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
Never mind. I don't know why I asked that. I'm just getting so tired that I'm delirious right now. Edited out that obvious question.
Light IS a Smug Snake though from what I've seen of the anime and read from the manga.
edited 15th Feb '15 12:25:14 AM by Klavice
I do have a possible contention for Esther.
In the film, when John, the father, rejects her, Esther's response is to first run into her room and begin crying quite piteously. I know it's probably nothing, but you do get the idea she's seriously hurt, and the...difficulty her condition has to give her. Even though she's got a much nastier side to her, thought I'd bring it up.
On the Light discussion, I think we should set two ground rules before we even think of a proper vote:
1) We take into account all the previous votes on him. One of my biggest fears when we started the cleanup thread way back in the dark ages was that people would just keep bringing a character up again after the people who voted against them had moved on. The never again list pretty much mitigated that threat but I still think we should make sure everybody who voted the first time on both sides should still have their votes heard. 2) We make the distinction between Manga!Light (the original), Anime!Light (who is less bad than Manga!Light due to some scenes not making the transition), and Movie!Light (who is objectively worse than Manga!Light). It'll help the discussion along since there are things in each medium that don't apply to the others and we've long since established that adaptation's can be Complete Monsters while the original wasn't or vice versa.
I also think we need to establish where the 13th volume (How to Read, basically a companion guide to the series) sits with us. Word of God never counts here, but most of How to Read is objective facts and details, with word of god interviews and stuff being marked in a different section.
Now I'm still three volumes away from finishing the manga (I'm at the point where Mello has the Death Note and has Sidoh with him for those familiar) and I'll probably finish it off in the next fortnight, so if I bring something up that gets shot down later on that's why.
I was one of the people who voted against Light originally (and when we didn't make a distinction between Anime!Light and Manga!Light), and at that point I had only seen the anime. I'm still voting for a cut because despite Light being a rather unpleasant person. One of the reasons for this is that Light does have some standards as Kira; it's noted that he spares murderers and the like who had some kind of justification for their crimes or who took steps to atone for them. He dislikes Misa by both How to Read and Word of God because she murdered people for absolutely petty reasons (him keeping her alive is purely because she's useful and not out of any good will). While he does contemplate killing his sister and father, he never goes through with it and Anime!Light at least when internally thinking about how circumstances are setup where he'd have to kill his own father to keep up his masquerade his tone of voice (in the English dub at least) conveys to me at least it's not something he's looking forward to (Movie!Light loses this excuse and I'd say qualifies because he's willing to murder his father so easily). If I remember How to Read right Word of God states that harming Light's family was the one line he wouldn't cross, but it's never put to the test in the series so it's more an interesting bit of trivia than an actual disqualifier.
I also saw a few people bringing up Near's "an ordinary person wouldn't have done what you did" line as a qualifier against Light. I would like to point out that Near might have killed someone with the Death Note to ensure his victory, refused to kill Light earlier in the story despite being 100% convinced it would stop the Kira killings not because it would be morally wrong but because he wanted to "win" the right way, and dismisses L right after he died as being a loser who couldn't win the game. He's not someone I would ever listen to on matters of humanity.
You also have issues with redeemably; Light when giving up ownership of the Death Note (which also takes away all his memories involving it) is a pretty decent guy. I never got the smug/narcissistic vibe from him, he's certainly a much better person that L is seeing as he objects very strongly to allowing people to die just to prove a suspect is Kira and utterly refuses to manipulate Misa's feelings for him out of principle. It's a very dark grey area since it basically involves magically altering him, but simply destroying the Death Note would redeem him instantly. It probably would fall under the same banner as the Marvel Axis event since it's basically a forced redemption.
God, Stallone's Judge Dredd... I tried to block out memories of that one. Well, Rico passes the heinous bar in his verse; since there are no Omnicidal Maniacs running around the standard is significantly lower in the first film.
I'll have to check again how they deal with the cloning issue in the movie, because Fargo's clones aren't morally impaired. They're all born with certain talents, but what they choose to do with them is entirely their own decision. Some choose to fight for the city, others don't think it's for them, and yet others willingly allow themselves to be corrupted (Kraken from the comics excepted, but he was outright brainwashed). Plus, there's his relationship with his brother in the movie, where Rico expresses sorrow that he and Dredd couldn't be partners in crime. Whether it's redeeming I don't know; he does try to frame him earlier on.
I'll wait for Lightysnake's effortpost on Light before casting a vote there.
edited 15th Feb '15 4:03:45 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"Alright, so I've watched Judge Dredd, and to decide officially, here's an effortpost on the film's villain: Rico Dredd.
Who is Rico? What has he done?
Rico Dredd is, by genetics, the brother of this film's Judge Dredd, created by a cloning project entitled the Janus project. While Joseph Dredd was engineered to be the "perfect judge," something went wrong with Rico and he genetically mutated. With this, Rico's perverted sense of "justice" had him killing innocents on the ground that they could potentially become guilty. Decades ago, Joseph judged his own brother, and Rico was imprisoned in the Aspen Penal Colony, and the Janus project was suspended.
In the present, Judge Griffin, a Judge who desires a much stricter law to be imposed on the chaotic residents of Mega City-1, masterminds a plot that calls for Rico's aid. Rico breaks out of prison by shooting the warden of the Aspen Penal Colony in his throat and having the sentry turrets fire on him, then killing two of the guards who try to apprehend him and shooting a flare gun through some unassuming garbage man. Rico escapes into the streets of Mega City-1, entering a gun shop. Due to the fact that his DNA matches that of a Judge, Rico takes a Lawgiver pistol, shoots the shopkeeper for little reason at all, and reprograms an old war robot to his cause.
Under Griffin, Rico burst into the home of Hammond, a reporter critical of the Judges, and shoots both Hammond and his wife while disguised as Joseph to frame him, and it's by sheer luck that Joseph escapes the death penalty and is instead transferred to the Aspen Penal Colony. Although Griffin is adamant about using Rico, Rico goes against this, evidently disgusted about how he worships the "laauughw." Rico then starts creating panic and chaos in the streets by murdering approximately 108 in the span of two days, including personally gunning down every member of the current Council of Judges sans Griffin.
Eventually, Rico inevitably betrays Griffin and replaces all the DNA samples of the Janus project with his own, intending to create an army of his own clones and take over Mega City-1. He has his war machine kill Griffin in a rather needlessly violent way, has said war robot fire upon the Plucky Comic Relief Herman, and threatens to use the robot to break Judge Hershey's neck in front of Joseph. From here, he tries to tempt Joseph to his side, but when he predictably refuses, he tries to have the robot kill Joseph. From there, Rico rushes the creation of the clones, and duels his brother; the battle's taken to the top of the remains of the Statue of Liberty, where tries to plunge him off the statue while denouncing him. Rico's gun jam, and Joseph takes the chance to send the maniac plunging off the statue to his doom.
Any mitigating factors?
Firstly, let's talk about that whole Artificial Human thing and his moral agency. It's said that Judge Joseph Dredd was genetically engineered to be the perfect Judge, and it's implicitly the same thing with Rico, except his genes mutated and he became the "perfect criminal." That's not very well explained, but Judge Dredd blames his stoic, duty-driven behavior on the fact that he's a clone doing what he's designed to do. However, the movie goes out of its way to say that no, it wasn't the cloning business that dehumanized Dredd, it was simply Judge Dredd as a person that did that to himself. As such, I feel he has credible moral agency, and Dredd humanizes through the story. Sort of, anyways- the story doesn't leave much room for that much character development. With Rico, it's much the same thing- it's nondescript as to how the cloning business really affects his moral choices at all, and since the movie says that the cloning business doesn't really have any effect on the clone's humanity and morality, I'm seeing no reason why Rico isn't the same case as Joseph.
Aside from that, there's two other things. First, the heinous standard. This being a work based off Judge Dredd, it's a world of Grey-and-Black Morality. Judge Dredd himself isn't exactly the most sympathetic of heroes, and the world's populated by some nasty crooks- an example is the Angel Family, who's led by a man who's described as a barbaric, murdering cannibal. Griffin himself is no saint either- for a good chunk of the movie, he's authorizing Rico's actions. However, he's motivated by a desire for a more ordered city, and when it becomes clear that Rico's only motivated by powerlust, Rico's quick to off him. Aside from that, nobody else's murders are really on-screen except for Rico's. In a world of the corrupt, Rico stands as the absolute worse, at least in this version of Judge Dredd.
One more thing is his relationship with his brother. Rico accuses Joseph of "betraying flesh" and seems rather pissed off whenever it's called back to the fact that Joseph arrested him. He's also quick to offer him a position of power, but as soon as Joseph rejects, Rico doesn't seem legitimately sad about it, if anything mildly disappointed, and is quick to try and kill him after that. He's also a massive hypocrite- his accusations of Judge Dredd betraying him are fueled by the fact that Judge Dredd arrested him for the wanton murder of innocents. Ultimately, Rico sees his brother as little more than a tool, and is quick to try and dispose of him when Judge Dredd doesn't fit his interests anymore, much like he did with Griffin.
Conclusion?
With all that aside, Rico's a power-craving maniac who gleefully slaughters almost the entire Judge populace of Mega City-1, and several other innocents, at that for his own means, and would gladly sacrifice anyone just to sate his own selfish desires. The only potentially mitigating thing is his morality, but I feel the movie clarifies well enough that while Joseph and Rico Dredd are artificial humans, they're still human, and thus well in control of their moral choices. It's just that Rico is a selfish, murderous ego-driven maniac, and he'd have it no other way. With that, I leave the rest to you people.
Thoughts?
Might as well
Rico.
For My Babysitter's a Vampire, anybody have any problems with it being removed from Live-Action TV and just adding Disney to the index of shows with their own pages?
On Esther, I saw her breaking down as only anger that she didn't get what she wanted. I believe that she saw John as an object rather than as a human being. Her being rejected only meant that she was enraged that she didn't get what she thought was entitled to her. There's also the fact that she murders John at the end, so you could say that she didn't really love him after all. She murdered him because she didn't get her way.
edited 15th Feb '15 6:54:30 AM by AustinDR
I think Reynard from Reynard the Fox should go here. Here is how I suggest it should go: Reynard before the story even starts has shown himself to be a rapist and child abuser, pissing in the faces of Ysengrim's children and blinding them. Throughout the story he commits multiple brutal murders, including Chanticleer's wife and eleven of their children. He murders a hare and frames a ram for it. Reynard seems to have no morals and and even accuses his dead father and nephew, who was trying to help him, of treason to protect himself. And he gets away with it! Here is the link to the text. http://bestiary.ca/etexts/morley1889/morley%20-%20history%20of%20reynard%20the%20fox.pdf
However I will say he does seem intended as the hero of the story, though is clearly a Designated Hero. But he really comes across as horrible from reading this story.
Who wrote this story and how long ago? It sounds like a story with some severe Values Dissonance issues from the description.
I say no to Reynard.
That version above is I think a translation or adaption of the English version written by William Caxton- Seems to be a somewhat different version than the the French Roman de Renart, which is bawdier.
First of, I think it is quite clearly a case of "disqualified because played for laughs". The whole thing runs on Comedic Sociopathy and the incongruity of animals acting like people (and noble people at that).
Reynard also has at least the suggestion of caring for his family. In scenes where he's overcome his enemies, he's described as being greeted joyously by his wife and children (cubs?) It doesn't explicitly say that Reynard loves them back, but I think the way it is phrased leans in that direction.
This is more the case with the French version than with that one, but I kind of feel like Reynard's sexual misconduct is downplayed because of a combination of Not If They Enjoyed It Justification and the fact that the characters are animals and that's how animals mate (with again, the humor of the contrast between them acting like aristocrats and being wild animals).
edited 15th Feb '15 10:22:24 AM by Hodor2
I echo Hodor for saying most of what I wanted to on Raynard.
As for Esther...I don't mean to suggest she cared for John as an individual or a person, she didn't. However, it seems to be a level of sadness regarding her condition and how she's incapable of having normal, human relationships. It's possible to feel sympathy for pity for her there.
I'll tentatively give Rico a yes, but I ant to point out that just because Joseph has moral agency doesn't mean Rico does per se. Joseph, after all, was the success of the experiment while Rico was the failure.
Now, as for Sascha Vykos...
Who IS She?
In the Vampire The Masquerade game, Sascho Vykos is a member of the Tzimisce Vampire Clan, cardinal, chief torturer and major leader of the Sabbat.The Tzimisce are a clan of torturers and 'fleshcrafters,' beings who see others and their flesh as...canvases to perfect their art. Vykos is one of the eldest living Tzimisce, having been born around the year 1000 in the Byzantine Empire as 'Myca Vykos.' Vykos is a Tzimisce other younger ones look up to or are simply frightened of. She spent years-or centuries, refining the techniques of torture the rest of the clan uses.
Vykos is primarily a scholar concerned with lost vampire lore, having her own agenda amongst the Sabbat. It's not an exaggeration that she is one of the most dangerous and evil vampires alive.
What Has She Done?
While Shaoken has listed the...rather extensive nastiness of the Sabbat, Vykos conducts herself with a relaxed, alien cruelty. She prefers to take her victims alive if possible and will hold them for decades to torture them. The whole 'turning people into flesh tapestries' is pretty common amongst the Tzimisce, but Vykos will extend the tortures to the soul andthe mind: she is fond of alternating feeling of excruciating torture with excruciating pleasure, leaving victims uncertain if they are experiencing torture or rape.
In her early years, before she altered gender from male, Sacha (Then Myca), participated in the Anarch revolt, an uprising of younger vampires against he elders to wreak a ton of havoc and bloodshed. Vykos aim was to obtain her sire Symeon where she tortured him by endlessly devouring and regurgitating him as a form of torture before she diablerized him (draining him to death to gain his powers).
In present, Vykos is the Sabbat Archbishop of Washington until she rises to the level of Cardinal. She assists the Sabbat in the war for the United States east Coast, and is fond of having mortals abducted to transform them into war ghouls- hulking monstrosities of war for the Sabbat. One instance had a vampire attempt to assassinate her. Vykos captured him, stripped him of his flesh and gave him the flesh of an ordinary ghoul he had killed, torturing him to subsume his identity and keep him around for an experiment until she had him sacrifice his life for her when a fellow cardinal attempted to kill her.
Vykos has no redeeming qualities and is a torturer who's been at the game a long time. Her focus on psychological and spiritual torture, as well as the amount of bloodshed she's caused in war, and what she did to Symeon...to me, this sets her apart from other Tzimisce and even in the World of Darkness, Vykos is considered a monster.
edited 15th Feb '15 11:11:39 AM by Lightysnake
I didn't feel sorry for Esther in that scene, really if Esther just wanted sex, there are easier ways for her to get it, then this Con Man/ Serial Killer routine she does. She intentionally makes herself look more child like then she actually is, she using her disease to her advantage. Esther just seems to wallowing in self pity in that scene and to me that is not sympathetic, especially since she actively deceives people into thinking she is a child. Plus she goes from sad to psycho right away in that scene, tearing apart everything that helps with childish guise and goes into full on Ax-Crazy psycho mode. Plus really, John didn't have much choice but to reject Esther's advances, I don't find Esther's reaction to John's rejection pitiable, because she has been actively deceiving him into think she is a child. I felt more sorry for John, who finally stops acting like a blind idiot and figures out what the rest of the family knew all along.
Again she had a pretty good Freudian Excuse in the script phase, but that didn't make into the film, so she just comes off as some evil psycho.
edited 15th Feb '15 11:53:38 AM by Overlord
Lightysnake: Well, the original script was actually shooting at that idea, that was origonaly used (along with the fact that her father raped her from infancy to adulthood) as a Freudian Excuse (actually, in the script, her motive was that her father told her she would never be a real woman because of her condition, so she has been going through families killing everyone except the father so she could seduce him, marry him, and start a family with him, becoming what she considered a real woman, however, none of that was mentioned in the film itself, so for al we know, she's just a horny female Serial Killer hiding from the law and trying to get some dick in the process (pardon my language), and has decided to kill the rest of the family to have him to herself.). The original script had a scene where, just after killing John, she sees Max and asks her to be her daughter (even though she was planning to kill her earlier) and only decides to go back to wanting to kill her when she runs away in fright (in the film, she just gives Max a Death Glare and goes after her). It is somewhat hinted that she still hates herself for being so short (in the paintings of her and John having sex, she draws herself as being of normal height), however, just being short and hating it does not make you sympathetic when you are a child murderer (yes not attempted, actual child murderer, in the photo of one of the two families she killed, we see two children).
So here is the backstory that made it into the film: she was a Serial killer hiding from the law by posing as a child, she was actually a dwarf who hated her shortness (going by the paintings which show her with normal height), she was adopted by a family and became infatuated with the father and killed him when he refused to have sex with her. She killed the whole family, was arrested, and escaped. She went to America and repeated the process with another family, and was going for a threepeat. That's it. I won't use the word "excuse" since I would be stating the obvious for all villains, criminals, and killers, by stating that whatever happened in their lives was not an excuse, but do any of you feel sympathy for her with the knowledge that she hates her dwarfism and is upset that she cannot get men to have sex with her?
jjjThat in no way justifies her killing whole families. That, and she uses her condition to her advantage. I don't think the movie tries to make you sympathize with her. It's Alternate Character Interpretation at best.
edited 15th Feb '15 11:31:21 AM by AustinDR
@ Austin DR: "That in no way justifies killing whole families" Thank you Captain Obvious. Nothng justifies becoming a Serial Killer, I was asking ifyu could feel any sympathy or pitty for her.
WHY do you vote no on Esther?
edited 15th Feb '15 11:35:38 AM by bobg
jjjWow, the Sabbat seem bad in general, but Vykos seems to be ESPECIALLY sadistic. Two things:
- What's with the gender switching?
- Even Evil Has Standards: Complete monster it may be, but even Sascha Vykos hates the Antediluvians

Klavice...how long have you been a part of this cleanup? Why are you asking really, really obvious questions like "can a jerkass or SS qualify?"