Old Magnificent Bastard thread
Welcome to the Magnificent Bastard (MB) cleanup thread! This thread is where we clean up or cut already-existing entries.
If you're looking to add new entries, please see the approval thread
.
IMPORTANT: Before you begin any discussions on this thread, please see the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List
Here, you'll find explanations of the criteria for the trope as well as our rules/procedures for approving and cutting candidates.
What goes through this thread?
- Cut requests. If you believe a MB has been approved and they do not count, this thread is where you propose their removal. To know how to go about this, please see the FAQ folder on the Administrivia page, where the process is explained in detail.
- If we ever need to consider cutting multiple examples without individually reviewing them (e.g. if we discover widespread plagiarism with a particular troper's MBs), the initial discussion will be on this thread and we'll then escalate to the mod team (as described here
) to get a formal consensus if we decide to recommend a mass cut.
- If an entry was put on the wrong subpage/YMMV page, you may propose where they should be moved to.
- Full rewrites of existing entries, including expansions, trims, and ground-up rewrites. If your rewrite is approved by the thread, feel free to add it to the drafts page so that other users can check grammar and the like before it is included with the rest of the weekly swaps.
- If an entry on a work's YMMV page doesn't match the entry on the media subpage, you can bring it here to discuss which entry works better.
What does not go through this thread?
- New candidate proposals - as stated before, those are done on this thread
.
- Unapproved wicks - if a Troper encounters either of these kinds of wicks, they can be cut with no approval.
- Any MB link on a non-YMMV page - as a YMMV trope, it should not be linked on those pages regardless of any cleanup effort. The only exception is if the wick is being used within the definition of another trope.
- If an MB link on a YMMV page refers to an unapproved character. If it refers to an approved character on any such page, the wick can stay. On the other hand, if the unapproved character being linked to sounds like they might have promise (and you don't feel like checking it out for yourself), feel free to mention it on the approval thread - someone may already know why they don't count, or it could invite a brand new discussion!
- Proposals for images, quotes, and videos of already-approved MBs - quotes and images are proposed on the approval thread
, while videos can be uploaded normally as they are screened for approval by the moderation.
- Crosswicking examples to YMMV pages - if an example has already been approved and added to the main page, you do not require any special permission to add the example to a work's YMMV page (assuming the work has a page already). If a YMMV page doesn't exist yet, then you can make it yourself, but either way, feel free to just add the example without asking.
- Small changes to existing entries - these can simply be done on a Troper's own prerogative with no approval.
- Spelling and grammar fixes.
- Pothole changes.
- Minor rewordings.
- Spoiler tags.
While these changes do not require any kind of approval, it is requested that should you make any of these changes, you do one of the following:
- Make the same changes on the relevant Sandbox page, then add the Sandbox to the list at the bottom of the drafts page. This will add the Sandbox to the weekly swaps and ensure that the edits end up on the relevant locked page. If the Sandbox is already listed, then once you make the edits, your job is already done!
- If you don't know how the Sandboxes work or simply don't have the time to find it, then you can simply post on the thread about the changes you made. Someone else can then make the edit on the relevant Sandbox and add it to the weekly swaps.
- Alternatively, you can simply request that the change be made directly to the locked page on the Locked Pages thread
. Members of this thread keep track of that one, so we will ensure that the changes are made in the Sandbox so that it doesn't get deleted during the next swap.
Again, these changes don't require any approval, but we prefer to keep the entries on the YMMV pages and the locked pages the same in order to avoid any miscommunication or errors between entries, so if you do make the change, we would greatly appreciate it if you could ensure the change is made on the locked page as well.
As a final note, we do not care what other sites have to say regarding whether or not a character counts. We have our own criteria and they have theirs for their MB equivalents; while they are similar, they are not exactly the same and should not be treated as such. Another site removing a character from their equivalent should not be a reason why a cut is proposed here, and if this is the case, it will likely lead to mod intervention.
Other than this, once again, welcome to the cleanup thread, and we look forward to your contributions!
Edited by Mrph1 on Jan 14th 2024 at 11:36:43 AM
You can fix it in the sandbox
Let me see here it is.
Malificent Tweak and keep makima for now.
I'm aware Makima's a major Base-Breaking Character and apart from the memes Idk the work. Abstaining but can go either way.
Maleficent change looks good!
What's wrong D-16? Rise up!~Riley1s Cool Ok, so I understand your arguments but I still don't agree.
I was going to write a longer post, but save draft didn't work so here's the summary.
Makima's a very complex character, which makes her difficult to discuss, but she's still a cut.
I didn't mean her mistake made her a Smug Snake but that she could have memorized Denji's smell at any time, and his plan would have fallen on its face. This isn't a last minute miscalculation, but her not doing a simple precaution despite having months to do it.
Her good intentions are actually genuine, as Pochita said she wanted to form world that was like a family. But her methods of forming a family are awful.
She kills the Angel devil's and Quanxi's loved ones, and with the Angel devil she can summon a whole crowd of people who she considers disposable. She didn't need to use people Angel cared about. She also brainwashed Quanxi into loving Makima unconditionally, while wiping Quanxi's memory of her actual loved ones, or that Makima killed them. Makima effectively forms relationships by cutting people off from everyone else and making herself the only pillar of support. That's the methods of a sociopathic abuser.
Makima shows her best attempts at genuine affection towards Pochita. Given this happens after Makima views Pochita as explicitly lesser, this implies that she can attempt to for relationships that are not completely abusive, and have her best attempts and actual love, which makes her upbringing justify her actions a lot less.
Makima treats Denji like absolute shit even by her standards. She had no reason to say that 'I will kill everyone you care about' monologue since Denji's brain was already undergoing what was effectively a 404 error, and dredging up the repressed childhood memory would have finished him. The monologue as pointlessly cruel, as was laughing at his trauma.
While she mentions a bit about Denji atoning for killing his father, she actually mentions that it was in self defense and never mentions it afterward. The main reason she dislikes Denji is because he doesn't live up to her image of him. This is shown in the final fight, when, despite Makima generally killing quickly elsewhere, she revives "Denji" just to kill him with her bare hands. She had already won, she clearly wanted to prove how inferior this Chainsaw Man was to the absolutely accurate image of him in her head. Also her talking about how Denji doesn't understand Chainsaw Man and was still somehow chosen anyway comes off as a bit of a hidden disdain reveal.
Even though she does need to break him to get Pochita, she still clearly dislikes him, not viewing him as a person, or even a tool, but a nuisance to be swept aside. This dislike comes from him not living up to her fantasies about Chainsaw Man. That's not very magnificent.
Also while she has redeeming features behind her manipulations, I don't really see how they make her magnificent. As I understand it, magnificence come from being impressive and respectable. Makima's manipulations come off as creepy and bizarre. Her redeeming features are more 'she's not a CM' and less 'She's a MB'.
She doesn't really feel like an MB with how horrifying her scenes can be, compared to her sister Fami in part II who probably will be an easy MB by the end of that, as while she has selfish motivations behind her selfless goal, and manipulates everyone around her, she doesn't go as far and her scenes are much more traditionally fun to watch. This paragraph may not be the most objective argument, but its definitely something I feel when I read the manga.
Overall, Makima's a very interesting and well written villain, but shes quite atypical as a villian, and doesn't qualify as either a CM or MB
Edit: With how she forms relationships I want to make it clear that while she doesn't really know how to do relationships without having a power dynamic against her partner, she is still overly cruel sometimes, and doesn't make any efforts to tone down her abuse when she could. Also even if she couldn't do relationships any differently, sociopathic abuse seems really questionable for an MB.
Second Edit: When I mention how I don't find her redeeming features to make her magnificent, I mean that she acts possessive and abusive towards everyone around her, when the only person she would need to for her plan to work is Denji. She just has her behavior contextualized.
Also what she did to Quanxi was really awful, and I don't think I properly explained that. Quanxi immediately surrendered and offered to do anything if Makima wouldn't kill her girls. Makima could have easily forced Quanxi to work with Makima under threat of the hirls being killed. But Makima didn't do that, she killed them all, and then brainwashed a resurrected Quanxi into loving Makima unconditionally. Makima could have just made Quanxi generally loyal, but Makima just had to make Quanxi love her. That is really horrendous and vile. Especially since Quanxi isn't important to Makima's plan, Makima just wanted her to be another fighter on her side, no special purpose.
Edited by Malginel on Aug 26th 2023 at 5:22:44 AM
This'll be my last post on the matter as I'm busy this weekend and I'm not personally familiar with this work but I've spent years on the thread and I do know the trope. Reviewing the above I'll leave the following:
- Let's try to avoid leaving definitives like "she's still a cut"... unless we're dealing with a case where the character has objectively gone beyond the limits of what the trope allows (i.e.: Pagan Min who after being researched was found to oversee sexual slavery), lest it comes across as trying to control a discussion, we want a democratic process;
- I'm not sure how much this business of not memorizing a particular character's scent is really dwelt upon in the manga. You say she's fixated on his parter? This seems more like a slip based on her focusing too much on one character against another...;
- I'm going to seriously question these slew of assumptions that she must be a clear cut sociopathic abuser. She's a villain and they're not going to be squeaky clean in their tactics to get people to follow them. She's going by what makes people more susceptible to her. Rien manufactures an entire society and religion based on a scheme to revive her husband and lets countless people devote their lives and die for no greater purpose than to provide energy so she can perform the ritual to bring back her beloved Xu Fu;
- There's a lot about how cruel she gets with the hero. Vicious is also an approved Magnificent Bastard for damn good reason and he practically poetically destroys Spike's life out of his belief they're warriors destined to clash until the bitter end. He breaks the main character so badly Spike ends up abandoning the only friends he has to go die fighting Vicious because it's all he has left but villains tend to fight heroes, even getting cruel when doing it. It's quite common for a narrative to have the protagonist and antagonist become each other's antithesis to end in bloody results;
- Most of all, I see on her character page she's stated to be a Well-Intentioned Extremist who wants to use Chainsaw Man to make a utopia. That's a grand goal and I'm willing to cut some slack for how nasty she might get when she feels people—again, like the protagonist—getting in her way when she feels her purpose is a higher one;
- Brainwashing someone into loving you unconditionally can still have a pragmatic purpose, this is starting to get very much into the realm of what feels like personal interpretation rather than the criteria we look at.
Edited by 43110 on Aug 26th 2023 at 9:45:05 AM
Malginel I'd suggest you drop it at this point. I'm seeing your points and I'm just not agreeing with them, particularly your Vicious comparison. Most people are leaning keep, and it's best not to keep pushing.
You can only write so much in your forum signature. It's not fair that I want to write a piece of writing yet it will cut me off in the midProposing a rewrite for Jin Kuwana from Lost Judgment because the original doesn't really cut it.
Old:
- Jin Kuwana was once an ordinary school teacher. After one of his students was bullied by his classmates into suicide, Kuwana blackmailed the bullies into helping him kill seven other bullies. Kuwana kept the authorities oblivious to his crimes for eight years and when they finally figured it out, he had no problems evading them. Kuwana is ruthless but charming, to the point where some of the heroes were unsure whether bringing him in was the right thing to do.
New:
- Jin Kuwana, formerly Yu Kitakata, was a disgraced classroom teacher who was fired from the job after Mitsuru Kusumoto, one of his classmates, committed suicide due to intense bullying. Assuming a new identity under the guise of a handyman, Kuwana would later contact his former students and blackmail them into kidnapping former bullies involved in suicides and hand them over to the loved ones of the victims who would then murder them for their perceived sense of justice. Said clients included the mother of Mitsuru and later a former policeman Akihiro Ehara who he also helped creating an alibi as a sex offender so that he would be convicted for another, more minor crime. Kuwana keeps assisting and protecting his clients' secrets years later by keeping the corpse of Mitsuru's bully hidden as a leverage to blackmail the other students and releasing indiscriminating evidence over Ehara's involvement in another murder in order to help him spite the justice system that let his son's bully go free. Kuwana teams up with Takayuki Yagami on several occassions when fighting the criminal organization RK while managing to evade both RK and law enforcement, only feeling remorse over Yoko Sawa's death as collateral damage. Both charming and ruthless, Yagami and the others were unsure whether bringing Kuwana into justice was the right thing to do, and eventually let him go due to insufficient evidence in exchange for the rest of the victims' locations.
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That's one hell of a wall of text, but I can approve.
Also, when do we add someone to "Definitely an MB" again?
Edited by Siegfried1337 on Aug 27th 2023 at 8:21:26 AM
Eh, good enough.Also did a couple minor fixes to the start of the Miraculous Ladybug movie's Hawk Moth to get his character page in, clarify the Alternate Continuity, etc.:
From:
- The movie's version of Hawk Moth, real name Gabriel Agreste...
To:
- The Alternate Continuity's version of Hawk Moth, real name Gabriel Agreste...
Small note, but on the Emperor Doofenshmirtz entry for MagnificentBastard.Disney, one of his name drops is misspelled Doofemshmirtz.
Orcus on His Throne will always be my pet peeve.Wanna suggest a truncation for Kuwana, as I think we could strike a balance between being general and what I feel is more detail than is warranted for a single game character:
- Jin Kuwana, formerly Yu Kitakata, was a teacher fired after his student, Mitsuru Kusumoto, committed suicide due to intense bullying. Disguising himself as a handyman, Kuwana contacts blackmails Mitsusu's bullies into helping him kidnap a series of students who had also bullied students to suicide to deliver them to the families of the deceased for revenge. Helping Mitsuru's mother, Kuwana spends years helping and protecting the secrets of the families, even hiding the corpse of Mitsuru's bully to blackmail his pawns. Teaming up with Takayuki Yagami on multiple occasions, Kuwana helps fight the criminal RK organization and manages to evade both RK and law enforcement, only feeling remorse over Yoko Sawa's death as collateral damage. Both charming and ruthless, Yagami and the others were unsure whether bringing Kuwana into justice was the right thing to do, and eventually let him go due to insufficient evidence in exchange for the rest of the victims' locations.
Thoughts?
I might be too late to way in on Makima but here’s what I’m going to say on her. I think she’s too much of a bastard, she completely breaks Denjo’s mind and then laughs about it, way too cruel, especially considering she didn’t really gain anything from that move. I think there’s a point that a character gets to be too heinous to be this trope no matter how good their intentions are. That’s just my thoughts.
Edited by LarryT on Aug 29th 2023 at 11:27:23 AM
I've seen that the writeup I've made needs to be trimmed down a bit.
- The Great Ace Attorney: Ashley Graydon is a previous telegram officer, turned a very talented criminal that successfully carries out his crimes with little difficulty. After meeting with Magnus Mc Gilded and being offered large sums of money if he can acquire government secrets for him, Graydon accepts the deal and conceals the government secrets inside of custom music box disks created by his father at his request so it can pass off as either a broken music box, or a different genre of music. After a deal gone wrong with Mc Gilded that results in his fathers murder, Graydon seeks vengeance for his death and successfully has Mc Gilded murdered with no evidence tracing him to the murder. After avenging his fathers death, Graydon then seeks to reacquire the two music box disks before he is compromised, thinking on his feet and coming up with backup plans multiple times whenever his previous ones go wrong, most notably him concealing his involvement in Pop Windibank's manslaughter single handedly almost perfectly and him making a deal with Inspector Tobias Gregson that results in him being able to solidify a false alibi and create a perfect testimony with zero contradictions at first. Even in defeat, Graydon takes it well and faces his potential life imprisonment or even execution with no fear. Planning everything with razor sharp efficiency and strategy, Graydon proves that he is no one's pawn in their game of chess.
So is this better?
- The Great Ace Attorney: Ashley Graydon is a former telegram officer, turned a very talented criminal that successfully carries out his crimes with little difficulty. Following a deal made with Magnus Mc Gilded, Graydon steals and conceals government secrets inside of custom music box disks created by his father to disguise the morse code as just music. After a deal gone wrong with Mc Gilded that results in his fathers death, Graydon seeks vengeance for his death and successfully has Mc Gilded murdered with no evidence tracing him to the murder. After avenging his fathers death, Graydon moves on to the next part of his plan to retrieve both disks, repeatedly coming up with backup schemes whenever his previous ones go wrong. Planning everything with razor sharp efficiency, Graydon proves that he is no one's pawn in their game of chess.
Edited by Vrx04 on Aug 29th 2023 at 1:53:36 AM

Yeah, I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, but nothing about Makima that I've seen is an automatic disqualifier or an "easy" cut. Not even killing children - Mayor Wilkins literally tries to sacrifice like 30 newborn babies to be eaten by a demon and I will fight to the death to keep him. She sounds just as okay to keep as she was when she was proposed.
Please don't accuse people who disagree with you of lying. We're aiming for respectful discourse here.
Edited by STARCRUSHER99 on Aug 26th 2023 at 10:21:00 AM