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.)