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
Sorry, guys. My bad.
What's the work?
Red Dead Redemption II is a hit 2018 action-adventure game, telling the story of the downfall of the Van der Linde gang through the eyes and gun barrels of Arthur Morgan.
One of the sidequests revolves around legendary gunslinger turned drunken asshole "Jim Boy" Calloway and his long-suffering biographer Theodore Levin. After they meet in a saloon, Levin sends Arthur (or John, but we'll say Arthur) to meet four of Calloway's old friends, consisting of three guys and our candidate:
Who is Black Belle?
Maybelle Elizabeth Colter, also known as Black Belle, the Dynamite Dowager and Grand Dame of the Gunslingers, is a gunslinger, an outlaw and the sole surviving member of the Colter Tobin Gang. She has married six times to various crooks and ne'er-do-wells without divorcing any of them, and dresses in her widow's weeds.
Arthur can meet Black Belle at a shack in Bluewater Marsh. She'll greet him by pointing a Lancaster Repeater at him. Arthur will convince her he's not a bounty hunter just as actual bounty hunters show up. Arthur offers to misdirect them but Black Belle refuses and orders Arthur to man a nearby lever. She'll lure one of the bounty hunters closer to her house and order Arthur to pull the lever, blowing the bounty hunter up. She and Arthur massacre the rest of the bounty hunters, possibly while using more of her bombs and despite the hunters bring a Gatling gun.
After the carnage, Arthur explains that he's there to interview her about Jim Boy Calloway, but Black Belle doesn't say much aside from "Little Boy Calloway" being a coward and that real gunslingers like her are too busy running for their lives to talk to newspapers. She does agree to let Arthur take her photo, though, before she rides off into the sunset.
She also appears in Red Dead Online, where she hires the protagonist to free some of her boys and other crooked errands.
Magnificent?
Black Belle is an absolute badass, so much that the bounty hunters after her having to bring a Gatling gun to the fight. She's a hell of a shot, great at setting traps. She's like the protagonist of another Western game.
Also, the rest of the gunslingers in the sidequest are absolute tools who end up provoking or threatening Arthur into shooting them dead, Calloway included. Black Belle is the only one stable and humble enough to just listen to what Arthur has to say.
Bitch?
She quite gleefully murders scores of bounty hunters who attempt to capture her, is an established outlaw wanted for bank robbery and her husbands are mysteriously dead because of her.
But she is pretty friendly (if initially Properly Paranoid) if you don't approach her with hostile intent and even indulges Arthur in conversation.
Conclusion?
I think she counts.
Oooh, gladly
Showtime!
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
to Belle
Lies and Violence!
Hord, Volkov, Ethyl, Babble, Yes Man, Sussurus, Pope, Belle.
Hey, I got another Star Wars one. This guy is the OG Darksider. I give you...Xendor.
Who is Xendor?
25,000 years ago, long before the Sith empire, the Jedi were young. Xendor was a young prodigy among their ranks, a handsome young human man of the Kashi Mer dynasty. Xendor dazzled those about him with his skill and charm, exiled from his family when he began to study "Bogan," or the Dark Side. He found his place on Ossus and became a mighty Jedi Knight. However, Xendor began to chafe under the Jedi's restrictions, viewing the close-minded attitude toward Bogan unnecessary. It was here he met a warrior named Arden Lyn, a powerful force user and martial artist. The two studied together and fell passionately in love.
It was then Xendor asked the Jedi ruling body to open his own academy dedicated to studying Bogan. On their refusal, he departed to the world of Lettow and started his academy on his own. Knowing a conflict might brew on the horizon, Xendor began to form a military unit. All while he traveled far and wide to learn more of the Force in all its forms.
Finally, he struck first. Marshaling the Legion of Lettow, Xendor launches a series of brilliant strikes, but his forces were ultimately repelled by the Order. Xendor tried to subvert the Republic by branding the Jedi as enemies. When branded as a warlord, Xendor took to a series of attacks. The First Great Schism. The ensuing fight nearly saw the end of the Order until the greatest Jedi warrior Awdrysta Pina fought Xendor's forces.
The two battled through the armies to face one another in open conflict, a duel between the champions of light and dark. Pina and Xendor's duel ended with Xendor struck down anr a heartbroken Arden Lyn took up the cause to lead the Legion...she eventually killed Pina and was "killed" by him in turn, entombed and frozen in time until she was awakened over 24,000 years later by Palpatine's forces.
Mitigating issues?
So, Xendor is something of a proto-Sith. He's one of the earliest known users of the Dark Side and built up from scant little remnants of canon. Xendor is ultimately known to be an incredibly charismatic and intelligent man, a strategic general and brilliant leader. Ruthless, dedicated, dangerous, skilled, and ultimately well intentioned. While Xendor is a ruthless warlord trying to conquer the galaxy, he truly seems to believe that he's doing the right thing and studying the Dark Side is for the benefit of the Force as opposed to the Jedi keeping it all closed off.
All evidence we have shows Xendor as having a number of virtues, not least of which is his scholarly curiosity and especially his and Arden's love for one another. Notably when Arden awakens years later, Palpatine is able to sway her to his side by promising to resurrect Xendor (a promise he never intended to fulfill), strongly indicating the two loved one another deeply.
There is a later Sith Warlord known as "The Dark Underlord" who is rumored to be the returned spirit of Xendor, known for his power, intellect and ruthless cruelty who carved a bloody swath through the galaxy, but this is ultimately unconfirmed, and probably shouldn't be used against Xendor himself here.
Conclusion?
Keeper.
Not the Eye
Yes to Black Belle and Xendor
Ultimate Moral Compass
BB and Xendor
Edited by therealjackieboy on Feb 16th 2023 at 7:56:43 AM
"No running in the halls!"
for BB and Xendor
Goku Black
xendor, Belle.
To Belle and Xendor
Lies and Violence!
Xendor.
I recently finished it up over on CM, so I figured I should start bringing Worm over here!
Long story short, the book stars Taylor Hebert, a girl with the power to control bugs who accidentally becomes a supervillain in the city of Brockton Bay. Things escalate, a kaiju, a group of serial killers, and another kaiju attack the city, and Taylor becomes a warlord that the entire criminal underworld ends up bowing before. Unfortunately, this creates problems with law enforcement, and the PRT (basically S.H.I.E.L.D.) releases her true identity to the public—a big no-no, for heroes and villains alike.
Taylor's a bit frustrated by this, coming to believe that the heroes and villains need to start working together to take on threats like the roving serial killers of the Slaughterhouse Nine. So, in order to get things back on track and arrange a bit of cooperation between the two sides, she turns herself in... for a few concessions. This is a brilliant plan with absolutely no drawbacks whatsoever.
Who is Quinn Calle?
A stylishly charming professional lawyer for supervillains, Calle is hired to represent Taylor while she's "negotiating" with the PRT. Bear in mind, she turned herself in without any warning to her teammates, so these negotiations are on a bit of a deadline, as her friends are gearing up and hiring mercenaries for an all-out war to save her. Calle doesn't even bat an eye and gets straight to business, calmly laying out everything she's been charged with. By the way, she's been charged with everything—robbery, hostage taking, extortion, about a hundred different cases of assault, cutting out a guy's eyes, manslaughter, having maggots eat out another guy's eyes, murder, tricking one supervillain into committing suicide, other assorted torture, and (because of the whole warlord thing) treason.
His only comment on all this is that he's handled worse. Calle quickly lays out how they could knock off most of the charges through a pseudo-amnesty regarding her participation fighting the Slaughterhouse Nine and similar threats, and proposes she take a jury trial so she can exploit the sympathy of the public for the tragic circumstances surrounding her fall to villainy. When she refuses, preferring to instead plea down so she can wrangle those aforementioned concessions out of them, he beings preparing a contract so the PRT can't wiggle out of the deal without tripping over ugly legal ramifications.
What concessions does Taylor want? Well, in exchange for pleading guilty to only a select handful of charges, she wants to join the heroes and have her friends given leniency for all past and future crimes. Calle also proposes her formal surrender be televised, as a bit of insurance so that the PRT can't sweep this all under the rug.
Naturally, this is a bit... much, but Calle handles it with gusto, quickly jumping on new strategies when the PRT director refuses. He quickly points out the director's unfamiliarity with legal battles, proposing they bring in the DA or the media to pile pressure on him. When Taylor again refuses, he makes an untraceable call to her friends and relays a message to them to make the biggest play they can. Long story short, there's this portal to another universe everyone is excited about because it could lead to shelter when the apocalypse (longer story) inevitably hits. Her friends have one of their known associates publicly buy the land the portal is held on, essentially piling on more pressure to make this deal go through if the PRT wants to use this portal.
Unfortunately, the director is a bit of a stubborn asshole, and brings in Taylor's dad to screw with her head. When this doesn't work, Alexandria—aka one of the greatest superheroes in the world—begins flying in and out of the building, each time bringing back a corpse. They won't let Taylor see the bodies, but they bear an awful resemblance to her friends...
Another long story short, they're not actually her friends, but unfortunately for the PRT they vastly underestimate how much this psychological torture fucks with her, as she summons a massive swarm of bugs to attack them, killing Alexandria and the director by filling their lungs with spiders, wasps, etc. Calle, once again, doesn't bat an eye, getting his hands on footage of the psychological torture and threatening to put it online when Taylor is taken away to a private location. Another another long story short, she manages to successfully close her deal with the remaining, desperate similarly done with all this shit and just want to get things over with reasonable heroes. When she calls him to write up the paperwork, Calle demands to be brought to the meeting in person so he can make sure she's not being coerced in an emotionally fragile state.
He mostly drops out of the story at that point, but makes a short appearance later on during that aforementioned apocalypse. Having a lot of experience with supervillains, he's recruited to come up with a list of criminals to release from prison who can lend aid without making the situation worse. Taylor stops by to thank him and various other friends of hers that Calle has recruited to help go through all the paperwork.
Is he magnificent?
Calle's a minor character overall, but he's absurdly fun with the role he's got. Pretty much every scene he's in has him methodically going over every weakness that can be exploited and every avenue to victory Taylor can take, and when she refuses and instead doubles down on some hairbrained scheme he does what he can to accommodate. The situation admittedly blows up a bit, but that's because Taylor, Alexandria, and the PRT are all stubborn assholes who refuse to budge on their positions, and it takes a panic-fueled double homicide to get everyone to finally begin cooperating. No one is 100% in control, but Calle stands out for retaining calm professionalism throughout the entire event. Dude's a damn good lawyer who remains unphased by everything, is always on the lookout for an advantage, and covers every corner imaginable to help out his client.
Is he a bastard?
Now, he's a lawyer, so he would never do or suggest anything illegal... yeah, no. Calle gleefully abandons the law when it can get him a leg up. He attempts to call and warn the supervillains who are gearing up for a devastating attack when Alexandria arrives, has no qualms about continuing his job even when Taylor savagely murders two people right in front of him, and is fully willing to represent a client who demands condoned supervillainy in exchange for her surrender. He's not hands on about illegal stuff, he calls it too much of a risk, but he's absolutely enabling it.
Not the Eye
to Quinn Calle
Yes to Black Belle, Xendor, and Quinn.
The wifi here sucks
Yes to Xendor and Quinn
Dice Funk has 12 keepers now so, here's its page.
Hope your prepared for an unforgettable luncheon
Goku Black
Calle.
To Calle
Xendor and Calle.
Edited by Javertshark13 on Feb 16th 2023 at 4:39:50 AM
Yes to Belle, Xendor and Calle.
RIP Toriyama
Sure to Belle and Calle, and an enthusiastic Yes to Xendor! Good work!
My own next from Star Wars...the OG king of Sith.
Who is King Adas
◊? What makes him a candidate?
A mighty warrior on the planet Korriban who lived tens of thousands of years before the original trilogy, Adas "demonstrated great intelligence, fighting prowess, and a tremendous aptitude for Sith magic. With his alchemically forged battle-ax(es), Adas led the bloody unification of Korriban's disparate nations and became its undisputed world ruler. The Sith people came to believe that King Adas was immortal and that his reign would be eternal."
Adas's rule over the Sith was brutal and absolute. He dominated for 300 years, his age titles the "Reign of the Axe" named after his twin battle-axes—most Sith required two hands to wield one. It is said that "When Adas roared, other Sith rushed to his side or fled in terror. He enslaved the foolish and executed the idealists. When warriors challenged him, he drank their blood to honor their deaths."
Adas was worshipped as the "Sith'ari"—aka god of the Sith—and accepted as supreme leader. When the highly-advanced Rakatan Infinite Empire arrived on Korriban and shared their technology as a means of baiting the society into weakness, Adas accepted the tech....but when the Rakatans actually invaded? Adas wasn't having it. He united the Sith and, even in advanced age, he lead a massive war against the invading force and drove the Rakata off—an incredible feat of its own back in those days—and stole a massive quantity of ships and technology. Adas paved the way for the Sith to branch out to planets around them with this stolen technology, his life sacrificed in the battle against the Rakata but granting prosperity and power to his people for ages to come...until some jackass Dark Jedi showed up and took the name Sith for themselves.
Even long after his death, Adas was renowned and his knowledge treasured in his legendary Holocron, which was long sought after by many Sith for years to come.
Is he magnificent?
Adas is fucking badass. He's an ancient, armored warrior king who united the warring clans of Sith into one body and reigned for hundreds of years, and he drove the damn unstoppable Rakatan empire off from Korriban, stole their tech, and lead the Sith in expansion from Korriban. He's spectacular.
Is he a bastard?
Yeah, Adas is a bad dude. In any other universe his deeds, if expanded upon, might be too nasty...but in the society of Sith? Everything bad thing Adas does is noted to have been completely normal by the standards of Sith society. Killing one's opponents, enslaving the weaker...that was their culture as much as "peace" was any other culture's, and Adas's reign is noted to have been a cherished, prosperous one for the overall race. And plus his nasty crimes aren't really delved into beyond broad strokes that absolutely focus on his awesome achievements and cool factor more than anything.
Final Verdict?
Easy Yes.
Tonight I dine on monkey soup.
Not the Eye
Big to Adas
Goku Black
King Adas.
Yeah for Adas, great work!
Adas.
Edited by Javertshark13 on Feb 16th 2023 at 6:10:23 AM
Please move the above![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]")
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]")
to the next page.
Can we maybe put the four eps per page in highlighted text.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."