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
Hummel is the Big Bad. It’s his plan and he drives the plot, it’s in the last ~15 minutes he calls it off and Frye and Darrow betray and fatally wound him to basically just continue what he had going. As for hierarchy? Doesn’t really matter, Frye at one point seeming to give an order to Darrow implies the latter is The Dragon but that’s as far as it goes.
I'm opposed to cutting the Klinefelds. Their 'shared fetish' aspect is unique, with 4 victims and 2 attempted, and a unique cruelty of raping and torturing women as the husbands are forced to watch and forcing the men to mercy kill the women.
This is a firmly unique aspect to others on the list and a level of especially twisted cruelty that I think carves them as unique.
Edited by Lightysnake on Jun 12th 2020 at 12:17:31 PM
What Lighty said. Admittedly, I'm not unbiased since I added them, in the dark foggy days before the thread.
Incidentally, what prompted me to add them was learning from my mother, a huge fan of the show, that their MO was so revolting to her that this is one of two episodes she refuses to ever watch again. The other, if you're curious, was the one with the girl with the obsession with ripping out chunks of her own flesh.
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Michelle Baldiwn and her husband do the same thing with 12 victims though. Same with Gina Sinclair and her boyfriend w/o also rape kids too.
The forced to watch isn't unique too. Theirs a villain in csi Miami who murders a dudes wife and daughter in front of him by having them stabbed to death. Or Trent Reager who forces people into murdering their loved ones too.
Edited by miraculous on Jun 12th 2020 at 12:37:53 PM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."I have a question regarding Captain Vidal's entry
:
Am i alone think that there are bunch of unnecessary stuff there and the fact that the entry missing his other crimes like leading the attacks on the rebels and killing a bunch of them and desire to install fascist regime (being the big proponent for "new clean Spain").
In any case, i think the entry could be shortened and since i can't do it without permission, can i ask if its will be good to rewrite it or if the author of the original entry must do it?
Abstain on the Klinefelds since I'm unsure; normally serial murderers and torturers would be an obvious keep but the heinous standard of CSI/cop shows is absolutely ridiculous so I'm unsure of how they play up against all the other serial killers/rapists/generic criminals of the week
Edited by WaryHoglet on Jun 12th 2020 at 12:52:35 PM
Fact is, though? If all we can come up with is another pair who kinda mimics it, I'm still inclined to keep the Klinefelds especially with the forced mercy kill.
I wrote Vidal's entry, so I may be a TOUCH biased, btw. I'd rather we stop trying to just hack them down and make them kind of sterile, too.
Edited by Lightysnake on Jun 12th 2020 at 12:54:26 PM
Is their some drive to shorten every cm entry on the site I've missed. Leave it.
Oh I don't mind honestly either way on the klinfields just pointing it out. Though if we're keeping them. Would any one mind if I tried for this dude. Jason Caplin
, mass murderer of his own four family members including a baby by shooting them in the back.
Edited by miraculous on Jun 12th 2020 at 12:56:57 PM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."Meh dont really care either way.
Would anyone be okay for this expansion to John Smith of Cold case
- Original: "John Smith", real name unknown, is possibly the most horrific Serial Killer seen on the show. Disturbed since childhood, he described the sight of watching a woman drown while doing nothing to save her as the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen, and dedicated his adult life to replicating that "beauty". Abducting women who were perfectly happy with their lives, Smith brought them to special cellars where he sealed them off, watching as they went insane from isolation before finally leaving them there to starve.
- Rewrite: "John Smith", real name unknown, is a depraved Serial Killer whose motivations amount to amusing himself. Disturbed since childhood, Smith once witnessed a woman drowning and didn't help her, getting off on the feeling off seeing somone lose all hope and die and sets about replicating it. Posing as a videographer to attract victims, Smith lures in women with happy lives and something to live for be it their family, a wedding or their religion and then kidnaps them before locking them in special cellars. Smith then psychologically torments them until they finally break and give up hope, wherein he fully seals the cellars and leaves them to starve to death.
Sighlty larger but with more details and and the addition of his full MO.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."

Whoever; I'm fine as long as it's in the Drafts