Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Yes, pretty easily, I'd think (from what I've heard, that basically is Johann's MO, other issues of whether they count aside). I think the only thing that would disqualify them is if the results aren't really outcomes they planned on. For instance, I've challenged the listing of Lord Henry from The Picture Of Dorian Gray as an example. Lord Henry is definitely decadent and amoral and encourages Dorian to be likewise, but I don't think there's any textual evidence that Lord Henry actually planned on/foresaw that Dorian would end up as evil as he did.

Edit- And I think there are definite examples of (at least near) complete monsters who do behave exactly as you describe. For instance, take Iago of Othello.

edited 13th Nov '12 9:20:23 PM by Jordan

Actually, there's a difference. Johan is a corrupter. His main MO is getting other people to commit murder/arson/suicide. However, Johan still breaks the law when he directly tells someone to kill someone else or when he gets his own hands dirty and pulls out a gun.

The hypothetical character is only a corrupter.

Technically speaking if you knew a man was angry, and left a gun nearby for him to pick up, you could be convicted of negligent homicide/accessory to murder. It would be a hard case to make, but your actions would be against the law, and premediated to boot. In any case, assuming the crimes that he assisted others in committing were heinous enough, I suspect he would qualify.

Personally, I'm confused as to why you think this hypothetical character would be more "realistic" if he or she didn't kill anyone.

Hitler didn't kill anyone. And no that's not Hitler Ate Sugar.

Want another?

Charles Manson never killed anyone, and if anyone in Real Life deserves to be called a CM I'd say it's him.

Note that I said IF.

edited 13th Nov '12 10:07:51 PM by ChaoticQueen

@Chaotic Queen: Questions are always good. That said, if they don't do anything Illegal, but they manipulate the events to produce a bad outcome, then, yes they can qualify. If the events turn out worse than they imagine, that all depends on the instigators reaction, if he's pleased, or says something like "Better than I could have hoped for" than that does not count against him. If he's horrified by the manipulatee's actions, or there's no evidence of him/her intentionally sending the manipulatee down the path (Good example Jordan), then those count against the instigator.

edited 13th Nov '12 11:44:51 PM by DrPsyche

OK, Victory Gundam was mentioned recently, so let's talk Victory Gundam. I recently marathoned it, then went back to check a few details, so here's a breakdown on Katejina Loos. I don't believe she qualifies, but let's run her through our usual process to explain why.

What sort of evil deeds does she commit? How heinous are they by the standards of the story?

Let's run down the list of her absolute worst actions, shall we?

• She aids and abets the genocidal Operation Giant Roller (translator's note - using giant motorcycle-battleships to 'purify the earth' by flattening everything in their path). She doesn't personally kill any civilians during this, but as part of the Motorad Fleet's mobile suit complement, she provides support and covering fire for the folks who are doing the people-squishing, and seems pretty OK with it - specifically, she claims, apparently in all sincerity, that it's a necessary step to bring the motherly, nurturing ideals of Zanscare's Queen Maria to Earth.
• She shoves a gun in the face of an eleven-year-old girl after said eleven-year-old girl shoots and lightly injures her boyfriend.
• She sort-of-kind-of manipulates said boyfriend, Chronicle, and The Hero, Uso, into duelling to the death (they were probably going to do it anyway, but it's hypothesised in-show that she gave Chronicle a bit of a nudge), announces that she'll shack up with whichever one wins, and then shoots a couple of enemy soldiers for trying to interfere.
• After Uso kills Chronicle, she pulls an I Surrender, Suckers and literally stabs him in the back.

These are not the worst, most extreme actions in the show - they can't be, because she's a foot-soldier with limited resources, and the Big Bad, Fonse Kagatie, is attempting to stage a total planetary genocide by shutting down the brains of everything on Earth that has a brain (so not just humans, but most animals as well) with his giant psychic Doomsday Device. So let's compare her to people of similar rank in the Zanscare military. Here, she's definitely on the nasty end of the scale, but she doesn't distinguish herself as much as she might.

As an example, one of her squadmates whilst she's serving with the Motorad Fleet uses Uso's mother as a Human Shield (which even disgusts Katejina), whilst another tries to rape Uso, who's thirteen years old (it's sort of Played for Laughs when it happens, but her character arc and later interactions with Uso underline that yes, she is a paedophilic attempted rapist, and this is not a good thing). In fact, she's slightly unusual for not directly killing civilians during Giant Roller - as mentioned, she has no problem with it, it's just that not actually doing it puts her a small increment below most of her comrades at that time. Similarly, whilst threatening Shakti (the eleven-year-old) is unusually evil by the standards of the show (Zanscare soldiers are generally quite nice to kids, to their frequent detriment), it's definitely not unprecedented, and has more provocation than some similar incidents.

Does she ever behave altruistically, or show care and concern for another human being?

Short answer, yes. Long answer...

For the first half of the show, Katejina is a flawed person - bitter, naive, and a tad self-centred - but basically moral. Whilst she states afterwards that the Zanscare attack that wiped out her hometown was probably a good thing when all's said and done (because it served as a rude awakening to Earth's selfish, decadent elite), she also refuses to go with her father when he announces that he's bought an escape route with Zanscare because she doesn't want to take anything from people who are gunning down civilians, and enthusiastically helps out with evacuation and healthcare during the raid. Furthermore, she immediately follows up her comments on the possible beneficial aspects of the massacre by checking to make sure the children can't see it so they don't get traumatised. She also strenuously and repeatedly objects to Uso being used as a Child Soldier, and encourages him not to forget his sense of empathy and become a killing machine. Even after she's spent about a dozen episodes as a prisoner of Zanscare and developed a major case of Stockholm Syndrome in regards to her captor, Chronicle Asher, she sneaks out of his ship during a chaotic space battle to contact the enemy so she can let Uso know that Shakti (who was accidentally tossed out of her ship during an earlier skirmish) is alive and safe. Given that she'd just discovered that Shakti was the crown princess of Zanscare (meaning that keeping her presence in the fleet secret was probably the wiser move from a Zanscare loyalist's perspective), and that this information leads Uso and company to stage a devastating raid on her new nation's captal in order to get their friend back, it's safe to say that this is an altruistic act without any ulterior motive.

Shortly afterwards, though, she joins BESPA (the Zanscare military), and abruptly transforms into a ruthless fanatic with a serious grudge against Uso for... some reason. Even after this, however, she's not completely without empathy. As mentioned, she's deeply uncomfortable with the whole 'use Uso's mother as a human shield' plan, and there's plenty of evidence that she genuinely loves Chronicle. Late in the show, she internally monologues that he's only a tool and she'll happily dump him for someone stronger, but this is contradicted by both how she interacted with him before, and by her reaction when he actually does die - she's really quite upset, and the I Surrender, Suckers she pulls on Uso is her way of avenging his death (and dealing with the massive inferiority complex she suddenly got when she became a BESPA pilot, but avenging Chronicle is definitely part of it).

Does she have a Freudian Excuse, or any other factor that might mitigate her evil?

OK, this is going to get complicated. Katejina does not have a Freudian Excuse in the conventional sense. She has a bad family life, but so does just about everyone else in the show. Similarly, Chronicle says that her actions were all her own choice. The thing is, though, that in case the stuff above didn't indicate it to you, she goes mad after joining BESPA. Like, totally bugnuts insane. It's not clear why it happens - there are vague hints that she might have been turned into a Cyber-Newtype (translator's note - a type of Super-Soldier with a long and messy history of murderous insanity), but given the squiffy gender politics of the show (see also, the many deaths of the Shrike Team, a pilot getting defeated due to her brain temporarily shutting down when she realises that women can get pregnant, and another pilot's unborn foetus telling her to Stay in the Kitchen), Tomino may have simply been saying 'women are just crazy like that sometimes'.

Whatever the case, though, she's clearly not rational. She justifies Giant Roller as a step on the road to universal maternal love. She imagines that Chronicle and Uso's bitter rivalry is simply because they both want to get into her pants. She tries to kill Uso by attacking him with a squad of women armed with rocket launchers and Victoria's Secret underwear whilst he's in his obscenely powerful Humongous Mecha, and sincerely believes it'll work. Furthermore, most of her worst actions happen at the height of her insanity (and at the height of the show's insanity, but that's neither here nor there), which raises some really troubling questions about moral agency.

In summary, Katejina fails every one of the Complete Monster criteria. She's out, and she should stay that way. Now, Fonse Kagatie is either a Complete Monster or a 99.9% monster, and probably warrants further discussion, but let's get Ms. Loos out of the way first.

edited 14th Nov '12 3:08:19 AM by Iaculus

The Western Animation section could really use some work. For example, Ben10 has quite a few examples:

• Vilgax, who would cut off a child's arm for an all powerful watch, destroyed a planet for no reason other than to test out a weapon he obtained and, in an episode that ended the series, was going to kill Ben's parents. He was severely decayed for the Sequel Series, though, a change that many fans continue to argue about.
• Kevin, who'd destroy 2 trains of innocents for cash, likely killed a police officer with no regrets and whose attacks on Ben and his family are more vicious than most foes, save for the other examples on this page. He also turns down 2 chances at redemption (with Ben even calling him out on how his Freudian Excuse can no longer be a valid way of excusing away his crimes), and afterward when he and Ben are forced to work together, he ends up trying to kill Ben through impaling him. And if you think that's bad, in an Alternate Timeline in the distant future, he tried to murder Ben's son and would've likely killed his own son just to do it.
• Ghostfreak, who'd possess Ben's cousin Gwen and threatened to make her commit suicide in order to get to Ben and has tried to permanently damage and mutate the Earth to rule over it. And the mutation of Earth is shown on screen and it really isn't pretty.
• Zombozo, a zombie vampire clown that feeds on laughter, and when he got the chance, he kidnapped Gwen, a 12 year old girl, eating her laughter, the result of which is shown to be her shriveling up and dying slowly. Ironically, he was taken out by Ghostfreak, who'd escape the watch and turn into a Complete Monster on his own. He returns in Ultimate Alien, just as evil as ever. He threatens to kill Ben's parents, and his own hired hands (Charmcaster and Vulkanus) think he's a creepy bastard.
• From the new Ben 10: Ultimate Alien series, we have Aggregor, who kidnaps aliens from different planets to zap their powers and use them as his own. What cements him as a Complete Monster is when he kills a peaceful turtle alien, all on SCREEN, and then turns its powers against its brethren before kidnapping the main one. And then he kills the plumber from Season 2 of AlienForce by stabbing him in the back when he found the prisoners. And he managed to top himself, learning of the Omnimatrix, he tries to force Ben into a form he wanted after a no-holds-barred shock down by stabbing him right in the Omnimatrix icon with his spear and twisting it. If not for the Heroic Sacrifice of the jellyfish alien, Ben would have died, since both Kevin and Gwen were down.
• Diagon, who's an Expy of the original series' Vilgax in characterization, only with the Cthulhumanoid played up to the ultimate extent. He's also the one who a temporarily corrupted Charmcaster offers 600,000 living souls to in exchange for a wish to ressurect her father. Given how their conversation goes, many speculate he even had a hand in Charmcaster being corrupted to start with!
• Bottom line: if you're the seasonal Big Bad for any Ben10 series, you're probably a Complete Monster.

I've never seen the show, but I find it hard to believe that there could be this many examples from one kids' show, and didn't Kevin become a good guy later?

There are a ton of examples from Adventure Time as well, including Ash, Marceline's ex-boyfriend, who I know for a fact is nothing more than an unlikable Jerkass.

edited 14th Nov '12 6:27:29 AM by Camberf

@Chaotic Queen: This hypothetical corrupter would have to be directly responsible for the evil that occurs in the course of the story. If the story leaves any ambiguity as to whether the people in question would have done these things on their own, then you lose the argument for CM status. They can still be balls-out evil, of course, but there is never any ambiguity about a CM's actions.

edited 14th Nov '12 6:49:05 AM by Fighteer

Yeah, Kevin becomes a good guy. The possible future version is probably due to having spent years inside some horrifying dimensional prison.

I don't think either him or Vilgax should be included, since you'd have to ignore what they did later on.

On League Of Legends.

From what I've read, do Warwick and Singed qualify? I'm not sure if they've been discussed here, and I'm fairly sure they were listed at some point, or at least Singed was.

@4683 Kevin is an easy removal, even before his heel face turn he was fairly sympathetic. He was an 11-year-old living on the street committing petty crime and then he got turned into a gross monster.

I recall Ghost Freak being surprisingly scary for the general tone of the show, but I do not think he really accomplished anything? He would fail the standard set by Vilgax, I think, since Vilgax actually managed to wrecked some shit. Off screen. :| I am not sure any Ben 10 villian counts, honestly, but I did not watch the entire thing.

Apparently, most of what happened while I was busy spending time with my wife was folks rehashing examples that have already been settled. Camberf (and anyone else relatively new to the cleanup effort), if you don't want to do a trawl of old posts here (and given that we're north of 4500 posts here, I don't blame you; that's serious Archive Panic right there), feel free to send me a private message, and I'll give you a rundown on some of the more infamous issues we've had in the thread.

@4670 I'm sorry, but the example is too simplistic to give a full ruling on. However, I will say that nothing in that description automatically eliminates someone from being a Complete Monster. Having a conscience doesn't automatically eliminate someone; it heavily depends on how they react to it.

@4675 Keep in mind that a great many Complete Monsters technically break no laws because they're in a position to make them. Beyond that, violations of morality are on their heads if they are responsible for them. For example, if Alice lies and manipulates Bob into killing Charlie, Alice is responsible for Charlie's death, even though Bob is the one who actually killed Charlie. There are arguments over "accessory to murder" charges that may mean Alice actually did do something illegal (in some jurisdictions), but not every jurisdiction has such crimes on the books. Thus, it's more instructive to look at "violations of morality" in regards to this trope rather than "crimes."

Plus, there's the point that something that is classified as a crime is not necessarily an amoral act. To go with a comparatively noncontroversial example, imagine someone on the verge of starvation stealing a loaf of bread. A crime? Yes. A violation of morality? Not necessarily, especially if they shared it with someone else who was starving. I believe the proper phrase for such acts is "crimes of compassion." In short, it's not right to conflate "crime" with "amoral act." The two can overlap, but it's not always the case in either direction.

@4676 I've been meaning to read The Picture Of Dorian Gray because of Lord Henry - I've heard that it's a fascinating take on The Corrupter. If you have more detail to give on whether or not he should qualify, I'm all ears.

@4680 Two things. One, proving Godwin's Law correct does not help anyone in this thread. Two, we avoid speaking about Real Life examples in this thread. All of them. Even Hitler. Leave that to historians.

@4683 Well, to begin with, Ben 10 has a boundary line for just how evil one has to be in order to qualify, as we have several aliens that are out to either take over the universe or exterminate all life that isn't their species. So we have our rough "heinous" line right there.

With that in mind, we can already eliminate Kevin Levin (doesn't go nearly that far, and as pointed out, does undergo a Heel–Face Turn, plus they later describe his evil episodes as Brainwashed and Crazy), Ghostfreak (only focuses on one planet, and isn't nearly as monstrous about that one planet as, for example, the DNAliens; classic case of mistaking Nightmare Fuel for Complete Monster), and Zombozo (not nearly heinous enough).

Further along the line, we do have the fact that Diagon was played like a ten-cent kazoo by Vilgax, the latter even explicitly called Eviler than Thou on the trope page. So Vilgax overshadows Diagon (both in terms of scope and literally, since Vilgax manipulated Diagon). So he's also out.

So, we're left with Vilgax and Aggregor. For Vilgax, who is rightfully described as the Big Bad of the entire series, we have one huge elephant in the room - the suggestion in the episode "Ghost Town" of Ben 10 Alien Force that Vilgax actually cares for his home planet. Folks have gone back-and-forth about whether this was sincere or just a ploy to conquer via becoming a Villain with Good Publicity, but nothing has shown that it wasn't insincere. It's close, but I vote to cut him.

For Aggregor, his goal was to absorb a newborn alien with Reality Warper powers and thus reshape the universe to his whims. Considering how much rampant murder this involved, and the fact that he was never shown to have any good rationale for it, it's most likely for the power and the A God Am I headrush. I'm fine with keeping him.

In short, I'd cut all of the examples except Aggregor.

@4686 You could just do "league legends complete monster" in the site search to find out if we've discussed them. Anyhow, we did a blanket cut because nobody bothered to explain any of the examples. If you have arguments for any example's inclusion, we'll hear them.

@4688

Got what I said about Phaeton?

As a League player, I can say that nobody can ever qualify, given that everything that could qualify a character happens in the Lore. As in, offscreen. Even if that wasn't taken into account, there's still the issue of the heinousness line, which is "Conquer Nation", something only Swain has pulled off, and even then, he's not really evil. Singed (A guy who creates, sells, and uses chemical weapons to destroy things For the Evulz) and Elise (Sacrifices her followers every few weeks to a Spider God in order to prolong her own life) are the only ones to have ever come close to this, and Elise didn't get enough characterization to see if she was openly enjoying it or not. I'm a bit forgetful in terms of League lore though, so I can't say much else about Singed.

Also, if there's no further discussion on the SCP examples I brought up on @4486, I'll cut all of the examples tomorrow.

This thread goes by way too fast...

Anyways, as is my two cents on a few recent entries:

SCP-682: Even if Humans Through Alien Eyes wasn't a strong enough disqualifier (it is to me), its relationship with SCP-053 (a little human girl who makes everybody else in close proximity progressively become murderously hateful and violent towards her) is a big fat pile of d'awwwww. Cut. Probably cut for the other SCP entries mentioned, even 106 (god I love these guys. Whenever I feel like I'm getting too jaded to be horrified I just browse through a few SCPs and become a happy Nightmare Fetishist again).

Phaeton from Exosquad: if he really is that callous and hypocritical (which he was if memory serves when I watched the show) and the closest thing to sympathy we have towards him is due to his clone (a different person despite genetics), I vote he stays.

The Wreck-it-Ralph guy: Arguments against are stronger. Cut.

M. Bison: His getting rid of his good side completely voluntarily is an aggravating factor, but the other arguments against are valid. Cut.

The unicorn: Agree with the Generic Doomsday Villain thing, even if he seems to come closer to the trope than Chrysalis. Unless his apparent death isn't the end and he gets worse, cut.

Kerrigor: Good job, happy he's a keep.

Tobias Hankel: Given the somewhat realistic treatment of DID, I agree with Ambar. Cut.

Yami Marik AKA Dark Marik AKA Melvin: Given the completely unrealistic treatment of DID, again agree with Ambar. Keep.

Starfish: With that writeup, definite keep. That said I seem to remember he was a pedophile rapist as well. Should that be added?

Katejina Loos: Iaculus sums it up very eloquently IMO. Cut (yeah, I know she already was, just wanted to throw in my support).

Content removed: fighteer

In other words, ladies and gentlemen, brony99 is back. I warned him about PM'ing me again, but looks like it only got him off my back for a few months. So now I go the douchebag route.

edited 14th Nov '12 9:49:25 AM by Fighteer

About Hedgehog/brony: I got a PM as well (amusing that he thinks you're a mod) and we have dealt with him administratively. So don't sweat it. In the future if you get a PM like that, tell us about it directly. Do not copy it publicly because that's a rules violation.

Want I do a writeup of Phaeton to be added?

Also, got what I said about the Sopranos? Those examples need to be beefed up.

Oops, sorry (well I did just call myself a douchebag for doing it...), it won't happen again. Thanks for the heads-up.

I think he believes that because I'm the whole thread's OP. Funny how he doesn't notice how it's completely escaped my control for at least half its existence.

edited 14th Nov '12 9:57:10 AM by Paireon

Okay, now all the medium sandboxes have been restored (just asked the mods to restore the film sandbox; Video Game and Anime/Manga still back as mentioned earlier)

@4689 Yes, and I still disagree with it. It's also not terribly polite to ask me for further opinion on an example that I've already given an opinion about. Particularly when there are several dozen examples that you aren't giving opinions about.

@4690 Then I'm fine making sure that none are re-added. Though I don't know what's on the League Of Legends YMMV page.

@4691 Tell me about it. There's a reason I've tried to focus more on gargantuan digest posts that hit several dozen nominees at once.

For the last item... well, as the old saying goes, "insanity is repeating the same actions and expecting a different result." Well, that's probably more a definition of Determinator, but I'm shooting for humor here. Anyhow, from here on out, I've got a new idea: any time we get one of these repeat offenders begging for us to get back into an endless debate, I'm just going to say "No. End of story." Right now, examples on this list of infamy include Discord, Yakone, Hot Coldman, Rodrigo Borgia, the entire cast of Sponge Bob Square Pants, and Ghetsis. I'm hoping that's the limit to the list.

Also, finally swapped in the new Monster.Dragon Quest page; requesting lock now.

Regarding Ben10: Zombozo fails heinous standard.

Kevin Levin: Didn't hear about the brain washing, but he redeems himself come Alien Force (Future episode about using and trying to kill his own son makes him worse, but ultimately, I say no).

Agreggor: keep

Diagon: agreeing with 32, Vilgax does it better, or worse as it is.

Vilgax: showing compassion for his homeworld may not have set well with me, but I have to hold it against him, so Reluctantly, I say no.

Ghostfreak: That's a hard one. Trying to kill the hero, and going about on a mission to mutate all life on earth into monsters. There was also when he was released and took over Vilgax's planet, mutating and turning its inhabitants, which promoted that hotly debated compassion moment. Then again, species like the DN Aliens tried to wipe out all life in the universe, so I'm torn.

Regarding Brony, how did you know he came back?

@32 Footsteps.

I'm sorry, but I proposed adding it, and you're the only one who has an objection to it. That indicates there'd be something to discuss before an addition or not.

I am also not obliged to give my opinion on every example. If I feel one way or the other about examples that come up, I'll say so. Until then, kindly don't call me impolite for not opining on every little thing.

@4682

Thank you. I haven't watched enough of Victory (or watched it recently enough) to provide a clear list of things Katejina does, or how they compare to others in Victory (which is why I've resorted to noting that others in the UC verse are worse). This post perfectly sums up why she doesn't belong on list; from now on I will simply link people who want her entered to it.

Regarding Fonse Kagatie, he did have an entry on Victory's YMMV page. I cut it at the same time that Katejina was removed because it provided no information on him; in fact it was written as an apendix to Katejina's entry. I tried to find some information about him on the Gundam wiki, but all I could discover was that he's the power behind the throne (but not what he uses that power to do) and that he tried to have Tassilo executed. If you want to propose a write-up for him, I'm all ears.

Ambar,

well, Kagatie is the head of the Zanscare who's basically responsible for the massive genocides, puppet mastering Maria and doing lots of other nasty stuff. V isn't fresh enough in my mind though for that.

Anyone I should submit a writeup to, for Phaeton or the revised Kalas?