Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

On the topic of split personalities, that reminded me to bring up examples from The First Law and YMMV/Best Served Cold:

The former lists "The Bloody Nine", who is a Superpowered Evil Side of one of the protagonists, the Barbarian Hero Logen Ninefingers.

It is never clear whether this is a magically implanted split personality or if Logen is crazy. Regardless, it does ultimately seem (especially in the later book Red Country) as if the Bloody Nine is more like an evil facet of Logen's personality that part of him enjoys bringing out (so, it is a similar case to Edward Hyde).

In the case of the latter book, the character Benna Murcato is a Posthumous Character who was the brother of the protagonist, Monza, with whom she was very close. You do see him shown in flashbacks, and it is quite clear he was a scumbag and was responsible for evil actions attributed to the protagonist. However, you don't really see him do anything on-screen (it is more like you can deduce he was responsible for things).

The most evil action was a massacre of civilians in a captured city- Monza told Benna to tell her generals to spare them, but Benna "forgot" to deliver the message. We hear about the massacre, but it isn't shown on-screen.

Perhaps more importantly, the series is set in a Crapsack World and I don't think Benna really stands out at all for evilness. The wizard Bayaz seems a lot worse (basically imagine Dante of Fullmetal Alchemist if she was a Gandalf expy, and she won).

edited 18th Apr '13 10:07:45 PM by Hodor

Oh, my fucking god, Bayaz is the monster of The First Law. Honestly, I can see Benna, though. While he does die at the start , we see enough of his evil in flashbacks. As for Bayaz, though? He is one of the easiest qualifiers here ever. An utterly amoral sociopath of a monster.

For Flagg, gimme some time. Sunlight Gardner seems a keeper too from what people tell me.

As for Ka Anor, we just need to rewrite him, given he's responsible for things like the fracking Hetwan charging in, murderizing everything in their path and delivering gods for him to eat

edited 18th Apr '13 10:12:19 PM by Lightysnake

Gonna say cut both of those.

I've removed Cradil/Kradil/Kuradeel from the SAO YMMV page. Bad as he was, the rest of the his guild was worse. My rewrite for Suguo is in the last post on the previous page.

Does Bayaz have an entry?

edited 18th Apr '13 10:11:52 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Cool, you read the series too?

To give some context (hope I'm remembering everything correctly), Bayaz is this Merlin/Gandalf figure who seems to be a grumpy wizard type who has advised many kings.

In actuality, Bayaz is a megalomaniac who rules behind the scenes and causes constant warm and bloodshed as part of a rivalry he has with another wizard, Khalul, who is this evil cannibal. In the course of the series, Bayaz's plans involve manipulating one of the protagonists, who is a Torture Technician, into a torturing and/or killing various innocent people who were framed, not to mention releasing a Magic Nuke that wipes out a major city in order to stop his rival from conquering it.

We initially think that Bayaz may still be the better one, since the cannibal guy betrayed their mentor and killed his daughter, who Bayaz loved. Well... it turns out that Bayaz was the traitor and the cannibal guy became evil in order to get power to bring him to justice.

Oh, and Bayaz employs cannibal sorcerers too (and is suggested to be one himself), so he doesn't really have any moral superiority to the other wizard and is actually worse.

edited 18th Apr '13 10:21:23 PM by Hodor

It's important to note we never see his 'brother' Khalul, which becomes Fridge Horror as one realizes Khalul has done everything to stop Bayaz.

At one point, Bayaz finally achieves the artifact he's been hunting and uses it. It wipes out a huge chunk of his own side. Bayaz's response is to grin and say "It works...", not even caring another of his brothers just got de-existed by it.

He will literally march legions of soldiers to their deaths for no reason whatsoever, and magic is leaking out of the world, so he's just shifting to technology so he never has to stop.

What. A. PRICK.

Huh. Weird, last time I was involved in discussion about him we were leaning to Keep.

Well times certainly have changed fast, haven't they?

Ghetsis, Turbo, Syndrome: Everytime someone tries to bring back somebody from the "never again" list, God kills a kitten. Please think of the kittens.

Trying to say God shares the "never again" opinions, are we? Classy.

Oh, my fucking god, Bayaz is THE monster of The First Law

Such things have been said before about other villains by fans. It hasn't always worked out...

edited 18th Apr '13 10:22:49 PM by AnewMan

I'd say probable Cut for Bloody Nine and Benna, then. Bayaz definitely needs some expansion, though.

EDIT: Okay, We definitely have all we need for Bayaz's entry. I'd like to see anyone try to give him leather pants...

edited 18th Apr '13 10:42:55 PM by Paireon

Bayaz hits quite literally every point. I will endorse him so much by saying you put him A Song Of Ice And Fire and he'd be the worst guy in the room in a room that consists of Gregor Clegane and Joffrey Baratheon.

@Lightysnake, one other reason why I'd lean toward cutting Benna, is that I'm not sure we really see enough of him to know all of his motives. It may be that he actually did love Monza and thought he was helping them by scheming so that they could achieve power. Now granted, it is possible (even very likely) that he was just using her, since she was the military genius between them, but we don't know, since Benna is dead for 99% of the novel.

Mmm...good point. I should note to everyone involved the book begins with Benna's death by betrayal, and his sister and lover, Monza's maiming..the rest of the book is a deconstruction on revenge as Monza becomes a better person without Benna and learns that his death wasn't exactly unjustified

@Paireon

The issue with adding more about torture to Suguo is that I don't think the original comment about torture is referencing a specific case of individual torture (at least not one that I can remember).

To put things in perspective, Sword Art Online is a series about 10 000 players who were trapped in a virtual world by a madman named Akaba. When you died in-game, you died in real life. After two years had gone by, some of the players managed to make it out.

This is were Suguo comes in. He traps 300 of the survivors in another virtual world (Alfheim Online), in order to conduct experiments in emotional manipulation and mind control. Players get divided into teams, and have the kill one another in order to advance in the game. Now, unlike in SAO, killing in AHO doesn't kill you for real. You respawn and try again. However, given the nature of the game these kids have just gotten out of, having to take out other players (which was a huge taboo in SAO) is a massive mental strain, and causes a lot of issues for most of them.

Of course, that's what Suguo wants. He wants to see how much emotional trauma he can put the players through, and how far they are willing to go to get out. If you can think of a way for me to work that in, I'd be only too glad to add it.

@Anew Man

The difference is that going off of lightysnake and Hodor's descriptions, Bayaz sounds like a qualifier. So we aren't just going off of fandom impressions.

@lightysnake

I'd do the rewrite for Ka Anor, but sadly the one book in the series that I'm missing is the one where the Hetwan go on the march against Olympus. If you can provide me with the details of what happens there, I can do the write up.

edited 18th Apr '13 10:41:16 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Hamburger Time, can you request the Cold Case and CSI edits?

Ok, for Babylon 5, I just need to submit the bad examples to be burned and we're done there.

Otherwise, I'm gonna tackle Being Human and True Blood shortly...the shows' YMMV pages have too many examples.

edited 18th Apr '13 10:57:20 PM by Lightysnake

@Ambar: I'll try to find a way to fit it in gracefully.

I know a little bit about Being Human so bring it on.

Thanks. I agree it needs to be in there, I just can't quite think of a way to say it. I'm going to try and dig up some information on Xa Xa and Johnny Black over the next couple of days, to see if my suspicions that they might qualify are confirmed.

And...KA ANOR!

• From Everworld we have the ultimate Big Bad, Ka Anor. Ka Anor is the God of the insectoid aliens, the Hetwan and the very mention of his name puts fear into the hearts of any other Gods. Since his arrival on Everworld, Ka Anor has had two things on his mind: domination and food. He sends out the Hetwan legions to destroy other nations, and the Hetwan will obliterate every living thing they find. What their lord is really after? His food: other Gods. Ka Anor has captive Gods brought back, as he did the Olympian cupbearer Ganymede, and devoured him in a horrific and agonizing manner

edited 19th Apr '13 12:50:08 AM by Lightysnake

You know what? I actually think it's worth derailing the thread to prevent the nth resurgence of - as Paireon put it so well - the shit we have to put up with. So Anew Man, knock it off with the freaking "never again" list. Speaking for myself, at least, the point of that list is less to establish some wiki-wide objective standard then it is to create a thread environment where I am not constantly torn between ragequitting and wishing to punch the idiots who have nothing better to do then crawl out of the woodwork make the latest time-wasting attempt that Character X is too this trope and Favorite Work Y is too SERIOUS and MATURE and NOT AT ALL A KID'S SHOW!!!1!!11

I have honestly, truly hit my last straw with having to deal with this nonsense.

to our regularly scheduled "This example does not count."

From The Talisman page:

Even Evil Has Loved Ones: Sunlight Gardener and Morgan Sloat genuinely love their sons. For Morgan, Richard acted as something of a restraining bolt. However, Morgan of Orris' son had already died and does not give a shit about Richard and thus takes over in the end.

Rightyoh, let's cut Sunlight.

Axe it.

And in other news, I found a translation of the original Sword Art Online novels, and I've gotta say, I think a pretty solid case can be made for XaXa and Johnny Black qualifying. I covered some of their actions when I did my bit on why Kuradeel didn't count, but rather then make people dig back through the thread, I thought I'd provide all the information here.

Anyway, during the events of Sword Art Online, players who participated in player killing became known as Red Players because of the colour that the diamond above their head would turn after they committed a murder. There was one guild, made up entirely of Red Players, known as both the Red Guild (how imaginative) and the Laughing Coffin. When their bodycount reached the triple digits, a group of high class players halted trying to complete the game and hunted down the Laughing Coffin members. Most were killed; however, three of the Guild's top members, Hero Killers PoH (The Leader, with a personal bodycount of 30+), Red-Eyed XaXa (their best swordsman), and Johnny Black (the Master Poisoner) made their getaway (most of this happened offscreen, by the way, and is relayed to us by various characters in narration).

We don't know what happened to PoH, but XaXa (real name Shinkawa Shoichi) and Johnny Black (real name Kanemoto Atsushi) made it back to the real world. When XaXa found out that his brother, Kyoji, wanted to become the best player at Gun Gale Online, he persuaded him to create the character Sterben, better known as Death Gun. The way that the plan worked was that one of the brothers would operate Sterben and would, in the game world, shoot an opposing player. The other brother, back in the real world, would track that player to their home and inject them with succinylcholine, making it appear as though the game had killed them. When it became difficult for the brothers to maintain the identity with just the two of them, XaXa reached out to Johnny Black, who lived closer to the victims, and had him do the poisoning, while XaXa operated Sterben.

Now, we have a no groups rule, which is a pain given the degree to which Sterben/Death Gun is a collective identity. However, I think we can assess each of the three members individually.

Kyoji is out. He's ultimately a rather pathetic character, who just wants to be the best at something. His ability to tell fantasy from reality is limited. He also has a massive Stalker with a Crush thing going on towards GGO deuteragonist Asada Shino, and it is played for a degree of sympathy. He also never kills anybody in the real world, which is, I think, important. His only ever use of the poison comes as part of an attempted murder/suicide with Shino, which is prevented, largely because his heart isn't really in it. He certainly thinks he's a badass, but he's really a victim (albeit a deserving one) of XaXa.

XaXa/Shoichi is different. He never gives any indication that he cares about anybody, not even his brother, and admits to Kirito during their confrontation, that he does what he does because he enjoys killing people, and misses how easy it was to do during SAO. During his fights he shows a definite sadistic streak, first crippling opponents with a sniper rifle and then making the kill at close range; during his battle with Kirito he very deliberately tries to cut him to ribbons. He's also the one who administered the lethal doses of poison to players Zenkushido and Usujiro Takaro, while his brother operated Sterben in the virtual world; he also would have another death to his name has Kyoji not screwed up the attack on Shino. During SAO he, along with PoH and Johnny Black was involved in a murder attempt on players Yolko, Caynz, and Schmitt, paralysing them with poison and then planning to torture them to death. I can easily see adding him.

Johnny Black is no better. He was the Laughing Coffin's poison master, and we see that in action during the aforementioned murder attempt on Yolko, Caynz, and Schmitt. Johnny's poison takes them out, and then he, XaXa and PoH plan to torture them to death. During the events of GGO, Johnny signs on with XaXa again, because he too, misses the chance to kill people without consequences. He's the one who administers the poison to players Pale Rider and Garrett, killing them, and he escapes at the end of GGO, only to reappear six months later, where he attacks Kirito and Asuna on the street, planning to poison them in revenge for ruining his fun. Again, can easily see adding him.

Given the resources they have available to them, XaXa and Johnny Black manage to be as bad as they possibly can be, killing four people, trying to kill one more (Kyoji, being an idiot, kept talking instead of finishing the last person on XaXa's hit list), and in Johnny's case, going after Kirito and Asuna after the fact. There's also their actions in SAO to consider; while most of it is offscreen, the attack on Yolko, Caynz, and Schmitt is very much not, and they are prevented from torturing three people to death only by the intervention of Kirito and several others. They are a pair of sadistic creeps, kept from doing as much as Suguo only by lack of resources.

But that's just my two cents. Thoughts from others?

EDIT: Have made a few edits to correct an early miscount (I had put XaXa's attempted kill count one higher then it was; the joy's of working with badly translated books. I have edited all my other posts in which I mention their attempted bodycount accordingly, as I do not want anybody voting for them simply because I apparently cannot count.)

edited 21st Apr '13 10:55:19 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Sounds like three solid keepers from SAO then.

Thoughts on Ka Anor?

I don't think that sounds more convincing than the other guy you don't think counts. I don't really think any of them stand out from each other, going by that description.

Where is that definition written anyway? That they need to stand out from other Evil people in the story? It's coming off as a Crowning Moment type of trope (which I think I read somewhere), and if there's any intention at all to make this an objective trope, that's on the wrong path. And even with that in mind it's less More Heinous Than Thou and more More Notable Than Thou.

edited 19th Apr '13 12:09:22 AM by AnotherDuck

The difference for me, at least, is that Kuradeel is around for a grand total of a few seconds, commits all his crimes in the virtual world, and is barely characterised. XaXa and Johnny Black, conversely, get a lot more screentime (especially XaXa), establish genuine personalities, and this is the big one for me at least, carry on killing in the real world.

Killing in SAO was almost understandable. You were in a virutal world, there was no blood when you killed people, no gore, just a bright light and poof they were gone. It was also pretty easy, seeing as you were heavily armed and had all the skills of a high-ranking soldier. What XaXa and Johnny Black get up to in the real world, however, is clearly murder, and required a heck of a lot of effort on their part just to make it work. They're willing to go an extra mile that Kuradeel never got to go, because killing people matters that much to them.

I'll also note that Kuradeel's idea of torture boiled down to "stab them a lot." What PoH, XaXa and Johnny had planned for those three players they'd captured is significantly worse, at least in my mind. They intended to make the three of them fight each other to the death, with the promise that the winner lives. Then they'd cut the survivor to pieces. Johnny is very disappointed when PoH says this part outloud, ruining the surprise.

Finally, Kuradeel was a low-ranking member. PoH, XaXa, and Johnny Black were the founders of the Laughing Coffin, which means that everything he is, he learned from watching them at work.

I can't help but feel Ka Anor's entry needs to be longer. It's a good start though.

EDIT:"Heinous by the standards of the story" directly implies they have to stand out.

edited 19th Apr '13 12:12:17 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

So, More Notable Than Thou with a touch of More Evil Than Thou. But if you want to define the trope like that, sure.

Since Kirito joined the KoB later on, everything he was was from watching his superiors at work. Being lower ranked doesn't mean anything for this trope, so unless he was shown to have learned everything from them, it's not an argument. And it was more than "a few seconds".

The problem is he's overshadowed. He's on screen for less time and doesn't make himself stand out next to the two. They achieve more in evil than him and come across as worse

While it sounds like it's true, the "most horrific scene in the series" bit seems a little more suitable for Nightmare Fuel then this.

Tweaked it a bit.