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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

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#221751: Jul 19th 2020 at 3:47:54 PM

Hmm, good point. PSOC?

EDIT: Ah, people sit on chairs.

I'll keep it for now though.

Edited by ACW on Jul 19th 2020 at 6:51:04 AM

ImperialMajestyXO Since: Nov, 2015
#221752: Jul 19th 2020 at 3:51:23 PM

Some pothole ideas:

And that's all I have for the moment

SkyCat32 The Draftsman of Doom (Five Year Plan) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
The Draftsman of Doom
#221753: Jul 19th 2020 at 3:53:03 PM

It doesn't have a TRS yet, but it is not out of the question.

Maybe replace that pothole with a Bad Boss pothole, for now?

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#221754: Jul 19th 2020 at 3:55:52 PM

Hmm, Control Freak for his name, Playing with Syringes around "constant experimentation"?

DemonDuckofDoom from Some Pond in Hell Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#221755: Jul 19th 2020 at 3:58:41 PM

[tup] Nyarly, Bribery and Strange

[tdown] Faora

Abstain on Livia and Margo til N gets back to us.

Another quote:

"I was old before this world was even born. I watched my brothers rule for a thousand years until little worms like you overcame them. But I am not my brothers. I am older than they are, greater. I have devoured stars and shattered worlds. I have sired whole races, populated entire planes, and then hunted them to extinction for my amusement."
-Nicol Bolas, Magic: The Gathering: Emperor's Fist

ImperialMajestyXO Since: Nov, 2015
#221756: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:00:35 PM

[up] Good quote... but the end bit is already the caption for the image at Monster.Tabletop Games.

Also, for Vincent, maybe you could work in an ephebophile or Serial Rapist pothole somewhere?

MGD107 Since: Feb, 2015
#221757: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:04:06 PM

[tup] to Charles Blaubart, Mr. Bribery and Professor Hugo Strange (really glad he's up, he's one of my favourites as well and I agree he's so often so tragically wasted. Shame about Post Crisis Strange, as its so out of character do you think it could be chalked down to Depending on the Writer or does he just not have enough appearances for that?)

Edited by MGD107 on Jul 19th 2020 at 4:04:23 AM

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#221758: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:04:58 PM

Serial Rapist around "countless other kids" works.

This quote was in the Drafts.

House: "Tell me why I shouldn't just kill you both now."
Amy: "Well, because... Rory, why?"
Rory: "Because... killing us quickly wouldn't be any fun. And you need fun, don't you? That's what Uncle and Auntie were for, wasn't it? Someone to make suffer. I had a PE teacher just like you. You need to be entertained, and killing us quickly... wouldn't be entertainment..."
House: "So entertain me. Run."
Doctor Who, "The Doctor's Wife"

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#221759: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:06:07 PM

I'm lenient to briefly appearing villains if they have standout crimes. Faora doesn't. Kryptonians are, in a word, Superman tier. A one-shot Kryptonian to stick out needs to be getting into mass murder, genocide, planetary destruction or something to that end

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#221760: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:09:02 PM

Remember guys. Post crisis Zod I also only appeared for three issues but you know orchestrated the genocide of earth in it.

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#221761: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:10:52 PM

Is that the Zod we have up, or is that a different Zod?

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#221762: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:11:43 PM

The zod we have up.

He's from the three parter The Supergirl Saga

Edited by miraculous on Jul 19th 2020 at 4:12:22 AM

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
nwotyzal Since: Sep, 2019
#221763: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:13:37 PM

[up]Didn't the writeup say that that version of Zod was an alternate reality version?

miraculous Goku Black (Apprentice)
Goku Black
#221764: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:15:10 PM

Did you actually read the entry. He was the first version of Zod to appear in post crisis.

Edited by miraculous on Jul 19th 2020 at 4:15:23 AM

"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
M1st3rSt3v3 Since: Jul, 2017 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
#221765: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:27:08 PM

I would like to recommend another quote. This one's from the Masters of Horror episode The Washingtonians

"I will skin your children and eat them. Upon finishing, I shall fashion utensils out of their bones."
— The Letter of G.W. Masters of Horror, The Washingtonians.

Edited by M1st3rSt3v3 on Jul 19th 2020 at 7:28:22 AM

Ravok Son of Liberty from Big Shell Since: Jun, 2015 Relationship Status: Complex: I'm real, they are imaginary
Son of Liberty
#221766: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:31:34 PM

I like the quote, DDD!

@MGD: Yeah, it's really frustrating. The comic Batman and the Monster Men—which was written by Matt Wagner in 2006 as a "prequel" to Strange's other appearances, most of which were written by Doug Moench—gives him Sanjay, who Strange seems to genuinely respect and like, and when Sanjay is shot dead, Strange shouts his name and checks on him as he dies.

Sanjay is never mentioned again, the comic is written by someone who had never written Strange before (and comes after most of his crimes and appearances since it's a prequel), and even Strange's design is radically weird, depicting him as practically a dwarf, which greatly contrasts his other appearances, but it's still technically Post-Crisis.

If there's enough interest, I can give Post-Crisis Strange an effortpost, as I think he's possibly heinous enough, it's just that one redeeming feature is pretty blatantly disqualifying unless Depending on the Writer can be thrown in, which is iffy about comics I know.

No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!
DemonDuckofDoom from Some Pond in Hell Since: Sep, 2015 Relationship Status: Showing feelings of an almost human nature
#221767: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:35:30 PM

Oh, Nicol's quote is already up? Oops.

@ACW: Yeah, I proposed it a couple days ago but it didn't get upvoted till last night.

DrUnknown Since: May, 2020
#221769: Jul 19th 2020 at 4:42:13 PM

[tup] to the Nicol Bolas and George Washington quotes.

nwotyzal Since: Sep, 2019
Bullman Enid Sinclair Since: Jun, 2018 Relationship Status: Longing for my OTP
SkyCat32 The Draftsman of Doom (Five Year Plan) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
The Draftsman of Doom
#221772: Jul 19th 2020 at 5:33:26 PM

Someone altered the CM entry on YMMV.Code 8, so I took the liberty of reverting it.

ImperialMajestyXO Since: Nov, 2015
#221773: Jul 19th 2020 at 5:44:03 PM

[tup] to the Washington quote (honestly, I'm still amazed that we have a depiction of him up)

@miraculous: That's Post-Crisis continuity, though.

WarJay77 It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000) from My Writing Cave (Troper Knight) Relationship Status: Armed with the Power of Love
It's NaNo, Bay-beeee! (10,238/50,000)
#221774: Jul 19th 2020 at 6:05:32 PM

EDIT: This is the updated version of the EP, condensed and polished.


What's the work?

House of Anubis is a mystery and drama show broadcast on Nickelodeon and TeenNick. It centers around the students of Anubis House, specifically the Sibuna club, a team of teeange mystery solvers who get into a lot of Egypt-themed hijinks and often have to deal with evil or shady teachers. The protagonist in the third season is Eddie, the Osirian, and his friend KT.

In season 3, a new teacher arrives at the school. Her name is Miss Denby, and she's the candidate.

What does she do?

While she initially seems to be a pretty cool teacher compared to others at the school, it's almost immediately obvious something isn't right with her. Not only does the audience get to see her sneaking around with Victor (recurring antagonist / the kid's housefather) and Mr. Sweet (the school's headmaster, Eddie's dad, and Victor's previous ally), but she also has a lot of weird things in her house- one of which is a man in a tank. She's obsessed with this man and it's creepy.

The kids start to catch on as well. First, Eddie and KT start to investigate, and then Sibuna (minus Nina, who was Put on a Bus) also begin to get suspicious. While Eddie and KT are making pretty decent progress in finding out how shady she is, Sibuna is having a harder go of it. Eddie and KT discover that she might not be who she says she is, but for Sibuna, Amber accidentally gets left behind during a house investigation.

She finds her way to the tank room and gets stuck there overnight, only to be caught by Denby. Once Mr. Sweet and Victor get involved, Amber is not only forced to lie to her visiting father about what happened, but also to apologize to to the teachers, and then is blackmailed into betraying her friends. It's honestly a pretty hard episode to watch, considering Amber herself is Put on a Bus after this event. Victor was the primary person to put Amber through this, but Denby was involved for sure and was pretty mean when catching Amber. Oh, and after this point, Eddie and KT join Sibuna.

So, what about KT and Eddie's discovery? Well, turns out Miss Denby isn't who she says she is. She claims to be Harriet Denby, but a background check revealed someone else to be Harriet Denby. No, our Denby is Caroline Denby, Harriet's evil adoptive sister. Harriet had a special role to play in a ceremony regarding that tank man, who we learn is Robert Frobisher-Smythe, thought-to-be-deceased Egyptologist. He's in a curse-coma and needs to be awakened, and Harriet was one of the ones meant to wake him up. Caroline wanted the glory of doing it and so stole her sister's identity, locked her up in a mental ward, and is living her life while her sister slowly goes genuinely mad (partially due to being drugged).

Caroline wanting to awaken Robert is a pretty bad thing, too. Robert must be awoken by people who are pure of heart. An impure heart like Caroline's would corrupt the ceremony and thus corrupt him. Sibuna realizes this and is desperate to stop the ceremony, but not only do the villains trick them into giving up the bracelet needed for said ceremony, but they also isolate the descendants- four students needed for the ceremony, in this case, Patricia, Joy, Alfie, and Jerome.

Caroline is having the descendants stay at her house to work on a project, but Patricia and Alfie are aware that she's trying to do the ceremony and want no part of it. They do whatever they can to delay or stop the ceremony while their friends work from the outside, but Joy and Jerome are pretty easily tricked for most of the night, and Caroline ends up forcing them into the ceremony anyway- she points out that she knows where their families live, essentially threatening to hurt their loved ones, like Jerome's little sister, if they don't comply. The ceremony happens and despite Sibuna's best efforts and a minor Bait-and-Switch, Robert wakes up, and he wakes up evil.

Robert is now serving the Goddess Ammit (who, as I've said, is more of a force of nature or a GDV than someone who can be EPd.), who wants to eat every soul on the Earth. When souls are taken by Ammit, what's left is something known as a Sinner, an evil version of an individual stripped of their conscience and turned into evil servants of Ammit, dedicated to furthering the cycle and creating more sinners. Robert himself is basically a sinner, but 5 more sinners are needed for Ammit to be unleashed upon the world. Caroline's role in all of this? She's totally on board with helping Robert unleash Ammit, which would destroy the entire world and create one of utter chaos and evil. She's happy to condemn the world to this fate, and might I add, isn't a sinner when she agrees to this, nor does she ever become one during the course of the show.

So what does she do, exactly, to collect some sinners? Start messing with Sibuna, of course. She creates a personality test the Sibunas need to take, and it's full of cruel, insecurity-probing questions that only leave the students feeling miserable when they take it. She also kidnaps Eddie and keeps him locked up in a crypt, intending to make him angry enough for him to sin, and this only fails when Eddie gets out. The worst part, though, is when she cruelly toys with Patricia's emotions, making her fear that Eddie is cheating on her. This is topped off by planing fake messages on his laptop and tricking her into reading them, breaking her heart and making her turn against Eddie. This trick works- Patricia becomes a sinner for the rest of the season, thanks to being put through said emotional distress.

Caroline is unable to get more sinners during the rest of the season, but she tries her hardest. Sibuna is just growing paranoid at this point and is frantically trying to avoid Team Evil and stop Ammit from being unleashed. Their numbers drop one by one and ultimately, KT and Eddie are tricked into helping them unleash Ammit, which Caroline admittedly wasn't involved in. But throughout this entire arc of Team Evil collecting sinners, she never once became one herself, while the rest of Team Evil (Victor, Sweet, Patricia, Alfie, Fabian, and Robert) were corrupted and not themselves. It's interesting that she happily turned innocent people into evil slaves while she herself was acting on her own free will.

Continuing on with the theme of her happily doing horrible things for sheer glory, she admits to Ammit that she wants to be her lead servant, which is currently Robert's role. This is an admission that her devotion to Robert throughout the season was a front- she's just in it for the power that comes with ruling over a hellish version of the Earth.

In the climax, not only does she manage to cripple Eddie and KT further by having one of their only non-corrupted ally, Willow, turned into a sinner, but she also remains at the Gate House with Ammit the whole time. When Eddie, KT, and Harriet go to finally end this whole thing, Caroline acts as an obstacle. She kicks away the KT's key, which is not only the only thing preventing KT from being devoured but also the only thing that can seal Ammit away, and then fights with her sister, ultimately getting Harriet taken as well. Thankfully, an impatient Ammit ends up devouring Caroline, literally eating her rather than just taking her soul. The day is saved after that, and all of the sinners, including Robert, go back to normal.

Mitigating factors?

Caroline's loyalty to people like Robert and the rest of Team Evil was purely selfish. She was loyal to Robert for as long as her loyalty gave her status, and she treated the other members of Team Evil like subordinates, despite all of them finding her attitude to be obnoxious.

The only potential issue here is that she intentionally kept Harriet alive. While Robert demanded she kill her, as she was eventually relegated to just being an annoying house guest, Caroline instead sent her back to the mental hospital. This can be considered a sign that Caroline does love her sister, but she'd been abusing her throughout the season, Robert put her on the spot, and she was still happy to have her turn into a sinner like the rest of the world (except Caroline herself, apparently).

Heinous Standard?

Caroline isn't the only evil character in season 3, but she's the only one doing this of her own free will. We don't know much about Ammit to say anything about her personality or motivation, Robert was corrupted in the ceremony thanks to Caroline's own influence, and the sinners were good (or misguided) people turned evil, with all of their goodness stripped from them. Caroline herself was a normal person doing horrific things, with the goal of turning Earth into a hellscape of chaos and sin, all while she got to reign as Ammit's lead servant and keep her own mind in-tact.

She commits cruel acts against the students numerous times, from threatening them to screwing with their emotions, to literally dragging Patricia off to lose her soul. With no remorse for her actions, nor any outside force making her be this way, she stands out as the worst villain in the season- if not for the scale of her actions, for the genuine sociopathy she displayed and the utter willingness she had when it came to hurting people, whether it was just telling Patricia that Eddie is unfaithful, or condemning the entire world to being ruled by Ammit.

Conclusion

Yes, as long as the Harriet thing isn't considered mitigating.

Edited by WarJay77 on Jul 20th 2020 at 12:02:40 PM

Working on: Author Appeal | Sandbox | Troper Wall
Beast from Ontario, Canada Since: Aug, 2012 Relationship Status: Browsing the selection
#221775: Jul 19th 2020 at 6:08:07 PM

Leaning yes to Caroline.

Edited by Beast on Jul 19th 2020 at 8:08:16 AM

"It's like...a cliff, and if I do it, I'm just gonna...fall." "I think we're already falling."

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