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
Has anyone called the new Fast and Furious cartoon which aired today on Netflix? Because if not I could. I love the films.
Edited by Bullman on Dec 26th 2019 at 7:40:22 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread'Yes' to Grant and Padgett
I'll have a special candidate coming up in the next couple days from some of our own Tropers, but in the meantime, to knock out one I've been putting off for a few weeks? Another G.I. Joe baddie, one that I've only recently decided counts.
What's the work?
G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra is a 2009 action flick about that ragtag military group known as the G.I. Joes, yadda yadda yadda you know the rest.
Who is he?
James "Destro" McCullen is a weapons developer, arms dealer and owner of M.A.R.S. Industries, who uses his company to mask his war mongering ways...and growing terrorist activities.
Despite believing for a long while McCullen failed the heinous standard, I think with help of supplementary material, he's deserving of a bit more discussion...
What has he done?
McCullen has been supplying terrorists and war criminals with weapons for years, and one of these incidents is shown in a prequel comic to the movie. Meeting with a group of French terrorists, McCullen, realizing the French police have zeroed in on the buy, allows the terrorists to use some M.A.R.S. weapons to blow the cops away....and ultimately tricks the terrorists into getting themselves killed as they mishandle the weapons, which McCullen is just fine with given they were planning to cheat him.
Calling for a hovercraft for his rescue, McCullen crashes it through a building and kills a variety of French police officers, nearly downing a helicopter in the process as well but restraining himself so as to not give himself too much of a rep with the local police, instead using a surviving terrorist as a human shield to enable his escape.
Now, onto the events of the film...
Teaming with the mysterious "Doctor", McCullen has him develop the powerful "Nanites", nanobots capable of reducing their surroundings to ashes in seconds, and prepares a scheme with them. Using the nanites, McCullen has the Doctor turrn entire groups of ordinary men into Neo-Vipers, injecting the nanites into them and turning them into supersoldiers. As supplementary material reveals, the Neo-Vipers are controlled by the nanites to be "perfect" soldiers, keeping the men completely aware of their surroundings and their wills—as well as any pain they feel—but unable to do anything without McCullen's go-ahead. The Doctor also installs kill switches into the Neo-Vipers, and McCullen doesn't hesitate to order a captured Neo-Viper be executed through this method to keep him quiet.
Creating four nanite warheads and selling them to the military, McCullen arranges for Neo-Vipers to massacre the military convoy transporting them, with only a handful of the soldiers surviving thanks to the interference of the G.I. Joes.
Using his connections with the military to locate the G.I. Joe headquarters known as the Pit, McCullen sends his army to slaughter their way into the Joe base and retrieve the nanite warheads. Upon reobtaining the warheads, McCullen has Storm Shadow and the Baroness test it out by firing it on Paris, planning to wipe the entire city off the map, and though the Joes stop the nanites from spreading, they nonetheless destroy the Eiffel tower and kill many people.
Capturing the G.I. Joe soldier Duke, McCullen gleefully reveals his plans to turn him into a controlled Neo-Viper to be used as a tool, while bragging about the fact that Baroness—Ana—is under his control to an extent through nanites as well, and he mocks Duke over his failed romance with her.
Having Storm Shadow kill Baroness's "public" husband Baron Decobray when his use runs out (but mostly due to his jealousy over Baroness), McCullen prepares to fire the remaining three nanite warheads at Beijing, Moscow and Washington, D.C. to throw the world into chaos, at which point McCullen's true master plan will be in motion: Using the master of disguise Zartan to replace the President of the United States, allowing McCullen to control America through him and spread M.A.R.S. Industries' control of the weapons industry worldwide and bring "order" to the world.
As the nanite missiles are stopped by various Joes, McCullen is shocked as Duke manages to break Ana's nanite mind control, leading the Doctor to hold Ana hostage with the nanites. McCullen...seems surprisingly ok with this despite his seeming care for Baroness, and uses the distraction of Ana's life in danger to mock Duke over how he failed the woman before grabbing a blowtorch and trying to burn Duke alive (with Ana in the firing zone here), but luckily Duke blasts McCullen in time to redirect the flame and setting McCullen on fire.
The Doctor then uses the chaos of the Joes overwhelming the base to inject nanites into McCullen and turn him into his loyal slave, dubbing him "Destro" before proclaiming himself to be the Cobra Commander and assuming control of M.A.R.S. Industries.
McCullen is eventually captured and locked away in prison with the Commander, before being left to die by said Commander during a prison break that destroys the entire prison, killing "Destro" seemingly for good.
Freudian Excuse or other redeeming features?
Nah, none here. McCullen has a single flashback in the prequel comic to time with his father, but he shows no actual care for dear old dad, merely listening intently to stories of.his ancestors and how they were all war mongers and weapon developers, a legacy McCullen proudly embraces.
He seems to have something of a romantic attraction for the Baroness/Ana, but it's ultimately a very possessive one, murdering her public husband, spying on her, keeping her under the control of nanites and, finally, culminating in him showing zero concern over the Doctor using her as a hostage and threatening her life.
There is a scene where the Doctor recommends selling nanite missiles on the black market to make extra cash, and McCullen basically responds "No, there's enough wars and chaos in the world. We need order now.", but nothing redeeming about this. McCullen has no problem financing terrorists and selling weapons to them, he's just gotten a new desire in life to rule the world and sees no need to throw more chaotic variables into the equation like nanite missiles in the hands of terrorists while he's trying world domination.
Heinousness?
This is where I believed McCullen fell short for the longest time, namely that McCullen is ultimately a pawn of "the Doctor"/Cobra Commander, who was using M.A.R.S. for his own purposes.
Buuuuut, upon a reevaluation, plus supplementary material? I think McCullen makes it. McCullen may be getting played by the Doctor, but everything he's doing is still of his own volition, without the Doctor's influence. The Doctor is slinking and sliding his way to manipulate events, but McCullen? Gives the orders to fire the nanite missiles, has the military convoys massacred, chooses the highly-populated targets, commissions the Neo-Vipers be created...The Doctor may pull The Starscream, but McCullen is never actually taking orders or being influenced by the Doctor beyond advice and sly words in his ears.
True, the Doctor/Cobra Commander goes onto use a Kill Sat on London and threaten other cities, but given his resources and how he "only" has 4 nanite missiles? McCullen chooses targets with high bodycounts (in the millions is made explicit), and orchestrates murder throughout the film.
Final Verdict?
I think McCullen keeps, upon reevaluating, and will give props to the folks who have brought him up to me before as a potential Keeper but who I questioned.
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Yes to Destro. Played by my second favorite Doctor. My favorite is Peter Capaldi. Has he ever played a CM?
Edited by Bullman on Dec 26th 2019 at 8:03:56 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadAnother unapproved Complete Monster entry I found, this time it was for Voices from H-Prime (which I think is a Star Wars fan work, but it's not properly labeled as one). Anybody who wants to do an EP can feel free to do so, but I cut the entry in the mean-time and linked to the thread.
- Complete Monster: Tak Artur has few redeeming values, if any. When we learn his backstory, it turns out that he obtained his monstrous battleship after murdering a bunch of defenseless young activists who were going to use it to extract survivors from a planet with high radiation levels.
Should the post for Comic/DGN!Liquid Snake be added to a section on here or not really?
Someone should trying doing an EP on the serious video game version of a character whose film version seems too comedic due to the actor playing him. EDIT: Uh...maybe not.
Wrote the EP for this candidate though the day after I saw the movie on 12/14 (so I wrote it on 12/15) but I have edited it since then. Villain played by the Hound himself, Rory McCann. I'm not so sure about this now, but I put some work into it though and if not for something somewhat questionable, would be a pretty easy sell otherwise:
What is the work?
Jumanji: The Next Level is the 2019 sequel to 2017's Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, which in turn was a sequel to 1995's Jumanji (with 2005's Zathura: A Space Adventure, this is the fourth film in the series). This one focuses on nerdy and insecure Spencer Gilpin once again going into the cursed jungle board game turned cursed jungle video game. This time, he's going in to try to bring up his confidence again. His on/off girlfriend Martha Kaply, his best friend Anthony "Fridge" Johnson, his grandpa Eddie and Eddie's estranged friend Milo Walker end up following him in, but due to the damage caused to the game by a bowling ball, they deal with mixed up avatars, a new story and a new villain who one could say is plagued by agency issues, but I may have an answer to that though.
Who is he and what has he done?
Jurgen the Brutal is a bloodthirsty warlord who plagues Jumanji with his havoc. Wielding a machete, he gleefully murders Dr. Smolder Bravestone's parents years before the events of the game and then to steal the prized magical Falcon Jewel, he raids a village of natives, killing a bunch of them and burning their tents (we only hear of the killings there). Nigel Billingsley tells the players/avatars that their job is to retrieve it and hold it up to the sky as the light shines (in fewer more words than that though and as a riddle). Jurgen's next scene has him praising one of his men who died recently while feeding pieces of meat to the man's hyenas, only to then reveal that he killed said man for a failure and the pieces of meat are his remains. He also indicates that he shall do the same to his other men too in the event of any further failures.
Spencer (as Ming Fleetfoot) attempts to steal an important key from Jurgen and loses a life when Jurgen beheads him. Later on, after the characters mix avatars to better fit their skills, Fridge and Bethany Walker (as Franklin "Mouse" Finbar and Dr. Sheldon "Shelly" Oberon respectively) pose as the brothers in order to get the jewel from Jurgen, but expecting to marry the sister of the brothers, he threatens to execute them if he doesn't get the sister.
Martha (as Ruby Roundhouse) shows up to pose as her and when the others show up and Jurgen discovers the deception, he orders them all to be killed. Jurgen attempts to escape in a dirigible and Spencer (now Bravestone again) gives chase and fights him. At first, Spencer is definitely no match for Jurgen, but realizing he has a notable aversion to the Jumanji Berry they collected earlier, Spencer smashes it on him and weakens him. As the dirigible is about to crash, Spencer after hitting Jurgen a bunch more times throws them out of the dirigible and grabs both the jewel and a rope as Jurgen falls to his death.
Heinous standard?
Easily the worst villain. Russell Van Pelt went from being an obsessive hunter to a GDV with no real personality of his own and was possibly influenced by taking the jewel too. This guy is a sadist who kills so causally it is clearly a regular thing. Not to mention the particularly grotesque way he murdered one of his own men. The man makes it a point to be harsh (hence the name Brutal). There's a scene when the players are attacked by ostriches that's kind of Played for Laughs and then the mandrel attack scene may have some jokes, but otherwise is a pretty straightforward action scene.
Another man named Switchblade blows them up with a missile because in the game, Bravestone slept with his wife, but that’s one scene that doesn't display anywhere near the same heinousness. There's a little bit of an unintentional laugh when it's shown that Bravestone's father is also played by Dwayne Johnson, but it's very quick. The horrified expressions of the characters after the cut scene is dark comedy, so it still works. The Zorgons in Zathura were pretty serious and were said to be sadistic, but we didn't see any personality come from them or their actions.
Redeeming qualities? Mitigating factors?
Of course he doesn't have redeeming qualities. He's an unrepentant murderer who says he loves his men, but then will cut them up and feed them to the hyenas when he believes they failed him. That's not love. He also has a keen interest in the arranged marriage, but he doesn't seem genuinely interested in actually having a wife to care for, just a woman to call his own and possess. There's the matter of whether or not he can think for himself because he's not aware he's a character in a game, but my argument to that is the game's story is independent enough that he can still be considered a separate enough entity. It's never really that much of a factor if at all. There's the matter of not realizing Mouse and Sheldon aren't brothers, but one could argue he doesn't know what the brothers look like.
The game story was also rewritten by the damage done to the game, so it also wasn't really in the game's control either. Also, Deadpool was aware he was in a movie, but Ajax (who is not aware of it) counts regardless. I think that same argument (as well as toward stories within stories like Are You Afraid of the Dark?) help prove my point. In the first movie, Van Pelt, while he's still targeting Alan Parrish because he released him from the game, still threatens others and makes it a point to get another gun all on his own to do it too. If the potential moral agency here is an issue though, I totally understand.
Verdict?
Pending discussion, I say
. Technically a Christmas candidate since all the Jumanji movies have scenes that take place around Christmas, especially this one.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Dec 26th 2019 at 9:53:57 AM
I mean...yeah moral agency is the primary issue here. Much like Van Pelt from the first and second films, Jurgen was created by the game to be a villain. Van Pelt changed dramatically between each Jumanji movie to match the new circumstances presented in the game, as in he's basically a completely different person. I see no reason to assume Jurgen is anything other than an extension of Jumanji itself.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.

to Grant and Padgett
HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA