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.
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to everyone I missed").
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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
I don't know about in Hunter but in The Turner Diaries the Jews deliberatey disarm the white population and then use black shock troops to kill white men and rape every white woman they come across as part of an evil plot to destroy the "Pure Aryan Race". Would that qualify as mutant hellspawn-ish?
And I'm honestly not sure if I want the author of this tripe imprisoned, institutionalised, or dead. Decisions, decisions...
edited 26th Aug '13 9:26:29 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
and ![]()
I don't know whether to laugh or cry here.
But yes, The Turner Diaries would be one of those cases where the "heroes" are actually fighting against a genuine evil (for the purposes of the story). I came across a description of Carrera's Legions'' off of the Designated Hero page and honestly, its not all that different.
In contrast, Hunter doesn't get a pass.
edited 26th Aug '13 9:30:12 PM by Hodor
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki....something just occurred to me. Even if Yeager is a psychotic serial killer of children, would the fact that Yeager believes in overthrowing an evil system (by the novel's warped standards) count as a redeeming quality?
Kind of a Gilles de Rais situation, where he was by all accounts a staunch patriot of France in addition to be a prolific murderer of young boys
Possibly. I hate to say it, but possibly. I am tempted to argue that since these idiotic stories are supposed to take place in the real world that we just ignore idiocy like that, but that would be moving the goalposts.
Good god I'd love to just ignore the author's standards in these cases, but that sets such a bad precedent.
Well...for Turner, we need to cut it.
For Yeager...god, I dunno...I'll say keep right now. He seems driven by hatred than any real redeeming quality.
For Griffin, I vote keep. He has nothing amounting to a true Pet the Dog and his actions pass the heinous standard. I think we're in keeps for Miller of Patriot Games, too.
Thoughts on Malekith, Rane and Mellor, Ambar?
As for Burn Notice, I think that we have a keep for Simon Escher. the other monster of the show I've heard is Anson
edited 26th Aug '13 10:25:04 PM by Lightysnake
Good God these Silent Hill examples:
- Lots of them, but among the worst is Dahlia Gillespie. She leads a cult that has been implicated to kidnapping other children, experimenting Alessa's ritual on them like at the Hope House Orphanage, abuses her daughter and burns her right after Alessa tells her that all she wants is to stay with her, uses a spell to keep her in extra torment for seven long years, is most likely is the one who implanted Cybil with a monster and gleefully gloats about how Harry won't see Cheryl again. Pure and utter scum.
- Also Doctor Kaufmann. It's mighty satisfying when they get their just desserts. Dr. Kaufmann was at least involved in planning Alessa's birth, and may in fact be her father. He is also the one who got Lisa hooked on drugs and is very likely her murderer.
- Judge Holloway in Homecoming. She's a member of the Order, is in on everything right from the start and has no qualms about murdering her own daughters and brutally torturing Alex.
- There's also Officer George Sewell and Patrick Napier from Downpour.
- Christabella from the film adaptation.
Going just by what's written Dahlia sounds like the worse of the lot. Let's see with their respective wiki's have to say about them.
- Dahlia Gillespie: Head of a cult known as the Sect of the Holy Woman. She also started a drug trade, selling a hallucinogen to the tourists, made from a local plant named White Claudia, that was also used in the cult's rituals. This lead to her killing the anti-drug mayor and the narcotics officer Gucci. Her ultimate goal is to gain personal power by summoning God to bring about a paradise. She kidnaps and attempts to impregnate several young girls with the god, but none of them could withstand the trauma involved in the impregnation process and they all died. Dahlia then found out that her seven year old daughter Alessa had vast mental powers. Dahlia and the cult proceeded to perform the impregnation ritual on Alessa, which involved setting the girl on fire, in an upstairs room in Dahlia's own home. Although the god was successfully impregnated in Alessa, the half of her soul left from her daughter's own splitting of her soul and turning the other half into a baby was not powerful enough to give birth to it. Dahlia cast a spell, keeping Alessa alive and in extreme pain, not allowing her burns to heal. Her intention was for the other half to subconsciously feel Alessa's pain, and come back to Silent Hill, where the soul would be reunited. Seven years later, Dahlia proceeds to trick Harry Mason into assisting in her scheme to complete the ritual.
- Michael Kaufmann: He was involved in trafficking a hallucinogen named PTV made from "White Claudia", a local plant, in order to fund the cult. He did in fact get the nurse called Lisa Garland hooked on the drug, because Lisa eventually grew sick of nursing Alessa and wanted to leave. However, Kaufmann refused to allow her, and threatened to cut off her supply of PTV, which led to arguing and fighting between the two and Kaufmann murdering her.
- Judge Margaret Holloway: Is a descendant of one of the four founding families of Shepherd's Glen, who left Silent Hill and its resident cult in the 1850s in order to pursue a new life. Fearing the wrath of their god, the founders made a pact to keep them safe. Every fifty years, a member of each founding family was supposed to sacrifice one of their children themselves. Upon founding the town, each family took on a specific role and method of sacrifice. They took up the role of the Keeper of Lore, responsible for maintaining the founders' beliefs. Their sacrficial method was strangulation. In 2003, the time came for the current generation to make their sacrifices. Believing that the ritual was the only way to protect Shepherd's Glen and her family, Holloway sacrificed her daughter Nora, whom she had selected for the purpose years before. Sam Bartlett and Martin Fitch both faithfully carried out their duty as well, but their sacrifices proved to be in vain. Adam Shepherd, the final member of this cabal, had chosen his older son Alex for the sacrifice, which for the Shepherd family meant drowning. However, Josh was accidentally drowned by Alex, who then suffered a complete mental breakdown. Lacking in conviction, Adam wavered from sacrificing Alex and instead had him committed to a mental hospital. This caused Silent Hill's foggy Otherworld to engulf Shepherd's Glen. Apparently driven mad by the strange turn of events, Holloway came to the conclusion that the only way to save Shepherd's Glen was to bring them back to the true faith of the Order. She revived the cult, which had been defunct for several years, for this purpose. She recruited Curtis Ackers, Shepherd's Glen's resident handyman to be her second in command. Holloway set up the new cult's base of operations in an abandoned mine under the Church of the Holy Way in Silent Hill, which had been used as part of the sacrificial ritual by the founding families. She proceeded with her plan to save her town, and began kidnapping the townsfolk to Silent Hill and brainwashing them into converting. These successful converts were used as Order Soldiers, and they wore distinct miner suits. Others were simply tortured to death, which Holloway believed gave them new life through rebirth. Holloway continued carrying out her plan, until almost the entire town of Shepherd's Glen had either been killed or converted. Four years later, in 2007, Alex Shepherd returned to Shepherd's Glen, apparently after escaping from the mental hospital he was held in. He was suffering from delusions, believing that he had been in the army for the last for years, as well as that Josh was still alive and needed his help. Holloway was the first person to meet him upon his return, and she acted like nothing was wrong at all. Alex began investigating the town in the search for his brother, and gradually uncovered some of the town's secrets. After this had gone on for a while, Holloway ordered Ackers and squad of Order Soldiers to kidnap Lillian Shepherd, Alex's mother. Alex, Holloway's older daughter Elle, and Wheeler, the local deputy, head to Silent Hill in search of Adam Shepherd, who had gone there to confront the Order. However, another squad of Order Soldiers attacked their boat, kidnapping Elle and Wheeler. Alex escaped and continued into Silent Hill, cutting off the power the Order had supplied to the Overlook Penitentiary, where they were holding Wheeler. Alex raided the prison, where he found Judge Holloway inexplicably restrained in a gas chamber. Alex freed her and ushered her out of the room before confronting Asphyxia, a monster based on the way Nora was sacrificed. Alex eventually made his way to the Order's lair under the church, where he was captured by Ackers and brought before Judge Holloway. Ackers restrained him in a chair, so Holloway could do as she pleased. She then ordered Ackers to torture Elle to death as punishement for her disobedience. As Ackers left the room, Holloway revealed the town's history, the sacrifices, and her own motives for her actions. Determined to finishe what Adam Shepherd couldn't, she began to torture Alex to death by drilling him in the leg.
- Officer George Sewell: In the beginning of the game, Officer Sewell appears to have arranged a scenario for Murphy in a prison washroom, giving Murphy the opportunity to murder another inmate by the name of Napier. At a certain point during Murphy's incarceration, Sewell had offered him a deal. In exchange for assisting Murphy in the murder of Napier and looking the other way, Murphy would owe him an undisclosed favor to be repaid at a later time. According to Frank Coleridge, this is not the first deal that Sewell has made with an inmate, and he tells Murphy that Sewell's deals don't usually work in favor of the other inmates. Later on, Sewell reveals that the favor he had in mind is the premeditated murder of another man, who Sewell claims "deserves it". Sewell instructs Murphy to meet the man in the washroom, just as he did with Napier, during a planned prison riot so that the guards would be too distracted to notice that he is missing. Murphy complies, and discovers that the 'man' is actually Frank Coleridge. When Murphy refuses to kill him, Sewell is prompted to do it himself and ultimately frames Murphy for the crime.
- Patrick Napier: Napier was a pedophile who was once Murphy Pendleton's neighbor, which is how he came to know Murphy's son, Charlie Pendleton. He approached Charlie in his van while Charlie was walking home from school and kidnapped him, presumably with the intent to sexually assault him. Napier then drove to a nearby lake where he placed Charlie inside a canvas sack and tossed him into the water, resulting in Charlie's death. Sometime later, Napier was arrested for the abduction, sexual assault and murder of an eight-year-old boy named Daniel Stephens.
- Christabella(From the Silent Hill Movie): The manipulative leader of a local religious cult who believes in finding and burning those who are considered to be witches. After Christabella's sister gave birth to a daughter out of wedlock, Christabella had the child condemned as a witch. Alessa was bullied and abused by her peers daily, while the members of the cult and her aunt not only allowed it, but encouraged it. When Alessa was nine years old, Christabella convinced Dahlia that she needed to be "purified", calling her "filth" and saying her innocence must be restored. Christabella then had Alessa laid over a bed of burning coals to be burned alive as a witch. When one of the chains holding Alessa in place had broken, Christabella and her followers fled from the church. When Christabella discovers that Rose's adoptive daughter, Sharon, is identical to Alessa, she has her followers attempt to kidnap Rose and Cybil. Rose escapes, but Christabella orders her men to beat Cybil as she lays on the ground bleeding. Christabella then goes to the apartment of her now mad sister, Dahlia, where she finds Sharon and kidnaps her. At the church, Christabella has Cybil burned alive as a witch, and attempts to do the same to Sharon when Rose arrives.
edited 26th Aug '13 10:27:47 PM by VeryMelon
Then the Christabella example could go under Film while the other 3 get a video game subpage.
edited 26th Aug '13 10:35:26 PM by VeryMelon
Any other opinions on the Con Air examples in post 15847
?
I've revised the write-up for Warner from Phantasmagoria 2 per Occasional Exister's suggestions.
- Paul Allen Warner, the Corrupt Corporate Executive of the pharmaceutical company WynTech in Phantasmagoria 2. His crimes include sacrificing numerous mental patients from Doctor Marek's asylum to interdimensional aliens, murdering Curtis's father because he objected to the direction the experiment went in, treating alien Curtis like a guinea pig and not a human being, throwing child Curtis through the dimensional portal just because he can't find another subject in time, using the dimension to create illegal drugs through his pharmaceutical company to get the entire populace hopelessly addicted and in his thrall, and bragging to Curtis about what he has done with smug satisfaction and not a flicker of remorse.
@ Lightysnake: Alright, let's wait on Copper then.
Based on the arguments provided since, gonna have to add no on Stillson. Neutral on Malekith (based on concerns about whether destroying planets is standard supervillainy in cosmic marvel stories), solid yes to Pyriel, Mellor, and Charles Rane.
Malekith does raise an interesting question. Considering Marvel comics are one huge continuity within their multiverse (is this Earth-616?), should Malekith be judged by every villain The Mighty Thor has to offer or every villain in all Marvel? The second would obviously be quite daunting, to say the least.
@ Lightysnake, Ambar: Fully agree with the Death of the Author arguments. These psychotic, genocidal "heroes" can qualify in my book.
@ Occasional Exister: Add another yes for the new write-up on John Doe.
@ Knight 9910: I've only seen the MST 3 K version, and it's been long enough ago and so forgettable that I honestly don't remember much beyond a bunch of criminals escaping and joining the Bay of Pigs. Didn't Griffin at least show concern for the two (?) men he was with all the way?
@ Hamburger Time: Regarding the difference between Well Intentioned Extremists and Knight Templars, the trope talk thread
actually came up with a more interesting distinction which looks at intent rather than goal.
Well-Intentioned Extremist: "I know this is wrong, but I must do it for the greater good".
Knight Templar: "I am good, everything I do is good, and those who say otherwise must die!"
With this interpretation, the villain in Watchmen is a WIE by virtue of feeling remorse for his actions even though he knows he did it for a greater good. The League of Shadows of The Dark Knight Saga, who never even consider the immorality of their actions and ignore all the innocent people they're going to kill are KTs.
edited 27th Aug '13 12:31:49 AM by Morgenthaler
You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"I think Malekith should be judged against Thor villains, honestly. The test is "Is he as heinous as he can be with what he has?" And I'd say yes. He doesn't just show up and try to destroy the world. He's a tyrannical king, a murderer, a torturer and a general bastard on top of that
edited 27th Aug '13 12:32:06 AM by Lightysnake
So help me, I'm Jewish, and now I almost want to read Turner and Yeager.
Alright, I'll try it like Ambar this time. The person I want to include is Mister Eulogy Jones from Fallout 3
Who is Eulogy Jones and what has he done?
Eulogy Jones is in charge of Paradise Fault, which means he is the head of the Slavetrading Industry in the entire Capital Wasteland. This means he is pretty much to blame for every last amount of slavery in the whole game, because he organizes it and makes the most money of it. He also keeps 2 female servants with him, who have to follow his every step and do anything he commands. Sometimes he starts to shout at them for minor things and they immidiately start begging, which, alongside with the fact that one of them is brainwashed to the point where she is HAPPY in slavery (she will defend Eulogy when you are about to free all the slaves) and is really nothing more than a soulless puppet, indicates much of his treatment for them. He also has a huge cage of CHILD-slaves in his backyard, and one of his quests he gives to you includes singlehandly enslaving children.Are his actions heinous by the story-standarts?
Well like I said, he is literally to blame for every last amount of slavetrading in the entire wasteland, so yeah, pretty much. It should also be noted that he murdered himself on to the top and not only the slaves, but every other slaver in Paradises Falls is afraid of his wrath.Does he have any redeeming qualities?
Zero. He speaks in a reserved and friendly tone, but when he does that even when he's asking you to enslave children, it's clearly a case of Faux Affably Evil. Him losing his tempers with his slaves constantly confirms this.Does he have a Freudian Excuse?
When asked about it he says that he did what he had to do in order to survive, because the Wasteland is a rough place to live. It should be self-explanatory that that's not really any kind of excuse. Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% ScandinavianNay vote on Jones. He's the head slaver at Paradise Falls, but he's not the only slaver even within the base game, his death doesn't effect the slave trade of the region (there is another large group holed up in a Lincoln muesuem even if he gets killed), and he'd have to compete with the slavers in The Pitt, to which he'd fail in comparison.
In the Fallout universe slavery is well entrenched in several regions, so being a slaver in and of itself is not enough to qualify (even though it's one of the things that most of the groups and factions of the setting considers henious).
edited 27th Aug '13 2:13:32 AM by Shaoken
Dahlia and Napier at least seem like keeps. Sewell and Kaufman look like cuts. Christabella is a probable keep. Holloway might be a keep, although your description says she is trying to save the town which might be a disqualifier. On another note, I also vote to cut the Con Air examples. Also, as much as I hate to say it, the guys from The Turner Diaries may not count. Yeager however seems like a keep as does Griffin. Designated Heroes are usually given at least some redeeming qualities.
Okay, Rugal from Bernstein The King of Fighters was agreed to count, but the YMMV page also has these entries:
- Jivatma: As noted in Moral Event Horizon, he ordered the death of Lien's family simply because her father wouldn't join Addes. Jivatma is the leader of the sub-syndicate of Addes which is responsible for training assassins; when you consider that Lien herself worked as one for Addes after being taken in by Duke up until the events of the MI series (the second game in particular), there's no telling how many others shared Lien's fate. He then captures Soiree at the end of MI2, seemingly to spite Alba and subsequently reawaken his old working partner Judeim - something that Luise, who is hunting down Jivatma to kill him, seems to be against given her refusal to disclose information to the Meira brothers. He claims that he's trying to return the Zoan to their home planet, but his backstory has Jivatma killing members of his own race in an undisclosed incident. Well-mannered he may be, but a saint he most definitely is not.
- Saiki makes a good case for this, what with being a supreme example of terrible underling treatment. Although Those From the Past had performed their jobs well, even in failure, Saiki does nothing but admonish them and writes off every last one of his followers as incompetent fools despite the fact that, bears repeating, their plans have virtually gone off without a hitch. This clearly establishes him as a Jerkass, but it's not until the final portions of XIII, where he callously kills Mukai for daring to face the heroes in his place, that he earns his Complete Monster stripes. The kicker? Mukai was doing so in order to serve as a distraction and give Saiki ample time to use the Gate that serves as the cornerstone of his plans; there was no need whatsoever to kill Mukai! He lacks any compassion for his fallen comrades or remorse for offing Mukai and comes across as incredibly self-serving with his goal to release Orochi from its seal. The fact that Mature and Vice return from the afterlife simply to ensure that Saiki can't get his grubby little hands on the power of their master (who is a fanatical, human-hating servant of Gaia) is, well, very telling. His words as Evil Ash that neither the Sacred Treasures nor Orochi can stop his plans when facing Flames Iori don't help his case either.
Are they as bad a Rugal? Also the character page calls Jivatma a Well-Intentioned Extremist.
- Well-Intentioned Extremist - His main goal is to return Zoans like Luise back to their homeland (an offer that he tempts Luise with). Too bad that his methods are less than pleasant.
Jivatma at least sounds like a cut if he`s a Well-Intentioned Extremist.

RE that "white supremacist author issue", in some cases (i.e. Birth Of A Nation and Nazi propaganda films) the heroes are perfectly pleasant toward people that belong to the "good" race and members of the hated minority group are shown as engaging in villainous behavior and likely to have an Asshole Victim characterization. Thus, the "heroes" would not qualify by our standards.
However, if the work has the "hero" do nothing but kill or otherwise torment innocent people (even if not innocent by the author's insane standards), then yes, that character should qualify by our standards.
edited 26th Aug '13 9:23:59 PM by Hodor
Edit, edit, edit, edit the wiki