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
As I was eating lunch, I watched Only God Forgives. The film is... weird, but the film's Big Bad Crystal seems like a good candidate. Here's the effortpost I've written up for Crystal and let me know what you think of her potential eligibility.
Who is Crystal, anyway?
Crystal is an American drug queenpin who serves as the film’s Big Bad. As the mother of two sons, including the film’s protagonist Julian, she uses them to gain a foothold in the drug trade within Bangkok’s underworld.
What does she do? (WARNING: Spoilers for Only God Forgives ahead)
After Crystal’s elder son Billy rapes and savagely murders an underage prostitute, a local cop (and God) Lt. Chang has the girl’s father Choi Yan Lee beat Billy before slicing off his arm to make him remember his remaining three daughters. When Choi ends up accidentally killing Billy, however, Crystal arrives in Bangkok to identify Billy’s corpse and to check on her operations in Thailand. Although she had already checked into her hotel (verbally abusing staff in the process), her Establishing Character Moment is when she goes ballistic on Julian for forgiving Choi, stating that Billy “had his reasons” for raping and killing the underage girl. Having already promised that she’ll “take care of the yellow n-word who killed [Billy]”, she orders her underling Gordon to hire a local Thai boy to kill Choi as the latter’s cooking dinner. Later, when she learns of Lt. Chang’s involvement in Billy’s death, Crystal hires Byron to assassinate the living God despite of Byron’s warnings that she can’t go around killing cops anymore. This leads to three gunmen on motorbike butchering two of Chang’s lieutenants and a few civilians before Chang kills the motorbikers and gets Byron to fess up through… unsavory means.
Meanwhile, with Julian desperate to impress his mother, he has his Love Interest Mai pose as his girlfriend when he meets with Crystal again. Unfortunately for Julian, Crystal sees right through the ruse and racially and professionally mocks Mai for being an entertainer (calling her a cum-dumpster, for instance). After confessing her family’s business of internationally smuggling heroin, cocaine, and other fun drugs, she sexually and emotionally demeans Julian, going as far as boasting how Billy “had a bigger cock” of the two brothers and screaming that his depraved older brother would’ve already found and killed the killer if “the tables were turned”. A psychologically-fucked up Julian accepts his mother’s thoughts and takes out his humiliation out on Mai when she rightfully asks why he puts up with his mother’s abuse.
After an… interesting dinner, Crystal finds out that Chang is still alive and on the verge of finding her for her crimes. After witnessing a Curb-Stomp Battle between Chang and Julian, she emotionally manipulates the latter into killing Chang, all the while supposedly promising that she’ll be a true mother to him if Julian agrees. However, as Julian and a henchman arrive at Chang’s house, the henchman reveals that she ordered him and Julian to kill not just Chang, but his entire family (his young daughter included). Meanwhile, Crystal finds Chang and another policeman in her hotel room. There, she states that she’s leaving Bangkok without Julian and lies that she hasn’t made contact with him since he left for Thailand. After mocking her own son for not being a fighter, Crystal places the blame for all of her and Billy’s crimes on Julian. With Chang not believing Crystal’s lies, he stabs the snake in her throat and kills her.
One more thing: you might notice throughout the film that special attention is paid toward Julian’s hands and his trippy visions of Lt. Chang staring at him. This is because before he left for Bangkok, Crystal had Julian kill his own father (though Crystal places the blame entirely on Julian). With Julian finally realizing the mistake of trusting his mother, he kills the henchman and asks Chang to forgive him via chopping his arms off.
Any Freudian Excuse, redeeming qualities or other mitigating factors?
Her idea of “love” is that of manipulation and incest, as seen when she gropes Julian and mocks him for being… less endowed than his brother Billy. She will not hesitate to bully and make false promises to her son so she can use him to commit atrocities. As for those outside her family, she is an arrogant, foul-mouthed racist at best and an exceedingly merciless, manipulative, and downright nefarious misanthrope at worst. In short, there are absolutely no redeeming qualities or mitigating factors to be found in Crystal.
How does she hold up to the standards of the setting?
Only God Forgives is perhaps Nicolas Winding Refn’s darkest and most controversial film. The film takes a rather nasty outlook on life in Bangkok’s underbelly and focuses its story on an American who masquerades his mother’s drug-running operations as a Muay Thai fight club. Many of the characters die gruesome deaths and the eponymous God (Lt. Chang) embraces the Pay Evil unto Evil trope when it comes to punishing those who cross his moral boundaries.
Even with the film’s grim setting, however, Crystal stands out for practically being Lady Macbeth taken Up To Eleven and stripped of any redeeming qualities. She is directly responsible for masterminding most of the brutal deaths in the film and stands out as perhaps the most cruel and merciless character in a Refn-directed film to date. It doesn’t help that she mentally manipulates her two sons and fails to show a single shred of remorse for essentially ruining Julian’s life in the film’s climax. Given this, she passes the heinousness standard with flying colors.
edited 8th Mar '15 5:32:22 AM by sanfranman91
to Mr. Nobody,
to David Griffin,
to Crystal.
Who ever brought up the demon from Jennifer's body, I doubt it counts as there's no proof it's not made of evil, and Jennifer herself is Ginger Fitzgerald 2.0
Also Morganthaler, yeah the Pinhead discussion is still undecided. I still take the midquels into account, as he's back to his usual self unlike Bloodlines, and those movies usually have him punish/kill the bad guy. Also in Deader he more or less has a Pet the Dog moment with the protagonist by warning her of the bad guy Winter LeMarchand (who I'm thinking of bringing up), but he implies he intends to take her at the end before she offs herself, and in Hellseeker the infamous Pinhead/Kirsty Foe Yay continues ( don't worry, I'm not saying he loves her...still though). Would like to hear other opinions on him.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."While Billy is seen attacking women, we only see the end product of Billy murdering the prostitute. Nonetheless, while a nasty guy, Billy fails the heinousness standard when compared to Crystal (especially how the latter manipulates her own sons (with implications that she gave Billy the same treatment)). Chris Stuckmann made a good analysis video on Only God Forgives and I recommend watching it
to understand the movie's context.
to Mr. Nobody,
to David Griffin and
to Dr. Wily, btw
edited 7th Mar '15 4:07:47 PM by sanfranman91
So far it seems like the main issue with Azshara qualifying is due to so many other villains in the setting already qualifying (the number is 4 right now). I would argue that would be an issue for smaller settings, but Warcraft is a long running and expansive series with room for many C Ms. Also, it's not a particularly dark or serious setting and there is plenty of light heartedness and humor so the heinous standard isn't that comparatively high for a fantasy setting.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.We really do not know enough about Azshara. The only time she has been seen is in a time portal to 10,000 years ago, she was doing very bad things yes but not enough personality to say CM and apparantly she was a good queen before the whole inviting the Legion thing.
She is alive somewhere in World Of Warcraft but she hasn't gotten her expansion yet, maybe hold out till then?
edited 7th Mar '15 6:05:45 PM by Memers
There is an entire novel trilogy, The War of the Ancients, that goes into great detail on her crimes, motives, and personality. My effort post gets most of the information from those books. This site actually has an article on that trilogy btw.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.- Reservoir Dogs: The psychopathic Mr. Blonde is hinted to be unequivocally callous throughout the first half of the movie, even though he seems calmer and more clear-headed than his partners-in-crime, who seem wary of him. Before the first scene, he has turned a simple robbery into a massacre and it's told in a flashback he had a history of raping "punks" in prison. Right before Mr. Blonde's infamous torture of the cop, we feel positively uneasy when the hardened criminal Mr. White dreads leaving the cop alone with him, which is completely justified. It also says something about how dangerous he is that the only reason why Mr. Pink trusts him is because he's too much of a psycho to rat them out. However, even being the biggest psychopath of this wild bunch doesn't stop him from tipping the waitress (and joining the others in telling Mr. Pink to throw in his tip) in the first scene.
I think the last sentence about tipping, and the Even Evil Has Standards pothole, should be removed.
I got another effortpost ready for you guys. This time, I am proposing Crow, the Big Bad of the 2004 fighting game Def Jam: Fight for NY. Let me know what you think of him and don't forget to vote on Crystal from Only God Forgives (whose effortpost can be found here
). Alright now...
Who is Crow, anyway?
Voiced by the one and only Snoop Dogg, Crow is the Big Bad of Def Jam: Fight for NY. Originally a gang-banger in the West Coast, he joins D-Mob’s crew in New York and served as an advisor before falling out. By the beginning of the game, he becomes a a leader of a new criminal organization in New York City, one that seeks total control of New York City’s underbelly…
What does he do? (WARNING: spoilers for Def Jam: Fight for NY ahead)
After falling out with D-Mob, Crow launches a crime syndicate based in Club Murder in Washington Heights and begins to take over clubs in Harlem. While D-Mob’s crew initially ignores Crow’s expansion, Crow’s crew eventually visits D-Mob’s crew including the Player Character and threatens to take over D-Mob’s clubs in his hunger for power. Before leaving, he states that anyone who wants to make “real money” should join his crew before it is too late. This and D-Mob’s increased respect for the PC triggers Sticky Fingaz’s Face–Heel Turn.
After losing more clubs, Crow proposes a “Winner Takes All” match between the two crews’ best fighters. When the PC defeats Crow’s dragon Crack (Fat Joe), he sends three of his men to perform a drive-by shooting to attack D-Mob’s limo. This attempt fails and leads to the death of Danny Trejo (Crow’s brute) when the PC tosses him onto the subway tracks. As the PC continues to progress, he sends his other dragon Magic (Busta Rhymes) to deliver an ultimatum: stay out of his clubs or face the consequences. When the PC defeats Magic, Crow crashes into the PC’s room in the No Limit club and offers to pay double of whatever D-mob pays in exchange for turning sides. Not long after the PC refuses, Crow ambushes the PC when he comes home from another club tournament. There, Crow reveals a snip of the girl’s hair and reveals that he had abducted the PC’s girlfriend (your choice of Carmen Electra, Kimora Lee Simmons, Lil’ Kim or Shawnna). Terrified of what could happen to his girlfriend, the PC pulls a Face–Heel Turn and leaves to join Crow’s crew. After this, Crow promptly sends the PC this charming text: “You get my clubs back, and the girl’s yours. Mess around and the bitch is dead. You got it?” This effectively destroys most of the PC’s friendships as well as the reputation he had built up to this point.
Once the Player Character finally regains all the clubs in New York for Crow, the latter forces the PC to meet with Crack, WC, and Magic to perform one final task. When the PC arrives, he finds out that Crow has ordered him to kill his friend Blaze (Method Man) with a baseball bat. This triggers the PC’s Heel–Face Turn and a fight against Crack and Magic. After the PC and Blaze defeats the two dragons, Magic reveals that Crow never planned on keeping the PC’s girlfriend alive and shows the PC where she is being kept. When the PC arrives at the place, he finds out that Crow ordered Sticky to light the building on fire. The PC kills Sticky but when he finally rescues his girlfriend, it’s too late. Whether she actually dies or is rendered unconscious from inhaling smoke is unclear (due to EA’s Executive Meddling preventing a direct sequel from being made), however this drives the PC and Blaze to bring one last assault on Crow’s headquarters. Crow summons his crew and mocks the PC for only bringing in Blaze before more fighters show up to fight on the PC’s side. When he orders his cronies to “get this trash off his lawn”, however, Crack and WC realize that Crow has gotten out of hand and decide to leave the gang. Crow’s response? “Fine. You die too, muthafucka. C’mon, take all these bitches out!”
As the fight goes on between the two factions, Crow runs back to his office where he and Magic ambush the PC. When Crow orders Magic to shoot the PC, however, his remaining dragon realizes how awful Crow is and gives the PC the gun before leaving. Crow desperately begs the PC to change his mind before admitting that he values his personal philosophy (“ride or get rolled on!”) over respecting the street code of conduct. The PC empties the gun across the room and initially spares Crow, declaring that killing him isn’t worth it. Crow becomes infuriated and backstabs the PC with a hidden sword in his cane, forcing the two into a battle to the death.
Any Freudian Excuse, redeeming qualities, or other mitigating factors?
Crow’s personal philosophy is “Ride or get rolled on.” True to form, he mocks his own foot-soldiers and treats them as expendable. Moreover, he is willing to do anything to force the PC to abandon D-Mob’s crew. There is no Freudian Excuse for any of his actions nor does he exhibit any redeeming qualities throughout the game.
How does he hold up to the standards of the setting?
Def Jam: Fight for NY is a Darker and Edgier sequel to Def Jam Vendetta, as seen through its Black-and-Grey Morality. Characters can get killed by subway, fire, or defenestration, the finishing moves are brutal, and a lot of curse words are thrown left and right. However, D-Mob’s faction respect values such as honor, strength, loyalty and respect in and out of their fights for NY’s underworld.
What makes Crow such a striking villain is that he’s the polar opposite of all these values. He does the most damage of all the characters by treating cronies such as Danny Trejo and Sticky Fingaz as expendable soldiers, abducting the PC’s girlfriend to force the PC to turn heel, and having the building the PC’s girlfriend is kept in lit on fire even after the PC succeeds in taking back NY’s clubs for Crow’s crew. At the end of the day, Crow is nothing but a coward who values intimidation, brute force, and deception. Despite the dark nature of the game, he easily clears the heinousness standard.
edited 14th Mar '15 8:27:49 PM by sanfranman91
I have another suggestion, this one from 30 Days of Night.
Who is he? What has he done? Marlow is a vampire who leads a brutal assault on Barrow, an isolated region of Alaska that spends a month every year without the sun appearing. He finds a human to aide him in the beginning, and methodically has the area cut off from the outside world, then lets his vampires go wild, letting them kill and feast upon on any human they come across. When he meets up with the human who had aided him, he promises that he’ll be taken care of, then he snaps the guy’s neck after musing about "the things [humans] believe". When one of the townsfolk tries to defend himself from Marlow, he impales him against a wall with a hot poker. After killing off most of the town, Marlow captures a young woman and uses her as bait to lure out any survivors, promising her safety in return. When the plan doesn’t work, she breaks down and starts praying to god, to which Marlow tells her that there is no god, and has her slashed apart. A few weeks later, a female vampire who followed Marlow around, and I think was possibly his lover, gets hit in the face with a sun lamp, Marlow doesn’t seem too broken up about this, and sucks her blood after declaring her to be “broken”. He also kills a semi-major character by crushing his head under his foot. Near the end of the movie, having caused the deaths of almost the town of around 150 people, Marlow decides to burn it to the ground to cover his tracks. When the main character injects himself with vampire blood and challenges Marlow, Marlow delivers a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown before dropping his guard for a second and getting killed himself. Seeing their leader killed, the rest of the vampires just leave.
Any redeeming features? Like I said, the female vampire's death doesn’t seem to bother him. He seems a little upset when it first happens, but when he’s alone with her later, he says “What can be broken, must be broken” and kills her. In other words, he’s saying that if she’s weak enough to be hurt or killed, then she has no place with his vampires. It still could be seen as a Mercy Kill, but I don't think it cuts it as a redeeming feature. It's one of those things where I guess you just need to go on body language whether you think that he actually cared for her at all.
Any mitigating factors? This is the part that I thought about the most. The rule for vampires in this universe seems to be that they stay themselves for a little while after turning, then become more and more feral. Marlow seems to be an outlier in this regard, he’s one of the only vampires, and the only one in his coven who speaks, and is by far the most lucid. All of the other vampires seem to have gone almost completely feral, the only remaining humanity being their ability to understand speech and follow orders. Marlow plans out the attack, taunts one of his victims, and generally is far less predatory and more human than any of his vampires. I don’t think that the fact that he’s a vampire should disqualify him.
Does he meet the heinous standard of the work?
Yes, he’s behind everything. It’s highly doubtful that the other vampires would have even been able to plan out an attack like this one. Also, not that it should necessarily be taken into account, but in the comic based on the film, Marlow was in service to an elder vampire named Vincente
, but he disobeyed orders and massacred the town when Vincente had only told him to survey it, so even when he was working under someone else, he still was personally responsible for the slaughter. Vincente, however, isn’t mentioned in the film.
How much is Offscreen Villainy? None, you see dozens of people get killed by his vampires, as well as his own deeds.
Conclusion I believe he qualifies. Also, he’s only called “Marlow” in the film, he was given the surname “Roderick” in the IDW comic.
As for the recent discussions, I'll say
to Azshara and Crystal. As for Crow, I'm unsure.
His crimes outside of being a dick seem to be as follows:
- Sets up a drive-by shooting
- Kidnaps PC’s girlfriend, threaten to kill her, with no intention of keeping her alive
- Orders PC to kill his friend
- Orders PC’s death
- Stabs PC in the back
The last two are standard villainy, and I'm not sure if his other crimes cross him into CM territory, so I guess I'll abstain for now, with a slight lean towards yea.
edited 7th Mar '15 9:54:51 PM by Camberf
Marlow... When his protege is hurt, Marlow is genuinely distressed by his facial expression and tells her exactly "What can be broken must be broken...you understand?" And she accepts it before he kills her.
Crow is a closer yes. He tries to kill pretty much everyone else in the game, and has no issue having an innocent killed. Yes to Billy's mom as well, and seriously Bob G that language really shouldn't be acceptable.
30 Days of Night is an example of a work where nobody likely counts. Marlow in the film is a Composite Charater of Roderick Marlow in the comic who arranges the attack on Barrow and an elder vampire named Vicente who arrives to stop him, but opts to slaughter anything that remains to cover up the existence of vampires. Vicente is nasty, but he and his wife Lilith genuinely care about one another. Most vampires are on the exact same level of nastiness and even Marlow's attack on Barrow is pretty much duplicated by multiple other vampires in attempt so he ends up as no more heinous than any other vampire.
The only ones who might qualify are Agent Paul Norris who had a redeeming quality (he rather honorably refuses to kill a human who accidentally savd his life, even after the guy shoots him with a shotgun and tries to snipe him), and Eben Olemaun who forges the vampires into an army, single-handedly slaughters Barrow to the last man, and attempts to conquer and slaughter the entire world. His disqualification is his love for his dead wife (though one can make the argument Eben has ceased to care for her and used her as an anchor to humanity, which he discards later...hard sell)
edited 7th Mar '15 9:56:54 PM by Lightysnake
The thing about the other vampires is that they are all far more feral and less able to think and plan. When Marlow's killed, they don't even know what to do. Also, I guess the film and comic are quite different, as Eben is the hero in the film. The heinous standard of the comics shouldn't be taken into account, they're completely separate, no other vampire attacks are mentioned in the film.
edited 7th Mar '15 10:13:06 PM by Camberf
It's not that they don't 'know' what to think and do (one is shown using a little girl he's been saving as bait later in the winter), it's that Eben just flat out killed their boss.
Dawn is approaching and Eben has just established he can kill any of them in a fight if they push the issue. They probably decide they rather have somewhere else to be.
In the comic, Eben is the hero. He later undergoes a severe detachment from humanity and undergoes a rather vicious Face–Heel Turn
edited 7th Mar '15 10:16:19 PM by Lightysnake
Okay, fair enough. But Marlow's still the leader and planned out the attack. If you were the leader of a brutal army of humans and planned an attack on a town, you'd still be responsible for the overall massacre, even if your men were sadistic themselves. And yeah, I sort of guessed that about Eben, but he dies in the film anyway as a hero. I think that the potential sympathetic trait is the only real mitigating factor with Marlow, and personally I don't think it cuts it. He doesn't show any love for her when she's alive, and his face doesn't really change when she dies, it reminds me of when one of the Salamanca twins was killed in Breaking Bad, and the other one's slight reaction to it. It's like a "huh, that's a shame" reaction.
edited 7th Mar '15 10:24:28 PM by Camberf
I'm not saying otherwise. It depends on how seriously we take the sequel Dark Days (which reveals the real leader of the vampires was on the ship that delivered them and Marlow was her lieutenant). The main issue is Marlow's potential care for his subordinate, which I'm not convinced is fake.
The comic issue has Barrow's attack become one of many such attempts and assaults, so the unique heinousness stops.
- Reservoir Dogs: The psychopathic Mr. Blonde is hinted to be unequivocally callous throughout the first half of the movie, even though he seems calmer and more clear-headed than his partners-in-crime, who seem wary of him. Before the first scene, he has turned a simple robbery into a massacre and it's told in a flashback he had a history of raping "punks" in prison. Right before Mr. Blonde's infamous torture of the cop, we feel positively uneasy when the hardened criminal Mr. White dreads leaving the cop alone with him, which is completely justified.
edited 8th Mar '15 12:18:37 AM by ACW
I personaly vote
for Marlow from the film. He never shows genuine care for his subordinates and his love for the Iris, the vampiress, seems ambiguous. After he's forced to kill her he does anything to avenge her and when he faces Eben during the showdown he doesn't mention the incident or say anything like "You make me killed the woman i loved " and stuff.
edited 8th Mar '15 12:26:01 AM by ST89

Eff it. Here they are: