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
On positive note however, Currently I'm skimming the new Call of Cthulhu game. Discussing with Scraggle, hopefully we can propose some candidates in there and I'm hoping that I'll be done skimming the game in Sunday. (And I really need to finish my college task damn!)
Edited by ElfenLiedFan90 on Nov 10th 2018 at 11:52:25 PM
"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."I discovered something interesting. Malware was cut for reasons that aren't even true. Apparently, it was because he supposedly needed to feed in order to survive. As a Ben 10 fandom veteran, I can confirm that this is not true. Never once is this ever stated or even implied.
I can see how this mistake was easy to make, though. Sure enough, his character entry contains this misinformation. Will definitely need to edit that out as soon as I can. This kind of raises the question as to whether or not Malware's case should be re-opened.
However, I do still see a possible disqualifier. While he's definitely irredeemable and has effortlessly crossed the Moral Event Horizon, he does have a potential Freudian Excuse in the form of serious daddy issues. While we all know that Freudian Excuse Is No Excuse in a situation like this, his criticisms about Azmuth do arguably have at least some merit to them. In Ben 10: Destroy All Aliens, Azmuth's father says that he hasn't seen Azmuth in "thousands of Earth years." This implies that Azmuth legitimately did abandon Malware, and he does actually have reason to believe that Azmuth feels the way he thinks he feels about him.
What's the general consensus? Is Malware's sympathetic backstory sympathetic enough to disqualify him and maintain his cut, or should his case be re-opened?
Huh, I stand corrected. However, my search did pull up results from very early on in the thread where the reason I mentioned was used to disqualify him at some point. At the very least, I edited the offending misinformation out of his character page so that hopefully no-one else falls for it again.
Edited by worldofdrakan on Nov 10th 2018 at 12:30:24 PM
Malware's backstory was acknowledged and marked as a reason for him not going up here
.
Here goes my writeups:
- Twilight Syndrome: Dead Go Round: The GM of Twilight Park is a twisted clown who wishes to see video-game players in pain and misery. A sentient game character, the clown takes advantage of Twilight's revolutionary hypnotic system to construct a series of challenges to kill players in real-life, recruiting the seven best players of Twilight Syndrome to be his unwilling participants. Killing a boy for sharing information about the game's developer Makino Shuzo, he impales another with a giant pencil and electrocutes a woman to death for trying to leave Twilight Park. Summoning a giant balloon filled with acid to chase the players, he slowly dissolves a man and uses the corpse of his first victim to distract the players in game involving shooting balloons.
- Kamen Rider BLACK manga: Kohtaro Minami/Kamen Rider Black himself is the Demon King in the Bad Future of 2018. Achieving the position of Gorgom's majesty by killing his rival stepbrother, Kohtaro started a war by launching nuclear bombs towards every continent, eradicating human civilization and forcing the few survivors to live in tribes. Kohtaro routinely orders his troops to attack any colony that they come across and kill everyone inside, allowing them to dismember corpses and slaughter babies. Recognizing his younger-self and desperately trying to preserve his own existence, Kohtaro argues to have done nothing wrong as he was "simply the ruler of this world". Proudly calling himself a "truly all-powerful Demon King", Kohtaro reveals that he has drained the energy of the planet just so he could "take this world to hell with me" in the event of an assassination.
- Whispered Faith: The Speaker differs from other incarnations of The Rake in the sense that he is not a mindless beast, but a cunning and malevolent mastermind. A Humanoid Abomination whose voice is capable of tempting and tormenting humans, The Speaker corrupts one of Lee's closest friends Sean, enslaving the boy by making him get addicted to his voice and resulting in him founding The Family, a Cult created to worship him. Capturing Lee, The Speaker allows Sean to physically torture him for months while he could Mind Rape him with his voice to break his spirit. When Sean's right-hand Lexx usurps the position of Family leader in his absence, The Speaker disposes of both him and Lee's best friend Mo, trapping all of his deceased disciples in a Purgatory for him to feed upon for all of eternity.
I think it's time for the page to have a manga section, since we already have Akira Harada from the Kuuga manga. Also, Dead Go Round is a movie adaptation of the Twilight Syndrome game series. Speaking of Harada...
- Kamen Rider Kuuga manga, by Toshiki Inoue et al.: Akira Harada is an Ax-Crazy Serial Killer who witnessed the first player of the Gegeru, Zu-Gumun-Ba, the Spider Gurongi, massacring humans on a railway, deciding to worship Gumun as his goddess. A registered sex offender, Harada had tried killing himself for his goddess, and when he failed, Harada came up with the idea of "sharing his dream" with other people. Prior to having his identity revealed via DNA analysis, Harada had already murdered four women; by opening their chests, filling them with gunpowder, and burning them alive so they could become "human fireworks". When encountered by the detective investigating his murders, Kaoru Ichijo, Harada had killed another woman, and laughed at her death. Transported to an ambulance after attempting suicide, Harada slits the driver's throat and brags about being able to resume his serial killings. Harada is found by Gumun on the parking lot, and when he sees the remains of the creature's victims, he feels joy, seeing this as his goddess's work. A childish maniac with an obsession for fireworks and a literal monster, Harada was proof that the Gurongi are not the only beasts roaming Tokyo.
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Nov 10th 2018 at 4:07:19 PM
Cool. I'll split that out, and put BLACK before Akira. So, as follows?
Manga-Exclusive
- Kamen Rider BLACK manga, by Shotaro Ishinomori: Kohtaro Minami/Kamen Rider Black himself is the Demon King in the Bad Future of 2018. Achieving the position of Gorgom's majesty by killing his rival stepbrother, Kohtaro started a war by launching nuclear bombs towards every continent, eradicating human civilization and forcing the few survivors to live in tribes. Kohtaro routinely orders his troops to attack any colony that they come across and kill everyone inside, allowing them to dismember corpses and slaughter babies. Recognizing his younger-self and desperately trying to preserve his own existence, Kohtaro argues to have done nothing wrong as he was "simply the ruler of this world". Proudly calling himself a "truly all-powerful Demon King", Kohtaro reveals that he has drained the energy of the planet just so he could "take this world to hell with me" in the event of an assassination.
- Kamen Rider Kuuga manga: Akira Harada is a psychotic Serial Killer who, upon witnessing the first player of the Gegeru, Zu-Gumun-Ba, the Spider Gurongi, massacring humans on a railway, decided to worship Gumun as his goddess. A registered sex offender, Harada had tried killing himself for his goddess, and when he failed, Harada came up with the idea of "sharing his dream" with other people. Prior to having his identity revealed via DNA analysis, Harada had already murdered four women; by opening their chests, filling them with gunpowder, and burning them alive so they could become "human fireworks". When encountered by the detective investigating his murders, Kaoru Ichijo, Harada had killed another woman, and laughed at her death. Transported to an ambulance after attempting suicide, Harada slits the driver's throat and brags about being able to resume his serial killings. Harada is found by Gumun on the parking lot, and when he sees the remains of the creature's victims, he feels joy, seeing this as his goddess's work. A childish maniac with an obsession for fireworks, Harada was proof that the Gurongi are not the only beasts roaming Tokyo.
Also, I'm thinking of removing the "exclusive" from both that and Lit, since some of the monsters did in fact appear in the series.
Edited by ACW on Nov 10th 2018 at 1:16:33 PM
Alright...after a few months of waiting on Ravok, I'm going to go ahead on this one now...the final keeper of the Heaven Cycle. I give you Naberius.
Who is Naberius?
The Fallen Savager, the Doyen of Ruptured Flesh, the Poet of Agony...Naberius is The Dragon to the original Chayne Summers, and in an inversion of Noble Top Enforcer, while Chayne has understandable and even sympathetic reasons for her actions in wanting to make a better world, Naberius is a sadistic, twisted monster. Long ago, cast out of hell for his monstrosity, Naberius allied with Chayne Summers and together, the two have begun the Heaven Cycle....999,999 thousand times, the world is allowed to go on, only to be annihilated and everyone killed to be restarted until Chayne gets the Mint she wants who can create a paradise and Nirvana. Naberius, taking a bit of divine power, effectively makes himself the strongest being in the Cycle except for Chayne herself.
Unfortunately, Naberius's interest is solely in the agony of others. While he knows that trying to double cross Chayne would resist in his agonizing extinction, Naberius contents himself with torture. Constantly, Naberius roams the world, finding people to abduct to torture eternally. In many instances over the cycle, to buy off Naberius's cooperation like a shopkeeper paying a mobster protection money, Azazel offered him up countless cities and towns so Naberius could take them into his special 'collection' and torture them forever, which he has done to millions, millions, or even billions of beings. When he makes his appearance, Naberius effortlessly stomps the heroes and also resurrects Alice Witzenberg in a pact to do all the evil deeds they do, including the near destruction of everything Tango and Mint hold dear.
Naberius then reappears later when Azazel manipulates Tango into the city of Solomon, allowing Naberius to attack it....Naberius? Proceeds to kick Uriel's celestial rear, and massacres trillions within Solomon's walls, and is later seen to have been the instigator of Erebos, Azazel's adopted 'son's'' backstory, having slaughtered Erebos's (or Nestor, then) home town, and having tortured his mother...Azazel had to intervene to save the baby Nestor because he had plans for him, as well as offer Naberius even more...
When the final war kicks off, Naberius is seen doing his final collection, as well as killing any demon or angel who comes across him out of sheer amusement. Upon Uriel's defeat and death, Naberius swipes the heroes into his pocket dimension where the ultimate depravity of his activities is revealed: Naberius, fearing boredom should Chayne win, has filched a bit of her divine power and used some to create his own pocket dimension where trillions of innocents are subject to endless, horrific torture: some are kept in a boiling sea, some are forced to dance endlessly while skinless and singing his praises, ...welcome to Naberius's "masterpiece theater." Suffering without ANY end. Naberius gleefully tortures the heroes with horrific visions...his 'game' for the heroes? taking hostages, asking really, really unfair questions. Get one right, he takes away some small and 'easily missed.' Get it wrong? He takes away a 'cherished memory' and replaces it with one of his own home-brew agonies.
Oh, and he reveals to never run out of new souls to torture? He's established forced breeding camps in his pocket dimension, giving him endless new beings to torture forever, trillions and trillions alike, screaming "free me" forever. Tango and the others intervene with Belphegor, the Token Good Teammate of the Demons/Tulpas dueling his former brother....the heroes press Naberius back from his physical form, who gloats that "you think your life a misery? You know not even a sliver of the hell I will design for you."
And also, Naberius quote: "Your terms of pain will be rewritten. Your mind will cease to comprehend agony on the pitiful level you do now, and ascend to new levels of terror incomprehensible to you now. I will redefine your conception of reality, child, and make you experience pain on an evolved level. You will beg me, beg me for an end to it all, but I will never grant it, you pitiful little insects."
Whle the heroes seem tog et the better of him, Naberius spitefully rips out Belphegor's soul/Shade and incorporates it into himself, but Tango casts their own into Naberius's mind and realizes something important: Naberius can dish itout but he can't take it. Tango harnesses the godly energy he's taken and uses it to rewrite him, making him feel all the agony he's ever caused. All at once, leaving Naberius's mind obliterated as he writhes in agony, shrieking "FREE ME!" Tango promptly reaches out and snuffs his mind out, erasing Naberius utterly and granting respite to all his victims, ending the sadistic monster once and for all.
Heinous standard?
Okay, we know how dark the HC is, right? Good. Naberius is one of the chief instigators of the Cycle, he brings back Alice and sics them on the good guys, his garden of eden? Naberius far outstrips anyone else save Chayne for body count and his torture activities are in a class of their own. He's so much more powerful than the others he creates his own tier with Chayne, but...yeah, he hits it perfectly. Trillions in forced breeding camps and perpetual torture?
Mitigating Qualities?
None. Naberius is only loyal to Chayne because he values his own hide and he wants to live when the Cycle is done. He gleefully boasts of how he serves his own agenda and how he's "ten times worse" than Chayne could ever be. He makes no pretense of being friendly or caring for others, conducting himself with a Faux Affably Evil, whimsical demeanor that just screams "how can I hurt you worse?" Which is his one and only concern. No issues with agency at all considering Belphegor (who flat out hates him) and the hat Naberius is bad even by Tulpa standards (Which makes Azazel using him as a glorified WMD rather worse, no?)
So, yeah. NOTHING worth discussing here.
Conclusion?
The final monster of the Heaven Cycle and also probably he worst. What say we?
And congrats to Scraggle upon its completion!!!
Finally
Naberius.
It's over. Finally. Congratulations.
Edited by KazuyaProta on Nov 10th 2018 at 1:34:41 PM
Watch me destroying my countryHere are my Devil's Turd writeups.
- Devil's Third: While Isaac Kamudo and the Sons of Democracy (SOD) are trying to bring about peace through any means necessary, the same can’t be said for these two members:
- Big Mouse is the SOD’s head scientist and bio-weapon specialist. Having created the Chimera virus as a way to power up his soldiers, he tested it on his own men, leading them to become zombified freaks, even using his own wife Jane Doe as a guinea pig. Leading an attack on a city, he shoots a wounded citizen and gasses an entire hospital containing children. Mouse shoots C4 when she tries to protect Ivan, later using her blood as a way to create transgenic medicine for his soldiers. On Kamudo's orders, he leads the SOD into taking over the Panama Canal to destroy worldwide maritime traffic and block off a US Army/trade route. Even as he dies, Mouse is happy knowing that the Panema and Suez Canal will forever be in ruin.
- Ludmilla Karenina, the self-described “Angel of Death”, is a high ranking Russian member of the SOD, and Isaac Kamudo’s second-in-command. Assisting Big Mouse in his attack on a city and gassing of a hospital, she orders her soldiers to shoot Ivan when he defects from the SOD. Launching nukes onto Beijing, London, and New Delhi on Isaac’s orders, she later releases poisonous gas that kills both Ivan’s men and her own soldiers in order to fight Ivan herself.
Yes to Naberius. I've gotta read the Heaven's Cycle sometime, it really does sound like a crazy, awesome fun time...
Alright, like I promised yesterday, I've got a new effortpost for you guys. Coming from a series of books I really liked as a kid...
What's the work?
Me and my Little Brain, the third book of the Great Brain series by John Fitzgerald. The series in general is a fictionalized, exaggerated take on the author's childhood and is set in the small Utah town of Adenville during the 1890's, and mainly focuses on protagonist John Fitzgerald dealing with the antics of his intelligent, charismatic hustler of an older brother Tom Dennis Fitzgerald.
The third book in particular however focuses entirely on John while his brother is away at a Catholic boarding school, and soon a traumatized little four year old boy named Frankie Pennyworth enters his life after he loses his family to an accident on a mountain trail. After John accidentally helps Frankie work through his trauma he gets used to his troublesome adopted little brother... until things take a turn for the worse when a feared outlaw swings into town.
Who's the villain?
Cal Roberts, a wild-tempered, no-good cattle rustler with a penchant for cruel, unnecessary murder.
What does he do?
Before the start of the book proper, Cal and his posse of outlaws had a reputation of being bloodthirsty savages who prided themselves in never leaving a witness alive when they'd steal cattle. At some point Cal got sloppy, and accidentally left a living witness who was able to get him and his men arrested. After being taken to court and tried for murder and theft, an enraged Cal swore that he'd break his gang out of prison, and that they'd hunt down and murder the judge, the DA, and the foreman of the jury (John's father) for crossing him.
And near the end of the book, Cal makes good on his threat: he's able to spring his men out of prison, murders two guards in the process, and ascends on the town of Adenville and throwing it's populace in high alert. Strict curfews are enforced, the town marshal (And John's uncle) swears in several deputies to help track them down, and armed patrols become commonplace.
Cal attempts to murder the judge by tricking his way into his residence and hanging him, but is stopped before he can kill him and flees. He also attempts to murder the DA, but is ambushed by the marshal and his men and is wounded in a shootout that wipes out most of his posse. Now desparate and having completely and utterly failed in taking out two of his targets, Cal escapes and tries Hus hand at killing John's father by hiding in the family's barn so he can take him by surprise. However, young Frankie Pennyworth wanders in instead, and Cal realizes that he has a hell of an opportunity on his hands.
Cal proceeds to ambush and restrain Frankie, then holds him hostage in a loft in the barn and threatens to have him murdered unless the Fitzgerald family caters to his whims by reading him the news, feeding and clothing him, and treating his gunshot wound while smugly holding the fact that he has their youngest child in his grip over their heads. Knowing that he can't stay forever, Cal then gets ready to initiate his endgame: he orders to be given a horse and safe passage to the Mexican border, and while he leaves Adenville, he plans to parade Frankie around at gunpoint to rub it in that he pulled one over on his hated enemies and got away with his crimes, and will murder him if he sees any resistance, with his gun's hair trigger meaning that even sniping him will result in the gun going off and killing Frankie.
While he promises to dump Frankie in a town unharmed on his way to Mexico, the family knows he's lying and are at a loss at what to do. John however, proves that he can be every bit the crafty genius that his swindler brother is and sneaks into the barn while Cal is asleep. With some quick, on-the-fly thinking, he ties a rope around Cal's foot, quietly snakes it over a beam and down towards the family horse, ties it to the horse, and spooks it. Thanks to this, the panicky horse hoists Cal into the air away from his gun, and leaves him trapped and unable to do anything but innefectively scream, swear, and threaten the boy's life before the adults come in and arrest him. And in the process, he reveals that he never intended to let Frankie live and would have indeed murdered him out of spite if John didn't save the day.
Is he heinous by the standards of the story?
Indeed he is. While we're never given a proper number of his previous murders, it's made out to be a lot, and ultimately the attempted and succesful murders we DO know about put him over what few other criminals are known in the books, which are far less heinous (Single time murderer, bank robber, con artists). Plus, the whole "parade a four year old boy around before murdering him out of spite towards his adoptive father" thing is an absolute standout crime for a slice of life kid's series.
Surprisingly, I'd say the next to most heinous character would be The Great Brain Tom Fitzgerald himself since his scams have endangered the lives of his fellow kids from time to time, but that's never the intention and he feels horrible when it happens. Plus, he lacks anything resembling a bodycount which Cal has.
Any mitigating factors or a valid Freudian Excuse?
That's a negative, Ghost Rider. Cal is just a murderous, spiteful asshole with no real reason for doing what he does other than greed. And aside from respect for Frankie putting up a hell of a fight when he captured him (which is rendered moot by his plans to kill him), Cal has no good qualities to his name. Hell, when he learns that his men have been killed? His response is a shrug and a casual response of "Oh well, I can always find more men".
The only other bar I can see is the issue of offscreen villainy: since this is being told through a first person narrative by a young boy, we obviously never get to see Roberts' murders and attempt on the judge's life through hanging. However, we do see a picture of Cal standing over the corpse of a man with his gun smoking, which does give us a pattern for his pre-arrest crimes. Not only that, but we do get to see him attempt to murder Frankie, and John's uncle goes into great detail over Cal's crimes and his attempted revenge on the judge and DA, meaning that as far as I'm concerned, he does enough onscreen to count and his other crimes are more than just window dressing.
Final Thoughts?
I remember as a kid before even knowing that this trope was a thing, that this guy was pretty fucked up for a villain in a series of children's books (Which to be fair, do deal with some dark themes: the first book dealt with a merchant's suicide, Tom gives a rocking horse to a kid dying from diabetes, a lot of kids almost die in a rafting accident), and looking back at his book of origin, I can vouch for Cal being every bit the scumbag he needs to be to qualify for this trope. I think he counts, and if he's voted a keeper I'll be more than happy to give him a newer writeup (And kudos to the guy who DID write him up years ago: even it wasn't approved, it got bought to this thread's attention and I may have never covered him otherwise)
As an aside, in the future I might look over the rest of the books and see if Tom is Magnificent Bastard material, since if memory serves he's charismatic enough to stay likable even after constantly running circles around the town's adults and kids with his schemes and scams.
Edited by FriedWarthog on Nov 10th 2018 at 1:49:06 AM

Yea on the Speaker.
@43110 Sorry about that :/ Even if I'm keeping the list... I understand your point and given some people (Including on other website about other user who ordered me to ask about the list of C Ms whose FE doesn't hold up in the forum) and recently got another question from other users about FE earlier made me a huge temptation to make this list. But yeah, you have a point.
"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."