Magnificent Bastard/Western Animation/Avatarverse: Difference between revisions

* Princess Azula from ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender]]''. She's a sociopathic firebending prodigy, but she does it with such ''style'' and [[The Chessmaster|planning]] that you can't help but admire her (but hopefully not [[Draco in Leather Pants|too much]]). She manipulates everyone around her, including her own brother, and her plans in the second season require her to out-maneuver another [[The Chessmaster|Chessmaster]], Long Feng, which she does, effortlessly. Her [[Crowning Moment of Awesome]] was {{spoiler|conquering Ba Sing Se with little effort and killing Aang with a lightning blast ''in the middle of his [[Transformation Sequence]]'' in a [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] moment in the second season finale.}} Keep in mind that she's only ''fourteen''.

** She wove [[Manipulative Bastard]] with [[The Chessmaster]] by exploiting ''sleep deprivation.'' Heck, she {{spoiler|''succeeded'' in killing Aang.}} She then also {{spoiler|somehow guessed that Aang was not dead/would not stay dead for long and [[Dangerously Genre Savvy|chose to give Zuko the credit for killing him so that, on the off-chance that Aang did survive, he would take the blame.]]}}

* Azula is succeeded by [[Big Bad|Amon]] in ''[[The Legend of Korra]]'', who has obtained this status in record time, SIX EPISODES! Every thing this guy does only gains him more followers. He sends a threat to city hall, and knows that they won't listen and just heighten security at the Pro Bending arena. He then has his fellow equalists disguise as simple audience members and sneak in their weapons by hiding them in their popcorn. Turns out he wanted the entire poice force there so he could take them all out at one before they could stop him and show the whole stadium how powerless they were. He also [[Wild Mass Guessing|might have payed off the Pro Bending referees to not call out the Wolfbats team's cheating to ensure that they'd win the match]], so Amon could then make an example of them by taking away their bending. And he knows how to take advantage of the situations: he always makes sure that people see the truth of his extremist beliefs that benders abuse their powers. It helps that the first thing we ever see him really do in the show is [[Kick the Son of a Bitch|taking bending powers away from dangerous crime bosses.]]

** Technically, he may have achieved this status in THREE episodes, because although he achieved it by the end of Episode 6, he didn't appear in Episode 1, 2, or 5. Yes, this entire feat was accomplished in just three episodes. (Technically, he does appear in the first episode, but just at the very end merely saying "I'm going to put my plan into action now", so he doesn't really do anything until episode 3.)

* Book Two of ''Legend of Korra'' gives us Varrick, the goofy, quirky, eccentric, but charismatic business genius who is also a criminal mastermind seeking to profit off of the Water Tribe's war. As he cheerfully puts it, "If you can't make money during a war, then you just plain can't make money!" He does several crooked, rotten, underhanded things that could put the fortunes, reputations, and lives of others on the line ''while being on the side of the good guys.'' And even when he's outed as a crook, he keeps the characters' respect by pointing out all the good he's done as well and assisting them yet again by offering them his air ship. He does this from a luxurious prison cell [[Crazy Prepared|that he had made just for him because he knew he'd go to jail one day]], a cell from which he later makes a stylish escape from the moment he sees the opportunity using a hang-glider which he just happened to have smuggled into his jail cell in the event an aerial escape opportunity presented itself. Throughout the season Varrick manages to be surprisingly ingenious in his plots, [[Crazy Prepared]] for any eventuality, and genuinely affable to the Krew even as he's manipulating them or screwing them over for his own interests.

** When he's next seen in Book 3, it's in Zaofu, being treated as a guest of honor and going completely unpunished for any of his actions. Su Yin trusts him and believes him reformed. Come Book 4, he promptly proves her wrong as he helps Kuvira conquer the Earth Kingdom and then subverts that refusing to build Kuvira's weapon of mass destruction, even blowing up the supply of its power source. He is later vital to destroying Kuvira's [[Humongous Mecha]] and defeating the Earth Empire. His [[Character Development]] even leads to a marriage with Zhu Li in the [[Grand Finale]].

* Kuvira in Book 4, like Amon, is a [[Dangerously Genre Savvy]] Chessmaster [[Villain with Good Publicity]] who has so far managed to outmaneuver anyone who's challenged her. She even breaks Amon's record and earns her status in one episode! In "The Battle of Zaofu" she anticipated that Suyin would try to attack her and set up a clever [[Batman Gambit]] to capture them making it look like they were the aggressors while maintaining her [[Villain with Good Publicity]] status. That forced Korra to challenge her to a one-on-one duel for Zaofu, which Kuvira wins (though granted, the fight was full of Idiot Ball moments on Kuvira's part and she only won due to something she couldn't have planned on). She then attempts to kill Korra, which works out either way because it would either eliminate the Avatar or force Jinora and Opal to violate the duel. The latter gives her just the excuse she needs to invade Zaofu. And though Bolin and Varrick managed to escape, Bataar Jr. has seen enough of the spirit vine experiment to restart the project with Zhu Li's help. In other words, she won decisively. And then there's "Kuvira's Gambit" Kuvira knows that Republic City has been warned of her coming attack, so she moves up the schedule to one week instead of two. In addition, they believe that she is transporting the cannon by rail, so they attempt to disable rail transport; anticipating this, she deploys the cannon on a Colossus instead. And when presented with a [[Sadistic Choice]] of leaving Republic City or never seeing Bataar Jr again, her response is to (though not without a great deal of regret) [[Shoot the Hostage]].