Ah, uncle Iroh, everyone’s favorite barely reformed war criminal.
What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?
~Mario, 2011
The first one is better. The second one is more impressive.
True
Besides exhausting the audience’s willing suspension of disbelief if they think about it, it honestly just feels like a waste of potential when shows do this. Redemption arcs go hard.
My biggest problem with Fairy Tail.
Never got over Gajeel beating Levy within an inch of her life, then literally crucifying her for the rest of the guild to find.
And then that’s who people start shipping her with?! AND THEN IT BECOMES FUCKING CANON!?
Shit like that makes anime hard to watch sometimes.
What’s wrong with showing that people can be redeemed and change their ways?
Isn’t that the whole point of the courts and jail systems IRL in the end? It’s wild that people can’t handle something that’s quite honestly how humans should be. Why are people so afraid to accept people can and do change, it’s human nature to even. People who don’t change are the outliers.
Sure, people can change. But there’s a difference between this person used to be an asshole and getting with the person that literally CRUCIFIED you. Also, you’re incredibly naïve if you think jail is meant to be reformative.
Also, you’re incredibly naïve if you think jail is meant to be reformative.
You must be American? It works elsewhere pretty damn well with very low reincarnation rates, can’t say the same in places where it’s a business instead. It’s also a problem when people steal some bread just to get themselves off the street for a couple nights with a guaranteed meal……
This is also more about the meme in general than the specific Fairy Tale case, but to think that no one deserves redemption is just frankly an extremely shitty way of thinking.
Not what I said but sure you can keep forgiving the most unforgivable characters in fiction if you want I guess.
It’s more why get hung up on a specific example? Vegeta did far worse and yet he’s a fan favorite, so why is Gajeel so bad?
Also, as I stated it’s more to do with the meme than the specific case someone brought up, everyone can be deserving of redemption, not everyone will agree obviously, but to say that some people don’t deserve it only speaks volumes of your character.
Some people don’t deserve redemption.
anime fans have a nasty tendency to ship the most absolutely toxic, nonsensical, garbage pairs. That includes the creators.
Japanese entertainment and good ethics don’t really get along. Case in point: Endwalker.
You’re now the second commenter piling on as if this type of thing only happens with anime and anime fans.
Well in real life people change, so it’s weird to call it out as this weird thing that shouldn’t be happening.
I’m perfectly on board with redemption arcs. They can make for some of the best character development.
But Gajeel didn’t change. He didn’t have a redemption arc. His past actions are never confronted in any way whatsoever. His allegiance simply does a 180, and at no point is it even suggested that he has changed or grown as a person.
In fact the series makes a point of him being the “bad boy” of the group, one who is quick to anger, violent and abusive.
And then he’s paired off with one of his past assault victims? Nauseating.
He had one of the required dragon powers they needed didn’t they? Unless I am misremembering they had no option but to work with him, and during that time he did significantly change, although kept the bad boy vibe. He even saved them a few times.
I really don’t see his arc being much different than someone’s like Vegeta.
Did he though? What makes you think that when he flies off the handle, he wouldn’t still beat people to near death and crucify them first, and ask questions later?
Vegeta is slightly better, but not by much. Mostly because his behaviour is somewhat more believable, as long as you’re imaginative enough to make up his off-screen self-improvement process for yourself.
Redemptions need to be earned. They do not work if the author just goes, “they’re a good guy now”.
I need to see the way the character thinks change, in a believable process with logical progress that I can comprehend.
Pulled from the internet, but yes.
One of the best examples of this is Gajeel. After Phantom Lord’s disbandment, he’s sitting alone in silence until Makarov comes and talks to him, asking him who he really wants to be and what he believes his future holds for him. Makarov offers him a place in Fairy Tail, and when Gajeel reminds him he’s the one who attacked and crucified the three guild members, Makarov’s face darkens and he still expresses clear hatred for this crime. Makarov clearly states that he still hasn’t forgiven him for this, but he can’t just let Gajeel wander in darkness and walk down a worse path knowing he could’ve helped him. And when he joins the guild, everyone is immediately hostile. Almost none of them accept him, and Shadow Gear later confront him and begin attacking Gajeel, until Laxus joins in and blasts him with lightning. But Gajeel accepts this punishment and does nothing to defend himself, allowing them to get their anger out. Here, he acknowledges his crimes and has to make a genuine effort to redeem himself, which he does in the following arcs.
Sometimes you need to read a little between the lines and look at how they do act differently, but similarly. It’s there, you can also choose to see that they haven’t changed, that’s the great thing about narratives, leaves a lot to interpretation.
Reminds me of Negan.
Redemption arc that knocked it out of the park.
So, from a meta perspective, no real people died or were harmed. And the things real people get from a story are not a direct one to one analog to what goes on in a story.
Stories let people process things without actually having to participate in them. The fictional characters are not real. The person reading is, and generally filters what they read through a lifetime of experiences, picking and choosing what to integrate into themselves. Watching media or reading books and liking things doesn’t turn you into a bad person simply by exposure.
It’s true a story can spread a dialogue, but acting like someone is a terrible sinner guilty of the most horrifying thought crimes because they like the bad guy in a story isn’t really different in my mind that someone religious peddling nonsense like you’ll go to hell if you merely think a thought that isn’t in line with a holy book.
I think sometimes people raised in religious homes with all that guilt about thinking sinful things stop going to church, but sort of copy and paste the moral thought crime bullshit onto random things and pick that up as their replacement zealotry because it feels familiar.
I see it happening a lot in discussions of media with darker content.
I agree, though I also think there’s a discussion to be had about society’s obsession with punishment over anything else, and how sometimes it’s okay to let go of the past and appreciate that someone has become a better person and is working to attone for that they did and do good things from that point onwards, which is overall better for the world as a whole than them being forced to suffer endlessly for their past actions for the sake of vindication or revenge. If you’re going to take the stance that someone can have a moral debt they must be forced to pay, then you have to likewise acknowledge that there must be a point at which it can be paid. If you try to claim that some things can never be made up for and thus some moral debts can never be repaid, then that only highlights the problem with that sort of reasoning. Because if someone takes a life then saves a life, and you claim that one is not enough to make up for the other, then you’re essentially treating life 1 as more valuable than life 2. And what if they take 100 lives but save 1000? Can human lives even be stacked up against each other like that to say which group has more “value” than the other? That’s the paradox of a moral debt, something can not simultaneously be priceless and yet also not hold enough value to balance the scale against itself at the same time.
In real life this can be complicated further because it can be hard to judge whether someone has truly learned from their mistakes and genuinely changed their ways, but in a fictional story you often get to see for sure that the character truly is sincere. So to tie that in to what you said, just because a viewer/reader is capable of accepting a character’s redemption in a fictional setting, where they are 100% certain that the former villain has had a change of heart and feels bad and will continue to do good things into the future, that doesn’t mean it’s a moral failing on the audience’s part. But it’s also worth noting that being willing to give someone a chance to improve themselves and grow as a person instead of demanding their eternal damnation and punishment isn’t a moral failing either even outside of fiction.
Agreed 100%. I think it’s a combination of that and a severe lack of media literacy. I don’t know if there’s a real name for it, but what I think of as sort of internet neo-Puritanism is a driving force behind people being extremely uncomfortable with media that isn’t a morality play with clearly delineated good and bad guys, where the bad guys always suffer. Like, we had that, it was called the Hayes Code and it was terrible.
hilarious how this guy became a meme. I hope he earns at least $1 every time someone posts a picture of his trying-so-hard-to-stay-awake face on the internet.
Just use the Dragonballs to revive them
Vegeta allowing himself to be consumed by Babidi and immediately commiting an act of terrorism:
Vegeta on his way back to Earth from the afterlife flying past the souls of the people he killed 2 hours ago still waiting in line to talk to King Yemma
The village of Nameks that Vegeta massacred, including children. And the planet of bug people he killed on his way to Earth with Nappa.
He didn’t even become actually “good” until after he kills himself. Never atoned AFAIK
Teal’c.
Teal’c was always willing to pay for what he did in his past evident in Cor-ai. I don’t know if I would classify him as a villain. His whole backstory basically consists of him being trained by Bra’tac to take down the false gods
Tealc was a soldier/slave just mostly obeying orders to survive. He jumped at the chance to rebel.
Reminds me of Sylar from Heros. Man killed a lot of people. Like, a lot. If memory serves, he became a “hero” in the last 10 minutes of the last episode.
Helped a lot that he’s hot.
Mrw I’m one of the dozens of children Orochimaru killed:
Leaf village be like “Welcome back to the village Sasuke Uchiha, man who was a member of three different terrorist organisations, attempted to assassinate every world leader at once, and was complicit in the kidnapping, experimentation, and murder of children for several years! We’re all weirdly ok with this.”
I absolutely love her character and her S5 arc, but Catra from SPOP be like
Even Adora herself has a trail of bodies behind her if you assume she wasn’t a new recruit with the horde!
I don’t think so, her first irl mission was supposed to be the mission on Elberon where she and Catra went their separate ways, Adora was horrified in what was happening.
Yes she was promoted to force captain, but Catras first mission was after she was made force captain in leou of Adora escaping the horde.
I don’t remember it ever being explicitly mentioned that they don’t have first hand battle experience, I guess it’s time for yet another rewatch 😋
I don’t think it’s explicitly mentioned, I’m just mainly going off that they are cadets, and Adoras horrified expression indicating that she has never done this before.
Also yesss another rewatch! There’s a YT channel called five by five takes who make amazing SPOP video essays I highly recommend them if you have not seen them all already.
Thank you Fred Johnson!
Fred Johnson is such a great character. The Expanse writers absolutely nailed him in the books as he puts everything into atonement with the Belters. I need to read the Fred Johnson short story soon
This is why there’s that trope where the bad guy gets killed in the process of, or just after, getting redeemed. So the story can have its cake and not have to deal with any of the icky justice afterwards. How jarring would it be to have the bad guy turn around, save the day, and then the heroes still kill them or drag them off to a trial for their crimes? So justice has to be meted out by fate rather than having to complicate our heroes.
How jarring would it be to have the bad guy turn around, save the day, and then the heroes still kill them or drag them off to a trial for their crimes?
I’d love to see that in a story!
RDR2 in a nutshell
I read that as R2D2 and was just like “…wut”
I read that as R2D2, accepted the crimes, but was trying to figure out when the hell he was put on trial for them
