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
Okay, so I don't know if this got covered yet, but I searched several times and didn't get any results, so I'm going to assume it hasn't. Watched this movie yesterday and this guy seemed like a good fit.
What's the work? Escape Room is a 2019 film about six people who are invited to an escape room, only for them to find out that the rooms are deadly and full of deathtraps.
The villain: The man known as the Games Master, also going by the alias "Woo Tan Yu" is one of the two leaders of the company responsible for the escape rooms, and is the one who personally oversees everything go down and ensures contestants "play by the rules".
What has he done? Six people, all being lone survivors of various accidents and tragedies, receive puzzle boxes from an anonymous source (later revealed to be the Games Master) inviting them to try a series of escape rooms, with the grand prize being $10,000. All six show up and meet in the waiting room, not realizing that the game has already begun and that the waiting room is the first escape room. Though it is unknown at first, it is later revealed that the Games Master is the one controlling the traps and devices of each room.
The goal of the first room is to open a secret panel to the next room. However, the room is set up like a giant oven, with electrical heaters and fire units in the walls and ceiling that slowly heat the room up to broiling. The six contestants find the exit (which leads to a ventilation duct, seemingly designed purposefully to screw with the contestants' PTSD) before the trap finishes and ignites, with the whole room going up in flames.
The next room is designed to be an arctic cabin, with the temperature at freezing and rapidly dropping. Only one coat is provided, trying to make the contestants fight over their resources. It is then that the contestants realize that the rooms are themed to their respective tragedies, specifically designed to cause them PTSD. When one of the contestants, Danny, is standing on the ice, the Games Master blows up the ice where he is standing (trying to make it look like the ice broke) and causes him to drown in the freezing waters. The others are forced to use their own body heat to melt the ice block, all while the Games Master continually lowers the temperature to the point where some even begin to pass out. Eventually they smash the ice and get the key, allowing them to make it to the next room.
The five survivors enter the next room: one designed as an upside-down pool hall. The Games Master blasts tortuously high-pitched and loud tones and music to disorient them, and gradually makes the floor fall out from under them leading to an elevator shaft. The contestants are forced to climb up to safety. Although they get the knob to the next door, the Games Master drops the floor from beneath contestant Amanda, causing her to fall to her death.
The next room is themed like a hospital filling up with toxic gas, with accurate replicas of each contestant's respective hospital bed located in the room. As the Games Master begins to fill the room with gas, the contestants find out that the key to the exit is an EKG machine that will unlock the exit if the right BPM are recorded. The contestants are forced to use a defibrillator on one of their own to get the right number, killing him. Other contestant Zoey also stays behind of her own accord.
In the next room, the last two contestants are laced with a deadly hallucinogenic drug, with the one antidote hidden in the room, forcing the two to fight over it. The contestant Ben prevails, curing himself and watching as the other dies of the drug.
Ben makes it to the final room, where the Games Master makes the walls close in. Even after successfully solving the puzzle, the Games Master does not unlock the exit. Ben manages to duck into a fireplace, saving him from being crushed, and the door opens.
Ben then comes face-to-face with the Games Master himself, who explains himself. The Games Master reveals that he and his company organize the games for entertainment, and that they like to do themes for each year they hold them. The Games Master tells Ben that, in previous years, they did the same thing with college students and other groups of people, and that this year's theme was "lone survivors". The Games Master also reveals that, while he doesn't design the rooms, he operates them when the victims are inside and makes sure everyone "follows the rules". When Ben asks if he can go home for winning, the Games Master reveals that the promise of money was a lie, and that "When the horse wins the Kentucky derby it doesn't win a prize". He then proceeds to use a garrote to begin strangling Ben. However, unknown to him, Zoey faked her death and escaped, rushing up to help Ben. The Games Master tries to kill them both with a pistol. As this is going down, the Games Master sees that his name is added to the roster of contestants, revealing his partner betrayed him. Zoey and Ben overpower the Games Master, with Ben stealing his gun and shooting him to death (shooting even after he is dead just to make sure).
Zoey and Ben escape and get the police, telling them about the traps and the company's annual killing sprees, only for the building to be empty and the Game Master's corpse gone when they arrive.
Mitigating factors? We don't physically see the Games Master until the end, but it is revealed the that he was controlling the rooms the entire time.
Heinous standard? The other villains are the employees of the company (most of which are just mooks). However, the other big villain is the Games Master's enigmatic partner, the Puzzle Master. He is the one who actually invents the traps and designs the rooms, and betrays the Games Master at the end. However, the Puzzle Master doesn't appear in the film until the last few seconds as a silhouette, designing his next traps. So Games Master is potentially only out-heinoused by the Puzzle Master, who will likely play a bigger role in a sequel.
Verdict? The Games Master has no problems killing groups of people every year solely for entertainment, but is the one operating the deadly traps and rooms and runs the whole Doom as Test Prize gambit where, win or lose, you die horribly. So I'll give a
.
I mean it's been a while since I saw the film but from what I remember the Game Master wasn't the one specifically in charge of the escape rooms, just the one the protagonists were playing. With the implication that there are several more "Game Masters" working for a larger project.
Edited by username2527 on May 13th 2019 at 4:58:13 AM
Who's reserved The Stanley Parable remastered? We decided the Narrator was a Tragic Monster but I think someone will count in the bonus content. Whoever is responsible for The Narrator going insane for example.
If nobody else has, I'd like to reserve it. Especially since I've played the original game a few times.
No to Game Master for lacking characterization.
Also to add to the Pokemon debate that really delends on the game. For instance, in PMD they have human level intelligence. Meanwhile in most other games they aren't sapient with the exception of legendaries which are kind of excluded by being Olympus Mons and even then they don't actually talk but use psychic powers to talk. It's even shown in the first movie of the anime that Mewtwo doesn't talk, he just uses ESP to simulate talking. Unless we're talking Meowth from Team Rocket, who actually did learn to talk. (RIP Maddie Blaustein btw)
I was thinking of reading the Phoenix Wright and Miles Edgeworth manga. If nobody has that reserved I would love to reserve that as well. I can think of a Redd White type fellow that at least comes close.
Edited by Klavice on May 13th 2019 at 5:05:11 AM
Gonna wait for Nerds word on all this before changing my vote or anything.
I'm just gonna ask if we See any of these other Games or even See the Boss of them?
Or is Game Master the only one with On Screen crimes?
I see. I'll wait for Nerd to respond before solidifying my no.
Edited by Kylotrope on May 13th 2019 at 5:20:21 AM
Things are really about to get Fun around here@username2527 Games Master was one of the two leaders, alongside the Puzzle Master. Yeah he was betrayed at the end, but he was leadership and wasn't just a cod inside a bigger project. He also says that he did the whole escape room thing with other people before, and there's no mention of any other Games Masters.
Read Slender Man vs Siren Head 2: The Foundation here
He was working for an organization and after he is killed the organization takes control of the plane the remaining protagonists are on to finish them off.
The fact that there is a whole organization behind this project is the issue, and while it is never stated it is kind of implied there are other game masters.
Edited by username2527 on May 13th 2019 at 5:36:42 AM
The plane trap was the Puzzle Master's next design, being tested out. They never say there is more than one Games Master, only that there are two leaders: Games Master and Puzzle Master, and Puzzle Master betrayed Games Master and got him killed (not sure why yet).
I'm sticking to my no on the Game Master. He's just a cog in a machine that doesn't do anything to stick out.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

Here you go
Polar.