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 enjoyed it, despite its flaws. It's definitely a flawed film, but not the worst of the Craig films by any means. Waltz does a good job, but there's a point when you realize Christoph Waltz is always going to be playing Hans Landa when he's a bad guy to a certain extent. There's also some serious "waitaminute" bites that...make previous events of the past films look a bit odd in retrospect. No spoilers, though.
Also, while the Bond song was a tad weak in parts, the visuals of the opening are fantastic. Honestly some of the best I've seen in a Bond film, period.
edited 6th Nov '15 7:43:35 PM by Lightysnake
How does Batista do as The Dragon / The Brute?
BTW Lighty, almost finished book 4 of Department 19, and about to start Chew.
edited 6th Nov '15 10:37:42 PM by ACW
Did we discuss Veran from the Oracle games? She does a hell of a lot in her game alone. And she wasn't completely under the orders of Twinrova. Twinrova merely told her to spread sorrow and to do whatever she wanted, and she chose to cause a time crash, turned many people to stone, and spread sorrow throughout the land, even trying to get Ralph and Link to kill Nayru and later Queen Ambi, which would ultimately make it so he was never born as he is her successor. She's horrible enough on her own and more than passes the heinous standard. My question is did we talk about her? She's just as bad if not worse in the manga where she causes Ambi to execute people among other things. If Zant can qualify, I don't see why Veran can't.
edited 7th Nov '15 12:56:21 AM by Klavice
Nowadays, I don't consider bringing up or re-evaluating villains from kid shows unless I'm absolutely sure they are heinous enough and not just generic bad guys. That said, when I looked at Vrak from Power Rangers Mega Force, who we got listed, I noticed he has more similarities than differences to a Disney Channel Villain I brought up in the past.
I'm talking about the Annihilator of Mighty Med, you know the Knight of Cerebus Omnicidal Maniac Hero Killer (yes, he actually succeeds in killing a protagonist, did I forget to mention that when I brought him up the first time ?), Big Bad of season two, Greater-Scope Villain in season one. Now, let's look at Vrak's write up so you can see what I mean.
- Power Rangers Mergaforce: Vrak started off as The Dragon to Admiral Malkor in season 1. After the deaths of both Malkor and Vekar, Vrak resurfaced in the season 2 two-parter "Vrak Is Back." Capturing both Orion and Robo Knight, Vrak slowly drained Orion of his energy and used it to brainwash Robo Knight. Vrak sent Robo Knight to kill the Rangers while he proceeded to drain Orion of the last of his power, intending to kill him and use his energy to power three giant drills that he could use to destroy Earth. In addition, when his subortinate Metal Alice helps Vrak and his near death, Vrak just leaves her to die, showing that he doesn’t care anything about her.
So Vrak tries to kill the protagonists, kill one of his mooks, brainwashing and attempting to destroy the world. That's about the same basic schtick as the Annihilator.
For context, Mighty Med is a show Kaz (Bradley Steven Perry) and Oliver (Jake Short), that discover a secret hospital, where the superheroes they've read about in comics for years are treated, and they get jobs there, as their years of comic experience makes them Genre Savvy about the ailments the heroes face.
The Annihlator is the biggest supervvillain in the show, in addition to being the most competent and dangerous, in a series where most villains are harmless or Laughably Evil.
His MO and goal is taking the powers of superheroes and corrupting their power. He uses a device containing a serum that can contaminate superpowers and link them to his control. When this doesn't leave them vulnerable to attacks from their enemies, if he returns their powers, they become brainwashed into his army, which he plans to use to destroy the world.
One of his first victims was superheronine protagonist, Skylar Storm, who finds herself slowly dying due to the loss of her powers. Kaz and Oliver break into the Annihilator's lair to steal Skylar's powers back. When she gets her powers back, Skylar is brainwashed and made The Dragon to the Annihilator. In case you think the heroes he indirectly kills are just Fridge Horror and Inferred Holocaust, the episode "Lair, Lair" is kicked off with a hero actually brought in near death because the Annihilator stole their powers and their nemesis attacked them while they were vulnerable. And after retrieving the stolen powers at the end of the episode, only six heroes are shown getting them back, suggesting the rest of them have actually been killed.
Now onto his backstory, he was once a boy named Neil Gunderhausen, who due to a mutation began to display powers and ostracized from the community, before going to an alien hero, Harpax the Elder. Haprax tried to help and train Neil hoping he would become a great hero, but Neil was cold and angry from his experiences, and set out to become a villain out to destroy the world.
The finale has the Annhilator confront and try to kill his old mentor, and planned on having Skylar kill her friends. In an interesting case of Even Brainwashed Evil Has Loved Ones, Skylar tries to pull a Starscream on the Annhilator, blasting him and leaving him to die. When Harpax drains Skylar's evil powers turning her good again, the Annihilator pulls a villainous second wind and shoots Skylar. It turns out he shot her with the Black Widower's poison, killing her in minutes as the Annihilator himself is killed.
And yes, Skylar does die. Yes she is later resurrected by another alien hero with the ability to bring back the dead, but the point is she actually got killed.
Now here me out; if you think the Annihilator doesn't count, that's fine, it's just I compare him to Vrak, who does almost the same things as the Annihilator did.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."Well, if he actually does want to destroy the world, AND he's played seriously, AND he's not a Generic Doomsday Villain, I see no reason he doesn't count.
from me.
The Annihilator is played strait. He does have a few moments where he can be comedic, but like Freddy, the Joker, Mitch Toblat, they don't distract from his actions, and then he goes back to being serious. He does have a personality and motive, so that keeps him from ebing a GDV, and he explicitly says he's out to destroy the world.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."I like the new Nogitsune entry:
- The Nogitsune possessing Stiles, the Big Bad of Season 3B, mentally and emotionally torments him, forces him to torture his friends, and go on constant murder sprees. When originally summoned decades ago, it was summoned by Kira's mother at an internment camp to avenge her American lover, but instead massacres the internment camp, prisoners and guards alike, before finally being subdued. In the present, he sets up multiple traps, including sabotaging an electric cable killing several people and rendering Isaac Lahey comatose, has an arrow shot into Coach Finstock's stomach and lets a bomb go off in the Sheriff's station, all while pretending to be Stiles in front of Scott. Stiles's best friend, before twisting a sword in Scott's gut. When he's separated from Stiles, he takes control of the Oni soon after killing Allison Argent. He later leads the Oni on a massacre at the local hospital and police station. In the final showdown, he plans on having Scott kill Stiles, citing it as the only way he can be defeated, simply because it sees it all as a game.
Prom Night merge:
- Prom Night (2008): Richard Fenton was a former teacher who had a hidden obsession with one of his students, the fourteen-year-old Donna, whom he began stalking and harassing. When he got fired for this obsession and was served a restraining order, Fenton decided to kidnap Donna so he could have her all to himself. To this end, he murdered her whole family, including her younger brother, before Donna managed to flag down the police and they caught him. At his arraignment, he unrepentantly insisted to Donna that she belonged to him and he would return to get her. Three years later, Fenton breaks out of prison just before Donna's prom night, and attends her prom party at a local hotel incognito, murdering most of Donna's friends and anyone else who crosses his path, including some of the hotel staff. When corpses start turning up and the police hustle Donna back to her home for her safety, Fenton quietly murders a cop while sneaking into her house, and slits her boyfriend's throat in his sleep. He then attempts to rape and/or murder Donna before being gunned down by the police.
edited 8th Nov '15 12:13:10 AM by ACW
The Annihilator again? Everything that has been said above has already been brought up except for the Vrak comparison, so this discussion really isn't productive if we're just going to repeat the same things. Now I'm going off on Mighty Med based on research, but I entirely can't speak for Vrak from Power Rangers. Even so, "this villain who is listed is the same as this other villain who was rejected", keep in mind that's not an argument for keeping the latter, but cutting the former, Beast.
All of Mighty Med is a lighthearted spoof of Silver Age superheroes. The Annihilator's actions are punctuated by a Laugh Track, as is everything else that happens in this show, and he's entirely too flippant about the whole supervillain shtick from what I've seen. Again, "not being a Harmless Villain" does not mean that he's both serious and heinous enough for the trope. There's a huge area in between Harmless Villain and Complete Monster. I also think we need to establish some clear guidelines for this "Laughably Evil versus Played for Laughs" thing—it's been used way too often to push villains who simply fall short, and this "underestimating/underreporting how comedic a villain really is" phenomenon isn't exactly new to the long-time contributors in this thread.
Furthermore, where exactly is it said that he wants to destroy the world? The last time we discussed him it turned out that he apparently wanted to conquer it. Now setting aside for the moment that he sounds like a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds, but even if he did, I must point out that "destroy the world" can be a bog-standard villain goal in itself, especially in kid's shows.
Which brings me to a more general point, and this is something that's been bothering me with some examples that have come up here before, in that I think "destroy the world" is too easily accepted as a "wow, yeah, that meets the standard" villain goal. Is it really that uncommon as far as supervillains go? I do think there's a huge difference in how a work might adress this Evil Plan heinousness-wise between on the one hand, say, a Mad Scientist in a Nickelodeon show who builds a bomb to destroy the Earth! before they're inevitably stopped by the heroes, and a sadistic Straw Nihilist who knowingly slaughters every living soul in a more adult work. The former is just Cartoonish Supervillainy, the latter is Complete Monster material. (And to be clear, I'm not saying that success is a criterion, I'm talking about what the work is allowed to show and thus how monstrous it can make its villains because of its target audience).
edited 7th Nov '15 8:37:32 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"
Veran and
the Annihilator.
For the Played for Laughs VS Laughably Evil thing, it's always a matter of how the villain's behvaior and actions are taken by both the characters and the narrative of the work. Even if other characters don't explicitly find him funny, the narrative might still treat him like a joke.
And if a villain is all "I want to destroy the world!" for an incredibly vague reason and the means of said destruction happening isn't really that heinous, then they're simply outright villains rather than this trope.
edited 7th Nov '15 8:35:56 AM by ANewMan
Kay then, just wanted to be sure. Like I said I don't bring people up nowadays unless I'm sure they might count or if I want to see why they might not count.
Truth be told I just remembered two horror villains I wanted to bring up but kept forgetting. One of them is Dr. Wynn from the Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers, but I know there's two versions of him - the theatrical version that I've seen, and the Producers Cut, which I'm trying to find.
edited 7th Nov '15 9:12:40 AM by Beast
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."- Masked Avengers: Lin Yung Chi is the leader of the masked cult, and leads his men in the rape, pillage and murder of everyone they encounter in the countryside. Flashbacks reveal the group ostensibly formed as an order of martial arts using assassins, but he made his true intent clear by kidnapping a man and his sister, torturing the man to death, and instructing his soldiers to rape the woman, disgusting his second-in-command, who promptly fled the organization. When a group of inspectors investigate, he steadily murders members of the group, along with innocent hostages and civilians, even employing horrible traps such as acid, to kill his enemies when they attack his hideout.
- Shaolin Temple: Emperor Wang Shichong overthrows the previous rulers and established a horrible dictatorship where countless innocents are enslaved, tortured and murdered. When one brave martial artist stands up to Shichong's men, Shichong himself fights and tears his throat out with his bare hands. When the man’s son, Jue Yan, proves himself a thorn in Shichong's side, Shichong attacks the abbey Yan lives at, and when the abbot offers to take the punishment, Shichong has him burned alive after promising to spare the other monks, a vow he promptly breaks when he doesn't get the answers he seeks. Shichong also attempts to rape the heroine after catching her, before he engages in a personal duel with Jue Yan.
- Felix Castor series: In this urban fantasy series, Felix has fought a variety of nasty demons, monsters and human beings. Here are the worst of the lot:
- The Devil You Know: Lukasz Damjohn, originally from the Balkans, established himself in England as a pimp and a slaver who has girls lured over from Eastern Europe and summarily enslaved, with "high earners" sent to high-class brothels while the others go to horrible ones where they can be brutalized and wasted, while addicted to drugs to ensure their dependence. Their "training" includes mental breaking, along with rape and occasional physical violence. When a girl is accidentally killed by a recruiter, Damjohn attempts to have Felix destroy the girl's ghost and send her to oblivion. He also has his personal exorcist summon up a succubus to devour Felix body and then his soul. When Felix gets too close to the truth, Damjohn has the dead girl's sister kidnapped to lure Felix out, sparing her only because he intends for her to make him money until she's too "wasted" to work any more.
- Vicious Circle: Anton Fanke is the head of a Satanist church in America and desires Hell on Earth. Fanke's lover and right-hand woman seduced an exorcist, getting herself pregnant in an occult ritual so Fanke could raise the little girl as a sacrifice to the demon Asmodeus, also allowing Asmodeus access to the world to bring about destruction and ruin. Fanke managed to sacrifice the child, but when her father interfered, Asmodeus could not devour her soul and Felix unknowingly bound Asmodeus into a mortal host at the same time. Years later, Fanke has several people killed before murdering his old rival and pinning the blame on Felix, before preparing to finish the sacrifice by having Asmodeus eat the soul of the girl he murdered.
- Asmodeus himself (who also appears in later books), once freed from the asylum he was locked in while in the body of Felix's best friend, slaughters everyone in the near vicinity, and proceeds to hunt down everyone close or formerly close to his host body, whereupon he mutilates them before murdering them; he even travels to Macedonia to personally slaughter his host's father on death row while telling said host to "count down to zero" so he'll see everyone he loves killed. Asmodeus plants wards to steadily weaken the self control of Felix's succubus ally Juliet (which could put any man around her in mortal danger) and kidnaps Juliet's human wife with promises to rape and torture her to make Juliet angry enough to attempt to devour Asmdoeus, allowing Asmodeus to free himself while his host is eaten. During one of his murders Asmodeus even kills a nearby homeless man just for his shoes. He also uses Exact Words to torment Felix during an exorcism, preventing him from saving the mortal host. While angry at being bound to the mortal host, Asmodeus had previously been evil and sadistic, even to other demons; he worked with the aforementioned Fanke to bring about Hell on Earth.
- Werewolf: Janos Skorzeny, thought to be the progenitor of the werewolf bloodline, is a brutal predator who turns people into werewolves and delights in seeing them lose their humanity. Unlike most werewolves, Skorzeny is entirely in control of his bestial nature and delights in hurting others. A sailor by trade, Skorzeny uses his profession to arrive in new locations, slaughter everything he can, and then flee before suspicion can fall on him. When Eric Cord seeks to kill Skorzeny to lift the werewolf curse, Skorzeny treats him with amusement and attempts to kill Eric's girlfriend for fun. Skorzeny slaughters multiple other innocent people for fun, including a ship's captain who asks too many questions, and five prostitutes for his own enjoyment. When Skorzny mocks Eric by pointing out Eric is also attempting to murder him for selfish reasons, Eric states that Skorzeny is no longer truly human: he is simply a wolf who's sometimes a man instead of the other way around.
- Black Panther: In this animated adaptation of the classic comic book hero, Ulysses Klaw was hired many years ago to kill T'Chaka, then leader of Wakanda and the Black Panther. During the mission, Klaw kills T'Chaka and his young son, then tries to execute the man's wife and other child. Returning years later, Klaw assembles a team of supervillains and declares war on Wakanda, killing numerous innocents in the process. Taking the current Black Panther's mother hostage, Klaw tries to force the Panther to kill himself, and, when he refuses, attempts to murder the woman. Klaw then orders the Radioactive Man to destroy Wakanda if his plan to take control of it fails, and makes one last attempt to murder the Panther and his family when thwarted.
- Life is Strange: Mark Jefferson, the Big Bad, is a famous photographer and teacher at Blackwell Academy, as well as the true mastermind of the Dark Room. Taking advantage of The Dragon’s, Nathan Prescott's, need for a father figure, the Big Bad has the latter drug and abduct girls to the Dark Room to be tortured by him. His specialty is the loss of innocence, and he won't hesitate to kill when it suits him. It is discovered one such victim was Rachel Amber. When one of his victims, Kate, is struggling with depression, he subtly tries to goad her into killing herself to cover his tracks. When Max and Chloe discover the Dark Room, they find a series of photo albums listing his previous victims and intended victims, Victoria being one of them. When the Big Bad learns Max and Chloe found the Dark Room, he drugs and kidnaps Max and kills Chloe. If Victoria is successfully warned about the Dark Room, she will be kidnapped and killed. He will also kill David Madsen if not for Max's help. It is also discovered he murdered The Dragon both to cover his tracks and to frame for his crimes. Despite his charming demeanor and close friendships with his students, he is taking advantage of their respect and admiration, for the sake of his torture art, and his enjoyment with no remorse or empathy for his victims.
- Spider-Man: Web of Shadows-Amazing Allies (PS2 and PSP) Edition: Venom, Eddie Brock, is the main antagonist of this alternate telling of the story, and is nothing like any of his other incarnations. Hating Spider-Man for untold reasons, Venom allows Jackal to experiment on him in order to speed up his symbiote suit's growth rate, then spreads his symbiote across Manhattan, infecting hundreds of people, including Spider-Man's friends, and turning them into mindless, hate-filled zombies. After manipulating many of Spider-Man's foes into assisting him in destroying the Wall-Crawler, Venom reveals he plans to allow his symbiote to spread across the planet, infecting every human around the world once Spider-Man is dead.
edited 9th Nov '15 8:29:55 AM by ACW
Despite being a rather comedic villain, I think Dr. Mashirito from Dr. Slump qualifies. He targets Arale only because of her being a potential threat. When he realizes she has the upper hand, he removes her glasses to give himself an advantage. Later on, he creates a near-perfect replica of Arale called Obatchaman. Obatchaman initially sees Mashirito like a father, but when he starts developing feelings for Arale, Mashirito abandons him. He then develops a robot suit called the Caramel Man 007, which successfully manages to destroy Arale's body, much to his sadistic delight. In a later appearance, rather than try to destroy Arale and Obatchaman, he tries to kill Senbei (Arale's creator) so that he wouldn't be able to provide her and Obatchaman with their fuel source. In his final appearance, he competes in a tournament to try to get rid of Arale. He cheats by using a sleep ray and knocks her away, which infuriates Obatchaman. While he's laughing with victory, Obatchaman unleashes a death ray that reduces him to nothing but a bolt. It should be noted that out of all the recurring villains in the series, Mashirito was the only one to actually get Killed Off for Real, which really says a lot about him as a villain in a gag manga. In the remake, he's given an extra Kick the Dog moment where he beat an already energy deficient Obatchaman with a stick and tossed him into a pit.
Isn't Dr. Slump in the same universe as Dragon Ball? If so, he's nowhere near heinous enough.
edited 7th Nov '15 9:34:26 AM by DemonDuckofDoom
ACW: For the Jefferson Write up, might I suggest just using his and Nathan's names in place of the Big Bad and The Dragon and simply spoiler tagging their names.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."So having replayed Fallout: New Vegas recently—guess why—I think one of the characters listed on the monster page needs to be cut: Father Elijah. While his goal is horrible, and done for incredibly petty reasons, there is evidence that he does indeed care for player companion, Veronica. During the vanilla game, Veronica makes it clear she loved him, and believes he cared for her too, taking on the role of her surrogate grandfather. In Dead Money, following the campaign the player character can find a final note from Elijah to Veronica. While only Veronica can read it, she says that it amounts to a good-bye letter, and teaches her a new combat move. He essentially cared about her enough to want to give her closure in anticipation that they would never meet again. Additionally, if the Courier mentions Veronica to Elijah he expresses surprise that she survived HELIOS and then amends that she would since she's smart and resourceful. While he doesn't come right out and say it, his tone, and the fact that he seems to be talking moe to himself than the player, implies both happiness that she survived and pride in her ability to survive. In short, there's enough evidence to show he does still care about Veronica and has one redeeming quality. I say cut.
Here's a possible Life is Strange quote that could be put on the Quotes page:
"Simply put, I'm obsessed with the idea of capturing that moment when innocence evolves into corruption. That shift from black, to white, to gray...and beyond. Most models are cynical; they lose that naivete. However, some Blackwell students carry their hope and optimism with them like...an aura. And those lucky few become my models...my subjects."
edited 7th Nov '15 9:47:19 AM by AustinDR

Btw, I know this'll come up, so right now...
I've seen Spectre...I can assure everyone in two weeks I'll do an effortpost to say whether the villain counts or not. Please refrain from discussing Franz Oberhauser in any way until that mark has passed.