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| - While the Badass hero or the Anti-Hero may get called a bastard, it's not usually meant literally. This trope is for the protagonist for whom "bastard" is just a factual description, not a comment on his personality. He could easily be a very pleasant, well-mannered fellow, but his parents never married. If the Heroic Bastard is also a heroic bastard, he's an Anti-Hero or Sociopathic Hero. And while the heroic bastard may be magnificent, he is not automatically a Magnificent Bastard. Examples of Heroic Bastard include:
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| abstract
| - While the Badass hero or the Anti-Hero may get called a bastard, it's not usually meant literally. This trope is for the protagonist for whom "bastard" is just a factual description, not a comment on his personality. He could easily be a very pleasant, well-mannered fellow, but his parents never married. Until fairly recently in fiction, a child born out of wedlock was often expected to have a treacherous or villainous nature just due to the fact of his illegitimate birth, which of course is how the term "bastard" came to mean someone who was...well, a bastard. In modern times, however, with the rise of more liberal and humane attitudes -- as well as the rapid increase in unwed motherhood as a societal phenomenon -- it has become less acceptable to assume that a person will have a tendency toward evil behavior just because Dad never gave Mom a ring. (Or because Mom or Dad had him when one of the two already gave a ring to another person). Back in the day, this could be a Self-Fulfilling Prophecy. Since a child born out of wedlock would be the target of all kinds of discrimination and would not be allowed to participate in some central parts of society (like church services), they often had to become ruthless, cunning rogues just to have a chance of surviving. Especially since the fathers didn't have to care for them (and often wouldn't) and the mothers may have used the kid to let out their frustration about "those goddamn men". Then again, fatherless children have a documented tendency to violence, suicide, lack of self-control, and poverty -- so, statistically speaking, there's something to the stereotype, though how much of this is due to the social stigma is left as an exercise to the reader. But most bastards manage to rise above these expectations. In fact, modern authors have found that making their hero a bastard can have some valuable dramatic benefits. Perhaps his parents never married because one of them vanished mysteriously; this can lead to a juicy revelation later in the story when it is discovered that Mom or Dad is someone very important to the plot. If the writer is feeling generous, the vanished parent could be a local power figure or at least wealthy. If not, the vanished parent could end up being someone the hero has to fight. At a minimum, being born a bastard and getting socially snubbed for it can give your character a reason to feel mistreated yet prove his heroic character by rising above it and saving the world anyway. Interestingly, if we look back far enough, we find that most of the greatest heroes of ancient Greek myth were illegitimate, making this Older Than Feudalism. However, this generally only applied if the hero's parents didn't marry because one of them was a god -- most often baby-daddy Zeus, who had serious fidelity issues with his goddess wife and was forever running around impregnating mortal women with heroes. It should be also be noted that in ancient Greece, "heroic" did not necessarily mean nice, so many Greek heroes were bastards who were also bastards. If the Heroic Bastard is also a heroic bastard, he's an Anti-Hero or Sociopathic Hero. And while the heroic bastard may be magnificent, he is not automatically a Magnificent Bastard. Examples of Heroic Bastard include:
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