: Re: How can you redeem an awful character, who hits close to home? There is a problem with a redemption arc: Anon is an incredibly powerful god with powers of mysterious origin. In the story,

@Murphy332

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Redemption is a powerful and uplifting theme. It connects with everybody because it shows that, even after bad choices and failures, we can still hope for a noble outcome.

There are many, many path to redemption, but the ones which interests you are the "good" ones. The ones where a "bad" protagonist goes back on the "good" side with it's redemption. I'll speak about only two path here: the gradual redemption, and the sudden one. The gradual redemption is when the baddy slowly learns better. The sudden one is when he turns his coat and decides he's switching team (or, changing point of view).
For the late one to work, though, this protagonist must have been good all along.

Take the Vader's example: he's a baddy, no question here. He's done awful stuff. Yet, the whole wholesomeness of his redemption arc is that he had good inside him all along. He didn't "switch side" as much as he went back where he belonged.

Good and evil are not binary choices. Of course, killing is bad, but what about killing Hitler? The difference is the light we shine on the actions. A bad guy who acts out of self interest is generally nonredeemable. A bad guy who acts because he has a greater goal in mind is different. He may be good at heart but using "bad" tactics to do what he wants.

See Thanos in the Infinity War and Endgame movies: in Endgame, he's going full "God complex". The scenario is thus telling the audience that he's nonredeemable, thus must be killed. In Infinity War, he's acting on values that we can identify to, yet in a manner which most people wouldn't put forward for these goals. We can respect that. If, somehow, somebody could have proven him wrong - or even if he had understood it this way by himself, he could have turned his coat and joined the "good" guys.

Even if your character is Lucifer himself, you can make the audience understand him and respect what he's doing. Even if it's awful, evil and everything.

The slow redemption arc is another animal entirely. Your bad guy can be as bad as you want at the beginning, yet still able of change. Gradual change. I'm pretty sure that you get this idea: through the story, small details slowly pile up and modify his comportment. There is no surprise in his change, because it's slow, yet this is a nice choice for a support character or a story where it's not the ending which matters most, but the way to get there. A good example of this kind of change would be the Nazi big brother from American History X.

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