any mitigating factors?

Before, the only issue was heinousness. Dude was a vile Hate Sink, but too incompetent to ever actually be a threat, and his worst acts were always done as a self-absorbed pawn.

Here? Genocidal war, fearmongering driving the world to global Salem witch trials, throwing soldiers away to be massacred or driven to insanity, and, of course, nuclear apocalypse. He's still absolutely being used by Vies and Nye to further their own plans, but those are achieved by letting him go off the rails without any supervision. See above for the results.

Verdict?

Yes please, let's get this over with so he never needs to be brought up again.

As for others, Abyssinia and Vies are trying to cause WW3 to put her son on the throne and discover the location of his siblings (living superweapons only brought out for an end-of-days scenario) respectively, so they don't cut it. Nye's next.

And that's what I don't get, since it does not downplay his actions at all. Gillick's plan is to poison the Mor Ardain Titan with Thanatitan, to destroy it which puts everyone on it in danger. This isn't speculation, it's outright said. Just because the party doesn't go apocalyptic like they did with Amalthus, doesn't mean his actions is still not treated serious. The game doesn't need spellout the consequence of that since it's already been well told the consequences of what happens when Titans die so it isn't speculation or Fridge Horror.

It seems like really the issue you bring up is presentation which ultimately is more of a problem on the game itself does sidequest. I'm not saying it's invalid, but it doesn't necessarily make Gillick a joke of a villain who's not treated. He's still treated seriously when doing the quest and there's still weight so he's still a valid candidate.

Sure to Martin.

Ordeaux: If it's specifically the comic, use that namespace.

Yes to Flanery with the expansion on his villainy.

to Martin and Marie

Tbh I'll personally give Gilick a .

Flannery.

Flannery

to Flannery

Vecna and that Chryssie video.

Also, cut the Mind Flayer.

Personally, I am giving Gilick a . While tone is important, I personally don't see a problem if his goal of wanting to kill people is clear, if his actions are heinous enough and if they are not played for laughs and I don't care if they are not portrayed with exactly the same gravitas as the actions of the Big Bad.

And to Flanery.

Edited by WatTambor on Jul 16th 2022 at 8:49:01 PM

Flannery

Abstain on Gilick

Edited by therealjackieboy on Jul 16th 2022 at 11:32:09 AM