User blog comment:Magma MK-II/Complete Monster: Characters to be removed/@comment-7455247-20160216015423

Personally, there are several characters that I find very exaggerated to consider as Complete Monsters because I don't think they are 100% evil. I start with the two most important of them :

- Steele : Honestly, I find that he looks totally out of place among the other CMs. Steele is barely even a true villain, during the majority of the movie he is simply a bully. His only "crimes" were cheating, bullying Balto, trying to seduce Jenna and lying. Oh, and he scratched some trees... Yep, there are villains who committed murders, rapes or tortures and who are not CMs, but Steele is one because he scratched some trees... That doesn't make a lot of sense to me.

I know, the other dogs could have lose their way to the village and the children could have die without the medicine, but Steele didn't do that because he wanted their deaths, only because he wanted to discredit Balto as a leader. I'm pretty sure that Steele will never kill or even harm one of the children, actually I even doubt he will kill one of the dogs, including Balto. During their fight, at no moment Steele tried to kill him, he only tried to repel him away from the medicine.

Furthermore, he only acted in a fit of rage, and at this point he had good reasons to be in a bad mood.

By the way, he only toppled the medicine by accident.

Not only Steele never killed anybody, but he didn't even tried to kill the dogs, simply to make them lose their way (which will probably not cause their deaths in a Cartoon). In addition, they were already lost (and it was not Steele's fault), so their situation was not particularly worsened.

Personally, I think even Gaston is more evil than Steele (and I consider Gaston as one of the less evil of Disney's main villains). Gaston wanted to kill the Beast, Steele was content to simply bully Balto. Gaston wanted to force Belle to marry him, Steele merely tried to flirt with Jenna. I think this is why Gaston died and not him. Steele is not evil enough and didn't cause enough crimes to deserve to die.

And Steele is not irredeemable, the third movie was originally supposed to feature a redeemed Steele.

Also, Steele's main motivation for his acts was he didn't want to lose his fans. Sure, this is petty, but certainly not Completely Monstrous.

- Slade : Slade is a far more complex character than just pure evil.

Even in Season 1, his goal has never been to kill the Teen Titans, only to recruit Robin as his apprentice and have a father/son relationship with him (possibly because he wanted to replace his relationship with his son Jericho, which makes him a tragic character). He clearly has great respect towards Robin (and also towards the other Titans, in a lesser extent), he even saved him when he nearly fell from a roof. More importantly, during the final episode he had the opportunity to kill the five Titans, but he chose to spare their lives.

In Season 4, Slade is unquestionably far less evil than Trigon, the show's writers even said they made Trigon so much evil than Slade is a good guy compared to him, which means than Slade isn't 100% evil (unlike Trigon). During the last two episodes, Slade clearly became an anti-hero, and it was genuine. He helped the Titans to defeat Trigon, okay it's was mainly because he wanted to recover his flesh and blood, but it's worth noting that he didn't betray the Titans (or even envisage to betray them) and kept all his promises. Above all, even after recovering his flesh and blood he still wanted to help the Titans (despite having no particular reason to do so) and when he went to fight Trigon, he saved the lives of all the Titans !

Slade can be considered as a fully redeemed villain, because during the following season he never tried to attack the Titans again. Even in the last episode, it was Beast Boy who started the fight, Slade only went to tell him to leave Terra alone, because he apparently care for her well-being.

In my opinion, none of the Pixar villains are Complete Monsters (no, not even Lotso). I explain why :

- Hopper : Yes he's a bad guy, but not that bad. After all, he never killed anybody (his two henchmen are not confirmed to be dead, and since it's a Cartoon they probably survived), not to mention the fact that he kept the promise to his mother.

- Syndrome : Honestly, I find him way too comedic to be a CM. In addition, while his crimes are horrible, most of them only happened off-screen. And he also simply captured the Incredibles rather than killing them on several occasions. Plus, his primary goal is simply to sell gadgets to make everyone become super... that doesn't sound that much evil. Oh, and he also has a somewhat tragic backstory.

- Lotso : Sure, his crimes are bad, but Completely Monstrous ? That sounds a little bit exaggerated. He lied to Big Baby and forced his former friends to follow him into darkness... yes, but his backstory is very tragic, so it was a bit understandable. He caused some toys to be broken by kids in the Caterpillar Room... okay, but it's inevitable, the kids have to receive toys to "play" with. He imprisoned most of the heroes and turned Buzz against his friends... hum, I've seen worse crimes. He beaten Chatter Telephone... I think a true Complete Monster would have killed him. He attacked Big Baby... well, at this point the heroes were about to convince him to betray him, so it's kind of justified.

Furthermore, even after all of this he was still considered redeemable, at least in universe. Then he abandoned the heroes to their death after they saved his life. Without a doubt, that was very, very bad, but it's not like he tried to kill them himself, if we think about it the only thing he did was... nothing at all.

From other Disney movies :

- Shan Yu : Despite having probably the highest body count among them, I never considered him as one of the most evil Disney's villains because he seems to have some kind of a sense of honor and respect towards his enemies. For example, when he chose to fight China's army rather than avoid it, it can be interpreted as he wanted to let them a chance to win (which was the objective of the army after all). In addition, unlike most of Disney villains he never abused his henchmen and even treated them like his friends.

- Nizam : He did save his brother's life in the past so he's not 100% evil, and while he committed some heinous crimes like killing several members of his family and provoking a war that caused a lot of deaths, he planned to go back in time and change the past so everything he did would not have happen.

Now, some others from various medias :

- Wilford : Many of his actions are indeed horrible, but in a way, everything he did was necessary to preserve humanity. Plus, unlike almost every Complete Monsters (and almost every villains in general), he didn't want to kill the hero, he actually wanted him to replace him. Not to mention the fact that he seemed genuinely affable. As horrible as his actions may have been, I don't think someone whose goal is to preserve humanity and to give his place to the hero can be considered as a Complete Monster.

- Johan Liebert : He is unquestionably monstrous, but he has at least two limits, he refuses to kill his sister or Tenma. And he is perfectly willing to let them kill him (which is their goal), which can be interpreted as he feels remorse for his actions and/or wants to be stopped before he causes more death.

- Agatha Trunchbull : She's bad, but her actions towards the children are so much exaggerated that it's hard to take them seriously. And in the story's universe, the children are able to survive without a scratch to anything she can do to them, so it's not as bad as it will be in real-life. Consequently, she's only a nasty teacher, nothing worst. In addition, she never killed anybody, even her brother-in-law was not confirmed to have been killed by her or not (and personally, I don't think she really killed him, she doesn't seem evil enough to commit a murder).

- John Garrett : I agree that his methods as the Clairvoyant are monstrous, but the character himself is usually very sympathetic, with both his allies and his enemies. He seems to genuinely appreciate Coulson (he even admitted that he was saddened by his death and happy to know he was alive), especially after being revived by the same alien blood than him, and also to care a little bit about Ward (even though he nearly had him killed in front of Skye to further his plans, it was evident she wouldn't let him die). Plus, he was totally Played for Laughs during the last episodes.