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
Think I got one.
What's the work?
Firefly: Big Damn Hero is pretty much Firefly: Season Two in novel form.
Who is Hunter Covington? What did he do?
Hunter Covington is a mysterious Man of Wealth and Taste who contacts Malcolm Reynolds, personally, to inquire about transferring a very small object from one planet to another, details to be revealed only face-to-face. Covington manages to get Mal alone, then has his thugs jump him before drugging Mal unconscious with his ornamental cane. Mal ends up in the company of people he doesn't know, being taken somewhere else in one of Serenity's own shuttles, to people who want him for unspecified but doubtlessly unpleasant reasons.
It eventually comes out that Covington is working with a faction of Browncoats who are seeking traitors to the Independent cause from during the war, and visiting upon them their own brand of justice. Mal's their most recent target, being accused of collusion with the Alliance to sabotage the Independent cause. Covington has been helping this mob get at their targets for a long time now, Mal's just the latest on their list.
Of course, the crew of Serenity aren't at all comfy with their captain going missing, but they have a job to do (and a limited amount of time to do it), so Shepard Book goes investigating, trying to track Covington down and from there find Mal. We learn that Covington is not a nice man.
He's deep into Persephone's criminal underworld, and makes "insult to the psychotic lowlife community" Badger seem cuddly and harmless by comparison. Covington has a "bondswoman" (indentured servant) who ran away awhile back, but returned to him because a retired Alliance investigator turned her into his informant. When Covington learns of this, he threatens her with a slow and painful death via numerous knife wounds. Notably, the implication is he intends to carry this out himself, and he's fair practiced at it. Fortunately, Serenity B-Team Book, Simon, River, and Inara manage to rescue the poor lass.
Meanwhile, Covington has arrived at the Browncoat lair just in time for Mal's hanging (not short- or long-drop, just rope around the neck and hoist, which according to the book can take twenty minutes to kill a man). Covington's reasons for this are threefold: A) He's been invited several times, but this is the first time schedules and locations have aligned for him to make the trip, B) it's always a good idea to bond with your business partners, and C) watching a man hang to death slow is always a good time in Covington's book. Once that's done, he plans to head home and get that knife for his bondswoman.
Well, the Serenity crew are obviously having none of that. Mal gets rescued, big gun battle ensues, the time-sensitive cargo goes boom, Serenity makes it out right in the nick of time. Covington doesn't, in part because Kaylee decided to sabotage his ship. In such manner as is an easy enough fix. . . if you know anything at all about ships.
Finally, Covington had stayed neutral during the war, for pretty much the exact same reason Jayne did: neutrality paid best, being able to work for (or rob) both sides equally as the opportunity arose.
Heinousness?
Covington's a Sadist almost on par with Adali Niska.
Mitigating Qualities?
None whatsoever. His private mansion has a pretty extensive staff of both guards and servants, but the implication is that they're with him either because he pays well, they're absolutely terrified of him, or they're other indentured folk.
Conclusion?
While he's not the main villain of the novel (and the main villain is a mite more complex), Hunter Covington is an absolutely irredeemable hwoon dahn.
Yes to Deparnieux and Covington.
Hey guys like I said on the MB thread m I'm going to be absent for a couple of days. I'm not feeling so hot and need to focus on feeling better.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadHere's the TWR!Himmler writeup. I am abstaining from writing up Goebbels and Dai Li for now because the final candidate, which I will get to later today, may push for a reevaluation for the other two given what he does with regards to heinousness. I do think I may have sidestepped the heinousness standard here a bit too much as Lighty said. However, I do think Himmler is unique enough to stand out from our final candidate, especially with the "destroy all traces of Jewish culture".
- Heinrich Himmler is the leader of the SS and one of the key instigators of the holocaust. In the power struggle following Hitler's death, Himmler takes advantage of the political chaos to seize power for himself. If the power struggle escalates to the point of civil war, Himmler would have no qualms with regards to using nuclear weaponry to destroy his opponents. Upon taking power, he enacts policies to ensure the SS has total control of Germany, enforcing total surveillance of everyday life and the banning of any non-Nazi literature and any scientific discoveries by Jewish scientists under the pretext that they serve as Judeo-Bolshevik propaganda. With power fully secured, Himmler will seek to wipe out all traces of Jewish and Christian culture in Germany and replace them with a twisted Neo-Pagan religion, even going as far to declare the formation of a new "Aryan" Empire under his control should he prove deranged enough to do so.
Edited by xie323 on Sep 15th 2020 at 7:55:14 AM
Okay, yes to Covington and have a Bond example:
What's the work?
Zero Minus Ten is a Bond novel by Raymond Benson, when a series of terrorist attacks interrupts the transfer of Hong Kong from Britain to China, threatening a war. Bond is given ten days to investigate. suspicion first falls upon British shipping magnate Guy Thackeray who is mysteriously killed in a car bomb..
....except...
Who is Guy Thackeray?
The true villain of the novel. The owner of EurAsia Enterprise, seemingly planning to sell his company to the Chinese....because of a long forgotten little contract that means the descendants of one Li Wei Tam get ownership if the British lose Hong Kong. Well, the descendants are invoking it and Thackeray is furious.
Organizing a conspiracy and numerous terrorist attacks, Thackeray also fakes his death in a way that draws suspicion to the Chinese ranking General Wong. Thackeray has other businessman killed in such a way that his own 'death' seems plausible, while others are murdered to seem like Triad assassinations.
Now, Thackeray also owns a Uranium mining operation in Australia and has built a nuclear bomb. He has his board of directors murdered, while planting the nuke to wipe out Hong Kong, knowing it will start a brand new war between Britain and China so he can see countless dead and both countries laid to ruin. This leads to a chase as Thackeray tries to have Bond killed as per usual, but Bond and allies manage to take the fight to him, with Thackeray having one killed.
Bond defuses the bomb and catches up with Thackeray, resulting in a hand to hand fight in the harbor. Bond wins and drowns Thackeray, allowing the transfer to go through and the day saved.
Heinous standard?
He tries to blow up hong Kong with a nuke to start a war between Britain and China, this is pretty self-explanatory. Besides multiple murders/terrorist hits, I think this punches well above the standard of the vast majority of novel baddies for Bond. The only one by Benson or Gardner that can match him are Scorpius and Hera Volopoulos. Scorpius is up, Hera being the secret big bad of The Facts of Death who plans to detonate a nuke and spread a deadly virus...she doesn't count, IMO as despite her goal being just extortion of the world, her boss (who doesn't count for a redeeming quality) had been her lover since she was 12, which she points out was actually raping her repeatedly as a child.
Thackeray, though? Uniqueness, masive body count...I think we have a winner.
Mitigating Qualities?
Nothing. Thackeray is just a racist bastard who's loathe to hand what's 'his' away. He cares nothing for his men or anyone else, certainly no country that he considers utterly expendable.
Concluion?
Keeper.
Covington & Thackery
Anything about this writeup I made
? (it is a placeholder for if Fried Warthog comes back) (I’ll add potholes later)
Edited by nwotyzal on Sep 15th 2020 at 8:10:57 AM
Yes to Lighty's and @ Library, Here
, Crow also added some more. I don't mind if he goes up but I think it's meritless schlock shock we could do without.
to Guy Thackeray.
@Libraryseraph: Here
was Scraggle's original post on the matter.
Also, I upvoted Ishii because the effort post claims that there was a fair amount of screentime given to plotlines besides Ishii's crimes like the doubtful soldiers and the escaping prisoners, but looking over the film's trope page and reading the plot from Wikipedia, those plots are hardly, if ever, mentioned in the former, while the latter only gives brief descriptions about those plots, which makes me think that there is maybe only three scenes dedicated outside of the war crimes. I know that this is no substitute for watching the moving, but it's making me suspect that this film maybe Torture Porn and that the extra plots were oversold in the effort post. If anyone's seen the film, is this true?
EDIT: After thinking about it and reading over the plot again, I think the proportion between Ishii's crimes and the other subplots is so unequal based on what I've read, I think that it's leaning too heavily on Torture Porn. So, switching to an abstain, though I could also lean towards a
.
Edited by DrUnknown on Sep 15th 2020 at 8:28:27 AM

Abstain on Everett for now.