During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
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We've discussed Alex, and we cut him because of a Pet the Dog moment. Besides, his former writeup exaggerated the extent of his evil anyways; he's quite Affably Evil and aside from his one leap over the Moral Event Horizon in Dark Dawn, he mostly edges clear of incredibly heinous deeds. Blados and Chalis are much worse, either way.
edited 25th Mar '15 11:35:31 PM by Scraggle
Hey guys, this is "holders". I had to create a new account since something wrong happened with my original one. I got logged out accidentally and when I tried to write a password, it did not work. I P Med Fast Eddie.
Anyway, back on topic I give
for Shredtail.
Here
.
Don't know about Shredtail, but I maintain we should add Brokenstar's crimes from here
.
Well, I knew it would happen eventually. There's now a CM entry for Amy in Gone Girl:
- Complete Monster: Amy has no remorse or reservations over her actions. As her life was about pretty much getting her way regardless before she and Nick got married, his constant challenges to that one-sided control she had before take their toll. What she seeks to do to him is not for any of the things he did wrong in her view, but ultimately so she is permitted to continue to getting what she wants and though at one point she actually intends to take her own life, it's only to make Nick look even more complicit in her supposed murder. When she sees him on TV pretending that he doesn't know where she is and wants her to come home (knowing the truth and trying to be more sympathetic in the view of the public), she believes she wants to set things right because she legitimately loves him, but rather because he now looks desperate and weak enough to submit more easily to whatever she wants from this point forward. Her murder of Desi is also so unnecessarily brutal. She could have found a number of merciful ways to kill him and make it look like self-defense and yet, she chose probably the most vicious and graphic means to do so. One could argue because she wanted to make it as convincing as possible, but she clearly enjoyed doing it too and was coldly detached with the utmost calm demeanor.
I'm surprised this entry is for the book rather than the movie, since Amy's even less sympathetic in the latter. In any case though, I don't think she qualifies. She's a sociopath, but I'd say she does love Nick- just in a warped/sociopathic way. Like in the scene the entry mentions, Amy is legitimately touched by Nick's speech on-camera and it prompts her to turn up/stop framing him.
And not that it necessarily detracts from her heinousness, but Nick isn't exactly the perfect husband either.
She also sort of has a freudian excuse. Her parents wrote this series of children's books about the "Amazing Amy" and basically they would have Amy do something right that the real Amy did wrong (so like if the real Amy didn't brush her teeth enough they'd show the "Amazing Amy" brushing her teeth and being praised for it- so essentially, despite seeming to the public as a cute thing praising their daughter it was a covert way of telling Amy that she was a disappointment to them).
Edit- One other thing- Amy killing Desi is given a Gory Discretion Shot in the book but is very gruesome on-screen in the film. In any event though, she killed him in part because he was essentially a crazy Stalker with a Crush practicing I Have You Now, My Pretty. Now granted, there is of course this aspect of her killing him so that she has an excuse to stop faking her death, but I think as it happened, the killing has a lot to do with Desi being a real threat.
edited 26th Mar '15 9:57:55 AM by Hodor2
I agree that she doesn't count, but having passive-aggressive parents isn't much of a Freudian Excuse.
Yeah, not sure how to put it, it's sort of like that discussion of Kron Stone in that it is a comparably minor excuse in comparison to the character's actions. However, I'd have to think that if this happened to a normal person in real life, they'd probably be left with some psychological issues.
And it does tie into Amy's whole character- it's like she was pushed/pushed herself into being a Stepford Smiler and so didn't respond well when the perfect marriage she had worked for fell apart.
Edit- Also, FWIW, the troper who added that entry (futuremoviewriter) has been adding a bunch of other Complete Monster entries.
edited 26th Mar '15 10:07:18 AM by Hodor2
Amy was already voted down once I believe. In any case, as horrible as she is in the movie (I haven't read the book) my vote is still
for her. She only has two murders ti her name (one attempted frame-up for murder to get her husband the death penalty, and one murder of a man who essentially locked her in his house) and one false accusation of rape isn't enough I think.
For the other examples that troper added:
- Complete Monster: John Gieger, though arguably more altruistic, is not much different from Howard Payne. While Payne's bombings are a much more conscious seeker of death at every turn, Gieger takes a more calais approach to human life. Yes, he has his indignation about being fired over the copper poisoning he got from the job itself, but to make his point, he plans out a hostile takeover of the ship's controls and plans to crash it into an oil tanker with innocent crewmen who had nothing to do with the Seabourn Legend. In the matter of the cruise ship's crew, it's guilt by association in Gieger's mind, but that doesn't excuse it or when he continues forward even after innocent passengers are still stranded on board. Not to mention that while everyone is distracted by the disaster itself, he robs the ship's vault of priceless jewels. Earlier, he throws the captain overboard just to get him out of the way. He leaves Alex and Juliano to die when they attempt to jam the propeller of the ship too. In sharp contrast to Payne, while Payne had the civility to not use physical force against Annie (though strapping a bomb to her chest is arguably worse and how he got it on to begin with comes to question), Gieger resorts to nearly pummeling Annie and smacking her around so that he can use her as a hostage as well. His roughness when simply using a gun to force her cooperation was purely unnecessary.
- Complete Monster: Fluke, though he's clearly just an alternate personality of Luke's mind akin to the Yang, has no remorse or caring for anyone in Port Charles. Though he is openly connected to some people, it is only as a means of getting what he wants or furthering his own agenda. Anyone who gets in the way or can do nothing for him is either a threat or dispensable. Nothing matters to him but what he wants and he only sees people as enemies or stepping stones to his insatiable appetite for power.
If no one has messaged them yet, I'll send them one to ask them to bring new examples here next time.
I think we can agree that the latter doesn't meet the minimum standard, plus it sounds like there's a moral agency issue if I'm getting this right. No idea on Geiger, but if he plans to kill all the crew and passengers he might count, depending on how valid his excuse is.
Btw, earlier someone mentioned
that Jean-Pierre Richard from Kiss of the Dragon has a Pet the Dog moment. If so, we'd obviously have to cut him. Can someone confirm this either way?
edited 26th Mar '15 10:56:10 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"I was wodering if Fortinbras himself from Onimusha could count. He's the true Big Bad of the series and the supreme creator of the demon race. He also created the human race to act as food and slaves for the demons. In the first game his demons under his orders the princess of the Saito clan, Yuki, so his ally Nobunaga can drink her blood right in her skull and becoming his immortal vassel. He also has the princess's little Brother kidnapped , in order to kill him in front of her to make her sorrow peak, and make her blood more powerful. He's defeated but he returns in Dawn of Dreams and once again tries to rule over the world and turning the humans into demon's food.
He appears to be quite emotional and sentient in contrast to many Made of Evil demons. He never express concern for his demons.
I don't know though if he really counts. The choice is yours.
Okay, the little man from The Adventures Of Pinocchio easily counts. Besides taking little kids to be turned into donkeys and selling them into slavery, he bites off one donkey's ears. He has 20 donkeys to pull his stagecoach, and when one of them tries to warn Pinocchio, The little man bites half of both its ears off.
jjjI dumped Fortinbras on the YMMV for now, along with the other two; we can clean that up when Lighty does the other rewries.
As for Iris, is Tearis canon?
BTW, wasn't it agreed that one of the live-action villains from Fist of the North Star counted? Side note: Speaking of said work, how is it Devil's Rebirth survived executions but got blown up by a single stick of dynamite?
Wish me luck: I'm setting two new projects for myself:
- Going through the Big Bad subpages and making sure all the CM entries are there.
- Going through https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/relatedsearch.php?term=Main/CompleteMonster
and culling out the uses that don't belong (probably starting with the WMG).
edited 26th Mar '15 12:30:27 PM by ACW

We should probably cut Kaima from Flame of Recca in that case. He doesn't do much other than lend his power to Mori. Most of his atrocities are shared by Mori anyway. We cut Higuchi for that very reason.
Also forgive me if he has redeeming qualities as I have never played Golden Sun, but does Alex qualify? He's got the deeds from the looks of it. Not sure about anything else.
edited 25th Mar '15 9:36:58 PM by Klavice