How bad can someone be before redemption isn't possible?

[Brian G Turner]

There's two discussions here though; could one be redeemed in the eyes of the reader, or in the eyes of their (fictional) colleagues. Entirely different propositions in my opinion.

Ooh - now that is a very good point, and leads to all sorts of possibilities for plotting.

 

[Hex]

Hitler, in the stories we tell about him, could never be redeemed. Our stories are all about him being evil. Stalin wasn't a great guy either, but many people in the USSR were able to regard him as, overall, a force for good.

It all comes down to how you tell the story. You can redeem a character from anything as long as you tell the story right. I bet lots of people would have accepted that Hitler could have been redeemed, and a fair number probably thought he had nothing that needed to be redeemed. They knew different stories about him from the ones we know.

(but redeeming a character moments before their tragic, self-sacrificing death is different from redeeming them and expecting the reader to enter into their touching romance with a teenage unicorn).

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

I think the reason why people are more willing to accept murder as a redeemable offense (unless children are killed, but for some readers even that might not be an exception) might be because we are already so accustomed to people killing other people in SFF, what with all the duels, battles, assassins etc. We see so much of it, it's lost it's shock value, unless it's a character we know well and care about and it came about unexpectedly. Even then, it isn't as gut-wrenching as, say, when Bill Sykes kills Nancy in Oliver Twist.

The genie is, as they say, already out of the bottle. That ship has sailed. We're not likely to go back to being shocked by deadly violence, at least not in genre fiction for the foreseeable future. But some of us are still capable of being shocked by rape in fantasy, and are appalled by the idea that it might become as common as violence so that readers cease to be shocked.

(but redeeming a character moments before their tragic, self-sacrificing death is different from redeeming them and expecting the reader to enter into their touching romance with a teenage unicorn).

This is a very good point.

 

[Nick B]

There's a fairly detailed thread on the subject of rape in sff elsewhere. However:




I'm a bit worried that books dealing with difficult subjects such as rape asre described as not being memorable for the right reasons.... The Colour Purple certainly was - it opened peoples' eyes to something barely thought about in fiction before. For me, that's more right than any other reason.

What I mean is, I do not want people to remember my work because it deals with serious moral issues. My work is to entertain people, to make them love the characters and stories. I am not here to lecture people, to teach them prinicples or to try and impress upon them some moral code. My work is entertainment, pure and simple. I want it to have realism, and I want people to be emotionally moved, but I have no agenda or statement to make about society or it's failings. Pure entertainment is what it is supposed to be.

Thanks everyone for all your input, it is valuable as ever.

 

[Nick B]

(but redeeming a character moments before their tragic, self-sacrificing death is different from redeeming them and expecting the reader to enter into their touching romance with a teenage unicorn).[/QUOTE}]

This is best line I have read all week

 

[Phyrebrat]

In Stephen King's The Dark Tower

Spoiler

the supposed hero of the tales allows a boy - a main character - to die, letting him fall over the edge of a precipitous cave edge.
It is the first of seven books and we're yet to find out about the many universes in terms of how they operate; the only clue we're given is when the boy sees Roland is about to let him go and says 'Go then, there are other worlds than this.' or something.

Despite that we still see Roland as a sympathetic character, even though he is not particularly pleasant. I wonder if this is down to the expectation that the boy isn't dead (he is, kind of, but it's a paradox) or King's exceptional writing.

I think therefore it is down to your skill.

As I said to my partner last year, "you do realise we're cheering on an incestuous attempted child-murderer, here?" when Jaime was helping out Brienne.

pH

 

[LittleStar]

I haven't read everything posted here yet, but I will, this seems like a great thread and something everyone should keep in mind when writing I think their character darker character arcs.
Jamie lannister's arc is one of my favourites, certainly in the series, but also in any book I can think of off the top of my head, I like nothing more than a redemption arc it seems (Spike, in the buffy series fits here perfectly as well) but you have to be careful, as others have stated, there might be a limit to how far you can push the majority of your audience with this (spike and Jamie, kinda put me away from this group though). I think all characters need some kind of redeeming quality, especially if they are out and out baddies.

I just finished Wuthering Heights today, I enjoyed it for the most part. What stopped me enjoying it completely... (do i need a spoiler alert for a book this old? Half unrelated note, Anna Karennina's ending was spoiled for me in a 'seven basic plots' book, not two weeks ago )... was the fact that I didn't find a single likeable quality in Heathcliff, not one, in a character perfect for a redemption arc. For me he was a plain black and white baddie, and it did ruin the story a little, in my opinion. I couldn't see why the characters around him listened to him, believed him, liked him, trusted him etc. while all of this can be explained away through 'reasons' I would have liked some more good in him.

That is pretty much my only requirement to buy into your redemption arc, give them something that is worth redeeming, or give them a reason to want to redeem themselves, even if they don't quite understand why they protected the innocent child or saved a picture of a random old couple from burning in the house they just set fire to, for example.

 

[ZombieWife]

There is a character on Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. that goes darkside, but is threatening redemption. I honestly feel like this character has gone too far over to the dark, but then I remember that Joss Whedon is behind this. And he could almost redeem anyone.

Maybe it just depends on the writing and (as others have mentioned) what their worst atrocities are.

 

[psychotick]

Hi,

Hex has the right of it re Darth Vadar. We can redeem him for a number of reasons. The obvious self sacrifice in the end, and all the way through the idea of Luke's that Darth was in some way ruled by the dark side. That you go too far and suddenly you are no longer in control. But perhaps more important than that is the son's faith in the father. That brings home the fact that even though this was a bad man, he still wasn't a completely terrible one, as evidenced by the fact that the father sacrificed himself for his son.

But really, if Darth had lived, gone on to face trial etc, the audience might have had a harder time dealing with him as a redeemed character. It's easier to deal with such a character once he's gone. When he's alive the reader still has to ask all sorts of questions about him. How guilty was he being the biggie. Dead, he's just dead and gone.

Cheers, Greg.

 

[Avid Scifi Fan]

I agree, if you make their atrocities too bad, you may have to kill off the character to win over the "forgiveness" of the readers.

As the author, you should decide to what level you want to take it. Do you want to keep the character or make her a memory of the others in later chapters/books. This is where your style and creativity should come into play...

 

[Grimward]

So, for me as a reader, it comes down to whether she has any control when under the influence of the artifact; can she choose not to be evil? If not, I also usually have the secondary question of whether she can choose to be in contact with the artifact (and am guessing you have a powerful conflict that you get to play up there from what you've revealed thusfar). If she has no choice in either matter, does she have remorse when not under the influence of the artifact? Exposition of the WHOLE character is meaningful to me as a reader (as I suspect it is with most readers); not likely to paint the character as completely evil until all is said and done.

Sounds like you've got an interesting character going there, Quellist; good luck with her!

 

[Nick B]

Thanks everyone. Lots to think about. The first draft of the first novel is done and with the beta's now so we will see how she does. It actually gets more complicated after this one though and this is where all this input will be invaluable.

 

[Phyrebrat]

Also, I know it is a TV show and not a book, but Gaius Baltar in the new Battlestar Galactica was responsible for the destruction of the Twelve Colonies but his actions throughout the seasons allowed him to be redeemed, and arguably became one of the show's darlings. So good writing and authenticity is all you need.

pH

 

[Teresa Edgerton]

If there are any moments when the artifact loses some of its control (like between the awful things it is making her do) I would wonder why she didn't suicide to prevent herself from doing the next horrible thing. But of course if its control is absolute until she is finally freed for good then it wouldn't let her even think about it.

 

[Nick B]

It isn't as simple as that Theresa, the sentience of the thing is extremely insidious, slowly influencing the way she thinks. It also takes advantage of any weak moments to do what it likes. It also takes on some of its hosts attributes along the way so it is a two way process . The item is millenia old and has had many hosts, so it is actually a sum of its parts plus its initial essence.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

Terry Pratchett's Tiffeny had trouble with one of those, a Hiver. Hat Full of Sky

 

[Nick B]

I havn't read any of the discworld books aimed at the younger readers, i have all the main series though.

 

[Ray McCarthy]

It's a wonderful series. It was finished off nicely too.

 

[Michael Colton]

My thoughts echo what others have already said: sexual violence and/or the personal murder of children tend to be the two things that can make a character irredeemable in a reader's eyes. Virtually anything else can be returned from with surprising ease. People seem to react to someone being 'annoying' or grating more than evil.

 

[Hex]

But it still depends. I can imagine circumstances in which even child murder could be forgiven -- if the character felt they had no choice, and if they were sufficiently haunted by it afterwards.

Sexual violence is actually more questionable and I think it depends very much on how it's represented. There are examples in romantic fiction of men behaving very badly even if they stop short of actual rape (I don't know if they do -- I haven't read enough -- but I think the object of their affections usually finds herself swept away by passion) and that's okay, because of the way it's represented (the man is dominant, he's driven crazy by desire, and -- critically -- the woman finds that sexy).