During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
- Overzealous hollers on tropers who come into the threads without being familiar with all the rules and traditions of the tropes. And when they are familiar with said rules and traditions, they get accused (with little evidence) of being ban evaders.
- A few tropers in the thread habitually engage in snotty, impolite mini-modding. There are also regular complaints about excessive, offtopic "socializing" posts.
- Many many thread regulars barely post/edit anywhere else, making the threads look like they are divorced from the rest of TV Tropes.
- Following that, there are often complaints about the threads and their regulars violating wiki rules, such as on indexing, crosswicking, example context and example categorization. Some folks are working on resolving the issues, but...
- Often moderator action against thread regulars leads to a lot of participants suddenly showing up in the moderation threads to protest and speak on their behalf, like a clique.
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
for the earliest date a work can be discussed, (usually two weeks from the US release), as well as who's reserved discussion.
- Why do a cleanup?: This trope definitely exists and has a well documented history of use. That being said, it frequently gets misused to a character who meets one of the components, namely that they are smart, charming while not necessarily even being a villain, or create good plans. While these are components, there is also a certain personality required, not to mention that all of the above are required to be present for a character to be a true Magnificent Bastard. As the trope attracts interest, it unfortunately brings in a lot of misuse and I thought the best way to rectify this would be a Perpetual Cleanup Thread, as is being done and has seen success with Complete Monster.
- What makes a Magnificent Bastard: Below is a list of the individual components to make this character. Note that they must all be present, not just some, which has lead to frequent misuse:
- Must be intelligent: Goes without saying, to be a Magnificent Bastard, the character has to be smart in the first place and use their brain to work towards whatever their end goal may be;
- Must be a Bastard: While going overboard in how vile the character is can be detrimental, a key aspect is the Bastard part of the trope, whether the character is an out-and-out antagonist in the work, some manner of Villain Protagonist, or something in between, they at least have some unscrupulous qualities to qualify for this trope;
- Must not be too detestable: Again, there is a ceiling on how bad the character can be before they just become too nefarious, blocking out the Magnificent part of the trope. A genocidal racist or child-raping Sadist aren't going to make the cut;
- Think on their feet: In addition to being a Chessmaster, a Magnificent Bastard, if the character deals with situations in which their initial plan is ruined, has to be able to pull a Xanatos Speed Chess and at least come up with a competent strategy to make up for lost time, otherwise they fail for being unable to think in tough spots;
- Have charm: Even if they don't necessarily make every character they meet fall in love with them and can even be detested by others, the audience has to find an amicable social relation to the character, or they are failing to make the impact required for this trope.
- What to do if a character is listed on a page but has not been approved?: They need to be removed, all candidates need to come through the cleanup thread first. The character could well count but they need to be analyzed properly and voted on first.
- Do we list Playing With this trope?: No; as a YMMV trope, this cannot be Played With, so we only want examples that are Played Straight.
- What do I do if I want a character to be listed as a Magnificent Bastard?: The greatest success Complete Monster saw for its cleanup effort was from the invention of the effort post format, so, borrowing from that, a troper wishing to propose a Magnificent Bastard will create such a post in the following format:
- Begin by describing The work, this will help establish the setting the character is in and for the reader to understand what kind of a scenario they are in;
- Summarize The character's actions, this will provide a listing for readers to understand what they do and how it applies to this trope because charm and lack of smugness are so crucial, this is a good time to be incorporating exactly the flavor of how they operate to explain this;
- List circumstances in which the character must Think on their feet, these are times where a wrench might be thrown in their initial plan and they have to adapt on the spot or even come up with a new scheme all together, this is also a good time to explain how the villain reacts to defeat when they have to face it, a true Magnificent Bastard won't break down into tears at the thought of death, they should have known such a possibility could occur and be able to handle it with more dignity;
- The competition, similar to the Heinous Standard dealt with for a Complete Monster, this section is to deal with how successful the character is in carrying out their plans compared to other characters. While, as a villain, they probably are going to lose in the end, it is good to explain how other characters handle the same situation. There is no exceptionalism case to be made for this trope but explaining the variety helps the reader have a better understanding of the proposal.
- How do you know when the character's arc is done so they can be proposed? When their tenure as a villain or antagonist finishes. This could happen in a single Story Arc in an entire work, a single work of a franchise, or the whole series in general. We'll show lenience to Long-Runners with constantly recurring candidates or series with outstanding continuities (ex. comic books), and it's entirely possible to count in a work or two but not in general for a reason like Depending on the Writer.
- What about candidates evil because of external sources? Those Made of Evil can qualify if they show enough individuality and tactical acumen — in other words, they have the personality to fulfill the magnificence requirement. Conversely, those brainwashed, especially if they're a better person without it, may fail the individuality aspect and cannot count.
- What if they are under orders from a higher-up? Depends. If the boss created the plans down to the letter and the candidate is just following them, sounds like we should discuss the boss instead. However, if the candidate takes creative liberties with the orders, adds their own charm and flair to them, fills in holes in the orders, and/or actively deals with obstacles their boss did not talk about, the candidate shows enough individual thinking to qualify.
- What about Character Development? An MB is something a character can develop into... a nice person who plots well might become more morally gray as the work goes on and hits the "Bastard" criteria, thus making them viable. Likewise, a Smug Snake might shed their ego, become more understanding of the threat others pose and gain the personality or "Magnificent" criteria, likewise making them viable. Conversely, a character who looks like this trope might suffer from a Sanity Slippage or just get outed as not being as smart as they thought they were and become incompatible with MB.
- Can an MB be a good guy? Not in the conventional sense... it is required they have at least some dubious traits lest they fail the "Bastard" criteria. That being said, a character who pulls a Heel–Face Turn or eventually stops taking villainous actions is still fair game: as there was a point in time where they were both "Magnificent" and a "Bastard" at the same time and they've merely adapted as time goes on. Now... if such a character begins showing other issues (i.e.: becomes prone to freak outs or starts getting outwitted) then they're compromising their Magnificence and will probably be deemed a cut. What's important is stylishly operating while at least for some time being willing to take at best underhanded methods to see a job done. A Heel–Face Turn in itself isn't a disqualifier but they do have to have been "Magnificent" and a "Bastard" at the same time and afterwards can't start slipping on the former front.
- What about characters whose stories can take different routes?: When proposing a character in a form of media that has them in multiple story routes. Said character must be consistent with their characteristics in all routes. (ex.: Can't have an example who shows promise on one route yet fails in another.) The only exception is if a later installment of the series confirms the character's actions which made them worth proposing are the canon route.
- Is there a timeframe rule like with Complete Monster?: Yes, please wait two weeks until after the work has concluded before proposing a character (again, usually using the North American air date). As is the case with CM, we want to give a reasonable time frame so that everyone interested in seeing the work has done so and can participate in the discussion without having anything spoiled.
- What about groups like with Complete Monster?: This is a point of divergence between the two tropes. While CM does not allow for a single entry encompassing more than three characters lest their heinousness for crimes becomes too watered down, with MB as long as they are treated as one "unit" it is acceptable to lump all characters provided they share acts of charm and intelligence.
- Can I propose my own work's character as a Magnificent Bastard?: No, this is a YMMV subject and the creator of a content is way too biased to be able to evaluate the criteria we're looking for without a second opinion taking over. That being said, you are more than welcome to encourage someone to consume your creation and if they feel a character counts, are more than welcome to suggest them.
- My example/edit has been approved, but the example subpage is locked! How do I get it added?: The moderators do not add examples to locked example subpages in the MagnificentBastard/ namespace directly. Rather, you need to do the edit to a sandbox page that follows the format Sandbox.MagnificentBastard<Name of the example subpage> (e.g for MagnificentBastard.Fullmetal Alchemist it's Sandbox.Magnificent Bastard Fullmetal Alchemist) and on a Friday, ask in the locked pages edit requests thread for the content to be swapped in.
Thread rules
When voting a troper must specify the effort post they're voting on and cannot merely vote on "Everything I missed" as in the past it has indicated the poster didn't read the effort post and is guessing instead of analyzing.
Resolved items
In general, a character listed on this trope is considered "settled". This means they should not be challenged unless information used to list them was incorrect or information was missed in the initial discussion.
However, when re-litigating a candidate, the same rules apply for when they were originally proposed. If they do not have five or more upvotes than downvotes for approval upon a re-litigation, including votes from the initial discussion if they do not change, then they are a cut.
This especially applies to the characters listed below, who have been discussed excessively and repeated attempts to get them listed/cut may result in punitive action for bogging down the thread.
Definitely an MB
- Pokémon Mystery Dungeon: Explorers: Any sadism Darkrai displays is limited in effect thanks to the game's nature and any cowardice which can be inferred about him is Alternative Character Interpretation about his tactical retreats.
- Avatar: The Last Airbender: Azula's Villainous Breakdown is undone in the sequel comic Smoke & Shadow where she regains her composure and ends up stable and in control enough to count.
Definitely not an MB
- South Park: The show's frequent use of vulgar comedy and mean-spirited humor leaves any potential candidates devoid of the dignity or charm to qualify.
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:15:22 AM
RIP Toriyama
Alrighty, even though I dunno how often I'll be able to participate here, since I'm....kinda the co-inspiration for this thread, I'll kick things off by suggesting a group of characters be cut and not re-added to the trope for the time being.
Those being every single entry on House Of Cards. Here they are for reference:
- Magnificent Bastard:
- Frank Underwood, the man knows every trick in the book and then some more of his own invention. He amorally trumps everybody with style.
- Raymond Tusk often matches Frank in Magnificence—enough that Frank himself can't help but admire his ability.
- Similiar to Tusk, Season 4's Republican Presidential Candidate Will Conway is an image-conscious New York Governor who effortlessly side-steps Frank's attempt to smear him over Pollyhop, casually helps demolish Frank's relationship with Durant and convinces the highest ranking general in the military to resign on Frank's watch and joins his ticket as VP. Even Frank's impressed with the last one, citing it's something he'd do.
- He makes it a point to hire men with signs of Magnificence of their own to be his dragons. Doug Stamper seems to be a good Bastard-in-training in Season One, but ultimately gives in to his feelings for Rachel Posner far too much. When Seth Grayson comes along in Season Two, he proves to be quite an effective successor to Doug.
- Claire is basically Frank's female counterpart (such as her clever reversal of the abortion question in Season 2). By the end of season 4, when she turns to face the camera along with Frank, this trope is fully in play.
- Zoe Barnes showed promise of becoming a Magnificent Bitch throughout Season One, before she ultimately turned against Frank—leading to her death in Season Two.
- Russian President Viktor Petrov in Season 3. He gets everything he wants by playing Frank from the very beginning. Even when Frank finally gets him to agree to put troops into the Jordan Valley, Petrov manages to pull off a False Flag Operation to weasel out of the deal and force Frank to fire Claire as UN ambassador.
Now, along with all of these being immediately "unapproved" and "poorly written" given the new guidelines of the cleanup for the trope....none of the characters listed are the trope.
- Frank himself comes closest, and hits on every point for qualification except perhaps the most important one....when the chips are down, and Frank shows his true colors? He's nothing but a sadistic, petty bully. All of his scheming, charm, and plans-upon-plans are ultimately the workings of an intelligent-but-despicable psychopath who uses it all to mask his psychotic, abusive side. Is he an amazing villain? Is he charming as a snake? Is a genius strategist? Absolutely to all of the above, IMO. But he fails the "Magnificent" part of the trope by deep down being just a vile bully, and nothing more.
- Tusk is everything that keeps Frank from counting multiplied and everything that HELPS qualification subtracted. He's an intelligent fellow, but quickly shows himself to be out of his league compared to Frank, and goes through such a pathetic breakdown as Frank outmaneuvers him at every turn that Tusk takes to snapping the necks of his pet birds when be gets pissed. It is utterly despicable to behold, and Tusk is just a loathsome old man in over his head.
- Conway completely lacks the "Bastard" part of the trope. He, like every major character, has some shady stuff about him and commits crimes, but it's nowhere near villainous when compared to what other characters get up to in comparison, and Conway is VERY much a Hero Antagonist against Frank.
- Doug and Seth are both way off. Doug is an emotional psycho who wears a mask of Dissonant Serenity to cover up his pain and awful personality, and undergoes way too much pathetic events to count. Seth just doesn't stand out as anything special in the setting, seeming more like a slimy weasel who Allie's with powerful people to protect his own ass rather than a genuine Magnificent Bastard seeking power for himself or some such.
- Claire....not even close. She's cunning and intelligent, but ultimately a cold-hearted bitch with as much charm as a stone wall falling to crush your head, and had NUMEROUS moments of emotional breakdowns or otherwise degrading things happening to her. Coupled with the fact that all of her biggest schemes and machinations were either by luck, with Frank's help, or taken merely as super petty revenge, and she doesn't make it.
- Zoe is so far from the trope it's not even funny. She's in waywayWAY over her head with literally everything in the series, is smug beyond what she has earned the right to be, and ultimately gets killed like a moron for acting like a moron. Zoe's death served two purposes: To show that Frank was NOT to be messed with, and to show that people like Zoe, who are so confident in their abilities and charm that they can't think two steps in front of them, cannot in any capacity stand up to the likes of Frank.
- Petrov is a misogynistic creep who endorses homophobia and capital punishment for homosexuality just to "look good" to his people, acts like a lecherous pervert towards Claire, and ultimately gets utterly humiliated by her when he could have easily stood up to her and possibly came out on top if he had the spine. He was just too cowardly to do it.
Overall, each and every one of these characters misses the mark. Only Frank legitimately comes close, but the glimpse's into his true character destroy that possibility by showing his U Ncharming side just as much as his polite one.
And that will be the first major contribution to the new cleanup. Thoughts and opinions are welcome, but if no really objections are raised, I'll cut the examples ASAP and direct any more discussion on them to be brought here.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Thanks for swinging by Ravok! Fully agreed with you all of them don't count and as per the conversations we've had on PM, I agree Frank (and then maybe Petrov) definitely come close but show themselves to be genuinely smug, way too much for this trope. Along with Frank being so damn vile it's hard to have the "sit back and admire that damn fine villainy" feel I'd like to have.
Edit: Is it possible to, while we're looking at cutting characters, making locked main pages like we have for CM so anyone who wants them back has to come back here instead of just putting them back?
edited 5th May '18 5:29:30 PM by 43110
Me in a nutshell (Coping with Depression)
Alright.... Let me try to participate on this thread a little bit haha... I probably got a one or two candidates for Magnificent Bastards. Not sure if they could qualify but I'll try and learn how this trope works
"Making screw-ups and mistakes was I ever really good at. Because everything I touch went to hell."
Please do! We're open minded here and the more the merrier, worse comes to worst and they don't go up, still get a good discussion going.
Edit: As I've told Ravok, I myself am doing a Zeta rewatch to do a proper proposal and writeup for my favourite Gundam villain of all time, Paptimus Scirocco.
edited 6th May '18 11:22:21 AM by 43110
Goku Black
Oooh can I help. Ive got a few villains who, he nails this trope, need to rewatch there stuff though.
edited 6th May '18 12:28:01 PM by miraculous
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Wonderful, thank you both for joining us in this effort.
Now then, following up Ravok's excellent analysis of House of Cards, I'd like to present my own suggestion for cut who often gets mistaken for this trope: Death Note's Light Yagami.
The YMMV entry is as follows:
- Magnificent Bastard: Magnificent Bastard: Light is practically the manga poster boy for this trope. L actually fits some of the requirements even better than Light, being only lacking in the charisma and social tact that Light uses to disguise his true nature so well. Mello might have become one with his final actions, if you choose to believe he had it all planned.
Starting with the ones that really miss the mark:
- Mello has next to nothing to do with this trope, the action he possibly takes to even warrant discussion is an abuse of Alternative Character Interpretation and even if he meant for it to take Light down, it still doesn't address the fact Mello gets way too strung up on his own emotions and handling stressful situations to come anywhere near fitting the mould.
- L is not only not anywhere near nefarious enough but also lacks the social charisma to be considered. There's so much wrong with listing him it's not even funny.
- Finally, Light himself, an oft-cited misuse of this trope. He's smart, can be charming and even improvises his plans as he needs. The issue with listing him? Light reveals in private to be the very definition of a Smug Snake and frequently underwrites the threat others pose to him simply because he's such a narcissist he can't conceive of anyone having a fraction of the intelligence he possesses. The other problem? When the chips are down, Light shows he's nothing but a Dirty Coward, which is an incompatible trope. His Villainous Breakdown is so inelegant it absolutely obliterates any way to possibly see him as overlapping with this trope. Similar to Frank Underwood, Light might have the initial appearance of this trope but ultimately subverts it.
Let me know if anyone has issue with me pulling the example and redirecting discussion here?
edited 6th May '18 4:34:27 PM by 43110
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Clarification request: there seems to be debate in the archived and current discussion page for if this trope only applies to villains, or if it can be applied to Guile Hero type Anti-Hero characters, too.
The current definition specifically says these can be heroic characters: "the Magnificent Bastard can be aligned on either side of a conflict."
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
Either side of the work’s conflict? Sure but they do have to be a Bastard so if they are a guile or anti hero, they’ve gotta still have some nastiness to them.
Honestly, this more sounds like confusion towards the way a work presents the conflict as opposed to an issue of the character being good or evil. For clarification, yes, a Magnificent Bastard must, in someway or another, be a bad guy.
edited 6th May '18 6:05:52 PM by 43110
I've said for years that Light is simply a very high-functioning Smug Snake. He's been listed on the trope page for it, actually, and has had Smug Snake on his character sheet.
He was also voted up on the Complete Monster Thread, and CM and MB are generally incompatible.
Cut away I say.
edited 6th May '18 6:39:04 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Light is no more, now, I hate focusing on the cutting aspect and promise I'll eventually get around to some more proposals but for now let's do some purging on Code Geass. Here is the current entry (not going to bother in pointing out the problem with bullet points):
- Magnificent Bastard:
- Lelouch. He DIES happily in a fabulous way. As an example, Cornelia calls him a coward for attacking her from behind. He makes no attempt to deny it, but calls her one, too. Cornelia, the goddess of war who is always charging into battle in front of her knights and has just made the decision to fight to the last. As is pointed out in the commentary, he says this in such a way that we believe him anyway.
- Cornelia herself makes a fine example of a Magnificent Bitch in the first season. She commands respect from her men, is more than willing to summon Suzaku if the situation calls for it, is willing to work with Zero to destroy her other enemies if need be, and is able to soundly defeat a few of Lelouch's plans. One may suspect that the only reason she approved of Euphemia's SAZ plan is that she knew it would spell doom for the Black Knights, though she couldn't have possibly foreseen the outcome.
- Schneizel lacks the theatrics, but goddamn, he's efficient.
- Emperor Charles and his wife Marianne just as much so.
Now, let me start off by saying I loved this anime so this doesn't come across as snarky and critical. It was an extremely fun ride from start to finish but it's also extremely silly and the fundamental problem it presents with characters counting is the plot goes off the rails so frequently that everyone makes strategically and tactically ridiculous decisions so often it's like they won't take their hands off the Idiot Ball.
- Starting with Lelouch, the dude is a competent planner but his reactions to things going wrong are straight up hilariously over-the-top with his breakdowns, there's even at least one meme I could find about the bomb going off and it doesn't just happen once but over and over and over again.
- Cornelia might actually come a little closer in terms of planning and dealing with defeat than Lelouch but there is one massive deal breaker with her... she is openly and extremely racist, like much of the Britannian Empire and clearly looks down on the Japanese. She doesn't even jump the prerequisites to get on MB because of this.
- Schniezel is another interesting one, with his calm demeanour, campy flair and Brilliant, but Lazy attitude but and this is summed up best on the How to write a Magnificent Bastard page: he goes from barely seeming like a villain to having one of the most brutal, hardcore goals possible and while he never moves out of Well-Intentioned Extremist territory, creates too much Mood Whiplash to leave the necessary impression.
- Charles and Marianne... uh... probably the least suited to the point I'm surprised to see them here at all. In the anime at least, Charles goes into full rage and loses all dignity at the prospect of his defeat and neglects proper management of his Empire, which he should have been overseeing to stop Lelouch, to focus on his weird-ass "world with no lies" thing. Marianne herself barely gets any characterization, she spends most of the series allegedly dead until all of the sudden she's alive and evil, certainly not building the necessary interesting character.
The tl;dr of it is I advocate cutting all, thoughts?
edited 6th May '18 7:14:38 PM by 43110
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Yeah cut Light.
If I can go into a franchise I like, here are the characters listed for Star Trek:
- Star Trek: Q. Omnipotent, yet petty; cruel but not vicious; causing devastation yet helpful at times, you really couldn't help but love the bastard(s).
- Garak is one of the best examples in the entire franchise. He's always one step ahead of everyone. If someone miraculously gets the drop on him, he knows precisely what to do to turn the tide in his favor. He makes adapting on the fly look easy. He used to be one of Cardassia's most powerful and dangerous operatives so he has a wide variety of dirty tricks, specialist skills and valuable knowledge and connections to prove useful in almost any situation. A walking CMOA, he's responsible for one of the best examples of a Batman Gambit in the entire franchise and he's also one of the franchise's best Deadpan Snarkers (when told the story of The Boy who Cried Wolf for the first time as a lesson about his habitual lying, Garak suggests Bashir has the moral (never lie) wrong: to him, the moral actually is to never tell the same lie twice). As he once says, never underestimate his gift for survival.
- Another Magnificent Bastard is Gul Dukat. Even going so far as to turn himself into a Bajoran in order to corrupt their entire religion. And always expects people to be grateful to him. He was, however, often a victim of his own ego and hubris. He was also an unintentional example. He was a racist mass-murderer with clear and intentional allusions to Hitler, but was also very charismatic. The creators of the show were distressed by the fans liking of him, and wrote an episode that clearly portrayed him as this, and had him finally admit it. Many of his fans were unhappy about it.
- Seska from Voyager was a Cardassian spy surgically altered to look Bajoran. After she was busted, she wormed her way into power in a rabidly misogynist society and got them to steal Voyager. Some time after the ship was retaken and she was killed, it was discovered that she had edited a tactical training scenario to trap the author — Tuvok — in it and hunt him down and kill him — after toying with him for a while.
- Luther Sloan and by extension Section 31. They infect Odo with a genocidal disease, knowing full well he will one way or another return to the Great Link which will do their job for them. Sloan knows exactly what buttons to push with Doctor Bashir to get him to help plant a Federation mole in the upper echelons of the Romulan government. It really says something that Section 31 has been managing to defend the Federation for hundred of years, yet no one is really aware the organization even exists.
Of those I think Garak is a keep, he is not too evil, but not nice, technically on the good guy side, but more then willing to get ruthless and get his hands dirty.
Q is tricky, depending on the episode he can be very smart and insightful yet a bit sinister, in others he can be very childish. I do think he is charismatic and I think he is bad enough to be a bastard, but not too evil to discount himself. Though the other members of the Q Continuum would yank his leash sometimes and do things like take away his powers.
Seksa never impressed me, being one of the more competent Voyager villains is like being a big fish in a small pond, Seksa seems like a Smug Snake who is a cut above the usual incompetent villains Voyager faced.
Dukat misses the mark as well, he can very competent , but his hubris often exceeds his abilities and he is secretly plagued by crippling insecurities, which feed some of his less wise decisions. The fact he acted like mad man trying to destroy the universe by the last season of DS 9 works against him too.
Sloan, maybe, but I do wonder if he is too bureaucratic and lacks the personal charisma needed to count.
edited 6th May '18 7:13:03 PM by Overlord
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
For clarification, yes, a Magnificent Bastard must, in someway or another, be a bad guy.
@ Overlord, I'm not too familiar with Star Trek but I'll trust your judgement on those you advocate for cutting and for those you think should stay or are worth a shot, do you mind doing some effort posts?
@ crazysamaritan, *Sigh* Calm down, I'm not being inconsistent. I've said, many times now, they have to be bad in some way or another, again, I don't care about the narrative conflict, whether the work treats them on the side of good or evil, they have to be a Bastard aka have some bad to them. Really not sure what you're not getting here?
edited 6th May '18 7:20:11 PM by 43110
Shin Megami Tensei IV
It seems that almost all the examples are gonna be erased.
I guess it dont matter, Magnificent Bastard dont means Good villain per se.
Watch me destroying my country
NaNo 4328 / 50,000
Narrative conflict means The Antagonist versus The Protagonist. I wasn't asking about that.
You are insisting that these are Villains.
Link to TRS threads in project mode here.
How are we structuring effort posts for this thread?
edited 6th May '18 7:33:26 PM by Overlord
@ Overlord, Kinda like we did for CM: basically explain the work, list the character's actions, specifying any moments you think they show this trope, explain their personality and how it relates and you can compare to other characters if you want.
@ crazysamaritan, Not quite sure what you're accusing me of here. Narrative certainly does not just mean protagonist vs. antagonist and if you want the answer to whose side does the character have to be one, the answer is technically either but a component is that there is a Bastard element and they do need to show they have "villainous" qualities so to speak.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Oh, no trouble at all, it's going to be a little rough and tumble at the start, that's just the way it is. The way I would personally—I'm by no means infalliable—do it is as follows:
What's the work?
Who is the character? What have they done?
How do their actions show this trope?
How does their personality show this trope?
Don't worry about the cuts/ones you don't care about, just the one(s) you'd like to see on the trope.
edited 6th May '18 8:02:37 PM by 43110
Who do you want effort posted? Also of those characters, the ones I think should kept, the ones I think should be cut or the ones I am unsure of?
Garak is the character I would fight for the most, Q suffers from Depending on the Writer but is written that way in his best episodes and is kinda of a childish imp is his less then stellar episodes. I stand by cutting Seska and Dukat. Sloan I am indifferent about, some impressive feats, but kinda forgettable.
Also its good to set up effort post format here, maybe this:
Who is he? What has he done?
Is he charismatic enough?
Is he a bastard, but not too not too evil?
Final Verdict?
I do not mean to be pedantic, but since this thread new, we have set some rules and put some new formats in place.
edited 6th May '18 7:46:10 PM by Overlord
Regarding Code Geass, cut everyone. Speaking as someone who does not like the series, it runs on idiot plot and relies upon characters making increasingly stupid decisions in order to further one another's schemes. Lelouch and his enemies don't engage in a battle of wits, they engage in a contest to see who grabs the Idiot Ball last.
It's been a villain trope since it was launched in the first place. The posting of multiple entirely heroic characters to the page has been a major part of the Trope Decay associated with it, and purging those entries is entirely in line with cleaning up the subpages, most of which are bloated with nonexamples. This is a trope for villains and, at best, antiheroes.
The whole reason Guile Hero was even designed was as the heroic counterpoint to this trope and the others like it.
edited 6th May '18 8:23:38 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
Good question, how far into the villain camp does a character have to go to be considered for this?
I ask because I think Garak (one of the Star Trek characters I mentioned) is on the good guy's side generally, but seems more ruthless and willing to rely on underhanded tactics to achieve his goals then anyone else on the Deep Space 9 crew.
edited 6th May '18 8:28:58 PM by Overlord
I would say the testing point would be something like how bad does he get to fulfill his goals? If he's a pretty hardcore Well-Intentioned Extremist or Knight Templar who does really bad things to get something good done, he's probably a good contender. If he's always firmly on the heroes side but just takes some Pay Evil unto Evil acts while tagging along with them, I don't think he'd cut it.
As with CM and any other villain trope, context is going to matter as well. I don't really have any objections, for instance, to Eyeshield 21's Yoichi Hiruma being listed, for instance, because within the context of a comedic series about a football team, yeah, he makes the cut as he bullies, blackmails, and terrorizes students and staff alike into supporting the school football program.
edited 6th May '18 9:11:26 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar
I would say the former rather then the later, Garak is a ruthless pragmatist, where he will kill people to serve what he thinks is a greater goal. Garak comes from a society where the state is more important then any one individual and applies that logic to dealing with problems. I will say that any effort with Garak would be pretty involved, Garak is a major part in one of the more complex Star Trek shows out there, he appears in a lot of episodes and changes the course of the show a lot, despite not being a main character.
I think do not have effort post Dukat, because Deep Space 9 was going back and fourth on whether the audience was supposed to like him or not, until season 6. Dukat was a member of race of imperialistic aliens called the Cardasdians (Garak is also a Cardassian) who invade a nearby planet called Bajor to take their resources. Dukat was put in charge of Bajor, which involves some nasty stuff: acts of genocide, "comfort women" and the like. But Dukat considered himself a kind dictator who knew what was best Bajor and felt he was more kind then other Cardassians, ending child labor in the labor camps, improving medical care for the Bajorans and reducing their labor quotas. But he still had no problem with Cardassia occupying Bajor and stealing their resources. Anyway in the episode Waltz, Dukat is having a mental breakdown and rants like a mad man that he hates Bajorans and wished he had killed everyone on that planet. After that Dukat's charm seemed like something superfacial, a mask for a darker, hateful real personality. Dukat is not pure evil, he has awesome moments and even some sympathetic ones, but that moment cast him in way darker light.
Dukat is ultimately revealed to be a bigot, while Garak was more neutral to the Bajorans.
edited 6th May '18 9:14:11 PM by Overlord
For an example of a "heroic" MB in a serious work, I would suggest taking a look at Six of Crows' Kaz Brekker. To give an example, when Kaz's love interest, Inej, is kidnapped and threatened with torture, what does Kaz do? Kidnaps the kidnapper's pregnant wife and threatens to do unto her as he does unto Inej. As Inej tells the kidnapper, "You lay a finger on me and Kaz Brekker will cut the baby from your pretty wife's stomach and hang its body from a balcony at the exchange."
During the investigation of recent hollers in the Complete Monster thread, it's become apparent to the staff that an insular, unfriendly culture has evolved in the Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard threads that is causing problems.
Specific issues include:
It is not a super high level problem, but it has been going on for years and we cannot ignore it any longer. There will be a thread in Wiki Talk
to discuss the problem; in the meantime there is a moratorium on further Complete Monster and Magnificent Bastard example discussion until we have gotten this sorted out.
Update: The new threads have been made and can be found here:
Thread rules
When voting a troper must specify the effort post they're voting on and cannot merely vote on "Everything I missed" as in the past it has indicated the poster didn't read the effort post and is guessing instead of analyzing.
Resolved items
In general, a character listed on this trope is considered "settled". This means they should not be challenged unless information used to list them was incorrect or information was missed in the initial discussion.
However, when re-litigating a candidate, the same rules apply for when they were originally proposed. If they do not have five or more upvotes than downvotes for approval upon a re-litigation, including votes from the initial discussion if they do not change, then they are a cut.
This especially applies to the characters listed below, who have been discussed excessively and repeated attempts to get them listed/cut may result in punitive action for bogging down the thread.
Definitely an MB
Definitely not an MB
Edited by GastonRabbit on Aug 31st 2023 at 4:15:22 AM