Thread:Talk:Complete Monster/Is this Complete Monster objective?/reply (4)

I was thinking about a character I've been reading recently, Desty Nova from Gunnm, and about how he was not an example of Complete Monster. Yet there it is on Gunnm/YMMV the Complete Monster example. The dude, in his own crazy-ass logic thinks he's helping people, because his moral sense is so far towards orange. In fact, there were times he actually did help people. And geez, the heroine seriously thinks about not killing him for a minute. (After looking around, I guess that called Moral Sociopathy.)

So there are a couple of things going on with this trope that I can see:
 * 1) People want to gush about just how awful a villain is.  Omnicidal Maniac, etc.
 * 2) A character designed to have no redeeming features. (your Daleks, your Death Phantoms, etc.)

The latter is basically what this trope's description says. I don't think that there is really any more ambiguity there than stuff like Loads and Loads of Characters or Post Modernism. Yes, there is a judgement call, but it's really minor; it's no hard to ask if the character has ever done anything good. And I'm not going to argue morals either -- morals within the context of the story are fine.

The former is -- is that a trope? It seems like maybe it is? The Sociopath, Villain? A Bad Dude?