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
If those World War I commanders and generals were not from real life but from a work of fiction, then I would easily consider them to be complete monsters based on the horrible shit they've done...the only reason I can't is because we've ruled that the trope cannot be applied to real life. But I guess what you're saying is that if the high commanders from virtually every side are like that, then it essentially becomes a case of Darkness-Induced Audience Apathy.
I'm definitely going with
for Ludendorff and
for Ares and especially Dr. Poison who comes across as beleaguered than anything. Definitely not a nice person, especially in the moment where they gas their superiors (seriously, I got a strange 'Allo 'Allo! vibe from that bit in spite of how horrific it was) but not quite enough to qualify here.
Even so, I take the film as the narrative it presents. In the DCEU we can probably assume that aside from what we see in the movie, World War I is still more-or-less the same as in real life, and thus people at least as bad as Ludendorff do exist among many of the constituent nations. But we're not shown or told their stories. We are presented the story of a single insane German general, and as he's portrayed in the narrative—as we have defined the Complete Monster trope—I'd say he counts.
edited 15th Jun '17 10:18:48 PM by speyeker
@ Ambar Sonof Deshar, I have no problem with fiction putting a twist on a real life events for the sake of drama, X-Men First Class had evil mutants involved in the Cuban missile crisis and we reviewed a candidate from a movie where vampires where involved in the Civil War. How many over the top Nazi, Soviet and even US military villains have we seen on this thread?
Anyway yes to Ludendorf and no to the other Wonder Woman villains. Also yes to Ghadius, Caleb Switch, Tristam and Tyrannus.
No to Nameless God.
I have a question about the heinous standard in Star Trek, how much does a low level villain have to do stand out as heinous enough? I think we rejected a serial killer hologram from Voyager as not being heinous enough. Now standard villainy can be argued to be trying to destroy the main Star Fleet ship of the show and the Enterprise D has a 1000 crew man on board, including children.
There was an a Next Generation two parter called the Gambit that featured a space pirate named Baran, who who was hired to collect some ancient artifacts. He ran his ship like a slave ship, implanting his entire crew with devices designed to inflict pain on them if they disobey him and can kill them if he wishes. He also tries to destroy a Federation outpost, that Picard and Riker manage to save with some quick thinking, we don't know how many people are on the outpost, but it is still a sneak attack and an attempt to murder innocent people. Baran may not have the same rap sheet as say Lore or Dolim, but he does have less resources, relying on one ship and torture devices to get head. Would he be heinous enough and worth effort posting?
edited 15th Jun '17 10:26:13 PM by Overlord
No, what I'm saying is that there's nothing particularly "cartoonish" about his portrayal, which was the comment I was responding to. The real Ludendorff may not have been as portrayed—though the rhetoric is spot on—but he was still a seriously bad dude, and the things he does in the film are things that many of his real life contemporaries did do, or would have done given the opportunity.
I'm not arguing against his qualifying on that basis—I'm arguing against the notion that this is a particularly unrealistic portrayal of how human beings act (a "mustache twirling villain" as the post I was replying to put it). WWI was a hundred years ago now, and the things people said and did in that era can seem utterly alien to us now that we are this far removed from it, and that goes double for the leaders of most armies, who lived in a world where War Is Hell had not really sunk in yet, and ideas about the glory and vitally Darwinian role of war were still very much alive. Haig, Cadorna, Conrad von Hotzendorf...they all seem like caricatures to anyone reading about them now, and they were relatively normal. When you get to the people who were evil even by the standards of the day...
Well I say it once again—if you were to make a biopic about Ismail Enver Pasha you would be making a film about a man who got his job via Klingon Promotion. Who shot or fired a thousand officers after taking over the army. Who killed a man in a political debate. Who orchestrated the genocidal murder of close on two million Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, and tried to make it seem as if the murdered had never existed in the first place. Who bet the lives of prisoners of war on horse races. Who freed some men who were to be killed in the genocide because an American diplomat asked for their lives as a Ramadan gift...and then planned to kill them anyway. Who had over a thousand of his own officers court martialed for committing the genocide that he ordered them to commit. Who, after losing the war, fled to Kazakhstan and tried to start an Islamist uprising against the Communist Party, kicking off yet another armed conflict. He's not even alone—his triumviral colleagues, Cemal Pasha and Talaat Pasha were near as crazy, and his uncle, Halil Bey, not only murdered 300 000 Armenians for Enver, but bragged about it in his memoirs and to the Armenian parliament.
Sometimes real people act like cardboard caricatures. It's not a fun thing to admit, but while real people cannot qualify for the trope for obvious reasons, that doesn't mean a portrayal of a person that falls into this territory is unrealistic or cartoonish. I don't think Ludendorff qualifies for the trope for reasons I mentioned elsewhere, but I also don't think that he should be written off as something vastly removed from real life.
End of spiel.
edited 15th Jun '17 10:41:34 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
I wonder if it's possible for anyone on The Simpsons is capable of being considered for CM candidacy. Unlike South Park the setting isn't nearly as Black Comedy. So far Russ Cargill seems closest(his plan would result in the highest death toll in the series) and proves to be a Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist, it's just that he's Laughably Evil enough to prevent him qualifying.
Luddendorf. Luddendorf was a piece of shit in real life being one of Hitler's primary backers.
And speaking of I had a debate about that with a Greg Weisman fan. I argued that most real villains don't do things for "a better world" but for base and petty reasons, and that Greg Weisman kinda failed to grasp that. While Weisman isn't a bad writer he does seem enamored with his villains and keeps them from having real setbacks until the very end, while having the heroes constantly bicker. The guy tried to argue that the light weren't villain sues and seemed to object to my examples about how real villains acted for petty reasons, saying that real criminals are just idiots and he doesn't want to see that.
edited 16th Jun '17 2:53:59 AM by LordYAM
Ludendirt (got that one from Scraggle in a PM and thought it funny)
And... I'm gonna
the uncomfortably attractive Dr Poison. I see her role in the film as being more or less on par with Lud, with him providing the logistics and the strategies and her providing her expertise to fuel her sick fascination with death and entropy. I see them as a Big Bad Duumvirate - or more accurately, unwitting Co-Dragons - myself. I also rewatched the film last night and I maintain not really feeling mitigating qualities. I see her relationship with Lud more a case of ego and practicality - why would she align with Trevor, whom she knows nothing about, when she's got a good thing going with Lud and they "work well together". So, yeah, I agree with Ravok on the redeeming qualities point, which I'm glad of. I thought I'd be the only one to not see it. But, it's a sure thing that she's not gonna make it. I was sure she and Lud would be jointly approved when I came out the cinema until the next day when Lighty told me via PM "Definite No". I'll live with it, however.
And
Ares, who I was leaning against when I came out the cinema and only became more firmly against as time went on.
Now, Klonoa is my fourth favourite game of all time, so I gotta say this:
Ghadius. Here's the thing, his motive is that people only wanted good dreams, and nightmares was his dominion. He can only create bad dreams, and this rejection led to his Face–Heel Turn. Did he go too far? Yes. But I still see his motive as just sympathetic enough to oppose his inclusion. And believe me, I've considered him myself.
Though I was one of the only people left who voted against Ardyn when he was brought up again and finally approved (I was and still am 51% against him which is enough in my calculations), so take that as you will.
It's been two weeks since Tekken 7 came out, but I'm gonna wait a little longer because I'm lazy and need to finish my Effo- I mean, I want people to focus on Wonder Woman first so Tekken doesn't get buried. And I rather dislike cluttering this thread. Gotta keep it tidy, no?
edited 16th Jun '17 4:03:09 AM by PolarPhantom
Ghadius after Polar's relevations.
to Ludendorff. Through I will say his historical villain upgrade it's more akin to Stalin from C&C and Twilight of the Red Tzar in the sense of taking a really nasty person in real life and emphasizing their negative aspects than the more nuttier historical villain upgrades such as Nobunaga.
to Dr. Poison, but I think her mitigating qualities are undeveloped enough to mean nothing. For me it's moreso she dosen't really stand out well as a character and comes off as a GDV
Ares. I'm suprised that we've had very few greek gods qualify barring Hades from kid Icarus, and even that was a close debate. Through admittly Zeus from Go W and Apotheon would qualify if it weren't for his mitagating qualities in both AND arguably Kratos overshadowing him in the former.
edited 16th Jun '17 6:25:10 AM by xie323
I think at one point we considered William Stryker from the X-Men films (played by Danny Huston in Origins: Wolverine) a Complete Monster, but ultimately cut him upon examining his mitigating factors like Even Evil Has Loved Ones. He's still an extremely nasty piece of work, though.
edited 16th Jun '17 7:00:39 AM by speyeker
So, here's
the scene
for MAX!Kingpin. Seems like standards to me. Granted, he DOES hire him back, but that's for self-preservation.
As for Bullseye, looking at the
scene
, he does indeed seem to, if not regret what he's done, trying to dissuade Mrs. Fisk from following his path.
Huston also played Arthur Burns, who apparently is evil but loves his family
edited 16th Jun '17 7:08:06 AM by ACW
Anyway, since we can talk about it now, the existence of Ludendorff and Doctor Poison is the reason why Lightysnake and I are were both so dead set against DCEU!Luthor going up. Lacking his resources and equipped with only WWI technology, the two of them tried to kill drop poison gas on London and keep the war going, which would, collectively, kill millions of people across all sides. At the moment only Zod has a higher attempted bodycount, and he's vastly more powerful than they are.
I would like to point out something. Camberf reserved a discussion for the upcoming God Of War game. I wanted go point that it is actually entirely possible for the game to have a CM since now it takes place in a very different time period and Kratos's actions no longer have merit on the heinous standard. I mean, with AC games, we judge each historical period differently, so I think we should do same with the God of War games.
Welcome to the world of greatest media!

@Ambar: It's funny: I knew next to nothing about the the real Ludendorff other than that he, you know, existed and was a real person. I assumed that he wasn't a pleasant guy until I actually did some research a few minutes before reading your comment and learning that he played a big role in the rise of the Nazi party. Even then though, he was a bad guy, but not "Drop horrific chemical weapons on all of London, gas my fellow officers and laugh about it with my cute scientist friend like a pair of school bullies" bad.
Though I'm afraid that I'm making myself look like a jackass for explaining myself now. :I
edited 15th Jun '17 10:07:52 PM by FriedWarthog