Redemption - scattered thoughts

[beer_good_foamy]

There's been talk of redemption again in fandom, partly inspired by Mark Watches getting up to "Sanctuary". deird1 had a good post about it here, for instance.

And I just wanted to jot down some loose thoughts.

Now, on the one hand, I love a good redemption arc. It's why characters like Faith, Spike and for that matter Jed Bartlet and Bubbles are among my favourites on TV. The idea of forgiveness, of being a better person today than you were yesterday, of stupid mistakes or selfishness or ruthlessness not being a door that shuts in your face forever, is a powerful one. They've built religions around it for a reason. Stories about it can, when done right, be extremely cathartic. (Exactly what makes them work is a long story, possibly for a later post.)

On the other hand, I occasionally find myself sick to fucking death of atonement stories. Which is probably why characters like Lilah Morgan and Tony Soprano who openly reject it are also among my favourites on TV. Now, I'm not going to give any particular examples, partly because this is just a general musing, partly because I could go on for ages about both spectacularly failed redemption arcs and spectacular deliberate subversions of them, and partly because everyone in fandom draws the line in a different place and this post isn't about whether specific characters' actions can or should be forgiven. (Feel free to comment with examples if you want, though.)

But it seems to me that exactly because the narrative of the Hero Searching For Redemption is so engrained in us, appearing in every other story since Homer, it's easy for both writers and readers to get lazy or blasé about it. Redemption becomes an end in itself, a Get Out Of Jail Free card that the writers can play anytime they want simply by saying that they're playing it, which means that... well, especially in an ongoing story where you occasionally need to keep it fresh by adding new mistakes or atrocities for the hero to atone for, it's easy to get to one of these points (which are really just different sides of the same coin):

a) you get careless about why s/he* keeps making the same mistakes again and again, since the audience knows that s/he'll atone for them anyway. So whenever you need the story to have some extra catharsis, you have the hero do something s/he shouldn't, for which s/he then feels bad. In which case the question becomes, at what point does the hero become a complete monster who still keeps doing the things s/he feels sorry for? If the only person who benefits from said atonement is the atoner him/herself, who gets to feel good about the fact that at least s/he feels bad... is that really the point of the redemption narrative? (Actually, it may well be, but that's a different discussion.)

And on the other side:

b) If the Atoner needs to atone, then there must be something for them to atone for. Therefore, the more they have to atone for, the nobler they are. Therefore, while the horrible things they did may look horrible, they are in fact not only forgivable but even admirable - because without them, how could there be these powerful redemption stories that help us feel good? Except... once you've done this a couple of times, and the aforementioned laziness/blaseness sets in, it's easy for the story to shift from one about redemption to one that glorifies villainy and calls it redemption.

Again, the point I'm trying to make here definitely isn't REDEMPTION ARCS BAD. It's more like... um...

XANDER: And was there a lesson in all this huh? What did we learn about beer?
BUFFY: Foamy.
XANDER: Good, just as long as that's clear.

Yup. They're foamy. Tasty, thirstquenching, intoxicating, even necessary. But if you water them down too much, or consume a whole bunch of very similar ones in one sitting, they'll give you a headache and possibly double vision. And if you drink them from a broken bottle, they can even be outright harmful.

Sorry about that last metaphor. I'll go brood over that now.

Comments

[shipperx.livejournal.com]

The thing for me is that 'atonement' can't simply be brooding. Yes, reflection is good. Reflection is necessary. But there has to be more than navel-gazing for it to work for me. I think this is why one of the quite popular redemption arcs in Game of Thrones doesn't actually work too well for me. It's mostly belly-button gazing, which while a necessary component, doesn't really do it for me. On the other hand a different redemption story in those books works for me better because it's not intended to be redemption so much as fates retribution until there's a reaction. It has more suffering than brooding until there's will to act. The second works better for me than the first.

[smhwpf.livejournal.com]

Hmmmm... very interesting.

Redemption. Atonement. Repentance.

Redemption - Basically a payment, buying a slave their freedom, paying to get back your jewellery from the pawn shop - redeeming it. Metaphorically, it's what - or who - gives you the chance, which you take, to leave the path you're on, to escape. Or maybe one should say the process by which it comes about. In religious terms, God (or the PTB). As it plays out (in story or reality), very often a person or persons, an event, etc. So a good redemption story needs to give an interesting and believable train of events that brings the redeemed person to the point of redemption. A lazy redemption story goes for an easy trope - they're evil, but then someone loves them and they decide to become good. Why it would have been such a terrible idea for Lilah to have been redeemed. Why Spike's story is really good - it's a love story, but really twisted and counter-intuitive, and subverting a whole load of the tropes.

Repentance - metanoia, change of mind - when reality suddenly - or gradually - shifts in front of you and you see the universe and yourself in a completely different light. But there can be little repentances too, realizing that you've been barking up a wrong tree and need to change the way you approach something. For a good story, a) once again, needs to be believable, that everything that's happened to the character has led them up to the point of repentance. b) Needs to still be the same person afterwards, but seeing things differently.

Atonement - At-one-ment - making things right. Hmm, not sure about the factors that make a good or bad story here. Obviously lazy if it's too easy, if the consequences get forgotten about to quickly, or if it just becomes about point-soring, totting up enough good deeds to cancel out the bad.

No conclusions really, just adding some more ponderings!

[slaymesoftly.livejournal.com]

*snerk* Good points, all of them, even the broken bottles...

[shadowkat67.livejournal.com]

a) you get careless about why s/he* keeps making the same mistakes again and again, since the audience knows that s/he'll atone for them anyway. So whenever you need the story to have some extra catharsis, you have the hero do something s/he shouldn't, for which s/he then feels bad. In which case the question becomes, at what point does the hero become a complete monster who still keeps doing the things s/he feels sorry for? If the only person who benefits from said atonement is the atoner him/herself, who gets to feel good about the fact that at least s/he feels bad... is that really the point of the redemption narrative? (Actually, it may well be, but that's a different discussion.)

And on the other side:

b) If the Atoner needs to atone, then there must be something for them to atone for. Therefore, the more they have to atone for, the nobler they are. Therefore, while the horrible things they did may look horrible, they are in fact not only forgivable but even admirable - because without them, how could there be these powerful redemption stories that help us feel good? Except... once you've done this a couple of times, and the aforementioned laziness/blaseness sets in, it's easy for the story to shift from one about redemption to one that glorifies villainy and calls it redemption.

Very well put. And both explain quite neatly why Angel's redemption storyline never worked for me. It also explains my issues with Angel the Series and the Buffy/Angel comics.

I will give Bill Willingham credit for one thing - and one thing only,
his statement that removing a superhero's agency, making them responsible for horrible deeds, then giving their agency back and making them feel guilty for it - over and over and over again...sort of strikes him as the definition of evil. Why did the character allow it? Permitting someone to manipulate them continuously. And not taking full responsibility for it - isn't that evil too? How can you atone, if you don't consider yourself responsible? No, it wasn't me, it was that other guy who possessed me! ie. Hyena!Xander or Angelus, or Evil! Cordy or Dark!Willow.

What made Spike and Faith's stories work so well...was they didn't blame someone else. Spike blamed Spike. He didn't say...oh, I was soulless at the time. That was me. Even the trigger, he took responsibility for, stating - I let her manipulate me so I wouldn't have to feel the pain, wouldn't have to hurt. Angel never is self-aware enough to figure out that's what he as Angelus is doing, he's letting someone else manipulate him so he doesn't have to feel pain. Then mopes about it afterwards. With Spike and Faith - you see the moment of self-awareness. I screwed up. I must do something to change. Faith sends herself to prison. Spike gets a soul. Angel mopes.

[infinitewhale.livejournal.com]

Except... once you've done this a couple of times, and the aforementioned laziness/blaseness sets in, it's easy for the story to shift from one about redemption to one that glorifies villainy and calls it redemption.

It's sort of a Sequel-itis. Author completes one idea, but the story must continue...attempt to do it again because they have no new ideas. Do the old one again, but bigger and badder.

You only get one shot at it and there are lines that once crossed you can never go back. Like, say, ordering the murder of someone for being 'part of the problem'. That's a bold statement and no more stutter-steps are permitted after.

I don't care much for redemption stories. That's not to say I can't enjoy them but they must be a part of the overall character arc, not the whole story in and of itself. It's why I could never really get into Angel. It wasn't so much the character, it's just the setup never worked. The characters were great, but the whole redemption/shanshu deal...nah. I don't think Spike as a redemption story, actually. I think it's more of a progression and self discovery story. Maybe that's why I like it more than Angel's. Angel's come across as more a self-repression story.

[local-max.livejournal.com]

Nodding along -- I don't have much to add today. :)

[green-maia.livejournal.com]

Brilliant post, as always.

[penny-lane-42.livejournal.com]

Great post. I don't have a whole lot to say except: I agree.

Therefore, the more they have to atone for, the nobler they are. Therefore, while the horrible things they did may look horrible, they are in fact not only forgivable but even admirable - because without them, how could there be these powerful redemption stories that help us feel good?

I think a lot of times this overlaps with the dreaded Manpain, which is another reason why it grates so much.

I also am a big fan of people trying really, really hard to be good...and failing. I feel like we don't see that enough, but when we do, I love it.

[zanthinegirl.livejournal.com]

Fascinating post.

All I have to add is that, pretty much by definition, atonement is active. You can be "redeemed" without choosing to "atone". It's why I find say, Spike's journey so much more interesting and compelling than (though I love him) Angel's.

[boot-the-grime.livejournal.com]

Great points. Sometimes writers (*cough* Dark Horse *cough*) get too lazy with the "oh we can make the character do all sorts of fucked up things, we'll redeem him afterwards, like we did before". After a while, it becomes meaningless - the way that character deaths became meaningless on Heroes, since characters kept coming back and dying again and coming back.

As for stories that refuse to redeem characters - it can be brilliant, when the character just remains himself or himself and never wants redemption as in the examples you've mentioned. And then there's the example of a current supernatural show that did a brilliant story about a character whose only moment of redemption, if that's what it is, comes when he realizes that he has to die or he'll keep fucking up again and again and people will die as a result. (Even though the storyline might have been partially caused by actor's unavailability for the next season.)

Or it can be a complete disaster and Epic Fail, if writers panic over some fans' desire to see a character redeemed, and decide to do anti-redemption instead by making the character mu-ha-ha evil in a contrived way. (*cough* icon *cough*)

[frogfarm]

I love you and your posts because you say all the things I'm too lazy and dull-witted to think up.