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
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
for Cesare.
Jogo
Granny, Oods, Mimi, The Dealer and Cesare
Goku Black
cesare
to Mimi, The Dealer, and Cesare.
A nice swimmer
New Proposal, from a game i have covered before, from the Ace Attorney series:
What's the work?
The Great Ace Attorney Chronicles is a duology spinoff series from Ace Attorney, settled in the early 20th century dealing with the Meiji restoration period of Japan.
Ryunosuke Naruhodo is a young student in university, however, after being involved in many events, he ends up traveling to London and being an attorney through the student exchange system with his new assistant, Susato Mikotaba. There they encounter Herlock Sholmes (basically an expy of Sherlock Holmes) and her assistant the young prodigy Iris Wilson (originally Watson).
Together they solve cases through trials and get accostumed to living in London at the same time, while they unravel a deep conspiracy that ties both games, and both England and Japan with a dark history of corruption, tangled between a case of serial murders that happened 10 years ago, done by...
Who are they? What have they done?
The Professor, a person who murdered 5 people in the English royalty, who shook the London's legal system to it's core... is not who were talking about, or at least, not the true identity of them. We're talking about who most people thought it was.
Genshin Asogi, father of Kazuma Asogi (Ryonosukue's friend), is one of the three transfer students that arrived in London 10+ years ago (alongside Yujin Mikotoba, Susato's father who was the actual stand-in for Watson, and Seishiro Jigoku, Minister of Justice and Foreign Affairs in Japan), and the one who was executed for the crimes of the professor.
Arriving in London to study law, he became friends with both Klint and Barok van Zieks, brothers that were members of the Baskerville's royal family. However, he soon found out that Klint was responsible for the deaths of royal figures, who was nicknamed as "The Professor". He quickly brought his findings to prosecutor Mael Stronghart to make a case against him, but due to having "no evidence" he was dismissed.
Left with no options, he confronted Klint directly, and due to having been blackmailed by Stronghart to murder most of his targets (3 out of 4), Klint confessed to him about his murders. Genshin proposed to give him an honorable death due to his crimes (a sword duel to the death), and Klint accepted it under two conditions, to let him write a last will, and to have Genshin take care of his pregnant wife. Genshin accepted the conditions, dueled, and won.
Since Stronghart didn't want for the truth to be revealed about his involvement with the professor's killings, he twisted a couple of members on the legal system to have him look like he was the Professor, convincing the members of the legal system that he was. They stole his ring, and then discretly implanted it unto Klint's body for him to be complied.
Soon arrested as the prime suspect for being the Professor, his trial was to be processed on closed doors due to the relations between Japan and London already being processed at the time. During his stay on Barclay Prision, Stronghart visited him to make deal. Due to the fact that Klint's last will was not found on the crime scene or anywhere else, he felt that he had it somewhere on his person as a bargaining tool, so he made him a deal: to take the blame of all of Klint's murders and be known as the professor, while making it so that when he is executed and buried, he gets out free to Japan with his family.
He wrote a last will as well, instructing that all his possesions be given to his son Kazuma, and supposedly having no regrets of being executed. He also wrote on it a Haiku for his son so that in case his deal goes wrong, he discovers the truth in the form of a riddle, indirectly telling him that he had Klint's last will on the blade Karuma. Lastly, he guided Yujin while he was on his jail cell to where Klint's wife was about to deliver, he accepted the favour, and helped the lady deliver Iris Wilson.
Following the plan, Stronghart had it so that Genshin escaped prision, while writing the fact that he hanged Genshin in the report, putting him in a coffin and buried. At midnight, he would rise from the grave with Stronghart and Seishiro Jigoku overseeing him. However, a university student named Enoch Drebber would be found near his grave while Genshin was escaping from it, and Stronghart would convince Jigoku to shoot him so that all his involvement with the case would vanish. He was subsequently shot and killed, and Enoch fled the scene as soon as possible.
Several years afterwards, during the trial dealing with the reaper conspiracy as well as the professor's killings, Genshin's pieces of evidence would lead Kazuma, Barok and Ryunosuke to complete their trial revealing the truth of the Reaper Conspiracy as well as the Professor's murders.
How are they magnificent?
Now from the sounds of it, Genshin seems like he got screwed majorly right? He got unjustly framed and killed while his son got involved into Mael's big conspiracy on hiding their own crimes. Now, those are all true, but here's the thing that i believe makes Genshin magnificent.
Despite having the whole justice system against him, with Mael having to fabricate a lot evidence, manipulate testimonies, and formed a near perfect plan to incriminate him, Genshin still had the one piece of decisive incriminating evidence on him (Klint's last will), and having that, he used it so that Mael was basically forced to make him a deal that was beneficial for him, which wouldn't have been the case if he didn't grab Klint's will on him.
While Mael also made it so that it was beneficial for him as well, manipulating Genshin about the care for his son, he still had it so that in case the plan of escaping London undetected failed, had a trick up his sleeve on sending his son a riddle for him to discover the whole truth on the professor's case, which was only not sent to him because of forces out of his control.
And when he was killed? It was by coincidence of Enoch Drebber being by him at the same time he was escping the grave as well as Stronghart majorly panicking over that, which had it so that they quickly shot him from a distance, something that Genshin couldn't have gained control over as well.
Ultimately, i believe Genshin passes due to the fact that his third page of his last will, as well as hiding Klint last will on his blade for his son to discover in the future, being both very important evidence to convict Mael Stronghart, someone who has been meticulously planning his rise to power and "cleansing England off criminals" for more than 10 years, only being defeated by a japanese man with one paper to crumble him out of power.
Also helps that he did a lot while he was alive when he had a whole country's law system against him, and still had it so that he was still benefited, despite outside powers leading him to his death.
Are they bastard? Too much?
When Genshin found out about Klint's murders, he tried to bring it to the law, but when that didn't work, he took it upon his own hands to seek justice. While he did agree to many things Klint asked of him, like taking care of his wife, he still killed him in an "honorable way" dueling him to the death.
Even when he was imprisioned, he admitted to being responsible of murdering. To many this seemed like he was admitting to the Professor Killings, but he truly only killed Klint.
So yeah, vigilant as it is, i believe killing Klint is enough to push being a bastard, without crossing the line.
Veredict?
It is a bit rocky, but due to effectively being one step ahead of the biggest planner in the game, i believe he passes.
Edited by TheWrongOne41 on Jan 9th 2024 at 12:40:25 PM
Due to unfortunate events, i will continue to exist until further notice.
to Granny and Ood Sigma/Ood Brain.
Tentative to Cesare and Genshin.
I'll abstain on Mimi (maybe it's a bit unfair of me given her sitcom source work, but her heinousness feels a bit too low for me).
Any more thoughts or votes on Maia Simmons?
Edited by Derv0sB2 on Jan 9th 2024 at 1:36:24 AM
Abstain on Genshin. I don't really know if he's bad enough.
A nice swimmer
Well he went and killed a man who had a pregnant wife, even if he was honorable and informed him about it, i think that still is a degree of being a bastard.
Due to unfortunate events, i will continue to exist until further notice.
Yeah murder is still murder
Granny, the Dealer.
to Granny, the Sigma male, Mimi, the Dealer, Cesare and Genshin Impact.
What is the work?
Parker is a 2013 action film
Who is he? What has he done?
Parker is the titular Villain Protagonist. He is a Gentleman Thief. The film opens with him leading a crew of armed theives (Melander, Carlson, Ross, and Hardwicke) in a heist, disguising himself as a priest, Parker, and his crew rob the Ohio State Fair of one million dollars, however Hardwicke starts a fire that wasn't part of Parker's plan leading to a man getting killed and several injured, which pisses Parker off.
The crew planning another heist and wanting Parker's share of the million from the previous heist, betray Parker and shoot him, throwing him out of the vehicle and leaving him on the side of the road Parker however, survives his injuries and is found by farmers and taken to the hospital.
After coming to Parker chokes out the nurse and steals his uniform, as well as his ambulance truck and escapes the hospital. Stealing a car and hotwiring it, Parker ties up and robs two drug dealers.
Parker uses the money he stole from them to buy a car and get a passport from Norte. Parker calls Hurley and finds out that Hardwicke's brother, Bobby Hardwicke owns a bar, Bobby knows out the bouncer and goes upstairs confronting Bobby about his Hardwicke and the others whereabouts, beating him up him and his men, Parker threatens to break Bobby's neck with an arm chair unless he tells him the crew's whereabouts, forcing him to reveal that they are in Palm Breach, Florida.
Danzinger sends his men to Norte's office, Parker comes in and beats up Danzinger's men, taking a gun out, Parker makes Norte kill the men under threat of killing him.
Parker arrives in Palm Beach posing as a rich Texas oil baron under the alias of Daniel Parmitt he acquires with real estate agent Leslie Rodgers for a luxury house. Parker tracks down the house Melander's crew is in and breaks into it while they are away, planting two extra guns and sabotaging the rest.
Parker kills the assassin Danzinger sent after him after a hard battle that left Parker severely wounded, Leslie finding out Parker's identity helps him hide from the police and recover from his injuries. The two track Melander's crew after they robbed the jewelry auction, waiting for them to return back. The crew capture Leslie, but their guns don't work and Parker manages to kill them, revealing that he bent the firing pins on them.
The two take the jewels and Parker gives them to Leslie telling her to hide them and he will send someone to take them from her in three months.
Six months later Parker tracks down Danzinger and promptly kills him. One year later Parker mails Leslie her cut, as well as sends money to the family of farmers who saved his life at the start of the film.
Is he charming/magnificent?
YES. He is a brilliant and very successful professional thief who has mastermind many cons and schemes, a genius bruiser, etc.
Is he a bastard? Too much?
Lets see he's a thief, con artist, carjacker, choked out a nurse and stole his uniform, killed people....That said he has a code of honor and in his schemes never kills innocent people and dislikes anyone who does. He show genuine gratitude to Leslie and the family of farmers and split his loot with them. He is very much a Lovable Rogue.
Verdict?
Easy keeper!
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Cesare, Genshin, and Parker.
Is this a good quote:
For he's the master criminal who can defy the law
He's the bafflement of Scotland Yard, the Flying Squad's despair
For when they reach the scene of crime Macavity's not there!
Macavity, Macavity, there's no one like Macavity
He's broken every human law, he breaks the law of gravity
His powers of levitation would make a fakir stare
And when you reach the scene of crime Macavity's not there!
You may seek him in a basement, you may look up in the air
But I tell you once and once again Macavity's not there!
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Genshin, Parker.
I like the quote Bull.
Aight so we've not got many MB videos so here's a possible one? It's of Red Death.
https://youtu.be/GKrvTnh-GC0?si=5lL31sZXyLLKlBuw
to Parker, Macavity quote and definitely the Red Death video.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I like the video.
Yes to Granny, Mimi and Parker
I hate spoilers
I haven't given my thoughts on candidates since Marvel's Spider-Man 2 was considered for this list. Because I wanted to avoid spoilers, I made sure to stay away from this forum until I finished it... until Edelgard was proposed, and I decided to play Azure Gleam. Since then, I've looked at just about every EP and have a long list of who I want to give a to.
Problem is, this is over 2 months of effort posts to comment on, so I'm a little worried if the list is too much. What should I do?
Everyone look at my sandbox
Showtime!
Just comment on the last few
Most of them are probably up and the voting is closed anyways
Absolute destiny... apeachalypse?
Lies and Violence!
Granny, Mimi, the Ood, Cesare, Genshin and Parker.
What's the work?
The Other Guys is a fun parody of Buddy Cop movies, following bumbling detectives Gamble and Hoitz as they uncover a massive kind of average criminal conspiracy. A powerful company, Lendl Global, has lost millions of dollars due to the incompetence of an investment banker they frequently work with, David Ershon, and they want that money back.
So who's our Big Bad? Not Ershon, he's too passive an antagonist and a moron. Lendl's CEO has maybe a single minute total of screen time. Which brings us to the fixer they hire to solve the issue.
Who is Roger Wesley?
Played by the late, great Ray Stevenson, Wesley is an Australian mercenary brought in to cover up Lendl's loss and force Ershon to recover their money. To get the first part accomplished, Wesley orchestrates a convoluted jewelry store heist that just so happens to damage a nearby accounting firm, whose primary client is Lendl. With the public distracted by the heist, Wesley and his team of mercs pose as federal agents and temporarily close off the firm as a crime scene, altering their records to hide Lendl's loss. From there, he goes to collect Ershon—though the billionaire quickly escapes.
...And is quickly arrested by Gamble and Hoitz. For scaffolding permit violations, of all things. Wesley nonetheless catches up to them, faking a fender bender so he can steal Gamble's car with Ershon still in it. When the duo of detectives return to the precinct, they find Wesley there, claiming to be the head of Ershon's security team and that he thought the detectives were kidnappers. He apologizes to their captain and settles Ershon's permit violations, undercutting the duo and ensuring they get no support from the rest of their department in pursuing the case.
Gamble and Hoitz continue undeterred, so Wesley takes to trying to intimidate them into staying out of it. When they approach Ershon's own accounting firm, for example, Wesley blows up the building as a warning, and on another occasion he knocks the two out and has them shipped to Las Vegas, cementing them as laughingstocks among the police. Some time after this, Gamble and Hoitz approach Ershon's accountant with evidence of his client's misdeeds; Wesley meets with the accountant soon after and forces him at gunpoint to drink a bottle of gin, then forces him onto the window ledge of his office building, ensuring that his inevitable fall looks like a drunken accident to cover up this loose end.
To make a long story short, Ershon plans to make back the lost money through an investment deal with the NYPD, which will enable him to steal all their pension money. The detectives "arrest" Ershon without a warrant, which Wesley spins to have the two branded as fugitives, leading to a big car chase. The detectives take Ershon to prevent the transfer of money, and eventually get into a stand off with Wesley, who reveals he plans to auction Ershon off to several other of his jilted investors in order to earn an extra payday from this whole experience. Hoitz, hearing this, bluffs and threatens to kill Ershon if he doesn't back off... only for Wesley to just non-fatally shoot all three of them.
Unfortunately for him, the police happen to arrive at that moment, and he's arrested.
Mitigating factors?
Wesley is perpetually cool, calm, and collected, serving as Lendl's enforcer with unwavering professionalism. He runs rings around Gamble and Hoitz throughout the film, constantly humiliating the two and staying on top of the situation to ensure Lendl gets their money. He's not perfect, but he's very quick to recover and twist any mishaps into advantages—see both times he loses Ershon, only to use the situation to remove any support for Gamble and Hoitz's from the rest of the police.
There is one moment that's a little needlessly petty: in the climax, Wesley and Hoitz get into a back-and-forth, giving contradicting demands for a clerk to approve and not approve, respectively, the transfer of money. Once Wesley shoots the three, the confused clerk asks for a clarification on whether Wesley wanted the transfer approved or not; an annoyed Wesley aims his gun at him, stating that "You, mate, I'm gonna kill just for fun." A tad unnecessary, but it's a minor moment in the grand scheme of things, and nowhere close to being bad enough to undercut his magnificence.
for Roger Wesley.
Goku Black
Genshin and definetly Roger and Parker.
Much as I'd love to say yes to Genshin, he's more or less Stronghart's patsy for the crime more or less. It's like calling Edgeworth one for outwitting Simon Keyes. He's also seen as a Fallen Hero only an actual hero in Japan. All he really did was hide his will in the sword hilt, and all he did that was bastardly was killing a serial killer. His son, meanwhile, knowingly worked with the Big Bad as an assassin almost killing Tobias (and probably WOULD be listed if he did and got away with it) and while he does apologize, he almost knowingly condemns a man to capital punishment. (It's clear Barok would have gotten the death penalty for being the mastermind behind the Reaper of the Bailey) Ultimately I'm going to have to say no. He checks most of the boxes but ultimately only "wins" because of Ryunosuke. Yes to Roger and Parker though.
Edited by Klavice on Jan 10th 2024 at 12:33:53 PM
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
To Roger and Parker
Amused yes there Riley!