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. "![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
GHW, I think she’s still taken seriously enough to qualify, in spite of the slapstick. It’s kinda like if the Joker was subject to slapstick, he’s still a fucking psycho nontheless.
to The Grand High Witch
Edited by G-Editor on Nov 12th 2020 at 3:48:42 AM
No issue with putting up the 2020 film's High Witch.
Ultimate Moral Compass
2020!GHW. This is Robert Zemeckis's second CM.
Edited by therealjackieboy on Nov 12th 2020 at 6:25:23 AM
"No running in the halls!"
Here's a character I've been trying to a write-up for a while on.
What is the Work Batman Beyond is the successor to Batman: The Animated Series, following the adventures of the new Batman Terry Mc Ginnis under the tutorage of an elderly Bruce Wayne in the year 2040.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
Spellbinder, real name Ira Billings, is a poorly-paid childhood psychologist at Terry's High School who creates a floating orb to induce hallucinations. Billings uses the emotional insecurities and fears of his teenage patients to garner information about potential valuables, before hypnotizing them or their relatives to steal for him. One of his victims, an elderly man, faces PSTD-induced war flashback sequences as a result. Billings emotionally manipulates Terry, bringing up his deceased father, to mine information from him about the Wayne Estate. While already nastier than an average Beyond villain, motivated purely by greed and having a distinct hatred of children, Billings becomes outright monstrous in his second appearance.
After being busted the first time, Spellbinder opts into the business venture of selling G Rated Drugs to runaway teenagers from abusive homes in the form of virtual reality machines that allow them to live out their fantasies and escape their emotional problems at crippling costs, chemical addiction, and detrimental health effects, reducing them to violent junkies. Spellbinder demonstrates a notable sadistic sense of enjoyment at his customer's misfortune, cracking a smile as one of them suffers starts spasming as a result of overuse of his machines. When his teenage customers overdoses on his drug and goes into a coma, he commands his other customers to dump them into a random alleyway corner, having repeated this process dozens of times. After Terry discovers his plot, Spellbinder attempts to kill him by painfully shocking him to death against his friend Maxine's wishes, only being saved by Maxine's timely intervention.
In his final appearance, Spellbinder manipulates Commisonor Gordon (Batgirl at this point in the universe's history) into attempting to kill Batman by making her believe he had killed Well-Intentioned Extremist Mad Stan via hallucination, for the purpose only of revenge for him stopping his prior misdeeds, gloating to Gordon how it was easy because she had already been manipulated to believe such anyways.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
No, his Freudian Excuse is obviously pathetic, merely being angry that he wasn't paid enough, and chooses to steal and ruin the lives of children instead of going into a more lucrative career with his credentials.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Batman Beyond is moody for a children show, similarly to its predecessor, but it's far from grimdark. While he's not worse than Blight, but he's easily worse than David Wheeler, particularly in his tendencies towards Would Hurt a Child.
Final Verdict?
Yes.
Spellbinder
The MILF Virus
Grand High Witch, Watchdog duo... and if Spellbinder is alone in targeting children or he really does it specfically, I could maybe say yes too, because I think it's clear he knows his actions might kill them through overdose.
Also made a rewrite of Other Player from Ar Nosurge in the draft.
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
He doesn't only target teenagers but he targets them primarily, and he definitely knows that it can kill them.
Self-Declared King of Everything
to the GHW, tentative to Spellbinder.
Is there any particular reason that on the Incarnations per Character sandbox, Darkseid and Vandal Savage have their Pre-Crisis and Post-Crisis versions counted as one, but Mongul and Hugo Strange do not?
Check out my current fanfiction project.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Tentative yes to to Spellbinder.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
The Moron
Hello again! Today, I'll be focusing on the Arrowverse fan fiction To Hell and Back (Arrowverse).
What is the Work
This work is an Alternate Universe where Oliver/The Green Arrow, Barry/The Flash, and Kara/Supergirl ended up on the island of Lian Yu with Oliver instead of him being by himself. To oversimplify the sheer amount of nails that pop up as a result, they end up being trained by the League of Assassins, led by Ra's al Ghul, and forming the Justice League several years early.
The characters I will discuss here are Talia al Ghul, Ra's' daughter, and Zoom, also known as Earth-2 Hunter Zolomon.
Who is the Candidate and What have they Done?
Talia:
As a child, Talia, raised as a member of the League of Assassins, grew arrogant and decided that she deserved to rule over the League. However, she was also childish, petty, and downright sociopathic, once attempting to kill her sister in a spar in a jealous rage and driving Ra's to test her. He sent her and Malcolm Merlyn to assassinate a dictator, with her posing as a member of his harem; when one of them insulted her, Talia responded by murdering all fifty of them, terrifying Malcolm into leaving the League and getting herself kicked out in the process.
Eventually, she discovered that Malcolm had a Lazarus Pit and decided to coerce him through his innocent son Tommy. She manipulated him into a relationship with her partner Isabel Rochev, only to murder Isabel in the same spot his own mother was murdered and drive him into her League of Shadows. She then kept Tommy under an Implied Death Threat until Malcolm revealed where his Lazarus Pit was.
Upon discovering that Ra's had created a line of succession, she attempted to assassinate Iris West, an innocent, in order to get the Justice League's attention and draw them to Nanda Parbat, where she hoped to eliminate everyone there in one fell swoop and claim the League for herself. She personally attempts to kill both her father and sister to do so, and upon being bested, flees for her life while leaving her followers to die for her failed cause. By the time she's killed, the only thing that's sad about it is that Tommy was the one who had to do it.
Zoom:
Zoom enters the story by coming out of nowhere and beating Barry to a pulp, almost killing him for literally no reason. As the mystery around him becomes solved, it's revealed that Zoom was born on Earth-2 as Hunter Zolomon, a Serial Killer even before he got his powers. When he got his powers, he decided to take over his planet, not only by becoming the mass-murderer known as Zoom but by also posing as the hero Jay Garrick, ultimately killing "Jay" to take the rest of the world's hope away.
After doing this, he discovered he was losing his speed due to his abuse of a drug, so he turned his eyes to other worlds. When he couldn't locate Barry's hideout, he went to Earth-3 instead, tortured the Jay Garrick of that world extensively and then, after stopping the torture, healing him, and feeding him, shoved his hand through Jay's chest to take his speed.
Before going to Earth-1, he forces Harry Wells to help him by threatening his daughter's life and promising she'll go free when he's done. Instead, when she's no longer necessary, he murders Jesse in front of her father, something that his canon counterpart never did. He then went to Earth-1 and murdered his counterpart over there, taking over his life and manipulating his way into Barry's life.
Once he's exposed, he frames Barry for his own murder, captures and tortures several of the heroes in order to replace them, attempts to murder Barry's father to prove they're Not So Different, and ultimately brings in every villain he can from his planet to Earth-1 in order cause indiscriminate mass chaos and death. By the end of this campaign, hundreds of innocents are dead, several have had powers forcibly unlocked, and it's considered one of the single greatest meta attacks of all time.
Do they have any Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
None whatsoever.
Talia's entire motivation stems from nothing more than jealousy that she would never inherit her father's power, alongside an arrogant belief that she is infallible. Her horrific actions go all the way back to her childhood when she attempted to murder her sister in a spar. All of her actions result in the deaths or attempted murder of several innocent people to obtain that power or satiate her bloodlust, and she doesn't even try to pretend otherwise.
Zoom, meanwhile, actually tries to invoke a Freudian Excuse to explain that he and Barry are Not So Different (his father murdered his mother right in front of him), but Barry outright laughs at him and says that it's not enough. Barry went through something incredibly similar as a child and is nowhere near as depraved as Zoom, while Zoom also admits that the only reason he's performing his horrific campaign is "because I can". Disregarding his conflicting answers, the idea that he's somehow meant to be sympathetic because he saw his parents kill each other is debunked In-Universe.
Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?
Both Zoom and Talia are shown to be the most evil characters in the setting by far. With Talia, Malcolm Merlyn, a domestic terrorist with several hundred attempted murders to his name, is outright terrified of her, and the Justice League considers her a large threat even with Supergirl on their side. For Zoom, his level of depravity surprises even Barry (and is actually worse than his canon counterpart, who has already qualified for this), and many of the villains in his employ are outright terrified and disgusted of him (Dr. Light even attempts to flee). Overall, while the work has no shortage of despicable characters, these two stand out in terms of sheer brutality, sadism, and childish depravity.
Final Verdict?
I believe that both of these characters have earned their spots as complete monsters.
to Talia and Zoom.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Talia and Zoom.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Do I have enough approval to start writing a full draft for Spellbinder or no?
To Hell and Back duo
to the Grand High Witch. Anne Hathaway kills 1.
to Spellbinder, Talia and Zoom. How many does that make for the latter?
Talia and Zoom.
Writeup for first candidate of Classic Singapore Horror Stories coming in a sec...
First of all, thanks for the feedback on the previous page, guys! So as promised, here's an entry for the most iconic entry of early 90s Singaporean horror literature:
What's the Work?
Classic Singapore Horror Stories is a four-issue anthology urban horror series from Singapore (duh), widely considered to be one of modern Singapore's most influential literary works, extremely popular during its release in the early 90s where all four books are bestsellers.
Each book contains ten independent stories (so there's 40 in total) that aims to explore the "dark nature of Singaporeans abroad" and may or may not have supernatural elements, although most of the time, the human side is scarier that whatever supernatural horrors which may pop up. And yes, some of these stories have really, really nasty villains, potentially suitable for this thread, which would be cool because... do we have candidates from Singaporean literature in the literary CM list? Don't think so. But I can cough up the first... which is from one of the 40 stories in this series.
In the short story Paint in Black note , a Singaporean socialite attempts to con a billionaire of his wealth.
The Proposed Candidate
Jessica Kwan is a 25-year-old socialite, Gold Digger and self-described "Fortune Huntress" who uses her pretty face and sex appeal as means to flirt with older men, tricking them into making her their personal mistress, manipulating them into ditching their wives for her, and then cleaning up their bank accounts before dumping them to move on from one unfortunate sucker to the next. She is well aware of the number of families she had ripped apart, and shows NO remorse over her actions, instead hoping to scam a wealthier victim each time.
Jessica's accomplice, Robert Kee, is an inheritance lawyer in charge of the will of Gopal Balla, an 80-odd year-old Indian billionaire with estates established all over Asia, and a lavish manor in his native New Delhi where his first two wives and family lives. However, Gopal Balla doesn't have an heir to his wealth, due to his wives being infertile, and is actively seeking a potential third wife that could bear a child.
Knowing from Robert of Gopal Balla's true wealth being kept in his New Delhi bank account and lusting after the mountain of cash and gold which she sees as an inheritance, Jessica and Robert decides to usurp the wealth for themselves. Convincing Robert into hooking her up with Gopal, Jessica made the old billionaire accept her as his third wife, just as Gopal is making a visit back home to India where his wives and his servants, led by a creepy-looking fellow named Puuga who is the chauffer, are waiting. Robert tags along, being in charge of the Balla's bank accounts since Jessica is officially made a member of the Balla family.
Arriving in India, Jessica quickly made enemies with Gopal's older wives; first wife Nalla Balla, a portly middle-aged woman of some higher upper-class Indian family, and second wife Aisha, a beauty of Middle-Eastern descent, both of them completely unexpected to see this 25-year-old Singaporean socialite stealing their husband away. Jessica despise both of Gopal's wives as well, due to seeing them as "rivals" for the inheritance, while Robert the laywer only tried doing his job managing the Balla estate's fortune, keeping minimal contact with most of the Balla family and servants, save for Puuga (the only English-speaker of the servants).
Shortly after their arrival, Puuga gets on the bad side of Aisha after she caught him stealing liquor from the pantry; Jessica and Robert suddenly had an idea to get rid of Gopal's wives, by convincing Puuga to frame the beautiful Aisha for having an affair. Puuga gleefully agrees, and a week later this results in a massive outroar in the Balla family. To Robert's horror, it turns out adultery in the Balla family is punishable by public execution via stoning (eh, something like this), which he is unaware of (he only wanted to have Aisha divorced or otherwise removed from the picture). The elderly Gopal Balla ends up fainting over the execution, but Jessica shows ZERO remorse and decides to personally partake in the stoning.
Aisha's death clearly disturbs Robert who wants out, but Jessica convince him to continue with their ploy, firstly by advising him, then threatening him because "she is his boss' wife and can kick him out if she wants to". After all, one more wife to go, so Robert decides to arrange for plans to eliminate Nalla the first wife. Puuga decides to volunteer, saying he knows a Professional Killer who uses baby Indian cobras as weapons: because the cobras are so tiny, their venom works slowly, and wouldn't leave any trace of poisoning. So soon enough, Nalla Balla is eliminated too.
Gopal Balla, losing both his wives in less than a month, ends up destitute from a broken heart, while Jessica and Robert start making preparations to have the inheritance divided among themselves, of course with Jessica getting majority of the money. But realizing Gopal isn't going to kick the bucket soon, Jessica decides to take matter into her own hands by bedding Gopal Balla one night, and then eliminating him (implied via Vorpal Pillow). The morning after, Jessica gleefully orders all the servants of the Balla family to pack their things, announcing her intent to sell the estate and leave "this shithole called Delhi" once she's legally entitled to the wealth. All the servants hates her at this point, but there's nothing they can do because their boss is dead, right?
… eh, not really. Jessica's actions comes back to bite her in the ass because as it turns out, the traditional Balla family actually still firmly believes in ancient Indian traditions, including the act of Satti or ritualistic burning, where the wife of a higher-class family is cremated with the husband, alive or not. So on the day of the funeral, Jessica ends up suddenly ambushed by the servants (led by Puuga, which she mistreats during her stint as Gopal's third wife), tied up alive, and flung into the funeral pyre where Gopal is burning. Roast in Peace, you sickening manipulative bitch.
As for Robert, after the downfall of the Balla family, he decide not to report Jessica's fate to the Singaporean Embassey. Quitting his job as a lawyer, he ends up Dying Alone in the outskirts of New Delhi.
Mitigating Factors or Freudian Excuse?
NOPE. All of Jessica's actions are driven by greed, lust, and at no point did she show remorse. Even after Aisha ends up being sentenced to a public stoning, Jessica actually partakes in the stoning, while Robert does have a My God, What Have I Done? moment.
She did have sex with Robert after Gopal Balla's death as "reward" for him hooking her with the Balla family estate, a rather mild Petthe Dog moment. But she clearly didn't care for Robert, considering him to be a mere lackey.
What About the Heinousness Standard?
The only other villain is Robert the inheritance lawyer, who is a Harmless Villain and accomplice to Jessica's actions. Honestly, throughout the story Robert (oh god it feels so weird typing that out) is nothing but a spineless coward subserviant to Jessica. So nope, no recommendations for the guy with the same name as mine.
As for Puuga the servant, he's willing to partake in Jessica and Robert's schemes, but even then he's a mere Punch-Clock Villain.
Should we Count Jessica Kwan then?
Yeah, why not.
Edited by RobertTYL on Nov 12th 2020 at 11:41:41 PM
I'm saying no. The stoning was already happening even when she decided to join in so that leaves her with murdering the other wife and her elderly husband as her crimes. She might manipulate Robert at points but our "hero" sounds like almost as much of an asshole at times. I'm also guessing this is an anthology so even if she did just cross baseline—which I don't think she even does in a vacuum—we'd probably be bumping her soon anyways.
Lizzid people!
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Jessica
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
『 』
I have an EP on a Yu-Gi-Oh villain, but it's bizarrely not from an anime, but the TCG itself.
What is Yu-Gi-Oh!? What are the World Legacy cards?
Yu-Gi-Oh! is one of the most popular trading card games in the world that involves reducing your opponent's Life Points to 0 through monsters, spells, and traps. Beyond a couple of loose nods, though, the various archetypes don't really connect to each other in any sort of metaplot, so it's not something you'd expect Complete Monsters to come from. However, one plot is deep enough to potentially produce such a thing; the World Legacy archetype. The plot is relatively generic, with three youngsters, Avram, Ib, and Girsu, and their pet dragon Imduk, being the Chosen Ones to collect 7 mystical artifacts, meeting several mysterious races along the way. Of course, for a story like this, there's always a Big Bad, which is...
Who is Lee, the World Chalice Fairy? What does she do?
I'll include a video showing the plot of the World Legacy cards to help you along with them (and show I'm not just making things up about children's card games); skip to 9:48 to the parts relevant to the EP.
Lee first appears before the heroes to tell them that they are the Chosen Ones who will need to find the 7 World Legacy items to save the world, and shows them to the World Chalice. However, unbeknownst to the heroes, it later turns out the World Legacy items are a lot closer to Artifacts of Doom, and Lee was doing it for her own power. When they reach the World Shield, Lee betrays them and possesses Ib, fusing them into Knightmare Corruptor Iblee. She then takes out the other two heroes and kills the 7 Mekk-Knights that were assisting them, corrupts 6 of them into the Knightmares. Girsu runs off to fight them, while Avram tries but fails to defeat Iblee. Before he's finished off, though, Imduk saves him by forcing Ib's spirit out of Iblee, who then kills her physical body. Lee seems finished...
But much later on in the story, after the 7 World Legacy items were combined into one, causing a massive cataclysm, Ib's body, who was transformed into the robot Galatea, and is most likely still be possessed by Lee, absorbs the big tower that Girsu was building to become the Orcust Knightmare, quickly killing Imduk, who was simply trying to protect Avram, then absorbs the power of 3 of the Guardragons to become Knightmare Incarnation Idlee, and attempts to become a god with the power of the World Legacy items. Together with a couple of other monsters she revived, she then fights one final battle with the heroes, which ends in her defeat, with Ib at last being torn out of the amalgam between her and Lee.
Any mitigating factors?
She is in an amalgam with Ib for much of the story, but Ib is definitely not evil, as shown by her killing her physical form when it was possessed by Lee, so it's safe to assume Lee was completely in control of her fusions with Ib.
Heinousness Standard?
As the Big Bad, she sets it. She is directly responsible for killing 7 Mekk-Knights, Ib, Imduk, and possibly 3 Guardragons, and unleashes a world devastating cataclysm, which should get her past the baseline heinousness standard. There is another villain that pops up at the end who could potentially destroy the world, but it's a Giant Space Flea from Nowhere whose power level relative to Lee is hard to define, so I think it's still safe to say this doesn't disqualify her.
The Yu-Gi-Oh TCG has basically no arcs as developed as this one, so comparing to other arcs won't do us a ton of good.
Verdict?
The World Legacy lore is admittedly a bit ill-defined, but we get enough from the card art to at least have a coherent plot. Is it clear enough to define Iblee as a CM? I'll let you decide.
Edited by Kappaclystica on Nov 12th 2020 at 9:05:37 AM
Based on the EP, to yet another Grand High Witch.
First for Anne Hathaway. Never thought I’d say that...
The Unknown Unknown
I'll... have to think about Lee. Admittedly, I'm a little taken aback the actual cards have some semblance of lore.
A cruel, sick joke is still a joke, and sometimes all you can do is laugh.