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. "
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
Ray, Andras, Hikke, Shido
Freddy
Edited by AlmightyKingPrawn on Nov 5th 2019 at 8:33:55 AM
She/her. Profile pic is by Richard Michael Gomez @StarmansArt. Please watch Fraggle Rock: Back to the Rock. https://youtu.be/Vm92JNgPbqkLike is Wesker in other parts of the franchise and has other examples of being a Complete Monster?
Koichi Shido, Dr. Genzo Hikke, Andras and Ray Zeal.
Andras, Hikke, Nikolai, Phantom, Shido, Ustinov, & Zeal
BTW, I've always wondered how heinous a character can be when compared with another in the same work. Like how can a Eldritch Abomination who wants to destroy humanity and a non supernatural serial killer be in the same continuity and both of them qualify as C Ms (that was just a general example)
Hey, guys. I have a writeup for another book, this one being a Star Wars novel.
What’s The Work?
Battlefront: Twilight Company is a Star Wars novel about the campaigns of a Rebel infantry unit known as Twilight Company. Compared with most of the franchise, the Battlefront books are significantly Darker and Edgier than most Star Wars media due to focusing on characters who would otherwise be nameless Mooks, rather than the galaxy's great heroes and villains. Still, the books manage to provide complex characters in the form of Twilight Company, Inferno Squad, the Dreamers and others. However, Prelate Verge, the Big Bad of Twilight Company is far less complex.
Who Is Prelate Verge? Has He Done?
Prelate Verge is a mindless sycophant of Palpatine's. He firmly believes that he is the next phase of the Empire's evolution, and he certainly shows the Empire's lack of care for those it rules over. Verge starts out seemingly little more than just immature for his position as a commanding officer, but after being ordered to hunt down Governor Chalis, he shows exactly what sort of person he is, starting by torturing his own men for failures regardless of whether those failures were within their ability to control. He becomes increasingly enraged as Twilight Company slips through his fingers, and by the time of his confrontation with Chalis, he has become little more than an animal. After falling into a trap set up by Chalis which disables his Star Destroyer's weapons, Verge orders the ship to ram into the Sullustan capital of Pinyumb in order to destroy the ore processing facility there, unwilling to allow the rebels to get their hands on it. In the end, one of his own men kills him to save the ship and crew.
Freudian Excuse? Redeeming Qualities?
This was a concern of mine, because Verge does genuinely believe in the Empire. However, his is a cultish, fanatical belief that allows for no room for anything but similar cultish devotion. He is shown to have no regard for the lives of his men, nor the lives of Imperial citizens, only focusing on the annihilation of the disloyal. While Verge's fanaticism could be classified as loyalty, it is twisted and warped beyond recognition as anything positive.
Heinousness
That was my other concern. Verge may be willing to do some awful things, but that's no different from a number of other Imperials (many of whom are C Ms, though, which lessens the concern). However, at least in my opinion, he more than makes up for it by being extraordinarily petty. Even other Imperials hate him, either because of his extreme Sadist tendencies which primarily manifest as a love of torture, which he metes out at every opportunity, or because of his shortsightedness and poor tactical and strategic skills. Reading the novel, I found myself drawing many parallels to Joffrey Baratheon.
Final Verdict
I'm leaving it up to you.
Check out my current fanfiction project.
Verge. I've read the novel and honestly I'm not sure he meets the baseline. There are lots of really awful Imperials and Verge is relatively unremarkable in my opinion. Also, a detail left out of the EP is that his death is treated with a degree of sympathy. The man who kills him, an old general Verge talked out of retirement, feels sorry for him. He also states that Verge choosing to bring him out of retirement was out of kindness and respect. Even though he's pretty awful the book mostly seems to end with him being viewed as pitiable rather than loathsome.
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That's fair. I personally found Verge rather loathsome, but even I questioned whether he actually met the baseline.
Edited by Critica7 on Nov 5th 2019 at 7:44:31 AM
Check out my current fanfiction project.No to Verge. The guy sounds more like a Hate Sink candidate.
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)
to Verge. Though a nitpick.
"The man who kills him, an old general Verge talked out of retirement, feels sorry for him. He also states that Verge choosing to bring him out of retirement was out of kindness and respect."
The kindness and respect thing sounds mitigating, but the thing about The General feeling bad for him isn't IMO. We've had examples where the Hero Dosent like having killed the villain and the Villain still counts.
Things are really about to get Fun around here

So, Lighty, Mir and myself will be proposing numerous candidates from In Death. One candidate who does NOT count is the guy from Visions in Death. Serial Rapist and Serial Killer who's heinous enough, but he was abused by his mother, which irreparably fucked him up. During interrogation, he seems to revert to the abused child. Bad guy, but not a keeper. Though other possible candidates include a Serial Killer, the leader(s) of a terrorist organization responsible for hundreds of deaths, a serial pedophile murderer, a mass shooter, someone responsible for a Hate Plague killing over 100, people who force others to become suicide bombers, and more. The series has been around since 1995, and the standard is near Criminal Minds level (i.e. merely having double-digit victims isn't enough unless the method's notable; Mir will be proposing one of those), so there may be a page.
Mir and Lighty have 4 books each; I got 2 books, plus the final EP for the possible Big Bad of the series who's in 2 other books (I had Visions's non-keeper as well).
Edited by ACW on Nov 5th 2019 at 8:23:29 AM