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
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Just add it to Sandbox.Magnificent Bastard Drafts yourself, unless you’re suspended from editing.
Lies and Violence!
What's the work?
Gotham Knights (2023) is a recent tv series about Batman's adopted son, Turner Hayes, seeking to avenge his father's death at the hands of the Court of Owls.
Aside from that, it was actually pretty decent. Better adaptation of the Court of Owls than Gotham, certainly.
Anyway, a recurring element throughout the show is the mystery behind the death of Turner's birth parents (btw, I'm just going to call him Tim for the rest of this post, because yes, I'm petty). Batman, the world's greatest detective, never managed to uncover their murderer... because it was him. Long story short, it's revealed they were murderous assassins assigned to kill the Batman, only to get killed themselves by the Dark Knight in self-defense. He proceeded to adopt a young Tim out of guilt...
And then gets murdered many years later by an immortal zombie owl assassin. Which brings us to the present... or, rather, literally the very end of the show.
Who is Ra's al Ghul probably Henri Ducard?
Okay, some background context: Dr. Leviticus, the immortal ruler of the Court of Owls, has set Wayne Tower to explode. Tim happens to be in the tower after the climactic final battle, but gets injured trying to flee from Leviticus' immortal ninja servants, the unkillable Talons. The clock is ticking down with only a few minutes left, and if the Court is going to die in the explosion then they're making sure Tim is dragged down with them.
And then they all get headshots. Leviticus and her previously thought bulletproof Talons, every last one of them filled with powerful rounds—if you've seen John Wick 4, think smaller versions of those guns that shoot mini-explosions. Heavily armored soldiers flood the room, and spirit Tim away as the explosives go off. They proceed to bring him out of the city and take him to his parents' former employer.
Henri introduces himself as the man who trained them, trained Batman, and sent Tim's parents after Batman. And now, he sees the same potential in Tim. Tim, of course, is skeptical, but Henri points out he doesn't have much of anywhere else to go—all his friends back home think he's dead from the explosion. His old life is gone... all the more perfect a beginning for Henri to teach him everything he knows and make him his heir in classic Ra's fashion.
Mitigating factors?
Full disclosure, Henri is first mentioned in the very last episode. He only appears in literally the very last scene. But what we do know of him establishes him as a calculating badass. He trains the best of the best assassins, his forces are aware enough of the power of the Court to be armed with rounds capable of overriding even their immortality, and he times Tim's abduction to perfectly fake his death in a massive explosion, the chaos removing any evidence of his involvement and leaving him free to train him as he desires.
It's a small one, but I think he passes fine.
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Most expensive looking bat series ever!Henri Ducard.
To Henri
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Jerk Chicken, Louis, Jason Todd, Henri, Madara quote.
Gotta love Jaws!
With Jules Archibald and Jacques Murnau already added as CM candidates I decided I'd propose the eligible MB candidate I see in this film.
What is the Work?
Emesis Blue is a fan-animated feature-length Psychological Horror film based on Team Fortress 2. The plot revolves around an alternate version of the BLU mercenaries, of who an executive and the mayor of New Mexico, Jules Archibald, has mysteriously vanished. The detective Jacques Murnau (Spy) and his assistant Jane Doe (Soldier) team up to find him, while Fritz Ludwig (Medic) follows behind them in search of his mysteriously vanished patient, Jeremy (The Scout). What they discover is a horrific truth relating to the respawn machine, which frequently malfunctions.
Who is the Character? What Have They Done?
Fritz Ludwig, the medic, is a noticeably calmer, more empathetic and composed character compared to his deranged (though no less magnificent) video game counterpart. When his patient, the Scout, suffers from brain damage as a result of a failed respawn, Fritz medically assists him only for his mother to be murdered, and Fritz blamed for the murder. Heading to the "Conagher Slaughterhouse" (2Fort but spoopy) in search of a lead to find him with, Fritz barely escapes past "Stalingrad", a heavy mutated into a gigantic silent hulking brute as a result of respawning, and discovers Jeremy locked alive in a coffin. Running away, Jeremy is gunned down by mutated engineers Maynard and Zed and taken away for further torture. Enraged, Fritz sneaks behind Maynard and nearly strangles him with a telephone wire before Maynard notices and kills him. Fritz comes back to life due to the respawn machine, and kills Maynard before using his wrangler in order to kill Zed, smiling as he kills both of them.
In the basement, Fritz discovers Jeremy's corpse before discovering an undead Medic and electrocuting him, and Stalingrad chases after him again. Jane and Cyclops (Demoman, and the only sane Slaughterhouse Mercenary) hear him. Fritz hides behind the small medkit and ammo pack on the map as Stalingrad bursts through, pinning them under a statue. Fritz distracts Stalingrad long enough for Jane and Cyclops to free themselves and they narrowly escape into a nearby elevator.
Fritz wanders off while Jane and Cyclops investigate other areas, with Cyclops accidentally getting himself frozen to death, and attempts to revive Jeremy only for the machine to malfunction and revive Jeremy as a liquid human slurry. Fritz decides to enter the Respawn Machine, where he finds himself in Scout's house. Walking through the house, he notices a wall lit up and approaches it. Peering through a gap, he sees himself and Jeremy from earlier during Jeremy's checkup. As they leave, Fritz attempts to knock down the wall, causing the box of VHS tapes to fall down. When past Fritz and Jeremy exit, Fritz chases after them, only to come across a vision of himself standing over Jeremy's mother's dead body. When Fritz comes to, he sees the Butcher, alive and on fire, approaching him. Fritz flees into a nearby church and hides inside a confessional. In the church, the Butcher finds Fritz and begins to burn his face when the two are knocked back by the explosion from the Hunter's rocket. Fritz manages to retrieve his gun and shoot the Butcher in the face, stunning them. Grabbing the Butcher's axe, he incapacitates them before finally decapitating them.
Fleeing to Jane's position, he prevents the Hunter from killing him by incapacitating him, letting Jane finish him off. Before they can leave, they are apprehended by Jacques, who has been hideously burnt by this point in the film and murdered Archibald in order to take his position. Fritz is forced to play Russian Roulette with Jacque and Jane Doe, with him losing and shooting himself. After Jane and Jacques narrowly escape from the Slaughterhouse being burnt down despite their severe injuries, a sham funeral is held for Jules Archibald, where Jacques falsely claims him to have been killed in a botched rescue attempt by Fritz, playing him up as a mentally unstable drug addict who also kidnapped Jeremy before taking his own life. As Morneau explains that he will be BLU's new Chairman of the Board, Jane prepares to kill the both of them with a grenade when Fritz suddenly rises from Archibald's coffin and shoots Morneau dead.
During the ensuing chaos, Jane helps Fritz retrieve the briefcase and escape. As Blutarch and his driver flee, they run a red light and crash into another car. Jane approaches the injured Mann and kills him. Fritz hijacks an ambulance and drives away, running down Redmond as he gloats over his dead brother. Afterwards, Fritz drive down the road before coming to "Dell's Bar" a place that appears to represent the afterlife, that was also seen by the Cyclops. In the restroom, Fritz takes his valium, which is revealed to be Emesis-branded diazepam. Archibald exits a stall and, after washing his hands, smiles at Fritz before leaving. As he leaves, Jeremy enters and greets Fritz, to the latter's happiness. The movie then cuts to reality, with Fritz dead after crashing into a pole with a smile on his face, as the briefcase Pulp Fiction reference emits a red glow.
What Makes Him Magnificent?
Despite initially being presented as much more troubled and less confident than his canon version, Fritz manages to save Jane's life several time over with a use of pragmatism despite his comparative lack of physical strength and combat abilities, such as using the Engineer's own telephone and wrangler against them or distracting Stalingrad in a gambit for Jane and Cyclops to free themselves. This extends further to the end, where after reviving, he hides himself in Jules Archibald's sham coffin and uses it in order to take revenge on Jacque, Blutarch and Redmond for their numerous crimes, and hijacks an ambulance in order to flee the crime scene.
What Makes Him A Bastard?
While he's given a good degree of Adaptational Heroism, he is still explicitly stated to have been one of 100 death row patients tested for the respawn machine, of which 10 survived, implying he committed some pretty serious crimes in order to do such a thing in the past. Additionally, he seems to take a good amount of joy in murdering the Engineers, delivering a terrifying Slasher Smile while doing so, and while they are very cruel and sadistic, they are eventually revealed to be as much a victim of the Mann brothers and Archibald's evil as he is. Additionally, while Jacques, Blutarch and Redmond absolutely deserved their deaths, he's still willing to kill several security guards and police officers that presumably had no knowledge of their horrible actions. Despite this, he avoids targeting civilians, as he roughly throws out the man in the ambulance he uses to get away, but decides against shooting him.
Mitigating Factors?
He's pretty clearly troubled and not entirely mentally stable, but this doesn't severely effect his functioning in the things he manages to pull off in the film, usually manifesting in hallucinations seen by the rest of the cast and occasional spurts of him Laughing Mad, so I don't think it's enough to disqualify him.
Verdict?
I think Yes.
Edited by Orangutans on Jul 21st 2023 at 10:14:55 AM
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
ALRIGHTY.
I think after watching the movie I think he counts. Possibly, don’t quote me on this lol
What’s The Work?
So we all know My Hero Academia. In a world with over 90 percent of the population having superpowers called quirks, a quirkless boy named Izuku Midoria, aka Deku attempts to become a Greta hero after gaining a powerful quirk known as One For All.
But currently I’ll be speaking about the movie Heroes Rising, which focuses on Deku and his group of classmates stationed as hero’s on a peaceful island named Nabu, before having to deal with a terrorist attack.
Who is Nine? What Does He Do?
The Unnamed Man, simply known as Nine, was born with an extremely powerful quirk that allowed him to manipulate weather. However, this quirk was slowly killing Nine, who wished to create a society where the strong ruled.
Nine picked up three hero’s who felt discriminated by society as well, and Nine proceeds to search for a cure to his disease. He meets the mysterious doctor and All For One, and the two make a deal in which Nine receives a version of All For One, giving him access to steal a limited amount of quirks (as we can see some of the, include a hydra quirk, an air cannon or wall, laser bullets, and scanning peoples abilities to an extent).
Nine proceeds to find the Shimano patriarch and attempts to steal his cell activation quirk, only failing due to the incompatible blood type, before deciding to go after his children on Nabu island to get the quirk from one of his kids. After a long and brutal fight, Nine is defeated and brutally injured by Deku and Bakugo using a double 100% of One For All shared between the two, and Shigaraki kills Nine to cover up his own tracks.
Is he Magnificent?
While Nine has stockpiled a great deal of quirks he uses to his advantage, Nine is no slouch when it comes to being perceptive, on his feet and his sense of leadership, which almost gets him the upper hand.
Nine is shown to be a capable leader for one, cutting off communications from Nabu to strand the islanders and getting his men to create hysteria and attacking at various point, using their abilities to suit them well. He shows keen observation skills he uses to his advantage, evaluating that one of the father’s children has the quirk he needs that matches his blood type. He also uses his scanning quirk to pick up a good idea on Deku’s quirk (which he doesn’t quite know what it is) in order to fight or flee.
He is shown to have sharp reflexes as he instantly dodges an attack from Bakugo when he came out of nowhere, and while he has a bunch of quirks, he does use them to his advantage, using them in unique ways as a way to outmaneuver or block his opponents attacks. Such as splitting the hydra heads to attack Bakugo and Deku, using the air walls to block and propel enemies away and himself.
During the climax he lays a full assault on Class 1A showing a remarkable determination and unquestionable determination in his goals, ruthlessly taking down almost all of the class members with ease, and during his final fight with Deku and Bakugo almost gets them down after using the pinnacle of his Weather Manipuoation quirk, only failing after Deku shared One For All with Bakugo.
Despite his Villainous Breakdown during the battle, he recovers as he attempts to release a final attack on the two, failing by a hair. When Shiagaraki is about to kill him, Nine shows to stay defiant to the end, still attempting to crawl back to the battle while refusing to give up, showing that, even in the cusp of death, he refuses to stand down until he crumbled to dust.
Is He A Bastard?
I’d say so. He planned to make a strongest of the fittest world and stole multiple people’s quirks, attempting to harm 2 children to get his cell activation quirk and endangered an entire island on top of it, all while brutally beating Class 1A in the climax. However, he is not sadistic nor takes joy in it, stating to only harming the kids if they try and fight against him as well being more restrained in the attacks making him look far better than the likes of All For One, Dabi, Muscular, or Flect who has more destructive crimes.
Verdict?
All this says, I’m gonna say yes.
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.
So that took quicker than I thought, here's the potential candiate from the Chinese Wuxia I watched on international cable TV when I was a child.
What is the Work?
Lotus Lantern(some english info here) is a 2005 Chinese Wuxia mythological costume/period drama. It is an adaptation of the original Lotus Lantern folk tale with elements of the 1999 animated film and many characters present within Chinese Mythology thrown in. It got a prequel, The Prelude of Lotus Lantern in 2009. Lotus Lantern focuses on Chen Xiang, the son of a mortal scholar and an immortal goddess that got imprisoned by the Taoist Pantheon for loving a mortal. Upon developing powers and learning the truth about his mother, he set out to free her, joined by Love Interest and fox demon Xiao Yu, the 8th Dragon Prince, and, Ding Xiang, a woman from a wealthy family who Chen was arranged to marry.
The god that sealed Chen’s mother for the crime of loving a human is Yang Jian, also known as Erlang Shen. While a straight up villain in the original animation, and mostly playing an antagonistic role in the original myth, Yang-a Composite Character of both the mythological Erlang Shen and Hou Yi-is a far nobler character in this series and can easily be read as the true protagonist of this duology.
Who is he?
Yang Jian, as revealed in Prelude, was born along with a brother and a sister to a mortal father and an immortal mother. However, the tyrannical rulers of the Taoist Pantheon, would not allow this marriage and sent soldiers to attack their home. Yang lost his father and brother in that attack. He tried to save his mother but the Jade Emperor executed her by calling on the power of the 10 Suns. Enraged, Yang rampaged through heaven and killed 9 of the 10 suns. Yang was sentenced to death, but escaped thanks to Nezha’s help.
Eventually befriending a Dog god named Xiao Tian Quan and reintergreating back into heaven, Yang Jian sought the rank of the “God of Law”, hoping that he could change the Heavenly Laws from within. However, he found out that the Jade Emperor and the Heavenly Matriarch had the final say on that.
When his sister San Sheng Mu fell in love with Liu Chang, the Heavenly Matriarch’s lackey, Tian Mu, is made aware of this and seeks to kill San Sheng Mu. Yang plays along, but dosen’t want to kill his sister. He uses his eye to seemingly kill Liu and Chen Xiang, unaware that San Sheng Mu has used the Lotus Lantern to spirit them away, the Lantern being entrusted to Liu in the process. After a fierce confrontation, San Sheng Mu is imprisoned under Mount Hua, a fate decided on by Yang as an alternative to death. 16 years later, it was discovered that Liu and Chen are still alive, Tian Mu finds out about this and tries to engineer the death of Chen by blackmailing Yang. An enraged Yang kills Tian Mu and plans to declare war on Heaven.
However, Yang is talked down by Tang Sanzang, who tells Yang that such a war would be suicidal and create chaos in the moral realm. With the encouragement of his mentor Yuding, Yang ferments a new plan: training a warrior strong enough to challenge the Jade Emperor and the Heavenly Matriarch and rewrite the Heavenly Laws. After being rebuffed one more time when he pushes the idea of reform, Yang Jian pushes ahead with his plan.
What does he Do?
Yang Jian’s first interaction with Chen Xiang was saving him after he fell unconscious while trying to test out his powers in front of his classmates . When Yang asks his nephew what he wants in life, Chen tells Yang that he dosen’t like to study. Yang Jian was not impressed, but tells the Xiao Tian Quan to keep him safe. Despite their relationship starting out somewhat amiably, eventually Chen and Yang fall out with each other when Chen was spotted with the Fourth Dragon Princess and the Hundred Flowers Goddess. The fallout from this causes Chen to vow to kill Yang for what he did to his mother.
The reason that Yang got angry when he saw the Dragon Princess was because one of the reasons that he wanted to change the Heavenly Laws was because both immortals knew about Chen Xiang. He conspires with the Bull Demon King to abduct the Hundred Flowers Goddess. However, the Fourth Princess escapes and tells Chang Er about Chen, Chang Er subsequently petitions the Jade Emperor to spare Chen’s life. Yang Jian then engineers events he believes will make Chen mature into a strong warrior:
- Kidnapping Chen’s father, torturing him, and dumping him in the Chinese underworld, he is later on freed by Chen.
- When Chen and his friends arrive in Mount Hua to see his mother with the help of Nezha, Yang puts Chen through three trials torturing him, through in reality it is to test his determination to see his mother.
- Personally killing the Fourth Princess, who becomes a sort of Cool Big Sis to Chen. This was because Chen was excessively relying on the Fourth Princess’ protection, which Yang sees as holding Chen back. However, he saves the shattered fragments of the Fourth Princess’ soul before she could truly die, resurrects her with Lao Zi’s help, convincing them both of his plan, telling the princess to lie low and play along with her “death” for the time being.
- Torturing Zhu Bajie, which was to drive fourth Bajie’s determination to bring Chen to Sun Wukong so Wukong can train him.
- Manipulating Xiao Yu after she breaks up with Chen over her swallowing and her hatred towards Wukong and San Shenmu over killing her parents, as well as possessing Ding Xiang a couple of times by exploiting her jealously of Xiao Yu. His manipulations end up bringing a remorseful Xiao Yu to his side, with Xiao Yu being made aware she could better help the man she loves if she plays along with his plan.
- After finding an axe in Laozi’s palace during a raid on heaven with Wukong, Chen makes an attempt to free his mother. In response, Yang locks Chen in a pocket dimension to memorize 5,000 holy books. After 30 years in that dimensionnote , Chen succeeds in that trial. Unfortunately Chen fails to free his mother and has designs of storming heaven to change the Heavenly Laws. Yang tests his skills by challenging him to a duel, abducting Ding and daring Chen to rescue her. Ultimately, Yang comes out on top and ends up reclaiming the Lotus Lantern, through Ding frees herself and Chen learns more about how the Lotus Lantern works.
Eventually Chen becomes strong enough and overpowers Yang when he tries to stop Chen from saving the Hundred Flowers Goddess. He would have been killed if it was not for Xiao Tian Quan’s intervention. Having failed to prevent Chen from rescuing the Hundred Flowers Goddess, the Heavenly Matriarch deems Yang an outcast, sending the Four Heavenly Kings after him. He gets saved by Chen.
Chen along with Wukong go to heaven to confront the Taoist Pantheon. Knowing that a war would plunge all of existence into chaos, Yang betrays Chen at the last minute with the help of Xiao Yu and is reinstated into his position. When the Heavenly Matriarch calls for Chen’s execution, Yang instead offers to make Chen Laozi’s apprentice as punishment, knowing that he has a secret ally that will treat him well. Laozi gives Chen a pep talk allowing the latter to realize true potential. When Chen escapes from heaven with Wukong, Yang and Laozi trick the Heavenly Matriarch into letting Chen go.
Chen subsequently rallies a large army of mortals, bolstered by all his friends to attack Heaven. Nezha and Venusnote both defect to Chen’s side. Guan Yin intervenes and throws down a wager: If Chen Xiang can free his mother using Pangu’s Axe, than heaven will have to change the Divine Law, if not, San Shen Mu will be executed.
Chen succeeds in finding the axe, but the axe won’t budge. Yang ambushes Chen’s group and kills Ding. Her life essence is sucked into the axe and allows it to be used. They fight one last time and Chen wins. Just then, while Chen is about to strike the final blow, both Xiao Yu and the Fourth Princess appear and tell Chen everything about Yang's true motivations. Yang expresses pride at Chen and regret at killing Ding, saying that he would use all his power at his disposal to bring her back to life if that was possible. At that moment, Chen forgives Yang.
With all he has learned, Chen breaks open mount Hua with Yang and Xiao Yu’s help. However, the Heavenly Matriarch has one final Sadistic Choice directed towards Chen—the new Heavenly Laws requires San Shen Mu’s life essence to be created. If Chen frees his mother, he will no longer be able to change the cosmic order. Chen resigns himself to losing his mother, and she forgives her brother in her final moments. However, just as his mother is being sacrificed for the ritual, tears flow from Chen’s eyes, this act of love resurrects both his mother and rewrites the Divine Law without any more bloodshed.
With Chen’s family reunited, the Heavenly Matriarch acknowledges defeat, and decides to return to the cycle of reincarnation as a mortal seeking atonement for her actions. The Jade Emperor gives Yang now the power to implement a fairer Divine Law, essentially voiding any power he could have over Yang that could undermine any efforts to reform the Heavenly Laws. After millennia of hardship, Yang Jian has finally found peace.
How does he operate? Is he too much of a bastard?
He skillfully plays the role of the villain, to drive up hatred from Chen. However, all of this had a purpose. Throughout the series, Chen had the belief that all he needs to do is be good enough. By engineering events to center Chen’s hatred on himself, Yang gives Chen motivation free his mother and later on to overthrow the tyranny of the Heavenly Laws. The reason he killed the Fourth Princess and separated Chen from his father was because they honestly outright impeded him from achieving his true potential. In fact, the Fourth Princess ended up agreeing with this assessment once Laozi revived her. All of his actions had a purpose in creating a just cosmic order replacing the one that ended the life of his family members. When Chen and San Shen Mu found out about the measures he took, they forgave him, knowing what he did was for their sake.
It helps that he actually tries to undo some of the damage he does or mitigate some of the damage he does.note
He also successfully hides his true goals under the nose of the two top gods of the Taoist Pantheon and the Four Heavenly Kings, and convinces multiple characters to his side. While he does not end up killing or dethroning the Jade Emperor-who ordered his mother's death, he ends the series with direct influence over Heaven's new laws. With the Heavenly Matriarch banishing herself back to the cycle of reincarnation after her Heel Realization, there was no way the Jade Emperor could try to subvert the new laws.
While the Heavenly Laws are extremely draconian and a case could be argued that the fucked-up system enforced by the Heavenly Matriarch and the Jade Emperor was bad enough that what he did was wayyy too necessary for him to be a MB, he was complicit as the God of Law in enforcing this system, so I'd say his past makes him enough of a bastard.
Verdict
I’d give a .
Edited by xie323 on Jul 22nd 2023 at 7:03:16 AM
Yes to Jerk Chicken, Louis, Jason Todd, Henri Ducard, Ludwig, Nine (not Nein), and Yang Jian.
So it's been about 2 weeks since the latest Helluva Boss episode. So I am going to give an update to everyone.
I am going to take Moxxie out of the running for good. The latest episode had Moxxie and Millie go to a summer camp to kill a target and disguise themself as pre-teen campers. Moxxie spends most of the episode trying to impress a bunch of pre-teen campers, going to crying fits for failing to do so, acting like a Psychopathic Man Child for most of the episode, and even starting yelling at his wife, claiming she is dancing for views when she was more than him. Moxxie does the right thing eventually, but it takes him way too long to get there and Millie has to put him in his place to do so.
I am still having trouble seeing Stiker counting due to his out-of-control ego and the ridiculous statue he had in his last appearance.
So that leaves fewer options, the main character Blitzo is a mess, there is no he counts, and his daughter Loona is far to lazy to do much in the way of villainy, she only occasionally helps the team kill someone. Stolas is pretty powerful but is portrayed as kinda a loser and is so smitten with Blitzo that he lets Blitzo use him.
The villains range Stella, an idiot and a Hate Sink to Crimson, Moxxie's dad who is a monstrous psychopath. Stella's brother Andrealphus seems fairly intelligent but seems kinda slimy at the moment, but he could count eventually.
But that leaves one character I overlooked for a while, Millie. Millie is easy to underestimate because she is the team brute, she usually lets Moxxie or Blitzo do the planning, while she does the fighting. On the surface, she seems more like brawns than brains, but she is far from stupid. When Blitzo was having a feud with a fellow demon, Verosika Mayday, she was able to quickly determine that Verosika accidentally mutated a fish that went on a rampage, she could tell her husband was distressed in the presence of his father, even if he said nothing and in the latest episode she found the target they were looking for almost immediately, but let Moxxie continue his investigation to spare his feelings until the investigation became an excuse for showboating.
Millie even stood up to Moxxie recently, getting sick of his jealousy after a while. Millie has a strike against her, she has a violent temper, which left her open to attack against Striker, but also allowed her to kill a small army of shark demons on her own. She may not be a planner like Moxxie and may not be as street-smart as Blitzo, but she can notice details and her action scenes make her charismatic.
Millie has done some questionable things, Moxxie and Millie have with each other in front of some pre-teen campers. Millie also let people take pictures of her despite being a demon in disguise and put them online. But Blitzo once appeared on television with just a wig, a sweater, and slacks as a disguise, so it doesn't seem like a big deal. Blitzo is too cheap to buy actual human disguises for himself and his employees.
I could propose Millie soon or wait until a few more episodes drop, this show loves curve balls.
Edited by Overlord on Jul 22nd 2023 at 8:19:26 AM
Goku Black
ducard and nine
Can I add Peter/Punisher to the Marvel sandbox?
to Fritz, Nine, and Yang
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Ducard, Fritz, Nine, and Yang.
Edited by Bullman on Jul 22nd 2023 at 9:31:52 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
It is July 22nd, and I am officially going to make my 1-month reservation for Metalocalypse: The Army of the Doomstar for both MB and CM! I asked LoreDeluxe, who has done the majority of Metalocalypse EPs so far, if they wanted to collab, to which they said I could have the reservation until they know what their schedule will be like then.
And has anyone called Talk To Me yet? It's a week from release and it's not on the list.
Let me catch up on this page. Yes to Ducard, Fritz, Nine, and Yang.
As I mentioned in P Ms, the only question coming from the movie is whether Salacia will be a CM, MB, neither, or both. I'm personally hoping for both based on how he's been depicted throughout the show so far.
And this thread has really slowed slowed down lately.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
By the Shiragaki who killed Nine according to the EP, was that Tomura or All For One?
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Tomura, yes.
Agreed there. Fortunately I do have a few EPs ready to post here but 4 Eps have already been posted on this page so that I have to wait until the next page to so that I can post them. Until then we just have to vote on the candidates currently on this page and the previous ones.
Edited by G-Editor on Jul 22nd 2023 at 6:04:50 AM
Showtime!
To Fritz, Nine, and Yang
While we are waiting for the next page, are there any opinions on Millie or any of the other Helluva Boss characters. Keep in mind, that is not a formal EP, I am just wondering if people think Millie is worth an EP or not and if I should wait or propose her soon?
I hate spoilers
to Nine. I was on the fence about him since his plan would’ve required taking down the entire world’s hero society, which would include Star and Stripe, but this is never brought up In-Universe.
The wifi here sucks
Yes to Ducard, Fritz, Nine, and Yang
I'm not super familiar with Helluva Boss but it sounds like the best way of dealing with it is to wait for the series to finish for any of the main characters in case a disqualifying factor shows up down the line.
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
Moving
Edited by Lightysnake on Jul 22nd 2023 at 12:14:41 PM
