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
Avatar by Leafsnake
Of the music example's, I've only heard of the Voltaire one. I'm inclined to think he's a CM, I even had the song, but he is more of a Card carrying villain than a CM (also, the poke the poodle elements disqualify him), and the song itself is supposed to be funny, not taken seriously (like the CM work page said one should be).
Also, I added the Karmic Trickster interpretation to the YMMV page of pinochio.
Coachman is really disturbing, I'll give him that, but those disturbing actions are what makes him a CM, he expresses delight on sending the boys off to die in bondage. Of Gideon, Stromboli and Monstroso, he is the most evil. He's treated more seriously than the conman, his actions affect numerous boys, rather than just one (like Stromboli), and the whale isn't really evil (but is still an antagonist as they had to overcome the obstacle he posed). He has no redeeming traits as well.
EDIT: I'm not trying to say that doing these disturbing acts and scaring the audience is why he, or anyone else on the list, is a CM. He is a CM because he fits all of the criteria on the main works page.
edited 13th Jul '12 5:31:17 PM by DrPsyche
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I think it should also be noted that the "Bully" isn't even the focus of the song—it's his victim that the song is really about. As with a few of Shinedown's songs ("The Sound of Madness", "Unity") the song seems to be about putting what's happened to you behind you. Who the titular Bully is, or what he's done isn't really that important, and it's strongly implied that the singer can forget him with a little help. That doesn't sound like CM material to me.
EDIT: Something I've realised—if we want to make the point that CMs are rare, we might want to start cutting references to the trope that appear in other trope descriptions.
edited 13th Jul '12 7:36:57 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Avatar by Leafsnake
Can you clarify the "CM mentioned in other trope descriptions" comment?
More than a few tropes feel the urge to mention this one. For example, the description for Despotism Justifies the Means once said something along the lines of "most villains who subscribe to this trope will be Complete Monsters". I think we should try and get rid of as many of those as possible
Agreed, definitely. The more we can do to fight the memetic image of this trope here, the better off it will be.
Avatar by Leafsnake
I agree as well.
With rare exceptions (such as the Moral Event Horizon page) there's little to no reason to mention this trope. Instead of saying "a character who subscribes to this trope will probably be a Complete Monster" why not say, "a character who subscribes to this trope is unlikely to have any sympathetic motivations/redeeming qualities/ability to think of anyone other than themself?"
As I've noted in the past, one of the main problems with this trope is people's struggle to accept the existence of the "99% Monster" - a basically horrible character who still has those few scraps of humanity needed to disqualify them. So the less the wiki reinforces the "Complete Monster or Anti-Villain" false dichotomy, the better off we'll be.
Avatar by Leafsnake
Hey guys, Did the Complete Monster ever had a Playing with page, or is it always just Examples (Which I agree when we say are very rare) and non examples.
edited 14th Jul '12 1:04:50 AM by DrPsyche
It had one, but since most of the possibilities were impossible, it was cut.
Went ahead and deleted the Voltaire, Shinedown, and Foster the People examples from Music. If I could get input on the remainder, we could finish this subpage today or tomorrow.
Okay, my thoughts:
- Bully, cut for vagueness.
- Kiss me son of god, cut for lack of henious if he's only tormenting and not doing anything incredibly serious like rape, crippling, actual torture etc.
- Murdoc, cut. Going to hell to save someone is a pretty good act, disqualifying them.
- Disturbed examples, cut. There doesn't seem to be any continuity, the doctors are the only ones who would count, and Red (no idea who the fuck that is) loves someone else and his son, which seems to discount the 100% evil thing we're using to improve this trope.
- The Frameshift example; cut for excessive natter and lack of really explaining things.
- For the Death Metal comment, we don't want generic statements, we want specifics and examples that can stand entirely on their own and present a convincing argument.
World's Toughest Milkman
Second.
Speaking of the Music page: I'm concerned about The Notorious BIG / Eminem example. Yes, it's supposed to be in-universe, but it's bordering dangerously on a Real Life example, by saying that these people are calling themselves CM's in a particular song.
edited 14th Jul '12 1:49:51 PM by Xtifr
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
I was, honestly, mixing Dead Wrong (the aforementioned BIG/Eminem) song up with Dirty Conscience, which might qualify but we'll get into that later. Besides, if that song qualifies, so does Stan, and we really don't want to get into that one.
The Music page should now be totally cleaned. Everything currently on it seems to be unnaturally murder-obsessed, but fits our criteria. If we can get an admin to lock it up, we should be good to go.
edited 14th Jul '12 2:05:19 PM by LargoQuagmire
Cool. On that note, can I get some opinions on the City of Heroes examples I posted before?
World's Toughest Milkman
Hrm, one more question about the music page before we head away: the entry from The Who's Quadrophenia says it "might count". Do we really want an example expressing that degree of doubt? And does the description really suggest the level of pure evil we're looking for? (I know I've heard the work, but it's been a long time, so I don't really remember the details.)
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
No. Examples Are Not Arguable. Put him to discussion here
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Crap, I didn't see the "might". I'll give Quadrophenia a spin on the turntable after work.
World's Toughest Milkman
Example is on the discussion page at present. :)
Speaking words of fandom: let it squee, let it squee.
On a totally unrelated note, I've removed Jake Featherston and his henchmen from the YMMV page for Timeline 191. I cut them from the literature page a long, long time ago (back when we first began the clean up) but they apparently managed to stay hidden there. Given that one of the points of the series is that no one is all black, they really don't belong. Even Jake (the Adolf Hitler analogue) manages to Pet the Dog with his secretary.
So, do we put a "no CM examples please" tag on that page.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Couldn't hurt. Given that Jake is essentially Adolf Hitler disguised as a die-hard Confederate, someone is bound to decide that the genocide he orders overrides all else and list him again. Nazis seem to have that effect on people.
Avatar by Leafsnake
I finally got around to removing the Third Personality from the Elfen Lied YMMV page. We discussed it a while ago, if anyone still remembers.
Vaguely.
I'm inclined to delete both after listening to them. At the very least, the Voltaire song is totally ridiculous and clearly intended for humour. "Bully" also seems to be An Aesop: The Song, but a very powerfully done one. I'm not trying to diminish its message, but I feel like it would be hard to justify its inclusion, as it might send the wrong message about the song.