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
Lizzid people!
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Emperor.
I checked a scene from that movie on You Tube to see how many people The Emperor had turned into puppets, and at the 4 minute of this video, the camera pans over all the puppets. I counted 33, one of which was a woman holding her baby. Yeah, easy keeper.
Puppetino seems pretty bad himself, especially given that he is merely human as opposed to his extremely powerful Eldritch Abomination master.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Emperor.
The Emperor
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'd like to see an effort post of Puppetino. He seems to be just as heinous as his master.
edited 6th Aug '16 9:27:19 PM by G-Editor
edited 6th Aug '16 9:27:10 PM by G-Editor
RIP Toriyama
'Yes' to the Emperor. What a creep.
Anywho, it's officially been two weeks since Guardians of the Galaxy's finale aired, so here's the first of the two baddies I'll be proposing from it.
What's the work?
Guardians of the Galaxy is an animated, non-canon continuation of the Guardians' adventures following the events of the film.
Who is he?
Ronan the Accuser is one of the two Big Bads of the series, along with Thanos, the Mad Titan, who I'll be proposing next.
Ronan is a homicidal Knight Templar who seeks to "cleanse" (Read: Annihilate) the galaxy of all "filth". The "filth" in question being....well, anything he deems it to be.
What has he done?
Ronan first shows up in the Guardians of the Galaxy shorts titled "Origins", all of which take place before the events of the film.
In Groot's (A living tree's) short, Ronan finds the Groot homeworld, populated by an entire race of Groots, and orders them to surrender themselves to him and allow him to strip the planet of it's resources, to which the Groots refuse.
Ronan's response? "Ronan will not be denied. Burn it. Burn it ALL."
Ronan proceeds to have his ship firebomb the planet until the entire Groot race, bar the Guardians' Groot, is annihilated, then guts the planet of it's resources and leaves it as a husk. Genocide in his first appearance. Ugh.
In Drax's (A brute who can't understand metaphors) short, Ronan is revealed to run gladiator games to the death where the winner will become his new Dragon, and any losers who actually survive are shipped off to work as slaves for Ronan.
A disguised Drax, seeking revenge on Ronan for murdering his wife and child, blows his cover to save numerous innocents from Ronan's slave trade, and Ronan tries to destroy the entire transport of slaves rather than let them escape, though they manage to flee and survive.
In Gamora's (A former assassin of Ronan's) short, she is still working for Ronan, and it is shown that Ronan enjoys pitting his 3 current Dragons on loan from Thanos (Gamora, her sister, Nebula, and her brother, Korath) against each other for his "affections".
At some point, Ronan had Gamora steal a gravity matrix from a planet, and, for the next several years, the planet's atmosphere and such are slowly destroyed due to their gravitational field being thrown out of balance, leaving the planet a barren wasteland with any survivors nearing starvation.
The events of the film transpire, where Ronan is killed off....OR SO THEY THOUGHT.
Nebula, the only Dragon currently still loyal to Ronan, uses the cosmic power of an alive, but mentally childish, planet to revive Ronan. Ronan expresses his gratitude to Nebula by smacking her in the face for implying (Sycophantically) that she is his equal.
Ronan takes control of the planet, causing it immense pain, and tries to force it to use it's power to obliterate the entire planet of Xandar, the planet on which Ronan's race, the Kree, used to be in a war with.
The Guardians stop Ronan, save Xandar, and he is blasted off into space.
Returning later on, Ronan teams up with an Inhuman (Superpowered former-humans who are currently residing in a huge floating city in space) named Maximus to help him take control of one of the most powerful Inhumans, Black Bolt, in exchange for Ronan getting to kill the Guardians.
Of course, once the Inhumans and Guardians are beaten, Ronan turns on Maximus, takes control of Black Bolt, then orders him to destroy the entire Inhuman City and kill the dozens (If not hundreds) of Inhumans residing there, stating they are "unclean and vile abominations".
However, Star-Lord, leader of the Guardians, breaks Black Bolt's mind control and Black Bolt stops Ronan's plan.
After the Guardians try to ambush Ronan, he reveals his plan to crash an asteroid, on which there is a refinery filled with hundreds of people, into the flagship of the Kree, on which the Kree leader, the Supreme Intelligence, is located, which will destroy everyone on both the ships and the refinery, and make it look like the asteroid crash was the doing of the planet of Spartax, a highly-populated planet.
Once the Supreme Intelligence is dead, Ronan plans to take control of the armies of the Kree and declare war on Spartax to "avenge their leader".
When Drax tries to stop this plan, Ronan deliberately tries to kill dozens of innocent workers during the fight in an attempt to distract Drax so he can get the upper hand, however the workers and the Supreme Intelligence are saved and Ronan's plan thwarted.
Ronan later kidnaps Gamora when she tries to return the gravity matrix to the planet she stole it from, called Soonevh, and throws her into a gladiator tournament that he is broadcasting throughout the galaxy.
Deciding that Gamora must "pay for her crimes", Ronan forces her to fight, under threat of destroying the entire planet of Soonevh, against people that she was ordered by Ronan to hurt in some personal way, from a man she reduced to a brain, to an elemental cat-thingy whose species she nearly wiped completely out. Ronan is soon attacked by these gladiators who he tried to pit Gamora against, as they realize it was only on Ronan's orders that their lives were ruined, and the planet of Soonevh is kept safe and has it's gravity matrix returned.
Surviving the attack on him, Ronan follows the Guardians to Earth and, while they are distracted, steals from them the Cosmic Seed, an artifact with immense power that they have spent the entire series looking for.
Declaring himself the most powerful being in the universe, Ronan proclaims his plans to "cleanse" the galaxy of all "impurities" and take control of the Kree to lead them in becoming the supreme race of the universe.
Ronan, smirking like a jackass, smacks around the Guardians while taunting them about his new power, however they manage to steal the Cosmic Seed back from him.
Ronan flies into a rage and begins screaming that he'll obliterate them all, however Thanos shows up and seemingly kills Ronan for his betrayal in the film before claiming the Cosmic Seed for himself.
Surviving this near-death, Ronan is saved from dying by Drax the Destroyer, and as such, Ronan claims that, according to ancient Kree tradition, he now "owes" Drax.
The Guardians discuss ways to stop Thanos, at which point Ronan informs them that they have 1 hour to stop Thanos themselves (Something he believes they can't do), otherwise Ronan will simply drop a quantum bomb onto him, which will destroy him....along with the entire Earth.
The Guardians fail, to Ronan's eagerness, as he prepares to blow up the Earth, however, Nebula, Ronan's Dragon, suggests finding another way to stop Thanos so as to allow them to obtain the Cosmic Seed (She actually is having a change or heart and wants to protect Earth). Ronan responds by declaring she only wants it to restore her "puny" body that was damaged earlier, and assaults her for....no real reason.
Ronan seemingly kills her before dropping the quantum bomb, trying to kill Thanos, the Guardians, and the entire human population in one fell swoop. This is including Drax, the man he claimed to owe his life to.
However, the Guardians deflect the bomb back at Ronan's ship, and he is seemingly killed in the blast, ending his genocidal terrorizing of the galaxy.
Freudian Excuse or other redeeming qualities?
Pfffft.
He makes numerous proclamations of "honor" and "justice", but these are just his Knight Templar delusions surfacing. He has no sense of true honor or justice.
For instance, he claims that Gamora deserves to be punished for her crimes against numerous innocents....while ignoring the fact that said crimes were on his orders. He's a classic case of a Knight Templar who constantly proclaims others to be disgusting criminals while completely ignoring that he's far worse than any of them.
The only things that could give one pause are that, in his final episode, when Drax saves his life, he (begrudgingly) claims he owes him one due to the ancient Kree traditions. And yet, later in the exact same episode, he's perfectly fine leaving Drax to die along with the Earth, and never even attempts to make good on that "debt".
The other thing is that he gives the Guardians an hour to destroy Thanos before he drops the quantum bomb on the Earth. He claims this is in "deference" to the Guardians, but he is downright eager to annihilate the planet along with them, so, IMO, this was supposed to be pragmatic on his part, wanting Thanos and the Guardians to kill each other without him having to use the quantum bomb, as it does take a while to charge up.
So.....claiming you owe someone your life, only to try to kill them later on, and giving someone an inadequate amount of time to complete a task that will likely kill them? I ultimately don't think either are redeeming, but that's just me.
Heinousness?
What we have here is a cruel, self-righteous prick who committed genocide on a peaceful race for their resources, attempted genocide on 4 other occasions, tried to start a war off with a mass murder, runs gladiator games to the death, has slave camps, destroys planets' atmospheres, had his Dragons commit numerous atrocities in his name, and planned to kill basically everything in the galaxy that didn't bend to his will
The only other particular heinous baddies besides Thanos and Ronan (Maximus and Loki) only attempt to commit one of these crimes each. Maximus tries to blow up a planet, while Loki tries to start a war.
No other villain comes close, even in the same planetary system, to Ronan in heinousness bar Thanos, who himself counts (IMO).
GDV?
Ah, no.
Don't get me wrong, he's not, like, complex or anything. But he has considerably more character than his film incarnation, which itself was ruled to not be a GDV.
His Knight Templar personality here is taken Up To Eleven, with him proclaiming basically everything that doesn't do what he says to be unclean, filthy, and needing to be "cleansed" (He uses that word alot...)
One of the prime examples of Ronan having an actual personality is the fact that he makes numerous references to Star-Lord's "Dance-Off" from the film in ironic manners as if it were a metaphor for an actual fight.
"Destroy the entire city. And take Star-Lord with you. I believe I owe him, what was it he called it a....dance-off?"
"The Star-Lord's next dance-off will be his last."
Final Verdict?
Overall, I think he's a Keeper. No excuse, plenty heinous, and any possible redeeming features are thrown away by the end or could be seen as pragmatic.
edited 6th Aug '16 10:09:35 PM by Ravok
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Lizzid people!
Wild Child
Ronan.
Siiiiiiiiiiiip
Ronan and The Emperor
Messenger from another dimension.
Emperor and Ronan
Edit: I am watching Pinocchio right now youtube, and I actually think Puppetino counts as well. I will let the user who proposed the Emperor effort-post him.
edited 7th Aug '16 12:49:50 AM by emperors
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
Would this be the same user who specifically said that they don't consider Puppetino to count?
Messenger from another dimension.
Yes
Ronan
New proposal: the unnamed judge from short story Un fou (a madman) by Guy de Maupassant
What the work?
Guy de Maupassant is a French author who wrote lots of short stories. As his work is in public domain you can read the original story here
http://short-edition.com/classique/guy-de-maupassant/un-fou
and an english translation there http://www.online-literature.com/maupassant/4252/
The translation is faithful but a bit shorter than the original text. The 2d July entry in particular was longer.
Who is he?
The judge who died at the age of eighty-two was a very successful magistrate. He was thought as irreproachable until a notary discovered his secret diary entitled WHY? revealing he was an unconvicted serial killer.
What does he do?
After condemning man who killed his five children, he wonders why did the guy such a thing. He develops a morbid fascination for the act of murder. For him, it is the law of nature and "There is nothing more beautiful and honorable than killing". He also elaborates that human life is worthless.
He finally decides to act upon his murderous urge without being caught. He first kills his servant's goldfinch, licks its blood and buries its body under a strawberry-plant. He mocks the servant who thinks his bird has flown away. He strangles a little boy and throws his body in the ditch. In the evening he feels "very gay, light, rejuvenated". The boy's parents in tears come to see him two days later (Ah! Ah!). A month later, he clefts the head of a fisherman with a spade. The fisherman's nephew is charged with the murder (Ah! Ah!). Finally, the judge himself sentences the nephew to death. He takes great pleasure to see the innocent man guillotined and wishes he could bath in his blood (that last part is unfortunately not in the translation).
The narrator concludes that the manuscript contained yet other pages, but without relating any new crime.
Freudian Excuse?
None, the judge kills because he enjoys it. He's the titular madman but he appears to be clever and lucid.
Heinousness?
He's the only bad guy in the story besides that infanticide Blondel guy who, according to him, did something great.
Verdict
To be honest, I'm unsure because three murders isn't a lot compared to most CMs and the story is pretty short but I'm leaning toward because we read the thoughts of a bloodthirsty guy who glorifies gratuitous murder and has no compassion.
edited 8th Aug '16 4:43:01 AM by Silverblade2
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Emperor (interestingly, this would only be James Earl Jones's second CM). Ronan, I think. to . Three is probably enough to make one a CM, especially in a short story, and ESPECIALLY when one is a kid and another is someone you know is innocent but sentence to death just For the Evulz.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
Emperor of the Night, Ronan, and the Judge. Just because someone has a low body count does not exempt him/her/it from being a CM.
Messenger from another dimension.
Finished Pinocchio and changed my mind on Puppetino. He only does something heinous in the beginning and later acts like Beadle Bamford. That being said, I still think he deserves an effort-post. I will provide one if the other user won't.
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
Emperor, Ronan, and Judge
Has Handsome Jack from Borderlands 2 ever been discussed? Wondering if he counts.
Ronan
Yeah, Handsome Jack's been discussed. He doesn't count because, as messed up as he treats her, he truly does love his daughter.
edited 7th Aug '16 5:30:14 AM by OccasionalExister
Wild Child
Judge.
A scene in the TellTale game makes it clear that Handsome Jack did care for his daughter, albeit in a twisted way.
edited 7th Aug '16 7:20:52 AM by Camberf
Lizzid people!
