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, and one last one before the writeups and new ones tomorrow: From Call of Cthulhu, the absolute classic module: The Shadow of Yog-Sothoth...You, the Investigators are on the trail of a group of wicked cultists, the 'majestic' Hermetic Order of the Silver Twilight, and their wicked master? Carl Stanford.
Who is Carl Stanford?
A powerful, skilled warlock of limitless ambition and fanaticism who serves the Great Old Ones, as brilliant as he is deadly and ruthless, Stanford is centuries old through his dark pacts and bargains...and he subsists on the lives of others. Stanford drains the life from countless people to add to his own, remaining in the prime of his life and powerful as ever, aging them to dust, a spell he teaches to his top minions to ensure a loyal supply of skilled cultists, and now? The stars are right and Stanford means to awaken the Old Ones and deliver humanity up to chaos and destruction.
Now, the Investigators find and fight their way through Stanford's cultists, engaging Stanford himself who manages to escape as they pursue him across north America. Stanford arranges for the abduction and sacrifice of tons of people while seeking to eliminat ethe Investigators, having one friend of the Investigators murdered and replaced by a Fungi from Yuggoth to lure them into a trape, while he eliminates more people in his way. Though the Investigators don't fall for it, Stanford continues to remain ahead of them, also infecting others with nightmares to sow more mayhem, with his correspondences to the other cultists repeatedly found, as he also summons more monsters to do more damage throughout.
Chasing Stanford to South America, and Chile in particular, Stanford is having many locals abducted and sacrificed to eliminate them and feed his masters to prepare for the coming of his master, culminating in confronting him upon an island with the rest of the Hermetic Order of Silver Twilight...Stanford? Proceeds to summon the Big C himself, forcing the Investigators to disrupt it. If all goes well, Cthulhu is lulled back to sleep and the island crashes, sinking below the waves, taking the cultists, and Stanford to a watery grave with them.
Heinousness?
Oh, Stanford is a bastard alright. Tons of human sacrifice and murder, attempting to awaken the Old Ones to destroy humanity, and the whole life draining serial killer thing? Oh, he's one of the nastiest cult leaders in game and one of the most far reaching from the 1920s setting. Pass.
Mitigating Qualities?
Laughable. Stanford cares nothing for anything save for his own fanaticism. He's just a driven nihilist out to end the world with no care for the ruin in his wake. That's a pass.
Conclusion?
And a heartily easy yes.
Has anyone from Vince Flynn's Mitch Rapp series been discussed? Or from American Assassin, for that matter?
Edited by SkyCat32 on May 27th 2019 at 12:10:01 PM
Mani... mmm. With McLeach as precedent and with onscreen attempted murder, I suppose I'll vote yes, but... I don't know, I still kind of get a Blackburn-from-Thornberrys feel, too.
Got another few from Call of Cthulhu to keep the pattern going here.
First off, from Call of Cthulhu Dark Ages: Pagan Call, specifically Shadow Kingdoms? 8MM/Sex Machine.
Who are 8MM and Sex Machine? What have they done?
The leader of a sadistic sex ring who are actually in no way connected whatsoever to the eldritch or the occult, 8MM and Sex Machine are a pair of perfectly human pedophiles who traffic in kids to make snuff porn of them. The ring buys from and sells to clients who can afford it, even taking a man's own daughter to use in the films where kids under 12 are subjected to all manner of depraved sexual tortures before brutally killing them and selling them (rather ironically, it's mentioned that snuff videos should be no less a myth than it is in the real world, and the ones these two have created are the only in existence). 8MM films, Sex Machine does the honors himself, with both kidnapping or buying more victims whenever they can. Numerous homeless people who witness this end up kidnapped and murdered too, with their decomposing bodies disposed of in the Thames.
The investigators go to the house of one of their sellers, where they talk to 8MM on a video log where he suggests forcing one of those homeless people they capture to "play" with the kids before murdering them both... the investigators come to Sex Machine's home, where he's revealed as a fat, sniveling coward whom the investigators can kill or subdue. His basement? Full of bodies, with over a half-dozen—all kids—buried shallowly underneath.
Any mitigating factors?
Nada. The two are child snuff porn filmers—even in the ridiculously grim and edgy setting of Call of Cthulhu, it stands out, particularly as the setting actually clarifies snuff videos are unfounded in-universe prior to this. 8MM is remarked to be "uneasy" about using the daughter of one of his clients, but it's only brought up in the context of her connection to him—since he'd be such an obvious suspect. The two don't have a glimmer otherwise.
Conclusion?
Keepers.
Thoughts?
Edited by Scraggle on May 27th 2019 at 9:08:59 AM
And another Would Hurt a Child type from Sacraments of Evil, Malcolm Sedny.
Who is Sedny? What has he done?
A disturbed man living in the age of Victorian London, Sedny is fascinated by violence and witnesses recent serial murders from a man named Edward Bristol, who is being driven to do these murders under the influence of a being called the Lloiger. Sedny decides to become a copycat murderer, enthralled by all the grisly violence he reads surrounding the murders... while Bristol targets mostly adults, Sedny exclusively targets young boys to fuel his sexual fantasies, raping them, mutilating them and horribly murdering them.
Sedny is seen to seemingly be a very pleasant young man who wards off suspicion under his seeming timidity, until the investigators try and look into him while on the case of the murders. In his flat? They see the pineal glands of the boys Sedny crudely ripped out, mangling the kids' brains in the process, and keeping them as trophies. In the event Sedny comes back to his flat with the investigators still in there, Sedny tries to murder them, ending with him either killed or knocked out.
Any mitigating factors?
Not much to say here. All of Sedny's apparent decency is a Mask of Sanity and I think he distinguishes himself from Bristol with the additional "raping and murdering children" thing even if Bristol has a few more victims... and with minimal influence from the Lloiger.
Conclusion?
Keep.
Thoughts?
Cthulhu peeps
Well, it's been 2 weeks since this game has been released, so let's talk about it.
What Is the Work?
Rage 2 is the sequel to id Software’s 2011… somewhat hit, Rage. Was it actually a hit?
So mankind has been annihilated because of an asteroid, Apophis, crashed into Earth. The survivors dwelled in Arks, giant safe-like places that housed plenty of humans. Outside, the world has fallen apart due to the rampant amount of killer gangs out to cause mayhem for fun, and the Authority, a brutal (though not as brutal as the first game would imply) regime who rule the Wasteland with an iron fist. If this all sounds like Fallout, then you’re right.
It’s been about 30 years since the Authority have been defeated, but now they’ve begun to rise up from underground with the desire to take back their land for them. It's up to Walker, the last Ranger, to stop the Authority's fiendish plans.
Now the main villain of the first game, Martin Cross, isn’t even seen. Sure, he’s heard through propaganda, but he never makes a physical appearance… until now.
Who Is he?
General Martin Cross is the leader of the Authority, a Nazi-like faction that seek to kill off the weak and inhabit what’s left of the world with the strong. Now Cross in the first game, was at worst a Fox News anchor. He wasn’t totally evil, and but he was not a nice guy, only spouting out Authority propaganda. Here though? Completely different.
What has he done?
An Ark survivor, Cross, before 99942 Apophis hit, had him and group of soldiers take control of a special Ark, a so-called "Super Ark", where he left the original residents to die outside once the asteroid hit. He established the Authority as their visionary, seeking to restore order to the wasteland, taking in countless bandits and raiders and converting them into mutant soldiers to slaughter all in their path and take over the entire wasteland (as shown in the first game's tie-in comic).
However, the first game ended with the resistance ready to fight off the Authority. Offscreen, the resistance won “The Authority War”, causing Cross and the rest of the Authority to hide underground for 30+ years. Completely pissed and shedding away whatever slight redeeming qualities he could have possibly had, Cross opens the second game with a speech announcing “The Cleansing,” an act that involves Cross and his army of soldiers and mutants killing off the weaklings—i.e. everyone—in order to completely rebuild the wasteland as a place inhabited by only the strong, where he shall rule over it as their dictator. Attacking the Vineland, the home of the last Ranger army, he proceeds to capture the inhabitants and massacre all of the Rangers—including Walker’s aunt General Erwina Prowley, who Cross personally kills with a smile on his face because he had previously known her—leaving Walker as the last Ranger in the wasteland. With the Vineland citizens, he has them used as test subjects for the Longevity Project, where he basically clones them so that he can be cloned himself to extend his mortality.
Taking control of the Goons and every other faction in the wasteland, he makes a deal with Klegg Clayton, son of the mayor Clayton from the first game, to run for mayor of Wellsprings, hoping to use Klegg as a way to run the town and spread his control over the wasteland. Supplying Klegg with Goons, which he uses to attempt to assassinate mayor Loosum Hagar, he summons Klegg to his lair and has him killed for taking too long, though he orders his soldiers to not aim for the face, as he hopes to keep the guy’s corpse as a trophy. Meeting Walker in his cloning lab, he tells Walker that killing Erwina was unsatisfying because it was too quick, and that he’ll make sure to take his time killing them and savor every moment of their pain. Once he’s defeated, he unleashes his newly created clone, bragging to Walker about how he’s getting closer to completing his plan before committing suicide.
When Walker storms Authority HQ, the Cross clone, retaining all of his evil from the previous one, welcomes Walker after he sneaks into his base, only because now he can personally murder him himself. Once Walker finally sees him again, he unleashes his mutant tyrant upon Walker with the intent to have him killed. Once the titan’s been defeated, Walker injects Cross’ eye with the nanotrite virus, which would kill him… but not before Cross exhales his nasty red breath onto Walker, which causes them to also catch the virus, with Cross hoping that he’ll at least die taking Walker with him. Of course Walker ends up getting cured, so all's good in the end.
Redeeming Qualities?
While he claims to be making the Wasteland a better place by killing off the weak, it’s actually because he’s a bloodthirsty, sadistic Social Darwinist who cares only for killing and fighting.
Heinousness?
Only real villain, passes.
Conclusion
I think he’s a keep.
It's Spooky Month!
to the Call of Cthulhu villains and Cross
Edited by KingofNightmares on May 27th 2019 at 10:06:08 AM
"It was the best of times, it was the BLURST of times?"

Tentative yes to Mani.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread