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 just saw the version of Zahl's entry that got added to the Doom Patrol YMMV page. Is there a reason why his name was potholed to Bald of Evil? I mean, yes he has no hair, but it's hardly a major feature of the character, especially given that he wears a Commissar Cap at all times. I removed it from the entry, since it's totally irrelevant to his monster qualifications; could we please do the same for the entry that goes up on the comic book page?
If his name must link to something, Former Regime Personnel and Diabolical Mastermind would both be better fits.
edited 31st Jul '16 9:27:58 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Ok, one last one before I get to all them writeups....I have just finished 16 bloody Laymon books, and before I move on, I think I want to recommend who I think is the worst villain he has, and this is, umm...saying a lot. The novel is Savage, beginning in the streets of London and ending in the American west.
I give you...Richard Laymon's Jack the Ripper.
Who Is He?
Well, he's Jack the Ripper. Real name is Roderick Whittle, a British Gentleman, and sadistic psychopath who roams the streets of Whitechapel at night, killing prostitutes for his own pleasure. Our young hero Trevor encounters Whittle when, after nearly being robbed by a few criminals, takes refuge in the first house he finds, crouching under the bed, which turns out to be the bed of Mary Kelly, the Ripper's final victim. Without enough money from her last client, Mary is forced to go back into the night and returns with another customer...unfortunately, as Trevor is under the bed, he hears sounds of horrible violence above. When the man leaves, Trevor sees the corpse violently mutilated, and unable to stop himself, chases after the man. In a fight, Trevor slashes off the Ripper's nose, before Jack knocks him unconscious.
He awakens aboard a small ship the Ripper has commandeered and taken those aboard hostage: a young woman, her fiancee and her father. Introducing himself to Trevor, Whittle reveals he now intends to escape London and flee to America, where he can practice his 'craft' while passing off his work as that of the 'savages' on the frontier.
What's He Done?
Besides the canonical five Ripper murders, on the small ship, Whittle promptly murders the owner, Mr. Armitage, and forces Trevor and the girl, Trudy's, fiancee to keep it going. Once out at sea, Trevor attempts to get the better of and kill Whittle when he can. When he nearly succeeds, Whittle beats him down, before tying him up and punishes him- by torturing Trudy, stringing her up and laying into her with a lash, leaving her in freezing cold at night to make the point. When they dock in the Americas, Whittle murders Trudy's fiancee and then butchers Trudy below deck, before rowing to shore, with Trevor barely escaping. Whittle steals a horse and heads west for Tombstone. Trevor falls into a number of adventures, planning to find and kill Whittle to end his reign of terror, blaming himself for the Ripper's escape.It's not long before we hear of murders on the frontier, including one woman and her teenage daughters, horribly slaughtered, with the deaths blamed on Indians.
Trevor falls in traveling with a young lady named Jesse who becomes his companion and love interest. When they succeed in hunting Whittle down to a cave he's adopted as his lair, we see Whittle has become a lawman in America under the name of 'John Carver' (Jack the Ripper: John Carver. Well, Whittle thinks it's hilarious)...he abducts women, takes them there and butchers them at his leisure, leaving gruesome trophies around the place. He also slaughtered his own posse in their sleep nearby with his knife, and he knows Jesse and Trevor are after him. During this point, he reveals one of his victims was Trevor's friend and brief lover Sarah, who had the misofrtune of recognizing him. "She regretted many things. Most of all, she regretted my gunshot had not killed her immediately."
There's a good old fashioned standoff, with Trevor and Whittle and Jesse injured. Trevor attempts to force Whittle out by threatening to kill Jesse in a bluff, knowing Whittle's aroused sadism won't allow her to die before he can truly go to work. When Whittle mocks Trevor about Sarah, Trevor seems to snap and shoot Jesse dead, enraging Whittle and prompting him to rush out, while he and Trevor fight to the death.
Trevor gravely wounds him, but Whittle gets the better of him and snarling that Trevor has never seen The Ripper work, attempts to butcher Jesse's corpse...only for Jesse to grab his hand, pin it and slash her Bowie knife over Whittle's throat, ending the menace of the Ripper forever.
Freudian Excuse?
Zilch.
Heinous Standard?
Sets it for the book. The guy's an abhorrent, abominable monster, serial killer and torturier
Redeeming Qualities?
He defines Faux Affably Evil, being sophisticated and polite to a fault, but with a pure animal rage underneath it, utter cruelty and a love of making human beings suffer. His feeling for Trevor is amusement mixed with a desire to see him suffer. Otherwise? No, no attachment to anything. The most he comes to regret is freaking out when he thinks Jesse is dead because he can't torture and kill her in a way to satisfy himself. And it's even implied he indulges in cannibalism
So, do I even have to say the conclusion? It's Richard Laymon writing Jack the Ripper, people!
I give a late
to Cyclops, Krivzha, Quoc and Metran.
to Catalin.
@ 65005 Largo Quagmire,
Well the point I was making about not proposing characters who were gross, over the top racial stereotypes (like the Golden age villain Claw), there are works that somewhat problematic, like Temple of Doom, but the characters are not racist enough to be disqualified, IMO. I think a movie from the 90s that deals with Islamic terrorists will not be as offensive as a movie from the 1940s that deals with Japanese soldiers, generally. I think its about using good judgment to tell the difference. I know you switched your vote on Krivzha, but I was just quoting you to make a larger point, we can villains of various religious and ideological back grounds count, it does take a lot to be too offensive to count (but Claw seems to fit that mold.)
I also disagree with the idea mentioned in this thread, that Nazi villains are too stereotypical too count, not all Germans are Nazis and even in the 40s, Allied entertainment would say that there is a difference between Germans and Nazis and that not all Germans were Nazis, which didn't apply with the Japanese in WWII.
edited 31st Jul '16 10:13:08 PM by Overlord
You had me at "Richard Laymon" + "Jack the Ripper". 'Yes' to him.
On the novel note, I've a new Keeper. And yes, I made absolutely sure this time that the guy hadn't been discussed before.
What's the work?
Serafina and the Black Cloak is a tale of a 12-year-old girl named Serafina living in 1899 America.
Serafina (Sera for short) is an...odd girl, and spends her time wandering the sewers catching rats as her "job". However, during one of her hunts, she witnesses a terrible crime, and must spring into action to save the citizens of the town she resides in from....him.
Who is he?
The Man in the Black Cloak is the terrifying and monstrous main antagonist of the novel. Sporting a....black cloak (SHOCKER!), the Man in the Black Cloak looks like a demon, and isn't very far off in personality, either....
What has he done?
First shown when Sera hears a little girl screaming in the sewers, the Man is shown dragging said little girl into a secluded area of the sewer as she blubbers and begs him to let him go.
Spouting his creepy catch phrase, "I'm not going to hurt you, child", the Man's black cloak suddenly turns tentacle-ly and ghostly, and he devours the girl with his cloak, silencing her ear-piercing screams as she is consumed by his cloak.
Realizing Sera has been watching him, the Man gleefully pursues her through the sewers, trying to devour her as well, however she manages to hide, leaving him to slither away.
The next day, Sera learns that this isn't the first time a child has disappeared from her town with no explanation, and, after befriending a young boy named Braedon, the son of a wealthy landowner, she travels with him on a carriage close to the eerie forest next to the town.
The Man, unsurprisingly, attacks, and tries to devour Braedon, and, when Braedon's friend Nolan tries to save him, the Man consumes him before continuing his attempt on Braedon, however he is forced to flee when Sera and Gidean, Braedon's doberman, drive him off.
Later, yet another child is consumed by the Man, as he grows increasingly frustrated at his failed attempts to get Braedon.
The truth about the Man is then revealed: He is actually a family friend of Braedon's named Montogemery Thorne who grew up rich and pampered, however his business tanked and he was left homeless.
Thorne, during his poverty, stumbled across a powerful black cloak that enabled him to devour people's souls in order to gain their talents and knowledge, and he used the cloak to consume numerous souls and rebuild his power and influence with the various talents of the souls.
In one notable instance, Thorne ambushed a pregnant woman for easy pickings, murdered her husband when he interfered, and, though the woman survived the encounter, 3 of her 4 babies miscarried and she was stuck in the form of a mountain lion (LONG STORY).
However, there was a slight....drawback to Thorne's continued use of the cloak: It was slowly sapping his age. Well then, there was only one thing to do! (Give the cloak up?) No, of course not! Eat children's souls to keep himself young!
Oh, and get this: Thorne has the gall to use the talents of the children whose souls he devoured in front of their parents. Imagine a Russian man's horror when he hears Thorne speaking Russian in his own daughter's speech style. Prick.
Anywho, the Man/Thorne plans to consume Braedon to gain all of the boy's talents, along with using his personality to hopefully make himself an even better friend of the boy's family to increase his own political power, however, when he notices Sera trying to distract him from Braedon, he happily turns his attention to her and pursues her through the creepy forest.
However, Sera had led him into a trap, and he is ambushed by the woman whom he left a mountain lion (Leona), and is seemingly killed by her.
The even more horrifying truth is revealed. The dozens of people and children the Man consumed? Yeah....they didn't die. They've spent the past years/months/days since the Man devoured them trapped in his cloak in a state of perpetual horror and pain, moaning and screaming for help while the Man could hear their pleas plain as day.
The Man springs back to life, and, in yet another supreme moment of douchebaggery, tries to needlessly suffocate Sera to death just for irritating him, however Leona and Gidean then go attack dog on his ass and shred him to pieces before his cloak is destroyed, leading his age to catch up on him and cause him to explode.
All the people the Man consumed are saved, though most of them are left hollow shells unable to contemplate what happened and just wander off into the woods, though the children are all saved (Age prejudiced books, I tell you....)
Happy ending for everyone! Except Thorne, the prick.
Freudian Excuse or other redeeming features?
He was rich, then became poor, and decides to devour people's ouls to regain his wealth. Oooooookaaaaaay....
Anything possibly nice he does is just to make his public self look good.
The "Drain children to stay alive" thing is no more disqualifying than The Beast, before anyone asks. The Man is explicitly enjoying scaring and absorbing children's souls, and did the same thing even before he needed to in order to stay alive.
Finally, the black cloak that gives him his power is very much like the Venom symnbiote in that it has a (Kind of) mind of it's own and tries to tempt people with it's power. Not only is this never presented in-story as redeeming on Thorne's part, but Sera, a freaking twelve-year-old girl, resisted it's pull without too much effort.
So no, I don't think for a second that it being able to tempt people matters when a child was able to resist said temptations, and Thorne is quite obviously a sadist who tries to kill Sera even without the cloak on.
Heinousness?
Only real villain, so worst in-story by far.
Overall, he consumed dozens of innocent's souls, quite a few of which were children, leaving them in an And I Must Scream scenario, murdered a man while trying to drain his pregnant wife, and attempted to outright kill a young girl for getting in his way.
Final Verdict?
Keeper.
edited 31st Jul '16 11:51:25 PM by Ravok
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Dammit Lighty, you stole my Ripper effortpost (albeit it's probably better than mine would've been) ![]()
![]()
. I specifically ordered Savage to see if Jack could count
, and said I would here
and even earlier
. Yes to him, BTW.
The Man, especially since it seems like he uses the cloak for far more than getting rich again.
Ambar: I removed that.
edited 1st Aug '16 6:42:17 AM by ACW
Okay, I used the site's search engine, and I couldn't find any discussion on any of the villains from the Uncharted series, only a write-up for Zoran Lazarević from the 2nd game (which is a good write-up). As someone who has played and beaten all of the Uncharted games, I completely agree with Lazarević qualifying, and I do think he's the only villain who qualifies (except for maybe Henry Avery from the 4th game), but I still want to know what everyone else thinks.
edited 1st Aug '16 12:41:04 AM by toonyloon
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
Some of you may recall me suggesting Leon Finch from CSI: Cyber as a contender, from memory the majority thought he qualified but the issue was compared to some of the other criminals they were just as heinous but didn't have enough characterization.
Well here's another contender, same series, the show's main villain Python.
Okay, what is CSI: Cyber?
The show is New Media Is Evil: The Series. It runs on Paranoia Fuel where Anonymous is an all powerful hacker that will destroy the world For the Lulz, basically every second episode has a criminal more diseased than the one before. It could take a plot where a Basement Dweller gets the DNA of Hitler, clones him through computers, dress them as The Joker, have them watch every episode of The Buffyverse to ingrain the idea that Evil Is Cool, then turn them loose, and treat said plot as Played for Drama.
So the series is a little silly. Okay where does Python fit in?
Python, aka Dante Wilkerson, actually looks monsterous due to a skin condition that made his skin reptilian, and he was bullied as a child with the nickname Python. As an adult he's the world's most wanted hacker, among other things he runs a web site on the deep web where he sells drugs, guns, that are tampered with. Why do this? He intends to cause mass overdoses and anarchy.
What else has Python done to suggest he qualifies?
When the authorities start tracking him down he reacts with violence, kidnapping agents, torturing them, contacting who is after him and acts like a child, screaming at them to stop harrassing him, following him, before murdering the agents. At the same time he hacks and takes over the agencies after him, close them down, prevent them from continuing their investigations, harvests all the sensitive material they have for his own gain. When Cyber become involved he starts killing their agents before they track down his mother, who he used as a dupe. Python retaliates by infiltrating Cyber to hack into them before letting them know he was there and they had made it personal, so he is now obsessed with them and has declared war on the FBI and their director Avery Ryan.
Wait, it goes From Bad to Worse. Months later, Avery moves house and while having dinner with DB as part of her housewarming a nursery rhyme begins playing from one of the packing boxes, not part of the move. Inside is a tablet of survailance footage of a young woman Avery knew just before she and her daughter were killed in a crash. The purpose of this? The little girl's friend had tracked Avery down some months before, and Python had now kidnapped her, tortured her, hooked her up to drugs as part of some Criminal Mind Games. Also in the box is a woman's decapitated head, Python's mother, who killed herself after finding out the truth. Python blames Cyber for this yet he still did this and had the rest of the body burned.
Python lets slip a web site on the tablet which Cyber trace to find Avery's friend hooked up to a device that would administer drugs, Python forced her to hold on to a detonation plunger after what he did to her, if she lets go she dies. Python contacts Cyber and clearly getting off on the misery he has caused forces them to play his game, if they get the answers to his riddles wrong he pumps more drugs into the girl, if they run out of time she dies. This is all so he can hack into Cyber from his earlier infiltration and take it over, forcing Avery to choose between the FBI and her friend's life. When Cyber begin to unravel the clues Python decides to just kill her anyway, gleeful at the thought. But Cyber have enough to go on to find her, while Python gets away free. However he does not end up a Kkarma Hudeni, so obsessed he is with Avery he tracks her down to the safe house she's in, murders the agents protecting her, then when she confronts him dumps his mother's ashes on the floor so she could see what happens, the idea that either he kills Avery or she forces her to kill him, taunting her that she would have that and everything he blames her for on her conscience for the rest of her life. He dies when he goes to shoot Avery and she has to shoot him in self defense.
Would the fact he was bullied mean he has a Freudian Excuse? Anything Python does that would redeem him?
To the first question the fact he was bullied as a child would not legitimize him becoming essentially a cyber god of chaos. To the second he was a baby crying that people were stopping his harmful ways, Chaotic Evil in it's purest form, and he enjoyed it except when the FBI tried to stop him killing.
Wait, I thought criminals in this show were particularly heinousness. Does Python really stand out?
The series began with baby kidnappers and the threat to kill them if the FBI did not stop investigating, and a fan of snuff films creating his own so he could gain access to a particular site. Previous contender Leon Finch essentially used the pain and misery he heard as a 911 operator as masturbation material and tried to get as much of that as he could. While these are really really bad Python was like the snuff creator and Finch in that he enjoyed what he did but took it to a whole new level, he made it personal, as bad as threatening to kill babies may be it is as hard as it may be to stomach pragmatic to scare off further investigation. Python just gets to the killing, the wholesale overtaking of investigation agencies and the levels he goes to are far and above what really anyone else in the series has done, and just because it cannot be stressed enough he gets off on it, from causing drug overdoses to inflicting torture and trauma it's For the Evulz.
Has he enough characterization to be a Complete Monster?
Yep. Through the series we hear about him and the things he's done. In the two episodes where he is the focus he is defined as a bully and a coward, he used his own mother for his efforts to spread pain and when she died desecrated her corpse, most everything he says or does is to emphasize he is a Card-Carrying Villain. Not even Only in It for the Money, it's stressed in the show in general and his episodes in particular he just wanted the world to burn so he could cheer and laugh.
Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than Yours
to Whittle and
Thorne. The latter reminds me of a song
I heard years ago.
Man in the Black Cloak and Python. He seems to stand out, even for the CSI universe in general.

Okay, cool. On the subject of robots, that includes ones who develop their own free will or sense of independence too right?