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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'm leaning no then. I mean, he's bad, but considering what the series revolves around?
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Silver Horn
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'm getting complete apathy as to whether or not it was occupied from this, and that's by no means any better. Retaining my yea vote unless it's actually made clear he knows the children are already out.
Oh, and I'm going to rescind my vote for Stein... not saying nay, but considering the EP doesn't actually accurately outline the heinous actions of the other villains, it leaves a bit to be desired.
edited 13th Sep '17 12:57:20 PM by Scraggle
I want to discuss the villains from a Konami game whose page I created here: Soul of the Samurai. They are a Big Bad Duumvirate, though I'm unsure whether both of them count or only one, the True Final Boss.
The Game: Soul of the Samurai is a 1999 game by Konami for the Play Station. An action-adventure game with slight dashes of Resident Evil aesthetics: fixed camera, tank controls and object placement puzzles. Kind of Onimusha before Onimusha. You even choose to play as a man or woman: Kotaro Hiba and Lin.
Being a rather violent and bloody game, the villains can get quite nasty. At least both of these, which are the main villains.
The villains: Ryu Oda is described as a "military scholar", that aids Lord Gendo Tohjo in his uprising against the Shogun. Tohjo raided a Shogunate ship to steal gold and use it to depose him and become the new ruler of the land.
Oda appears to be a henchman for Tohjo, but has plans on his own...
Their actions: Kotaro is immediately distrustful of Oda as soon as they interact. The game never bothers to hide the fact the he is a villain, but the extent of his actions not something you can overlook.
You learn early in the game about the "Soul Bugs", creepy red crawlies that infect people and do all sorts of weird stuff to them, form giving them a cold and headaches to morphing them into monsters.
Kotaro's Chapter 2 boss is the giant priest Muga. He captures the girl you've been escorting, Kurenai, saying that she will become a fine gift for Tohjo.
Kotaro's Chapter 3 boss is the Evil Sorcerer Urabe, who created the Soul Bugs on Tohjo's orders. When you defeat him, Oda appears to reveal to him that he has outlived his usefulness and a new colony was found for Tohjo, thanks to Oda's efforts. He leaves Urabe to die in the cave.
Lin's storyline has Shogunate ninja investigating the disappearance of the ship. Hanzo is a minor cutscene character who is badly hurt and dying and is cornered by the law men. Genzo was killed by a random ronin in Kotaro's storyline, and came back as a zombie to fight the kunoichi. Shin, Lin's brother, was too infected by the Soul Bugs. It's not known if willingly or not.
In Lin's Chapter 4, you meet Tohjo and Oda at the beach, before a destroyed Shogunate ship. Oda informs that the gold has already been moved. Lin show sherself, they sic some monsters on her and they leave.
Kotaro's chapter 4 and Lin's chapter 5 shows the full extent of their plans and how catastrophic it is: the entire village that serves as the game's hub level gets infected with Soul Bugs. You spend the entire chapter killing every single villager (well, almost all of them)- roughly 300.
In chapter 6, you fight Tohjo. If you use the other character on the same save file, you get an additional sequence: Tojo comes back as a One-Winged Angel monster and you climb up some stairs to fight the True Final Boss: Ryu Oda himself.
Angry that his plans were foiled, he states to have absorved the full power of the Soul Bugs, allowing him to create these parasites in his own body. He states that the new ruler of the world has been born. He is fought and ultimately defeated.
Heinous standard: They form a Big Bad Duumvirate, so they set it. Tohjo acts more like a generic Evil Overlord, though he is the one who ordered Urabe to create the Soul Bugs. He wants to depose the Shogun, calling him a "spineless dog" that isn't "fit to rule". Ryu Oda's goals, as seen in the end, is to become the ruler of the new world.
The most evil action they do is actually an indirect one: the soul bugs infect an entire village population, forcing you to kill them all.
The theft of the Shogunate gold is not seen onscreen, but the destroyed ship is. So, we can assume the crime happened. Also, the gold is seen in Tohjo's castle.
There's also the matter of Kurenai: It is unclear is Tohjo ordered her captured or Muga did that on his own.
Oda leaves Urabe to die, in a display of both You Have Failed Me and You Have Outlived Your Usefulness. Kotaro asks him in chapter 1 why "his men" are acting so aggressively. He refers to the law men you just killed a few screens ago. There is a cutscene of one those men coughing up soul bugs, proving that they were all infected. Assuming Oda let it happen for Tohjo's designs, it would count to his standard.
There's also the case of the law men cracking down on the Shogunate spies. This was no doubt done by Oda and Tohjo.
Mitigating factors/excuses: Tohjo states that the Soul Bugs are "our means to greater prosperity". He seems to believe that he can be a better ruler than the Shogun, who is never seen, just mentioned. Kotaro asks him if the castle and the surrounding lands are not enough. This seems to suggest that Tohjo is just a power-hungry maniac who wants to expand his dominions. That doesn't seem to cut it.
Ryu Oda also has none. He asks Yukinosuke at first about his condition, seemingly worried. It turns out that Yukinosuke willingly got infected with the Soul Bugs to become strong enough to fight Kotaro, in a case of envy.
Though Tohjo gets more actions to be judged, Kotaro states at the true final battle that Tohjo was another of Oda's pawns. He doesn't dispute it, but it seems he was the one behind everything.
Yes or no: They cause a fully on screen genocide by infecting a whole population, but don't get too much in the way of personality (mostly Oda). Really unsure on this one.
edited 13th Sep '17 1:02:33 PM by MatLShini
Silver Horn. I'll think on that Soul of the Samurai duo for a bit.
edited 13th Sep '17 1:15:53 PM by PolarPhantom
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Soul duo. The bugs are a unique crime that push them past the baseline. Do they have ANY personality though?
edited 13th Sep '17 1:29:10 PM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Tohjo is a power-hungry fiefdom ruler that believes the Shogun to be a spineless dog who isn't fit to rule. He refers to Kotaro as a mongrel ronin and believes he can't stop him. He claims the Soul Bugs are a mean to greater prosperity. Tohjo believes he is destined to become the new leader.
Oda, judging by the final battle dialogue, is The Man Behind the Man. He seems baffled that Kotaro and Lin could stop his plans in a way that reeks of a Villainous Breakdown delivered through Tranquil Fury... until he goes One-Winged Angel and proclaims that the new ruler of the world was born.
He is something of a Bad Boss: he leaves Urabe to die mostly because he is no longer useful. The sorcerer retorts that Oda was the one who promised to keep intruders off the cave. Oda tells him to save his excuses for the afterlife and leaves him to die.
In general, Tohjo seems to have more personality, and most of the crimes of the duo seem to be his orders. Though, if Oda is The Man Behind the Man, it's all on him.
edited 13th Sep '17 1:49:05 PM by MatLShini
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Hmm, that seems enough. I'll solidify my yes to both.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
As an additional note, this dialogue before the fight with Tohjo can make a good case for his inclusion.
edited 13th Sep '17 2:03:09 PM by MatLShini
Soul duo, Silver Horn and Tamashiro.
Two to propose, today...the first is the more controversial one.
What's The Work?
Lady Killer is a Dark Horse limited comic series about a suburban housewife named Josie Schuller in the 1960s, her husband Eugene, and their beautiful twin girls. Josie, however, has a bit of a secret: she works as a hired assassin for a shadowy organization headed by a man named Stenholm, which she balances with a happy home life, family completely ignorant of her secret job.
Now, in the first series, Josie wants out of the business when they begin deciding she has outlived her usefulness, with the organization's head Stenholm targeting her for elimination. Josie rallies a few other assassins at the World's Fair and takes on her former employers, finishing Stenholm off, but with her mother in law discovering her true identity. Now cut off from the Union, Josie goes freelance on her own when one of her former allies, an elderly assassin named Irving offers to go into business with her...and then problems begin...
Who is Irving and What Has He Done?
Introduced gunning down a mark, Irving is an elderly, pleasant man who seems the pinnacle of Affably Evil. However, upon seeing him, Greta Schuller has a bit of a freakout, claiming she remembers him from 'the war' when she worked in German intelligence. Upon Josie's rebellion against the Union, Josie defeats the organization head Stenholm and leaves his hand pinned to the wall by a knife with Irving offering to wrap up the rest. Stenholm recognizes him by the name "Reinhardt" and devolves into a screaming, begging mess as Irving closes in...we later see Stenholm has been eviscerated and seemingly tortured to death, with nobody the wiser.
Irving and Josie become partners in her solo assassination missions, Irving admitting he's best at 'disposal.' For a time, everything seems like it's going great...and then Greta reveals how she knows Irving as he begins getting a bit too involved with Josie's family, despite her attempts to keep work and home lives utterly separate. Irving's real name is Dr. Reinhardt and before WW 2, Irving's real name was Dr. Reinhardt. He was suspected of offering people escape out of Nazi Germany. Sounds like a great guy, right?
After investigating him, in flashbacks, Greta learned...he would take payment to transport refugees out, women, men, children, etc...and then offer to inoculate them against new diseases in America. Except he injected them with cyanide, burned or buried the corpses in his basement and stole all their valuables, doing so to a lot of people, as we see in said flashbcks, Greta alerted her superiors, but Reinhardt escaped, adopted the name Irving and has been an assassin in America ever since. Josie is rightly horrified and seeks to break her partnership to Irving...only for him to murder her husband's boss, implicating Gene in the disappearance. Josie is furious and warns Irving to get out of her life for good. Irving seemingly agrees...only to return and attack Josie's house. By a twist of fate, they injure the Schullers' dog, meaning Josie has an excuse to get her husband and kids out to take him to the vet while Irving attacks the house, trying to kill her and her mother in law. In the resulting fight, Josie is almost killed when Gene returns and kills Irving to save her.
Unfortunately, their marriage is badly damaged and Gene leaves with the kids for a while, while Josie is forced to call in a favor from the Union to 'clean up' and making Irving and the other bodies he'd piled vanish, leaving Josie unsure of her future.
Heinous Standard?
Let's discuss this one out of the way...Josie is an assassin and a very good one who isn't exactly choosy about her jobs. She does have a serious conscience and what makes the Union decide to get rid of her is when she's sent to kill a little boy, but realizes she can't go through with it, spares him and leaves. That aside, though, she's got a number of onscreen victims and doesn't particularly care why she's hired. That said, Irving shares in culpability for the highest levels of bodies she gets in part 2 as her partner...the other factor is Irving seems really into torture while Josie...isn't. Irving also has no compunction going to kill Josie's entire family, while she at least doesn't go after bystanders in any circumstance.
That aside, Reinhardt/Irving's crime as a doctor murdering entire families of refugees to rob them is treated as singularly monstrous and unique. We see he's got a basement ''full' of victims there. Even the Union indicates that it's a reason they refuse to employ him in Even Evil Has Standards.
Mitigating Qualities?
No. Josie may be an ice-cold assassin, but she damn well loves her husband and daughters and refuses to let any harm come to them Irving has no human attachments and thinks nothing of casual murder. He offers to take Josie off Greta's hands when he attacks the Schuller residence, but promptly stabs Greta, having just used this to get her to lower her guard.
Conclusion?
I'd give him a cautious yes. Lady Killer is a dark comic with a rather dark heroine,but Reinhardt/Irving's crime is such a heinous and unique one I wanted to give him the proposal.
Catching up...
I'm leaning no to Tamashiro. He sounds bad, but he seems a bit limited in the actual evil he commits to the point he doesn't stand out in deeds to others. The orphanage bit has me conflicted, I dmit...if he didn't care if it was occupied, then I can lean yea. Yes to Silver Horn,
Yes to the Souls duo
to Silver Horn the Souls duo, and Irving. I'll abstain on the Tamishiro
edited 13th Sep '17 3:02:51 PM by G-Editor
to Silver Horn, the Souls duo, and Irving. Leaning ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
on Tamashiro.
I've recently been playing a Diablo-esqe action rpg called Path Of Exile. It has several candidates worth proposing once I get around to fully beating it. There are at least 3 solid contenders.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Stein, Sliver Horn and the Souls duo
Gonna have to look into this Tamashiro fellow, will answer shortly.
to Ryu Oda and Irving/Dr. Reinhardt.
I'd say yea to Irving.
Irving
Also... just watched the orphanage scene on You Tube. It's the Big Bad Mine who gives the order for the guys to start smashing shit... Tamashiro just kneecaps two of the adults playing with the kids and encourages the guy who was about to smash the dog house to kill the guy blocking it. Yeah, he's the one who calls for the bulldozer to be brought in but given that Mine is clearly in charge here, this is way too ambiguous for me to assume it's all his doing from me.
Given that data, Tamashiro
Mmm... with that, I think I'll flip to a nay on Tamashiro.
Yeah I think I'm switching to for Tamishiro
Most of the kids were outside when he arrived. The scene ends with the bulldozer crashing through an outer wall and advancing on the house. He certainly never checks to see if it's occupied or not. Which, given there are scary men outside with guns, would have been a good thing to do.
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