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
Yes to Mira, Lex and Adiago.
Yes to Lex, Adiago, and Mira.
Before I did into the very contentious Fallout 4, I want to read the room so to speak first. Of the main faction leaders, being Father, Desdemona, and Arthur Maxson, who would you like me to effort post? I'm pretty much certain I'm gonna do Father regardless, but the other two I could give or take.
Think you're tough because you made it through Lord of the Rings? Real men survive The Silmarillion.
Yes to Lex, Adagio and the Enola Holmes examples.
Lizzid people!
Yes to Enola and Adiago.
Edited by AustinDR on Feb 26th 2023 at 10:11:11 AM
![[tup]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_up_emoticon_3268.png "[thumb up]"){kind=small}
For Riddler.
Goku Black
Moriarty, Lex, Adiago
![[tdown]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/Thumbs_down_emoticon_3571.png "[thumb down]"){kind=small}
Holmes
@Psaro:Yeah that's why I specified the remake. I don't think he counts in the SNES game either. He's basically just a pawn of Aamon. It's only their in the remake where he gets to break free.
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Caesar
Yes to Corvus, Luthor, Adagio and Mira/Moriarty
- iCarly: "I Carly S 02 Ep 13 I Meet Fred": Lucas Cruikshank is portrayed as a cunning prankster with aims on using internet drama to increase the popularity of both himself and iCarly. Under his popular Fred persona, he feigns offense at Freddie expressing distaste for his humor and proclaims that he'll never make another Fred video. Cultivating controversy against iCarly for days in which the internet turns on them, Lucas eventually reveals he schemed the whole thing to set up a friendship and team up with iCarly, bringing them more viewers than ever before. Lucas sincerely apologizes for manipulating everyone, and even makes up with Freddie to publish a collaboration between "Fred" and iCarly.
Hargreave, Deadshot, Riddler, Eudoria, Corvus, Lex, Adagio and Mira
To get these in real quick:
Star Wars:
- Once just the commander of the Star Destroyer Chimaera, Gilad Pellaeon became the right hand and student of none other than Grand Admiral Thrawn. Winning Thrawn's respect with healthy debate and competence, Pellaeon showed wisdom in knowing his limits after Thrawn's death and did not commit his troops to a doomed battle. After watching numerous failed attempts to revitalize the Empire, Pellaeon ultimately outplayed his rivals and took control of the Imperial Remnant to make a lasting peace. Showing himself as an adept hand in politics by staying ahead of the Moffs and seeding spies throughout the Galaxy, Pellaeon emerged from retirement to show himself as a true strategic mastermind. Coming up with a multitude of tactics, Pellaeon won numerous battles against such enemies as the Yuuzhan Vong. On the assent of Jacen Solo as Darth Caedus, Pellaeon sacrificed his life to direct the Imperials to fight the Sith, also exposing the traitors in the Empire and ensuring his forces would fight to the last to avenge him.
- Once a farmboy on Corellia with a skill for flying, Soontir Fel's morals resulted in him sent to the Imperial Academy to protect a well-connected young thug when Fel prevented him from raping a local girl. Excelling in the academy and becoming one of the finest pilots in the galaxy, Fel led numerous missions to victory against a multitude of enemies. Upon falling in love with actress Wynssa Starflare, Fel kept her secrets when he learned she was Syal Antilles, sister of the famous rebel pilot Wedge. When Syal went into hiding, Fel was ultimately bested by Wedge and immediately defected to make the Rogues promise to find his wife. An invaluable, brilliant asset and pilot, Fel helped to bring down the would-be Empire of Ysanne Isard until he was brought into the company of Grand Admiral Thrawn. becoming an ardent supporter of the Empire of the Hand, Fel secured Thrawn's dominion and became respected even by the Chiss Ascendancy. Still a skilled pilot and planner decades on, Soontir Fel lived long enough to see his son Jagged become Emperor of the new risen Empire.
- Ronin Warriors: Anubis Dohji, youngest and leader of the Dynasty's four warlords, was once a brilliant young warrior seduced by the promises of Lord Talpa. Becoming the Warlord of Cruelty, Anubis immediately centers in on the Ronin leader Ryo with numerous plans and schemes to lure him into an honorable duel. Easily proving himself a match for the entire Ronin force himself at times, Anubis also remained ahead of the other Warlords who coveted his position. Upon realizing the depths of talpa's evil, Anubis takes back his destiny and becomes the successor to the heroic Ancient One, helping to plot the downflal of the Dynasty and guiding the Ronins to defeat Talpa. Upon encountering Kayura, last of the Ancient One's clan and possessed by Talpa's evil, Anubis takes back the Armor of Cruelty to face her, expelling Talpa's right hand Badamon from her at cost of a fatal wound and securing her redemption and ultimate salvation of the world at cost of his life.
The Riddler.
Corvus.
Red Son!Lex.
Adagio Dazzle.
Mira Troy.
Here's Arkin's entry. I'm also doing a slight rewrite for the Collector's CM entry.
- The Collector (2009) and The Collection: Arkin O'Brien is a former convict looking to settle down with his wife and daughter, who successfully matches wits with the titular killer, despite the trauma he's put through. To settle his wife's debt, Arkin burgles a family he befriends, during one of the Collector's home invasions. Using his wits to dodge the Collectors traps and get the drop on him, Arkin saved the youngest daughter of the family, and steals their expensive ruby, only to be abducted by the Collector while hospitalized. Later escaping, Arkin joins a rescue mission for an abducted teenager, especially when his family is threatened. Arkin made a "map" to the Collector's hideout, giving himself different cuts in accordance to time/distance and direction from the spot of his abduction. To lure the police to the location, Arkin non-fatally shoots a vagrant to get their attention, before beating down the Collector himself, leaving him to burn in a "dungeon" full of his maddened captives. Even when the Collector escapes, Arkin narrows down his address and civilian identity, trapping him with the intent on repaying him for his torture, before finally killing him.
to Adagio Dazzle and Mira Troy.
Not the Eye
Corvus, Lex Luthor, Adagio and Miratroy
Yes to Mira and great work on all the writeups, folks!
So, I've got a couple ahead today
What's the work?
The Prophecy is a 1990s horror Religious Horror film starring Christopher Walken. For the entirety of human existence, there has been a war up in heaven. Thomas Daggett, on the day of taking his priesthood vows, received a revelation of the war and lost his faith. The war has spilled to earth, a battle between loyalist angels of god and those loyal to the archangel Gabriel who refuse to kneel to humanity. Simon, a faithful angel, has arrived on earth to steal the darkest soul Gabriel desires to refashion to the war effort and hide it...which he does in a little girl. Gabriel fully intends to rip her apart to claim it and Thomas and the girl's teacher attempt to save her.
Now, our first character I'll be discussing is someone who has just as much to lose if Gabriel wins...
Lucifer.
Who is Lucifer?
The first angel. Once loved above all others. Lucifer is a charming, handsome man attended by twisted demons and who introduces himself to the heroine Katherine. Lucifer introduces himself with a monologue and by destroying a flower just because it delights him to destroy something beautiful. Lucifer is unusually completely honest, laying out all the facts: humankind has been barred from heaven because of the war and anyone who dies sleeps in the earth. Of course, many evil souls still go to hell, and "I'm always open. Even on Christmas."
Lucifer is offering to help, not because he loves or cares about humankind, but because Gabriel's victory would lead to heaven becoming another hell. And two hells is one hell too many for him. Giving the heroes what they need and guiding them to deal with Gabriel, Lucifer pops up to tease Thomas with a way to rattle Gabriel and set him to where Lucifer can deal with him (after terrifying him of course, with a reminder that whenever Thomas was scared Lucifer was under his bed as a child? "And I was!") Lucifer makes another appearance at the end when the dark soul of Colonel Hawthorne is dispatched to ambush Gabriel and inform him that the arrogance of his war makes it evil and that makes it Lucifer's....just before he rips out Gabriel's heart and demands the heroes "come home" with him. A bit high on eating an archangel's heart, Lucifer makes an impassioned and disturbing plea that "I love you more than Jesus" but Thomas resists him, telling Lucifer that he has no faith or soul, unlike Thomas. Lucifer smirks and accepts the no, but cautions him: "Keep the light on, Thomas," before leaving.
In part 2, Lucifer decides hell isn't big enough for both him and Gabriel...turning Gabriel back on earth and sitting back to enjoy the show. He's not seen again.
Mitigating issues?
So, yeah, Lucifer is evil. What he isn't is genocidal. Lucifer is actually pretty chill on humankind.. His whole thing? Let humans be evil, take the damned souls and just let things go on. It's indicated his rebellion failed in the past and he was hurled to hell, Gabriel mocking him for "skulking in the basement after your breakup with the Boss." Lucifer is, strangely, almost the Big Good of the film, joining in to help humans open heaven to their kind because he can't permit Gabriel to make a nightmare of heaven...it'd reduce his domain.
He's not a nice guy. He tells Katherine that "I can lay you out and fill your mouth with your mother's feces or we can talk" and remarks how much he loves humans for knowing more about war and treachery than any angel. He's wicked to the core, but he's brilliant and actively leads to Gabriel's downfall (and Gabriel is no fool himself). Viggo Mortensen plays him with incredible presence, wit, charm, and Creepy Awesome sense of presence. Overall, he's helping for his own reasons, has no real redeeming qualities but he's a strangely Lighter Shade Of Black than the rebel angels who are actively genocidal toward humankind, especially Pyriel of the third movie. The only slip in Lucifer's refinement is when he demands Thomas and Katherine return with him to hell, but he quickly regains his composure and accepts their no with good humor.
Conclusion?
Keeper.
The wifi here sucks
Goku Black
Happy yes to Lucifer. Is Gabriel next?
"That's right mortal. By channeling my divine rage into power, I have forged a new instrument in which to destroy you."
Not the Eye
to Lucifer
Gabriel needs a post, but I'm not NEARLY as sure of him. He goes from Lawful Evil to neutral and chaotic evil, to True Neutral, to Chaotic Good and ultimately ends as Lawful Good.
Yes to Viggo Lucifer!
Yes to Lucifer. Let's get this done to finish up the New Vegas stuff.
- Gloria Van Graff is an ambitious and passionate daughter of the Van Graff crime family who traveled to New Vegas to strike her own fortune no matter the cost. A ruthless dealer in energy weapons, Gloria is introduced executing her lover for cheating on her and also to intimidate a customer trying to renegotiate payments. She aligns with Alice McLafferty to launch an illegal trade war to ambush and wipe out other caravans in exchange for Crimson Caravan sabotaging their arms dealing rivals in the Gun Runners. Should the Courier side with the Van Graffs, Gloria has them arrange the execution of an escaped caravanner to tie up loose ends and involve them in a secret weapons deal with Caesar's Legion. Well aware of the Legion's reputation, Gloria betrays them to the NCR while pocketing the initial payment and securing valuable political ties for her family back in California.
To Lucifer
Riddler, Corvus, Lex
Edited by Hayuki107 on Feb 27th 2023 at 6:55:45 PM
Ultimate Moral Compass
Viggo!Lucifer. Apparently WatchMojo, for what's its worth, called him the best Satan in film. Make that what you will lol
Jaded Techie Fox
to Riddler, Deadshot, Red Son Lex, Mira Troy, Adagio, Lucifer
to Eudora
Edited by DeathsApprentice on Feb 27th 2023 at 10:41:37 AM
Trust you? The only person I can trust is myself.
Well, new page, so have the second Enola Holmes EP. This one's a true genius of a character that appears only in the second film... so far.
Who is Mira Troy? What has she done?
Personal assistant to the greedy Lord Charles McIntyre, Mira Troy is introduced as an attendee at a party thrown by her boss, where she bonds with Enola over their shared angsts over being “women in a man’s world.” Don’t be fooled. Mira is actually the true baddie of the film, as you might be able to tell from her very name if you’ve some skill with anagrams – yep, meet your Professor Moriarty for this particular Holmes-verse!
As McIntyre’s secretary, she has access to a lot of classified documents, and in one set makes a startling discovery – her boss, a controlling shareholder in the Lyon Matchstick Factory, has ordered factory owner Henry Lyon to switch from red phosphorus to white in the manufacture of matches, despite the fact that white phosphorus is a deadly carcinogen, resulting in hundreds of employees, many only young girls, being infected with a deadly cancer. The white phosphorus has already caused hundreds of deaths, which are being explained away as a typhus epidemic. Troy decides to leverage this fact to her advantage by blackmailing McIntyre for enormous sums to prevent her from releasing the documents; she also hires the sadistic Superintendent Grail to prevent the release of the documents to anyone else – she needs to coverup to continue if her blackmail revenue is to do so as well, which is bad news for more idealistic potential whistleblowers, such as Henry Lyon’s son William and employee Sarah Chapman, who have stolen incriminating documents from the factory safe. In the meantime she’s been fleecing a number of banks with ties to McIntyre as well, and taunts Holmes to stop her in an extremely clever way – as Holmes determines, the addresses of the banks together make up an elaborate cipher, which when translated to letters comes out to a mocking letter from “Moriarty.”
Enola and her friends, including Sherlock and Sarah Chapman, are able to trace the incriminating documents to an old theatre, where they were hidden for safekeeping by Sarah’s friend Mae (killed by Grail); they retrieve them and defeat Grail and his fellow corrupt cops as well. When McIntyre and Troy arrive, Sherlock deduces that the latter is Moriarty, having made Just One Little Mistake in an attempt to frame McIntyre. Troy accepts this without a fuss, and explains her motives – as a black woman in Victorian England, true wealth and success would be totally unavailable to her through legal channels, and while she admits that, she can’t accept it. And so she’s decided to take advantage of the same system that keeps her and everyone else like her down to enrich herself, using the documents she has access to as assistant to a powerful man as her means of accomplishing this. She regrets Grail’s brutality and the fact that so many factory workers have died, but she nevertheless sees her scheme as comeuppance for McIntyre – she’s slowly draining him dry, just as he’s doing to the factory girls, albeit in a more figurative sense.
Having said her piece, Troy surrenders to Inspector Lestrade. McIntyre is busted as well as new evidence comes to light, and all is well…
…hahaha, PSYCHE. Did you really think they could get rid of Moriarty that easily? Reading the paper a few days later, Sherlock is disturbed to discover that the carriage transporting Mira to prison has mysteriously crashed. Its occupant is nowhere to be found…
Magnificent? Bastard? Too much?
I mean, it’s Moriarty. She’s a woman this time, sure, but it’s Moriarty. She runs circles around the most corrupt of London’s upper-crust while all the while maintaining the façade of the meek servant nobody should give a second glance to. Her stunt with the banks is particularly impressive – she rips off banks at specific addresses, in a specific order, so that they correspond to a cipher she knows Sherlock will be able to eventually decipher, and when he does it just turns out to be basically “Neener neener neener – Moriarty.” And while she employs Grail as a blunt instrument, she’s shown to disapprove of how brutal he is.
My only issue is if the fact that she knowingly allows hundreds of people to be exposed to cancerous chemicals, potentially leading to agonizing deaths, just to protect her bottom line. She claims she’s doing this in part to punish McIntyre in her own way, but still, that’s there if it’s an issue.
Incidentally, Did you know Sarah Chapman
was a real person, and she led a strike of match factory employees that's considered one of the founding incidents of the modern labor rights movement? Everyone else is fictional though.
Edited by HamburgerTime on Feb 26th 2023 at 10:39:56 AM