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
![]()
![]()
![]()
Oh God, one of those things
to Doll Collector
to Ares
Next Criminal Minds candidate
Who is Jo Young-hoon? What has he done?
Jo Young-hoon is a control freak serial killer who was caught several years ago. A dozen bodies were found on Jo's property, all of young women who were dressed up as schoolgirls before being tortured to death and then dismembered.
Having ordered his innocent Ahn to murder their young son Shi-on, Jo was caught along with his wife, and implicates her into his crimes, desiring to make her his "final victim" by getting them both the death penalty. Ahn, having not murdered Shi-on but given him to another family so that his life wouldn't be ruined being known as "the child of a serial killer", lies that she truly is guilty of all the crimes Jo attributes to her so as to protect Shi-on.
As Jo is interviewed by the NCI after another body is found with his MO to it, Jo claims he has no more victims than the dozen they found, however then flips and promises to show them any more bodies if they allow him to smell the hair of one of their female members. After this, Jo boasts that he was lying and there truly are no more victims, laughing at the idea that he would reveal more victims just to "give peace to the families."
However, when the NCI reveal that they believe Ahn is innocent of all her crimes, Jo quickly leads them to another body, claiming it's the body of Shi-oh, however this turns out to be another victim of Jo's, and he was just using the body to try to trick everyone into believing it was Shi-oh who Ahn had killed, again trying to get her the death penalty.
As Jo is finally lead off to be executed, he drops the horrifying reveal that he's killed six more women who weren't found, and cackles as he refuses to give any more information about them. Jo confidently faces his execution, boasting that he'll be forever remembered in history and that by getting Ahn the death penalty as well, he's attained a final victim.
Does Jo have a Freudian Excuse or other mitigating features?
The team talk among themselves in one scene, stating that Jo has said his mother abused him, and that the trauma from this likely turned him into the killer he is today.
This really doesn't hold up, however, and the team themselves even note that his crimes and way of committing them and his motives don't mesh with his supposed "excuse." Jo never shows any form of abuse himself, being a gleeful psychopath who wants fame from his murders, constantly boasting that he's going to be remembered forever and go down in history, and taking sick joy from the thought of all the families that will never have peace because of him.
Another thing to note is that Jo has actually tried to use the "excuse" that he has a sexual disorder driving his crimes, but when he is tested, the only disorder to be found is that he's a psychopath.
Jo is never once portrayed sympathetically and, unlike many villains in the show, he's never given flashbacks to his childhood or his supposed excuse. He's a lunatic who wants fame and had pedophilic tendencies with his victims, nothing more is made of his atrocities or personality, no abuse is brought up by he himself, and even the team is shown to be skeptical of his past, so this is even less of a potential excuse than the Reaper had.
Nothing else besides this. He frames and tries to get his wife killed alongside him after ordering her to murder their son so he can have one final victim, and spends all of his time onscreen being a giggling sadist who mocks the team for trying to get him to show them his other victims.
Is Jo sufficiently heinous?
Yes. Having 14 confirmed victims, boasting even more, Jo has one of the highest body counts in the series, and his method of torture, dismemberment, and murder is also notably twisted and wicked. Coupled with ordering his wife to kill their son, and then trying to get said wife executed, he more than passes.
Final Verdict?
Easy
from me.
Yes to Jo.
So how does the show compare to it's American counterpart?
Edited by Bullman on Feb 26th 2019 at 12:26:11 PM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread![]()
She allows herself to be executed even after her son is found because the only way for her to be found innocent would be for her son to be revealed to be alive, which would ruin his life given his father was a serial killer.
As for how the show "compares" to the American version, if one means in heinousness, it's not even close. The Reaper has the highest personal bodycount, and in fact, fun fact, many villains in the show are based on original Criminal Minds baddies but are given more sympathetic interpretations. Notably, original CM Anita Roycewood is personified by a brother-and-sister duo who are not only not as heinous as she was, but also have an actual reason for their crimes)
If speaking in quality, the show is pretty good, a bit odd in format but overall good, probably about as good as Criminal Minds first couple seasons
Edited by AgeOfTropeEmpire on Feb 26th 2019 at 10:36:44 AM
@ACW: Thanks. However I meant in terms of quality. As I never really got into the original show past season 1.
Thanks.
Edited by Bullman on Feb 26th 2019 at 12:38:25 PM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadOkay, time for another obscure B-grade monster movie Big Bad. I did several look ups to make sure, but given the ambiguity of the words involved, the keywords are rather vague ('spiders' and 'gray' being extremely common words I searched in every combination I could think of):
What's the work?
Spiders, a 2000 made for TV horror film. An experiment with a military bioweapon's project ends up unleashing a genetically engineered spider on Earth that grows progressively bigger and stronger with each host.
Will give it credit: bad CGI, but really surprisingly nice practical effects with some exceptions.
Who's Agent Gray?
Agent Gray is the film's primary human villain, and the sociopathic government agent in charge of 'Project Mother-In-Law', the military project that creates the title monsters. Yes, cheesy name, but made for tv sci-fi flick, like with Casper from Octopus, we're here to judge base on Gray's evil rather than the film's quality.
What does he do?
Agent Gray arranges for an experiment onboard the spaceshuttle Solaris to create a deadly bioweapon. The first spider instantly gets loose and goes on a rampage, horrifically slaughtering most of the crew (will give the movie credit, some really nice gore effects and make up). Rather than having degree of concern for the crew, refusing them help on landing (despite one person suffering rather grotesque effects of the spiders' bite live on camera in front of him) and deciding instead to silence the whole affair despite being begged to take them to some place that can help them, telling the public the shuttle burned up on re-entry.
While exploring the wreckage, the only emotion Agent Gray shows over the massacre is anger when his right hand John Murphy accidentally crushes the first Spider. When told there might be survivors, his only response is "Not the one I want" while looking at the remains of his bioweapon.
Upon finding the sole survivor badly injured, in agony, and grotesquely deformed by its venom, his only response is to question what happened to up there, refusing him medical treatment and instead choosing to take him for study. When a doctor objects to this, desiring the man get proper medical attention, and calls him out on it, Gray coldly pulls his pistol and executes the doctor on the spot without another word or any hesitation, merely telling John to 'get used to it' when he objects to the murder.
Upon arriving at Gray's personal military base, the protagonists not only horrific mutants preserved in jars, but decapitated and preserved human heads and a unborn fetus. They also find a basement full of frozen corpses of astronauts from a mystery space mission. While we don't get much explanation, the survivor warns them 'no one gets out of here alive' and the main heroine Marci realizes that this is most likely what he meant and these are all people Gray saw reason to silence and make disappear for some reason or another.
After the second generation, much larger and deadlier spider hatches from an egg laid in the survivor's corpse and begins going on a rampage through his base, Gray is HAPPY his bioweapon survived and more concerned about recapturing his bioweapon than everyone in the entire base. When the colonel on the premises objects, he tells him that either he and his men fall in line, or he'll put a bullet in him and kill him on the spot.
While stumbling through the base, Marci and her friends discover a room detailing the project and discover that the spiders are made with alien DNA, and this is far from the first time Gray has experimented with this.
When he and the colonel he threatened earlier are searching for the spider (now grown into a bulldozer sized predator beginning to attack Marci's group and his men), Gray chooses to send the man down the path way they heard the creature moving from while he himself heads the opposite direction. Upon finding the Colonel badly wounded as a direct result of his own actions along with most of his men slaughtered by the beast, Gray's only reaction is rage that the Colonel and his men tried to defend themselves by attacking the monster before shooting him in the head at point blank.
Confronted by John and Marci, Gray holds them at gun point and prepares to execute her purely out of spite for her college articles being close enough to his actual plans to inconvenience him, showing his first real emotion in the film other than anger and enjoying the idea. When John tries to shoot him to protect her and fails due to lack of ammo, Gray mocks him and prepares to shoot him in the head before the Spider captures him and lays an egg in his stomach.
Not dead yet, Gray survives the destruction of the second generation Spider and tracks John and Marci back to the college paper Marci works at in the middle of LA despite knowing what's inside him, murdering Marci's boss in cold blood for no other reason than being in his way. Gray is enraged at the ruination of his plan, having intended to use the spiders as living WM Ds to release and propagate in their enemies in mass to allow the US to conquer the world. Smirking, Gray reveals to the two what's inside him and allows the third generation, massive and nigh indestructible spider to erupt from his corpse in an active college campus in the middle of LA purely as one final act of spite for the people who ruined his plans, resulting in countless deaths as the beast rampages through the city until it's finally killed with a rocket launcher down its throat.
Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?
None. Gray's motivation is to create a living WMD that the US can use to take over the world, and willing to subject numerous people to horrific, brutal deaths to achieve it. There's no real attempt to portray him as a Well-Intentioned Extremist, only desiring conquest.
Gray's overall portrayal is very sociopathic, seeming emotionless other than anger or sadistic joy in making those who slighted him suffer. His actor, puts in a pretty straight performance and while the movie does have its comical moments, none of them involve Gray. He gets a tiny bit hammy during his final speech, but part of that is due to the fact a giant spider is about to rip him apart from the inside out.
Heinous Factor
Gray is the film's primary human villain, responsible for three direct confirmed murders, one of which was a doctor who's only crime was trying to save man's life and the last's only crime being being where Gray wanted to confront the protagonists. He doesn't care about the monster killing his men, and knowingly let's loose the final and deadliest spider on a populated city of his own country out of spite at his plans being ruined.
I will point out this final act of spite would, going by LA's population in 2000, have endangered 3.7 million people. For extra heinous points, he does this in the middle of a college campus during the middle of the day. While a guy like Gray dying to his own bioweapon is to be expected, making his death an act of spite endangering an entire city out of nothing but spite to two people stands out from the crowd quite a bit.
He also enjoys the prospect of murdering an innocent college girl who's only crime is getting a tiny bit too close to his unethical operations despite no one believing her and thinking she's a paranoid nutcase.
There's also the many corpses found throughout his lab which the astronaut's final words imply are people who crossed Gray at one point or another.
His only real rival in the film is his creation, which is just an animal acting on instinct rather than having any malicious intent, and the entire rampage by the third generation spider (which is also the one who kills the most people) is an intentional act on Gray's part.
Final Verdict:
I'd say Gray qualifies. While the movie's quality is b-movie with some good practical effects, Gray himself is a sociopathic, selfish, and warmongering monster who is willing to kill anyone who so much as talks back to him one time too many and endangers an entire city as one final act of spite.
Edited by Godzillawolf on Feb 26th 2019 at 11:02:45 AM
to Jo, Reaper, and Gray.
to Marx and Ares.
Now then, its been two weeks since the NCIS episode "She" aired and I think I have a candidate that might qualify. The Villain of the Week in question is Robert Hill.
Who Is He? What Has He Done?
Robert Hill is The Villain of the Week who kidnaped an Navy Officer Morgan Burke who was eighteen-year old and pregnant at the time. Upon kidnapping Morgan, Hill made her his Sex Slave whom he constantly abused, beaten, and raped for 10 years.
Also Morgan’s daughter, Lily, was born in Morgan’s first year of imprisonment, whom Hill decides to keep and proceed to abuse and beat for 9 years, while also implying to have raped Lily as well.
During that time Morgan’s fiancee and Lily’s father, Ben Ramsey, asked then NCIS agent Ziva David to find Morgan and Lily, though Ziva gets killed during that time, allowing Hill to get away with kidnapping and abusing Ben’s fiancee and daughter for a decade.
It isn’t until Lily finds a way escape Hill’s imprisonment where a group of people find her in a storage unit completely abused, malnourished, and confused and contacts NCIS. From there Ziva’s replacement, NCIS agent Elenor Bishop, continues her predecessor’s efforts in finding and rescuing Morgan and bring Hill to justice.
While that’s going on Hill tries to cover his track, which leads to him killing his own brother who witnessed his crimes and kill his own Sex Slave Morgan by drowning her in a lake. However, Elenor manages to track down Hill, whom the latter tries to kill as well. Thankfully, Elenor’s team manages to save her and Morgan while finally bring Hill to justice
Upon arresting Hill, Elenor proceeds to read him the letter of Morgan’s mother, only to tell her that he’s already got saying that she’s going to haunt his dream. Realizing that Ziva is actually alive, Elenor gets a letter from her to keep her secret for her family’s safety.
Freudian Excuse? Redeeming Qualities?
All that’s known about Hill was that he was charged with sexually assaulting women prior to kidnapping Morgan and making her his Sex Slave. That’s it.
As for redeeming qualities, he has none. He shows no remorse for killing his own brother and merely view Morgan and Lily as objects that he can abuse both physically and sexually and has no problems killing them if they get him into trouble.
Heinousness
While his body count is pretty low compared to the others, I think that he makes up for that with how personal his crimes are. He kidnaps someone’s fiancee with their unborn child whom he beats and rapes for 10 years and does the same thing to their child when she’s born for 9 years, and kills his own brother when he becomes a liability. I think that makes Hill unique just enough for him to pass.
Final Verdict
I’ll leave that to you guys!
don't forget to vote for my candidate to
Edited by G-Editor on Feb 26th 2019 at 9:20:51 AM
My sandbox of EPs and other stuff
Can see why. Hope I didn't step on your toes.
And yeah, Gray definitely earns a LOT of heinous points for that.
There's killing people for a cover up, then there's screw over a heavily populated city to spite two people.
I will also say I think murdering an innocent doctor who's only trying to save someone's life is also worth quite a few in my book.
Honestly, it's his dying act that makes him qualify. The rest are standard acts.
One thing, GW? Remember to look at how villains stand out. Some added flare beyond just "killing people". Government spook who shoots a few people doesn't pass muster. Governemnt spook with a few murders who dies intentionally unleashing an indestructible giant spider on LA is something more special
Edited by Lightysnake on Feb 26th 2019 at 2:14:59 PM
I gotcha, I do admit had it not been for that I'd likely have not even REMEMBERED him when I saw the title on IM Db and I wouldn't have bothered to add it otherwise. Glad I did, though. Generally like this movie, if for the normal b-movie reasons.
Do think his first victim being an innocent doctor trying to save a man is also a bit above the baseline. Not enough to qualify on its own without his final act, but makes a bit of an impact.
Edited by Godzillawolf on Feb 26th 2019 at 11:26:29 AM
