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
Wanted to propose a quote for Reboot!Timeline Khan:
Spock Prime: As you know, I have made a vow to never give you information that could potentially alter your destiny. Your path is yours to walk and yours alone. That being said, Khan Noonien Singh is the most dangerous adversary the Enterprise ever faced. He is brilliant, ruthless, and he will not hesitate to kill every single one of you.
Spock: Did you defeat him?
Spock Prime: At great cost, yes.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Goku Black
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
quote
To the Khan quote
Khan quote
Speaking of, any more votes on my Practical Guide quotes?
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I really like Dread Emperor Irritants quote!
Edited by jjjj2 on Jul 8th 2023 at 1:17:06 PM
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
I like the quote Star.
RIP Toriyama
I dig the quotes, STAR and Duck!
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
(she/her)
Just posting to say that futuremoviewriter has been indefinitely blocked from posting on the Long Term Projects subforum so all of their pending MB drafts are up for grabs.
Macron's notes
Goku Black
Well his eps
Have pre-emptive write-ups. Could we use those ?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
The Moron
We should be able to, yeah - because write ups are consensus based (I.e. not tied to a specific user), we can just use his write ups.
Lies and Violence!
Mandalore.
What's the work?
Cloak & Dagger (2018) is an underrated MCU show starring Tandy Bowen and Tyrone "Ty" Johnson, two New Orleans teenagers who discover light/shadow based powers and a grand purpose in the world of voodoo.
One of their many supporting characters is Brigid O'Reilly, a cop (and former Yellow Power Ranger) whose boyfriend is killed by corrupt cop Connors. During the final fight of season 1, she gets a face full of the dark/light powers and is split into two separate beings: her base self, left submissive and afraid... and her aggressive side.
Who is Mayhem?
Brigid's rage and malice made manifest, left with no empathy, no love, no calm or contentment. Just a desire to hurt people. Mayhem, in the first few days of her "life", is initially focused on tracking down the missing Connors (who, unbeknownst to everyone buy Ty, was sucked into the Dark Dimension), locating and questioning his old partner. He doesn't know anything, leaving Mayhem with no leads... though that doesn't stop her from killing him anyway when he whines about how he's the victim, seeing how he was involved in covering up Connors' murder of Ty's brother a decade ago.
With no way to find her prey, and still left with no emotions or drives other than causing pain, Mayhem resolves to take out her anger on those who deserve it, beginning an investigation into a local sex slavery ring that has been kidnapping girls. She begins by looking at the local gangs, who could supply drugs needed to sedate these girls; at a truce meeting between two of these rival gangs, Mayhem sneaks in and massacres everyone, including the retired mediator and a rich dude who happened to be in attendance. From there, she kidnaps and impersonates the submissive Brigid in order to get access to police records, identifying the rich dude to learn he provided the ambulances used to transport the kidnapped girls.
As she tricks Tandy into helping her subdue and execute one of the fake ambulance drivers, Mayhem ramps up her crusade of violence, burning down entire piers where the gangs' drugs come through and making an impressive amount of headway in locating and freeing the kidnapped girls. Unfortunately, there's still that bit where she's rage made flesh; after Tandy and Ty follow one of her tips and successfully rescue an entire building of girls, Mayhem still wants to get her murder on and goes after the gangs that were holding them hostage, attempting to mow them all down with a machine gun until Ty throws her into the Dark Dimension to protect one of the younger members.
Tandy goes in to pull her out, but they find two things: evidence of Connors' survival, and a mysterious music shop with records named after all the kidnapped girls. Including Tandy, for some reason. Tandy convinces Mayhem to not go after Connors, as they need him alive to exonerate Ty for a murder he was framed for, and they instead listen to some of the records, which dredge up visions and bad memories for Tandy. While she gets lost in those, Mayhem quietly leaves to sneak up on and attack Connors—though Tandy catches up in time to stop her from killing him, and accidentally pulls Connors with her when the loa spirits decide to kick her out of the Dark Dimension.
Now trapped, Mayhem decides to look into the record shop, which turns out to be owned by the mastermind behind the sex slavery ring, D'Spayre, a mortal turned loa voodoo spirit who feeds on the death of hope. She spies on him as he conducts Mind Rape from the shop and plots his ascension to godhood, but begins sabotaging things whenever he leaves, destroying the records he uses to cultivate Tandy and Ty's despair.
Around this time, the other Brigid gets fed up with the bigotry and apathy in the police force and enters the Darkforce herself, proposing the two do a Fusion Dance—Mayhem gets her empathy back, while Brigid can actually get something accomplished against D'Spayre with her violent side in the driver's seat. The reunited Brigid escapes back into the real world with Tandy and Ty, and proceeds to burn down the motel D'Spayre operates the trafficking ring from... and also attempts to murder his primary minion who has been drained of hope and put into a coma, viewing her as a victim but a victim who has become a monster nonetheless.
Still, Brigid begins realizing maybe fusing wasn't enough to solve her problems—she has empathy, but the "murder fucking everything" parts of her brain are still on 24/7—and goes to a brain doctor for help... right as D'Spayre begins abducting entire swathes of the city to his eternal Mind Rape dimension. Tandy and Ty enter the Darkforce to stop him, while Brigid protects the anchor that will provide them a way back to earth from D'Spayre's demonic minions.
After that's all sorted out, she digs up leads on other girls being abducted and murdered throughout the country for Tandy and Ty to look into... and gets her hands on Connors' corpse, who got killed in an unrelated storyline. She sneaks into the police precinct and strings the corpse up in the middle of their firing range, along with a sign declaring him "guilty" written in blood. A warning to all the corrupt monsters still in power, that they better get their acts together or begin watching their backs.
Is she a bastard?
Yes, her victims are involved in human trafficking, but it's made clear she's going way overboard in her crusade against them. Mayhem, as she nonchalantly admits herself, just wants to hurt people; even targeting Asshole Victims, that's a major driving force behind her actions, as demonstrated when she gleefully brings out a machine gun to massacre an entire building even after the innocents have been rescued and evacuated.
Even discounting that, her victims aren't all totally deserving.
- There's the retired gangster only brought in to mediate a dispute between gangs, who gets caught up as collateral damage when Mayhem attacks the meet.
- Solomon, a teen gangster who almost gets blasted with the machine gun before Ty sends Mayhem to the Dark Dimension; Ty is later able to convince him to turn his life around and avoid anything involving trafficking.
- Lia, D'Spayre's abused and manipulated minion. Mayhem initially keeps her alive when they find her in a coma, but once it turns out she's useless she tries to kill her—manipulated she may have been, but she was manipulated into becoming a monster, and Mayhem believes it would be a service to the world to get rid of the monsters no matter the circumstances.
All that said, it's still, you know, human trafficking, which all her victims save maybe the mediator are fully aware of. While her responses may be overkill, it's still a vile crime she's punishing, and while she has definite Blood Knight tendencies she's never sadistic about it. I don't think it's too bad to keep her off here.
Is she magnificent?
Absofuckinglutely. She was already a brilliant detective, and as an unfettered Vigilante Man she retains all the smarts that made her so competent in the first place. Pretty much the entire second and third episodes center around her methodically gathering clues on the trafficking ring's operations, impersonating her lawful self to gain access to police records and efficiently dismantling D'Spayre's plans to the point where Tandy becomes convinced that maybe just letting her off the leash would save more lives. Though she's driven to murderous violence by her Darkforce infection, she never lets it overwhelm her, remaining composed and unwavering in her mission to take it out on the guilty.
Not the Eye
to Mayhem
Red vs. Blue just got announced for a final season, which I will reserve once I am home.
Edit: I forgot, I need to wait a month before release date before I make a reservation.
Edited by SatoshiBakura on Jul 9th 2023 at 12:53:42 PM
Yes to Mayham, right on Satoshi!
To Mayham
Ultimate Moral Compass
Mayhem
Mayhem.
RIP Toriyama
Yes to Mayhem
Just to make our intentions clear: mir and I will be discussing Final Fantasy XVI here soon, we have a couple candidates in mind.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Mayhem
Thoughts on this quote?
Sasuke Uchiha: You planned for this?
Madara: No, my original plan was much simpler. This is what I call "pre-emptive improvisation."
Edited by DemonDuckofDoom on Jul 9th 2023 at 6:27:35 AM
Yes to Mayhem.
I'm tired right now so one today, one tomorrow, one the day after that.
- Lord Aloysius Kallig was an immensely powerful Sith who was both the right hand and greatest rival of the Dark Lord Tulak Hord. Responsible for much of Hord's early victories, Kallig was eventually assassinated when he proved too great a threat, yet he returned as a Force ghost millennia later to guide his descendant the Inquisitor to restore their family name to glory. Kallig would spy on the Inquisitor's master Darth Zash and learn of her body stealing ritual and guide his heir to use their servant Khem Val to disrupt the ritual and imprison Zash in Khem Val's mind. When the Inquisitor becomes a Lord, Kallig saves them from a trap by their rival Darth Thanaton and further guides them into learning a Force ghost devouring technique to make them stronger. Lord Kallig would eventually fade away and find peace after teaching his heir enough to thrive and reclaim their family's glory by becoming a Darth on the Dark Council.
Goku Black
mayhem
The wifi here sucks
Yes to Mayhem
Here's Pussy (this took way longer than I expected it to)
- Goldfinger: Pussy Galore is the beautiful personal pilot to Auric Goldfinger. A skilled pilot, Pussy personally trained a team of pilots who are an essential part of Goldfinger’s plot to break into Fort Knox by gassing the area. Upon meeting the captive Bond, Pussy proves herself a match for the agent, resisting his charm, capturing him when he escapes, and even fighting Bond with her Judo skills. Upon being convinced to betray Goldfinger, Pussy sabotages his scheme, allowing the US military and Bond to stop him. Dynamic, capable, and charming, Pussy earns her place as one of Bond’s most iconic partners.
Put it on the film's YMMV and the drafts.
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.