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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I agree that the line must be clear to negate his CM status and that complete monsters can have Alternate Character Interpretation. If it is up to interpretation than he should still count. The only thing that still makes me undecided is that I don't know if Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas is clear or is this line up to the interpretation. While this line is not significant to his portrayal, as Ambar Sonof Deshar said, why include it at all in the first place?
edited 8th Jul '12 5:53:51 AM by Krystoff
My counter to that argument is that every other grasshopper is intimidated of the guy, none of them turn on him at any point in the movie, so the idea that he's afraid of losing face for breaking a promise doesn't add up with his potrayal.
So he's still 99.8% monster. If that line didn't mean anything, why feel the need to include it in there? It could have easily been replaced by "I'd kill you if I didn't want to bother finding a replacement" or something similar, but instead it's in there showing that he's still honouring a promise to a dead person.
Fair enough. I am still not sure because 99.8% is almost like 100%. I guess its the same thing. If a character is 99% monster its the same as 100%. So maybe Hopper still counts.
edited 8th Jul '12 7:28:27 AM by Krystoff
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
What we are talking about isn't just an insignificant positive moment, but an ambiguous one. It's like saying the alternate interpretations for Frollo make him a non-CM.
On a sidenote, The edit history of the Spider-Man Trilogy's YMMV page shows Animeking1108 adding Eddie Brock as a Complete Monster, directly beneath comment code linking to this thread and stating that discussion in it said to remove him from the page. I know I generally suggest discussing one thing at a time, but this thing in particular is something I don't think should wait until the discussion of Lotso and Hopper is done.
edited 8th Jul '12 7:34:00 AM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
For future reference you should mention if you've gone to Ask The Tropers or not, since I was to submit a query to them before I saw you beat me to the punch.
While we're on the topic of tropers adding back in examples that we've taken out, what is the correct procedure for removing it again? Can we do it or is it best to leave it to the mods to remove it too?
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
I think it's best to stay in the habit of leaving it there, just to avoid giving mods the wrong impression due to them not seeing an entry we claim was edited in.
Yes, they can always check the edit history (and personally, I prefer to link to that directly) but still, this just makes it simpler.
edited 8th Jul '12 7:53:30 AM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
Not familiar with Frollo honestly. Don't really care either.
The whole point of the trope is to be a "complete" monster. Not a 99% monster. And honestly this losing face in front of the other grasshoppers stuff—we've seen him kill three of his men as part of a demonstration. Seriously, which makes more sense—1) that he'd lose face in front of a bunch of guys who are a) terrified and b) totally loyal to him, and he references the promise to mom for no apparent reason, or 2) that he actually wants to keep the promise to mom? Simplest explanation people.
Regarding Alternate Character Interpretation—this isn't me using it to keep him off the page. This is the people in favour of keeping him using it to get him on the page. You're trying to find increasingly less likely reasons (it's tradition!; no he'd lose face!) to disregard the line and keep him here. We have to work with what's shown, not what we can make up to justify our opinions. Otherwise we can get almost any villain on the list.
edited 8th Jul '12 8:11:02 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Fine. Voting against keeping Hopper than.
Actually, I want to end this discussion now, because I saw couple poor examples of the Disney page and I want to get rid of them as quickly as possible. As soon as we will be done with Hopper, I will bring them.
edited 8th Jul '12 9:39:21 AM by Krystoff
Azor Ahai
Another reason I don't think Hopper counts is that like Scar, but are sort of like animals behaving like animals, but presented negatively, since they are sapient. It's probably not a coincidence that Hopper, like Scar ends up being eaten, since the "circle of life" goes both ways.
RE Eddie Brock, from Spectacular Spiderman, he's kind of a hard example in that you do get the impression that his earlier friendly Big Man on Campus personality was a front, and he certainly doesn't place a lot of concern for the lives of others (including (former) friends) when trying to harm Peter. I think it is up for interpretation whether he should just be seen as a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing or someone who was damaged all along but used to be good at hiding it (I think the show supports the latter). I'd say he's disqualified by being mentally unstable.
Hodor
Okay, so I see that the majority supports to cut Hopper. Alright, I will soon request to cut him, and I will bring villains that I really want to discuss. Hidden Faced Matt, I am not trying to be offensive, but by bringing Hopper all the time, you are doing almost what brony99 did.
edited 8th Jul '12 9:45:30 AM by Krystoff
That's not correct; Brony99 had a clear Single-Issue Wonk and, what's more, we had actually finished the argument on Discord, he kept bringing it back up and trying to change the trope itself to get him on the list.
With Matt, we haven't passed judgement on Hopper; we are still on the same conversational track.
Discord was not the only villain that brony99 argued about. In another thread he was a Single-Issue Wonk about Jafar from Aladdin. Read it.
There is one BIG question that I have, but with brony gone we will never learn; HOW OLD BRONY WAS? I think he was 10 or 11.
Also, I really want to start discussing some poor examples from Disney page. I want them removed (if there will be consensus). Are we still not done with Hopper?
edited 8th Jul '12 10:03:53 AM by Krystoff
Here’s something that’s been bothering me for a long time, so I figure I should just ask now: Why is a single flicker of humanity enough to exclude someone from the trope? And please don’t write it off with it’s called "complete" monster for a reason.
I don’t want to start a fight or anything, this isn’t a question about Hopper, it’s about the trope in general. I’m just wondering how far we’re supposed to go with these cuts, because if it truly is supposed to be a thousand percent, not a moment of doubt in their evil, then there are tons of examples of classic Complete Monster examples that need to be axed.
For example, Frollo attempts to burn a family alive, commit genocide against the roma, killed Quasimodo's mother, nearly drowned him as a baby, and rountinely abuses the guy as an adult. Yet Frollo’s Villain Song shows that he truly believes he’s doing God’s work and that he’s afraid for his soul. Remember his lines, “God have mercy on her, God have mercy on me.” If he believes he’s doing God’s work, shouldn’t he get the axe? If that they didn’t want to portray those as positive traits they wouldn’t have been included in the final cut, right?
Bellatrix Lestrange tortured two people into insanity, loves killing and performing Cold-Blooded Torture, and has one of the highest major character body counts in the series. Yet she is capable of love; she loves Voldemort and has some kind of affection for her sister. Sure, it’s undercut by the fact the object of her affection is a Complete Monster and there’s an implication that she’d be okay with killing her sister if Narcissa strayed from the family tradition, just like she did with Tonks, but she’s still capable of love. So should she be booted?
Joffrey Baratheon, the HBO version, has all the makings of The Caligula. He has his bastard siblings, consisting mainly of infants and toddlers, murdered, starts a war by executing Ned Stark, and routinely performs brutal Domestic Abuse on his fiancée. And yet, he shows a moment of sincere sadness when his father is dying after being wounded in a hunt. And when his mother slapped him he ‘’only’’ threatened to kill her the next time she did that, rather than killing her then-and-there. So could that be interpreted as Even Bad Men Lovetheir Mamas, since he didn’t outright kill her? Should that mean he goes?
I could go on but I’ll quit rambling and make my point. When a writer really plays up the ambiguity, tragedy or well-intentioned mindset of an antagonist, then you know you’re not dealing with a Complete Monster. But when a character’s good traits aren’t shown as major parts of their characterization, when they’re only the barest flicker of humanity shown amidst a rap sheet of atrocities ten novels long, then I’m uneasy in kicking them out of the trope because the whatever “good” traits they have comes across as utterly insignificant when compared with the bad, they're like a drop of water amidst a desert of evil.
edited 8th Jul '12 10:22:12 AM by OccasionalExister
In case of Joffrey, we don't care about the HBO version because the book is original. In the book he is certainly a Complete Monster. Bellatrix, I am not sure, while Frollo, just because he believes that he doing Gods work doesn't prove anything. It only shows his religious fanatism. He was abusing the Church's doctrine in order to commit the acts that he committed. Just being afraid for his soul doesn't mean anything either. C Ms often scream when they die, and some of them beg for mercy before death. Does that mean they are not C Ms? No, that just means that they want to escape punishment.
I would say that Frollo's case is different than Hopper's, Joffrey's is non-canon since the page focuses only on his book version, while Bellatrix is another good candidate to discuss, but later.
edited 8th Jul '12 10:33:19 AM by Krystoff
It comes down to a whole heap of circumstances. I would justify my decision in that while Frollo has some austic qualities, they also happen to be tied into his evil deeds as a Knight Templar. Whereas Hopper's respect for the promise he made to his mother doesn't really tie into any of his evil actions.
So any positive trait that is being used to further their evil doesn't count for removing that percentage.
For more elaboration; Bella's love for the Dark Lord leads her to do several horrific things to other characters, so that doesn't count. Joffrey's sorry over his father's death is pretty insignificant, and the reason he doesn't kill his mother is because he's a coward, as evidenced by the fact that he just sits there and takes Tyrion's abuse in front of an entire chamber of people and doesn't retaliate when he gets smacked in the face.
edited 8th Jul '12 11:29:32 AM by Shaoken
Avatar by Leafsnake
I have to say, that the hopper conversation is kind of dragging on, and the biggest problem we have is that people are interpreting the line in different ways (as I said in a previous post). Does the line disqualify his status? Arguments all boil down to interpretation, and there are some good interpretations both for and against. I don't think that anyone is going to be convinced to change their view anytime soon, so perhaps we should begin voting.
EDIT: Who is Brony99? I've only heard of him in a few posts, but I get the image of an inconsiderate troper who was banned. He who must not be spoken of?
edited 8th Jul '12 12:31:02 PM by DrPsyche
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
And unlike brony, who IIRC implied as much himself that he just wanted to see Discord (among other of his favourite villains) on the CM list, I've stated that Hopper's portrayal ties into Lotso's portrayal, and since then it's become clear that Hopper reflects on the more general question of "what about characters with brief moments hinting at possible redeeming qualities" while Lotso reflects on the more general question of "what about characters with sad backstories?"
...
Anyway, onto Lotso... apart from the sad backstory, I think another question this reflects on is whether CM status depends on the furthest extent of evil reached by the character or the average over time of the extent of evil. Lotso was evil from the start, but not very obviously so; he started of seeming nice until he showed his true colours, and even then he wasn't much more extreme than the average cartoon supervillain. It's not until toward the end that the shock value rises rapidly. And this is a small fraction of his screentime.
This isn't to say he necessarily isn't a CM, just that it's another aspect to take into account in deciding it.
On a sidenote... I request that once we're done with Lotso, the next character we discuss be Bison from Street Fighter The Legend Of Chun Li.
edited 8th Jul '12 12:36:36 PM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
Okay, I requested to cut Hopper. Lotso? I would say that he qualifies, but I will certainly listen to other people's opinions.
I also want to bring other examples form Disney page since I found so many poor examples there.
edited 8th Jul '12 12:41:51 PM by Krystoff
Avatar by Leafsnake
Sorry Matt, but Krystoff already asked to discuss the other Disney examples when we finish. Perhaps after that we can talk about Chun-Li. Personally, I want to Discuss Madame Medusa.
- So It seems that Hopper's discussion is over, and he's being cut. Shame, I would have voted to keep him.
edited 8th Jul '12 12:44:58 PM by DrPsyche
Lets talk about Lotso first. After that, we will talk about Medusa as you wanted, than my examples, and than Bison. What is you opinion about Lotso, Dr.Psyche?
Avatar by Leafsnake
Well, I'm seeing a lot of people voting to keep Lotso, and I have to agree. Lotso had a sympathetic backstory, but he is still a cruel Dictator-esque person. Running the toys through painful play rooms, that seems to kill a few. Like the fridge page points out, some of the toys are too small for children, and could wind up killing them (Which, when one thinks of it, could lead to a lawsuit, which could shut down the day care, leaving them all alone, or donated to goodwill, but that's beside the point). He's spiteful and he shows it by his motive rant, and lying/insulting big-baby, his oldest (wow, that pun sucked) enforcer. If his imprisonment, iron-fist and torture aren't enough, then his other Moral Event Horizon, leaving the main characters to die, certainly qualifies, and leads back into him being a spiteful evil little carebear. He subverts his only chance at redemption, and I believe that Lotso qualifies.
Not to mention that those toys he tried to kill aved his life before! Just starting as Affably Evil is the most absurd reason I find to cut him. Who said that a Compete Monster cannot be Affably Evil?
Also, the playrooms did not seem to kill few toys. They seemed to kill a lot of toys.
edited 8th Jul '12 1:40:37 PM by Krystoff
Avatar by Leafsnake
I'd argue that he was never Affably Evil to begin with, Just A Bitch in Sheep's Clothing. When he acts nice, it's only when they haven't discovered his true nature, while he's being evil, he's not affable at all.
edited 8th Jul '12 1:43:12 PM by DrPsyche
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
I'm not saying Lotso necessarily doesn't apply so much as that we should make sure we've looked carefully at the potentially line-blurring factors here.
EDITED IN: Also, we've already discussed Medusa. Not that we shouldn't revisit characters previously discussed, but we should probably wait until we're done with the other characters on the list before deciding who to revisit. Especially since Krystoff's post mentioned looking into removing poor examples from the list, not adding other examples to it.
edited 8th Jul '12 2:04:36 PM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart