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
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
65: It was submitted yesterday; up to the mods now.
As for Ramos: Is someone REALLY gonna argue that, even for this show, someone who forces his victims to drink bleach before shooting them, AND has 50+ victims, isn't bad enough? Really? I think the only other unsubs with that many victims period who didn't count were for other reasons.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Lizzid people!
A slight "yes" for Ramos.
Showtime!
For me, it's not that he's not bad enough, it's more that the whole show feels like a professionally-made version of the sort of schlock we explicitly don't evaluate.
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I'd say calling it "schlock" is going a little far.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Now, a special EP to start off...from Celtic mythology. Let's talk Balor.
Who is Balor?
Balor of the Evil Eye is the king of the Fomorians, a race of supernatural, monstrous beings, also known as Balor of the Evil Eye...as a young man, Balor spied upon druids mixing together a great potion of knowledge and wisdom, only for a measure of it to be splashed upon his face, imbuing his eye with great power....basically, scorching energy that obliterates all it touches. To keep the power from going out of control, Balor covered it with seven heavy layers that needed the strength of others to remove.
With this eye? Balor annihilated entire armies, as the myth goes: "He had a single eye in his forehead, a venomous fiery eye. There were always seven coverings over this eye. One by one Balar removed the coverings. With the first covering the bracken began to wither, with the second the grass became copper-coloured, with the third the woods and timber began to heat, with the fourth smoke came from the trees, with the fifth everything grew red, with the sixth it sparked. With the seventh they were all set on fire, and the whole countryside was ablaze!" Hell, Balor? Obliterates several entire islands with this, which is why, thanks to the myth, several of them near Scotland are barren today. As can be expected, Balor was also a monstrous, vile tyrant....though one day, he heard a prophecy he would be killed by his grandson.
Having only one daughter, Ethniu, he locks her up in a tower by his HQ on Tory Island (make your jokes now, British tropers)...this is where his greed does him in. Balor steals a magic cow that can endlessly produce milk, prompting its guardian to hunt it back down, where he, Cian, meets Ethniu and the two fall in love. Balor kills him when he gets her pregnant and he learns and attempts to throw the three resulting children into the sea to drown, but one, Lugh, is saved by the sea god Mannanan mac Lir. Lugh rises to become the king of the Tuatha de Danaan and leads them against Balor's tyranny. Balor kills the Tuatha king Nuada, but is defeated and slain by Lugh upon unleashing the evil eye to burn the army, Lugh casting a spear (or a slingstone depending on the legend) through the eye, bringing down the evil king of the Fomor.
Heinousness?
Kinda hard to get worse than baby murder and razing entire countrysides. Of celtic lore, it's hard to get worse than how terrifying and monstrous Balor is described as.
Mitigating Qualities?
No, nothing good's ever ascribed to Balor. Even not murder Ethniu himself is seemingly down to convention and otherworldly taboo as opposed to anything with standards. Besides that? See for yourself. I know of not one myth that attributes a positive quality to the Fomorian king.
Conclusion?
I'd give a yes for the monster from Celtic myth
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
@ACW: No, I'm not gonna argue it. If Ramos goes up, fine. But I'm personally at a point where someone needs to blow up a whole city or rape fetuses for me to consider them getting approved. I know a while back there was some guy who killed/tortured 300+ victims...ah, Benjamin David Merva. I was far more lenient about him getting approved, considering how he killed his victims and how many he killed.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
The Draftsman of Doom
Showtime!
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Balor
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
for Balor.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Well, the good? news is, the upcoming season will be the last one for Criminal Minds, and only 10 eps, so we'll see if there are any of those city-destroying fetus-rapists.
Edited by ACW on May 15th 2019 at 10:28:34 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Second today...Scrags and I have been on a bit of a Lovecraft kick. Now, I passed him a very special little candidate from the first ever Lovecraft adaptation on film from 1963 known as the Haunted Palace (if you know who it is, don't say it)...while I've got one today:
What's the work?
Pulse Pounders was a proposed anthology film, consisting of three 25-30 minute short films...now, unfortunately? It was never really released because the print of one of the main films was lost/destroyed....or so we thought. The Evil Clergyman was filmed in 1988, intended for release then, but years and years later, employees at Full Moon entertainment discovered a copy in the archives and were able to clean and release it at last....and frankly, it's a star-studded horror cast. Starring Barbara Crampton, Jeffrey Combs, David Gale and David Warner all in 30 minutes...
Barbara is the young lover of Jeffrey, a disgraced priest who's been defrocked and expelled....after Jeffrey's suicide, Barbara visits his lost, where she is greeted by Jeffrey, to her shock. Her lover happily embraces her, and the two sleep together, with Barbara awakening to find him gone...and she can't leave the home...while also being stalked like a monstrous ratlike creature after the landlady cautions there are 'rats in the walls.'
Now, let's talk Jeffrey and his familiar Brown Jenkin.
Who are Jeffrey and Brown Jenkin?
Once a priest, Jeffrey delved deep into black magic, becoming powerful with the help of his familiar and partner, the ratlike monstrosity called Brown Jenkin (a transplant from Dreams in the Witch House...the Evil Clergyman is one of the weaker stories from Lovecraft and this film goes all out to make up for it)
Now, Jeffrey? For power? He has a history of seducing women, psychological torturing them with Brown Jenkin to make them wholly dependent on him, before the to destroy them, murdering them...or, more likely, driving them to madness and suicide, whereupon Jeffrey harvests their souls with Brown Jenkin, to fuel their power. Barbara is the latest intended victim. As is revealed from the Bishop, David warner, he arrived to try to stop Jeffrey when he realized what was happening. Jeffrey? Beat him to death with a chalice and harvested his soul, he and Brown Jenkin keeping the bishop enslaved. Everything they're doing is to push Barbara into suicide for their power again.
Barbara, unsure of who to believe, is terrorized by Brown Jenkin and tormented by Jeffrey as well, who psychologically terrorizes her and preys on her guilt in 'letting' him die as the soul of the bishop attempts to salvage the situation and free her. Brekaing her thoroughly, Barbara ends up hanging herself as Jeffrey did, whereupon Jeffrey returns and smugly comments they got another one, before stating he did love her...her body, anyways. He requests Brown Jenkin give him her body, offering the rat her soul. Brown Jenkin agrees, and Jeffrey possesses her...now in a new lease on life, the victorious Jeffrey departs after a nasty confrontation with the landlady....
Though lest we think it's a total Karma Houdini, the final shot? poor Brown Jenkin stumbles into one of the landlady's rat traps, killing him quite painfully....it goes unsaid how this may affect Jeffrey himself, but we can only hope.
Heinousness?
You know, for like a 25 minute short? We see plenty. The pattern is well established via Barbara and Jeffrey and Brown Jenkin's cruelties and MO is made abundantly, horrifically clear. In addition, we see the ghost of the bishop, get possible images of his death and see the wounds Jeffrey left on him. So, yeah, pass.
Mitigating Qualities?
Zilch. Jeffrey presents as a charming, gentle man and loving boyfriend....this is revealed as a farce. He's an evil serial killer and black magic user harvesting the souls of women for his own benefit, and Brown Jenkin is a twisted sadist of a rat man who loves it all the while. When Jeffrey says he loved Barbara he then quickly adds he loved her body...to say he's a bit of a twisted SOB is underselling it.
Conclusion?
Easy keepers, and a Jeffrey Combs/David Gale duo? Not bad.
Also, I should note, this was even released with "in memory of David Gale," a fantastic horror character actor taken from us far too early.
Showtime!
to Jeffery (I get a real kick out of mundanely-named CMs
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
I think this is Gale's second, after Fulton Balcus. Combs's third, after Rat King and Brainiac.
As long as there's no indication they cared for each other (what's with Jeffrey letting Brown Jenkin have her soul?), yes to both.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
ACW...you're slipping into doing this again. I said clearly Jenkin is his familiar and the being he made a pact with. Read. Between. The lines.
and Gale was Dr. Blakely in The Brain
Edited by Lightysnake on May 15th 2019 at 7:40:43 AM
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Right, let me nip that in the bud now.
I look forward to Scraggle's (that's all I'll say).
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Jeffrey and Brown Jenkin.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Messenger from another dimension.
Yes to Balor, Jeffrey, and Brown Jenkin.
Edited by emperors on May 15th 2019 at 10:47:02 AM
Welcome to the world of greatest media!
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
BTW, you ain't kidding. The film seems a LOT better than the original story.
to Ramos, Balor, Jeffery and Brown Jenkin. Also, I think I like the first Bill Cipher image and the third Facilier one, but I'm not really feeling the others. Maybe if the Scar pic also showed him throwing Mufasa to his death.
The Draftsman of Doom
Jeffrey and Brown Jenkin
Lizzid people!
I mean, Scar throwing Mufasa off a cliff...that's already under Disney, so I don't see why there should be a repeat of it for CM image links.
The Draftsman of Doom
I agree, Austin.
Rawr.
Me in a nutshell (Coping with Depression)
Yes to Lighty's candidates
"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."
Abstain on the Criminal Minds candidate, per heinous standard
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?