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
Dagded Dujardin
Writeup for Rcules:
- Ohsama Sentai King-Ohger: Rcules Husty is the initial ruler of Shugoddam who upon witnessing his father Corsus' death at the hands of Dagded Dujardin, began to plot a 17 year-long plan to defeat the Galactinsect King and free the Universe of his tyranny. Pretending to become a tyrant when the Bug Naraku attack, Rcules subtly encourages Gira to rebel against him and awaken the power needed to form the Ohsama Sentai. After Gira defeats him, Rcules goes into hiding and resurfaces once the Galactinsects arrive on Tikyuu, helping them conquer Tikyuu then setting up Goma Rosalia to die before taking his place and using his influence to gain Dagded's trust and a part of his immortal-killing power to share it with the Ohsama Sentai to use. When Dagded launches his ultimate plan, Rcules leads the citizens to aid their kings and personally helps dispose of Kamejim. After Dagded's defeat and final death, Rcules surrenders the crown of Shugoddam to Gira and accepts punishment for his crimes.
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
Looks nice, but remember to mark the whole entry as a spoiler in the YMMV section because Rcules is pretty hard to talk about without mentioning at least one spoiler.
Hi! :3
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Magus. Has Robbie Rotten been written up ?
The MILF Virus
Magus
Any idea where I send the images for image links? Should I just put it in the draft?
"Are you the devil?" "Don't compare to me to those small fry" - Mir
Lies and Violence!
Magus.
What’s the work?
The Americans is a drama focused on the lives of Philip and Elizabeth Jennings, just your average American couple raising two kids in the suburbs in the midst of the Cold War.
Oh, and they also happen to be KGB spies, regularly committing odd jobs of theft, blackmail and assassination to see the Soviet Union prevail over the pathetic capitalists.
Who is Andrew Larrick?
The Arc Villain of season 2. Larrick is a Navy Seal and closeted gay man whose sexuality has been used to blackmail him into working for another KGB couple, Emmet and Lorraine. Those two end up dying under mysterious circumstances, and Larrick is naturally the first suspect, so the Jennnings go undercover as CIA agents to interrogate him. At this point in the show, we know what to expect from the KGB’s coerced operatives: angry but ultimately timid, and easily cowed into doing what’s asked of them.
Larrick? Very much not that. The Jennings, posing as CIA, initially attempt to trick him into thinking the government has discovered his treason. Larrick immediately blows them off; if they arrest him, they won’t be able to feed false info to his handlers, and there’s no way they’d give up that opportunity. When they reveal the handlers are dead, though? Larrick states he didn’t do it… because he’s been too busy meticulously organizing a completely different plan to kill them, alleging he only needed two or three more meet-ups with them to figure out their home address.
It quickly becomes clear that Larrick isn’t like other blackmailed stooges; he is absolutely terrifying, smarter than both the Jennings put together, and will backstab them the moment he thinks he can get away with it. He pretty much immediately clocks that the Jennings are KGB, with his suspicions confirmed upon catching Phil trying (and failing) to tail him; a later meet-up with Elizabeth has him all but outright say he would have killed her right there and then if he hadn’t noticed Phil with a sniper rifle several rooftops away.
Why do the KGB want Larrick? Well, he was part of a special unit training Nicaraguan contra soldiers on U.S. soil, preparing them to fight communist allies in Central America. Larrick is heading back to Nicaragua soon, but he’s agreed to pass on knowledge about the training base so the Jennings can infiltrate it, take pictures as evidence to leak to the press, and assassinate a few contra leaders.
…Unfortunately, Elizabeth’s pseudo-protege, Lucia, is a Nicaraguan whose family was tortured and killed by the same contra soldiers Larrick trained. She tries to assassinate him in his own home, attacking him with a tranq gun. Larrick, being a badass, powers through, steals her gun and tranqs her; he’s the first of the two to wake up, proceeding to tie her up, call Elizabeth, and demand that, in exchange for Lucia’s life, he be let go from the Soviet’s service once the infiltration mission is complete. If she doesn’t hold up to her end of the bargain? Larrick promises to personally kill every single Soviet in the Western hemisphere.
After Elizabeth agrees, Lucia breaks free and attacks Larrick again, prompting him to kill her. His leverage is gone… but Elizabeth still intends to honor their agreement, because he’s so hardcore that there is no doubt in anyone’s mind that he could follow through with his threats.
The infiltration mission goes as planned, but the Jennings make a few mistakes and have to kill three American soldiers to make their escape. Soldiers who just so happened to be Larrick’s friends. An enraged Larrick returns from Nicaragua early, resolved to hunt down and arrest the Jennings even if it means he goes to jail as well. He starts by locating the Soviet switchboard operator who reroutes all their calls; once he figures out what general area he lives in from government phone records, he begins to silently break into houses until he finds the right one, killing the operator. The operator tries to destroy his system in his final moments, but Larrick is nonetheless able to pull the location of the Jennings’ handler, capturing her in her own house and killing her after she refuses to give anything up.
While all this is going on, the Jennings have received orders to relocate Jared, Emmet and Lorraine’s teenage son. Larrick somehow catches onto this and begins hunting Jared through a combination of tracking devices and impersonating the police to interrogate public transit workers, eventually locating where he’s been moved to and lying in wait for the Jennings once they inevitably learn what Larrick’s been up to and return to protect Jared. He pretty easily ambushes Phil and Elizabeth, cuffing them and removing the latter’s gun.
Unfortunately, he didn’t consider Jared had a gun. He shoots him, allowing Elizabeth to try to attack Larrick. Larrick gets a retaliatory shot back and gets Jared in the neck, and begins overpowering Elizabeth… but then she knocks him on top of Phil, who grabs her confiscated gun from Larrick’s waistband and shoots him dead.
Is he magnificent?
Utter badass and relentless killer that has been favorably compared to the likes of Anton Chigurh and Lalo Salamanca. Even under blackmail, he's just barely held in check and frightens practically everyone with just how capable he is of killing whoever he puts his mind to, and ultimately only dies because of the small mistake of not hiding away a gun better.
Is he a bastard?
One would normally expect a U.S. soldier going up against the KGB to be the unambiguous good guy, but his training of Contra soldiers is highlighted as a particularly gruesome thing—though it's offscreen and not delved into too deeply to be mitigating, the Contras have nonetheless killed and/or tortured hundreds, and Lucia puts all those lives on Larrick's head.
Not the Eye
Jogo
x3 If you want to add the images to the image link page, then you should add the image links of the images to Sandbox.Magnificent Bastard Images like this:
- Beatrice from Umineko (links to the proposed images)
Also to Lamarck.
Larrick.
for Magus and Larrick.
for Andrew Larrick.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Magus and Larrick.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Dagded Dujardin
to Larrick
Goku Black
larrick
I'm somewhat apprehensive of this character given she's a Benevolent Abomination Big Good but on further insight I think she might be sketchy enough to count. This would also be our second Analog Horror candidate.
What is the Work?
Angel Hare is a christian-themed 2D animated Analog Horror (though "horror" is a loose phrase here) series. A young man named Jonah discovers VHS tapes of a children's show he watched frequently as a child named "Angel Hare" only to discover that the tapes are off from his memories as a child. As he compares his VCR recordings, he realizes that the VCR recordings that he possesses are extremely off as it becomes increasingly clear that the host of the show, Angel Gabby, is far more than a simple cartoon character.
Who is the Character? What has She Done?
Angel Gabby is the manifestation of the angel Gabriel, having embodied herself into anomalous media along with fellow angel Zagzagel for several decades for the purpose of guiding troubled children through any means necessary, having taken the form of a cartoon rabbit for Jonah as a child.
As a child, Jonah was repeatedly abused by his father, referred to only as "HE". Angel Gabby quickly realizes from context that Jonah is being abused, and forms an emotional and familial connection while doing everything within her power to ensure his safety while providing him guidance.
Among her instructions in the show, Gabby grows increasingly protective in various methods of ensuring Jonah's safety. She instructs Jonah on how to bolt his door closed with a lock while hiding from his father. Later, she sets up a communication system between him and her in situations where his father might be present in order to prevent him from discovering her anomalous properties, and instructs him on where to hide a gun if it comes to a situation where he needs to use it to kill his father should his abuse continue to escalate.
Eventually, Gabby reaches a point beyond which she can tolerate HIS existence, and asks Jonah if he could ever forgive his father. Jonah responds that he was unable to imagine doing so, and with this, Gabby provides detailed instructions on ensuring an alibi in a way that doesn't break her code against lying. Jonah's father "mysteriously disappeared" at this point, with Gabby manipulating the weather in order to trigger a flood and destroy any incriminating evidence of Jonah's father and wiping his memory.
In the present day, Jonah, desperate to reconnect with Gabby, live-streams her show and successfully sees her before she mysteriously disappears. In truth, this was due to her infiltrating the internet itself, hitting a Heroic RRoD in order to assist as many people as she could before recovering with Jonah's technical assistance, with him acting as a new showrunner to ensure she could reach children in similar situations as him.
What Makes Her Magnificent?
Gabby demonstrates herself as an embodiment of the "Be Not Afraid" angelic figure of the bible, highly kind and empathetic but pragmatic and stern in approach.
She provides intelligent, careful and measured instructions towards Jonah in assisting with him surviving his father's abuse, instructing him with several fail-safes and methods of protection while being careful to evade having her supernatural properties discovered. Her ultimate scheme shows this off best, where she instructs Jonah on where to hide a gun, and instructs him on ensuring an alibi to ensure that he will avoid suspicion for his father's disappearance before triggering a flood in order to erase public records.
She has been doing this for several decades at this point, assisting people with her anomalous abilities in various forms of media, eventually infiltrating the internet in a positive Deconstruction of the "haunted child's media character infiltrates the internet" due to knowing that it would allow her to help more people. While she ends up over-extending, this isn't really a result of her making a tactical error as much as her and Zaggy both not understanding the scale of the internet, and she recovers with Jonah's assistance.
What Makes Her a Bitch?
Gabby is unflinchingly morally heroic in the series, but she represents an extreme Old Testament-style Good Is Not Nice approach that results in her taking some morally questionable actions for Jonah's safety.
While Jonah's father is an Asshole Victim who deserves his fate, the way Gabby goes around assisting Jonah renders him legally culpable as a criminal, fabricating an alibi to avoid police questioning and having him kill his own father as a child in order to be spared from his abuse. She also flooded the town that Jonah stayed in in order to destroy any public records that could result in him being found legally culpable, resulting in property damage and endangering several people's lives in order to protect him, along with manipulating his memories afterwards. With her now streaming, it's likely she'll extend this approach to several other children and make them also take drastic measures.
Verdict?
Not sure, I'd lean slightly towards Yes though seeing as we've had Big Good characters before like Ford Crueller from Psychonauts or Dumbledore from Harry Potter get in before due to their willingness to make pragmatic moral decisions for a greater good.
Edited by Orangutans on Mar 16th 2024 at 3:44:36 PM
to Eileen Sun, the Tinker, Seldous, Splat, Reginald Vancaskerkin, Robbie Rotten, Yoko, Kunimitsu II, Snowflame, Phantom Ninja, Mordecai Heller, Sato, Advocat, Topaz, Hermes, Eliot Swann, Shelly de Killer, Lissandra, Kichigorou, GRP-002, Shirong, Doctor Doom, Beatrice, Host Sniff, Mr. Nobody, Henry Emily, Morgans, Apple Sauce, Kenji, Rcules Husty, Magus, Ms. Happiness, Lady Jessica, Millicent Pebmarsh, Magus, Morgans, Apple Sauce, Kenji, Rcules Husty, Magus, Ms. Happiness, Lady Jessica, Millicent Pebmarsh and Andrew Larrick.
Abstain on Angel Gabby, I don't think she's really bad enough, especially as Jonah is fully committed to killing his evil father.
RIP Toriyama
An aside but is Sandbox.Tekken Magnificent Bastard ready to launch? ~Polar Phantom?
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
to Magus, Larrick, and Gabby.
Let me get this done.
Doom³: Councilor Elliot Swann is one the highest ranking members of the Union Aerospace Corporation who came to Mars to investigate and deal with the recent troubles caused by Dr. Malcolm Betruger. Alongside his bodyguard Jack Campbell, Swann instantly deduces Betruger is the mastermind behind the demonic invasion and seeks to prevent the forces of Hell from reaching Earth no matter the cost. Swann has Campbell destroy all outside communication preventing the UAC Fleet from arriving and being ambushed by the demons, all the while condemning any survivors to certain death. When the Marine comes to manually send out a signal, Swann reveals his motives to turn the Marine to his side and orders him to destroy the man made portal in Delta Labs. Ultimately mortally wounded, Swann has the Marine take up his mission to destroy the main portal to Hell and succeed in driving back the demonic threat.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
to Gabby, endangering many innocent people’s lives sounds plenty bad enough
Woagh
to Larrick.
On Gabby, how explicit is it that the flood "endangered" people? Cuz i've seen the series and i really don't remember the flood doing anything more than destroy the police records, and otherwise she doesn't do anything particularly bad/clever other than provide Jonah with a means to defend himself.
Edited by DoodSlayer136 on Mar 16th 2024 at 6:19:06 AM
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE
Gonna wait on an answer to Dood’s question. That’s the only thing that could put the character over the bastard threshold.
The series mentioned that water crews had to arrive to close the floodgates, so it's pretty clear that people could have gotten hurt and it resulted in the municipal building being flooded and damaged and its records being destroyed regardless.
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
I'm about to launch the MB page for Tekken tonight. Any objections?
MB Pending | MB Drafts | MB Dates
So I was waiting for Paul's proposal for this, as it more relates to him, but since I'm not sure when that will happen I'm just going to say may piece now. I will also say I haven't read the books.
I feel like Paul or Jessica being listed as MagnificentBastards goes against the point of the story and I think they should not be listed.
Basically as I understand a Magnificent Bastard is inherently supposed to get you to be on their side and root for them, and that's not supposed to be undercut. The vault opening scene in Die Hard is something I think of here, that while Hans' crew aren't particularly sympathetic, Hans being an outright Complete Monster and all, in that scene we get a clear moment of triumph that the film plays for all its worth to make you get on their side. Notably despite the film at other points portraying the whole thing being robbery as a little petty for all that happens, in this scene it definitely doesn't, and that invokes the Magnificent Bastard reaction.
However when we see a similar moment of triumph in Dune: Part Two, specifically Paul asserting his position as Lisan al Gaib, rather than portraying the moment as purely awe-inspiring, we get Chani objecting harshly to what's happening, and there no compelling argument offered up in the story on why she's wrong, instead she's just pulled down and told to shut up. Again at the ending Paul claims his throne, Chani is disgusted with Paul marrying Irulan, and the very last shot of the movie is her leaving out of disgust. Chani's seems to be set up as the Audience Surrogate who is meant to react how the film wants us to react to what Paul and Jessica do, and it not a reaction anywhere close to respect or admiration.
Yeah Paul and Jessica are charismatic, but the film portrays them corrupting the Fremen as something that makes them repulsive demagogues, and I do mean repulsive, not just what the "bastard" part is supposed to represent. That the "not too detestable" part of the trope isn't part of their characterization, and that they are not really A Lighter Shade of Black, and are pretty much no better than their enemies. While they have charismatic traits, I personally found them to lack the component of drawing the audience in (and to be clear I'm not saying they don't have screen presence), and instead their actions seems to more push the audience away from rooting for them.
Not to mention the entire main theme of the story is to warn against follower messiah figures like Paul, and that Frank Herbert wrote the story to critique the glorification of heroes, and this trope by its nature glorifies the characters listed.
To me this feels similar to how on the CM thread King Sweyn was turned down despite his redeeming traits seeming very questionable, because listing a character as irredeemably evil goes against the manga's themes of no one being irredeemably evil. In the same way, I don't think characters should be listed on a trope that puts them on a pedestal, when the central point of the story is that they should not be put on a pedestal.
Like I said this more has to do with Paul, but Jessica's so tied up with it that I don't think she should be listed because of that.
That's my thoughts anyway.
I feel this would end up disqualifying a lot of characters according to this standard, though? Like, Eren Yeager from Attack on Titan wouldn't count, Tyler Durden from Fight Club wouldn't count, because the characters are misinterpreted "literally me" characters and the audience is supposed to be at least partially horrified by their actions instead of cheering them on. It's kind of ignoring any avenue for complexity. It's not so much about being a "pedestal". A Magnificent Bastard is not a badge of honor, it's a character trope type, and poorly-written and unliked characters can also qualify as it.
King Sweyn wasn't rejected for the story saying that no one is innately evil. Stories that have that same type of message like My Hero Academia and Monster still manage to have characters that count by the guidelines laid out by the trope. He was rejected because I forgot the mention of an incredibly minor line early in the series showing that he cared about his sister.
Edited by Orangutans on Mar 16th 2024 at 2:17:48 PM
Firstly, here's my writeup for Magus:
Secondly, I have another proposal... of the same character.
Chrono Trigger Prophets Guile is a Fan Game that follows Magus in the period where he has been sent back to his original time period and schemes his way into Queen Zeal's favor so that he may kill Lavos.
Magus is the same as always, a boy named Janus from the Kingdom of Zeal who was dislocated in time to the Middle Ages by Lavos, upon which he worked to gain the power to summon and kill Lavos. He does this until Crono and his gang foil his ritual, getting him sent back to the Kingdom of Zeal. Upon realizing just where he is, Magus realizes he has another chance to kill Lavos and immediately acts on it. He heads for Queen Zeal and disguises himself as a prophet to tell her about what will happen in the coming days, getting Zeal's attention when he tells her about the secret rooms the Three Gurus have and when he kills a beast that Dalton and his men were going to kill with ease, granting him access to her courts.
Using his new position, he "warns" Zeal that Crono and co will attempt to stop the Kingdom from gaining the immortality they desire by killing Lavos, as well as warning that the Gurus are actively conspiring against the kingdom now that their secret rooms have been found. Using this to get the Gurus out of the way as he knows they'll be an obstacle to his plans, he imprisons Melchior in a block of ice on Mount Woe even as he attacks Magus with the prototypical Masamune (a weapon that Magus hates) and his schemes also get Gaspar and Belthasar to flee Zeal, getting them out of his hair and allowing him to progress his plans.
Queen Zeal, impressed with Magus's accomplishments, assigns him to lead the finishing touches on the Ocean Palace instead of Dalton. Dalton tells Magus that there's a contamination to fix in an attempt to corner and kill him, but Magus fends off the Golem he sics on him and takes out his eye for good measure, leaving him alive since killing him would look suspicous and warning Dalton not to cross him, lest he lose his other eye and die before he attains his immortality.
Is he magnificent?
Yup. He's still the same cool dude in the original game and he manages to get into Zeal's top brass flawlessly with no one really suspecting a thing about him, and facing any potential problems such as Melchior and Dalton with ease and coming out on top in the end.
Is he a bastard?
He's still working to kill Lavos, a goal that is completely good for everyone but he's not afraid to work for the utterly bonkers Queen Zeal to do so. Being a midquel in the middle of original game, he still has done all the shit he did before the game's events like leading on the fiends and killing Cyrus. And in the game itself he imprisons Melchior in ice in spite of definitely knowing that he's done nothing wrong because he'd be a hindrance to his plans, and he still gives the prophecy that Crono and his friends will come to stop Lavos.
His care for Schala is still present still even so, and when the young Janus asks him who he is he just tells him to look after Alfador (his cat), showing that he still cares for his old cat even though it's been decades since he last saw him.
Keeper?
Yes.