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
I have another villain. This time he is only on the film's main page, but not on the list.
John Kreese and Terry Silver from Karate Kid trilogy
- Kreese, Mr. "A man faces you, he is the enemy, an enemy deserves no mercy."
- Terry Silver from the third film is just as bad, if not worse.
Sure they are nasty and they are jerks, but C Ms?! All they did was simply teaching their students how to beat up their enemies.
Do we remove them?
Think of the mooks!
I only saw the first two movies, so I don't know about Silver. But really, I don't think that the first movie had any Complete Monster characters. Total Jerkass characters, yes. But was anything done that was so outrageous that they'd be beyond redemption? Even in the boundaries of a kid's movie from the 80's, that wasn't heinous. I vote no on Kreese, at the very least.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Think of the mooks!
Okay, got another one to discuss found on the work page - Pauly Bruckner of The Unwritten. On one hand, the entry on him under YMMV.The Unwritten seems pretty cut and dried. But I flipped over to the main page, and it also cites him for Anti-Villain.
I admit that I'm not at all familiar with the work (and I don't know enough yet that I can judge the others listed from the series). But it strikes me that by getting marked as an Anti-Villain means that the reader ends up with enough sympathy to disqualify from this trope. From the looks of it, we may have a character that shows the difference between crossing the Moral Event Horizon and a full-on Complete Monster. Thoughts?
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
If he's been listed as an Anti-Villian and that's been uncontested I say remove him from the CM list immediately. The two tropes are mutually exclusive and if someone can qualify for Anti-Villian that means that there's enough good qualities about that person to defeat the "Complete" Part. Assuming that the character is an actual Anti-Villian.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Anti Villains by definition can NEVER be Complete Monsters
I would like to discuss Cesare Borgia from Assassins Creed Brotherhood
- Cesare Borgia, Rodrgo's son. He's involved in an incestuous relationship with his sister, he kills his own brother to become captain general, he's The Starscream to his own father. He even loses it and tries to strangle Lucrezia at one point.
edited 19th Jun '12 5:29:27 AM by MONEYMONEY
Think of the mooks!
Yeah, my thoughts are also that an Anti-Villain is disqualified from being a Complete Monster. I just wanted to check if anyone had familiarity with The Unwritten before I cut it.
@1131 You know you already brought up Cesare Borgia already, right? I believe the ruling was that Cesare was comparatively not that evil, so he failed the heinous standard. Also, while I don't approve of incest at all, Squick is not a factor in Complete Monster. If he was sexually abusing a sibling, that's one thing. But an incestuous relationship based on mutual desire is not a case of Complete Monster status. It's just disgusting.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
I think Cesare counts.
edited 19th Jun '12 6:32:36 AM by Gok
I did brought him, but he was NOT DISCUSSED at all. You just totally ignored my mention. Killing your own father and brother is not heinous?
edited 19th Jun '12 6:35:01 AM by MONEYMONEY
Think of the mooks!
Okay, okay, fine. But in the future, you really need more than what you presented to argue for Complete Monster status. You've participated in this thread long enough to know that.
I'm not saying that killing family members isn't something a Complete Monster would do. But given some of the crap done by other characters in the game, I don't think either murder hit the heinous standard for the game.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
I think that you might be right. Killing his own brother for example was more of a Sibling Rivalry than truly evil act.
Well, we just need to get more opinions about him, before we will finally decide.
edited 19th Jun '12 7:58:25 AM by MONEYMONEY
Lost in Space
Cesare is more pathetic and egotistical than anything. He fails almost all the Complete Monster tests. His father, Rodrigo, would be a far better candidate except that, like many of the other Templars, he's a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Lost in Space
I'm going to put out two candidates from the Humanx Commonwealth series: Conda Challis from Orphan Star and Lord Dominic Estes Rose from Bloodhype. (Yes I know the main article needs to be moved to Literature; I'll get around to it.) Hopefully, someone else in this thread is familiar with the series.
Challis is a business magnate with a penchant for torture and some epically perverted tastes, which include "adopting" a daughter and raising her to be a sex toy. My only concern is that by the end of the novel, he comes across as more pathetic than menacing. It's what he does to his "daughter" that's the most horrible, because she goes on to become a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds on the strength of what she read in his mind.
Dominic Rose, for his part, is a drug dealer who freely admits to being one of the most disgusting beings in the Commonwealth. He trades in bloodhype, a drug that was thought to have been eradicated from the galaxy by edict because it is so horrible. When his operation is outed, he flees to the AAnn enclave and blackmails them with his stash of the drug, causing the commander to declare him the AAnn equivalent of You Monster!. He later attempts to bargain with an Eldritch Abomination for his survival, selling out the human race in the process.
edited 19th Jun '12 1:27:28 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
His father is DEFINATLY not a Well-Intentioned Extremist, at least not in my eyes. Though, I have to play the game again. From what I understood, he was only in it FOR POWER, and he even said to Ezio, that he didn't have to kill his brothers, he just wanter TO MAKE A POINT! Also, I think that all his cruel actions have nothing to do with his motives. The idea that Knight Templar and Well Intetioned Extremist is almost the same is a nonsense in my opinion. Yes, they may overlap (often do as with most Assassins Creed cases) but not neccesarily. The main difference is that the former can be a CM and the latter cannot.
By the way, are you trying to add those villains, or remove them (because I can't find them on the list)
edited 19th Jun '12 2:26:34 PM by MONEYMONEY
Lost in Space
Add them, actually. I was going over the article and realized that they weren't listed. I put them on the work's YMMV page for reference.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Well you are a mod so you can add them at any time. Besides, the Literature page is not locked yet, and better don't lock it yet, since there are a lot of bad examples.
Lost in Space
I want to get consensus, not use mod privileges to add stuff that's supposed to be debated. That's not what they are for.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Think of the mooks!
Well, we do have other examples debated here previously that came off as pathetic instead of menacing. I believe the standard I advanced then is "just what would the character be doing if they had total free reign?"
For the most part, those examples from Humanx Commonwealth look straightforward. I only question the heinousness standard because of the mention of an Eldritch Abomination. Things that can potentially destroy the entire galaxy throw the heinousness scale off if they're actively malevolent.
edited 19th Jun '12 3:38:03 PM by 32_Footsteps
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Lost in Space
I'm not trying to compare Rose to the Vom. The author makes a clear distinction between creatures that are destructive by nature and creatures like humans who have a choice.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Think of the mooks!
Oh, so said Eldritch Abomination is being compared to an animal? (I think we mentioned before that we ought to include "capable of moral judgment" as one of the qualifiers for Complete Monster, but we never really discussed it.) In that case, I'm fine with both of those examples.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Lost in Space
Well, the Vom is clearly intelligent and capable of reason; in fact at full power its intelligence is far above that of the Puny Earthlings it wishes to eat. The discussion in the book about its nature positions it as something of an elemental force of evil, a personification of insatiable hunger. It is simply in its nature to destroy, and destroying it in turn is deemed necessary for the survival of all other things. It operates on a scale entirely different from human morality.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
So, the question I have is: Is Blue-and-Orange Morality enough to stop a creature from being classified as a Complete Monster?
Lost in Space
I would say that it is. A creature with a completely alien moral system cannot be judged effectively on the basis of our own.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Think of the mooks!
I say that it isn't. The particulars of morality do not change whether or not something is capable of morality. Part of what happens constantly in this thread is judgment of many who follow different moral systems than myself. It might be only slightly different, or it might be radically different. It doesn't matter; all I ask is that the character be capable of making moral judgments, even if they choose the evil option every time.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.
Lost in Space
Blue-and-Orange Morality is not simply cultural variations within a species. It requires a completely alien moral system. If you can reasonably debate the value of a life with someone, it's not that trope. If you try to debate the value of a life and they talk about how you don't grok the fullness of ascending to the next karmic level, it's a candidate for that trope.
edited 19th Jun '12 5:18:47 PM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Also, unless I actually immediately recognize the name of the character, I'm always going to say no when you don't state what series they're from.
Don't assume that everyone is following with your favorite work as it comes out.
Reminder: Offscreen Villainy does not count towards Complete Monster.