Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

On the subject of the Dalek Time Controller, I've tried searching up prior discussions and haven't gotten much and I've looked him up on the wiki. I'd like to ask what proof there is the Time Controller in particular has the agency every other Dalek doesn't.

All right, last candidate from Deptford Mice. Fair warning, the candidate I'm about to bring up is a Walking Spoiler for The Oaken Throne.

So spoiler warning and all that.

Who Is He?

Wendel Maculatum is a stoat jester. He's also the murderous High Priest of Hobb working alongside Lady Morwenna.

What Does He Do?

Wendel infiltrates Coll Regalis, Ysabelle's home, and partipates in the community's festival, all while entertaining the animals around him with his jokes and puppets. As he engages in conversation with Ysabelle, Rohgar and his bats attack the community, and Wendel saves her life, getting wounded in the process. After Ysabelle is ordered to head to Greenreach, Wendel begs to come along—a request Lady Ninnia grants after the "valor" he displayed earlier. During his journey, Wendel constantly lifts Ysabelle's spirits with his jokes and antics, keeping his disguise intact. It isn't until after Ysabelle's guards captured Vesper and Coll Regalis is destroyed where night falls, and Wendel conveniently "disappears." While he's gone, the Hobb cult finds Ysabelle's convoy, kills some of the guards, and takes Ysabelle and her friends hostage.

Wendel, now dressed as the High Priest, appears in front of a massive crowd of Hobbers, now in possession of the Silver Acorn. After sacrificing three of Ysabelle's guards, he lets his Hobbers devour their bodies while also dipping the Acorn in their blood (there's a reason for that). Ysabelle's mentor, Godfrey, manages to subdue one of the Hobbers, and the prisoners escape and set many of the Hobbers on fire. Wendel orders the Hobbers to kill Ysabelle and her guards and friends. Although Godfrey tries to fight him off, Wendel slays him, but not before Godfrey reaquires the Acorn and hands it over to Ysabelle.

Wendel wakes up after being subdued and chases after Ysabelle and Vesper. Just as he's about to kill them, he's stopped because of Deus ex Machina that I don't have time to thoroughly explain. Since he can't kill them, he instead places a curse on both of them: Vesper is to beware of bells, while the holder of the blood-soaked Silver Acorn (who at the time is Ysabelle) shall die. He also gloats how he already set Hobb's resurrection in motion and there's nothing anyone can do to stop it (considering that Hobb was resurrected later on, he wasn't lying here). Wendel immediately reports his failure to Morwenna and reassures her that he'll get the Acorn back after she scolds him.

After a very long absence, Wendel, now donning his jester disguise, reappears and regroups with Ysabelle's group (along with Tysle Symkin and Giraldus). Wendel continues to act friendly around the group and constantly lightens the mood. Up until several swamp-like ghouls appear and try to kill Ysabelle's group, and Wendel leaves them all to die. None of Ysabelle's group thinks anything malicious of it and writes off his actions as being a Dirty Coward. After more traveling, Ysabelle's group is captured by a soldier named Fenny and escorted to the mouse's stronghold, where they're all imprisoned after being mistaken for Hobbers. Eventually this is all cleared up, Wendel and the rest of Ysabelle's group is freed, and woodlanders in the stronghold hold a feast for her and the others. As always, Wendel entertains the guests and keeps his act on play. At some point, Tysle sifts through Wendel's chests full of jester knick-knacks in private, and finds the same garment costume the High Priest wore the same night Tysle's family was murdered long ago, and when Ysabelle's group was captured earlier.

Cue Wendel showing up and murdering Tysle. He later skins his body, which is found later on and leads to Giraldus having a breakdown. Shortly after the body is discovered, Wendel's Hobbers show up and storm the hall, killing dozens (although we find out later some creatures, including Fenny, survived). Wendel, Giraldus, Vesper, and Ysabelle try to escape through the compound's secret tunnels, and it's here where Wendel reveals his true nature. He spends his time gloating about how Ysabelle's friends are all gonna die and that he skinned Tysle, which leads to Giraldus nearly choking him to death. He wakes up shortly afterwards and gets into a brutal fight with Giraldus as his Hobbers storm the tunnel. After seemingly killing Giraldus, Wendel orders his Hobbers to kill Vesper and Ysabelle. Until Giraldus wakes up and uses his last ounce of strength to destroy the tunnel, crushing himself, Wendel, and his Hobbers.

Skip to the end of the book, where Vesper encounters a strange creature after everything has been resolved. The strange creature offers Vesper a drink. Which is tainted with poison. Turns out that this creature was Wendel's ghost, who came back so he could fulfill the curse he placed on Vesper earlier. After that, the ghost disappears.

And then Vesper dies.

And then the book ends.

Cue me throwing the fucking book on the floor.

Freudian Excuse?

None.

Redeeming Qualities?

Nope. Any form of kindness he showed throughout the book was nothing but a display to keep his disguise intact.

Does He Have Any Loved Ones?

No. The relationship between him and Lady Morwenna is never established. As far as I could tell, he's either The Dragon for Morwenna, or he's half of a Big Bad Duumvirate.

Heinous Standard?

This is probably what's gonna get Wendel axed. As mentioned earlier, the heinous standard for this series is messed up. Essentially every major villain in this franchise is some cultist, some cannibal, some insane murderer, etc. The biggest problem for me is judging where Wendel fits in terms of his resources. As the High Priest, he had thousands of Hobbers at his disposal, and with those Hobbers, he basically directly or indirectly killed almost all of Ysabelle's company (except for her maidservant Griselda). Wendel himself personally killed Godfrey, Vesper, Tysle, and mortally wounded Giraldus to a point where he committed a Mutual Kill. His Hobbers also stormed the stronghold Fenny and his company was held up in, and while it wasn't thoroughly detailed, the book made it clear that the stronghold was destroyed and a majority of its members were killed.

Wendel doesn't do as much damage as Lady Morwenna or even the High Priest from Thomas, but then again, he didn't have their level of resources either. The High Priest in Thomas not only had his own ship that was capable of creating a storm powerful enough to sink a ship, but he also had giant crocodiles (it still amazes me how he got crocs under his control) and hyenas, amongst tens of thousands of cultists. Lady Morwenna destroyed two towns, but that was mainly because her army consisted of bats, and all these bats in question carried bombs with them, so it was much easier for them to destroy entire towns.

I'd say Wendel is on the same level as Morgan: he's got thousands of minions as his disposal, but they're mostly ground soldiers. And said minions constantly torment the protagonists as much as possible. And, like Morgan, there's evidence of other cruel deeds that happened off-screen. Before Wendel reunites with Ysabelle's group, they find several bodies and skulls impaled on spikes. They also run into a kind mice couple traveling in the woods. Some time later, while the Hobbers are spying on them and toying with them, they throw the husband mouse's severed head at them just to mess with them. The book never mentions what happened to his wife.

There's just something about Wendel that pushes him further than the other Dragons in this series. The way he jokingly made fun of Godfrey and others, despite secretly insulting them; the fact that he shamelessly left Tysle's body in a place where he knew it'd be found, and somehow had the time to skin it instead of properly disposing of it; the way he gloated to Giraldus about his death, saying that "the little runt did want me to carve him" when he was talking about how Tysle wanted his own puppet carved for him. It's just that slimy, smug behavior that irks me.

And to be fair, he is a big reason why Hobb was resurrected. By dipping the Silver Acorn in the blood of those squirrels, he basically summoned Hobb from the bowels of Hell. One could argue that Wendel and Morwenna could both count equally, since they both did lots of damage and almost caused the end of the world together. But they both have vastly different personalities and misdeeds, so they warrant their own effortposts.

Final Verdict?

Ehhhhhhhhh, I'll see what everyone says. I won't hold it against anyone if he doesn't make it due to heinous standard reasons. I'm personally leaning towards keeper, but it's up to you guys to determine if Wendel is a CM or just a Hate Sink Hero Killer. Or both.

edited 15th Aug '17 8:01:31 AM by Tyk5919

Yeah, I've always been curious about the Dalek Time Controller too.

I'll vote to Wendel, it sounds like he manages to do enough with his resources.

Because you guys are curious, the Dalek Time Controller is from the Big Finish series.

I'll give Wendel a slight . Maybe not AS high a body count as the others, but his Jerkassery seems to make up for it.

And wow, holy crap, that sounds like a BAD ending (and I don't necessarily just mean Downer Ending).

Wendell. Haven't read the other EPs for that series yet, but he sounds bad enough.

edited 15th Aug '17 8:54:33 AM by Stellarvore

Okay, I really hate this movie, but I still think it has a character who qualifies, so hear I go.

Setting

Superman Returns is a reboot that serves as a "true sequel" to Superman II. Superman has been missing for years because he left Earth to find any possible surviving remnants of his home planet Krypton. Lex Luthor, who has recently gotten out of prison, comes up with another scheme to kill Superman once and for all.

The Character

Lex Luthor breaks into Superman's Fortress of Solitude and steals several crystals that grow into a gigantic landmass when exposed to water. To give it a test drive, he shaves off a tiny piece and experiments with it in his basemenr, causing a massive blackout. Now fully aware of just how destructive the crystals are, he sets his plan into motion, also stealing a shard of kryptonite from a museum. He takes Lois Lane and her son hostage when they stowaway on his yacht and finally reveals his grand plan. He intends to use the crystals to create a new continent so he sell the land. When Lois protests that the cataclysm brought on by the expanding land mass will kill millions, Luthor corrects her, proudly shouting that billions will die. He fuses the crystal with the kyrptonite and launches it into the ocean, creating a giant island made of kryptonite that is steadily getting bigger. Superman arrives, but the kryptonite weakens him. Luthor, instead of simply killing Superman immediately, decides to torture him by beating him to within an inch of life and embedding a kyrptonite shard into his back.

Overall, Luthor is shown to be completely remorseless and sadistic. The only two things he cares about are killing Superman and making money at the expense of billions of lives.

Mitigating Factors

None really. His kindness to the old lady in the beginning was simply a ploy so she would put him in her will. His relationship with Kitty is purely physical, and he even says himself that he would gladly trade every ounce of her blood for some helicopter fuel. There's also the fact that he endangered her life by cutting the brakes on her car on the off chance that Superman happened to be there. His speech about how Superman should share his technology with mankind is also shot down by the fact that he seems positively thrilled at the idea of killing billions of men, women, and children just to sell his real estate, showing he doesn't give a damn about humanity at all.

Yech, I feel dirty talking about this movie. Anyway, for Spacey!Luthor.

All right, everyone, I've got a new proposal. The character is from an ongoing series, but it has traditionally had a somewhat spotty release schedule and the author hasn't come down hard for a number of how many books remain, so who knows how long it will be before the series actually finishes. I think this character's odds of getting a redeeming quality before the end are very slim, and I've been P Ming with Lightysnake about it and decided to go ahead and effortpost.

What's the Work?

The Chronicles of the Kencyrath is a rather obscure but long-running High Fantasy series by P. C. Hodgell. It's set in a linked multiverse called the Chain of Creation, which was invaded millennia ago by a force of chaos and corruption called Perimal Darkling. The entity called the Three-Faced God opposed the invader, and bound together three races - the elf-like Highborn to lead, the strong and hardy Kendar to fight and serve, and the immortal, catlike Arrin-ken to serve as impartial judges between the other two - to form the Kencyrath, a warrior nation to fight the enemy. The Three-Faced God gave the Kencyr various magical abilities and artifacts, but when the time came for battle to be joined, the God never showed; the Kencyr were defeated and forced to flee down the Chain from world to world as the Darkling taint spread. This state of affairs continued for countless millennia, but though they could only hold each world for at most a few centuries, they contented themselves in the knowledge that even in defeat, they still had honor.

Our CM candidate, Gerridon, would end that notion.

Who is Gerridon?

Gerridon, a Kencyr Highborn, was Master of the Knorth (essentially, the Kencyr royal house) and by extension Highlord of the entire Kencyrath, but he would go down in history as the arch-traitor to his people and his god. What did he do? Well, let's look at the story of his fall, which is repeated often enough in the books to qualify as Arc Words:

Gerridon Highlord, Master of Knorth, a proud man was he. The Three People held he in his hand - Arrin-ken, Highborn, and Kendar - by right of birth and might. Wealth and power had he, and knowledge deeper than the Sea of Stars. But he feared death. "Dread Lord," he said to the Shadow that Crawls, even to Perimal Darkling, ancient of enemies, "my god regards me not. If I serve thee, wit thou preserve me, even to the end of time?" Night bowed over him. Words they spoke. Then went my lord Gerridon to his sister, the priestess Jamethiel Dream-weaver, and said, "Dance out the souls of the faithful that darkness may enter in." And she danced. Two-thirds of the People fell that night, Highborn and Kendar. "Rise up, Highlord of the Kencyrath!" said the Arrin-ken to Glendar. "Your brother has forfeited all. Flee, man, flee, and we will follow." And so he fled, Cloak, Knife, and Book abandoning, into the new world. Barriers he raised, and his people consecrated them. "A watch we will keep," they said, "and our honor someday avenge. Alas for the greed of a man and the deceit of a woman, that we should come to this!"

So long story short, Gerridon sold the souls of his entire race for immortality, and used his twin sister as his dupe for capturing them in the process. He, Jamethiel, his chosen servants (who voluntarily accompanied him in the Fall and were transformed into vampire-like creatures called Darkling Changers, so called because they could take the forms of those whose blood they consumed) and their victims remained in the fallen world as darkness consumed it, while in the new world of Rathillien the unfallen Kencyr, shamed by his betrayal, came in time to forget their mission and either hired themselves out as mercenaries or turned on each other. So he waited for three thousand years, until his store of captured souls began to run out - with no new souls to consume, Gerridon would lose his immortality, and Jamethiel Dream-weaver couldn't capture him any more, as the very powers that had enabled her to reap souls in the first place were now killing her. Perimal Darkling spoke to him once again, offering him true immortality if he consented to become its Voice, but Gerridon was too proud to take the deal - he hated being subservient to anyone, even Perimal Darkling, and had decided he wanted immortality and power on his own terms. So he started to lay his plans...

And that's just the backstory. Let's see what he does during the actual books.

What Does He Do?

As related in the flashbacks in the fifth book, Bound in Blood, Gerridon approached the current Kencyr Highlord, Gerraint, about a generation before the main plot began, promising to resurrect Gerraint's beloved son Greshan, who'd died in a hunting accident, in return for a marriage contract to one of Gerraint's daughters - Gerridon had determined that he needed to replace the Dream-Weaver, and to get someone with her abilities, that meant either he or she had to have a child. Gerraint agreed, and was promptly consumed and killed by Perimal Darkling's power once he agreed to the deal; Greshan was brought back as a vengeful spirit who'd go on to make trouble down the line. At this time, Gerridon also formed an alliance with an ambitious young Highborn woman named Rawneth, who would go on to become Matriarch of her House, the Randir, and a major secondary antagonist of the later books. After Gerraint's daughter Tieri came of age, Gerridon approached her and raped her, but the child she bore, Kindrie, was a boy with the wrong Shanir (magical) abilities for what Gerridon required, so that plan was a failure.

Around the same time, Ganth Grey Lord, Tieri's brother and Gerraint's son, led the Kencyr Host to a disastrous defeat (long story) and was forced into exile from his people. He was banished to a remote keep near the Barrier between Rathillien and the fallen world, and Gerridon sent his sister Jamethiel to seduce him. She bore twin children - a son, Torisen, and a daughter, named Jamethiel for her mother (Jame for short). Torisen proved useless for Gerridon's purposes, but Jame manifested Shanir abilities when she was seven, for which her father threw her out of the keep. She was found by Gerridon's followers and taken to his dwelling, the Master's House in the fallen world, where she would be raised for the next ten years.

Gerridon gave her over to his Dragon, the Changer Tirandys, who was to train her to replace her mother. What the Master didn't realize was that Tirandys regretted his role in the Fall and had come to hate his lord; thus he made sure to instill in his young pupil a strong sense of honor and pride in the Kencyrath and its mission.

While this was going on, Gerridon put another plan into motion as well, recounted in the flashbacks of book seven, The Sea of Time. He appeared to a religious sect called the Karnids in the Southern Wastes and convinced them that he was the Prophet of the Shadows, the reincarnation of their founder. In this guise he approached Kruin, God-King of the city-state of Kothifir, and convinced him that he could become immortal by murdering all of his children. When this failed to produce results, the ailing God-King called for the "false prophet's" head, and sent his city's most elite military force - a host of Kencyr mercenaries - to execute the sentence. Which, as it turned out, played right into Gerridon's hands. His Karnids managed to ambush and capture the Kencyr host, killing most of them and taking the survivors to the dungeons of Urakarn, where they were brutally tortured to force them to renounce the Three-Faced God and accept the Prophet of the Shadows as their lord. Gerridon personally presided over the torture of his nephew, Torisen, who had become a low-level officer in the host. In the end, none of the Kencyr broke, and only Torisen and a handful of others managed to escape; Torisen would bear the scars, physical and mental, of his ordeal for the rest of the series.

The Master would soon face another major setback when he prepared to officially install his niece Jame as her mother's replacement. Reacting with horror when she learned what she had be trained for, Jame turned on Gerridon, cut off his hand, and fled the Master's House having stolen the Book Bound in Pale Leather, one of Gerridon's most valued treasures. He was pissed. Gathering his Darkling forces, he first attacked Ganth's keep, in case Jame had fled there, and slaughtered everyone he could find, and proceeded to do the same to the other Kencyr border keeps; his search left a trail of carnage behind it, but was unsuccessful. At the same time, a number of the Changers - fearing that their master, having lost his replacement Dream-Weaver, might turn on them next and try to consume them to extend his life - rebelled against him, taking control of the massive army called the Waster Horde and attempting to turn it against him. Gerridon, for his part, used his loyal Changers to manipulate the Kencyrath into facing the Horde, knowing that either way, he'd be down one enemy. He also sent Tirandys to kill and replace Torisen, who had become Highlord on his father's death, so that Gerridon could, by proxy, take back control of his people. While the Horde and the rebel Changers were defeated, this secondary plan failed thanks to Jame's intervention, and both Tirandys and the Dream-Weaver were killed.

Gerridon lay low for several books, but was eventually revealed to have returned to Urakarn, where he gathered his Karnid fanatics and prepared to seize Kothifir in the hopes that he could acquire enough power to become a God-King who could conquer Rathillien and stand independent of both the Three-Faced God and Perimal Darkling. He also helped his ally, Rawneth, dispose of her enemies within her own House by capturing disloyal Randir from the Kothifir host and forcibly converting them into Changers. When the "Prophet" finally launched his attack on Kothifir, he was thwarted once again by his niece Jame, who had followed in her brother's footsteps by serving in the Host. Once again he failed to tempt her to his side, and while the Kencyr routed the Karnids and avenged their earlier defeat, Jame faced her uncle in single combat and forced him to flee the field. He hasn't been seen in person since, but he still has lots of plans and many allies, and remains determined to secure his immortality and power, whatever the cost to those around him.

Freudian Excuse or other Mitigating Factors?

Nope. Gerridon's primary motivation - his obsession with immortality - is considered especially senseless and perverse by the standards of the Kencyr, a Martyrdom Culture if their ever was one, and his rank treachery during the Fall remains the single greatest act of treason in their history. He cares nothing for his blood-kin, using his own twin as a glorified Immortality Inducer and caring nothing for her otherwise, explicitly considering her interchangeable with a potential replacement, and intended to give his niece the same treatment. He knows Tirandys hates him and seems to take a perverse pleasure in giving the Changer tasks he knows will violate his honor. The only even slightly mitigating factor is that Shanir, of which Gerridon is one, are usually strongly tied to one aspect of the Three-Faced God, and one character theorizes that Gerridon is tied to the destructive aspect, and that his obsession with immortality is an attempt to balance himself by incorporating preservation, but a, this is only a theory, and b, he still chose about the most selfish interpretation of that possible if it is true. Gerridon makes other people pay the price for his desires; he doesn't pay it himself.

Heinous in Story?

Though Perimal Darkling is technically the Big Bad, it's more of a Sentient Cosmic Force than a character and is never anthropomorphized in any way, so Gerridon tends to function as the de facto Big Bad. Furthermore, it's explicitly just following its nature, while Gerridon actively chose to be evil; Jame, at least, considers him worse than his master. Though there are other series-spanning villains, including Lord Caineron and Gerridon's own ally Rawneth, none of them come anywhere close to the sheer amount of pain and death he's caused, or to the wound he inflicted in the Kencyrath's collective psyche. His sister, Jamethiel Dream-Weaver, is also presented as a much more tragic character, more of a victim of her brother than his equal accomplice. Though his worst crime, the Fall itself, took place in the backstory, it's discussed extensively in every book, and its impact resounds across the entire story. When it comes to antagonists in the Chronicles of the Kencyrath, Gerridon is in a class by himself.

Final Verdict?

The only thing that even makes me hesitate is that the series isn't done, but given we've had C Ms from ongoing works before and I really can't see him getting a last-minute redeeming quality, I'd still give him a big .

edited 15th Aug '17 9:31:59 AM by MasterGhandalf

Going to give a to Wendel. While he didn't have quite the amount of resources of Morwenna and the Scale High Priest, I feel like he was a more personal antagonist for Ysabelle and the cause of most of her grief.

I'll give a for Gerridon/

Wendell and Gerridon.

So yesterday I watched this movie called My Daughters Disgrace AKA Revenge Porn.

It is a stalker/hacker drama film that focuses on a teenager girl named Peyton Harris, who took nude pictures of herself in preparation for a surgery for her breasts. To her horror, someone got a hold of these pictures and uploaded them to the Internet, which reach her friends and family. The Slut Shamming to be ensued is what you'd expect it to be and her family goes on a crusade to take these photos down and help Peyton out, but in he process find themselves in the crosshairs of a stalker.

Overall I say the movie is decent but it has its hamfisted flaws that just sort of glare when you watch it, mostly relating to the main villain. Think Cyber Bully, but with nudes and a stalker plot.

Which brings us to the films villain, Eddie "Carl" Cooke.

See Cooke runs a pornographic website called "ExMyEx". "ExMyEx" is a revenge porn site, hence one of the movies titles, in which women get naked pictures of themselves uploaded to the Internet without their knowledge and consent. As the name of the website suggests, you have problems with your ex ? Got pornographic photos of them ? Looking to get some payback ? Cooke's site is the site for you. With over two hundred thousand photos uploaded to the site, Cooke is on the federal governments watchlist, but they're having trouble catching up to him. He's even got hackers to help track down pictures for him.

Cooke even has uploaded a video of himself describing how he created "ExMyEx" for, what else, revenge over a breakup. He brags that he ruined his ex's life, and went on to upload more videos of himself bragging about his website, Victim Blaming the the girls whose photos get uploaded. The guys a piece of work.

Anyways, Peyton's parents come up with a simple solution to appeal to the website server that Cooke's site is bad for business. Sure enough Peyton's photos are taken down but if only things where that easy. At this point Cooke begins putting his hacking skills to use and re uploads the photos and begins stalking the Harris family. These range from driving by the house and spilling printed own photos of Peyton all over the street with a taunting message to the family.

Peyton's mother Eliane begins to track down the women on Cooke's website to help with a legal case against Cooke and to gather information. As you can imagine Peyton is far from the only girl who's life Cooke ruined through his website. You've got one woman who lost her job, one who lost custody of her kids, you name it. All the while Cooke not only makes a profit on "ExMyEx", but on ten other websites. In turn, Cooke gets more aggressive with his stalking, sending threatening phone calls, hacking the Harris' financial accounts, sending a drone onto Mr. and Mrs. Harris while they're driving on a highway, and spraying paint all over their windshield, files a police report to get Mr. Harris arrested, and finally hacks into a college Peyton hopes to get into and takes away her scholarship.

Finally Cooke approaches Eliane in the streets and it's here where the movie kinda goes sideways to an It's Personal plot; see Eliane used to be a teacher and Cooke was one her her past students. Cooke had a crush on her and began sending her inappropriate love letters and drawing too her. Eventually Cooke was kicked out of school and later ended up in juvie. At first Cooke thought that Peyton was just another girl on his site, before learning that she was Eliane's daughter, and now he's seeking revenge. All he cares about is ruining their lives.

Now luckily the police manage to track Cooke down and arrest him and if the trial goes well, he could spend seven years in prison. His website is shut down, and all the Harris family needs is the testimony of the women he victimized. Cooke is confident that he will walk, and even announces his new website Caught in the Act.com; "You're gonna love it...unless you're the one caught in the act."

After the trial, Cooke is sentenced to seven years, and you'd think that in a federal case he would've been taken into custody immediately, but the movie needs to force a climax. Cooke spends his last night free to break into the Harris' home and take the family at gun point. He plans to slowly kill them by setting off a CO tank and gas the family to death. Mr. Harris tackles Cooke, who shoots and wounded him before he begins to wrestle with Eliane. Peyton picks up the tank, and smacks Cooke on the side of the head knocking him out. Naturally Cooke gets arrested again and the end of the movie says he's getting life in prison.

As for redeeming qualities, he's got none. This guys personality is smug, and vicious without any conscience or empathy for his victims. He's got a combination Never My Fault/Victim Blaming mentality for the people he victimizes and even brags about how he ruins their lives for a simple profit. Even at his trial, he insists that he did nothing wrong and that he's the real victim in all of this. He says that his victims are the ones ruining his life.

His Freudian Excuse on the other hand, mentions that when he was a high school student he had an obsessive crush on his teacher, and began stalking her before he was sent to juvie. He has a passing mention that he was beaten up there and that a guard had his way with him. Now since he was already a Stalker with a Crush before hand, at best you can say is that he was already bad but his experiences in juvie made him worse. Even this is only his motivation for tormenting the Harris family. His motivation for making a revenge porn site was simply getting payback on a girlfriend who broke up with him; that and money. They don't play him for any sympathy either.

As for the heinous standard, he's the worst in movie. However since his crimes are a little different then what we usually talk about here, I want to know if we consider something like running a revenge porn site; this guy makes a profit out of getting naked pictures of women uploaded to the Internet without their knowledge or consent, and completely ruins their lives. Not only that but ExMyEx alone has two hundred thousand photos uploaded, and it's mentioned that he's got about ten other sites life that. I'm wondering if that's enough to meet the baseline. Besides that his other crimes is tormenting and attempting to kill the Harris family.

What do you think guys ?

@ACW: That's mainly why I effortposted him. He doesn't have the highest bodycount, true, but given that he spends most of the book in disguise, he can't really go around slaughtering thousands without breaking his cover. Even when Wendel rejoined with the group, they were still suspicious over why he was gone for so long.

And yes, that ending was bullshit.

I'll Gerridon. If something comes up, we can always scratch him.

Hmm....what continuity does Superman Returns take place in again? Is it its own thing, or is it part of a series of movies? Normally that wouldn't matter, but this is a superhero movie based off a comic book. Which tend to have wonky continuity.

edited 15th Aug '17 10:21:25 AM by Tyk5919

Cooke. The title makes the movie seem tawdrier than it actually seems from summary.

Easy to Gerridon. Not sure about Cooke.

I think it is in continuity with the first two Superman movies with Christopher Reeve and Gene Hackman. That being said, the Spacey!Luthor has come up before and I'm not sure he qualifies.

Spacey!Luthor, we've argued against him three times at this point and we've all said no. He qualifies too much as Mike Nelson, Destroyer of Worlds and is too inconsistant on whether he's taken seriously or silly.

I'm blaming bad writing.

I'm not sure on Wendell. He seems more hateable but not necessarily more heinous. Luthor's come up before and ruled not played serious enough to count there. As for Gerridon? Easy yes.

Likewise unsure about Cooke.

edited 15th Aug '17 10:45:06 AM by Lightysnake

Yea on Gerridon and I'll give a weak yea to Wendell. Nay to Cooke and Spacey!Luthor.

"No" on that version of Luthor and could we please stop bringing him up?

Sorry, I didn't know he was brought up before.

Now...alright, FMA time.

What's The Work?

Full Metal Alchemist is a shonen series by Hiromu Arakawa, set in continent of Amestris, a military dictatorship with a history of conflict with its neighbors. Some have abilities in alchemy, particularly our heroes. After the death of their mother and their father abandoning them, Edward and Alphonse Elric attempted to revive their mother...only for Ed to lose his arm and leg, and Al to lose his entire body. The two are questing to find a way to restore themselves as alchemists working for the state, with Ed's arm and leg replaced by metal prosthetics, giving him the nickname "Fullmetal Alchemist"

Enter...our villain.

Who Is He And What Does he Do?

The being known as 'Father,' AKA Homunculus is a creature from outside the Gate, brought into form long ago in the Empire of Xerxes. A nameless slave accidentally 'created' Homunculus in a little flask, and befriended the creature. By sharing his knowledge, Homunculus helped the slave rise in the Kingdom, teaching alchemy and transmutation while giving the slave the name Van Hohenheim. However, Homunculus...wasn't satisfied with his existence and plotted a way to surpass not only his own existence, but God as well. Secretly, informing the Xerxes Emperor of ways to achieve immortality, Homunculus crafted a slaughter of individuals all throughout the empire to be used to create Transmutation Circles nationwide. But at the end...Homunculus used a ritual to kill and steal the souls of all one million citizens of Xerxes. As 'gratittude' to a horrified Hohenheim, he gave him half the souls frozen into a philosopher's stone, giving him immortality, while taking a body identical to Hohenheim's own. Homunculus then set out and would eventually manipulate the founding of Amestris.

Guiding Amestris's history for his purpose, Homunculus took the name 'Father' by creating Homunculi of his own. Growing to see human feeling as a weakness, he purged himself of it, and all his seven sins, creating physical embodiments of them as his 'children.' To create Wrath, Father instituted a brutal program where strong, nameless young men were trained and eventually subjected to experiments that were fatal in all but one case. The rest were taken as mindless zombie beasts, while the survivor became the Fuhrer of Amestris, King Bradley, to rule in Father's name. Father tempted the Amestrian high command, setting up a way for him to replicate the Xerxes ritual, which would require specialized sacrifices and a ton of bloodshed. All of Amestris's military conflicts were to provide enough bloodshed for this....most notably the war with a nation called Ishval. Father has his child Envy assume the shape of an Amestrian soldier and shoot an Ishvalan child, sparking off a revolt that ended in the brutal genocide of the Ishvalan people, just as Father intended.

Centering in on his 'sacrifices,' one of Father's children Greed went rogue. Father has him recaptured and melts him down, devouring him until he can 'repurpose' him. When Ed and Al are brought to him, Father is joyful to see Hohenheim has children since they'll be his eventual sacrifices...and then orders his 'son' Gluttony to eat their companion. Father remains in his underground chamber for most of the rest of the time, sending out his 'kids' to kill those he needs dead and keeps things moving until the day of sacrifice. Where he will rip the souls out of 50 million plus citizens to give himself more power and attain the status, power and knowledge he hungers for: by devouring 'Truth', or God himself. Father pulls off the transmutation circle, taking in Truth after devouring everyone's soul. Thankfully, Hohenheim had planned for this, revealing he had taken the souls of Xerxes in him and come to a partnership with every single one, using them to save the citizens of Amestris. Having Truth contained in his body, Father and the heroes square off, with Father leaving his eldest child Pride to die without a second thought. Oh, and he proceeds to mentally torture Hohenheim and the others, using images of their dead loved ones for a kick.

When he realizes his body is having trouble handling Truth, Father attempts to absorb the reborn Greed to use his Philosopher's stone, only for Greed to rebel from inside Father and make his body brittle. Father retaliates by killing Greed on the spot, attempting to murder everyone there before Ed, in the final battle, manages to destroy his body. The released Truth confronts Father in the spirit world who protests his actions were to gain knowledge of everything, and rebuking him for his pride, reopens the Gate, dragging a screaming, begging Father back to his prison forever, reusing Father's favorite phrase for ironic punishments: Despair to the conceited.

Heinous Standard?

This is no issue, he blows it out of the water. His first crime killed a million people. He intends to replicate this fifty times over, in addition to countless massacres and the bloodshed he's manipulated, in addition to the personal murders. Worst in series by far.

Mitigating Qualities?

Now, when he was trapped in the Flask, he desired a life outside it. This was fine. Issue is, he went about it the worst possible way and is shown to be positively gleeful about his deeds. Rather than be content with a new body, he decided to try for the "let's eat God" plan to become the supreme being.

Besides that...Father considers himself to be completely superior to humans, stating their concerns are just beneahth him. This isn't Blue-and-Orange Morality...it's a god complex. He's shown, and described by Hohenehim, to be fundamentally understandable and even human in everything. Despite his pretensions otherwise, Father is driven by the sins he tried to purge from himself: he's greedy for more, his pride makes him think he's superior. When he and Hohenheim fight, Father's stoic exterior breaks and he becomes a giggling lunatic. The series spends a fair bit of time describing how he's completely and utterly human as we understand it and lapses more and more into emotion as his stoicism slips, and his pretense fades.

At the end, he protests to Truth that he hasn't understood what he did wrong, but Truth states that Father knows what he was doing was wrong: he just lacks the pride to admit his mistakes before imprisoning him again behind the Gate. As for people...Father cares nothing for anyone. He does repair his children here and there, even Gluttony who's kind of a loser, but he doesn't bat an eye when they die, abandons or devours them when they cease to be useful and it's explicitly stated that he only sees them as useful tools. Notably, Pride kills and eats Gluttony without any fear of repercussion from Father, so pass. He also flatly despises Hohenheim at the end, so their old friendship no longer holds weight when Father tries to kill him without a second thought

People also say he gets an Alas, Poor Villain but this is...absent from the manga. After his defeat, nobody mentions or recalls him with sympathy whatsoever. His final fate: "Despair for the conceited" seems entirely well earned

Conclusion?

Father is an interesting case. He has interesting motivations that end up as entirely unsympathetic, and knowingly purged himself of redeeming features. His death lacks any real sympathy to me as opposed to being fully karmic, and while he has pretension of Blue-and-Orange Morality...the series explains how this isn't the case, and this falls apart pretty hard. He's fully capable of moral decisions: he just goes for the most evil choice because it benefits him and lets him fulfill his delusions of grandeur.

I'd say keep.

Yeah, Father gets an EASY 'Yes' from me. Nothing about his morality is Blue and Orange to me, and he's a madman with a god complex otherwise. His defeat is an appropriately deserved one, and the only reason it's remotely pitiable is because of what a BABY he's being about it. He's just trying to weasel his way out of a horrifying fate, nothing more IMO. Keep, Keep, KEEP.

'Yes' to Wendel, the High Priest, Flitt, and Gerrison as well.

edited 15th Aug '17 11:30:15 AM by Ravok

I... admit, I completely forget about that last line from Truth. Father begging to tell Truth what he did wrong was what convinced me Father didn't keep for the longest time (I can't find myself feeling any sympathy for his final fate either way, so that's never been a disqualifier) but that's giving me some serious skepticism.

I'll think about it.

Should I make a draft yet for the bad little kid?

What's the current consensus? How many people have voted in favor and how many are against?

Two have abstained so far, and you are the only person to say nay. I will count how many have agreed.