: Re: What makes a character irredeemable? Let's look at two characters who are generally considered to be iredeemable: The Diamond Authority (from Steven Universe): The extremely childish leaders of

@Smith147

Vote Up Vote Down

Do you mean unredeemable, or utterly loathsome characters with no redeeming traits? Because with gradual character development and reveal of hidden depth, even a character like Joffrey or the ones you listed can be redeemed in the audience's eyes, see a fanfic like Purple Days.

The trick to making a character utterly loathsome - which I suspect may be actually what you mean - is to make it personal. They should hit the audience where it hurts, and go after the ones the audience sympathizes with. They should do things like slut-shame a person who was raped (the victim should be a character the audience was already familiar with and liked to really work). Remember that things like mass murder are on too big a scale for people to remember, a million is a statistic and all that jazz. A bully can be more loathsome than a mass murderer because that is personal, it is something an audience might know in real life and take personally

This is why John Wick's dog exists: to suck your heart in and get killed senselessly to tell you who to hate. It does not have to be sadistic, the crime can be indifferent, done as part of some bigger picture, like the Incubators in Madoka Magica or Cauldron in Worm; both have some grand reason for their actions and do not put much thought into those they step on. However, the villain needs to not regret their actions, they must hurt like someone steps on a bug and the reason should be too big-picture to be easily understandable. This is partly why Incubators are less often redeemed than Cauldron, because one is impressed on why Cauldron's goal is noble whereas the Incubators' goal is less fleshed-out and less relevant to the audience.

Another way to put it is that the action works best if it is either petty, callous for the greater good or self-righteous. It helps if the person doing the wrong cannot convince of anything wrong. For example, the Shadow Stalker in Worm, who is often viewed as having a "might makes right" mindset and is roughly speaking one of the most hated characters in the series, hated worse than the guy who does sex trafficking and the Neo-Nazis. The Neo-Nazis are hated worse than the guy who does sex trafficking because Nazis are better ingrained in people's consciousness as evil.

It is important to A) never let the character's actions turn into black comedy, as funny characters are not hated so much, and B) be cautious about giving characters any kind of sex appeal or anything that can be seen as belligerent sexual tension since that invites the shippers - see Draco from Harry Potter. If they have sex appeal, have them use it to hurt sympathetic characters in ways that enrage the audience, that said there is reason evil is ugly because it is easy to hate evil.

(0)

Login to post a comment!