Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

I think both 99% Monster and One Redeeming Quality will only be bait for an Edit War. If both tropes exist, tropers will add who they think qualifies as a Complete Monster. People are bound to fight over those characters and their redeeming quality and I think that the mods will lock up and possibly red link the pages. I am really in favor of what we have right now: a Complete Monster page that is permanently locked and only receives additions if a cleanup thread that closely monitors the trope's use approves of them (meaning there's no redeeming qualities whatsoever).

Relax, I'm sure that wouldn't happen. Probably won't.

Both 99% Monster and One Redeeming Quality are ideas that cannot carry tropes. 99% Monster sounds like something we on this site could call CM candidates who didn't make the cut, but not something to be archived in a trope itself. And One Redeeming Quality sounds flat out awful because for all we know, people could see two or three arguable redeeming qualities in the "examples", and that would cause a whole bunch of trouble. The most we probably could do would be to have two different folder sections on the trope page for Jerkass: examples in different mediums that are Played For Laughs and examples in different mediums that are Played For Drama.

edited 16th Jan '14 10:46:13 AM by ANewMan

What do you think about Augustus Magnussen from Sherlock?

Found us a problem entry. From the Anime & Manga subpage:

•It was suspected since his very first appearences that Mykage Towano from Aquarion Evol was bad news, and this impression turned out to be absolutely right. Sure, it was clear that he was never of Altair's side, and was just pursuing his own interests... and then, in Episode 13, he crossed the Moral Event Horizon (or, at least, got a pretty big Kick the Dog moment) by killing his Anti-Villain subordinate Jin right when he was about to have an Heel-Face Turn, in front of the girl who loved him no less. And then Mykage even had the gall to perform an eulogy for Jin in front of the inhabitants of Altair, in order to better manipulate them to his will. With the series coming to a close, he's now pulling out all the stops, and it's clear that there's no low he would not sink to in order to get his hands on the original Aquarion and have his revenge on Amata and Kagura - for the "heinous crime" of being the two halves of the Winged Hound Pollon (It Makes Sense in Context). It was not bad enough that he manipulated Zessica when she was at her most vulnerable in order to make her his pawn and pull a Grand Theft Me on her, but in Episode 24, he went as far as murder Alicia just to gain a momentary distraction, and then mind control Kagura, the resident Jerkass Woobie, into killing his own father Izumo (another Anti-Villain). In fact, Mykage is an example of this being a Justified Trope, as he turns out to be the incarnation of the hatred harboring within Touma (the Big Bad of the previous series, so it makes sense that he's pretty much Made of Evil.

If he's the living incarnation of somebody else's hatred than his moral agency is shot to pieces. I'd say this one's a cut.

By the way, if there's no objections I'm going to have both Galvatron entries cut from the Transformers subpage.

EDIT: Speaking of Galvatron, this is on the subpage as well.

•Megatron/Galvatron in this continuity - though a Noble Demon in "Armada" - eventually enters Complete Monster territory at about the time he uses the Super Energon in "Energon". In "Cybertron", he goes into full Omnicidal Maniac mode. The point when he's absolutely solidified to be one is during the confrontation between him and the planet leaders in the black hole. When he reveals his A God I Am plan to destroy the universe then recreate it in his own image, he's asked how he plans to save his followers from the fate of the rest of the universe. He doesn't. As far as he's concerned, if they can't survive the end of the world, it's not his problem. At this point, every character present views him as this trope. "It's over Galvatron. You don't care about anybody, and nobody cares about you."

This isn't a very good entry. I'm also doubtful as to whether he qualifies to begin with, given that he was initially a Noble Demon, and that he has to stack with Armada!Sideways, and their version of Unicron, who's probably the most actively malicious version of that character yet. At the very least this needs a better rewrite to remove the You Monster!, and better explain his crimes.

edited 16th Jan '14 11:40:09 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

TV Rulez did a better writeup for Mykage that removes that issue.

For the Sherlock example...how does this guy stack up to Moriarity? I'll okay the Scanners examples, but Maggot is tough. He's a psychopath and a monster, but as to what he does onscreen...

edited 16th Jan '14 12:46:48 PM by Lightysnake

Look what I found on Steins;Gate.

• Complete Monster: Kurisu's father, who is willing to steal his own daughter's work and then kill her to keep her quiet, all out of jealousy since he can't handle the thought of his own daughter being smarter than him.

Kurisu's father is certainly a Jerkass, trying to take credit for his daughter's work. He attempts to kill her, and though he's not the one that stabs her, he's happy to see her dying. Then he takes his daughter's work to Russia (if I remember correctly), which accidentally kickstarts World War 3. Not a nice person, but the only crime he's directly guilty of is attempting to kill his daughter and being happy when she's killed. There are several other killers in the show, and overall he's a minor character, so I lean cut.

What do you mean? Does that mean Mykage isn't the manifestation of a person's hatred?

TV Rulez apparently knows the show, but Mykage has agency from what I've heard

No I'm not familiar with the show. I just took out the Justified Trope bit and removed the spoiler tags.

edited 16th Jan '14 1:38:20 PM by TVRulezAgain

Eh, cut and let someone argue for him later then

If I feel like it this weekend I may do some research and improve some of the Discworld entries. Then onto Lit.

edited 16th Jan '14 2:18:36 PM by ACW

At the very least this needs a better rewrite to remove the You Monster!, and better explain his crimes.

About that. While I know You Monster! and Complete Monster are not always connected, it sometimes has to be considered for the candidates qualification because the second criteria for the trope is: The character's terribleness is played seriously at all times, evoking fear, revulsion and hatred from the other characters in the story. When fear, revulsion, and hatred is evoked within characters, they often express it with a You Monster! to the Complete Monster. So what I see as problematic with the FAQ's statement of "You Monster! is a statement of an individual character's standards, not the story's" is that individual character's standards are part of judging a CM and their heinousness according to the trope page criteria. Basically, You Monster! is not a guarantee that we have an example on our hands, but it could at the most be a factor among many others we must consider.

edited 16th Jan '14 2:21:13 PM by ANewMan

That...is actually a very good point. Especially in some darker works...

You Monster! is indeed a factor worth considering; the character must be seen as heinous in-story as well as by the audience.

Exactly. It's not an absolute decider that the villain being shouted You Monster! at is a Complete Monster like misuse might suggest. Only a possible factor worth consideration.

edited 16th Jan '14 2:41:14 PM by ANewMan

In this particular instance, however, it's not. It's Optimus Prime declaring that nobody likes Galvatron, which is a pretty useless measure of what the story thinks of him, what with them being archenemies and all. It's not an actual description of his character or anything useful like that; just Prime declaring that no one cares about the (apparent) Omnicidal Maniac.

For Mykage Towano from Aquarion Evol, is the consensus to cut until someone proves he has agency?

That's what I say.

I have research some more of the Spawn comics and I am beginning to think Clown/Violator might count.

Clown/Violator started off as Spawn's Evil Mentor, though he seemed to do random things For the Evulz. He started off by ripping the hearts out some mob bosses. He also eventually kidnapped Cyan, the 3 year old daughter of Spawn's widow Wanda. Violator framed Spawn for the kidnapping and was planning on killing Cyan with a glass of poisoned milk eventually.

The worse thing Clown/Violator did though, was during the night of the Clowns arc. Clown's spirit possessed Jason Wynn and turned Wynn into a serial killer. Clown in Wynn's body would hire prostitutes that look like Wanda and kill them. Later Clown used his powers to turn other people into "clowns", which turned them into violent psychopaths who then went on a rampage across NYC.

Clown later saved the life of a guy named Barney Saunders, but Clown did not do that as an act of charity, he needed a new body to posses, choose Barney's. In Barney's body used his powers to force the residents of Barney's apartment building to commit murder and other acts of violence. Later in that arc, he tried to open a portal to kill to allow his demon brothers to escape to the Earth plane and cause more havoc.

It seems like every good deed Clown does is somehow subverted, saving a guy's life to posses his body to spread more terror. Now once Clown borrowed some of Spawn's powers on the condition he return it later and Clown kept his word and returned the powers. But Clown could have done that for his own amusement or even more likely, knew that Spawn was important to Hell's long term plans and did not want to upset some of the higher level demon lords. I wouldn't take that as an act of kindness or honor, Clown has done too many pointless cruel things to Spawn for that to be the case.

Hmmm...how does compare to Mammon?

There a few other examples in the Transformers page that need attention.

• Lockdown killed his old master (as well as The Obi-Wan to Prowl and Jazz) to steal Transformer protoforms in order to sell them and tortures his bounty hunting victims by cutting off their specific upgrades and using them to make himself more powerful. He enjoys hunting more for the thrill of the chase and the chance to vivisect his victims than anything else.

Needs expansion.

• Overlord in the Last Stand of The Wreckers is probably the perfect example of the Complete Monster trope in Transformers fiction. He's one of the most powerful Decepticons but unlike the others he doesn't give a damn about the cause, or conquest, or even defeating the Autobots. He just wants to kill anything and everything he can, in as many sick and twisted ways as possible. He horrifies all Cybertronians, Autobot and Decepticon alike, and Megatron was wary of him that he had Shockwave alter his brain so that Overlord could never beat him. When he took over Garrus 9, he essentially turned it into a cross between a concentration camp and a gladiatorial arena, with torture, murder, and prisoners being forced to fight to the death for his own sick amusement. Nothing any other Transformers villain has done really compares to the pure evil that Overlord is guilty of.

Not enough relevant info.

• There are two non-Cybertronian characters from G1 to earn this status. First is King Nergill, the ruler of an Atlantis-like city that wanted to wipe out the human race and almost did the same to the Autobots. When Nergill allied himself with the Decepticons, he ultimately tuned on them when he decided he didn't need them any more. The second is Lord Chumly, a hunter who became bored with regular game and decided to hunt Optimus Prime for sport. Not only that, but Chumly kidnapped several other Autobots and put them in Death Traps to lure Optimus to him!

Both of them have little context, and I'm not sure what header it should go under.

@Ambar: Yeah, had it been something like "You're so bad that no one, not even your own followers, truly care about you.", maybe it'd be something. But just "You care for no one, thus no one cares for you" could be said of plenty of villains, maybe even of Decepticons who aren't examples of the trope.

If the writeup for Junko is to go anywhere, does this look appropriate?

• Danganronpa: Teen Idol Junko Enoshima turns out to be the mastermind behind the Big Bad Monokuma, a sadistic robotic teddy bear who's trapped Hope's Peak Accadamey in a deadly game designed to create Sanity Slippage that makes the students turn on each other and comitt murder. When a murderer is found guilty, Monokuma gives him or her a twisted, torturous execution of his choosing, and throughout the game he relishes in twisting the knife in the cruelest ways possible For the Evulz. It turns out that not only is Monokuma just one of Junko's multiple personalities, but Junko caused the Worst, Most Despair-Inducing Incident In The History Of Mankind which has turned the world into a post-apolaclyptic waste. A masochist and a sadist with a fetish for despair, Junko's goal is to not only bring despair to every student in the school, but to send the world into ultimate despair by broadcasting "the game" live for the rest of the world to see, forcing everyone to abandon all hope of overcoming despair. To make this happen, she murdered the previous headmaster of the school, and also murdered her own twin sister Mukuro Ikusaba so she could pull a Twin Switch with her. And this is after she had abused Mukuro all her life, the sickest part being that she was unable to comprehend how Mukuro could not enjoy such despair-inducing treatment.

edited 16th Jan '14 5:01:38 PM by ANewMan

@ ACW, Mammon has a bigger rap sheet then Clown, but I think that is because Mammon is a high level demon lord, while Violator/Clown is a mid level demon. Violator/Clown is not as powerful as Mammon and indeed Clown would do things on Mammon's orders. Its like a really powerful Big Bad with a Psycho for Hire minion, who is less powerful, but still dangerous.

edited 16th Jan '14 5:19:45 PM by TheOverlord

If Clown is as bad as he could be with his powers, sure

EDIT: Say, do Malebolgia or Wynn count?

edited 16th Jan '14 5:53:11 PM by ACW