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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Nah, Mumm-Ra's manipulative, nothing else. Faux Affably Evil only.
Is everyone okay with cutting Papa Jupiter? The Hills Have Eyes (the original 1977) concerns a family lost in the Nevada desert where they encounter Papa Jupe's clan after meeting his father who runs a gas station.
His dad, 'Grandpa Fred' cites how Jupe was born an unusually huge boy who was nasty from the start After a series of nasty events, Jupiter burned down the family home with his older sister inside. Fred smashed his face open with a crowbar and left him in the desert to die. Jupiter survived, grew up, stole a prostitute and raised his own clan consisting of his sons Mars, Pluto, Mercury and his only daughter Ruby, who hates her family and wants to escape. When Jupiter learns of Fred helping Ruby try to run away, Jupiter beats him to death (Gloating to Ruby he likes 'fixing people good'). Jupiter and his clan target a family passing through with Jupiter personally crucifying and burning alive the family patriarch 'Big Bob' while his kids try to murder the others.
I should note while Jupe is probably the worst, it's hard to say he stands out enough. The movie is about a group of 'civilized' people having to become as savage as their opponents to survive. Mars is a rapist and the nastiest of the kids, Pluto is a cunning murderer who also kills the family's German Shepherd Beauty (which provokes the wrath of their other Shepherd Beast, AKA the most badass dog in a 70s horror film)...Mercury seems genuinely mentally handicapped.
When beast kills Mercury by knocking him off a cliff (seriously, this dog is awesome), Pluto reports that Mercury was pushed. Jupiter screams "Who pushed my boy?!" And seems genuinely upset, especially as he gives a furious speech to Big Bob's corpse: "Your dog made sport of my blood, you pig! I’m gonna kill your kids for that! …come out here and stick your life in my face!!! Stick your fingers in my PIE!!. That was a bad mistake! I thought you were smart and tough. You’re stupid! You’re nothing! I’m gonna watch your goddamn car rust out, yes I will! I’ll see the wind blow your dried up seeds away! I’ll eat the heart of your stinkin memory! I’ll eat the brains of your kids’ kids! I’m in! You’re out!!!
So, in conclusion, a nay to Papa Jupe.
edited 9th Apr '15 7:30:42 AM by Lightysnake
@ Scraggle: There are very good reasons for treating animal cruelty as second-rate, and arguing that it should be used because it's "heinous" is neither here nor there. Beating people up is heinous. Forcing people to submit to one's tyrannical whims is heinous. Should we start putting up villains who resort to physical violence or want to take over the world? It still falls short of doing things like murder or rape to sentient beings, and the recurring tendency for people to argue for it as a qualifier in an effort for characters who otherwise barely meet minimum heinousness (not necessarily saying that's the case for Strasser, mind you) isn't helping.
I'm not voting either way on Strasser because I'd like more information. I think the intentionality behind his other crimes is a stronger breaking point, because how culpable is he there? People have been saying he starts the fire at the end by accident. Moreso than a character like Burke, who endangered the lives of dozens of colonists but was indifferent to it at worst? We decided he couldn't count.
@ A New Man: Wait, didn't Cruella crash in her car before her kidnapping of the puppies was revealed to the police?
edited 9th Apr '15 7:42:27 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"And Jupe's speech isn't like Zakhaev's? Or how he just wants an heir? It's clear he's heartbroken? Though he may be disqualified for as you said not standing out. I'm fine with cutting him.
As for the cult leader, I think he counts, but not sure he's the Straw Hypocrite:
edited 9th Apr '15 7:43:01 AM by ACW
Strasser causes a fire with a missed shot while trying to shoot Jill. And honestly, firing a gun in a crowded carnival full of flammable equipment indicates a complete awareness and disregard of collateral.
Papa Jupe is seen with his kids and while they're certainly cowed by him, the family seems to have a functional relationship, aside from Ruby (And even she's shown to be quite sad when she sees Mars killed in front of her, even after she betrays the family.) And when informed of Mercury's death, he screams "Who pushed my boy?!" with a tone that indicates it's not just possessiveness.
edited 9th Apr '15 7:46:13 AM by Lightysnake
I vote a cut for Inspector Richard. I saw the scene where he mourns the pimp's death and he looks genuine sad. The fact he strokes his hair means that unlike the rest of his henchmen he considered him more like a friend.
The same from Bruce Willis' Jackal. Yes, he's a monster but not complete. In a scene he has a Pet the Dog moment towards a woman who made him a false indentity document, paying her more, making her keeping the change and wishing her good luck for her upcoming baby. In another he takes a girl hostage but he later release her alive and well. He also just pretends to shoot her implying he never wanted to kill her.
This talk of Jupe reminded me of Papa Hades from the sequel to the remake. I haven't seen that movie in five years but I remember him being pretty monsterous himself. Did he have any migrating factors ?
Also someone I brought up few days ago, did we conclude Vilmer Sawyer ? I didn't see any arguments against him, and he had about two yay votes so far.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."Amy has an actual Freudian Excuse and she doesn't rise to the requisite level of heinousness. she's a psycho, but not a CM
Amy Dunne had a solid Freudian Excuse, some redeeming features, and was an only slightly more horrible person than the protagonist himself. Therefore, she cannot qualify.
I may be reconsidering Gieger. He has more of a Freudian Excuse than Payne and is doing it more for that than anything else. Payne had an excuse too, but he did actually do it more so for the carnage. Gieger caused carnage, but not for the sake of doing so. That being said, he didn't care enough to consider it all. An argument can be made either way. I know Fluke is only a manifestation of Luke's mind, but the things he did (nearly blowing up a boat, killing his own hitman, threatening the lives of people Luke was related to or cared about, as well as threatening a little kid because her friend got wise to him, desiring nothing but power and control and seeing everyone around him as expendable if they couldn't serve a purpose or do what he wanted done) clearly showcase him as the most vile villain Port Charles ever faced.
Not sure of a better way to put this, but I'm not sure if you understand the trope. It's not just a matter of identifying the worst person in a work and voila, Complete Monster!
There are multiple criteria the character has to satisfy to count.
The issue with Fluke is that he/it doesn't seem like a separate personality that's taken over. It's more like a new personality that derives from facets of Luke's own personality- which means we're really just talking about Luke, who is obviously not a Complete Monster.
True. A good argument could be made for Luke's father Tim though. He was a bitter drunk who despite claiming he loved his wife, beat her constantly; beat his kids and clearly never loved any of them at all; only cared about his own well-being (barely) and planned to leave the kids after their mother died, seeing them as expendable and being of absolutely no importance to him ever. He even taunted and went after Luke for accidently killing his mother just to hurt him and to declare himself as being the better person. He instilled nothing but fear and despair in the eyes of his children in the time that he was alive.
Here's a writeup for Stocke.
- How I Escaped from a Cult (link
): Charlie Stocke was the self-appointed prophet of the Third Reincarnation of the King, as well as the alleged third reincarnation of Christ. Stocke convinced several of his followers into going with him into the wilderness, and he forced them to work eight hours a day. He placed most of the memebers on the "prayer list" as a means of breaking them into submission, and he purposefully starved them. He later sentenced a married couple to death when they tried to leave the cult, and he also executed the narrator's parents. Four more members died from execution while the remaining members of the TRK either died from starvation or resorted to cannibalism. Stocke eventually tried to orchestrate a mass suicide, but he was ultimately burned alive and eaten.

If ''Tearis'' is canon, what to do about Iris?
edited 9th Apr '15 7:22:46 AM by ACW