A Complete Monster who doesn't kill people?

Can one be a Complete Monster without killing anyone or even breaking any laws? And if so, can you provide examples (Real Life or otherwise, I don't care)?

Sure you can, if you are The Corrupter.

There's also A Fate Worse Than Death if you like.

There's still rape, torture, etc.

Without breaking any law? Easy if it's in the Wretched Hive or other lawless place, or if he's in a position where he can legally kill and such . If those don't count, then I dunno.

Ellsworth Toohey from The Fountainhead? He's a manipulative self-righteous dick, and it's only worse because he pretends to be altruistic.

I know I started this thread, but I think Jack Thompson pulled one of these with letter he sent regarding a gamer's suicide.

I don't. I'm sure that Thompson believes that that videogames did lead to the kid killing himself and that makes what he said, while stupid and hurtful a long way away from being the mark of a Complete Monster. It is possible for a CM to operate within the bounds of the law. A lot of soap opera C Ms do it, simply by lieing and scheming and making their every action aimed at hurting people around them, but never doing something so blatant as murder or theft.

I think it's possible. There's a guy from a recent anime who sets up situations where people will despair and commit suicide (and keeps tally marks of it). He doesn't break any laws though, and in fact saves people from criminals if it'll suit his Batman Gambit.

If the kid had actually killed himself because of something Jack Thompson did, that would probably qualify him as a Complete Monster.

How 'bout Lori Drew?

Complete Monster cannot ever have Real Life examples. Period. On the other hand, it is certainly possible to cross over the Moral Event Horizon without killing, if your actions are despicable enough. However, it's almost got to be in cases where killing someone might be seen as a mercy; if the audience thinks that the character actually has some kind of code against killing people, it drops them out of CM territory really fast.

edited 5th Feb '10 7:01:04 PM by Fighteer

They aren't talking about adding real life examples to the page. The OP asked whether it was possible to have one who wasn't a killer and asking for examples here, in the thread.

edited 5th Feb '10 7:05:44 PM by Madrugada

An emotionally/verbally abusive type - particularly if they're highly manipulative - could possibly qualify.

Especially since it's hard to prove they've done anything without physical evidence - and yet they can do a lot more long term damage than just beating people up.

Diagnosed psychopaths are usually very impulsive and have trouble planning ahead, which combined with lack of empathy means they're convicted of crimes a lot. However, there's a theory that there might also be non-impulsive psychopaths who function very well in society, not breaking the law, but doing despicable legal things like buying up shares in arms manufacturers and then becoming president in order to start wars to increase the value of those shares.

The villain from Agatha Christie's book, "Curtains" is a good example of a complete monster who never actually kills anyone. This was Poirot's last case. As usual, the villain is the person who is the least likely to be suspected.

edited 12th Feb '10 8:45:01 PM by mirandacore

A lot of it has to do with the work's preexisting bodycount. It'd be really difficult for someone to be a Complete Monster on, say, Heroes without killing someone. On the other hand, someone who gleefully sabotages and manipulates people to ruin their lives without killing them would easily count if they were on The Office.

Even Evil Has Standards

Isn't the whole point about a Complete Monster that they have no standards whatsoever?

(That's just in response to the above, not to the original post. There are plenty of reasons for a Complete Monster not to kill people that don't require them to have any moral standards.)

Actually, most times the worst villains are the ones who can be completely detestable without killing a single person, simply by destroying, demoralizing, and ruining the hero or anyone they come across psychologically or mentally through abuse, subterfuge, betrayal, etc.

Roald Dahl was good at making villains like that.

There's one perfect example on the tip of my mind, but I can't think of who it is (I keep detouring back to Claggart from Billy Budd instead, though he's an example as well)

I was wondering, would Neil Perry's father from Dead Poets Society count as a Complete Monster? I mean, he does drive his own son to suicide, and then pins the blame on Robin Williams' character.

Well, he didn't intentionally do it, and I wouldn't call blaming Robin Williams' character a frame-up, he just couldn't find it in him to blame himself and targetted the only person he could conceive as the problem, unable to accept or comprehend his son's desire to be himself as anything but negative. So, in his mind, his son committed suicide because he was "corrupted" or something, not because he was being forced into a life he detested.

A highly flawed character, but not really malevolent, at least not by intention.

edited 14th Feb '10 10:37:55 PM by KnownUnknown

Yeah, I don't see him as malevolent either. He obviously didn't want his son to commit suicide, he just underestimated how far he was pushing him and how much damage he was doing to him.

I found a trope that may apply to this conversation.

edited 16th Feb '10 6:37:21 PM by RL_Nice

I found another example on the CM Film page. Nurse Ratched from One Flew Over The Cuckoos Nest.

edited 15th Mar '10 4:33:01 PM by RL_Nice

In one story I just wrote for a class, I have a Complete Monster who doesn't kill people.

He beats his wife, sexually abuses his preschool-aged daughter (the main character), and forces his wife to sexually abuse the daughter too. All because he feels it's his right to make his family do whatever he wants.