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
I think I'll switch to abstain on Brixton with G-Editor's arguments in mind.
Shin Megami Tensei IV
Look, regarding Genocide, it can depend if the person see it as a Necessary Evil to defend themselves. We didn't downvote a Genocidal Villain from a Naruto fanfic because he legitimately saw his targets as a danger for everyone else?
Watch me destroying my country
Alright, this is long in the coming:
What's the work?
Fire Emblem Three Houses is the latest of the long-running strategy JRPG...the premise? "of Fódlan, where the Church of Seiros has great power over its people. The story revolves around the protagonist, a mercenary named Byleth, who is offered a job teaching at the church's Officers Academy after awakening a mysterious power and saving three youths from said academy. The youths in question, Edelgard, Dimitri, and Claude, happen to be the heirs to the three nations that make up Fódlan and heads of the academy's three houses. Alongside this, Byleth is sent strange dreams relating to a being named Sothis, who blesses Byleth with said mysterious power" to quote the tropes page...the game has multiple routes there...this requires some explanation.
A major power in the nation is the Church of Seiros, based at Garreg Mach Monastery at the continent's center...long ago, Seiros, the founder, battled with the mysterious 'Nemesis', causing a split of power where the church keeps the peace....there is a secret cult that opposes the Church, known as Those Who Slither in the Dark, who work to destabilize the nation. The first of them is the group's scientist, Solon.
Who is Solon?
A callous, wicked mad scientist who murders a church librarian named Tomas to infiltrate the church to gain information. Solon is in truth far, far darker and experiments on tons of innocents, painfully, to create monstrosities. Solon assists in driving the nations to war, making them even worse with his experiments. With these experiments, Solon amasses a gigantic bodycount, twisting countless people, even children into monsters and killing many more.
In The Flame and the Darkness, we get a hint to how depraved he truly is...in Remire village, where Byleth is traveling with his father Jeralt's company? Solon has just decided to 'experiment' a bit...by which he's driven the villagers insane and had them slaughter one another. This, by the by, serves no point whatsoever to his groups goals, but Solon simply wants to see what will happen.
Solon returns later, assisting his boss Thales in the campaign of a masked tyrant called the Flame Emperor, who will 'cleanse' the land through brutal war....Solon? Is of course using it to experiment on loads of people. The heroes end up going for Solon with one of his subordinates, the assassin Kronya...and Solon sacrifices her to use a spell to banish Byleth to a dark realm, intending on an And I Must Scream fate for him, leaving him trapped, suffering there. However, Byleth escapes and leads the fight, ending up striking Solon down, who dies with a curse that his master Thales will finish them.
Heinousness?
Solon is awful. Tons of experiments on countless people and being responsible for the Remire tragedy and more like that, plus assisting with a nightmarish war? The experiments easily rival, if not exceed the nightmarish stuff Izuka gets up to in Radiant dawn. Solon's well over it here.
Mitigating Qualities?
That's a laugh. Solon is just "I wanted to see what would happen" even if it hurts his group's plans, and he happily betrays and sacrifices his own ally when it suits him. No, nothing good about Solon.
Conclusion?
A keeper.
Yes to Solon.
"The Juice is Loose."
Gentle Laborer
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Ben. It's writeup time! Pickman goes before Leo
- The Prophecy: Colonel Arnold Hawthorne, described by both Gabriel and Lucifer as the worst human on earth, is the prophesied "Dark Soul" sought after by the rebel angels during the Second War in Heaven. Once a man who came from a poor working family and graduated from the top of his class at the military academy, Hawthorne rose through the ranks of the army and eventually participated in The Korean War, where he committed the most grotesque war crimes ever recorded in American history. Conducting a series of ritualistic killings at the Battle of Chosin, Hawthorne turned the battlefield into a mass human sacrifice; Hawthorne dismembered his victims, impaled them, and dumped their bodies into a mass grave, eating their hearts and ordering his troops to do the same, and cutting off their faces as trophies. After his death, Hawthorne's soul was placed inside the innocent Mary, harming her body and proudly confessing to have been "colder than anyone" at Chosin.
- Manhunt: Dr. Pickman is the head of The Project and the man responsible for their long list of atrocities. Once a scientist working for the goverment who had his research shut down for his willingness to torture people without remorse, Pickman continued to work illegally with the help of private funding and used human subjects in a series of sadistic experiments, including: Forcing a man to feed on corpses, driving him crazy enough to commit suicide by hitting his head against the wall for almost an hour; re-conditioning a man with various forms of torture and offering him a victim to be killed; engulfing a man in flames until his skin and nerves were permanently damaged, causing him to fall into a coma before death. Pickman dumps those who survive but are broken beyond repair at the Dixmor Asylum, where they live in horrible conditions and are regularly abused by the staff, with some committing suicide to escape the suffering. Running a strip club as a front of The Project, Pickman recruits sexual deviants to "work" there for him in bringing victims to a torture dungeon and producing Snuff Films. Creating the Pickman Bridge, which would allow two personalities to co-exist within the same body, Pickman places the psychopathic Leo Kasper inside the mind of Daniel Lamb and feels indifferent when Leo goes on a killing spree, controlling the damage by erasing Daniel's past and condemning him to Dixmor Asylum for six years with other failed Pickman Bridge subjects.
- Sometimes in April: Colonel Théoneste Bagosora is one of the orchestrators of the Rwandan Genocide and the leader of both the regular FAR and Interahamwe paramilitary, collectively called the Génocidaires. Setting up death squads to assassinate Tutsi even before the genocide is ignited, Bagosora happily goes along with the coup and oversees the manufacturing of weapons, distributing them across Rwanda to be used in a wave of Rape, Pillage, and Burn against Tutsi, especially machetes that he imported from China, mockingly asking the benevolent Captain Augustin Muganza if he has "problem with it", using radio broadcasts to spread his hate and motivate even more people into participating in the genocide, culminating in countless massacres countrywide.
- Behind Enemy Lines: General Miroslav Lokar is the warmongering commander of the Serb Volunteer Guard paramilitary unit, secretely orchestrating a series of genocidal killings against Bosniaks, including children, in southern Bosnia and burying the bodies in a mass grave at the hills. Destroying the jet of Chris Burnett and Jeremy Stackhouse when they accidentally photograph evidence of his crimes, Lokar executes the latter and sends his two Co-Dragons on a mission to hunt for Burnett. Leading an attack against the guerillas who opposed him, Lokar kills even more people and allows his soldiers to casually massacre surrendering troops.
- Devil May Cry: The Animated Series: Butler, from the third episode, is a seemingly well-mannered servant of the Hagel family whose true loyalty lies with the demon Belphegor. Working alongside the good-hearted demon Bradley in making the preparations for their master's arrival, Butler stabs the mayor and uses his body in a ritual to summon Belphegor for him to devour the entire city and claiming that they would eventually destroy the human world. A human who stood in contrast to his benevolent demonic partner-in-crime and almost drove his own race into extinction to satisfy his master, he served as an example of how some humans are even worse than demons.
Edited by TheMadCr0w on Aug 20th 2019 at 10:43:43 AM
to Han Solon
I wonder who else counts in Three Houses?
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
to Thales
Edited by G-Editor on Aug 20th 2019 at 3:26:32 AM
And now the second? Solon's superior Thales.
Who is Thales?
The ranking member of Those Who Slither in the Dark, Thales in his main route here, is disguised for a while...he comes to prominence in the Golden Deer route alongside the Flame Emperor, in truth the heroine Edelgard who seeks to overthrow the influence of the church...Thales, with these goals coinciding with his? He authorizes and condones Solon's nightmarish experiments to cause horrific chaos, killing tons of people, while also manipulating Edelgard into the brutal war with the intention of destroying the nation.
Intending to resurrect Nemesis, an undead monster, to help consume Fodlan in nightmarish horrors, Thales leads his forces to destroy tons of areas, wiping out pieces of Fodlan and sacrificing many more. In addition, he's responsible for the Tragedy of Duscur, which was the massacre of a royal family. The incident was blamed on the people of Duscur, a small peninsula....as a result? The Kingdom invaded Duscur and subjugated it. The people were slaughtered, almost rendered extinct. This was solely to conduct destabilization by Thales in disguise. And showing what a great boss he is? Thales rescues Kronya when she kills Byleth's father...solely so she can be used by Solon as a sacrifice.
Thales attempts to secure the revival of Nemesis, to gain the power of the gods by the ends, facing off with the heroes and the Golden Deer company, where it is revealed Those Who Slither in the Dark are the descendants of the destroyed nation of Agartha...when beaten? Thales, for sheer spite, tries to blow up the base to kill his enemies...and take his own people with them. Foiled, he dies when crushed by falling rubble, ending his ambitions.
Any mitigating Qualities?
Thales is probably the worst in game, being responsible for tons of bloodshed, kicking off a nightmarish war he intentionally makes worse, organizing a massacre and ethnic cleansing and genocide to go with it and sacrifices while trying to awaken Nemesis. He's never, ever said to care for his people, being only concerned with himself and his own power, and he happily sacrifices his own when he finds it necessary.
Conclusion?
Our other keeper.
"The Juice is Loose."
The MILF Virus
Absolutely a with Solon! I knew he was a keeper, and I have my doubts he's the only keeper among in the game. There's one other character I believe is going to make it, but I'll leave it to you to check.
EDIT: I see you added him, OK Thales.
Edited by TheImmortalAngelNewton on Aug 20th 2019 at 6:27:49 AM
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
The Draftsman of Doom
Yes to the both from Fire Emblem.
Fire Emblem Duo.
The Draftsman of Doom
Prince of Thales.
The MILF Virus
I wonder Lighty, you thinking about putting up Cornelia as well? She's pretty damn horrible in the game to.
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
Gentle Laborer
Fire Emblem baddies.
She is, but....I don't think she breaches the standard. Not to mention that it's strongly implied she was killed and replaced by one of Those Who Slither in the Dark
A 20th Century Boy
Out of curiosity, does Thales count in all the routes or only in the Golden Deer route?
I mean, we learn most about him in the Golden Deer route, but the actions are kinda universal. It's just that route which drives it in.
A 20th Century Boy
In that case, I’ll go ahead and vote to both Fire Emblem candidates.
Handsome Head of Hyperion
to the Fire Emblem villains.
I watched Hobbs & Shaw, and I think Brixton counts. He is all about evolving humanity but it is from a superiority standpoint, he has a disdain for unaltered humans and wants half of them exterminated so the rest will evolve to his level under his boot. He does say "my life is nothing to the cause," but his very cause isn't even well-intentioned, it seemed to be driven by superiority and ego to me. The fact that when his superiors betray him he gets noticeably pissed also shows just how far his "belief" goes, as if he were truly willing to die completely well-intentioned, he wouldn't have minded being killed off to keep his info safe.
To gear up for Mindhunter discussion, I have been watching some True Crime dramatizations, and was wondering if anyone would mind me bringing up the Zodiac Killer for re-discussion. I would like to give him a proper effortpost, as I believe a case can be made, but if most would prefer it be left alone then I won't push it.
Edited by AgeOfTropeEmpire on Aug 20th 2019 at 6:53:04 AM
to Solon and Thales
Okay, that's a decent case for Brixton
"The Juice is Loose."
Okay switching back to yes on Brixton then.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
I'd like to see a third party on this.