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
I don't know how familiar everyone is with the Warcraft expanded universe, but the discussion on Light reminded me of another vain, self-righteous sociopath: Azshara, queen of the Naga, and current major lore villain.
I can do an effort post if anyone thinks she might be worth consideration for discussion like I think she does.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.- 36646: Ah, I see.
- I'm fine cutting the Squidwards Suicide one. I'm NOT fine with a blanket ban on Creepypastas.
How can we know if they qualify w/o an effortpost?
- I'll submit these
Monday? Any others?
edited 6th Mar '15 7:09:40 PM by ACW
Here's my effort post for Queen Azshara from the Warcraft series.
Who is she and what has she done?
10,000 years ago in the setting's history, Azshara was the queen of the Night Elves and the most powerful sorceress in the world. She was considered the most beautiful of her kind and was beloved by all off her people, although in the War of the Ancients trilogy it was implied both were do to her magic. She doesn't start of that evil, just an incredibly vain ruler who only truly loved herself and the Highborne, her noble elite. Things get really bad really fast when she begins tapping into the infinite magic of the Well of Eternity to gain enough power to cleanse the world of any she deemed "imperfect." This caught the attention of Sargeras, the creator of the Burning Legion who promised to help her cleanse the world if she helped him and his Legion into Azeroth. She grew enamored of him and his power and opened a portal to allow the Legion to begin its first invasion. She gleefully watches as the people who loved and admired her are slaughtered which she justifies with "To fully prepare for a world of perfection, all the imperfect must be swept away." To summarize an entire trilogy of novels, her actions cause an untold number of deaths and for the entire world to shatter in the Sundering all to satisfy her own vanity. Instead of dying a karmic death, she and the surviving Highborne are transformed into Naga by the Old Gods when she promises to serve them and try her schemes all over again in their name. All the travesties the Naga perform in Warcraft 3 and World of Warcraft can be directly blamed on her.
Any redeeming qualities?
None really, or at least none that can't be rebuked. It was said that she cared deeply for her people but she happily watches them be slaughtered by demons, so that's not true. It was also said she loved Sargeras, but she only truly loved his power and cast him aside when she found new beings to give her power.
Heinous by the standards of the story?
Here's the tricky part. She has a lot of competition in Warcraft already but her actions caused what is likely the highest body count in the entire series among any of the non divine characters. In comparison to another monster, she's just like Gul'dan only successful on a far larger scale and still likely to create more atrocities since she's still active as a villain.
edited 6th Mar '15 7:34:56 PM by LoreDeluxe
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.Have we qualified any other characters from the Warcraft universe as CMs? I haven't looked at it in a while. We have to apply relative heinousness standards; if all we judge on is body count + irredeemability, then we'd have a list a mile long.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Here’s possible CM from the terrible 2000 movie The Watcher.
Who is he? David Allen Griffin, a serial killer played by Keanu Reeves.
What has he done? David is a serial killer who targets women. He stalks them for days, then ties them to a chair, lights candles, and strangles them to death with piano wire. He’s described as causing his victims to pass out, then resuscitating them, over and over. One of his victims while in Los Angeles was the lover of the main character, Agent Joel Campbell. He was interrupted by Campbell and didn’t succeed in strangling the woman, but one of the candles caused a fire that burned her alive, as she was still tied to a chair. David saw Campbell as sort of the Batman to his Joker, so he followed Campbell when he moved to Chicago and started murdering women there. After the first murder, Campbell realizes that he had been sent a picture of the girl by David a few days before she was murdered. David plays this game of sending Campbell photos of his planned victims to see if Campbell can stop him twice more, succeeding in killing both girls. After killing his third Chicago victim, who was a homeless girl, he gets into a car chase with police, and manages to blow up a gas station, killing three officers. David then meets Campbell at his ex-lover’s gravestone, where he taunts him over her death, and reveals that he had kidnapped Campbell’s therapist, and forces him to go with him to where she is. When they get there, Campbell finds her tied up and surrounded by gasoline canisters which were rigged to explode if police had tried to breach the room. David knocks Campbell out and later shoots him in the leg. David tries to get Campbell to thank him for making his life “interesting” and attempts to strangle his therapist when he doesn’t. Police do breach the room and the explosives go off, seemingly killing several more police officers, as well as David.
Any redeeming features? David’s relationship with Campbell, as I said before, is very similar to the Joker and Batman’s. He seems to find their relationship to be important, but it’s not in a remotely friendly or loving way. He's Faux Affably Evil all the way. So no, no redeeming features.
Any mitigating factors? No.
Conclusion David has 6 direct murders, several indirect murders (most likely, it's not clear how many officers dies when the room blew up in their faces), and two more attempted murders under his belt during the course of the movie, and was apparently a serial killer long before, shows no remorse, taunts Campbell over his lover’s death and plays games with his victim’s lives. I think he counts.
edited 6th Mar '15 7:52:50 PM by Camberf
@ Fighter,
Yeah there are some monsters in the Warcraft series:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/Warcraft
I will say yes to David Allen Griffin.
@ Hamburger Time, now see the problem with Old Man Logan is it features a fair amount of villains in a short time and one of them is the Red Skull. The main villains are a new Kingpin, Red Skull and a corrupt Hulk. Dr. Doom is also present, but it is implied he is helping Wolverine, so he doesn't really add anything to the heinous standard, he doesn't really do anything. Kingpin seems like a generic warlord, his subjects don't even seem to completely hate him, so he may not have been the worse ruler around. He did seem to set up gladiatorial games to kill those of who oppose him, but considering he was killing heroes, I don't think he adds much to heinous standard. Also in the past, Mysterio tricks Wolverine into killing the X-Men, which is bad, but don't think that is enough to make Mysterio a monster and he doesn't have a lot of panel time.
Red Skull is his usual unpleasant self, he rather brutally murdered Captain America (and wears his costume as a trophy) and it is heavily implied he was the one who organized the super villains into taking over the world, so you could blame him for the world being in such a bad state. He runs part of America as a police state, but we don't know exactly what kind of government he runs or how brutal of a ruler he really is, though Red Skull's goons kill an aging Hawkeye for trying to organize a resistance against him, so we can assume Red Skull's regime is none too plesant. Besides that, he doesn't get that much panel time either and he quickly gets killed by Wolverine.
Hulk is now a Corrupt Hick, being in charge of California. Hulk has a bunch of inbred children and grand children as his minions and uses them to get rent from anyone in his domain. Wolverine lives in this area and Hulk sends some of his gang to get rent from Wolverine. When Wolverine fails to provide the rent, the gang start beating him up (Wolverine became a pacifist after he was tricked into murdering the X-Men) and Wolverine helps Hawkeye with a job to get money for the rent. However while Wolverine was out helping Hawkeye, Hulk decided to murder Wolverine's family anyway. Hulk did that because he was bored and thought it would be exciting if he fought Wolverine again. However it is implied that Hulk may care about his infant grandson, though I don't think that is made really clear.
Really Maestro was the only villain in the arc he appeared in and got more time to do bad stuff compared to Old Man Logan Hulk. Killing Wolverines family was bad, but he did do much beyond that. Hulk may have been depraved in rather gross way, but I'm not sure if he was quite enough bad deeds to count.
Old Man Logan is a story similar to Wanted, both stories are written by Mark Millar, but since the protagonists in Old Man Logan are actually heroic, the heinous standard is not out of whack. However more then one villain comes across as an evil psychopath in that story.
edited 6th Mar '15 9:13:54 PM by Overlord
By the Nihilus form The Immortal Game is a keep. It's clear that she or it is a parasite pulling a Grand Theft Me on Twilight, not a part of her personality.
edited 7th Mar '15 6:57:27 AM by randomtroper89
I'll
DAG, assuming it's not Offscreen Villainy, which it doesn't seem like it is.
As for Animated!Wily, I don't know. It seems like he does enough... I'll cut Squidward's Suicide killer Monday when I submit that next batch. That's been done.
edited 7th Mar '15 5:08:18 AM by ACW
Azshara is an interesting case (and one my username kinda hints I'm interested in). I guess the primary issue is to determine whether or not she's the most heinous for her resource level. Sargeras and the Eredar Lords of the Burning Legion are definitely on a higher level, given how the Legion commands a nigh-inexhaustible number of demons from all over the Nether. That gives us Gul'dan, Deathwing, and the Lich King (not a CM, but still impacts the standard) to compare with. And should the fact that Azshara's crimes (minus what's happened since the reawakening of the naga) take place ten millennia before "present day" matter? If so, there's really nothing to stop her from qualifying. Neltharion (Deathwing) betraying the other dragonflights happens during this time, but the Queen's actions surpass that. Would appreciate further input.
I have another candidate: Mr Nobody from The Traveler
Who is he ?: A mysterious supernatural killer played by Val Kilmer.
What has he done ?: He's first seen walking in a police station declaring he has to confess six murderers. He's immediatly restrained, but as he starts to confess the police offciers start to die in the same way he says: 1)Whipped to death by a belt, 2) Hanged on the roof, 3) Beaten to death with a shovel, 4) Suffocated by a plastic bag, 5) Dismembered by Nobody himself. It turns out that he was the vengeful spirit of a drifter accused of killing the daughter of the main protagonist, Detective Black who along the other cops illegaly b tortured and killed him to and the way the cops die are a Call-Back of the things they have done to him. The catch is that HE WAS REALLY GUILTY OF THE CRIME, a thing he gleefuly admits to Black, describing the murder in his details before giving him another lethal confession in his attempt to kill him. Black is forced to stab both his ears for not hearing it. Worse, he also says that Black's daughter was his last victim before he died so it's implied he's killed many other people (most of all possibly children). At the end Nobody is killed by Black after he speaks out loud his real name which apparently weakens him.
Freudian Excuse / Redeeming qualities: I wouldn't say so. Yes, being pissed off and wanting revenge for being tortured and killed is quite reasonable, but it's impossible to root for him since he was guilty to begin with and that he was a serial killer all his life and felt no remorse for his victims. It's also hinted that once he would have accomplished his revenge he would have continued the same serial killings he did in life.
Final verdict: I think he has good chances to be listed.
edited 7th Mar '15 4:41:01 AM by ST89
Are the only killings we see the cops? If so, I might actually have to lean
(Even if he was guilty, Police Brutality is a big Berserk Button for me...nothing happened to me personally, but still).
edited 7th Mar '15 5:12:17 AM by ACW
Hmm...Mr. Nobody might be a
for me. Sure, he's a Serial Killer and all, but if we never saw any of his crimes onscreen, then that'll go back to the whole Offstage Villainy thing and he'll probably be cut. If he only kills the police officers onscreen (who, from what it sounds like, suffered from Laser-Guided Karma), then yeah, I don't think he qualifies.
Are any of the officers remorseful about what they did? Or are they all Asshole Victims?
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.Actually the officers look genuine remorseful for what they did. In a flashback where they torture Nobody they also show some insecure look. Detective Black is also willing to apologizes to Mr Nobody for killing an innocent man only for him to answer back that he wasn't innocent at all showing sadstc streak in confessing the murder of Blck's daughter.
As for the little girl's murder we actually see it happening at the movie's beginning and once Mr Nobody confess his guiltness he's fully shown in the same scene in a flashback.
edited 7th Mar '15 8:03:18 AM by ST89
Pending issues:
- Anton Bartok from The Fly II is still undecided. So far there's 2
(Beast and Lightysnake) and 2
(Morgenthaler and Occasional Exister). Discussion starts here
, and continues here
before it stalled.
- Pinhead is also still undecided, specifically the Hellraiser: Bloodline version.
- McLeach looks like he stays. Since the last official count by Exister he's at something like 13-9 to keep.
I've also cleaned up two of my older rewrites, cutting down on plot exposition and unnecessary spoilers.
- Showdown in Little Tokyo: Yoshida is a ruthless Yakuza boss who takes control of the Los Angeles drug trade by dismembering his opposition and proceeds to shake down the inhabitants of the Little Tokyo district. When he was still a lowly assassin in Japan, he murdered the young Chris Kenner's parents and tried to kill the boy next. In the present he has a man crushed inside a car to take over his business, then decapitates a girl during mid-coitus who tried to warn the previous victim about Yoshida. He kidnaps and rapes Minako, a singer who works in his new club, after forcing her to watch the tape he shot of himself beheading her friend Angel. He's merciless towards any failure from his own men, and arranges for the two heroes-Johnny Murata and Sgt. Chris Kenner-to be painfully tortured to death through electrocution. When they inevitably escape and come back for him, he tries to burn Minako alive out of spite.
- Thir13en Ghosts: Cyrus Kriticos is a multi-millionaire occultist and ghost hunter who desires nothing less than omnipotence. He uses his wealth to construct the Ocularis Infernum (The Eye of Hell), a huge mechanical device originally designed in the 15th century that will give its bearer infinite power. He captures 12 tormented spirits, whom he traps in the basement of his mansion to drain their souls and fuel the engine. He then lures the family of his nephew Arthur Kriticos to the house in the hopes that Arthur will die and become the 13th ghost to complete the ritual, arranging this by kidnapping Arthur's two children and putting them in a death trap so Arthur will sacrifice himself in a futile attempt to save them. When Cyrus's lover—who initially worked as a spy for him and helped him to manipulate Arthur—balks at killing the children too, Cyrus has her crushed between two walls, sneering that she lacks the will to achieve greatness.
edited 7th Mar '15 10:48:18 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"Does Cyrus plan to kill the kids anyway (and if so, why?)? If not, I'd be hesitant on him counting. Showdown In Little Tokyo writeup looks good though (could you please add to the YMMV? A few small tweaks I wanna make.)
From what I remember of the old Mega Man cartoon, no to Wily.
Azshara: I'm inclined to say yes. It's not just "higher bodycount plus irredeemability", Azshara brings something special to the table. She's on par with Gul'dan, Deathwing and Kil'Jaeden in the realm of "ridiculously far above all other villains of the franchise in terms of heinousness." It's not like ths if offscreen when she got a trilogy of novels exploring exactly what she did here.
Yes to David Allen Griffin and Mr. Nobody both
Briefly back onto Creepypastas, no blanket bans. They aren't such much "darkfics" as horror stories. We don't cut something on the ground that they're meant to scare/horrify you. That applies to every villain listed there (subtracting the Squidward Killer, because again, we don't know anything of what he does).
As for Dr. Wily, sure, he does enough, but otherwise he's an affable, laughably incompetent doctor much typical of other ineffectual Saturday morning cartoons. It's like SATAM Robotnik with the traits and personality of the Adventures Robotnik. I say cut.
edited 7th Mar '15 10:57:19 AM by Scraggle
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It's heavily implied he does, if only to dispose of all witnesses. And placing them in a death trap by itself is hardly beneficial to their health. Plus, besides trapping all those spirits and not allowing them to pass on, every (attempted or succesful) death in the movie can be traced back to him. That includes all his associates who are ripped in half in the process of catching those ghosts, the lawyer, his lover, his psychic erstwhile associate, his nephew, his nephew's children...
edited 7th Mar '15 10:59:44 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"Ah, so the (attempted) actions of Robotnik, but w/o the Knight of Cerebus qualities? Sigh, fine, cut then.
Ah, I see. Works for me. Please add that to the YMMV too and I'll submit them with Monday's batch (and I guess cut Wily).
edited 7th Mar '15 11:30:40 AM by ACW
I think the problem with animated Dr. Wily is he is usually a generic villain who occasional does something really nasty and then crosses the Moral Event Horizon line, like he does here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JfKB1stuzrA
So he may not be consistently evil to count, but we can just list his actions for that one episode under the Moral Event Horizon.

It's a movie? I heard it was a short, three-volume manga.