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
Gentle Laborer
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Jeffrey and Brown
@Demon Beast You've been informed about this several times already, it's honestly becoming annoying. Please, patience.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
BTW, the Gamebooks page has enough (7) even without the Fighting Fantasy stuff, but I'll leave it up to everyone: Keep FF in a folder, or give it its own subpage under Gamebooks (similar to how Batman and Superman have their own subpages under DC, which itself is under comics)? I'm fine either way, but if the latter, the main Gamebooks page will need a new quote, and the FF page will possibly need its own image.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Aren't there guys in Criminal Minds with bodycounts in the hundreds? That bleach thing sounds unique though.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yes there are, but we still have numerous ones who have lower body counts (or lower attempted ones) but are still unique enough (Lee Mullens and his torture, Anita Roycewood and her child abuse, Buford and his serial pedophilia).
Edited by ACW on May 15th 2019 at 11:27:01 AM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Balor, Jeffrey, Brown Jenkin
And now...my third and final one. From one of my favorite fantasy novels by one of my favorite fantasy writers...
What's the work?
Tigana is a work by Guy Gavriel Kay, taking place in Palm, the Fantasy Counterpart Culture for medieval Italy. Palm has been subjected to a very uneasy sort of truce....two foreign conquerors who are also powerful sorcerers have arrived: Brandin, the King of Ygrath and Alberico of Barbiador. Both have seized half the peninsula and hold sway in an uneasy balance...
Welcome to Lower Corte, a part of the peninsula that was brokn and razed by Brandin....see, during the conquest? Brandin's youngest and favorite son Stevan was killed in Tigana....Brandin's vengeance was horrific. He razed Tigana, but he wasn't done. He enacted a spell, a horrific spell that obliterated Tigana. Not by wiping out the landmass, no...he destroyed its name. The people were displaced, and only the memory of Tigana lingered in the minds of those who had lived there. They cannot even speak the name of their home to others and have them hear it. Brandin means to stay there until the last vestiges of Tigana's memory is purged, waiting out the generation to die, before he moves on. A group of rebels, led by the son of Tigana's last prince, aim to defeat Brandin and Alberico both, with the other viewpoint characters including Devin and Catriana, two of the rebels of Tigana, Alessan the rebel leader, and Dianora, a Tigana rebel who 12 years ago went to infiltrate Brandin's court as a concubine in his saishan (harem) but has ended up falling in love with him, even if she can't abandon her mission and love for her homeland.
The novel is about pride, memory, oppression and rebellion...with even sex as a theme (namely, illicit and forbidden. How a people rebels when they can't rebel, the last sparks of freedom they can seize when all else is taken from them).
Now, let me preface this: Brandin is a universe away from this trope. He's a good ruler under most circumstances. He dearly loved Stevan, he loves Dianora, he cares for his people...he's just a believer in overwhelming fucking retribution if you 'wrong' him. However, know who has no such mitigating qualities? Alberico.
Who is Alberico?
Alberico of Barbiador is a ruthless, brutal conqueror with none of Brandin's restraint. Alberico moves in, razing and destroying all he sees, wiping out entire areas to establish his domain....for a while, there's been an uneasy truce at play, and Brandon later admits he hates Alberico. The man has no feeling to him, no love, no care for others, no passion. He just has ambition. Alberico only wants a crown....he doesn't care what he'll do when he has it. He just wants it to want it.
At any rate, Alberico is loathed as a vicious tyrant. When he's introduced, a group tries to assassinate him. Alberico foils the plot and kills them, which is fair. He then has all their families executed via the Barbadian death wheels....they are taken, hands and feet lopped off and shoved in their mouths so they can't scream, bound to wooden wheels, crufiying them to leaving them bound there to rot and die of exposure. HE does this to everyone in their households. Even children.
Alberico does this...quite regularly. His tyranny is pretty legendary with how brutal he is. In the city of Astibar, where Alberico has been killing loads of people, Alberico finds odes from poets to the dead duke of the city. He has every poet rounded up there and suggests they instead write songs against Brandin...when instead they displease him, he has twenty poets death-wheeled at random. Another instance? Brandin and Alberico have one heck of a military battle, and Brandin requests peace terms...part of this include six women to be submitted to Brandin's saishan. Alberico? Has 6 old women taken, tortured and staked out for brandin, offering him his brides if he wants them.
Now, things continue, and Alberico keeps this stuff going until the rebels decide to get drastic. See, they can't just kill Brandin or Alberico, since the other will just be strengthened. Instead, Catriana assassinates Alberico's ambassador with a Ygrath made weapon. Alberico? Goes to war over it, massing troops and coming down, slaughtering and burning villages as he does. Brandin rides to meet him, the forces weakening one another in battle. In a major sorcery duel? Brandin engages Alberico and unleashes a burning blast of sheer death at him, leaving Alberico to scream in abject horror as he's annihilated.
As for the end? the Tigana spell is somewhat broken, and Brandin is assassinated by his fool Rhun...in truth the once-broken minded father of Alessan, who stabs him through the heart, ending the spell as the Tigana refugees begin to rebuild their home, with life going on.
Heinous standard?
Okay, so...Alberico is an Evil Overlord who'd be standard keep in any other series as the big bad. The problem is nobody in this book has clean hands. The rebels are ruthless, with Alessan enslaving wizards to his cause via magical servitude, manipulating a war...and Brandin, yeah, let's talk Brandin razing Tigana's memory...
Still, Alberico is the most evil in the novel, a black pit of ambition and cruelty. He's the only one who targets children and civilians for the sake of it, and the death wheels are a special level of evil, which he performs regularly. He commits war crimes for no real purpose to it...which makes him stick out, even in the moral grayness of Tigana.
Mitigating Qualities?
Nothing. Alberico is the only character who's 100 percent evil. Brandin firmly cements his hate for Alberico when he notes Alberico is just devoid of any feeling or human warmth. He's just ambitious. He wants to be Emperor because. No care of culture, no love for other human beings. He's a black hole of cruelty and self absorption.
Conclusion?
I give Alberico a yes. HE's the worst in book with some uniquely awful torturous crimes.
Ghoulish Brain Worm
So, will Franz Vahlen eventually be added onto the Sniper Elite list on the Q-Z page? On another note, once I finish V2 remastered and go through the plot properly, I'll also see if Dr. Wolff qualifies, as so far I don't have the full picture on him yet.
Edited by Rmpdc on May 15th 2019 at 11:30:30 PM
The Fight Continues!
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Alberico.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Showtime!
to Alberico. Sounds like a fascinating book, tbh
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Alberico.
I think this is Guy's 4th CM, after the Fionavar duo and The Last Light of the Sun viking.
Rmpdc: I'll submit Vahlen and the other two tweaked entries (tree can be found here on Monday or so along with the others.
Wild Child
Jeffrey and Alberico.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
for Alberico.
Balor.
Jeff and Jenkins.
Alberico.
Also SpookyRice may have got something/someone to bring up soon.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
Lizzid people!
SpookyRice as in that YouTube series on disturbing films? That should be interesting.
Edited by AustinDR on May 15th 2019 at 8:45:36 AM
Same one.
"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
The Draftsman of Doom
Fifth CM for Kay. Under Heaven or its sequel had one
Me in a nutshell (Coping with Depression)
Sure to Alberico...
Btw, speaking of Lovecraftian Mythos... @Lightysnake @Mad Cr0w @The Immortal Angel Newton On my list: Serial Experiments Lain. Another surreal anime on my watchlist
"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."
Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it)
Those I missed.
I just started Kay’s new book. How lovely. We may have a sixth soon enough.
Balor, Jeffrey, Jenkins, and Alberico. Just gonna abstain on the Criminal Minds guy, he barely sounds distinct from the endless parade of depraved villains in that show.
to Balor, Jeffery, Brown Jenkin and Alberico.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Vote tally for Eduardo Ramos:
- Yes: G as the proposer?; myself; Elfen (cautious yes); Kylotrope; DDD; Cloister; Bullman; Austin (slight yes); Imperial
- Abstain: Crow (switched from a cautious yes); Age; Tyk; Irrose
That's 7 (not including G), 5 abstains, but zero no votes.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Make that 8 or 9 yes votes, 5 abstains.
Edited by ACW on May 15th 2019 at 3:45:11 PM
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Showtime!
i abstained too
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]")
for Jeffrey and Brown Jenkin.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.