Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

I think that between Hyde's generally inconsistent portrayal, and the fact that there are worse threats out there, he should stay off the list.

Al-Asad is a keeper for his part in the nuke and what we see his revolution brings about at the start of the game. Is say keep on Zakhaev since we never see any love for his son. He could be upset at his sons death, he could just be pissed that the Americans dared to touch his blood.

Ah, I was thinking of this for Kravchenko, but it's Offscreen Villainy:

How does Blizzard Entertainment look? If no issues, I'll request it when I request the swapping for film (in about 48 hours).

Because I felt like it: VG Monsters has some subpages added to the main page, just for fun.

edited 24th Mar '14 3:20:50 PM by ACW

What do you mean "just for fun"?

I think we agreed to cut every Diablo example besides Lazarus and Adria.

on Hyde. It sounds like he has full moral agency and uses it abhorrently. I don't think that the Sliding Scale of Villain Threat should really come up here (and besides, he at least tried to blow up a large city), and his human experimentation sounds like a rare mark of heinousness (though I'm sure not an entirely unique one) in the Marvel universe.

You know what, I just found out Mr. Hyde had a genuine Pet the Dog moment I was previously unaware of. In a Daredevil story in the 90s, Mr. Hyde took in a drug addict named Angela Parrish and helped her kick the habit. Parrish even wrote him a thank you card for his kindness. Another super villain named Eel who had a grudge against Hyde, killed Parrish and tried to frame Hyde for it. Hyde was so distraught he started to punish himself for failing to protect her. This seems to discount him, because he genuinely seemed care for that runaway, so he may be taken off the list by virtue of having a redeeming quality.

Anyway I am going to put my write up of Rachid from Spooks on the Edit Locked Pages thread, does anyone wan met to put on any other write ups while I am there?

Also I would like to discuss the C Ms from the Ratchet and Clank series, is that series too comedic to have C Ms or do people here think the characters mentioned here are played seriously enough to count:

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/RatchetAndClank

I am bit conflicted on Chairman Drek, he was played somewhat humorously for much of the game, but in the end when reveals his true motive he seems to treated more seriously.

edited 24th Mar '14 11:02:02 PM by TheOverlord

That would definitely disqualify Hyde. And while it's true that there are comic book characters whose dog petting we have ignored (Sabretooth, for instance) those are only in cases where it is totally out of character. Since Hyde's heinousness isn't near as bad as that of Sabretooth, and he's frequently portrayed as an out and out joke (witness in either Bendis or Brubaker's Daredevil run, where he's far less threatening than the likes of Bullseye or Mr. Fear), I'm not comfortable with including him.

We're not talking about the Sliding Scale of Villain Threat. We're talking Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness. And when contrasted with some other general Marvelverse villains, Hyde comes up short in that department.

EDIT: Speaking of Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness, I think that page is going to be a problem. Yes, one could argue it is relevant, but do you suppose they could have inserted more references to Complete Monster? It's practically every other line. And it contains some flat out inaccuracies, like it's claim that a Card-Carrying Villain is usually a CM (I've corrected that one), which given how often it is parodied, is BS. Can anyone think of some ways to clean this up?

edited 24th Mar '14 11:01:27 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

X5: Well, there was no agreement on removing the subpages, but I was curious how it looked if we did (BTW, it's STILL shorter than Film, which I will swap out in about 24 hours).

X4: If we did, that can be changed (though I did a search and couldn't find it). I still like Blizzard having its own page though.

edited 25th Mar '14 5:24:27 AM by ACW

Sliding Scale of Antagonist Vileness: Hrm, I do think that a number of Complete Monster mentions can stay. Make sure that each cite describes the trope correctly, though.

Hey all,

Thought I'd bring this page to your attention. Personally, I'd say that only Israphel deserves to stay due to most of the others suffering from offscreen villainy or failing on the heinous count. (Vitali's vile, but most of his murders were offscreen, and the burning of Stoneholm / infections of the dwarven city were also offscreen, atrocious though they may be). Also, most of them are too Laughably Evil, and even Israphel was before his characterisation kicked in.

I'll work on grammar Saturday, and hope to launch the VG Monday morning. Should be easier since we've been through them.

Since Complete Monsters appearing in comedic works has been mentioned recently, I figured I'd make it the "theme" of this post. Here are two proposed rewrites for certain characters, the first is Saris from Galaxy Quest. Here's his current entry below.

• The Galactic warlord Sarris from Galaxy Quest could be considered a complete monster, especially by comedy film standards. For no discernible reason, he attempts complete genocide of the peaceful Thermians. He doesn't do this simply through brute force, but also through lies and promises of mercy, when the Thermians don't even understand the CONCEPT of deception or lies. Then, when he decides to execute the remainder of the Thermians by destroying the ship ("Far too simple a death for them, isn't it?"), he decides that it would be far more fitting for them to slowly suffocate as the air was pumped out of the ship. There's also his torture of the Thermians' last captain before Mathesar: she told Sarris everything she knew about the ship and the Omega-13 and begged him to kill her. His response? "When I grow tired of the noises you make, you shall die." And what happened to the shield tech who didn't get the shields up fast enough for Sarris's liking. Complete Monster? Without a doubt.

And here's my proposed rewrite.

• The Galactic Warlord Saris from Galaxy Quest, who launches a campaign of genocide against the naïve and child-like Thermian race in order to get a powerful and mysterious device the Thermians have, the Omega 13. What Saris does not know is that the Omega 13, as well as the entire Thermian culture, is based on an old television show called "Galaxy Quest" which the Thermians believe to be historical documents, and they've recruited the actors from the show to save their race. In order to get the Omega 13, Saris tortured the former Thermian commander for days, only killing him when he "grew tired of the noises" the old commander made. In his pursuit of the device, Saris wiped out the entire Thermian race save for a crew of hundreds, tortured Mathesar in front of lead actor, Jason Nesmith, to get Jason to tell him what the device does, and prepares to torture Nesmith's Love Interest, Gwen, when Jason can't answer his question. Showing Saris that the historical documents are really a television show, Saris laughs and congratulates the actors on doing "far greater damage than he ever could." He then forces Nesmith to tell Mathesar the truth in order to crush Mathesar completely, tries to have the actors thrown out the airlock, and tries to murder the last remnant of the Thermian race by suffocating them to death. This final act he does because he believes dying in the ship's explosion is too "simple" and quick a death for the Thermians. Saris also shows no empathy for the lives of those under his command, he decapitated his lieutenant for failing to get the ship's shields up in time and carried his head around on a spike, and doesn't care that his men on the Thermian ship will be killed in the upcoming core implosion so long as they kill the actors for him. His ship destroyed, Saris makes one final bid to kill the protagonists, disguising himself as a crewmember and teleporting on their ship, he begins personally killing everyone, actor and Thermian alike, until Jason manages to activate the Omega 13, which allows him to go back in time enough to thwart Saris. Through the movie, Saris managed to be an utterly horrifying villain despite being in an otherwise funny movie.

I also wanted to expand Xykon's write-up from Order Of The Stick. Here's the original below.

• The Order of the Stick: Xykon (pictured) is funny, charming, easily bored, and probably the sickest character in the comic. As a young boy, his dog dies, but in a deliberate subversion of a Freudian Excuse, he accidentally raises it as a zombie and exults as it kills and eats a bird. As a teenager, he keeps his zombified grandmother in his closet, kills and zombifies a man who offers to train him as a sorcerer, then kills and zombifies his own parents for letting the man in. As a would-be Evil Overlord, he chooses actions solely on the basis of their potential to amuse him versus the effort required. At one point he comes right out and accuses Redcloak of being a wimp because of his principled stance, declaring that the true measure of one's evil is the willingness to utterly debase oneself to achieve one's goals. The capstone of his evil comes when he makes the entire Sapphire Guard kill each other with a Symbol of Insanity, just to show Redcloak it would work.

I wanted to expand more on some of Xykon's more heinous crimes as well as his ultimate plan. Here's my write-up below.

• The Order of the Stick: Xykon is funny, charming, easily bored, and probably the sickest character in the comic. As a young boy, his dog dies, but in a deliberate subversion of a Freudian Excuse, he accidentally raises it as a zombie and exults as it kills and eats a bird. As a teenager, he keeps his zombified grandmother in his closet, kills and zombifies a man who offers to train him as a sorcerer, then kills and zombifies his own parents for letting the man in. As a would-be Evil Overlord, he chooses actions solely on the basis of their potential to amuse him versus the effort required. At one point he comes right out and accuses Redcloak of being a wimp because of his principled stance, declaring that the true measure of one's evil is the willingness to utterly debase oneself to achieve one's goals. When Redcloak first began working with Xykon, he was joined by his brother, Right-Eye. When Xykon's evil and callousness with the lives of his goblin underlings grew too great for Right-Eye's liking, Right-Eye tried to assassinate Xykon with a special dagger. Redcloak, unwilling to let the sacrifices he already made be for nothing, regretfully killed his own brother to save Xykon's life. It was then that Xykon revealed both that he knew about the assassination attempt, and had a means of preventing it, but he knowingly allowed Redcloak to kill Right-Eye just to permanently bind Redcloak to Xykon's service. He then forced Redcloak to raise his brother as a zombie. He also trapped the souls of two mages, Lirian and Dorukan, in a gem in order to make them suffer forever. In the present story Xykon seeks to capture the gates that would allow him to command the Snarl, and has been going to any measure to do so. He sacked Azure City to claim their gate, and, for his own enjoyment made the entire Sapphire Guard kill each other with a Symbol of Insanity. Xykon's ultimate plan is to unleash the Snarl so he can control it and use it against his enemies, uncaring that the monster is what everyone believes to be an evil, god-murdering abomination which has the power to destroy the world.

For Xykon, I felt like more of his worst deeds should be mentioned since the whole "funny villain" thing has been brought up a lot, so hopefully it'd deter people from including him in that type of discussion. Also removed the Weblink since Weblinks Are Not Examples. Thoughts on the expansion, or is the original entry good enough?

And speaking of evil skeletons, since I had three yays and no nays, here's my entry for Hector LeMans.

• Hector LeMans, the Big Bad of Grim Fandango, is the man behind the corruption in the Department of Death. In the Land of the Dead, where how good of a person you were in life determines the means you're able to traverse the Underworld, the fastest way to get to the Land of Eternal Rest is on the Number Nine train, a train which covers the Four Year Journey of the Soul in four minutes instead of four years. A brutal mobster, Hector has infiltrated the DoD and stolen the Number Nine tickets belonging to the souls of the righteous, and counterfeits them in order to sell off to the rich. However, one's destiny can't be bough, and anyone who uses a counterfeit Number Nine ticket is plunged into hell's fiery depths. Meanwhile, the righteous souls Hector stole them from are left to wander the Land of the Dead until they're eventually kidnapped while traversing the ocean and sent to the coral mining factory owned by Hector at the Edge of the World. Here they are meant to be eternally enslaved so as to prevent Hector's misdeeds from coming to life. Probably the most evil thing Hector has done, however, is the commission of sprouting, a way to permanently kill those already dead. Special plant bullets are fired into the skeletal body, growing and spreading until the victim is completely overrun and is nothing more than an empty husk filled with flowers. Hector as capitalized on this, murdering hundreds and keeping their bodies as a field of flowers which he builds his hideout upon. Hector even has a greenhouse where preserves the corpses of his victims and tends to the flowers, keeping them as trophies of all who dare cross him. By the game's end he has Salvador's body sprouted and his head removed for questioning and shoots Manny with a slow-acting sproutella which will keep him alive in agony for hours before eventually killing him. Despite all the pain and misery he's caused in the Land of the Dead, Hector doesn't care, he merely wants to live like a king before using the stolen tickets to bribe his way into heaven.

Thoughts?

edited 25th Mar '14 9:58:18 AM by OccasionalExister

The Xykon rewrite looks great.

Sarris looks good. Feel free to replace the Sandbox entry.

Good write ups I think.

RE that discussion of Xykon a few pages back, I think the "played seriously at all times" criterion has created some confusion, which I'll admit to sharing.

I think it is supposed to refer to how the work (and/or its cast) treats the character. Like that Hades example seems a good illustration- there's all these things that suggest the game isn't treating Hades as this totally heinous menace.

However, I think where the trope causes problems is when it is interpreted as meaning that a villain is always threatening, and when they do show humor it has to be in a manner that they find funny but no one else does. The problem with this interpretation is that it rules out any Villain with Good Publicity characters, and similarly, doesn't allow for the possibility that a Complete Monster can be charming and good company (I don't think it is necessary that a Complete Monster be engaging in evil 24/7 as long as they aren't doing anything Good in their time off). Hell, they can even enjoy the company of and be nice to other people. What makes them a Complete Monster is that that at the end of the day don't care for anyone else and will cause harm to others without a second thought.

With Xykon specifically, there is some Early-Installment Weirdness with his character (since the strip started out as a gag-a-day) such that earlier strips present him as pretty comical and suggest a Villainois Friendship between he and Redcloak. The purpose of Start of Darkness is to give context to this relationship in a way that aligns with the "evolved" take on Xykon in later strips. Also, a big part of Xykon's character is that he's really bored. He mostly alienates that through sadism, but on some level he can't but help to appreciate Redcloak's company (and vice versa) since they are stuck together.

And when Xykon isn't being lazy, he's really, really heinous.

edited 25th Mar '14 9:42:10 AM by Hodor

Also, on the Complete Monster Film Sandbox article, shouldn't The Exorcist example be above the Expendables example? Also, is the example good on its own, or does it need to be refernced that Pazuzu possessed Regan because Merrin beat him when he possessed a child back in Africa?

edited 25th Mar '14 10:11:20 AM by AustinDR

Yes. Also, is it really necessary to mention who's listed on the Star Wars and Transformers pages? People could easily click it and see for themselves.

Yeah, I agree that's not really necessary.

I'd like at least one more vote for the literary Hugo Drax before I write him up.

, done.

Actually, for Transformers, wondering if I should move that example (or copy it) to the main page.

edited 25th Mar '14 10:13:26 AM by ACW

I'll give him a vote.

If Hugo felt wronged by WWII, was it taken as something that should be taken as sympathetically in the book?

I think that's more ego

Then I vote to keep him, if it's more about his ego being fractured rather than genuine depression out of his side losing in WWII.