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
Just found Sandbox.Monster Bleach. Is that still being used?
Also, here's a slight rewrite for Zagon:
- Zagon from Above The Law is a complete bastard to everyone he meets; first time we meet him he's torturing Vietamese farmers to death for messing with his opium fields, and the only time he smiles is the Slasher Smile when he's doing it. He has a church blow up and tortures a priest. His Off Stage Villainy in particular is horrifying as he forces children to watch him mutilate people, and sometimes mutilated the children. To top it off he really does think he's "above the law" and has the connections and resources to back it up, to the point he can get away with treason and murder. A nasty piece of work through and through.
Here's my write up for Hades, in beta form.
Hades from Kid Icarus Uprising is a nasty piece of work. The game starts out fairly lighthearted with most of the villains being comical Punch Clock Villains, and then after his puppet, Medusa is defeated, Hades appears and then the story takes a much darker turn. It's eventually revealed that the Underworld Army is produced through souls. Hades starts a widespread world war over a rumor that there is a wish granting treasure guarded by a Phoenix in hopes that the humans will fight amongst themselves so he can obtain more souls. While Hades does side with the heroes to face off the Aurum, a group of planet destroying aliens, he's only doing it because without Earth, there would be no Underworld and therefore, no souls. He outclasses the other antagonists of the game by virtue of sadism. Viridi, a Knight Templar who nukes parts of the world to return the world to its natural state, is even disgusted by Hades' callous use of souls. It's later revealed that Hades doesn't use all the souls he gets, and either devours the excess souls or sends them into oblivion, a fate worse than death. When Viridi asks if Hades couldn't be any more callous, he proves her wrong and states he has a sick pleasure in toying with the souls, and that he'd love to devour every soul he could. To compare Hades with the other two primary antagonists, as said before, Viridi, the Knight Templar natural goddess, is disgusted by his actions and total disregard for life. As for the Aurum, they lack moral agency, something that Hades has. Viridi eventually comes around and does a Heel–Face Turn and an Enemy Mine to face Hades, as she cannot see how a God could have such disregard for all life. He also enjoys torturing Pit, the hero, who is only a 13 year old angel. Hades isn't above leaving his minions to die when he has no further use for them and will kill them if they even so much as become an inconvenience to him, as shown by the ending where after bringing back Medusa, he simply kills her off permanently just because she betrayed him. He's behind several of the conflicts of the story, and outclasses the other two villains in sheer malice. He's also responsible for many human deaths by his troops, when he wants to harvest souls.
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
As I recall, it's the Apocalypse Virus we're judging here, rather than Mana Ouma. It completely overwrites her personality, and shows itself to be sentient, self-aware, and extremely sadistic (the fact that it successfully disguises itself as a sweet-natured little girl for years is an indicator of how smart the thing is). Its later manifestation in Inori, Mana's clone, works out very much like Demonic Possession, too, and she eventually has to suicide to kill it.
edited 31st Oct '13 2:56:50 AM by Iaculus
What's precedent ever done for us?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
On YMMV.The Last House On The Left, someone added this to Krug's entry;
- Oddly enough, he and his gang look a bit remourseful after they raped Marie.
Haven't seen the movie so I can't argue for or against it, but the sub-bullet is making the entry contradict itself
@laculus
That changes things up a bit then. So we're talking about a sentient virus? That brings up some other questions then, namely whether it possesses genuine moral agency. The fact that it can act like a person suggests that it does, but intelligence isn't always a sign of agency; we cut X-Men villain Sublime because irrespective of how smart he is, he's still a bacteria with all of a bacteria's instincts and drives. The same thing would apply here. Does it think and act like a virus?
Whoa there, found a possible mitigating factor for General Krell. It's apparently clarified in a supplement that he fell to the Dark Side because he crossed the Despair Event Horizon after realizing the galaxy was boned either way the Clone Wars went, and figured there wasn't any point in "staying on a sinking ship," as it were. Sympathetic? Not really. Mitigating? Just maybe. Opinions?
"Screw you guys, I'm joining the winning team" is not mitigating
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That part isn't, but crossing the Despair Event Horizon might be.
Avatars may be subject to change without notice.
Another thing... do CM mentions in the YMMV pages of reality shows count as implicit real-life examples? Because technically the example in the YMMV page of Dragon's Den is referring to a real person.
edited 31st Oct '13 11:11:36 AM by HiddenFacedMatt
"The Daily Show has to be right 100% of the time; FOX News only has to be right once." - Jon Stewart
....yeah, I'm gonna say cut that example. With prejudice.
HT: Krell doesn't even hint at redeeming features in the show. Exar Kun once crossed the Despair Event Horizon too, but kept going until he was a remorseless, galactic level threat.
edited 31st Oct '13 11:13:56 AM by Lightysnake
Does anyone know if the thing about Krug looking "remorseful" is true?
Given he guns her down with barely concealed enjoyment, no. The gang kind of exchanges weird looks, but Krug's nothing but a monster
Alright then I'll remove it.
Speaking of removals, mind if I send a request to snip Caribou? His story's not quite over yet, but it's not like he can... un-rescue the old woman at this point. It also seemed to be implied he loved his own grandmother.
edited 31st Oct '13 11:54:37 AM by HamburgerTime
Here's my rewrite again, this time in a more readable form.
Here's my write up for Hades, in beta form.
Hades from Kid Icarus Uprising is a nasty piece of work. The game starts out fairly lighthearted with most of the villains being comical Punch Clock Villains, and then after his puppet, Medusa is defeated, Hades appears and then the story takes a much darker turn.
It's eventually revealed that the Underworld Army is produced through souls. Hades starts a widespread world war over a rumor that there is a wish granting treasure guarded by a Phoenix in hopes that the humans will fight amongst themselves so he can obtain more souls.
While Hades does side with the heroes to face off the Aurum, a group of planet destroying aliens, he's only doing it because without Earth, there would be no Underworld and therefore, no souls.
He outclasses the other antagonists of the game by virtue of sadism. Viridi, a Knight Templar who nukes parts of the world to return the world to its natural state, is even disgusted by Hades' callous use of souls.
It's later revealed that Hades doesn't use all the souls he gets, and either devours the excess souls or sends them into oblivion, a fate worse than death.
When Viridi asks if Hades couldn't be any more callous, he proves her wrong and states he has a sick pleasure in toying with the souls, and that he'd love to devour every soul he could.
To compare Hades with the other two primary antagonists, as said before, Viridi, the Knight Templar natural goddess, is disgusted by his actions and total disregard for life.
As for the Aurum, they lack moral agency, something that Hades has. Viridi eventually comes around and does a Heel–Face Turn and an Enemy Mine to face Hades, as she cannot see how a God could have such disregard for all life.
Hades also enjoys torturing Pit, the hero, who is only a 13 year old angel.
Hades isn't above leaving his minions to die when he has no further use for them and will kill them if they even so much as become an inconvenience to him, as shown by the ending where after bringing back Medusa, he simply kills her off permanently just because she betrayed him.
He's behind several of the conflicts of the story, and outclasses the other two villains in sheer malice.
He's also responsible for many human deaths by his troops, when he wants to harvest souls.
So that's pretty much Hades. Despite being Laughably Evil, he's still monstrous and his actions do indeed meet the heinous standard.
Sounds like Hades can count.
And yes, please cut Caribou
Done. I'm really surprised he managed to stay on so long. I mean, if Spandam, the (albeit ineffectual) Big Bad of an entire saga, was judged too much of a small fry, what's so special about Caribou, who was barely even an Arc Villain?
You got me. I never got why he was on the list to begin with. I think it's entirely possible we'll see the Five Elder Stars and Kaido count later, though. I used to think Doflamingo would count one day, but I think it's been definitively proven he never will.
The one uniquely horrible thing about Caribou was using Buried Alive as his MO. Thing is, we never actually see him do this, and given what series this is the guys he ordered buried will probably pop up without a scratch on them later on. 
The Five Elders (assuming this thread is even still here by the time we get around to learning what their deal is) would be an interesting test of the "how many is a group?" question, as there's no indication that any of them really have a leadership role over the others.
edited 31st Oct '13 12:18:30 PM by HamburgerTime
Hah, Well, if Pell could survive that explosion? As for the Five Elder Stars...it's academic now, but I'd say 5 just straddles the line
You know Fairy Tail at all, HT? We really need to have a look at the wreck that is that page...
edited 31st Oct '13 12:19:22 PM by Lightysnake
- Complete Monster: Virgil tries to make Mezentius sound like one, but his total Bad Ass-ery, relationship with his son, and very touching exit more or less ruin the effect for modern readers. To the Romans he would likely have seemed much more evil due to his disrespect for the gods; to a modern audience this doesn't hold as true.
- Neoptolemus/Pyrrhus is also portrayed as one for his bloodlust and cruel murder of the old, defenseless Priam.
This looks like an easy cut.
Ooh, another Values Dissonance one from mythology, but this time backwards! We'd discussed how the standards of what makes a hero have changed over time (3000 BC's great noble general is 2013's mass-murdering terrorist and all), but here was have a question of the standards of villainy changing!
edited 31st Oct '13 12:25:15 PM by HamburgerTime
Mezentius loved his son Lausus according to the last copy of The Aeneid I read. That entry does deserve the love of the Stygian waters only. And for Neoptolemus, I can't remember a single concrete myth starring him.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
Welcome back Paireon, and having just seen that 2-parter episode of Law And Order SVU I can't wait to discuss if the perp qualifies.