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
That makes sense. Though that should probably be changed. The Adaptational Heroism DEFINITELY should.
And affirm my yes for Ochymua.
Edited by ACW on Aug 29th 2020 at 5:12:48 AM
Hakon is so bloody difficult for me. On the one hand there's other hunters in the series who want to exterminate the gargoyles in totality, but on the other hand Hakon is just some fuck-off Viking who doesn't care about the gargoyles save the threat they pose to him. A massacre in a kid's cartoon is a massacre no matter if it was done in cold-blooded pragmatism.
TBH, the standout nature of his deed makes me lean yes. We've dismissed other really nasty villains from the series like the Archmage for failing the standard, but Hakon is just a fuck-off raider responsible for the earliest and biggest onscreen slaughter in the series. For where he is, he distinguishes himself well for a minor baddie.
Yes to Hakon, Ochymua and Dragon King.
I wonder if there could be any keepers from X-Men Evolution, the big villains are mostly WIE types, even Apocalypse, but his servant Mesemro mind raped many of the teenage X-Men in his first appearance and was trying to free Apocalypse and there is also Duncan Matthews, who just a Jerk Jock for most of the show, but by the last season he is actively attacking mutants and was about to shoot a mutant child before he was stopped.
Well it is a really bad what he pulls in said last appearance. Uh sure go ahead on him and mesmero. The standard is much lower then a lot of other marvel shows so I don't think it's so high they wouldn't count.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."Oh, yes to the Dragon King and Ochymua too, though I should clarify the Auberon thing is being overplayed with the latter. Ochymua doesn't "enslave" Auberon, it just kind of helps with Auberon's experiments for a while before making off with his phylactery (his Soul Jar).
Auberon is literally one line of dialogue—indicating he's capable of genuine gratitude—away from an EP himself. Most PF liches are awful, but Auberon seriously ramps up the genocidal massacres.
Basically. All the fucked-up experiments, including the ones with Auberon, boil down to it wanting to gratify its sadism. We still have around 5-7 candidates left.
Edited by Scraggle on Aug 29th 2020 at 5:45:16 AM
What's Ochymua's motivation anyway? For the Evulz?
How many more Pathfinder candidates?
Edited by ACW on Aug 29th 2020 at 7:34:33 AM
Writeups. I'll do my last Pathfinder ones in one big batch:
- Jamaica Inm: Sir Humphrey Pengallan, local squire and justice of the peace of the storm-swept Cornish coast, uses his well-off status to hide his identity as the mastermind behind a group of local wreckers. Pengallan has the ostensible leader of the wreckers, Joss, in his pocket, tipping off the gang to ships coming up to the coast loaded with valuable cargo so the wreckers can sink them and massacre any survivors. Pengallan remorselessly gloats he's drowned hundreds of sailors all for the sake of living like a king, only ever hesitating when the authorities are close to finding him out. When Joss's girlfriend Patience tries to renege on the gang, Pengallan murders her, kidnaps her niece Mary for a trophy wife, then attempts to sail out with his ill-gotten gains and force Mary to play the part of "dutiful possession" for the rest of the kingly life he's murdered his way into.
- Flash Gordon: Zydereen, Mad Witch of Neptune, was the secret power behind the Neptunian throne before she was exiled. Zydereen, for her banishment, attempts to engineer Neptune's destruction by sabotaging the planet's atmospheric converter, condemning its population to suffocate. Not satisfied with having nearly destroyed her own people, Zydereen attempts to take over the entire galaxy, threatening to obliterate planets that don't fall in line with solar rays. When she's foiled, Zydereen attempts to burn the entire galaxy and every living soul within it to ash with her solar ray machine out of spite.
- Jonny Quest:
- General Vostok is a frozen-cold ex-KGB terrorist who yearns for a world "free of having to make decisions." Vostok introduces himself icily murdering two treasure hunters to procure a destructive golem with which he attempts to assassinate the President of Czech, and later attempts to create a flash-freezing superweapon he first tests by flash-freezing a base full of soldiers to death. Vostok strong-arms a scientist Dr. Benton Quest is friends with into perfecting the device, and when the scientist chafes, Vostok shoots him dead in front of Quest to hurt him. Vostok appears one last time in the comics where he attempts to convert a nuclear reactor into the world's most potent nuclear weapon, one he spitefully attempts to set off when foiled heedless of all the lives—all of his own men included—he'll waste in the process.
- Von Romme, from "Nuclear Netherworld", is a Corrupt Corporate Executive extraordinaire who built his company over a uranium mine. Von Romme abuses his own minions, looks the other way when his uranium irradiates the water supply of the local Hopi population, and when a local farmer tries to expose him, Von Romme has him murdered and his death made to look like an accident. Von Romme's true evil comes to light when it's revealed he's selling the uranium to terrorists for them to make nuclear weapons with, as Von Romme stays ambivalent as to whomever gets nuked so long as his bank stays intact.
Edited by Scraggle on Aug 29th 2020 at 6:12:16 AM
Alrighty...you know what? I wanna thank Sawkman for this. It was a legit tough case,but he made a good one. Now for my Gargoyles canidate: King Constantine.
Who is Constantine?
A Scottish noble. After the fall of Castle Wyvern, Princess Katharine is left with little by way of support, with multiple gargoyle eggs to care for.. Her comrades are her lifelong comrade the Magus, the boy Tom and Tom's mother Mary. Katharine head for the court of her cousin, King Kenneth II Now, Constantine was the son King Culen, overthrown by Kenneth who let Constantine live and keep a lordship at court. Unfortunately, Constantine was a vicious sociopath.
Kenneth was in love with the lovely Lady Finella, much younger than him, who was besotted with Constantine. Finella thought Kenneth was a sweet old man, but couldn't love him. Constantine seduced her into a plan, to tell Kenneth she wanted to marry Constantine. He used that to ambush and murder Kenneth. He then discarded Finella, announcing he would take Katharine as his wife. He then threatened the eggs, saying he'd destroy them if she didn't acquiesce to being his wife. The heroes escaped with Finella's help, also stealing the magic tome, the Grimorum Arcanorum....Tom, Katharine and the Magus departed to Avalon with the Gargoyle eggs, while Mary and Finella went to keep the Gimorum from the enraged Constantine.
Constantine decided to pay this back with Gargoyle blood and stone, not helped by the fact that Kenneth had allied with the gargoyles to overthrow his father. With his enemy, Kenneth III, called the Grim, on the loose and allying with Kenneth's son Maol Chavim, Constantine brought in the warrior Mail Brigti...and his teenage son Gillecomgain who had been scarred by the gargoyle leader Demona.
Constantine, launched a full on purge, hunting down gargoyle cells and wiping them out, with nothing less than genocide planned. He took great notice of Gillecomgain's ruthless enjoyment of killing gargoyles, and took the boy in as a personal killer in training. He even adopted a new look: shaving his head bald and painting himself with marks to resemble Gillecomgain's scars.
Constantine leads a full campaign against the Grim. When a messenger from Kenneth brings word, Constantine has the man executed against the rules of war with nary a care. Constntine leads his men against Kenneth with full desire to massacre Kenneth and his forces, regardless of surrender, bragging he'll hold the gargoyles off until sunrise, shatter them and butcher Kenneth after.
Constantine duels Kenneth, gloating he'll 'gut your mewling brat,' Kenneth's little son Bodhe. A furious Kenneth brings Constantine down and drives his sword through the tyrant's heart, ending him and his reign....setting events in motion that will register for years onward. Kenneth will reign for 8 years, until he's overthrown by Maol Chavim, Maol Chavim's grandsons will be Duncan and Macbeth...and we know how that will go.
Heinousness?
a murderer, tyrant, attempted genocidal mass murderer with petty cruelties, who tries to force a woman to marry him (and flatly, given how Weisman portrays this, I'm not inclined to count it as just generic, Weisman knows exactly what this means) by threatening unborn Gargoyle babies. Constantine happily flaunts and violates the rules of war at leisure.
Mitigating Qualities?
Constantine never so much as mentions his father. He's a sociopath and sadist who uses people, but he only cares for the throne for power. He uses people and discards them. Even Gillecomgain is only favored because he's fascinated by the darkness in him and because he says he finds him useful as a squire and likes molding him into a killer.
Yeah, the comics make Constantine out to be far, far worse than the show did (and he was bad enough there). He's the one who inspires Gillecomgain to become the hunter, which is no small thing either.
Conclusion?
A hearty yes.

Change it to Faux Affably Evil. Though rewrite it a bit to state it's a facade.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."