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
Lord of Space
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Potholed?
The Moron
The blue links in an entry - like this or this. He's saying cut down on a few cause we have an upper limit.
BTW, does anyone mind if I add a note to the Ground Rules like we did with Emperor Belos on the other thread regarding not discussing All For One until the show's final arc ends? It's always been in good faith, but he has come up a lot and the answer has always been the same, so I think it bears adding like so:
note
What do we think?
Lizzid people!
Sounds good.
Not the Eye
Sounds like good idea.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Ok now here is an odd candidate that could go either way but Honestly could work.
What’s The Work?
Apple & Onion is an animated slice of life sitcom on Cartoon Network, which centers around a world with anthropomorphic foods, with the titular duo, Apple and Onion, two childish best friends who recently moved trying to explore their new environment and mature.
Who is Jerk Chicken? What does he do?
Jerk Chicken is the main antagonist of the two episode, the titular Jerk Chicken and Open House Cookies. He is shown to be an extremely bombastic scam artist who frequently exclaims LADDA MERCY.
In the first episode, Apple and Onion decide to be entrepreneurs to get their “American dream” and makes their own pizza delivery driver business. However, Apple makes coupons which state that they’ll deliver to their home in their hands in 15 minuets or else it’s free, which as Onion points out, is nearly impossible.
Apple manages to get all the coupons but one, which ends up getting to Jerk Chicken. JC proceeds to abuse the coupon, making it so that Apple and Onion are unable to physically give the pizza into his hands within the 15 minuets, making the pizza free. This starts with him simply talking a bit too long, which makes them 2 minuets late to put the pizza on his hands.
When Apple attempts to say that he already used the coupon, JC proceeds to say that since the coupon does not specify limitations or expiration dates, it is infinite and he can use it many times. A montage song shows him using many tactics to make the characters late, including putting a cardboard cutout on himself, putting ice around the house to make them slip and fall, in which he shows his good ice skating skills. And in the last part, he builds a whole moat around his house and then a crocodile comes out and bites the pizza, in which it’s revealed that it’s actually him as he sings taunting the duo.
When Apple and Onion have enough after having to sell their walls and roof (Yes, really) to afford necessities, the two straight up burn down his house, to which JC manages to save ether coupon. However, the two taunt that since he longer has a home, the coupon is null. This makes JC fall to his knees, yelling his one liner in distraught as he seemingly is defeated. However, at the end of the episode he calls back and orders the pizza, revealing he used the walls and roof that Apple and Onion sold to make a new house, and Jerk Chicken wins as he dances, much to Apple and Onions misery as they continue the cycle.
In the second episode, Open House Cookies, JC attempts to sell a house that is seemingly pretty great, with stainless steel appliances, a great gaming room (that Jerk Chicken says that can only be looked through the peephole as paints drying) and just has some earthquakes. Apple and Onion constantly takes the house tour just to have the complimentary cookies, much to Jerk Chicken’s annoy until he decides to scare the two, accusing them of simply just wanting the cookies and using reverse psychology to get them to buy the house.
When Apple and Onion attempt to sell the house, they see that the house was actually useless, with none of the appliances working (with the stove setting fire to random things like the pool and sink), the “gaming room” being actually painted to a wall, and the earthquakes actually just being Becuase it’s right next to a train. Apple and Onion attempts to scams Jerk Chicken back by pretending they found Gold Coins to convince him to buy back the house, while the two use fake chocolate coins. JC sees through their lie at first and agrees to meeting and seeing to amuse himself, however, Apple accidentally uses REAL gold dabloons and after checking that they are real, JC buys back and manages to get rich from the coins, and the duo ending up where they are started again.
Is He Magnificent?
I’d say so. While yes, he is literally named Jerk Chicken, the story does not portray him as insufferable or even hatable. He’s portrayed as being extremely lively and bombastic with his voice, with many funny moments from him as including his one liner (LADDA MERCY) well as the slapstick with him tricking Apple and Onion and his motivations (wanting the free pizza and money) in the episodes being played for comedy.
Overall, he shows a pretty good amount of cunning and intelligence scamming the duo, using many underhanded tricks to get the free pizza and even after his villainous breakdown, he manages to win at the end of the episode, and in the second episode he successfully scams the two into buying a useless house and sees through their lie until it’s shown that they weren’t lying (accidentally at least) and officially gets away with his actions.
Is He A Baddie?
He isn’t awful by any means, but he is a scammer, getting free pizza from Apple and Onion which hurts their business and in the second episode outright scams them into buying a home which is practically useless.
'Verdict?‘
Gonna go with a yes.
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Jerk Chicken
New candidate and one of Michael J. Fox's best performances.
What is the Work? The Good Wife is a CBS legal drama that aired for 7 seasons from 2009-2016. It follows Alicia Florrick, wife of a disgraced politician who is sent to prison amidst a sex/corruption scandal, forcing her to return to her legal career in order to support her family. Working for Lockhart/Gardner, one of her most frequent and difficult opponents is Louis Canning, played by Michael J. Fox.
Who is Louis Canning? Louis Canning is an Amoral Attorney who frequently represents pharmaceutical corporations that are being sued by Lockhart/Gardner for producing unsafe medicines. Canning’s favourite tactic in court is to milk his tardive dyskinesia, a disability based on Fox’s Parkinson’s Disease that causes uncontrollable jerky movements of his body, for sympathy from judges and juries.
Is he Magnificent? Canning is one of the few lawyers that ever gets any victories over Lockhart/Gardner, and he is an expert manipulator of juries. In his first appearance, he seems to have lost and is forced to settle for $35 million, before revealing to Alicia that the case was actually worth $90 million and his client had hired him to get the settlement below $50 million. He later succeeds in distracting Lockhart/Gardner with a petty lawsuit so he can steal their top client and schemes with David Lee to merge his firm with Lockhart/Gardner to block Diane’s attempted merger with Florrick/Agos. He’s also an incredibly charming and friendly guy who shows the utmost respect for Alicia’s skills, and on the rare occasion that he unambiguously loses, he does so with total grace and dignity.
Is he a Bastard? Almost all of Canning’s clients are guilty of causing serious harm to people and he defends them anyway. He also resorts to some very shady tactics, including milking his disability, trying to become the counsel for a class action so he can sabotage it from within and drowning his opponents in paperwork on discovery so they can’t find the evidence they need. He also tries to put Lockhart/Gardner out of business twice, first by stealing their top client and then by buying their debt when they are in bankruptcy to sabotage their repayments. He’s not all bad, as he’s a Punch-Clock Villain who loves his wife and kids and tells Alicia that he simply applies different moral standards to his personal life and his work, and encourages her to do the same. Best shown when he steals a vital piece of evidence from Alicia’s bag in order to win a case; Alicia is outraged that he did this while she was distracted because she thought her daughter was missing, but Canning responds that he actually waited until he was sure her daughter was safe, then stole it from her bag because he’s “not a monster”.
Conclusion Keeper for me.
Edited by Hfxjfrvnn on Jul 20th 2023 at 3:17:56 AM
Goku Black
Absolute yes to Louis Canning having watched it. Man oozes charisma thanks to being played by Michael J. Fox.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Jerk Chicken and Louis
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Yes to Jerk Chicken, and Louis.
Edited by LoreDeluxe on Jul 20th 2023 at 4:22:09 AM
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Woagh
to Jerk Chicken, Sabellion and Louis.
to Jerk Chicken and Louis
Aramis, Jikka, Browder, Parker, Emile, Gaap, Loki, Sabellian, JC and Louis
Any votes on my Madara quote?
Peter Parker himself is the deadly Anti-Hero The Punisher. Tracking down and murdering the man who killed his Uncle Ben, Peter becomes a ruthless Vigilante Man dedicated to protecting his loved ones at all costs. With a combination of cunning tactics and custom ammunition designed to target his enemies specific weaknesses, he effortlessly dispatches the Sinister Six in brutal fashion adding the Kingpin along the way while being content to let rival gangs thin each other out in random gang violence. When Norman Osborn, the Green Goblin kidnaps his beloved Gwen Stacy, Peter shoots him on the spot and succeeds in saving Gwen. Regretting his actions, Peter abandons his vigilante lifestyle for a peaceful married life with Gwen but not before leaving his shredded costume trashed in a back alley for a young war veteran named Frank Castle who just lost his family in a mob hit to discover.
This better?
Edited by BuffaloBrandon17 on Jul 21st 2023 at 8:46:53 AM
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Here’s Gaap:
- Black Mirror: Demon 79: Gaap is demon-in-training who was sent to convince meek sales lady Nida to kill 3 people to prevent the apocalypse and keep him out of purgatory. While being a compassionate and kind person to Nida, even using a form she liked through Bobby Farell from Boney-M, he uses manipulation and his powers to make her see the incoming apocalypse as well as the crimes of her potential victims, convincing her to kill a child rapist and murderer. Despite Nida going against him to kill Micheal Smart against his wishes, and despite Nida failing, Gaap takes his incoming fate with stride as he finds a loophole in the rules to take Nida with him to purgatory so the two can spend eternity together as the world that rejected Nida burned.
Buffalo that's linking to a new post button, not the post itself, but also it's on this very page, if I'm not mistaken and further it's only been one post. Just wait awhile to ask if people are okay with your new writeup. Yes I will say this one is better.
Jerk Chicken, Louis.
Edited by jjjj2 on Jul 21st 2023 at 5:29:14 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
Lies and Violence!
Sabellian, Jerk chicken, Loius. New Punihser writeup looks good.
What's the work?
Batman: The Adventures Continue is, again, a comic continuation of Batman: The Animated Series, introducing several of his major rogues into the DCAU: from Deathstroke, to the Court of Owls, to Azrael... and a certain boy wonder that the show skipped over.
Who is Jason Todd?
The second Robin after Dick Grayson, Jason was originally just a young street kid whose brother joined the Red Hood Gang to make ends meet. Said gang gained their name from their vicious initiation ritual: new members, when joining on heists, would be forced to wear a bright red mask and go on the lookout, with their colorful clothing making natural bait for any cops that may happen upon them. Jason's brother didn't survive his initiation.
Vengeful, Jason donned a red mask of his own and attacked the gang right as Batman began his own operation to take them down, impressing Bruce with how he singlehandedly decimates dozens of men twice his age. Missing Dick, Bruce decided to take him in and train him—though Jason took it upon himself to steal the Robin costume and join Batman in the field. His fighting skills were ferocious, and he proved charismatic enough to convince Bruce to let him become a bona fide superhero, but his rage quickly began to rear its head; Jason's ruthlessness was proportional to that of his opponents, so when he's facing average thugs? He works wonders. Against the Scarecrow trying to fear gas the city? He tries to defenestrate him.
This naturally caused some issues, and Jason split from the bats to become his own violent and aggressive vigilante. In one of his most brutal outings, he almost kills Killer Croc by mowing him down with a machine gun; the villain only barely survives due to his unique biology. From there, Jason decides to aim for the Joker himself, attacking Harley Quinn to beat his location out of her.
...Unfortunately, the whole thing turned out to be a trap, and Jason is captured. The usual plotline happens: Joker beats him bloody in a room full of explosives, though this time Bruce intervenes partway through. Fighting ensues, explosives go off, and a broken Jason muses that he's dying to his once mentor. He gives Bruce the crowbar the Joker used to beat him, pleading with him to finish off the clown for good.
Bruce... instead uses the crowbar to free the Joker from a piece of flaming lumbar that crashed on top of him. Which. Um. Dick move, Bruce. Like, I didn't expect you to kill him. But. Like. Saving his life with the same exact tool he used to fatally wound your former partner? After said partner asks with his dying wish to get rid of him? That's kind of fucked.
Anyway, an understandably livid Jason sets off a few more gas canisters in a desperate final attempt to kill the Joker. It fails, of course, but in the chaos he's able to grab onto one of the clown's parade balloons and flies away. Bruce doesn't see this, and after days of searching through the rubble, concludes his ward is dead. Jason recovers and leaves Gotham to try and find himself, finding some semblance of calm and introspection to overcome his previous bullheaded cruelty. However, during that period of reflection, he concludes he can't change. Sure, he can become more collected and intelligent in how he works. But that desire to punish the guilty, to do whatever it takes to exact justice? That will never fade.
So, years later, Jason returns to Gotham to exact revenge, once more donning a red hood: "the victim's shroud turned executioner's mask." He begins spying on the Bats and rogues of the city, learning what he's missed so as to better prepare himself for the final confrontation; though Deathstroke points him out to the bats, Jason gets him back by uncovering his plan to kill Bruce and sends a warning to Barbara—either out of remaining friendship with her or a desire to defeat Bruce himself, it's unclear.
Jason eventually ends up revealing himself, and begins his master plan. First, he enters the Batcave disguised as Batman. Though Tim quickly sees through it after "Bruce" makes the glaring OOC mistake of apologizing (an error that Jason begrudgingly owns up to), Jason incapacitates both him and Alfred to kidnap Tim. He further captures the Joker at Penguin's Iceberg Lounge, and when Bruce and Barbara track him to his sewer lair, a lying in wait Jason pops out of the sewer grate Pennywise-style to tranq them.
With all his targets in place, Jason unveils his revenge. Tim is trapped in a glass cage slowly filling with water; if Bruce wants him free, he'll need to shoot the Joker. Unfortunately, there are a few problems.
- Bruce subtly signals Tim to jam the flow of water with his cape, gradually creating a rupture that will shatter the cage; Jason and the Joker are too distracted by the latter being an asshole below to notice.
- The Joker refuses to take any of it seriously; when Jason threatens to kill the clown himself, he just laughs that will only result in Batman bringing him in and resulting in everyone's identities being revealed. Before that can go anywhere, however, it's revealed he has a tracking device on him that allows his superhumanly strong henchman to find them and launch a surprise attack.
Fighting ensues once more, things explode, and Jason finds himself dangling over a steep drop as the lair begins flooding. Bruce tries to save him as Tim tries to get the sewer grate open, but Jason sadly laments that he won't change and decides to throw himself to his death.
...Only to wake up some time later in the company of Deathstroke, who invites him to join a new mercenary family that will value his approach to justice.
Mitigating factors?
An Under the Red Hood adaptation of Jason? Counting here? Shock of all shocks.
Like his animated counterpart, Jason's at the top of his game. While not nearly as infallible (Deathstroke noticing his espionage and the Joker taking the piss out of his efforts at a climactic final confrontation), he's nonetheless able to run rings around Bruce with all the resources of a murderhobo, staying on top of their rivalry throughout the entire story arc. He admittedly was a cruel bastard during his early solo vigilante days, but it's clear he's matured remarkably with his return, staying stoic and composed during even the biggest setbacks, while remaining fully aware of his flaws as a hero.
Plus, he still has massive amounts of sympathy/understandable motives (the crowbar thing again, my god Bruce you asshole), and ultimately goes out encouraging Bruce to look forward to the future rather than dwelling on the tortuous past.
Goku Black
red hood
Jesus Bruce... Jason.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Not the Eye
to Jerk Chicken, Louis Cunning and Jason (Bruce you jerk)
To Jason
Jason Todd
Would someone mind adding Peter’s entry to drafts? I don’t know what to do and I don’t wanna screw up anything
