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.
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to everyone I missed").
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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
Every vampire lacks a soul in Buffy. They're still capable of being decent people. There are lots of vampires who don't really do much harm to anyone, don't enjoy torture and death, are capable of doing good and selfless deeds, caring and loving others...one canon story has a newly made vampire about to attack his infant son, only to look at the baby and shift back to human face while smiling paternally while raising and loving him all his life.
Angel is a brutal, terrifying sadist by vampire standards. Likewise, the Turtle and IT are not said to be cosmic forces who lack agency. IT is simply evil in a sense that it enjoys hurting others.
We've seen "good guy" vampires on Buffy, without souls so moral agency isn't an issue. Also if you want to get technical, "Angelus" is a demon, and even then moral agency isn't an issue. The only Buffyverse character I can garuntee is made of evil is The First Evil.
On the Pennywise issue, I can find it believable that she was once your typical Eldritch Abomination, but spent enough time among humans to have a full understanding of them and morality, akin to Nyarlathotep.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."This topic gets brought up all the time. Spike and any other "good vampire" is the EXCEPTION, not the rule. How many vampires did Buffy kill? Or Angel? The Master and The Mayor's mooks or the random vamps they offed outnumber Spike and any other "good vampire" by a lot.
Wasn't it in an Angel Season 5 Episode, the one with the submarine, where Angel changed a guy, hoping the guy would turn out okay because Angel had a soul at the time? The guy still killed a ton of people but he didn't enjoy it. Being a vampire, as far as I can recall, is being injected with a demon of some kind or a demonic essence if you will. It compels you to violence and that's objective fact. When Harmony betrays them all and leaves them to die, the reaction is "DER! YOU'RE A VAMPIRE AND THYUS EVIL! OF COURSE YOU'D DO THAT!"
Now the levels of violence depend on the vampire that's true. But it's also true Liam wouldn't have killed anyone if he hadn't been exposed to this demonic essence.
edited 9th Feb '15 3:32:09 PM by Nikkolas
I had wondered that, but it was pointed out that most vampires, while "evil" more or less, are more or less garden-variety baddies, or even capable of love (Spike and Drusilla). Angelus, on the other hand, had a sadistic side to him (Exhibit A: the whole Jenny Calendar thing).
It doesn't matter because demons are subject to the same thing. We've seen good, kind demons and horribly evil ones, and flat out harmless ones.
Even evil vampires are subject to having redeeming qualities, and being no nastier than they have to be. The Master is the leader of demonic cultists who'd gladly subject the world to hellfire and darkness and the extinction of mankind, but he genuinely loves Darla and is shown sobbing when she dies, and cares for The Anointed One like he was his own son. Lyle and Tector Gorch were a pair of brutal bandits before becoming vampires, but genuinely care for one another. One of Spike and Dru's minions is a rather good natured vampire who is described as 'full of feeling' and thus gets his ass turned to ash by a demon who exists to burn down people.
Angel siring the guy with a soul made something 'go wrong' and he couldn't feel anything. The fact was, the guy's kills and tortures were an attempt to 'feel' something and try to do what he thought he 'should' as a vampire.
Angelus could stop torturing and killing people whenever he cared to. He simply doesn't care to.
edited 9th Feb '15 3:36:38 PM by Lightysnake
The only human to not have a soul as far as I can recall is the evil kid in Angel. I forget the season or his name.
I think my problem is I have a different understanding of agency than you all. If some force in me is compelling me to do evil, then I'm not in control. Spike never would have killed anybody if he hadn't become a vampire. The fact he still loves poetry and other people after becoming a vampire changes nothing to me. The reason he went and got his soul back was because he tried to rape Buffy. He understood that his inheent evilness had pushed him to do that and he had to remedy it. Look at him when he does get his soul back - he's insane with grief at all the shit he had done. He never repented like that before Season 7. He never COULD have repented like that before he got his soul back.
Now you might say "well the fact he chose to go get his soul back proves he has agency" and if that is how TVT Ropes decides good and evil, so be it. But I look more at the fact he tried to rape her because that was in his nature as showing what being a vampire does to a person. They kill people and they enjoy killing people and most of them would never have hurt a fly if they hadn't been changed and lost their souls. That compulsion means they aren't as in control as you or me.
edited 9th Feb '15 4:13:51 PM by Nikkolas
Any votes on Dickson? I think he's as awful as he can be without being a god like his master. Read this post for an analysis on him: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/posts.php?discussion=6vic3f9h1cy5qivsenw8llok&page=1414#35332
.
I'm pretty sure its all him and his ego. Lucifer, from what we've seen of him so far, is far from a Bad Boss, and overall is pretty soft spoken and calm, though stern when necessary (and he only killed Gedouin after finding proof he was acting outside of orders, not for the hell of it). The flashbacks and present day all show Gedouin as a cruel, egotistical man with no concept of the value of human life, with his sole motivation being the self-satisfaction of earning Lucifer's acknowledgement.
Edit:
For Dickson. I agree there aren't quite enough of the good moments to outweigh the bad with regards to him.
edited 9th Feb '15 6:23:03 PM by Toivoa
Is a villain torturing a hero an image that would work the image of a monster page, because I might have a good image for the Star Trek page if so. Its on this page:
http://en.memory-alpha.org/wiki/Dolim
to Dr Gedouin and Dickson.
edited 9th Feb '15 6:47:49 PM by Overlord
I just want to say that any of the seemingly genuine emotion Dickson felt for Shulk was all a facade. Similar to Phantom from Ace Attorney, he rarely feels emotions, it's stated after the battle with the Telethia that Dickson feels no emotion but fear. And all those seemingly nice Pet the Dog moments were just to conceal his identity. He didn't care about the people of Bionis at all, and just wanted his master to destroy the world. He didn't pet the dog legitimately at all. He was about as nice to Shulk as Palpatine was to Vader.
Edit: That's four votes to Dickson and so far zero opposed. Just one more vote and I'll try a write-up.
edited 9th Feb '15 7:04:54 PM by Klavice
For Gedouin and Dickson.
By the way, was there talk of making a Buffyverse page, if so we'll need to move the new image in Monster.Live Action Tv.
Also, can't we move the picture of Freeza into Monster.Dragon Ball.
edited 9th Feb '15 7:31:14 PM by randomtroper89
Well,I just finished Wolf Creek Desolation Game, so here is the rest of Mick's backstory:
At the end of the first book, Mick enrolled in Vietnam to kill some people. In the second book, we learn about his time there. Mick's time in Vietnam was mostly spent with Mick hanging around his superior, Seargant Atkin. Atkin had made a deal with the elder of a local village, agreeing to give them half eaten scraps for food (the village was poor and starving) if they let him rape their women. Atkin invited Mick to join him, which he accepted. Mick and Atkin raped and tortured the women, with Mick cutting them with knives. On one occasion, Mick killed a woman while raping her, but Atkin let him continue. One night, two men stumbled onto them while they were raping and torturing the women. Mick and Atkin shot the two men dead. Mick and Atkin later took part in a mission. During the mission, they stumbled onto a young enemy soldier cowering in his pajamas. Even though he was clearly terrified, rather than take him into custody, Atkin decided that he and Mick would kill the man. Atkin severed the man's spine (this is where Mick learned head on a stick) and let Mick have a go at him. Mick stabbed the already parralysed man in the back and cut off his head, which he later placed on a spike. While burying some bodies, Mick found a grenade, but did not tell his fellow soldier assigned to help with the bodies as he allowed him to get blown up. When Mick and Atkin returned to the village, the village elder scolded them for killing the two men, and wacked Atkin with her cane. Atkin took her cane, snapped it, and stabbed it into her throat. Mick and Atkin then raped and killed all the women. As rumors began to spread about Mick being responsible for the soldier's death, Atkin began to worry about mick telling people about how they raped and slaughtered all the women in the village. Atkin teamed up with two soldiers who believed Mick killed the soldier. the three conspired to kill Mick, but Mick killed them first. Mick went AWOL and went back home. Returning to Jerry's mine (which he had made his own lair), Mick saw the ghosts of Atkin and his old friend Eddy Taylor telling him the mine used to be a place for saccrafices, stating that if Mick killed people, the spirits would give Mick superhuman speed and strength (it was never established if the ghosts were real or if it was all in Mick's head, so don't ask). Two months later, Mick discovered a tour guide taking foreginers through the area, he blow out the tires and took the 10 people (6 men and 4 women) back to the mine. One escaped and was picked up by a motorist who took him to the pub to call the police. The one cop (a friend of Roberts from the first book) and the escapee went to Mick's home to find all but one woman dead. Mick killed the two men and severed the woman's spine before raping and killing her. Mick went to the pub wearing the skin of the woman he raped and killed, and shot the motorist, the pub owner, the cook, and three customers, before burning the place down and going to find a new lair, vowing to change location from time to time when things got too risky (which explains why his killings in the movies were not discovered despite there being survivors and why his lair looks different in the second film). The end.
I nominate Atkin.
PS: yhe second book ends 30-31 years before the events of the first film.
edited 9th Feb '15 7:48:24 PM by bobg
jjjOk, with 5 votes, time for a Gedouin Write up
Complete Monster: Dr. Michael Gedouin, the resident Mad Scientist of the Illuminati, spends the entirety of the Izumo Rescue Arc proving himself to be the most selfish and utterly depraved human being in the story. In flashbacks, he and his team abduct Izumo, her sister Tsukumo, and her mother to use as subjects in his research on the elixir of immortality. He subjects their mother to horrific experiments that reduced her to a broken, bloody shell of a person, while threatening to use Tsukumo(who was two years old at the time) next if Izumo did not follow his demands. When the heroes storm his laboratory, they discover that he has been brainwashing people who visit the town near the lab and using them as disposable fodder for his experiments, turning them into shambling, semi-conscious zombies. When called out on his atrocities, he actually employs a Humans Are the Real Monsters argument to defend himself, considering himself to be above the people he uses as guinea pigs. Further, it is repeatedly show that his ONLY motivation for his evil is to earn approval from Lucifer. An immature, self-centered bastard who relishes the suffering of others, Gedouin stands head and shoulders above all previous villains in terms of monstrosity.
Here's my attempt at a Dickson write-up.
Dickson, starts the game off as a seemingly helpful mentor and father figure to our protagonists, particularly Shulk and Dunban. This all changes after Shulk refuses to kill Egil after defeating him. Dickson shows up, reveals himself to be Dickson of the Trinity, and kills Shulk, releasing his master Zanza, the true Big Bad. He also reveals that he never cared at all for the people of Bionis and his actions were merely to find a suitable host for his master and to make sure his master survived. After this, while the party mourns Shulk, Dickson brings in an army of Telethia who are revealed by his fellow disciple Lorithea to be High Entia. When the allied force shows up to save the heroes, Lorithea and Dickson transform all the High Entia into Telethia, including Melia's brother, Kallian. When Kallian fights back, Dickson kills him, and gloats about it. Shortly after this, Dickson arrives in Colony 6, with an army of Telethia, the residents of which consist of all the surviving people of Bionis who weren't killed by Dickson, Lorithea, or Zanza with the hopes of exterminating them all. He outs Alvis to be a traitor, taunting Melia and Dunban, and telling Melia her brother made a good Telethia slave before he killed him. It's also revealed he feels no emotion besides fear, and plans to help his master destroy the world. And, as he constantly reminds the party, he is not possessed or working for Zanza out of fear, but because he wants to destroy everything and bring all the souls back to the Bionis. The fact that he released Zanza makes him essentially responsible for all of Zanza's atrocities, and he does all this with a sadistic smile on his face, with no regrets or remorse.
How's that look?
edited 9th Feb '15 8:03:43 PM by Klavice
for Dickson. Finished with 12 oz. Mouse. Got the writeup for Shark ready now.
Shark is one of the two primary antagonists of the show, and he's the far more ruthless one of the duo. When Shark throws a party at his home, he uses the opportunity to have Fitz and Skillet captured, and he orders the Hand to chop off the Eye's leg. After he believes that Liquor, his last obstacle, has been killed, he celebrates his victory by cruising around in his Cool Car, and by carelessly blowing up a number of buildings, resulting in the death of Man/Woman. As Shark and Rectangular Businessman's evil plans quickly begin to go awry later on due to Fitz and his friends, Shark tries to lure out Fitz by kidnapping New Guy and Golden Joe, and by having the Evil Eye bring the Eye to his lair; Shark then has Rectangular Businessman deliver a video to Fitz showing that he's captured his friends. To pass the time until Fitz shows up, Shark resumes blowing up more buildings, including Fitz, the Eye, and New Guy's homes, as well as Liquor's store and Rhoda's bar. When the Eye calls out Shark for blowing up his house, Shark casually tells him that "it sucked," before he proceeds to devour New Guy whole because he was annoyed with his singing. Rectangular Businessman then informs Shark that Amalockh has awaken due to Pronto's betrayal. Having endured failure after failure, Shark loses it completely and demands Rectangular Businessman to activate all of their hovervacs and tie-bots, which results in the entire city being leveled, and hundreds being killed.
Redeeming qualities: He's Vitriolic Best Buds with Rectangular Businessman. But as the second season progresses, it's clear that Shark hates his guts and is only working with him because he has to, not because he wants to. He almost killed Rectangular Businessman at one point because he got tired of being insulted by him. Also back in Season 1, Shark didn't want Rectangular Businessman to harm Rhoda for some reason (he killed him without Shark's permission), but at no point in the show besides then did Shark show that he cared for Rhoda. And seeing as how Shark had no problem blowing up his bar, he obviously forgot about (or stopped caring) about Rhoda's safety at some point. He also mentions back in the second episode that he's come to care about Fitz, but again, his actions seem to show otherwise.
...Yes, there is a sentient hand in this show. And an eye that talks. I'm aware of how odd the premise is.
edited 9th Feb '15 8:05:23 PM by Tyk5919
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.@ACW: Looking over the video game CM page, I noticed Warcraft has 4 examples with 2 fairly long ones. It needs it's own subpage by now, especially since Fable has its own subpage despite having fewer and shorter examples.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.

Spike also lacked a soul but he was capable of doing good. Therefore, Angelus has some level of agency.