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've dropped the Norman thing for now since it met with such staunch opposition, but if he keeps getting Pet the Dog moments in Spidey, or if I just get motivated enough to dig through some back issues, I'll do a proper effort post for cutting him or amending the rules, because he definitely doesn't qualify by any remotely strict interpretation of the rules-as-written, and even fails/is borderline on more than one front (heinous standard, pet the dog, dubious agency, multiple freudian excuses). People love the character though and he's mostly written as a bastard, so they want him to count, I guess.
To be fair, Lightysnake has offered some pretty decent reasoning for him to be included anyways, but that reasoning isn't part of the actual rules yet. If it were, I probably wouldn't have any issue with it.
@MovieFan: Remember the two weeks bit. No one from that film can be discussed until June. Check out the dates from the link in my sig.
@ACW: Well, congrats to your sister, and enjoy your time at the wedding.
@Ravok: Eh, it's cool. We've all had our moments like that. Just hope you get better soon; maybe take some time off from this forum until you feel better.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.Hello guys,
.
From Arrow, Anarky seems to be a nasty piece of work, especially in the recent episodes, when he was basically responsible for the destruction of the only secure place in the world, and doesn't give a damn about the many innocent lives he's endangering, just to accomplish a petty revenge.
Besides, as much as I remember, he doesn't have any redeeming quality, nor humanity moment. Considering that he doesn't have as much ressource as any of the Complete Monsters in The Arrowverse, I think that he might be a good contender for the seventh Complete Monster in Arrow (along with Zoom as the eighth, maybe). Do you think he is heinous enough ?
Depending on the answer and the events of the last episode, I'll write down an effortpost.
edited 19th May '16 2:04:20 PM by MiraiYuji
@MiraiYujiI I have little doubt that Machin's a keeper, but wait and see if anyone else is watching him before making an effort post. And the total number of Arrowverse monsters so far is eight. If approved, Machin would be the ninth, with Zoom and Vandal Savage being possible tenth and eleventh monsters.
edited 19th May '16 4:37:51 PM by DeCarta
Yeah, I looked at the list after I posted. I kinda feel like at least one of the Vertigos had loved ones, but I don't remember- or like- the show well enough to try and fight it down. Also not sure Brick does all that much on the heinous scale in that world, either, but again; not enough recall or passion to be the guy leading that charge.
I really don't think Zoom will count, when the time comes, though. Lotsa Freudian excuses, shows mercy, pets the dog... (actually mostly current on that show).
Vandal's closer, but if "love" is a disqualifying element he certainly thinks he's in love with Hawkgirl at least (though I'm behind on that show as well).
I'm not going to spoil anything but Vandal's "love" towards Hawkgirl seems like something possessive and psychotic, rather then anything positive. .
Love is only disqualify if the villain actually cares about about the other person as a person, not just as an object. Kilgrave claimed to love Jessica Jones, but he clearly just saw her as an object rather then a person, which is why he counted.
Anyway Punisher will be getting a show on Netflix, so we may see some more MCU monsters from that show, writers do like putting Punisher against monsters. I will say that the second season of Daredevil made Punisher really sympathetic, which is something the comic book writers don't always get right, so I think it would be easy to make this Punisher sympathetic compared to the guys he fights. He has a really good monologue to Daredevil in the 4th episode.
Anyway congrats ACW.
edited 19th May '16 7:52:03 PM by Overlord
![]()
I have some doubts about Zoom as well, but I'm still doing up an effort post on him once the season's over. Partly because I don't want to waste all the notes I've taken on him and partly because he doesn't so much meet the heinous standard as he does beat it into submission and make it say "uncle". And I think Brick's plenty heinous enough. He's a brutal killer who pretty much turns a neighborhood into a playground for criminal psychopaths. He's about as bad as he can get with the resources he has.
I think you're right about Savage's "love" for Hawkgirl. On top of that, it's kind of hard to buy a guy like Savage loving anyone enough for it to be a redeeming quality. And I agree with you about the Punisher.
Congrats, ACW!
edited 19th May '16 6:38:25 PM by DeCarta
Oh, yeah, Zoom has an easy time with the heinous standard for Flash (which is pretty low). My issues are with all the other qualifications, most of which he can't meet.
@ACW congrats.
@Whoever's in charge here. Did any of the Banshee boys get enough steam to warrant a writeup? I know Chayton probably doesn't make the cut, but I didn't see much resistance (or much activity overall) for Sanchez and Albino.
If "he's only in one episode" is a counter-argument, doesn't that remove almost all of the Arrow villains? That show has wayyyyy more episodes than Banshee does.
As for the standard, he's not in the league of certain other guys in terms of number of people hurt, but the nature and brutality of his crime are pretty unique. There's not another scene in the show that's as hard to watch (YMMMV, I suppose) as his initial assault, nor another beating that's as one-way. IIRC, it's also the only time Would Hit a Girl involves a helpless victim instead of the Action Girls who mostly populate the town and can hit back just as hard.
I also kinda feel like his motives for doing it are so trivial it somehow makes it even worse.
Most of the rest of the violence on the show (outside, perhaps, of fellow CM contenders Albino, Sharpe and Calvin) is much more palatable, and most of the other villains much more human.
edited 19th May '16 6:57:10 PM by Monessi
Decided to do the full-on Norman Effortpost after all. I get if some of you don’t wanna engage; my only request is that if you’re going to vote, please read the post first.
Who is he:
I’m skipping this part. We all know the guy, and this is already gonna be long.
What has he done:
Way too many to list elegantly, but some of his worst/most heinous crimes include trying to kill his son (I'm told; haven't personally read the story), killing Spider-Man’s girlfriend (and the mother of Norman’s children), funding and participating in a conspiracy to convince Spider-Man he was a clone, faking Aunt May’s death, trying to start a war with Asgard, and threatening Jessica Jones while she was pregnant.
Freudian Excuse?
Several.
He had a drunken, abusive father who beat the concept of “only the strong survive” into him, leading to a near-pathological hatred of perceived weakness.
He fell in love with a woman named Emily who made him feel “whole” and “balanced” — his words - and by all accounts brought out the best in him. She died around the time of Harry’s birth, and it’s been heavily implied that she died because of Harry’s birth. Norman has said that losing her was not worth gaining an heir in Harry. It’s been strongly implied that this- along with the above- is the primary cause of his dislike for Harry.
He was also driven mad by his transformation into the Green Goblin, often at war with himself and/or tortured by the gaps in his memory. Other posters have claimed this has been ret-conned, but I submit that the burden of proof is on them to prove it, as I’ve seen no evidence thereof, and my Google-fu has failed me. When and where was it retconned?
Mitigating Factors?
Oh boy. One at a time, starting with the three bullet points on the “Complete Monster” entry.
“The character is truly heinous by the standards of the story, which makes no attempt to present the character in any positive way.”
There’s two components to this, and Norman fails both. Firstly, he is not clearly the “most heinous” by any one metric in Spider-Man’s rogues gallery. He has not caused the kind of widespread death and pain that Kingpin, Carnage, or Mr. Negative have, despite having considerably more resources than them to do so. His crimes, AFAIK, are not especially brutal or vicious beyond the usual “kill people who are trying to stop me” and some light (by comic book standards) torture on rare occasions. He is not sexually violent, nor does he kill indiscriminately (he does kill to further his goals, though). He is arguably the character who most gets to Peter psychologically (though Doc Ock and others also have a valid claim there), but that’s more a measure of effectiveness than it is of heinousness; many, many of Spidey’s foes have tried to drive him mad or hurt his loved ones, Norman’s just been better at it. Remember, “No, success is not a component of Complete Monster. ”
Second bullet: “The character's terribleness is played seriously at all times, evoking fear, revulsion and hatred from the other characters in the story.” Nope. Norman has often been played for laughs. The second part of that is more important, though, as “If there are other villains around who aren't this trope, they are afraid of/dislike this person, too.” Other villains are fine with Norman, lots of them outright love him, particularly during Dark Reign. He has minions carrying on in his name/legacy in his absence currently in Silk, he’s had multiple teams of his own villains with a relatively low betrayal rate for super-villainy, and I’ve never seen a villain refuse to work with him. There are other villains who openly dislike him- but even they are almost never motivated enough to do anything about it, and most of them still come when he calls. If anything, many of them seem to view him as more of a Worthy Opponent than anything else (Roderick Kingsley is a good example of this).
Third bullet: “They are completely devoid of altruistic qualities. They show no regret for their crimes.” Norman fails this one, too. His altruistic qualities were on display as recently as Spidey #5 (2016), in which (in flashback) he pointedly overpays Peter for helping Harry study. Before anyone argues “but this is before he went insane because of the Goblin formula,” please remember that the entire “he has moral agency” argument relies on him being a CM pre-Goblin formula. Can’t have it both ways.
He’s got a long history of altruistic acts toward Peter (and others) pre-resurrection. I have not seen the retcon that removes these, and since Spidey shows him doing more of the same, I’m inclined to suggest that it did not.
He also goes to extreme lengths during Superior Spider-Man to set up a good life for his grandson Normie, giving up the family company name, and building the corporation “Alchemax” up from scratch and then giving it to Liz and Normie. “It’s an empire—for my grandson!” This does nothing to further Norman’s feud with Spidey, and is a truly altruistic act. Norman does not benefit from it.
For whatever its worth, despite claims that he doesn’t care about Harry, he gets so upset as to lower his guard when the Hobgoblin insults Harry as a “disappointment” in Superior Spider-Man #26 (more recent than the story where he tries to have Harry killed).
Additionally, in “Revenge of the Green Goblin,” he falls in love with a nurse who reminds him of his wife (this story was published years after his resurrection, so the alleged retcon wouldn’t touch it anyway). He at one point accidentally attacks her when she sneaks up on him (it's explicitly clear in the narration that he doesn't know it's her) and tearfully shrieks “I love you! I need you! Kolina!” over her unconscious body.
At the time, he’s suffering from a second layer of insanity from the “Gathering of the Five,” regulated by dermal patches. In the next issue, as she recovers, his underling notices his dermal patch is depleted and his psyche worsening, and eggs him on to attack her. He almost does it, but stops himself, “I can’t! I could never harm you. What was I thinking?” The underling- who doesn’t like that Norman’s mellowed by Kolina- then tries to kill her, so Norman tries to kill him. Kolina convinces him to stop by invoking his love for her, to which he responds “Very well,” and lets him go.
Now, onto the other rules Norman doesn’t qualify for.
“Is the capacity for making moral choices required for Complete Monster? Yes.”
This is another biggie. Now, it’s been claimed earlier in this thread that Norman was a CM pre-Goblin, but not proven/shown/demonstrated (remember, he must be a CM for this to work, not just a dick; if you’re a normal dick and you become a CM when you’re insane, you’re still ultimately just a dick when you’re sane). The Goblin formula does canonically drive people insane, though, and people cured of it have gone on to be much more sane/heroic after. Norman again went insane because of the Gathering of Five, so that’s two canonical causes of insanity. He was visibly heavily medicating during much of the 2000s (see Revenge of the Green Goblin and/or Thunderbolts for examples), and was much less monstrous when on his meds than off them. He was also clearly shown, from Thunderbolts through at least Dark Reign, to have two separate personalities, with one haunting/provoking/manipulating the other.
Norman was cured of the Goblin formula almost two years ago, noting that he was “sane for the first time in ten years.” Since then, he’s still evil- working as an arms dealer- but has not done anything that constitutes “heinous by the standards of the story.” Given that the behavior of the Goblin formula on the human psyche is well-established, that Norman himself considered himself insane during that period (as did the psychiatric nurse who was also his girlfriend, if her opinion matters), and that Norman has not done anything that would qualify him as a CM outside of the period he was under the influence of the Goblin formula, I don’t think there’s any way to comfortably claim he had moral agency during that span. Yes, he is, when sane, a mean, selfish, man who cares little for collateral damage… but that description covers about 75% of all Marvel villains. When insane, his heinousness is higher, but that’s beside the point; as a sane man, Norman has not (I believe) killed anyone, preyed on Peter’s loved ones, or done any of the other horrible things he’s known for. He’s just sold some weapons and trolled Parker industries. He’s about as heinous sane as Turk from Daredevil, if better funded.
Another one- There doesn’t appear to be a hard rule about it, but “love” is used often as a disqualifier. Norman explicitly and demonstrably loved both Emily and Kolina, and has claimed to love his son Gabriel. It also sure seems like he loves his grandson.
Verdict: Norman, with the rules as they are now, doesn’t count. At the very least, his entry should be amended with “Depending on the Writer” highlighting which writers use him as a CM (From the rules: “We cite under which writers the character is a Complete Monster, similar to the above - and we make sure to note when Retcon rears its ugly head in such cases.” This wasn’t done for Norman.).
A better solution, however, besides removing Norman entirely (which is probably the easiest fix besides just ignoring all of the above), is to amend the rules. Make the heinous standard more flexible for long-runners like Spider-Man or huge universes like Marvel, don’t make a single Pet the Dog enough to exclude someone, etc. etc.
So, I guess I’m asking for two votes.
1) Norman the CM: Yes or No?
2) If yes, should we amend some rules so that he more cleanly qualifies?

Has anybodby saw the movie X-Men - Apocalypse ? Is Apocalypse quite heinous like his comic counterpart ?