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Subjective Trope
Magnificent Bastard
"Rommel, you magnificent bastard, I read your book!"
-Patton

"For you, the day Bison graced your village was the most important day of your life. But for me... it was Tuesday."
-M. Bison, The Street Fighter Movie

There's a certain type of villain that transcends ordinary villainy. Love him or loathe him, you have to admire him. And at the end of the day, there's only one thing we can call him... a Magnificent Bastard.

The Magnificent Bastard is intelligent, charismatic, capable, supremely competent - almost implausibly so - and always in control. While sometimes a Big Bad, he's just as likely to be a Wild Card or the Starscream. He's a devious liar playing everyone for his own selfish ends, but he goes about it with such panache that you can't help but be impressed. A Magnificent Bastard inspires (often grudging) admiration from friend, foe, and audience alike. He can get away with the most outrageous schemes because he's just that damn awesome.

Every villain wants to be one of these (and all fans want their favorite villains to be one), but few succeed. To be one, you must be both truly Magnificent - audacious, charismatic, devious - and truly a Bastard - wicked, self-centered, treacherous. The Magnificent Bastard seldom loses control of the situation, and when he does, he'll find a way to twist the new turn of events to his advantage. When defeated, instead of throwing a villainous tantrum, he's apt to wheedle his way into the heroes' sense of mercy and out of his just deserts. The Bastard's skill at playing every hand typically fails him only at the moment of his final defeat... and he may have contingency plans even for that.

The Magnificent Bastard combines many of the most popular Anti Hero and Villain tropes. He frequently (but not always) has traits of the Chessmaster, the Enigmatic Minion, the Heroic Sociopath, the Humphrey, the Loveable Rogue and the Manipulative Bastard; however, the Magnificent Bastard goes beyond all these, with a flair and poise that are his alone.

The Trope Namer is the film Patton, from the quote at the top by the titular general regarding his opponent, Erwin Rommel, a German military commander in World War II. The term itself was popularized on the Television Without Pity boards as the nickname for Lionel Luthor of Smallville, a fine fictional example of the trope.

Some villains aspire to be Magnificent Bastards but fall short. If their victories seem forced, they'll end up as Villain Sues. If they have the ego but lack the awesome, they become Smug Snakes. If they start out well but over time lose their Magnificence, their Bastardy, or both, they suffer Badass Decay. The Freudian Excuse can be particularly dangerous to their Magnificence.

Note: The Magnificent Bastard is by definition a VILLAIN. Heroic examples go to the Chessmaster page.
Examples:

Anime and Manga
  • Bleach's Aizen Sousuke. The man had the entire governing body of the Soul Society slaughtered and replaced by him and his henchman without anyone noticing, then manipulated everyone with ease in a great, long-running Xanatos Roulette to steal the Hōgyoku trapped in Rukia's soul, take over the Hollow world, create a new army of soul-eating supersoldiers, and then take over... pretty much everything else. He had backup plan upon backup plan, faked his own death, nearly stabbed to death his fiercely-loyal lieutenant (who remained fiercely loyal afterwards) , and plans to obliterate Ichigo's hometown to fuel his ambitions.
  • Crocodile from One Piece. This guy manipulated an entire kingdom into a civil war between the king and his people while still presenting himself as a hero to the country. His entire slogan for his plan was, "The love for this kingdom will destroy it." He also added even more insult to the heroes about telling them about a bomb that would blow up the town square that was nearly impossible to stop because he had a backup in case his lackeys falled to set off the bomb. His plan was nearly flawless and would had succeeded if it was not for certain events.
  • Tsukihime: Kohaku. Just do the visual novel.
  • Proxy One in Ergo Proxy, who is even referenced to be "the winner at the end of the world" (with good reason). Not only is he the master manipulator of nearly everything that happens in the course of the series, but he wins.
  • Akio from Revolutionary Girl Utena. He seduces half the cast (including his sister Anthy), rigs the entire series of duels, creates a false timeline, convinces his own sister to stab Utena, and runs a private school in his spare time. And he gets away with all of that.
  • Medusa the Witch in Soul Eater. Manipulates her daughter into becoming a Dark Magical Girl...but subverts the usual Heel Face Turn so that she would be The Mole instead. Blackmails other witches into working for her by planting parts of her body in them that explode whenever she wills it. Matches the best Technician and Death Scythe in Shibusen in battle, resurrects the Cosmic Horror, gives The Corruption to the main heroine/hero duo, comes Back From The Dead by stealing the body of a small child, drives the best tech crazy, frames him for murder, drives out a good witch who wanted to defect, and convinces Shibusen to let her lead them in an assault against her Rival Older Sister.
  • Light Yagami of Death Note personifies this. At one point in the series, he has Ryuk the shinigami take the Death Note away from him, causing him to lose all memories of his time as Kira. Then, he helps L and the investigation team to hunt down a new Kira. When he gets his hands on the new Kira's Death Note, he regains all of his memories and it is revealed that he planned all of these events beforehand, including what he would do while he forgot his identity as Kira, to gain L's trust and kill him.
  • Madara Uchiha in Naruto. After the fight with the Shodai Hokage he leaves Konoha, only to later sic the Kyuubi on the village, which leads the elders to suspect the Uchiha clan and thus leads to Itachi being ordered to kill them all. It gets better when we're told Madara helped Itachi massacre their clan, then later formed Akatsuki in order to gain control of the nine demons. He also killed his brother to gain the Eternal Mangekyou Sharingan, which would give him all the powers of the Mangekyou but his eyesight wouldn't deteriorate. He then manipulates Sasuke following Itachi's death into deciding to take revengeance on Konoha and join Akatsuki.
  • In Gundam Wing, Treize tells the media that an upcoming meeting of Earth Alliance officials to find a way to peacefully resolve the recent conflict is actually a meeting of top OZ officials. This results in four of the five gundam pilots attacking the meeting and killing most of the pacifists, which gives the Alliance a pretext to declare war on the colonies. Meanwhile, Treize had Zechs order OZ double agents within Alliance bases to seize control of their military installations, effectively granting OZ control of Earth's entire military.
  • Friend in 20th Century Boys is not only responsible for the deaths of thousands but he also manages to blame everything on the protagonists, while he goes on to be regarded as Japan's saviour and later President of the World. Oh, and his plan for world domination was inspired by a game the protagonists used to play when they were in sixth grade
  • Depending on your mileage, Johan Liebert the Monster. He pulls a several-years long Xanatos Roulette and outwits several governmental conspiracies, manipulates everyone he encounters as they were puppets on a string and then disposes of them without a second thought, subverts every Pet The Dog moment he's given in chilling ways, and never loses that Dissonant Serenity permanently affixed to his face. The problem is, the straight treatment the series gives his activities also makes him freaking scary to behold.
  • Schneizel el Britannia of Code Geass has been hinted to be this for some time, but only recently earned his Magnificence credentials on-screen. In a single stroke, he managed to discover his brother Lelouch's secret identity as Zero, then used this knowledge to manipulate the Black Knights into abandoning Lelouch/Zero. Basically he has, with one move, destroyed every bit of progress Lelouch has made since the beginning of the series... a fact made more impressive when you consider that Lelouch is a firmly established chessmaster.

Live Action TV
  • The Master, in many of his incarnations, in Doctor Who.
    • Also, Davros in the episode "Revelation of the Daleks". After escaping from a maximum security prison, he adopts an alias and becomes a hero to the galaxy by alleviating famine. How does he do it? He uses the bodies sent to a planet-sized cemetery complex as the main ingredient for an "artificial" foodstuff. When the Doctor asks if he's actually told the general public about this Davros says no, because "That would have created what I believe is termed 'consumer resistance'." Oh, and while he's doing all this He's using other bodies from the complex to create (yet another) new race of Daleks.
    • Come to that, he was pretty bastardly in "Genesis of the Daleks" as well. When the Doctor convinced the Kaled government to investigate his research programs, he simply gave the Thals, his own people's arch-enemies, the information they needed to annihilate the Kaleds. Then he sent the Daleks to wipe out the Thals. Meanwhile, he carries out a purge of any surviving Kaleds whose conscience might hinder future development of the Daleks.
  • Lionel Luthor from Smallville, as discussed above.
  • Jack from Tru Calling. His Bastardry comes from his mission: to keep the protagonist from saving the lives of the dead people who ask her to do so. His Magnificence comes in the way that he does it. Where Tru tends towards attacking the problem at its source, Jack thinks sideways, poisoning people against Tru before she even shows up. He also tends towards taunting her with little notes and snide commentary. He managed to infiltrate her inner circle with a mole, thus allowing himself to garner all manner of info on her without her knowledge. By the end of the series, he literally has 3 people connected to Tru and her gang that they are entirely unaware of. Imagine the Bolivian Army Ending when the good guys don't even know the army is there.
  • Ebony in The Tribe. For most of the show's run, she was manipulating half the other characters into turning against each other while she managed to be elected City Leader.
  • Heroes has several of these. In season one there's HRG, smooth and calculating enough to trick even his MIB employers, although his eventual Heel Face Turn puts an end to his Bastardry. Later, we get introduced to another, Mr. Linderman, the Affably Evil mastermind behind everything. Then there's season two...
    • Even after HRG Heel Face Turn he's capable of being a Magnificent Bastard when he threatens his former teacher's family in order to get the information he wants to help keep his family safe
  • Livia in the BBC adaptation of Robert Graves' I, Claudius. She spent years brilliantly and subtly manipulating everyone in the highest level of Roman empire, just to get her son Tiberius chosen as Emperor.
  • Benjamin Linus from Lost ascended to this status during Seasons Three and Four.
    • He had this status from day one. You just didn't know it yet.
  • Catherine Packard Martell in Twin Peaks. It's not just everyone who can fake their own death in a mill fire, come back to town in drag to foil the plans of everyone looking to profit off the land, and then plot with their Not Quite Dead brother to seek revenge on his treacherous wife.
  • Alfred Bester on Babylon 5 combines ruthless scheming with an infuriating charisma that drives the heroes crazy even as they are forced to respect his skill.
  • Damages featured a brutal winners-takes-all war fought between the magnificent bastard Arthur Frobisher and the magnificent bitch Patricia ''Patty" Hewes.
  • Francis Urquhart in House Of Cards. He plots, schemes, manipulates and backstabs his way up the political chain in the hopes of becoming Prime Minister; remaining above suspicion among all of his colleagues. He does it with class, skill and style, all the while giving conspiratorial No Fourth Wall asides to the audiences, explaining his thoughts on his opponents and next steps. He commits terrible deeds, but the audience has to forgive him, because his charm and panache are too overwhelming for him to be hated.
  • Richard Cross in Murder One. A fabulously rich developer with a love of fine wine and Renaissance art, who has a marvellous public image through his various donations to charities. He also helps out South American drug lords just for the hell of it, and after one of these affiliations goes very, very wrong he spends the entire first season wildly improvising to keep himself and his associates in the clear, all while appearing completely unruffled and dangling his involvement in the faces of the show's heroes. It also doesn't hurt that he's played by the indescribably charismatic Stanley Tucci.
  • Holtz from Angel falls under this, mostly for his sheer efficiency. Jasmine spent millenia with godlike power manipulating events to come to earth, lasted less than a week, and died at the hands of her most loyal servant. Wolfram and Hart spent five seasons with nigh-limitless resources trying to corrupt Angel and all they accomplished in the end was letting him know who to kill. Meanwhile Holtz, had no powers whatsoever, was out of his own time and had no allies but those he created for himself. And in half a season he managed to convince one of Angel's closest friends to kidnap Angel's son, then escaped into a hell dimension with him, raising him to be Angel's worst enemy. Then his assisted suicide actually made things worse between them. And he actually managed to remain sympathetic throughout this.
  • The Devil in Reaper not only arranges for Sam to get an apartment next to a pair of rebel demons whose plan to destroy him would actually have worked, and manipulates Sam into infiltrating the rebellion with a new (doomed) plan to kill him, he also signs Sam's lease with his name and sends him clues as to what is going on that Sam, Sock and Ben can only work out moments after it is too late to do anything about it. Then repeats this plan with the few survivors of the rebellion, and is still witty, charming and diabolically affable. Ray Wise's portrayal is just so good that fans now think he may actually be The Devil.
  • Ryan O'Reilly from Oz controls the prison's drug trade, has all this rivals killed by other people, starts gang wars between the ethnic clans and is one of the few characters to survive the show's entire run, and never has anyone other than his mentally retarded brother for muscle. As he replies when one character asks him how he became a leader of the prison riot despite his lack of a gang: "I'm like the Lord of the ***ing Dance. I've got moves."
  • The title of Super Sentai's only Magnificent Bastard goes to Dr. Mikoto Nakadai of Bakuryu Sentai Abaranger, an Insufferable Genius who takes on the mantle of AbareKiller, the Evil Counterpart of the Abaranger. Within five seconds of his introduction, he captures the Monster Of The Week and turns the poor thing into his personal maid, complete with apron. He sets up a series of Deadly Games for the heroes just to amuse himself and demonstrate that Humans Are Bastards to the Wide Eyed Idealist heroes. He seizes control of three of their (sentient) zords via More Than Mind Control. He decides to take over the villains' headquarters and install himself as their new leader just for kicks. Oh, did I mention that the Super Prototype Transformation Trinket he uses will eventually blow up with the force of a nuclear warhead and that not only is he fully aware of this, he doesn't mind one bit?
    • Speaking of Super Sentai, Lord Zedd from Power Rangers most definitely fits this trope. At one point in Zeo, he offers the current Big Bads, the Machine Empire, a present - it's a bomb. He also doesn't throw tantrums or act as comedy when his plans fail, making him more badass than even Goldar, and the fact he appeared to have no skin (showing his muscle tissue) is pretty cool too.
      • It's such a shame he suffers from a terminal case of Badass Decay in the third season.
  • Scorpius of Farscape fame spent the entire run of the series, plus the Made For DVD Movie holding allegiance only to himself, and doing his darnedest to manipulate every side in his favour... and more or less succeeding by series end.
  • Roman Grant in Big Love: the patriarch of a polygamist compound who stole the title of Prophet from the hero's grandfather. He's also an extremely cunning businessman, who manages to one-up the hero, Bill, thoughout the first season - in one case, just when Bill appears to have blackmailed him into giving up his financial interest in Bill's business, by threatening to destroy a guitar he particularly likes, he makes a deal with Bill that appears to give Bill everything he wants - a third outlet of Bill's "Walmart" style store. Except then he gets the government to declare the land Bill has already bought an historical site. Despite being a thorough swine, he also believes deeply in the importance of family and calls to commiserate for Bill when Bill's family is exposed as polygamists. Of course, he exposed them...
  • Sheriff Buck of American Gothic fulfills this trope again and again throughout the series. Among the worst (or best, depending on your point of view) offenses would be his Mind Rape of Dr. Crower, beginning with forcing him to relive his past tragedies (his alcoholism, its destruction of his career, and the terrible accident which cost him the life of his wife and daughter), which nearly makes him fall Off The Wagon again. This then continues on to the convoluted Xanatos Roulette wherein he convinces Dr. Crower via a woman who claims to be his mother that he is the Devil Incarnate. Armed with this Cassandra Truth, Matt morphs into a Stalker With A Crush (only without the crush, unless you take it to mean wanting to crush Buck to death), so that in the end he gets dragged away, having gone off the deep end, and is last seen locked away in an insane asylum. Talk about a Downer Ending...but so ingeniously pulled off.
    • Honorable mention also goes to the number Buck pulls on the orderly in "Eye of the Beholder", Carter in "Damned If You Don't", and the talk show host in "Resurrector" he forces to kill his wife...or at least, he thinks he does.
  • Avon, of Blake's 7, is a rare example of a Magnificent Bastard protagonist.
  • Joey Heric from The Practice.

Film
  • Keyser Söze from The Usual Suspects.
  • Inspector Lau Kin Ming, played by Andy Lau, in Infernal Affairs. A mole in the Hong Kong Police Department for ferocious Triad boss Hon Sam, he manipulates everyone around him in the HKPD AND Sam and his gang into operating in the way that best suits him and his search for the mole in Sam's gang. Then he has pretty much everyone who knows or may know about his mole status offed - including his superintendent, the protagonist, Sam, and another Triad mole in the HKPD. And the only collateral damage? He loses his oddball writer girlfriend. Oh, and he has some regrets, but nothing major.
    • ...Until the third movie, anyway, where it is one of the factors contributing to Lau's complete and utter mental breakdown.
  • The Operative from Serenity, who ruthlessly pursues anything which dares threaten the perfect world which he hopes to create, all the while acknowledging that such a utopia would have no place for him, all without losing his sense of humor.
  • Senator / Chancellor / Emperor Palpatine from Star Wars. Sith-ness notwithstanding, he managed to shape the entire galaxy in his image, had manipulated every major event for the past two decades or so, and had kept everyone assured of his respectability and trustworthiness while doing so. As he declared himself ruler-for-life (and was applauded by the Senate for doing so), this troper couldn't help but think, "Well, he certainly earned it!"
    • Not to mention that his start to political prominence was over a seemingly minor trade dispute. Which he, of course, started.
  • Tony Wendice in Dial M for Murder. After discovering his wife Margot is cheating on him, he creates a complex plan to kill her while arranging a perfect alibi for himself and mentally punishing the man who cuckolded him at the same time. When Margot proves more resilient than he expected and kills the man he blackmailed into doing the deed, he only needs a few minutes to come up with a new plan to make it appear that she commited the act in cold blood. Even during times when his scheme is in danger of being exposed, he is quickly able to come up with a new way to turn the situation to his advantage. And finally when against all odds his whole plot is exposed, he turns out to be one of the all time great Graceful Losers, pouring wine for everyone who had a hand in finding him out (except a cop who he notes is still on duty).
  • The Joker from The Dark Knight is an unorthodox example of this trope. There's just something about the supreme competence and control he exhibits throughout the entire film that can one forget (almost) that he's an unabashed dog rapist. Joker Crosses The Line Twice. Hell, he dances a jig up and down the line.
  • Darryl Revok of Scanners. Psychotic though he may be, he's just so awesome that it's all okay.
  • Leslie Vernon, from Behind The Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon. He's an aspiring spree killer (in the vein of Jason Vorhees and Freddy Krueger, as the movie is a big deconstructor fleet of slasher films), who is chosen to be the subject of a documentary the main character, Taylor Gentry, is making. She eventually becomes great friends with Leslie, who turns out to be quite charismatic. Then, she is surprised when he actually does go through with the killings, his chosen victims trapped in a mansion that he pretreated to be lethal. She decides to help, but when she goes into the mansion, she realizes Leslie's real plan: her and her crew were also intended to be his victims, and they're playing right into his hands. Finally, she is the last victim left, and manages to kill him in exactly the way he said the final girl would. Unfortunately, he planned this the whole time, taking the preparations required to fake his own death...
  • Protagonist example: Kuwabatake Sanjuro from Yojimbo. Not only does he play two rival gangs like fiddles, causing them both to collapse with little suspicion drawn to himself, he's able to turn his capture, which he didn't plan into his advantage.
  • Harry Lime from The Third Man. "Victims? Don't be melodramatic. Look down there. Tell me. Would you really feel any pity if one of those dots stopped moving forever? If I offered you twenty thousand pounds for every dot that stopped, would you really, old man, tell me to keep my money, or would you calculate how many dots you could afford to spare? Free of income tax, old man. Free of income tax - the only way you can save money nowadays." Did I mention that he's played by Orson Welles?
  • Noah Cross from Chinatown is an extremely friendly man and kind host who rapes and impregnates his daughter, murders his former business partner and deprives dozens of farmers of their livelihood by manipulating Los Angeles' water supply. Other than that he's a perfectly likeable old gentleman

Western Animation
  • David Xanatos from Gargoyles is usually one step ahead of the Gargoyles, and everyone else. He frequently got away with actions that would send a normal main to jail for the rest of his life, and was a member of the Illumanati's guild. Of course, since Xanatos was such a smooth talker, he would make you believe he was your friend all while positioning the knife in your back.
  • Megabyte from ReBoot. The baritone voice of Tony Jay certainly helps, but this is one of the few villains that has never suffered from any sort of Villain Decay, and is actually considered more dangerous as the series progressed. His most magnificent moment (besides the guitar duel) is when he took advantage of the web invasion and subsequent Enemy Mine situation to strand Bob, Mainframe's champion, into the web. While Daemon is more powerful and dangerous, Megabyte's return in season 4 evoked much more fear from the main cast.
  • Female Example: Princess Azula from Avatar The Last Airbender. She's a sociopathic firebending prodigy, but she does it with such style and planning that you can't help but admire her (but hopefully not too much). She manipulates everyone around her, including her own brother, and her plans in the second season require her to out-Chessmaster another Magnificent Bastard, Long Feng, which she does, effortlessly. Her Crowning Moment Of Awesome was nearly killing Aang with a lightning blast in the middle of his Transformation Sequence in a Dangerously Genre Savvy moment in the second season finale.
  • Another female example: Nerissa from W.I.T.C.H. Can also be considerd a Manipulative Bastard, as can Prince Phobos. Cedric too, especially in the original comic series.
  • Eric Cartman, at only nine years old had a crowning moment of awesome when he murdered another kids parents through a Xanatos Gambit and then fed their bodies to him as chili con carne. He also managed to be so evil that he drove super nanny into shit eating insanity.

Literature
  • Lord Vetinari, Patrician and supreme ruler of Ankh-Morpork from Terry Pratchett's Discworld books, is described as being such a Magnificent Bastard, he makes Machiavelli look like an amateur. He plots against everyone, plays people against each other, and he manipulates people into doing exactly what he wants, and always gets away with it. The only problem is he's usually on the protagonists' side. Or rather, they're on his.
  • Tywin Lannister of A Song Of Ice And Fire fits the bill beautifully. He is widely known as a cold, cruel and immensely rich and powerful Lord, yet he is admired even by his enemies. Machiavelli would be proud.
    • But even he is no match for the Magnificent Bastard that is Petyr Baelish, also known as "Littlefinger." Even though his title has little standing, Lord Petyr is nonetheless one of the most powerful men in Westeros. He was so adept at finance that he managed to gain a seat as the Master of Coin on the king's council, and has replaced many officials with servants who are loyal to him. He was responsible for the assassination of the King's Hand, Jon Arryn. He easily duped Eddard Stark into believing he was an ally and was ultimately responsible for his execution. He murdered the only woman who seems to have loved him, Lysa Arryn. And to demonstrate he tolerates no bastards of the less-magnificent variety, he took a hand in Joffrey's assassination, facilitating Margaery's marriage to a sane king at House Tyrell's request. Even Tyrion doubts whether he is a match for Littlefinger. His only weakness is a love he once held for Catelyn Stark, which seems to have transferred to an affection for her daughter, Sansa.
    • Euron Greyjoy is a´loveably vicious Manipulative Bastard and somewhat a textual Large Ham. He shows his sheer bravado when he returns to his home after a lenghty exile as a feared outcast and gets himself elected the King of the Iron Islands by the Proud Warrior Race Guys. Doesn't hurt that he's rumored to know Black Magic, has an Eyepatch Of Power and likely assassinated his ruling brother. This is all described from the point-of-view of his siblings, who would all like nothing more than to strangle him.
    • And let us not forget Tyrion's run of exceedingly awesome Magnificent Badassery up until the end of the second book - the way he managed to escape certain execution, recruited the scourges of a famously dangerous mountain pass as his allies, thoroughly owned his sister Cersei at every turn in King's Landing and proved to be every bit as capable a hand as his father.
    • And what of Oberyn Martell, the Red Viper? His explanation for why the gods are merciful alone qualifies him.
  • Grand Admiral Thrawn, from the Star Wars Expanded Universe. Arguably his greatest Crowning Moment Of Awesome was a fairly quiet moment when everyone expected him to give a Mook tractor beam operator the You Have Failed Me treatment when a technical issue in said tractor beam allowed Luke Skywalker to escape Thrawn's clutches for the second time. Instead, he listens to the officer's explanation of how he tried and almost did overcome the beam's design flaw, and promotes the man on the spot and assigns him to find a way to deal with the issue. This comes after Thrawn gave the previous operator of the exact same tractor beam the You Have Failed Me treatment because said operator failed to follow the proper procedure for what happened when Luke escaped the first time (it's heavily implied that if the operator had followed the procedure, Luke would never have escaped-at least not from the tractor beam). The Aesop was crystal clear—initiative and imagination would be rewarded, and slackness and incompetence would be punished. As a side effect, Thrawn earned the undying loyalty of everyone in the room. And if you don't know why that was a CMOA, you obviously don't know about the standard Imperial admiral's attitude to his/her subordinates.
  • The villain of L.A. Confidential: Captain Dudley Smith. The audience knows from the prologue he's evil, but you don't realize exactly how evil until Exley, White, and Vincennes unravel how everything from Patchett's hooker ring to the Nite Owl killings to Mickey Cohen's mobsters, to the smut books, to even Preston Exley, Ray Dieterling, and the Loren Atherton case is connected to him. Either he's got the best luck in the world, or he's put together one of the biggest XanatosGambits ever.
  • The Lies Of Locke Lamora, tons of them. The most notable of course include the Gray King, and the protagonist Anti Villain Locke Lamora himself, leader of the fittingly named "Gentlemen Bastards".
  • Bastard Operator From Hell. Over the course of hundreds of short stories, he has almost exclusively come out on top with all of his complex gambits, quickly turning every event in his favor. He can walk into a convention with no preparation and manipulate total strangers into giving him their money. He had a Wonderful Life sequence and instead of coming to a realization of how bad he is, the only thing he gets out of it was the password to a competitor's computer system. This is the man that could take over the world if he only cared about more than just making more money by doing less work.
  • Gentleman Johnnie Marcone from Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files series. He's constantly putting himself in a position where it's absolutely necessary for people who hate him to cooperate with him, whether because he's the lesser of several evils or simply the only option. He has single-handedly brought all of Chicago's organized crime under his direct control and even managed to be the first normal human to sign on to the magical equivalent of the Geneva Convention known as the Unseelie Accords. The protagonist of the series says it all in his quote "Say what you want about Marcone, but he's got balls that drag the ground when he walks."
    • Another Dresden Files example: Lara Raith, who single-handedly engineers the crippling of the White King (her own father) just so she can assert herself as the power behind the throne, and then procceds to manipulate her step-brother, the series' protagonist, into massacring her enemies in the white court for her, callously sacrificing dozens of innocent women in the process.
  • Troy Phelan from John Grisham's novel The Testament. A rich businessman with over 11 billion dollars in assets as well as three ex-wives and six children he hates with a passion, he cooks up an ingenious plan to totally screw them when he dies. He first fools his heirs into thinking he signed a will that divided the money equally among them. Then, while they're not looking, he signs the real will. In it, he gives his entire fortune to an illegitimate daughter. He only gives enough money to his heirs to cover all of their debts up to the date of his death, orders his lawyer to keep the will from being publicly read for a month, and then commits suicide. The lawyer then realizes that thinking they're going to inherit a fortune, all of Phelan's heirs will go on a spending spree for the next month and incur even greater debts. Suffice to say, when the will was finally read, everybody realized how much of a Magnificent Bastard Troy Phelan really was.
    • The icing on this cake? Shortly before committing suicide, he manipulates his family into getting a team of doctors to declare him mentally competent, knowing that they'll try to backpedal furiously when the real will is read.
  • Dracula in the eponymous novel by Bram Stoker; a soulless, eerily polite Manipulative Bastard whose nocturnal predations turn Victorian morality on its head, transforming demure and innocent young maidens into voluptuous, demonic temptresses right under the noses of their impotent menfolk, all while remaining mockingly out of reach. He plots and nearly executes a Xanatos Gambit conquest of England that is only derailed due to a Contrived Coincidence involving his first victim in England's connections. His massive effect on pop culture, almost singlehandedly inventing the modern image of the suave, aristocratic vampire, is largely derived from the personality created in Stoker's original novel - repulsively evil yet undeniably magnetic.
    • This carries over into film; Bela Lugosi's portrayal may seem hammy and silly now, but it put the thrilling fear of vampire seduction into 1930's audiences, and Christopher Lee did the same in the 1970s. Subsequent film adaptions have, of course, been hit-or-miss, sometimes Spikeifying or Flanderizing Dracula to the point of parody or unrecognisability. Nonetheless, the spirit of the original retains all the charm and unrepentent evil of an undiluted Bastard.
    • Castlevania's edition is a classic Bastard on several occasions, especially in Lament of Innocence.
  • Jarlaxle Baerne, leader of the mercenary band Bregan D'aerthe in the Forgotten Realms. Other drow of Menzoberranzan try to master the controlled chaos that is the City of the Spider Queen. Jarlaxle tries to add chaos, because he thrives in it.
  • Nyarlathotep from HP Lovecraft's writings probably counts. Not only is he a cosmic horror, he's the only one of Lovecraft's pantheon that seems to take real interest in actions of humans, which is not a very good thing for humanity. Prime examples include his appearance in "Dream Quest of Unknown Kadath", where he gives a three-page-long speech about how he was never trying to kill the protagonist (his minions just misunderstood him) and, in fact, needs him to go get the Dreamland's gods back to their rightful place in Kadath. He then proceeds to give the protagonist a flying creature that would take him to the Sunset City where the gods now dwell and explicitly warns him from flying too high with it. However it turns out that the protagonist has no control over the beast and it is taking him to the court of the great daemon sultan Azathoth (the biggest Cosmic Horror there is). He barely escapes with his life.
    • Not to mention that in "The Shadow from the Steeple" (which technically isn't written by HPL but by Robert Bloch in response to a story written by HPL in response to a story written by Bloch) he posesses a medical doctor and turn hims into *gasp* a nuclear phycisist. He then helps mankind develop nuclear power (and bombs) from behind the scenes. Seems rather nice of him until you realise he only does it so we would have a weapon powerful enough to wipe ourselves from the face of the Earth. In a war he no doubt starts.
  • Lord Gro from from The Worm Ouroboros is a rare example of a tragic Magnificent Bastard. A charismatic, delightfully sophisticated serial traitor with balls of solid rock who affects every trait of glorious bastardry, his tragic flaw is an oddly chivalrous sense of fair play that compels him to always be on the losing side - and so every time he manages to turn the tide with his cunning (that's several times in the book) he has to switch sides. His consistent magnificence makes him easily the most popular character in the book.
  • Hannibal Lecter, before Badass Decay set in. (Or didn't; there's a reason why Hannibal and Hannibal Rising are commonly considered Dis Continuity.)
  • Randall Flagg/Walter o'Dim/Walter Padick from The Dark Tower is considered one of the greatest Magnificent Bastards in literature. In the very first book, he brings a man back to life in full view of a woman who has always wondered what happens after death. He then leaves her a message telling her that if she says "19" to the previously-dead man, he will tell her the secrets of death, adding repeatedly that it will drive her insane to know. He then cheerfully reminds her of the password several more times. She goes for it.
  • Raislin Majere from Dragonlance is definitely an example of this. His cunning plan? Go back in time, study under the most powerful dark wizard ever, then kill him and steal the rest of his secrets, organize an army and attack one fortress in order to get close to another which contains a gate to the Abyss, manipulate a cleric of good into helping him open it, lure out the supreme goddess of darkness, kill her, and take her place. The only thing more insane is how close he came to succeeding.
  • Rupert of Hentzau from The Prisoner of Zenda and its sequel, is a textbook--nay, an entire course in Magnificent Bastard -ness. Starting out as The Dragon for the book's villain, Rupert is a womanising, treacherous, amoral, totally fearless young man who will kidnap your king, try to stab you in a public place, seduce or rape any young, pretty woman (not drawing a line at the future Queen or his own master's mistress), and do it all with the utmost good-natured charm, despite having caused his mother to die of grief. Also, the following line:
    ...the man Johann, whom I was compelled to...send back to Zenda, where, by the way, Rupert Hentzau had him soundly flogged for daring to smirch the morals of Zenda by staying out all night in the pursuits of love.

Comic Books
  • Lex Luthor, of The DCU. Since the eighties, he's been well entrenched in Magnificent Bastardry. The Diniverse version is especially Magnificent, almost becoming the President as a distraction from his true plan... Though, unknown to him, he had help with that part.
  • Adrian Veidt of Watchmen. Got quite a brain on him, he has.
  • Vril Dox II from L.E.G.I.O.N. (a modern-day "prequel" series to the Legion Of Super Heroes), a slick Insufferable Genius, orchestrates the total disruption of two planetary governments in pursuit of justice in just the first six issues. He's so cold, he practically tamed Lobo.
  • Doctor Doom is a perfect example in the Marvel Universe. When you can take on a god without flinching...
  • The Kingpin, also part of the Marvel Universe. This characterization has been less and less believable after the landmark Daredevil: Born Again storyline, where the Kingpin's ambition proves his undoing. He has a Villainous Breakdown, loses everything he'd built up, and ended up a pathetic wreck of a person. Practically everyone who wrote the character since acts as if that never happened, despite that being his definitive story.
  • Thanos of Titan, another example from the Marvel Universe, and arguably the quintessential one, at least for the company's cosmic landscape. A premier mover and shaker in many important storylines (if not the main focus altogether), he has a knack for successfully manipulating both sides of the fence (sometimes both at once) time and time again, despite his true nature being common knowledge to everyone.
  • Dogbert. Enough said.
  • General Wade Eiling from Captain Atom. First, he framed Nathaniel Adam for drug smuggling, mutiny, and murder, when in fact Eiling had been secretly running the conspiracy responsible for those crimes. Then he talked Adam into participating as a guinea pig in the Silver Shield Project, which led to Adam's apparent death. Then Eiling married Angela Adam, Adam's "widow." Then, when Adam rematerialized eighteen years later, now possessing superpowers, Eiling was able to talk him into masquerading as a superhero to spy on the Justice League as part of the Captain Atom project, by telling him that this would give him the opportunity to clear his name, and even reconnect with his children, who of course thought of Eiling as their father. Even after Adam did prove his innocence, he never uncovered Eiling's involvement in the frame-up, and continued working for Eiling. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. What makes this especially impressive is that Adam is very smart, and is no slouch at political intrigue.
    • Since Eiling was created by Cary Bates and Greg Weisman, who also created Gargoyles and David Xanatos, this is probably not surprising.
    • Eiling seems to have capped off his Bastardry by transferring his mind into an immortal, nigh-indestructible body in a later JLA story. Sadly, ever since then he's written almost exclusively as a dumb brute and little else.
    • This is actually justified Character Derailment, as the one flaw in his plan was overlooking the fact that the body had a tiny brain.
  • From The DCU and Blue Beetle, gives us an entire race of Magnificent Bastards, whose plans are subtle, meant for them to avoid blame, and often take hundreds of years.

Video Games
  • Spider of the Mega Man X: Command Mission RPG is in reality manipulating X and company from even before they meet him in order to obtain the latest series Macguffin, under the guise of his Commander Rideps identity, a high-ranking maverick hunter. Sure, the name reversal's obvious in hindsight, but it's sufficiently stealthy and well-executed that most of the people that this troper's discussed it with missed it on the first go-round.
  • Ocelot of the Metal Gear series casually plays every side against every other possible side, all while twirling his prized revolvers. Almost everything that happens in the series can be somehow traced back to him, and when it can't, it's usually because it happened before he was born. Reached Aizen level in Metal Gear Solid 4.
  • Jade Empire has Master Li, who pulls off an astounding Xanatos Gambit that seems too complex to be possible. Then, if you play through the game again, you can see how carefully he planned everything and manipulated everyone, making even the crazy complex scheme believable (of course, he had twenty years to do so, and they don't call him "The Glorious Strategist" for nothing).
  • Frank Fontaine of Bio Shock started off as just a small-time smuggler in Rapture, but after the discovery of ADAM, he set the wheels in motion to take over all of Rapture. He charms the lower class and corners the market for ADAM giving him a massive army of both poor citizens and ADAM-addicted splicers. Then Fontaine faked his own death, reappeared under an assumed name and led his followers in a massive civil war that left Rapture in ruins. The game's protagonist, Jack, is revealed to be a Laser Guided Tyke Bomb created by Fontaine in order to kill Rapture's founder. Who is also programmed to die on command when the job is done so he can't come back and kill the man that created him.
  • Delita Hyral from Final Fantasy Tactics. In a game full of competing Chessmasters and Magnificent Bastards, he finishes the story standing on top of the Thirty Xanatos Pileup, out-manoeuvring everyone else to become a king by marrying the Damsel In Distress and using the protagonist- his lifelong friend- to do most of the hard work.
  • Starcraft had Kerrigan. While a major character of the original game, she doesn't show her true magnificence until Brood War, an expansion pack nearly as long as the original Starcraft campaign. The entire length of Brood War is Kerrigan playing the Protoss and two competing Terran factions against one another in order to spread the Zerg to even more worlds and ensure herself as their queen. She pulls it off magnificently, betraying, murdering, or both every named character, and setting up a massive Downer Ending.
    • While she belongs here, do remember that she left Raynor and Zeratul alive, not to mention the whole Duran-saga. Seems like she may have dug a grave for herself, although Starcraft 2 will tell.
  • Command and Conquer has Kane, the granddaddy of them all. Unshakeable, unflappable, and utterly in control the entire time, for all the games, and also quite affably evil, Kane betrays his second in command, manipulates GDI to get what he wants, (multiple times), is a veteran and master of Xanatos Roulette, and in the latest installment, starts the Third Tiberium War just to get GDI to fire a Ion Cannon strike on Temple Prime, detonate a liquid Tiberium bomb, and call the Scrin to Earth. All so that he can hijack the Scrin gateway and leave Earth.
    • It gets even more awesome in Kane's Wrath. not only does Kane manipulate the fractured Brotherhood into reunifying in the wake of Firestorm, he also engineers the rise of Redmond Boyle, who he wants to be in charge of GDI so he can manipulate him into using the Ion Cannon on Temple Prime. And he does all this while constructing LEGION, the ultimate strategic AI to interface with the Tacitus and bring him and Nod one step closer to ascension. And this is while fighting off the most well-armed and elite forces of both GDI and the Scrin.
  • Zasalamel of Soul Calibur III deserves mention here. Pre-game, he revives Nightmare, forces disturbing images into Siegfried's mind, and sends everyone who ever had a bone to pick with the Azure Knight after Siegfried just to get him to break. During the course of the game, he manages to manipulate almost every factor in restoring Soul Edge and Soul Calibur to their full power. And all of this to kill himself. (Note that, while he can only get his wish in his own story path, he still manages to manipulate whatever character you may be playing as.)
  • Strangely enough, a droid plays the role of Magnificent Bastard in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II. The first HK-50 droid you meet orchestrates the systematic murder of every single person aboard the Peragus II mining station (save for the imprisoned Atton Rand) and lockdown of the same facility, as well as several events preceding your arrival there, and administers a sedative meant to keep you unconscious until it can deliver you to the Exchange for the bounty on your head. Its plan works so smoothly, in fact, that even after waking up you have no means of escape until T3-M4 intervenes.
  • M. Bison (Vega in Japanese) in the Street Fighter saga pretty much fits the bill, mind controlling multiple heroes, making them fight each other, having clones of himself to activate once he dies, and arranging the whole friggin' Street Fighter tournament just so he could make all those who want his head to beat each other up for him. Of course, he meets his end in the hands of Akuma, but it's not like death would slow him down. He's such a Magnificent Bastard that he manages to retain his awesomeness in, of all things, the Street Fighter movie.
    • Not to mention, in Alpha 3, if you play as Dan Hibiki, Bison actually frames Dan for crimes Bison obviously committed. Of course, Dan promptly shows up at his Thailand base, beats the snot out of him, and Bison dies of embarrassment as a result. Not so magnificent. However, in a fit of irony, Dan takes Bison's base as his new Saikyo dojo... Which is promptly blow sky-high by the other heroes. Talk about a last laugh.
      • Funny about the not dying thing, he's actually been confirmed to show up in Street Fighter IV. Downside to this, it's a prequel to III, so we can expect Akuma to come back to finish the job.
      • Gill from Street Fighter III is a bit of a manipulator himself. Like Ozai from Avatar, Gill gave the position of president of the Illuminati to his jealous brother Urien...only to promote himself to the Emperor and Messiah of the Illuminati. The fact that the Illuminati have actually prospered under his command is a testament to his capabilities. And he can resurrect himself. Sure, it's bloody cheap, but it's awesome.
  • The Gravemind from Halo can arguably be considered one hell of a Magnificent Bastard for the way it manipulates everyone around it. Aside from using the Master Chief and the Arbiter as both distractions and agents to prevent the activation of Halo (surgically placing them where they can do the most damage to the Prophet of Truth's forces on top of that), it also makes use of a masterful scheme of skin-crawling psychological warfare throughout Halo 3, going right down to using the Master Chief's own childhood memories against him while hammering him with images of a tortured Cortana. But what really cements its Magnificent Bastardry is how it ended the war with the Forerunners by turning Mendicant Bias - the AI specifically built to kill the Gravemind - into its greatest ally using simple, blunt logic. The most striking aspect of all is that, even when it is defeated, the Gravemind's only response is that its destruction is nothing but a temporary setback.
  • Master Albert from the Mega Man ZX games is one hell of a Magnificent Bastard. He fits the criteria like a glove. He's been manipulating the entire cast of the two games for centuries. To summarise, after getting the world's highest possible position, and building all those Model Ws, he began seeding certain individuals of the general public with his own DNA for the sake of starting his little "Game of Destiny", which was all just a ploy so he could sit back and watch countless innocents get slaughtered by those feeding the Model Ws (such as Prometheus, Pandora, Serpent and the rival Mega Men), despite a couple of Mega Men trying to stop them. He got away with this for 200 years without anyone suspecting him, except for possibly Thomas, who couldn't do anything anyway. He even took advantage of Prometheus and Pandora's attempt to kill him, faking his own death and watching as those two unintentionally provided the final food for the Model Ws . Once he was ready, he simply announced that he was the winner of his own game by default, and tried to reset the world with himself as its god. It was a Xanatos Roulette (And he even threw in a couple of gambits, at least) that, for all intents and purposes, almost succeeded (A very impressive achievement considering how long it was), had not his great-great-great granddaughter (Ashe) or his backup body-turned good guy (Grey, he was freed purely by chance) shown up with Model A. He just simply got a fatal dose of Murphy's Law right at the end. And even then, he doesn't throw any tantrum or scream/evil laugh at his defeat, he merely acknowledges his defeat and delivers one of the finest lines even spoken in the series. Now that's magnificent.
    • Mind you, there's another person who could was potentially even more of a Magnificent Bastard than Albert - Master Thomas. In the hidden ending, he reveals that he simply helped the heroes (Simply by making the defeat of Albert an official mission) for the sake of making Albert kick the bucket so Thomas could start his own scheme to reset the world, and even recruited the four rival Mega Men. It's possible that he planned Albert's demise from the beginning, thus manipulating the entire heroic cast into doing exactly what he planned. Which would make this one a Xanatos Roulette that even Light Yagami would quite possibly be jealous of, considering both of them enacted over a span of 200 years. This is an would be an example of a Xanatos Roulette being designed to destroy another. That is truly magnificent.
  • Chzo from the titular Chzo Mythos is a Cosmic Horror...and an incredibly devious Magnificent Bastard. His mastery of the Xanatos Gambit and Xanatos Roulette come from his ability to see both into the past and future, as he is in every time at once. By the time the series ends, he's directly responsible for a notably high body count, both directly and indirectly, has a virtually invincible right hand man (Who actually isn't The Starscream, despite his actions in 6DAS), and a Religion Of Evil on his side in the form of the Order of Blessed Agonies. Did I mention he's also probably the finest torture expert you'll find in any universe? The whole series was devised by him, manipulated into his favour by him, and when he finally manages to build the bridge between the realms of Technology and Magick, he shocks almost everyone by not crossing over, instead taking the opportunity to get a New Prince (Theo Dacabe), and has his old servant, Cabadath, punished for his actions. The most shocking part of it all? Chzo actually won. That's right. After all the pain, deaths, trauma and general misery, Chzo has done what almost every other fictional Magnificent Bastard has failed to do - beat the heroes in the end. It can't get any more magnificent than that, folks.
    • And to add to it, making practically everyone in the series a Xanatos Sucker, writing the exact details of his plans down in books (Which at least one of the protaganists can see), not bothering with this A God Am I crap ("King" will suffice), and doing it in such a stylish and awesome manner? Shall I repeat the fact that he won? This troper thinks Chzo should be crowned the greatest Magnificent Bastard ever concieved.
  • There's a whole bunch of Magnificent Bastards in Super Robot Wars over the years, but the biggest was, without a doubt, Commander Laker o