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
Not the Eye
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
SNOWFLAME
SNOWFLAME
Showtime!
To Snowflame
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
A little late but the break down for Percy Jackson and the Olympians (2023): No one counts right now. I have no doubt that Luke will count by the end of the series as he has charisma to spare, and his plan is arguably better than the book version. However, with the show being a hit and a second season being confirmed, I feel like it will be best to wait.
Edited by Bullman on Feb 28th 2024 at 4:31:58 AM
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Lies and Violence!
Yoko, Kunimitsu II, and the best villain ever.
I mentioned I had one more from Ninjago a while back, specifically from the early tie-in book Cole: Ninja of Earth.
"The Phantom Ninja" is an identity held by two different characters in the franchise's supplementary material. Seliel, a supporting character from one of the graphic novels, is probably the more well-known of the two, even getting an expanded role in one of the unofficial web serials where she helps Cole fight the sorcerer Clouse. However, she's decidedly too heroic for this trope. The first holder of the title is a very different story.
Many years ago, the Ninjas' future master, Wu, attempted to recruit a renowned bandit to help him fight off the forces of darkness. However, the bandit was insulted by Wu's refusal to pay him for his services, swearing vengeance upon him. Cole, the leader of the four Ninja at this point in time, gets inspiration from this story. He's been having a hard time getting his teammates to work together, so he decides to impersonate the Phantom Ninja and fake his own kidnapping, forcing the other three to work together to save him. This goes mostly well, and the four soon return to their campsite...
Only to find everything wrecked, and a mysterious figure waiting for them.
Who is the Phantom Ninja?
Hearing that someone was "using his name in vain", the Phantom Ninja decided to pay a visit to these upstarts, stealing all their weapons and supplies while they were away and attacking them upon their return. The Phantom Ninja quickly proves to be a far superior fighter, blocking every punch thrown at him while disabling his opponents with a single hit back. He even fakes a tell in his fighting style to trick one of the Ninja into thinking he can anticipate his moves, only to knock him off his feet with hardly any effort.
Oh, and apparently he can make himself invisible simply by emptying his mind of all thought. Not sure how that works, but it does. It's stupid and I love it.
Anyway, Cole gets his teammates to surround the Phantom Ninja and simultaneously do their special "Spinjitzu" technique—which, done in such close proximity to each other, risks accidentally creating a "Tornado of Creation" that can have very lethal consequences for the wielders if done wrong. Fortunately, they manage to not kill one another and send the Phantom Ninja flying...
Where he proceeds to laugh off his defeat, musing in faux annoyance that he lost his bet with Wu. Turns out, the two were never enemies—Wu had once captured him but refrained from turning him in, instead recruiting him as a criminal informant and having him agree to only steal from other evildoers. That whole "swearing vengeance" thing over not getting paid was just a cover story they made up. The Phantom Ninja had met with Wu recently and learned that the Ninja weren't doing so hot, so he bet Wu that if he attacked them, they would be incapable of uniting behind their leader. Pleasantly surprised to learn that he was wrong, the Phantom Ninja dismisses the four's incredulous threats to capture him with full confidence that he would thrash them all in a rematch, telling them where he stashed all their stuff and bidding them ado as he goes to deliver the tea he wagered to Wu.
Mitigating factors?
Badass fighter, schemes with Wu to smuggle him info while remaining a convincingly malevolent criminal figure, tests the fractured Nina by giving them a common foe to unite against... he's good for magnificence.
The main question is whether he's evil enough, but I think he squeaks by. Though he only targets fellow criminals in the present, he's absolutely unrepentant about his past misdeeds, which he only ever abandoned because otherwise Wu would beat him up. And even then, the Ninja do not approve of leaving him to continue his life of crime, only refraining from apprehending him because they ultimately only defeated him with a very risky technique that he's now prepared to counteract.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Phantom Ninja.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Not the Eye
Phantom Ninja
Phantom Ninja and SNOWFLAME
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
SNOWFLAME
for the Phantom Ninja and the cocaine-powered supervillain.
Phantom Ninja
Also sorry for the late writeup but hear it is
- Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League Earth 2 Lex Luthor is less arrogant counterpart of Earth 1 Lex who using his wits and resourcefulness to be the only human to survive Earth 2’s invasion by Braniac surviving for 3 years and learning of Earth 1 and supplied knowledge to to his Earth 1 counterpart to prepare him for the invasion of his earth. After the arrival of the Suicide Sqaud he had them help him get to Earth 1 and after hacking into Argus exposed Amanda Walkers plan to brainwash the Squad if they succeeded, convincing them to serve him instead. He leads the Sqaud’s effort to Kill the Justice League, making use of Yellow batteries for them to kill Green Lantern, studying Batman to figure out Braniac’s changes to Superman’s DNA, and creating Gold kryponite to organize the defeat of his greatest enemy Superman in front of his own monument. Even managing to force Walker to work with him by creating a fail safe to take all his work with him if Walker tried to control him. He finally created a device allowing for interface into Braniac after his defeat allowing the Squad to hint the other 12 down making him a resourceful yet untrustworthy ally to the Squad.
Counted 6 ups and 0 nos on Eileen Sun, so... draft time
The Brothers Sun: Eileen "Mama" Sun is the matriarch of the Jade Dragons who aspires for leadership over the ruthless Triads to make them more "legitimate." To this end, she sets up the Boxers to be killed in an assassination attempt on the Triad heads and buy their favor. When caught by the Boxers, Eileen makes them serve her tea and refuses to help them, even at the cost of her friend's life. After Big Sun reenters the scene and tries to have her and Bruce killed, Eileen, upon his defeat, gets the last laugh by forging his health charts as a fake diabetic to make him receive painful, numbing dosages of insulin, rendering him unable to threaten their lives again. In the end, Eileen finds herself free to lead and reform the Triads and proves to be a charming, cunning Mama Bear who truly loves and protects the family, albeit in ruthless ways.
Edited by RoyalCharger on Feb 28th 2024 at 5:42:32 AM
Man in the Yellow Hat
to SNOWFLAME
What's the work?
Lackadaisy is a webcomic set in 1927 St. Louis, focusing on speakeasy members trying to maintain their venture after their owner Atlas May died, dealing with their own personal problems, and trying to figure out what happened to Atlas. Also they're all anthropomorphic cats, but that's not important. Atlas May got approved, and for now I move on to the second candidate-Mordecai Heller. Spoilers below.
Who is Mordecai Heller and what does he do?
Mordecai Heller is the comic's central antagonist and the enforcer of the Marigold Gang, which has basically monopolized the liquor trade in St. Louis after Atlas died and the Lackadaisy Speakeasy declined due to that. Mordecai started out as a small time crook in New York City-according to supplementary material, he became wanted for murder, which is why his chronologically first scene in the comic is him on a train fleeing west with no money (he left it to his mother). However, he has a chance encounter with Atlas on the train, and the man molds Mordecai into a ruthless killing machine. We briefly see one of his missions with Atlas' other enforcer Viktor Vasko, where he is tasked to kill some members of the Mafia, and does so efficiently, even improvising pieces of the stair that break of as he's freefalling. However, Atlas dies five years later in 1926, with Mordecai deciding to ditch the quickly collapsing Speakeasy. He joins the Marigold Gang and continues doing what he did best-whacking random people on his boss’ orders.
His first appearance in the comic is after he killed someone-specifically, after the Savoys played on his literal mindedness and gave him a hatchet for the job. Knowing the mess he made could be potential evidence, Mordecai and his partners, siblings Nicodeme and Serafine Savoy, get rid of it by feeding it to pigs owned by moonshine-making farmers allied with Marigold. Those farmers come back to Mordecai and his boss, Asa, a bit later, and ask them to help take down the Lackadaisy Speakeasy as repayment for using their pigs to get rid of evidence. Mordecai assists, managing to sneak into the Speakeasy, enter the room where the guns are held, and take them all, leaving it defenseless. This nearly gets everyone within it shot up-only saved by the last-minute intervention of Freckle and Viktor killing one of the pig farmers. Following this, the new owner of the Lackadaisy, Mitzy, goes to have a chat with Asa, which Mordecai attends briefly before leaving without a word. Turns out, he snuck into Mitzy’s car, and reveals he’s suspicious Asa knows something about Atlas’ death only he and Mitzy know. Mordecai’s also suspicious of how Asa orders him to kill seemingly trivial competitors, and views it as connected. After seeing Mitzy has little to offer him in terms of knowledge, Mordecai leaves.
After this, Mordecai doesn’t appear (bar flashbacks) until Page 133, where he’s revealed to be searching for the Savoy Siblings that Asa handed out He finds the Voodoo cult Serafine started (Word of God says it ain’t legit), has a frustrated talk with her about the past, and is eventually branded (involuntarily) by the cult offscreen. Despite clearly being pissed at the Savoys, he goes through with the job and plans as they ride to their destination-another speakeasy. Mordecai breaks in, and tells the bartender Joey that he’s looking for its owner, Gracie Grombach, to do business with him. After Gracie doesn’t recognize who he is, Mordecai leads him and a small posse outside-where Serafine shoots Gracie’s goons dead, leaving him to fight Mordecai and Serafine. Despite being outnumbered, Gracie puts up a good fight-which ends after Mordecai tricks him into running into the Savoy's car and slashes his ankles. Mordecai takes him away, and tells the Savoys to deal with the rest of the speakeasy. Mordecai then reveals he doesn’t plan to kill Gracie, but to question the man as to why he was ordered to kill him, and got some official documents to help. After prying a bit, Mordecai finds little bar that Gracie is a low level informant with a contact in the Prohibition Bureau-but explains to Gracie that not only is he suspicious of Asa, but that he joined Marigold to find out if they killed Atlas. After Gracie offers to help him in exchange for freedom, Mordecai doesn’t bite. After the Savoys find him and threaten to cut his encounter short and jeapordize it all, Mordecai exploits the situation by telling Gracie he’ll hide him from the Savoys if he gives him the name of his contact in the Bureau. Gracie spills the beans of that, and Mordecai pries further to ask for their meeting location...which is where the comic ends, at least for now, due to being on hiatus.
Is he magnificent?
Yep, I’d say so. Mordecai is an intelligent guy who, as revealed in the most recent chapters, has been working undercover in Marigold for a year to find out why Atlas died, and has been getting closer despite facing plenty of setback's thanks to his trigger-happy allies. Other, smaller acts of intelligence include managing to exploit the fact he’s falling down the staircase at a particular moment to make a weapon, sneaking into multiple places (including disarming the Lackadaisy), tricking Gracie into an ambush, and managing to break into Mitzy’s car. And as for personality, he basically oozes Evil Is Cool thanks to his stoic persona.
Is he a bastard? To much of one?
Easily. He’s killed multiple people under Atlas and more under Asa simply due to being told to or to continue his investigations, and even outside that he threatens to torture Gracie, commits multiple break ins, and broke Viktor kneecaps shortly before leaving the Lackadaisy.
That being said, not only are his acts ordered by his bosses, done for investigating Atlas’ death, or (in the case of breaking Viktor’s kneecaps) viewed by him as necessary (it’s also implied Viktor attacked him), but Mordecai does have some humanizing qualities. It’s shown he grew up poor and went into crime for that reason, and he’s confirmed to care for his mother and Atlas. There are some tie in materials that show him doing a bunch of petty stuff during his early time at the lackadaisy (like shooting a guy because he had a runny nose), but not only are these seemingly humorous non-canonical stories, but his behavior in the present doesn’t reflect that and the Savoys alongside the farmers do even more needlessly cruel stuff.
Competition?
Not really-he's the most intelligent character so far besides Atlas, and unlike Atlas, who mostly schemes behind the scenes, Mordecai specializes in direct action, so I feel he stands out enough. The Savoys do show intellect, but Mordecai is still portrayed as the brains between the three of them, and the main cast makes plenty of mistakes that make Mordecai stand out from them.
Mitigating factors?
The one thing that kinda hurts him is there’s three instances of him being the butt of the joke beyond being the Comically Serious, however briefly-the Savoys making fun of him being the “hatchet man” by giving him a literal hatchet and him falling for it due to being literal minded, Mitzi whacking him with her purse when she finds him in the car as he starts speaking, and Nicodeme throwing a gun in his face. However, these are brief, with Mordecai getting his dignity back quickly after them all (realizing he can't leave the mess behind a promptly moving to dispatch it, still managing to talk with Mitzy, his plan to defeat and capture Gromback quickly working out fine) and finishing the story with it. Other than that, he is wrathful and snarky sometimes (like when he rants about no one liking symmetry to Joey or questions what move Viktor made in chess), but he cools back from those pretty quickly and the last one is in the past, with any anger usually being pretty suppresed.
Verdict?
I do think he has hiccups, but overall, to Mordecai Heller.
Yes to Phantom Ninja, Snowflame, and Mordecai. Does his boss Asa Sweet do enough to qualify?
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Jogo
Snowflame, Phantom Ninja and Mordecai
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Man in the Yellow Hat
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
No, not yet anyway-he doesn't show many smarts, bar arguably the plan on how to help the pig farmers get their revenge on Rocky and the Lackadaisy. Doesn't help that Mordecai and Atlas outdo him.
Edited by Purgatoryisof2 on Feb 29th 2024 at 7:33:14 AM
He/Him
Hi! :3
to Robbie Rotten, Yoko, Snowflame, Phantom Ninja and Mordecai
Edited by StalkerGamer on Feb 29th 2024 at 10:34:42 AM
to Robbie, wasn't expecting to see anyone bring up Pixel Isaiah on this site in any capacity, but...
(and to Yoko, Snowflame, Phantom Ninja and Mordecai too)
Edited by LoadsAndLoadsOfFreeTime on Feb 29th 2024 at 7:27:36 AM
You've been kicked out of the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. :(
Goku Black
phantom ninja and Mordecai
Write-up here:
- Strange World: Splat is a Scout and one of the creatures in the subterranean world under Avalonia, determined to lure intruders to be eaten by the Reapers. First trying and failing to get Searcher Clade eaten by them, Splat tries again with his son Ethan by seemingly befriending him. Later realizing the humans to not be so bad after a caring act from Ethan, Splat saves his life and helps his group escape from the Reapers. Joining their mission of reaching the heart of Pando, Splat convinces a group of Blood Cells to grab their airship and guides them to take it through the Burning Sea without it being damaged. When the group wants to save the heart by attacking the creatures hurting it, Splat tries to warn them against doing so, and when they discover they were living in a Turtle Island that the Pando energy was killing, Splat helps in bringing creatures to enter the heart through a hole and save their world from the Pando.
Edited by Rhino8888 on Feb 29th 2024 at 5:39:12 PM
for Mordecai Heller.
RIP Toriyama
Yes to SNOOOOOOWFLAME and Mordecai
I realize I've failed to pencil myself in for Dune: Part Two here as I have on CM, so I'm rectifying that now.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Lies and Violence!
Mordecai.
Claiming Iwájú.
For anyone who's not aware, the policy on gendered redirects for trope names has been clarified and added to the How to Write an Example Administrivia page (the relevant edit is here
)
The decision was that these should only be used on Characters pages - and as Magnificent Bastard is always YMMV, not a Character page trope, that means that we should no longer be using Magnificent Bitch.
I'm sure there'll be some specific cleanup on this at some point, but in the short term, can we standardise on MagnificentBastard when adding new examples or doing cleanup for other reasons?
Thanks!