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
Also, an entry that i think i can shorten:
The Original:
The Lord of the Rings Online's "Allies of the King" (Volume 3): Lheu Brenin is the treacherous chieftain (Brenin; Lheu is his name) of the Falcon Clan of Dunland and the greatest threat faced by the Grey Company in their journey to find Aragorn. Starting out as a reasonable man, the Brenin quickly shows his true colors when sells out the Rangers to Saruman. Keeping most of the Grey Company captive in his own village, he sends the player and Lothrandir to Isengard as trophies and slaves for Saruman. The player eventually escapes and rescues the Rangers and forces Lheu and his clan to retreat beneath the mountains. In order to flee, the Brenin sends his loyal clansmen, including his only daughter, on a suicide mission to distract the Rangers. During their exile, Lheu has anyone that questions his decisions and any he deems weak thrown into pits to be devoured by monsters in the mountains. The player, alongside Gimli, finally face him beneath Helm's Deep where he reveals his plans. As a tribute to Saruman, Lheu Brenin plans on sneaking into the Glittering Caves and murdering the defenseless women and children of Rohan. The Brenin spends the entire battle deriding the last of his loyal followers as being weak as they are cut down, only to beg for his life when he is finally defeated. Unlike most servants of the Enemy who are direct products of Morgoth's corruption, Lheu Brenin is a mere mortal man who proves that even one of Illuvatar's children can be an irredeemable monster.
My rewrite:
The Lord of the Rings Online's "Allies of the King" (Volume 3): Lheu Brenin is the treacherous chieftain of the Falcon Clan of Dunland and the greatest threat faced by the Grey Company in their journey to find Aragorn. Starting out as a reasonable man, the Brenin quickly shows his true colors when sells out the Rangers to Saruman as trophies and slaves. When the player and the Rangers escaped, Lheu, in order to flee from them, sended his loyal clansmen, including his only daughter, on a suicide mission to distract the Rangers. During their exile, Lheu has anyone that questions his decisions and any he deems weak thrown into pits to be devoured by monsters in the mountains. Finally confronting the player, Brenin reveals his true plans of sneaking into the Glittering Caves and murdering the defenseless women and children of Rohan as a tribute to Saruman.
Here's some actually good quality pics of Azog beheading Thrór, I think one of these should work just fine given the better quality.
Edited by Ravok on Jan 6th 2021 at 1:14:23 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!- The Lord of the Rings Online's "Allies of the King" (Volume 3): Lheu Brenin is the treacherous chieftain of the Falcon Clan of Dunland and the greatest threat faced by the Grey Company in their journey to find Aragorn. Starting out as a reasonable man, the Brenin quickly shows his true colors when he sells out the Rangers to Saruman as trophies and slaves. When the player and the Rangers escaped, Lheu, in order to flee from them, sends his loyal clansmen, including his only daughter, on a suicide mission to distract the Rangers. During their exile, Lheu has anyone that questions his decisions and any he deems weak thrown into pits to be devoured by monsters in the mountains. Finally confronting the player, Brenin reveals his true plans of sneaking into the Glittering Caves and murdering the defenseless women and children of Rohan as a tribute to Saruman.
Let's go with the first Azog pic. For a caption how about ?
Moria had been taken by legions of Orcs led by the most vile of their race... Azog the Defiler. The giant Gundabad orc had sworn to wipe out the line of Durin. He began... by beheading the king.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."One thing I do wanna say since PoH got brought up again? The entry's wording is extremely awkward at parts "is forced to become a criminal because of unfortunate circumstances", "proves his sheer vileness by always taking bad situations and making them worse." I'm pretty sure this gets brought up a lot and it's just by resistance of the OP that it isn't altered but some of this phrasing looks frankly bizarre. Does he need the summary sentence? Do I care he was forced into a criminal lifestyle? It's not required to bring up the FE of every CM that has one and I'm concerned this dude is just someone's favourite villain for whom they're trying to give a boisterous entry while forgetting its primary purpose.
ACW: They are from The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey.
Edited by Bullman on Jan 6th 2021 at 5:15:59 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup threadI've done some thinking, and think Get Out (2017) at least deserves some reconsideration. Hear me out: I'm sure her potential mitigating quality of giving (who she thought) was her grandfather the gun to finish off Chris has been discusses, and therefore discounted. However, I'm unsure she passes the heinousness standard of the work. The Order of the Coagula are, collectively, the film's antagonists. They were started by Rose's grandfather, and basically exist to condemn innocent black men to a Fate Worse than Death for monetary and social gain. They've been doing this for what seems to have been at least half a century, and given how the founders are still alive in the body of their help, we know that at least some order members were in on the majority of their crimes. That sets an incredibly high heinousness standard for the work. And what role does Rose play in the Order? She emotionally manipulates people so her family can capture and lobotomize them. She doesn't lobotomize them like her father, make the And I Must Scream of the sunken place possible like her mother, or even, in most cases, physically attack victims like her brother. She just lures the victims to the family home and sometimes Gaslights them long enough to be captured. And as for trying to shoot, then frame Chris; it wasn't out of malice; Chris had just killed her family and effectively ruined her life, and even if she didn't care, Chris was almost certainly going to expose her if he escaped. I don't think the fact that she didn't seem to care about her family's death counts as much of a crime, since she was indirectly responsible at best. I'm also aware Word of God is that Rose is pure evil and would keep abducting black men (and presumably killing them) with the Order gone, put we don't count Word Of God on whether or not a character is a Complete Monster, only on clarifying their actions, and Rose doesn't actually become a serial killer in the film.
All that... it just feels like she's a case where a character was written to be a CM, but ultimately failed for various reason. But I want to hear your thoughts.
Rose is responsible for bringing in victims, as we see with Chris. She takes innocent, unsuspecting black people to be used in her racist family's ritual to take over their bodies. She is the single most personally cruel antagonist in the film and that puts her above for deeds, even going past her stone-cold, sociopathic personality.
There was a massive shit show when she was first proposed where someone was trying to say we should infer her parents had warped her and was insisting none of us understood what it meant for her mother to be a "corrupt psychologist". There is no evidence in the film of anything compromising her ability to distinguish morality or redeeming qualities and the possibility is outright refuted by Williams in interviews.
Edited by 43110 on Jan 6th 2021 at 6:43:14 AM
Keep Rose. She feels a unique role, and is easily most heinous and personally cruel of her family. She a sociopathic, and continues it after her family dies.
Edited by Bullman on Jan 6th 2021 at 5:32:29 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread

Yes to Vulcan.