#completemonster

[robbyrobinson]

Complete Monster Proposal: Queen Ima

What is the work?

Primal is an adult-animated series by Genndy Tartakovsky. In it, the first two seasons follow the adventures of a Neanthradal caveman named Spear who joins forces with a Tyrannosaurus rex named Fang after they had both suffered great losses.

The first season consists of them trying to survive in the death world the show takes place in until they meet a human named Mira who had escaped from a slave ship. After being recaptured, Spear and Fang embark on a journey to save their friend. Along the way, they come into enmity with new threats like the Vikings, and the candidate in question.

Who is she? What has she done?

The Egyptian Queen, or Ima, is the ruler of Ancient Egypt and the antagonist of a three-episode story arc. Wanting to rule everything, she invades Kamau's village, has her men kill some people and take others as slaves, and forces Kamau to become her means of conquering. She captures Spear, Fang, and Mira to use them as slaves as well.

During one instance of her rule, she holds the Sea King hostage and forces Mira to dance for him. When she doesn't, Ima performs the seductive dance...and then kicks the Sea King to his death.

Spear and the others try to rebel only to get overpowered. Ima tries to force Kamau to execute Fang, once again reminding him of the cost he would be making if he refused. But he does which leads to the final conflict.

Kamau ends up convincing his people to fight back after they saw him demolishing several Egyptian guards. Ima tries to fight back, but she is grossly out-maneuvered by the behemoth of a man.

He grabs her and tosses her off her main ship and her body smashes through the roof of the boat Spear and the gang was escaping in.

Freudian Excuse? Mitigating factors?

None. The season makes it a fact she is a sociopathic, egomaniacal antagonist who is motivated on conquering as many lands and stealing their gold as possible. Even the leopard cub she adopts is just her guard animal.

Heinous standard

So, it goes without saying that Primal is a dark show with a heavy amount of violence. For instance, Spear and Fang are forced to completely massacre an entire Viking village when the inhabitants push their hand(s). Spear also massacred the ape-men in the first season and is forced to kill several soldiers when Ima wanted to control their lands. Fang also assists her mate in killing a few early humans but that is largely out of her belief that Spear died. Having said that, Spear and Fang do show altruism and are willing to save others.

The Viking Chieftan is heinous enough. He has a whole business of invading other lands to acquire slaves and killing the rest even when they are not resisting. However, he truly loved his family and that drives his thirst for vengeance against Spear and Fang.

For any other antagonist, there was the Ape Shaman who oversaw death games, and the Night Feeder who apparently hunted for sport rather than for hunger. The Ape Shaman appears to be less evolved than later hominids, especially Homo sapiens so could be argued that he lacks moral agency. And the Night Feeder is a predator who suffers from the moral agency argument as well (though Fang seemed to have some basic understanding of what is good or "in her interest").

There was also the Mad Man from the disconnected "The Primal Theory" who is a psychotic monster who also eats chunks from his victims. However, he had a low kill count and seemed genuinely insane.

Ima, on the other hand, has no setbacks. The show makes it clear that she is evil. She is also one of the more personal of the antagonists since she uses Kamau's daughter and Fang's eggs (later children) as leverage to keep them in line.

She forces the group to decimate villages and civilizations so she could benefit from their gold and other riches. Where she truly demonstrates her evil, however, is when she forces Kamau to kill off a tribe of people even though they were not hostile and gave her a peace offering. She also has no hesitation when it comes with killing children such as her holding a dagger to Kamau's daughter's throat making it clear that she will kill her if he did not stand down.

[robbyrobinson]

If they're always villains, how aren't Complete Monsters always antagonists?

Villain and antagonist don’t mean the same thing. A villain is a wicked character; an antagonist opposes the protagonist but is not necessarily villainous. Like Inspector Javert from Les Miserables.

[robbyrobinson]

I’m probably in the minority here, but I feel that Monika should’ve been a Complete Monster if not for her redeeming attributes.

While I love the game, as well as the surprise twists and turns, I will forever think that Monika should've been a CM, or at the very least a monster. She manipulates the character files of her own friends, amplifying them so that the player could find them unappealing, thus leaving her as the only option. She drove Sayori to severe depression leading to her committing suicide, she warps Yuri's mind, making her an obsessed woman who stabs herself to death regardless if you accept her confession or not, and she has the nerve to delete Natsuki as well. This bitch literally destroys her own world, all for the sake of being with the player. However, I personally interpret her wish as being wholly self-serving because she admits that she doesn't know much about the player, let alone whether they're male or female. It should be obvious that she doesn't really care about you, but more for what you represent. Being a real person. Now there are several factors that easily diqualify her from being an absolute monster. For one, it's the sugegstion that if one of the girls were to become class president, they would become fully self-aware that they're characters in a visual novel, which would drive them to madness because they cannot comprehend it. We see this happen to Sayori if you tried to delete Monika early (IIRC). You can also count Monika driving the characters to madness as just them being programs. However, this is Monika we're talking about; I don't fully believe her claims that they are just programmed. There are several moments where the girls break the script such as Natsuki vomiting upon seeing Yuri's decaying body, or that Yuri was aware that she was going insane, but was unable to do anything about ot. Never mind the fact that Monika is the one who's messing with the files in the first place, so maybe she is deliberately trying to claim that they are non-sentient, when in actuality, she knows that to not be fully true. But of course, when you delete Monika, she is made to realize that she was being terrible, and that she didn't have it in her to completely delete her friends. She even saves the player when Sayori develops her self-awarness. Overall, while I love the ''JUST MONIKA'' meme, I feel that Monika shouldn't have been given one ounce of sympathy because she was being entirely selfish and committed deplorable acts to her own friends all because she wanted to be with the player whom she loves because they represent something that she can never have.

[robbyrobinson]

Why does Complete Monster even have a cleanup thread dedicated to it? Why does it even have any requirements? Most other tropes (even other YMMV tropes) don't have cleanup threads.

Robbing a bank is standard villainy. As are rape and murder. You need to have a clear baseline to the work as well as the general baseline. For instance, Alice killed 8 people and has no redeeming traits. Bob murders 15 people, but loves his family. As such, he is objectively more heinous even though he does not qualify as a CM. You need to have a clear division on what is standard villainy and what is truly heinous. 

So in other words, the cleanup forum exists to dissuade bad examples of the trope among other reasons.