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
RIP Toriyama
With thanks to Wet for the collab:
- Kung Fu Panda 4: Zhen is a wily thief who proves herself to be far more cunning and complex than the majority of Po's allies. Introduced trying to steal Po's staff from the Jade Palace, Zhen quickly twists things in her favor even after she's been arrested by offering Po advice and assistance in tracking down the villainous Chameleon. Though playing as Po's partner through their journey, Zhen reveals it was a ploy to lure him into the Chameleon's clutches and steal his staff, as Zhen is the Chameleon's top student. However, as Zhen comes to terms with her genuine kinship with Po and tires of her abuse at the Chameleon's hands, she betrays her master and amasses an army of fellow thieves to lay siege to the Chameleon's lair, giving Po the ability to escape near-death. Zhen then works with Po to defeat the Chameleon once and for all, and earns herself the title of the new Dragon Warrior.
Ok now the Tseng Writeup. Will do the OG Tseng but it will take more time because there is a lot more to go over.
- Final Fantasy VII Remake & Final Fantasy VII Rebirth: Tseng is the calm and collected leader of the Turks, a master of infiltration, interrogation, and assassinations, training his Turks to work together yet be prepared to sever those ties of duty calls for it. Tasked with keep watch of the Cetra Aerith and take her back into Shinra custody without the use of force he takes advantage of the Sector 7 plate fall to force Aerith to make deal to save Marlene in return to coming back to Shinra Later serving as President Rufus Shinra’s right hand man he tracks Cloud and CO’s progress via having Cait Sith serve as a mole and having him steal the Keystone to the Temple of the ancients. After suffering a near fatal injury via a Sephorith clone he finds the strength to kill the clone to protect Aerith and after confirming his mission ensuring his safety calmly walk away to file a report. A true professional Tseng will always fulfill his duty as a Turk.
Edited by YorkobeShounen on Apr 1st 2024 at 6:57:24 AM
Goku Black
Alright my other from Kung fu panda legends of awesomeness. Wet has 3 and Ravok has 2 of their own.
Who is Tong Fo?
- A powerful crime lord played by Jeff Bennet doing an amazing Christopher Walken impression.
- Tong Fo seeks the hammer that can destroy the valley of peace. He hid it before his imprisonment so Shifu intends to infiltrate the prison and get it.
- Po naturally decides to do this himself. He disguises himself as a criminal associate of Tong and enters the prison... Naturally Tong eventually figures it out that he's Po. Steals his shape changer stone, frames the escape of Tong on Po's disguisrd form and leaves for the hammer. He than uses the fact that the furious five won't know the disguised Po is Po to trick them into attacking hkm. Before starting a mad search to get the hammer. He holds his own really well against Po and is only beaten by Shifu disguising himself as a minion in secret.
- In his next appearance, he and Shifu's dad Shirong fake that Shirong is in trouble with him and his kidnaping to lure in Po and kidnap him for a reward. However Shifu himself goes and Tong decides to keep him as a pet. He disables Po and Tigress in a fight till Shirong frees them. Him and Shirong and Shifu engage ans he uses his skills, the environment and intentionaly endanger them to nearly win till Shirong uses his hidden sword to beat him.
- He later steals a powerful emerlard that when hit by lighting can read minds. Intending to take over the valley to honour his beloved grandfather. Anyway Po gets hit by lightning and instead gains the power. Po comes to Tong to get it cured. Who thinks that theirs a way to cure it wiuj a special Helmut after baiting him into thinking he wasn't preparing his thoughts in advance. He straps in Po to get hit by lighting and transfer his powwrs. Meanwhile he runs circles around the five and nearly wins. Till Po uses his mental techniques to overpower and nullify it. Blowing them both up and sending him to prison.
- After Mr ping ends up a mob boss and takes Tong's men due to his delicious soup. Tong literally scares his Minions into going back to him. Tong makes a deal with him to mass produce it so he can use it to raise an army and take over the world. Anyway Ping says no. All these guys get beaten and Tong in prison complains the soup lacks salt. Only for Ping to beat him up.
- Later after Peng creates a secret kung fu club whose residents start to beat up his thugs. Tong fo takes Peng's girlfriend hostage. And has him arrange an exhibition match with Po where Peng will use a secret poison needle to kill Po. Anyway Peng relents and spares Po and the two escape and free his girlfriend. And he's arrested once more.
- After Taotie's son Bian Zao gains electric powers. Tong Fo acts as his corrupter and steers him to turn on his dad and use his electric abilities to terrorize the valley of peace. Tong convinces him to steal Taotie's mechs and super empower them to attack the jadr palace. In fact he very nearly wins here till Po convinces Bian to be his own man and Tong doesn't care about him. (helped by Po and Tong getting into a shouting match). Bian, Taotie and Tong are arrested and Tong seems fine, taking it well.
- In the series finale, Po breaks out his rogues gallery to defeat a new threat Pang Bing who plans to mind control China but they of course turn on him. After beating them he convinces them to help and keep their individuality. Tong helps keep their airship in the air well Po saves the imperial prince and helps Po against the guards. When Po is injured and saving them, he's actually the first to want to avenge him. Still Pang Bing convinces the rogues to leave as it's not worth it and they all do. Just to crash the party with their mechs and save Po. Anyway Long story short. Po defeats Pang Bing and reverses the mind control. The rest of the rogues decide that their still going to be bad so escape team rocket blast off style. For the end.
Magnificent?
He's charming, stylish, intelligent and takes his defeats on the chin. Like he's a stylish manipulator who uses people for all their worth and well he can have some embarrassing moments uh it's a kids show and their pretty minor for this show. Like he's no butt monkey (his only super embarrassing defeat imo is Ping beating him up and uh it's only one). He comes up with great plans sometimes on the fly.
Now he's not perfect by any means but he also takes his defeats pretty well. And the sheer number of plans he comes up with and how close they come to succeeding imo means the good outweighs the bad. And is proven to be honorable, affable, etc
Bastard?
Nah he can be nasty at Times. Like taking peng's girlfriend hostage or trying to destroy the valley in his debut. But he's pretty standard Saturday carton villainy. And he's honorable, affable, and the humor actually means that the full scope of his crimes are never explored. Plus he's literally a crime lord with a Christopher Walken accent. That's amazing. Plus ke pa and Mugan are way nastier villains.
Conclusion?
Hoenstly I'd keep him as awohle.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Jogo
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
Tong Fo
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
Not the Eye
Johnny and Tong Po
Lies and Violence!
Oh, happily to Tong Fo.
Continuing with Mystery Incorporated, I'll just copy and paste my description from before:
The Mystery Inc we know and love is but one of a long line of mystery solving teams that have existed throughout the centuries, each starting out with good intentions before they're driven mad and twisted against each other by the greatest mystery of all: an ancient, cursed treasure hidden beneath the town of Crystal Cove.
The previous Mystery Inc before our intrepid heroes are the main antagonists for most of the series, manipulating the gang to their own ends—and often against each other, as they've all grown into bitter rivals who have been consumed by the curse and would happily kill their old friends to get their hands on the treasure. The most prominent of the old gang are the prior versions of Shaggy and Scooby, Mr. E and his pet bird Professor Pericles.
These mystery solving teams consist of four people and an animal, but our gang briefly gets a sixth member.
Who is Hot Dog Water?
Real name Marcie Fleach, “Hot Dog Water” is introduced as a smelly weird kid at the gang’s school and Velma’s science rival. She gets a day in the limelight in the first season as the villain of “Menace of the Manticore”. Having accidentally learned that the steel from her dad’s amusement park can be used to create “super helium”, she tries to get the park shut down so she can harvest all the steel and sell this new gas to make millions, creating a flying manticore costume with the helium. To establish a cover story for the monster, she makes a fake website offering to sell a real haunted temple, which the Mayor of Crystal Cove inevitably finds in his obsession with ghost-based tourism. It’s a really shitty website–one of the so-called haunted attractions is literally just the Statue of Liberty–but no need to put in more effort than needed; the Mayor is kind of an idiot. He buys and ships in the “cursed” temple to the amusement park, and the Manticore begins attacking people. The Scooby gang get involved, as per usual, and Marcie is eventually caught–though rather than falling into one of their traps, she just gets into a tussle with Scooby who grabs onto her head mid-flight in a blind panic and accidentally blocks her eyesight, sending them crashing.
She makes a surprise sudden reappearance at the beginning of season 2, now as Velma’s friend. She claims she was released early in exchange for reprogramming the prison system to be “more brutal and unforgiving,” but it’s revealed in truth that she’s working alongside Velma as a badass spy for Mr. E. She initially gets into the gang to replace Daphne (long story) in order to spy on them for Mr. E, but she’s soon kicked out once Daphne returns. When this happens, she passive aggressively guilts Velma for letting this happen, supposedly to manipulate her for some future plan, but nothing ever comes of this.
She makes her return as the villain of “The Night on Haunted Mountain”, repurposing her manticore flight gear to create the demonic “Dark Lilith”. In search of one of the keys to the cursed treasure, Marcie has been sent to a shipwrecked conquistador vessel on top of a mountain in the desert (long story, go with it), but is incapable of getting past the hundreds of booby traps. So, she decides to bring in the most trap-obsessed person she knows. Tricking some of Fred’s friends into going to the mountain, then attacking them as Lilith, Marcie ensures Fred hears about the monster and comes to investigate, inevitably finding his way to the shipwreck and disabling all the traps. Marcie swoops in to steal the key, and, after a big chase scene that involves sailing/crashing the ship down the mountain, Velma deduces her identity. She reveals herself, but even though she has a clean getaway, decides to give the key to Velma for their friendship before going on the run from Mr. E.
Fast forward a few episodes, the gang decides to pull their own "Scooby-Doo" Hoax, distracting the OG Mystery Inc so that Marcie can sneak into their base and steal all their pieces of the key. She also hacks into their security system, allowing the gang to spy on some of their operations.
She makes her return in the finale, having been captured offscreen to be used as a hostage by Professor Pericles. Marcie manages to break free and pulls an Uno reverse, grabbing Pericles and giving her friends the headstart needed to get to the cursed treasure, but Pericles inevitably overpowers her and has her gunned down. Fortunately, she’s resurrected with the rest of the town once the gang beats Satan (go with it).
Mitigating factors?
The Manticore escapade is a pretty standard Monster of the Week, and her time as a spy for Mr. E doesn’t have her do much. But the Dark Lilith episode is more than enough; though she’s incapable of getting past the traps herself, she’s able to manipulate the gang with little trouble into getting the piece for her, and only loses it when she decides to give it up for her friends.
Other than that? She's a badass, gets a heroic sacrifice, and is just generally reliable and cool. Pretty easy keep.
Goku Black
hot dog water.
Velma's girlfriend, I thought she wasn't sketchy enough to propose but I forgot some stuff about the show I guess
Edited by Orangutans on Apr 2nd 2024 at 11:43:54 AM
Not the Eye
Hot Dog Water
I’ll take a potato chip… and EAT IT!
to an MB named hot dog water
Lies and Violence!
Yeah, no issues with her being bad enough. She puts several classmates in the hospital during both her stints in costume and leaves Ugly Jimmy horribly deformed after throwing him off a cliff.
And yes, Velma's girlfriend once again counts for MB ![[lol]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/lol2v12_4863.png "[lol]"){kind=small}
for Tong Fo and Marcie Fleach.
Jogo
Hot Dog Water
to Hot Dog Water. First MB for Linda Cardellini?
"Cool. Coolcoolcool."
Yes to Tong Fo and Hot Dog Water.
Fan-Preferred Couple cleanup thread
Hot Dog Water. Gosh what a fun show
Ultimate Moral Compass
Tong and HDW
Marcie. Clearly Velma has a type.
Classy, Refined, Unstable
Just gonna briefly drop this off with major thanks to Rav for this.
- The Chronicler is an ancient, wise dragon that has long prepared for the return of Malefor. Using a variety of visions and magics to test Spyro's power, the Chronicler slowly helps Spyro unlock abilities he will need in the fight against Malefor, even at risk of Spyro's own life. Though offering Spyro the chance to hide in safety and leave the world to Malefor's machinations, the Chronicler offers useful assistance when Spyro chooses to save Cynder from the Well Of Souls, and it is the Chronicler's wisdom that guides Spyro to "ride out the storm" leading to an ultimate victory against his foe.
Also would it be worth having a Spyro the Dragon tree in the video game page where the Skylanders M Bs are?
Edited by WetFlannels on Apr 2nd 2024 at 5:27:28 PM
Oh, Mr. Kennedy, you entertain me. To show my appreciation, I will help you awaken from your world of clichés.
A Girl, Just One of Many Kinds
Alrighty here’s some writeups:
- Renfield: Bellafrancesa Lobo is the aging head of the powerful Lobo Crime Family, which have dominated New Orleans for years through fear and money, paying off the entire police department to keep her agents and her son, Teddy Lobo, out of prison. After Renfield kills several of her agents, Bellafrancesa tracks his last whereabouts down using satellite imagery and when she assumes Teddy Lobo was killed, sends her goons her band of corrupt cops after him and Officer Quincy. When she is met with Count Dracula by Teddy Lobo, she works with him to rule to rule the world together, having Quincy’s sister kidnapped and tortured so she can lead her and Renfield to their base before promptly separating the two. Sophisticated and ruthless in her goals, Bellafrancesa keeps her head high as she arrested, showing to be impressed with Officer Quincy’s efforts as she is lead away.
- Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost and Damned: Thomas Stubbs III is a corrupt member of the Liberty City of Parliament who uses cares about boosting his political career by any means necessary. Blackmailing Johnny Klebitz into helping him commit crimes, he has Johnny kill his uncle for his inheritance, before having him blackmail and murder his competitors and release a gang of convicts and his supporters, all the while he orchestrates these plots to boosts his publicity. Completely straightforward on his immorality, Stubbs shows to be completely loyal and willing to pay his dues, giving Johnny the tip about Billy Grey’s corruption and helping him and his gang break into prison to take him down.
Your friendly neighborhood stank goblin
for Tong Fo and Marcie “Hot Dog Water” Fleach.
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
I'd say that's a good idea personally.
Gonna switch to a![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/thumbs_up_emote.png "[thumb up]")
for Johnny with that info, then.