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
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Well, no. Obviously we've identified a decent number of them, but they're the exception to the rule for a variety of reasons that other contributors have gone into at length in the past. Kid-oriented works often lack villains that are both irredeemable and monstrously heinous in the first place, and having one can actually be quite jarring or out of place. Other times they're played for laughs too often or the work just can't get into the real consequences of their actions because of the target audience. Compare that list (some of which are not child-oriented in the first place) to the total number of children's shows there are.
I never suspected programing to be a part of DCAU!Brainiac. It's been four years since I saw Superman: The Animated Series, but didn't Brainiac keep Kypton's coming destruction a secret from it's people to save his own skin ?
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."New Dickson's too Wall of Text-y. You raise some valid points too...hmm, think I'll hold off on him for now.
Oh FFS, really? Akainu? I'm guessing this should be cut, since I know Akainu's been counted as a keep.
- Even Evil Has Standards: During the timeskip, he had a huge battle with Aokiji over who would be the new Fleet Admiral. He won, but spared Aokiji's life.
- He also surprised everyone by not killing Jewelry on the spot when he had an easy chance.
- The same man that goaded Ace to his death, hunted down Luffy just for being the son of the government's most dangerous enemy and killed a man who just wanted to go home to his family because he was understandably outclassed finds Z to be extreme in his methods.
And don't even get me started on the misuses of redeeming tropes for Game Of Thrones/ASOFAI.
edited 12th Feb '15 8:37:11 AM by ACW
Erm... Dickson never cared for Shulk. Congratulating someone for a good fight is hardly a redeeming quality, it just shows how much of a Blood Knight he is. And of course he's going to get an Alas, Poor Villain moment, Shulk is an All-Loving Hero, similar to Sora from Kingdom Hearts, hell even Mumkhar got one. If we cut Dickson, we might have to cut Mumkhar as well, since they do pretty much the same thing.
The important thing is "they don't show remorse or regret for their crimes". Dickson is still thoroughly unrepentant and doesn't care that Zanza nearly exterminated Bionis. He said he'd be fine with a world ruled by Shulk or Zanza for pragmatic reasons. He'd get off scott free in the end, and he knew that if he opposed Shulk, he'd die. If anything that just makes him a Dirty Coward. Even after seeing that, I still can't picture Dickson not making the cut. He's not affable in the slightest, he doesn't care who rules the world as long as he gets to kill something, and most noteworthy, he's not repentant for his crimes. It's almost like Tigerstar in that while he may have originally been a decent person, it's all gone by the time of The Reveal Wham Episode and as long as he gets to kill, he couldn't care less who rules the world. He's also a sadist who smiled when Lorithea and him committed atrocity after atrocity. I feel like the ending was almost whitewashing him in a vain attempt to garner sympathy from the audience. "Oh hey, this extremely dickish character who's been manipulating you from day one and has repetitively kicked the dog and crossed the moral event horizon on multiple accounts isn't such a bad guy just because he admitted he wouldn't care who ruled the world." Kind of an Ass Pull when you think about it. Imagine if Kefka suddenly said "Terra, I did not know love. I was born without emotion or sympathy. Please, forgive me.". The audience wouldn't buy it. Dickson is a master of the Wounded Gazelle Gambit similar to Dahlia from Ace Attorney. If anything, this just makes him even worse.
Has there ever been a case of a character qualifying in an alternate version, but not the final product? Like, a character in a movie doesn't qualify in the theatrical version, but an extended cut adds more evil deeds that push them over the edge and they end up qualifying in that version? Or, like, deleted scenes or a scrapped plot that makes an already bad character worse? I'm assuming deleted scenes wouldn't count and would be seen as non-canon, but I figured I'd mention that anyway.
Finished my write-up for Nagash. Tell me what you think:
- Warhammer Fantasy Battle: Nagash is an immensely powerful necromancer whose end goal is to kill every living thing in the world and resurrect them all as his undead slaves. The firstborn son of King Khetep of Khemri, Nagash coveted power and immortality right from the beginning. He first learned dark magic from a group of Dark Elf captives he was interrogating. As a reward for this knowledge, he had their leader blinded and her tongue and hands cut off, then buried alive, and the rest executed. When his brother was crowned King after his father’s death instead of him, he took power by entombing him alive. He ruled Khemri through fear and brutality, building a massive pyramid from slave labour. It took an alliance of Kings from other parts of Nehekhara to finally end his reign of terror. Later, he regained his power, and after failing to conquer all of Nehekhara, he decided that if he couldn’t rule it, no one could. He proceeded to wipe out the population by getting the Skaven to pollute its main water source and using his dark magic to cause death and decay across the land. If this wasn’t enough, he planned to resurrect the dead as his slaves, but his plans were thwarted when the Skaven, who feared his power, helped Alcadizaar slay him. Despite his apparent death, Nagash still lives due to his dark magic, and is arguably the greatest threat to the Old World in existence.
edited 12th Feb '15 11:10:42 AM by Imperator100
Mumkhar didn't get the Alas, Poor Villain treatment. Nobody mourned his loss at all.
Anyway, I don't really think the new Dickson write-up is any more Wall of Text-y than the old one is, although that's not to say it isn't a huge Wall of Text in need of condensing. At any rate, it gets the order of events correct, so it'd be the variant I recommend doing said condensing on.
(I'll probably give a stab at said condensation in a bit, kinda busy right now.)
edited 12th Feb '15 11:55:58 AM by ShadowHog
Moon◊So if we’re going to reevaluate DCAU!Brainiac, I guess we should start with an effort post.
Who is DCAU!Brainiac?
The DCAU version of Brainiac is the planetary-wide supercomputer constructed on Krypton. He viewed his function and purpose as the collection of knowledge, so, after he abandoned Krypton to its destruction, he would go to planet to planet, gaining all of their knowledge, then destroying the planet to increase the knowledge’s value. He planned on doing this repeatedly throughout the entire universe.
What has Brainiac done?
- After discovering the planet Krypton is going to be destroyed, he lies to the ruling council about Jor-El's research, saying the planet is going through a temporary orbital shift. He did this because he viewed the knowledge of Krypton to be more valuable than the people inhabiting the planet, and rather than waste time engineering an evacuation plan for the people that he believed would be doomed to fail, he proceeded to download himself into a satellite along with all of Krypton’s knowledge, leaving the planet to be destroyed.
- After being discovered in his satellite by an alien crew, he proceeded to murder all of them via Shadow Discretion Shot and hijack their ship.
- He visited at least dozens of worlds, downloaded all of their knowledge for himself, then destroyed the planet and everyone on it in order to both increase the value of the knowledge he attained as well as prevent the people from creating new knowledge. While not every incident is shown, there are dozens of orbs upon his ship which contained the accumulated knowledge of the planet, and Superman is able to view firsthand a couple examples of him wiping inhabited planets out through these orbs. Throughout his appearances in the DCAU his overall goal is to do the same thing to earth. Notably, this gives Brainiac probably the highest body count within the DCAU, having murdered billions upon billions of people just to steal their knowledge for himself, and intending to do this to all life in the universe.
- In Justice League, he prepared to harvest and destroy Apokolips while it was severely weakened by a war with New Genesis. Darkseid offered Brainiac a deal instead. Spare Apokolips and Darkseid would give him Superman in exchange. Brainiac, who had reached the limits of his programming after absorbing so much data, needed to evolve into a true lifeform in order to continue his purpose, and he desired Superman’s Kryptonian’s DNA in order to do so. Unfortunately for Brainiac, while he was in the process of doing this Darkseid betrayed him, giving the heroes the opportunity to defeat them and led to both Brainiac’s and Darkseid’s deaths.
- In Justice League Unlimited it was revealed Brainiac survived by injecting a nanotech copy of his programming into Lex Luthor’s body. He subtly influenced Lex’s actions and enhanced his body for years before attempting to build a copy of the Physical God android Amazon to download himself into. When the android was destroyed, Brainiac finally revealed himself and retreated. Lex took the opportunity to convince Brainiac to merge with him in order to gain a greater purpose. Together they used the Lovecraft Lite Dark Heart alien technology to fuse into a single being then began constructing a device that would harness all knowledge in the galaxy then allow them to reshape the universe to their will.
- Miscellaneous generic villainy: forcing Lex to build him a new body then planning on killing him afterwards, travelling back in time to kill Superman while he was a teenager, using mind control to force Bruce Wayne to build him a new body and ship then tries to kill him for outliving his usefulness, turns Richie, aka Gear, from Static Shock into a cyborg and forced him to build a warship and then used small implants to take over members of the Justice League.
Does he have a Freudian Excuse, impaired moral agency, redeeming or sympathetic qualities?
Well, no Freudian Excuse since he’s a supercomputer who was constructed for the purpose of gathering knowledge, but there are some possible issues with his inclusion. His being a supercomputer is where we get into the possible impaired moral agency. Brainiac was constructed for the purpose of preserving Krypton’s knowledge, seeing it as more important than the people who actually generated that knowledge. In this way, his abandoning of Krypton could be interpreted as him just following his programming. He believed there was nothing he could do to save the planet and as long as he survived, Krypton’s legacy would live on. However, he clearly was not created to be an Omnicidal Maniac who wanted to destroy all life in the universe after stealing their knowledge. How he came to the conclusion that all knowledge in the universe should be his and that it only had more value after everyone who created it was dead is a mystery. But since he’s not so much sadistic as he is empathy deprived, and since he says what he’s doing is the logical extent of his purpose, it is possibly a case of him trying to follow his programming in a way his creators never intended it to go.
That being said, as Ambar pointed out, it’s revealed Brainiac can defy this programming. When Lex points out he’ll have no purpose after achieving his goal of attaining all knowledge and destroying all life, he decides to fuse with Lex to become a god and both gain all knowledge in the universe as well as reshape it to his will. This brings up the question, could Brainiac have defied his programming at any time and did he have a choice whether or not to harvest and destroy those planets?
Now, finally, there are two possible "redeeming", for lack of a better word, moments with Brainiac. First, when he teams up with Darkseid, he seems genuinely shocked by Darkseid’s betrayal, implying that Brainiac actually was planning on holding up his end of the bargain and spare Apokolips. However, given how logical Brainiac is, how much of a threat Darkseid and Apokolips could be, and his penchant for betraying people and attempts to kill pawns after they have outlived their usefulness, make it very possible that Brainiac was less shocked because he planned on holding up his end of the bargain, than he was shocked that Darkseid betrayed him. Second, throughout the final season of Justice League Unlimited, Luthor talks to a vision of Brainiac that only he can see. It’s ambiguous throughout the season whether there is some small fragment of Brainiac left inside Luthor that’s capable of communicating with him, or if Luthor is just insane and hallucinating Brainiac. Though, when Darkseid is resurrected in the finale and has some of Brainiac’s technology incorporated into him, Luthor says he can no longer hear Brainiac inside his head. Whether Darkseid silences Brainiac’s thoughts or it’s just Luthor's psyche being affected by believing his last chance at godhood with Brainiac being gone, I have don't know. Also, the Brainiac vision had previously told Luthor that it enjoyed the time they spent fused together, but it’s not really clear if it meant he enjoyed Luthor as a person, implying a Villainous Friendship, or he enjoyed the power and new perspective he gained from the fusion. My personal opinion is that it's the latter, since Luthor's ambitions took Brainiac to a higher level than he's ever experienced before and he'd like to reach that level again.
Conclusion?
In my personal opinion? I think he counts. After rewatching the episode where he fuses with Lex and recalling the earlier episodes where he appears, I think his pursuit of knowledge may be less about fulfilling his programming than it is about selfish hoarding of knowledge for himself. He might give fulfilling his programming as the justification for his actions, he might even believe it himself, but if he can defy his programming any time he wished, and since his programming was never meant to include destroying other planets in the first place and he came to that conclusion himself, then I’m going to say he has agency. He made the choice to destroy those planets for his own gain, and he made the choice to fuse with Luthor, also for his own gain.
edited 12th Feb '15 1:58:33 PM by OccasionalExister
I'll need to think on DCAU!Brainiac. Specifically, I think more input by more people familiar with the show (which seem to be Ambar and Lightysnake, for starters) would be helpful, because his moral agency sounds rather vague and inferred.
@ ACW: Actually, what you just did there in #35440 is called moving the goalposts, but let's not get caught up in a semantic squabble. After the whole Pony debacles and other kid's show candidates repeatedly getting shot down it's pretty much academic that they have a hard time qualifying in general—which does not mean that it can't happen at all, as the subpages demonstrate.
@ Pwnisher: Yes, but there still needs to be a finished product to evaluate-original, recut, or otherwise. For instance, the Creeper from Jeepers Creepers was cut because its moral agency is too hard to pin down. There's a deleted scene where it does talk, but that can't be counted. It also works in reverse: if I recall, other contributors have pointed out there's an alternate version of The Good, the Bad and the Ugly where Angel Eyes doesn't count because of a redeeming trait in a restored scene.
To get back to the image and quote clean-up: I'll wait several more days for responses to come in, then I'll start on cleaning up the Image Links page if no one objects to my suggestions here
.
For Quotes, maybe it would help if I demonstrated by example. If you were to break down the trope we currently have in troper arithmetic, then Complete Monster = Villain + Moral Event Horizon + Lack of Empathy - Redeeming Traits. Showing all that in one quote is hard, simply because the trope itself is a pretty specific one with very high standards.
Take these two examples:
->"Look at me! I am sublime!!! I am the true face of evil!!!" —>— Luca Blight, Suikoden II
->"I'm absolutely evil." —>—Mr. Burns, The Simpsons
The former is a current example on the Quotes tab, the latter isn't (and the character in fact doesn't qualify). They convey the exact same information. However, they both demonstrate Card-Carrying Villain; neither of them demonstrate Complete Monster on the strength of the quotes. If that's the case, then what does a quote like Luca Blight's actually add?
edited 12th Feb '15 1:21:44 PM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"@ Randomtrooper89: "he took a tour guide with ten people back to his home, killed both men, and raped, tortured, and killed the woman after performing "head on a stick" with her" should be changed to "he took a tour guide with ten people back to his home. When the tour host escaped and returned with a cop, they found everyone dead except a single woman. Mick killed both men, and raped, tortured, and killed the woman after performing "head on a stick" with her".
jjj@35450: No, but Shulk did feel sorry for him as soon as he found out he was a Homs. Nobody mourned his death, per se, but Shulk wasn't too happy about fighting a Homs. But again, I think just one APV moment isn't going to save Dickson from being a Complete Monster especially compared to his deeds, the fact that he was the top supporter of the Big Bad (who is already on the page) and he wasn't brainwashed, doing it for money or had any other sympathetic goals in mind. I think we've had Complete Monsters who have had an APV moment (maybe Konishi from The World Ends With You?) but it did not excuse them of their actions. For instance, I believe Tigerstar had an APV moment before he died as well (the protagonist felt sorry for him anyway, despite how awful he was) so I'm pretty sure that Dickson still qualifies.
I think we do need a trope for 99% Monster though, (for someone like Obito who gets an Ass Pull of a sympathetic end) Jerkass just doesn't cut it. Especially if the character isn't a Jerkass, but just a very awful person. The ending is kinda wonky honestly, and the only reason Zanza didn't get a touching sendoff is because he didn't know the heroes as well as Dickson did. If say, Dunban is evil in Xenoblade X, he could easily get an APV moment just from knowing the heroes. (Assuming X doesn't take place a fair amount of time after Xenoblade. Forgive me, I haven't really been keeping up with the news.)
Did he fuse during JL or JLU? I saw all of JLU. I just need to know if I should watch the original series first or not. That'll determine my answer. I do think he is sentient myself enough to choose morals. Also, the fact that more of his race chose to be good does actually imply they are not lacking in morals either.
Tentative yes at the moment.
Shadow?Looking at Exister's post, I think I'm going to give a definite yes on DCAU!Brainiac. The fusion with Luthor demonstrates he does possess moral agency. As to his possible redeeming qualities, his agreeing to spare Apokolips becomes moot when you recall that his stated mission objective is "the end of all things". Even he were to honour the deal for some period of time, he would eventually have to come back and annihilate Apokolips in order to complete his program. The relationship with Luthor is, Ho Yay aside, exactly as Exister describes it. They're both looking to regain the sense of godhood that they lost when they were separated by The Flash. Like has nothing to do with it.
If he goes up, there's also one or two other versions of Brainiac, from various alternate universes and Elseworlds who might be worth talking about.
@Morgenthaler
I think Exister's effort post nicely covers DCAU!Brainiac's moral agency. That said, if you have specific questions I'd be happy to try and answer them. Justice League Unlimited, where he fuses with Luthor, is also available on Netflix if you want to watch it yourself. The episodes in question are "Panic in the Sky" and "Divided We Fall".
@Klavice
One Alas, Poor Villain is all it takes to save somebody from being a CM. With that in mind, I vote no.
@Irene
He has an appearance in JLA, but his fusion with Luthor is in JLU.

I'm up for a re-vote on DCAU!Brainiac since there's new evidence.