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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

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#110326: Feb 26th 2018 at 8:09:48 PM

But seriously, Beast, constructive criticism? You need to start trimming these effortposts. They're ending up as giant essays with tons of superfluous detail.

43110 (Striking Back) Relationship Status: Reincarnated romance
#110327: Feb 26th 2018 at 8:11:45 PM

Seconded, I find myself tending to wait for other people to vote to form my opinion. Please reserve yourself to only details pertinent to an EP.

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#110328: Feb 26th 2018 at 8:14:21 PM

As I've said before. Work on this, Beast. There's no excuse at this point.

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#110329: Feb 26th 2018 at 8:23:26 PM

[tup]Dub galvatron (No. 2 for Daniel Riordan as he was also Alduin in The Elder Scrolls V Skyrim), Kor and lillith

Also Beast. Please trimm it down in the future, I had to just skim the post and go to to the heinous and potential redeeming qualities as there was so much. Since lighty and G are familiar with the work, I took there word that she counted.

edited 26th Feb '18 9:00:52 PM by miraculous

"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
#110330: Feb 26th 2018 at 8:59:41 PM

[tup] Lilith.

"Now I have a machine gun. Ho ho ho."
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#110331: Feb 26th 2018 at 10:11:31 PM

Now, then...

What's the Work?

The Red Monarch is a horror story by our own Scraggle. A mixture of Lovecraft, Hodgson and Chambers, particularly the King in Yellow....the plot concerns a fellow named Charles Duncan. Duncan is interested in a certain animated film by the animation studio "Brilliance Films"...the film? The Red Monarch, a near mythical animated film created by one Valdik Cardinous. Duncan's journey is taking him through Omsk to the rundown Brilliance Studios, a pale shadow of what it once was.....now, Duncan finds some lavish settings, particularly Mr. Cardinous' desk with a very vivid, lifelike painting of the man. Duncan also finds a diary and begins...reading.

Who is Vladik Cardinous?

Excellent question. As we learn in the story, Cardinous is...not quite human. An Apocalyptic Log detailed by one of the animators...some of it is quite mundane, but then creepy stuff is thrown out at first. The animators were kept in rather terrifying conditions, with Cardinous casually threatening to cut their fingers off and make them eat them should they not be honest with him. more than that, they began to be subjected to terrifying Mind Rape. "He can see us. He can edit us." He pulled them from all over the world for their talent, simply dominating their minds....they were worked as slaves, forced to labor on an odd cartoon known as The Red Monarch....but other animators begin showing up drenched in a disturbing black inky substance... And little by little some of the animators begin to get a disturbing itch behind their heads., including the diary's own writer after seeing more of the Red Monarch....and as it's shown? It begins to...drive those throughout the Soviet Union to madness. Duncan finds the remains of an animator, mutated horribly beyond recognition, a mass of red fungus having engulfed the head....they're all kept alive, in pain and suffocating constantly. Duncan ends up awakening the things below Brilliance studios, leading to the Red Monarch being played...

it's revealed through the film reel that Cardinous? Is not human at all. The Red Monarch is going to premiere and Cardinous gloats through the screen over the young minds he's already broken with the film, that drives you mad or twists you into a thing bound between life and death in suffering. Cardinous proceeds to gloat:

“My name... is a foul, unutterable song to your kind. To you all, I am known as Vladik Cardinous, your preeminent author of youthful insanity. I send this as an announcement to the days that follow. The message will spread. The truth will unveil itself and come upon society in a wave of madness. The skies will become choked with blood; your streets will burn; your rulers will crumble and bend; your world will suffer so exquisitely. It is time for the king to reign once more among us. May our blessings be upon all of us; let the defiant be reduced to rubble; let the mighty towers of man be felled under the greatness of a divine, never-ending knowledge. May my servants walk forever and agony be in their steps, for it is their torment that fuels this future and empowers us. May we rise above the insignificant horizon. May the message never stop being spread across this sparkling little universe, the past be cleansed as well as the future, and may a billion lives be broken across the scarlet carpet before the worst agonies ever fall unto you. For our dominion; our influence; and my eternal pleasure.

“Enjoy the storm I've brewed for you.”

The story ends as Duncan is ambushed by a mutated animator and taken by it with the mutating ink...as we're left to believe the world is fucked.

Heinous stsndard?

Only villain. Sets it, and uh, well over the baseline.

mitigating qualities?

It's fair to note...Cardinous? We never get a concrete question of what he is. The story goes with few answers, and the premise of Nothing Is Scarier...what's in the Red Monarch? We're never told. What is Cardinous, where is he from, what's his true form? We don't know. He's some kind of Eldritch Abomination, but we do know he's able to think, plan, have express desires, etc.

I would term him a combination between Joseph Curwen and Nyarlathotep. Nothing suggests he lacks agency and he's clearly able to understand human beings and delight in their suffering.

Conclusion?

In my mind? Keeper.

DemonDuckofDoom from Some Pond in Hell Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#110333: Feb 26th 2018 at 10:28:16 PM

Now, one more for tonight I've been meaning to get to?

What's the Work?

NightCry is a video game by Nude Maker games, set in the Clock Tower universe and a spiritual successor to the series. The game takes place on the luxury cruise liner Oceanus, going on a wonderful cruise all through Europe. The heroines, Monica, Rooney and friends are college students having a good time. Except...cultists have stowed away on the ship and things are about to go bad....and they mean to make the Oceanus a site for their ritual. The cult, known as the faithful, summons the monstrous Scissorwalker, a cloaked, terrifying creature that prowls the ship with giant scissors, murdering all it encounters, slaughtering all onboard the ship. The Faithful have a leader...and their leader...is actually the ship's owner, named Vigo Boradsov. Who is Vigo Boradsov

The owner of the Oceanus, a man with a false eye, The head of the Faithful, Vigo organizes the entire trip, and as revealed through diary entries, things get somewhat darker. Vigo had a daughter, one Yolando. However, Vigo wasn't the best father. In fact, as the diary reveals...Vigo took to raping his daughter, eventually impregnating her with a son named Otto. It's implied Otto is a cult member named Jerome. Vigo later utilized dark magic to, as implied...mutate Yolanda and turn her into the monstrous Scissorwalker, the mass murdering tool of the cult. Intending on...somethign with the ritual, Vigo summons Scissorwalker to the ship and has her systematically and brutally slaughter everyone on the ship, intending to use the Scissorwalker to kill the survivors. Now...toward the end of the game on best scenario, Monica and Rooney interrupt Vigo's ritual, revealing a bunch of corpses around him. Vigo congratulates them on making it so far, but summons the Scissorwalker to finish it.

However, having pieced parts of the ritual together, Rooney manages to turn the tables. Ripping out her own eye to purify it, she seizes control of Scissorwalker...and frees the tortured Yolanda, allowing her to take her revenge against her father. Vigo, helpless, is killed by the monster he made, whereupon Scissorwalker vanishes with the corpses...hopefully at peace, as in the Golden Ending Monica and Rooney make it out.

Mitigating Qualities?

Nothing to speak of here. Vigo acts kind and helpful, but he's actually a twisted cultist. It's never revealed what the ritual is intended to accomplish, but no good intentions are ever mentioned. From what we know, Vigo is an incestuous rapist who used his own daughter as fodder to become a twisted supernatural attack dog and has her butcher an entire ocean liner of innocents for his personal gain.

Conclusion?

You decide.

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#110334: Feb 26th 2018 at 10:32:28 PM

Yes to Vigo. I will admit I have always found it strange that I can't recall anyone from the original games counting... maybe Edward as specifically portrayed from the novelization as I believe that cuts out the minute redeeming qualities he had, but I'm not sure.

edited 26th Feb '18 10:46:27 PM by Scraggle

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#110335: Feb 26th 2018 at 10:42:58 PM

[tup]Cardinous and Vigo

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
G-Editor The 47th President Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
The 47th President
#110336: Feb 26th 2018 at 11:14:16 PM

[tup]Cardinous and Vigo.

@Lighty: So you're going to do Kingdom Come: Deliverance tomorrow assuming you finished the game?

edited 26th Feb '18 11:14:22 PM by G-Editor

My sandbox of EPs and other stuff
nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#110337: Feb 26th 2018 at 11:15:03 PM

[tup]Vigo. Not as certain about Cardinous, given the ambiguity of what the hell he actually is.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#110338: Feb 26th 2018 at 11:46:51 PM

[tup] Cardinous. We don't know what he is, but this falls under the "assume agency unless proven otherwise" rule.

Leaning [tup] on Vigo, despite apparently us not seeing him that much:

  • Small Role, Big Impact: Is only seen right at the tutorial stage of the game during Scenario 1 with Monica. Shows up in the True Ending as the man responsible for the creation of the Scissorwalker, and the deaths of everyone on the cruise.

DemonDuckofDoom from Some Pond in Hell Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#110340: Feb 27th 2018 at 12:35:49 AM

@Acw: There seems to be an issue in Spider-Man. For alternate continuites its supposed to be arranged in order of appearance. Hence lex Luthor From The Superman Crossover should go after Kangaroo as the comic was published in 1976 which was before all the others except that one.

edited 27th Feb '18 12:42:10 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."
hegelvonaxel Since: Feb, 2018
#110341: Feb 27th 2018 at 12:53:58 AM

[tup] Every candidate.

So, what this thread decided about Gharnef? I saw that he had received six-seven votes to be cut.

edited 27th Feb '18 1:07:24 AM by hegelvonaxel

G-Editor The 47th President Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
The 47th President
#110342: Feb 27th 2018 at 1:28:47 AM

[up]I think your confused it’s Dr. Yung that’s going to get cut whose vote count for his cut currently is seven

edited 27th Feb '18 1:29:22 AM by G-Editor

My sandbox of EPs and other stuff
PolarPhantom Since: Jun, 2012
#110343: Feb 27th 2018 at 1:52:44 AM

[tup] Lilith, Vladik and and Night Cry baddie.

So, The Last Jedi novelisation is coming out soon. I believe Lucas Film's position on novel adaptations is that the content is canon unless on screen evidence contradicts it. Rian Johnson, king of the Reylos - JJ Abrams is god - gave a lot of support, so it's probably going to be super canon, more so than even TFA's adaptation.

Anyway, this wasn't reserved I don't think. Anyone interested in it? Because I am. Still, Lighty and Scraggle did the film, so I will let them do it if they want. Also, if the two of you, Lighty and Scraggle, wish to PM me for speculation and some of the stuff I've been reading about its content, leaked from advance copies, go ahead. I don't know everything because I try to avoid spoilers, but I know... some interesting things.

edited 27th Feb '18 1:53:26 AM by PolarPhantom

Scraggle Since: Nov, 2012 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#110344: Feb 27th 2018 at 2:54:29 AM

If it's canon, I'd... prefer to handle that with Lighty, especially given I'm still dibbing on a future Snoke masterpost should it ever come to a point where he does count.

Beast from Ontario, Canada Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Browsing the selection
#110345: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:40:47 AM

In my defense, I did try to trim this post. The only part that I felt was hearty was explaining what the show is and its heinous standard.

edited 27th Feb '18 3:44:18 AM by Beast

"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
emperors Messenger from another dimension. Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: It's complicated
Messenger from another dimension.
#110346: Feb 27th 2018 at 3:48:03 AM

[tup] Cardinous

Welcome to the world of greatest media!
MenInGreyToBlak V Since: Oct, 2017 Relationship Status: Too sexy for my shirt
V
#110347: Feb 27th 2018 at 4:34:00 AM

I'm gonna have to abstain on Lilith. I'm not sceptical enough for a downvote, but I'm still not 100% sure about an upvote.

[tup] Vigo and Cardinous

PolarPhantom Since: Jun, 2012
#110348: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:01:27 AM

By all means Scraggle, do go ahead!

I'll ask around and see what others say regarding canon, but that's what I read and I believe LF are still keeping that policy.

nrjxll Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Not war
#110349: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:33:45 AM

I won't object to the possibility of using the novelization as a basis for a Snoke effortpost, since it will apparently reveal more about his backstory and (AFAWK) he is dead - so while I'm sure we'll get more secondary material at some point, it's not like this is really an ongoing arc situation.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#110350: Feb 27th 2018 at 5:34:30 AM

[up][up] According to this, the books are canon.

On that note, I clarified that the Jerjerrod novelization was from James Kahn, since there seems to be another, canon novelization.

edited 27th Feb '18 5:34:48 AM by ACW


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