Old Magnificent Bastard thread
Welcome to the Magnificent Bastard proposal thread! This is the thread where new Magnificent Bastard examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here
Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.
Here is how the process works:
- If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential mitigating features will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.
- After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".
- Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the MB subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!
Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:
- To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!
- No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
- Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
- Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
- Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.
- If a work is already reserved by another user, please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!
- Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite MB" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest for that.
- Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.
- If you are suspended from other parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
- If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for MB equivalents is irrelevant here.
- Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
- Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.
If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:
What is the work?
This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, their goals and methodology, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some characters, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.
How are they Magnificent?
This is the point where you highlight the character's brilliance. How to they convey their intelligence and charm to the audience? What makes them stand out among the crowd? What are their goals and how do they go about accomplishing them? This part welcomes a lot of creative thinking — not everyone has to be a Machiavellian Diabolical Mastermind to be worth considering here! This is also the time to showcase how the character can think on their feet if it's necessary.
How are they a Bastard? How are they not too bad?
What kinds of moral lines is this character willing to cross for the sake of their goal? Are they willing to let innocents die? Start wars? Commit crimes? The character has to show some kind of unscrupulousness in order to count as a "Bastard". Notably, this character does not necessarily have to be the villain, and an Anti-Hero can cross the line if they're immoral enough, but they have to be immoral somehow.
This is also the section where you then state your case for why they're not too bad. Perhaps their good intentions help mitigate their crimes. Perhaps others are shown to be much worse than them. Perhaps they're prone to Pet the Dog moments or are even fighting on behalf of loved ones. Whatever the case, there are certain lines that an MB can't cross, but as long as their villainy is reasonable for their goal, they can be considered.
Final verdict?
This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.
And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!
Edited by Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:40:56 AM
The Moron
I just mean all of them. When you said there were 12 potentials, I decided not to vote on them until the end because I knew they’d blend together and they have. I think it would be best if you re-linked to all of them so that anyone who hasn’t voted can do so
Honestly if Hector threw in the towel sooner and Percy is the one who continues scheming (like it sounds) he seems like the better candidate as he goes on to pull another trick and it's Hector screwing him with his own blunder that takes him down.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Ok. I can try.
I feel like keeping Hector in for consideration because the extortion is his plan but Percy is the stronger candidate. Calling what Hector did a blunder feels like a stretch to me, though.
Edited by Melinda on Mar 19th 2023 at 12:32:18 PM
... he assumes they lost and hence gives up information he shouldn't have while his partner continues to scheme, does he not? I'm saying no to him unless there's more because I don't understand why "I feel like that's a stretch" is a counterpoint, the effort post isn't helping me understand why Hector didn't err and I'll need something far more concrete to change my vote.
Edited by 43110 on Mar 19th 2023 at 3:37:29 PM
Yeah I agree Hector's blunders seem to be doing them in, whereas Percy continues scheming.
Also, I don't know, I feel like that depending on how it's filmed, that confession could be played as a desperate man pleading rather than a pet the dog moment.
Edited by jjjj2 on Mar 19th 2023 at 4:18:35 AM
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 mid
Showtime!
I'm fine with Percy but ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Hector
RIP Toriyama
Yes to Frank and the Music! Likewise echoing
Jaded Techie Fox
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Music. and to Percy and Hector
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Just missed this one for St Paddy's Day...
You know when you have a fleeting memory of something from your childhood, google it and then remember what it was? I may have a candidate from a cartoon that was on when I was a child.
What is the work?
Casper's Scare School was exactly what it says. Casper is at school and it's scary. While the "villains" only consisted of Jerkass, there's an actual villain that appeared in the season 1 4-parter "Power Outage"... a leprechaun called Razznik.
Who is Razznik and what have they done?
Razznik is a leprechaun and a servant of Kibosh, king of the underworld. Along with Kibosh, Razznik was a part of the test Kibosh did; to see how the students would work as a team without their powers. Using a gem, Kibosh would steal their powers while Razznik created sounds to keep Kibosh's appearance under cover.
Razznik, didn't really care for the plan and saw the opportunity to steal the gem from Kibosh to rule the underworld. To steal the gem, Razznik manipulates the main trio, Casper, Mantha and Ra to try and wish it since he could conjure it due to Leprechaun magic? Despite them untrusting him, he succeeds because Ra mentioned the name of the gem which Razznik deemed "good enough" to conjure it. When Kibosh reveal his test he goes to show the gem, in which Razznik reveals his intentions and flees to learn how to use it.
Learning the gem's power, Razznik now is able to use the abilities of all the students and staff... apart from Casper since Kibosh never stole his powers. Razznik wants Casper's ability to got through walls as a ghost since that would allow no one to escape from him, rendering him invincible. Realising he won't be able to break into the libary where Casper was, Razznik decides to go elsewhere to hunt for ghosts.
Fearing for his Uncles, Casper leads the cast to try and escape to the human world aboard the flying ship. When they depart, it's shown that Razznik left an ear by the dock and overheard where they were going. During the journey on the ship, Razznik assaults them and nearly steal Casper's powers before Ra kicks him into the ocean...although it's revealed Razznik clung onto the rudder and crashed into the human city of Deedstown.
Razznik is later seen throwing cars around and threatening the humans to turn in Casper's uncles or he'll destroy their town at 3pm. When 3pm hits, Razznik starts breathing fire in a football pitch before Casper reveals himself, engaging in a chase. This culminates with Razznik using the creature's powers against them while they try to get his pot of gold (since he has to obey whoever has it), resulting in Mantha getting the pot, forcing Razznik to give the gem back in which Kibosh reverts everyone's powers back to normal. Razznik is last seen being ganged up before he's imprisoned.
Is he magnificent?
Razznik took the opportunity of Kibosh's plan to suit his own agenda and managed to use a loophole to retrieve the gem. With the gem he's shown to use the cast's abilities to his advantage in various ways. He's not portrayed that he's invincible but is shown to be a credible threat. Admittedly he goes through some slapstick but they consist of when the cast fight back and he gets hit, and there's a moment when he crashes trying to learn to fly.
His defeat may be a bit leery, he doesn't go through any Big "NO!" moments when Mantha makes him return the gem. His final moments imprisoned though are him saying to let him out and he'd help the human creature catcher, Mr Bradley to get a Kraken, Gorgon and a Chimera. In his defence, this is a light-hearted Saturday afternoon cartoon and the only reason the heroes won was because of him being bound by the leprechaun pot which can only be summoned with a rainbow... which they made in the middle of a sunny day.
Is he a bastard?
He's the only true villain in the show. His taking over the underworld isn't given much depth, just g-rated villain talk. He does threaten to crash the ship full of students and the teachers into the ocean if Casper doesn't reveal himself. His major bastardy is threatening to destroy Deedstown and actually starts to when 3pm hits. What nullifies this though from screaming CM, is his threat consists of throwing cars about and lighting a ring of fire in an empty football pitch.
Final Verdict?
Your call folks.
Edited by WetFlannels on Mar 19th 2023 at 1:31:48 PM
A million brain cells? That seems excessively destructive...
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
I gotta think on Razznik. There's a bit in the episode where he's flying and he starts gloating that the students can't stop him...only for the students to pelt him with rocks mid-sentence, sending him crashing into a puddle where he lets out a Big "NO!". Granted, he does recover from this minutes later when he uses a mish-mash of powers to outdo almost all of the cast with little effort, so I'm willing to let that slide.
I'm really less concerned with his defeat as opposed to how he responds to it. The guy is stuck in a trash can frantically shaking it and pleading he'll help a human capture monsters if he's freed. It feels like he fumbled a little bit at the end; despite all his planning and resources, it all ends with him begging a human to let him out of imprisonment.
I write stories and shiz. You can read them here.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Fair points there.
I'm willing to let the rock slapstick slide because of the form of media it is. As for the Big "NO!", he's looking in a puddle seeing the rainbow in which he then gets to the pot of gold where he does his last stand.
As for his literal final moments? Eh I'll leave a link so folks can decide whether it's too undignified.His defeat. Lasts for about a minute.
Oh I'd hate to be that guy to correct you there Tyk but the "trash can" in the show is deemed impenetrable even by ghosts. It's why they stored Casper's uncle in it to hide them from Razznik.
FWIW his episodes are on Youtube if anyone wants to double check.
Edited by WetFlannels on Mar 19th 2023 at 2:32:14 PM
A million brain cells? That seems excessively destructive...
I'll probably think on it for the night, his end is silly but if he otherwise performs well I can still see the case. Watching the video I'm not quite sure I lean on marking it down against him or giving some forgiveness thanks to the age group the work's aimed at. We do have Freakshow on the list and his defeat certainly caused some contention here before he was accepted as a keeper.
Any more votes on Ripto?
I'll be honest as one of the big fighters against Freakshow (and someone who still doesn't think he counts, not asking for a relitigation that's settled), I think this guy ends better than him. Freakshow was defeated by Danny directly playing on his ego, whereas this guy is defeated in a physical battle. It's still not a good end, so I'd probably be a , but I do think if you think Freakshow should count, then you should upvote this guy.
RIP Toriyama
I'll lean Yes on Ripto and Razznik
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Jaded Techie Fox
I think to Razznik
Lies and Violence!
Percy, leaning yes on Razznik.
What's the work?
Aight, back to Ninjago. To recap, ninja, elements, etc. Season 5 of the series focused on the invasion of a group of ghosts, led by the villainous Morro (mir will get to him), who sought to gather a bunch of McGuffins in a fetch quest to summon their eldritch master. The ninja of course try to stop them, but both sides end up facing trouble from the interference of a certain wild card player...
Who is Ronin?
Originally introduced into the franchise as the titular Big Bad of the non-canon Shadow of Ronin video game, Ronin's exact history with the ninja in the main continuity is a little unclear—maybe they encountered each other in a Broad Strokes version of the game, maybe he kidnapped one of their number, who knows. The point is, when Ronin first pops up in the show, he and the ninja already hate and mistrust each other.
Anyway, Ronin gets involved in the fight with the ghosts when he steals one of the fetch quest items, a scroll. After fucking with the ninja a bit when they try to simply buy the scroll, the ghosts show up and steal it, but Ronin still manages to get something out of it—in return for telling the ninja another way to learn what was on the scroll, he gets them to sell their shares to their sensei's teashop, where he proceeds to barge in and make himself at home for the next few episodes. Along the way he befriends Nya, the sister of one of the ninja, who is currently in training to become the master of water.
Unfortunately, there's one small issue. Years ago, Ronin sold his soul to one of Morro's minions, the Soul Archer. Now that the Archer has returned to the living world, he's calling in his debt, ordering Ronin to steal the next fetch quest item once the ninja recover it—a sword that allows one to see their opponent's next move. After helping them out against the ghosts for a few episodes, Ronin makes his move to steal the sword, kicking everyone's asses and setting his airship on autopilot as a distraction. As the ninja chase his ship thinking he's on it, Ronin makes his escape in a small boat down the river. Nya tries to stop him, but doesn't have a very good mastery of her powers yet—though even as he makes his escape, Ronin yells his apologies and gives a little advice on how to get a grip on her abilities.
Unfortunately, again, the Soul Archer doesn't hold up his end of the deal, and refuses to end the contract unless he brings them the ninja. Ronin's perfectly fine betraying them for his own self-gain, but outright handing them over is a bit too far, so he escapes and sends a message to his "friends" with the coordinates of the last fetch quest item. He pops up again in the final battle with the ghosts, dropping a pile of all the gold he's ever stolen on Morro to crush him.
And then things go wrong again when the ninja are framed for a crime spree, and Ronin is hired by the police to hunt them all down. And hunt them down he does—within a single episode, he systematically isolates, outwits, and captures every single one of the ninja with holograms and other assorted tricks. Still, there aren't any hard feelings, as the ninja are eventually cleared of wrongdoing and Ronin is recruited into their B-team to fight a djinn pirate. He pops up every once in a while after that as an ally, but gradually falls out of focus...
Until he returns as the Arc Villain for a season. Long story short, there's this isolated island inhabited by a tribe of electric people, who guard against an ancient, evil storm spirit named Wojira. Ronin has been "capturing" escapees from a recent jail break for the last few months, but in truth he's been recruiting them to help scam the tribesmen. Constructing a giant wooden replica of Wojira, Ronin and his cronies steer it to lurk around the island, scaring the tribesmen into sacrificing gold and other treasures in hopes of appeasing the storm spirit. The ninja of course stop him and send him to jail...
Until they join him as prisoners themselves. This time for something they did do. Ronin at first antagonizes them, but when the city ends up under attack (Tuesdays, amirite?) he actually goes out of his way to rally the other prisoners to help out, once again joining his "friends" as an ally.
Mitigating qualities?
None to speak of. He's a charming mercenary who, while generally an ally, still gets up to some clever yet less than morally upstanding schemes—even getting an arc as the main antagonist just to reestablish, hey, this guy was supposed to be a flat out villain before evolving into his current anti-hero characterization.
Verdict?
Keeper. Dood will be doing the video game version.
- Skales is one of the most recurring faces of the Serpentine, whose intelligence matches his race's enduring popularity in the franchise. The former Number Two of the Hypnobrai general Slithraa, Skales became discontent when his master came under the sway of a young Lloyd Garmadon and successfully schemed to overthrow him, brainwashing Cole in a gambit to steal the Hypnobrai staff and defeating Slithraa in single combat. Going on to become The Dragon to Pythor, Skales serves as his most competent general in his efforts to free the Great Devourer, partially to scare humanity underground and save them from the Golden Master, partially as revenge for their imprisonment. Skales continues to remain the Only Sane Man of the Serpentine when they fall under Lord Garmadon's rule, enacting a near-perfect scheme to kidnap Lloyd before once more securing a position of power by saving Garmadon at his weakest. Eventually overthrowing Garmadon and enacting a near-successful plot to bury Ninjago City, Skales decides to reform when they are beaten by the Stone Army and becomes an ally of the Ninja in their fights against the likes of the Overlord and the Time Twins, leading his people to turn over a new leaf and reintegrate back into society.
- Captain Soto, the original pirate captain of the Destiny's Bounty, was once the arch-nemesis of Nadakhan and the crew of Misfortune's Keep. Weakening the djinn with tiger widow venom to trap him in the Teapot of Tyrahn, Soto managed to banish the rest of his rival's crew to the other realms, securing his dominance as the most feared pirate of Ninjago's high seas before his untimely demise. Accidentally resurrected centuries later by Lord Garmadon, Soto hijacks the Bounty from the Serpentine and uses its modern upgrades to pillage Ninjago City. When Nadakhan is freed in the present and frames the Ninja for a crime spree, Soto convinces them to free him from prison in exchange for information on the djinn's weaknesses, happily collaborating with them to once again defeat his old foe.
- Skylor is the Elemental Master of Amber and the daughter of Master Chen. Tasked by her father to pose as a contestant in his Tournament of Elements, Skylor befriends and keeps tabs on the Ninja as they investigate Chen's plan to steal their elemental powers, sowing seeds of discord between them and the other contestants while copying the shapeshifting power of Form to hide her true allegiance. Eventually agreeing to turn on Chen and successfully restoring the stolen powers after growing attached to Kai, Skylor manages to utterly decimate his remaining minions, using her wits and powers to bring in allies and constantly outmaneuver the cultists in a high-speed chase. Later taking over Chen's noodle business after foiling his plans for a second Serpentine War, Skylor returns time and again to help her new friends, from fighting Nadakhan to organizing the resistance against "Emperor" Garmadon, and repeatedly proves herself a match for any enemy that crosses her.
Woagh
to Ronin. As Emerald mentioned, he said i was free to talk about his original video game appearance since i happened to have a copy in hand, so hey something to look forward to there.
Jaded Techie Fox
to Ronin
Okay, so this has been stuck in my drafts for weeks because I was trying to shorten it, and I did manage to shorten it quite a bit, but it's still really long, so I apologize. Cons for doing an MB proposal for the main protagonist of a four seasons long, with 22 eps per season, series, I guess. Also I really hope the folders work cuz they don't seem to in the preview.
What is the work?
Revenge (2011) is a modern retelling of The Count of Monte Cristo, set in the 2010s in the Hamptons. In the 1990s, Conrad Grayson, CEO of Grayson Global, and his inner circle of friends and employees frame another employee, David Clarke, for laundering money for a terrorist organization that bombed a plane, killing all the passengers. David is arrested and separated from his then 9-year-old daughter Amanda, and David is left in prison for 20 years until he dies. In 2011, Amanda Clarke, now going by the name "Emily Thorne," moves back to the Hamptons to enact revenge on everyone involved in framing her father.Who is Emily Thorne/Amanda Clarke?
She rents her former house for the summer from the new owner, Lydia Davis, who was also involved in the frame up, and then surreptitiously tips off Victoria that Lydia has been sleeping with Conrad, causing Victoria kick Lydia out of the Hamptons, allowing Emily to stay in said house for as long as she wants. She also stages a Meet Cute with the oldest Grayson child, Daniel, to woo him into a marriage in order to allow herself to get closer to the Graysons.
Meanwhile, she goes after each person involved in the frameup. She uses the fact that Bill Harmon, her father's friend who testified against him on behalf of the Graysons, likes to take risky gambles and built his fortune using insider trading to trick him by leaking to the press that a cell phone company would be gaining an exclusive contract, causing Harmon to invest solely in that company only to learn too late that the contract was instead going to their rivals. When he tries to cover up this failed investment, Emily calls each of his investors to inform them of it. She blackmails Tom Kingsley, who prosecuted her dad due to Conrad's promise to bankroll his future political campaigns, about his affair with footage of it (that she'd acquired because she bought the place the mistress lives in and had cameras installed as part of the renovations). She invites said mistress to his campaign announcement, having contacted her for the past several months under Kingsley's name. Kingsley then announces his retirement, thinking that a jealous staffer paid his mistress to blackmail him. She takes down Dr. Michelle Banks, who institutionalized her under Victoria's orders with promises of a lucrative career treating the wealthy residents of the Hamptons, by playing footage that Dr. Banks recorded of her therapy sessions at a charity gala honoring Dr. Banks. Emily had also been going to therapy with Dr. Banks for the past few months to include footage of her own sessions, while leaving Lydia's sessions off of it to scapegoat Lydia since she had shown up again to try to get her house back. She also included footage of Victoria's sessions where she speaks ill of her youngest daughter Charlotte, driving a wedge between them. There's more revenge-schemes-of-the-week, but I'm gonna skip them for the sake of time.
It takes longer to take down the Graysons since they are the Big Bads, plus Victoria was always suspicious of Emily by virtue of her dating Daniel. Jack, her childhood friend who has only just learned Emily's true identity and is upset at her for all the deception, also imposed a deadline by telling her to leave by the summer. She drugs Conrad and has Nolan doctor his blood tests to get him diagnosed with Huntington's, and she continues switching out his pills with drugs that replicate the symptoms. She convinces a former-Grayson-associate-turned-priest, leveraging his guilt about being involved in framing her father, to talk Conrad into eliciting a confession that she can record. It almost works, but Conrad drives with the priest as passenger, and he crashes the car, killing the priest. He finds out he never had Huntington's in the ER.
Emily then decides to frame Victoria for her own murder on the night of her wedding. This goes awry due to a Gambit Pileup caused by Lydia, resulting in a drunk Daniel, having overheard that Emily had lied to him about being pregnant, shooting Emily. Emily gets memory loss, and the Graysons have her discharged into their care so they can coerce her when she regains her memory into claiming Lydia is the one who shot her. Meanwhile, Victoria's secret firstborn son had been over to Nolan's place and seen the infinity box, where Emily kept her father's journals and other stuff relating to her revenge schemes, and Victoria has him give it to her.
But after regaining her memories, Emily had Nolan switch out the contents of said box for papers that make her out to be just after the Graysons' money. She also calls the press over to tell them it was Lydia who shot her, permanently getting that Spanner in the Works out of the picture, and using this as leverage to stay in her marriage with Daniel and wreck the Graysons from the inside, because she can easily revoke her testimony and say that the Graysons coerced her into it. When she needs to leave to pursue her next steps, she leaks her medical records revealing that she was never pregnant.
She then stages a kidnapping of Charlotte. She has Nolan alter footage to make it look like Charlotte is being hurt and sends it to Conrad, telling him that Charlotte will be freed if he hosts a live press conference confessing to framing David Clarke. Conrad agrees because he knows any confession made under duress is inadmissible in court. Meanwhile, Emily tells Charlotte about Conrad's framing of David. She then has Charlotte bugged and then releases her just before Conrad hosts his press conference. Charlotte confronts her dad over what she learned, so Conrad, pissed, confesses everything and threatens Charlotte into silence. Emily has Nolan hack into the satellites to air this recorded confession on live TV, which gets Conrad arrested. She sends a packet of evidence she's compiled to the judge, which imprisons him and exonerates her father.
Victoria, meanwhile, has realized Emily was never after the Graysons' money, and suspects, based on who all had their lives ruined after Emily moved into the neighborhood, that Emily is actually Amanda Clarke. Emily catches onto this when she sees that one of Victoria's goons, while fighting her, attached a syringe to her leg. After dealing with Conrad, she asks Charlotte for her help in digging up David Clarke's body, knowing that she'll tip Victoria off, causing Victoria to follow her to the graveyard. Victoria confronts her about her real identity and Emily confesses and then knocks her out with her shovel. Getting Dr. Banks on board, Emily has Victoria institutionalized for delusions about her being Amanda Clarke, just as Victoria had institutionalized her years ago.
Several months later, Victoria breaks out of the facility and encounters a suddenly alive David Clarke, and she turns him against Emily in revenge since he has no idea she's actually his daughter. But that ends once Emily reveals her identity to him. Meanwhile, Malcolm Black, the man who broke David out of jail and coerced him into working for him, sends his FBI agent daughter Kate Taylor after him since he escaped. David insists on handling this himself, but Emily does her own investigating and confronts Kate during a party. Emily lures Kate to her house, which is monitored by hidden security cameras, which record Kate confessing that she's Black's daughter and is working for him. They fight. Daniel hears the commotion and shields her from the bullets, while Jack shoots Kate.
Unfortunately, Emily, due to David keeping her in the dark, didn't know how dangerous Black is. To keep Black off their tail, David stages it to look like Daniel had confronted Emily and she shot him in self-defense. Black kidnaps Emily and Victoria to force David to tell him where Kate is. Emily marks one of Black's goons with coal in a symbol from her and Jack's childhood treasure hunts, and has Victoria tell Black that Jack knows something about what happened to Kate so that he'll send said goon over to Jack. Jack deduces that Emily is being held in the one facility in the Hamptons that uses coal. He and David successfully break them out, and Black is arrested for kidnapping.
Meanwhile, Margeaux, Daniel's pregnant girlfriend, suspects that the story about how Daniel died isn't true. After Victoria tells her the truth, Margeaux seeks revenge. Emily proves to constantly be one step ahead of her so Margeaux targets Jack. Emily thwarts her and instead of going after Margeaux in retaliation, offers a truce to try to end the cycle of revenge, but Margeaux is hit by a car, and she miscarries. Emily blames herself for driving Margeaux to commit revenge in the first place, so she announces on live TV the truth about Daniel's death and her true identity, clearing Daniel's name. Meanwhile, Margeaux tells Victoria that Emily pushed her, and Victoria restarts her revenge crusade.
Victoria stages her death to make it look like Emily was the one who killed her. Emily is imprisoned for her faked death. Emily busts out of prison and, to end this cycle of revenge, decides to kill Victoria right there but David does it instead, which exonerates Emily while he is given compassionate release due to his leukemia diagnosis. Emily gets a fairly happy ending, marrying her childhood sweetheart Jack.
Is she Magnificent?
Absolutely. Fittingly for a Gender Flip modern day incarnation of the Count of Monte Cristo, Emily is usually three steps ahead of everyone (including the audience. There are a lot of instances of Unspoken Plan Guarantee in the show where it looks like Emily's plan is failing, only for it to be revealed that this was All According to Plan all along) and is able to easily predict what her victims will do and use their personality quirks and flaws against them. She's incredibly charismatic and clever, and most of her plans go off without a hitch. Even the few plans that derail or fail (and these are usually due to factors she had no way of anticipating) barely cause her to falter, as she is quickly able to come up with new and more successful schemes and can use even the most crappy situations to find a way to come out on top. She plays people against each other and, in the end, achieves her revenge against everyone who ruined her and her father's lives.I think maybe the only mitigating factor is the fact that how she deals with Victoria at the very end is less clever than her previous plans and she was largely saved there due to her father, but I think the sheer volume of all of her other clever revenge schemes make up for this near miss.
Is she a bastard? Too much?
Emily has very sympathetic motives, as she and her father have been put through hell because of the actions of the Graysons and their associates. But her revenge plans are pretty extreme, cross a lot of ethical boundaries, and cause collateral damage to people who weren't involved with the framing of her father. Poor Charlotte gets the brunt of it, and Emily regrets having caused her so much pain, becoming The Atoner towards her in the first half of season 4, but even Daniel, despite his willingness to follow the footsteps of his corrupt father, arguably didn't deserve everything he was put through either, which Emily also acknowledges. However, Emily has lines she won't cross, such as refusing to kill for reasons other than self-defense. She also legitimately cares for her friends and family, including Nolan, Jack, and even Charlotte, and is genuinely remorseful whenever her plans put them in danger. Also, Emily's victims are deeply awful and selfish people who very much deserve what Emily does to them, with Conrad especially being a money launderer who willingly works with terrorists for the sake of increasing his bottom line and shows no remorse about the deaths he's caused.Verdict?
A pretty easy keep, in my opinion.Edited by DeathsApprentice on Mar 19th 2023 at 9:19:38 AM
Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.
Black was actually killed and not arrested, Margaux did eventually confess the truth about getting hit by the car to Victoria—who still just felt she needed to be finished with Emily once and for all and David had Lymphoma. Other things may have been missing, but you pretty much covered every conceivably important little thing though and to have written all that in there must not've been an easy task as it's four seasons and 89 freaking episodes! You did a very good job summarizing and be proud of that!
A long-awaited and STRONG to Emily!
Ronin. When I heard that Magnificent Bastard candidates for Ninjago were going to be discussed, he was honestly the first guy that came to my mind.
Goku Black
Easy Ronin and Emily. Having watched those.
Fine with razznik. It's not the greatest end but it is like a kids show so im willing to give flak since it's not super bad.
- The Great Silence: Silence himself, only in the producer-mandated alternate ending. A mute, intelligent gunfighter who lures bounty hunters into drawing on him so he might be justified in ending them, Silence comes to the town of Snow Hill where he organizes a resistance against the wicked banker Pollicut. Seemingly walking into a trap set by the evil killer Loco, Silence reveals he was faking his injuries and exhaustion while wearing a hidden gauntlet to protect his hand before taking out Loco's men and securing victory for the outlaws just before settling down for a life with the beautiful widow Pauline and accepting Sheriff Burnett's offer to be his deputy with a glowing smile.
Showtime!
Edited by Melinda on Mar 19th 2023 at 11:23:09 AM