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
@ Lightysnake - "My main issue is being unable to feel hope doesn't necessarily strike me as much different than a sociopath's inability to feel love or empathy."
That is a fair point. My counter argument would be that being a Sociopath doesn't impact your ability to comprehend good and evil, just being unable to understand emotions. Emotions can help or hinder moral agency but aren't a requirement for it, and the Sociopath's we put on the list do know full well that their actions are wrong, the ones we cut are the ones whose lack of emotions directly ties into their understanding of morality.
@ A New Man: I dispute heavily and exhaustively to the notion that Junko and Joker's insanity are the same (and see my previous comments on why arguments involving Kefka mean nothing to me). With The Joker, despite his insanity (which is consistant within a story and doesn't fluctuate nowhere near as much as Junko) it's also established that he has a full range of emotions (him telling Harley Quinn that she makes him feel some positive ways and that he hates feeling that way) and has a full understanding of morality (several stories have specifically gone and explored the fact that yes, he fully knows and understands morality, he just finds the idea of being evil absolutely hysterical). His insanity is picked apart and while it's never given a concrete reason as to why he's insane, his actions and motivations behind them are fleshed out enough to get past the "insanity" defence.
I should also point out, The Joker and Kefka are the exceptions not the rule. Both were debated exhaustively, rather contentious, and are included because there were a lot of circumstances that pushed them over the edge. Insanity has always been an instant disqualifying factor, we just made an exception specifically for those two because they were such big examples they more or less got grandfathered in.
Onto the rest of the point, the Junko AI wouldn't count against her since the work established A.I.s as being separate entities to who they're based off of; Alter Ego is considered by the work to be a different person to Chirio despite being based off their personality after all. Haven't read the prequel novel and the sequel's English release is still six months away (although "IF" wouldn't apply since it's an alternate continuity and thus would be considered it's own thing). That she has a role in other works is also irrelevant to this work; she's listed on the original game's page as a CM. If we don't think she counts for the original game, she doesn't get listed on that page. So there's no jumping the gun here at all.
Being aware that others disagree with what you find acceptable is not in and off itself proof that you have moral agency, and from the sounds of it she was surrounded by other like-minded individuals such as her twin sister.
So as it stands, it's currently four against (Me, Ambar, Sachiko (on the verge), sanfranman), one/two for (A New Man, Lightysnake seems on the fence but historically he leant towards keep). More tropers, please throw your two cents in.
Also while we're here, what is the stance on deaths caused by you putting them in the circumstances, but are still soley on the people in question? As pointed out in the game all of the student murders were committed knowingly and none of them were forced into it, but never would have happened had the killing game not be put in place to begin with.
edited 26th Feb '14 12:19:56 AM by Shaoken
Unfortunately, it was sort of obvious that Kishimoto would redeem him out of nowhere. It almost always seems to happen.
Insanity has always been an instant disqualifying factor, we just made an exception specifically for those two because they were such big examples they more or less got grandfathered in.
So...Bellatrix Lestrange, Norman Osborn, Carnage, Yami Marik, Hojo, Elder Toguro, Yazan Gable, The Major, Joffrey Baratheon, Ramsay Snow, Superboy Prime, John Doe, Patrick Bateman, Commodus, and a bunch of other Psycho for Hire or Mad Scientist type characters deemed CM aren't insane? Sorry, not buying it. Insanity is only an instant disqualifying factor if the character's mental illness impairs their moral agency, not if the character's sheer malevolence far outweighs their psychological state of mind: if they're heinous by their own choosing, rather than as a force of habit. And Junko embodies despair because she deliberately embraces it. That goes far beyond crazy.
In any case, we need to ask more Dangan Ronpa fans about Junko to get a fair vote.
edited 26th Feb '14 7:23:55 AM by ANewMan
One imagines that it is difficult to be a Complete Monster without suffering from some kind of psychologically diagnosable condition.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"@22363: Don't necessarily mind combining the pages but I'm not sure about listing Gregor and Craster. They're essentially identical to their book counterparts with not enough differences between the show and book characters to justify their presence. It'd be like listing every character from the Harry Potter movies who's already on the Harry Potter books list as a Complete Monster. It just feels redundant.
@22372: I'm pretty sure that's the kind of insanity Shaoken meant. The Blue-and-Orange Morality kind, not the sociopathic kind. Junko sounds like she fits the former more than the latter. If she believes despair is the natural state of things and that she's actually helping people by making them feel despair, then it sounds like her agency is impaired. Also it sounds like, in her mind, she's acting altruistically. Combined with her adhering to the rules of the game, her fluctuating personalities, and the fact she would have let the others live comfortably had they not decided to murder their classmates, I also believe she's a cut.
If she believes despair is the natural state of things and that she's actually helping people by making them feel despair, then it sounds like her agency is impaired. Also it sounds like, in her mind, she's acting altruistically. Combined with her adhering to the rules of the game, her fluctuating personalities, and the fact she would have let the others live comfortably had they not decided to murder their classmates, I also believe she's a cut.
Again, I really see how honestly believing despair is the natural state of things is any different from Joker believing that chaos should be the natural state and that people should give into their "true" human nature, go insane, and destroy each other. Or Dissidia Kefka believing that "destruction makes life worth living." And no, she's not acting altruistically - the point of her game was not only to amuse herself with so much despair, but should she lose, it'd make her feel despair and she wanted to experience that. I don't see why adhering to the rules of a game she made in the first place is disqualifying, and isn't people murdering their classmates the whole point of said game? No matter what they "decided", Monokuma would arrange things so that a murder, even if accidental, would happen and the student would then be forced to play along with the game. To not ensure any despair-inducing actions to be taken would be hugely OOC.
Here's something from a Dangan Ronpa thread on this forum (they discuss Junko a good deal there): Junko doesn't have multiple personalities in the same sense as Fukawa's DID. She's the same person but she gets so bored that she changes the way she thinks and acts and talks every few lines. But through all of it she wants and is working toward Despair and nothing else matters.
It's like what I said before. She's not truly schizophrenic: she's playing different characters.
Also, the "most despair inducing incident" that Junko caused gets more elaboration in the sequel, so maybe we need more info on that?
edited 26th Feb '14 8:18:13 AM by ANewMan
Regarding Junko: I do have another point to bring as to why she may not qualify. If you talk to Mukuro posing as Junko, she says that she was homeless at a point, and then became a model. Mukuro doesn't elaborate on it much besides saying living like that was dangerous since there were people who attack the weak, and that she grew stronger because of the experience. It's unclear whether Junko herself grew up with her sister in such an environment before becoming a model or if this is just Mukuro's experiences before she ran off to join Fenrir. However, I think the fact that there's doubt as to whether the conditions Junko grew up in caused her to feel so much despair makes her a cut.
♥ ♦ ♠ ♣
Let's not determine that just yet. Material like the prequel novel and the "IF?" scenario in the sequel give more elaboration to the sisters' lives, I think.
EDIT: Reading up on Junko from the Dangan Ronpa Wikia, I can find no Freudian Excuse there at all. It even says she regrets the moment of her and her sister's birth because she thinks being born into a world filled with hope is a mistake. It sounds like she's just a Michael Myers type of character - a bad seed from birth.
edited 26th Feb '14 9:05:06 AM by ANewMan
Dangan Ronpa fan here, skipped most of the rest of the thread other than the first few and previous few posts. I've read/watched the anime, both games, IF, and Zero. Not sure about the spoiler policy in this thread.
If fan reaction is important to the trope at all, it has to be noted that quite a lot of the fandom treats Junko with admiration - not in the sense that fans largely try to redeem her or anything, just that she's rather widely admired for her villainy. You know, like, "My queen~~~" and that sort of thing. There isn't that much discussion on how horrible she is... mainly because, er, there's nothing to say since she caused an apocalypse and also induced a bunch of friends to betray and murder each other, but still. If that doesn't matter, she seems to fit most of the cirteria.
She loves despair and wants to spread it, but I don't think it's meant altruistically at all. She's super high school level at reading and manipulating people, so she knows that's not what they want or anything; she just wants to spread despair for herself, because she's entirely wrapped up in despair and it's her whole being. She does it because she wants to see despair spread and because she wants despair for herself; essentially, it's for her own amusement. Everything is always about her.
Mukuro's thing with homelessness is probably just a cover-up for being a SHSL Soldier because of how it's treated (especially in school mode, when she drops war references and then, "Uh... well remember when I ran away from home. I'm a model, not a soldier, totally.") and her running away from home is probably the time when she left her family in Europe to join a mercenary group. There really isn't any discussion on Junko's past across the light novels and games; in Zero we get something like "yeah she's always been good at causing despair and eventually she became it". That's probably on purpose, because I don't think she's really meant to be seen as a person the way the others are.
There's no attempt at redemption/excuse-making in SDR2, but we learn about the despair-inducing incident and we see Junko as more actively horrible. Basically she rallied a bunch of oppressed untalented students into committing mass suicide in order to shock and horrify the world, and also gathered her fellow non-classmate SHSL students to use their talents to bring an end to the world. First by pushing them to fall into despair, and then getting them to spread it. Again, it's just for fun, ultimately. It's basically a game to her.
If there's any explanation, it's that she's just bored. She's a SHSL analyst, so she can predict everything coming. To throw off that boring, foreseen future, she just throws in new exciting events and keeps changing plans.
You will not go to space today.If it's more about actions and reasons and technically fitting the criteria I'd give it a
but I'm not super-familiar with the trope page editing side of things, so I don't know how important fan reaction is to this stuff (and fan reaction is an imperfect proxy for aspects of portrayal) so if it's at all important that she largely horrifies the fanbase, she fails that big time.
You will not go to space today.It's worth noting that in the spinoff work Danganronpa IF, it indicates that Junko seems to sincerely believe she's showing her love to her sister through despairing abuse. She reacts orgasmically to despair both to others and to herself, so she can't comprehend how people could NOT ultimately enjoy and want despair.
edited 26th Feb '14 10:39:47 AM by Moekou
I mentioned that in the writeup. To bring Kefka up again, I think it's akin to Kefka forcing Terra to hurt her friends while under his control, and then wondering how she could NOT enjoy such raw destruction.
so if it's at all important that she largely horrifies the fanbase, she fails that big time.
No, that does not matter at all. Many monsters, including the ones we've been comparing Junko too (Joker and Kefka) have large fanbases.
edited 26th Feb '14 10:40:10 AM by ANewMan
I think that situation with Kefka is way different. He actively knows he's hurting people. It's not an attempt to show affection via destruction.
A similarity would be Nurgle, the Chaos God in Warhammer 40,000. He believes horrible viruses and plagues are a proper form of affection.
edited 26th Feb '14 10:53:45 AM by Lightysnake
Mukuro is meant to be SHSL Despair herself, though. A Despair Sister, even if a disappointing one. Junko seemed to actually believe that, so she thought Mukuro should have the same thing Junko does. When it comes to the rest of the world, it's just like, "I wanted to cover the world with this wonderful despair", not anything like even a warped form of altruism. She's not confused in any way. She's intelligent and selfish and has a weird view of what she wants for herself, but she's aware that it's deviant and an anomaly (not that she cares); that's clear to me from her dialogue at the climax. She says stuff like "[Mukuro and I a]re both 'Super High-school Level Despair', aren't we? We don't feel any Hope just because we're alive..."—she kinda separates herself and her sister from the rest of the world, because she knows that's something special.
She's not confused at how everyone tries to fight despair or considers it heinous anything, and she doesn't try to argue that they should be in that state because it's better for them or whatever. When they choose hope instead of despair, it's "lame" and also ":DDD now I'm in despair" rather than whatever. She set up the school life of mutual killing banking on the students of hope coming together to try to fight her, set up the potential of failure for her own despair fully dependent on their desire for hope, but otherwise making them fall into despair would just be a victory, the natural result of trying to go against her.
edited 26th Feb '14 11:22:02 AM by greedling
You will not go to space today.

Kind of a Joker situation there.. Michio is fully aware of the difference between right and wrong and just does not give the remotest hint of a damn. Plus, his plan is Kill All Humans solely out of anger at his mortality.
Michio's molestation at the hands of the priest doesn't really factor into his monstrosity, except as he uses it to manipulate the priest later. Tezuka basically sets up a variety of excuses, but the end result is Michio is evil in spite of them, and his ultimate goal is to gas all of humanity. He gets damn close, too. While he kills people connected to the kidnapping, he does plenty for kicks
edited 25th Feb '14 10:43:37 PM by Lightysnake