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
If you know my name, it will destroy the univers
Mod note: Removing this post as the EP violates CM guidelines.
Edited by MacronNotes on Aug 17th 2022 at 12:21:46 PM
The Emperor of Evil!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm assuming you're new here since I've never seen you around here before, but I kindly ask to please wait until August 19 because that's when the discussion on the film is due, plus someone already claim the movie for discussion already.
Maybe blank your message to avoid spoilers too, we don't discuss the movie until the day it's due for discussion.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Jokuku and Unger.
Edited by Powermaster201 on Aug 17th 2022 at 4:43:27 AM
Goku Black
Jokuku and Unger
Me and Tyke reserved that. He'll be discussed than. Please blank that
Edited by miraculous on Aug 17th 2022 at 2:25:26 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Bigfoot, Jofuku and Unger.
Goku Black
Also their is going to be a new adaptation of 'Salem's Lot in April 2023. Pilou Asbæk will be playing Richard Straker.
Edited by miraculous on Aug 17th 2022 at 2:48:31 AM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Starting with first of my candidates to C Ms with Sahira from Age of Wonders 2: Shadow Magic, second being Melenis. I still consider if Phobius should be candidate as well.
Who is Sahira?
Sahira is a nomad wizard and former court mage of the nomad great chieftain. In SM campaign she plays a role of minor antagonist to the hero Ke-Nan. Her greed for power made her killing her liege to usurp his position in great tent, removing a rightful successor Ke-nan. But her hunger for more was not satisfied with this act. She made a pact with Shadow Demons - invading forces from shadow world that consume every life and every realm they find. In exchange for "food" i.e. slaves to consume, she was promised more power to hold her position in great tent. She obliged. To put her down, Ke-nan allied with orcs and their leader Karissa, and together they took Sahira's capital, ending her reign for good. Deprived of slaves to feed Shadow Demons, Sahira ended as their next meal right after she outlived her usefulness.
So what evil is she responsible for?
Assasinating her liege and usurping throne wouldn't be exceptionally evil for Age of Wonders. Being slaver also not, as this is a cultural trait of Nomads before Ke-Nan took a power into his hands. However conspiring with a demonic forces from Eldritch Location and feeding them with mentioned slaves to be devoured alive, only because of selfish hunger for power, is what seals the deal. Shadow Demons are not just evil, they are world threatening entities with intention to kill every single living being in Athla. And Sahira shown no concern for slaves fate, laughing at their voes. There are many evil guys in Ao W and Sahira is not even exceptionally powerful one. Heinousness standard is high, as we have a Nimue destroying whole race for being weak or Shadowborn causing war between two empires. But really few fall so low to conspire with such an evil like All-Devourer.
Redeeming qualities?
In-game she has "neutral" character trait, like all Nomads. But don't be mistaken, this one is just gameplay and story segregation case. She is evil and game campaign leaves no doubt that she is particulary nasty piece of shit.
Verdict
I feel a special disgust for species traitors, so I am pretty biased judge. Thankfully, the judgement is in your hands.
Edited by Evil_Azgoul on Aug 17th 2022 at 1:48:49 PM
The Draftsman of Doom
Honestly, Az, aside from wanting to know how your other candidate compares, I lean towards approval for Sahira. Sounds like she is quite The Quisling.
Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Ultimate Moral Compass
Sahira
Now's time for the other, final Daredevil script candidate.
What’s the Work?
Daredevil: The Man Without Fear (no relation to the previous script) is a script treatment by J. M. DeMatteis. Despite being well received by everyone, including DeMatteis’s childhood hero Stan Lee, the treatment wasn’t used, as a Fox executive didn’t like it. Now, despite being a treatment, it tells a full, detailed story and contains a ton of dialogue, similar to James Cameron’s Spiderman treatment.
Taking some inspiration from Columbus’s script, the treatment boasts a very similar story, but with some key differences. Notably, Kingpin and Bullseye now have different goals, actions, and motives, the third act is altered, and we also have new villains like this fine fellow.
Who is He?
Baron von Strucker is reimagined here as a German crime lord who runs the arms company Hydra.
What has he done?
Having previously kidnapped and tortured the young Elektra Natchios and murdered her mom Maria, Nikos prevented Wilson Fisk from killing him out of the good of his heart. Von Strucker would go on to sell weapons to criminals, including guns that can send explosive shockwaves, and weapons that can literally cook a man to death.
Selling his weapons to Fisk, now the Kingpin, von Strucker takes advantage of his desire for power by making a bargain with him, where he must kill Nikos in order to ensure he’ll obtain the weapons. Nikos is killed by Fisk and Bullseye, so von Strucker hands the weapons over. With his weapons later causing a massive amount of casualties, whether they be used by Kingpin or Bullseye, von Strucker is last seen at the end relaxing in his yacht... only for the now grown up Elektra to appear and kill him.
Redeeming Qualities?
Nein.
Heinousness?
So Kingpin in this version definitely doesn’t count, as he genuinely loved his deceased wife Vanessa. He also lacks some of his more vicious crimes from the previous script.
Bullseye here, sadly, doesn’t keep due to a... really weird plot twist. Here, it turns out he’s the son of Kingpin from another relationship he had, and he not only loved his mom, but despises his dad for not loving him enough. It’s an... interesting take on the character, that’s for sure.
Von Strucker, on the other hand, may not be a Nazi like his comic counterpart, but he’s still a very ruthless arms dealer who cares more about money, murder, and ruining lives than general decency. He knows very well what his weapons are capable of, and is all too willing to sell them.
Conclusion
Basic, but easy keep.
Edited by therealjackieboy on Aug 17th 2022 at 7:54:20 AM
"No running in the halls!"
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Sahira, Struker
The Draftsman of Doom
Yes to Strucker.
Also, I want to report that serial torturer "Lincoln", from Hunter (1984)'s "Death Machine" seems to care about his girlfriend albeit having a dysfunctional relationship with her.
Furthermore the Skaggs brothers, from Hunter: Back in Force seem to have some form of twisted care for each other.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Aug 17th 2022 at 11:25:46 AM
Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I need to know more about the heinous standard to vote on Sahira, but yes to Strucker.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Professor Gigachad
Heinous standard in Ao W is not low, even when we're talking about High Fantasy settings in 4X strategy game, where there is not much complexity in most of villains, and most of their crimes in-universe are "they are assholes who stand against player because they are evil". Melenis and Phobius are my other candidates for CM, but I'm pretty confident that Melenis may not take the cake because of her possible mitigating factors. Anyway, Melenis used magical artifact that caused undead awakening, destroyed whole dwarven city and in Ao W 3 attemped to kill whole Athla with zombie apocalypse, which is the only reason I even consider her. Phobius, on the other hand, used fear of magic to purge mages and magical races and used it as pretext of his conquest. He will need some longer text to display his evil. Those two can compare a little with Sahira, others are too underdeveloped as characters, has some mitigating factors or are too mysterious to say more about them. Meandor attemped to kill all humans and did few more evil deeds BUT it was not unjustified - humans killed his father and exterminated whole elven city. So it was a case of revenge. All-Devourer is just a hungry, demonic hive mind of Shadow Demons and as such he is more a case of Made of Evil or Hungry Menace. Werlac and the rest of Shadowborn (a group who conspired to kill elven prince and wanted to start war between Elves and the Commonwealth to weaken them, and than open the shadow gates to allow the old wizards to enter the Athla again) are too cryptic to consider. Those banished wizard are evil too and its clearly said that their return to Athla at the end of Age of Wonders 3 campaign is NOT a good thing. For example Nimue exterminated Lizardmen race when humans beaten them for being too weak. The many races also did some bad things. Humans did impressive genocide on Elves killing their king, and also drove much of old races from their lands, some of them being completely exterminated. Dark Elves tried to kill all humans at all cost, many times making more collateral deaths to other races and killing directly or indirectly Elves who were not eager to take revenge, including queen Elvyn. Undead are just undead and they hate living. Nomads (descendant od Azracs) were riders and slavers. And many, many villains are just racists, or more corectly - speciests.
So do Sahira counts? I am really not sympathetic to villains who sell others to Omnicidal Maniacs, so maybe I judge her too harshly.
Edited by Evil_Azgoul on Aug 17th 2022 at 6:23:38 PM
Yes to jackie's but Sahira needs more detail on how her alliance with the Demons works... you say she's feeding them slaves and I'll probably say yes but what's the story here: she gets them from lands she's conquering, she had some sitting in the previous ruler's dungeon she's tossing to them? How many is she giving to them? Is she procuring more and more or is there a set number she's got at her disposal?
You see, that's the problem with 4X that some stories remain undeveloped in detail. There is a short story in manual of Shadow Magic where she just brings the slaves to Shadow Demons to feed them, laughs and them promises All-Devourer more feast in future. She wanted to built a great nomad empire. It is said she hoped her subjects will be spared by S Ds when they consume the world (probably more out of her delusions to remain in power than well intentions) so she attacked others around to enslave them and feed demons with them, making other races hatefull towars all nomads, Ke-Nan included.
Edited by Evil_Azgoul on Aug 17th 2022 at 6:56:19 PM
The Draftsman of Doom
Switch to abstain on Sahira.
Will have an EP from Hunter later.
Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Honestly not sure what to make of that... we just downvoted the Night's King on the basis of his story being so scant we couldn't write off him taking his future Queen back to the Wall and ruling with her for years. If you're saying her crimes are largely just stated in a blurb of text about feeding slaves to the Demons, I'm not sure I can write off her hoping her own people will be spared as pragmatic if that's literally all we get on the matter. It's not a clear cut redeeming quality but at the same time I'm not sure her story's elaborated on enough for her to keep.
New video:
The Work: Castlevania: Lords of Shadow 2
The Character: Satan
The Link: https://youtu.be/0mw26sFIQh0
What's Going On: Satan is summoned back to Earth and kills his son, Guido Szandor, for his failure by tearing off his face when he noticed Dracula and Alucard right behind him. Then he shouts that he will destroy the world if he can’t rule it, and summons a tortured leviathan worm to destroy.
Ok, fair point. So I back off with her being CM candidate. I will write Melenis next just for having everything in line, as she is Omnicidal Maniac, but I expect she will be dismissed on ambiguelity basis as well.
Edited by Evil_Azgoul on Aug 17th 2022 at 8:17:04 PM
The Draftsman of Doom
Satan video works.
What is the work?
"Vaya Sin Dios" is the 1st episode of the Hunter revival's sole season.
An undocumented migrant is a witness to the murder of a shipment of fellow undocumented migrants. Lt. Rick Hunter and Sgt. Dee Dee McCall investigate.
Who is Johnny Crow, and what has he done?
Johnny Crow, recognizable by a snake tattoo on his arm, is the mastermind behind a human smuggling racket which kills the undocumented migrants it supposedly smuggles in.
Once he discovers that one of his accomplices, Raul Lindero, is a Mexican Federal Agent, he forces the infiltrator to murder the latest shipment as witnesses before having the infiltrator himself killed.
When a local Ship mechanic tries to extort him, Crow threatens to maim the extortionist.
Confronting Raul's partner, INS Agent James Reader, Crow viciously assaults him after mocking him over Raul's death.
Upon discovering that a witness survived, Crow has the witness's uncle strangled, before killing the officer assigned to witness protection and and abducting the witness herself.
Crow dies in a gunfight at the hands of Lt. Rick Hunter.
Mitigating Factors?
Crow cares about nothing but protecting his own business and interests, we see dead bodies on screen, there are no moral agency concerns, there is nothing else to talk about.
Heinousness?
There are other human traffickers (such as Felicia Greene with her teenage baby breeding operation), but none appear to be as murderous in the interest of protecting his own gains as Crow.He is indicated to have run a scam by killing off shipments more than once, the only thing which appears to make this instance different is that he also kills an undercover cop.
Verdict?
Si. Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Yes to Crow...though I'm clearly missing something...wouldn't killing the people be defeating the whole purpose?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Showtime!
Abstain on Sahira
I think I'm done voting on Hunter candidates until they're at the end and we can get a full comparison
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Huh, Crow was played by Jeremy Roberts, perhaps best (?) known as Kakistos.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
The Draftsman of Doom
W: He has on more than one occasion taken the money promising to get people to a certain location, but he doesn't follow through because he wants to keep the money for himself.
Sometimes people would rather keep money dishonestly than put forth the effort to honor their word.
Also, MGD told me he'll get back to me regarding "Fire Man".
There are probably no more candidates otherwise, as far as I know.
Edited by SkyCat32 on Aug 17th 2022 at 3:23:27 PM
Your friendly neighbourhood Spider-Man.
I have a two candidates for CM coming from Age of Wonders universe. First is Sahira, and second, much more controversial, is Melenis. One question before I write something. Sahira is said to be "neutral character" by game mechanics. This is obviously gameplay and story segregation case, as whole races are (in first two games) fixed good/evil/neutral by default - humans are always neutral, halflings always good, orcs always evil etc. HOWEVER, as you will see, Sahira is pretty much a criminal that in every normal case would be considered "very evil". But for some clarity - do cases like this should influence verdicts or not?
Edited by Evil_Azgoul on Aug 17th 2022 at 10:00:22 AM