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
I mean we also have Nagito Komaeda who, while doesn't have a Villainous Breakdown, his plan if it had have succeeded in the way he wanted, would have gotten Junko plenty of bodies to use in her Despair program. Once again there was no way he could have known this due to having his memories from Class 77-A removed. In other words, we'd probably have to reevaluate a crap ton of characters.
Fair warning: I can get pretty emotional and take things too seriously.
A nice swimmer
So Ace Attorney has currently 8 examples, so you think we should make a page for them?
Due to unfortunate events, i will continue to exist until further notice.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Sounds like enough to me.
Goku Black
Nah if we did that the visual novel page would be too short.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Same reason Warhammer doesn't have one. It's an odd case but it'll take some work to buff out the regular pages for those mediums.
Here’s some characters I’m thinking of proposing for MB (doing this to test the waters and opinions before I fully propose): Kokichi Oma from Danganronpa, Shinji Ikari from Thousand Shinji, and Mack Bolan/The Executioner by Don Pendleton
Showtime!
Hard no to Shinji, he's a character from a godawful power fantasy fic who is only a cunning plotter because of the author's favour
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Showtime!
...No? Most works of fiction are not juvenile power fantasies
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Any more votes for Sephiria Arks and Lin Shao Lee from Black Cat?
I... don't quite grasp your point Lore and I presume you meant to say any MB is only cunning because of the author's favour. Emma's not trying to question that characters are who they are because the author decided they'd be so, she's taking contesting listing a poorly written character whose plans only work because the writing's bending backwards so they can succeed.
I could say that about a few characters but I think Shinji is easily the worst offender. I'd have to think on Kokichi. I originally thought he wasn't anywhere near this trope due to (sort of) Slut-Shaming Iruma, but I feel like we've had examples do far worse plus she genuinely likes it. His plan is brilliant though and I'd be lying if I said I didn't want a third DR candidate. Also Ace Attorney has the bare minimum for a page, no more, no less. If we get about three non AA more examples plus the ones Buffalo Brandon was planning plusan additional two more AA examples to make it an even 10... I could see us eventually making a page but to quote Eiji Aonuma "not in the foreseeable future". Also I think Lore was being sarcastic and referencing Sturgeon's Law.
Edited by Klavice on Dec 20th 2023 at 9:23:29 AM
Fair warning: I can get pretty emotional and take things too seriously.
The MILF Virus
- Gurumin: A Monstrous Adventure: Puku's the fake Phantom Prince, responsible for the destruction of Monster Village. Planning revenge on humans for destroying his home, Puku planned to unseal Tokadon, using the Prince guise to get the phantoms kidnap the monsters to make Parin stronger. Getting her in Monster Village and awaken the legendary weapon to fight the phantoms, Puku turned Parin strong enough to defeat the Phatoms, tricking her in unsealing Tokadon, delaying her long enough to finish the ritual. After Parin defeats Tokadon, Puku accepts defeat, accepting Parin's forgiveness to redeem himself.
Edited by TheImmortalAngelNewton on Dec 21st 2023 at 5:18:12 PM
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
My second Magnificent Bastard proposal, and ironically it comes from the previous work, since two weeks have passed after one of the greatest 2010s-2020s animated series has ended.
What’s the work?
Hilda is a Netflix animated series based on a series of graphic novels by Luke Pearson (only more expanded with original story). The series follows adventures of 11-years old (later 13-years-old) girl Hilda, who leaves in a Scandinavian world filled with many magical and supernatural creatures. The main plot goes to the Season 3 episode 4, “The Laughing Merman”, which instead of an overarching fairy plot has Hilda and her friends encounter a merman during a scout trip.
NOTE: this article is only about the animated series version of character as his novelization counterpart does not meet criteria.
Who is he?
Eugene is the episode’s titular main antagonist. He’s a merman, who used to be a court jester for other mermen and the so-called “most talented fish at the bottom of the sea”. On a fateful day, he was captured by fisherman and was dumped at the river. Starving for the attention and approval, he eventually encounters Hilda and her friends during the Sparrow Scout river trip. Using an illusion of a sea serpent, he lures kids further, before convincing them to follow him through waterfall, where he reveals his intentions of keeping them as his captive audience forever through an Acid-Trip Dimension music sequence. When David makes a deal that he’ll let them go if they won’t like his performance in next 5 minutes, Eugene exploits the words to keep most of them after they fail. When the only victor, Louise, bets her freedom for a second chance to escape, Eugene creates nine different gates and tells them only one is an escape rout. Realizing his tendency to laugh allows kids to seduce the truth, Eugene creates an illusion of himself being stoic and nearly tricks them into choosing a wrong way. When kids escape, Eugene accepts the defeat, only for Louise to show a way out for him, while he returns the favour by pranking the mean scouts.
Is he magnificent?
If we talk about his charm, then it’s easy to say he’s a master of entertainment and has an enjoyable music sequence, describing his story and intentions.
But if we talk about his intelligence, I would say he’s not incompetent for an a mere jester: he tricks kids using an illusion before pointing out tgeir situation to convince them to follow him. Then, he uses a Loophole Abuse of David’s deal to have Hilda, Frida and David stay as his audience while letting Louise go. Lastly, he realizes his own Fatal Flaw and tries to hide it with an illusion, nearly succeeding at tricking kids. While he was upset that he lost an audience it was a full on breakdown and allows kids to go.
Is he a baddie?
Well the only bad thing he does is trying to have Hilda and her friends become his audience forever against their will, but compared to all other antagonists he’s goal is the least bad (even when compared to Trundle, who’s also an MB) and doesn’t detract from his magnificence.
Verdict
Well I’ll give him a slight yes.
Edited by NicMasterTrope on Dec 21st 2023 at 6:47:07 PM
Also can someone tell me how to write Magnificent Baddie quotes at the end of message. Send me screenshots if possible
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Calling The Beekeeper. Statham flick rated R for "strong violence throughout"? Sign me up!
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
Alright, given that people are somehow still voting for Edelgard, what's done has been done. It's already past voting period, and I agree with Riley that the one thing against her was an external factor that was virtually impossible for her to see beforehand.
MB Pending | MB Drafts | MB Dates
Gonna think on Eugene.
Re: Edelgard, Tally the votes and call it then, I think the discussion's run its course and it's more a matter of people disagreeing rather than not understanding or needing more info.
Also going out so putting this up now:
- L.A. Confidential & White Jazz: Edmond Jennings "Ed" Exley is an opportunistic but well-intentioned young policeman and the only intellectual rival to the vile Dudley Smith in the Los Angeles Police Department. Coming up with a lie to paint himself as a war hero, Ed quickly rises as a cop thanks to his brilliance and wealthy father Preston's backing, exposing a racist beating of minority inmates by writing a version of events that depicts Ed as the most moral of his colleagues. Promoted to Lieutenant, Ed overcomes the manipulations of Dudley and his own disgruntled lover to uncover the truth behind the Nite Owl massacre, leveraging a successful reopening of it and being promoted to Chief of Detectives, even as Preston kills himself in shame at Ed threatening to expose his father's deceitful past. As Chief, Ed ruthlessly schemes to clean up the department by exposing the corrupt Narcotics officers to the investigating FBI agents, turning a crooked officer into his pawn in the plot. Ed also turns another young officer into a mole to use against Dudley, eventually taking his evil rival down, even with the death of his mole, and later moves into politics while continuing to devote himself to absolute justice.
Unofficial Wiki Curator for Complete Monster
Though that brings up a question: People can still vote after 72 hours, right? It's not a firm cutoff.
CM Dates; CM Pending; CM Drafts
Well the official voting lasts for 72 hours for candidate to be approved, but people can still vote for him in three more days until a character will be added to a page.
Berserk Button: misusing Berserk Button
To be fair, while I can’t quite upvote her myself, I’m more understanding of her going up after hearing the counterarguments for how she differs from the cases I brought up.
One of these days, all of you will accept me as your supreme overlord.
Not the Eye
I think ![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_down_emote.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
to Eugene. While he is great, reveal that he only stayed in the river because he didn’t know that all rivers lead to sea is little to much for me to call him truly magnificent, even by fun cartoon standards.
Goku Black
Yeah that's a bit to dumb Eugene
Lies and Violence!
No to Eugene.
Gave the Fitz LMD his own entry since he's somewhat distinct from the other three's actions.
- "Self Control":
- The Life Model Decoys of Phil Coulson, Alphonso "Mack" Mackenzie and Jeffrey Mace are insidious duplicates programmed to infiltrate S.H.I.E.L.D. by Holden Radcliffe and Aida. In collaboration with the Watchdogs, the LMDs plan to bring every Inhuman known to S.H.I.E.L.D. into custody to keep them safe from the terrorists, all as an excuse to lure them out to be executed. When Daisy and Jemma learn the truth, the LMDs quickly cut the building's security feeds to prevent them from spying on their actions before turning the rest of S.H.I.E.L.D. against the pair by framing them as the fakes, while having the May LMD guard the base's hangar with explosives. Though the Mace LMD is defeated, the duplicates of Coulson and Mack take advantage of the battle to sneak up on Daisy and injure her, attempting to convince her to surrender lest she bleed out. The LMDs' primary objective is to subdue Daisy and Jemma with as little bloodshed as possible and download them into the paradise of Radcliffe's Framework, with their efforts ultimately only undone by Coulson's love for May influencing his LMD into trusting that her heroic duplicate will understand their mission.
- The Life Model Decoy of Leopold Fitz stands out as particularly devious even amongst his fellow robotic fakes. Taking advantage of Jemma's assumption that Daisy is the fourth LMD that has infiltrated S.H.I.E.L.D.'s leadership, the Fitz LMD forestalls what would have been a messier attempt to replace Jemma and isolates her with the supposed purpose of stopping the fakes. Though this leads to Jemma learning that one of them is a duplicate, the fake Fitz quickly takes up an act of confusion and terror, postulating that Jemma may be an LMD programmed to not even realize she's fake, and—upon being forced to cut himself to prove he's real—fakes a major injury to lower Jemma's guard before knocking her out. Even when Jemma gets the upper hand, the Fitz LMD quickly switches between agonized screams of pain and distress to coldly choking her out as she tries to deactivate him, before attempting to appeal to her love for him. Sharing the real Fitz's love for Jemma and wanting only to reunite the pair in the Framework, the Fitz LMD proves to be a terrifying master actor in his service to Radcliffe's plans.
We Also have Argost who by absorbing anti kur 's power became mentally unstable who we gave a break since that wasn't something he could have known about and he made the best of it. Even at the end.
So this is not without precedent.
Edited by miraculous on Dec 20th 2023 at 12:53:37 PM
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."