Old Magnificent Bastard thread
Welcome to the Magnificent Bastard proposal thread! This is the thread where new Magnificent Bastard examples are vetted, approved, and written up. If you're looking for the general cleanup thread (for cuts, rewrites, expansions, and the like), please go here
Important: Before suggesting any new examples, please read the Frequently Asked Questions and Common Requests List; if you have any questions, the odds are high they are answered there. Additionally, please check here for the earliest date a work can be discussed (usually two weeks from the U.S. release date) and whether the work has already been reserved by another user.
Here is how the process works:
- If you have a candidate to propose, you can simply come right in and propose them! If the character's run is brief, such as a single issue of a comic book, then a simple summary of their actions and any potential mitigating features will be enough; for longer-running candidates, an effortpost (EP) might be helpful for organizing the proposal. An EP is not outright required, but please be mindful that if a post becomes too clunky and unorganized, it can be very hard for other people to follow.
- After the proposal, there will be a 72-hour discussion and voting period, where people may ask questions and vote on the candidate. The number of upvotes must outnumber the downvotes by at least five for the character to be considered "approved".
- Three days after the proposal has been made, if the character has been approved, you may post the writeup (the text to be posted on the trope page itself) on the thread and send it to the drafts page. Your candidate will soon be added to the MB subpage. If the work has a page, you should add your candidate to the relevant YMMV page. Voila! It's that simple!
Outside of this process, we do have a few ground rules:
- To keep the thread moving at a reasonable pace, there are some restrictions on when a proposal can be made. There should only be a maximum of four EPs posted both per page and per hour to ensure that nothing gets lost in the shuffle; additionally, each individual troper should only be proposing or writing up characters from a maximum of three works at a time (from initial proposals to end of their voting period). If your proposal would fall outside of either of these guidelines, we'd like to ask you to please wait until they would fit within; feel free to type them up on an outside document, and then when the time comes, you can just copy, paste, and post!
- No plagiarism of any kind. This is a very serious matter site-wide, as the website could get in actual legal trouble over this; as a result, this can very quickly lead to mod intervention. This can take many different forms:
- Direct plagiarism, i.e. wholesale copying. This is not only the easiest to find, but is also the most likely to warrant quick moderator intervention. To be clear, quoting in some places is perfectly acceptable, but it has to be very clear you're quoting from something else and it cannot be anything longer than a sentence or two - if you're quoting an entire work summary from Wikipedia, no one is going to believe you've actually consumed the work, so even if you cite your source, your candidate will be downvoted anyway.
- Self-plagiarism. Even if you can prove that you wrote the same text in both places, the site itself can't contain any of the duplicated text. If you already wrote something once before, it's not too hard to write it a second time.
- Using another site's work as a template for a proposal. Just because you don't copy and paste something directly doesn't mean it's any harder to detect if you're basing parts or all of your proposal on text someone else wrote. To be clear, this doesn't violate site rules and won't lead to mod intervention, but just like if you directly plagiarize, no one will believe you've consumed the work if you're clearly basing your proposal on something else. This thread largely operates on the honor system, and tweaking someone else's work to pass it off as your own is one of the fastest ways to lose trust.
- Votes must be for specific candidates, meaning no blanket voting (i.e. "yes to everyone I missed").
- If you are the first person to downvote a candidate, please provide an explanation of why when you do so. We're here for discussions above all, and a hit-and-run downvote doesn't facilitate anything.
- If a work is already reserved by another user, please don't comment on the work or any potential characters worth discussion before the discussion date. We know how exciting it is when a work has a keeper that you're waiting to talk about, but it's not fair to the person who reserved the work who is just as excited to lead the discussion to see the discussion getting spoiled before they get to do it. On the other hand, if the reservation only has one name attached, shoot them a PM - they may be down for a collaboration, which will get you in on the fun as well!
- Please keep the thread on-topic. While discussing the trope is fun and we encourage people to enjoy it, questions like "who's your favorite MB" are off-topic and can lead to thumps. That's the kind of question to take to people's PMs if they're willing. Similarly, while we encourage friendliness and familiarity with other users, posts should always have some kind of thread-relevant purpose; for instance, if you want to wish someone a happy birthday, feel free to, but if it's the only thing in the post, it's off-topic and needs something else alongside it. Again, though, while we strive for a friendly atmosphere, this is not Facebook; life updates are fun, but unless they have some kind of impact on your thread participation, please do not bring it here - we have Yack Fest for that.
- Please refrain from asking anything along the lines of "How Did We Miss This One?" In almost every case, the answer is simply "No one thought about it before". This Is a Wiki where everyone has different interests, and the fact that people missed a particular candidate, even one that seems like a textbook example of a trope or a character who is particularly iconic in pop culture, means absolutely nothing. The question is disruptive, has a simple and consistent answer, and provides nothing to any discussion.
- If you are suspended from other parts of the website, it is still possible to participate!
- For users who are suspended from editing the wiki, you still have full access to this thread. You can propose candidates and write them up with no issues whatsoever; while you will have to ask someone else to post the entry to the relevant pages once it is done, all write-ups are considered thread-approved - as in, done by consensus - and thus doing so does not violate any rules regarding meatpuppeting.
- If you are suspended from the forums, your participation is limited but not impossible. It is still possible for a forum-suspended user to assist in creating the write-up for a character who has already been approved; as previously mentioned, write-ups are inherently considered a consensus-based edit and thus not tied to any one particular user. However, you can not assist in the proposal of a character; as a proposal is based around the forum rather than the wiki, doing so with a forum suspension qualifies as meatpuppeting.
- Please keep all discussions "in-house".
- What other wikis use for MB equivalents is irrelevant here.
- Please be wary of using other wikis, Fandom or otherwise, as sources of information. They are just as fallible as a site like Wikipedia in regards to accuracy because they can be edited by any user, just as this site can.
- Do not attempt to force a communication with an author in an attempt to gather evidence or settle a debate; besides the fact that this is a YMMV trope and thus author intent has variable weight depending on the circumstance, doing so may cross the line into drama exportation, which is prohibited site-wide.
If you would like to use an EP for your candidate, here's the general format. This format does not have to be followed exactly, but these are the main topics that need to be covered:
What is the work?
This is a brief summary of the work you're going to discuss. We don't need a full plot summary here, just however much we need to understand going into the discussion — it can even be as simple as quoting the summary on the work's page.
Who is the candidate and what have they done?
This is essentially the character's biography — who they are, their story, their goals and methodology, and, preferably (though not required), what happens to the candidate at the end. It does not have to include every single thing they ever do — for some characters, we'd be here all day if that was the case — but it should include the highlights of their journey.
How are they Magnificent?
This is the point where you highlight the character's brilliance. How to they convey their intelligence and charm to the audience? What makes them stand out among the crowd? What are their goals and how do they go about accomplishing them? This part welcomes a lot of creative thinking — not everyone has to be a Machiavellian Diabolical Mastermind to be worth considering here! This is also the time to showcase how the character can think on their feet if it's necessary.
How are they a Bastard? How are they not too bad?
What kinds of moral lines is this character willing to cross for the sake of their goal? Are they willing to let innocents die? Start wars? Commit crimes? The character has to show some kind of unscrupulousness in order to count as a "Bastard". Notably, this character does not necessarily have to be the villain, and an Anti-Hero can cross the line if they're immoral enough, but they have to be immoral somehow.
This is also the section where you then state your case for why they're not too bad. Perhaps their good intentions help mitigate their crimes. Perhaps others are shown to be much worse than them. Perhaps they're prone to Pet the Dog moments or are even fighting on behalf of loved ones. Whatever the case, there are certain lines that an MB can't cross, but as long as their villainy is reasonable for their goal, they can be considered.
Final verdict?
This is where you post your final conclusion on the character in question. You can continue elaborating on your reasons or even just say a simple "yes" or "no"; at this point, we've heard everything we need to hear.
And that's everything you need to know. Welcome to the thread!
Edited by Twiddler on Jan 17th 2024 at 5:40:56 AM
@ The Wrong One 41: you need at least 5 for your candidate to be approve. From the looks you only need one more ![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
(unless Someone else decides to vote ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
). Anywho who else wants to vote for Teach?
Edited by G-Editor on Jan 29th 2023 at 10:46:58 AM
To The Carpenter, Yang, Mrs. Lecount, The Student, David Sullivan, The Music, and El Gaucho.
Edited by Echidna on Jan 29th 2023 at 11:04:05 AM
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
Ok, from what I get from the thumbs downing of death, my perception of this is that he's disqualified for being Death in a kids film. Sorry if I'm wrong, but this should not be a disqualifying factor.
MB Pending | MB Drafts | MB Dates
Yes to the Student, Sullivan and the Music. No to Death. Not sure what got mistaken but people are downvoting Death for lacking cunning, not being the personification of Death in a child's film (Which I'm pretty sure we've quite literally listed before).
No he's being thumbs downed for his lack of cunning. At the end of the day he's a primordial entity who can always appear in front of Puss and the implication from his words is that he can do that at any point. He's not tracking him, he's just screwing with him. So there's not enough cunning.
![[nja]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/user_ninja_2074.png "[nja]"){kind=small}
'd.
Edited by jjjj2 on Jan 29th 2023 at 11:13:36 AM
You can only write so much in your forum signature. It's not fair that I want to write a piece of writing yet it will cut me off in the mid
Also my bad on Teach... someone wanna break the tie in that case so we can decide what to do with him?
You know what, I think he just barely squeaks by maybe not as obvious an example as Jin from 2 or Consul C in the same game but I'll vote yes, provided nobody has any counterpoint. I said he seemed like he didn't count on paper, but we've approved much nicer characters. It's not quite made clear if the war leads the characters to their deaths but the fact he's contributing to the endless war sells it for me.
Edit: If it wasn't clear to Teach.
Edited by Klavice on Jan 29th 2023 at 8:18:53 AM
Fair warning: I can get pretty emotional and take things too seriously.
I counted 7 upvotes and 2 downvotes, but regardless he's definitely passing now, so you're good to write him up.
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
Cheers!
Sorry I couldn't get to the batch btw, personal stuff going on this weekend.
Edited by 43110 on Jan 29th 2023 at 11:26:01 AM
Professor Gigachad
I guess I will say Teach as well
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Alright my final Civil war candidate, this time on the Stormcloak side of things. Ulfric's right hand man Galmar Stone-Fist
Who is Galmar Stone-Fist and what does he do?
The Stormcloak equivalent of Rikke, Galmar is the one who overseers any new recruits wanting to join the cause to stop empire interference within Skyrim. When the Dragonborn talks to him, to test him Galmar has him take out an ice wraith within the north-eastern glaciers of Skyrim. When the Dragonborn returns, he'll admit he's impressed and will consider you viable to join the cause.
Galmar will then inform the Dragonborn that he has possibly discovered the location of the Jagged Crown and will head there with some soldiers to retrieve it, fighting both imperial soldiers and the draugr within. With the crown retrieved, Galmar will have the Dragonborn head back so he can have a look around the ruins for anything else that may be useful.Galmar will then lead the assault on Whiterun to get Jarl Baalgruf to surrender, eventually storming the city and succeeding with it, giving the chance for Baalgruf to surrender.
Then Galmar will be the one to lead the takeovers for the other Imperial aligned holds. At the Falkreath hold, Galmar will have the player sneak into it's fort to release the Stormcloak prisoners to attack from the inside while he formulates an assault on the outside. Similar to the act of bribery for Rikke, Galmar will have the Dragonborn blackmail Markarth's steward Raerek about him still being an avid Talos worshipper, which considering there's a Thalmor agent positioned there, would be a very bad thing to be discovered.
As the same with Imperial takeovers, Galmar will lead an assault on the Stormcloak hold's forts to take over, slowly edging himself towards Solitude. Within the siege of Solitude itself, Ulfric will lead with Galmar into the city and murder Tulius and Rikke before heading to the Jarl's palace to make her surrender. With Skyrim reclaimed, Galmar will be now positioned to watch over the jarls to train any new recruits for the cause to stop any new imperial dissidents. Him and Ulfric will have a chat post war about what's next with them ,noting they're not concerned about the Empire but the Thalmor since a large portion of their territory has been reclaimed.
In the Imperial path, Galmar's noted to be the one who discovered the Jagged Crown's tomb and also goes Defiant to the End within the siege of Windhelm. If the Dragonborn heads to Sovngarde to face Alduin, they can find both Galmar and Ulfric who the former will note
He will also aid in the battle against Alduin and will commend the Dragonborn for the Dragon's defeat.
Is he magnificent?
Being the commander of Ulfric's army, Galmar is both a competent leader and a fighter with his coordination and relentlessness. Although like Rikke, he notes that your corpse will be pretty useless if you failed the test, he's shown to be A Father to His Men and is a firm believer of the cause.
Is he a bastard?
Well yeah, he's a Blood Knight in the conflict and is shown to be a ferocious warrior with his onslaughts, never to sadistic levels though. Now I should note about the Whiterun assault, him and his soldiers only attack the guards and never aim for the civillians and only one guy ever gets killed because for some reason he spawns in his house and it's one of the two that get destroyed.
He's not completely without mercy though as he tries to convince his old ally and friend Rikke to leave before he and Ulfric attack Tulius. He'll note this:
Galmar: "Aye. I'll hate it, but I'll do it if I have to."
And he only goes through with it because she goes Defiant to the End.
Fantastic Racism issue
Now a major issue that can be seen with the Stormcloaks is there disdain for any Non-Nord and especially any non-human. It's the unfortunate reason Ulfric wouldn't be viable despite having everything else checked for him as Lore had noted here.
Thankfully, Galmar doesn't seem to be truely xenophobic towards the other races. He'll express surprise if a non-nord wants to join the cause but he never says they're not worth it, only that he'll ask why though. He'll use a lesser term there depending on your race but that's it, he'll never be demeaning to you when you join them. His main ire seems to be with the elves but whenever he brings any elvish grievance it's almost always to do with the Thalmor... who uh yeah and considering he thought in the great war and his closest friend Ulfric was tortured by them, it's a justified hatred I'd say.
Final Verdict?
Me thinks a but hey the tropes YMMV.
A nice swimmer
Alright! Approved Teach writeup:
- Teach is the current commander of Colony Gamma, where Mio, Taion and Sena are currently appointed in. When first met by the recently transformed Ouroboros group, he sends them to a far away place from the Colony to seemingly kill them, but later clarifies that it was to test them and see if their good will hadn't gone away because of the recent power they got. Later in his Ascencion quest, we learn that he was previously known as "All-Slayer Oleg", who was infamous for having battles won with many casualties of his own men, with one particular bad Pyrrhic Victory making it so that he wanted to change his ways, faking his own death and, with the help of Consul G, ensured that he would be known as Teach from later on. Although he's known for putting his troops in rigurous training that would make even the most resilient give out, he still wants what's best for them, and is willing to do anything to protect them, even avoiding violence if it's not needed.
![[down]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_down.png "[down]"){kind=icon}
Fixed!
Edited by TheWrongOne41 on Jan 29th 2023 at 11:21:37 AM
Due to unfortunate events, i will continue to exist until further notice.
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
Ah, thanks for clarifying, to Death for not being as cunning as he sounds
RIP Toriyama
No to Death for reasons jjjj pointed out, sure to the Music, Teach and I thiiiink Galmar too.
Noticed I hadn't grabbed it here yet so just establishing I'm reservin The Last of Us show here, too.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
The Undercover Troper
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Minor point, but Pyrrhic Victory is spelt incorrectly.
to Teach and Galmar, sadly no to Death. A cool villain in his own right, but sadly lacks the wits.
Yes to Galmar, good work Wrong!
Yes Galmar
Not the Eye
Yes to Student, David Sullivan, Music and Galmar
Sadly no to Death as Cool as he is
Goku Black
Lecount, El Gaucho, Student, Music and Galmar
Death.
A yes to Lecount, El Gaucho, Student, Music and Galmar.
Have one of my one:
What's the work?
So Weird was a horror/fantasy series running on the Disney channel centered on Fiona "Fi' Philips, a young girl obsessed with the supernatural who had a tendency to run into it plenty. Fi is also dedicated to discovering the truth of her father's death. The show was actually kinda darker than a lot of other Disney fare, with a ew candidates for this trope. I'm gonna focus on a one-off episode villain, when Fi's family and friends are traveling (Fi's mom is a rock star and i followed by her faithful roadie and his own family)...going through Minnesota they run into a small, strange inn with a sweet old lady named Astrid running it. But Astrid likes to play games and ask questions, and the episode title? Troll.
Who is Astrid?
A very powerful, very ancient troll. The niece of the first troll Ymir, who was slain by Odin and his brothers and used to shape the world. Astrid has carried on a huge grudge against the world and mankind. In her true form, she's a rather fearsome, brutish creature but prefers the form of a little old lady. Trolls have a rule about them: if defeated in a riddle game of seven questions, it puts them in the victor's power. But anyone who loses is turned into a vegetable so she can make them into soup.
Upon arrival, Astrid is nothing but sweetness and smiles, but it's revealed she has a lot of victims, stowing their cellphones and items, while passing up the weird vegetables with faces as just a trick of the garden. Her first victim is Ned, Molly's roadie who prides himself on his Scandinavian descent. She initiates a few questions on that, before asking him a really hard question of spelling a Swedish explorer's really complicated name.
Astrid proceeds to isolate them one by one, asking questions to defeat them in her game. Some being easier than others (asking Ned's son which president is on the quarter as "she's still so new to the country"....even she's surprised he gets that one wrong).
Fi begins to realize something is very wrong and while her brother Jack doesn't believe her, she confronts Astrid who still plays it off, but doesn't want a silly little game in the meantime. After two questions, she realizes she can't stump Fi with mythology and switches to sports and politics. When Jack, who doesn't buy any of it, scoffs even he doesn't know the answer to the question "who lost the nomination in the Republican primary to Dwight D. Eisenhower," Astrid seizes on that to turn him into a vegetable. When Fi protests that's not fair, Astrid angrily asks if what happened to Ymir was fair. Fi says it was, giving her five questions.
Now furious, Astrid assumes her true form and demands an answer to the question. Fi answers with "another Republican." Astrid grudgingly admits that's true, but her last question leaves no such loophole as she asks for a VERY specific town name in South Dakota for geography. Fi isalmost beaten until her phone rings with the message "FAITH", later revealed to be from her father. On the right answer, Astrid is bested and in fi's power, who orders her to restore everyone and never harm a traveler again which she handles with grace.
Mitigating issues?
For a sweet old lady, Astrid is good.Under it, she's a devious, calculating troll who eats people. It's pretty g-rated (turning them into vegetables and making them into stew) but she's absolutely killed a whole bunch of people over the years. Just in a Disney monster sort of way. But as a planner, Astrid is good at isolating people, tricking them and honestly, she's pretty unbeatable in the question game. The second she realizes the strength of her opponent, she instantly mixes it up and has a variety of subjects she can draw on. The only time she loses her temper is when Fi mocks her uncle Ymir, causing her to assume her brutish true form and make her rage at that very well known.
Though she clearly cared for her uncle, viewing his death as horrible and bemoans he "was a good troll" during the game. She also handles her loss quite well when it puts her in Fi's power and agrees to never hurt another person.
Conclusion?
Basic yes.
Yes to Astrid... that's so weird!
Goku Black
Astrid.
Lies and Violence!
Astrid, Yang, Lecount, Guacho, the student, the music, Sullivan, Galmar.
Question: do they make a "Face The Music" joke?
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE