Redemption Arcs

[quillori]

I fear this post could be entitled In Which I Hopelessly Muddle Thorny Ethical Problems With Narrative Tropes. On the other hand, there are bullet points! They don't make anything clearer, but still.

I was reading a couple of posts on what could be done with the respective villains on two different shows, where the available options appeared to number two: he remains a villain (can be killed off if no further use for his brand of villainy) or he can be redeemed (and killed off). It struck me I truly do not like conventional redemption arcs. The character concerned suffers for a while and then, for the worse acts of villainy, can get the final points towards his redemption by dying in some suitable fashion. But in what sense does this actually redeem him? I suspect I just haven't internalised the right Judaeo-Christian worldview for this sort of thing to work for me. Without a heaven or hell, without a God to judge or forgive, without the status of sinner or saved, the supposed redemption seems to hover unsupported in the air.

I think maybe what I particularly don't like is suffering as a narrative necessity? For a start, it's predictable hence boring if you don't feel there's emotional truth to it. I'm very fond of inevitable unhappy endings where I accept the truth of them: I believe there are situations where no option is right, where there is a moral cost to whatever you do; that there is generally a price for every choice; that the standards you live by can leave you with no way to turn; that we all die in any case. So I am more than happy with Oedipus putting out his eyes in horror, with Achilles trading life for glory, with Ajax killing himself. I feel these stories make a fair, though terrible, point about the way things are. I don't feel the same way at all about suffering for redemption.

I don't believe that villains necessarily do suffer in real life, and I am not even sure that it's their duty to make themselves suffer, or to hand themselves over for punishment, even where someone else may have the right to demand it. This means that I'm not nodding along with the story, feeling that it's saying something true about the way things are, I'm just bored, thinking yes, wracked with guilt, check, lots of suffering, check, doubtless about to sacrifice his life, if I know what's going to happen why am I reading this? There is a difference between stories I accept as dealing with some inevitable truth, where I am interested in watching how the characters struggle against or accept their fate, and merely knowing what's going to happen because I recognise where the story is going.

So, here is your conventional redemption story

• The villain, realising he's been in the wrong, is wracked by guilt and longing to be redeemed, suffering both from this and from anything else the author throws at him. If he started off as a proper villain, he probably can't manage to be both fully redeemed and alive at the same time.

I am much happier with types of redemption that have a clear within story definition. There are all sorts of stories where, even if he ends up dead, the villain can potentially have achieved something defined: he can have lived up to his own moral standards, behaved honourably in his own or someone else's eyes. So you have

• The villain, realising he's been in the wrong, decides it's his responsibility to make amends to those he's injured.


• The villain, realising he's been in the wrong, tries to get back his own good opinion of himself.


• The villain, realising he's been in the wrong, tries to earn back the good opinion of someone he admires or of society, or to feel that he is worthy of someone else's good opinion.


• The villain, realising he's been in the wrong, feels he needs to live up to extra high standards in the future.

These are still stories that could be said to be about some sort of redemption, but unlike the first type I don't mind them at all, provided that they aren't really just stories of the first type with a half-hearted attempt to give the villain some motivation. In other words, the villain may or may not suffer, may or may not end up dead, but these things are determined solely by factors within the story, and not by an overall narrative shape that demands them as the price of redemption.

Then there are stories I also like, where I suspect I have parted company totally with those who like redemption arcs

• The villain, realising he's been in the wrong, just decides to do things differently from now on.


• The villain doesn't think he's been in the wrong, but does think circumstances have now changed, so he decides to do things differently from now on.


• The villain, realising he's been in the wrong, abandons his current concerns to go off and to become an ascetic recluse / be a wandering monk / think deeply on this dark life / become a philosophy professor (modern version for benefit of atheists).

I love the last version. Maybe he can show up later with wise advice and a shiny new understanding of metaphysics! I suspect this is where the people for whom a redemption arc works are saying ‘But … but he just walked away! How can he do that? He hasn't been punished at all.' And I shrug, because no, he hasn't, and unless one of his victims catches up to him, he probably won't be, but so what? In what sense would it be better if he were? (That's an actual question there. I would be interested to hear from those who think it would be better and can explain why. Bear in mind there are two potential questions here. One is a matter of general ethics, whether you are required to punish yourself. The other is a writing question about how stories should work. Answers to either or both welcome. As are any versions of the villain switching sides I've missed.)

Comments

Here via metafandom

[veleda-k.livejournal.com]

Thinking about it, yes, I do want the redeemed villain to suffer a bit. I want any villain to suffer, and doing good things doesn't erase what you've already done. Why do I want the suffering? I think it comes from the fact that I have a very strong sense of justice and fairness, most similar to the Wiccan three-fold law (whatever you do, good or bad, comes back to three-times over) and the Buddhist concept of karma (or at least what my largely uneducated Western mind understands karma to be). I think that if you cause suffering, it's only right that you also endure suffering. That's what's fair.

Of course, the real world doesn't work this way. Lots of horrible monsters escape scot free. But if I wanted nothing but realism, I'd watch the news 24/7 instead of enjoying fiction.

While the example you gave a villain going off and finding spiritual enlightenment is certainly interesting, to me, it's deeply unsatisfying. Plus, if the villain did come back to spread his wisdom, I know that my reaction would be big old "Fuck you. What right do you have to lecture me?"

I couldn't tell you why I find this justice so important, beyond the fact that it's simply part of my root morals.

Now, the next question is "How should the villain suffer?" The first option is suffering delivered by the universe. I find this to be the least satisfying. There's no real cause and effect, I feel. The villain isn't suffering because of the cruelty that she inflicted, she's just suffering. It does make sense from a narrative point of view, but I tend to get more involved in the story than that.

The second option is suffering inflicted by the villains victims, in other words, revenge. I have mixed feelings on revenge. On one hand, it's a truly deserved type of suffering. To use an example from one of my fandoms, once you've tortured, raped, and murdered someone, any desire they have for revenge is going to seem pretty damn reasonable. On the other hand, causing suffering is bad, no matter why you're doing it, even if the person really, really deserves it. This concern is more out of a worry for the character taking revenge than anything else. There's also the "it's not as if it fixes anything" approach, but I'm not sure that I can make that argument, given what I've said earlier.

The third suffering option, and my favorite, is when the villain makes himself suffer. I would argue that there's no redemption until there's true regret. Without regret, the villain isn't a better person, she's just doing something different. (Which is fine as a narrative trope and plot point, it's just not redemption.) And though this may be my overdeveloped guilt complex speaking, I believe that guilt should come with that regret. More than suffering itself, guilt and regret show to me a desire to change.

None of this means that I don't believe that the villain has to do good works. I think they're vital. Good works and regret are, to me, the requirements for redemption. Suffering alone doesn't prove anything. Any asshole can suffer. To change, you need to work at it.

Does this mean that I would have no interest in a redeemed villain who decided that guilt was worthless, she'd done what she'd done, and the only thing worth doing was making things better? No, not at all. If done well, such a character could be very interesting. It would just be a bit more work to sell her to me.

Re: Here via metafandom

[quillori.livejournal.com]

I meant it about wanting to hear from people who liked the suffering, so thank you.

We're clearly in agreement on the suffering delivered by the universe. Even where it serves some purpose in the story, it risks looking like lazy storytelling. As for revenge, I too have mixed feelings. On the one hand, wanting revenge is, as you say, quite reasonable. On the other, I don't tend to feel increasing the amount of suffering in the world is a good thing (which is also relevant to my views on guilt, below). Of course, the situation is complicated by so much of the right to vengeance and the governance of interpersonal relationships having been devolved on society. (Is it still proper to take revenge yourself if there is a judicial system to do it for you? Can the personal right to vengeance be ceded to the community at large, or must the judicial system justify its powers in some other way? etc.) At any rate I don't have any objection to characters within a story seeking vengeance: I mean, I might on a case by case basis, but no in principle objection.

The third option is clearly the one we come at from different angles. There have certainly been occasions where I have approved of someone's remorse, or felt people should feel bad about they way they behaved. On the other hand, as I said about revenge, increasing the amount of suffering in the world is not a good thing and I don't see why it becomes one just because you're inflicting it on yourself. So I am never sure which way to go on this one. Apparently I manage to believe simultaneously that remorse is both a good and a bad thing. There is, however, a particular problem with fictional villains: their crimes are often so extensive I don't think it would be possible for them to feel a commensurate degree of remorseful guilt without it being so all consuming as to leave them pretty much unable to function, which rather gets in the way of the good works aspect. I suspect this is why they tend to be killed off; there is just no realistic way of showing them suffering enough.

Which is fine as a narrative trope and plot point, it's just not redemption

Perhaps this is the crux of the matter. I am not sure I truly believe in redemption, or at any rate I don't understand how it works. I can see how you make up for something against a given measure, e.g. you redeem yourself in your own eyes, in the eyes of the person you wronged, in my eyes, and in each case you would have to meet a different standard. I just don't really see redemption as a binary state - redeemed or not redeemed - with an objective standard that allows you to say if you do this and that you will switch states absolutely, without needing to define who is being the judge.

a redeemed villain who decided that guilt was worthless, she'd done what she'd done, and the only thing worth doing was making things better

While I would very much like to read (well written) examples of this, I certainly don't feel that's the only way for the story to go. I think what I want most is to feel that this approach would be possible. That makes feeling remorse or trying to make amends or however the story actually goes a deliberate choice, rather than it just being that anything else was unthinkable.