Magnificent Bastard Cleanup

Go for the add Overlord.

Edit: Sorry, forgot the new rules. Just found some unapproved wicks I'll delete.

Edited by marston on Dec 16th 2022 at 12:21:10 PM

You can go ahead and cut those, leave a link to the thread in the edit reason/PM the troper who added so they know what to do if they'd like to discuss their potential inclusion.

No problem and good work catching!

Edited by 43110 on Dec 16th 2022 at 3:21:51 PM

@Overlord: Well, yes, given villains like Gravemind, Krampus, John Kramer, and to a lesser extent Striker's basis Rattlesnake Jake all count. But all of them usually have some eloquence and/or sympathetic qualities despite their unsettling nature. The closest Striker has after his reveal is his manipulation of Blitzø (which does admittedly get through to him for a bit if his expression is anything to go by), and even then it's a thin veneer the audience and eventually Blitzø can see through. It doesn't help that quiet a few people thought Striker would rape Moxxie when he straddled him to try and choke him, or at least found similarity to it-even though it isn't what Striker intended to do, but the resemblance is still there and damages his charm to the audience. Overall, until other entries outweigh his arrogance and creepiness, probably best not to propose him.

@Idisagree: Moxxie actually does show some street smarts-he breaks out of the cellar where Martha's children were keeping him using his chair and uses the lamp on the table next to him to break out of Striker's stranglehold and nearly escape. Besides that, he's generally the most logical of the IMP crew, possesses a great knowledge of culture alongside weaponry, and has the most redeeming qualities of any IMP member. He's not that close, but if anyone of the protagonists will count, it's him.

Edited by Purgatoryisof2 on Dec 16th 2022 at 4:09:10 AM

While I'm at it, I will bring up something else on my mind that's relevant, which is the Hitman MB page. A fair amount of these can probably stay, but as someone who has played all of these games except for the very first one, I'm at least skeptical of some of the characters listed here. More specifically Mark Faba, Alexander Cayne and Emma Carlise (I know Arthur Edwards is rightfully getting cut, and have some doubts about Ljudmila Vetrova but not much of an argument against her). Maybe I'll look into the other two some other time, but I'm not making any promises on that and anyone else who wants to look into them is free to. I will however share my doubts about Mark Faba, aka The Undying.

While the EP does mention that he survived 47's assasination attempt, it neglected to mention that the mission where he returns is pretty much just a reskin of the original Elusive Target, just with him missing an eye and Diana being a bit more irritated at the end of the Mission Briefing. The problem with this is that it means he already almost got killed once, lost an eye in the process.... and does absolutely nothing to make sure that this doesn't happen again when he recovers and attempts to continue where he left off. No beefing up security, not changing his routine, nothing. And considering that we're likely never going to see him again on account of the legal troubles with his likeness (which is why neither mission has been brought back for Hitman 3), there's also no reason to assume that 47 didn't finally manage to kill him for real this time. In my honest opinion, this makes Faba come off as extremely arrogant at best and a complete moron at worst who ultimately died because of said arrogance/stupidity. I'm pretty sure an MB should at least learn from past mistakes, and he very much doesn't.

Maybe you could give some leeway if you treated Undying Returns as non-canon due to it's reskin nature, but I'm not sure that holds up, especially when him surviving getting "killed" by 47 the first time around is part of what apparently makes him magnificent.

Edited by marston on Dec 16th 2022 at 3:28:20 AM

My main qualm with Faba is that all of his magnificent villainry is offscreen. His exploding-pen trick that he talks about isn't successful (and easily missable), and all of his other spy work is relegated to his briefing and bio. I'm sure he's cutworthy.

Edited by GoldenCityBird on Dec 16th 2022 at 9:27:45 AM

Edited by G-Editor on Dec 15th 2022 at 11:40:01 PM

Hey guys since we are discussing re-writing and cutting candidates there's one character I would like to bring up since season 2 of Blood & Treasure has ended, Simon Hardwick aka Karim Farouk aka the Big Bad of season 1.

Don't worry Simon still counts but he does more stuff in season 2 that should warrant a re-write for Simon, namely Simon helping The Great Khan aka the Big Bad of season 2 find an ancient valuable artifact called the Soul of Genghis Khan while secretly working with the heroes, Danny and Lexi in keeping tabs on the Khan so they could stop them, (spoiler there's two Khan's, one that the "acting" Khan and the true one behind him, aka Lexi's BFF Violet), with Simon playing a part of stopping Violet's plan by turning her army against her on the pretense that they can have the 1.5 trillion dollars Simon, Danny, and Lexi has stolen using the Soul of Genghis Khan before recording her confession and making his escape taking 10 dollars with him, while he continues his occupation as a treasure hunter and smuggler basically ending Season 2 as a Karma Houdini.

Any ways here's Simon's current write-up:

• Simon Hardwick, aka Karim Farouk, is an international smuggler plotting revenge on his father, Jay Reece, for abandoning him and his mother. To this end, he allies with the terrorist Rasheed Hegazi, giving him his real name to use while coordinating and financing grand-scale attacks mostly at properties owned by Reece. Having Hegazi and his men recover the sarcophagus of Mark Anthony before destroying the Pyramids, Hardwick allies with Danny McNamara and Lexi Vaziri to find the sarcophagus of Cleopatra, killing Hegazi to prevent him from revealing his identity to the heroes. Hardwick obtains both Sarcophagi and laces them with a biological weapon before handing them to Reece in is plan to activate the toxin when Reece unveils them in his museum, while creating a diversion to distract the authorities from protecting him. Nearly succeeding in killing Reece and those near him, Hardwick is only stopped by the timely intervention of Danny and Lexi, where Hardwick accepts his defeat with grace while promising that they'll meet again.

Here's one I'm suggesting:

• Simon Hardwick, aka Karim Farouk, is an international smuggler and one of the most brilliant foes Danny and Lexi had ever faced. Serving as the Big Bad for season one, Hardwick gives terrorist Rasheed Hegazi, his identity to use, having Hegazi attack Reece's properties and steal the sarcophagus of Mark Anthony before killing him to prevent his identity from being revealed. Hardwick also allies with Danny McNamara and Lexi Vaziri to retrieve the sarcophagus of Cleopatra, using both Sarcophagi to unleash a toxin in Reece's museum to kill Reece for abandoning him and his mother, nearly succeeding in completing his revenge. Eventually brought to justice by Danny and Lexi, Hardwick gets broken out of prison by the Great Khan, where Hardwick would help the Khan find the Soul of Genghis Khan while secretly plotting with Danny and Lexi to stop the Khan, eventually turning the Khan's army against them before making his escape, stealing 10 million dollars and continuing his criminal profession.

I may have one or two candidates to discuss once the approval threads re-open, but for now Any thoughts on Simon Hardwick's re-write?

Edited by G-Editor on Dec 16th 2022 at 2:43:37 AM

Cut Faba

Here is the Q expansion:

• Q is a clever transcendent being who masquerades as a rambunctious psychopath, demonstrating his powers by teleporting the Enterprise across the galaxy. Forcing the Enterprise to confront the terrifying Borg and for Jean-Luc Picard to beg for Q's help, Q saves them out of respect for Picard's humility. After the Q Continuum strips him of his powers, Q asked to be teleported to the Enterprise, knowing that Picard's nobility will force Picard to protect him against his various enemies. After regaining his powers Q uses his gifts on Picard to let him change his past so a series of events will allow him to avoid an untimely death, though at the cost of not being as highly promoted within the Federation, in order to teach him the importance of learning from mistakes and taking risks. In his final appearance in the series, Q is tasked by the Continuum to destroy humanity, but Q does so in a way that Picard can prevent it, where Picard creates a Time Paradox when Q shifts him through time and Q provides hints to Picard to resolve the paradox and save humanity. Q returns decades later and uses his power to change history and transforms the benevolent Federation into the fascist Confederation of Earth, forcing Picard to go to the past to save the future. Q seemingly acts cruelly to Picard and puts roadblocks in his way, but it was eventually revealed that Q is dying and Q did this as part of an elaborate scheme to force Picard to get over the death of his mother, with Q parting as Picard's friend before dying.

If that's too long, let me know, we can always split his Next Gen and Picard entries.

@ Purgatoryisof 2, to be fair I have seen the episode with Striker maybe once or twice and its been a while since I saw it, but I still think the character is worth discussing eventually, even if he doesn't go up, he is worth a discussion.

Edited by Overlord on Dec 16th 2022 at 4:17:39 AM

A trim if you can Overlord but I don’t mind him being a longer one… he’s been showing his skills in how many series now?

Good work there as well G and quite happy to relitigate Hitman stuff as I’ve said before! To begin I’m fine with cutting Faba.

Edited by 43110 on Dec 16th 2022 at 7:31:55 AM

thanks 43110

oh and sure cut Faba

Edited by G-Editor on Dec 16th 2022 at 2:38:28 AM

Cut Faba.

Technically 4 series, but he really doesn't do anything worth mentioning in Voyager or Deep Space 9. His scheme in season 2 of Picard is somewhat convoluted, so I tried to boil it down as best as I could. I am not sure what else I can cut.

I am not sure if anyone else in Picard could count, Adam Soong is smart, but he is intentionally willing to let the universe be run by a genocidal fascist empire in the future just to ensure his legacy, he earns his Complete Monster status.

There was also Commodore Oh from season 1, also known as General Nedar:

https://memory-alpha.fandom.com/wiki/Oh

She was a Romulan spy in the Federation who caused a terrorist attack that killed 90,000 people in order to get the Federation to ban AI. She is fairly smart and not pure evil but still has a pretty big body count, I think her biggest flaw though is she is an anti-AI zealot, she finds a planet had nothing living on it but one village with populated androids and she wanted the entire planet to be smoking ruin. She is not a charismatic person, likely due to being half Vulcan, and is very reserved. Her zeal may cost her magnificence points.

Edited by Overlord on Dec 16th 2022 at 5:01:25 AM

I could do a stoic, stone-faced plotter but I agree the bigotry sounds rather extreme there. Not like Sarah Connor distrusting machines after fighting the first Terminator.

Fair enough.

Edited by Overlord on Dec 16th 2022 at 5:31:09 AM

Surprised Faba was even in the running in the first place, if this is the one from the Pokemon games. Dude's a real piece of work, and just... oozes unpleasantness. Don't know if I'm experienced enough with this trope or the community as a whole to say this, but I would also motion to cut him.

Edit: Oh, good. I've never played Hitman so I am going to abstain.

Edited by carduinal-cyn on Dec 16th 2022 at 8:02:14 AM

It’s Faba from Hitman. Faba from Pokémon was never listed.

Edited by PurpleEyedGuma on Dec 16th 2022 at 10:56:07 AM

Cut Faba.

Keep Sillydo and the Inscyption guys

I'm a big fan of the new Hitman games and I have to agree with Edwards getting cut, he fits the trope almost perfectly imo but him trusting Diana when everyone around him is saying that it's a bad idea is too big of a slip up for me. I'm unfortunately not familiar enough with Faba to give an educated opinion on him but based on what Marston is saying he's a cut.

Also no one counts in FAITH: The Unholy Trinity, the Big Bad is way to evil and no one else comes close.

Yeah cut Faba, on paper he does fit the trope to a T, but the problem is like already mention, it's offscreen and we don't really see him act like the brilliant double agent he was touted to be in the mission, doesn't help it's a Elusive Target meaning it's pretty much just a standard custom mission without any of the bells and whistles that the story missions has.

Also funny how after this EP, my EP of Ai Emma was immediately afterwards. FYI Ai Emma still qualifies as an MB.

Speaking of the Hitman MBs, Olivia Hall's example doesn't contextualise any of the required charisma. I can't recall any particularly charismatic moments myself, and her EP doesn't mention any at all. Could she be another cut?

Cut Faba.

Keep Bilarch and Sillydillo

Cut Faba

Cut Faba.

One I feel deserves disscusion:

• Season 1 & 2: The Grand Inquisitor was once a Jedi Knight who turned to the Dark Side, becoming the leader of the Inquisitorius, a group dedicated to hunting Jedi who survived Order 66. The Inquisitor used the bones of a deceased Jedi to lure numerous Jedi for him to kill and nearly kills Kanan Jarrus and Ezra Bridger using this tactic. Pursuing the two afterwards, The Inquisitor gathers information on them before entrapping them again and planting a tracking device on their ship to follow them across the galaxy. With the help of Wilhuff Tarkin, the Inquisitor is able to capture Kanan and decides to use him to bait his allies after their attempts to break him fail. Eventually losing to Kanan in a duel, The Inquisitor decides to take his own life rather than suffer a worse punishment for his failures, facing death with complete dignity and returning as a spirit to help Kanan fend off the rest of the Inquisitors.

While there is nothing dissqualifing in the show itself, it is worth noting that Word of God confimed that “spirit” was simply illusion conjured by Yoda. Now that wouldn’t be nearly enought for cut, BUT Star Wars(2020) revelated that Darth Vader has Enslaved his spirit and used him as a trap for Luke, who nevertheles easily beats him, with Vader dissmising The former Grand Inquisitor as simply a tool while latter solemly disapears remerking that there are things worse than death. Now to be clear Grand inquititor has been inteligent and formitable foe across shows and comics with nothing else dissqulifing him and even his measely perfomence can be easily be excused as he was reducet to simple specre. But it’s more the pitiful tone of this as he is simply dissmished as a slave by vader before dissapearing (with Vader also making clear ti Inquisitor that he is still not free) that makes me wonder.

Would like to hear what others think of this?