Magnificent Bastard Cleanup

Vvoting to keep Kuriva as well FWIW.

I must admit the putting people who weren't of Earth Kingdom descent into camps did give me pause when I first watched the show, but I don't think the show really delves into it enough for it to be disqualifying, so I'll say a slight keep for Kuvira. The stuff I've heard about from the comics also gives me confidence.

Edited by Amanofmanyinterests on Apr 26th 2023 at 3:51:58 AM

Yello. Just wanted to mention some stuff I noticed;

For the movie Catch Me If You Can's YMMV page (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/YMMV/CatchMeIfYouCan ), Frank Abagnale is listed as a Magnificent Bastard, but I don't think he quite matches the trope. A very near miss, but Frank implodes when too much pressure is put on him not once but twice, firstly on his engagement party when he is forced to leave his fiance to escape Carl (his dialogue to her is very panicked), and secondly in one of the final scenes where Carl manages to corner and outsmart him in France, and he does get tricked by Carl into turning himself in here (admittedly it's not really his fault, and he showcases a moment of Graceful Loser by laughing about it afterwards). That said, maybe I'm judging him too harshly, since I'm not 100% sure if either of those instances truly disqualify. Also, he does have a case of being a Woobie (according to the same YMMV page) but again, that's not inherently a disqualifier.

For Berserk the manga/anime, there is an entire subpage (? sorry idk the proper terminology) for Magnificent Bastards within (https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/MagnificentBastard/Berserk ), which I believe none of which (except maybe Skull Knight? possibly) truly fit. Guts at his heart is driven by revenge (not a higher vision), doesn't really have many strategic or tactical plans let alone victories (he gets pretty easily outsmarted by Femto in the Conviction Arc) as his main MO is to rip and tear, and has a lot of undignified moments (like his almost-rape of Casca, his Trigger Temper, and pretty much any scene where he gives in to the Berserker Armor). Zodd I just think doesn't fit cause he's not much of a planner. He's undeniably badass, but not necessarily charming, I guess is what I'm trying to say.

Feel free to tell me why I'm entirely wrong lol, thanks for reading.

Edited by themiband on Apr 27th 2023 at 3:15:03 PM

I uh honestly think Abagnale is totally good. Right after this he pretty calmly takes his defeat and he even becomes friends and with Carl (turning a new leaf).

The above isn't too bad when you remember it's not his story ends.

Yeah, keep in mind Frank when he starts out is only 17 and while scared to death and strongly avoiding the ugly truth of his parents' marriage ending, he still carries himself in a manner that's completely and utterly neat and brilliant otherwise. He doesn't let his denial show and both that and his fear don't ruin his success in the end. to keeping of course.

Can’t speak for Guts as I haven’t read the manga—I think there’s a demon evil split personality thing driving him to his worst acts? But guys like Zodd have magnificence through the intelligence of their fighting/honor. Having a higher vision/endgame goal hasn’t been a requirement for a while now, we just haven’t updated the main page to reflect that yet.

Anyway, I have a concern about a Scooby-Doo character (EP)

• "The Beast is Awake in Bottomless Lake": Julie is the leader of a gang behind a million-dollar Canadian gold robbery. She assumes the Beast of Bottomless Lake disguise to cover her actions of blowing an underwater tunnel between a Canadian lake and American river to send the gold past the border guards. She begins her "Scooby-Doo" Hoax the same day as the gold robbery and scares away almost everyone in town within three weeks. When she runs into the gang while getting supplies at the abandoned general store, she claims to be the daughter of the owners', back in town to retrieve a cat she left behind during her panicked earlier flight and fools everyone but Velma. After being captured and exposed, she shows neither fear nor anger at her fate.

Watching the episode myself, she's... kind of just a standard Scooby-Doo villain. The plan's good, I guess, but there's nothing particularly standout or charismatic about it—monster terrorizes town for a bit, sees a modicum of success, and then the gang stops by to foil everything within a few days. Her civilian disguise is pretty meh—the ep says only Velma sees through it, but she's just the only one shown reacting to it. The scene then quicky changes and the wrap-up explanation at the end of the episode treats it as if everyone except Scooby and Shaggy figured it out. Even the Graceful Loser thing, which would at least help with charisma, feels like a stretch: she and her cronies just stand static in the background while the gang do their usual explanation to the authorities. It seems less like she accepts her fate and more like, again, they didn't have enough time/budget to animate her reacting in any way.

Maybe I'm just being picky—again, it's a good plan. Nothing offensively wrong about it. But when the franchise has new schemers introduced every single episode, this just feels... average.

The other one from this series, the Ghostly Gondolier, I'm fine with: he's only caught by a stroke of luck; is otherwise always a step ahead; and, while he still seems to fall victim to being a voiceless background character due to a lack of animation budget, he willingly shows off one of his tricks, which is enough for me to say he really is a Graceful Loser.

Edited by EmeraldEmperor on Apr 27th 2023 at 11:18:07 AM

Yes, the Black Beast.

Edited by Mr-ex777 on Apr 28th 2023 at 12:21:16 AM

With Franchise.Cyberpunk now a thing I was thinking we should rework the description of the MagnificentBastard.Cyberpunk from this:

Night City is said to be a place of endless opportunities, as seen in both the tabletop and video game, but the vast majority either end as wage slaves for the corporations or corpses to be looted by the many gangs. However, those with sharp minds, powerful personalities, and a willingness to cast aside their morals can earn untold wealth and power.

To this:

Night City is said to be a place of endless opportunities, as seen in both the tabletop and video game, but the vast majority either end as wage slaves for the corporations or corpses to be looted by the many gangs. However, those with sharp minds, powerful personalities, and a willingness to cast aside their morals can earn untold wealth and power.

Just changing one pothole from Wretched Hive to the franchise page. Or this:

Night City is said to be a place of endless opportunities, but the vast majority either end as wage slaves for the corporations or corpses to be looted by the many gangs. However, those with sharp minds, powerful personalities, and a willingness to cast aside their morals can earn untold wealth and power.

Thoughts?

Being familiar with Catch Me If You Can and Berserk I'm quite supportive of Frank and Guts, as well as the other keepers in the latter work. Frank plays a good game, an MB doesn't have to be perfect and he does as you said go out on a Graceful Loser note; Guts is a tactical mastermind, willing to use civilians in his plots to lure out apostles and the others listed, for the most part, are "tactical" Chessmasters like him, even if they're not the typical, Finger-Tenting schemer of archetype.

Now Julie I'm a bit more worried over. When we were going through the Dukes stuff, an issue wound up being how generic so many were made thanks to the massive number of plotters.

Edited by 43110 on Apr 27th 2023 at 6:27:36 AM

Already gave her a downvote then, keeping to it here, didn't feel especially impressive.

Keep Frank. Cut Julie.

Any opinions on my above suggestion?

Edited by Bullman on Apr 27th 2023 at 6:22:44 AM

Keep Frank, cut Julie, I'll take other people's word on Berserk

That's fine Bull.

Cool. Changed in the sandbox and swap is requested.

Cut Julie, I like the suggestion Bull.

Have no knowledge of Berserk apart from people thinking Griffith is a tragic character for some reason so I'll trust the judgement of the others.

Cut Julie.

Cut Julie and keep the Berserk candidates

Would the Spider-Man Trilogy and Amazing Spider-Man entries go in the same tree? If so, they'd probably be like this:

• Spider-Man films:
  • Spider-Man 2: Dr. Otto Octavius is a brilliant, charming scientist defined by tragedy and obsession. An inspiration to young scientists with his work on nuclear fusion, Octavius' life is turned upside down when one of his experiments fails, leading to the death of his beloved wife Rosie and the fusing of his robotic, AI-controlled arms to his spine. Tempted by his arms into embracing his ego and desire to see the fusion experiment replicated, Octavius becomes "Doctor Octopus", supervillain extraordinaire, and pulls off a successful bank heist by using hostages to throw the police and Spider-Man off his tail. Needing more tritium to complete his experiment, Octavius strikes a deal with Harry Osborn for tritium in exchange for Spider-Man, who Octavius captures by kidnapping Mary Jane Watson to lure him out, then sabotaging a train so as to force Spider-Man to weaken himself saving the passengers. Octavius ultimately succeeds in his new fusion experiment, however realizes it's not worth it for the human lives it will cost, and works with Spider-Man to destroy the machine forever, sacrificing himself in the process with his final words being a refusal to die as a monster.
  • The Amazing Spider-Man Series: "Fiers" is a mysterious man always obscured by shadows, who demonstrates an uncanny ability to get into highly secure locations, like prisons. He is heavily implied to have had a hand in many of events throughout the storyline, including the disappearance of Peter Parker's parents. Later revealed to be acquainted of Harry Osborn, with Fiers helping him to assemble a team to get revenge on Spider-Man, with their first candidate being mobster Aleksei Sytsevich. Fiers orchestrates Sytsevich's escape from prison, then grants him a rhino-shaped exo-suit he acquired from Oscorp, allowing Sytsevich to rampage across New York.

I know both Prowler from Into the Spider-Verse and Morbius—from Morbius—wouldn't be the same tree because despite each being Sony's Spider-Verse, one's animated and the other live action. Marvel and DC films each have enough for their own pages? There's like seven in the DCEU alone—and five among all eight of the live action Batman movies (Burton, Schumacher, Nolan, Reeves), right?

Seven in the Batman movies if you include both the Phantasm and Lego Joker too.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 28th 2023 at 10:52:59 AM

We wouldn't include the animated movies in a page with live action anyways they go on MagnificentBastard.DC Animation I'm neutral on a Marvel or DC Films page. I think DC series make more sense.

I see no reason to make a Spiderman films tree anymore then I do ones for Batman films.

Regarding GLaDOS' entry on YMMV.Portal 1: I feel like it should either not include the details from Portal 2, not be on the page at all (with the series-wide YMMV.Portal holding the example), or alternatively, have some things uncovered by spoiler tags to make it more immediately obvious that what's under them is from the sequel. Perhaps like this:

• Magnificent Bitch: GLaDOS is computer created by Cave Johnson to run Aperture Science after his death. Once activated, GLaDOS proceeded to kill most of the scientists with neurotoxin and took over the Enrichment Center to conduct tests at her own leisure. In the present, GLaDOS put Chell through a series of potential lethal tests before trying to murder her. Defeated and shut down by Chell in retaliation, GLaDOS is accidentally awoken years later by Wheatley. Throwing Chell back into more tests, she is eventually overthrown by Wheatley thanks to Chell's actions. With Wheatley threatening to destroy the facility with his own stupidity, GLaDOS convinces Chell to help her take Aperture back from Wheatley, and in turn lets Chell go when that is done. Switching focus toward Cooperative Testing, GLaDOS uses the robots Atlas and P-body to secure control over the lower parts of the facility and eventually give her access to more human test subjects. When a mysterious hacker (actually a mother bird on a keyboard) forces her hand, resulting in the deaths of her human test subjects, GLaDOS sends the robots after it before adopting the baby birds to raise as killers.

I would say it could be justified because there's only one entry for each with those particular Spider-Man movies. With Nolan's trilogy, you have three to both the one from Burton (actually no keepers in either Schumacher movie, so I was mistaken) and the one in the Reeves film. I'm fine doing nothing and leaving the entries separate though.

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 28th 2023 at 11:14:36 AM

I'd move it series wide personally.

I still don't think it is necessary personally. Like the two are fine separated in my opinion.

Edited by Bullman on Apr 28th 2023 at 1:26:46 PM

Series-wide is fine for Portal; The Spider-Man tree isn't needed.

These two universes also interacted with each other, but in a third , different universe though. Haha.

Yeah, a tree isn't necessary. I concede the point.

Current entry for Jackie:

• Death on the Nile (1978): Jacqueline "Jackie" de Bellefort is the meticulous and methodical mastermind of the killings she commits with cherished lover Simon Doyle following her lead. Jackie first has Simon pretend to abandon her for her old friend and heiress Linnet Ridgeway so he can romance and eventually marry Linnet. Jackie then acts and creates the façade of an insanely jealous stalker seeking to break them up. Jackie then eventually pretends to shoot Simon in the leg and while she fakes being hysterical and remorseful, he fulfills her plan of shooting Linnet in her sleep, shooting himself for real and then disposing of the evidence so that the two can eventually stage a reconciliation once Simon inherits all of Linnet's wealth. Jackie also disposes of both maid Louise Bourget for trying to extort them and a third victim for witnessing Louise's killing. Once discovered by Hercule Poirot, Jackie gets a hold of her small .22 caliber gun and then uses it to shoot both Simon and herself so they can peacefully die together.

Since multiple; similar entries are not a problem anymore, I want to reiterate that my original EP (which is here for anyone wanting to check it out) was for both this and the 2022 version together, so should I do a new EP or split the entry into two? I'm more than happy to just have a blurb about the other version in there or rework it to be about both versions as I had it originally designed to be. What's the consensus?

Edited by futuremoviewriter on Apr 28th 2023 at 5:52:18 AM