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
By the way, I recently read a Let's Play of Fire Emblem: Heroes of Light and Shadow (the remake of the third game that never left Japan) and oh man is remake-exclusive villain Lady Eremiah ever a near-miss. She's like Sonia Times Ten, and that's not an exaggeration. Might be an underestimate, actually. She's a corrupt nun who runs an Orphanage of Fear where innocent children are brainwashed into assassins for Gharnef; her most infamous trait is that the penalty for failing even one job is execution, but she doesn't do it herself, oh no. She forces the hapless victim's friends to do it for her, under penalty of being executed themselves.
So why doesn't she qualify? Her last scene reveals that she was brainwashed herself by Gharnef, who tauntingly restores her memories of being a good person, makes her realize all the awful things she's done, and then offhandedly kills her, letting her die utterly humiliated. Well, more crimes for him anyway.
edited 10th Jul '16 3:53:04 PM by HamburgerTime
Care to expand Gharnef's entry? That restoring-all-her-memories-before-killing-her is just Kick the Dog at it's best (worst).
And allow me to be pedantic and mention the late, great George Carlin on a near-miss
.
edited 10th Jul '16 4:04:16 PM by ACW
I was browsing the website, and I found these entries on YMMV up [1]
.
edited 10th Jul '16 4:10:31 PM by AustinDR
So, what were thoughts on making the image on Literature larger and giving it a caption?
Why so serious?On other news, I just finished watching The BFG. Any discussion will take place on July 15th.
Why so serious?
Swemmel and Interrogator.
@Scraggle: DemonDuck basically summed it up for me. It felt like a Sophisticated as Hell moment. You always seem to propose villains from well-known books or shows or something. Then all of a sudden you wanna talk about a doctor who wants to populate the Earth with dinosaurs human beings gave birth to. It threw me off-guard. XD
Okay, Cassandra's got 9
and 0
, so I'll go ahead and get the writeup out.
BattleTanx: Cassandra is a malicious Queen Lord who is responsible for releasing a plague that wiped out almost all of the women on the planet. After the world tore itself apart and humanity fell, Cassandra used her mind-controlling powers to build her own empire across America and Europe. Upon discovering that Griffin Spade, along with his wife, Madison, and son, Brandon, possess the same Psychic Powers as her, she orders her army to kidnap their son and eliminate anyone in their way. While chasing them across America, Cassandra succeeds in brainwashing and kidnapping Brandon so she can later use him for more nefarious deeds. When Brandon's parents finally rescue him, Cassandra orders her troops to go after the Spade family again, no longer caring if Brandon is killed in the crossfire. Shortly before Cassandra's defeated, she tries one last time to brainwash Brandon into destroying the entire world.
And yes, ACW, it's on the Drafts page.
edited 12th Jul '16 7:22:05 AM by Tyk5919
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.Don't know if this will be ignored or what, but I wrote a short script/story called Finding Hope that might have a CM in it. Link to the story is on the trope page.
Don't know if I'm allowed to do this, since I know creators can't propose characters from their own works. But it's worth a try.
It's Spooky Month!According to the latest GameTheory (Web Show) episode, Phoenix Wright is the biggest villain and most corrupt force in the series.
Welp, somebody better get going on making an effort post for him then.
edited 10th Jul '16 11:24:47 PM by kirbystarwarior
Pretty sure it's a joke, Ambar. In all honesty, that sounds worse than his "Mario is Mental" theory. I mean, look [1]
. Stepping on Luigi's foot? Undeniable proof that Mario is evil incarnate.
edited 10th Jul '16 11:25:01 PM by AustinDR
I would argue that Cersei knew she was in the wrong, but didn't care as long as she got what she wanted. Plus, she pretty much disowned Tommen. She had his body burned and his ashes scattered in the tomb just because he took away her chance at an easy win with a trial by combat. Plus, we're all in agreement that she certainly did cross the MEH in that final episode. My vote on her is a tentative
for now.
In the meantime, epic final two episodes and epic season! Seeing Roose, Balon, the Waif, Ramsay, Pycelle and Frey all finally get what they deserve was so damn fucking satisfying!
Plus, would the Mountain's crimes this season still count or is he done as a CM now that he's the living dead?
edited 11th Jul '16 1:29:16 PM by futuremoviewriter
'Yes' to Tiptree (Outrageous), Swemell, and the Interrogator.
Dangit, why do I keep finding these outrageous examples? Well, here goes one of my most outrageous candidates yet (And that's saying something). Have no idea if this one counts or not, but figure It's worth bringing up.
What's the work?
Nameless is a royal Mind Screw 6-issue comic written by Grant Morrison. In it, an occul expert is (SEEMINGLY) sent on a space mission to travel to an asteroid named Xibalba/Marduk that is poised to crash land on Earth within a month and kill all life on the planet.
The closer Xibalba gets to Earth, the more psychosis and mass murdering increases. No one is completely aware why, but the reason is quickly revealed....
Who is....it?
The Outsider/the Entity/God (Yes, you read that right) is the Big Bad of this Lovecraftian story, and a douchebag of epic proportions.
What has it done?
65 Million Years Ago, a great war occured. A group of celestial beings known as the Titans and a group of celestial beings known as the Outsiders went to war over the fate of our galaxy.
The Titans took the role of protector of our galaxy, and, during this war, captured one Outsider, and locked it away in an entire planet known as Marduk, and, realkizing that if the war continued as it was no one would survive, the Titans committed the ultimate sacrifice that sealed all Outsiders and Titans away in an alternate dimension, leaving the prisoner locked away in our reality.
However, this entity was only 3/4ths locked away, and was able to reach out with it's mind to touch the budding humanity on Earth, and as such, became what is known as "God". I will henceforth refer to this.....thing.....by the Entity, as it's the easiest way to.
The Entity spent the next millions of years terrorizing humanity, being responsible for practically all of it's wars and misfortunes, but it was never able to majorly affect the planet beyond negative thoughts and such because of the distance and lack of a " satelkite", if you will.
Now, around a decade before the present of the story, our protagonist, Nameless (Yes, you read THAT right, too), took part in a seance thingy along with the 13 smartest people in the world (Or something like that) that they plan to use to reach out to the distant planet Marduk to communicate with a possible entity there. Oooooh, if only they knew....
The seance goes south as the Entity finally finds something solid to latch it's influence onto, and possesses Nameless to massacre the rest of the 13 people present in rather....grotesque ways.
Nameless spends the next decade....I'm actually not sure. This story leaves a few things open to interpretation....but regardless, whatever he's doing, he is (seemingly) free of the Entity's influence, however this is only because the Entity is using him not as a puppet, but as a satellite.
The Entity uses it's powers to slowly draw Marduk closer to Earth, and slowly becomes able to affect Earth far more than before, leading to even worse goings on than ever before. Families being massacred, father's forcing their kids to drink bleach, that sort of happy fun stuff (I need a barf bag).
Now, the seemingly 'main' plot is that Nameless is sent up into space to stop Marduk before it reaches Earth, however the mission goes to heck and the entire crew is completely wiped out in increasingly nasty ways, while Nameless proceeds to be Mind Raped Up To Eleven by the Entity.
The Entity's "master plan" you could call it is revealed to be that it plans to crash Marduk into Earth, which will allow it to get it's grubby.....tendrils....onto a key (Long story) that will enable it to re-open the dimensional portal into the "Outside Realm", which will allow it's race to come through and plunge our galaxy into eternal torment.
As Marduk gets closer to Earth, the Entity has basically turned most of humanity into ravenous beasts that are tearing each other apart, raping each other, burning down buildings, killing themselves, everything.
However, Nameless, through contact with "the Veiled Woman" (More on her later), learns that Marduk can be stopped if it is crashed into the moon instead of the Earth which will destroy it and the Entity and prevent it from crashing into Earth and getting it's grubby.....tendrils....on the key thingy.
This works, though Nameless (Supposedly) dies in the process.
Now, this is the mind screwy part: The space mission? Never really happened. Every thing else did (The world going to crap; Nameless being Mind Raped). See, it turns out that the Veiled Woman is actually an exorcist-type girl, and is trying to drive the Entity out of Nameless' mind, which will prevent the Entity from having it's foothold on Earth, and this manifests in Nameless' mind as him being on a space mission.
I know, weird. But still, the exorcism thingy works, Marduk and the Entity crash into the moon, saving humanity (What's left of it), and Nameless' fate is left up to the fans. Whether he died during the exorcism or lived is up for interpretation.
Freudian Excuse or other redeeming features?
None that I could see.
Nothing is given in-story to suggest It's Made of Evil or anything. It is basically portrayed as a demon to the Titans' angels, with the implications that it's very much the same principle that a select group of Titans rebelled and tried to take over, dubbing themselves the Outsiders, just without a "god" in the picture.
As for personality, It is shown to be explicitly sadistic, as seen as It Mind Rapes both Nameless and the Veiled Woman who is trying to exorcise him with nightmarish scenes, all while taunting them both.
Why does it hate humanity so? Well, It consistently asks one question throughout the story...."What is human?"
When it finally answers Itself (?), It's words are as follows:
"What is human! Your exultant Hosannahs the farting of rotting meat! Your devotional art the excremental daubs of piss-stained imbeciles! Your pleasures lessen in intensity the more they are repeated, yet your capacity to experience ever more agony is INEXHAUSTIBLE!"
Basically, It's personality is described, in-universe, as that of a psychopathic, saidstic monster who believes all of humanity to be It's puppets of evil-ry, and openly challenges us to defy It's will and do good in the world, at which point it punishes those who actually do try to do good with terrible suffering.
It also clearly relishes the idea that It is humanity's "god".
Nameless: What's happening? Oh God! Oh my God!
The Entity: Then you know me!
Heinousness?
.....It spent the last millions of years tormenting humanity subtly, and cranked it up to Hell on Earth when it got strong enough.
I'm talking the stuff of nightmares. I'm talking parents killing children, people eating other people en masse, public raping, THE WORKS!
And It's master plan to unleash It's whole race into our galaxy is basically stated to be a Fate Worse than Death x100 to any people still alive after it crashes it's prison into Earth.
Final Verdict?
I'm leaning 'Yes', but I know how.... "difficult" judging Eldritch-type beings is, so I'll just say I personally think It counts, but won't be too surprised if It's ruled too "Eldritch-y" to count by the thread.
edited 11th Jul '16 12:02:18 AM by Ravok
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!

Say, We are going to have an effort post on Baitfish correct?
My sandbox of EPs and other stuff