Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Fact of the matter is, though, it's still a morality system. Maybe it is human-centric to judge a would-be Complete Monster on those terms. But hey, I will make no apology for my monolithic human culture judging what other humans are trying to depict.

This isn't the first time that the issue has come up. I know in the past that folks have leaned towards allowing Blue-and-Orange Morality cases into Complete Monster.

I think the catch is that most cases of Blue And Orange Morality don't even bother to try to understand what the human morality scale means. It'd be one thing to discuss when they try and fail (in fact, some good stories have come from that). But if they don't even try, I'm quite willing to apply Complete Monster.

That, and I do worry that creating an exception for Blue And Orange Morality will start leading into debates over sociopathic individuals, and whether their outrageously skewed moral compasses will automatically disqualify them from this trope. I support allowing B&OM for this trope so as to save potential headache later.

As I recall, insanity of some kind was already considered a mark against this trope (though not an automatic disqualifier).

To go back to the Borgia from Assassins Creed II, there aren't a lot of Complete Monsters in the series by a deliberate choice, but let's take his actions apart anyway;

• Killing Ezio's father and brothers

Well killing Giovanni, while evil, isn't CM territory sice Giovanni belonged to the organisation his organisation was at war with, and Giovanni was trying to kill Rodrigo as well. As for killing the brothers, he admits it was unnesicary, but you hve to remember that at the time this was set in a time where that was common; your ally Lorenzo kills or imprisons everyone related to the Pazi regardless of their involvement in the plot for instance, so Not So Different applies here.

• Killing an underling who failed him

Said underling and failed in his coup to kill a merchant and his entire family, including children, proving him a liabliy to the order.

And that's about it for what he does on screen. He was pretty bad as Pope, but that all happened off screen too.

I'd argue against him having good intentions since he was out for himself and not for the advancement of society, but he fails the "Henious" part by not being as sadistic as the other CM from the serious. He does evil acts, but he doesn't go out of his way to do them and isn't excessive in the ones he does do.

As for Chesere, he's too pathetic to be a CM, his brother and father were both villians as well, and he fails the truly henious part compared to the other AC CM.

Well you were doing the cleanup but you requested the page locked. Now how can we remove him? When I make request, I am always ignored. Though, being a Roman Catholic Christian, I will argue FOR Rodrigo, he was the WORST pope in history, and he BLASTPHEMED against the faith (at least in the game)!!

Also, when did he kill an underling who failed him??

Also, I would like to ask about the Orsi brothers? They are in it only for money, and they are very vile and sadistic in their actions.

edited 20th Jun '12 1:57:50 AM by MONEYMONEY

Whoa there. It's starting to sound like your desire to include Rodrigo Borgia on the Complete Monster list for video games is a roundabout way of declaring the historical Pope Alexander VI a Complete Monster. It is necessary to seperate the historical person from the fictional depiction of him.

I will note that, no matter just how poor Rodrigo was at staying true to Catholic dogma, that we are not in the business of using fictional characters to push forth dogmatic crusades against real people that they represent (even if we were in the business of declaring real people Complete Monsters, I would argue against Rodrigo). There are historical figures that I'm not fond of myself, but I don't push for their fictionalized versions to be on this trope for that.

So, with that said, looking purely at the Assassins Creed II version of Rodrigo Borgia...

Based on what I've read, I have to agree that Rodrigo fails the "heinous" standard. He's certainly underhanded and antagonistic, and I wouldn't trust him. But that's still fairly small potatoes for the series.

I am NOT trying to add him. He is already on the list. Okay, remove him. What about the Orsi brothers?

I didn't say you were trying to add him. I said you were trying to include him. That would include keeping an example that is already there.

Moreover, "shouting" about the situation just leads me to question whether or not you can handle participating in this thread. You've done it multiple times towards me of late. The only thing that typing in all caps serves is to make me consider hollering for a mod. Chill out.

As for the Orsi brothers, nobody has given an argument as to why they might qualify. So no.

Okay, I am sorry. I said I accept that he doesn't count. I made a request to remove him. In case of the Orsi brothers, well I will respect anyone's opinion if they don't count. I am not saying the qualify. I am only saying they might.

So I will say why I think they might count. Just look at them; almost all the templars have some good intentions behind their actions; but not them. They kill people for money, or those who have not payed them depts, and they kidnap two children and it is implied that they would kill them if you would not come in time. Also, whole city is afraid of them. I will not argue for them if I will see people negating their CM status. And also, despite initially arguing about Borgia's CM status, I was all the time suprised that how is this possible that he is on the list, while Orsi brothers are not. Now, since Borgia is getting removed, it will be easier to accept that the brothers are not a CM (I think they are though).

And please do NOT just ignore me, because I really don't like it.

Here are some videos of them https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzfddsYKJd4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FzIbEFEUpHA

edited 20th Jun '12 8:00:30 AM by MONEYMONEY

The problem with declaring any particular villain in the Assassin's Creed series to be a Complete Monster is that they are each so despicable in their own ways that it's hard to call any one out as being more heinous than the others.

Sure, the Orsi brothers are assholes, but kidnapping and ransoming kids in exchange for the Apple, while intending to renege on their end of the bargain, is classic villain fare and no worse than anything Rodrigo did. (It's worth noting that Rodrigo engaged in plenty of Offscreen Villainy including a reputation for kiddie diddling, but we can't count that.)

And I don't like people abusing attention-grabbing text formatting, such as excessive use of bold tags or all-caps writing. If you can refrain from constantly using capital letters where they won't belong, there won't be an issue.

Also, speaking of ignoring, I've said multiple times that I'm not going to follow weblinks as to what is proof of a Complete Monster. Weblinks Are Not Examples - and since the point of this thread is to vet examples, I don't want to deal with weblinks at all.

I'm inclined to trust Fighteer's comments on this potential example.

Okay, but have you played the game yourself? For me weblinks are great help; in another CM thread, weblinks were used all the time.

Also, yeah but I also want to understand; kidnapping children is not what makes them CM. They killed many people who did not pay their debts. Their actions are not the same like Rodrigo's, because Rodgrigo's only real bad action was killing your family, at least the only one ON-screen. Also, can we finally cut Rodrigo?? Fighteer, you are a mod.

edited 20th Jun '12 8:36:22 AM by MONEYMONEY

I'll get to it. You need to calm down and develop some patience. It's not an affront to humanity to have something stay up until one of us has the time to delete it.

No, I have not played any Assassin's Creed game myself. You have to consider the idea that the majority of people reading the page will similarly have not played the game themselves. (As a side note, I'm also not terribly interested in starting any of them for a multitude of reasons.)

We can't depend on weblinks staying active, which is part of why we're not supposed to use them as examples. I don't care what others have done in the past. I never have cared for the practice of passing off links as examples, I never have considered them good arguments, and I'm not about to change course on that. Particularly since the wiki has since codified Weblinks Are Not Examples. If you can't write up a good argument for why someone should stay on the page, you'd end up with a weak example that would get deleted even if folks agreed upon it.

Okay, I will try to come with a good description

• The Orsi Brothers are likely worse than any templar in the game. While they are not templars themselves, they work for them only for money. They open a business which is succesful only because they brutally kill anyone who fails to pay them a dept. Later, they kill Girolamo Riaro (whom they originally worked for no reason other than money, and after thatm they leave his body naked on the street! When Rodrigo Borgia hires them retrive the Apple of Eden they come up with an idea to kidnapp two children for the ransom, but they would likely kill anyway if you would not come up in time!

This wrong to say that they are the same as Rodrigo Borgia, because his only evil action was to kill your family, while others happen Off-Screen, and are only implied.

edited 20th Jun '12 9:15:25 AM by MONEYMONEY

Okay, there's way too much Evil Is Petty in that description - particularly the part about leaving one of their victims naked in the street. That's not an irredeemable sin; that's either petty theft or attempting to humiliate, depending on the circumstances. Also, I kind of question that they were effective in their murder-for-hire business only because they killed those who didn't pay up. For one, they'd obviously proven in the past that they were effective because their targets did, in fact, die. Plus, it's actually a given that a Professional Killer will kill someone who tries to welch on paying their debts. They seem like run-of-the-mill assassins (not Assassins, as per the game's parlance) to me.

The child endangerment is potentially the only thing in that game's universe that would have me consider it. But there's not enough detail on that to have me able to definitively say that it's enough to call them CM.

Alright, than they don't count. Also, Rodrigo is already gone from the list. By the way, Video Games is filled with lot of examples that don't fit. I'll mention two:

• Dutch van der Linde from Red Dead Redemption. He is implied to have been a Robin Hood-esque, Chaotic Good figure in the past, but by now, he is a deranged, psychopathic, selfish man whose first appearance sees him shoot an innocent woman in the head during a bank robbery for no real reason. He also uses the suffering of the Native Americans into convincing them into becoming easy mooks for his gang, committing massive atrocities all while Dutch claims he's doing it for an "ideal".

Yeah, he is evil, but he is described as an Anti-Villain who by definition can NEVER be C Ms.

• Arius from Devil May Cry. He enslaves Dumary Island by turning it into a demonic nest, and creates a facade of creating a modern city. If that wasn't enough, he dumps Lucia, one of his creations, when she turns out to be a defect.

For me that's a standard villainy and in NO way a CM level.

edited 20th Jun '12 10:20:57 AM by MONEYMONEY

The former, based on the character page for the game, strikes me as a no. It's pretty obvious that there are plenty of people who do feel pity and similar positive emotions for him, even if they're tempered with hate at what he became. He seems to blatantly fail the third criterion.

For Arius... beyond the fact that I think he's just engaged in Card-Carrying Villainy and didn't do anything truly beyond redemption, I think any attempt to include him would be simply people taking shots at Devil May Cry 2, which I think gets an undue amount of hate. I'm not totally sure he meets either of the first two criteria.

edited 20th Jun '12 7:42:58 PM by 32_Footsteps

Any more opinions? Because I want to remove these guys as quickly as possible

About Arius, he actually also tries to kill Lucia after he traps her in front of Dante and taunts her because she's a defect to mess with her head. I don't know if I'd call him a CM though (I do like DMC 2).

So he tried to kill somebody. That in no way makes or even increases the possiblity of being a CM. Otherwise, we would have almost every single villain.

The taunting would fall under Evil Is Petty, and that wouldn't count for Complete Monster status in any universe.

The attempt to kill would count in some universes, but that's fairly small potatoes in Devil May Cry 2. Plus, by that point, the would-be victim was trying to kill him. Meeting deadly force with deadly force is not going to qualify you for Complete Monster.

Spider-Man's YMMV page; or more specifically, the "Spider-Man in Other Media" section thereof; lists Norman Osborn (as in, the film version of him) as a Complete Monster. And then the sub-entry underneath that entry discusses why he might not be.

For one thing, that seems to contradict Repair Dont Respond.

For another, though, I believe prior discussion of the trope states that there is not supposed to be room for ambiguity here. Not that the sub-entry even mentioned all the ambiguity; apart from the Freak Lab Accident being the problem, even after that he clearly still had a soft spot for his son. That and a sympathetic backstory, which is something often cited to negate CM status in these kinds of discussions.

So, I'm inclined to think Norman Osborn doesn't really count as a CM, but I'll wait on a response before removing the mentions of him from the entry.

edited 21st Jun '12 7:08:04 PM by HiddenFacedMatt

Hmm... while I don't disagree, I do think there's one thing we have to consider with movieverse-Norman. And this is a question that we may want to consider for other nominees as well.

What is the appropriate way to handle Split Personality cases?

Now, in real life, dissociative identity disorder does not result in a true split in personality, and I would push that any work that involves a realistic depiction of said disorder should consider the entire character as just one character.

That said, we seldom see fiction treat the disorder like that; fiction tends to depict each identity as its own distinct character. Given the conversations between Norman and The Goblin (for lack of a better term for it), and the point where he apparently fugues about what The Goblin does, I'd be fine with treating the Goblin as distinct from Norman Osbourn and having only The Goblin personality listed. In general, with Split Personality cases, I'm willing, for all fantastic portrayals of the condition, to list one personality as long as that one personality, taken in a vacuum, qualifies.

I interpret the "conversations with Green Goblin" as just the movie's eccentric way of showing Norman's inner dialogue. I don't think something as abstract as a character's sadistic side should be seen as a character in and of himself.

Besides, it's not like that side exists in a vacuum. The whole reason Norman/Goblin wanted to bomb that Oscorp parade in the first place was because the company cast him out. It's what led him down the Goblin path anyway. So the two sides of his personality don't exactly exist in isolation from each other.

Is the Green Goblin sadistic? Yes. Is he psychotic? Yes. Is he monstrous? Yes. Is he a Complete Monster? I'd argue that there are mitigating circumstances: mainly the fact that (in some continuities) he still loves his son. There's also the fact that his mental state is a side-effect of the Super Serum that Osborn took, and is not really his genuine personality. Lastly, cartoon supervillainy has never struck me as particularly CM-worthy. Spider-Man can't really show GG sinking to the levels of depravity that would qualify him for CM in my mind, because it's a kid-friendly franchise.

edited 22nd Jun '12 6:17:50 AM by Fighteer