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
A total has-been.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Not sure that has a name: the character would just be a Jerkass or outright villain to the extreme.
Doesn't even like this username
There's still a general heinous standard to consider in every case.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Well, ALL villains have to meet the general heinous standard (typed before I saw ). But put a, say Disney monster in, say, Warhammer40000 or Berserk, and they're nothing. So it's not a "light" version so much as the standard of heinousness for the work is different. If that makes sense.
edited 2nd May '14 8:09:54 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Well, almost. But you would still assume that if a character would qualify in one work, they would qualify everywhere.
A total has-been.
More like the character as written would or could qualify in any work but the execution might be different given the work's tone. Example: Frollo is a genocidal, murdering, abusive, brainwashing, torturing, lustful, raping, fanatical, hypocritical zealot. For a Disney movie, that is dark. Put him in a darker work, and suddenly the same character with the same actions becomes even darker. However, if there are villains in that work who are more evil and do even darker deeds, than Frollo gets overshadowed. But keeping him in a work where he sets the standards for heinousness allows him to keep his status as a Complete Monster.
edited 2nd May '14 8:47:26 AM by ANewMan
Lost in Space
I prefer to look at it as a character needing to qualify for both general and work-specific standards.
If you have a saccharine show where the worst thing anybody ever does is call someone a meanie-head or steal their lunch money, then there is no possibility for a Complete Monster occurring there, even when there is a character who is objectively seen as the "worst" or the "bad guy".
My son was reading Horrible Harry in Room 2B for his 2nd grade homework, and just because Harry is the meanest kid in second grade doesn't make him a monster by any objective definition.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Precisely. But they also have to go a bit over and above 'standard' villain behavior. "Take over kingdom?" Standard. "Take over kingdom, launch genocidal purge within kingdom and torture dissenters?" Complete Monster
Lost in Space
Right. No matter how horrible they may be on a personal level, murder, rape, and even torture are things that you need just to qualify for villainy at all in many works, never mind rise to the exceptional level needed for Complete Monster.
edited 2nd May '14 9:16:50 AM by Fighteer
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Was there ever a decision for Romano from The Secret in Their Eyes?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Well, if he DOES count, his writeup needs work.
Soujin sounds like a qualifier to me.
Hideki should be cut for failing in comparison to Shingen (ironic, since I actually gave a ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Boyle despite overwhelming opinions otherwise 
).
Sidenote, remember Hybrid from Monster.Marvel?
Yeah, the idea the Dire Wraiths are Always Chaotic Evil is utter rot. Hybrid's father was a kind husband and father and died begging his son not to become a monster (and he was a dire wraith).
As for The Secret In Their Eyes...I'm inclind to lean yea. He has people tortured and releasing a murderer and rapist to have his fun as a personal hitman is just...nasty
I'm going to give a to Boyle, for being a much more human monster slotted in with the superpowered crazies of the Arkham-verse. And a to Soujin; let's get a writeup going.
Anyone object if I writeup Takechi?
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Here's how it is now for Hybrid: "He took to the lessons in evil and power that his Dire Wraith tutors taught him so well that his father (who had reformed out of love for Hybrid's mother) feared that he was worse than his fellow Wraiths. Since the Dire Wraiths are in general pretty bad themselves, that's saying something."
![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
Does someone wanna try rewriting Lord Foul?
edited 2nd May '14 4:15:22 PM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Just finished the Wolverine anime, and Hideki's a definite cut. Here's a write-up on why.
Who is Hideki Kurohagi? What has he done?
Hideki Kurohagi is Madripoor's crime boss. He's also the fiancee of Mariko Yashida, Logan's girlfriend. He agrees to marry her in order to cement an alliance between himself and Mariko's father, Shingen Yashida. Over the course of the series he:
- Interferes in Logan and Shingen's duel by shooting Logan in the back.
- Kills one of his own men to test a new poison intended for use against Wolverine.
- Has the living statue Vadhaka loosed in Madripoor's slums to hunt Wolverine; later has Vadhaka kill most of the rebels who are trying to kill him.
- Brags about killing his father. A lot.
- Hits Mariko (once) and accidentally kills her when trying to kill Logan.
And that's about it. I'll note that his killing of Mariko and having Vadhaka kill the rebels can't really count against him either, given that in both cases his targets were people who were trying to kill him. This leaves us with only cheating in the duel and killing one of his henchmen.
Are his actions heinous by the standards of the story?
No. Kikyo, an assassin for Shingen who later becomes one of Logan's allies (for some reason) kills a larger number of people and is portrayed as a good guy. Omega Red shows up, and while he doesn't do much beyond fight Logan onscreen, his past as a Serial Killer is referenced at length. And of course the worst SOB in the series is Shingen who views his daughter as property, tries to kill Logan simply for being in the way, has ties to AIM, turned Omega Red loose, killed Yukio's parents, kills her grandfather in the present, kills her in the present, and dies trying to kill Logan again.
Hideki fails this criteria.
Any redeeming qualities?
No. He's a Smug Snake and the most personally repellent character in the series. Pass here.
Maybe. During his last conversation with Mariko, Hideki compares his father, Juho, to hers, commenting that they have a lot in common in this department. He claims that his father saw him as an unworthy successor and wanted to be rid of him, going so far as to state that it was "kill or be killed." If we take this at face value—and while Hideki's a loathsome prick he's hardly a pathological liar—then not only his killing of his father, but his entire cowardly, vicious personality become a lot more understandable.
I think Hideki fails this one.
Final verdict?
Cut. While he has no good points, Hideki fails the heinous standard by miles, and may have a Freudian Excuse. He's not even close to as evil as Shingen, who is the only possible contender.
edited 2nd May '14 5:44:57 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
No problem cutting Kurohagi.
Say, where did the second entry on Law & Order come from? I don't recall it ever passing through here, and it seems to have issues to me. For one, it starts off describing a Serial Killer, then under a spoiler says that the true monster of the episode is someone else. The description for this person is rather vague, but it sounds like she made her own crime look like the aforementioned killer did it to draw attention off herself. The fact that she's simply described as "a woman," her name isn't even given, makes me think it's a misogyny entry, too.
edited 2nd May '14 7:49:17 PM by HamburgerTime
This is on both the YMMV page for the film Hanna, and the subpage for film.
- Complete Monster: Marissa Wiegler is even more ruthless than her henchmen, even Issacs. Marissa terminated the Super Soldier program, killing 19 out of 20 children along with their parents. She follows this by ambushing and killing Hanna's mother as Hanna and Erik escaped to the forests. After systematically hiding her nefarious program details from her colleagues and murdering Hanna's grandmother, she captures, interrogates and possibly kills Sophie and her family, who have been traveling with Hanna for a while - and enjoys every second of it.
There's some problems here. Allow me to explain.
Who is Marissa? What has Marissa done?
Marissa (Cate Blanchet) is a CIA agent who was in charge of a program to create a genetically engineered Super-Soldier for the US government. When the project didn't work out she had the twenty mothers she had recruited, and their children, liquified. One child, however, escaped, in the company of her mother, and a project agent named Erik Heller (Eric Banna), who decided he could no longer be a part of what Marissa was planning. The film picks up years later, when Erik, and the soldier, now named Hanna, come out of hiding, and Marissa tries to hunt them down. Over the course of the film she:
- Runs Erik, Hanna, and Johanna (Hanna's mother) off the road in an attempt at killing them. Erik and Hanna escape, but Johanna is wounded and finished off by Marissa.
- Tracks down and kills Hanna's maternal grandmother when she discovers that Johanna sent her letters and recordings about the project.
- Turns Isaacs loose with instructions to capture and kill Hanna. Isaacs proceeds to torture and execute a local Moroccan who briefly interacted with Hanna. He later captures Sophie and her parents and turns them over to Marissa, and tortures and executes Wilhelm Grimm, a clown and children's entertainer who helped Hanna and Erik.
- Kills Erik after he defeats Isaacs and his men, then tries to gun down Hanna herself.
You'll notice that I don't include terminating the Super-Soldier program or killing Sophie's family. That's because the former doesn't happen onscreen, and the latter may not happen at all. Marissa doesn't torture Sophie, her parents, or her brother. Instead she convinces them that Hanna is in trouble and that she is trying to arrest her before some far worse people can. There is no evidence that Marissa killed them, or that she was even contemplating killing them—they simply exit the story after the brother gives Marissa the information that she's after. In the original script their fate wasn't left ambiguous—instead it was made clear that they had survived, with Sophie receiving a postcard from Hanna (the final cut of the film simply ends with Hanna killing Marissa).
I'm also not sure if we can count everything that Isaacs does against her. She knows what he is, certainly, and was present for what he did to Wilhelm Grimm, but she wasn't there for the Moroccan. There's also zero evidence, despite what the entry says, that Marissa enjoys this. She's ice cold throughout the film, and the only emotions she displays are clearly faked. She's got a clear Lack of Empathy but there's no proof of sadism.
Are her actions heinous by the standards of the story?
Yes. Marissa is The Big Bad and the plotline kicks off because of her. She was the one who initiated the project, she's the one who is determined to cover it up, and she's the one who goes out of her way to continue the operation even after her bosses try to pull the plug. She brought Isaacs, an outside contractor, into the plot, and gave him his marching orders, and is the one who sets the agenda for the rest of the villains. Take her out and nothing bad happens.
Pass.
Does she have any redeeming qualities?
Possibly. During the interrogation of Hanna's grandmother she makes a comment to the effect that she does not enjoy doing this. She looks quite unhappy when confronting Erik as well. More importantly, perhaps, she maintains throughout the film that she's acting in the interests of US security, and some of her actions do bear this out, with her prioritizing eliminating Erik (who actually knows state secrets) over Hanna. Could this all be an act? Sure, and given Marissa's personality it's far from unlikely that she's just trying to keep her own secrets from being aired. It is possible, however, if just barely, that she's a Well-Intentioned Extremist and the film neither confirms nor denies this.
Not sure about this one.
Freudian Excuse or other mitigating factors?
No. We know nothing of her past and her actions in the present are too coldly calculated to indicate anything other than a sound frame of mind. There are some hints that she might have OCD or a similar disorder, but those don't impair your moral agency.
Pass.
Final verdict?
I don't know about Marissa. She's a hateful bitch and Cate Blanchet plays her that way, but she might be Well-Intentioned Extremist and while she's heinous by the work's standards, I'm not sure if she passes baseline heinousness. Either way, she at best needs a rewrite to remove factual inaccuracies from her entry.
Thoughts?
edited 2nd May '14 9:42:17 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Committing murder as part of a coverup is pretty common for people involved with shady government projects in fiction, really.
I'm not sure about this one. But if there's one thing I can say, it's that the entries on both pages need to be rewritten. I haven't watched the movie in its entirely in one sitting so I can't come up with a write-up at the moment.
I will say ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
on Arkham Ferris Boyle and Kurohagi.
I thought I would do a proposal on 2012 animated Rat King:
Who is he?
Rat King started off as Victor Falco, a Mad Scientist who used mutagen to gain empathic abilities and mutated his colleague into a monkey creature. After his first defeat at the hands of the Turtles, Falco lost his funding and was forced to experiment on sewer rats to further his research. After a lab accident, left him deformed, blind and bitter towards humanity, he also gained the ability to Mind Control any rat in NYC.
What does he do?
Well besides mutating his colleague, after getting his rat controlling powers, he Mind Rapes Splinter, several times. He tries to break Splinter's will by making him relive his worst memories. He tries to get Splinter to kill the Turtles for him. In a later episode Rat King forces Splinter to see the chaos his rats are causing in his mind's eye. He still likes to play mad scientist, in one episode, he experiments on his rats to create giant mutated rats and has mutated rats kidnap random people, including teenagers and a small girl. Rat King is planing on using mutagen to experiment on them, to create human rat hybrids that will serve as his slaves and enforcers. Unfortunately, Rat King's mutagen is not perfected and his first experiment resulted in a human rat hybrid that is a hideous and disabled creature that seems in constant pain, but that does not dissuade the Rat King from continuing his experiments.
Are his actions heinous by the standards of the story?
Well this is a bit tricky, the Kraang seem to want to eliminate humanity to colonize Earth and Shredder purposely stole Hamato Yoshi's infant daughter and raised her to hate him, but Rat King tries really hard to punch above his weight class despite his limited resources. I don't think his schemes for power and conquest are feasible, at all, but it seems like he is willing to harm a lot of people to pursuit of his goals, including children.
Now you can argue Rat King using Splinter to try and kill the Turtles is bog standard villainy, after all villains trying to kill heroes is standard villainy, but forcing a father to kill his adopted sons seems like a cruel way to achieve this end and Rat King seems to take sadistic delight in this fact.
Does he have a Freudian Excuse or sympathetic qualities?
He has no Freudian Excuse, he started off as power hungry Jerkass and became a power hungry nihilist. Now one could make the argument he cares about rats and that is a sympathetic trait, but I have some serious doubts. He was willing to Mind Rape Splinter despite his rodent nature, he was willing to experiment on his rats and sent several rats falling off of a ledge in an attempt to kill Splinter. Rat King was unhappy when Splinter threw one of his pet rats off of the same ledge, but that may have been because Rat King is blind and his telepathic bond with rats allows him to see through their eyes. Since Splinter was the only other rat in the area at that time, he could have been upset to be denied a pair of eyes. Heck the fact that Rat King relies on his rats to function so much, means he always has a selfish reason to have a shared interest with them, I wonder if Rat King likes his rats simply because he can control them.
Verdict?
I think he could count, depending on whether people here think his actions are heinous enough and whether he genuinely cares for his rats or not.
Now the show is not done yet, but I can't imagine Rat King getting an arc that would give more defined sympathetic traits, he seems to get worse with each appearance and is currently presumed dead (but he could come back from that type of Disney Villain Death). He doesn't seem like the type of character that gets real character arcs, he is designed to give Splinter character arcs, but he does seem to get worse with each appearance.
Also on further reflection, I do wonder if the animated Red King is different enough from the comic Red King to warrant his own entry.
edited 3rd May '14 10:38:54 AM by TheOverlord
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
- 24878: Cut Hideki; does Shingen count?
- 24881: Having not seen the movie, I could go either way, but yeah a rewrite is needed.
- 24884: Not having seen the series, I lean on Falco.
BTW, while it's not canon anymore, we may have an issue with Tarkin, depending on if we count the Death Star novel and depending on what Luceno does with this. From Wookieepedia:
edited 3rd May '14 1:39:37 AM by ACW
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
I can't remember if we took it into account in any prior discussion, but I personally have never considered Tarkin's relationship with Daala a redeeming trait, and I don't think it's ever really been played that way.
Yeah that relationship doesn't sound redeeming. It sounds like he likes her mostly because she reminds him of himself.
