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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

AustinDR Lizzid people! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Lizzid people!
#23076: Mar 21st 2014 at 9:42:45 AM

On The Haunting example on Complete Monster Film, I don't think they portrayed Crain's Freudian Excuse sympathetically. I mean, sure he lost his wife and children and became a recluse, but later on he started to murder children and burn their bodies in the fireplace so that their souls could be trapped in it. I'm certain that the Freudian Excuse was probably not supposed to be taken sympathetically in the film, though I could be wrong. There's also the fact that he drove his first wife to suicide, and presumably murders his second wife when she discovered his secret. I've seen the Nostalgia Critic's review of the movie, but I personally didn't watch the film myself. If anyone knows anything about this film, feel free to speak up.

edited 21st Mar '14 10:13:15 AM by AustinDR

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#23077: Mar 21st 2014 at 12:52:26 PM

@Lunacorva

Congratulations on confusing Omnicidal Maniac with Generic Doomsday Villain. A GDV is a character who comes out of nowhere with no backstory or build up, is opposed not because of who they are but because of what they are trying to accomplish, and is totally void of personality.

Being the Ultimate Evil whom everyone in the setting fears and hates, does not make you a GDV. Quite the opposite, honestly. You want a Generic Doomsday Villain in myth? Try Surtr.

EDIT: And looking at the page for Generic Doomsday Villain, we're gonna need some clean up there. Anybody up for excising examples like Ozai?

edited 21st Mar '14 12:58:13 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

SeptimusHeap from Switzerland (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Mu
#23078: Mar 21st 2014 at 1:06:19 PM

Ultimate Evil is not "biggest villain in a setting" or anything like that. It's "evil so horrifying it cannot be shown on screen".

"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard Feynman
VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
OccasionalExister Since: Jul, 2012
#23080: Mar 21st 2014 at 2:04:48 PM

@23018: Kind of agreeing on cutting Yuriev due to his questionable moral agency and possible well-intentions in sacrificing one planet to save the star cluster.

@23023: Yes, cut that, please.

@23026: Cut all of those.

@23048: So the show's over next week? It'll be good to finally deal with Ragyo's status.

@23052: Cut Ivo.

@23062: Good write-up for Mezzenbone.

@23067: Agree on including Nimue.

@23090: Huh, you know, the trope name for Ultimate Evil is really misleading for what the trope represents. You'd think it'd be something like "Unfathomable Evil" or some such, since that seems more accurate. Do we have a trope for the most evil thing in a setting's verse?

@23091: Good man, thank you.

Anyone else have any thoughts regarding the Creature in the Tall Grass I brought up @23009 on pg. 921? An additional Word of God statement implies he was conducting his murders in such a dramatic and theatrical way in order to gather public attention to the cult that abused him. Seems like another redeeming quality to me since he wants the cult put to an end, even if he's so fucked up by his experiences he remains a monster himself.

edited 21st Mar '14 2:05:12 PM by OccasionalExister

Fighteer Lost in Space from The Time Vortex (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: TV Tropes ruined my love life
TVRulezAgain Since: Sep, 2011
#23082: Mar 21st 2014 at 2:20:01 PM

  • Shirou Hisujikai of Ookami San seems utterly delighted to recount his sins to Ryoshi, even with his victim standing right beside him to hear everything. He shows great zeal in revealing to Ryoshi how he attempted to rape Ryouko Ookami, at that time his innocent, trusting girlfriend, and then smear her reputation when she tried to tell others what he had done

Any of this onscreen?

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#23083: Mar 21st 2014 at 2:21:37 PM

Honestly I'm not quite sure where to start.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#23084: Mar 21st 2014 at 2:55:49 PM

shiro does very little in the anime proper, but the light novels take him into this. Besides his attempted rape of his girlfriend, he continuously tries to kidnap her and wants to destroy all she and her new love interest care about so he can drive them to nothing. More than that, he tries to injure or kill one character's seven child siblings to get what he wants. Just needs expansion

Lunacorva Since: Mar, 2011 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#23085: Mar 21st 2014 at 4:16:45 PM

Hmmm... This is all very interesting for me, because I actually used Apophis as the Bigger Bad in an RP on this forum. Since I envisioned it as a monster of pure evil that feeds on pain (Though it's far from mindless), I thought it wouldn't count as a Complete Monster. Now I'm not so sure. It's actions are pretty horrible, it lets it's own cult be slaughtered because it doesn't care WHO dies horribly, as long as someone does. When it first appears, it annihilates the Earth and slaughters every single human before plunging their souls into new realities it created specifically to torment them with their worst nightmares until they go insane. During the final duel, it forcibly merges five of the main characters together in the most horrific way possible and puppeteers the fused abomination and forces it to fight it's friends as a form of psychological warfare. Later, it has another main character killed by being Eaten Alive, even pupeteering the character's mouth to force him to announce his own death. Them taking the time and displaying the results to the others as an intimidation tactic.

It's motive? It's the personification of suffering, causing pain is the very REASON for it's existence.

TheOverlord Since: Jan, 2015
#23086: Mar 21st 2014 at 4:54:15 PM

@ Very Melon,I have a few suggestions, Shinzon and Nero from the Star Trek movies are not GV Ds. Shinzon is a badly written character, the writers try to make him everything from an Anti-Villain to Complete Monster over the course of the film, so he is a mess, but he does have a personality, it doesn't make much sense, but its there, he has a back story, his motive just doesn't make a lot of sense, badly written character, but not a GDV. Nero is an underdeveloped villain, but not a GDV, he has a motive for why he does things, its just not as developed as it could be.

Also I can do a write up for Rachid from Spooks, unless anyone has any objections. It seems to be 4 to keep, with Ambar Sonof Deshar on the fence. We have some other religious fanatics on this list, like Frollo and William Stryker and his hatred of Westerners seems to be purely ideological. He seems like he is a God fearing man, but then again so are Stryker and Frollo. He says stuff like "Praise Allah, the most compassionate and merciful" when it seems like he regained contact with his Al-Qaeda sponsors, but seems similar to Frollo saying "Beta Maria" doesn't really prevent him from being a CM.

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#23087: Mar 21st 2014 at 4:55:56 PM

Awright, Moonraker done (great book, by the way; highly suspenseful and mostly free of annoying Values Dissonance - a competent Love Interest, even!), so as promised, here's Drax.

First off, in the book "Hugo Drax" isn't his real name. His real name is Hugo von der Drache, a German nobleman and major Hitler fanboy. He enlisted in the army and was put in charge of an elite undercover unit of the SS, who would infiltrate British lines and destroy them from within. On one such occasion, he was mistaken for a British solder by one of his own side's planes and had a bomb dripped on him, then the British also mistook him for one of theirs and nursed him back to health. Feigning amnesia and with his face now unrecognizable, he learned a missing British soldier had a name similar to his, and so he became Hugo Drax. He then murdered a banker for startup money, skipped off to Tangier and made a fortune in rare metals, then came back to England to design "the Moonraker," a state-of-the-art nuclear missile good for Commie-deterrance. He paid out of his own pocket for the thing, making him a national hero, and as the story opens he's about to perform the first test-firing.

Thing is, the nuke is real and it's aimed right at London.

Of Fleming's first three Big Bads Drax is easily the most loathsome. Le Chiffre and Mr. Big mostly concerned themselves with establishing fifth columns and raising money in creative ways for various shady purposes, but Drax is out for the blood of millions to avenge poor, innocent Nazi Germany. During a car chase with Bond, he runs another motorist who joined the chase off the road to a gruesome death just because he might have been another spy. He has an assistant named Krebs who is fond of torturing people with a welding torch. He gloats about his plan's death toll to Bond, who is left speechless and repeating "One million... one million... one million..." over and over (so yeah, as dark as the literary Bond is I don't think we have to worry about his heinousness here). And he takes pride in the fact that not only will he destroy London, he'll also crush the hope and trust of the entire country in the process.

I do have one issue, though: he seems to genuinely believe Nazi Germany was wronged in the War. This makes his motives similar to Sideways and Xaviax, who seemed to care about their own side in the conflict even though theirs was the guilty one and lost due to its own bad choices. So I'd like some more opinions before casting my vote.

edited 21st Mar '14 4:57:10 PM by HamburgerTime

VeryMelon Since: Jul, 2011 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#23088: Mar 21st 2014 at 5:08:38 PM

[up][up]Right, after hearing some advice, I'll just remove examples that list motivations and see where it takes off.

TheOverlord Since: Jan, 2015
#23089: Mar 21st 2014 at 5:29:19 PM

[up] I got some other suggestions to remove from the GDV page, if you are interested.

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#23090: Mar 21st 2014 at 5:29:20 PM

[up][up][up]Well-Intentioned Extremist? Maybe. Don't know if that's enough to disqualify him... As for GDVs, is The Lich one?

edited 21st Mar '14 5:29:48 PM by ACW

Nikkolas from Texas Since: Dec, 2009 Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
#23091: Mar 21st 2014 at 5:35:57 PM

@ Occasional Exister

The same supplementary material Word of God stuff for Yuriev says he was lying about trying to destroy U-DO. He knew all along blowing up the planet and killing his clones would not in fact kill U-DO.

So that part is out at least.

All he has left is his Freudian Excuse of looking at God and having his very essence filled with unending terror.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#23092: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:12:11 PM

Hmm...not sure that's enough of a valid excuse...but I'll give a yea to Book!Hugo Drax. I don't remember him being sympathetic. His Nazi thing only serves to make him worse as far as Fleming was concerned....Apophis...we did have this conversation, though. My vote isn't changed.

ACW, put The flowers in the Attic, The Haunting and Hellraiser examples back into the main entries. Exister, can you expand Roulet from 'Lincoln Lawyer' at all? I'll just give a yea to the Commando entries for now.

Anyways...

  • Shiro Hisujikai from Ookami San is a respected student whose handsome looks conceal a depraved heart. Shiro attempted to rape his girlfriend, Ryoko, in the past and blamed her for leading him on when she told people, manipulating them into ostracizing her and leaving her with mental scars and trust issues.In the present, Shiro returns and tries to entrap Ryoko to force her to be his woman again. Part of his plan involves threatening the lives of seven children with full intent to harm or kill them. Shiro returns throughout the light novels, eventually aimed at destroying Ryoko and her Love Interest mentally, as well as everything connected to them.

  • Lord Magistrate Wolfram, the keeper of the titular fortress in Wolfsmund is a handsome, gentle looking man who is a genuine sadist. As the guardian of The Wolfsmund, everyone passing through St. Gotthard's pass must be inspected by Wolfram, who delights in mentally tormenting his victims. Starting the series by having a young woman executed and her body displayed Wolfram goes on to commit many atrocities, including forcing a little girl and her mother to undergo a search inside their 'womanly' parts with tongs to see if they're hiding anything, participating in torture ostensibly for information but simply for pleasure and feeding the mother and younger brother of one of the only people to escape his clutches to ravenous wolves for an execution. It is revealed Wolfram led violent raids to kill civilians in the past and spared only two children with disfiguring scars over one eye each to make sure they never forgot him. Ostensibly loyal to the Austrian Hapsburg Dukedom, Wolfram admits that his only reason is for the amusement it gives him and his greatest joy in life is to cause others pain, especially after giving them hope first.

  • From the comic Severed we have the nameless Salesman, or Mr. Fisher as he often goes by in the story. Fisher has been on the road a very long time. Countless centuries, in fact, and hunts down children to devour them and their dreams. Posing as a kindly salesman to take them under his wing, he lures them into traps where he reveals his sharp teeth and devours them alive. When he encounters the young hero Jack, the Salesman murders the real Mr. Fisher to steal his identity and takes Jack on a game of cat and mouse, murdering and eating his friend Samantha. When he catches Jack at the end, the Salesman gloats over all the evil he's done over the years and how many dreams he's devoured before chopping off Jack's arm, planning to eat him and force Jack's mother to partake

  • In Baltimore by Mike Mignola...
    • The Big Bad of the series, Haigus, the vampire monarch and the object of Henry Baltimore's pursuit. When awoken from his slumber by Baltimore inadvertently, Haigus spends time tormenting Baltimore. He turns his family into vampires and saves Baltimore's beloved wife for last. He leaves his wife for Baltimore to find, which forces him to destroy them when they rise. Haigus spreads his plague throughout all of Europe, occasionally massacring entire villages and leaving the bodies strewn all over for Baltimore to find. He resumes his worship of the monstrous Red King and begins preparing the way for the Red King to return and obliterate the world of men. Haigus eventually tires from the endless pursuits and opts to die at Baltimore's hands, but takes delight knowing he's taken everything from him, and tries to murder Baltimore's only remaining friends before taunting Baltimore how he will never, ever know peace.
    • The nameless warlock of ''The Cursed Bells' story. A greedy, ambitious man who keeps a large amount of vampiric nuns enslaved to him with the lie he will heal them of vampirism, the warlock uses a dark ritual to resurrect a long-dead witch by feeding her ashes and blood to a pregnant woman so the witch rips its way out of her. The warlock has her curse the bells of the cathedral he uses as a base which will Mind Rape anyone who hears the bells into his slaves with whom he will enslave the world and purge any in the way. The warlock also reveals he gained his mystic knowledge by entrapping a supernatural beast...by leaving a baby for it to eat and catching it while it bathed after the meal.

  • in the dark world of Hellboy, Nimue, the Queen of Blood, reigns supreme as the greatest monster in the Cosmic Horror Story. Once a mighty sorceress who betrayed the great Wizard Merlin and imprisoned him to live eternally in his own grave, Nimue was imprisoned for 1,500 years by the witches of Britain. Upon her revival to lead the Wild Hunt, Nimue destroys the other witches of Britain and sets about marshaling an army of the Fae. When one ambassador comes to her to say his king will stand with her, Nimue forces him to murder his king, come out his heart and forge her a new crown with it. Nimue launches vicious purges to ensure there is no threat to her rule, intending to exterminate humanity to the last man. When defeated and being dragged to hell by the witches she'd murdered, Nimue spitefully tears out Hellboy's heart to ensure she won't face damnation alone.

edited 21st Mar '14 8:33:58 PM by Lightysnake

AustinDR Lizzid people! (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Lizzid people!
#23093: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:28:10 PM

On The Lich, I don't think he's a Generic Doomsday Villain. In Adventure Time, the Lich was implied to have been created from an atomic bomb that exploded during the final days of the Mushroom War, and that the Lich is simply trying to finish the job by destroying everything in the multiverse. While this should make him a GDV, he is shown that he has enough of a personality to qualify as a CM. He's shown as being a very manipulative entity, which is shown in his debut episode when he brainwashed the Snail into releasing him from his amber prison, and during the Season 4 finale when he murdered Billy and took his body so that he could manipulate Finn into getting him the Jewels that he would need to open up the portal to the multiverse in the Enchiridion book. He even plays with the typical Big "NO!" that most villains say when Finn seemingly destroyed the book. However, Finn unintentionally opens up the portal to the other worlds, and the Lich tauntingly thanks Finn for his goof up. He's also shown as being highly arrogant, and always considered his enemies a minor threat to his mission. He's also depicted as a Sadist and therefore has full moral agency to know that what he's doing is wrong, but he doesn't care, just as long as he completes his mission. And there's also the fact that the Lich was taken as a completely serious threat, and wasn't just there. Ultimately, I think the Lich deserves to be kept.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#23094: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:30:32 PM

Yeah, the Lich was decided long ago.

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#23095: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:31:09 PM

[up][up][up] A large part of Drax's plan was emotional. He could've just mailed a nuke to London and been done with it, but he decided to become the country's greatest hero first so he could basically say, "Yeah, the guy you put all your trust in, the guy you thought would save you, did this to you. Suck it, you gullible little British bastards." I think that might push him over the edge for me.

edited 21st Mar '14 8:31:15 PM by HamburgerTime

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#23096: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:32:15 PM

Kinda...makes him worse, really.

HamburgerTime Since: Apr, 2010
#23097: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:35:03 PM

[up] I'm going to keep reading James Bond so I'll pop back in here if I see any other candidates. I know the villains' schemes ahead of time, though, and as far as I can tell only Blofeld (naturally) compares to Drax.

Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#23098: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:41:14 PM

I think we might wanna discuss Blofeld...honestly, more I think about him...

AmbarSonofDeshar Since: Jan, 2010
#23099: Mar 21st 2014 at 8:47:04 PM

RE: Ultimate Evil/Bigger Bad

The Bigger Bad is the most powerful evil in the setting, not necessarily the most evil. And the trope page for Ultimate Evil flat out states that we may well be shown it eventually, just that in doing so we'll usually be disappointed. And I concur that regardless the name sucks.

RE: GDV

I applaud any effort to clear that page out (especially given how often we in this forum interact with it) but discussion of that should probably be in PM or another thread.

@Lunacorva

Unless you're proposing the version of Apophis you used in that RP, I'm not sure why you're mentioning it.

edited 21st Mar '14 8:51:09 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

ACW from Arlington, VA (near Washington, D.C.) Since: Jul, 2009
#23100: Mar 22nd 2014 at 12:26:01 AM

Lighty...done (though the main problem I have with the Commando entries is that a LOT was off screen. I might lean a slight [tup] for Bennett though).

[nja]I also restored the Lincz example. So now it's just Scarface and The Lincoln Lawyer (and maybe discussing more Commando).

edited 22nd Mar '14 12:30:39 AM by ACW


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