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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
To Duggery.
White Eyes, von Niemann, Skull Duggery, Fiskle, Nicosar, Malachai, the Doppleganger, and Viktor.
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Wyoming, Richard, and Judy.
Skull Duggery, White Eyes... you had me sold since we PM'd about him, Dr. Niemann, Nicosar, Fiskle, Malachi, Viktor
Wyoming, Richard, Judy
Okay... seriously, I've asked enough times: thoughts on this and this? Getting tired of asking (well, not so much the second one but Ashgela is getting annoying).
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
They look fine to me.
Thank you!
Same here.
Yes to Malachai but...with Viktor I'm a BIT worried about the heinous standard...5 keepers is a LOT. How is Viktor distinguished from the others enough to stand out?
Potential keepers. One or two may not make the cut, but I'm prepared to argue for all of them.
Of the five candidates I'm going to discuss, two of the others are world leaders. Like Viktor, they're genocidal maniacs who wage unprovoked wars. Viktor is somewhat unique in that he has less resources than the other two, less time to work with before he's killed off, and has moments like the murders of the prostitutes for no reason. I think he stands out just enough.
edited 18th Sep '17 9:40:03 PM by ThePest179
- The Vampire Bat: Dr. Otto von Niemann, the Big Bad of the film, is a Mad Scientist obsessed with Creating Life For Science! He successfully creates an organism, but must continuously feed it blood. To acquire a decent supply, he hypnotizes his assistant into becoming a Serial Killer. Selecting victims from whomever he can prescribe drugged up sleeping pills to, von Niemann has his mind slave abduct his victims so the two can drain them of blood. Killing six people by the start of the film, this spree has led to the locals fearing a vampire is on the loose. Learning that a local witnessed one of the murders, von Niemann manipulates him into thinking the village idiot is the killer before eliminating him. This causes the town to form an Angry Mob andhis Patsy to jump to his death. Near the end of the film, von Niemann has his maid drained, eliminating the one person he may have cared for.
Avatar by Leafsnake
The Ash/Angela write up looks good. Did Angela really lust after Sebastian? I thought she just wanted to hurt him and make a fanservice scene.
It really does get to the meat of the character's crimes though without trying to contextualize the story, so kudos to that.
Gonna EP the next candidates tomorrow and write up all that are approved once I've gotten votes on all of them. Goodnight.
Thanks, I try to keep my writeups focused to what makes a monster a monster. Also, about the lusting. While whipping him she speaks in an aroused tone of voice... might change it to "... Angela is a sadist who shows arousal when torturing Sebastian."
Avatar by Leafsnake
Sounds good. She was lusting after that dog for sure, but it's for the best that was kept out, doesn't really reflect on the trope.
Agreed... I think writing she gets turned on by torturing Sebastian gets the point across sans sidetracking or squick aha
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Malachai and Viktor.
Malachai and Viktor.
New proposal, from The Devil Bat.
Who's the candidate?
Dr. Paul Carruthers, a man seeking revenge for what he perceives as being cheated of the profits if a perfume he invented.
What does he do?
He goes about his revenge via conditioning a bat to hate a certain fragrance, which he then makes into a perfume. Experimenting on the bat to make it huge, he then gives the fragrance to his target, and releases the bat to rip their throat out.
The first night after the experiments are finished, Carruthers encounters Roy, son of executive Martin Heath . He takes advantage of Roy's curiosity of the formula to get him to put some on, and sends the bat out to kill him.
The next night, Carruthers sends for Tommy, Roy's brother and the company's marketer, under the pretense of wanting to show him a new product. This "new product" is, of course, the murder perfume. Carruthers has Tommy put it on for demonstration purposes, and sends his bat out after he leaves. The bat kills Tommy and flies back to his lair, but journalist Johnny Layton sees it escape. He writes a story on the bat, the first of many. During the ensuing newspapers montage, we learn the bat has killed Don Morton, son of Heath's business partner Henry Morton.
Eventually, Layton notices that the victims all wore the murder perfume. He asks Carruthers about it, and the doctor poses a plausible explanation. He then gives our hero a bottle, and sends the bat after him. Layton survives unscathed, and guns the bat down.
Carruthers repeats his experiments, and creates a new Devil Bat. He then contacts Henry Morton to show him the perfume. Subtly confessing to his crimes, Carruthers arouses Henry's suspicion. He tries to notify Heath and the chief of police of his suspicions, but is killed before he gets the chance.
During a social call to Heath, Carruthers plants his murder perfume somewhere daughter Mary Heath will put it on. The bat tries to take her out, but can't get through her bedroom window. This leads to Layton concocting a scheme to capture Carruthers, which ends with the doctor getting some perfume on him and the bat tearing his throat out.
Heinousness?
Big Bad, sets it.
Mitigating factors?
His being cheated isn't portrayed sympathetically, and his scheme is extremely Disproportionate Retribution, particularly because he had the option of partnering in the firm, but chose a lump payment of $10,000 ($174,000 in today's money) instead, and was paid $5,000 ($87,000) as a bonus to indicate Martin Heath's gratitude for his work. His wanting to wipe out Martin's family is also completely unnecessary.
Verdict?
Film's pretty fun, but the giant bats do look very fake.
to Malachai, Prince Viktor and Doctor Paul Carruthers.
Any opinions on my proposed rewrite?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
another CM for Bela Lugosi. His third, at least.
edited 19th Sep '17 3:29:14 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Oh, if you're on a Lugosi marathon, Duck, mind saving Bride of the Monster? Me and Lighty intend to take a look at that one at Halloween.
EDIT: Rescinding my vote on Carruthers after taking another look at the EP... I'm not really sure how this guy goes past the baseline. All I'm seeing is a few generic murders in a horror film (and before any of you tell me the standard might be lower here given that the film was made during the Hayes era, it really wasn't... Poelzig, Gregor, and Vollin all went well beyond this kind of behavior even though they were all from the same era. Hell, even villains with similarly low body counts like Eric Gorman made those murders especially brutal to count, and hell, even Niemann, Duck's previous candidate, is an explicit serial killer who I'm much more comfortable being up). What's pushing this guy to become the worst of the worst?
edited 19th Sep '17 9:09:26 AM by Scraggle
Inclined to agree...
I'm seeing "Horror movie bad guy. Kills a few people."
Alright, now that I'm awake and see no dissenting opinions on Viktor, I think it's time to EP the next candidate from What Madness is This?
Background Information
Remember when I said the United States in this story breaks apart into different nations? Our next four candidates are going to come from the biggest and strongest of these nations, the Republican Union. The RU, after a humiliating defeat in the alternate version of the War of 1812, becomes incredibly revanchist, and eventually becomes the birthplace of fascism. Irish, Catholics, and Slavs are all labeled as "Inferiors" and are herded into ghettos while being put in essentially slave-like conditions for the RU's factories. This oppression only gets worse with time. With this in mind, on to our candidate.
Who is he?
Charles Goodyear II, son of businessman and inventor Charles Goodyear. The elder Goodyear runs his businesses off the labor of Inferior labor and acts very maliciously towards them. Goodyear II inherits his father's company upon the latter's death, and proves himself to be even worse than his father.
What has he done?
In order to prepare him to eventually run the family company, Charles Goodyear puts his son in charge of building the Panama Canal. Under Goodyear II's leadership, thousands of people are worked to death with no regard to their safety, and are frequently brutalized by vicious guards as well. Once this is finished, Goodyear II becomes impatient waiting for his father to pass away so he can inherit the company. So, he pushes his father off a blimp and passes his death off as an accident. Once he has control of his father's company, Goodyear II intensifies the awful treatment of Inferior workers in his father's factories, with worker deaths rising sharply.
Several years down the line, Goodyear II expands the company to include oil farming. Setting up shop in Texas, he pressures the Texan government to give him more land to drill on and lower taxes on his company. When the Texan government refuses, Goodyear II hires a private army and has the government violently overthrown, setting up his own government. After this, he has his private mercenaries go through the new nation and kill every Catholic and Hispanic person living in the country, which is done with great brutality.
After this, Goodyear II lives out the rest of his days quietly as the RU's Treasurer.
Freudian Excuse or mitigating factors?
Fuck all.
Heinous standard?
He's working with the resources of a Corrupt Corporate Executive and commits small-scale genocide, slavery, and Patricide. Seems like he passes on this one.
Final Verdict?
An easy .
edited 19th Sep '17 10:40:38 AM by ThePest179
I'm going to wait until I see the rest of the What Is This Madness until I cast a vote on any baddies there.
I agree. He sounds just as bad as Viktor.
And if there are five people just as bad as Viktor, there's an issue with heinousness.
, , Hard to blame you there. I'll get the next EP s done soon in that case. Just keep in mind these guys have varying resource levels.
edited 19th Sep '17 10:50:32 AM by ThePest179
Do keep in mind resources isn't always a certainty to get onto this trope. If every villain is trying for genocide or mass murder or something like it, no villain is going to stand out because their deeds blend together.
