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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
Give me a couple days and I can do a decent Dormammu rap sheet. My vacation ends Wednesday night. As for Stryker, ambar, he has no particular seen affection towards other humans and had nirderer humans as well. His wife included. Even hint you sympathize with a mutant? He will kill you
Cleric of Banjo
@Ambar and 32 Footsteps- Yeah, I'll admit that liking music is a weak reason for cutting someone (I'll have to check if the source implies that there was any sympathy involved toward Orpheus or if it was just really good music). Still, I feel that Sisyphus isn't quite heinous enough, but I won't press the point.
Also, saw Russ Cargill mentioned. He's an example I've contested in the past- his villainy is completely played for laughs. It is a kind of a stretch to call him a Well-Intentioned Extremist, but part of the joke is the implication that objectively speaking, the world would be better off without Springfield.
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki
Yeah. I can't see Russ cargill qualifying. He's too much played for laughs throughout
LLB 500 has been re-adding cut examples and removed the notice on Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. They've also been adding questionable examples (like on Yin Yang Yo!) without coming here first. Here's a list
Lost in Space
I banned him and his sock LLBK3BK and reverted most of his edits on YMMV pages.
edited 31st Dec '12 11:56:49 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Really bad one on Oldboy:
- Complete Monster: Lee Woo-jin. Mr. Park, the warden of the prison, is a Complete Monster as well.
- Lee Woo-jin may qualify as Jerkass Woobie as well. He's... Complicated.
Then down in The Woobie entry it says "Even the Complete Monster Lee Woo-jin gets a Woobie moment when he watches his sister die."
Having seen Old Boy Lee Woo Jin needs to be axed immediately
Avatar by Leafsnake
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
My cousin told me about that, and the antagonist does love his sister, there seems to be an Even Evil Has Standards on the page.
edited 31st Dec '12 5:31:57 PM by DrPsyche
On Video Games, there are two subpages that need to be cut because not enough examples being on the page.
The only characters there are Xehanort and Ansem, Seeker of Darkness.
Volgin and the Patiots. Also, Patriots should be removed immediately as the violate "no group rule".
There are three on the metal gear page, unless someone deleted the Ac!d one while I wasn't looking. The Patriots refers to a specific set of A.I.s, which don't act independently of each other, so it's not a group that's being counted.
Oh sorry, I though that Als and Patriots were the same group. I get it now. Patriots are from Sons of Liberty though, not from Snake Eater.
More on Stryker: His opinion on regular humans is... difficult to describe, and it's possible we don't have enough information. Through Nimrod's knowledge of the future he saved the lives of many humans, but only so they'd become his henchmen. He killed his wife (completely human, but a carrier for the X-gene), his Dragon (latent mutant, which she didn't even know and had no displaying powers), and lots of depowered mutants (who were for all intents and purposes human). He does seem to be sad when he finds the room where that mutant minister stashed all his corpses, but that was in the story that didn't take.
edited 31st Dec '12 6:35:35 PM by HamburgerTime
Okay, so Lee Woo-jin is an automatic cut. What about Mr. Park?
Stryker is a case where character development makes you worse and worse honestly. He transitions to gleefully murdering mutant children
Is it worth mentioning, for Stryker, that the story where he comes back pretty explicitly beats you over the head with "disregard the redemption story!"? It wasn't rendered non-canon, but it's quite apparent Stryker himself thinks redemption was a stupid idea for him.
edited 31st Dec '12 10:20:31 PM by HamburgerTime
@6353: My personal opinion on comic examples is that this is the only form of media where I believe, due to multiple writers working on a work and the cyclical nature of comics (thank you Linkara), characters can exhibit positive qualities once or twice and still qualify as Complete Monster so long as their most common characterization is that of a Complete Monster. Using one of the most famous examples of a Complete Monster, The Joker. I know there have been issues where he’s portrayed sympathetically or having some real affection for Harley Quinn, but invariably they’re ignored and he goes back to his most consistent characterization of an unsympathetic, mass-murdering sociopath. Hell, I’m sure there’s an issue out there where the Red Skull is portrayed in a sympathetic/"positive" light. My point is, unless the sympathetic/altruistic qualities are an ever-present part of the character, I see no reason to cut examples for exhibiting good traits in only one story arc that is never mentioned again.
Now that that’s out of the way, here’s my opinion on the examples offered.
- Mr. Sinister: If it’s a one shot that’s never mentioned again and he’s been portrayed as a Complete Monster for decades as lightysnake said, then I’d be alright with keeping him.
- Cassandra Nova: I’d need to know more about her. Right now I could see her going either way.
- Proteus: If Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds is the most common characterization for him, then yeah I’d say he doesn’t count.
- Vulcan: If his love for Deathbird is a consistent trait, I’d cut him.
- Reverend Stryker: If the redemption didn’t take and is looked back on as "stupid", I wouldn’t use that as something to disqualify him. In fact, that just bolsters him being irredeemable. Based on the info lightysnake provided, I’m still leaning towards him counting.
- Dormammu: I’ll wait for lightysnake’s info before making a call on whether I think he’s a Complete Monster or a Generic Doomsday Villain.
- The Void: Again, I’d need to know more about him like how much freewill he has and how independent he is from the Sentry before I could make a judgment.
@6356: I agree with cutting Russ Cargill. By the end of the movie I don’t think he’s a Well-Intentioned Extremist anymore but I don’t think he ever gets played seriously enough to be qualified as a Complete Monster. His plan is more along the lines of "cartoon supervillainy."
@6382: Having loved ones and being a Jerkass Woobie should mean Lee Woo Jin should be axed.
As for the Django Unchained examples @6319, so far there are three votes to cut Candie and Stephen (Hodor, 32 Footsteps and myself). Does anyone else have an opinion?
edited 31st Dec '12 10:32:18 PM by OccasionalExister
With the Void, he exists literally because The Sentry thinks that he should exist, subconciously the Sentry creates the Void to be his opposite, and the Void is entirely defined by being the exact opposte of what the Sentry is; the Sentry is light, the Void is dark. Sentry's watchtower extends high into the sky, the Void's deep underground, The Sentry saves someone the Void has to kill someone. Both the Sentry and the Void are different aspects of one man's mind, and niether has the ability to change their own nature; The Sentry will ally himself with what he thinks is good, the Void will always oppose the Sentry.
Foreign Troper
I remember it the way that the Void is indeed Bob's true nature. A ruthles, selfish junkie and hedonist (now with the powers to destroy whole Galaxies).
The Sentry on the other hand was created by his labaccident. So we could argue to keep the Void because thats his true nature. The Sentry is only a facade. (And the Sentry isn't exactly a saint either, keyword Dark Reign, where he cooperated with freakin' Norman Osborn)
edited 1st Jan '13 5:30:37 AM by Forenperser
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
One last comment on one current Warrior Cats examples.
Brokenstar actually not only counts in the original series, but after his Start of Darkness is revealed in Yellowfang's Secret, he also counts despite Retcon.
While Tigerstar and Scourge are given Pet the Dog moments in the later series and manga, Brokenstar is given none of those. His Freudian Excuse? His foster mother abused him. Yeah, that's about it.
He takes Blood Knight to a new level being that we not only see the effects of his actions, but the actions themselves in great detail, killing his father during a battle with Wind Clan and came back blaming them for it and acting like he wanted vengeance. This leads to Shadow Clan driving Wind Clan out of the forest.
During his nine lives ceremony, he howls in agony as each gift is given to him, pretty much meaning he's Made of Evil. If you still feel bad for him at the end of the book, there's always the part where he kills two of Yellowfang's newborn siblings and causes the entire Clan, including her own mother to drive her out. What a bastard.
Is it possible for a Complete Monster to have ANYTHING sympathetic?
For instance, I'm currently writing an Eldritch Abomination that's a planet, and he's basically Gaia's Vengeance because every living thing on his surface was killed.
Thing is, he's also an Omnicidal Maniac who doesn't just kill everything in the universe, he also partakes in Mind Rape and he can mind-control people to cause even more havoc before he actually gets there. Also, he thinks the most beautiful sound in the universe is a scream of despair.
And THEN he blows the planet up.
My friend says that he's still a monster because he's gone way beyond payback. He's just doing it for his own twisted kicks now.
Either you are misusing Eldritch Abomination or it doesn't qualify for Complete Monster for following its own morality code.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Lost in Space
Something that is an Eldritch Abomination has a hard time also qualifying for Complete Monster because of the Blue-and-Orange Morality problem. It is hard to argue that they are choosing to be what they are.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
@6393: If that’s true for the Void, then I’d agree he’s a split personality who is not the equivalent of his own person. It sounds like he doesn't have freewill and was literally made to be evil by the Sentry. Since that’s the case I agree with him being cut.
So looking over the Grand Theft Auto page, I’m not sure about two of the examples, Ray Bulgarin and Eddie Low. For Bulgarin, I was initially neutral towards his inclusion, but after thinking it over I don’t think he’s any more heinous than the average Grand Theft Auto villain. He’s ultimately just very petty and his crimes come down to killing a bunch of cops, killing the owner of a hockey team, and betraying and trying to kill the main characters which, spoiler alert, is the twist of every Grand Theft Auto Big Bad in the series. You work for someone, they then try to kill you and become the Big Bad, rinse, repeat. He also cuts off the head of a chef who stole his diamonds and shows it to Luis and is holding his sister hostage in her own home, eventually shooting at her at one point. However it’s vague if she survives, or was even hit, and that hostage scenario is mostly played in a comedic way. Any way he just really doesn’t do that much and most of his crimes are not For the Evulz. Killing the cops is because they were trying to dig up dirt to arrest him, killing the hockey team owner is because he wouldn’t sell his team to Bulgarin, and attempting to kill the main characters is because he thought they stole his diamonds. He strikes me more along the lines of Tenpenny, if you’re in his way he’ll screw you over, but he never goes the extra mile into this trope.
Now, for Eddie Low. The main reason I don’t think he counts is because he’s insane, not in a “I’m sociopathic and screw society’s rules” kind of way but in a “deeply disturbed, barely functioning human being” kind of way, which makes me question his moral agency. Conversations with him are erratic, as he swings between moods at the drop of a hat, his awkwardness and detachment from reality has him talking about uncomfortable topics like "animal masturbation" without realizing he’s making other people uncomfortable, and in many instances he comes across as a lonely, pathetic Psychopathic Manchild who is a slave to emotion and impulse. He’s also got a Freudian Excuse for his murders and rapes in that he was sexually and emotionally abused by his father when he was a child. He also loved his mother, both emotionally and sexually, and when he killed her, it was an accident and he regretted it. Also, most of his killings are Offscreen Villainy.
So yeah, I think Bulgarin and Eddie Low should be cut.
Current votes for the Halo examples are as follows:
- For Kinsler: There are 6 votes to keep (Shaoken @6145, Occasional Exister @6152, 32 Footsteps @6169, rmctagg 09 @6297, lightysnake @6301, Krystoff @6296), 0 votes to cut.
- For the Prophet of Truth: There are 5 votes to keep (Occasional Exister @6152, njrxll @6159, rmctagg 09 @6297, lightysnake @6301, Krystoff @6296) and 2 tropers on the fence (Shaoken @6145, 32 Footsteps @6169)
- For Haka: There are 0 votes to keep, 1 troper on the fence (Shaoken @6145), 5 votes to cut (Occasional Exister @6152, 32 Footsteps @6169, rmctagg 09 @6297, lightysnake @6301, Krystoff @6296)
- For Faber/Master Builder: There is 2 votes to keep (Occasional Exister @6152, rmctagg 09 @6297) and 1 vote on the fence (32 Footsteps @6169)
- For Didact: There are 0 votes to keep, and 6 votes to cut (Shaoken @6145, Occasional Exister @6152, 32 Footsteps @6169, rmctagg 09 @6297, lightysnake @6301, Krystoff @6296)
I’ll cut the Didact and Haka in two days provided there are no objections.
edited 1st Jan '13 12:36:16 PM by OccasionalExister
He kind of is. Even when others tell him that he's just being sick and twisted, he doesn't give a crap. He enjoys instilling fear and mayhem a bit too much, and in this setting, an Omnicidal Maniac that's this powerful is kind of a big deal.
Most planets in the setting are similar beings to him. They want him dead, right up to the ruler of a good chunk of the universe. He's powerful, he's angry, and he's sadistic. He doesn't care about anything except making things dead, and that they suffer beforehand.
I deleted Vulcan, but left the rest as it isn't decided yet.
Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian