Subpages cleanup: Complete Monster

to Viktor.

Okay now for my next Dalziel and Pascoe candidate, once again we have someone quite different.

“Bones and Silence” is a season three episode and an adaptation of the novel of the same name. Whilst already struggling with trying to find a young woman who’s planning to commit suicide, and having to deal with being shanghaied into participating in a local religious play, Dalziel is further disturbed by witnessing a shooting from his own back garden, drawing himself into a case more twisted than a plate of spaghetti.

And at the centre of it our candidate, Philip Swain.

Who Is he:

Officially Philip Swain is a respectable local construction magnate, the joint owner of Swain and Stringer with his childhood friend Arnie Stringer. Swain running the finances and planning side of the business, whilst Stringer handles the more hands on parts of the business. Swain has a deep influence in the local community.

However, in reality Swain is an understated but smug and utterly cold blooded villain, who’s greatest talent is lying.

What Does He Do:

Swain had his eyes focused on getting the contract to develop luxury homes for the council at Crimpers Knoll, a contract that would guarantee him a fortune. Employing the disreputable lawyer Eden Thackeray to arrange the bribes to ensure he got all the necessary planning permission. However, in doing so Swain over stretched his business.

Needing money to tide them over until they could start work, Swain began to steal it from his wife Gail, who came from a wealthy family in California. Even using a forged check to continue employing Thackeray.

Gail eventually found out about this and confronted Swain. The rowed, and Swain killed Gail.

Stashing her body in a barn on his estate at Moscow Farm, as his wife had been planning to go back to America to visit her family, Swain used that to pass off her disappearance. But before he could dispose of her body Tony Appleyard, Stringer’s son-in-law, suddenly turned up and Stringer dragged him into the barn to settle their differences. In the scuffle they accidentally stumbled on to Gail’s body.

Grasping a pitchfork Swain plunged it into Appleyard’s chest killing him on the spot. He then manipulated Stringer into agreeing to help him cover up both bodies. That Sunday night when no one was around they hid both bodies at the site of their firm’s latest job, which ironically happened to be providing a new car park for the Wetherton Police force.

Swain then proceeded to sell off all the farm machinery he kept in the barn to disguise getting rid of the pitch fork.

Needing to get himself off the hook for killing Gail, Swain devised an evil plan. Knowing that local architect Greg Waterson was in an unwanted relationship with a heroin addict called Beverly King whose bodytype and hair resembled Gail he roped him into a plan to get rid of her. Waterson lured Beverly to his home one evening, where Swain was waiting. Staging the scene, Swain shot Beverly through the head with Gail’s revolver, knowing the wound would distort her features enough for her to pass for Gail.

Swain staged the scene to look like a suicide, claiming he had stumbled onto his wife having an affair with Waterson, knowing that Gail’s family’s lawyers would exact their influence to ensure the investigation was rushed so they could bury the body. But they were interrupted by Dalziel who had seen Swain come at Beverly with the gun from his window. Dalziel arrested Swain for the murder, but hit the snag as Waterson’s statement agreed with Swain that it had been a suicide.

Waterson did a runner to destroy his drug supply, and fearing that Swain would kill him next to remove the lose end, went into hiding. Meanwhile Swain as a respected member of community ended up agreeing to play the part of Lucifer in a big Cathedral performance that was being organised, ironically opposite Dalziel who had been convinced to play God.

Realising that Dalziel wasn’t backing down on the investigation, Swain decided to change tactics, altering his statement to say that Gail had in fact come at him with the gun and in the scuffle it had gone off. Aiming to have it ruled death by misadventure. Dalziel was no more convinced by this than his original claims, but it was enough for the inquest to rule in his favour and force Dalziel to release the body.

Taking Beverly to America, Swain had the body cremated and then hasted back to England. Overjoyed that he could now do whatever he wanted with her money, Swain set his focus on developing Crimper’s Knoll. Finding out that Stringer was struggling with guilt and nightmares, Swain reassured him declaring that Dalziel “knew nothing, and could prove less” and now he had Gail’s estate they had nothing to worry about as he could pay for all the justice he liked.

However, deciding that Stringer had become a liability upon their ceremonial first dig on the site, whilst driving the digger Swain ran Stringer over. He then called for help, claiming he’d jumped in front of the machine. Stringer was rushed to hospital but it was no good, and after several hours he died his body broken.

When Dalziel confronted him about why Stringer would want to kill himself, Swain offered to confess claiming that Stringer had accidentally killed Tony during a fight and that he’d helped cover it up out of a sense of loyalty. He then revealed where he was buried in the carpark.

Dalziel however, having figured out the truth of Beverly’s disappearance had then continue to dig away from where Swain had told them, and sure enough found his actual wife’s body. Seeing it, Swain switched tactics admitting that was his wife’s body, he then claimed that her death had been an accident and that killing Beverly had all been Waterson’s idea.

However, Waterson got wind that Stringer was dead and Swain was in custody, and thus turned himself in, telling them what had really happened and revealing how afraid of Swain he actually was.

Still none of it was enough to charge Swain with anything other than conspiracy, which is what he was now banking on.

But Dalziel struck a break as Pascoe after reading the pathologist report on Tony realised how he really died, and managed to track down the pitch fork. Dalziel confronted him revealing that not only did they have it, but they had evidence Swain had lied on his testimony (he claiming he hid his wife’s body in his wine cellar), as they had found Bat droppings on her clothes the same type that were living in his barn. Thus he had had him for murder.

Leaving Swain to have an impressively restrained breakdown realising that he had been defeated by bat droppings.

Any Freudian Excuse or Redeeming Traits:

Nothing that holds up under scrutiny.

Make no mistake Swain is a brilliant actor, he repeatedly gives great performances presented himself as a shocked and saddened man who keeps getting caught up in tragedies. He gives the performance of being devastated by his wives death, and then by his dear friend Stringer’s.

But it’s all utterly hollow, and when we see Swain in his true self is clear he’s an arrogant, slimy creep who believes himself to be above the law and hasn't got a single care for anyone but himself.

Stringer is loyal to Swain, claiming that he had always been a good friend to him, ever since childhood. But it all goes out of the window when Swain brutally murders Stringer the second he dubs him a liability to his cause.

Dalziel outright states Philip Swain isn’t your typical villain, stating that a man like Swain “comes around once in a life time. He’s evil by choice not necessity” and determines that if there is a devil, he is almost certainly someone like Philip Swain, a cold blooded abuser who see’s people as nothing more than stepping stones on his path to wealth and power.

Swain does claim that his wife’s death was an accident from the row that he barely touched her and she hit her head. However, as every second word that comes out of his mouth is lie and the lengths he went to cover up her death, it’s safe to say this is equally untrue.

Dalziel likewise analyses that Swain only married Gail in the first place for her money.

Heinous Standard:

Okay now Swain isn’t quite as clear cut as my previous two candidates (to the point I did temporarily dismiss him) so I’ll go into more depth. Now its true on the surface Swain doesn't have the sheer clear cruelty of Batty or Wheeler. But its important to remember that despite them, overall the series has quite a low heinous standard. With it being very rare for killers to have more three murders (having three is itself usual), with several episodes not even having any murders.

Swain has four deaths to his name, including one particularly nasty one. In the entire show, there are only four killers who surpass him. Discounting Batty whom I’ve already talked about has a wealth of resources and opportunities no one else could dream of the rest are made up of a handful Serial Killers. The one with seven victims I already talked about, and two others both with five victims (neither of whom count due to one loving his daughter, and the other being completely insane).

Apart from them there are only two other killers in the entire show who match him with four victims, one of them being Wheeler (before anyone asks, the other doesn’t count either. The guy only kills people who were trying to commit a murder and afterwards helps their would be victims).

As well as being over the line in numbers, Swain's crimes across stand out from the sheer selfish callousness of them. The guy murders a completely innocent woman to cover up the fact that he had murdered his wife. Compared to the majority of murderers in this show, Swain is well and truly over the line.

Conclusion:

A corrupt businessman who the show outright compares to Satan. Overall Philip Swain is a pretty interesting antagonist, anchored in a very good performance Michael Kitchen, a silver tongued callous sociopath who throw aside anyone’s life at the second it is an inconvenience to him.

Still what do you think?

Edited by MGD107 on Jan 30th 2021 at 5:36:56 AM

I'm not sure on Swain. The dude sounds reprehensible in terms of his motives but my hesitation comes from the fact he's a reasonably wealthy magnate without a particularly high body count or much brutal flourish beyond one of the victims being his wife. I don't care if he's got the fifth highest body count in the show; I care more about why the four other dudes, especially the normal street level serial killers, aren't knocking him out of the park simply by virtue of the baseline.

Abstain on Swain.

I’m going to bring up two things real quick. One, A Dead World has its own page, so we need to add Mortimer and Father Elijah to its YMMV page.

Two, is there any reason Mortimer doesn’t count in the original Fallout: New Vegas?

Edited by Critica7 on Jan 30th 2021 at 5:43:04 AM

Scraggle: Well it comes down to the fact I didn't think they raised the baseline standard so much he can't qualify.

The killers who manage to surpass him all have more working for them than he does. The first one for example is activity killing over a span of several weeks. Whilst the other two are acting out in depth plans which they prepared for long in advance.

Swain is a wealthy man sure, but its not like he's actively using his money to commit murder, he's murdering to get money. Overall he is still one man who is entirely making it up as he's going along.

Likewise unlike said serial killers where each murder is part of a greater plan or a mission, Swain is solely focused on his business and only killing people in relation to his perceived need.

Even when comparing him to the other two killers with four victims I still feel Swain again comes up short. As both of them were active for far longer than Swain was (Wheeler for comparison was active for years), with one of them literally spending months planning the murders out.

As for brutal flourishes, I'd also argue him murdering a completely innocent person who had nothing to do with this by staging a fight before shooting her in face just to help him cover up his wife's murder, and him killing his childhood best friend in such a brutal manner should count as a more brutal than the mere fact he killed his wife.

That coupled with the sheer number of other killers to appear throughout the show (its not uncommon for episodes feature at to least two, though again body counts remain low) who never come close to either his body count or anything quite as selfish and cruel, I felt was enough for him to standout.

But I understand if you disagree.

Edited by MGD107 on Jan 30th 2021 at 6:30:14 AM

I'm willing to give a to Swain I think.

As for Mortimer, I don't think he breaches the general heinous standard of Fallout, especially New Vegas. He only has an on screen body count of 2 or 3 and other villains with far less resources do much more.

Abstain on Swain.

Barton, Connor, Beria and Viktor

Swain

Yeah, maybe. He counts in A Dead World due to getting extra focus, but I can see how he’d lose out in the game.

Changing to to Swain.

Edited by Critica7 on Jan 30th 2021 at 6:31:18 AM

I'm not disagreeing that Swain stands out, I'm just saying that when your crime show is more Dragnet than CSI and the killers of the week are standard except for five or six guys, it means the guys who genuinely do stand out above 90% of the rest should be compared back-to-back. It's not always necessarily fair to say "since he's worse than 95% of the rest of the stock and doesn't have any redeeming qualities, he stands out"—well, what about the 5% that's still theoretically worse than him, mitigating qualities or no? The FAQ states this clearly: A CM is always remarkable in some way, and second place doesn't count if both characters are in the same race.

Three other killers having higher body counts than Swain is concerning enough, but my main problem is him vis a vis Wheeler. Wheeler has the same body count as Swain but a very clear niche (abusing and exploiting vulnerable kids) that gives him a special edge compared to the other killers you've discussed. Swain, by comparison, "just" comes off as a scummy murderer without the same obvious niche, and the fact he's a Corrupt Corporate Executive with his fingers in a scheme that could make him millions while Wheeler is and stays a loner white-collar psycho makes me think Swain's just missing the edge he needs.

Edited by Scraggle on Jan 30th 2021 at 8:00:16 AM

Swain sadly.

Close but I think he's just outdone considering the competition.

Fair enough, on reflection I probably spent to much time focusing on the wrong things when it comes to discussing how heinous Swain is.

I agree, its true Swain doesn't have the same clear cut edge of cruelty that Wheeler has.

I just felt that the guy still managed to do enough to qualify, its true his overall goal is a lot greater, but he does still have less to work with compared to those on his level.

Oh well, looks like he doesn't make the cut.

Edited by MGD107 on Jan 30th 2021 at 6:56:36 AM

Likewise not feeling that one.

Viktor

Swain

EDIT: Dumb question

Edited by nwotyzal on Jan 30th 2021 at 7:12:42 AM

to Swain

Lavrentiy Beria

Yes to Viktor.

No to Swain.

Yes to Beria and Viktor.

No to Swaine.

If anyone is interested, there are a lot of podcasts on Serial Box that could have keepers, but every series costs 10 bucks.

I also think the villain from the Third Rushing Beat game (called Peace Keepers in the US), could count, but that game has a bad English translation, which makes the story a bit hard to understand, the villain seems to be experimenting on people, including children, which is more involved than the first game, where the story is ''Crime is bad, so beat up the local street gang!''

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vas8iJv5NZo

https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/RushingBeat

Edited by Overlord on Jan 30th 2021 at 8:48:22 AM

to Philip Swaine.

to Beria and Victor.

Victor. Swain.

I will try to remove a villain.

What is the Work

The Joy of Creation: Reborn is a free-roam Five Nights at Freddy's fan-game. You are playing as members of the Cawthon family, trying to survive against demonic doppelgangers of the Fazbear Gang.

Who is Creation/Michael Schmidt and What have they Done?

Now, here is why I decided to make this in the first place: Despite what the page says, Michael and Creation are not the same entity: Michael is an Anti-Villain who just wants to live a normal life while Creation is an amalgamation of the Ignited animatronics.

Anyways, Michael and the Ignited animatronics are doppelgangers of the characters from the Five Nights franchise. Michael wants to kill Scott and replace him in the Cawthon family. And during all this, Michael isn't really evil despite being a demon, he just wants to be a normal person without taking any sadistic pleasure throughout the story. Plus, to survive, he needs to kill Scott so it's also partially for his own survival.

Michael wants to cross over from the Weird Doppelganger Reality into the real world and succeeds but makes a deal with the Ignited which basically is "help us get into the real world and we will get you a family", because, like it was said before, Michael is a family man. Alongside them, there were the Fallen, a pack of endoskeletons. And those guys didn't really succeed in getting into the real world, missing their suits and glitching out, overall unstable. Unlike the page said, the Fallen and the Ignited aren't the same.

Thanks to the deal, the Ignited also enter the real world and try to kill the Cawthon family while Michael gives some of them hints on how to survive. Eventually, the Ignited turn into Creation (except Golden Freddy), and try to kill Scott. The Cawthon House is set on fire, and Michael kills Scott but promises to keep his family safe. Except some things imply he or Creation killed Nick, one of Scott's children.

Do they have any Mitigating Factors of Freudian Excuse?

Michael just wants to live a normal life with a family and isn't really evil to begin with. Creation on the other hand, lacks any excuse for their actions. However, they didn't show any moral agency throughout the story. So both of them have big problems with being a Complete Monster, but especially Michael.

Do they meet the Heinousness Standard?

Creation's worst crime is an attempted murder. Meanwhile, Michael actually kills someone and steals their identity, but these are the worst of his crimes and even then he has too many preventions.

Verdict

Both of them don't qualify.

Edited by RK93 on Jan 31st 2021 at 2:36:56 AM

Yes to Viktor.

Michael and Creation

Who originally got Creation approved?

Doodslayer