#trope dacay

[ultraericthered]

I didn’t think TV Tropes could completely eviscerate one of their classic tropes more than Complete Monster, but they’re now doing the exact same damn thing to Magnificent Bastard, trying to make the trope more objective by revising and redefining the criteria for qualifying so that fewer characters will pass as legit examples and many who were considered to be quintessential examples of the trope for years since the Wiki’s conception get removed.

So the Magnificent Bastard trope pages were purged of their examples, those examples were removed from their works’ YMMV pages, and there are bound to be some previously agreed upon examples who will never get back on the trope. Notable victims of this purge are:

Lelouch Vi Britannia

Light Yagami (yes, Mr. “Exactly As Planned” himself got cut ‘cuz ppl hate him.)

Gendo Ikari

Bill Cipher

Professor Pericles

Axel and all other Kingdom Hearts examples

The Joker (Just about all versions of him!)

Littlefinger and all other Game Of Thrones examples

Rumpelstiltskin and all other Once Upon A Time examples

Sheev Palpatine/Darth Sidious

XANA

Yami Bakura

Myotismon and all other Digimon examples

Cell and all other Dragon Ball examples

Yuno Gasai

Sosuke Aizen

The Major

All When They Cry examples

Lysandre

Lusamine

Izaya Orihara

Junko Enoshima

Rosemary Applefield

Spike

Rick Sanchez

Megabyte

Megatron

Discord and all other My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic examples

Prince Lotor

Nerissa

And most hilariously of all, Lionel Luthor, the fucking Trope Confider!

Among many more. Now some of them could go back onto the trope once they’ve been “approved of” as examples and given proper “writeups”, but a good many of the old iconic Magnificent Bastards will not (we’re likely not ever seeing Light, Lelouch, Bill Cipher, or Littlefinger on there again for example) all because the TV Tropers are for some reason dead set on demolishing a long-standing trope and replacing it with a sanitized, more exclusive, more self-important version of it’s former self that’s overly bogged down by arbitrary and needlessly specific criteria for qualifying. The Magnificent Bastard can now no longer be TOO off-the-scales magnificent or TOO much of a bastard. Kind of derails the whole point, eh?

Thankfully I think the internet has moved beyond the point where it holds TV Tropes in the highest regard. Even so, I feel more people ought to know about and sign up to All The Tropes, the alternative tropes Wiki that still features the original defining and examples of Magnificent Bastard. If anyone is interested, please become contributors and editors there..