Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

Okay, I cut Branka and Petrice.

Another big Video Game clean up, aiming to knock back another half-dozen or mroe bad examples and move any good ones I find to the Sandbox.

• Pigma from Star Fox. I think it's a pretty weak example, he's only listed there because he sold out Fox's father, and tried to kill Fox before later selling out to another Big Bad. His henious acts are bretrayal and trying to kill the protagonists, the latter of which every villian in the entire serious tries to do. The example seems to be written as "this guy's a dick, therefore Complete Monster!" style, and I'd wadger it was first added waaay back when the misuse started.
  • From the same series but in a manga, General Shears. His henious acts are trying to manipulate Team Fox into killing another team, then trying to kill Fox when he discovers the truth. So...standard villian fare.
• Baron Alexander from Amneisa The Dark Descent. The example is short, only two sentances long, and every act is spoilered out. I'm not sure if torture and murder is enough to make him a CM because of the utter lack of explanation, so I vote cut until someone can actually pad this out.
  • Justine from the first DLC. Why? Because that is quite literally THE ENTIRE EXAMPLE.
• Erinys from God of War Ghosts of Sparta. Her only listed act is killing a Spartan gruesomely with her own hands. In a game where the hero drags an innocent woman throughout an entire castle then shoves her into a death trap that painfully kills her so he can proceed, that's outright tame.
• Most of The Darkness article is pure natter about the Comic version, so that can get cut without discussion.
• Charlga Razorflank from Warcraft. Her crimes are basically moving so the Scourge could come in and raise the dead. That's it, her crime is allowing someone else from a faction she was aligned with to move in and raise the dead. If there's more...it's not in the example.
• Everyone from Jade Empire.
  • The Lotus Assassins are a group, and thus can't be CompleteMonsters. They're also just mooks.
  • Death's Hand was the one who turned the above into what they are in the game, but they were sanctioned by the Emperor. That dot point also includes natter, which is always a good sign that something needs to be cut or trimmed.
  • Captain Sen, whose crimes are pushing a boy into water and then not stopping him from drowning so he couldn't tell anyone that Sen pushed him in (so indirectly killing someone) and not caring about an arsonist until they start burning down wealthy houses. Seems rather trival compared to the other examples on the list.
• The GLA from Command And Conquer Generals, as again groups can not be CompleteMonsters. If they could count, then using biological weapons, both against China and on their own cities would probably qualify them.
• Nicole Horne from Max Payne. Compared to the other Corrupt Corporate Executive her crimes are more mundane, amounting to drug dealing and killing anyone who gets too close to the truth to cover it up. She doesn't do anything to stand out compared to the other gangsters, killers and drug dealers, so I don't think she passes the "truly henious by standards of story" criteria.
• Lord Raptor from Darkstalkers. His evil act in his example is stealing the souls of everyone attending his final rock concert (if we assume a full house, that would be in five digit range of souls. The entry says he gets worse as an undead, but as usual for these examples the writer didn't think that was important enough to elaborate on.
• I know I talked about it pages and pages back, but I would like to get another concensus on this; Warren Vidic from Assassin's Creed. As a Templar, Well-Intentioned Extremist, Utopia Justies The Means and Grey-and-Grey Morality all come into effect, his worst acts were all sanctioned and/or orderer by his superior as seen in emails, and his crimes are against the Assassins, who would gladly do the same to him if given the chance.
• And to wrap this one up, the protagonist from Rapelay. We don't have a works page for it (the article links to wikipedia instead), Fast Eddie doesn't want H-Game works on this wiki, and if we let this one in we're pretty much obliged to do it for every H-Game that gets proposed.

As usual, feedback would be super-fantastic.

Krystoff, did we say we were finished? Stop jumping the gun. I've lost track of the amount of times you've made a decision without giving everyone time to have their say, and it's counter-intuitive to the cleanup effort.

Going back to the last page for a moment, I disagree with keeping Saren Arterius. It seems clear that, however much he enjoys what he does along the way, he genuinely is interested in the welfare of his people. Add to that the fact that it's ultimately possible to talk him down, and I think that what the novel does is show that he was a bad guy prior to indoctrination, not a full-fledged CM.

(I can elaborate if asked to do so, as there's a couple of things I haven't brought up here, but I'd like to hear other opinions first, since everyone focused on the Dragon Age characters so far).

I'll defer to you there. I have to admit he's probably not a CM.

The only villain that I am familiar with is Erinys, While I agree that Kratos' actions are much worse, the difference is that she unlike him, has no excuse for them and she does them For the Evulz. Even Gaila calls her evil given to life.

edited 18th Jul '12 1:57:47 AM by Krystoff

And? Her only listed action in that example was killing a soldier. When the protagonist of a game does more henious things than a listed example then that's not a good indication they belong on the list. And we have a trope for one character calling another pure evil, that's You Monster!. It's worthless for determing wether or not a character is a CM, and we've disqualified several characters who were on the recieving end of a "You Monster" shout.

Okay, I understand. As I said, Kratos does more heinous things than she does, but she has no excuse for them, while Kratos does have. Also, have you played any God Of War games? If you did, than what do you think about her?

edited 18th Jul '12 2:33:46 AM by Krystoff

I have not, that still doesn't change the fact that her actions are less henious than the protagonists, which means she fails to meet the first criteria, lack of motivation be damned.

Okay, so she doesn't count. And how do you know that about Kratos putting an innocent woman under the painful trap if you haven't play the game?

TV Tropes Will Enhance Your Life. I heard about it here.

I think the Amnesia exmalpe would be okay if re-written. spoilers ahead:

Let's see,

• character is truly heinous by the standards of the story: The protagonist killed and tortured due to being put in a bad situation, and only later did he start to enjoy it. The baron did all the same things and worse, including being the one who drove the protagonist to kill and torture.
• character's terribleness is played seriously at all times, evoking fear, revulsion and hatred: Oh yeah. It's a Lovecraft-inspired horror game, after all.
• devoid of altruistic qualities: Maybe there was some detail I missed, but I'm pretty sure everything he did was for self-serving purposes, and i don't remember any signs of regret.

edited 18th Jul '12 7:35:30 AM by abk0100

Saren still sounds like he should be kept off, though for motive reasons (i.e. has that tiniest shread of good in him, even if it manifests in terrible ways). Even if he's a bit speciesist and out to only help his species survive, that's still more concern for others than I'd expect out of a Complete Monster.

After seeing more clarification on Branka, I agree that the character should be cut. I think we have a classic case of people believing their personal Alternate Character Interpretation over what's actually in the game (Mohs from Tales Of The Abyss was much the same issue).

To be fair regarding Petrice, anything that she orders is on her head. It is her will that carries out those actions. So does she cause villages to be burned down or the like?

Pigma from Star Fox... way too low on the heinous scale to count. Yes, he has Chronic Backstabbing Disorder, but he's not as hateful and destructive as many other villains in the series. Heck, he's not even the most evil part of his own team (I'd give that to Leon, who also isn't qualified).

Shears... first, that example should be over in Anime and Manga, since he never appeared in the games. As for his evil, though, I don't know, is trying to clone a would-be despot comparatively mild? Making another Andross would result in massive death and enslavement.

The Amnesia The Dark Descent examples should be cut until such time as someone actually explains them.

Given how much brutal murder is in the God Of War series, only having one murder to your name probably makes Erinyes one of the least evil named characters in the series. That's You Monster! and that's it.

For the example for The Darkness, it's very poorly written. I think some of it is from the game, but I can't tell.

Charlga... well, beyond the fact that the example is terribly written (my psychic connection to the video gaming gestalt is on the fritz, so I don't know what that Scourge is being referenced), I would need to know much more before I could say either way. I'm fine with cutting if nobody can come up with a reason to keep.

From Jade Empire:

• The Lotus Assassins fall under the "groups do not count" rule. Question: should we make it explicit on the main page that we only count individuals?
• Death's Hand sounds like he's just following orders. I will consider someone who follows orders, but only if it's made clear that either a) the order was unnecessary, or b) said character started following orders because they knew they'd get orders like that. Since we have neither demonstration here, I say no.
• Sen does sound like The Sociopath, but that's still falling short of the heinous standard.

The GLA is a group, and I'm for cutting them. Now, if there was a particular leader giving orders to do such a thing, and the motives behind it were clearly not Knight Templar or Well-Intentioned Extremist reasons, I could see them getting in.

Nicole from Max Payne - maybe I'd need to know more about the world of the games, but from what I understand, that level of murder and human experimentation is rather heinous for the world in question. If I'm in error, I would appreciate clarification.

Lord Raptor of Darkstalkers should be disqualified for the classic Offscreen Villainy issue. Technically speaking, even if we were starting to include off-screen deaths, his body count (maybe low six figures if it happened at the finale of some huge festival or gargantuan venue, but most likely low five digits) is still rather low for some of the characters (it's hinted that Dmitri and Morrigan each eclipse it by an order of magnitude).

For that matter, since we're already looking at the Darkstalkers entry, Bulleta/B.B. Hood (Dub Name Change in effect) is another case of The Sociopath being thrown in. Now, I'll grant that, being a fighting game, she is trying to kill all of the other participants in the game. It's not clear just how far her desire to kill goes, though, and she definitely doesn't go any further than even what the more heroic characters are willing to do. I think she fails on the heinous count.

I said in @1242 that Vidic shouldn't belong, and I stand by that.

I will say in general that, given the rules about hentai that the wiki now has, this trope is no exception, and any examples from works banned from the site should be cut.

To hit a couple of other topics...

Krystoff, as Shaoken said, you need to wait for consensus. Even getting the opinion of me or Shaoken, two of the most active folks here, isn't enough. There have already been multiple cases of either of us (and, in at least one, both of us) being overruled by the general body at large. If you cut without consensus to cut again without asking for extra opinions at least a couple of times, I will holler for a mod. Jumping the gun is counterproductive and starts to look like this is barely sanctioned vandalism.

Finally... I still didn't get any comment on either cutting the "A Criminal Mind" example from Music or my proposal to lock the page. It's been two days already. If I don't hear anything from folks about it soon, I will take silence as approval and put in to do both.

Oh, Vidic was also mentioned by Shaoken? So another example that I am familiar with. For Erinys, I changed my mind, and now I vote against keeping her. In case Vidic, even though the two most active folks are both against him, and while I usually support them, I will stand for Vidic this time. As Fighteer who is the mod, said, he did horrible things, even for a templar. It was him who added him.

edited 18th Jul '12 9:31:57 AM by Krystoff

Death's Hand shouldn't be anywhere near that page. He's the emperor's innocent brother, used as a Living Battery for a suit of Animated Armour that has little, if any free will of its own. Forcing him to live on as Death's Hand and serve you rather than allowing a Mercy Kill is one of the biggest Kick the Dog options in the game.

I will accept that Vidic's admitted role as a Well-Intentioned Extremist could technically disqualify him. It's a shame, too, because his actions certainly should count, save for the question of whether he honestly believes himself to be furthering the cause of humanity's future.

True, so what I think is that we don't know what was Vidic's ultimate goal in this. This will decide his CM status. Because Well Intentioned Extremists by definition, cannot be Complete Monsters.

edited 18th Jul '12 9:57:48 AM by Krystoff

@1765 Wait, so he's actually just Brainwashed and Crazy? Oh, that makes it a very easy cut.

@1766 It's not just about actions, though. We've discussed cases of actual genocide that were cases of Well-Intentioned Extremist characters saying I Did What I Had to Do. I mean, if we are considering actions alone, I can't wait to see the debate that will start when we point out that The Doctor from Doctor Who has some of the highest body counts in entertainment history. I've seen just how willing he has been to kill off all the Daleks... if motive doesn't count, then we have a huge mess on our hands.

Plus, the description does note that they have to be devoid of altruistic qualities. If it's demonstrated In-Universe that said character doesn't actually have any positive qualities, then he can get put in.

And with Vidic, we have proof in the first game that he's been ordered by his superior to get Desmond to spill the beans by a certain deadline or kill him off. So we have no clue how much of this is Vidic's initiative and how much is Executive Meddling from the higher templayers.

And considering the setting, the Assassins themselves have done or been accomplice to some pretty morally questionable things too, so the lines are very blurry as to what's truly henious.

I'll post more in two days when I get back to Australia.

Not even Brainwashed and Crazy - it's an And I Must Scream scenario. He's a fully conscious puppet being forced to do terrible things, and is half-insane as a result.

edited 18th Jul '12 10:02:53 AM by Iaculus

We have evidence that Vidic has superiors or at least colleagues who are influencing his actions to some degree, but he is the face of Abstergo as far as players are concerned — the rest acts as an Omniscient Council of Vagueness and can't really be counted. And we also know that a lot of what happened at Abstergo was staged for Desmond's benefit.

Reluctantly, I have to admit that based on these facts we can't declare him to be a Complete Monster and as such he should be removed.

@1770 While that's important for other troping purposes, the difference between People Puppets (for the body being literally controlled without any mental conditioning) and Brainwashed and Crazy (mental conditioning) is hair-splitting here; both are easy disqualifiers. This is why I think we need to add that the crimes need to be willingly done to the description - technically, anyone forced into such actions (particularly if they somehow are kept from knowing about them and thus wouldn't know to feel guilty or the like about them) shouldn't be subject to the trope.

That said... what's to disqualify the emperor, since the actions undertaken by the Person Puppet that he controls are on his head? Due to being the one holding the reins, the weight of the actions from both the Lotus Assassins and Death's Head are on his shoulders. I'm starting to think that the problem was that tropers who didn't fully understand the trope just didn't follow the thread and consequently just put the wrong example up.

From Jade Empire, I’m not sure about adding Emeperor Sun Hai, because there’s some ambiguity to the character. He orders the genocide of the spirit monks and takes the power of the water dragon, but that’s because there’s been a never ending drought going on that threatens to bring an end to the empire. Enslaving the Water Dragon, however, disrupts the natural order of life and death, meaning the dead can’t cross over to the other side and begin attacking the living. Also, enslaving the Water Dragon causes natural disasters to erupt all over the rest of the world. The major factor that could keep him out is that it’s unclear if he’s a Well-Intentioned Extremist committing those atrocities to save his empire, or if he committed those atrocities so he could keep himself in power. There’s also the question of whether or not the Water Dragon’s power took a toll on his sanity. The Player Character meets him only once, years later, and he comes across as Drunkonthe Dark Side.

However, I do think Sun Li, the true Big Bad, does qualify as a Complete Monster. He was the one who engineered the genocide and tried to murder the Emperor, his own brother in order to take the power for himself. Also, halfway through the game, once he takes over the role of Big Bad, he does everything Sun Hai does: having the Lotus Assassins murder people to make golems, raises Death’s Hand his other brother from the dead, subjecting him to an And I Must Scream fate to act as his dragon, enslaving the Water Dragon and keeping the dead from moving on to the afterlife, etc. He spews propaganda about how he’s doing it for a utopia, however it all sounds like a lie because by this time he's been proven to be a Consummate Liar and a literal sociopath. In The Bad Guy Wins ending, it shows that people in the empire are subjugated and “encouraged” to stay in their place. When a child is shown questioning their leadership, a golem looks at him as if it’s about to kill him, prompting the teacher to tell the boy that he doesn't need to know the answers to his questions and he should just get back in place with the rest of his class. Sun Li watches over all of this laughing. To back up the sociopath claim, he’s incapable of seeing people as anything but tools. When his wife and daughter were murdered on Sun Hai’s orders, he says he wasn’t angry because he loved his family, he was angry because Sun Hai took away his possessions. Also he raises the Player Character as his son/daughter ever since they were a baby only to happily murder them the very second they were no longer useful to his plans. Also, if the Player Character is able to convince him that his daughter actually survived and is Dawn Star, a girl he’s also been raising for her whole life, he says it doesn’t matter and is okay with killing her anyway. Even Sun Hai didn’t try to kill his daughter when she got in his way. There’s also his line: “I’d kill hundreds of your kind, thousands. Just for the chance to become a god!”

Also, are there any other opinions on the examples I brought up? There seems to be a consensus on Branka and Saren not counting, but I'd like to know others opinions on Petrice and Morinth.

edited 18th Jul '12 11:57:46 AM by OccasionalExister

I looked up some info on the Amnesia The Dark Descent example. There's something about him trying to return to his own dimension to be with "his love" again, but other than that's remorselessly evil. What's the verdict?

I've been thinking that possibly The Thing may qualify as a Complete Monster. I'll compare it the xenomorphs from Alien, so you can see my point.

• Xenomorphs are instinctual beasts. They don't know any better and fight for survival. The Thing is a learning creature that gets smarter throughout the movie and is obviously sapient. It knows exactly what it's doing.
• The xenomorphs are loyal to their queen and will give their lives to save her, and she obviously cares for her children. The Thing is unbelievably selfish and will leave other members of its species to die, even kill them to maintain its disguise.
• Xenomorphs will kill anyone who enters their territory, just like animals. The Thing came to Earth with the specific intent to destroy all life on it.
• Finally, the Thing actively manipulates everyone and uses their paranoia to its advantage.

edited 18th Jul '12 1:44:38 PM by ChaoticQueen