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
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Madagascar Penguins
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
From My Hero Academia, i made a write up and proposal almost a month ago and he still isn’t placed
It looks like Nine has been placed on the Anime and Manga page. You would have to post the write-up on the work's YMMV page yourself.
What Wily said. YMMV is OP’s responsibility.
Bannister
@Mermaid: I ask that same question too. The person who did the EP and write-up puts it in the YMMV page
To Bannister
Edited by G-Editor on Aug 7th 2023 at 5:56:43 AM
Ultimate Moral Compass
Hey. It's been a while since I've been on here, and I want to talk about a candidate from a classic comedy that 43 sent my way.
What’s the Work
Wayne's World!
Party Time!
Excellent!"
Yes, it's Wayne's World, the cult classic comedy based on the SNL skit of the same name that not only launched Mike Myers's film career, but also remains one of the best SNL movies next to The Blues Brothers.
The plot involves two doofy metalheads Wayne Campbell and Garth Algar, the hosts of the Illinois public access show Wayne's World as they find themselves going up against a television executive who tries to take their show away from them. Meanwhile, Wayne finds love in the form of the rock singer Cassandra Wong, and a whole bunch of wacky hijinks ensue.
Who is He?
Benjamin Oliver/Kane (played by Rob Lowe in one of his first forays in comedy) is a scheming TV executive who serves as the film's primary antagonist.
What does he do?
Catching Wayne's World on TV thanks to his then-girlfriend (who is never seen again after the prologue), Benjamin's able to convince his elderly sponsor Noah Vanderhoff to pick up Wayne’s World as a way to advertise his arcade games at Noah's Arcade to the youth of today. Getting Wayne and Garth to sign over the show's rights by pretending to be a big fan and exploiting their want of money, after developing a crush on the singer Cassandra, Benjamin tries to sign her onto any music project he can think of to get close to her, even giving Wayne and Garth backstage passes to Alice Cooper just so he can spend more time with her.
Through Benjamin's guidance, the show's new reformatting charms Noah and his wife, despite the overabundance of changes turning off Wayne and Garth. After Wayne defiantly humiliates Noah on live TV during a sponsor break, Benjamin calls him up to fire him, letting him know that Wayne can't take the show back from him, as he still owns the rights to it. And since he knows Wayne has a thing for Cassandra, Benjamin starts focusing even more on luring her to his side.
So after a series of shenanigans that cultivate in everybody showing up at Wayne's basement during a makeshift live concert for Cassandra's band to impress a record producer, Benjamin takes advantage of an angry Cassandra failing to get her record deal by swiping her away from Wayne as his house burns down and taking her on a nice tropical vacation, the two having a great time as Benjamin basks in his victory. But Wayne and Garth aren't satisfied with this ending, so they change it to something a bit different.
The new "Scooby Doo Ending" has Benjamin revealed to be Old Man Withers in disguise for some reasons, who would’ve gotten away with it if it weren’t for those meddling kids. But Wayne and Garth decide to change this ending as well...
...which leads us to the "Mega Happy Ending", where everyone puts aside their differences to become friends. Here, Benjamin acknowledges that, despite being really rich and having a lot of power, it can't get him everything. All if forgiven, and everything's back to normal.
Is he charming? Intelligent? Able to think on his feet?
Oh yeah, Benjamin's made it this far in life from charisma alone. He's handsome, has a cool car, has lots of cash, has no visible scars, and he doesn't live with his parents. More seriously, Benjamin's able to manipulate Wayne and Garth into giving away the rights to their show, and he doesn't throw a fit or suffer any kind of breakdown anytime something doesn't go exactly as planned; any losses are just slight disappointments as he calmly ponders what to do next. He would've won completely had it not been for Wayne and Garth showing defiance in how he runs their show.
Now this is still an early-90s comedy, so Benjamin does get involved in some jokes like a forced cavity search to delay his plan to interrupt Cassandra's concert at the end. But given that we don't even see it, and he doesn't make a fuss about it (his eyes widen upon realizing what's going on, but that's it), it doesn't harm his chances, especially since the endings show him recovering quite nicely from it. And even the wackiness of said endings show him taking defeat with grace, especially the good ending, where he peacefully accepts his loss.
And yeah, I know Wayne and Garth aren't exactly the smartest people in the world, but they're not complete idiots; they're just a couple of silly guys who Benjamin tricked with the promise of a luxurious lifestyle. Plus Alice Cooper tickets, how could anybody say "no" to that?
It also helps that Benjamin doesn't appear in the sequel (he was, but Christopher Walken's character was created to replace him), so his dignity's been kept.
Is he a bastard? Too much of one?
Benjamin's a corrupt executive who lies and cheats his way to owning the rights to Wayne's World in order to cynically profit off of it. Plus, he wants to steal Cassandra away from Wayne because he also loves her, and will do whatever it takes to make her his girlfriend.
But despite everything, Benjamin's a pretty friendly guy, and he's not monstrously possessive of Cassandra, despite his intense love for her; hell, the Sad Ending shows that their date would've gone greatly. And the Mega Happy Ending has Benjamin performing a Heel–Face Turn, showing that he really isn't that bad at heart (even if it is Played for Laughs, though given the movie's tone, it still works).
Verdict?
Yeah, I don't think Benjamin really counts... NOT!
"No running in the halls!"
That write-up for Marie is a lot more summarized, but can I at least keep the stuff about her henchmen (who still play a part in her plans), the fact she was able to infiltrate the building and that she passed the information she heard to Shirou and Flip? Would be more like this:
- BNA: Brand New Animal: Marie Itami is a mink beastman known hustler in the underworld of Anima City who will help anyone for the right price. Saving Michiru Kagemori from a group of bigoted humans with her henchmen, Marie demands all of Michiru's money in return, sending one of her henchmen to pickpocket her when Michiru tries to keep some of her cash. Committing casual scams on whims, Marie later infiltrates the Silver Wolf Order building and eavesdrops on Nazuna Hiwatashi telling Michiru she will reveal herself a human at her concert to remove stigma towards the Nirvasyl Syndrome cure, and after passing the information to Shirou Ogami and Guiliano Flip, she is send to ferry as many people from the concert as she possibly can. When Nazuna's admission triggers the dangerous Syndrome in the beastmen, Marie saves Nazuna's life and aids the heroes by hacking a media truck to broadcast Shirou's howl and sooth the raging beastmen.
Also one more question: should we really just skip the Interquel manga stuff? Still haven't found anything saying that it's not canon to the anime.
It's midnight over here, anyone mind if I start Secret Invasion discussion?
huh. yeah to Benjamin. Been a while since I saw that film. Never thought he'd make it.
Yes to Benjamin. Party time. Excellent!
If we can’t find it’s it’s canon I’d just leave Marie as you’ve got her now.
Woagh
Sure to Benjamin.
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE
To Benjamin
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Well since the penguins went well, I'll knock this one out the way. From Madagascar, meet Nana, a seemingly innocuous old lady who ends up being quite memorable.
Who is Nana and what has she done?
In the first film, Nana's only appearance is when the main characters are looking for Marty and they end up terrifying all of the humans at Grand Central Station (due to the fact they are you know animals), when everyone else runs, Nana is just casually walking until she notices Alex (a lion) and then promptly beats the shit out of him. After that is when the main characters get tranquilised and boarded on the ship.
Returning in the second film and having a much greater role, Nana first reappears when Alex chases a tourist jeep. Nana's part of the group and notices that Alex was the "bad kitty" that she beaten at the Grand Central Station. Nana and Alex fight, a very one sided fight.
Nana is then seen when the Penguins are on the mass material robbery, kicking her off the jeep and then run her over but she simply brushes it off. When the tourists are concerned about what to do, Nana heads to the wilderness citing she not gonna stay out in the open to be attacked by more animals, with the other tourists following her. During the night, Nana and her group meet with another tourist group who were stranded. While they're all panicking about water and food, Nana then pulls of the typical leader speech to rally them, saying about hunting for food and to conserve water that they should build a dam. This is turn causes the water shortage problem for the animals.
When Alex and Marty head off to investigate the water shortage, they discover the dam and that Nana has managed to get the tourists to start building structures for them to reside in. This also ends up with Alex being captured by the tourists. Nana then has Alex tied up and brought to a roasting pit to be cooked and eaten by her and the tourists. Despite Alex's father Zuba saving him from the flames, they're still surrounded.
Plot stuff happens where Alex basically shows them that he's the one from New York that went missing, making the tourists drop their weapons. Even Nana says that it was beautiful before declaring "Now let's eat!" pointing a gun at Alex and Zuba. She shoots but the bullet just misses due to the plane's intervention dropping a basin in front of Alex and Zuba.
After the miscommunication through the chimps for the Penguins to prepare to use the basin to bash through the dam, Nana attempts to shoot but realised she's ran out of bullets so she literally just decides that ,with no fear at all, she's gonna brace the basin. When the basin destroys the dam, detaching from the plane and floats back to the reserve where the wild animals are, the main antagonist on the animal story, Makunga declares that they're still banished despite restoring the water supply. Alex and Zuba give Makunga Nana's handbag as a "token of appreciation" before flipping the basin with Nana still in it. Seeing Makunga with her handbag, Nana promptly beats the shit out of him and leaves the film dragging him by the ear.
Is she Magnificent?
Oh boy, a massive Never Mess with Granny, Nana despite her seemingly elderly weak appearance is well someone who can beat the shit out of full sized lions and she's never shown with an ounce of cowardice. Her personality? When she's talking to the tourists, she's exactly like a polite elderly and there's no fakeness from her when she talks to them. Aside from that Nana managed to rally the human tourists from being frightened and concerned to creating a community within the wild with structures and a dam.
Out of all the antagonists in the films, Nana is the only one who technically gets away with it and barely goes through any slapstick apart from the one instance when the Penguins run her over but I'm taking into consideration the form of medium.
Is she a bitch?
Now tbh this is a harder hurdle to cover. Nana beating up Alex? To the human's eyes Alex is a lion running at them. The dam business? Well the humans block the water but they never interact with the animals on the reserve so it's not that the film portrays them as purposefully trying to damn the reserve wildlife. However after Alex does the dance thing which makes all of the tourists realise who he is and they lower their weapons and applause, Nana still decides to attempt to murder Alex and Zuba right there after acknowledging the performance was great. Is that enough of a bastard action for you guys?
Final Verdict?
Your call folks.
EDIT: Yes to Benjamin.
Edited by WetFlannels on Aug 7th 2023 at 2:09:08 PM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
I'd need more info on Rico to make a call. Simply pulling any given item out of hammerspace isn't enough to be magnificent, especially given the competition.
Skipper and Kowalski
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Private
Caesar
Yes to Benjamin and Nana ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Rico's opening scene has him expertly steal spoons (aka shovels to the penguins) and popsicle sticks from tourists, and he pretty routinely exhibits similar physical feats of clever stealth and such through the films while knowing just what the penguins need, so he's definitely not just pulling items out for in-the-moment use.
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
Yes to Benjamin and Nana.
What's Private looking like now? The vote seems like he's cut right down the middle.
Ravok, do you any further defense of Private? It generally feels like he comes up really short compared to the other 3.
Edited by LoreDeluxe on Aug 7th 2023 at 6:34:45 AM
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Caesar
I don't have much of an argument beyond what the EP said, I just think that, in the films alone, Private isn't really a full-on Butt-Monkey or subject to near as much slapstick as, say, Mort or even a lot of the main cast. He's airheaded at times and Skipper likes to slap him around for lulz, but he's also heavily responsible for some of the Penguins' best maneuvers like playing as bait multiple times to lure people in—and, in the case of the Fossa, then using a spinning wheel to knock out dozens of them—and his silly nature is usually played solely for humor that's quickly put aside when he has to spring into action.
It's no major difference to me if he goes up with the other 3 or not, I just think he's composed and clever enough to stand alongside his buddies.
Edited by Ravok on Aug 7th 2023 at 7:16:32 AM
WHAT A WONDERFUL DAY!
That's part of the issue for me. He feels more like a tool for the rest of the team to use rather than standing on his own as a Magnificent Bastard. My prior point is that the team can and did function just as well without him, but I'd argue they couldn't without Skipper, Kowalski, or Rico.
This is certainly one of the more entertaining debates we've had.
Edited by LoreDeluxe on Aug 7th 2023 at 7:17:49 AM
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
If this means anything for Private, in the 4th film when all of the penguins have been turned into feral monsters by Dave except for Private. On his own he manages to pull the "I know you're in there somewhere" to Feral!Skipper and Private is the one who realises how to revert the mutations on the device that causes it. So there's a bit of one man thinking there.
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Benjamin and Nana
To Nana and I’m fine keeping my for all for penguins (I think Private does enough to stand out and is charming in his own cute way)
I believe there was a Christmas special with Nana in it that involves the penguins trying to find private who somehow in her home with a violent dog. In it she acts like a jerk to everyone; but regularly comedic slapstick, so I don't think it hurts her chances, hell I think it helps, but I feel like it should've been mentioned. The creators consider the tv show a seperate continuity, so I'm fine with that not being mentioned.
Nana, Benjamin, Bannister.
Jorgen. Agree that theories are past the limits of narrative cohesion.
Edited by jjjj2 on Aug 7th 2023 at 12:31:56 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
Barb / Temporary Kylo
to the penguins
Also, when will Nine get placed?
Keep Fighting. Keep Loving.