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:
- 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
Adam straight up dissects a child, but a. he’s in a world with people like Angelus, who straight up eats them, and b. He himself is basically a child at that point and genuinely doesn’t realize he’s doing anything wrong yet
Alrighty, apologies for the double post, but after enough hemming and hawwing on my end, I'm finally buckling down and getting to that Green Arrow EP I keep mentioning. Yet another Pre-Crisis villain, this time the archer's very own Monster Clown.
Who is Bulls-Eye? What does he do?
Bulls-Eye was once Leapo, an acrobatic clown whose schtick was that he could dodge anything that anyone tried to hit or shoot him with - and now he's begun a life of crime. In his first appearance, he escapes prison and goes after the people that put him away, with the heroes being too late to stop him from tricking a bunch of rich people at a gun range from accidentally killing the DA who did it, but they eventually catch up to him and put him in prison. What follows is Bulls-Eye proving himself to be far smarter than his appearance and schtick would let on, making him a persistent thorn in the side of GA and Speedy for several more issues (this isn't all his appearances, just his most notable):
In his next appearance, Bulls-Eye breaks out of prison easily before beginning a crime spree that frames GA and Speedy for several crimes, such as robbing trucks, even managing to escape the heroes several times before ultimately being caught.
In yet another crime spree, Bulls-Eye steals a bunch of arrows from a bunch of places like museums - and then suddenly returns them to their places. As the heroes try to figure out what his endgame is, the arrows begin dispersing gas and exploding, creating distractions that he then uses to rob the places he stole the arrows from. The scheme goes perfectly for several heists, and he even manages to escape them again.
In his most ambitious and successful scheme across his run, Bulls-Eye steals from a police shooting competition by using the gunshots as a cover for his noise, easily escaping from the heroes when they discover him. The next day, he drops advertisements around town for free nylons at a certain clothing store, and when the store tries to claim that they didn't drop the signs, a riot breaks out. He uses the distraction once more to steal from another store, escaping once again when the heroes confront him. He later has his men shoot at a shooting gallery to cover up for a bank robbery, and when he later steals from a boat and the heroes track him there, he manages to fake his own drowning by breathing into a can and escapes once more.
In other appearances, he does things like trick GA and Speedy into believing that their aim is failing after he crashes their Arrowcar, begins robbing from places with an eye motif while distracting the police, robbing an opera using a real bull to catch the performers and audience off-guard, leaves a calling card in advance using a mirror yet gets away with a robbery, and in one heist where he's tricked into bringing GA on board, he still manages to begin an escape plan while dodging the arrows, even if he's eventually caught. It's inevitable that even when he gets caught, he always gets out by the next issue, ready to continue his crime spree and keep the heroes on their toes.
Is he Magnificent?
For a Pre-Crisis villain, a startling amount of his plans either end or begin with him escaping from the police and the heroes. Bulls-Eye is not just a persistent foe, he's also a very intelligent one, pulling off genius multi-faceted heists and even managing to stealthily leave his calling card so that no one notices until after the fact. He creates covers for his heists so the heroes are too busy, he can fake the dead long enough to get away from the heroes, frequently escapes from prison to keep going up against the heroes, adapts to mistakes and almost manages to get away in spite of them, and through it all gives the archers a run for their money in one-on-one fights, with him noting that GA has missed him dozens if not hundreds of times after their first few confrontations. The dude's awesome, is the main point.
Is he a Bastard? Too much?
In his first appearance, he tricks some innocent people into killing a DA and in another he kills some of his goons, but other than that it's just typical Pre-Crisis thievery. Nowhere near too bad.
Final verdict?
I think a yep - what about you?
Write up time
- The Otherworld:
- Jeremy Danvers is the Alpha of the North American Werewolf Pack. Rising from humble beginnings, Jeremy helps to create a system to weed out threats to his kind being discovered and helped either cover up the crimes of the werewolves or discipline them to avoid detection. Jeremy instigates a coup against his abusive father and later helps to catalogue and discover "Mutt werewolves" and their personal lives to better take them on. In order to instill a sense of fear in the Mutts against The Pack, Jeremy drugged a feral one and had his son Clayton mutilate him in order to make Clayton into the bogeyman of the pack. Jeremy also helps to bring werewolves back into the greater magical community and create alliances that will help his people for decades to come. Taking Elena Michaels under his wing, Jeremy helps to groom her as his successor as Pack leader and steps down gracefully to her when the time comes for retirement.
- Aratron is a calm, cunning Eudemon (Order demon) who strives to bring progress and order to the world. At one point, Aratraon spread deadly plagues so as to hasten humanity's progress and scientific discoveries in response to them. Discovering the rise of the monstrous Gilles de Rais, Aratron subtly helps the heroes to stop his threat. Aratron takes advantage of a slip of the tongue by Savannah Levine to take her powers away in order to better train her now that she doesn't have them to go against Gilles. Aratron helps to co-ordinate attacks on the various members of Gilles's organization. Taking advantage of the death of one of Gilles's partners, Aratron suggests replacing him with a shapeshifter to be able to infiltrate his base and uses this to help the heroes right the balance and defeat Gilles for good.
Order is Jeremy > Karl > Benecio > Aratron.
Jeremy and Karl appear in book one. Benecio in book four Industrial Magic and Aratron first appears in book five Haunted.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."Yes to "respect the hyphen" Bullseye!
Honestly good to list to Hans on the page there, I think using him as a good example of how rare and hard to pull off crossovers are is worth noting. I don't think by any means it would necessarily be an "encouragement" to try to get crossovers up any more than someone would feel "encouraged" by the page to get up another MB archetype, and if anyone is gonna represent a crossover it should be Hans, by my vote.
I'll have some Batman ones coming up myself to buff his tree out, actually, so that'll be fun! Gonna also have an ASOIAF candidate of my own soon thanks to 43, but reeeeaaaal quick lemme knock out two that have been on my mental to-do for a time:
What's the work?
The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius was an early-mid 2000s Nicktoon that spunoff from the film of the (almost) same name.
It was, to put it simply, the scientific counterpart to The Fairly OddParents!' magic. Jimmy Neutron is Retroville's resident boy genius, capable of creating amazing, ridiculous inventions on the fly, but unfortunately, poor planning and ego trips often result in his experiments going awry, resulting in him having to work with his zany cast of friends—from skittish nerd Carl, to hyperactive dumbass Sheen, to Tsundere Cindy—to solve the problems that either Jimmy unintentionally creates, or that are brought about by outside enemies seeking villainous purposes.
I've got us two candidates from the show, each one that fulfills one of the above criteria! For the "problem created by Jimmy himself" slot, we have...
Who is Evil Jimmy? What makes him a candidate?
When Jimmy wants to get out of chores and social interactions in the episode "Send in the Clones", he does exactly what the title suggests: creates a group of clones of himself to fulfill his daily responsibilities so he can goof off. Due to the functions of the cloning tech, however, each clone embodies a certain aspect of Jimmy's personality. From an overly gleeful, flamboyant Jimmy, to a perpetually sad downer one, to a shades-rocking cool hipster, many Jimmys are born...most notably, Evil Jimmy.
A delightfully dickish clone who embodies the ego and negative traits of Jimmy, Evil Jimmy immediately shirks his "chore list" to instead pull pranks on the citizens of Retroville, such as throwing a pie in the face of a passerby or swapping the boys-and-girls signs on a public bathroom so some poor schmuck wanders into the ladies' room and scares an old lady into fleeing
Found causing mischief by Jimmy and the rest of the clones who intend to capture him, Evil Jimmy quickly disguises himself as the real Jimmy (by which I mean, he changes his hairstyle since that's the only difference between them lmao) and tricks the clones sufficiently enough to distract the real Jimmy. As Jimmy flash freezes all of the clones and believes he's fixed the problem, Evil Jimmy reveals he avoided the freeze attack and stole Jimmy's jetpack, fleeing from Retroville after pieing the viewer.
Returning in "The Trouble With Clones", Evil Jimmy is up to his old, petty tricks, hacking a satellite in space...just so he can prank call people with Bart Simpson levels of jokes, phoning up the UN to ask to speak to "Ambassador ShakeMahBooty, first name Iwanna" and cackling at the results. Tracked down by the real Jimmy—who hasn't learned his lesson from last time and wants to de-evil his clone to use him for timesaving social interaction—Evil Jimmy at first uses his own evil tech to evade his counterpart, but is ultimately captured.
Preying on Jimmy's ego to show off his experiments long enough for Evil Jimmy to tamper with the de-evilfier machine behind his back, Evil Jimmy pretends to have been cured after the faulty machine is used on him, in truth swiping Jimmy's Hypno-Ray and using it around town to pull more pranks, such as brainwashing Carl and Sheen into girl band backup singer-dancers or making Jimmy's dad believe he's a plant. Using this chaos to lure Jimmy out of his lab, Evil Jimmy infiltrates it, captures Jimmy's robot dog Goddard, and swipes Jimmy's duplicator camera after tampering with Jimmy's rocket so he can't pursue.
Flying out into space, Evil Jimmy implants a dark matter universe chip into the duplicator camera and takes a picture of Earth, creating an exact replica of the planet...but eeeeeeevil. And as with all things the camera duplicates, the original copy begins fading from existence, prompting Jimmy to travel to evil Earth to reverse the camera's effects before the real Earth is destroyed.
Though trying to fool the evil clones of his classmates and parents by acting like Evil Jimmy, the real Jimmy is captured by the evil clones, who were informed ahead of time by Evil Jimmy to have their eyes out for him. Evil Jimmy gleefully kicks back to watch Earth be destroyed with Jimmy captured, but Jimmy manages to break free and pull an Uno Reverse card on his clone: he disguises himself as Evil Jimmy long enough to fool the evil clone of Goddard into attacking Evil Jimmy, giving real Jimmy the time to stop the effects of the camera and save Earth.
Refusing to admit defeat, Evil Jimmy destroys the dark matter chip, which creates a vortex that sucks all of evil Earth into the dark matter dimension so it can continue existing, Evil Jimmy hoping to drag real Jimmy inside with him. And though Jimmy escapes as evil Earth vanishes into the dark matter dimension, Jimmy believing the day is saved for good, Evil Jimmy happily promises to one day find a way to return to Jimmy's dimension and destroy his rival for good.
Is he magnificent?
He's a big ol' Jerkass, but it's done a very goofy, kid-friendly, Faux Affably Evil parodic way where it's meant to be hilarious. He kicks squirrels and knocks trash cans over for fun, throws a pie in the face of a man who then compliments him for pulling off a "classic" prank, he's constantly calling Jimmy silly insults with the biggest shit-eating grin...Rob Paulsen is going full ham and it's great. He's one of the only villains in the whole show to escape sort of karmic defeat, instead sucking the evil Earth into the dark matter dimension to avoid permanent defeat, promising to return, and all after very nearly beating Jimmy.
Is he a bastard?
Yee, he starts out as a mildly-harmful prankster but graduates to nearly wiping out all of Earth just so he can have an evil copy of Earth...but naturally, heavy humor is put in throughout the episodes so nothing Evil Jimmy is up to is all that bad, even for the show itself where plenty other villains threaten similar schemes. Even the "evil Earth" manifests in hilariously petty ways, like people finding "thank you" to be a swear or literally getting pissed at Jimmy for saving a baby from a car wreck lol
Final Verdict?
Yep!
Edited by Ravok on Mar 21st 2022 at 10:29:39 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Yes to Evil Jimmy. Sounds like a rare crossover between this and Evil Is Petty.
Sidenote: I find it hilarious how the wiki calls him “without a doubt, the most evil villain to come out of the franchise.”
I wondered if there was an appearance I missed, but no, I saw both of them!
to Evil Jimmy! I love that part in the episode where Hugh's floating seamlessly no longer having a backache and then gets dropped HARD so as to bring his backache back!
I have a guess about who the other is if it's also a Jimmy Neutron one.
Edited by futuremoviewriter on Mar 21st 2022 at 10:43:13 AM
Alright, dropping rap candidates I'm fairly unsure about, but here goes!
Shout-Out to Le Règlement and his analysis
for helping me there!
What's the work?
"Freeze Raël
" (listen to the track with the translated lyrics here
) is the first song of French rapper Freeze Corleone's debut album LMF, released in September 11, 2020. French rap was pretty much traumatized by this track (and the whole ass-album, it's that good), and it shows in both critical and commercial success : you just have to look at the first two reviews on Senscritique.com
to see what people think about it, it's considered one of the best 2020 French rap songs and landed a spot on Spotify's Top 200 chart (154)
as soon as it came out. Produced by Flem, the track is full of punchlines, references and crazy lyricism.
But this isn't on the – admittedly incredible – song we're going to focus on, but on it's equally beautiful animated music video. Directed by Nada Frikha and released in July 3, 2021, it stars Freeze and his fellow rappers and 667 collective members Osirus Jack and Zuukou Mayzie in a short Animesque movie whose plot wouldn't be out of place in the likes of Cowboy Bebop or Mission Impossible.
Who are Freeze Corleone, Osirus Jack and Zuukou Mayzie? What have they done?
Freeze, Osirus and Zuukou's objective is to steal some secret documents from a large building similar to the Société Générale's in Lyon before blowing it up with a time bomb stuffed inside a Gobbly doll.
Freeze is the one who will infiltrate the building, Osirus is the Mission Control who assists his friends from afar by hacking into the building, and Zuukou is one of the building's guards who's actually secretly on Freeze and Osirus's side.
Freeze sneaks inside the building, though when he comes across three guards, Osirus shuts down the building's lights, allowing Freeze to sneak away from them and go further.
When the guards manage to catch up to Freeze nonetheless and engage him in a gunfight, Freeze stalemates them before taking up the stairs to evade them.
He ends up in front of three other guards, but Zuukou is one of them. The latter promptly knocks out a guard and engage the other one but is at a disadvantage. Despite that, he manages to toss his card to Freeze who uses it to enter the office where the documents are stored.
While Freeze put the bomb inside the office and successfully stole the documents, things unexpectedly go when Osiris wants to temporarily interrupt their time bomb's timer because, well, while Freeze is ready to escape with his parachute, Zuukou is still in the building, and the guard has the utter advantage over him. When the timer doesn't stops ticking for some reason, Osirus has no choice but to tell Freeze to GTFO, with the latter jumping off a window and using his parachute as the building explodes, most likely killing Zuukou.
Furthermore, guards managed to track down Osirus and seem ready to arrest him and his team, though the situation is ambiguous.
Freeze, however, is still at large, and sent the documents to Osirus, though it ends on an ambiguous note, as it's unclear if the guards arrested or killed Osirus and his team, and if Osirus was still around to receive the documents.
Are they charming? Intelligent?
You know, few people would stuff bombs inside a Gobbly doll. More seriously though, yeah, they got the charm and intelligence down, with the music video starting with them just chilling around some food and drugs as they prepare a well-elaborated plan to infiltrate the building, steal the documents and blow it up. They're in different positions but work towards the same goal and it's their teamwork that helps them go so far despite their target having much more resources than them.
Now, when the timer malfunctions, preventing Osirus from deactivating it, Osirus and his team are clearly horrified and somewhat despaired. But given that their friend was still inside the building they planned to blow up, I won't hold it much against them as I'd have if it was just about their plan going off-rails.
Thinking on their feet?
When Freeze comes across a trio of guards, Osirus shuts down the building's lights to allow Freeze to sneak past them. When Zuukou is overwhelmed by the remaining guard, he tosses his access card to Freeze to allow him to enter the office.
What about the competition?
The guards aren't just mooks there. Each one of them is a threat and by the time the song ends, they managed to catch up to Osirus.
Are they bastards?
My main concern. They're out to steal secret documents stored inside a large building and planned to blow it up and it's unclear what has the building's occupants and owners done to earn their ire. Though it's implied they're some powerful people.
Too much of bastards?
Clearly look out for each other and their friends. Zuukou's death in the building clearly affected Osirus.
Any other mitigating factors?
Nah.
Verdict ?
Leaning no, but up to you guys.
Preemptive write-up
- Freeze Corleone's "Freeze Raël
" music video
from LMF: Freeze Corleone, Osirus Jack and Zuukou Mayzie's objective is to steal secret documents from a building before blowing it up, with Freeze being the one who infiltrates the building, Osirus helping him from afar by hacking into the building and Zuukou working as a guard of the building. Infiltrating the building, Freeze initially manages to sneak away from the guards thanks to Osirus shutting down the lights. When Freeze comes across another trio of guards, Zuukou reveals himself as one of them, knocking out one of his colleagues and fighting and distracting the other while tossing his access card to Freeze, allowing him to enter the office where the documents are stored. Successfully stealing the documents and putting a Gobbly bomb inside of the office, Freeze jumps off the window to escape the building when it explodes prematurely and implicitly kills Zuukou. While Osirus's situation is unclear as guards managed to track him down, Freeze is still at large with the documents, sending them to Osirus.
Edited by GeorgieEnkoom on Mar 21st 2022 at 8:08:50 PM
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)
to Bulls-Eye. He sounds even more enjoyable than the Marvel character with the same name. While you didn't mention how much charming dialogue and affability he has along with his cleverness, I can overlook that based on the Hans Gruber discussion this thread just had.
to Evil Jimmy. I don't remember seeing that episode and feel all the poorer for it.
What's your specific concern there Georgie? How many people are in the building? You mentioned a reference to possibly "powerful" people, are they villainous? In that case it just sounds like Anti-Hero or thieving Villain Protagonist stuff, I don't think that's too bad at all unless they're blowing up a building with civilians inside and that's not the sense I'm getting.
Aside from the guards, Freeze and Zuukou, no other people are seen in the building, as it was infiltrated at night.
It's unclear if the building's owners are even villainous to begin with. They're The Ghost.
I'm primarily worried if the ambiguity works for or against the trio's bastard points.
Edited by GeorgieEnkoom on Mar 21st 2022 at 7:10:56 PM
J’m’arrête pas tant qu’j’vois pas des lignes sur les moniteurs (Not stoppin 'til I see Flatlines)
Yeah, much like Dark Danny, being Made of Evil makes it more palatable that he's joyful about being evil.

Hurting kids is also a case-by-case basis. If the MB is purely pragmatic and unbiased in targeting kids, especially if they go up against a Kid Hero, then that's okay. But if they are some creepy ass psycho who gets off from murdering innocent children, that's a different story.