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. "
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
Vect and
Gold.
BTW The Originals has ended. So y'know, pm if you have questions.
Edited by Beast on Aug 1st 2018 at 9:50:31 AM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
Salesman
Mr. Gold
Vect (This is really hyping me to be honest, because a setting like Warhammer 40000 had such a massive heinous standard that proposing any candidate is a wonder.
Ultimate Custom Night page has an entry listed William Afton as a Jerkass Woobie. It is this:
- Jerkass Woobie: William Afton. If the theory that the game is about him condemned to his own personal hell is true, then he is this. To elaborate further, while he loses a lot of sympathy for being a mass murdering child killer and while his death was richly deserved, the fact that he's stuck daily fighting for his life against over 50 animatronics (some of whom he made himself and some including himself and his own daughter) and being violently ripped to shreds every time that he fails in some twisted purgatory or afterlife, with no chance to escape, is a horrifying fate even if he deserves it.
Uh, yeah, no. The bastard murders children and there is no better punishment. Permission to nuke?
Now then....for my second Octopath proposal...
Who is Lucia? What has she done?
Lucia is the Big Bad of Cyrus's route. A member of the academy Cyrus is a part of, Lucia serves the leader of the school, Headmaster Yvon, and has ties with the Big Bad of the entire story, Lyblac.
With Lyblac's assistance, Lucia corrupts Yvon into practicing dark magic and stealing countless amounts of knowledge and power from various sources...and murdering anyone who stands in their way.
Contacting the evil sorcerer Gideon, Lucia and Yvon commission him to use dark magic to start working on creating them "Blood Stones". The way to....make them? Rather obvious! Lucia gives the directions to Gideon...to start kidnapping innocents, and spend WEEKS tortuously starving and draining them of their blood until finally they perish, perpetrating this awful experimentation on dozens of innocents.
Once Cyrus takes down Gideon, Lucia, seeing an opportunity for extra power, leaks Yvon's involvement to Cyrus, thus leading Cyrus to track down and fight Yvon....and though Yvon tries to use a Blood Stone to empower himself, Lucia gave him an unstable one, leading to Yvon's power going out of control, destroying the man's body as he screams in agony.
Once Cyrus tracks down Lucia upon discovering her involvement, Lucia boasts her schemes and attempts to corrupt Cyrus into joining her, claiming they both merely want knowledge and to know all the secrets of the world...however, as Cyrus point out, he wants knowledge so he can use it to help people and cure diseases and such....Lucia wants all the knowledge in the world for herself, and would keep things that would change humankind forever to herself just for the sake of it.
Flying into a rage, Lucia uses her "perfected" Blood Stone on herself, transforming into a monstrous form and attempting to murder Cyrus....before finally being killed by the man, her own Blood Stone overwhelming and destroying her for good.
Freudian Excuse or other redeeming features?
Not a one to her. Lucia is a smug, monstrous woman, wanting knowledge and power....just for the sake of having it, with no care for anyone or anything else. Even her offers to team with Cyrus are based solely around her wanting to ascend above humanity and prove that she and Cyrus are "above" humans, but as soon as Cyrus calls her out on the fact that she not only is a monster, but also a monster who betrayed and murdered her LAST partner, Yvon...Lucia tries to murder him without hesitation.
Heinousness?
Though there's some stiff competition? Lucia passes. Corrupting and eventually murdering Yvon coupled with working with Lyblac and commissioning a Psycho for Hire to kidnap and torturously murder dozens ove the course of several weeks puts her over the line here, even against the likes of Helgenish and Simeon.
Final Verdict?
Keeper, says I.
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!So, one of my next Planescape candidates might be someone of some contention. I wanted to clear somethings up before I go with a full effort post. I recently read the Dead Gods adventure module and it introduces a multiversal threat that manages to even rival Vecna in evil. This villain is none other than Orcus himself. Ironically enough, Orcus is real terror in 1st and 2nd edition and the trope Orcus on His Throne didn't really come about until 3rd edition Dungeons and Dragons. That trope itself isn't really the issue, it's more about how we want to handle moral agency.
Orcus is technically a Chaotic Evil demon that has risen to become a lesser power, or god, and demons in Dungeons and Dragons are Made of Evil. Previously, when I brought up this issue regarding Iuz the Evil, who is a Cambion or type of demon, it was said that becoming a god basically changed his nature and made him an eligible candidate. By setting this precedent, can we consider Orcus to be capable of agency and worth discussion? The Planescape campaign setting treats him as a full god as his death left his corpse floating the Astral Plane as all dead gods do, so I'm wanting to settle the matter if he is demon without agency or a deity with agency.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.

Gold and Vect
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread