Well, I'll try to go in order here. Leaving aside the question of RL justice/vengeance (for there but for the grace of tl;dr go we)...
Audiences want to see villains die/go to jail/reap bloody karma because...
A. It ensures that the villain won't be causing any more trouble, thus making the ending a definitively happy one. How happy an ending would a superhero movie have if at the end the supervillain was still running around, waiting to fuck the hero's shit up?
B. For the climax of the story, we need the biggest, baddest conflict. The one that someone doesn't walk away from. To not show it would be anti-climactic.
C. It's punishment for all the bad things the villain has done.
And so on and so forth. Now, you argue that in real life a villain may get away with all his shit... well, in real life, women are raped and murdered all the time, yet we both probably know oceans who don't want that in their story. The story doesn't have to be real, it has to be true. Satisfying.
Redemption is already a dicey prospect, as it denies the audience bloodlust and usually soft-pedals the villain's villain-osity. They get an angsty backstory and hey, it's not their fault, all better! Suffering is a tool that TPTB can use to sell the villain's redemption to the audience.
Where does suffering come in? Well, I think here's where your problem with it comes in: It's used by people who don't understand why the villains suffer, just that they do because that's the trope. And so they use the trope without understanding the psychology motivating it.
For the record, the villain usually has to suffer for a lot of reasons. First, it acts as a "trial by fire" for their redemption (note that this can be replaced by any number of plots. It doesn't have to be "suffering," it can be "fighting at the hero's side" or anything). First rule of storytelling: Show, don't tell. How do we know the villain isn't just lying and about to stab the hero in the back at the first opportunity unless we see him suffer for his new beliefs? Obviously, there's a lot of other ways the villain's conviction can be shown, but suffering is dramatic and time-tested.
Second, and more cynically, seeing the villain suffer makes us sympathize for him (this is the same reason, no matter how heinous the villain is, he usually gets a quick death instead of being tortured by the hero. No one wants to root for a sadist). It's cheap and easy, like an angsty backstory, but it is undeniably effective.
Third, suffering provides some vicarious "take that!" for the audience. The heroes may have forgiven him and his crimes may have been pardoned, but there's still going to be some karmic balancing. Because, let's face it, him getting away scot-free isn't very satisfying. And we can't have the heroes hurting him after he's redeemed himself. So the plot does it for them. And once he's paid his pittance, he can be considered truly redeemed.
I'm writing a story where one of the villains goes through a redemption arc (having fallen in love with one of the heroes) and so put a little thought into this. I cheat a lot by not making her do anything too heinous as a villain, sorta like the honorable non-Nazi German in a WW2 movie, and by giving her some doubts about the side she's on. But even after she switches sides, the other heroes are asking whether it's because she loves a good guy or has she had a genuine change of heart. And that's where the other good guys, her victims, get to have their say and put her through a bit of a wringer (while trying to avoid the more melodramatic "WOE is ME!" stuff). And her answer is that, fuck, we were at war, you would've done the same to me. So she has very few anguished regrets on that account. It's fun to write (especially with her new BF trying to play referee).
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Date: 2008-04-21 03:17 am (UTC)Audiences want to see villains die/go to jail/reap bloody karma because...
A. It ensures that the villain won't be causing any more trouble, thus making the ending a definitively happy one. How happy an ending would a superhero movie have if at the end the supervillain was still running around, waiting to fuck the hero's shit up?
B. For the climax of the story, we need the biggest, baddest conflict. The one that someone doesn't walk away from. To not show it would be anti-climactic.
C. It's punishment for all the bad things the villain has done.
And so on and so forth. Now, you argue that in real life a villain may get away with all his shit... well, in real life, women are raped and murdered all the time, yet we both probably know oceans who don't want that in their story. The story doesn't have to be real, it has to be true. Satisfying.
Redemption is already a dicey prospect, as it denies the audience bloodlust and usually soft-pedals the villain's villain-osity. They get an angsty backstory and hey, it's not their fault, all better! Suffering is a tool that TPTB can use to sell the villain's redemption to the audience.
Where does suffering come in? Well, I think here's where your problem with it comes in: It's used by people who don't understand why the villains suffer, just that they do because that's the trope. And so they use the trope without understanding the psychology motivating it.
For the record, the villain usually has to suffer for a lot of reasons. First, it acts as a "trial by fire" for their redemption (note that this can be replaced by any number of plots. It doesn't have to be "suffering," it can be "fighting at the hero's side" or anything). First rule of storytelling: Show, don't tell. How do we know the villain isn't just lying and about to stab the hero in the back at the first opportunity unless we see him suffer for his new beliefs? Obviously, there's a lot of other ways the villain's conviction can be shown, but suffering is dramatic and time-tested.
Second, and more cynically, seeing the villain suffer makes us sympathize for him (this is the same reason, no matter how heinous the villain is, he usually gets a quick death instead of being tortured by the hero. No one wants to root for a sadist). It's cheap and easy, like an angsty backstory, but it is undeniably effective.
Third, suffering provides some vicarious "take that!" for the audience. The heroes may have forgiven him and his crimes may have been pardoned, but there's still going to be some karmic balancing. Because, let's face it, him getting away scot-free isn't very satisfying. And we can't have the heroes hurting him after he's redeemed himself. So the plot does it for them. And once he's paid his pittance, he can be considered truly redeemed.
I'm writing a story where one of the villains goes through a redemption arc (having fallen in love with one of the heroes) and so put a little thought into this. I cheat a lot by not making her do anything too heinous as a villain, sorta like the honorable non-Nazi German in a WW2 movie, and by giving her some doubts about the side she's on. But even after she switches sides, the other heroes are asking whether it's because she loves a good guy or has she had a genuine change of heart. And that's where the other good guys, her victims, get to have their say and put her through a bit of a wringer (while trying to avoid the more melodramatic "WOE is ME!" stuff). And her answer is that, fuck, we were at war, you would've done the same to me. So she has very few anguished regrets on that account. It's fun to write (especially with her new BF trying to play referee).