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
Fang (a.k.a Shaw Brothers' biggest scumbag) added. Hope it looks okay though:
- The Sword of Swords: Fang Shih-Hsiung starts off as a Jerkass big-brother mentor who regularly bullies Lin Jen-shiau, but turns out to have ulterior motives to claim the titular powerful sword for his own selfish purposes. In the aftermath of a duel with Lin for the Sword's ownership, Fang pretends to accept defeat, only to turn around, steal the sword instead and attempt to hold his mentor, Master Mui, as hostage. Returning later with a legion of bandits, Fang had Master Mui killed, personally executes Master Mui's wife right in front of Lin, and later force Lin and his wife to go on the run to protect the Sword from falling into the wrong hands. Fang eventually abducts Bai-feng, have Lin blinded via darts thrown into his eyes and left for dead with his baby in the wilderness, and upon finding out Lin is still alive, had his henchmen kidnap numerous innocent villagers to be used as meatshields and tricks Lin into slaughtering all his friends, while Fang watches gleefully with a sadistic, satisfied smile on his face.
Edited by RobertTYL on Dec 18th 2020 at 4:27:52 PM
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This is correct. The author of the books has flip-flopped on whether he considers the games an official continuation, but they are explicitly a continuation. (Though I haven't read them to know how much we really see of Nilfgaardian commanders in general, so I can't address this particular character.)
To riff off the Star Wars theme of the last two posts, saying the heinousness standard of the books doesn't affect the games is like saying the heinousness standard of the original Star Wars trilogy doesn't affect the Thrawn Trilogy.
Yeah, there's still the franchise heinous standard. One of the reasons we cut Cuu.
Just reminding you that I reserved my spot for Fate: The Winx Saga on February 5.
Edited by ccorb on Dec 18th 2020 at 9:18:57 AM
Rock'n'roll never dies!Here's what's pending:
- Underworld, by Tony Abbott: Loki (Clown-Face)
- Blackwell
(Jackie)
- The Year of the Witching, by Alexis Henderson: Prophet (Lighty)
- Wire in the Blood (MGD)
- King Darius (Mir)
- Duke Enoch J. Drebber (Mir)
- Alien Nuaza Eshilis (ThePat)
- Fatman (2020): Billy Wenan (Ravok)
- Armando Becker (Ravok)
@Lightysnake: Thank you very much. That was excatly the kind of information I was looking for. :) But speaking about the coup: I took a look at the wiki page beforhand and there's a part about him being part of a coup to remove Emhyr from power.
Although he, along with Vilgefortz, was instrumental in removing the Usurper from power and placing Emhyr var Emreis on the throne, he, like many other nobles and members of the Merchants' Guild, later got tired of Emreis' endless wars against the Northern Kingdoms, which always ended in defeat. Beside this, Emhyr chose to marry Cirilla of Cintra instead of their daughters. Therefore, along with Joachim de Wett, Count d'Arvy, Berengar Leuvaarden, the Count Broinne and Stefan Skellen, he conspired to remove Emhyr from the imperial throne and put Morvran Voorhis in his place.
Is that part wrong or was he involved in the conspiracy but sill cared about Emhyr?
Yeah, but for "endless wars" there is a big thing. If I'm being honest, his earlier loyalty to the Emreis family is a huge sticking point for me.
Okay, from Thronebreaker, though, there is this:
Ardal aep Dahy doesn't wear plate armour and his sword is purely ceremonial, too blunt to cut a bar of butter. But don't let this fool you, he is a ruthless general. There's no oath he will hesitate to break, no holy site he'll refuse to sack, no amount of civilian lives he will not sacrifice in exchange for a tactical advantage. He fights with carefully phrased letters, not blades.
Edited by Lightysnake on Dec 18th 2020 at 10:03:24 AM
I want to nominate Reza Zaydan, a character from Hitman (2016).
What is the work? Hitman 2016 is the sixth game in the eponymous Stealth-Based Game series. Taking place after Absolution, the game revolves around 47 assassinating targets across the world (France, Italy, Morocco, Thailand, Colorado, and Japan), starting off with 47 being inducted into the ICA. The plot is a conspiracy thriller - a shadow client is manipulating 47 into eliminating people connected to Providence, The Illuminati of the game, thwarting their plans in the process.
Who is Reza Zaydan? What have they done? Reza Zaydan is a Royal Moroccan Army general and a member of Providence, who is the secondary target of the mission "A Gilded Cage". Zaydan was responsible for intercepting a prison convoy containing conman Claus Hugo Strandberg, the mission's primary target, who had been jailed for conning 7 billion dollars out of the public. During the breakout, he orders his troops to shoot at the convoy, despite the police officers not resisting. One of his soldiers, a brother of one of the killed officers and a friend of his, turns on him, resulting in Zaydan torturing him and setting him up for execution.
As part of Providence's plans for Morocco, Zaydan intends on using Strandberg's breakout to overthrow the Rabat government and instill a military coup with a False Flag Operation - He riles up the protesters with propaganda under the name of Crystal Dawn, a terrorist group not active in the area, before sending soldiers disguised as Crystal Dawn members to arm the protesters, using the ensuing destruction and death to instill martial law before overthrowing the government. He would then fly Strandberg to South America, only to drop him from the plane due to him being an unnecessary complication of his plans.
Mitigating Factors? Freudian Excuse? None. Intel on Zaydan and dialogue from his troops indicate that he's a power-hungry phony who used his family's wealth to buy his way into general rather than earn it. His only real expertise is enhanced interrogation techniques, which he uses on the aforementioned soldier, a friend of his. He ordered the deaths of the six officers to incite public outrage, despite the fact they weren't resisting, and hopes to kill off several innocent protestors who want justice for being victims of a con artist to succeed with his military coup. Murderous intentions aside, his troops loath him for everything above, with the sequel stating that all of his troops insisted he acted alone in his plans. While he has dated several women, its suggested that it's merely for his appearance and money than his personality - his current girlfriend is a honey trap who finds him revolting and intends to break the relationship off. It's stated that he keeps his enemies close and his friends under surveillance. Finally, while killing Strandberg counts as Kick The Son Of A Bitch, it's merely because Strandberg is a thorn on the side for both him and Providence.
Heinousness Standard While Strandberg is a complete Hate Sink, he is at least non-violent and Faux Affably Evil. Zaydan is a megalomaniac who intends on killing innocents under a false flag operation simply to instill a military government. The only other person on par with him is another monster from the game, Oybek Nabazov, who also intends on killing millions but with a virus. Even the other targets don't kill their friends or innocent people.
Final Verdict Honestly I was worried at first if he counts or not, but given the extent of his actions, I'd definitely advocate adding him.
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Okay, I'm still unsure. So I'm going to abstain from making an EP for now. Maybe going to read to books myself. Always wanted to do it, but now I have another reason.
Again, thank you for telling me about this potential mitigating factor. As much as I try to look at all the available information about a candidate, I didn’t want to read through five books just to find out if a relatively minor character did pet a dog at some point. And The Witcher franchise only consists of a few books, games and a TV show (which is a different canon). Imagine having to do the same thing for a character from Stars Wars or DC comics.
I E Ped Zaydan before. He was downvoted back them, although I would still give him a
.
Edited by NTG on Dec 18th 2020 at 10:19:06 AM
The original effort post for Zaydan is here
, for reference.
The death cops are shown in the mission briefing in aerial footage image. The soldier who’s brother he killed appears in the mission as prisoner. There’s also a huge (but currently peaceful) protests in front of the embassy. Zaydan also talks with his men about his plans in great lengths. He also hired four printers to place fake Crystal Dawn propaganda posters to rile up the population and talks about how he needs to kill the printers once he no longer needs them.
What we don’t see is the part where he plans to send in soldiers disguised as Crystal Dawn members as part of a false flag operation.


@NTG: I’m no expert on the books but it seemed that the book and video game canons are separate from each other so that heinous standard from the book can’t effect the heinous standard of the games. Though I can’t be certain since I haven’t read or played the books and games. Still if you think that he is heinous enough then feel free to EP him
Edited by G-Editor on Dec 18th 2020 at 10:15:35 AM
My sandbox of EPs and other stuff