Script: Redemptions Arcs & Other Misunderstood Tropes

Hello again,

Today I want to take a break from our usual schedule and discuss something near & dear to my heart.

Redemption arcs, and how I feel the term is being misused in a lot of fandom spaces and beyond. So, this episode will cover what a redemption arc is, some common misunderstandings, other more fitting terms and a breakdown on some other redemption related takes I feel need a prod.

But first a thank you to my wonderful patrons! Links below.

So what is redemption in the English language?

Well, redemption by and large means, to offset or compensate for a negative, such an an actors performance redeeming a film. It doesn't remove the negatives it simply provides a positive that counterbalances them.

Hence villains having redeeming features but still being villains.

Meanwhile in certain Religions it expressly means to be forgiven or saved, so it lacks actual agency on the individuals part and is more about an external source providing validation.

Then in fandom terms, well.

The snarky answer would be to point at Zuko's story in ATLA & say that's apparently the only version some people will accept. But while that can be a problem, its not what we're here to discuss.

Broadly it usually means an antagonist or villain changing their ways and joining the heroes.

I give such a broad summation cos that's the only way I felt I could encompass even convey the idea and given some complaints I've seen regarding redemption arcs it will likely still be deemed insufficient or wrong.

But yeah for now that's what its understood as, a type of character arc and one many people take issue with for many reasons, such as:

Conflating "This is a thing that made sense in the story, characters or for the themes" WITH "The story is explicitly telling you the audience to do exactly the same thing in all instances, regardless of circumstance or context."

 IE, "All stories exist to extol moral virtues and to educate people first and foremost so anything that disagrees with a critics morality is clearly trying to manipulate people into being bad" as apposed to, ya know, "Stories exist to be interesting & or entertaining."

Or in short form, See a lot of negative responses She-Ra, Princesses of Power.

Secondly would be those critical of redemption arcs conflating the real world issue of, powerful CEO says sorry about the oil spill then goes right back to doing all the same stuff. Or with how people who might have treated others badly can claim to have changed, claim to be sorry as a smokescreen to be let back in.

This is not me advocating against accepting that people change and improve in real life. Merely that exploiting people's forgiving nature is sadly also something assholes do.

The thing is though, unless the author is employing the worlds least reliable narrator or lying to you for a sick and or terrible plot beat. Audiences can actually trust characters when they say sorry or say they changed.

How well a story conveys that can vary but this isn't a talk about quality, its about audiences just saying they don't trust the characters redemption because real people lie, or are otherwise messy. Evidently forgetting that fictional characters are not real people

See, how some "Critics" claim Emerald Sustrai will go running back to Cinder, or hasn't really changed at all.

The easiest way to sum this one up is with the audiences refusing to engage with the suspension of disbelief that is necessary for literally any and all stories to be told. Otherwise known as Dramatic convention, or secondary belief.

These 'critique' is rooted in not accepting that a story is a story and refusing to engage with it as such.

A third prong is the karma meter believers.

IE, 'critics' who act like there's a literal karma meter & so either when one goes "Full evil" there's no coming back. Or that if one puts X amount of "Good act" tokens in they get to qualify as a good person now.

See, any game with a karma meter.

This tends to dovetail with a fourth issue, namely the punishment seekers.

IE, audience members who don't feel a redemption arc can happen without the antagonist or villain being hurt, humiliated, punished, chastised or tormented and generally suffering.

This is extremely Calvinist Christian and in my experience so much as glancing at discourse surrounding even children, see Chloe or Boscha.

One can see the issue really is less about being a good story or finger quotes, "deserving" it, so much as wanting them to suffer until these audience members are satiated.

The fifth and final issue is very simple, irredeemable-ness.

We sort of covered this with karma meters, but to put a point on it, believing that it is impossible for someone to change, or that them changing is not worth it, or otherwise doesn't count because they have gone too far is anthemia to the idea of redemption.

Both in terms of, the character actually needs to do bad things to even warrant a redemption-ish story, but also, to partially quote friend of the channel Atom Entertainment.

"For many people if the character is a completely changed person, it’s called unrealistic. If the character is in the process of becoming a better person, it’s not enough.

It all comes down to “I’m not comfortable with anyone giving this person grace or empathy”

A series that handled this well was Red VS Blue's Chorus trilogy,

Kimball's Speech embodies a great way to tackle the theme of having done truly horrific things and yet still seeing change as possible.

With her outright saying both armies have done unforgivable things to one another, but resolving on the fact that what they've done does not deny the possibility of growth or doing better.

All while still giving suitable gravitas to the horrors that came before that. Which also ties in neatly to Locust's ending in that arc with him resolving to go out and do good despite all he'd done.

These are the big, recurring discourse balls I tend to run across whenever redemption comes up.

Where even if the poster didn't strictly say one of the above, they made it clear when they outlined what they thought a redemption arc should look like or with the ones, usually Zuko, that they referenced.

But while one can lay the blame in many areas, I think part of it can at least be tied to redemption arcs being way tooo broad of a term and getting universally applied where it doesn't fit.

IE, people conflating various different story beats or simple acts with a "Redemption arc" being executed with varying degrees of quality, IE:

Atonement, the act of making amends, IE what Locus went to do

Befriending, They were enemies now they are buds, see many Shounen, it can go hand in hand with redemption but doesn't have to.

Forgiveness, This has zero to do with whether someone who did wrong has become a better person or not, again it can be part of a story or character arc. But whether someone they hurt forgave them does not impact whether they can go on to do good. & in the same vein but opposite direction, forgiving someone, says something about the person forgiving, not the person who harmed them.

Redemption, the act of being saved or cleared of sins.

Collaboration or Temporary alliance, teaming up with a villain out of pragmatism is not them getting a redemption arc, see Namek saga Vegeta.

Right all along, & Not bad all along, Basically the Bosses role as an antagonist in the Metal Gear Solid prequel. If they weren't even the villain it was a misunderstanding, or they were undercover, Kalder from Young Justice being undercover also counts to this.

Heel face turns, The villain has changed sides, why they did so and whether or not they even changed as a person is entirely up in the air.

Cool motive still murder & Good point V bad methods, Is sympathetic but still a bastard, Redcloak from Order of the Stick has very sympathetic motives, doesn't change the fact he's operating on a massive sunk costs fallacy, hypocrisy and risking obliterating the universe.

Letting go of your own anger, see the Dragon Talisman episode of Jackie Chan & many other series. The lesson here is about the harm their anger might do to one's self, or their loved one's or goal, not whether or not the villain did something wrong.

Legit complex even if one is more 'right', or in other words, Grey-and-Gray Morality, Batman

Beyond "Earth Mover", even Bruce Timm says he likes this episode because of its moral ambiguity. The "villain", Bill, is not a thoroughly evil man, and has tried to make up for his past misdeeds, while the main antagonist, Tony, has understandable motives for his acts, but is irredeemably destructive.

Even Evil Has Loved One's, Victor Freeze from DC loves his wife and in many incarnations wants to cure her, but he is still killing people and causing tons of damage. Redeeming qualities do not redemption make.

That's a human person, done quite often in RWBY that makes you feel even for bastards like Jac Schnee or Adam Taurus when they finally bite the big one. Because that was still a person, maybe they were the culmination or many terrible decisions, or were powerless & being executed by the head of state in a bout of pettiness. But in either case, even if they needed to die, Adam, or were still utterly vile, Jac, they were still people and their lives had value on that alone. Basically, human rights are called human rights and not, good people rights, for a reason.

& finally, "Let this toxic person who's not changed back into your life". IE, what a lot of people think all of the above are in some way. Often see in in shows that empathize forgiveness without real thought r depth, or because writers did not grasp what they were portraying. For instance, the otherwise excellent X-Men Evolution never really addressed that Magneto had Wanda's memories re-written so she remembered him as a good father. Rather than the heartless bastard who locked her in an asylum because her powers were too much for him to control.

 Long story short, lot of self proclaim critics of "bad redemption arcs" are actually talking about one of the above and not realizing the story is something other than what they say it is.

Like being mad at Loony Toons for not obeying the laws of physics or having unrealistic responses to injury, or for glamorizing violence by having a cliff face fall on someone, ETC, ETC.

All of the above can be missed or executed poorly after all, but more often than not, I find a lot of complaints can be addressed by just realizing what the story is actually trying to do, VS what one expected, or in other words, putting a round peg in a square hole.  

There is one other redemption arc issue I didn't cover because this one actually is an example of bad redemption arcs. It can be summed up as.

Protagonist centered morality.

IE, It was only bad for torture to be happening, because he people ding it weren't, to pick a random example, the CIA in a cop show.

As above, if the writers didn't understand what their villainous character did or what was wrong with it, I quickly tune out.

I won't give a specific example, but reality warpers who killed, torment & mind rape people and then get treated like a mere annoyance definitely fit this complaint.

& with that we are done here, I hope this video has proven entertaining and educational, thanks for stopping by.