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alt title(s): Manipulative Bitch 
He already knows why you're here, everything you've been planning against him and how to effortlessly pound those plans into pulp
Ben: I can convince him to do it.
Juliet: How?
Ben: Same way I get anybody to do anything: I find what he's emotionally invested in and I exploit it.
"The woman you love is trapped in some horrible future where nearly everyone is dead. You can change that. She needs you, Peter. We all need you... to open that door."
doesn't even begin to describe them. If The Chessmaster is the master manipulator of events, the Manipulative Bastard is the master manipulator of emotions. The villain who gets off on playing head games — clever and dangerous and lacking comedic overtones. They always have a plan, but rather than do any work themselves, they prefer to play on other characters' emotions and then watch their victims destroy themselves.
Note that as part of the standards and practices of this wiki, where a term has the word 'bastard' it does include women; we would still refer to a female in this role as a 'manipulative bastard' not as a 'manipulative bitch' because 'bastard' has a well-established connotation; the term 'bitch' is subjectively weaker and in many cases does not have the same strength.
Despite relying on other people's emotions to achieve their aims, the Manipulative Bastard him/herself is rarely emotional and seldom burdened by notions such as loyalty, yet abusing it in others. Usually intellectual creatures, they are unmoved by the pain of others, if they don't actively bask in it. However, too many Pet The Dog moments from this character and they will become the mask, caring about the people they previously saw as playthings.
While this character type seems inherently villainous, many of them are at least nominally on the heroes' side. A cunning branch of the Anti Hero family sports this trope; many Tricksters overlap into Manipulative Bastard territory as well. Any damage done by a Manipulative Bastard will be far-reaching, if not permanent. The hero will probably survive a relationship with this character, but their trust in people will not.
Like the Chessmaster, they will probably have some larger scheme in mind, but tend to lose sight of it more easily, just enjoying the control they have over their peers. A highly-focused/ambitious Manipulative Bastard is scary indeed; not only will he or she achieve their goal, they will ensure they stay at the top by destroying the souls of everyone they used to get there. And then gloat about it. A hell of a lot of Heroic Willpower is required to topple them.
They're seldom held accountable and many fall into the Karma Houdini trope — after all, they never "force" anybody to do anything...
May eventually drive the audience to scream, " Why do you keep falling for this?" at the other characters.
Different subtypes of Manipulative Bastards exist, depending on their favourite tricks to manipulate people:
- The Vamp, the Femme Fatale and the Casanova mainly use their devastating powers of seduction.
- The coldly analytical character, user of the Hannibal Lecture and The Reason You Suck Speech, who pins the heroes' weaknesses in one assessing glance and then hits all their sore spots to devastating effects.
- The Bunny Ears Lawyer and other characters who use their Obfuscating Stupidity to mask and distract from their manipulations.
- The Con Man who lies and builds elaborate tricks professionally.
- The great liar who uses both Sarcastic Confessions and False Reassurances to dissimulate the truth.
- The Parker Lewis Ferris Bueller expert in Zany Schemes, hustling and charming people into getting what he wants, and remaining sympathetic while doing so.
- An odd subtype is the comparatively rare passive-aggressive. They employ the same tricks as their scheming fellows, but they are genuinely weak, not just pretending to be, and their ploys are a survival tactic against stronger characters, not a means of entertainment or strategy. However, the outcome is much the same; a world of heartbreak for anyone who's ever cared about them.
Sometimes overlaps with Devil In Plain Sight, but is often the "grown up" version, where the "look cute" fallback has become a fairly professional strategy. If a Manipulative Bastard mixes their emotional manipulation with complicated schemes, mindgaming and sufficiently scary facial expressions, - and they do it all with style - they get promoted to Magnificent Bastard. Compare Clock King.
Examples
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Anime and Manga
- Gendo Ikari. Where do we begin? Causing Shinji to break down mentally, causing Naoko's suicide ("Old hag"), (in Shinji's words) crippling (anime)/killing (manga) Toji by way of the Dummy plug, Instrumentality, cloning his dead wife into the form of Rei, and interpretations vary on the scale of the "relationship" between the two. YMMV on whether he is a total douche or just misunderstood, but this is the prevalent interpretation (without much Mind Screw).
- Sae, the Manipulative Bitch in Peach Girl.
- Paptimus Scirocco of Zeta Gundam is one of the first anime examples and still one of the best examples of this character He manipulates practically everyone he encounters, instigating many betrayals and coup d'etats in his name as he goes. By the end of the series, he's gone from a nobody from Jupiter to the unquestioned master of the Titans.
- Saiou, the teenaged Cult leader of Yu-Gi-Oh GX.
- Akio in Revolutionary Girl Utena is a master Casanova manipulator very adept of the More Than Mind Control, in these matters Touga is his apprentice, playing mind games with his sister Nanami and his on-and-off again best friend Saionji since they were very young. Akio's sister Anthy is a manipulator of the rare passive agressive kind. She still easily rivals Akio in terms of mind games, although she's arguably a much more sympathetic figure.
- Shigure from Fruits Basket belongs to the Obfuscating Stupidity category of manipulators, but still manages to get away with lots of mindgames while remaining rather sympathetic.
- Akito, from the same series, is more Manipulative Bastard than passive-aggressive, although a case could be made for both. He has sufficient status to ensure that he is obeyed, but prefers to deploy the tyranny of the weak (due to his illness) and mental/physical torture to make absolutely sure that he controls their souls.
- Corrector Haruna in Corrector Yui. Of course, she turned out to be manipulated herself by someone that used her emotions of jealousy against her.
- Nagi in Mai-HiME. It's basically his "profession", as one of the perpetrators of the HiME Carnival, to trick the girls into eliminating each other by playing with their fears. His Mai-Otome incarnation was also like this at first, but eventually transformed into a Smug Snake.
- Count D, in Pet Shop Of Horrors, loves to watch humans dig traps for themselves, with a minimum of encouragement from him and his pets.
- D finds himself Becoming The Mask, though, with his growing attachment to Leon and Chris. He becomes increasingly sympathetic towards humankind only to be badly affected when a girl he felt some responsibility for dies.
- The Loveless cast is full of both true Manipulative Bastards and passive-aggressives — some are both at once. This is most likely due to the fact that everyone is trying to manipulate someone else, while having serious emotional vulnerabilities of their own.
- Case in point: Soubi. He's constantly trying to maneuver Ritsuka into doing what Soubi wants him to do at the start of the manga. Turns out Soubi himself was badly abused and manipulated by a whole herd of people, including Ritsuka's big brother. To further complicate matters, Soubi becomes subservient to his "target," Ritsuka.
- I have to disagree. Not only does Soubi genuinely care about Ritsuka and does what he can to prevent him from feeling the pain a sacrifice must go through, but, following their Fighter Unit and Sacrifice relationship, it's Ritsuka who's actually in charge. The only exception is that Soubi is a still controlled by Seimei, Soubi's previous sacrifice. It's shown in later chapters that Soubi doesn't really have a choice in the matter, as Fighter Units must follow their Sacrifice's orders; again, it's the base of the whole Fighter/Sacrifice thing (not to mention Seimei's apparent powers; other sacrifices aren't NEARLY as powerful as Seimei).
- Seimei is the king of this trope. Not only does he masterfully fake his own death (they even find a body), he kills and/or manipulates almost everyone he comes in contact with. Not only is he extremely manipulative on his own, but he also seems to have an inhuman kind of mind control power. Soubi? Nothing but Seimei's pawn. Of course, this is all just a plan to test his younger brother Ritsuka's love for him. Speaking of Ritsuka, Seimei is not above Mind Raping his beloved (twelve-year-old!) brother.
- Kyou Kara Maou's resident trickster, Murata, is a more benign version. He lets Yuri and company walk into trouble just because he likes seeing how they react, even when he knows enough to prevent the trouble in the first place. His Omniscient Morality License lets him get away with it without Wolfram or Gwendal killing him out of frustration.
- Tohma, from Gravitation is a variant. He's certainly adept at messing with people's heads and hearts, being an extra-special bastard to hapless and naive Shuichi. However, he doesn't really care about his victims' emotions... well, maybe he gets a bit of a power trip out of it. Mainly however, he's invested only in Yuki's feelings. He maintains that everything he does is to protect the novelist, but by doing so he also maintains Yuki's dependency on Tohma himself. As a result, his nastiness to Shuichi is due at least in part to jealousy.
- Yuki himself is a Manipulative Bastard / The Vamp to his boyfriend in the manga, and makes no secret of the fact. At one point, he taunts Shuichi by saying that he's only nasty because that's the romantic ideal that Shuichi wants. Since the anime is less convoluted than the manga, this aspect of Yuki's personality is played down, making him a Jerk With A Heart Of Gold instead.
- Seishirou in Tokyo Babylon shows to be an extremely good liar, and wholly shameless about it.
- Orochimaru from Naruto is somewhat unusual, in that he normally doesn't target the heroes (although he is adept at Hannibal Lecture, and seems to teach it to those closest to him as well). Instead, he seems to specialize in finding traumatized young ninja and using his manipulative powers to turn them into his devoted followers.
- Nakago of Fushigi Yuugi is a prime example of this. One main reason: he manipulates the heroine Miaka's best friend Yui into believing she was raped and betrayed, and also plays off of her unrequited feelings for Miaka's lover, effectively turning the two girls into archenemies. He also appears to like going out of his way just to screw with the characters' heads, even when it no longer serves a real purpose.
- Naraku of Inuyasha loves to do this, and his creations and minions often favor it as well. Naraku's favorite tactic is to turn people with close relationships against one another - for example, the nearly series-long campaign he wages against Sango by controlling her little brother Kohaku and trying, repeatedly, to provoke her into killing Kohaku.
- Eriol Hiiragizawa, Card Captor Sakura's resident holder of the Omniscient Morality License, falls into this trope more than once. To a lesser extent, so does his pet Genki Girl Ruby Moon, though she's not as good, continuing to persist in being a Manipulatrix even after the object of her manipulations catches on.
- Lelouch Lamperouge of Code Geass. Sure, he could just order people to do anything he wants thanks to his Geass, but It Only Works Once per victim, and he much prefers just pulling the strings and letting them do the rest themselves. The greatest example of this comes in episode 19 of the second season: Rolo, Lelouch's fake little brother, was actually a teenage assassin charged with the task of keeping an eye on Lelouch in case he regained his old memories. When Lelouch found out, he continued treating Rolo kindly and even orchestrated a situation where Lelouch could pretend to risk his life to save Rolo, winning his trust and bringing him over to his side. After Lelouch's real sister died, he admitted to Rolo that he was just using him, actually hated him, and had tried to kill him on several occasions. Nevertheless, without being asked or influenced by Lelouch's Geass, Rolo sacrificed himself to protect Lelouch.
- He only had to yank the kid's chain lightly. Rolo seemed already infatuated with him, wanting to be his only family, only friend.
- This Troper would also like to nominate his evil, evil abuse of Suzaku in ep. 18 of Season 1. He'd found out from Mao that Suzaku's father hadn't killed himself, Suzaku had killed him and been carrying the guilt about it around for years. So when he, as Zero, has Suzaku trapped and wants to convince him to switch sides, he makes a Not So Different speech predicated on the fact that the Prime Minister's death was murder, not suicide- but he delivers it as if he expects this to be news to Suzaku. Lelouche, you are a terrible person.
- Schneizel is arguably even more notorious.
- Later on it turns out that C. C. knew the truth about Marianne's murder and was just stringing Lelouch along so that he could grant her wish to have her code, and along with it, her immortality taken so she could finally die. Later on she regrets this, and asks Lelouch if he hates her for it. He doesn't.
- The Big Bad of Kara No Kyoukai, Araya Souren.
- Sideways, from Transformers Armada. If something happens that isn't directly related to finding a Minicon, this guy's behind it.
- Dr. Nii, also known as Ukoku Sanzo from Saiyuki since it turns out he's been behind just about everything in the manga story so far in one way or another.
- To some extent, L from Death Note. His main strategy seems to be "jerk Light around until he slips up and reveals himself as Kira." He manages to convince Misa to join him in his investigation of Yotsuba by playing on her concern for Light's safety... and then in the same breath convinces Light to join him by playing on his concern for Misa's safety- which was only jeopardized due to her joining the investigation.
- And Light, of course. The boy managed to manipulate a shinigami into killing L at the cost of her own life for chrissakes.
- The Tower Of Druaga: the Aegis of Urk has two of these, though Neeba is probably the closest to Magnificent Bastard status. He even tells his party members that they are going use the blue crystal rod to rebuild their dead friends hometown. Then, he kisses The Lancer, just out of the blue. She promptly melts and gets enough of a morale boost to last right up until The Reveal. How does he repay his friends after the Big Bad is dead? By shooting The Big Guy in the kneecap with an arrow. The only person he was ever honest to was his brother, whom he thinks is 100% worthless with no redeeming value.
- Kaaya is also pretty Manipulative of her Five Man Band, as well. She even lets Her literal and figurative Lancer die , in addition to playing the Protagonist much the same way that Neeba played Fatina, however, this Manipulative Bastard seems to feel genuinely sorry about it. The pair's only slip-up was that they left a perfectly good five man band and two army officers alive - albeit separated - and really, really wanting to kick their ass.
- Vetti Sforza of Glass Fleet seems to prefer to use emotional manipulation to accomplish his goals. During his Start Of Darkness, he seduced, if not actually raped, his foster mother in order to manipulate her into killing his foster father. Then, since she was no more use to him, he killed her. During the series itself, he exerts considerable effort to persuade Rachel, the daughter of the Pope, to marry him. Although she eventually agrees to marry him for political reasons only, Vetti goes the extra mile to get her to fall in love with him for apparently no other reason than to be able to snub her later.
- In The Prince Of Tennis, Hajime Mizuki of Saint Rudolph is one of the biggest examples, playing up the manipulative card so much in the SeiRu arc that lots of people cheered when he got Hoist By His Own Petard.
- To some degree, also Renji Yanagi of Rikkaidai (mixed with Knight Templar) and Sadaharu Inui of Seigaku, but these sides of their personalities come out quite more in the courts than outside of them.
- In Bleach... Aizen.
- Griffith from Berserk really likes to emotionally manipulate people for his own ends. From holding Foss' daughter hostage to foil an assassination plot, to pretending to be in love with Princess Charlotte so that he can marry her, to giving Casca the strength she needs to defend herself and thus gaining a powerful fighter, to pretending to be Guts' friend and gaining himself an even stronger fighter, to giving thousands and thousands of people, including the Crystal Dragon Jesus equivalent of the Pope, visions of a saviour defeating darkness so that half the world effectively rallies behind him, Griffith does qualify for this trope to say the least. The Godhand as a whole to a lesser extent, as they offer people demonic powers and make them give up their loved ones at their lowest point. The goal of the Godhand is just making Midland an even shittier place to live in, though.
- Xellos is particularly adept at this, especially in the novels. Seriously, just read novels 7 and 8 to get a asgood idea of how thoroughly he can screw the protagonists over. You know you're good when your victims know you're up to something and still fall for it hook, line, and sinker.
- Quite a few of the Hentai productions out there that showcase material that live adult movies couldn't get away without breaking countless laws have Manipulative Bastards of both genders as protagonists. In the cases where the protagonists are the victims, then every other character will be a Manipulative Bastard. It reaches the point where the plots focus as much on Mind Rape as they do on actual rape. Or So I Heard.
- Johann from Monster is arguably the epitome of this trope. He is directly responsible for the deaths of a fairly small number of people, he prefers to have conversations with anyone that interests him and, very politely, talk them into committing acts of mass murder or just killing themselves. In fact it's rare for Johann to leave a room without leaving someone Mind Raped to the point of temporary paralysis. He's just that damned evil.
- Rokudo Mukuro from Katekyo Hitman Reborn is somewhat of a Manipulative Bastard. He frames other people for murders he committed while using their bodies and manages to receive forgiveness for his actions with minimal effort. Tsuna very readily forgives him after Mukuro (very likely on purpose) showed him strategic memories of how he sacrificed himself for the sake of letting his subordinates escape. This prompts Tsuna to actually feel apologetic, complete with a "I didn't understand anything!" scene. Never mind that Mukuro was shown to be completely unapologetic about the whole thing and actually came out and said that his plan was to turn the world into a sea of blood...
- At his best, France from Axis Powers Hetalia is like this.
- Demidevimon/Picodevimon of Digimon Adventure is a good example, having used deception and played on their fears to keep the Digidestined apart after they split up to look for Taichi and Agumon, as well as to prevent their crests from glowing (causing T.K./Takeru to despair, Joe/Jyou to appear unreliable, Matt/Yamato to doubt Joe's friendship, Koushiro/Izzy to trade away his curiosity, Mimi to act selfishly and deceptively, and Sora to believe she had never been loved). The only reason he ended up failing was because Taichi came back.
- Cherrymon/Juraimon also manipulated Matt into turning against the other Digidestined, especially Tai.
- Kurt Godel from Negima. Every single thing that the man has done is part of a massive ploy to get Negi to do what he wants...whatever that is.
- Hikyou Bancho combines this with Dirty Coward and Badass. For some reason, he's a good fighter too.
Comic Books
- The Joker occasionally falls into this trope, although he is very emotional and his plans often do involve comedy...although in many cases, only he thinks it's funny.
- Henry Bendix, the creator of Apollo and Midnighter, is all over this trope in the nastiest way. His amazing talents of mindfuckery let him plan ten steps ahead on any given day, but he has a special talent for screwing over his own creations: he knows where all their buttons are, and in many cases, he installed them. See The Authority: Revolution for a crowning example of this - all he had to do was prey on Midnighter's worst insecurities, and bam: one indomitable superteam dissolved, one happy family ripped apart, and the world left wide open to a fascist takeover. Sure, it's all (mostly) okay in the end, because Jenny Quantum is too awesome to stand for supervillains or parental abandonment, but Midnighter still spends several pointless and horrible years apart from his husband and daughter, unwittingly helping the bad guy. For someone with no apparent superpowers, Bendix manages to scare the crap out of some very high-level heroes.
- Mister Sinister from X-Men has been the penultimate Marvel Manipulative Bastard for the past twenty years, manipulating the lives of the Summers family in particular (You can blame him for the Summers Family Tree). Pity he's been bastardized in recent years.
- John Constantine
- During the Sinestro Corps War storyline in Green Lantern, Sinestro managed to manipulate the Green Lantern Corps, the Guardians of the Universe, every superhero on Earth, and even everyone fighting on his own side. He assembled his own intergalactic army, created a power source run on pure fear, brought together the most powerful collection of supervillains the cosmos had ever seen, declared war on the entire universe...and lost. The Lanterns sentence Sinestro to death, thus breaking their own law against never taking a life. It turns out this was what Sinestro wanted all along — his plan was not to destroy the Green Lanterns or conquer the universe, but to create a threat so great and terrifying that they would abandon all their principles to stop it. Essentially, instead of destroying the GL's, he wanted to destroy what they stood for. And when his death sentence was handed down, he had done just that.
- Carl Barks' Scrooge McDuck was a master manipulator and trickster who enjoyed every minute of it... all done in the name of teaching his nephews and grand-nephews important lessons about courage, money, hard work, etc., of course.
- Hush is going to manipulate you. No matter what. Good or evil. And he is going to put other plots underneath the current plan just in case you don't serve his purpose.
Film
- Shane. Jack Wilson (Jack Palance) tells the innocent farmer to pick up the gun. The innocent farmer refuses, knowing what will happen. Jack quietly and threateningly tells him to pick it up. The farmer refuses. This goes on for a bit, but finally, the farmer reaches down to pick it up and ... BLAM! Wilson smugly tells everyone that they were all a witness - the farmer was armed and about to shoot him. (Yes, this is Literature, but Jack Palance makes him all the more Badass.
- Scar from The Lion King. After killing Mufasa, he tricked Simba into thinking himself responsible for his father's death — before telling the hyenas to kill him. Upon Simba's return several years later, Scar played off Simba's misplaced guilt to turn the whole pride against him. He would have won right there if he hadn't stopped to gloat before killing Simba.
- Admittedly, manipulating a child isn't really all that difficult.
- But it's still pretty bastardly.
- Gaston from Disney's Beauty And The Beast Though for the most part a highly unintelligent person (he's Book Dumb in an extreme sense), he's surprisingly good at using his popularity amongst the townfolk to get them to do what he wants, not matter how obviously evil it is.
- Then there's Forte in Enchanted Christmas, voiced magnificently by Tim Curry.
- J. Pierpont Finch, protagonist of the musical How To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying.
- Harry Powell from The Night Of The Hunter.
- If he were just the Chessmaster or even "just" the Magnificent Bastard he is, the Emperor would not have gotten Anakin on his side and might have failed outright. His ability to turn the emotionally-vulnerable Skywalker into a desperate pawn saved his life at least once.
- Hannibal Lecter, in The Silence Of The Lambs, IS this trope. He gives the eponymous Hannibal Lecture to Clarice, it's implied he convinces the guy in the next cell to kill himself, and in the books it's revealed that he did this to patients of his as well.
- Though the Joker has already been referenced, the version of him in The Dark Knight gets special mention. His manipulative skills are at least as frightening as his penchant for random acts of violence.
- Rotti Largo from Repo! The Genetic Opera, sometimes to the point where it's hard to figure out who he's not manipulating.
- The Warden from Death Race. She's also The Chessmaster the way she makes the convicts participate in her Game Show that she uses to finance the operations of the prison, she's an Anti Hero by the way the movie makes us not like her, and she's a Manipulative Bastard by the way she uses people to get what she wants. I was considering if she was a Magnificent Bastard but she's not quite that good.
- Brigid O'Shaughnessy in The Maltese Falcon. As Sam Spade says at the end of the film, he wants more than anything else to believe her version of events, and that's why he doesn't.
- Eve Harrington, Addison DeWitt, and Margo Channing in All About Eve can all play people like instruments.
- Jack Sparrow of Pirates Of The Caribbean is the king of this, despite not being a villain,... kinda. In Dead Man's Chest alone, he managed to renegotiate a non-negotiable deal with Davy Jones, change the thing that Elizabeth wanted most in this world, and, after Will and Norrington tag-team fight him, having him disarmed and at both of their mercies, ends up turning Norrington on Will, and manages to walk off with the key while they fight each other to the death. All with nothing but the gift of gab.
- Dr. Frank N Furter is VERY good at manipulating people into sleeping with him.
- The titular character of Teaching Mrs Tingle plays two of the other three main characters like a fiddle before showing weakness on-screen (but away from other characters), and would have gotten the third already were it not for a convenient interruption.
- Keyser Söze, the villain in The Usual Suspects. To explain any more about the character would probably spoil the entire movie.
- Frollo in Disney's Hunchback Of Notre Dame. This guy convinces the priest that, since the mother died on his doorstep (cause Frollo killed her) that the priest should provide lodgings for Quasimodo. He then convinces Quasimodo that he is locked up for his own good. Arguably, he even convinced himself that lusting after Esmerelda is okay because God "made the devil so much stronger than the man."
Literature
- Dolokhov from War And Peace often manipulates others during games of chance to earn far greater winnings, or to spur them into doing things they will regret later. He also seems to take some sort of perverted delight in seeing people, his social betters, strung around so easily.
- Smerdyakov in The Brothers Karamazov fits this trope to a fault, to the point of convincing Ivan that he is the one responsible for his father's death, despite the fact that Smerdyakov was the one who did the old man in. According to Smerdyakov, Ivan subconsciously told him through various cues and actions that he wanted his father dead. Whether this is true or not is left rather ambiguously defined.
- Long John Silver from Treasure Island. While lacking the style needed to be a Magnificent Bastard, he fits this trope perfectly; acting so damn charming and likeable that one can easily forget that he's in fact a ruthless, murderous pirate. His fondness for Jim Hawkins is particularly of notice, as even in the end it's never made clear just how much of their relationship was genuine and how much was manipulation on Silver's part.
- Ellsworth Toohey from Ayn Rand 's book The Fountainhead. Here's a man who holds to the Strawman Political philosophy that no one should ever achieve anything great, and he does everything he can to make people feel so insecure to be anything but a mass of mediocre and dependent "second-handers." He has a well-developed Backstory to show that he's been growing into this role all his life, and he gives a Hannibal Lecture to Peter Keating that explains all his motivations and goals.
- What makes him even more Manipulative and Bastardly is that he doesn't genuinely believe this himself: rather, he realizes that people who lack a sense of the greatness in life are easier to control. (As witness the way he sabotages his niece's chances for a fulfilling career and a happy marriage.) Basically, Toohey is driven only by the desire for power over others, like the Party in 1984. (In fact, both Orwell and Rand stated that inspiration for the antagonists came from observing the very worst tendencies in contemporary socialists and taking them to their logical conclusions.)
- Stephen Norton in Agatha Christie's 'Curtain: The last case of Poirot' is largely based on Iago. The manipulations quickly reach downright ridiculous extremes bordering on full-blown Xanatos Roulettes. It often takes little more than a casual remark on Stephen Norton's part (or on the part of any of the dozens of people he uses as unwitting proxies to voice his 'suggestions' to the people involved, both victim and murderer alike) in just about any given conversation to set a complex chain of events into motion that will lead to someone getting killed shortly afterwards. Norton is actually so good at this, that even Poirot knows that it'd be just about impossible to ever him get convicted of any crime whatsoever. So Poirot decides to just kill Norton instead.
- Female example (her title ought to be Bloody Wonder): Nellie Lovett, from Sweeney Todd. Not only does she fuel Sweeney's rage to her own financial gain, she conveniently leads him to believe his wife is dead, just to get him for herself.
- Abelard Lindsay and the other Shaper diplomats in Schismatrix, but also Lindsay's untrained rival Constantine.
- The three Wiggin children, plus Graff, from Enders Game.
- Raistlin Majere in Dragonlance is very good at The Chessmaster event-manipulating (he earns his title as 'Master of Past and Present' in more than the time travel sense) but arguably even better at using people, effortlessly twisting his brother's love to his own purposes, maneuvering apprentice-Bastard-in-training Dalamar into both hating and worshiping him, manipulating guileless kender Tasselhoff into achieving several of his goals (though he screws up others) and even playing (and almost always winning) mind-games with the heads of the Orders of High Sorcery, Fistandantilus, and the Dark Queen Herself. His crowning achievement, however, is his protracted seduction (and subsequent cruel abandonment) of a holy cleric of Paladine simply so he could use her to enter the Abyss and kill the Queen. To take her place, naturally.
- Lord Havelock Vetinari from the Discworld series is practically the defintion of this trope (and he's a Chessmaster to boot, the combination turning him into an outright Magnificent Bastard).
- Leland Gaunt from Stephen King's Needful Things. He's similar to Iago, but on a large scale; he takes the conflicts among people and turns them into murderous feuds.
- Honorverse is positively awash with this types, given the series somewhat political bent, especially in the latest novels.
- Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish of A Song Of Ice And Fire. As well as being The Chessmaster and a card-carrying Magnificent Bastard, he emotionally manipulates those around him callously and shamelessly, starting with Unlucky Childhood Friend Lysa Tully. And he's seemingly training Lysa's niece, Sansa Stark to follow his steps.
- Actually, Sansa had inklings of this from the beginning. She's said to be insanely good at putting up a false front and lying to others right to their faces, so Littlefinger just has to teach the girl his best manipulation techniques...
- Cassie from Animorphs. Many, many times throughout the series, she uses her innate understanding of people for the good of the team, if not necessarily for the good of herself, or the person. Her main victim of her manipulations was Visser Three (mainly because the Visser was an evil ego-driven son of a bitch). She also (reluctantly) used her understanding of people to trap a traitor of the group in the body of a rat. Beware the nice ones, indeed.
- David, the aforementioned 'Ani-Traitor', also falls into Manipulative Bastard territory, coming closer to wiping out the Animorphs than the the entirety of the Yeerk Empire in his trilogy. He goads Jake into fighting a battle he cannot win, manipulates Ax's ignorance of alarm clocks and Rachel's opinion of him as a robber to lure Rachel into another trap, and turned the entire Berenson family into puppets by pretending to be recently-hospitalized cousin Saddler. His return in #48 goes even further, working the Hannibal Lecture and The Reason You Suck Speech tropes overtime in his attempt to break Rachel's will to fight.
- One good example of the cold and ambitious Manipulative Bastard would be Solarian Vice-Admiral Luis Rozsak, who is also The Chessmaster, and has absolutely no qualms about bending almost everybody to do his bidding. Surprisingly he isn't a villain, at least technically: he's a rather personable guy, and his goals are mostly noble, so he's actually more of a Well Intentioned Extremist.
- The same series also subverts this trope with Havenite secret agent Victor Cachat, who fits the same analytical type to a T, but it is only ONE part of his otherwise genuinely kind and meek personality, and manifests itself only when he firmly believes in its necessity.
- Gentleman in Fingersmith by Sarah Waters. He has exceptional insight and sometimes understands a person's mind better than they themself do, but only uses the knowledge to exploit them, for profit and for fun.
- Also Mrs Sucksby. She raises Sue as a daughter, keeping her close and innocent (and making Sue love her like a mother), but the whole time planning to her being able to put Sue away and reclaim Maud, her biological daughter.
- 'Sticky Eye' Kawakami in Cloud Of Sparrows. Spoiler - click to reveal
He raises Heiko from a village of eta, outcasts who perform disgusting but necessary work such as butchers and tanners, as the most beautiful geisha in Edo, and assigns her as a spy and assassin attached to Genji. Genji quickly cops to the fact that she's an assassin, but it turns out Kawakami had counted on this so he could reveal her background to Genji at the right moment. This sends Genji into a well-concealed Heroic BSOD, which culminates in him sending Heiko to America and massacring her entire village to prevent anyone else finding out.
- Sol in Warrior Cats. His voice even seems to have the power to influence other cats' minds.
- In Nick Kyme's Warhammer 40000 novel Salamander, Iagon reveals his true colors when he manipulates Tsu'gan into not reporting his ploys. Followed up by his reflection that he has to do something about the Apothecary who knows, and later by his murdering a helpless servant.
- Ysanne Isard, particularly in the comics. The Director of Imperial Intelligence, she served the Emperor until his death. After the Battle of Endor, Isard advised Grand Vizier Sate Pestage while plotting to make his position shaky enough that he made plans to abandon the Empire and flee to the Rebellion. In the same day, Isard had Pestage and the obstructive Imperial Ruling Council assassinated, leaving her Empress in all but name. A favored element in her plans involved capturing members of the Rebel Alliance, brainwashing them into becoming sleeper agents, and sending them back completely unaware to their superiors, awaiting the right moment to activate them.
Live Action TV
- If you want to be bad guy on 24 you must have a Masters degree in Manipulative Bastardness. They seem to specialize in the Smug Snake and Con Man subtypes, but that show has showcased at least three kinds of every type in its seven seasons.
- As the page quote suggests, Benjamin Linus of Lost beats out the majority of the other characters on this page.
- Ben Linus is a combination of this, The Chessmaster, the Magnificent Bastard, and an emotionless monster. He has only shown a genuine facial expression in one episode of the series, where his daughter is shot by a Psycho For Hire. He's manipulated almost the entire cast at some point or another, and they only continue to even pay attention to him because he convinces them to. He actually spends most of the first part of season four tied up and constantly being hit by angry people, but he manages to talk his way out of it.
- The incident above is the only time a genuine emotion is wrenched from him, but he's also smirked a couple of times when no one is watching him.
- Funnily enough the page quote references his attempts toward one character where his actual plan was overly convoluted and in fact failed. Fortunately he was able to salvage what he wanted through a quick rethink later on.
- Megan of Drake And Josh raised the bar to Olympic-worthy standards before hitting her teens.
- Pretty much the raison d'etre — his love of torturing people, both physically and emotionally, leads to his downfall more than once — of the sadistic vampire Angelus from Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel:
Angel: I couldn't take my eyes off [the victims]. I was only in it for the evil. It was everything to me. It was art. The destruction of a human being.
- Also, Holtz, Holland Manners, possessed Cordelia, Lindsey in fifth season, well let's just say that Angel liked this sort of character.
- Virgil "Web" Webster from the short lived crime drama The Inside ruthlessly preys on the psychological flaws of other people with a chilling indifference, often drawing comparisons to the very criminals he pursues.
- Dr. Gregory House. He tricks his patients into highly risky medication or procedures, as well as manipulating colleagues/superiors for various purposes (chief among which is getting a Vicodin prescription).
Rodney Foreman: My son says you're a manipulative bastard.
Dr. House: It's just a pet name. I call him Doctor Bling.
...
Dr. Cuddy: Don't you think this is a little manipulative?
Dr. House: No. I think it's hugely manipulative.
- The magician Derren Brown is well known for this trait. In one show he recruits volunteers and offers to teach them psychological techniques. Instead, he manipulates them into robbing a security van. He once fooled a man into thinking that he was a ventriloquist's
 dummy, for heaven's sake.
- Jim Profit and Bobbi Stakowski of Profit. LIKE WHOA. There's a reason Profit is where he's at in life despite being literally raised in a box: he finds your deepest weakness and exploits it. This can range from nudging the boss's wife into an affair with him to his psychological torture of Joanne in "Healing". As for Bobbi? Well, where do you think Jim got it from?
- Just about any reality show is going to have at least one of these in the cast. Richard Hatch from the first season of Survivor is an example.
- It's this editor's pet theory that at the end of Ariel Jayne not so much cared about the crew regarding him a traitor (it's not like they loved him to begin with) as guilt-tripped Mal into sparing him. I may be crediting him with more brains than he usually shows but still...
- Two words: Jubal. Early.
- Saffron/Bridget/Yolanda is a tremendous straight example in her first appearance, but almost counts as a deconstruction of just how messed up this character type would have to be during her appearance in Trash.
- T-Bag in Prison Break.
- Fraggle Rock: "Convincing John can convince anyone to do anything!"
- Evil Matriarch Angela Petrelli and Magnificent Bastard Adam Monroe of Heroes.
- Nathan somewhat subverts this trope as his manipulations usually wind up blowing up in his face.
- Dave Williams in Desperate Housewives.
- Queen Rose in Kings. Her Manipulative Bitch wonderfully compliments Silas' Magnificent Bastardry.
- Katrina Ghent tries hard for Manipulative Bitch status, and almost gets it when she blackmails Rose into almost ruining the reputation of either Jack or Michelle and then turns around and proposes to Jack, poised to become the next queen. Shame about that trip to Osteria.
- Gemma in Sons of Anarchy.
- Long in Juken Sentai Gekiranger. And in spades, I might add. In fact, come to think of it, calling him this is putting it mildly.
- Micheal Cutter from Law And Order.
- Editor Lynda Day from Press Gang. To quote her best friend Sarah after one of Lynda's finest moments of manipulation: "Can you explain to me how I just argued myself into doing what you wanted me to do in the first place? You are a devious, unfeeling, calculating, manipulative bitch!" Lynda's reply? "Well, you were asking what made me a better choice for editor."
- Tony in Skins (seasons 1 & 2). Overlaps with True Art Is Angsty, which is lampshaded in his speech to Sid, where he tells him that he is a Manipulative Bastard to liven things up.
- Lucille Bluth on Arrested Development starts off like this. By the end, it's clear she's also a Chessmaster and therefore a Magnificent Bastard.
- Humphrey in Yes Minister always knows exactly what to say to get people to see things his way, and it's clear he's the person who actually runs Hacker's department. Dorothy also has shades of this.
- Helen Cutter from Primeval.
Theatre
- Iago, from Shakespeare's Othello, is the absolute definition of a Manipulative Bastard and the inspiration for many other entries on this list.
- Shakespeare was using a traditional Christian theatre character called a Vice, who was always scheming and bragging to the audience. (Obviously it was a coveted role.)
- In Shakespeare's King Lear, the appropriately-named villain Edmund The Bastard gets his brother disowned and banished by framing him for an attempt to kill their father Gloucester, then arranges for Gloucester to be disowned and banished after having his eyes gouged out; he does this all for minor political gains. After Edmund becomes king, he seduces two different women with promises of being his queen, even though they are both sisters, and already married. He also secretly arranges for their father to be killed, and another sister as well, to solidify his claim to the throne.
Video Games
- Albert Wesker... nuff said.
- Kurow Kirishima of Rival Schools is best described as Capcom's loving tribute to Paptimus Scirocco. Think Scirocco... with claws. Hell, they even have the same voice actor.
- Ultimate Supreme Executive Chairman Drek deserves a mention here. He's quite good at what he does, has an impressive voice (done by Kevin Michael Richardson) and has eyes that are large, shiny and blueish with no pupils.
- The Practical Incarnation from Planescape: Torment. He gets a woman who knows he's a Manipulative Bastard but is still in love with him to accompany him to her certain death so he can have a spy in the place where she'll die. He creates a holy text quite possibly wholecloth in order to get a member of a race that freed itself from slavery and despises the notion to swear fealty to him. He gets a blind archer to effectively sell himelf to him. Manipulative? Oh yes. Bastard? Hell yes.
- And, depending on how you play the game, the player character can be as well. If you're smart enough, you can actually out-manipulate the above Bastard.
- I-no from Guilty Gear is an allegory of this trope. And she loves it.
- Lord Galcian of Skies Of Arcadia.
- Axel from Kingdom Hearts, prior to his Character Derailment, playing both sides in an Organization XIII internal conflict so that he could feel amused (hey, when you're a Nobody, you'll take any feeling you can get.)
- In the Fallout series you can get out from/make almost any/every situation if your Speech-skill is high enought...this, of course, depending are you good or evil. In Fallout 3 alone - when playing Good - you can negotiate/seduce a man to give up his plan to blow up a city or - as Evil character - manipulate him to double the reward if you want to blow up the bomb for him.
- In Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords, Kreia digs into Atton's subconscious and holds his past over his head like an axe for the whole game, ensuring he remains loyal to the Exile. When she meets Mandalore later, she casually namedrops Revan, and then promising an answer to "the question that burns within his shell" - which likely boils down to "Why did he abandon me?" - to ensure his loyalty to the Exile.
- Emphasised by an optional scene in the game - If Atton and the Exile develop enough trust between them, Atton tells the exile of his murder of several Jedi during the war, some former comrades of the Exile. The Exile accepts this and forgives Atton. Atton, having done this, confronts Kreia, and states that she has no power over him any longer. Kreia's Response - "If you thought I had any power over you in the first place then you were more of a fool than I thought. However, never forget, traitor, the feeling of guilt you had, and know that I can make you recall that feeling at - any - moment. Now, leave me, murderer". A Magnificant Bastard, indeed.
- Unfortunately for Kreia, she can’t manipulate droids.
- Metal Sonic From Sonic Heroes fits this trope well. Despite being seen right in the beginning, he worked behind and in the scenes, and manipulated everyone to the point where he almost won, had it not been for the teams collecting the emeralds.
- Master Li of Jade Empire is the epitome of Manipulative Bastardry. He pulls off a twenty year Xanatos Gambit (only saved from being a Xanatos Roulette because he is always in control of it) perfectly, even anticipating crash sites of flyers and manipulating family Genre Savvy enough to assume he survived a blizzard after being chucked around by a deity and to still be looking for him. Hells, he knew about and relied on Sun Hai doing that. All hail the Glorious Strategist!
- Final Fantasy Tactics: Apart from all his standard Batman Gambit (in relation to Ramza,) and his Xanatos Gambit amid everyone else's Xanatos Roulette, Delita may be seen as a Manipulative Bastard towards Ovelia if you think that he never truly loved her. Duke Barrington was one too towards Rapha and Marach, even if the former realized it very early on. Zalbaag and Dycedarg could also count on Ramza's passion for their own ends.
- The Ace Attorney games have Matt Engarde from Justice For All and Dahlia Hawthorne from Trials and Tribulations.
- And we can't forget Damon Gant. Not quite as manipulative as the above, but still a master at playing everyone around him.
- Adachi of Persona 4 makes another unsupecting man do his dirty work for him and and manages to successfully avoid capture until the very end of the game. Somewhat subverted in that the part with the other man was a stroke of luck.
- Sakaki of .hack//G.U. is an interesting case. Some people can see the manipulative bastardry from the beginning, others don't realise it until his victim does. Full details: Sakaki is practically mindraping Atoli from the beginning, and always turning her away from everyone and towards himself. This is very similar to the Orochimaru gambit of taking an already heavily abused victim, and then twisting them around your little finger. He even then admits to the whole thing fully aware that Atoli is in ear shot, but unable to do anything about it.
- Dimentio of Super Paper Mario. At first he appears nothing more than an amusing little henchman, but, particularly in the endgame, it becomes clear that he's manipulating both sides of the conflict to further his own ends, playing off each side's desires as well as the prophecy itself. In fact, some Epileptic Trees concerning him even go so far as to suggest that he wrote the Dark Prognosticus in the first place, setting up the whole prophecy from the beginning.
- Kirei Kotomine. He isn't even revealed as a bad guy despite his rather openly villainous attitude until late in each path, just as a jerk who likes messing with Shirou.
- Even worse, Zouken Matou. He doesn't pretend to be a good/neutral guy or even bother masking the fact that's a vicious and creepy old man. Yet he manipulates Shinji/Sakura etc. regardless. Kirei Kotomine at least manages to also net being a Magnificent Bastard.
- In Mitadake High, you are either this or a puppet of everyone else
- Touhou has Yukari, especially in Silent Sinner in Blue, or the numerous fanfics play this role all the time.
- Shizune of Katawa Shoujo. She's not the master manipulator Hisao thinks she is (probably...), but she is very cunning, her favorite game is Risk, and she has a lackey in Misha (well, a ditzy lackey with no volume control, but still.)
Web Comics
- Adam from Loserz seems like a Casanova at the first glimpse, but in this strip he displays what a master of manipulation he is.
- Tohya Miho from Megatokyo does this with varying levels of success.
- Miho is an interesting (and arguably realistic) example, because while the impact of her schemes has been truly dramatic she is forced to admit that she actually ended up achieving the opposite of her true objectives. Her Manipulative Bastard actions in the Endgames prequel similarly end in failure, when Piro plays her own game back at her.
- While some view Maytag of Flipside as a Purity Sue both inside and outside the comic, others view her as a frighteningly powerful Manipulative Bastard.
- Mike from College Roomies From Hell is a good example. Physically, he's about evenly matched with roommates Dave and Roger — but mentally, he's always two steps ahead of them. Mike can accomplish almost anything by manipulating others' actions, and he seldom betrays any affection for people other than his sister Blue and girlfriend Marsha. He can even see through the devil's mind games while being tortured in Hell.
- More recently, April — once the nicest character in the strip — has let her doomed love for Mike drive her into becoming a Manipulative Bitch. In a way, she's his opposite: while Mike only falters on the rare occasions when he loses his cool, April is at her scheming best when she's most bitter and desperate. After one series of lies so brazen that it literally killed her conscience, there was no turning back.
Web Original
- While Lear Dunham, the Big Bad of Broken Saints is the consummate Chessmaster, it is his Dragon/ son, Gabriel, who is fits this trope better; he is easily able to earn Shandala's trust, play on Tui's jealousy like a drum, and keep the suspicious heroes calm long enough for the effects of his paralysis-inducing wine to kick in.
Western Animation
Real Life
- The French King Louis XI embodies this trope, going so far as being named "The Spider King" because of how threads of his web of influence managed to get into every political corner.
- Otto von Bismarck stands out as well. On one occasion, he editted a conversation between the king and the French diplomat just enough to be insulting to the French. This was enough to get the French to declare war on Germany, which in turn helped Bismarck convince the holdout German states to join into the German federation. It also increased the prestige of the Prussian army, as they managed to resoundly defeat the French and take Alsace-Lorraine.
- His mastery of this trope was also frequently used on the king, saving Bismarck from the ire of the elected government more than once and solidifying his power within Prussia.
- Perhaps "lower scale" in a sense (it's quality, not quantity, ladies and gents), but if the Wounded Gazelle Gambit page is anything to go by, Lady Diana Spencer was one par excellence. Everythings Better With Princesses, after all. (Is it wrong that this knowledge makes me kind of like her more than when I thought she was all but a real life Purity Sue?)
- Very controversial figure but, Henry Kissinger, the Secretary of State under Presidents Nixon and Ford (as well as Nixon's National Security Advisor) may easily fit this. He started off rising to power by backing David Rockefeller for the Republican nomination for President in 1968. Then when Rockefeller lost the nomination to Nixon he was still allowed by then President Johnson to be privy to the negotiations going on in Paris that were trying to end the Vietnam War. Kissinger relayed information on the progress of the talks to the Nixon Administration whom were trying to stop the peace talks. They were, according to Nixon's own memoirs, giving Hubert Humphrey (the democartic nomination for president) a last second boost in the polls. Anna Chennault, one of the chief advisors to President Thieu of South Vietnam was the connection through which Nixon told the South to not come to the peace talks because he could get them a better deal. Of Kissinger she said, "He was getting information from both sides, he was probably giving information to both sides too." After the talks collapsed Kissinger was awarded for his role by being named National Security Advisor to Nixon (who just barely won.) According to a member of his staff Roger Morris, who later resigned along with two others, said Kissinger "was constanlty playing one side off against the other." When the Vietnam War finally ended on virtually the same terms as the Johnson Administration had offered, twice as many Americans had died and it had even expanded into the neutral countries of Cambodia (which paved the way for the Khmer Rouge) and Laos. Despite this, Kissinger was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1973.
Tabletop Games
- The Craftworld Eldar from Warhammer 40,000 are magnificent manipulative bastards, thanks to a combination of psychic farsight and a callous disregard for the "inferior" life-forms they manipulate. For example, the Eldar are willing to slaughter an entire Imperial Guard regiment so the naughty humans wouldn't accidentally awaken a Necron tombworld, trick some of their own people into the hands of their dark kin so they might stave off their species' demise a century or two longer, and murder or dethrone the leaders of several other armies just to maintain a bloody stalemate. These are just the small-scale stuff: the Eldar subtly redirected Ork warboss Ghazghkull Mag Uruk Thraka to the planet Armageddon, leading to two cataclysmic wars that killed billions and turned the region into a perpetual warzone, because otherwise the Orks would have killed a few Eldar. Worst of all is the fact that the Eldar can't compete with the C'Tan known as The Deceiver, or the Chaos god Tzeentch.
- Unfortunately for their image, they really got given the Idiot Ball on Armageddon. The second war was played as a worldwide campaign, meaning every army in the galaxy (eldar included) sent people to fight and die over it. Troops had to be redirected from fighting the Tyranids in the Eastern Fringes, meaning the Tyranids could get further into the galaxy, something the Eldar living their had been desperately trying to stop (and, in the case of Iyanden, been all but wiped out by). Lastly, the Imperium had been weakened just before the Eye of Terror campaign, fought to decide the fate of the entire galaxy, in which many, many eldar died and various eldar, including Eldrad Ulthuan, the one behind it all, were doomed to a Fate Worse Than Death. Oops.
- On the subject of Tzeentch, it is said that it has so many plans working in unison manipulating so many people and events that they effectively cancel each other out. Foiling one plan will cause a dozen more plans to initiate, which will in turn foil several dozen more plans... and so on and so forth.
Professional Wrestling
- Former ECW president and Smug Snake extraordinaire Paul Hayman fits this troop to a tee. He stole most of his ideas from other promoters like The Sheik, Joel Goodhart, and Atsushi Onita and was not only able to convince his fans that they were his ideas but that if anyone else used them they were stealing from him. He was also able to convince them that they were watching only high quality wrestling and that the WWF and WCW wrestlers were crap while he made stars out of people like Public Enemy and 911. Then there is the way he treated his wrestlers which made them loyal to him despite the fact he did not pay them for the last 6 month. Even though most people that worked for him relies what a bastard he was in retrospect he still has a strong Creator Worship following today despite his all his failures in the industry
- WWE's commentators don't refer to Triple H as "The Cerebral Assassin" for nothing.
- Raven, especially during his first ECW run and his WCW run, is another prime example just for his ability to gain loyal follower after loyal follower. The man got The Sandman's own wife and son to turn against him, for god's sake.
- There's a good reason Edge is known as the "Master Manipulator".
Close Professional Wrestling
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