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Awful/poorly earned redemption arcs
- Thread starter DragonSJG
- Start date
No, which is why Orochimaru isn't completely absolved and is watched 24/7.
orochimaru from Naruto- murdered and tested on children stole bodies but says a few things during a war and ends up forgiven allowed to live a life instead being murdered
Orochimaru isn't redeemed though. He's just too useful to kill. He's basically Mayuri from Bleach by the end of the series into Boruto. An extremely useful but evil scientist working for the government.
the classic :
I feel like these are bad takes too but for different reasons. If Sasuke didn't do awful things then there'd be nothing he needed redemption for. (Sasuke's crimes are also really small in comparison to other villains that were redeemed. ) Sasuke also doesn't get redeemed at the end of the Naruto series. That's ljust when Sasuke starts his redemption journey not the end product.
But by the time of Boruto, we've seen Sasuke do enough good things to feel that his redemption is earned.
The issue with Sasuke is that he drags Naruto's character down because there's not enough good story reasons for why Naruto wants to redeem Sasuke.
Does he even have an arc? He gets a crush on Rey, tries to win her over, fails... and then his mom possesses his soul and kills the bad part of it? Is that what happened? The only times he doesn't pick the evil path before then is when it's directly against someone he loves (Rey or Leia).
Other than Darth Vader and Kylo Ren...
Yeah, not too keen on the door being left open for some sort of spin-off movie focused on him either.
NGL, it would be an understatement to say he got off light for the things his Urizen half did in DMC5 (even with his V half gradually deteriorating while helping Dante and Nero, even with Nero getting to beat his ass after growing a new arm to replace the one his own dad ripped off earlier). It's a lot a fun playing the game as him, more than every other character in it I'd say, but it sure wouldn't be a good idea to play DMC5 for the story.
To be fair, that stuff is just a filler gag. They also made Orochimari be a waitress and bartender for those episodes for the laughs.
You see in Boruto that Orochimaru isn't actually allowed in the village without first disguising himself. He can't actually just walk around the village like that.
A literal terrorist that killed a hokage wtf
orochimaru from Naruto- murdered and tested on children stole bodies but says a few things during a war and ends up forgiven allowed to live a life instead being murdered
Who also helped save everyone and now just chills at home being best dad, I'll allow it... Same for Sasuke, trash character but enough time has past and adult Sasuke is actually good.
I'm not even sure anymore they really tried to redeem him. It's all so bad, they even made him worse retroactively regarding previous games. They did him dirty big time.
Like practically every villain towards the end of Kingdom Hearts 3.
They all go "Oopsie poopsie, no hard feelings right? Hopefully I'll see you around now we're all cool." before disappearing.
They all go "Oopsie poopsie, no hard feelings right? Hopefully I'll see you around now we're all cool." before disappearing.
Tell that to all the innocent ninjas both of these clowns killed
like he killed so many people and in Florida lmao. he would realistically have a quadruple death sentence at this point.
Those aren't really redemption arcs. They just get a little humanization at the end before they die so you can feel bad and then move on.
There is no such thing as innocent ninja. Ninjas are trained assassins and soldiers. That's like saying innocent assassins/soldiers.
Orochimaru's actually killed civilians though.
Sasuke killed like 8 security samurai warriors and a spy following him. Gaara's killed more innocents and people in general than Sasuke has. Everything else Sasuke has done is attempted & failed or being an asshole with his words.
I love the show to death, and I know it's about the redeemer (Steven) and not the redeemed, but they really flash past a lot of evil shit the Diamonds had done to get to the resolution.
I genuinely don't think they were redeemed or forgiven. They're the regressive (biological) family members that Steven has to confront, and he forces them to change what they're doing. He doesn't try to get close to them, they don't truly understand, but they stop hurting the universe, and Steven goes on to help others live outside the diamonds' rule. A lack of vengeance on the protagonist's part doesn't necessarily equate to redemption, or "karma Houdini" situations.
As much as they deserved to be destroyed, it's important to not focus on the punishment and instead carrying out restorative justice as much as possible. As often as real life doesn't allow such a focus, teaching that lesson as something to strive for is valuable.
I hope I'm wrong about this in a year, but
100%. Sylvanas has been a mess for yeaaaaaars.
The issue is everyone forgive him way too quickly, with sakura hapily marriying him even though he tried to kill her 2 times without a care
redemption is good and i'm happy when they try to do it in a good manner, the way they did with sasuke is not imo
afaik i didn't watch boruto so it's good if they adresses that, and i can't judge that one... but still...
What did Leia do, then? Cause Kylo before and after that moment is super different.
oh yeah, sorry, is just that i never have seen the "leia healed kylo's soul" thing and i was like huh?
but yeah, i think is mostly, Leia calling out to him and he reflecting on things.
because honestly, the arc is kinda weak already, Leia actually doing something other than reaching out to him would make the arc even weaker.
"Nearly killed me and YouTube'd it, then later successfully killed my captain along with all the other people left dead in your wake? No biggie, here's some secret missions for you because surely only your mom was to blame for all you did."
I had no idea what they were thinking with any of that.
Let's see, another for the thread... I could mention Mira from Zero Time Dilemma, but that would suggest that there was even an arc as opposed to just COMPLETELY IGNORING EVERYTHING SHE DID, UP TO AND INCLUDING THE START OF THE ZERO ESCAPE SERIES BEING HER FAULT.
I don't know if I would consider murder a small crime. He might not have done as many bad things as some others, but he still did some unforgivable shit. Zuko never killed anybody. I also feel like it's a bit of a cheat to use Boruto as an example of Sasuke earning his redemption. In the main Naruto story it's not earned and is most definitely brushed aside and by the time he's less psycho in Boruto years have passed and we don't actually get to see him earn his redemption
Hence the legendary "Sorry" panel
Ugh, I hated that. This dude killed your "family" then you invite him to the cookout? Like, what?
Hiromi Shiota from Assassination Classroom
The mother of Nagisa, Hiromi is revealed to be incredibly abusive towards her son in an attempt to live through a new life by denying his gender and forcing him to look like a girl. Before the series, her husband leaves the family because he could no longer deal with her abusive nature. After a meeting with a disguised Korosensei goes south, she drugs Nagisa and forces him to burn down the Class E building in a vain attempt to get him back onto the main campus. After Nagisa takes down an assassin, everything suddenly is all hunky-dory and Hiromi is forgiven after all that... Hell, she even hooks back up with her husband at the end (granted, after Korosensei talked to the dude, but seriously...)
I remember thinking to myself by the final episode that Catra doesn't seem like she would be capable of functioning as a person without Adora, and I didn't like that whatsoever. She wasn't finalized as a reformed character, and was too excessively shitty to other people for me to feel like her "redemption" was earned at all. Just gets the girl and it's all good, I guess.
Worst horse.
This show is for kids... Lol let's teach them to hold grudges!
I otherwise agree with a lot of the answers in this thread, but can't help but laugh a little when a show called "Friendship is Magic" gets scrutinized for its overwhelmingly positive morals.
I hope I'm wrong about this in a year, but
I'll be more surprised if she doesn't get redeemed. So ready to witness this potential trainwreck of a redemption arc.
Gonna join the chorus on Darth Vader and Kylo Ren. Interestingly I feel like plenty of people who had a visceral reaction to Kylo's turn never questioned Vader's - says something about how we're more willing to take movies at face value as children, when I imagine many of us saw the original trilogy.
Haven't seen him mentioned yet, so here's my go-to nerd rant.
Snape is fucking trash. Garbage person. Yes, he works for the good guys and is revealed to have been a double agent while working for Voldemort. I appreciate grey morality - like yeah, you have this terrible person who still believes in the right things and, at least when it comes to the big, broad scope political issues has a functional moral compass. Cool! In fact I think HP generally does this pretty well in the opposite direction, such as in Book Five where the kids accuse Dolores Umbridge of being a Death Eater, which Sirius laughs off because "the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters." (Ironically, also undercut when Umbridge starts working for the Death Eater-controlled government, but neither here nor there)
Where I think the books miss the mark in this case is that after Snape is revealed to have been working for Dumbledore all along, he is completely white knighted by the narrative. Harry names his fucking child after him. Harry finds out that don't worry, Snape also hated Wizard Hitler, and suddenly it's "omg bravest man I ever knew," like fuck off. Setting aside that Snape's motivations were purely selfish (he only switched after Voldemort killed Harry's mom, an action Snape deliberately enabled in exchange for a token promise from Voldemort that he wouldn't kill Lily), Snape never reformed. He still held a life-long grudge against Harry over a schoolyard rivalry with Harry's dad and an unrequited crush on Harry's mom (which he also blew by calling her a mudblood). Like what fucking chutzpah do you have to get this kid's parents killed and remind him on a near-daily basis how much his dad sucked when he was his age? He was also indirectly responsible for what happened to Neville's parents by the same logic, and wouldn't you know it, he was a monster to Neville too. Ron also lost family to the Death Eaters. Hermione is practically an expy for Lily and faces similar challenges (geeky, compassionate, Muggle-born discrimination), and Snape 100% enables all of it.
Like goddamn, nothing upsets me more than someone who abuses their authority simply to make life harder for vulnerable people, and Snape embodies that. Fuck Snape.
Springing off the DBZ thread, this is one thing I often see Dragon Ball accused of where I think it does a pretty good job in general - Piccolo and Vegeta become part of the gang overtime more out of practicality, but they actually have to work to be officially considered "good." One of the most real conversations in all of DB happens when Vegeta asks Piccolo (a fellow reformed villain) if he can expect to meet Goku in Heaven. Piccolo flat-out tells him no, Vegeta is heading straight to Hell and one good deed isn't going to change that. Vegeta, to his credit, doesn't let this dissuade him from giving up his life, and only gets a second chance after Gohan and Gotenks both fail to defeat Buu and Other World is desperate for fighters.
One last minor one:
Biff gets off way too easy for assaulting Marty's mom. Flash forward to 1985 and Biff is a loser detailing Marty's dad's car, so like fine, I guess he got his comeuppance. It always just struck me as odd how George and Lorraine laugh him off as some harmless prankster, with Lorraine even saying if it wasn't for Biff, she and George would have never fallen in love. Which... technically true! But what an odd thing to say!
Also an interesting example because we see plenty of other different versions of Biff in the other timelines who are far more irredeemable, and it's like... it's still the same guy as the frumpy, 1985A Biff. You know he's still capable of doing those things. But judged purely by his actions, canon Biff is more just kind of a lame asshole.
Haven't seen him mentioned yet, so here's my go-to nerd rant.
Snape is fucking trash. Garbage person. Yes, he works for the good guys and is revealed to have been a double agent while working for Voldemort. I appreciate grey morality - like yeah, you have this terrible person who still believes in the right things and, at least when it comes to the big, broad scope political issues has a functional moral compass. Cool! In fact I think HP generally does this pretty well in the opposite direction, such as in Book Five where the kids accuse Dolores Umbridge of being a Death Eater, which Sirius laughs off because "the world isn't divided into good people and Death Eaters." (Ironically, also undercut when Umbridge starts working for the Death Eater-controlled government, but neither here nor there)
Where I think the books miss the mark in this case is that after Snape is revealed to have been working for Dumbledore all along, he is completely white knighted by the narrative. Harry names his fucking child after him. Harry finds out that don't worry, Snape also hated Wizard Hitler, and suddenly it's "omg bravest man I ever knew," like fuck off. Setting aside that Snape's motivations were purely selfish (he only switched after Voldemort killed Harry's mom, an action Snape deliberately enabled in exchange for a token promise from Voldemort that he wouldn't kill Lily), Snape never reformed. He still held a life-long grudge against Harry over a schoolyard rivalry with Harry's dad and an unrequited crush on Harry's mom (which he also blew by calling her a mudblood). Like what fucking chutzpah do you have to get this kid's parents killed and remind him on a near-daily basis how much his dad sucked when he was his age? He was also indirectly responsible for what happened to Neville's parents by the same logic, and wouldn't you know it, he was a monster to Neville too. Ron also lost family to the Death Eaters. Hermione is practically an expy for Lily and faces similar challenges (geeky, compassionate, Muggle-born discrimination), and Snape 100% enables all of it.
Like goddamn, nothing upsets me more than someone who abuses their authority simply to make life harder for vulnerable people, and Snape embodies that. Fuck Snape.
Springing off the DBZ thread, this is one thing I often see Dragon Ball accused of where I think it does a pretty good job in general - Piccolo and Vegeta become part of the gang overtime more out of practicality, but they actually have to work to be officially considered "good." One of the most real conversations in all of DB happens when Vegeta asks Piccolo (a fellow reformed villain) if he can expect to meet Goku in Heaven. Piccolo flat-out tells him no, Vegeta is heading straight to Hell and one good deed isn't going to change that. Vegeta, to his credit, doesn't let this dissuade him from giving up his life, and only gets a second chance after Gohan and Gotenks both fail to defeat Buu and Other World is desperate for fighters.
One last minor one:
Biff gets off way too easy for assaulting Marty's mom. Flash forward to 1985 and Biff is a loser detailing Marty's dad's car, so like fine, I guess he got his comeuppance. It always just struck me as odd how George and Lorraine laugh him off as some harmless prankster, with Lorraine even saying if it wasn't for Biff, she and George would have never fallen in love. Which... technically true! But what an odd thing to say!
Also an interesting example because we see plenty of other different versions of Biff in the other timelines who are far more irredeemable, and it's like... it's still the same guy as the frumpy, 1985A Biff. You know he's still capable of doing those things. But judged purely by his actions, canon Biff is more just kind of a lame asshole.
I thought Kylo would be in the OP.
My Queen. Thank god the suckers at Blizz bend for us Syl stans.
I hope I'm wrong about this in a year, but
My Queen. Thank god the suckers at Blizz bend for us Syl stans.
Maybe I'm not current on the manga because he looks like he was going that way?
I hope im not the only one that thinks this but.... I found how DMC5 framed Dante's wanting to kill Vergil as "petty sibling rivarly between brotehers " really wierd. Like This man has killed alot of people and didnt feel once sorry for it . Dante was absolutely right to feel the way he did to wanted to end Vergil for good.
He's a ninja. He assassinates people. This is what ninja are supposed to do. In terms of actions, the only difference between Kakashi and Sasuke is that Sasuke isn't under a government's control whereas Kakashi is. We've seen Kakashi straight up murder ninja in his days as an ANBU especially when they seemed willing to give up. Naruto's probably murdered his fair share of ninjas too.
The only evil things that Sasuke has succeeded in doing is killing soldiers which makes him no different than any other ninja. Now if he had actually cut down civilians, it'd be a different story. Kishimoto made sure to try to keep Sasuke's hands as clean as possible.
And it depends on whether you mean the manga or anime since the anime does show us the beginning of Sasuke's redemption and it finishes off Sasuke's story with him redeeming people himself, taking down slaveowners and freeing slaves.
It's hard to call Zuko's story a redemption story because there's not really much he needed to be redeemed for. It feels more like a self-discovery story.
Is he redeemed, though? (Haven't played SE)
I don't think he became a "good guy". Nero and Dante just don't care that he's bad guy, because family.
Aizen from Bleach.
"We don't forgive you, King. But goddammit you're strong as fuck."
I love to pick apart Bleach as much as everyone else, but I don't think the events surrounding Aizen counted as a redemption arc during that whole Quincy thing.
IIRC, the shinigami just bring him out to use essentially as a weapon against the Quincy, and he went along with it because he was.....bored? But after doing all of one thing, he's right back in his chair and sealed underground. Not long enough to have redeemed shit lol
I agree that Vader's turn, given his murderous ways in Empire, perhaps could seem maybe a little bit unearned in RotJ, and then the PT came and made it downright insane that this dude ever got "redeemed". Like, he's not a has-been, he's a never-was.
However--I think the ending of Empire really laid the groundwork for Vader's change in behavior in RotJ. He is reaching out to Luke in earnest, begging him to come back. He is so put-off emotionally because of Luke, his son, that he can't even be bothered to choke out Admiral Piett at the end after the Falcon escapes.
