How do you redeem your villains?

[DokiDokiTsuna]

...Or do you scrap redemption and just kill/get rid of them? Sometimes, with more serious villains, there really is nothing else you can do...

Personally, I don't like wishy-washy villains; if a character is murdering innocents to reach their goal, for instance, I prefer for them to see it through to the end, rather than "have their hearts purified" by the main characters in the middle of the story and suddenly decide it's wrong. Like, murder is serious. You don't just half-assedly decide to kill people now and think it over later...
...So, most of my villains are disposed of in some fashion. ¯_(ツ)_/¯ I'm not much of a redeemer.

The only way I think I could redeem a villain is if I wrote a story in which the villain wasn't murdering people or horrifically abusing them or both or doing something worse (which, frankly, isn't my style~) or if I wrote a story in which the 'villain' was being forced to do things against their will...which I don't think I've tried yet. Hmm...

[vothnthorvaldson]

I've never really written villains, and will not, because I don't go by the good/bad dichotomy, but if we are speaking of people with distasteful personalities and/or who committing repeated violent crimes.. I would not particularly be interested in redeeming them, with the exception of the case of a perpetrator with a mental illness. In that case there can be a relatively fast change of heart in a way that does not look too forced, Manichean, ridiculous, or ideologically biased.
In most of the other cases, I can only see it happen gradually, after a very long amount of time, which is not always easy to convey, unless we actually see these long years passing in the story (coming back 30 years later and seeing the result is wayyy too lazy in my opinion).

[Maps]

I’ve had ideas to have them “come round” and become better for the protagonist, kill em off, or even try the heroic “Boromir’s death” like in LOTR aka having the antagonist sacrifice themself at the end for the sake of the protag. But mainly I tend to stick with the thought of the first two.

[SleepingPoppy]

I don't think I've ever done a real redemption arc. Rather than redeeming villains I'm more likely to have a character that initially is antagonistic have a character arc where they learn to do/be better.

Generally I like stories where there's at least some grey morality. I think there's ways to redeem characters who have done terrible things, but it needs to make sense. It can't be cheep and quick or there's no weight too it. And obviously the more terrible the deeds the harder it is to give the character redemption. There needs to be REALLY GOOD REASONS for the "evil" character to turn good.

[mrtoontastic]

Villains? Well for the most part, if I like them enough, I'll reuse them for other purposes like how comic books do it. But one time, or big-time over-arching villains? Well....

[Trevor]

I've seen some tropes where the villain of the story is really being forced to do the horrible things they are doing by some force

Maybe your villain doesn't really want to do the things they are doing, but are being forced to by something else, in which case it's pretty easy to redeem the character because they were never really "bad" in the first place.

You can also have a scenerio where maybe your villain is just trying to survive off of doing the bad stuff because that's the only way they know how to do it, and your protagonist can stop them and then still have them survive through other means they've not been capable of doing before.

[mrtoontastic]

Kill all your villains

[DokiDokiTsuna]

Manichean

Ooh, what's that?

having the antagonist sacrifice themself at the end for the sake of the protag.

Frick, I like that! That's hot, right there~. I need to try that sometime...

[vothnthorvaldson]

Ooh, what's that?

I use it here in the casual meaning of 'black or white thinking' or 'good or evil duality'.
It's coming from Mani's dualistic cosmology, pretty fascinating stuff, take a look at it if you have some time, and some interest in early Christianity.

[Jenny-Toons]

I've done villains who do serious harm, know they do serious harm, and don't give a damn. They get no redemption. Ever.

But the villains I love writing about more are villains who do serious harm and either A) don't realize they're doing serious harm or B) they do know, but they actually believe that it's for the greater good.

For these villains -- I like to prove them wrong. And I like to have them realize they were wrong, so terribly wrong, and live with that horror.

Redemption for them is possible...but usually, because I use these villains in horror, I don't really give them much to go off of.

[Samuraiflame]

Kill all your villains

More like MARRY ALL YOUR VILLAINS.

Bruh, a good redemption arc is my absolute favourite trope and no one will ever change my mind.

Some villains are pretty much irredeemable, but not all antagonists in a story are villains, so there's lots of stuff you can do with characters who maybe aren't 101% evil.

I like the saying that everyone is the hero of their own story, so villains with their own set of morals and ambitions are my favourite. They can still commit atrocious acts, but so long as they think that they're right, then they have justifications (while still being an evil bastard). They can be killing a ton of 'innocents', but they might be protecting their own people and doing it for the 'good' of their nation, etc.

Selfish villains are less easy to redeem, but that's what character development's for.

A redemption arc usually means they have to realize the errors of their ways and actually set about fixing them. They have to earn forgiveness from not only the heroes but also the audience. Some people might never forgive the earlier actions of a villain, but I find villains far more interesting in their flaws and growth than someone who started out good.

And while this isn't really a redemption, one trope I also looooove is when an early-story villain ends up allying themselves with the 'good guys' because a greater, more evil villain shows up. Then they become more of an anti-hero, and that's also my jam. But this only works if not every single minor enemy gets converted. Looking at you, Fairy Tail and Naruto.

[mariusthered]

im of the school bad guys get whats coming to them. and letting them have a happy ending is not on the cards. my last villains (three very bad bears) were turned to frog and made to live in a swamp away from good people.

[unknown_user]

I like the following option: at some moment the villain understood that everything is vanity, tired to make evil and retired. Does it count?

[lotusware]

Your villain should be as important as your hero. Their purpose is to be a force that forces the hero to change or commit to themselves to become beyond what they were at the start of the story.

If a villain is to be redeemed, then it must be part of what the hero is striving for, and it shouldn't happen organically outside of the result of the hero's arc.

Its possible for the villain to have this arc if the hero also mirrors it--

For example:

Assume Luke Skywalker is the hero, Darth Vader is the villain.

But at different points, there are other supporting protagonists and supporting antagonists that allow the hero and their "party. Han vs. Jabba, Vader vs. Emperor, Rebellion vs. Empire. In the scope of the Luke vs. Vader, however, what starts of as Luke's journey to defeat Vader, the terms of what "defeat" mean change over Luke's arc. Vader's arc doesn't change until Luke "wins" at which point he is redeemed.

This can only be accomplished by shifting the meaning of Defeat = Kill into Defeat = Turn to the Light side.

Now for a poor example:

Assume Luke Skywalker is the hero, Darth Vader is the villain.

Luke has the goal to kill Vader, they battle, Luke loses his hand, etc.
Rematch, Luke tries to kill Vader--he does not think he can be turned back to light--at the very last moment when Luke is about to die at the hands of the Emperor, Vader is redeemed.

This isn't a satisfying arc for Luke because he doesn't accomplish his goal, and Vader's redemption isn't satisfying because it isn't seen through the lens of the Hero's struggle.

In conclusion

• A villain cannot be redeemed unless it is the natural conclusion, or the "reward" of the hero's journey.

• If the villain is redeemed but it is not the consequence of the hero's journey, then SURPRISE--your villain is actually the protagonist and the "hero" you've been writing about all along is actually just a supporting character.

• a villain always sees themselves as a good guy doing necessary evil, usually for the sake of themselves, or the greater good. Rarely will a villain be evil for the sake of being evil.

[vfinnigan]

The comics I have out so far are military non-fiction. Saddam Hussein did not become a reformed character after being defeated in 1991, so I didn't redeem him in Tiger on the Storm.

And my World War II comic isn't about Hitler or Tojo, but about the obstacles women who wanted to help the "good guys" had to overcome. When the villain is a whole world determined to stand in the way of women and ignore their accomplishments, well, it's pretty obvious that making these women's stories a redemption arc for the men who mistreated or excluded them would not be entirely truthful - and would also probably take focus away from these deserving women.

I love a good redemption arc at least as much as anyone. I just think redemption arcs are a little out of place in what I'm writing so far.

[feardeer]

You need to understand your villain's motivations on a very deep level in order to redeem them. It doesn't really matter what horrible crimes they've committed, if they lose their motivation, redemption is possible (forgiveness, on the other hand...). You have to consider everything that made them the villain they are, what pieces of the person that existed before that still remain, and think about what it will take, and how long it will take, to piece the rest back together.

Depending on the gravity of their crimes, and how deep in the darkness they've fallen, a complete 180 redemption is unlikely. They're probably not going to become a pacifist or a saint (though.. it's possible??), but they can still realize their misdeeds and change their ways.

Treat it like a character arc, and not a quick and dirty epiphany. It should take time, and it should be a journey in itself.

I always treat my villains the same way I treat my heroes. They'll discover new things about themselves as the story progresses, and they will change, for better or worse. Though I tend to keep most of my characters morally gray anyway.

[VibrantFox]

the villain of the story is really being forced to do the horrible things they are doing by some force

the last time i clearly remember this trope being used was in the megaman comics, where dr. wily was supposedly being manipulated by some kind of force/entity which he assumed he was employing to serve himself.

personally it could work but the character would have to have signs or something to show that prior to falling under this entities control that they were "good" to begin with. maybe they might have had some ounce of jealousy towards the protagonist or someone else and that's what the entity manipulates on but for that trope specifically there'd need to be certain things to make it work well

[Trevor]

I was thinking more of Maxwell from Don't Starve initially when I wrote that lol

[Rhonder]

Hmmm i guess I've never really written that kind of arc before. The villain of my last big story was just an evil tyrant overlord, and so he was just done away with at the end, the villain in my current comic... not to spoil anything,but doesn't have a redemption arc planned atm, and the story I'm writing for the future lacks a concrete "villain".

I guess the related trope that I'm a fan of and use a fair amount is is "jerk rival that starts out bad, gets redeemed, and joins the good guys later". Related but different, certainly.

[demthorshie]

I rarely ever redeem my villains but when I do, it usually involves them getting embarrassed or humiliated at some point in the story. Most of my villains are either so bad they're unredeemable or their just petty pests who act as rivals at most.