During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List before suggesting any new entries for this trope.
IMPORTANT: To avoid a holler to the mods, please see here for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
When voting, you must specify the candidate(s). No blanket votes (i.e. "
to everyone I missed").
No plagiarism: It's fair to source things, but an effortpost must be your own work and not lifted wholesale from another source.
We don't care what other sites think about a character being a Complete Monster. We judge this trope by our own criteria. Repeatedly attempting to bring up other sites will earn a suspension.
What is the Work
Here you briefly describe the work in question and explain any important setting details. Don't assume that everyone is familiar with the work in question.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
This will be the main portion of the Effort Post. Here you list all of the crimes committed by the candidate. For candidates with longer rap sheets, keep the list to their most important and heinous crimes, we don't need to hear about every time they decide to do something minor or petty.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
Here you discuss any potential redeeming or sympathetic features the character has, the character's Freudian Excuse if they have one, as well as any other potential mitigating factors like Offscreen Villainy or questions of moral agency. Try to present these as objectively as possible by presenting any evidence that may support or refute the mitigating factors.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Here you compare the actions of the Candidate to other character actions in the story in order to determine if they stand out or not. Remember that all characters, not just other villains, contribute to the Heinousness Standard
Final Verdict?
Simply state whether or not you think the character counts or not.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:14:10 AM
Well, it depends on what you mean.
If you mean "when can you bring it up without people wanting to holler for a mod because they feel like you're trolling," I dunno... maybe every six months or so? I'm just guessing; depends on the attitudes of all involved.
If you mean "when can you bring it up and actually get support for it," that, I think is much less likely to happen. The usual demarcation lines will be drawn, we'll see a replay of the old "it's too problematic/but it's a legit trope" argument, and I imagine very little will change on any respect.
I find it somewhat odd that you think the trope has gotten worse. Even accounting for the occasional PM about why someone thinks their pet example should be included (or excluded; one user went back and forth with me on why a particular example should be cut... and he knew I agreed with him from the outset, so it's not like he had to convince me), and the periodic Single-Issue Wonk about a given example, I think this trope has gotten much better than it has been in years. The focus is finally starting to hone on this thread, and things have been much easier to control here. It feels slow because we've been more reactive than active of late (I'm trying to force myself to clean up the Anime section more), but I think the situation is getting better.
I'll grant that I wish we were seeing more comments from more established tropers (don't get me wrong, I highly respect Shaoken's and Nocturna's opinions and find that they frequently match with my own, but it sometimes seems like we're the only ones trying to work on this), because it's slow going at times. But I think we're well on the road to having a solution for Complete Monster underway. And it's mostly straightforward, for all the back-and-forth about whether a given example is really that harsh. We just need more people willing to put in the effort.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Or that, he said it a lot better.
When my exams are done next week I think I'll go over the bigger pages and do a mass cut of all the really bad examples (ie the ones with no details) like I did with Video Games back in the day. Maybe that way we can get better entries out of it.
That sounds like a good idea. I know I did that with one of the Magnificent Bastard pages a while back, cutting any example I could find that didn't explain how he met the criteria (as they existed at the time).
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I have to agree about not cutting the trope (although I admit, I hate to see anything get cut). I've always thoroughly enjoyed this page, and I'd like to see it stay up.
Regarding some earlier comments I made about Alas, Poor Villain, I realise I didn't clarify myself very well so I'll do that (not looking to reignite an argument, just to clear up something I said). The reason that Orochimaru's Alas, Poor Villain a) works, and b) doesn't disqualify him from this is because it's structured along the lines of "wow, he didn't have to turn out this way," rather than "isn't it sad to see him go." The sadness comes from the wasted potential, not the actual death. Something like that could work for Tobi, without disqualifying him. Anything else, at least given his characterisation thus far, would feel strange. I know it's not really here or there, but you seemed to think my earlier post was confused and I wanted to fix that.
Moving right along though...over a year ago I tried to have Lucifer from Supernatural cut. I was told (by one troper) that nobody wanted to see him cut and let it go (after a moronic edit war that I fully confess my role in). Maybe he's been discussed again since then, but if not, I'd like to bring him up if only because I'm really not sure he counts. Here's the entry:
"◦Lucifer, Azazel, Alastair, and Lilith's boss and the Big Bad for the whole show. After presenting himself as a sympathetic figure the entire time, he finally shows his true Complete Monster colors in "Swan Song". His killing of Castiel (BLOWING UP HIS ENTIRE BODY), snapping of Bobby's neck, and his merciless beating of Dean show that he's not just an egotist, he's a monster. A monster who should be imprisoned or destroyed. And that's after he killed Gabriel/Trickster, his own little brother."
Now here's the thing—Lucifer is a total bastard. I'm glad he ends up imprisoned. But the fact is, he shows a great deal of regret over having to kill Gabriel. He flat out begs his brother not to make him do this, and looks very upset after doing the deed. Moreover, Gabriel was trying to kill Lucifer at the time. He was pretty justified in doing so, given Lucifer's goal of Kill All Humans, but I find it hard to see it as the Moral Event Horizon everybody else does, given that well, Lucifer was defending himself. Here's the link for anyone who hasn't seen it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OWxF4__zbA8
That's also not the only case of this. Lucifer also seems genuinely upset that Michael had no interest in joining up with him. He talks about how he admired his big brother and thought that when he led his rebellion Michael would join. At the end, when the two of them confront each other (in Sam's body), he again, begs Michael not to go through with it. Here again, is the link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=coHPsMKu20E&feature=related
Looking at the qualification list, he's definitely played seriously. As for heinous by the standards of the story, he's indeed very bad, although he lacks some of the visceral revulsion created by his Dragon, Lilith. The one I'm not sure about is regret. Lucifer, while unwilling to repent or change his course, does seem very upset about the ways things worked out between he and his brothers. Maybe that's not enough. But I would like to have a genuine discussion of the subject (assuming it hasn't been broached her before).
edited 23rd May '12 1:08:44 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
I think I agree. Lucifer is played seriously by the story and everybody but the Anthropomorphic Personification of Death takes him very seriously. The sheer magnitude of his intended goals makes him the worst villain in the series, but he does show genuine regret for having to fight his brothers. Unlike some of the other major villains of the show (and a couple of Monsters of the Week) he doesn't go out of his way to torture, kill loved ones and innocents or eat babies.
Hell, he's listed as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds.
Cut Lucifer. He has aultristic moments that show he's not 100% monster, which violates the "Complete" part of the trope. A true Complete Monster would either enjoy killing his brothers or be indifferent to it.
EDIT: And I deleted a few examples from the Anime CM page, hopefully they won't get added back without a reason or being brought here (don't worry, the ones I deleted failed to meet the criteria ie had no details, or in one case proclaimed every character except one was a Complete Monster)
edited 23rd May '12 4:07:48 AM by Shaoken
From the way it's described, even on the original entry, I would have wanted Lucifer potentially cut for the first standard. It sounds like he fails the third as well. I'm fine with that cut.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.Okay, I just moved the entries for Sengoku Basara and Twentieth Century Boys onto the main page. I specifically cut one of the two entries for the latter, because the entry as a whole argued that one of the two examples had a Freudian Excuse and deserved pity.
I actually want to ask, before I do anything, about the Reiko The Zombie Shop entry. I was going to move it back, but from the way it's written, I'm not so sure that Saki qualifies. Even assuming that she is completely at fault for the coma in question, it feels almost like she went off the deep end out of guilt or something. The way it's written, it actually sounds like she deserves pity. Anyone familiar with this series? I think we might need to completely cut it.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
I agree, cut it.
I have many examples for potentian removal from Literature
- Inheritance Cycle
- Durza the Shade. Before he was possessed by spirits, he seemed to have been a decent person and had a tragic background. Any good in him, however, was crushed by the malevolence of the entities that possessed him. He is cruel towards all around him, catching his own soldiers in his devastating spells and ordering the prison guards to rape Arya, when he is unable to break her through torture.
- Despite what the Hatedom would tell you, Galbatorix. Most of his atrocities are, admittedly, indirect ones, caused by the Raz'aac and the Urgals carrying out his orders (the destruction of Carvahall and Yazuac) or happened offscreen. However, on his first official appearance in the final book, he officially comes into this territory, when he tortures Nasuada by having "burrow worms" dig and crawl through her body and later holds two children hostage to prevent Eragon from attacking him. He's also a coward, using the true name of the ancient language to prevent his enemies from using magic, and has Murtagh fight Eragon in a swordfight, rather than do it himself. Let's just say that his Driven to Suicide Karmic Death (blowing himself up after Eragon forces him to "understand the wrong he has done") is, in fact, well deserved. Galbatorix did at least think himself a Well-Intentioned Extremist and had been driven mad by the death of his first dragon, which happened when he was a mere boy (and is said to have been a traumatic experience), so he at least has a plausible if not justifiable Freudian Excuse. But his original Dragon, Morzan of the Forsworn, was definitely in the running from what we know - he (and the other twelve, plus their dragons) joined Galbatorix willingly and was described as having a thirst for power. He was also an Abusive Parent to Murtagh, throwing his sword at his son when the boy was hardly five and leaving him with a debilitating scar on his back. He brutally killed the partner dragon of Brom, who idolised Morzan. While most villains in the series have some sympathetic qualities or are otherwise not quite evil enough, Morzan counts without question...and he's dead before the story even begins!
The problem with Durza is that it is clearly written that he was possessed by the entities and thus he had no control of his actions. For Galbatorix, I haven't read the final book, but he is often said to be only a Designated Villain.
- Leo Friend from Tim Powers' On Stranger Tides turns out to be a near-sociopath with severe mommy issues. Freudian ones.
Well, not much is said about him. I haven't read the book though, but unless nobody is going to expand it, I think the entry should be removed.
- Jadis the White Witch from The Chronicles Of Narnia. Before hitching a ride to Narnia, Jadis ruled a world of her own called Charn. Her sister led a rebellion to overthrow her tyrannical regime and she responded by destroying every living thing on her native world all the way down to bacteria by uttering the deplorable word. Even counting the long list of atrocities she committed in Narnia including turning it into a frozen hell, this was by far her greatest crime and she was proud to have committed it. Oh, and remember Mr. Tumnus' words, how cruel she can be if he would disobey her; she would cut his tail off, rip off his beard, and turn his hooves into those made of crystal! She momentarily killed Aslan!
- Shift from The Last Battle may also count. He sides with the Narnian's enemies, the Calormenes, kills and enslaves a lot of the Narnians, spits in a lamb's face, and, lastly, outs his own friend (really servant) Puzzle to the Narnians when it was his idea to make him into the false Aslan and take over Narnia!
Well, Narnia books are Black-and-White Morality. Does this negate their CM status. Isn't CM supposed to be in Grey-and-Black Morality stories only (or usually at least)?
- David Eddings's The Elenium, had a complete monster in Azash. He is a horrible Eldritch Abomination, who manipulates his followers into performing horrible rituals like eating other humans. In the end, he kills his dragon, Emperor Otha, just because he failed him.
The Devil Is a Loser is the trope that Azash fits. Is it enough to remove him from the list?
- A Song Of Ice And Fire
- Another one of the main orchestrators of the Red Wedding is Walder Frey. The old man has a vast family at his command yet only ever shows contempt and distrust for all of them. Along with his lack of redeeming features is his Verbal Tic: "Heh." It's an impressive feat when readers are rooting desperately for your death when you're in the same book series as the other illustrious bastards mentioned. And then there's the Red Wedding where he assists Tywin Lannister and Roose Bolton is massacring almost everyone sided with the Starks. Was it his plan? No. He just went along for sheer spite for Robb Stark, because the latter fell head over heels with Jeyne Westerling in a moment of weakness and canceled his promised marriage with Walder's daughter before coming back to apologize at Catelyn Tully's suggestion. Even though you can, in a way, understand Walder's reason for orchestrating the Red Wedding, he goes about it in such a petty, assholish way by mocking Robb's attempt to make amends that you will root against him. Despite his apparent "family is everything" creed, what does he do when Catelyn takes his severely retarded grandson, Jinglebell, hostage at the big Moral Event Horizon? Laughs, says he's not much use, and lets Jinglebell's throat be cut.
- Roose Bolton, also qualifies for the same reason that Tywin Lannister does. He knows exactly what his bastard son is and has not lifted a finger to stop him. He even admits that Ramsay killed his other, nobler son and will probably kill his other children by his new wife Walda Frey. He looks the other way as long as Ramsay's homicidal activities remain discreet and serve Roose Bolton's ultimate purposes. Not to mention the fact that he was the one who actually killed Robb Stark after deliberately weakening the Northern army by sending men of other houses on suicide missions.
Walder has a lot of kids and even more grandchilren so maybe just that he allows his grandson to be killed is not really that bad due to Values Dissonance and besides, he is NOBODY compared to Prince Joffrey or Gregor Clegane. Roose Bolton in the fifth book begins to show disgust with his son Ramsay (definetly a CM!) so...
edited 23rd May '12 8:59:01 AM by MONEYMONEY
That would work.
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Re: Narnia. I don't think the morality scheme of the story (with the possible exception of Blue-and-Orange Morality) matters for CM status. The only things that matter is what the character does and how the story treats them.
edited 23rd May '12 9:48:54 AM by Nocturna
Maybe, but still that do the White Witch do enough bad things to make them a CM. While jadis does indeed take the cake, shift is more quastionable. By the way, what you think of other characters that I mentioned? (assuming that you read any of the books)
edited 23rd May '12 10:41:35 AM by MONEYMONEY
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Agreed with on Narnia. As long as she's objectively worse than the other villains in the story (and if memory serves, she is the Queen Bitch of Evil in that series) she still works.
RE: Galbatorix—the hatedom seriously exaggerates his Designated Villain status due to their dislike of the Marty Stu hero. The character also tends to suffer from Offscreen Villainy, and being a walking cliche. Still in his few onscreen (onpage?) appearances, he's a pretty nasty piece of business. I don't know if cutting him would be a good idea.
EDIT: I've been looking at the Buffy examples, and do Adam or Warren Mears really count? Warren's a deeply unpleasant nasty little geek to be sure, and he shows no regret, but both of the murders he commits in the show are accidental (with the last one happening in what closely resembles a mental breakdown). He's a lot worse in the comics, of course, but even then he claims to genuinely care about Amy. I don't know, maybe it's because I was never really a fan of Tara, but I've never been able to see him as the Angelus-level monster everyone else does. As for Adam, yeah he's a Complete Monster in terms of morality, but he's programmed to be that way. Does he really have another option?
Come to thinks of it, does Zachary Kralik really count? He's walking Nightmare Fuel to be sure, but he's also insane to the point where he requires antipsychotic medication, and was likely castrated by his own mother. Is that enough of a Freudian Excuse? Is he perhaps too mad to qualify? Just wondering.
EDIT: As per the discussion, I have cut Lucifer.
edited 23rd May '12 11:43:04 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
I'm going to wait for a few more opinions on the Reiko the Zombie Shop entry, particularly as it'd be nice to have someone with familiarity with the work give detail first.
@959 Going through those examples:
Durza - I agree that he shouldn't be on, but I'd want a bit more detail over those spirits. It does sound like they may qualify.
Galbatorix - Ugh... I really wish we didn't have to discuss Eragon at all, even with the knowledge that it's not as Flame Bait-y as it used to be. Anyhow, the amount of Offscreen Villainy for this character is a bit legendary. Not only that, but citing Well-Intentioned Extremist is a huge red flag for me - that's a sign that the character does have some ultimately noble goals; he just goes way too far in trying to accomplish them.
Morzan - The throwaway line suggests to me that it's literally all off-screen and in the past. That should go as well.
Leo Friend - Oh, that's not nearly enough to go on. I mean, it doesn't even make clear if he even tries to be evil. You have to at least try to do something evil to qualify.
Jadis, the White Witch - You can be in a Black-and-White Morality series and get credit for Complete Monster status. But Jadis? Yes, she wants to rule forever by force, but she's fairly low-key... she's evil, but not monstrously so (at least in the scope of the story; it does seem to suggest in The Magician's Nephew that she's responsible for what happened in the city in which she's found). To me, she fails the "heinous" standard.
Shift - He's not even as bad as Janis is. Granted, he is, more or less, responsible for the end of Narnia. But he wasn't intending to cause The End of the World as We Know It. He was just looking for power and prestige. To me, he also fails the "heinous" standard. The only Narnia villain that I'd give this status to (and even then, I'd want to talk it over with folks first) is the Lady of the Green Kirtle from The Silver Chair.
Azash - It depends... again, it's not how the characters treat him; it's what he tries and whether he's a legit threat if one presumes the heroes do nothing. I'd need to know more.
Walder - He's another example that strikes me as how one can be extremely evil without hitting CM status... that looks like he falls just short of heinous, given the setting.
Roose - Definitely not as heinous as I'd want out of a CM. I've seen heroes use basically the same philosophy as to why they're not stopping the Serial Killer (okay, sure, they generally tend to be Anti-Hero characters, but still). I'm not totally certain he meets the other two criteria either, but I only need one to fail him.
@961 You know, we have never disqualified Blue-and-Orange Morality at all from qualifying for this trope as well. I'm not saying that we should or shouldn't... but it's not the first time it's been brought up as a fait accompli reason for potentially disqualifying a nominee. I think we should actually discuss whether a skewed morality scale should disqualify someone from Complete Monster status.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
I wouldn't have necessarily put Azash on the list myself, but as someone who's read the series, it's hard to disqualify him. He's a sickeningly evil being who forces his worshippers to perform human sacrifices (that involve hideous torture beforehand), and engage in orgies until they collapse on the ground, dead of exhaustion. Simple association with him is enough to corrupt anyone's soul, and he runs the worst country in the setting through his Dragon, Emperor Otha. He's so evil, that even statues of him fail to convey his true malevolence; Sparhawk notes at one point that the face on the statue of Azash in his main temple conveys thoughts so revolting that the sculptor seems to have been unable to properly convey it.
The Devil Is a Loser is definitely in play, given that he's a castrated freak trapped inside of an idol, his right-hand man, Otha, is an idiot, and he's such an eldritch force of evil that he can barely understand how humans think. At the same time though, his plan absolutely would have succeeded without intervention from Sparhawk and the other heroes, and he's capable of buying very competent help in the form of Primate Annias and mercenary Fallen Hero Martel. Some of the creatures that serve him, most notably The Seeker are also very good at what they do.
I'd be very hesitant about cutting him too say the least. He's a genuine threat, he's hideously evil, and while the other gods may mock his castration, they still treat him as the very legitimate problem that he is, first teaming up to seal him before the series, and then risking the destruction of the world by letting Sparhawk use Behelliom to kill him.
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I don't think Shift qualifies either. He's a pretty standard selfish Jerkass, but not really evil. I forgot to say that in my earlier post.
For Jadis, I'm not sure. It's been a bit too long since I've read The Magicians Nephew. The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe isn't enough to qualify her, though.
Re: The Blue-and-Orange Morality thing: I wasn't actually arguing either way, just saying that that might be a case where the morality of the story mattered. I think in some way the character's morality does matter—if they have no reason to think that what they're doing is wrong, can we truly call them evil or unrepentant? For instance, if they truly don't realize that killing people kills them permanently (say, if they think "death" is just a minor irritant because they're immortal and relatively immune to pain), then they're not really being evil even if they are slaughtering people left, right, and center. However, I think if they did find out that dead humans stay dead and kept killing regardless, then they would cross the Moral Event Horizon and possibly qualify for CM.
I think Jadis fulfills the clearly heinous part. I mean she's a stereotypical Evil Overlord in the first book but what pushes her over the edge is wiping out all life on her original world just because she couldn't be queen. And she was proud of doing this.
I support Walder Frey being cut, as well as Roose Bolton. Roose is closer to this trope but his bastard son is just so much worse that Roose pales in comparison. Besides there are some implications that Roose may have genuine affection for his wife and had some for his trueborn son before Ramsay killed him.
Also, there are some other examples that should probably be eliminated from the A Songof Iceand Fire:
Littlefinger: While he did manipulate events to initiate the war, which means most of the suffering in the series is indirectly his fault, his motivations aren't entirely clear and he hasn't personally done enough evil actions onscreen to qualify.
Euron Greyjoy: He's a pirate with a nasty reputation and has been pretty abusive to his family, but(just like Littlefinger) he has yet to be seen doing anything immensely evil onscreen.
edited 23rd May '12 7:56:00 PM by OccasionalExister
Jadis is quite certainly a good qualifier in my mind. She's completely evil, has zero remorse, zero Freudian Excuse, commits atrocities entirely for personal gain or the lulz, tortures and manipulates minds, and stops Christmas!
edited 23rd May '12 5:27:23 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
This pretty much. I think Black-and-White Morality may disqualify a character where the work is like a Sugarbowl setting, but that's not the case here.
I think Roose probably does qualify. He's definitely a sadistic sociopath. There are implications that when he was younger he was every bit as bad as his son (who definitely qualifies), although that does have the problem of being implied/offscreen. He does love his wife and did love his first son- the love of the wife doesn't really make him more sympathetic though, as he describes it as if she was a moderately interesting pet- he definitely has some kind of personality disorder.
Not sure about Lord Walder. It's kind of weird in that while he's behind a very heinous act in the series, he's a sort of humorously jerkassy old man- I mean on one hand, indifference can be a sign of monsterdom, but it's a case where it's sort of surprising that someone who seems like a petty jerk was really that spiteful.
Littlefinger is probably a Complete Monster. He doesn't personally do heinous actions but is behind schemes that you'd kind of have to be a Complete Monster to be involved in (i.e. selling a young girl to be (probably cruelly) trained as a prostitute and then forced to marry the Complete Monster son of Roose mentioned above. He is witty and charming though. This might be a case of change between media as the tv version lacks that surface charm.
edited 23rd May '12 5:42:39 PM by Jordan
Hodor
If Roose actually has a personality disorder that could be a disqualifying factor. Once again, most of what he does is Offscreen Villainy. He's bad, but not quite bad enough I suspect, especially given just how far many of the series' villains go.
As far as Black-and-White Morality goes, I don't see why you couldn't have a Complete Monster. Just because there are definite heroes and definite villains doesn't mean that some villains aren't worse than others. The White Witch, to use an example that's been brought up, is definitely more evil than her henchmen, despite the fact that none of them are really sympathetic. Many Gods of Evil and similar beings hail from settings with Black-and-White Morality. They're still utterly horrific.
Hrm... it sounds like Azash fits. It's not about success; it's about the threat he represents if unopposed. I'm fine with letting him stay if those familiar with the series are.
As for Jadis... here's the catch. While she isn't anyone's idea of either pleasant or repentant, she's not really heinous in the story. In The Lion The Witch And The Wardrobe, she's a basic Evil Overlord - clearly needing to be disposed, but she's fairly generic along those lines (and if preventing Christmas gets one to CM status, we need to start discussing the Sheriff of Nottingham from Robin Hood Prince Of Thieves).
Perhaps the worst thing she does in the first book is petrify Mr. Tumnus. Taken objectively, it's not at all evil - he betrayed her in favor of a would-be usurper for her country. Putting aside questions as to whether she was a legitimate ruler, it's hard to argue with executing a traitor to the realm (and she didn't even do that; as shown later, he was able to be revived).
So the flip side is to analyze Jadis in her other appearance in the series, in The Magicians Nephew. While her carrying on in London was certainly dangerous, and she did look like she could have done some damage with the lantern she broke off, it certainly didn't compare to anything she did in the first book (again, which shouldn't qualify her). Nor do her actions in Narnia (i.e. steal one of Aslan's apples) qualify.
It all comes down to her actions in Charn. Now, by all accounts, she used the Deplorable Word, which killed everyone that wasn't her after her sister beat her in a civil war for the throne of Charn. But the problem is, that happened off-screen. And if there's one standard that we've always held to, off-screen actions don't count.
If the destruction of Charn happened in the course of The Magician's Nephew, I would have given Jadis credit. But she doesn't. Judging solely on what actually happens in the books, and not the established past of the books, she doesn't count. And if we let her in, we have to let in examples of every other bad guy who apparently has a huge body count that was piled up before the book starts.
For Blue-and-Orange Morality - I think that said trope wouldn't disqualify someone. After all, since their concept of sin wouldn't necessarily recognize certain acts as sin, they wouldn't seek redemption for it.
Not only that, but my worry is that we'll start having folks try to eliminate perfectly valid examples based on arguments over whether or not we really understand the value systems that character has in place. It's just easier to judge based on a more standard moral axis, as appropriate for the series in question.
@969 Implications about things that happened before the time frame of the book never count towards Complete Monster status. It has to be in the course of the story. Plus, even if it's not the usual sort of love that you'd expect, his caring for the wife and son make me think that, while monstrous, he is not complete.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.@969: Re-reading the series now, and for my two cents, I'm also inclined to say that Roose doesn't count. He seems to genuinely have some kind of personality disorder, he evidently is capable of some kind of affection, even if it's not quite normal, and I think it's pretty clear that he does have an Even Evil Has Standards attitude towards Ramsay. He's a bad guy, but not bad enough to qualify, particularly by the standards of his series.
Littlefinger should be left off until we really have a better idea of his motivations. He's responsible for some pretty horrific things (indirectly or not), but it's possible he does think he's acting for some kind of greater good and/or has a pretty good Freudian Excuse. Until we have a better picture of the inside of his head, I think he shouldn't be up there yet.
I'm actually sort of inclined to think Lord Walder should count specifically because of his general portrayal as merely a semi-humorously bad-tempered old man - he seems to orchestrate the Red Wedding less out of genuine malevolence then out of, effectively, petty spite. That said, I'm not sure he qualifies as especially 'heinous by the standards of the series'.
edited 23rd May '12 6:33:07 PM by nrjxll
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Well Jadis also tortured and murdered Aslan in the first book. Though I don't know how much him getting better diminishes that crime in other tropers' eyes.
edited 23rd May '12 8:08:19 PM by OccasionalExister
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That is a pretty good discussion. One thing though, ASOIF is kind of tricky when using "bad by the standards of the series", as the universe has some moral standards that the reader probably wouldn't agree with- specifically, you are considered a Complete Monster in-universe if you kill your superior lord or a family member by blood- and it doesn't matter if your lord/family member was a Complete Monster and you are a decent person.
Not saying Walder is a good guy (and in his cases, he wasn't morally right in his betrayals), but the fact that he is considered the worst in-universe isn't the best proof.
edited 23rd May '12 8:32:50 PM by Jordan
HodorJadis doesn't torture Aslan, though. She does bind him and shave him, and some of her servants do take cheap shots at him. But for Jadis herself, the only blow she does is with the stone knife, and she kills Aslan in one shot.
She humiliates Aslan, but she doesn't torture. And humiliation is not enough to count for CM status.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.

This being a trouble magnent isn't a good reason to cut it; if we did that there would be no YMMV tropes, no Nightmare Fuel, hell every time a page got brought to the TRS we could just use your argument to cut it instead of fixing it.
If someone has an annoying fixation on this trope, just pass it off to the mods. And complicated discussions are what we want out of this thread since we want the trope to be more Exclusive than it currently is.