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
the Collector and both Alexes
@J Rads 47: Okay, I know that 2016!Nefarious was approved by the thread, not sure about the villain from Tools of Destruction.
A 'Yes' to Lighty's Alex. What a strange occurence....
Alrighty, next candidate from me. Ladies and germs, I present another of my seemingly trademark villains. Enjoy, ACW, you sick gorehoud, you.
What's the work?
The Resurrectionist by Wrath James White, author of oh so classical tales featuring CMs such as The Teratologist and Pure Hate. YAY.
Now then, our protagonists are Sarah and Jack Lincoln. They are your average American husband and wife, they get up, go to work, eat, sleep, and have sex.
Only...something's been OFF these past few days. Sarah's been having these horrible, horrible nightmares where she and Jack are brutally tortured and murdered over and over again these past few nights, but she knows they're not real. I mean, how COULD they be? The duo don't have so much as a scratch on them in the morning, and they still....you know, alive.
Unfortunately for them, it's far from a dream. Because they've got a new next door neighbor, and he is looking to join the community in the best way he knows how: MUUUUUUUUHHHHHRDEEEER.
Who is he?
Dale McCarthy is our resident psychopath and monster for the evening.
When Dale here was a child, his father was rather abusive toward his mother, and, one night, Dale's father decided to brutally rape and murder his wife, during which Dale walked in on him.
Calling the cops which leads to his father's death, Dale tries to give his butchered mother CPR like he "saw on TV" to bring her back, much to the pity of the surrounding officers.
Until the body parts start regenerating. And the woman starts breathing. Then walking.
My friends, Dale is the titular Resurrectionist, and he has the ability to bring the dead back to life within a day or two after they die. Unfortunately, he is NOT the John Coffey of this tale.
What has he done?
With his new ability, Dale began killing things, then bringing them back to life, over....and over.....and over again. Luckily (Depending on you POV), those he brings back have no memory of what killed them beyond vague dreams and nightmares.
Bugs? Kittens? All fair game for Dale, culminating in Dale coming into his grandmother's room at night, strangling her, then bringing her back to life. This slowly escalates until, every night, Dale is torturing and molesting and murdering his own grandmother. And all at the striking age of 13 (Approx.)!
When Dale gets tired of his grandmother's constant wailings that Dale has killed her numerous times and has the Devil in him, Dale increases his nightly visits to such an extent that the old woman has a heart attack, which Dale refuses to heal her of.
Now living alone with his mother, Dale has become convinced that he has been granted these powers by God himself to make up for his lack of attractive physical appearance and such.
Dale's mother eventually tries to kill herself, at which point Dale brings her back, proclaiming that he loves her and will NEVER let her go, leading her to slowly go insane from his constant killing and reviving everything around him.
After numerous failed attempts to kill herself, Dale's mother finally tries to beat her son's head in with a hammer, which....fails, as Dale's power heals himself as well, and at this point, Dale drops all pretense of caring for his mother.
Finally, Dale's mother does the impossible, and sets their home ablaze, burning herself alive while trying to take Dale down with her....too bad he smelled the smoke and got out in time. Uh-oh.
Now without any guardians, Dale soon tries to get a girlfriend, which leads to a girl making fun of his appearance. He proceeds to torture her then slit her throat before reviving her and dropping her off at her house, giddily laughing about the fact that he even got a handshake out of her father.
Years pass, and Dale develops a pattern:
- Step 1: Find a woman he likes.
- Step 2: BREAK IN AND TORTURE HER TO DEATH, LUL.
- Step 3: Revive her, clean up the....mess, then leave her house.
- Step 4: Rinse and Repeat.
- Step 5: PROFIT.
So....yeah, for YEARS Dale breaks into a woman's house at night, brutally tortures and rapes her for hours on end, then murders before reviving her and fleeing the scene, leaving the woman with no memories of the ordeal, then repeats the process for as long as the woman holds his attention.
Only one woman thus far has remembered enough through dreams to think to put a recording tape going one nght under her bed. It involved flaying, and I shan't say more.
Now then, in the present, Dale has doen this to....too many people to count, with he hinself boasting with no reason to lie a victim count higher than any serial killer in history. Loooovely.
With a creepy thought process that he's not ACTUALLY killing or hurting anyone since he brings them right back, Dale moves into a new neighborhood where he immediately takes a liking to one Sarah Lincoln.
Breaking into her and her husband's house one night, Dale slashes the husband, Jack's, throat before doing his thing to Sarah, then reviving them before fleeing.
For several nights Dale carries out his sick little crimes, until Sarah, slowly remembering what was done to her via her dreams, eventually confronts Dale and slaps him in the face. This....was not the best idea.
In retaliation, Dale takes his torment of the duo up a notch, as he ties them noth up, rapes and tortures each one in front of the other, then brutally kills them both.before reviving them once more.
Though Sarah caught this act on a secret camera she had set up, the police won't accept it as evidence due to the fact that he kills them in it, and they are....well, ALIVE.
When two choice detectives believe them and hide the duo away after Dale murders them alongside another police oficer numerous more times, Dale captures the detectives and tortures them for the whereabouts of Sarah and Jack.
After flaying one alive starting at the fingers and killing the other in a way I shan't describe, Dale finally gets the info he wants and kills the remaining one, planning to come back later and revive them.
Capturing Sarah, Dale attempts to rape and murder he one last time before fleeing the area for good and starting all over again somewhere else, however Jack and another detective show up, brutalize the prick, and force him to revive the two detectives he killed.
Still unable to convict Dale of anything serious because of no bodies, things take a turn for the worse and/or better when one ofthe detectives, finally tired of his crap, straight up guns Dale down.
....unfortunately, this has the side effect of permanently killing EVERYONE Dale ever killed then revived, so buh-bye all major characters, and even as they die, Dale begins to regenerate his body parts, hoping to continue his spree once more.
....except he's surroudned by dead bodies filled with his dna. And LIVE cops are everywhere. So yeah, I'm thinking 20 lifetimes of prison should teach old Dale here a lesson in manners. Add that plus the fact that he will likely revive them all because of his derabged mindset, and I'd call that a happy ending.....sorta.
Debatable.
Dale did indeed walk in on his mother brutally raped and killed by his father, which is horrible, don't get me wrong, and this was indeed what put the idea of torture and murder in Dale's head.
But this....isn't played near as bad as it sounds. Dale looks back on it and gets excited (If you know what I mean), and it's played as his Start of Darkness, but it doesn't REMOTELY justify what he does. Dale moves on from it pretty quick, and never looks back on it sadly or anything, so yeah, I'm not seeing anything nearing a legitimate, justifying excuse. It serves as the idea of evil in Dale's head, nothing more.
Think Zoom, honestly.
Redeeming features?
Dale did Kilgrave before Kilgrave was cool (Holy crap, comic book TV show writers took inspiration from crime novels).
What I mean is that Dale is completely and utterly deranged in his assertions that he's not ACTUALLY committing any crimes since he "fixes" them. This...this is such BS I forgot to laugh.
Dale is knowingly brutally raping, torturing, and murdering these innocent people...and has the GALL to say that, since he revives them and they don't remember, it's ok.
Secondly, Dale is near obsessive with how he revives people, in that he thinks he HAS to to stay in "God's good will". But this is BS as well, as he proclaims that truthfully, he's just scared of losing his ability.
Thirdly, Dale's relationship with his mom was....complicated. In his teens, Dale seemed to care for her SORT OF, if one could consider making her a life a living nightmare of guilt and shame at her demonic son and refusing to let her die care, and actually does show sadness when she calls him a monster then tries to kill him.
Thing is? By the present, Dale hates his mother, and looks back on her as a fool for not appreciating his "gifts", and while he is haunted by nightmares of her killing him, this isn't remotely sympathetic or redeeming.
Finally, Dale thinks that his crimes are justified and that God granted him these powers because he is a good person and DESERVES to have women however he wants, but because he has a poor physical appearance, he had to find other ways to do so because nobody wuvs him. Which apparently means rape and torture is fair game. Sure buddy. Suuuuuuure.
Heinousness?
Worst in-story, and is so far past the baseline I don't even think one could see it.
So, yeah, what he does to his victims the FIRST night would qualify him. If he tortured, raped, and killed these people once each like a normal Serial Killer, he would still be quite a bit past the baseline.
But then....THEN he has to go and do it NUMEROUS TIMES to each and every one fo his victims, and it's just....it's just bad, man. Just bad.
Final Verdict?
Dale here thinks he's a sympathetic Dogged Nice Guy. He thinks God is on his side. He thinks that what he does isn't bad because he fixes the people he kills. He thinks he's oh so deserving of having whatever he wants as recompence for no one truly loving him (Despite that being total crap).
Too bad DALE HERE is a psychopathic, childish little prick who can barely look a woman in the eye unless he's torturing, humilating, raping, violating, or murdering her, and is so freaking hateable that he stirs something in the pit of my stomach that I haven't felt since Dr. David freaking Galbraith.
Keep him I say, KEEP. HIM.
edited 21st Apr '17 11:09:44 PM by Ravok
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!The fact that there is an author of shitty crime/horror novels named Wrath James White may honestly be the best thing I've ever read in this thread. I'm not even joking - I'm going to remind myself of this moment next time there's some dumb argument about a kid's cartoon character or whatever and I'm wondering if following this is really worth it anymore.
And yeah,
to his character.
Vote Tally for Peter Lipton:
Yes: Polar Phantom, Demon Duckof Doom, G-Editor, username2527, Ravok, and myself.
No: Scraggle.
Abstaining: Zeta Ridge, Tyk 5919, MGD 107, and Tommy Fresh.
If we are done, here is a write up:
- In My Daughter's Name: Peter Lipton rapes and kills Carly Elias. In court, it is revealed that Lipton had previously raped another girl named Barbra Samp. After Carly's mother, Laura, begins stalking Lipton after he's released from psychiatric evaluation, Lipton confronts Laura outside her home, and implies that he wants to rape her other daughter, Lissa. Lipton tries to lure in a girl he meets at the mall to rape, before he is stopped and shot dead by Lauren.
How is this?
PS: No, it's not a misspelling, the second daughter's name is actually spelled Lissa and not Lisa.
edited 22nd Apr '17 12:49:51 AM by bobg
jjjOkay (deep breath):
- fs1: That looks good. I'll take care of the potholes and such.
- Lighty: Should it be Mao Dante or Demon Lord Dante? Also, Devilman page or the main anime page?
- DDD: Even though that's the caption at DC Comics, I also like adding it to the quote page with the extra context. I too have Asperger's FWIW.
- SLIGHT
Peter Lipton, but very slight.
Collector (only thing that makes me hesitate is the new Collector at the end, but we don't know anything about him, and Zane's Collector definitely seems bad enough); Alexander; Alex (abstaining on Terry); and Dale definitely (nrjxll, fun fact: Wrath was a kickboxer before becoming an author. Look
◊ at him
◊.
If the same goes for you guys I also have aspergers as well
Also
to the collector , both Alex's , and Dale
edited 22nd Apr '17 2:43:44 AM by G-Editor
My sandbox of EPs and other stuffI'd like to re-open discussion on The Fallen Child from Undertale. The character was rejected last time on the basis that their actions were linked to the player's - I have counter-arguments for that point in particular.
I could do a full effort post to give the character a fair hearing.
(Funnily enough, I realise that I weighed in on the "nay" side - but that was before playing the game.)
edited 22nd Apr '17 3:50:09 AM by BigglesTh9
I just thought about this. Shouldn't we put our official philosophy that "Complete Monster is not a badge of honor" on the main page and the guideline for this thread? I think this might reduce some unforseen problems like people becoming emotional over their favorite villains not being keepers.
Actually, shouldn't we make some of our rules stated here on this thread clear on the main page itself? For instance, people won't really be aware of that CM doesn't apply to Torture Porn if all they've read is the main page, not to mention that there isn't a link from the main page to here.
edited 22nd Apr '17 5:03:54 AM by Wuz
That's probably a good idea, considering a lot of people believe Evil Is Cool, and the eviler the better.
I know this is hypocritical coming from me but I'm just trying to atone for my little hissy fit yesterday.
