An established villain–with all the sinister character and crimes to prove it–begins the story in darkness, and ends it having inched towards the light. On the face of it, this trope really is that straightforward. And I might have thought that, of all tropes, it has the most universal appeal.

But I have learned that this isn’t true. Some people have major beef with the redemption arc. Why, you might ask? Because they feel that redeeming villains is a negligent practice, which glosses over evil. “I,” they say, “Would simply not be evil in the first place.”

Call it the perspective of the older brother in the story of the prodigal son. The pharisaical view. “Why should he get redeemed? He, of all people, doesn’t deserve it.” The truth is, there is probably some evil, some grave sin, some horror from which we–deep down–think a person really can’t be redeemed. Don’t think of Mr. tall-dark-and-handsome fantasy villain whose terrible evils are either a smokescreen or simply too detached from reality to matter very much. No, think of real crime, real abuse, real prejudice, real cruelty in real life.

Can THAT person be redeemed? Removed from the abstract, do you hope for their redemption? Maybe, maybe not. But sometimes the real is too hard a place to start. So we turn to fiction to suss out a problem that seems hopeless in reality.

So, to our typical trope questions 3:

1. When does it fail?
2. When does it work?
3. Why does it resonate?

When Does it Fail

Most of these are fairly obviously

-a redemption arc fails when ‘there was no hill to climb.’ They were never really bad to begin with, just ‘misunderstood’ or they simply appeared that way. It was all a ruse to give us a ‘vibe.’

-a redemption arc fails when it’s too easy or too abrupt. The change of heart happens without logical lead-in and without any trial or anguish whatsoever

-likewise it fails when the change is too absolute. No lingering struggle. No residual habits. No bruises, no scars.

-a redemption arc usually fails if there is no cost associated with the change.

-it fails when it just doesn’t make sense, either for the character or for the setting

-and this goes without saying (but I’m going to say it anyway) it fails if is not honest about the premise.

The truth is, it’s a unique challenge for a redemption arc to be meaningful in a society that doesn’t really believe in sin in the traditional religious sense, which is to say, a culture that doesn’t really believe there is something fundamentally corrupt within each of us. Something literally irredeemably bad barring, I dunno, some kind of radical miracle or something (what might that be?)

What does a redemption arc have to say to someone who can never do more than say “Yeah, I know I’m not perfect, but I’m, like, a decent person.” What can a redemption arc offer to the person who uses the failings of others as a safeguard against self-examination? What good is a redemption arc to someone who believes themselves to already be good ‘enough.’

No, a redemption arc is best spoken to those of us that know, deep down, that many of the stories we tell ourselves to justify our words and actions are, in fact, downright lies. Those of us that have realized, or are starting to realize, that even our best and kindest behaviors are…kinda crap. Our motives are ever mixed. All the successes we’ve birthed instantly clamor for pride and self-satisfaction. Our thoughts are an unending ticker-tape of folly.

So to that audience, in which I am most certainly included, I move on to the second part of this analysis.

When Does it Work

Simply put, this trope works when it does the opposite of everything mentioned above.

A redemption arc succeeds when:

-the evil was real, the sins were great, the person was truly corrupt. The hole they were in was deep and dark and chiefly of their own making.

-the path of redemption was long and arduous, achieved one infinitesimal step at a time. A miniscule act of mercy becomes a monumental achievement.

-once the villain has turned, or the cruel step-mother softened, there are lingering traits and struggles. The eyes blink painfully in the fresh and brilliant light of day. One is tempted to retreat to the shadows.

-the cost of redemption is high. There is loss of status or power, loss of original objective such as vengeance, loss of friends or comfort or convenience. Loss of the “right” to be angry and bitter. Loss of the intoxicating enjoyment of hatred. Loss of the triumph of looking down on others. Loss of the certainty that you are right and will win. And maybe the loss of everything else in between.

-the character arc makes sense. There are touchstones of reality–even in a setting with wild magic and apocalyptic stakes–that we as readers can relate to. We recognize that anger as our own. We recognize the moments of confusion, conflict, hope, desire, need. When the villain begins to question things, we believe that the cracks in their facade were made by truths that exist outside of the story, not merely by fiat, not merely by the author’s contriving hand. It is best if we see the worst of ourselves in this character, then to see the hope they stand to find.

-there is an honesty about what redemption really means. Redeemed from what? Redeemed to what? To be redeemed means to be bought back from hopeless debt. To be irretrievable, yet to be retrieved. A good redemption arc must understand the reality of a truly hopeless state, and yet believe in such a thing as the miraculous. Most people struggle with one or the other of these two things. They either don’t really believe in true depravity or they don’t really believe in a good profound enough to transform it. And yes, it can all have a generic ring of platitudes if said in isolation, as if merely written on a poster on a wall with a pretty picture attached.

Why does it resonate?

I am going to plagiarize myself. I wrote a twitter thread about this some years ago. To my amusement I think the origin of this was seeing a variety of twitter debates about being irritated with redemption arcs. Specifially, twas the age of Kylo Ren, and fangirling, and angry star wars diehards, and drama, and nonsense. The beforetimes, if you will. People were questioning why we kept trying to redeem these angry, stupid young men who didn’t deserve to be redeemed and who were causing so much destruction. Just leave them to their fate, they said. They don’t deserve our pity.

Needless to say, this grieved me.

And so, back when I used to wade into the occasional drama online, I wrote this:

I’m not saying anything new when I say that, for many writers, stories about brokenness and redemption are about trying to visualize a roadmap for our own souls. Trying to prove, by fiction, that there is hope for us. That we are not forever stuck where we are right now.

When I first started writing, my story was about any and every fun trope and adventure that struck my heart. Over time, it became about what it felt like to be cut off from hope, to despair of rescue…and to find out the despair was a lie.

And how sloughing off despair is actually really hard, because it’s become who you think you are. You start to define yourself by being “cut off”, by being “outside.” We cling to any identity we can as a rope, even if it’s a terrible one.

And I think it’s poignant that, especially in fantasy, the “sins” of the characters are egregious (as opposed to “well I was a bit snippy with my husband today”) because that is a right viewing of our own souls.

As C.S. Lewis puts it in Surprised by Joy: “For the first time I examined myself with a seriously practical purpose. And there I found what appalled me; a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, a nursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds. My name was legion.”

I love a redemption arc because it exposes us, brings us low, then gives us hope. First the bad news–it is hopeless. You can’t fix yourself. You’ll try, but you’ll fail. There is no getting out of the hole you dug. Then the good news–yet, by a way you never could have imagined, there is hope. There really is a way out. There is a hand reaching down. Indeed, a hand stooping all the way down to raise your foot where you could never have done it yourself. A hand that will lead you the long, long way home.