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Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

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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

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#105476: Jan 7th 2018 at 4:24:54 AM

Under Tarkin? I was thinking under the Aftermath tree.

MenInGreyToBlak V Since: Oct, 2017 Relationship Status: Too sexy for my shirt
V
#105477: Jan 7th 2018 at 4:50:31 AM

[tup] Strange.

I think The Dark Knight Returns Joker is absolutely terrifying. But I wouldn't say the best... though one of the best.

My favorite is probably the 89' Joker, AKA Jack Nicholson, AKA Jack Napier. It had a fun charm in it while still managing to be somewhat badass.

I don't think I even have to mention Heath Ledger's Joker. It was such a surprise seeing Ledger out of all people play the Joker and actually nailing it.

edited 7th Jan '18 5:12:42 AM by MenInGreyToBlak

Vampireandthen In love with an Uptown Girl from Northern Ireland Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: A teenager in love
In love with an Uptown Girl
#105478: Jan 7th 2018 at 5:10:07 AM

Why are we all talking about our favorite Jokers? Isn’t that going off topic?

EDIT: Gonna check out the Shadow of Israphel. Been meaning to do it for ages.

edited 7th Jan '18 5:53:19 AM by Vampireandthen

Please allow me to introduce myself, I am a man of wealth and taste. Nice to meet you, hope you can guess my name.
Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#105479: Jan 7th 2018 at 6:36:36 AM

Alright, all... time to talk about another adaptation of a DC character who might count.

What's the setting?

With credit to Ravok to help me go through these (one of the things I went through this weekend? The Swamp Thing cartoon, which is terrible) I've got a candidate from the Swamp Thing movie duology from the 80s... one that only counts with both flicks in mind. We follow the tale of Alec Holland as portrayed by Ray Wise, a botanist and swamp-obsessed scientist who tries to invent a formula to combine plant DNA and animal DNA to cure world hunger, only for the Nietzsche-quoting mad scientist from the evil mansion down the road to sabotage the experiment and mutate Alec Holland into the titular Swamp Thing, who sort of looks like a soggy, steroid-abusing Grinch in these movies.

Now, the first Swamp Thing movie in 82' movie directed by Wes Craven... the film sort of tries to desperately ignore its fundamentally silly premise to instead produce this weird sci-fi romantic drama in between relatively mild superhero action... thankfully, they ditched that garbage with a sequel called The Return of Swamp Thing to produce this corny-ass flick that proceeded more like a Silver Age comic, with hammy, overblown dialogue and a Swamp Thing that provided family-friendly one-liners and marketable thumbs-ups. Surprisingly, it's the contribution of the second movie that helps our candidate count tonight... our villain for the films? None other than Dr. Anton Arcane.

Who is Arcane? What has he done?

A Wicked Cultured mad scientist with a wealthy mansion, ambitions of becoming great in the world, and an entourage of mercenaries on his payroll, Arcane is first introduced learning that the noble scientist Holland is developing a secretive formula... which Arcane just sees ripe to exploit. Arcane murders one of the superiors of the project and poses as him to infiltrate Holland's research facility, before having his mercenaries descend on the place and massacre almost everyone there. Arcane personally reveals himself before trying to goad Holland into giving him the formula's he's devised by threatening his sister Linda, and when Linda tries to flee, Arcane coldly shoots her dead before Holland accidentally spills the chemical onto himself, mutating him and turning into the Jolly Green Dick Durock.

Wanting Swamp Thing's body to create a formula that will let him force people to bow to him or starve, Arcane starts throwing his mercenaries to repeatedly attack and try and take Swamp Thing while killing everyone else, coldly disregarding the death of one of his top goons and rewarding the thug who actually gets him his sample by tricking him into drinking the resultant formula as a test, mutating the man into a sniveling, deformed pig-man. Taking his own formula to change his form into someone all-powerful, Arcane instead mutates into a snarling wolf thing and apparently loses whatever's left of his sanity... grabbing a sword and trying to chop the heroes to bits in the climax, fatally stabbing Swamp Thing's female companion but pissing Swamp Thing enough to impale Arcane on his own sword and reviving his companion.

In the second movie, Arcane is revealed to have been saved by his other minions and reconstituted back to his wicked old self a few months later... Arcane opens up the film demonstrating how bad he's gotten since as he's now organized the capturing of dozens of innocent people and forcefully splicing their genes with animal DNA, resulting in horrific mutations all over the people and reducing them to abominated, agonized monstrosities that Arcane either chucks behind bars or disintegrates, with a zoos worth of mutations in his basement. Those are just his successful ones, too — the list of failed ones fills up "entire cemeteries." Ordering the latest poor sod vaporized and threatening his lead scientist, Arcane warmly greets his stepdaughter Abigail who wants to confront him over what happened over their mother.

Turns out... Arcane and his late wife only married so they could breed and experiment on each other, which killed Arcane's wife and left him with her daughter. Arcane realizes Abigal shares the exact same genes as her mother and resolves to continue his experiments on her, planning to use her energies to steal her life and reverse the degeneration of his own body due to the mutation formula. Unfortunately for Arcane, he's revealed as also needing a few other components for this to fully work... which means taking the DNA of his right hand woman Zurell and his captain-of-security, meaning their deaths. Arcane gleefully dismisses their lives for his own and eventually manages to capture Abigail, draining the life from her and killing her in front of Swamp Thing as he merrily states "God will pardon me... it's His job" only to realize Zurell swapped out her own blood for someone else's, meaning the cure was a bust. Calmly shooting Zurell dead in a silent fury after reassuring her everything's alright, Arcane tries to engage in a final fight with Swamp Thing... only for Swampy to bust his feeble old legs with a chair, take Abigal's body, and prance out his lab as Arcane is caught in the explosion of his own house, killing him once and for all. Arcane is rendered extra crispy and Swamp Thing and Abigal run off, presumably to have weird freaky hallucination plant sex for the rest of their lives (that's an actual scene in this movie, people).

Any mitigating factors?

Personally I say nay. Arcane doesn't exhibit an inkling of true love for anyone... his men are but pawns to him he can easily excuse if they die in their service, even Zurell in the second movie seeming to have a romantic relationship with him only for Arcane to calmly say she can be test fodder for extending the life of his own cowardly ass outside of her knowledge. His wife is indicated to be equally worthless to him except as a means of experimental gratification, one he didn't even throw a funeral for and upon seeing her daughter is to glee over how she shares her genes and he can experiment on him. Of course, Abigail herself is just a means to an end to him, one he puts up a shallow facade of friendliness with but later gleefully taking her own life to fuel his immortality.

Sets the heinous standard and no other redeeming factors — the atrocities in both movies both easily qualify him for the trope overall.

Conclusion?

Yes to Arcane, who for your information also turned a person into a praying mantis in the cartoon (where he doesn't count on account of being nothing more than a cackling standard villain who's written like an Eco Villain version of Gargamel and twice as useless). Not as viscerally vile as, say, his comic counterpart, but still? A surprisingly solid keeper from another early superhero movie in my book.

Thoughts?

Edited by Scraggle on Sep 13th 2018 at 2:04:07 AM

ElfenLiedFan90 Me in a nutshell (Coping with Depression) from Jakarta,Indonesia Since: Aug, 2017 Relationship Status: Yes, I'm alone, but I'm alone and free
Me in a nutshell (Coping with Depression)
#105480: Jan 7th 2018 at 6:40:48 AM

Stupid question. If a CM saw another villain performing a Heel-Face Turn and glad to see that but for reasons like "I'm glad that the guy joins the good-guy side since it allows me to eradicate or torture my opponents and being a bigger piece of shit than I ever was." considered mitigating or not?

Like for example.....If Syura is glad to see Esdeath perform a Heel-Face turn but will say lines like this: "Oh I'm glad that she joins the good guys side of course as it allows me to rape,pillage and burn other people's village and I love becoming a huge scumbag after she performs a redemption!!! Now I'm going to heard the screams and agony to other people as it's my music" (This obvioulsy doesn't happen in the Anime or Manga of course but I'm just pointing out the example).....Would it still considered as mitigating or not?

And I'll give a [tup] to Arcane

edited 7th Jan '18 6:42:31 AM by ElfenLiedFan90

"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."
Clown-Face Wild Child from Canada Since: Dec, 2015 Relationship Status: In another castle
Wild Child
#105481: Jan 7th 2018 at 6:48:36 AM

[up]I don't see why that would be mitigating.

[tup]Arcane.

Why so serious?
miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#105482: Jan 7th 2018 at 6:51:40 AM

[up][up]That's not really redeeming to be honest.

[tup]Arcane

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
NTG Since: Aug, 2014
#105483: Jan 7th 2018 at 6:54:54 AM

[up][up][up]Defiantly not a mitigating factor. On the contrary. The villain isn’t happy because the reformed character will be better off, he’s happy because he now has an excuse to be an even bigger bastard

[tup] for Dr. Anton Arcane

Tyk5919 Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: Shipping fictional characters
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
#105484: Jan 7th 2018 at 7:26:23 AM

[tup] for Dr. Anton Arcane.

I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
Beast from Ontario, Canada Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Browsing the selection
#105485: Jan 7th 2018 at 7:48:38 AM

[tup] Dr. Arcane.

"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#105486: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:00:50 AM

[tup] Anton.

Interestingly enough, the guy who voiced the animated version, Don Francks, DID voice a CM: Sabretooth from the 90s X-Men series.

Animeking1108 Since: Jan, 2010
#105487: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:21:59 AM

Now that the anime has ended two weeks ago, I think it's safe to start this effortpost.

What is the Work? Inuyashiki. It is a manga by Hiroya Oku of Gantz-fame about an old man who turns into a cyborg after a run in with aliens. He uses his powers to help the innocent and to stop a boy with powers similar to his.

Who Is He? Samejima, a Yakuza boss that Inuyashiki encounters.

What Has He Done? His Establishing Character Moment is him leering over the dead body of a woman he raped and murdered. It is then revealed that he regularly abducts, drugs, rapes, and kills women For the Evulz. He also forces one of his underlings to give him a blow job. Later, he abducts a woman named Fumino, but she manages to escape and wound him before he could try anything.

Determined to get Fumino, he tracks down her mother and it is heavily implied that he tortured her to get Fumino's whereabouts and killed her. He orders his men to grab Fumino while he strangles her fiance, Satoru to death. Inuyashiki tries to stop him, but he shoots him. Thinking Inuyashiki to be dead, Samejima heads back home so he can have his way with Fumino. Even though Inuyashiki manages to revive Satoru with his powers, he believes Samejima is beyond redemption and goes to his hideout to take him on.

He finds him at a Yakuza meeting, where it's heavily implied that he got what he wanted from Fumino. Samejima orders his men to shoot Inuyashiki in retaliation for beating him up. Despite being an All-Loving Hero and a Technical Pacifist, Inuyashiki makes an exception with Samejima by subjecting him to a Fate Worse than Death by blinding and crippling him and his henchmen.

Freudian Excuse? He has none.

Pet the Dog Moments? Nope.

Heinous Standard? While Shishigami has a much higher bodycount than him, he does have his fair share of Morality Pets (his parents and his girlfriend) and even has a Redemption Equals Death moment. Not only that, but Shishigami never raped anybody.

Final Verdict I think he might count, but I want to see what everybody else thinks. He's a serial killer, a serial rapist, a Bad Boss, and will do anything to get what he wants.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#105488: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:31:50 AM

Yea to Arcane, and I think I'm going with a yes to Samejima as well due to the unqiueness compared to the main villain.

edited 7th Jan '18 8:37:43 AM by Lightysnake

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#105489: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:36:46 AM

[tup]Samejima

Initially worried considering the main villain is up there as one of the worst not to count but uh I think he's unique enough to stand out.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
JoeBlitz Since: Dec, 2016
#105490: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:43:16 AM

[tup] Arcane and Samejima.

"Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."
AustinDR Lizzid people! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Lizzid people!
#105491: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:45:04 AM

[tup] Arcane and Samejima.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#105492: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:46:58 AM

I need to know more about Shishigami before I can vote. The other guy may not have any redeeming qualities, but may still fail in heinousness.

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#105493: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:48:46 AM

  • Wise Son: The White Wolf: The vicious leader of the Children of the Ivory Fist is a racist psychopath driven by a violent crusade to eradicate what he sees as filth. Precipitating a wave of violence over Paris Island by his group and ordering several noted ministers to be murdered around the city to strike fear into the hearts of the community and murdering one of the vagrants in the city himself when he's brought to him, the Ivory Fist's leader eventually reveals his disgust of all non-white people in the city, admitting to Wise Son that he is simply using the murder of one of his own men as shallow rhetoric for his murders and confessing that he wants to ignite a race war to kill off all non-whites from the streets. To avenge what he sees is a slight to him from Wise Son, the Ivory Fist leader spitefully blows up the store Wise Son defends, killing its elderly couple, and trying to have Wise Son and his pregnant ex-girlfriend gunned down in the latter's own apartment.

edited 7th Jan '18 8:50:40 AM by Scraggle

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#105494: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:49:00 AM

[up][up]Shishigami has powers and that puts him on a much higher tier than Saejimia. Hes aslo never raped anyone like Saemijimia as pointed out in the effort post.

edited 7th Jan '18 8:54:20 AM by miraculous

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#105496: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:53:16 AM

[up][up] But what exactly does he DO?

Scraggle, should that entry go under the Blood Syndicate one, since it's a spinoff?

[down] Alright.

edited 7th Jan '18 9:09:34 AM by ACW

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#105497: Jan 7th 2018 at 8:58:09 AM

Nay. I think it's better listed as its own miniseries.

DukeNukem4ever Since: Jan, 2017
#105498: Jan 7th 2018 at 9:15:25 AM

Look at what I've found on Ecco The Dolphin YMMV page:

Complete Monster: In Defender, in the "Dolphin's Nightmare" stages, the oceans are ruled by the Clan, a group of racist, cruel dolphins who torment outcast dolphins and other marine life. The Clan is lead by the Exalted Ones, and under their orders, members of the Clan engage in such atrocities as capturing whales to use as living generators, cutting off the food supplies of an outcast village and later siccing sharks on the villagers, and torturing a member of the dolphin resistance group. While the lead Exalted One, Mutaclone, does display somewhat of a positive side, the two unnamed Exalted Ones show no redeeming traits at all, with one of them even stating "Compassion is a weakness".

Cut this entry. It looks like a pathetic attempt to give a CM title to a group of characters who are Always Chaotic Evil and do not share common mind.

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#105499: Jan 7th 2018 at 9:27:57 AM

Uh we just approved the 2 leaders. Where did you get an idea we approved the whole group from.

Their the same species as the main character, how the hell does that make the species Always Chaotic Evil. Thats like saying a gang is a different species from humans.

edited 7th Jan '18 9:31:15 AM by miraculous

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#105500: Jan 7th 2018 at 9:28:16 AM

[up][up] Actually, I remember that being approved.

edited 7th Jan '18 9:28:23 AM by ACW


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