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
- Moriarty the Patriot:
- Sherlock Holmes is a brilliant but eccentric detective acknowledged by William as his equal. He serves as a consulting detective for Scotland Yard, using his brilliant deductive skills and information gathered by the children of Baker Street to solve crimes. Meeting William while cruising Noathic, Sherlock almost immediately figures there was more to the supposed murder committed by a bloodthirsty noble. After being framed for the murder of Duke Drebber, Sherlock quickly clears his name and finds the true culprit while bringing Drebber’s depravities to light. When promised the identity of the mysterious Lord of Crime if he kills Drebber’s true murderer, Sherlock ultimately decides that he wants to solve the crime himself rather than being given the answer. He starts correctly suspecting William as his target while he continues solving high profile cases. Sherlock learns that the fiancée of his partner Watson, Mary, is being blackmailed by the infamous Charles Milverton, and devises a plan to kill him and free Mary. After officially discovering William as the Lord of Crime, Sherlock prevents him from committing suicide and instead convinces him to seek redemption. He spends years in America working as a Pinkerton detective before returning to help MI6 catch a traitor at William’s request. Sherlock joins MI6 alongside William, reuniting with his friends and ready to begin a new life.
- “A Scandal In British Empire” arc: Maximilien Robespierre, infamous French revolutionary and architect of the Reign of Terror, was actually a British agent in charge of a social experiment meant to demonstrate what would happen if power was swiftly and violently given to the people. Real name Sherrinford Holmes, he took the identity of Robespierre and become the main strategist of the French Revolution. When his scapegoating of the noble class resulted in people demanding all of them be executed, Robespierre organised the Reign of Terror, killing countless nobles and common people alike, in order to redirect the people’s hatred towards himself. He secretly goaded the revolutionary leadership into executing him with seemingly nonsensical talk about traitors in revolutionary mists, eventually becoming the final victim of revolutionary bloodshed.
The work
Kill Chain is a 2019 thriller, following various characters over a single night chasing and trying to kill each other over betrayals and money.
My candidate is the man who orchestrated all the events in the movie, played by Nicolas Cage himself, Araña.
Who is Araña and what has he done
A man only known as "Araña", was once a simple truck driver who saved the life of a mercenary named Franco. Franco took him under his wing and Arana became a mercenary as well, serving a nebulous organization over the years over the world, such as Cameroon fighting over blood diamonds.
Eventually though, he and Franco were tasked with burning a shipment that was caught by Mexican border patrol to send a message to not mess with the organization. They were going to do so, until they saw that the shipment was children being trafficked. Horrified over this they instead let the girls, with Franco adopting one as his daughter, though the organization got another assassin, Sanchez to torch the girls anyway
Years passed with Arana and Franco hiding in a little hotel Franco was running, until one day Franco and his daughter had a falling out and she ran away, where she got found by some crooked cops and was found mutilated in a field a week later. Franco went mad with grief and went on a suicidal rampage against the organization that ended with his death.
Arana, angry over all this, came up with an elaborate plan to kill everyone involved.
For this he hired Sanchez to set up a hit where he betrays and mortally wounds his partner. He then pays Sanchez with a dead drop of $250,000 worth of diamonds, only to then tip off some cops, the same crooked cops that picked up Franco's daughter.
One of the cops, Ericson kills Sanchez and kills his partner too to keep the diamonds. Ericson goes to his girlfriend Renata, so he and her use the diamonds to buy new identities from a guy called Arana and live a new life together, only for Renata's old ex-pimp who was involved with the human trafficking to show up to get Renata back. Her men end up killing Ericson while Renata escapes with the diamonds, going to Hotel del Franco to meet up with Arana.
When Renata gets there, when she meets him she doesn't realize he's Arana but can tell he used to live a violent life and tries to make a deal with him to run away together, only for her ex-pimp to show up.
Arana convinces her to try to talk to her, and to the pimp he plays the part of an ordinary hotel clerk, who's scared of her.
While Renata is talking to the pimp, Arana deals with her right hand, offering him a drink only to reveal he poisoned it.
He goes up to Renata's room and holds the pimp at gunpoint before getting Renata to stab her to death. As they're talking about how to dispose of the body, 2 men from his old organization show up, having tracked him down and be there to kill him.
Arana goes down and talks to them, offering to tell them a story and they decided to listen to him, so he tells them his backstory before him and Renata get into a shootout with them, with Arana killing one while the other one tries to kill Renata with a gun he took from Arana, only for it to blow up in his hand since Arana had sabotaged it, letting Renata kill him.
After this Arana and Renata talk, with her realizing who he is, and he reveals that he planned all this and while he doesn't actually have a new identity for her since her pimp is dead she doesn't need one, giving her most of the diamonds for her lead a new life with before he leaves.
As his final bit before he leaves, he visits Sanchez's dying partner, who was in a room in the hotel, and talks to him about that even though he didn't kill those girls he didn't stop Sanchez, while he tells him that his boss is gonna go after his daughter since Sanchez is dead, with Arana finishing him off with the final scene is him using his phone to call up the guy's daughter.
Magnificence
Arana is a calm, stoic guy and has Cage's usual charm to him.
He also orchestrated a complicated plan of revenge, manipulating multiple and while there was some bumps in the road, like he said the original plan was for Ericson and the pimp to kill each other and not have Renata lead her to the hotel, he describes it as plan B and he rolls right along with it and gets everything he wanted from it in the end.
Bastardness
While Arana is pretty light on bastardness since his targets are all bad guys, he makes it clear he had a bloody past and his scheme did endanger innocent people like Renata, who had nothing to do with Ericson's crimes and just happened to be in the crossfire and it is clear that Arana's original plan would've probably killed her too, so I think he's in the bastard category.
Conclusion
I think Araña keeps, what do you think?
REALITY IS AN ILLUSION, THE UNIVERSE IS A HOLOGRAM, BUY GOLD BYEEEE! | She/Her
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Goku Black
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
arana
Not the Eye
Jogo
Arana
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Alright to get this out the way, Rav will be handling the writeup if it goes well.
What is the work?
Kung Fu Panda 4 is exactly what it says, the fourth entry in the Kung Fu Panda film series. Having made his way from mere noodle chef to the Dragon Warrior, Po has a new step in his life, choosing a successor for the mantle of Dragon Warrior. When returning to the Jade Palace, Po sees a figure within, a thief called Zhen. Guess who's the candidate.
Who is Zhen and what has she done?
A thief breaking into the Jade Palace to steal Po's staff, Zhen is caught by Po but uses various maneuverers to counter Po's attacks although she ultimately get's caught in the end. Whilst she's arrested, Po hears that the main antagonist from the first film, Tai Lung, has returned somehow. Zhen informs him though that it's due to the machinations of the sorceress known as the Chameleon who's a powerful shapeshifter. Zhen then offers Po guidance to the Chameleon's domain, Juniper City, in return for her freedom.
After an incident at a tavern where Zhen is caught cheating at a game because of Po on accident which causes them to fight the tavern's inhabitants, Zhen and Po end up on a boat that headed towards Juniper City. As they explore the city, they're apprehended by the city guards due to Zhen being a wanted fugitive. Zhen guides Po through an escape, eventually reaching the den of thieves.
After being provided safety and passage to the Chameleon's stronghold, it's then revealed that Zhen was working for the Chameleon for the whole time, having been raised by her as a child, and steals Po's staff for her. After the Chameleon seemingly kills Po, Zhen is disheartened since she genuinely ended up liking Po. After seeing the Chameleon starting to absorb the deceased's kung fu from the spirit realm, Zhen decides to leave where she encounters Po who's making his way back towards to face the Chameleon where she apologies for betraying him.
While Po went to face the Chameleon, Zhen returns to the den of thieves and rallies them up to overwhelm the Chameleon's guards, allowing herself to sneak into the stronghold. Zhen then interferes with the Chameleon's fight against Po by dropping a cage onto her. The duo fight the Chameleon with them ultimately winning. As Tai Lung takes the Chameleon back to the spirit realm, she begs Zhen to save her, Zhen throws one of the Chameleon's Lack of Empathy lines back her. Zhen then takes the new mantle of Dragon warrior — being chosen by Po.
Is she magnificent?
Charm isn't an issue, Awkwafina pulls out a competent charming performance with Zhen being quick witted. Planning side of things? Well the Chameleon wanted the staff but Zhen pulled of the act of getting it for her and after? She rallies up the den of thieves (who misinterpret the message like) but considering they hate her, that's gotta count for something lmao.
Zhen is also quick minded as she is shown to be able to think on her feet when in perilous issues so no problems there IMO. If people are concerned for her being a bit too much under the Chameleon's thumb, her getting back at her with the bonus of throwing the Chameleon's own words back at her as she begs for help solves that issue IMO.
Is she a bastard?
This bits fairly easy, yes. Zhen is already established to be a wanted fugitive for thievery in her own city and is constantly trying to rob people (in jokes yes but it's enough for a family animated film) and she manipulates Po to get his staff for the Chameleon's scheme. She's complicit enough for it to be bastardy enough IMO. But in the end, she does care for Po in the end and pulls a genuine Heel–Face Turn.
Final Verdict?
What say we?
Oh and since Oogway's listed as a MB already... this film does nothing to negate him as he never appears lmao.
Edited by WetFlannels on Mar 23rd 2024 at 12:35:37 PM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Goku Black
zhen
Jogo
Zhen
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Unofficial co-Wiki Curator for Magnificent Bastard
RIP Toriyama
And a solid Yes to Zhen, great work there!
Gonna reserve Abigail (2024), here.
Edited by Ravok on Mar 23rd 2024 at 3:38:42 AM
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
for Arana and Zhen.
Woagh
Sure to Zhen.
Here's someone from a game I've been enjoying recently (after asking around how we deal with Kaiju candidates at least):
What's the Work?
Giga Bash is a 3D fighting game about giant monsters duking it out, n the style of if Power Stone met the Pipeworks Godzilla games. TDLR the premise is that a recently discovered source of "Giga" energy has awaken a batch of monsters that want it, with the morally dubious government having to deal with their shenanigans. The game comes with 4 story modes staring some of those monsters, with tonights candidate coming from the second one:
Who is Pipijuras?
An Alien Baltan looking MF captured by the government, looking to escape and accomplish its mission: enact an alien invasion.
What does he do?
Skipping ahead a bit, it's slowly revealed that Pipijuras is a member of a nebulous alien race that wants to invade earth, sending Pipijuras there to plant a beacon there to teleport earth right to them. Unfortunately, while arriving on earth its UFO got hit by lightening and ends up crashing right in front of the government, who promptly abduct it and slap a mind control device on it to use as their personal attack dog. It's shown to work pretty well as a weapon... right up until it fights rampaging island Kaiju Gorogong, who knocks the device clean off. Now free, Pipijuras continues his fight with Gorogong and wins by exploiting his attachment to an artifact, flying back to the government base to get its beacon back.
The rest of its story has it outmaneuvering and outsmarting the army while getting back pieces of the beacon, culminating in it destroying their HQ and rebuilding it. Teleporting to a particularly massive crater source of Giga energy, fighting off an "S-Class" Kaiju by waiting it out until it tires itself out, he enters the crater and discovers the Giga Core and its defender Zyva, who it ends up defeating by utilizing Zyva own energy to power Pipijuras up. Utilizing the energy of the Giga Core for the beacon, Pipijuras successfully teleports earth right in front of his species, ripe for an invasion.
Is Pipijuras Smart?
So for a Kaiju in a fighting game who's roster relies on brute force? Yeah i'd say it stands out. As the game's resident long range fighter, the game encourages you to play it safe and pelt the enemy with projectiles while teleporting around the place, while its own bio describes it as a trickster that outwitted the government while taunting them repeatedly. Where it shines most obviously is its story mode, where the game tells you to fight dirty and use different tactics to beat enemies, something the game doesn't really do for anyone else.
Fighting a Titan obsessed with an artifact? Use the artifact to distract him! Fighting a mecha with a bigass sword? Use the robot you jut killed earlier against him! Fighting a titan drawing Giga Energy? Avoid him and tire him out and then escape! Fighting the Core's Guardian, who's completely invulnerable to normal attacks? Absorb some energy yourself and use an attack that can hurt him! The fact that the game encourages you to fight dirty while also admitting that its completely in-character for him to do so imo helps him out.
But Is Pipijuras a Bastard?
Plans on having Earth invaded by aliens. Eyup.
OK, so long story short the game's lighthearted enough that it really doesn't dwell on how bad the invasion would be, and everything he does comes with a whopping zero mentioned casualties and more focus on how cool the whole thing is. I'd say the presentation severely downplays how bad it could be.
Overall?
How's he looking?
(Recommend the game btw, it has Godzilla and Ultraman as guest characters what more could you want)
NOISE IS CALLING, PICK UP PHONE
Not the Eye
Zhen and Pipijuras
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Hi, can I ask? My proposal for Kondo Isami seems to be upvoted, so how long do I have to wait until I can make a write-up? Doesn't seem like there is a date on the pending list page. Sorry if I'm sounding impatient.
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
3 days after you do the effort post
for Pipjuras.
The wifi here sucks
Yes to Pipijuras and having just come back from watching it, a happy yes ti Zhen.
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
Edited by LarryT on Mar 23rd 2024 at 10:01:29 AM
In honor of Akira Toriyama