Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Lighty, is General Jonah Wade a no-go?

I say a write-up for movie!Light be written since he has crimes he committed there that were not in the manga.

FTR, the reason I don't consider anime!Light an example was because the ending given to him suggested he was forming some form of regret for the path he'd taken, as evidenced by him hallucinating his episode 1 self walking past where he was going while bleeding to death. I don't think he regretting much from a moral standpoint: he just regretted the results it got him and the ones close to him, similar to how I saw Walter White in Breaking Bad, who also might have become a Complete Monster had those last three episodes not given him some tiny semblance of atonement before he kicked the bucket.

I need to see an LP for Wade.

As for Lght...Anime!Light doesn't count for that reason.Movie Light needs his own writeup. This is only for the manga.

Hmmm...I'll add Wade to the Effortposts lists for now. As for Light, I added a parenthetical that it's only Manga!Light.

As promised, here's my crack at Light.

Once a bored and self-righteous schoolboy, the manga's version of Light Yagami proves that absolute power corrupts absolutely. Upon getting his hands on the Death Note, Light quickly declares his designs of becoming the god of a new world. While he starts off by simply killing criminals, he rapidly expands his targets to include anyone who denounces him, the FBI investigators attempting to catch him, and anyone else he sees as a hinderance to his ascension, often taking sadistic glee in his victims' agony as they die. He views everyone around him in terms of how useful they are to him, disposing of one ally the moment she has served her purpose and sparing the lives of his family only because killing them would draw too much suspicion to him. His disinterest in the fate of anyone other than himself is shown most clearly when he gives the note to someone who he knew for certain would use it for selfish and evil purposes just so that he can throw the authorities off his trail. By the time he announces his intention to start killing the lazy and anyone else he arbitrarily deems unworthy of life in his new world, it is clear to everyone that he is simply "a crazy mass-murderer. Nothing more and nothing less."

As for the The Town That Dreaded Sundown entry, shouldn't Foster's motive be placed there too ?

Added.

I have no issue with Lightysnake's Light write-up. Am currently rewatching the show with my girlfriend, and I've got to say, he's pretty much irredeemable from the first episode onward. If we don't have a link to narcissist somewhere in that write-up, we should, seeing as he's a textbook case.

He's like Griffith, really. Both were narcissistic sociopaths to start with, but they reached Complete Monster status rather than started off with it due to casting away any redeeming qualities they had for full-throttle slippery slope jumpings of their own choice.

Those are some good write ups ACW. I have got 5 yes votes and 0 no votes on Deakins, I will do a write up on him:

• Broken Arrow (1996): Vic "Deak" Deakins, was a man with a 20 year career in the US military. After being unhappy with being passed over for promotion for officers he considered his inferior, Deakins decided to steal some nuclear missiles and use them to extort money from the US government. While trying to steal the nukes from a training exercise, Deakins tries to murder his "friend", Hale Riley. Mercenaries under Deakins command murder some civilians who are near the drop zone where the nukes would be delivered and then they kill a US military team assigned to recover the lost nukes. Deakins tampers with the keypads on the nukes, so they would detonate if anyone tries to deactivate them. Later in the film, Deakins kills Pritchett, the man financing this operation, for annoying him with his complaining and comments that this is the first person he has ever killed face to face and he doesn't see what the big deal is. Near the end of the film, after Hale destroys the helicopter Deakins was planning on his using to escape the blast radius, Deakins decides to set off the nuke any way and attempts to kill hundreds of thousands of people, out of spite.

edited 3rd Mar '15 4:48:39 PM by Overlord

If APV wasn't an automatic disqualifier, I'd say Anime!Light is a perfect example of a Complete Monster protagonist. But since it is, I'm going to say Manga!Light is the example.

Both Lights are irredeemable, yes, but the same goes for many of DN's antagonists including Beyond Birthday and Misa. But as bad as both of them are, neither have Light's bodycount. Makes me want to watch Death Note again or read the manga and enjoy the series again. There were two things that stopped me from completely watching the anime (I watched the beginning as well as the ending and up to the Yotsuba organization). One, the incredibly slow pace of the Yotsuba arc and two, the Maximum the Hormone theme song. (Seriously, it sounds like bad Japanese Screamo and anyone who knows me knows just how much I hate screamo) But beside that, it was an excellent anime documentary of a textbook sociopath's slow descent into irredeemable territory.

Speaking of Death Note, should we add Soichiro Yagami in all those fanfics where he's not only abusive to his son, but a racist and homophobe as well somehow being worse than Light to the fanworks page?

One such example would be Constant Temptation where he becomes an Axe-Crazy Abusive Parent, Dirty Cop, and raging homophobe who had Light's past boyfriends killed and this is what really drove Light into becoming Kira.

edited 3rd Mar '15 6:16:40 PM by Klavice

We'd need a specific fanfic, and I can safely tell you, I'm not going to go through them.

Klavice, why in the world would you suggest adding general examples without actual sources?

Edited in an example.

I'll tweak Broken Arrow and maybe Light tomorrow, and submit the whole thing Thursday morning (and cut Sykes). Meanwhile, for Naruto, for Orochimaru:

• Big Bad Ensemble: He's one of the main villains in the series, especially the main villain in Part 1, though he's lost ground to Akatsuki in Part 2. Now that he's joined Sasuke's side and Sasuke has temporarily rejoined Konoha's side, he's technically undergone a Heel–Face Turn.

He doesn't undergo a Heel–Face Turn. This came up before.

There's a horrible entry list on Fan Works:

• Many, perhaps most, villains in the Power Rangers Dark Fic series Prophecies of the Morphing Grid:
  • Dark Specter. The first story is primarily concerned with his rise to power, and we get to see exactly why he earned the title "Grand Monarch of Evil". While having innumerable wars and genocides behind him in his quest for Dimension Lord-dom is bad enough, it's the sheer overkill he applies to our own humble blue marble, it being prophesied to birth his destroyers, that truly pushes him into this territory. Two instances in particular stand out. In the second story, he's been revived and took the galaxy's government, but he's heard that Zordon is also on his way back to the realm of the living. Specter kidnaps all the various babies he thinks might be the reincarnated Zordon, as well as Karone, to confirm their identity. When Karone tells him that none of the babies he has are Zordon, Specter blows up the room full of babies, then teleports Karone back to the Rangers...with her throat cut. Karone gets better, but we're never told if the babies do. The second instance is in a flashback in the third story, where it's revealed that Specter sold advanced alien tech to the Nazis in exchange for them turning Earth over to him when they were done conquering it. They failed to do that, but one can only imagine how much worse he made World War II. He's also behind everyone else on this list, by the way. Interestingly enough, the early parts of the first story give him a bit of a Woobie-ish Backstory that casts him as a former Ranger millions of years ago who accepted the proto-United Alliance of Evil's offer to become their leader so he could get justice for his murdered girlfriend, but the author has gone on record as saying he's grown unhappy with this backstory and plans to write it out next time he revises the fic.
  • Which brings us to King Ra. He's the absolute dictator of a race of Lizard People and a high-ranking member of the UAE. He claims to have genetically engineered humanity to be his race's slaves and wholeheartedly believes this gives him every right to abuse them in any way he wants, and does he ever. As it turns out, he's lying through his teeth, but it's then revealed that he's responsible for the Dominus Lords' control of Earth, so he still believes humanity "owes him". Naturally, few tears are shed when the Rangers cut him down, with him whining about how "ungrateful" humans are all the while.
  • This next one is a big spoiler. It's Captain Logan, the apparent Big Good from Time Force. How bad is he? Well, it turns out that Year 3000's mutant crime wave problem was actually engineered by him, as a way to unite the people against a common foe and distract them from the dictatorship they're living under. Oh, and he shot Ransik's wife on the day their daughter was born, which drove Ransik back to crime just as he was about to completely atone from killing Dr. Fericks due to The Power of Love. He's also a nigh-unkillable Super-Soldier. You can't help but cheer when Ransik jams a vial of liquid magnetite (the Super Soldiers' one weakness) down his throat, causing him to crumble to dust in an extraordinarliy painful-sounding way.
  • Then there's Senator John Thorne, leader of an anti-alien hate group. We realize he's this right around the time he has a refugee camp massacred. Most of his private army, used to perform the aforementioned massacre among other things, appear to qualify, too, but as they're just Mooks, it's hard to tell.
  • There's also Jacob Russell, an Amoral Attorney-turned-Corrupt Corporate Executive. He bought out one of BioLabs' subsidiary companies and turned it to evil. Not only that, he murdered Trini's Uncle Howard (a character fans of the show would recognize) when he wouldn't sell his research to him, making the death look like a suicide. It's even sort of hinted he greased the authorities' palms so they wouldn't consider the fact that Howard had never displayed suicidal tendencies before.

Dark Specter: If he loves his girlfriend, he can't qualify. Authorial intent doesn't matter.

Senator John Thorne: Maybe, but his army is a group and must be cut.

Jacob Russell: Only one murder listed. Easily fails the heinous standard compared to the other villains.

Not sure about the rest but they're definitely not well-written.

edited 3rd Mar '15 7:11:43 PM by TVRulezAgain

Saying Orochimaru made a Heel–Face Turn is like saying Slade made one in the fourth season of Teen Titans. It simply didn't happen just because he allied himself with the protagonists for this one thing.

It's far too ambiguous to cut. Orochimaru confesses he's only helping because he's fascinated by Sasuke and wants to observe him and preserve his 'laboratory.'

Now, it is possible he gains a redeeming quality of two. He has a scene with Tsunade where he remembers Jiraiya, and in another bit when everyone's memories are shared, we see the image of Jiraiya's grave with Orochimaru having an unreadable and solemn expression.

Alright, so it looks like Big O (heh) stays for now.

Ok, I have a new candidate: Ian Pascoe from the Timecop series.

Who is Ian Pascoe? What has he done?

Ian Pascoe is a recurring villain from the short-lived Timecop tv series, which aired for only 9 episodes before being unceremoniously cancelled. Pascoe ends up being the only recurring villain; he shows up in 3 episodes and escapes again at the end of his last one.

Pascoe is a time traveller from the near future (probably 2027, the show takes place in 2007) who uses a portable device to enter different time periods to "become the greatest killer in human history". In the pilot episode he kills Jack the Ripper while he's pursuing one of his victims. Pascoe wants to become "Jack" himself and then kills the prostitute in his place. He continues on his killing spree in 19th century London, aiming to achieve Jack's bodycount 5 times over (so 25 victims at least). When the hero tracks him down and saves one girl, Pascoe later kidnaps her again and fastens a time-detonated bomb to her neck. He escapes, but returns in 1956 to kill a Hollywood actress's boyfriend by electrocution before trying to kill the actress herself by dropping a safe on her head. This time he's captured and put into the time agency's prison, but he has his then-13 year old self send him something useful so that he can escape again. He kills a doctor in the process, kidnaps the female co-lead and goes to Chicago in the 1920s to get in touch with Al Capone (whom he helped reach the top previously). When Capone has one of his goons spy on Pascoe, the latter murders the minion offscreen and gives Capone what's left of the guy stuffed into a suitcase. He's also said to have caused several disasters (Hindenburg, Titanic, and Chernobyl), though this is mostly Historical Rapsheet Offstage Villainy.

Heinous by the standards of the story?

He's the only recurring villain, but given the number of times he escapes it seems he was intended as some sort of evil time traveller Arc Villain who just kills people and causes disasters for the fun involved. No other villain-of-the-week comes close to his bodycount or level of cruelty. There's only one other villain who could have: a Neo-Nazi who travels to 1944 to help Hitler win the war by giving him future technology; this results in a nuke being dropped on London and a Bad Future ruled by the Nazis. It's a rather similar scenario to that one Star Trek: Enterprise episode however, where a bunch of aliens from the future intervene in World War II. They basically present the Nazis as some generic evil invading force without actually getting into the genocidal nastiness they got up to in real life, so it fails the bar due to Offstage Villainy.

Freudian Excuse or redeeming traits?

None. We're told that when Pascoe was 13 in 2007 he killed his parents for no reason. For his killing spree throughout history he has no real motive beyond thrills and he possesses no redeeming traits. During a Hostage for MacGuffin exchange, he predictably tries to kill both leads as soon as he has what he wants.

Conclusion?

It was a pretty shortlived and occasionally cheesy show (so in the latter sense like the movie it was based on, really), but he's played dead straight. Keep.

edited 4th Mar '15 4:35:31 AM by Morgenthaler

Pascoe sounds like a . It's hard thinking of candidates from short lived series, like Vikram Desai, but unlike Vikram, Pascoe sounds more strait forward and fleshed out.

Also as much as I hate to acknowledge this movies existence, but have we considered Evarard Maltravers from *retch* The Legend of the Titanic ? The movie is an anti whaling propaganda that knows no subtly and is completely insensitive to those who died in the Titanic disaster, but Maltravers was a pretty bad guy.

edited 4th Mar '15 5:20:21 AM by Beast

^ Is he really played straight? Doesn't he have several practically comical shark henchmen who trick an octopus into sinking the ship? Even then, is mass murder an explicit part of his plan? With a lighthearted kid's movie that rewrites the Titanic disaster so that Everybody Lives, I sort of doubt it.

edited 4th Mar '15 5:35:42 AM by Morgenthaler

Maltravers himself is played strait, as is his plan. Also they imply he know the whales he plans on hunting are sentient, because if he didn't, he wouldn't be in cahoots with sharks now would he... again the movie is really bad, among the worst I've seen, but at least it tries to be a serious story. And if they didn't make it at the expense of the Titanic disaster, I could be as decent as, say Food Fight.

I don't know... I think that's one example where I'd actually have to see it for myself, though I'm obviously loath to do so. It does bring us back to the question of how bad something can get before it becomes a problem. I think if it's played straight there would be no such bar, unless the bad quality messes with either the heinous standard or the story's internal logic. Complete trash like Manos: The Hands of Fate or Las Vegas Bloodbath may be laughable if you don't take it at face value, but I'd have a harder time suspending that disbelief if Sam Butler was accompanied on his rampage by a talking bipedal horse and he murdered mice.

Maybe he could count for sinking the ship... I don't think we've ever actually had a really close look at what a setting with sentient animals means for the heinous standard in general. I could see someone like Dag (Barnyard) count as he occupies a setting where all animals are sentient (and Animal Farm's Napoleon for the same reason), but certainly not someone like Cat R. Waul from An American Tail: Fievel Goes West-he's a cat who wants to eat mice, and that's what cats do. We'd also never put up Cruella De Vil for one, because she simply doesn't know about the puppies. But even if she did, are we to assume that no one ever would have found this world fact out? We talked about that a bit in regards to Mrs. Tweedy (Chicken Run), who even if she does know that the chickens are sentient, the fact that she's able to process them as food and sell it on the market at all sort of implies that slaughtering chickens is not regarded as exceptionally heinous in the wider world, thus it fails the heinous bar. I think it's taking an unfounded leap to assume that because the activity itself is illegal at that time (say, poaching or illegal whaling) to then argue that this is because it's perceived as murder.

edited 4th Mar '15 6:31:43 AM by Morgenthaler