First of all, I was very inspired by Skye's Loki post and Samantha's slightly click-baity title on her love triangle post. I've been wanting to do a post like this for awhile, but those two posts gave me the inspirational push I needed to finally get this done. I should mention that I do believe in redeeming characters (and a character redemption done right? absolutely fantastic), but hear me out. And obviously all of this is personal opinion and it's going to have flaws. Use or break the rules to your advantage however you want.
To start with, characters usually don't realize that they're characters. Generally, good or bad characters aren't going around trying to be 'good' or 'evil'. In fact, especially with evil characters in particular, they usually don't think they're that bad. Obviously there are exceptions to every rule, but when there's conscious decisions to make 'good' or 'evil' plans it's usually done as a comedic thing because it's an obvious caricature archetype. Think of the beginning of Megamind for example, Good guy vs Bad Guy, one is constantly plotting 'evil' the other is always ruining his plan and saving the day.
Part of the problem with redeeming characters (aside from the fact that we apparently have no idea what to do with characters once they have been redeemed except kill them off, because apparently you can only be one of the 'good ones' if you never intentionally did anything wrong *I'm definitely not bitter about anyone specific *coughs* Kylo Ren *coughs again*) is that it treats characters like a formula. Characters (unless you have a really good reason) should never be a formula. 'Look at that character, they're good now. Did you miss it? Let's play this again. they're good now. They show regret, they have the personality of a paper towel because paper towels equate to good, and they're also completely useless to everyone now. Isn't this fantastic? Guys, did you miss it?...'
I will argue that characters should never be thought of as characters, but as actual people because thinking of them as characters is already thinking about them as a list. Based on who this person is with their specific views and personality, how would they actually react to this situation? what would they do? Regardless of whether you think something is a good idea or not, what would this person actually do? Essentially what I'm saying is, don't try to make reasons for what they do, just let them do it. The reasons will be fairly obvious given the person's personality if it was in character. If they start making good decisions, that's great, but don't call attention to it. Some characters aren't even looking to be forgiven.
And redemption isn't a box that you can just put a character into. Look at this guy, he was bad but now he's good. Because no, to quote Series of Unfortunate Events, 'People aren't either wicked or noble, They're like chef salads, with good things and bad things chopped and mixed together in a vinaigrette of confusion and conflict.'
It's part of the reason why terrible people are such a tragedy, you can see so much potential, you see the good things in the person, and yet, they chose to waste who they are although obviously there's a lot more wrong with it. But it's why we're always kind of confused by who, for example, the 'murderer' is in a movie. 'But they're such a good (fill-in-blank), they always did this nice thing, they were always so respectful...' It's why a lot of the innocent things they did become so tainted and seem so much more horrific after that, because you left realizing that they weren't who you thought they were. And maybe some of the things they did were genuinely innocent, but that's where the chef salad thing comes in. However, just because they did something good doesn't mean they are a good person. Same with, just because a person is nice to you doesn't mean they respect you.
Again, people usually have reasons why they do the things they do, but they weren't always intending on getting the end result. I think it's pretty safe to say that addicts, as an example, weren't setting out to become an addict. And while I can't even comprehend the struggle that an actual addict goes through to get clean, the emotional process of trying to heal, both the good and the ugly, are very intrinsically human.
We as people have our little victories (be they seen or unseen), we have doubts, I think humans are generally suspicious in our natures, we all have walls (be they things you just don't put all over the internet, or other things entirely), the things that make us happy, the things that we don't talk about, we all have our screw-ups, we all have our things that are very specific to each of us. We can be entirely different people, we don't always agree with each other but we're still here. And whether your trying to keep the peace, just doing what you can, or whatever it is, you don't know what the future holds. We as people are just trying to do whatever it is we're doing. We're not planning our over-arching character development, it happens along the way and sometimes you don't even realize you've changed until much later. You're a work in progress, regardless of what the result is.
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This is not mine. I don't know who this
belongs to. I found it on Pinterest and
all credit goes to the artist that made this. |
And that's how it should be with characters. Regardless of who the character is, overall humans all have a similar nature. Now that can be messed with, there's characters like Sauron from The Lord Of The Rings, that were never meant to be complex and not every character has to be complex. And some guys, like Joker from The Dark Knight are just one of those men that wants to watch the world burn. So they'll try to burn it, and they'll enjoy it. It's not necessarily a statement (although he was trying to prove a point in the movie) but who he is. And his actions follow accordingly. Sometimes the best villains aren't that nuanced, they're just having out there having fun and while we don't condone it, we love it.
Humans are intrinsically emotional beings. Whether you are more of a logical person or not, we all have emotions. And that is something that can be exploited (in the best way) in media. You can make anyone care about anything if you give them some sort of emotional connection. It's why boring subjects can be enthralling if the person talking is passionate about it. You see what it means to them, and thus, in some small way, you care. You see a thing someone else would like and you're like 'hey, they would like this'.
At the end of the day, everyone wants to be cared about, and to care about something. Whether the thing that they care about is good or bad doesn't really matter to the person that cares about it, they just care about it. We can care about characters but not condone their actions. We're proud of a character for making a good decision. And not everything is for everyone and that's okay. Making something that's for everyone isn't even something that's physically possible anyways. And sometimes you'll like something and you don't have an explanation (or you don't feel like explaining or justifying it) and that's also fine. Obviously there are lines, but I don't always need to explain where all the lines are. You guys get it. And that's my point, not everything needs to be said.
People will do things because they care about something and they want to be understood.
If someone wants to do something badly enough, mostly likely they're going to do it. Will they always get what they were trying to get? Obviously not, but sometimes the thing that you ended up getting was far better than the thing you thought you wanted. Sometimes a character realizes that the thing that they wanted was terrible. And sometimes the character does get what they want and we're all proud of them. Personal growth isn't about getting thing the you wanted, it's a mental state.
If a character wants to be better, they will attempt to be better. Are they going to become an entirely different person? No. Just because they work on fixing their toxic traits doesn't mean they don't have the same tendencies. (To clarify, there are some things that I can't get behind no matter what) It's a process. Did the character still do things in the past? Yes. And there is things that will happen because of that. If anything, that's perfect for plot.
Even if a terrible person becomes better, they still have to live with the knowledge of what they did. Too often, we just kill them off because 'well now that they're good, how can they live with that? They'll just have to sacrifice themselves to make up for it'. Which is fine, but we do it so often, that it leaves me wondering if we even know how to let them live after that.
One real life example that I think about is Paul (formerly known as Saul) in the Bible. He killed a bunch of people, or at least was the reason why a lot of people were imprisoned, tortured, and all the rest of that. He mentions it several times. He justified the torture and murder of innocents, in fact he sought them out. The funny thing that I find about him though is the fact that everyone seems to think of him as one of the greatest people in the New Testament. He went from murderer to a guy trying to help people save their souls. He sang in prison and he wasn't sitting there complaining the whole time. But I've always wondered how much of that was from guilt. Like how many times did he want to complain but he didn't because he was thinking about all the people he sent into this same situation and who held fast until the end? In his mind, how could he do any less? He thought of himself as forgiven, but he never thought that he was better than anyone else because of that. He still called himself the lowest of the low. And yet, what would we have done without Paul?
And sometimes villains can just become the weird uncle that everyone sorta mildly questions why they're there but they all pretty much just end up accepting it and that's fantastic too. Sometimes you shouldn't take things too seriously. It's a movie, you're allowed to have fun with it. You can justify a lot of things in a fictional setting that you would never in real life.
So again, if a character is makes better decisions, that's great, but don't call it out. Let them be themselves. If they realize they're wrong, or they do something for someone else, or whatever it is, let them do it. But don't make a point of it if you can. We aren't here to redeem the characters, let them save themselves.
And afterwards, when they are are being better, don't forget who they are. They are still themselves. A better character doesn't mean that they're perfect, it means they're trying. A terrible character has already pushed lines, pretending that they won't cross those lines is disingenuous to the character.
Don't redeem characters, if the character wants to, that's what they're going to do it anyways. Redemption can be an end goal, but it's really the stuff in between that matters. You don't have to follow the formula and save them, you don't need to excuse what they've done, and you don't need to pull plot-twists that make it so they never did the thing in the first place just so it isn't as bad. And you don't have to constantly be pointing out that they are trying to be better. Just let the character be and enjoy seeing where this particular story takes you. Because a story shouldn't be a formula, it's an experience.
So thank you for listening to my ted talk in which I didn't say half the points that I meant to, and what I did say doesn't even begin to cover it.
