Complete Monster Cleanup

I meant that Show Within a Show can have their own examples, as in historical Lo Bu might not count but this story's version of him can.

Again for the other stuff, I don't know, I haven't read it.

Gray sounds like a Cut.

While the other points on Lo Bu are up for contention (though I echo that the Show Within a Show argument would mean that the story's version of Lo Bu is totally game to count by those rules), I can say that it actually does spell out the death toll to be a million, so the writeup isn't falsifying information with the wordage of "at least a million" in the manner as claimed.

Edited by Ravok on Dec 10th 2022 at 2:41:51 AM

That says "a million"; nothing about this text implies it was more than that, which the "at least" in the example text hints at. If the "a million" was clearly framed as a minimum, or referred to a single operation out of several, I'd grant you that argument. But no, that statement refers to Lo Bu's entire campaign; what happens afterwards is Zhea uniting the Jogos Nhai and successfully surprising Lo Bu's host, killing him in the process.

If Lo Bu keeps then his entry needs rewording, but while I have only partial knowledge of A song of ice and fire, I do think killing a million people in a genocide is still heinous enough

Well, yeah^note The Others/White Walkers probably can kill far more than that if they were to win, but ice zombies have superior resources with which to kill 'em all than the Scarlet Emperor ever did, but my issue isn't with Lo Bu meeting the heinousness standard. It's about the other standards, mainly the "no altruistic qualities" one. Most other Complete Monster examples in this setting make it clear they don't like their own subjects, either (Joffrey I Baratheon using his own citizens as target practice, for example). All what we hear of Lo Bu is his courage and hybris.

That the writeup is incorrect in several aspects is also a problem, but it's a different problem.

Cut the Entity; cut Gein; cut Idi Amin; Oscar rewrite works; cut Gray.

Question: For EDENS ZERO, I gotta add character potholes, but before I do, which of these works better? One was the original; the other stuff was added on YMMV:

• "Guilst" (aka "Planet Guilst Assault") arc: Illega is a bloated frog alien who pays criminals to kidnap and bring him women, who he turns into stone statues to be used as furniture. Once Rebecca uncovers his room containing hundreds of stone women, Illega arrives holding Copa at gunpoint, promising to release her should Rebecca kneel before him and become his toy forever. When news of the planet destroying Chronophage arrives, Illega plans to start his collection again on another planet.
• "Guilst" (aka "Planet Guilst Assault") arc: Illega is a bloated frog alien who pays criminals to kidnap and bring him women, who he turns into stone statues to be used as furniture. When Rebecca escapes capture to help her fellow B-Cubers, Illega catches up to her, only to get caught in a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Shiki before she and Pino get him to stop. Instead of hightailing it or feeling sorry for what he has done, once Rebecca uncovers his room containing hundreds of stone women, Illega arrives holding Copa at gunpoint, promising to release her should Rebecca kneel before him and become his toy forever. When news of the planet destroying Chronophage arrives, Illega panics and plans to start his collection again on another planet. Rebbaca instead guns him and his servant down and left him to his fate, likely erased by the Chronophage.

Looking through the subpages, I found an example I thought of as suspicious: the Zarkin sisters (EP by Scraggle). As per the Individuality section of the Administrivia page, these three really shouldn't count, as they're, well, three people (who seem to care about one another, at that, despite all the murdering).

Edited by GoldenCityBird on Dec 10th 2022 at 11:06:55 AM

@Septimus: I think the wordage between "at least a million" vs "a million" isn't really worth note, but as you said that's not really the primary concern of the removal post, so neither here nor there.

The text does say that Lo Bu could not "be swayed by hostages"...which does, at the very least, imply that even when his own people were taken as hostages, he pushed forward with his genocide crusade without care for their lives. It's not much, but the story itself is also not much, so even a small bit of information like "he didn't stop even when his people were taken hostage" speaks volumes when we, in comparison, have no text saying something like "and he was also a really nice dude to the peasantry."

It's a complicated case for sure, and I'm not necessarily saying I think Lo Bu is a rock solid CM, but I do think there's some merit to the mention that he apparently had little care for hostages of his people being taken.

CM actually allows for groups up to 3 or 4 to count, if they mostly share their crimes betweenst one another. So the Zarkin sisters are fine on that count, and I've read the book and IIRC, they don't really go out of their way to show care to each other. If you have any specific passages that prove the contrary though, all ears!

Well, I do think that trope examples need to accurately reflect the source without saying things that aren't in the source. A number of people over in the Wiki Talk thread have noted that we seem to have an issue with effort posts missing information and some also noted that the problem may extend to examples. So it is in fact a problem for the cleanup thread, here, to address.

I don't think that the hostages thing is sufficient evidence. I mean, every politician and general, both in fiction, this setting and real life, gets a lot of his own people (soldiers etc.) killed just by going to war. This is often a source of moral dilemmas - witness Doran Martell from A Song of Ice and Fire. We don't treat this as proof that every politician and general going to war lacks concern for his own people. The needs of the many, as they say.

Cut Gray

While lo bu definetely Hits the standard and I think that “dooming his own empire” part reffers on jhai uniting against him I agree that other points at least are at least worth giving look.

Just put Zalem and Titus writeups on get help with english thread.

Good to be back.

Yeah, the "cruelty doomed his empire" I think is just referring to the fact that the nomads only ever mounted such an offensive against his empire because of his genocide campaign—they had never tried something of the sort before Lo Bu pushed so hard.

@Septimus: Very true, we do want to strive for accuracy in write-ups and effortposts, and while I may personally feel the wordage as is isn't too terribly off-base, I'm more than happy with the idea of changing it to simply "a million" should Lo Bu stay after this discussion.

I think right now my main hangup on saying Lo Bu cares for his people is that we don't have any text saying as much. It can be assumed, but as is, all we have is that Lo Bu is a genocidal warlord who wanted the nomads wiped out with "slaughter as the purpose". Much as you'd like more proof that he doesn't care about his people, I'm kind of feeling the opposite in that I'd want proof he does care since it's never spelled out. One could say "he cares because he's attacking the invaders to end their threat", but it could just as easily be for egotistical purposes, so I'm personally hesitant to say he's got his people's best interests in mind. But it's worth discussion, for sure!

Edited by Ravok on Dec 10th 2022 at 3:38:31 AM

Groups of 2 or 3 can count if they share enough of each other's crimes, they're small to say they count together, anything more it gets iffy.

As for Lo Bu, does the text give a reason or even hint at why he committed genocide?

From what I'm seeing there's no proof either way he cares or doesn't care about his people. If so I'm leaning keep because villains need to at least put in a token effort to demonstrate care to be disqualified since lots of CM s have families but don't show any sign of care even if they don't show a lack of care.

Edited by Agentofchaos on Dec 10th 2022 at 6:43:35 AM

@Lo Bu: Let's talk about him. The aspect of "is the genocide heinous enough?" was a sticking point back then. As I recall two of the big points that let him go up in the end were his body count (a seven-figure is extremely unusual even for Westeros) and the idea he wasn't sparing anyone, not even the women or children.

If the Show Within a Show aspect and how much characters can be (or rather can't) be developed, then there's a few others from World of Ice & Fire that probably warrant a deeper look.

@Zarkin Sisters: No, we have regularly allowed for small groups should A. each member adequately distinguish themselves in evil (ala the Scars from Savage Streets) or B. are The Dividual such to the point the "group" is effectively one character (ala the archangel trio from Shin Megami Tensei II).

The Zarkins qualify for the latter. They don't need to go anywhere, IMO. I'd also contest that Even Evil Has Loved Ones; in this case it's less "we love each other!" and more "we love to murder with each other!" The Zarkins' familial relationships are so undeveloped that the one lady's son literally never even appears on-page despite being their proxy murderer.

@

Edited by Scraggle on Dec 10th 2022 at 4:47:13 AM

Ah, I see. Thanks for clarifying, didn't know how I missed that part. Anyway, on to something I'm more familiar with: Midsomer Murders.

The entry I'd like to contest is David Orchard. His kill count is dwarfed or matched by other entries on the page (Hayley Brantner, Agnes Waterhouse, Matthew Hendred), and his methods are nothing out-of-the-ordinary for Midsomer (there are multiple bludegonings, drownings, and (attempted) murders of couples). Thus, he seems less heinous than the others.

Even if he is kept, a minor fact correction is needed; his first victim was strangled and dumped in a bathtub, not drowned.

Well, that's the big issue with Lo Bu - we don't know his motivations. I don't think that we should qualify examples by "when in doubt, include". Do we assume that Stannis Baratheon plans to burn the Seven Kingdoms just because he executes with fire and wants to be king? Or that any given character's good actions are just Pragmatic Villainy, because it's always possible and there isn't evidence against? Misplaced burden of proof, and no other trope works in this fashion.

(Besides, Lo Bu is explicitly described as courageous. That normally happens to people who put themselves deliberately at risk, which normally happens to people with a modicum of altruistic qualities. Contrast again Joffrey I Baratheon, a sniveling coward. And again, other examples make it clear that even their closest associates are fair game for atrocities - Maegor killing his wives, burning his own people, hanging rebels even after they returned to fold. Ramsay starving his dogs and killing his dad. Gregor killed one of his men for snoring)

Scraggle, while you're here, mind writing up Thomas Newmeyer?

I genuinely don't see why "courage" is specifically being presented as a redeeming factor. Maybe Joffery is a snivelling coward, but plenty of other CMs, including ones in ASoIaF demonstrate Villainous Valor

Leaning toward keeping midsomer guy, looking on page it looks to me like he does just enought.

Found a unaproved entry on Alien Chronicles:

• Complete Monster: Ehssk is the Viis Empire's most esteemed scientist, whose work in genetics is considered crucial to undoing the genetic damage of the Dancing Death. The main line of research we see from him is attempting to splice the genes of the Dancing Death-resistant abiru over to the Viis. His method? Using captive abiru women to produce Artificial Hybrids, with the hybrids often being dissected and the women themselves killed when they are no longer useful. Ampris is subject to his experiments after her career-ending injury, giving birth to a litter of his hybrids. Ehssk admonishes Ampris for giving birth while he was at a conference, denying him the opportunity to observe, before taking her only daughter away for dissection. Although Ampris manages to escape with her two sons and the surviving captives, destroying the lab behind her, Ehssk was away at a festival at the time. Worse still, it's heavily implied that his research produces little if anything in the way of useful results, meaning that the ordeals he puts his test subjects through is All for Nothing. Especially with much of his vast funding seemingly going into his own pockets. And then there's his final appearance in the third book, where he manages to pull a Karma Houdini by fleeing from Ampris before she can enact her revenge on him, leaving him alive as of the trilogy's conclusion.

Anybody familiar with series?

Cut Gein and Amin.

Edited by Bullman on Dec 10th 2022 at 7:59:20 AM

I reason I've always favoured Orchard is the fact he's the only killer who's victims are genuinely random and because his motivation is massively petty and easily one of the most dickish in the series (everyone given at least would stop after their plans are done but David is the closest the show has had to a genuine Serial Killer in sence of just random, and senseless continuing killings) And we do give points for petty motivations.

Everyone else even listed on the tree at least has a reason to kill but Orchard is really just a bigoted dick.

Edited by miraculous on Dec 10th 2022 at 5:37:57 AM

About Lo Bu, I was against him qualifying during the discussion and I still don't agree with his inclusion.

About the argument that he is not swayed about hostages which proves he doesn't care about his people, I always assumed that the text mentioning hostages means that the Jogos Nhai were offering to give him hostages from their own people to express their submission to him, not that they have taken hostages from his men and he doesn't care about whether they get killed or not. This is the exact quotation:

The text mentions that some of the previous generals and Emperors collected tribute in the form of gold, goods, and slaves and on top of that, there is a common practice in the world of ASOIAF to take hostages from the defeated enemy (one of the main characters in the series, Theon Greyjoy, is one such case and he was taken as a hostage when the Greyjoy rebellion failed), so I always assumed that they were offering to give him members of their own tribes as hostages to express submission. Admittedly, it's a bit unclear what exactly the text wants to say.

Furthermore, it's worth noting that the text explicitely mentions that the Jogos Nhai raids have become more violent during the end of his father's reign. The text also mentions that many previous Emperors have gone with their armies and they would burn their yurts, force many tribes to renounce raiding and swear fealty to the Emperor, but most of the Jogos Nhai would just run away until the leader of the Yi Ti army tires and they return to Yi Ti and then the Jogos Nhai just resume their raids and nothing changes. One of the arguments that were used to upvote him was that the Jogos Nhai offered Lo Bu submission and fealty, but he still didn't stop killing them, but the fact many previous Generals and even three Emperors have tried that and it failed to stop the raids against Yi Ti might explain why Lo Bu doesn't trust the Jogos Nhai and doesn't want to accept their offerings of peace.

Furthermore, the fact that many Generals and even three Emperors in the past have led armies into the Jogos Nhai territories to solve the problem of the raiding Jogos Nhai where they would subjugate the tribes and force them to renounce their raiding ways shows that the Jogos Nhai actually are a really big threat to the Yi Ti Empire even though none of the previous people attempted total genocide, but the fact that their tactics failed might explain why Lo Bu resorts to this to stop the raids. One of the arguments that were used for his inclusion was that the Jogos Nhai weren't really a serious threat to his Empire and someone made a comparison about a rich person trying to exterminate poor, harmless people who steal from him as a way of living (I don't think Scraggle himself used that argument but I recall that at least one person who upvoted Lo Bu used this as an argument for why they upvote him). The text gives a toll about the damage the Jogos Nhai did to the Empire:

While it is over the course of 2000 years, that's still a lot especially if we assume that the cities are are as big as something like King's Landing.

Also, the text doesn't say that he is doing it to make an example of them. The exact quotation is:

This does suggest some well-intentioned extremism to me.

The last debate about him was really heated, so I don't know how this one would end and if he keeps, then fine, but personally, I don't agree with him qualifying especially considering how little we know about him to judge his motivations. We have so little info that it's even debatable if "hostages" in this context means that the Jogos Nhai were trying to surrender and were offering to give him members of their own tribes as tribute and Lo Bu just refused their offers or if they had captured some of his own men, threatening their lives, and Lo Bu still decided to press on because he simply doesn't care about the lives of his own men.

Edited by WatTambor on Dec 10th 2022 at 5:31:12 PM

Another I am not sure about from Critical Role.

• Vasselheim Arc (first appearance): The rakshasa Hotis, a shapeshifter from the Nine Hells, is the second monster hunted by Vox Machina for the Slayer's Take. Disguised as a dwarf, Hotis creates an establishment for the rich named the Velvet Cabaret for the sake of gathering information about who the richest people in Vasselheim are. He then tracks them down and brutally mauls them to death before taking their belongings for himself. When discovered by members of Vox Machina and the Slayer's Take, Hotis tricks them into falling in a river of acid when they chase him down in an attempt to have them be slowly dissolved alive. When they survive, Hotis offers the party a deal to cease hostilities and work as business partners, intending to find an opportunity to kill them in the future. After finding himself at a disadvantage during the fight, Hotis promises to kill the loved ones of the party, including Thorbir's young daughter, all to spite them. After reforming when Vax kills him, Hotis attempts to exact revenge on Vox Machina. Hotis hires assassins from The Clasp to murder the rest of Vox Machina while Hotis disguises himself as Gilmore to lure Vax away from the group and tricks Vax into wearing a cursed robe that will slowly rip off his flesh in case Vax survives. Hotis then attacks Vax, taking pleasure in torturing the half-elf to near death. Despite his limited screen time, Hotis proves to be among the most vicious of minor villains within the series.

From what I read his crimes are murdering rich people and some nasty cruelty against heroes. Granted he is just lone shapeshifter but it still seems somehow lacking.

PS: just to note that dr. Alt from Secret Origins is also in pending.

Also this entry of mine from Monster.DC Fan Works is a mess:

• "The Batman Chronicles" (link): The Joker is the sadistic leader of the Red Hood gang, and is obsessed with making a name for himself. Joker has his men terrorize Gotham in a way that makes it seem random. At one point he has a couple of men break into an empty warehouse in order to ambush and kill the officer sent to investigate. When one of his men reveals his identity to Batman, Joker has him tortured and then shoots the man himself. Joker and his men attack the GCPD, killing three people and kidnapping Commissioner Loeb. He proceeds to torture Loeb for information, even after Loeb agrees to corporate. When his men capture Batman and he escapes, Joker has his men attack him, laughing all the way. When Batman and Gordon beat his men, Joker attacks Batman with a crowbar. Even when beaten, Joker succeeds in revealing the information Loeb gave him to get him fired, thus making a name for himself.

My proposed rewrite:

• "The Batman Chronicles" (link): The Joker is the sadistic leader of the Red Hood gang, who is obsessed with making a name for himself. Having his men terrorize Gotham in a way that makes it seem random, at one point, The Joker has a couple of men break into an empty warehouse in order to ambush and kill the officer sent to investigate. When one of his men reveals his identity to Batman, the Joker has him tortured and then shoots the man himself. The Joker and his men attack the GCPD, killing three people and kidnapping Commissioner Loeb, with the Joker personally torturing Loeb for information, even after Loeb agrees to corporate.

Trimming some unnecessary fat and bad grammar.

Thoughts?

Write up? Thoughts?

• The Blood of Stars duology: Gyiu’rak is a malevolent demon who makes a deal with the warlord known as the Shansen for a massive blood sacrifice in return for giving him power. Acting as partners, the two start a war and leave thousands dead in their homeland. Gyiu’rak eggs on the Shansen into greater and greater atrocities, leading to the massacre of an entire city of people. Ultimately, when they achieve complete control, Gyiu’rak intends to betray him and rule the country as one with its people reduced to misery.