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.
- Don't delete an EP unless you intend to swiftly repost it. We know that there are reasons why you might want to delete an EP, especially if it's being downvoted - rejection is hard, even in a low-stakes environment like this. However, deleting it renders the current discussion null and void, makes it impossible to reference the discussion in the future and can confuse tropers who didn't read it before the deletion. If the issue is temporary (such as formatting problems or a post getting overlooked as the thread moves on), then deleting and quickly reposting the EP is a valid option, but to fully retract an EP, please use the [[strike:]] markup instead.
- 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 Mrph1 on Jul 12th 2024 at 3:34:22 PM
to Eggman write-up
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. By the way, BlurryDawgo, did you listen to this
while writing it? I won't be mad if you didn't, but it was just for fun as a better experience while writing.
Edited by SeaMonkey851 on Aug 27th 2024 at 5:27:40 AM
My mother nicknamed me, hence the username.Well it's good the board came to a general conclusion about Togata. A character going undecided annoys me. I guess it's really difficult for me to reconcile the amount of Evil Is Cool, badass moments and narrative sympathy that the story gives him and that I feel with him with Riley's viewpoint on the scene. Fujimoto was probably right to turn down the edgelord tendencies a tad in his next work. I imagine that if the series gets an anime the scene will probably be edited to an extent that he'll become the first FtMB (Crocodile doesn't count that's WMG)
I'm reading through Dorohedoro so expect to see me field candidates for it next.
Edited by Orangutans on Aug 27th 2024 at 6:36:51 AM
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I was already working on the first draft of it preemptively by then, so no. Appreciated your suggestion, though!
Whoo, I'm about to make a proposal for myself here!
What's the work?
Marvel Comics is one of the biggest and longest-running comic companies on the planet, and the Marvel Universe is an expansive thing. Today, we'll be centering—though hardly staying with—the corner of that universe populated by their glorious Mutants, the X-Men. There are a ton of untapped X-Men magnificent bastards, but the one I'm looking at is a classic character who has multiple adaptations up and whose original iteration has been a long time coming. I speak, of course, of the Ragin' Cajun himself, the King of Thieves...
...Gambit.
And yeah, this is a pretty extreme Long Runner so we're folderizing here.
Introducing himself in the real-world year 1990 by saving a de-aged Storm from the Shadow King, Remy, having taken up the moniker of Gambit, immediately proves to be a dangerous and sharp man. Allying with Storm further and evading multiple pursuers, even some from space, the pair end up getting away with everything to the point that Storm later invites Remy to join the X-Men. Remy takes her up on the offer and joins them on many adventures, albeit not without some complication; namely, Gambit quickly falls for the beautiful but untouchable Rogue, who initially acts like she doesn't want him (Oh, boy, does she come around!) and who soon falls for him as well. Though he plays it off as a pursuit of "forbidden fruit," Gambit's love for Rogue soon proves very real, but seemingly doomed to failure. Bishop returns to the past to reveal that Remy has seemingly become "the Witness" to the X-Men's eventual betrayal in the future, and suspects that Remy himself may have done it. Ultimately, this turns out to be the villain Onslaught's role, with Gambit innocent of that crime. Innocent of everything, though? Eh... Rogue and Gambit, as it happens, share a bit of a smooch that ends with Rogue taking pieces of Gambit's memories that haunt her, leading to her temporarily abandoning the X-Men.
Well, under Sinister, Gambit inadvertently assisted in the genocide of the Morlocks and the mutilation of Angel. Tricked into leading Sinister's marauders to the scene, Gambit was horrified to witness the massacre and tried to stop it. Mauled and left for dead, Gambit still barely managed to rescue the young Marrow from the scene. Unfortunately, his refusal to tell the truth combined with the stress of the scene angers the X-Men, his beloved Rogue in particular. Though he's seemingly saved by Rogue, she promptly tosses him back down into the freezing snow and leaves him to die, with him desperately pleading that he loves her and begging that if she's going to leave him to die, at least to give him a fighting chance to make it back home. The heartbroken Rogue is heedless, flying away and leaving him to die.
Gambit, though? Does not die that easily. Retreating to Magneto's citadel and finding his body inhabited by a psionic ghost called Mary Purcell, Gambit survives and rejoins the X-Men, and then uses a combination of his lexical brilliance and his "Hypnotic Charm" power to research the ghost inside him before Rogue ultimately saves him from her attempt at fully possessing him and tearfully apologizes for abandoning him at his lowest point. Before that, though, the ghost lets him survive until he reaches the Savage Land, where he strikes a deal with a mysterious benefactor called the "New Son," Playing Both Sides as he serves the New Son and the X-Men, attempting to steal the Crimson Gem of Cyttorak and taking on other villains like the Antiquary and The Pig.
Sent back in time during an infiltration of Doctor Doom's castle, Gambit ends up striking a deal with Mr. Sinister—but this time, he's the one who gets to reap the benefits, even using his time in the past to secure a Stable Time Loop and ensure his father ends up leader of the Thieves' Guild before returning to the present. With his new upgraded powers letting himself and Rogue touch, Gambit takes a bit to enjoy life... it doesn't last.
After taking back the Thieves' Guild patriarch role temporarily, Gambit ends up concocting a plan during the "Assassination Game" story, a number of assassins including the X-Man Angel hunting him supposedly out of vengeance all while he survives attempts on his life by top dogs of the murder business like Bullseye, Crossbones and Deadpool himself (Who he just bribes to walk away)... when Angel brings him to the New Son, it's revealed that Gambit and Angel crafted this as a ruse—the only thing that means the pair don't kill the New Son then and there is the revelation that his name is actually the New Sun, and that he's none other than Gambit himself from another dimension that he accidentally destroyed when the X-Men rejected him and his powers went out of control. Gambit and his allies perform something of a heist to get the necessary information, and Gambit has a chance encounter with Mystique where the pair's quick thinking leaves them on even footing. The New Sun and Gambit finally have their final confrontation, and Gambit narrowly defeats the New Sun by sending all of his excess power into the New Sun, overloading the New Sun, permanently leaving himself less powerful but also ending the danger he poses to the world.
Sinister restores Gambit, who finally manages to get one over on Sinister, working for the Marauders only to plot with Mystique in a plan to restore Rogue from a coma and foil Sinister's latest set of plans. Afterwards, Rogue asks Gambit not to follow her as she leaves, with Gambit also leaving to rediscover himself. Gambit sticks with the X-Men for numerous adventures, even having to retake his body from the Death persona twice more—with one particularly notable outing seeing Death awaken in Limbo and then make a bid for conquering it—as well as foiling another of Sinister's schemes, knowing that Death poses a danger to everyone around him.
After becoming a teacher in Xavier's School, Gambit ends up finding that teaching doesn't suit him and going on a worldwide heisting spree that takes him all over before getting an artifact embedded in his chest that requires him to ally with the immortal Joelle. Performing a series of heists that ends up including stealing Clint Barton's ID (Yes, he does then pretend to be Hawkeye with it), Gambit allies with the immortal Joelle and English superhero Excalibur, and ends up managing to plan things out to contact both Rogue and the Avengers, coordinating their arrival before a massive final battle and letting him escape, with Gambit ending up triumphant as the world's greatest thief and guildmaster after dying temporarily.
When Kitty and her beloved Colossus call off their wedding partway through, Gambit decides that they're not going to waste a wedding—and, in a genuinely shocking twist, proposes to Rogue on the spot. The two get married that very day, and go on a honeymoon that takes them through both outer space and the Mojoverse as they use their wiles and wits to repeatedly save themselves from danger. During the Krakoan Era, Gambit teams up with multiple X-Men teams as well as temporarily rejoining Excalibur, and their relationship is stressed before Destiny approaches them with a mission. Analyzing Forge's actions to steal information he needs, Gambit rescues Rogue from the Power Broker. Gambit also ends up basically dragged along into Madelyne Pryor's Dark X-Men team, using his tactical skills to fight the anti-Mutant organization Orchis and Madelyne's evil double, the Goblin Queen.
As of now, after the Fall of Krakoa, Rogue and Gambit head up the Uncanny X-Men (2024) cast, still married despite their struggles together, and more than ready to fight whatever challenges await them.
Is Gambit magnificent?
Oh, absolutely. Gambit is a brilliant thief and quick-thinker who's not only served for years with the X-Men but has been a great Anti-Hero and asset to them. He's got his weak moments—the Trial of Gambit and his plan to become a Horseman are both pretty pathetic on his part—but Gambit always comes back and has been re-railed by modern books into very much The Ace, always ready with backup plans or improvisations. Even naming a single example is hard: Lockpicks hidden under the tongue, using chewing gum as a weapon, outwitting other heroes, stealing Hawkeye's ID and pretending to be him (I just really like this one), and onward. He's the King of Thieves for a reason and has, since his very debut, been depicted as an incredible criminal and hero alike, he eventually got to pay Sinister back for using him as a pawn multiple times over and has, since 2012, consistently settled on a characterization of a loving family man who will always come to help out while also being happy to pilfer everything he can along the way and commit crimes while he's off duty. Even modern stuff that's a little less flattering to him tends to at least give him a couple great moments of quick thinking to stand out, like tricking Forge by pretending to be a fool or taking charge on the Dark X-Men to save lives.
Is Gambit bad?
He's an Anti-Hero for a reason. Gambit's a classic Gentleman Thief who's run the Heel–Face Revolving Door and has a real code, who's willing to kill people and to do bad things to achieve good ends but will always choose to do the right thing when given the option. He steals for the thrill, evades the law and even clashes with superheroes at times (Hello, Hawkeye's stolen ID!) but has a strict policy against hurting innocents in the process, deeply regrets his role in the Morlock Massacre despite having even gone out of his way to save the victims and try to stop it, and has a soft spot for children, being particularly protective of teenage girls who he often takes a fatherly role to. Pretty much perfect here.
All said, elephant in the room... Gambit was introduced with a "Hypnotic Charm" power in his early stories, and that was implied to be a large part of his success with women, with him implicitly using it to seduce people and at one point in his third solo series persuading a woman to streak with it. Thing is, the Hypnotic Charm is widely viewed as an uncomfortable relic that doesn't even exist Depending on the Writer, and modern writers basically only reference it to make fun of it or nerf it to the ground to establish that Gambit can't use it to be a sexual predator. Even at the time of the power's introduction, Gambit has been shown getting rejected if women don't want him, and later iterations of the power make it clear that it's not overly hard to resist, with Gambit's many flings being just because... well, he's Gambit. Gambit's pretty pushy early on in his characterization, particularly toward Rogue, but he's also a Chivalrous Pervert that later writers make clear despises rapists and actual sexual predators, and he's long grown out of being quite so forceful. Those aspects of Gambit are very much an awkward relic of the past and he's shown to have lines he won't cross.
Also, there's this weird bit of misinformation that's spread claiming he "very nearly" slept with Mystique while she was disguised as a (possibly underage) student... this is blatantly untrue. Within that story, "Foxx" makes passes at him from moment one, corners him in the shower and repeatedly, aggressively hits on him during their time together, which—among other things—causes Gambit nightmares, invades his and Rogue's telepathic "private time," and leads Gambit to immense guilt that he goes to therapy for, and he eventually kicks "Foxx" out of his class for before she reveals herself to be Mystique. Gambit has been consistently depicted as actually very kindhearted toward teenage girls, and though it's never been confirmed either way whether he slept with Mystique when she shifted into Rogue and offered it—and likely never will—Gambit vehemently denies it. There's been a bizarre miscontextualization of this story and I want to put it to bed right here; if anything, Gambit is a victim in the entire affair.
So, yeah—there's some awkwardness around the character but the modern characterization that's been run with for around a decade now pretty much extinguishes it right out the gate, and he's pitch perfect on how bad a character has to be.
Conclusion?
The name's Gambit, mon ami.
Remember it.
to Gambit.
I'm going to abstain on Johan. Both sides have made good arguments, although "everything he does comes back to the fact that he's a thoroughly broken human being" isn't one of them; that certainly didn't stop characters like Kreia, Joshua Graham, Ulysses, Kurozumi Kanjuro, or, as mentioned before, John Kramer, from getting MB status. Personally, I have no familiarity with the work, so I shall not cast a vote.
Check out my current fanfiction project.
to wooimbouttomakeanameformyselfhere
