By: Cameron Ratchford

When discussing villains and antagonists with people a certain trend has started to pop up. When asking people who their favorite villain is, oftentimes I am met with a select handful of answers, and amongst those answers the most common type of villain I am hearing about are redemptive villains. People love downright evil villains, they love villains with complex backstories and ideals, they love a villain who is the protagonist of their own story, but more often than not the villains I hear about the most are ones who found their way back again. Villains who stand firmly on one side, and through a variety of means see the error in their ways, and have to claw their way back. These characters become universally loved, when exploring mediums with these characters you will find hoards of fans, clamoring to defend what they deem to be the greatest story arc in whatever piece of fiction you are engaging with. These redemptions play out in a few different ways, and each dramatically changes the story being told along with the morals and ideals the arc is trying to show to you. 

The most common way this trope plays out is with a huge sacrifice. The villain at the last second saves the day, but through redemption they give us the only thing they have to offer, their life. To me this is the simplest of the three types of redemptive villains, but can be used to great effect depending on the circumstances. The most famous example of this happens a long long time ago in a galaxy far far away. As we reach the climax of the great space opera star wars, one of the most famous movie characters of all time makes this sacrifice. As the hero of our story Luke is being killed by Palpatine, Darth Vader decides to step in and finally bring balance to the force at the cost of his own life. He defeats Palpatine, but not without taking the brunt of his force lightning through his suit. The day is saved, but our villain is at death’s door, and with his last wish he asks for Luke to remove his helmet so he can see him one last time. This whole scene helps to humanize the monster that was Darth Vader. His last act was to become Annakin one last time. This sacrifice often levels our characters, bringing them to their most vulnerable, but their most human and understandable. It is used as a rejection of the evil we have seen throughout, an understanding is reached that morally one side has prevailed. When writing these sacrifices the emphasis needs to be on the recognition of fault, and a realization that your character must do anything possible to see the error of their ways corrected. These sacrifices work quite well in modernist writing where the emphasis is very much good versus evil, and our characters stand firmly on one side. 

On the opposite end of the spectrum, we have a redemptive villain who is given a second chance. To see our antagonist eventually become one of our heroes is one of the most talked about versions of this trope. In these instances we get entire arcs dedicated to the character wrestling with the actions they have taken, and the morals they have believed in for so long. To me the most popular version of this trope is Zuko from Avatar the Last Airbender. Zuko begins his story as the central bad guy facing our heroes through the first half of the show. Zuko is meant to represent what is wrong with the Fire Nation, a deep sense of blind nationalism, a corrupt fascist state that refuses to question its own actions. Through his journey we see what it means to deny the circumstances of his birth, and follow a path that he chooses, not one that has been thrust upon him with ill intentions. These stories often are here to remind us that we too can change, and that it is not simply our past that defines us. To see the full capacity of a person, the lowest of lows and highest of highs, is the purpose of this trope, and oftentimes it leads to characters that stick with us. Jamie, from Game of Thrones, is another version of this same trope. A character that is so easy to hate early on, we watch Jamie experience this full spectrum of a person. In these examples our characters can oftentimes be stripped down to the barest version of themselves. For Jamie he is removed from his station, and loses the thing that has always defined him, his sword hand. It is only through this great loss however, that he becomes the relatable version we learn to love. This version is able to bare free his vulnerabilities, and in these moments we even get to see him as more than just a bad guy, but rather a person. He must completely reevaluate what he has stood for for so long as well as the very family he was brought up in. These examples are here to remind us that it is never too late to change.

The final type of redemption is one that occurs without the character even being present. We do not get to see their return from grace, or their final heroic sacrifice, but rather in a much more subtle way. These characters move past our story, and it is only after they are gone that we are able to reconsider their actions which recontextualizes the story as a whole. I call this the post-mortem redemption due to the fact that oftentimes it takes the aftermath of death to realize that our bad guy may have been much more than they appeared. These characters often serve to question many of the notions we have about the characters we follow, the world we are in, and the rules we follow. There is no better example of this than Itachi from Naruto. I started watching this show as a 6-year old, and from that time to the time I graduated high school I followed along as Sasuke set out for revenge against his brother for killing his entire clan; 11 years of building up to this moment, it was pure satisfaction watching this all come together and to see a character I had followed for most of my life achieve his goal. Sasuke finally reaches his revenge, killing his brother and avenging his clan in the process. However, this victory is quickly flipped on its head as the true intentions behind the Uchiha massacre are revealed. We have spent these 11 years believing that Itachi was a bad guy, and that the Leaf, the nation of our heroes, was the true symbol of justice in the Ninja World. After this death it is finally revealed that the higher-ups behind the scenes in the Leaf Village are the ones that called for the cleansing of the clan, to stop the civil war eminently brewing in their country. 

This reveal redefines the entire story we have been told up to this point, so much of the story becomes a question mark, while simultaneously setting up the rest of what is going to take place. We must question the foundation of the story we are being told and the principles and ideals of the homeland of all of our characters. What kind of institution would allow such an atrocity in the name of country and state, who is really pulling the strings and who are the actual bad guys here? In the second example, these villains must face-up to what they stood for and the morals they have fought for, but with this instance it is our protagonist that must question the beliefs they stand on. These redemptions often warp the entire perception of the story, and when pulled off right create a deeper complexity in the story being told.