Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Sorry to ask for clarification. When I saw that line, at face value I saw that Hopper was considering killing his brother but stopped for some vague excuse, rather than the Bad men loving their moms part. I thought that was thrown in for comedic effect (In fact, that was the whole scene to me, crushing the grasshoppers under the food, using mosquitoes as darts, and relenting on a threat for a mushy reason, but looking insincere about it), but, as many have debated, it might carry weight.

EDIT: I thought the scene was funny, not entirely Played for Laughs

edited 10th Jul '12 6:25:20 PM by DrPsyche

Going with what someone said earlier, I think that unless there's a good reason not to, we need to take what characters say at face value. Otherwise almost anybody could be argued onto the list.

At Face value, the scene is used to play up Hopper's violent tendencies, making him look intimidating, and having the audience laugh at the expense of the other grasshoppers. That's what one gets if he just looks at the scene. When looking at the scene closer, one can analyze the line of Even Bad Men Love Their Mamas and find a sympathetic value in it, rather than it being a throwaway (and set up for a punching "Joke"). When going into further analysis, one could still see the line as a throwaway, or a threat against the brother than praise of the mother. So you see, you need the further analysis to even get the sympathetic qualities from the scene. The scene can't be taken at face value to support either argument.

edited 10th Jul '12 8:41:26 PM by DrPsyche

At face value isn't it a case of playing evil actions for laughs (which iirc is itself a disqualifier)?

That's why I'm encouraging it not to be taken at face value, because if taken at face value, the whole argument we've been having over the line's meaning is trivial.

EDIT: Sorry, but what does iirc mean?

edited 10th Jul '12 8:53:27 PM by DrPsyche

If I Remember Correctly- sorry

When I say we need to take things at face value, I mean that when a character says something, we need to accept that they are telling the truth, unless we are given very good reason to believe they are lying (i.e. the character is later revealed to have been manipulating people, has an inability to say what they mean, is a pathological liar, etc). I think it'll save us a lot of trouble in the long run.

Is Mirage from the Aladdin the animated series removed with a reason? If so, what page is she in?

I like to add her back because she's The Dreaded in the series, and Iago mentions her as Evil Incarnate. Unlike the other villains who are at least Laughably Evil with motivation of greed, revenge, and power. Mirage simply does things out of pure shits and giggles.

Details please. What does she do specifically? For the Evulz is not an automatic pass into Complete Monster-dom.

The reason why she was removed is in the history of the Disney CM page, also, it's on page 35 of this discussion.

I'm going to copy that reason and put it in the discussion section of the Disney CM page.

EDIT: Looking at the change log for the Disney CM page, Hopper has been cut. Can we start moving forward quickly to make up for lost time? While looking back through the pages for the removal reasons to put on the Disney discussion page I realised we've been talking about him since the end of page 58.

edited 11th Jul '12 2:16:05 AM by Shaoken

For starters, in her very first episode she burns down a village full of nothing but innocent farmers and their families, and then she throws a furious hissy fit when she finds out the people survived because of Aladdin's meddling.

Even though, it was my idea to remove Mirage (mostly because of zero context), I will say what else she does (I haven't seen many episodes with her aside from the one I will mention now). She also turns Jasmine into a snake, to prevent her from ever being with Aladdin.

I will also bring up Negaduck. He is on the list, though I am not sure if he qualifies since he doesn't really alter the tone of the work.

But she doesn't kill anyway? That's an imporant point; otherwise my thoughts is that she's just like Jafar, just lesser known.

Then she turns children into her demon minions, whom she'd rather see die than let them turn back into humans. Really, only one of them survives.

At another point she sinks a royal ship into the ocean, laughing at how there's now going to be a civil war because of it.

edited 11th Jul '12 4:44:00 AM by Arcolops

Once we're done discussing Mirage, I suggest that we go through the Disney characters on the list in the order they appear, except for those from Pixar or the Disney Animated Canon, which we've already gone through.

I agree with that.

edited 11th Jul '12 6:35:58 AM by Krystoff

Mirage has also been cut already.

From what I can tell she is essentially the show's equivilant of Jafar. Attempted mass-murder? Check. Transforming people? Check. Manipulating others? Check. Typical villiany, and I'd say she ranks below the other CM from the Aladdin series.

Except that Jafar is not a Complete Monster either. He does't even come close! I don't think that Aladdin series had any Complete Monsters.

I cannot emphasize this point strongly enough.

Really, if we start counting (or, for that matter, discounting) any trope due to not taking uncontested parts of the story at face value (it's something else entirely, of course, if it's revealed that a character is lying, or if there's controversy about the potential truthfulness of the parts in-story), then we might as well pack up the wiki and close shop. If our cataloguing of tropes is based on ignoring parts of the story, then we aren't troping. We're making meta-fanfic (since it's not even writing fanfic; it's simply describing a fanfic version of the story).

That said, since I do believe in sticking to the story as written, I'm going to keep troping, and I am going to consider all parts of a story when evaluating a trope, especially this one.

@1600 Shaoken already handled this. If said troper does come in to ask about it, I will point out that the heinous standard is always in relation to the story, as well as the fact that we always hold off on adding characters associated with currently running plotlines.

Mirage: To be fair, we're willing to revisit examples if someone provides context for what was previously a Zero Context Example. So, now that we have some...

See, considering Jafar was basically trying to enslave the world and was willing to do damn near anything for omnipotence (don't forget - even though he failed, he did try a You Have Outlived Your Usefulness on Aladdin before the latter became a personal nemesis), I'm inclined to think that Mirage still falls short of the "heinous" standard. If there's more to her villainy, I want to hear it.

Since folks want to wrap up the Disney page (I personally haven't gone over examples from the Animated Canon before, except in isolated cases, though, so I'm going to add to that):

The Mad Doctor: I actually brought up the animated short version earlier, in post @1461. This is one of the reasons I pointed out earlier that it's polite to actually look through others' posts and give thoughts on their arguments. Anyhow, since people missed it the first time:

Frollo: I already said yes, with standard "They Just Didn't Care" lament.

The Coachman from Pinocchio: Creepy as all hell, yes. But the reason he gets away with what he does is because he's an agent of karma, not a Karma Houdini. Think of it - he tempts bad kids into going along with what he does, and he punishes the fools who go along. I'm not totally sure that he's actually evil at all. Even if he is, there's a difference between creepy and heinous (I think the puppet show master was actually more blatantly evil, to be honest).

If anything, I think this example shows the biggest problem on the Disney page - there seems to be an equation of "Nightmare Fuel = Complete Monster". Folks are so affected by how certain villains scared them as a kid that the visceral memory causes them to inflate how evil the villains were in their mind.

Fortunately, the villains weren't what scared me as a kid (no, the Disney Acid Sequence, particularly "Pink Elephants on Parade" from Dumbo and "Heffalumps and Woozles" from Winnie The Pooh, were what freaked me out). So I'm not affected by "oh, this was scary when I was a kid."

The Horned King: Good, although the part about the pig should be dropped, since that's Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking.

Percival from The Rescuers Down Under: Now, I can excuse the poaching for the purposes of this article because he doesn't know that the animals that he's poaching are sophonts. So we're left with repeated torture and attempting to kill a child because said child got in the way of his poaching. That's a Moral Event Horizon, to be sure. That said, I'm thinking he's just barely not heinous enough. But only barely, and I could be convinced with the right argument.

Sykes from Oliver And Company: Good, although that example is Natter-y and needs to be rewritten.

Queen Grimhilde of Snow White And The Seven Dwarves: Wait, she has a name? How did I miss that? Was I always too distracted by my first encounter with Fridge Logic to notice?

Anyhow, I have to vote that she's merely a Jerkass. The only evil thing she does is try to have her stepdaughter killed. Sure, not nice by any stretch of the imagination. But that's fairly low on the heinous scale. I think not.

Shan Yu of Mulan: I think he gets too little characterization. Feels more like a Generic Doomsday Villain to me.

Sa'Luk from the Aladdin cartoon: Hey, excessive exclamations and overused markup tags! My old "warning, probably not an example" friends!

I could see keeping him, but it'd have to be heavily rewritten, and I wouldn't mourn losing it.

Jackal from Gargoyles: First off, it needs to chop off half the entry, which is describing characters other than Jackal who don't qualify. Still, what's there is good enough, though it needs to go more into how he never shows any good qualities despite numerous appearances.

Archmage from same: Zero Context Example, cut.

Thaliog from same: For his comic incarnation, yes, though with less spoiler tags, and removing Xanatos calling him You Monster!.

Proteus from same: That's so poorly written, it tries to write itself twice. If someone can craft a version that better illustrates his evil, I'm willing to keep him.

Sevarius from same: Considering that he apparently didn't realize just what he did, plus it cites that he Pet the Dog later, easy cut.

Oldcastle from same: Evil, but not heinous enough for the series standard. Cut.

Monkey Fist from Kim Possible: That Broken Base Pot Hole is a red flag; not only that, but I know that he's occasionally depicted as a Worthy Opponent. I say no.

Erik the Synthodrone from same: Zero Context Example. Cut.

Warhok and Warmonga from same: I need context as to whether they have no other redeemable features - partnerships do smack of friendship and caring of some variety, especially if one is going along with the plan because the other was tricked.

Penelope of Sonny With A Chance: What's the inverse of Arson, Murder, and Jaywalking? Because that's what we have here... two relatively minor acts, followed by a murder attempt. That said, while demented, it was done for love. Pitiful, and I say cut.

Merlock: Already voted cut.

Taurus Bulba from Darkwing Duck: Yeah, I agree that he fits. In fact, I always was astounded with the direction that the show took after the five-part premier (involving him); it was was more light-hearted than his appearance suggested.

Negaduck from the same: He talked a big game, but he didn't actually try to do anything much worse than what most of them tried. Cut.

Strasser from Mighty Joe Young: Considering that this is a more realistic movie, and he's willing to put many people's lives at risk just to have an excuse to kill a large gorilla, I'm willing to include him.

I'm a bit busy for now; I'll get to the rest of the page later.

edited 11th Jul '12 8:26:52 AM by 32_Footsteps

In One Piece there are more Complete Monsters than there are listed. Really the following guys are just plain evil:

- Captain Kuro: The 1st real one of the series. The guy feigned kindness to a troubled Ill Girl for years, while all the time he was planning to have her killed and then gain her vast fortune. He kills/severely injures his crew so as to keep his cover and partially so he won't have to share the money, and he's a major Jerkass to Usopp, and later Kaya(the aforementioned Ill Girl). The guy clearly is a bastard that only cares about money. And to make it clear that he truly is a Complete Monster, Usopp outright calls him a 'irredeemable bastard' to which Luffy replies,'Who would want to redeem him?'

-Enel: The guy is an egotistical jerk with a god complex. He just showed up and forcibly enslaved Skypeia. He instantly killed anyone that said anything against him, and would've killed Conis just for admitting to the Straw Hats that she had betrayed him.He starts a civil war between the people so as to quell his boredom. Then he calmly walks straight past the Moral Event Horizon when he tries to destroy the entire island of Skypeia(and as such killing all it's defenseless citizens, including children) for no reason.

-Spandam: How did he get taking off the page? After Hody and Caesar he's the biggest Complete Monster in the series. True he was played for laughs at 1st, but he beats Robin while she's handcuffed unprovoked, hounded Tom just because he built Gol D. Roger's ship, tried to put the entire blame for the loses at Enies Lobby on the already injured CP 9. Spandam is an irredeemable bastard plain and simple that only cares about himself and his position.

-Caesar Clown: The guy set off a WMD which left the entire island of Punk Hazard covered in poison gas and then tried to frame Vegapunk for it. He's willing to kill anyone so as to keep his operations on Punk Hazard secret. He pretended to be interested in the safety of Brownbeard and his crew just so he would be able to use them as guinea pigs in his sick experiments later. Then of course he goes and does the most EVIL thing anyone has ever did in One Piece: he got children addicted to a drug that causes painful withdrawal syndromes so they wouldn't be able to leave the island. Children(which he kidnapped himself). Worse still he gloated about how it was such an ingenious idea to Law when he told him about it.

I disagree with some of the villains. The Mad Doctor and Mc Leach, I would put as complete monsters in the very first place (beside Lotso, and Blackbeard). With mcleach, you said that it was just a Moral Event Horizon. That's not exactly true. Maybe I would agree (but I am still not sure) if he would just try to kill a child. But he didn't just try to kill the child, but torturing him first, and he enjoyed it too much! I would say that he fits more than most villains on the list.

The Coachman, I originally thought that he is a perfect example, but now you made a very good point.

In case of Queen Grimhilde, you contradict yourself, since you yourself said that she counts many pages back.

I agree to cut Erik, Mirage, Negaduck, and some other guys that you mentioned.

edited 11th Jul '12 9:27:49 AM by Krystoff

32 Footsteps: Impressive post I must say, that takes devotion. Horned king: keep, but remove the no sense of humor, the discussion on that page showed he had some sense of sarcasm. Is the Coachman being a karma dealer really there? At Face value isn't he just a greedy man who turns people into donkeys and sells them to the salt mines, where the supposedly die? They are rabble rousers, but I think we're reading too deeply into it to make him the sort of the anti-blue fairy, who punishes bad kids, while she helps them. Anton Servarious: his sole pet the Dog moment, was in a non-cannon work, so make of that what you will. Sorry, I couldn't debunk everything in one post, that was a very big post, again kudos to taking your time out.

@1621 I have to disagree on three of those points, and give a word of caution on the fourth.

First off, a big part of the trope is that the Complete Monster has to be particularly heinous in terms of what the story presents. This means you have to look seriously at just how evil things can be in the story. In One Piece, we have villains looking to take over the world, for whom torture and genocide are practically listed as hobbies, and pure sociopathy towards all things.

With that in mind, Captain Kuro handily fails. His desires to retire and not do anything after his scam put his level of villainy way too low for the series. He's completely evil, yes. He's just not heinous enough for this trope in One Piece.

Enel: Okay, we're getting closer. However, first off, his actions in taking over Skypeia were Offscreen Villainy; those don't count for this trope. Second, while being a dictator, he's actually relatively light on his demands for the people he rules over. He didn't start the civil war; he was just passive about actually doing anything about it. His only actual on-screen villainy was the attempted destruction of Skypeia - and while impassive about it, he didn't do it out of cruelty; it merely was a consequence of activating his ship. Closer, but still falling short of heinous.

Spandam: Okay, if you think he's the third-biggest Complete Monster of One Piece, you don't get the trope. He's actually one of the smallest potatoes villains in the series. He doesn't even want to kill most folks - he's just an idiot who uses the threat of a buster call because he doesn't know better than to threaten total annihilation wantonly. It's fairly obvious, once said buster call is activated, that he didn't want to actually use it; he just didn't think his actions through. His intentional actions aren't irredeemably evil; those are Kick the Dog actions at their finest, and that's not nearly enough for this trope. Spandam is a Smug Snake, a Too Dumb to Live example, and nobody I'd want to be around, but he's not even close to a Complete Monster.

Caesar Clown: While we're inclined to add him in the future, let the plot arc dealing with him finish first. One rule of thumb we have around here is to wait until the author is done with their characterization before adding them. It makes it much easier to manage entries.

@1622 Yes, I know I've flipped on Grimhilde. I took a closer look at what she did, and I realized that she actually didn't even try to do all that much. I've ultimately decided to apply the same logic I did with the Mad Doctor - I asked "what did they actually try to do?", and I came to the conclusion that the answer was "very little, actually."

I agree with the queen doing little, but I strongly disagree with The Mad Doctor.