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
Any more thoughts on Scarface, Commando, or The Lincoln Lawyer?
edited 22nd Mar '14 1:30:59 PM by ACW
Hmm...on reflection, I'll say cut Hector the Toad. He's a one scene wonder, really. And Arius for now. Leave Bennett
Roulet...here's a rewrite:
- Louis Roulet, the rich, spoiled sadist who believes he can do whatever he wants from ''The Lincoln Lawyer'. Roulet enjoys beating on women, particularly prostitutes, as he knows they'll never be believed over him in court and he has the best representation money can by. Roulet is soon revealed as the real murderer in a case the Amoral Attorney protagonist had defended years ago, and Roulet is positively gleeful over an innocent man rotting in jail for his crime. Roulet keeps the hero Mickey Haller as his defense by threatening him, as well as his ex-wife and young daughter, knowing Haller is obliged to do the best for his client. Haller puts an informant on the stand to acquit Roulet of the assault, but the testimony lands Roulet in suspicion for his previous murder. In a rage, Roulet later makes his way to Haller's ex-wife, intending on murdering her and her daughter.
edited 22nd Mar '14 2:08:46 PM by Lightysnake
Any further thoughts on the book version of Hugo Drax
? We have three yeas and a "maybe" so far, and I'd like at least five yeas before writing him up.
Its been a while since I saw Commando, so I will just ask who again bears more responsibility for the bad things that happened in that film, Bennett or Arius. From what I remember Arius came up with the plan, while Bennett enacted a lot of it, so you can make a case for including both of them.
Also I have an obscure example here, General Kincaid, the Big Bad from the first X-men Legends game:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/XMenLegends
Now see the problem is Kincaid is almost exactly like Movie William Stryker, he hates mutants because a mutant accidentally killed his wife. The fact that his wife getting killed set him off on his crusade against mutants, means he has one sympathetic trait, he seems like a 99% monster, rather then a complete one.
Yeah, that's my thing with Bennett and Arius. Arius is willing to destabilize a country and have a little girl killed to get his seat of power back whereas Bennett is entirely motivated by revenge, and is willing to help with the whole scheme to kill Matrix. When Arius is dead, he tries to kill Jenny anyways and the only thing that stops him is Matrix pissing him off enough to attack Matrx
I'll have to look through Video Games and Anime & Manga, but for Literature, it seems to me that ''Discworld doesn't need its own page...
And I'm TEMPTED to say the same thing for Stephen King, but the entries are detailed and numerous enough that it should probably stay.
edited 22nd Mar '14 3:11:37 PM by ACW
That's fine. But Dragon Quest, The Elder Scrolls, Metal Gear, Super Robot Wars, and The Witcher each have 3 exactly (and Fable has 4 short ones).
Ditto Berserk, Fairy Tail, Flame Of Recca, and Rurouni Kenshin, while Yu Yu Hakusho has 4 fairly short ones.
edited 22nd Mar '14 3:42:10 PM by ACW
Eh, whatever. I was just wondering for consistency's sake because Call of Duty, Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft and Zone of the Enders had 3 or more but were on the main page (actually, come to think of it, giving Blizzard its own page wouldn't be the worst idea...).
Like so: Blizzard Monsters.
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Also did ones for Call Of Duty Monsters and Zone Of The Enders Monsters.
edited 22nd Mar '14 4:21:56 PM by ACW
All right, I want to settle Hades for good this time. The main argument against him is the tonal argument, that he's Played for Laughs too much to count, which I can see to an extent. And yet there was just a discussion about how a villain can still be partially played for laughs and still count as long as their actions are taken seriously. While Hades is comedic in nature, his main crimes (massacring humanity, molding souls into his own personal army, disrupting the balance of the world, among several less important stuff) are taken seriously. So what's the cut off point for being too comedic?
As someone who was around when we discussed the work subpages, three is the bare minimum to justify a subpage, but that is mostly because during the last TRS on the trope we ended up axing a lot of bad examples on the subpages which resulted in some of them getting too small to really justify keeping them separate. The main reason to use subpages is to keep the character limit (the letter type, not the narrative type) down before it breaks the page.
has everyone voting for Hades ready the arguments against? Because the character, in-game, is is extremely comedic.
Also, he seems to not be totally evil. He shows genuine respect for Pit as a worthy adversary, holding no grudge against Pit after he defeats him, and he seems way too comedic to count.
I don't think that respecting or even admiring your opponent prevents you from being a Complete Monster (though it WOULD prevent you from being a Smug Snake). After all, The Joker has often shown an admiration and even FONDNESS for Batman, and Jim Moriarty admired Sherlock. I think it's perfectly possible for a Complete Monster to have likeable or even admirable traits. He just doesn't have redeemable qualities. The difference being that while you could say that "This guy's actually pretty cool/funny, these "charming qualities in no way justify or excuse the horrible things he does.
Also easier question: He respects this character right? Do you think that respect would stop him from hurting or killing said character if Hades thought it would get him what he wanted?
And again, we've already discussed how being comedic shouldn't disqualify you.
edited 22nd Mar '14 6:17:10 PM by Lunacorva

Basically there's no way every single mook of an organization can qualify for this trope.