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
Don't know. Will have to talk to someone who has read the series.
Regarding Sauron. I have just finished rereading The Silmarillion. Following Melkor's defeat, he truly adds pages to his rapsheet, and I think, may well equal his boss. He manages to bring almost all of the Men in the world over to his worship, twisting them away from Eru and the Light (in this setting, a very, very bad thing). He infiltrates the Elven kingdoms, disguised as Annatar, Lord of Gifts, and "befriends" the Elven smith Celembrimbor, convincing him to make the Rings. He then forges the One Ring with the intent of mind raping everyone wearing a Ring (and therefore their followers) into his service. He starts a world war (in which he Celembrimbor, who really seems to have believed they were friends, killed), and like Melkor before him, makes it a total war; if someone really wants me to, I can list the cities he destroys. After losing that war, he infiltrate Numenor (the human kingdom that helped defeat him), brings them around to the worship of Melkor (which includes human sacrifice), making them so bad that god himself steps in and smites them down. After that, he starts yet another world war, destroys still more towns, cities, and royal lingeages. Finally, after losing the Ring, he comes back for one last hurrah, utterly perverts the Greenwood into the Mirkwood, retakes Mordor, and then does everything we see in the LOTR (which are mentioned in brief in The Slimarillion). Through in the fact that everything the Nazgul do is also on him (and the Witch-King of Angmar, their leader, has a decent rapsheet of his own) and we are dealing with a truly unpleasant guy.
Personally, I'm fully convinced he qualifies. If you were to give Sauron Melkor's level of power, he would be as bad or worse. In fact, I lean towards worse as Sauron is smarter, colder, and in some ways, more vicious. That's my two cents.
If people would like, I can do a big Iaculus-style write up. I'm sure some of us are weary of this discussion, but it would at least let us have all the points for him in one place.
I'm just gonna pull out the CM standards:
- The character is truly heinous by the standards of the story, which makes no attempt to present the character in any positive way.
False for President Coin. She is not presented as heinous until about forty pages from Mockingjay's end (with both Snow saying she had District 13 firebombed for propaganda purposes AND Coin calling for a 'Capitol Games'). It's obvious that she would've started another dictatorship, but it's left completely ambiguous as to whether this is because she truly feels that the Capitol deserves to be punished for their crimes against the other districts (my position), or whether she planned this all along. The firebombing of her own district is also not a known fact - Snow is a compulsive liar.
Also, Coin is depicted, through Katniss' perspective, as far less heinous than most of the District One participants in the first novel, who murder Rue in cold blood and brag about it.
- The character's terribleness is played seriously at all times, evoking fear, revulsion and hatred from the other characters in the story.
Again, false for President Coin. Katniss is fighting for her for the vast majority of the book, as are most of the main characters. Not all of them turn on her after her suggestion to make a 'Capitol Games', either.
- They are completely devoid of altruistic qualities. They show no regret for their crimes.
False for President Coin, mostly because Katniss kills her before we can ever know if she regretted attacking her own people. Not to mention that, for most of the book's time, she's the main attacking force of a rebellious side in a war. In terms of being devoid of altruism, she does put a lot of effort into finding and rehabilitating Peeta after he is completely brainwashed by the Capitol into trying to kill Katniss, which I would view as altruistic, especially considering how easy it would've been to just tell Katniss to get over him and get back to fighting the war.
Alright so regarding all of these literature examples that have popped up:
- Morgoth/Melkor from The Silmarillion: I’m late to the party on this but it sounds like he counts.
- Croup and Vandemar from Neverwhere: I actually agree with lightysnake @5823. The way the story presents it I assumed Croup and Vandemar were two halves of the same creature so Vandemar following Croup never seemed like a redeeming moment to me. Kind of like how Voldemort expresses some care and closeness towards his snake, Nagini, though, as she’s one of his horcruxes, he’s really only showing closeness with himself. Their entry could probably use a better write-up though.
- Grendel from Beowulf: I vote cut because of the vagueness surrounding just how intelligent Grendel is on account of being, at least part monster. Monsters going on killing sprees are something they tend to do. Also the text violates Show, Don't Tell with regards to just how heinous Grendel is. The poem says Grendel is pure evil, but it doesn’t go far in illustrating it outside of his attacks on Heorot.
- Siegfried de Lowe from The Knights Of The Cross: I’ll have to take Krystoff at his word @5791. If de Lowe shows remorse to the extent that he kills himself over it, he definitely doesn’t count for this trope. I agree with cutting.
- Agatha Trunchball from Matilda: Keep. She’s pretty disturbing for a kids’ book villain and I can’t think of a reason for her failing the heinous standard outside of the absurdity of some of her crimes.
- The Inchoroi: I have not read the book they appear in, but seeing as there are only two of them I wouldn’t say they fall under the no groups rule. If lightysnake is accurate @5794 then I could see both of them qualifying.
- Zandramos from Malloreon: I vote keep.
- President Coin from The Hunger Games: I don’t really think Coin’s a Well-Intentioned Extremist, she just seems to be a power-hungry politician. I am skeptical about calling Coin a Complete Monster though, seeing as I don’t believe she meets the heinous standard which is set really high by President Snow, who not only runs the current hunger games but also has a rap-sheet of disturbing crimes a mile wide (conducting Cold-Blooded Torture on various people, fire-bombing District 12, murdering political enemies then murdering his allies so they wouldn’t challenge his power, forcing victorious Tributes into prostitution for financial gain, gathering all of the children of his Capitol citizens to be used as his Human Shields). Honestly, in comparison Coin seems almost tame. Also, as Largo Quagmire notes, we really don't know much about her as a person or what she would have done once she consilidated power. We can form a general idea, but we wouldn't know for sure. Also her big crimes rely on the testimony of Snow who is, as Quagmire noted, a big fat liar.
- Kronos from Percy Jackson And The Olympians: Cut. The series has some dark moments, but overall it’s pretty light and Kronos never does anything truly horrifying or heinous. He’s just your stereotypical Evil Overlord out to conquer the world. He also doesn’t come off as bad as his mother, Gaia, who is attempting to Kill All Humans. Heck, most of the gods in the series are cruel, power-hungry bastards who have screwed over countless innocent people for petty reasons, and they’re the “good guys”.
- Minos from the above series: Also cut. He’s probably the biggest Jerkass in the series, but I don’t think he meets the heinous standard. He’s just a very petty and cruel person but his crimes aren’t very horrifying, especially, as noted above, when compared with some of the gods’ crimes.
edited 18th Dec '12 6:42:02 PM by OccasionalExister
I am a little late to the party but regarding the examples under discussion for 'The Silmarillion' I fully believe that both Sauron and Melkor count.
My reason for believing that Sauron counts is that while only having a minute fraction of the power-level of Melkor he still manages to amass a list of crimes that is only slightly less. He shows elements of his personal sadism (feeding prisoners to werewolves and Shelob etc.) He also continues to corrupt the world and try and make it darker after Melkor has been defeated and locked up. He continues doing everything in his power to make the world worse even after Eru smote him and removed all of his power that wasn't in the One Ring. Even after loosing the ring he still manages to add to his list of evil as a disembodied spirit. He seems to be the Energizer Bunny bent on the promotion and perpetration of evil.
I get the sense that the only reason that he does not eclipse Melkor in the evil deeds department is powerlevel not intent.
Keeping in mind that I generally consider this a bad-writing trope when it occurs outside of the horror genre—I prefer to think of it as "Nothing But A Monster", and unless you're writing horror, it's going to constitute poor characterization to create one—I'll vote as follows:
- Morgoth/Melkor: yes. The Silmarillion is incomplete, and if Tolkien ever intended to get around to making him into a three-dimensional character, he never succeeded.
- Sauron: a weak no. I still think he's too overshadowed in The Silmarillion.
- Croup and Vandemar: yes. They're obviously intended to inject horror elements in the story, and they really are like two halfs of the same beast.
- Grendel from Beowulf: no. He's more of a boogeyman. There's too little evidence of moral agency. He's just a thing that goes bump in the night. (Or chomp.)
Not familiar with the other examples currently under discussion.
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.We have a re-addition of someone who had previously been voted (unanimously) to be cut: Kyo's father from Fruits Basket (discussion: [1]
[2]
[3]
[4]
[5]
). He was re-added to YMMV.Fruits Basket. I haven't been participating thoroughly enough in this thread to be sure of the proper procedure for handling such an event. Can I just delete the entry, or is there something more that needs to be done?
Delete the entry and leave a percent note not to re-add him to Fruits Basket, if that isn't already there. If there is a percent note, report the person who added it to Ask The Tropers.
edited 18th Dec '12 9:08:29 PM by LargoQuagmire
A real quick question; what exactly is the heinous standard? When I'm reading the cleanup pages, I always see something called the heinous standard. Is it to see how serious the villain is in the story. I'm asking this because I've been researching two children's show characters-Miss Power and Squeaky. Now, on Word Girl, the other villains are incompetent or throw the Villain Ball, or a few are Genre Savvy enough to up WordGirl. However, what I've been saying about Miss Power was that she was the few villains to be portrayed seriously and is never comical. Her actions were taken seriously and she is also one of the few villains that tried to kill someone onscreen. Also, I've heard that to be a CM, your actions needed to be considered heinous in-story. Her actions are, and even the other villains are repulsed by her. The main theme of this special was that saying harsh words hurts people and certainly this would've applied in-verse with the special. I haven't finished researching Squeaky, though. Also, it's been shown that older children watch it, even though it's designed for six-year-olds. Though, as I said before, explain to me what heinous by the standards of the story means.
@ Xtifr:
I'd request you check out Ambar's posts on Sauron. He's pretty much on par with Melkor despite having far less screentime
That said, how is it 'poor characterization' for this to appear outside the Horror genre? There are characters who are simply legitimately evil and I dislike the implication one can't be a rounded character and still be roundly evil.
@ Austin
Truthfully, I don't think we have a clear cut 'heinous' definition. Just that it's subjective but you know it when you se it. Some are inclined to be a bit wary of kids' shows when they consider it, because kids' fare tends to be too light to include someone of that level. A good exception would be The Hunchback Of Notre Dame which has a villain whose plans include rape and genocide.
edited 18th Dec '12 10:30:46 PM by Lightysnake
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It means a few things;
- First, context matters. A torturous rapist who enjoys tracking down, raping and horrifically mutilating young women for their own pleasure with no redeeming qualities would be a Complete Monster in a series like Law And Order, but would be a harder sell for a series like Fallout where murdering, torturous rapists prowl the wastelands, and would just be average in Warhammer40000 where there's an entire society of murderuous, torturous rapists. A Complete Monster has to be head and shoulders above other characters in that setting (although we do make distinctions in terms of scale. For example Voldermort and Greyback are both Complete Monsters in Harry Potter, the former due to scale and the latter due to intensity of crimes).
- Second, we have a trope-wide bare minimum standard to stop smart-asses from putting kid's show villians whose crimes amount to "being mean." Just because a villian is henious by the standards of a show doesn't mean that they can count if the standards of that show a low. At a bare minimum:
- Just trying to kill the heroes doesn't cut it, because that's what Villians do.
- Being selfish doesn't cut it
- Indirect consequences or consequences unintentionally caused don't count, so if a Villian accidently came close to destroying all life you can't say "X almost committed genocide if not for our heroes"
- To further the last point, a candidate has to feasiably belong on the same page as the other monsters. To put it into perspective, if you have on the same page a collection of sadistic mass-murderers, repeat rapists, villians who go out of their way to destroy someone's life to drive them to suicide for kicks, someone whose crimes amount to "laughing at the Heroes suffering" and "tried killing the heroes once" clearly does not belong.
- As a few ademendums for those still trying to wrap their head around the various guidelines and for whatever reason aren't reading the FAQ at the start:
- A similar but technically unrelated disqualifier is the irredeamable tennent. For some works (looking at My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic since that comes up way too fucking much for my liking) it is literally impossible for someone to be completely irredeamable as it would go against the tone of the show.
- A further point since Snake brought up Star Wars as a counterance to this point, while the redemption of Anakin/Darth Vader shows that redemption is possible, someone like Palpatine is completetly beyond it on account of refusing to acknowledge that they need redemption (contrast with Vader at times acknowledging he fell), lacking in positive qualities (which Anakin did have and were used to bring him back, mainly his lvoe for his family), and were responsible for such horrific acts that the idea of coming back from that far is impossible (commiting genocide and never even thinking that it was wrong).
- Wether or not your actions are eclipsed by someone else in the same 'field' so to speak.
- A similar but technically unrelated disqualifier is the irredeamable tennent. For some works (looking at My Little Pony Friendship Is Magic since that comes up way too fucking much for my liking) it is literally impossible for someone to be completely irredeamable as it would go against the tone of the show.
Speaking of which I'd like to know what defines being played seriously. If a villain is taken seriously but his actions are meant to make the audience laugh, would he count?
Like day if Emperor Evil killed and raped without remorse, tortured his victims, and ate them but his actions were meant to be laughed at.
Like Pooh from Dirty Pooh. His actions are very disturbing to me, but since he's played for laughs, he doesn't count. Why?
What if Nightmare on Elm Street was a comedy? Would Freddy still be monstrous?
I think my go-to example for comedic ones is best shown in Xykon from Order Of The Stick. Xykon is funny at times. A lot of times, he's absolutely hilarious. But when he stops goofing off and gets in the zone, he's evil with a capital 'E'...his actions aren't meant to make you laugh, but to be sinister and disturbing.
A villain whose actions are played for comedy cannot, in my eyes count.
I thought so. I believe as of the last count they still had you listed as being against.
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Because the point of this trope is that the character is irredeemably evil, and that evil is played for drama/horror. A character who is meant to make the audience laugh, isn't frightening, isn't scary, and dilutes the trope. A CM can be funny (see The Joker, Kefka, etc) but cannot be the butt of the joke.
@5832
This sums up a lot of my attitude on Sauron. Despite having very little power when compared to Melkor, he has a rapsheet that's near as long. I also think their styles are different enough to qualify them. Whereas Melkor is a powerhouse who is able to physically corrupt beings (he seems to put a piece of his soul into those he is corrupting), and can fight all of the Valar at once, Sauron's a fast talker who has to convince people to become evil, operates on the basis of seduction, and has a talent for long term planning (the Energizer Bunny joke is oddly apt). I think it's worth noting their end goals too. Melkor (depending on the day) wants control over the fabric of reality, or failing that, to burn it down (Tolkein's a little iffy on this at times). Sauron wants every living being enslaved to a single will: his own. Which of those is worse, is honestly up in the air as far as I'm concerned.
Regarding the literature examples under discussion. I spoke to my brother. On his recommendation I'm voting against Coin and for Snow. As for Kronos, my brother thinks he meets our criteria (I've explained them to him); my only concern is whether he's too generic.
edited 18th Dec '12 11:42:09 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Didn't know about the keeping his word bit (I'm going to take a wild guess and say it's something that comes up a few times at best? Not saying that makes it irrelevant, just that it explains why my brother didn't mention it). Will withold judgement then. Definitely saying no to Coin. From everything said in this forum, and in my conversation with my brother she sounds more like somebody broken by the system, Snow, what have you, then a CM.
Lot of ambiguity to Coin, but I got an impression of Not So Different from her and Snow, in that she'd just become the same as him, if not worse. Still, the ambiguity makes it impossible for me to vote for her.
I'd also like to propose an addition to the Monster.Criminal Minds page, in the Season 6, episode "Into The Woods" villain, Shane Wyland. Shane is a pedophile and a murderer who roams the Appalachian trail for victims, all boys between the ages of 8 and 12. When he captures them, he keeps them locked up, molesting them repeatedly before killing them and burying the corpses and keeping their toys as a trophy. The show even points out that many child molestors like him kill their victims quick out of guilt or panic, but Shane keeps his victim around for very lengthy periods, and has no shame about his compulsions.
edited 18th Dec '12 11:57:52 PM by Lightysnake
@5842: With Kronos, yes he is pretty generic. I’ve read every book in the series but when I look back on his personality all I can come up with to describe him is that he was cruel and power-hungry. His deeds aren’t that distinguishable in heinousness either. He launches war to secure power for himself but that’s what every Evil Overlord does. He possesses his dragon, Luke, to bring himself back to life but that’s pretty much the next worst thing he does. He doesn't even really Kick the Dog that much either, he's just a lot of talk.
My main reasoning for voting against Kronos is that he fails the heinous standard. While he’s bad, he’s Not So Different from Zeus and a lot of the other gods on the side of “good.” For example, Artemis apparently has a habit of turning boys into jackallopes for stumbling onto her camp, and she’s portrayed as one of the nicest gods. Meanwhile nearly every mythological monster that acts as an antagonist to the heroes in the story has a valid reason for hating the gods. Medusa got turned into a gorgon by Athena because Poseidon and Medusa were making out in Athena’s temple. Arachne got turned into a giant spider forever because she bragged about being a better weaver than Athena. Hera threw Hephaestus off of Mt. Olympus when he was a baby because he was born malformed. Zeus tried to flat out murder Hades’s children in order to avert a dangerous prophecy that could be triggered by a child of one of the “Big 3” gods (Zeus, Poseidon, Hades), in spite of the fact that Poseidon and Zeus himself had already sired more children despite vowing not to. The only reason Kronos and the titans come off as worse is that while the gods are petty and fickle, they also keep the world in balance. If Kronos regained his throne he would usher in a dark age which would make things far worse for gods, half-bloods, and mortals alike.
Also, his mother, Gaea, the new Big Bad of the sequel series is far crueler in my opinion. Kronos mainly sat around in his sarcophagus waiting to get resurrected. Gaea on the other hand is trying to Kill All Humans, tricked a boy into burning his mother alive, brainwashed a woman into abusing her daughter then forced said daughter to resurrect a giant monster resulting in a last minute Heroic Sacrifice by the mother and daughter to stop the resurrection, and has, overall, aspired to a far higher level of personal cruelty and sadism than Kronos ever reached. The only reason I don’t propose her being on the list is because avenging Kronos is said to be one of her goals.
As for President Snow from The Hunger Games. I do vote on including him. The whole “not lying” bit came from an incident in Catching Fire where he said he and Katniss would save lots of time if they just agreed not to lie to each other. Here’s the problem though, he does lie. In Catching Fire he said that Katniss and Peeta could avoid reprisal if they managed to make their fake love-life look convincing for the other districts, to dissuade the districts from the idea that Katniss was inciting rebellion. However, Katniss realizes at the last minute that it was all bull. Snow was always going to punish them no matter what. He just dangled the hope in front of her because he wanted to make her suffer and then take it away at the last minute. This is confirmed true when he sends both Katniss and Peeta to compete in another hunger games, along with champions from past hunger games, all to “subtly” hammer in the message that dissent against the Capitol will not be tolerated.
Still haven't had a chance to sit down and re-watch the last two episodes of The Caesars (I've been out of the country for the past week), although I rather suspect they would have been lost amid the discussion of the Tolkien examples. (I'm not voting in those; I haven't read The Silmarillion or the other relevant material, and even Lord of the Rings I haven't read in about ten years.)
However, I noticed that Syndrome has been added to YMMV.The Incredibles in spite of the percent note instructing editors not to add him without consulting this thread (a percent note which the editor in question deleted), and the edit note essentially dismisses this thread (referring to it as a "so-called cleanup thread") and everyone in it, and concludes by saying it is "not to be removed without my say-so." It looks as though the discussion of Syndrome was wrapped up around Page 90
of this thread, with the final vote being "No, on every count"; should it be re-cut?
edited 19th Dec '12 7:17:58 AM by mlsmithca

Snow is the President of the ruling class (the Capitol), and as such, is trying to maintain the status quo, so he is probably exploiting it. Coin is the President of the long-rumoured-about, but just proven to exist, banished District 13, and is trying to overthrow the Capitol. Once that actually happens, she suggests doing some of the things that the Capitol did - like The Hunger Games, except for Capitol residents - but prior to that, I do not see her exploiting the class system, per se, just exploiting propaganda in wartime. This is getting into a lot of communicative theory of subjugation that's not in the book, but Coin cannot exploit the class system until she is brought into it.
edited 18th Dec '12 6:17:19 PM by LargoQuagmire