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
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Would depend on how it's protrayed. Undying Loyalty? Almost always a redeeming quality. Plain old, I follow orders because you are in charge? Not so much. Loyalty predicated on "you give me the chance to indulge my every depravity?" Never.
@6642: To elaborate on Shion's motives:
- At first, she's trying to get revenge on the people who (she thinks) are responsible for her boyfriend Satoshi's disappearance. One of those people (Oryou) is her own grandmother, who also forced her to peel her own fingernails off because of the relationship.
- But as time goes on, Shion gets more and more sadistic, and in the end admits to herself that she doesn't care about her boyfriend anymore and just kill for fun.
- However, all of that's at least in part because she contracted a Hate Plague that causes people to become extremely paranoid, causes hallucinations, and generally makes people violent to the point of Ax Crazyness.
It sounds like she has enough of an excuse (never mind the Hate Plague bit, which is a failure of moral agency) to keep her out.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"Some RoboCop examples on the YMMV page.
- Bob Morton, the guy behind the Robo Cop project, says early on that they've "restructured the police department and placed prime candidates according to risk factor" and that they'll be ready to start "as soon as some poor schmuck volunteers" - essentially, they arranged to get police officers killed in order to get raw material for Robo Cop. Some people believe Morton purposely sabotaged ED-209 so his project would win.
- Dr. Faxx, a female example for this franchise. She cares about nothing but herself and her pet project, with which she intends to replace the "obsolete" Robo Cop. She's even willing to use the brain of a psychotic drug lord, and isn't shy about killing him to get it.
- McDagget. He's the one who killed Lewis without any reason. He convinces the public that the Rehabs give the people of Old Detroit new houses (actually putting them in death camps) and that Robo Cop is a criminal. The last straw was, when the Detroit Police refused to work with the Rehabs to clear out Cadillac Heights, he simply hired some Splatterpunk gangmembers to do the job. Don't worry, Robo put them all, especially McDagget, out of their misery for good.
Morton's listed as a Jerk with a Heart of Gold. What about Faxx and McDagget?
edited 8th Jan '13 3:39:23 PM by TVRulezAgain
I found these examples on the Air Gear YMMV page.
Complete Monster: Sora and Nike. The first might count as the odd mix of this and Magnificent Bastard, however.
That's what the entry said. It doesn't even say why they qualify. Because of this, I had to check the Character page. This is what it said about Sora:
Sora is the former Wind King of the Wing Road, and original leader of the legendary Storm Rider team called Sleeping Forest. He would later regain his title as the Wind King and take over as the leader of Genesis along with his twin brother Nike. He is often shown as a carefree and charismatic person albeit arrogant. He can be easy-going and friendly, but this attitude changes later on to a more serious tone. He can be egotistical when it comes to his abilities as a Storm Rider and has shown to be very manipulative of his comrades in order to reach his goal.
He is the primary antagonist of the series.
Now to give my opinion on the two.
Sora: Unsure. He's not only using everyone around him to regain the Wind Regalia and never gave a damn about Ikki or Rika, despite being "friends" with them. The only thing against him is that he sounds like a Magnificent Bastard rather than a monster, at least from what I read. Here's what I saw on Manipulative Bastard.
Sora (again) takes this to a whole new level after executing his grand-master plan to obtain the Sky Regalia. Not only did his cowardly and villainous personality turn out to be false (allowing Kilik to drop his guard and be led into thinking that Sora was a shallow and self-centered person), his original defeat against Kilik during the collapse of the Old Sleeping Forest was planned from the beginning as he only needed to collect the missing codes of the remaining Regalias that was required to unlock the full potential of the Sky Regalia. He succeeds. Now he's the Sky King, thereby succeeding in fulfilling his own made-up prophecy. Afterwards he gives a speech telling the whole world he did all of this to solve all world issues and 'save' all of the 'good defects' (aka humans), in which he claims to be 99% of the world's population (with the 1% being hinted at as the Gravity Children, most notably Kilik). How does the vast majority of the world react to this? They applaud him.
Also, after his plans blow up in his face, he decides to blow up the tower with everyone in it showing callous disregard of the people inside of it. Also a thing to note is that the majority of people in there are teenagers. He's willing to kill a huge bunch of teenagers just because his plans failed. I'm not sure if this is enough to qualify him.
As for Nike, I didn't see any of his deeds on the page. So unless someone can tell me what he did, I'd say cut.
Since we did cleanup for SRW before. Here are some very, very screwed up entries:
SRW Alpha YMMV:
- Complete Monster: Gihren Zabi, Jamitov Hymem, Bask Om, Yazan Gable, Carozzo Ronah, Crux Dogatie, Fonse Kagatie, Dekim Barton, Gym Ghingham, Rau Le Creuset, Patrick Zala, Muruta Azrael, Kashim King, Empress Janera, Duke Bergan, Emperor Zu Zambajil, King Olban, King Darius, Emperor Ryuuma, Emperor Muge Zorbados, Supreme Commander Doba Ajiba and the Big Bad of the series, Keiser Ephes. They all die painfully at your hands.
This feels like a "punching bag"(the "die painfully" stuff) instead of a real example. And it is based on their crimes in their respective anime—if you didn't watch them you'll never know why they qualify.
- The apocalyptic visions you're bombarded with as you're hit by the End of the Galaxy attack shows all too clearly what kind of being Keisar Ephes is.
This is Nightmare Fuel, not Complete Monster
SRWJ:
- (Dr. Hell and Baron Asura (though they at least pay lip service to Well Intentioned Extremism), Masaki Kihara, Muruta Azrael, Gauron, Haruki Kusakabe, Duke Bergan, Gosterro, Michelo Chariot and the Big Bad of the game, Gu-Langdon Goetz. Also, Rau Le Crueset is also depicted as being a lot more cruel and despicable than he was in the series proper)
- Ja-Mu Dalby is also pretty monstrous. He was at first just a normal fanboy of Al-Van, but once Al-Van got demoted, he takes a swing in Ax-Crazy and becomes even more active and vocal in mass-slaughtering humans, and is unreasonable on the level of Gu-Landon (or maybe even more). By game's end he's at Kefka-levels of crazy.
Same as before. Through one might keep the Ja-Mu entry and add it to the SRW page
SRW L:
See a pattern here?
And SRW Z:
We've already dealt with Asakim and the Edel(one leans to cut the other to keep)
- King Vega, Gaizock and his dragon Killer the Butcher, Zeo Gattler, Gargan of the Elda, Emperor Burai, the Titans, Lord Djibril, Alan Gabriel and Dewey Novak in Z.
- Hakai-hen/Saisei-hen gives us Ali Al-Saachez, Emperor Zul, Dr. Hell, Cohen and Stinger, Emperor Muge Zorbados and Aim Liard, The Dragon to Gaioh.
Aim's entry should be expanded.
Anyways, this is ust a summary of characters whose crimes you will not figure out(and in SRW case glossed over in many places given it's potential to be a Fix Fic) unless you watch the anime. And it is basing it off of their actions in the respective anime. Cut all of the mashed up mecha anime examples and expand on the Original villains that do qualify.
And from Black Ops 2 YMMV:
- Complete Monster: Manuel Noriega is shown with absolutely no redeeming features whatsoever.
there was apprently a consensus for De Falco to qualify and Menendez was removed. However, this has to be expanded or it arguably breaches the no Real Life rule and should be killed with fire.
edited 8th Jan '13 4:04:42 PM by xie323
Having played the campaign, Noriega came across to me as more of a sleazy, double crossing bastard than a CM. The worst things he does on screen are killing his own men and being complicit in either the death or injury of Alex Mason.
Hugging a Vanillite will give you frostbite.Just to bring up an example that was bothering me, what about Deadpool from Deadpool Kills The Marvel Universe? He's got the henious standard down just from the article, but from what I've read (I've never touched the actual comic itself) he got that way because he was brainwashed by a villian, so he would lack moral agency.
Thoughts?
And another comic example, Lono from One Hundred Bullets; I admittedly haven't read all of it, but from what I have read he seems rather fond of Victor, even hugging him after seeing him for the first time in years. Does anyone know if this changes/turns out not to be the case at any point later on? Victor's a pretty huge bastard too, a hitman not above killing kids to complete his assignments, but he has many redeeming qualities and is actually one of the more altruistic characters in this series. He's even one of only three to live.
So the verdict on Shion is no on Complete Monster (2 chapters only), but definately a good example of the "Shock Value Villain" theory I've come up with as to the root cause of the Trope Decay we're having?
Speaking of Shock Value, I propose we have something on the Complete Monster page regarding the "Shock Value" misconception.
New proposistion: Either a new thread or a section on the 1st few posts of this one with a list of villains that have gone through the process and the overall verdict (including the whys if no). I'll start with some of those results with some commentary of my own.
-Azariah Kyras: Yes, relative to the games, not to the original setting.
-Fake Overlord Zenon: No, Offscreen Villany
-The GLA: No, Group Clause. Note: Good candidate for "Shock Value Villain".
-Hawthorne and 'Demon Path Revya': No. Off Screen Villany for the former and Player Choice for the later.
-Shion Sonozaki (certain timelines): No, Moral Agency. Good candidate for Shock Value Villain".
@Magnum, we already have that.
With Azariah Kyras and other characters from adaptations of some pretty dark settings, the argument seems to be "it's its own work." However for Dawn Of War that argument doesn't hold water, since they fit into the main continuity of the Warhammer40000 universe and share characters between them, so there is no real reason to count them as being seperate just because one is a Tabletop Game and one is a video game.
I don't have time to maintain a list of every character that's been considered. If someone else wants to, that's on you. I am just putting the ones that keep coming up in the OP. A thread search will suffice for the rest.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@ 6662
Alright. Sounds to me like a lot of those SRW examples were added solely because of how their counterparts acted in their respective shows. I can't comment on all of them, but I can comment on all the Gundam examples. Assuming that the game follows the shows with something approaching faithfullness, here's my assessment:
Gihren Zabi-Keep. He's been the Universal Century's definitive CM since 1979.
Jamitov Hymem-Cut. In the show he's a cardboard cutout with no personality who barely appears. We cut him from the Zeta YMMV page, and if he's the same in SRW he should go there as well.
Bask Om & Yazan Gable-Keep. Unlike Jamitov, Yazan and Bask have enough onscreen crimes to qualify.
Carozzo Ronah-Iaculus made a pretty convincing argument for removing Carozzo from the Gundam CM page some posts back. I'd say cut, unless the game makes him worse.
Fonse Kagatie-Keep. One of the few Universal Century characters to approach Gihren's level of awful.
Gym Ghingham-Keep. By far the most evil character in the Correct Century.
Dekim Barton-Was cut from Wing's YMMV page and the Gundam subpage. Cut.
Muruta Azrael-Keep. The worst villain in the Cosmic Era by far.
Patrick Zala-Cut. We axed him from the Gundam subpage and the SEED YMMV page for not being as bad as Azrael.
Rau Le Creuset-Cut. Strong Freudian Excuse (if you were a clone of a man who abused you, then left you to die, and saw his face every time you looked in the mirror, you'd have problems too), and again, overshadowed by Azrael in the parent series.
Lord Djibril-Keep. The only Cosmic Era villain to equal Azrael.
Gauron should probably go too.
Again, keep in mind that I'm assuming the game's portrayal matches that of the show. If I'm wrong, and they just sort of show up and don't follow the show plotline, axe them. Same goes if they are overshadowed by the series' original villains.
edited 8th Jan '13 5:50:31 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
That SRW example looks like they just listed - if not all - a good chunk of the villains. Having not played any of the games I am just going by what I know from their home shows.
Patrick Zala and Rau Le Cruset are easily disqualified. Both have sympathetic elements (loving his wife and being an abused child with a terminal condition).
Azrael and Djbril count in their respective shows by fairly large margins.
Jamitov might count if he are given more screen time to commit heinous acts and develop a personality.
Bask Om should still count unless they talk about his Freudian Excuse that was only mentioned in side material (being a POW in the last war and being tortured repeatedly).
Yazan Gabal and Gihren Zabi are keepers, they are on the Gundam CM list for a reason.
edited 8th Jan '13 6:18:55 PM by SophiaLonesoul
The only thing I remember about my extremely limited experience with Super Robot Wars is Yazan Gable appearing in the second mission of Alpha Gaiden, talking smack or something, and then getting blown up. Dunno if he appeared as a villain in other games, but in the context of Alpha Gaiden, he is a nobody and sort of illustrates the problem with approaching those lists like this.

Is being loyal a redeeming quality? Especially if somebody is a Psycho for Hire, like Brasi, it could only be because he gets much to kill.
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