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
Going of the EP, I'mma say no to Han. Unless something is missing, he has little to no redeeming qualities, alongside being extremely heinous given he goaded a country to cause billions of deaths just to destroy one alliance and ruin Jerusalem's defenses.
For Lilac, since the Changelings are basically the rough equivalent of Nazi Germany, does Lilac herself ever pursue racist policies against the ponies, or expressed racist sentiments against them?
As for the rest,
to Igor, Talon, and Victor (sounds like he does a decent job of repressing his anger).
Edited by Purgatoryisof2 on Feb 13th 2023 at 6:58:05 AM
I say ordered to since you could make the argument that the whole formation of Manehattan/occupation in the first place is racist (since changelings are the ruling class, and ponies are the only ones to extract Love from)
And while she does increase Love extraction through unethical means (kidnapping ponies, for one) it’s implied it’s more to keep Chrysalis off her back, as in the independent route she works on more moral ways to extract Love.
Not outright stated but considering she’s rolls back the policies, I’d say it’s fair to assume yes.
Edited by Koopa22 on Feb 13th 2023 at 7:04:01 AM
Simultaneously hands-on and hands-off with my life.
Koopa and Purgatory, when Christian immigrants came into Jerusalem, before World War 4, Jerusalem slaughtered almost all of them, and put the immigrants that survived into Labor Camps. When Korea was Nuked by Jerusalem, unprovoked by China, China allowed the Immigrating Koreans to come into China even though it goes against Han's goal of Han cultural hegemony and supremacy, and Han DIDN'T kill them all.
Edited by OrrorSANESS on Feb 13th 2023 at 4:56:04 AM
Thinking on it more, I'm going to vote no to Matilda myself, Mir's question about where the emphasis is with her character made me realize that the whole reshape the universe plan isn't really treated as magnificent by the story (since it's the result of one character's season long emotional downspiral). This means that I'm also holding off on two of my candidates but I do still have 3 Arc Villains that I'm going to propose.
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Hm...I mean, that IS a redeeming quality, given he goes against the old coda of racial hegemony, but I'm not sure how displaying kindness to one group helps with the fact he got billions killed. Doesn't help that now it sounds like he's racist and/or a Chinese supremacist. So unless he's a genuine extremist and/or his diplomacy is genuine and not pragmatism, I still don't think he counts.
Edited by Purgatoryisof2 on Feb 13th 2023 at 7:11:34 AM
Han is a genuine extremist, as he believes in Nationalism and Han cultural supremacy, and has lost faith towards the more Liberal Constitutional Monarchy (thanks to Sentinel getting leaked, as the Sentinel infiltrated every single government in the world. Only certain parties, like Rome's "Progressive" party was spared from infiltration).
Edited by OrrorSANESS on Feb 13th 2023 at 4:29:26 AM
Sorry, should've clarified I meant Well-Intentioned Extremist. And that doesn't sound well intentioned, just supremacism. So unless he's helping the Chinese people out of more than "gotta make the master race have its rightful position", it doesn't sound helpful.
Before World War 4 began, Han was increasing the living standards of the people. As for Well Intentioned Extremism, Han believes that the Reich will bring terrors like the Sentinel and Jerusalem and wants to destroy the Reich in a way that it will never recover and as a result be a threat to the World or China again (But again, mostly China, remember the Chinese Hegemony goal?). After the Angeloi (Thinly Veiled Nazi Allegory), Sentinel (The Sentinel is for the most part based on the Reich and less on other governments.), and Jerusalem became a thing, it's kind of hard to not see why Han would think so. That is Han's endgame. Han also believes in Environmentalism, something that the Meritocratic nations are starting to abandon.
Edited by OrrorSANESS on Feb 13th 2023 at 4:42:22 AM
After your points and some further thinking (mainly about how Han being in a war game and the fact no atrocities would be directly seen due to the nature of many Grand Strategy games), I'm just gonna abstain on Han-I feel I know to little about the work to judge how truly altruistic his intentions are, and this discussion has been getting kinda lengthy. Might read it someday to decide for myself, but by then the votes will probably play out already.
Edited by Purgatoryisof2 on Feb 13th 2023 at 7:43:12 AM
Gonna lean No on Han, I can see several potential issues that I'd probably only feel comfortable giving a hard answer either way by having personal experience with the work, which I have none, but I'm picking up heavy racist undertones by his character and that's def a no-go.
What's the work?
Ripley's Game is a 2002 crime thriller starring John Malkovich and based on the novel of the same name by Patricia Highsmith, specifically, the third book in the Ripliad series. The film follows Villain Protagonist extraordinaire Tom Ripley as he does his usual song and dance of manipulating everyone around him while dabbling in a spot of murder, here transforming an average joe into a hitman...
Who is Ripley? What makes him a candidate?
An Affably Evil Wicked Cultured man who likes to brag of his total lack in conscience, Tom Ripley lives in Europe with his wife Luisa, to whom he is Happily Married, and he makes a living dealing in art forgery and black market doubledealings.
The film opens with Ripley and his partner Reeves arranging an art buy with a client, but when Ripley realizes that Reeves and the client have tried to go behind his back and screw him out of the deal by paying less than what the paintings are actually worth, Ripley beats the client's bodyguard to death, steals the cash and keeps the paintings for himself. He pays off Reeves with the cash, orders him to never interact with Ripley again, and Ripley then goes on to sell the paintings for their proper price of far more dough than the initial deal was set up to pay.
Years later, Ripley lives an idyllic life with Luisa in a comfy villa, disrupted only by a neighbor who frequently badmouths Ripley, Jonathan. When Reeves shows back up in Ripley's life demanding he help Reeves bump off a crime boss he is under the thumb of, Ripley initially declines, but, learning that Jonathan has leukemia and also wanting to pay him back for his insults, Ripley comes up with an idea. He recommends Jonathan be used as an outsider to bump the crime boss off, helping Reeves come up with tens of thousands of dollars to pay Jonathan off for the act so he can leave his family money after his disease kills him.
Jonathan is successful, but winds up approached by Reeves once more to bump off another crime lord on a train. Ripley, recognizing that the task is too much for Jonathan, stealthily slips aboard the train and helps him complete the assassination, cleverly using the train's bathroom to garrote the criminal. When one of the boss's associates stumbles across the bathroom, Ripley garrotes him, too. When another one stumbles across the bathroom, Ripley does it again!
Jonathan questions Ripley's morality to do such things, and Ripley replies:
Though seemingly having gotten away with everything, Ripley learns from Reeves that one of the thugs barely survived Ripley and Jonathan's attack, and his gang is now gunning for the killers of their boss. Ripley assures Jonathan that he'll take the sole blame and lure the killers to his house, where Ripley booby-traps the place with bear traps and similar. Jonathan teams up with Ripley, feeling he owes him one, and together they strategically wipe out the several goons who show up at Ripley's house trying to kill him.
Ripley, disposing of the bodies even as he chats on the phone with a florist about buying his wife flowers for her musical concert, drops Jonathan off at his house, all seeming well. But Ripley quickly realizes that two last thugs have taken Jonathan's wife hostage and Ripley bursts in and guns them down. When one of the thugs gets off a last shot at Ripley, Jonathan heroically takes the bullet for Ripley, who is utterly shocked by the display of kindness and cradles Jonathan as he dies. Ripley ensures Jonathan's family gets the money he earned from the assassinations—maintaining politeness even when Jonathan's wife spits in his face—and the film ends with Ripley attending Luisa's concert and watching his wife with a smile, even as he's mentally weighed upon by the fact that Jonathan saw him as someone worth sacrificing his own life for.
Is he magnificent?
Definitely, he's a terrific fast-thinker and a charming fellow who Malkovich embues with a lot of charisma. One of the only things that truly takes him by surprise is Jonathan sacrificing himself to save him, Ripley otherwise staying on top of things as the movie progresses and regularly avoiding attempts to screw him over by Reeves.
Is he a bastard?
Yep, he's a murderer and he turns Jonathan into a hitman partially out of annoyance at his insults, but he's not as bad as the crime bosses he's up against or even Reeves himself, and Ripley has plenty of standards and kind moments despite his proclamations of a Lack of Empathy.
Final Verdict?
Yep!
The original novel iteration of Ripley probably counts as well, he just has to be checked. I can safely say that the Matt Damon one, however, doesn't stick the landing and is too much of an emotional wreck by the film's end at what he's had to do to get away with everything to be truly magnificent.
Edited by Ravok on Feb 13th 2023 at 4:43:46 AM
No! That is NOT Solid Snake! Stop impersonating him!Ripley? I thought that was in Ohio.
Jokes aside,
Ripley.

What's The Work?
The Hohenzollern Empire Part 5: Holy Phoenix
Who is the Candidate and what have they done?
Han Xianyu is a military dictator authoritarian strongman ruling over China with the looks of a Korean Popstar. When he became the chancellor of his nation, he immediately made China more and more nationalist, allying with Elias Anhorn in secret to strengthen his nationalist agenda of a Sinocentric order, after Han had no more use of him, Han turned against Elias as Elias was now in the way of his Sinocentric Order. After the Holy Roman Empire of Jerusalem got declared war on by Tatawatinsuyu, Han goaded the leaders of Jerusalem to Nuke almost all the countries in the world, including cities held by Jerusalem itself! He did so to preserve and expand the hegemony of the Sinocentric order HE created, as well as to weaken all opposition to his plans foreign and domestic. Billions of lives were indirectly lost thanks to him. Afterwards, Han attempted to have diplomacy with the Meritocratic nations to defeat Jerusalem and to subvert them from within, however most of The Meritocratic nations in The Hohenzollern Empire universe have principles, and they still haven't forgotten what Han goaded Elias to do in their nations, so they rejected him. He is not on anyone else's side but his own, being a separate faction against The Holy Roman Empire of Jerusalem and the Meritocratic Nations. His foreign opposition weakened, and domestic opposition weakened and subverted from within, as well as being a "#1 Wang and Chaing Fanboy", Han declared himself a military dictator, bringing back the military dictatorship of China that was just abolished, as he expands his sphere of influence over other nations, opposing meritocratic/democratic nations against him as well as Jerusalem and Jerusalem's allies. Before being a strongman, he was a liberal who believed in the Constitutional Monarchy. After it was revealed that the 1990's miracle was engineered by an evil group, the Sentinel, Han ditched Constitutional Monarchism and slid into Nationalism. Ironically, Han is similar to the Sentinel in the sense that they are both authoritarian.
How are they Magnificent?
Han is Magnificent because he is more of a diplomat than either Elias or the Meritocratic Nations. He even attempted to make an alliance with the Meritocrats to fight against Jerusalem. This is Magnificent because China is reaching out, unlike the Meritocrats/Democrats who refuse to accept any nation they deem as "authoritarian" as allies. When Christian immigrants came into Jerusalem, Jerusalem slaughtered almost all of them, and put everyone else into Labor Camps. When Korea was Nuked by Jerusalem, China allowed the Immigrating Koreans to come into China even though it goes against Han's goal of Han cultural hegemony and supremacy, and Han DIDN'T kill them all.
How are they a Bastard? How are they not too bad?
He turned China into a military dictatorship. Still, Han's dictatorship is not as insane as The Holy Roman Empire of Jerusalem. Again, China is willing to team up with Meritocrats, even though the Meritocrats didn't want to, Han still kept his cool. He was even able to slightly push back Jerusalem as well as the weaken the Meritocrats. They are not too bad because what they are fighting is a Terrorist Organization whose territory is even bigger than the British Empire in its prime with at least Hundreds, if not thousands of nukes at their disposal, who has used nukes at least twice en masse on civilians, killing tens of millions of people. That was BEFORE Han goaded Jerusalem to go overboard. Han, only did so once, and it's to get rid of SDI (Strategic Defense Initiative), as well as get rid of Jerusalem's GPS, and barely killed anyone using it.
Final verdict?
Yes! Han is absolutely a Magnificent Bastard and should be acknowledged as such.
Edited by OrrorSANESS on Feb 13th 2023 at 4:10:06 AM