Magnificent Bastard/Theatre

""So will I turn her virtue into pitch. And from her own goodness make the net. That shall enmesh them all.""

- Iago

Shakespeare

 * Iago from Shakespeare's Othello is a super Magnificent Bastard and a Complete Monster at the same time. He's been described as a "motiveless malignity". Indeed, the reasons he gives for manipulating everybody just aren't big enough for justification - in the end, it probably has to do with the fact that he finds it fun to control everyone and have them believe his every lie. Nevertheless, despite his despicable nature, Iago is such a witty evil genius that like Heath Ledger's Joker, he ultimately upstages the eponymous good-guy. Othello has no chance against his sneaky intellect. Just to complete his magnificence, he goes through almost the entire play with the nickname "honest Iago."
 * A more restrained Shakespearean example of a Magnificent Bastard (and, in fact, a real-life example) is Octavius Caesar in Antony and Cleopatra. He pulls a string of Xanatos Gambits, such as marrying his own sister to Antony to force him either to shame Caesar (and thus provide him with an excuse for war) or bend the knee, manipulates nearly everyone he meets (bar Cleopatra), defeats the more militarily adept Antony through a Batman Gambit, has truly grandiose plans, and, unlike most of the other examples here,
 * Shakespeare's Magnificent Bastard par excellence is Richard III. Born with a slew of Red Right Hands and a truly twisted intellect, he takes to villainy, manipulation, and plans like a fish to water. He also possesses an unparalleled wit and charisma despite being derformed, managing to seduce the wife of a man he murdered over the man's corpse. He talks to the audience more than almost any other Shakespeare character, letting them in on his plans, and sharing his triumphs in wonderfully gloating asides. He's a vile and utterly self-centered man, but it's just about impossible not to admire how damn good he is at it. How much the real Richard III lived up to the "bastard" half of the equation is a matter of much controversy in historical circles.
 * The three witches in Macbeth persuade a great hero to murder his king and become a bloody tyrant, all without even explicitly encouraging murder until he's steeped in it already.
 * Lady Macbeth is practically the whole driving force of the first half of the story, being the one who sets up the whole plot to kill King Duncan but in Act II she suffers Villainous Breakdown and is revealed to be more of a Smug Snake.
 * Petruchio from The Taming of the Shrew fits the bill. He manages to not only tame Katarina, but get two dowries. He tames Kate and successfully manipulates Baptista, Hortensio and Luciento, and a tailor.
 * Aaron The Moor from Titus Andronicus really needs a mention as well. Rarely can you look up a mention of him on this site without having the words Magnificent Bastard trail closely behind.
 * Titus Andronicus kills his own daughter to get revenge on the mother of the guys who raped her, who he has conveniently ground into a gigantic meat pie that she, and THE EMPEROR OF ROME, have been eating the entire time, while he soliloquoys on what he's going to do to them. Fittingly enough, in the Julie Taymor adaptation, Titus is played by Anthony Hopkins!
 * This play was basically Shakespeare's idea of putting an ENTIRE CAST of Magnificent Bastards on one stage and watching them (literally) eat each other.
 * King Lear has Edmund of Gloucester. A bastard in every sense of the word, Edmund is an evil manipulator of the Iago variety, but he's also way cooler than his legitimate half brother Edgar, who, while not (particularly) stupid, is a total stiff. Edmund lies, forges, betrays, and seduces his way to the top, but part of you still can't help liking him. Especially since he actually says in a speech, "Stand up for bastards!" No apologies. A ruthless but deeply charismatic schemer who plays everyone for his own benefit, Edmund frames his brother for treason and convinces him to flee into exile while manipulating his father into granting him Edgar's legitimate birthright, before exposing Gloucester's sympathy for King Lear and handing him off to the Duke of Cornwall. As the Duke of Gloucester, Edmund schemes for the throne of Britain itself and seduces Lear's own ambitious daughters to further his own power. Even on his deathbed, Edmund finally finds the grace to defy his own bastardly nature and rescinds the order he had previously given to execute Lear and Cordelia—a sentiment which, tragically, is too late.

Other Theatrical Works

 * The Black Knight in Middleton's A Game At Chess. When told "Your plot's discovered!" he smirks "Which of the twenty thousand, nine hundred/fourscore and five, canst tell?"
 * Harry Roat Jr. from Wait Until Dark, right from the very first scene when he traps Talman and Carlino into his plot and all the way to the end where he refuses to die even after getting stabbed.
 * Roy Cohn, the Real Life Amoral Attorney and McCarthyist zealot portrayed in Angels in America, manages to be both this and a Complete Monster--no easy feat.
 * Few can compare with the Phantom from Webber's musical adaption of The Phantom of the Opera. He is a decidedly dark "Angel of Music" affected with a hint or two of madness, a hearty dollop of romantic obsession and a flair for dramatic trickery and murder. He's also a suave, half-masked genius who excels at seduction, manipulation, (possibly real) magic and arrogant bravado. And he manages to achieve most of this with some of the most potent male theatrical scores ever written. Sing for me, indeed.
 * In How to Succeed In Business Without Really Trying, J. Pierrepont Finch is a window-washer who gets a mailroom job at a company by pretending he knows the CEO; gets promoted to head of the mailroom that same day by shmoozing the former head; turns down that promotion knowing that he would be stuck there for years and screws over another employee; gets a job as a junior executive by being so "humble", tricking the CEO into thinking he had been working all night long on a Saturday and that he is an alumnus of the CEO's college; gets his own office and secretary as a result of this; tricks that secretary into seducing his boss whose job he steals; gets appointed Vice President in charge of Advertising by outing the actual VP candidate as a student of the rival of the CEO's alma mater; steals an idea from a fellow employee about a treasure hunt and pitches it; and finally, when the treasure hunt idea fails and he is facing being fired for the disaster it caused, he forces everyone else at the company to help him by suggesting to the Chairman of the Board to fire them all, but reminding them that they are all in a "Brotherhood of Man", and then when The Chairman retires he names Finch his replacement.
 * Abigail Williams in The Crucible is the teenage sociopath who started the Salem Witch Trials by getting her friends to pretend that they were being affected by witchcraft as a cover up for why they were practicing a voodoo ritual on an old slave of Abigail's family. With charisma and influence (and a touch of intimidation), she has the girls accuse many innocent people of being witches or servants of The Devil. She capitalizes off of both the town's distrust and paranoia of one another and their religious beliefs in order to gain attention and adoration (and amusement) from others, something she felt she was lacking, especially as a female in that time period. Thanks to her lies and deception, many innocent people are hanged or shamed for life, and the entire religious community of Salem is turned over on it's head due to mass paranoia and hysteria, all as she just stands back and watches, laughing her butt off over what she's created. Abigail manages to use her charisma, her intelligence, her sexual attractiveness and even her sense of humour to manipulate everyone around her, even managing a Karma Houdini by fleeing Salem with a handful of stolen money after essentially achieving mass murder. Dayum, girl!
 * Henrik Ibsen: Engstrand the carpenter from Ghosts. He is The Man Behind the Man, and the driving force behind the reverend Manders. He is instrumental in making Manders believe he himself was the one who set fire to the planned orphanage, and manipulates the reverend to put all the money from the Alving estate into a brothel he himself has planned, all without making the reverend suspicious. He only fails in securing his adopted daughter Regine for a "job" in his establishment.
 * Also Daniel Heire from The League Of Youth. He twirls the young hero of the play around his finger like nothing, makes him believe whatever he wants him to believe, and comes out of the play scott free, while the main character Stensgaard is put to shame.