Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

I support cutting that example from Luther. It`s been awhile since I`ve seen the show, but I don`t remember any villains sticking out.

edited 22nd Sep '13 4:50:27 AM by TommyFresh

Re: Film examples:

Should there be a subpage for the James Bond films when the Film page is updated? If I'm not mistaken there are around 6 examples with the new ones included.

I suggest cutting Lou Ford from The Killer Inside Me, who's provided with a significant Freudian Excuse. He's a violent murderer and domestic abuser in the present day, but he was made that way by his mother, who raped him and turned him into a sadomasochist.

The Scream examples have a complicating factor in the killer duos present in three out of four films. Because both are masked there is often no way to definitely establish who did what part of the murders. Billy, Mrs. Loomis, and Roman have varying degrees of Freudian Excuses, Avenging the Villain, or Pay Evil unto Evil for Roman against the scumbag Hollywood producer. The only one I'm absolutely confident of listing is the main killer in the fourth film, whose reprehensible motives and crimes exceed any other Ghostface and have no redeeming factors whatsoever.

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Since the argument favoring Top Dollar's inclusion was stronger, I've done a better write-up.

• Top Dollar in The Crow movie is a Detroit crime boss who established himself as the supreme ruler of all criminal activity in the city. He's a chaotic arsonist who enjoys destruction and murder purely for its own sake, with his philosophy summed up best by his "Are we having fun or what?!" line to his fellow crime bosses. He organizes Devil's Night, in which buildings are burned down all throughout the city. He orders people terrorized out of their homes, and one such couple includes Eric Draven and his fiance Shelley, who are both violently murdered and Shelley also raped by his goons. He didn't specifically give the order for the murders, but he expresses no regret when he learns about it and admits responsibility. He eventually becomes tired of the profit reaped from the arson and other activities, and announces his plans at a criminal convention to burn down everything purely For the Evulz. His depravity extends to an incestuous relationship with his half-sister, whom he seems to enjoy purely as a sexual consort and for her supernatural knowledge, expressing no noticeable sorrow after her death. Even at the end he indicates he's enjoyed the thrill of it all, and hopes he'll find someone else as capable an opponent as Eric.

I'd also like to suggest three examples from lesser-known horror/slasher/thriller films.

• Ferriman, aka the literal "Ferryman" from Ghost Ship is an infernal accountant working for Hell to collect souls. He was a bastard even before he became a demon, as he was only given the job because he lived a gravely immoral life. He impersonates a human to trick people into committing mortal sins and kill themselves so he can steal their souls. He goads the crew on the Italian cruise liner the Graza to butcher everyone on board to get a crate of gold bars that he brought with him from a ship they salvaged. It turns into a complete massacre, with people being attacked all over the ship and cut open, poisoned, and machine gunned to death, including a child being hanged in her room. The instigators turn on each other after killing the passengers, and he kills the last one himself with a meathook. He traps the souls on the ship in fear and torment until he can send them all to Hell. He lures multiple salvage crews to the derelict cruise liner to fix the ship, tricks them into staying to get the gold, and then kills them all one by one. Not even his job explains his excessive sadism in killing people to steal their souls, as there's no hint that there are others like him or that it's standard procedure. Worse yet, the end of the film implies he's about to do it all over again.

• The serial killer in Mindhunters plays cat and mouse games with his victims by infiltrating a group of FBI profilers during a field mission to a deserted island with a makeshift town used as a training ground by the bureau, where they must solve a case involving a fictional serial killer organized by their supervisor. He sets the island up with an array of boobytraps and puzzles to kill them while watching from within the group to turn them against each other and give himself good sport. His more cruel murders include a victim getting killed with liquid nitrogen, and another one burned to death from inside through acid-laced cigarettes. He kidnaps the supervisor (who had been monitoring the group in secret) to an abandoned warehouse on the other side of the island where he proceeds to torture him for days before preparing his corpse and hanging it up for the trainees as a sort of perverse puppet. It's only after his identity is revealed that the true level of his manipulation becomes apparent, and he frankly admits he started his string of murders by killing his parents as a child and now simply enjoys a good hunt for new victims.

• Sid 6.7 in the techno-thriller Virtuosity is a computer construct composed of the minds of the most psychopathic and evil killers and tyrants in history, intended as a training program for police officers in fighting a true monster. He's a complete lunatic of a serial killer only interested in fame. As a self-evolving entity he actually goes far beyond his own programming, as he invents methods that the programmers didn't account for to circumvent the safety procedures and kill the trainees, and escape from the virtual world by convincing his erstwhile creator to build him a regenerating android body. Once free he goes on a fame-seeking killing spree across town by killing and terrorizing people in public to please his ego. He develops an obsession with former agent Barnes in particular, as his mind includes the personality of deceased terrorist Matthew Grimes, who murdered Barnes' wife and child years earlier. Sid holds an entire TV station hostage and announces Death TV, where the viewers can vote on who he will kill on live television and in what way. He finally kidnaps a little girl, the daughter of Barnes' female partner on the case, and locks her up in a small room room boobytrapped with a bomb to keep her as leverage.

edited 25th Sep '13 12:12:37 AM by Morgenthaler

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"

Doesn't an A.I. that was literally invented to be evil (great idea, guys) lack moral agency?

The other two might very well qualify.

Cut Lou Ford. Like Camberf said, I'll vote to keep the other two, but SID...does he have agency? He's a 'self-evolving' program, so he could have gained it that way. Can you shed light on that?

For Ghostface, Mrs. Loomis is an easy cut. Roman and Jill are the keeps

I'm uneasy about Roch Theriault. Savage Messiah is a biographical film so the entry borders dangerously close to a real life example.

Oh, how biographical are we talking? Is it a documentary or a fictional biopic? Because the latter wouldn't exclude him. A fictional representation of a person can still count, like Mickey Cohe in Gangsster Squad, Amon Goeth in Schindler's List, etc

edited 22nd Sep '13 9:48:15 AM by Lightysnake

I've considered Sid 6.7's moral agency, and think the argument against it doesn't hold enough weight. He's not simply an evil program made from scratch, he's a composite of real human personalities. A big point in the film is made that Grimes is the dominant one, so he's largely Barnes' nemesis reincarnated as a super robot. His self-evolving nature means he can learn and adapt, and he uses it to get around programming restrictions imposed by his creators so he can actually kill people in VR, which they never intended. He has to convince his programmer to let him escape. He even makes a statement that on the surface seems like "I have no moral agency", but when you boil it down he's only arguing "You humans are all evil, and I'm the embodiment of human nature!", when in fact he's only the amalgam of a bunch of psychopaths and dictators.

Regarding Roman, I rewatched his relevant scenes and Sidney does offer a useful deconstruction of his Freudian Excuse, prompting him to fly into a rage. Does wanting to see himself as a Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds rather than admitting his own evil work count towards redemption, or can it be dismissed?

You've got roaming bands of armed, aggressive, tyrannical plumbers coming to your door, saying "Use our service, or else!"

Hey, guys, I found some problematic examples on YMMV pages. Very few of them are on the CM subpages, but I couldn't find any discussion about them.

Alvan an the Chipmunks 3: The Second Squeakuel:

• Complete Monster: There's not many other ways to describe a guy who turns himself into a small animal so he can torture, rape and kill other small animals. He'd be far more effective a Complete Monster if everything he said and did wasn't completely hilarious.

This is from an infamous Troll Fic, pretty much designed to be stupid. Also, the torture and killing? He flushes a Chipette down the toilet. And she lives.

YMMV/Bonkers

• Complete Monster: Slippery Mcslime from the episode Basic Spraining. He treats Bonkers like trash, tries to murder Lucky Piquel and is just an unpleasant scumbag with no redeeming qualities whatsoever.
  • The Collector is a bit more mild version of the trope, considering the way he laminates toons. He doesn't count though as he's Affably Evil.

It's been years since I've seen Bonkers, so I don't remember Slippery Mc Slime very well, but it sounds like he's basically a jerk who tries to kill a protagonist. I don't even know why The Collector is listed.

Captain Planet

• Complete Monster: Verminous Skumm from Captain Planet. While the other eco-villains were certainly Card Carrying Villains bordering on Stupid Evil territory (except Corrupt Corporate Executive Looten Plunder, and Duke Nukem, whose physiology was such that he thrived on radiation), they were too much of a caricature to be really scary. This doesn't apply to this disgusting rat-thing, whose actions are almost always portrayed in a much worse light than those of the other villains. Just an example? Peddling mind-affecting drugs to teenagers (one of which was Linka's cousin, who died as an indirect consequence of his intoxication) just for the joy of ruining their lives and those of their friends and families. Harrassing a kid who's HIV positive and spread lies about AIDS just because the kid's an easy target. Or trying to force toxic food down the captured Planeteers' mouths to kill them in a needlessly and horrifically painful way. Or planting a Nuclear Bomb in Jerusalem's Temple Mount, baiting an Israeli or a Palestinian to set it off. Or... well, the point has been made.
  • Zarm is pretty nasty himself, who as a god, likes to create wars for FUN. Unlike the other villains, Zarm is played off as far less corny and amusing.
  • There was also that one time Dr. Blight and her future self went back in time to World War II and were perfectly willing to sell a nuclear bomb to Hitler (Okay, he was a Captain Ersatz, but it was blatantly obvious who he was supposed to be). They were only reluctant in the end because he wasn't willing to actually pay and was taking it by force. It's also implied that the blueprints for the bomb left behind at the end of the episode are responsible for the bombing of Hiroshima.
    • Dr. Blight in the episode "101 Mutations".

A slightly less rambly version of this one is on the Monster.Western Animation page. The worst thing Verminous Skumm is listed as doing is planting a bomb, and it's not even clear if it got set off. Zarm's example is bare bones, so I don't know how to judge him. As for Dr. Blight, how can you only be a CM for one or two episodes?

For Better or for Worse:

• Complete Monster: A handful of characters are shown to be purely rotten, like Elizabeth's potential rapist at work. Certain other rotten types include the nasty girl at Elly's workplace, who stole from the company, threatened April with physical violence, and tried to sue the store when she was justifiably fired.

The rapist was never very developed and was mainly a plot device to make Anthony look heroic. We don't know what he did other than try to rape a girl and get beat up and run away. And the "nasty girl" just sounds like a jackass.

Kirby & the Amazing Mirror:

• Complete Monster: Dark Meta Knight seems to have shades of this, seeing how he doesn't provide Kirby with a sword before the fight against him, and unlike the real Meta Knight, he follows no code of honor or chivalry whatsoever.

What? OK, Dark Meta Knight is your Generic Kirby Nightmare Villain shapeshifting as Meta Knight. That's it. The only solid trait this person could pin down was "well, he's not as polite".

edited 22nd Sep '13 10:40:23 AM by PrideofthePeaches

My only issue with SID is that he may be a creation from a bunch of evil personalities thrown together, but if he's mostly the hero's nemesis reincarnated, I'd be okay with him there. As long as we make it clear he has agency.

With Skumm's exception, if he was discussed before, cut all of those.

As for Scream...Roman gets pretty deconstructed excuse-wise. he might want to be seen as some sympathetic murderer, but he's fooling nobody.

Btw, Morgenthaler, have you seen the sequel to the Crow? Judah, the villain of the sequel, probably qualifies as well

edited 22nd Sep '13 10:55:19 AM by Lightysnake

We never did reach a consensus on Skumm, but he was noted to be the only onscreen murderer in the entire show, so there's your heinousness bar right there.

The pig of Hufflepuff pulsed like a large bullfrog. Dumbledore smiled at it, and placed his hand on its head: "You are Hagrid now."

I should note Skumm's plan was to make AIDS spread enormously over the world. which is pretty nasty...not exactly a....sound, or logical plan in execution, but...

We talked about Captain Planet a long time ago. Skumm was the only one we voted to stay.

edited 22nd Sep '13 12:12:05 PM by VeryMelon

Here's one from the Higanbana No Saku Yoru Ni YMMV page. Complete Monster: Kanamori, what with him molesting and then strangling Marie to death the moment she threatened to call the police. To elaborate what had just been said, Kanamori was the protagonist Marie Moriya's home room teacher who used to defend her from her bullies. However, his job got stressful and he started to take his stress off on Marie. He did this by performing supplementary lessons on her, which meant he molested her and videotapped it. He then strangled her to death when she refused to play along with his games and threatened to call the police. He then dumps the body into the sewer, and he soon developed A God Am I complex since he believed he committed the perfect crime. In the manga, Marie was competing with him in order to become Mesomeso, the Seventh Mystery of the school. When Kanamori heard Marie's ghost behind a bathroom stall, he gives her a long "The Reason You Suck" Speech and tells her that she would've still been alive, had she gotten up the courage to call the police. He then seemingly strangles her ghost a second time, and proceeds to rape her remains after he saw that her body was left behind. He is killed at the end when Higanbana told him that he failed the test regarding Mesomeso which involved not speaking to Mesomeso, not responding to her questions, and not identifying Mesomeso. Therefore, Marie wins by default and becomes Mesomeso. She then devours Kanamori, killing him. Overall, he is a very dark version of a Lolicon and deserved what he got at the end. However, is this enough for him to qualify?

edited 22nd Sep '13 12:21:49 PM by AustinDR

About Roman from Scream, does wanting revenge on Sidney's mother for rejecting him as her son hold up?

I'm not sure that's a good excuse. It doesn't seem he loved her at all

Lighty, I requested your writeups replace what's there. Should I cut Verus? Seems like he was brainwashed by Wiseman?

CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts

Actually, no. It seems Verus was unaware of the possession

edited 22nd Sep '13 1:52:12 PM by Lightysnake

Hmm, some clarification may be needed.

CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts

Anyways, we have to cut The Godfather page regardless with only one potential keep, but here's my reasoning on Don Ciccio as we've never had a major discussion.

Who Is He?

Don Ciccio plays a small but pivotal roll in the Godfather series, particularly half of the second film where he is a mob boss in Sicily who kills the family of the man who will one day be known as The Godfather, Don Vito Corleone. We see him again decades later as an old man briefly, when Vito murders him in vengeance.

What Does He Do?

He killed (or ordered the death of more likely) Vito's father, Antonio Andolini. As a result, when Paulo, Vito's elder brother swore revenge, Ciccio had him killed as well. Vito's mother goes to the Don with Vito as a child and begs clemency for her final son. Ciccio, saying Vito will grow up to seek revenge, refuses to spare Vito as well, and Vito's mother holds a knife on his throat to give her son time to escape before Ciccio's men free their boss and shoot her. Ciccio orders Vito to be overturned with the threat anyone sheltering him will have their life forfeit.

Redeeming features or other issues?

No, Ciccio has very little screentime, so he doesn't have time to establish any redeeming qualities. Here's the problem...Ciccio does not, in my eyes, stand out in the world of the Godfather. This is a world where the main character is a cold blooded murderer who kills a young woman to put her corpse into bed to force a frameup job on a congress man. Said 'hero' has his own brother killed, and other mob bosses are similarly nasty and cruel, like Don Barzini who masterminds the entirety of the film. Ciccio's attempt to kill Vito is also way less heinous than it might be in Sicily where blood feuds are practically a religion. It comes across as pragmatism given Vito does grow up to hunt him down.

this is also a world where Luca "I burn my daughter alive because she's half Irish and then gun down the mother later" Brasi exists. Ciccio seems perfectly willing to spare Vito's mother until she tries to kill him.

Ciccio is a horrible person but he's no worse than most other dons, minus Vito himself. Besides Vito who doesn't harm children, the other dons have no compunction focusing drugs on 'the colored' as 'they're animals anyway, let them lose their souls' (This is their words, not mine)

The heinous bar is too high and I don't think Ciccio breaches it at all.

I agree that Ciccio doesn't sound like a qualifier. Sounds like the Godfather is too dark.

edited 22nd Sep '13 3:25:18 PM by TommyFresh

Gonna agree that's a cut.

So far I have one vote plus my own to axe those terrible Luther examples. If there's no objections I'll do it tonight. There's just nothing worth defending in the write up on that page.

Cut the Luther ones

If there are no objections to the Kawarino write-up I made, I'll post him up in a couple days.

Your preferences are not everyone else's preferences.

So have most of the comic book examples been discussed already and agreed upon?

The vast majority, if not all of them. Which do you want to mention?