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
Hans Gruber is a generic greedy villain. He's nowhere near heinous enough to qualify for Complete Monster.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"I wouldn't call Hans Gruber generically greedy. I mean, his overglorified bank robbery plot explicitly calls for him killing dozens of people. It's one thing to prepare to kill; it's another thing entirely to make murdering innocent people an integral part of the plan. Another is his nonchalance about demanding that convicted terrorists be released - he clearly sees no harm in letting professional killers loosened on the world.
That's why I think you have to DQ him for loyalty to his men - from all accounts, he is a Benevolent Boss to his workers. It's a much easier argument to make.
edited 18th Sep '12 11:19:42 AM by 32_Footsteps
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.![]()
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How would it be possible for a CM to be genuinely Affably Evil? Faux Affably Evil, sure. Bitch in Sheep's Clothing, definitely. But a Nice Guy apart from the "evil" thing? That just doesn't fit with a character type defined by its total lack of morality.
Well, we could get into an entire debate over the banality of evil, and how being genuinely cheerful and polite doesn't excuse certain actions. I could also point out that there are certain lines that, when crossed, result in appropriate consideration no matter how nice they are.
I'm not really much up for that at the moment (very headachy and busy besides), but I will say that I wouldn't automatically eliminate a villain for being Affably Evil, but I do think it's one of those tropes where there's only a very small subset of them could qualify for Complete Monster. More often than not, I think examples that some would disqualify for being Affably Evil can be disqualified for more unambiguously non-negative tropes, tropes that don't explicitly have "Evil" in the name.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.![]()
Wouldn't Affably Evil automatically mean that the character has a good point and therefore isn't 100% evil monster? I would think that that should eliminate them.
edited 18th Sep '12 7:12:02 PM by SophiaLonesoul
Here's something I'm considering as a change for the main page. I think this disclaimer should be added at the end so hopefully less people will abuse it.
Due to the controversial nature of this trope, please visit this thread
before adding or removing any examples.
I also vote yes. Anyways, for Monster.Pokemon, just combined a few entries out of those we are going to keep. Any further contributions are welcome.
- Classical Darkrai is a well-meaning being with a ghastly self-defense mechanism, but the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon equivalent is a much more sinister beast. He makes Freddy Krueger look smalltime, manipulates gods, orchestrates a Time Crash, makes the future a very miserable time, drops children in eternal nightmares for kicks, and nearly drives the player characters to suicide. The guy is a vastly darker villain in any Pokémon work even by E or E-10 standards, and the punishment for his misdeeds is much too lenient. (Then again, his punishment is implied to be the loss of all his memories (a'la Regal), and it is hinted that this actually turned him good).
- Pokémon Ranger: Guardian Signs gives us Purple Eyes. Before we even learn he exists, he's beaten Rand within an inch of his life and kidnapped both his wife and daughter. Later, he beats the daughter up, too! It gets worse, though; he eventually mugs the elderly Societea members (though, admittedly, they deserve it), hijacks the villain's plans, makes himself immortal, pumps up Mewtwo's power higher than it should ever be, and then commands Mewtwo to finish off Dr. Edward. And when Rand takes the shot for Edward, Purple Eyes is simply amused and continues to attack anyway, even taunting Rand's daughter about it. After you beat him, he points out that the Sky Fortress is now plummeting and will wipe out all of Oblivia. And then he laughs. Rand's wife said that the ruins she and her daughter were captured and tortured in is the only place that gives her recurring nightmares. In the last Extra Mission, in which an enraged Arceus is passing judgment on the human race, he arrives in person. His imprisonment and constant questioning has not redeemed him, but instead turned him into a Misanthrope Supreme who no longer wishes to rule over all humans, but instead Kill All Humans. He begins preaching to Arceus that it should go through with the destruction, but to allow himself to act as its Dragon due to their similar beliefs about humans. This only enrages Arceus more. After you defeat and calm Arceus, Arceus leaves back to its home world and drags Purple Eyes with it, to pass judgment on him.
We can get rid of the Ghetsis quote (entry deemed disqualified by this thread), reword the introductory paragraph, and for good measure request a lock after perhaps working out the anime entries to relocate over to the page.
edited 18th Sep '12 11:43:15 PM by EarlOfSandvich
I now go by Graf von Tirol.Actually, I want to return to Hans Gruber from Die Hard. Fighteer, hows is he not a complete monster; he tried to kill many innocent people for no reason.
I have bigger problems with Colonel Stuart from the sequel; he crashes a plane full of innocent people but at the same time he seemed loyal to his Colonel (whatever he was named). He has motives rather than purely for evil's sake. Is it enough to negate his CM status?
Do you really want me to list all the villians who have killed innocent people and are not Complete Monsters?
He's not a Complete Monster because he does show loyalty towards his own men. A CM would show indifference at best. One Autistic quality = instant disqualification.
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Fast Eddie says no on that front when we did it a year ago. Pages are meant for readers only, if they don't want to be an editor they should not be forced into it. That is why these disclaimers take up the entire first section of the edit box whenever someone tries to end the sections.
@Krystoff: Merely killing innocent people is not enough to qualify, as was just said. Body counts alone do not make a CM, nor does the deliberate intent to kill innocents. Gruber does not act with malice towards those people. He's not killing them because he gets his rocks off on it. He is doing it to steal money. He demonstrates care and loyalty towards his fellow criminals. He's evil, but he is not monstrous in the way needed for this trope.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
See, I'd argue that killing a whole lot of innocent people just to cover your tracks is still an inherently monstrous act, whether you get off on it, or because you just don't give a damn. That said, it's the argument about his men that makes me want to exclude Hans. He's shown to be a pretty good boss overall, his men like and respect him, and he's genuinely upset at the prospect of having to tell Karl that his brother is dead. Probably not CM material.
Did someone actually try and list Karl? Good god no. His whole motivation after the first forty minutes boils down to "vengeance for Tony." Colonel Stuart is the only one of the series' Big Bads who I can see qualifying. He's far more ruthless than Hans was, killing god knows how many people when he wrecks that first plane. I also don't recall his showing any genuine concern for his men, though I'll confess, it's been a long time since I watched that movie.
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Well, an example of a case of a wick appearing in a trope discription is the Above Good and Evil page with this following paragraph:
"The signature trait of The Unfettered, and associated with The Übermensch and the Nietzsche Wannabe (along with any other things Nietzsche-related), but other people who can claim this trope include the Complete Monster, extreme narcissists with delusions of godhood or just someone with Blue and Orange Morality — or all of the above combined. Can be a sign of an Eldritch Abomination if it is considered as being beyond standard human affairs, thus very common in Cosmic Horror Story."
Should I remove the reference to Complete Monster from the description, or should I keep it as a small exception? The page in question is objective so I'm sure I'll have to remove it. What do you say?
It's listing different types of characters that would claim to be Above Good and Evil, and I certainly can imagine a Complete Monster claiming it. However, some CM candidates would instead say "Yeah, I'm what you'd call evil, so what?" In other words, it doesn't determine a Complete Monster either way. I'd lean towards cutting.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.![]()
I also find it odd that the page doesn't list any positive character types who would subscribe to the trope. There's plenty of "Chaotic Good" types who could qualify.
OK, I removed the mention from the description. I'll post here again after I've made some progress. Thank you for your input.

Affably Evil and Faux Affably Evil are not really my concern in this thread, due to it being possible for a Complete Monster to be either. I think deciding what Idi Amin would count as belongs in the discussion page of The Last King Of Scotland.
@3312 Good rewrite.
@3313 The Despicable Me example should be cut - Miss Hattie was just a Jerkass. I don't think anyone from Team Fortress 2 would count - the only things they do is kill members of an opposing armed force.
@3314 Harm should also be cut. Being able to feel guilt means they aren't fully monstrous.
@3321 Ah, Hans Gruber... now he's an interesting case. It's revealed later in Die Hard that Gruber doesn't do "nice" things because he's got genuine concern for anyone - he just wants them out of his hair while he works on his plan. Sure, he lets them bring a couch to the pregnant woman, but that's just to keep the complaints down, since he is still planning on killing her (along with everyone else) later. Similarly, his reasoning for allowing bathroom breaks is just that he doesn't want to deal with mess (which he admits to Holly). He's not petting the dog, he's merely practicing Pragmatic Villainy.
That said, he does seem to care for his men. So, so close, but I think he can be cut.
Also, he wasn't discussed here; he was discussed in a Trope Talk thread about the trope. He hadn't been properly vetted yet.
@3322 That question is covered in the FAQ, found in the first post.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.