CM/MB Policy and Thread Culture

Thought Emerald does bring up good guestion which seem to have got missed. How would this affect our magnificent bastard standards, since there are good deal of charcater we have on ground that “well they are worst in story, but its standard for that type of story”?

Edited by EmperorGeode on Jan 26th 2024 at 4:40:52 AM

Agreed with Sky's take on this.

Yeah I don't think that concern is too much to worry about, if they're a bastard then they're a bastard.

So now that Ravok has effortposted Bill Sykes, what's the current status on what we plan to do with the genre baseline?

For the children's films, it more or less was pointed out that the standard isn't that astoundingly high to where a lower-scale antagonist can't be proposed. Ergo, just because you have people like Frollo or Scar does not mean that villains like Sykes can't be given a fair shake.

So, I guess we're not removing/redefining the genre baseline? (At least not yet.)

Pretty much. The idea is that the rule is fine, but we've been too strict with it over the years. So it still warrants some re-discussions to happen.

I'm not going to copy my post from the last page, but I still think it's relevant.

are there any examples of say, characters from horror movies that didn't get in because they don't live up to the genre baseline? because that seems like a more likely issue than the kids movies— the genre baseline being too high, because its a genre where complete monsters are incredibly common

Many Horror films have multiple movies in their continuities as is, so there's usually big; individual standards as is. Same concept would probably apply for one-offs though. If what the individual does is bad enough for their own film, they could hypothetically still be considered.

Gonna be a trial and error phase it seems. Not just with one or two genres either and likely multiple ones too.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Jan 30th 2024 at 6:06:09 AM

This thread's gone silent in the last few days, so may I be permitted to break that silence with an observation based on what I've read here?

While I am in full support of Ravok's idea and think some discussion has been productive, most of the thread sort of devolved into talks going circular and missing the forest for the trees. What do I mean by that second bit? That I feel a lot of focus was being placed on what was being called a "genre baseline" of heinousness that came about from the old rules and thread procedures, and some went to the "no comedic characters" standard, and to me, none of that really gets to the heart of what has for years now been so defective with how this trope is defined and how examples are approved or disapproved.

The thing that Complete Monster really most needs before these new alterations to the rules and procedures to qualify or disqualify candidates can begin to be made is a revised, much clearer and easier to understand defining of what the phrase "truly heinous by the standards of the story" even means.

"The character is truly heinous by the standards of the story" is how the defining criteria starts off, yet I don't think anyone for years has had a clear consensus about what that means and entails 'cause if they did, the arbitary "baseline of heinousness" or "genre baseline" never would have existed. The trope definition on the page also says "Or, anyway, that is how the character is presented in the story", again putting forward the idea that what the story of the work itself thinks and presents about the characters is what would be the most crucial to consider when evaluating a candidate rather than what other people think or how the candidate stacks up in heinousness compared to some completely unrelated other work that may or may not share a universe, a genre, a creator, a medium, etc. Like Ravok has put forward, the trope needs to keep a lot of its core standards for qualification but also become more of a "decided on a case by case basis" sort of trope in order to better align it with literally every other subjective trope on the Wiki, Magnificent Bastard included.

And if this means the trope definition and critera has to get something of a rewrite, then sure, we'll come to that if we all agree it's come to that.

What I've found very useful in how to determine the likelihood of a villain qualifying for this trope is to weigh them against a five standard checklist where checking the questions off with three Yeses and two Nos get you a Complete Monster.

- Is this character among the worst characters in their story and setting, if not the worst of all, in regards to moral character, behavior towards others, and actions? (If , proceed. If , it's a nonstarter).

- If so, are their crimes explicitly stressed within the narrative and in their in-story depiction to be truly heinous by the standards of the work and the world it builds? (If , proceed. If , this work's heinous standard is a light one and they've fallen short of being bad enough.)

- If so, is their terribleness played seriously at all times, with other characters reacting accordingly, even if the character is funny to the audience and the work is lighthearted and/or comedic? (If , proceed. If , this heinous character is a Black Comedy figure Played for Laughs rather than a Laughably Evil monster).

- If so, do they have a Freudian Excuse behind their villainy sufficient enough to evoke sympathy within the narrative and to the other characters? Or any altruistic, redeeming, or mitigating qualities? (If , proceed. If , then this villain cannot, by definition, be a Complete Monster.)

- If so, are they ultimately able to have remorse and seek redemption for their crimes, or at most are there clear cut avenues for redemption left open to them in the end? (If , this villain's aced the test. If , then the dreaded "sudden or last minute redemption" writing choice has reared its ugly head.)

Edited by ANewMan on Feb 4th 2024 at 11:31:45 AM

Good ideas and I like them all. Yeah with comedy villains that count, something important to remember is that keepers can be funny while also being viable threats. There's plenty of those to name—except I'm currently gonna refrain for the time being though of course.

Should we have concrete rules like this based on agency too? That also varies from work to work and candidate to candidate as well—even though it's not something that was ever as broad as this clearly was.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Feb 3rd 2024 at 6:19:41 AM

The basis is that the work would have to demonstrate if a candidate has moral agency issues or not i.e. Aku not counting because the show depicts that he is literally incapable of making decisions that don't end with him backstabbing others for evil's sake. That versus something where the candidate being MOE an Informed Attribute but does not delve into it enough to where a candidate could be applicable as there is nothing concrete that impedes their agency.

IIRC there's been candidates proposed who have felt remorse or contemplated a Heel–Face Turn only to reject it as a weakness and double down on being evil. And being presented with the opportunity to redeem themselves shouldn't be a disqualifying factor as long as they reject it, or aren't sincere about excepting it and are exploiting the opportunity for selfish or diabolical purposes.

Yeah. Some candidates that get approved display shock, but when they're approved, it's interpreted as not being genuine remorse certainly.

Yeah with comedy villains that count, something important to remember is that keepers can be funny while also being viable threats

Also, if they're leigitmate keepers, in-universe characters should not joke and make light of them and what they're doing unless they are directly mocking the Monster and putting them on the recieving end of a joke to degrade them with some well-deserved comeuppance. This is another way to keep a villain funny to the audience without them ever becoming a whole joke themselves.

IIRC there's been candidates proposed who have felt remorse or contemplated a Heel–Face Turn only to reject it as a weakness and double down on being evil. And being presented with the opportunity to redeem themselves shouldn't be a disqualifying factor as long as they reject it, or aren't sincere about excepting it and are exploiting the opportunity for selfish or diabolical purposes.

That still counts as not having enough remorse to make them want to seek redemption or accept help and forgiveness, with such things qualifying under Redemption Rejection, I've Come Too Far, or Heel–Face Door-Slam. And while them being presented with opportunities for redemption that they flout in-story isn't disqualifying, there should remain no clear cut avenues for redemption left open to them by the end.

I mean if you guys really want to change the definition. you'll need to take this to trs after you've done a wick check to prove misuse.

I'm not really sure what would change and I really wouldn't recommend it for tropes that have gone thorough multiple buy hey if you want to wait a few years. (i also dunno if its that necessary Since this sounds like what theirs currently)

Edited by miraculous on Feb 4th 2024 at 6:06:32 AM

There are keepers who do get made fun of, but it's not to the detriment of their actions and the impact they have though.

Exactly what I said: if the Monster gets mocked and put on the recieving end of a joke in a manner of degrading comeuppance, it's not disqualifying because their characters and actions are still treated seriously by the in-universe characters and story otherwise (example: Dr. Robotnik in the original Archie Comics Sonic continuity got made fun of and put on the recieving end of gags all the time, but he was also shown to be a legitimate menace to the world around him and whenever he got serious, other characters reacted seriously and treated him as the threat he was accordingly. Xykon in Order of the Stick is a similar case). It's only villains who are made to look like jokes who nobody, not even the narrative, takes seriously enough that could never qualify.

And there are Spider-Man style wisecracking heroes who'll aim jokes at the genocidal horrors just to throw them off-balance, or to show they're not giving in.

As has also probably been said, there are keepers who also have humiliating defeats too—though they don't underscore the bigger impact they had in the story either.

It really does rely on a case-by-case basis. Things that would doom one candidate would not necessarily doom another.

Something should be done about the "All The Tropes" wiki, then. Came across it while searching for a Complete Monster entry I'd written, and whole point of it seems to be to plagiarize TV Tropes but without the "censorship".

I don't think we can stop them, tbh. They exist as a With blackjack! and hookers! clone of us, I assume if there was a way to get them shut down it would've been done

The legal matters between ATT and TV Tropes were sorted out a while ago, well over my level of knowledge or jurisdiction. They agreed not to copy anything from us verbatim post-2012, and any violations of that should be reported.