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 find it interesting that they used an actual person as the villain of the film. Meet Leon Rom
, who in real life was one of the inspirations for Heart of Darkness' Kurtz. George Washington Williams
was also a real person, and the first guy to break the news about how bad things were in the Congo, though he was largely ignored due to being black.
to Rom.
Anyway I think I am going to propose Wong Chu and see what people think:
Who is Wong Chu? What has he done?
Wong Chu was an Asian warlord (either working for the Vietcong or the Mandarin, depending on what version of the story you go by) who captured Tony Stark after he was injured by an explosion and forced him to build weapons for him. He also forces another scientist Yinsen to help Stark. Stark of course, builds the Iron Man suit instead and begins attacking Wong Chu's men, Wong Chu's men also kill Yinsen. Now in the original Silver Age version Wong Chu was about to order his men to kill all the prisoners in the camp, in the 1991 retelling he was trying to escape, anyway he seemingly dies after confrontation with Iron Man.
However he didn't die, he was just scarred and decided to become a drug lord. He has a even more brutal camp in a remote Asian jungle, capturing villagers and forcing to work in his camp to produce narcotics. He uses drugs to keep everyone in line, both his slaves and his men and everyone in the camp is branded with his mark to show that they are is property. He also uses children as slaves as well, so yeah he has no problem hurting children.
Anyway Iron Man is contacted by the Sons of Yinsen, a group that reveres Yinsen and wants to attack Wong Chu's camp.
When Iron Man and his allies confront Wong Chu, he is sitting on a throne made of human skulls. Wong Chu threatens to murder a dozen of his own slaves if Iron Man and allies don't surrender, which they did. Then Wong Chu has the slaves executed anyway.
Wong Chu begins to torture Stark and his allies, giving them beatings, branding one of them. Wong Chu decides to execute them the next day and takes them to a pit filled with thousands of corpses, of various slaves he has murdered. At one point Wong Chu is accompanied by two almost naked women wearing his brand, considering almost everyone in the camp are on drugs, they are likely sex slaves.
Anyway Tony Stark manages to use some cloaking tech on his person to escape and manages summon his Iron Man armor to make short work of Wong Chu. Anyway one of the Sons of Yinsen kills Wong Chu for his actions.
Is he heinous by the standards of the story?
Well the Iron Man standard is high, Obadiah Stane is a monster and his crimes are well known here at this point. The Mandarin is a genocidal maniac who has committed mass murder and has tried to kill most of the world's population at one point. Zeke Stane killed hundreds, if not thousands of people trying to get revenge on Tony stark.
But Wong Chu is a cruel, sadistic, mass murdering slaver, I think that makes him stand out.
Any Freudian Excuse or other mitigating factors?
Yeah that's big no in terms of Freudian Excuse and redeeming qualities.
I mentioned wonky continuity issues with him, with Iron man's origins constantly changing (I think Iron Man was injured in Afghanistan rather then Vietnam at this point), but when this story was released back in 2000 it was supposed to be in cannon and we could chalk up Mandarin's claim that he killed Wong Chu as a lie.
Now arguably Wong Chu was a something of a racial caricature when he first appeared, but Iron Man has had some positive Asian characters, Yinsen himself and Stark had a non stereotypical Japanese girlfriend during this 2000 story with Wong Chu.
Final Verdict?
I think he might count, despite some wonky continuity issues.
edited 15th Jul '16 10:25:56 AM by Overlord
Would Tabuu from Super Smash Bros. Brawl Subspace Emissary count? I mean, he seems evil and cruel by our standards and the story's, but we know next to nothing about him and he qualifies as an Eldritch Abomination. What do you think?
Same goes for the Shadow Queen from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door. Does she truly count?
Stop. Doing. This.
On the Bakura thing I want to add this—anger at an institution because of something that it benefited from even if all the people involved are dead, is hardly uncommon or hard to understand.
Case in point—Scar from FMA is killing State Alchemists because of what happened in Ishbal. This includes the likes of Edward Elric who was five when Ishbal went down. Ed had nothing to do with what happened. That doesn't change the fact that Scar's anger at Amestris, at the military, and at the State Alchemists as an institution is entirely justifiable. His entire race was slaughtered, and the rest of the country has just kept ticking, acting as if nothing happened. Accordingly he's lashing out at all the institutions that were involved—the army, the government, the State Alchemists.
Bakura's a little more extreme, but his anger at the state institution—the royal family—that perpetrated this act is entirely understandable.
edited 15th Jul '16 11:33:15 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Wong Chu (though the continuity issues may bear mentioning). If approved, that cover needs to go to the Image page pronto.
Hmm, I get a feeling I'll need to start taking that into account when voting. ![]()
Shadow Queen was ruled a Generic Doomsday Villain, and Tabuu I'd say pretty much is one. And there's this:
- Generic Doomsday Villain: Subverted. Supplementary material provided by both the trophies and the Dojo elaborate on his character, explicitly stating him as being unable to ever leave Subspace. When all you can do is stare at a world full of life and be forever unable to live there yourself, you may get a bit… desperate.
edited 15th Jul '16 12:06:33 PM by ACW
I guess that looking for monsters is really not my specialty. I'm actually pretty terrible at it. There was just something that stuck out about Thief King Bakura that said monster, but I guess it wasn't complete.
But there are more pressing matters. The new Ghostbusters comes out today. In two weeks I will do an effort post on director Paul Feig for ruining everyone's childhoods. Even though I'm probably not going to see it.
I actually did address how Owens seemed to believe in the purge, what with that speech he gave and how he encouraged the group to kill him.
As for Warrens, I actually don't remember him being a Benevolent Boss. Not to say I remember him being a Bad Boss, but I don't recall any major signs of affection for the other members. I just saw the film yesterday, and I never got up to go to the bathroom or get a refill. It must have been a quick line of dialogue that I glossed over, but I am not sure how just telling someone that something isn't their fault automatically makes someone a Benevolent Boss. Since I don't remember that part, it must have been for just a few seconds. I apologize for missing that, but I am not entirely sure if the guy who orchestrated a yearly mass slaughter taking a few seconds to tell someone that something isn't their fault is disqualified just from that.
Again, sorry that I missed that one part. When I was done in the theatre, I was really thinking that at lease Warrens would be an easy contender. I was kind of hoping I could redeem myself for some of the mistakes I have made on here in the past. The last candidate I proposed that got approved that I remember is Dr Freudstein. I'm kinda starting to wonder if I am of any real importance here. I just hope this wasn't to big an oopsie on my part.
edited 15th Jul '16 1:04:32 PM by bobg
jjj

Changing my vote to
on the Purge villains.