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Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

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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:

     Previous Post 
Complete Monster Cleanup Thread

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] 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

therealjackieboy from Austin, TX Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#217201: Jun 11th 2020 at 2:30:15 PM

Anybody already called Resident Evil 8? Wouldn't mind collaborating if somebody already reserved it.

It's Spooky Month!
PurpleEyedGuma Since: Apr, 2020
#217202: Jun 11th 2020 at 2:54:40 PM

[up][up][up] But hardware-wise, what can it do?

EDIT: Crap, we’re getting off-topic . . .

Edited by PurpleEyedGuma on Jun 11th 2020 at 5:55:00 AM

futuremoviewriter Since: Jun, 2014
#217203: Jun 11th 2020 at 2:58:12 PM

@ACW Yes very iconic. Which of the captions for the cement bath that I suggested (I would personally go with “Not the bath Big Boy! Not the bath!”)? Also, what for the page quote then?

I would find the appropriate images. That said, I got to get back to work. Excuse me please.

43110 (Striking Back) Relationship Status: Reincarnated romance
#217204: Jun 11th 2020 at 3:01:05 PM

I'm sure Lighty would be down to take it with you jack.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#217205: Jun 11th 2020 at 3:07:16 PM

Lighty, I know you did a lot of the Tracy entries. Got a good page quote?

nwotyzal Since: Sep, 2019
#217207: Jun 11th 2020 at 3:11:13 PM

@futuremoviewriter sorry I didn't respond to you sooner, working on summer school for extra credit. Just find pictures of both scenes, preferably the cement bath.

DrUnknown Since: May, 2020
#217208: Jun 11th 2020 at 3:39:28 PM

Here's a potential candidate I found from a Lord of the Rings fanfic.

What's the Work

Hideous Treachery is a short Lord of the Rings fanfiction that shows a What If? scenario if Sauron managed to reclamin the One Ring. Specifically, Frodo was able to overpower Gollum when he ambushed him and Sam on Mount Doom, but the confrontation gave the Nazgûl the time needed to scale Mount Doom and reclaim the One Ring. However, Frodo is still under the influence of the One Ring, so he initially feigns loyalty to Sauron, waiting for his chance to take the One Ring for himself. Initially, it plays out like a grimdark and Ron the Death Eater fanfic, but (thankfully) it actually never reaches grimdark levels and the Ron the Death Eater trope gets subverted and deconstructed in the end. Besides, the candidate of this work isn't Frodo; it's Sauron.

Who is Sauron and What has he Done?

As in canon, Sauron is the Dark Lord of Mordor who was destroyed in the Second Age and needs to acquire the One Ring to regain his physical form and continue his war against Middle-Earth. As implied in the synopsis above, Sauron regains said physical form after regaining the One Ring, in which his forces also captured Frodo and Sam. Instead of killing both of them, Sauron wants to turn them into his loyal servants, in which he plans to lock them in his dungeon and torture them. He first breaks their hope by showing his forces destroy the the heroes' forces at Udûn (where the final battle of the Lord of the Rings took place). Eventually, Sauron captures Gaffer Gamgee and promised to spare him if Sam swore loyalty again. Of course, Sam refused and thus Sauron kills Gaffer in front of Sam, before taking Frodo and Sam away to the dungeon.

Some time has passed and Sam succumbed to the wounds, allowing Frodo to become more corrupted to the One Ring. Eventually, Frodo planned to steal the One Ring from Sauron by swearing loyalty to him and denouncing his former friends and allies. Given that Frodo is battered and seemingly expresses hopelessness (after all, he believes that all of his friends are dead and he's solely driven by the One Ring at this point), Sauron buys it, expressing satisfaction in turning Frodo into his servant.

More time passes and Sauron has already conquered most of the Middle Earth. Those who aren't slaughtered are given a fate that isn't much better than death. The men work as slaves for Sauron's empire, while the treatment of women is never revealed (Thank God). Additionally, all of the hobbits and dwarves are slaughtered under Sauron's reign. Sauron also instituted the brainwashing of children, in which they were beign forced to idolize Sauron. To gain Sauron's trust, Frodo works as a teacher in one of these educational institutions, but when Sauron learns that Frodo needs to punish one boy, Sauron decides to witness how Frodo carries out said punishment to determine how loyal he really is. To Sauron's pleasure, Frodo beats said boy, albeit reluctantly.

Eventually, Frodo climbed the ranks of Sauron to become another Ringwraith of his, but the temptation of the One Ring finally drives him to betray Sauron by stealing the One Ring from him and thus causing him to lose his physical form, successfully overthrowing him. However, the other heroes manage to take the One Ring from Frodo in turn and successfully destroy it at Mount Doom, freeing Frodo from its influence. Sauron's brought to trial by the men, elves, dwarves and hobbits in Manwë, in which he is sentenced to the Outer Darkness to await further trial by Illuvatar. Ultimately, the horrors of Sauron's reign are undone when a genuinely remorseful Frodo is given a second chance to reverse his mistake when he was originally at Mount Doom, in which the events from canon proceed from there; The One Ring is destroyed and Sauron is reduced to a formless spirit.

Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?

Sauron doesn't have a single mitigating factor or Freudian Excuse to his name. He's also not the Generic Doomsday Villain he is in the film trilogy, in which he's a Smug Snake and sadistic Evil Overlord here. He also has no love for his minions like Frodo, as he only wants them as his mindless slaves and nothing more.

As mentioned previously, this fanfic features themes of torture and slavery, but it doesn't reach egregious levels and there are no grimdark crimes like raping children and such. It's also not a Ron the Death Eater fanfic, as mentioned previously as well.

Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?

Although Morgoth is mentioned once or twice, none of his crimes are ever present or even mentioned, so he's discounted from the heinousness standard. Most of Frodo's crimes are all connected back to Sauron's orders and the crimes he does commit after overthrowing Sauron don't match the scale or heinousness of Sauron's crimes. In other words, Sauron easily passes the heinousness standard, given that he tortures both Frodo and Sam, while also enslaving and committing genocide against Middle Earth.

Final Verdict?

A surprising [tup], given that this fanfic initially plays out like a grimdark and Ron the Death Eater fic and then subverts and deconstructs these genres.

Edited by DrUnknown on Jun 11th 2020 at 3:39:40 AM

SkyCat32 The Draftsman of Doom (Five Year Plan) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
The Draftsman of Doom
#217210: Jun 11th 2020 at 3:44:59 PM

Interesting. Yes to Sauron.

falcontalons from Earth-2 Since: Apr, 2019
Beast from Ontario, Canada Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Browsing the selection
#217212: Jun 11th 2020 at 4:19:02 PM

[tup] Sauron and Wasp King.

"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."
G-Editor The 47th President Since: Mar, 2015 Relationship Status: Above such petty unnecessities
TiMBer1566 kittykat from Virginia Since: Nov, 2018 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
kittykat
#217214: Jun 11th 2020 at 4:33:42 PM

Sure to Sauron. How many versions is that now?

falcontalons from Earth-2 Since: Apr, 2019
#217215: Jun 11th 2020 at 4:34:16 PM

[up]4, I think.

[down]There are 2 from video games; one from Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor and one from The Lord of the Rings: Conquest.

Edited by falcontalons on Jun 11th 2020 at 4:53:28 AM

nwotyzal Since: Sep, 2019
#217216: Jun 11th 2020 at 4:51:26 PM

[up]theres the books, Shadow of Mordor, and this, so 3

Edit: my mistake @falcontalons, you're right. Another one to add to the pile of characters at 4.

Also [tup]Sauron

Edited by nwotyzal on Jun 11th 2020 at 4:59:25 AM

Kylotrope Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it) from Honolulu Hawaii Since: Apr, 2018
Barb(Its a thread joke you wouldn't get it)
#217217: Jun 11th 2020 at 4:52:23 PM

[tup] to the Wasp King, gonna miss ya once all is said and done Fried

Things are really about to get Fun around here
SumDumNerd LOCKDOWN PROCEDURES ENGAGED from [REDACTED] Since: May, 2017 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
Libraryseraph uu~ from Canada (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: Raising My Lily Rank With You
uu~
#217220: Jun 11th 2020 at 5:40:52 PM

[tup] to Sauron

HAPPY HALLOWEEN FOR MARIA
FriedWarthog Since: Jun, 2014 Relationship Status: Crazy Cat Lady
#217221: Jun 11th 2020 at 5:46:30 PM

Well, I hope you guys have fun playing all those cool new PS 5 games! I know I sure will, lol. Kinda sad that I chose to stop doing this right when Spider-Man: Miles Morales and HZD 2 were announced, but I trust Lighty to do a good job if anyone in those games are worth effortposting.

Anyway, Wasp King's gone pretty smoothly. I'd like to see if anyone else would like to weigh in on him before writing him up, but until then I think I'll just throw all caution to the wind and go for those unnamed roach scientists I mentioned.

Who are the roach scientists?

While the Wasp King was not a wasp or a legitimate king, these guys are actually roaches and actual scientists! Completely amoral mad scientists, but hey: by all accounts they got their credentials legitimately.

But anyway, these guys are a smaller fatter orange roach and a taller thinner yellow roach respectively, and they seem to be the ones in charge of a lab hidden in the dangerous Snakemouth Lair, a cave housing an artifact that will help unlock the Everlasting Sapling. They died long, long ago but the results of their experiments are around to this day. And as it turns out, they had a part to play in Leif's dark, messed up past.

What have they done?

Since the Everlasting Sapling was nearly impossible to find, they decided to circumvent the tree altogether and see if they could achieve immortality with the power of SCIENCE! And in order to do so, they plunged deep into depravity with experiments involving little magical crystals and cordyceps fungi and turned all sorts of bugs into unwilling test subjects. Some seem to have been treasure hunters who got lost while trying to find Snakemouth Den's actual treasure, while others, such as the beetles, were kidnapped. And each and every test subject was horribly converted into a mindless, monstrous cordyceps zombie, a fate which befell a number of ants, beetles, bees, and one moth that we know about.

One of their experiments actually resulted in a sentient bundle of cordyceps... that the scientists tossed out in disgust, viewing it as a failure. That fungus would eventually find the corpse of Leif, a moth explorer left behind by his friends, and would reanimate his body decades later and lead him to becoming one of the biggest heroes in Bugaria's history. And the roaches? Karma would bite them in the ass when they decided to specifically try to use the cordyceps fungus to make supersoldiers, and turned a moth into a particularly powerful mutant called Zommoth. Zommoth was supposed to be an immortal guardian who'd protect them, but it was uncontrollable and trashed the facility, killing the scientists and leaving an empty, burned out lab behind. A lab that would go hidden until the present day, and stand as a grim reminder of the depraved depths some bugs would sink in their pursuit of immortality, while their zombified victims would haunt it's halls.

Are they heinous by the standards of the story?

Hell yes. They outstrip mostly everyone by a county mile with their twisted experiments, and only the Wasp King measures up to them. And since being a power hungry, abusive dictator is a whole different ballgame from kidnapping people and zombifying them, it's safe to say that they're distinct enough to prevent from stepping on one another's toes.

Any mitigating factors or a valid Freudian Excuse?

Well, this is the tricky part. Because thanks to the fact that they're long dead and all we have to go on is an abandoned lab where not a lot of information survived, we know very little about these guys. They appear in three different video clips, two of them appearing in separate videos where they're just clinically talking about the less horrifying aspects of their experiments, and one clip at the end of this horrifying ordeal where both scientists get rid of the Cordyceps experiment that would become Leif with casual disdain. Similarly, they have notes laying around, some of which also cover non-horrific scientific materials as well as instructions for their staff.

But others do at least show how callous and heartless they are: one set of notes has the head scientists heartlessly remark that "From all the fools that fall here, moths seem to be the best hosts (for cordyceps). It seems they have a better body suitable for magic. Maybe we should go out and try to get some more of them", while the notes where they respond to a lesser scientist's concern with them arrogantly stating that they don't care about the risks related to creating Zommoth, because they're close to making something that will surpass gods.

And that's all we know as far as personality goes, so do you guys think it's enough? They definitely have the deeds to count, and we know that they sure as hell don't have good intentions since the game spells out that they were committing unethical and disgusting experiments for the sake of obtaining power equal to that of gods. And in case anyone asks, this is not normal roach behavior. When you talk to one of the surviving roaches guarding the Everlasting Sapling, they find out about the horrific experiments in Snakemouth Lair and react with appropriate disgust, even going as far as to say that the scientists got what they deserved with their deaths.

Final Thoughts

Well, this will be one of my hardest sells ever since the scientists only get a few text blurbs and one scene to showcase their personality. Then again, several Dark Souls villains managed to count through similar criteria but even they had names. Very curious to see how this goes.

Edited by FriedWarthog on Jun 11th 2020 at 6:17:58 AM

DrUnknown Since: May, 2020
43110 (Striking Back) Relationship Status: Reincarnated romance
#217223: Jun 11th 2020 at 6:17:21 PM

Substantive crimes and enough in recorded videos for us to get a sense of what they're like: yes to the scientists.

NJRhino Since: May, 2020
#217224: Jun 11th 2020 at 6:46:56 PM

[tup] Sauron and the roach scientists

Michealthehero21 Since: Jan, 2019 Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]

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