User blog comment:Sppople/Satan or Complete Monster/@comment-25008763-20150204053557

flawed question : Satan is a type of character and Complete Monster is a morality trope.

so.. any version of Satan can be a Complete Monster but any version of Satan can also be the exact opposite:

South Park's Satan is one of the nicest guys in the show (no, really he is) - in stark contrast John Milton is not only a horrific portrayal of Satan he is currently the spokesman for the trope on this wiki.

Satan = any depiction of a supremely powerful entity standing in opposition to the "divine", whether the "divine" is good or evil.. he can be a fallen angel, an Anti-God or even something completely unexplainable.. as long as he opposes some version of God (be it a good God, a neglectful God or a downright malevolent God).

Complete Monster = any character that is not only squarely on the "evil" alignment in terms of morality but pushes it to a level far surpassing most in their settings, they are the most sadistic and ruthless of all villains within their setting but can be anything.. absolutely anything.. as long as they are heinous enough.

so, simply being Satan is not enough to be a Complete Monster.. heck.. it's not even enough to automatically be a villain.. especially if God is portrayed as malevolent in one setting (in the most extreme cases of an Evil God Satan can be seen as a tragic hero who tries to defend humanity from a mad Demiurge (of course this is seen as heretical by religion but we are talking about all fiction, so must include even these controversial portrayals).

Many believe Satan is automatically without redeeming factors or human traits but they forget that even in the original texts Satan is never portrayed as pure evil : he often worked as the "enemy of man" but was still subservient to God (who could cast him down, forbid him from harming people and so forth), even in the Apocalypse, when Evil reigns supreme God has the authority to say to Satan "you can not harm my people" and Satan obeys.. Satan and God, in the bible, are antagonistic towards each other but Satan will obey God's most important rules (since not even Satan can defy God entirely) : it is stated in many texts Satan is only allowed to tempt mankind because God allows it.. so he is playing a role, no matter how malignant, and can not be judged by mortals. (this is why beings like Galactus can not be CMs, despite horrific things they do.. their cosmic roles make them beyond the morality required to become a CM).