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
Ultimate Moral Compass
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Megatron and Myron
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Myron
@Billypeepers There's loads of potential with Megatron in MB, especially the cartoon variants hell we have two CM/MB crossovers with the guy. Idk if the live action film one has been looked at, 2 & 3 don't help him (being subservient to The Fallen heavily and being "Sentinel's bitch") and Idk if he manages to pull it back in 4&5.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
On what end? The CM credentials too much? Or does he go through a VB
Edited by WetFlannels on Aug 23rd 2023 at 11:57:33 AM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Yes to Myron and Megatron.
I was thinking about doing Darth Jadus from the Star Wars MMO as a potential CM/MB crossover like Megatron, but that's impossible now.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
to Itsuki, Myron and Megatron.
Myron
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Megatron. I'm seeing that he's sadistic. I'm seeing that he's prone to anger. And I'm seeing he would be a CM if not for a HFT. It's a bit much for me.
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
I don’t know, I’ve found that if you give a character redeeming qualities it can push them out of impressive CM into ruthless MB
In honor of Akira Toriyama
Yes to Myron, Randall, Graydon, and Itsuki.
Speaking for me (I can't speak for others), I feel that can work sometimes, but a lot of times you have a really heinous character who has one or two redeeming qualities. A lot of times I don't feel that's enough to offset in order for the character to become magnificent. That's the sense I'm getting here. I've been on this thread for quite a while. It's not a new point of view of mine.
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
Goku Black
Honestly fine with Megatron. He's pretty funny and cool Tbh to balance it out. And a lot of his worst acts are targeting pricks like silas and starscream.
Wonder if knock out could count ?
Myron and Ikutsuki
Classy, Refined, Unstable
I'd hear Knock-Out out. Charm isn't an issue for me. Daran Norris plays him great. My issue is he's similar to Starscream in terms of he's either a decent threat or a complete joke. He also complains a lot when his "finish" is scraped but then it's played as a joke. I think also with Soundwave and Shockwave being way more competent might outshine him...? And him and Starscream accidentally wipe out half the Decepticon crew because of the Silas zombie incident.
But that's just me I'd hear an EP out at least if anyone wants him.
Oh and unless Starscream goes through incredible Character Development during Robots in Disguise, he's staying away from this trope as much as he's a great villain.
Edited by WetFlannels on Aug 23rd 2023 at 1:17:11 PM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
Lies and Violence!
I only vaguely remember Prime, but I feel it's not inaccurate to say that Knock-Out is too much of a joke when put next to Soundwave and Shockwave.
What's the work?
Gotham is a tv show focused on a young Bruce Wayne as he grows into the legendary Dark Knight, while rookie detective James Gordon deals with the city's growing rogues gallery of psychopaths and monsters. We have a few from here already, but there's one other I've been thinking on for a while.
Who is the Sensei?
The leader of the Court of Owls and The Dragon to Ra's al Ghul, the Sensei is responsible for training the Court's Talons—emotionless assassins unable to feel pain, brainwashed into complete loyalty. Having Bruce kidnapped and replaced with a clone (who for some goddamn reason they didn't make Owlman, wtf, that would have been perfect), the Sensei begins training Bruce to become the "Dark Knight" of Gotham, convincing him that he needs to remove his rage and trauma if he wants to become a true, focused fighter and protector.
Using either magic or really weird acupuncture, the Sensei forces Bruce to relive hallucinations of his parents' murder, guiding him to lock away the strong, distracting emotions from the event. Though Bruce is naturally hesitant at first and is given the option to leave, the Sensei is ultimately able to convince him to see the training through, even revealing he was the one who killed the men responsible for ordering the Wayne hits (well, the Court members who gave Hugo Strange the okay to order the Wayne hits) out of deep respect for Thomas and Martha. Bruce agrees to take the final steps after learning this.
...And he's a brainwashed Talon now. Whoops. The Sensei takes him back to Gotham in order to initiate Ra's al Ghul's master plan: because Gotham has become such a cesspool, the Court is being used to release a Hate Plague that will raze the city to the ground so it can be rebuilt, and Bruce will act as the reborn city's protector. But before that, the Sensei turns the Talons on the Court to completely massacre them, then tries to have Bruce directly set off the Hate Plague—doing so himself when Bruce hesitates. Though Alfred guns him down as he does this, the Sensei succeeds in beginning Gotham's "rebirth," and instructs Bruce where to find his master in order to discover his true destiny.
Mitigating factors?
The Sensei's great, especially when put next to the classist assholes of the Court of Owls. He's an excellent evil mentor for Bruce who effortlessly convinces him to accept his training, and while he has an ulterior motive (making him a brainwashed slave), he's also genuine in his intent to forge Bruce into a true "protector."
He's also the mastermind behind a pretty vicious Hate Plague that sees hundreds going insane and murdering whatever they see, but it's with a well-intentioned endgoal of restarting the most violent and corrupt city in the world. Plus, he's positioned as a significantly lesser evil compared to the Court of Owls, who are implied to be more concerned with securing their classist and corrupt rule over a city increasingly out of their control.
I think I can vote yes on the Sensei.
The Draftsman of Doom
Sure to the Sensei. How many is that for Gotham now?
Edited by SkyCat32 on Aug 23rd 2023 at 8:49:44 AM
Feels good, don't it?
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Alrighty here’s for the Crossed Candidates
- Badlands Issue #57-61: Sutter is a hardened survivor who wishes to take out as many of the Crossed as possible as a last act of defiance. An expert sniper and trap master, Sutter saved over 60 people in order to build a community, but inserted bombs around the community all to lure in the Crossed to the location so he could destroy as many of them as possible, willing to sacrifice his men to do it. A fearless person who nearly succeeds in blowing the place up himself, he goes toe to toe with Esperanza and Jane and nearly eggs the upper hand and when left for dead by the two, still manages to kill several Crossed even without a hand, and simply curses the infected Alejandro before he himself is infected. Despite his infection, he manages to get the last laugh, with Esperanza and Jane deciding to activate the bombs to wipe out the entire Crossed horde, including the infected Sutter, and his last trap even manages to get Alejandro, showing Sutter won in the end.
- Badlands Issue #62-70: Gavin Edward Land was a former police detective who wishes to get revenge on the people who raped and murdered his daughter and possibly son and wife. After being sent to prison for his attempted assassination of Curtis Wentz, which ends in the death of 4 innocent people, Curtis strikes the deal with the Warden to keep the prison running for 5 years until the outbreak hits. Immediately figuring the spread of infections and breaking him and his prisoners out and arming them, Gavin departs to track down and murdering all the people who had a role in his daughters death, even killing people he seemingly forgave after they served their purpose. Forming a tense truce with Wentz in order to save the people in San Diego, Gavin and his friend Hayley works with him and the coast guard to take out Crossed, showing to efficiently wipe out Crossed and saving families. Deciding to take matters in his own hands to save thousands, he has himself and Wentz hijack a tank before personally stealing a ship themselves to have everyone board it to escape San Diego to an island of safety. After ensuring that everyone is alive and that his ex wife and son are still alive on the island, Gavin murders Wentz and fulfills his promise to his daughter, and is content to find his wife and son on the island and start a new life.
- Five Bloody Fingers
- Satoshi is the friend of Hazuki and titular group who wishes to reunite and protect their friends within the infamous C-Day. An already capable survivor who murder Crossed with ease, he easily clears the streets out with Hazuki’s mob boss father Yamada and his friends. Deciding to uphold getting to Hazuki and Miku as a priority, he orders his friend to shoot down construction to separate them from Boss Yamada and his men, leaving them to the Crossed so they can get away and resulting in several of their deaths. Not fearing Boss Yamada for betraying him and showing to be capable to wiping out the Crossed horde inside the building, even personally ordering the wipe out of the last remaining ones himself, Satoshi agrees that since they are cornered and have nowhere to go, they decide to make a Last Stand against the Crossed. Having himself and his friends willingly infected by Hazuki, Satoshi and his friends all end up fighting side by side in a glorious death as friends against the Crossed Horde outside.
- Hazuki is the daughter of the Mob Boss Yamada and the friend of Satoshi and the titular group. Despite her abusive childhood to morph her into a cold killer and still planning to take control of her father’s syndicate one day, Hazuki is a compassionate girl and an amazing friend to the group, using her father’s connections to get Miku out of trouble and even showing to be fearlessly beat up the thugs attacking her friends. When trapped at a festival with Miku when C-Day hits, Hazuki shows no hesitation murdering Crossed with ease when bringing Miku with safety, and when her father arrives with her friends comes up with a great plan of going deeper into the building to lessen the Crossed’s numbers and kill them while they are distracted with themselves. Even after getting infected with the Virus, she retains amount of sanity left to prevent her father from killing Satoshi, bringing her pet tiger Usama on their side and calling her father out on everything, leading to his suicide. Despite turning completely psychotic, she retains her humanity and still shows a complete dedication for her friends, refusing to entertain the idea of hurting them. Seeing no other way out, Hazuki and her friends make a Last Stand against the Crossed horde outside, having her friends be willingly infected by her so they can all die fighting in a glorious battle, the five friends content to die with each other.
I hate spoilers
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That makes 7 candidates.
Sensei. Thought someone was nominating this guy until I saw Gotham being mentioned. ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
Edited by Mr-ex777 on Aug 23rd 2023 at 9:21:55 PM
to Sensei
Yes to Sensei and I’ll abstain on Megatron personally. I can vouch that j’s been quite consistent on his reasoning and he’s been here for years and is quite well acquainted with the trope. I don’t mean to draw a hierarchy of opinions but I do feel his reasoning is and always has been quite sound.
That's my problem with say Master Xehanort for instance being this trope. On the one hand he's a great planner, a Faux Affably Evil type wo plays Xanatos Speed Chess with the cast. On the other, he's sadistic, a Bad Boss when it comes to his Saïx form, and Kicks the Dog far too many times for me to be comfortable calling him magnificent. I hate to do this as Wet has shown a very good understanding of this trope since they've been here, but I think I will switch to a on Megatron per J's reasoning.
Yes to Itsuki, Myron and Sensi.
I will abstain on Megatron for the moment.
Here is my write up for Sera:
- Star Trek: Strange New Worlds: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow: Sera is a Romulan spy disguised as a human sent back in time to disrupt human society. Ending up in 21st-century Toronto, Sera sees an alternate James Kirk and Lt. La'an Noonien-Singh and recognizes them as time travelers. Sera convinces Toronto police not to arrest Kirk and La'an for reckless driving in order to gain their trust. Pretending to be a crazed Conspiracy Theorist, Sera tells Kirk and La'an that there is a cold fusion generator in the city. Kirk and La'an find the lab and Sera follows them to the lab, turning a gun on them. Sera guns down Kirk and reveals to La'an that this lab is the home of Khan Noonien-Singh as a child. Sera plans to kill Khan, in order to prevent the Eugenics War, which will prevent the Federation from being formed and allowing the Romulan Empire to dominate the galaxy.
Anyway, I have another Real Ghostbusters villain to propose, from the "Mr. Sandman, Dream Me a Dream" episode.
Who is the Sandman? What has done?
The Sandman is a spirit that helps people go to sleep. The Sandman has a problem though, he is unhappy that humanity is engaging in wars. The Sandman starts using his sleeping sand to force people to go to sleep in NYC and plans to use his sleeping sand to force humanity to sleep for 500 years, in order to stop all the wars. The Sandman's sleeping sand is so powerful that it makes its victims' dreams manifest in the real world and Sandman wants to replace the sleeping humanity with dreams for 500 years.
The Ghostbusters find the Sandman and try to bust him, but he is able to use his teleporting power to evade the Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters have annoyed the Sandman and he uses his power to have the dreams transform into his nightmares and have them attack the Ghostbusters. The Ghostbusters evade the nightmares and get to Ecto-1, but it is not starting. Ray checks under the hood, where the Sandman is hiding and hits Ray with the sleep sand.
The Ghostbusters track the Sandman to a hotel, where he manages to hit Peter Venkman with the sleeping sand. Egon figures out how to defeat the Sandman, but the Sandman hits him with the sleeping sand. Winston goes back to the Firehouse and tells Janine his plan. The Sandman smashes his way into the Firehouse and hits Janine with the sleeping sand. Sandman starts to gloat to Winston and is about to hit Winston with the sleeping sand, when Janine's dream becomes real and she becomes a Ghostbuster and manages to blast the Sandman while he is about to put Winston to sleep. Winston and Janine trap the Sandman and undo all his magic spells, waking everyone up.
Is he magnificent?
So Sandman is a pretty straightforward villain, he goes around and hits people with his sleeping sand, and he manages to put half of NYC to sleep within a few hours and wants to do that to the rest of humanity. Sandman is good at strategy, he gets lucky putting Peter and Egon to sleep, but he tricks Ray to put him to sleep and the Sandman changes the dreams into nightmares to deal with the Ghostbusters. The Sandman only loses because he thinks Janine is no longer a threat after he hits her with sleeping sand, but that is not unreasonable, Sandman neutralizes almost everyone else he met so far with his sand, and he almost won and defeats 3 of the Ghostbusters.
The Sandman has a somewhat sympathetic motive, wanting to end all wars, but he is kind of an extremist, thinking putting all of humanity to sleep for 500 years is a great tradeoff for peace. He is kind of deranged too, he thinks the Ghostbusters are laughing at him when they said nothing and punches the head off a stone gargoyle. But he is generally pretty cold and condescending to the Ghostbusters, often chiding them like they are children. He is pretty arrogant and has a god/messiah complex.
The Sandman is unhappy at being trapped, screaming that they can't do this to him and that it isn't fair. But at this point, we have established getting trapped for ghosts is both painful and humiliating, most ghosts do not react well to it.
Is he a bastard? Too much?
This is easy yes. The Sandman wants to put humanity to sleep for 500 years, which is treated as villainous, but he has somewhat sympathetic motives. But he is not even close to the heinous standard, he is not nearly as evil as the Grundel or Apshai or the Vathek, etc.
Final Verdict?
He may count, but I am not sure.
Edited by Overlord on Aug 23rd 2023 at 9:40:18 AM
Yes to The Sandman. Make him the cutest that I've ever seen.
Yes to Sensei and the Sandman.
effort post on the next page
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
one more bump
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Yes to Myron
In honor of Akira Toriyama