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
Lost in Space
Usually, villains who commit acts by proxy don't qualify as those typically happen in Villainy Discretion Shots or get hit with A Million Is a Statistic. For cases where they don't, CM is a possibility.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Oogie Boogie is not a Complete Monster, he fails every criterion for CM-hood except "no remorse". He is different from most other Halloween Town residents, though: they are Dark Is Not Evil ("[being scary is] our job, but we're not mean..."), he is actually evil.
edited 2nd Nov '10 2:48:25 PM by rodneyAnonymous
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
Welcome, traveller, welcome to Omsk
I really dislike the idea that a villain can't be a Complete Monster if they just order their atrocities. We don't think that when a person in Real Life orders genocide, do we? Is the audience so thick that it won't recognise a Complete Monster unless they go out there and get their hands bloody?
It does not matter who I am. What matters is, who will you become? - motto of Omsk Bird
I see the Awesomeness.
We also don't list real life people as Complete Monsters do we?
Fight smart, not fair.
I think it should depend on how much initiative the Mook is showing. If an Evil Overlord gives his minions detailed orders to annihilate population centers, brutally torture the survivors to death, and rape puppies, and fits all the other criteria, then they're a Complete Monster. If they just order the Mooks to "secure the area" and they do all of the above stuff without input or approval, then maybe they're the Complete Monsters and their boss might not be.
''All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to us..."
Welcome, traveller, welcome to Omsk
Well said!
Lost in Space
Exactly right. Remember, it all comes down in the end to the point that the Complete Monster is the worst guy, bar none, in the story. The one everyone wishes were dead or destroyed and cannot even imagine forgiveness or redemption for. The Evil Overlord who orders his minions to throw babies in fires is absolutely monstrous. If his minions just take it upon themselves to commit a bunch of atrocities, not so much. Further, if the audience is not treated to an actual depiction of those atrocities, then it's a Villainy Discretion Shot and doesn't count.
I asked because Prophet of truth, Horne, Borgia, onimi, and quite a few others cause the events that happen knowing full well that innocents die and either don't care or take sadistic pleasure in it (Horne sets drugged up loons on Max's family despite the fact that the wife doesn't know enough to be threat) and presumably knowing what the druggies will do. Borgia admits that he killed Ezio's two brothers despite the fact that there was no purpose (meaning that he fleefully hung a child). If they order mass death and suffering without remorse or with pleasure, they totally qualify.
What if, despite the Villainy Discretion Shot, audiences are shown the grim consequences of those actions and it is made very clear what happened? @ Fighteer
I'm not sure if Oogie Boogie is a CM, but he's definitely Nightmare Fuel.
Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information.
If he is merely Nightmare Fuel though, I would recommend removing him. I don't think ambiguous examples belong on the same list as Hopper, Sykes, etc...
Nightmare Fuel is not intended to be scary. He is neither that nor a Complete Monster. Maybe Nightmare Fuel Unleaded, but that is kind of exaggerating his scariness. Creepy, sure. Horrifying? Childhood-memory-scarring? Not really. YMMV tho.
edited 6th Nov '10 1:01:24 PM by rodneyAnonymous
Becky: Who are you? The Mysterious Stranger: An angel. Huck: What's your name? The Mysterious Stranger: Satan.
You mean, neither Nightmare Fuel nor a Complete Monster, or neither Nightmare Fuel nor something else?
I meant Nightmare Fuel. As an adult I didn't find Ooogie Boogie particularly scary, but I could imagine a kid might.
Lost in Space
What if, despite the Villainy Discretion Shot, audiences are shown the grim consequences of those actions and it is made very clear what happened? @ Fighteer Nightmare Fuel is stuff that wasn't intended to be scary and turns out to be scary. Nightmare Fuel Unleaded is stuff that was intended to be scary but turns out to be much scarier than intended. Complete Monster has ~60 posts' worth of definition preceding this. Oogie Boogie is absolutely definitely not NF or CM... and probably not NFU, but that is subjective.
I am not familiar with Oogie Boogie but I removed him from the Disney list anyway. If he is that ambiguous, he should not be put on the same list as Frollo and Shan Yu.
edited 6th Nov '10 2:26:05 PM by neoYTPism
To clarify, I don't actually remember the plot of the movie that well, which is why I said I wasn't sure if he was a CM. His death (when he is revealed to be The Worm That Walks) really did give me nightmares as a kid.
Currently taking a break from the site. See my user page for more information. Yeah that is Nightmare Fuel Unleaded / High Octane Nightmare Fuel (same thing).
In any case, whether or not he qualifies as a CM is more relevant to this thread than whether or not he qualifies as Nightmare Fuel.
There are actually quite a few examples on the Disney list I am not familiar with, but seeing ones I am familiar with but felt did not belong added makes me inclined to think that some of the ones currently on the Disney list do not belong either.
41314
Frodo Goofball Co TV, thanks for talking with me about this. I hope I didn't come across as rude or confrontational (and if I did, I apologize). Just a few comments I wanted to make on things a few of you said:
'"His Fantastic Racism toward Beast is pretty understandable - Beast is The Boo Radley. On the other hand, his excuse for his mistreatment of Belle's family is basically that he's the best she could hope for, so why the complaining? He sees himself as helping her family."'
'"Verdict: It's not clear he fully understands why what he's doing is wrong, so <Soup Nazi voice> "no Complete Monster for you" </Soup Nazi voice>"'
I think I see your point about Gaston's desire to kill the Beast, but why does it matter that he thinks he's helping Belle's family or that Nuclear Man might not know that what he's doing is wrong? Are you saying that only CardCarryingVillains can be complete monsters?
'"No regret: check, but only because she was betrayed multiple times. She regretted her enemies actions led her to genocidal action"'
Are you just assuming that the evil doctor (who's name I don't know how to spell) who auctioned off that super soildier had done it multiple times, or were there others in the movie who betrayed Poison Ivy that I don't remember? Just to be clear, I was only talking about the version of the character who's in the movie, not in any other Batman media. When did she ever seem to regret that her enemies' actions led her to genocide?
'"Yeah... No. Like Two-Face, too cartoony in her Schumacher incarnation to be a contender, and even more stereotypically villainous."'
No matter how cartoony she is, she wants to commit genocide of the entire human race, and the heroes at least seem to take that seriously.
'"Seriously, if those last two can count, then 90% of Bats' Rogues Gallery should be included in the appropriate sub-sections"'
Well, my original point was that villains who did NOT fit the first four criteria seemed much rarer then the trope page implied.
'"•After he's picked up by the Enterprize, he's re-exiled to a planet Kirk has deliberately chosen for being "barely habitable"."'
Well, he couldn't send him to a planet where there were other people he could hurt, and sending him to a barely habitable one ensures that no innocent person who doesn't know there's a killer there will move in near him. He gave him a choice to go to jail instead, but Khan chose the barely habitable planet, and he wouldn't have needed to choose in the first place if he hadn't tried to murder the enterprise crew without provocation. His "excuse" seems pretty lame to me.
'"personally, i don't think there's anything "truly horrendous" in his repertoire, just standard villainy."'
'"Two-Face: Schumacher's Batflicks being a pet peeve of mine notwithstanding, despite Tommy Lee Jones hamming it up, he's not that horrible a villain. He's mostly gimmicky and kitschy like the '60s show villains, and his murder of the Flying Graysons is pretty much bog-standard procedure for fictionland's extortionists. Out, both of them."'
These get to a point I was trying to make earlier. I don't think the article makes it clear where the dividing line is between "standard villainy" and "truly horrendous". Most people in real life are pretty horrified by the thought of murder, so does that count as "truly horrendous"? Does it only count as such in settings where murder is rare (hence the "by the standards of the setting" qualifier that's now in the article)? If murder is "truly horrendous", then Cudgen does fit that criteria because he tries to murder Root, Holly, and Artemis and plans to murder Opal and Two-Face fits for murdering the Graysons and trying to murder Batman. I understand if you're filing murder under "standard villainy" since it's something most villains do, but please clarify to me if that's the case or not.
'"[Krudge] doesn't appear that much more evil than other Klingons we'd seen so far in the franchise - this was before they were anything but bad guys. It's more a case of having more opportunities for wrongdoing than his predecessors, who probably would have been just as ruthless IMO. Set phasers to "out"."'
Well, an entire race can be complete monsters, can't they? Last I checked, the Daleks from Doctor Who were listed as such.
'"as for Gaston, he isn't even aware that the beast used to be human. To Gaston, the Beast is just another animal, and it would be like killing a rabid dog... probably not "horrendous" enough to even meet the 1st criteria for Complete Monster status."'
But what about on the rooftop of the castle when he says things like "were you in love with her Beast" and "it's over Beast, Belle is mine" or when he tells Belle that he thinks she has feeling for the Beast? Gaston wouldn't actually believe that Belle could be in love with a dog, would he?
Also, the article now says;
'"That is to say, while there may be a sad backstory present, it must in no way be able to justify the horrendous deeds the character commits in the present time."'
Are horrendous deeds ever justified?
edited 29th Nov '10 2:38:17 PM by 411314
the world is so complicated
Pronounced YAK-you-luss
Some measure of malice or sadism is indeed necessary for a Complete Monster. That doesn't mean Card Carrying Villainy necessarily - very few malicious or sadistic people in the real world consider their own actions 'evil'. However, they have to be aware that they're hurting another person, and be quite OK with that. Gaston mostly sees the Beast as a smart, dangerous animal, and genuinely believes he's helping out Belle's family. He's far more Obliviously Evil, too wrapped up in his ego to be fully aware that he's getting people hurt.
edited 6th Nov '10 9:19:42 PM by Iaculus
What's precedent ever done for us?
Key word here is animal. Gaston had no reason to believe that the beast used to be human, or that he could be human again. If he did it would be borderline murder, but even a combination of stalking and murder does not a CM make. As it stands, he has a Moral Event Horizon but is not a CM.
Two Face, Depending on the Writer, is played very sympathetically: Harvey Dent was a good and upstanding man driven insame; in the animated series, The Dark Knight and others, Batman is still trying to bring him back around (and Dent does go through the Heel–Face Revolving Door in some adapations). Unless someone with more knowledge of the comics than me can point to a Two Face written as a true CM, he's out.
Can a villian still qualify if he orders these actions? Prophet of Truth's only direct atrocities are murdering Miranda Keys in cold blood and mocking Johnson while he's going through a heroic bsod; however, the other crimes he causes (ordering the genocide of the elites, selling out regret, working to cause the war even if keyes is the only one he shot) but the indirect atrocities are so horrendous that he does qualify. Nicole Horne from Max Payne and Rodrgio Borgia usually order the deaths of their victims rather then taking part, but they still take pleasure in it or feel no guilt for their crimes. If a person orders horrendous actions to be carried out, and takes pride in doing so, then he or she should qualify.