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
Goku Black
So anyone got an ep?
We've kinda stalled today .
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I may have a few later today.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Not necessarily a bad thing. What with Beast's writeups and rewrites, we've got like between 15 and 20 entries ALREADY this week.
I might get a new batch from Elfes et Nains (I'm kinda amazed by all the freaks the series throw at me) but It will take me a while.
Not today ATM. Just gotta make some more comic orders, still trying to find these short films, etc.
Edited by Beast on Apr 22nd 2019 at 1:54:28 PM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
Alright, so I've read, officially, The Kane Chronicles....and let me report, to my surprise? Apophis does not count. Setting aside his agency issues where he's literally the embodiment of chaos? Existence causes him genuine agony, like a rusty nail perpetually driven into your foot. Carter Kane even pities the 'poor, world destroying snake' when he learns that.
This makes yet another time I have looked into an Apophis who didn't count (Including the one I wrote)...that said? There is one potential keeper....Setne.
Who is Setne?
An evil magician born in Ancient Egypt as the son of Ramses the Great who distinguished himself as a genius thief, magician, adventurer and more...but one fully out for himself. At one point, he stole the Book of Thoth, creating complicated spells where he intended to blackmail the gods for immortality, to feed his ambitions. Dying before he could, Setne was sentenced to oblivion four times, but managed to flee each time...Setne's whole routine? He flees to the mortal world, working on his ambitions to rule it. And in this end, Setne loves to sow pure chaos...in fact? The French Revolution and World War 1 are on his shoulders, in addition to multiple murders in the past.
Now, whwen Apophis is threatening the world, Setne appears to the Kane siblings, the heirs of the Kane magician lineage, where he takes an oath that he doesn't wish for Apophis to destroy the world. Allying with the Carters and their friends, Setne begins assisting them in working to stop Apophis. Manipulating them, Setne eventually tries to have them killed by demons before he's stopped and escapes...returning later when they encounter Apophis and reveals his master stroke: Setne didn't lie. He's not going to help Apophis destroy the world, he's going to use his spells to enslave Apophis and unleash him, wiping out vast swaths of souls in the afterlife (including Setne's father, as Setne hates him) and then? He'll unleash Apophis on the planet. He's going to only destroy a lot of it...because he wants to rule, not condemn all of it to oblivion. Setne is stopped and Apophis is destroyed, but Setne manages to flee.
Returning in the Staff of Serapis short story, where the series crosses over with Percy Jackson, Percy and the Kanes...Setne is still plotting and using the Crown of Ptolemy, he summons the cobra goddess Wadjet and cheerfully devours her soul/essence to empower himself, using his abilities to begin a spell to make him a new god. And to do this? He's going to attack all the pantheons and consume all of them, making Setne the supreme god for everyone. Percy and team, however, defeat Setne, trapping him powerless in a plastic snowglobe...which becomes a paperweight on Carter Kane's desk, Setne neutralized and imprisoned for all time.
Heinousness?
Well, the Rirodanverse has a lot of omnicidal bastards, but Setne? Setne's one of the few who's 'just' a mortal sorcerer whose only divine powers are what he's taken himself. He's caused tons of horror in the mortal world (including starting WW 1) and tries to have Apophis wipe out most of the world, and eat all the gods. I'd say pass.
Mitigating Qualities?
Setne is...pleasant and cheerful. Always. He never loses composure till the end, he's friendly and nice....and it's a mask. Setne is funny, but horrible. He's ruthless, devoid of conscience, nasty and loves to spread chaos and destruction. He's got no sympathetic excuse and everyone and everything is just expendable to him as long as he comes out atop the situation.
Conclusion?
Overall? I'd give him a yes here.
Goku Black
Well I got nothing for now either.
I was thinking of ep'ing somone From a novel that's in the same universe of Modern Faerie Tales but I need to check its succesor The Folk of the Air first to ensure that the dude is heinous enough for his high tier.
Edit : Thanks Lighty.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Setne.
Also weird to think that we don't have a single version of apep/Apohphis who counts other then the original
Edited by miraculous on Apr 22nd 2019 at 12:05:20 PM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
to Setne.
Full disclosure? I had intended to write Apophis as pure evil. Problem was he ended up a very boring villain, and I ended up making him a more complex character as a result.
Yes to Setne.
Setne.
Did you try to write him so that his evil outwieghs his complexity. I tried that once with one of my villains.
Edited by Beast on Apr 22nd 2019 at 2:20:01 PM
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Originally? He didn’t have complexity. That was my mistake. He ended up a far, far better character after someone helped me realized how he wasn’t working and I retooled him utterly.
Ultimate Moral Compass
Not!Apophis
That's the problem with writing an evil villain: they can become too boring and uninteresting. Personality helps greatly (for instance, all of your other Big Bads had memorable characteristics), and Apophis definitely improved as the story continued.
Edited by therealjackieboy on Apr 22nd 2019 at 12:29:47 PM
"No running in the halls!"
Goku Black
The closest we had to an Apophis keeper here other then the original is his The Librarians 2014 version.
Too bad they never actually speficed what exactly releasing "pure evil" onto the world will actually do.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Setne.
When it comes to rewrites I suggest doing 2 or 3 at once and no more. Unlike doing a fresh write up we need to compare the rewrite to the original and that's incredibly frustrating to do when you have 9 or so. Like, we're basically looking at 18 different write-ups and I personally spend more time looking at a rewrite than a fresh one because I wanna make sure replacing/editing the work of others is warranted.
And like I said, make sure it's a damn good reason at this point. At this point, it's getting to be "I personally think this is X so I want to make it Y."
The Unknown Unknown
Setne.
On the topic of Aphopis? I am reading a manga with him (Im Great Priest Imhotep), and we MAY be in the clear. Let me finish it. Eventually.
A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Thing with the rewrites that makes more work for ME, is seeing which potholes the original entry used and matching those to the rewrite.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
to Setne. So I guess Setne is the Eric Cartman to Apophis's Cthulhu
Yes to the most recent rewrite, and while it makes more work for me, yes to Beast's as well. None of the entries Beast rewrote (MAYBE Chameleon) struck me as having such an uber-long rapsheet that they need so many words.
EDIT: Wow, JAG has 21 entries now. I remember when the only ones from the franchise were Lynch, Boone, and an entry which was cut for not being heinous enough.
Edited by ACW on Apr 22nd 2019 at 2:25:15 PM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts