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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:

     Previous Post 
Complete Monster Cleanup Thread

Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.

IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.

When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "[tup] 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

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#94451: Sep 12th 2017 at 10:40:30 AM

[up] "Manipulative" is not a full personality. It's a personality trait.

A GDV can be indicated to be plenty intelligent and still qualify. Take King Sombra... Crazy-Prepared to the max with a long, incredibly complicated backup plan, but the character himself doesn't directly showcase any of these traits. Same thing with Megabug; we can see the running of a plan formulated by it in the game, but the character itself doesn't actually directly display any intelligence — or real characterization, for that matter — itself. What we see is just a snarling, mute monster with all of its intelligence implied rather than at the forefront.

Again, I go to Gorea. Gorea doesn't escape this trope by being The Chessmaster. It escapes this trope by having a reason to make these plans and to do what it does. The Megabug? Zilch.

Yet another reason why I stand GDV needs a cleanup thread and some definite criteria.

edited 12th Sep '17 10:44:45 AM by Scraggle

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#94452: Sep 12th 2017 at 10:44:07 AM

[up][up] I second this. Look at The Entity. He may seem to be a GDV, but is clearly manipulative.

[up] Who's King Sombra?

BTW, with more Mega Man examples...anyone got a good image?

edited 12th Sep '17 10:47:06 AM by ACW

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#94453: Sep 12th 2017 at 10:52:12 AM

One google search, ACW.

edited 12th Sep '17 11:28:53 AM by Lightysnake

ReynTime250 Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
#94454: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:01:24 AM

As of now I reckon we should give the Megabug a "Too close to call" similar to Toffee. If there's a sequel game that focuses on the Megabug more rather than a different villain we can take a closer look then. It could revive itself (Considering it had the power to destroy multiple universes I don't think that's too much of a stretch) or appear in a flashback sequence.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
MahStache from Old Jersey, not the bad new one Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#94456: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:05:19 AM

Mario + Rabbids is getting story DLC too. They could always bring it back somehow.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#94457: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:10:39 AM

Cool, let's just put it in holding formation for now then.

Ravok Son of Liberty from Big Shell Since: Jun, 2015 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Son of Liberty
#94458: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:12:21 AM

'Yes' to the Claw. Freaking AWESOME show. [lol]

'No' to Lee, Malthael, and Megabug. The latter sounds like it would count if only it had a solid reason to its actions. Even SOME form of solid "Mwahahaha" or something. But as is? Methinks not enough characterization.

@YoutubeNut: In regards to "scraping the bottom of the barrel"? Never say this. This is insulting and annoying. It's not hurting anyone when a character gets brought up who has never been brought up before, even IF they don't count, so there's no need to say such a condescending thing about it.

Anywho, moving on...having recently finished reading the amaze-balls comic Transmetropolitan, I'd like to propose a rewrite for Callahan's entry. It's not so much a "It's lacking in crimes" as some rewrites, but rather, it pretty much just robotically lists them without any major insight into his character and why he's such a prick. It's also got numerous weird parentheses that add nothing to the actual character, and reads really stunted at times.

Here's the current:

  • Senator (and eventually President) Gary "The Smiler" Callahan, in a world nearly without ethics, he goes above and beyond the call of evil. He has his campaign coordinator publicly assassinated to win sympathy for himself after his campaign went into the gutter; he has his family killed in an "accident" to again win sympathy; he has a member of his State Sec pull a sniper spree on civilians so that no one would notice the freak storm brewing nearby, a storm that causes massive damage and loss of life, all so he could wipe the evidence against him from existence (and that was a fool's errand as Spider kept his own private records, meaning that the Smiler did what he did for nothing); he has a peaceful protest of college students riddled with bullets at the first opportunity of "I thought he was pulling a gun"; he allows the brutal murderers of an innocent kid to go free and orders the cops to butcher all of the protesters as soon as violence was initiated (and it was done so by the murderers) and then (briefly) used his power to prevent the media from even acknowledging the riot and the slaughter of innocent civilians from happening.

Aaaaaaand....my proposed rewrite:

  • Gary "The Smiler" Callahan is a sadistic politician who desires ultimate power for no reason other than to hurt others. On his campaign trail for President, Callahan first shows his cruelty when he has his political advisor shot dead to gain sympathy for his cause. Once elected President, Callahan begins running The City into the ground even more than it already was, orchestrating the release of vicious criminals so as to gun down the ensuing protesters, having all the prostitutes he ever slept with and those who associated with them hunted down and executed to cover up his illicit acts, and ordering several people sniped to lower the City's awareness of an incoming storm, hoping it would wipe out more evidence of his crimes. As Spider Jerusalem begins taking apart his cabinet and ruining his reputation, Callahan slowly becomes more unhinged and desperate for ratings, having his wife and kids killed in an accident to gain sympathy and instituting martial law across the City, setting an entire complex aflame and endangering dozens in the process. In perhaps his most despicable act, Callahan gives his troops the order to use lethal force on a group of young college protesters, leading to the dozens of protesters being mowed down. Described by Spider as a man who believes in nothing but his own power, Gary Callahan was a self-described Bond villain who simply hated every last person on the planet that wasn't himself, and stood out even in this Crapsack World as an absolute evil.

It's a bit longer, but I personally thing it flows better. Thoughts are appreciated.

No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#94459: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:16:24 AM

@ACW: Used to be, but I petered out of watching the show due to severe lack of interest in terms of where it was going

@Ravok: Smiler's rewrite looks good.

Anyways, I'd support concluding the Megabug's a no and possibly revisiting it should it ever reappear.

edited 12th Sep '17 11:18:10 AM by Scraggle

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#94460: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:29:02 AM

Also, have a candidate now...from the 1980s Michael Cimino film Year of the Dragon. The premise involves a police chief in New York aiming to break the power of an up-and-coming boss in the Chinatown Triads and the feud that results...a young, ruthless boss named Joey Tai

Who is Joey Tai?

A young mob boss and powerful rising star in the world of Triads, Tai is chafing under the restrictions placed on the organizations and the adherence to tradition, as well as needing to share his profits with useless middlemen. At the film's start, a group of young hoodlums assassinate the head boss of Chinatown, Jimmy Wong at his restaurant, and under Tai's orders, murder an old Italian candy shop owner connected to the Italian mob as a message that the free ride for Italians near Chinatown is over and they have to pay for the privilege of doing business on Triad territory. Stanley White, played by Mickey Rourke, begins investigating and takes a young reporter named Tracy Tzu out to one of the fancier restaurants in Chinatown...only for a group of the same masked hoodlums to arrive and shoot the place up, killing a lot of innocent diners. Stan returns fire, injuring two of them.

Tai, of course, was behind all of this, visiting his proxies in their home and after checking in on the injured boys, comforts them and tells them they'll be fine...only to promptly order them executed by their friends the second he's out of the room. Tai uses the chaos to sow more discord among the Triads to bring them around to his vision for the future, as well as frame their supplier in Canada, White Powder Ma who Tai believes takes up too much of the profits for comparatively little work. Tai betrays and murders Ma, heading to thailand to check the Asian side of the operation where he plans to get an even more potent drug, and deliver White Powder Ma's head as a sign that he's now in charge and the middleman is gone. He also proposes to the Triads that they cut out the Italians completely and sell to the black and Latino communities directly.

White, however, gets closer to Tai and Tai retaliates by ordering him and his wife murdered. Stanley survives, but his wife does not. Learning that one member of the group is an aspiring up and coming cop, Tai has him gunned down as well, provoking Stanley into assaulting Tai at his nightclub and breaking his nose. Stanely and Tracy Tzu have been having an affair at this point, so to get information on his nemesis and to intimidate him and Tzu? Tai has his men attack Tracy at her apartment and gang rape her at knifepoint. Stanley finally snaps and goes after Tai himself. In a tense shoot out, Tai is horribly wounded and begs to be allowed to end it. Stanley, with one bullet left, and no longer really caring, gives Tai the gun. Tai favors ending his own pain and shoots himself in the head while Stanley is discharged from the force but ends up with Tracy at the end.

Mitigating Qualities?

Tai is incredibly charming and pleasant, but under this, he's a calculating sociopath willing to betray or murder anyonehe has to, and he has a remarkably petty side when he feels he's been crossed. He feigns loyalty to his fellow Triads, but he betrays Jimmy Wong and murders him to kick off the plot. He talks a lot about tradition and loyalty but flaunts and breaks this at a whim.

I should note he doesn't use the bullet in the gun to kill Stan, but this is pretty self serving. He's been shot to pieces, suffering horribly and is begging for the gun to end his own pain, so ending his own life is just a way to escape his agony.

Heinousness?

Worst in film, easily. None of the other Triads do much, the Italian mob is almost entirely offscreen and the thugs who do the worst do so at Tai's order.

So, what say we?

Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#94461: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:33:12 AM

In case it wasn't clear, I'm [tdown] on Megabug at the time. We can guess there's motive, that he has a personality, but we honestly don't know one way or another.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#94463: Sep 12th 2017 at 11:41:01 AM

[tup] Joey. Not the WORST candidate you've ever proposed, but he has enough murders to his name, to say nothing of the gang-rape.

[tup] Transmetropolitan rewrite.

ReynTime250 Since: Jan, 2015 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
futuremoviewriter Since: Jun, 2014
#94465: Sep 12th 2017 at 12:50:04 PM

I haven't seen Corpse Bride in a while, but since we see the reenactment of sorts as to how Emily died, that makes it Onscreen Villainy for Barkus and also, is it mentioned that he's killed other women before? Because then that would establish a pattern.

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#94466: Sep 12th 2017 at 1:02:12 PM

I don't believe it ever was mentioned he had, no. Hence why we cut him.

G-Editor The 47th President Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#94468: Sep 12th 2017 at 1:50:12 PM

[up][up][up] Isn't the pattern established by the fact he was blatantly planning on killing Victoria?

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
DemonDuckofDoom from Some Pond in Hell Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
PolarPhantom Since: Jun, 2012
#94471: Sep 12th 2017 at 2:27:01 PM

[tup] Joey.

Also, I just watched It (2017), a terrific coming of age story with an evil clown.

Man, I can't wait for the surely divisive discussion!

See, I'm not breaking the rules, since you can't tell if I'm being sarcastic or not. You can, however, tell that I'm being a shit.

PM me if you want to talk about it.

bobg Since: Nov, 2012
#94472: Sep 12th 2017 at 2:31:39 PM

Sine Brandon has gotten plenty of [tup]'s and no [tdown]'s, here is a rough draft write up:

Edit: I added this to the drafts. However, I was unable to put it in it's own section, so it is below the Adventure Rockman section.

edited 12th Sep '17 3:04:41 PM by bobg

jjj
43110 (Striking Back) Relationship Status: Reincarnated romance
#94473: Sep 12th 2017 at 3:08:24 PM

[tup] Joey Tai

[tdown] Colonel Vanek and to the Megabug... we get so little detail on it that it seems it could just as well be of animal intelligence and its "gambit" is just some kind of behaviour it does. Nothing approaches indicating it has human-level thinking so I can't be sold on its sentience, without even getting into other moral agency issues.

edited 12th Sep '17 3:08:33 PM by 43110

DrPsyche Avatar by Leafsnake from Hawaii Since: May, 2012
Avatar by Leafsnake
#94474: Sep 12th 2017 at 3:09:08 PM

Looking at the G.I. Joe page, I found a typo.

Skull Buster's entry has:

  • Along their travels, Skull Buster has his troops murder any and all people they come across, be they Taliban soldiers or innocent villagers-inclusing children—

I know I'd have to go through the locked page thread to get it changed, but do I bring this up here first?

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#94475: Sep 12th 2017 at 3:13:15 PM

Oh, no, you can just submit minor fixes like that right through the edit requests thread.


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