Magnificent Bastard Cleanup

Fallen Hero is a big part of the character but, irrefutably, General Ripper is more important for him. His entire character is based around kickstarting a war just like the trope namer did, so I think that trope works better for his name.

Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Jan 12th 2023 at 7:55:22 AM

Since his older incarnation was mentioned and no one had Modern Warfare 2022 reserved, do we want to quickly discuss the remake version of Shepard?

It's been 2 weeks since the end of season 1 of Star Trek: Prodigy.

The main villain of the second part of the season, Vindicator is pretty smart and charismatic and has somewhat sympathetic motives. She is a member of the Vau N'Akat, an alien race that is mostly destroyed in a civil war after making first contact with the Federation and travels back through time to prevent that from happening. Vindicator almost wins, infecting several Star Fleet vessels with a computer virus so they destroy themselves.

Her big problem is bigotry, with the Vau N'Akat society being very xenophobic. She calls Gwyn a mistake and not really Vau N'Akat because she is a clone.

The previous main villain, the Diviner, manages to redeem himself, dying after saving his '' daughter'' Gwyn from the Vindicator, but he enslaved children, so he doesn't count.

General Ripper works for me and sure there Lore!

Oi mate, I heard Hate Sink is a disqualifier for MB, right? Well if that's the case, imma put some fuel to the fire to Makima's entry, not sure if she was already controversial to begin with, but someone add that example to her character page.

I mean, anyone can add any example to any character page, that doesn't mean it's valid

This will be quick. The new General Shepard is kind of a short sighted moron that makes enough mistakes to easily lead to his disgrace and downfall. Just look at these on his character page.

• Didn't Think This Through: Never mind the ways the missile shipment was poorly thought out under his command, but he failed to properly eliminate the paper trail that contained very damning evidence, as opposed to redacting the intel that Kate Laswell was able to recover, decipher and could use it against him.

• Gone Horribly Wrong: "Donated" American-built cruise missiles to anti-Russian forces in the Middle East with Shadow Company as the off-the-books go between, only for those missiles to be hijacked by Russian paramilitaries (heavily implied to be led by Vladimir Makarov) and sold to an Iranian extremist group led by Major Hassan, who smuggled them into the United States with intent to attack Washington DC.

• Tempting Fate: The general will not let red tape hold him back, claiming no one fixes him. By the time he said that, Laswell has already recovered the evidence needed to end his military career for good.

• Too Dumb to Live: By refusing to cooperate with Price's negotiations and wanting to keep everything covered up, as well as allowing Graves to continue "chasing his bone", he potentially puts Washington D.C. in massive jeopardy because Shadow Company had stopped interrogating Valeria on the location of Hassan and the third missile which was deep within Chicago, aimed straight at the Pentagon. Regardless of whether or not he would have been at the epicenter of the strike he allowed to happen, the sheer hubris to allow things to spiral out of control this bad to cover his own ass rather than admit to his fuck-ups single-handedly tanks his entire career.

And here I was thinking we'd get something to talk about on the reopen thread RIP Remake Shep!

Re: Makima, She was indeed controversial but Riley gave us a very thorough EP and I recall the fandom's divide on her was addressed. As STAR said, those can be added by anyone.

Edited by 43110 on Jan 12th 2023 at 10:27:14 AM

Oh boy, Makima... so yeah, this is a fun one...

Yeah, Makima's not a Hate Sink. Not one bit. She's treated by Pochita and the narrative as something of a tragic figure, gets one major humanizing moment (Genuinely crying at the romantic scene in the movie), is a Well-Intentioned Extremist (Albeit one with petty and egotistical moments) and also... there is way, way too much Evil Is Cool at work there— she's a cunning mastermind— and a Graceful Loser— who's even arranging a Xanatos Gambit that involves her own defeat as a win condition.

Opinions on her are divided but she hits the objective criteria for Magnificent Bastard and a Hate Sink she is certainly not.

Ah cool. Thanks for the explanation.

Cheers and I'm a hard keep.

Alright I may have a cut but not due to the character herself but for how our rules are with different routes. Said character is Astrid.

Now she qualifies fully in the dark brotherhood route, even with her massive fuck up, I think she pulls it back enough with her Face Death with Dignity. The issue is that's not the only route you can take with the dark brotherhood. In the "pick one of the 3 victims to murder" test Astrid gives you, you can just straight up kill her and then go to wipe the brotherhood out like that. You can't do that to any other faction MB, the worst being that you just never start the quest.

When I EP'd Tulius, he was downvoted for not doing much and just being there to kill within the Stormcloaks path compared to the Imperials, hence why I'm waiting for ES 6 to confirm which side of the war won before I draft out E Ps for the 2 leaders on either side.

Does Elder Scroll game's typically take the path of "completing" the storyline the canon one? If ES 6 confirms the emperor was assassinated I'd wouldn't mind at all Astrid being reinstated but since there's two routes with the dark brotherhood, one which they all get wiped out by the player for 3,000 gold, I'm not sure what to do with her.

Thoughts?

I always felt that was fine, as it's implied she knew perfectly well that was an outcome. She specifically says you can't leave "until someone in this room dies" and if you kill her she says, "Well...done." She sees you as a Worthy Opponent in that instance and seems content to fall to a superior killer.

My issue with Tullius the first time around is that he offers no resistance on a Stormcloak path, but honestly, after thinking it over, I'd be willing to hear him out again as I think that might have been too harsh a reason to say no. After all, we upvoted a ton of Mass Effect party members that can get offed early on.

Edited by LoreDeluxe on Jan 12th 2023 at 8:52:56 AM

It's not like Tulius did fuck all in the Stormcloak path as you find soldiers he's sent to find the Jagged crown and he at least goes Defiant to the End.

I wouldn't mind trying the Civil War guys again if people are comfortable with it.

I'd be down for Tullius but I do think Ulfric is too racist, to the point where it's called out repeatedly in-universe.

Edited by LoreDeluxe on Jan 12th 2023 at 9:38:00 AM

I would think the Fantastic Racism would be an issue but Ulfric himself doesn't object if you join him when you're a different race to Nord? No snide comments or anything.

In Windhelm alone, he banishes the Argonians to the docks and doesn't let them live in the city walls, and forces the Dark Elves to live in slums and purposely ignores that many of his Nord citizens are abusive and violent towards them.

The most damning thing to me is that Brunwulf Freewinter will give you a quest to slay a bandit leader that has been specifically targeting non-Nords since Ulfric will only send his guards after bandits that hit Nord targets. He specifically says, "Whenever a group of marauders attack a Nord village, Ulfric is the first to sound the horn and send the men. But a group of Dark Elf refugees gets ambushed? A group of Argonians, or a Khajiit caravan? No troops. No investigation. Nothing. There's a group of cutthroats out there right now that Ulfric doesn't lift a finger to bring to justice, as long as they don't threaten Nord land."

It's honestly rather disgusting and when I as a player solidly chose the Empire side.

Edited by LoreDeluxe on Jan 12th 2023 at 9:55:54 AM

Hmm I've got no rebuttal to that, what about Galmar? I don't recall any from him?

Galmar is far more palatable since he lacks the racism aspect and seems to be the Genius Bruiser responsible for all of Ulfric's actual military victories. The worst he actually gets is calling an Argonian player a "lizard" and a Khajiit player a "cat" when asking why they want to join. That's a minor enough thing that I'm willing to brush off.

Conversely, Galmar has some Social Darwinist Blood Knight tendencies that help his bastard credentials, but I will also say in advance that I don't think his counterpart Rikke does anything particularly bad to be called as such.

Edited by LoreDeluxe on Jan 12th 2023 at 10:20:00 AM

Hmm I may tackle Galmar then if folks are alright with it since Rikke notes in the imperial questline that Galmar is the one behind Stormcloaks discovering the Jagged Crown's tomb so he's not completely offscreen on that side.

Well, in the middle of this discussion, I've got some news - I got lucky enough to see Hadestown on Broadway! The bad news is that Hades has got to go. The EP for reference.

Now, I'll agree that Hades is Magnificent as fuck, he's definitely got the charming aspect down, and for all his villainy, a large amount of it is essentially a desperate bid to please his wife, so he's got sympathy to him as well. The issue, and the thing the EP doesn't really delve into? Hades' workforce is made of slaves. Now the show doesn't outright call them that, but it goes as far as it possibly can to make it clear without outright saying it - it's built into the text that the workers are brought in to work until they either die or completely lose their memories and sense of identity, he specifically targets people who are lost/hungry/don't have anywhere else to go, the workers refuse to talk to each other out of fear for their lives, the entirety of "Why We Build The Wall" is designed to paint him as a horrific fascist who keeps his workers in line with circular logic, etc. Even if you don't want to outright call them slaves, the undertones are there from the minute he shows up and even without them, objectively what he does to the workers is far too evil to keep him here - all of that is without mentioning the implication that Hades has sex with Eurydice, which (while the implications are admittedly pretty light) is eight different kinds of disgusting given the circumstance.

Now, because this is Theatre, there may be questions of "is this just for this one production", and obviously I can't speak to any production except for the one I saw - but this is a folk opera, meaning that it's essentially all music, and everything that I mentioned is specifically built into the lyrics of the music, not just the onstage visuals. Basically, productions might change their staging and such, but they wouldn't be changing the text, and the text is what takes him out, so I don't think we can use the varying nature of live theatre to save him here.

On the other hand, there's one thing that could save him (or at least another version of him) - Hadestown notoriously went through a lot of edits to get to the show that ended up on Broadway, and I haven't listened to/seen all those versions, so an earlier version of him might have those crimes downplayed enough to have him count - but, I'm gonna be honest, given the anti-capitalist themes of the musical that Hades embodies in the first place, I would genuinely be surprised if that were the case. Nevertheless, I'm gonna ping in ~lalalei2001 to see if she knows anything about any of the earlier versions of the show that could have Hades keep - but as it is, I think Hades's entry as it currently stands needs to go.

What do you think?

Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Jan 12th 2023 at 1:28:32 PM

Rikke being one of the heads in the war which is a grey vs grey scenario leans her over for me. And she flat out says to you that if you fail to wipe out the bandits she tasks you to that your corpse won't be much use to the cause.

Hmm not sure what to think of Hades.

Edited by WetFlannels on Jan 12th 2023 at 6:35:15 PM

I will give a tentative cut for Hades now, but I would like some info on other potential versions.

Right now I want to go over some of the candidates who I don't think count from Puss in Boots: The Last Wish. First off I'm giving a very strong no to Jack Horner. While he's hilarious, he's a horrible Bad Boss, and the work plays him as completely petty dick who revels in his villainy. There's just enough seriousness to his actions that he's just too much of a dick/bastard for me to say he lands.

One of the other major antagonists, the Wolf is the one I've struggled with the most. The Wolf is undoubtedly Evil Is Cool, probably one of my favorite villains ever (certainly in my top five), having an absolutely badass design, really intimidating Knight of Cerebus presence and feats, and secretly being Death who has come to punish Puss for his arrogance and cavalierness towards his last eight lives. The Charm and Bastardry are definitely there, and he certainly isn't too bad. He has a little rant in Spanish at the end, but he quickly recovers and leaves with dignity. While his character page lists Fantastic Racism, I see that far more as he's Death and he just doesn't like the idea of nine-lives, he does not have problems with cats personally.

What really does him in is cunning. He is a great fighter but not in real tactical sense, and while he does keep tracking Puss, I always viewed that as him being Death with his supernatural powers and knowing where Puss was at all times and getting a sadistic thrill from tormenting Puss with his sudden appearances. This is given weight from him telling Puss "I was there for your eight deaths" (paraphrasing). There's even a brief Freeze-Frame Bonus of him watching Puss in the beginning of the movie shortly before his eighth death. His final rant in Spanish also lends credence to this. It translates to "Why the hell did I play with my food?" So I didn't really see that as tracking him, but showing up and scaring him. It feels like a case of a villain being far ahead of another character in terms of resources. Like I said one of my favorite villains ever, but I just don't think it's there.

...Now that I think about, there was an image meant to be placed in MagnificentBastard.Naruto. What happened to it?

Cut Hades, but open to earlier versions possibly going up