Not Every Villain Needs (or Deserves) a Redemption Arc

Villains (or at least antagonists) are a necessary part of our stories. Heroes need something to fight against, and even when that something is a metaphor, or a concept, it usually needs to be personified in some way. Because while Star Wars is mainly about stopping fascism on a galactic scale, it's easier to think of it in terms of resisting one old sith lord flinging around force lightning and giving orders to space Nazis to blow up planets with his giant death beam.

Speaking of fashionably dressed bastards in black...

The issue that a lot of writers grapple with, though, is the idea of a villain redemption arc. Because it seems like most of us are dying to bend over backward to close our villain's past, and recruit them to Team Good Guy. And it's not that you shouldn't do that. Rather it's that you need to come to terms with who your villains are, what they've done, and how to keep telling their story without erasing their past impact.

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What a Villain Redemption Arc Is (And Isn't)

I led with Star Wars because it contains one of the best-known (and shortest) villain redemption arcs in pop culture. Darth Vader is a figure of iconic dread, and we spend every movie fearing him and what he represents. He is, in a very real sense, the dark path our protagonist wants to avoid going down. And being that evil reflection of what Luke is trying to become makes him taboo. However, just as Luke believes his father has goodness left in him, we too want to believe that.

And then it comes out at the clutch moment. Vader saves his son, murders the emperor (or so it seems), and then dies. He'd been on life support for decades, and he chose to let go in a final act of sacrifice. It's epic, operatic, and it is precisely the opposite of what a good villain redemption arc should be.

Changing your face takes time... and effort.

Star Wars gets the first part of this right. It gives us an iconic villain in the form of Vader, and it shows us some glimpses of who he once was (the prequels aren't part of this discussion, just the original three films). It gives us enough wiggle room as the audience to ask, "But what if he chose another path?"

This is extremely important. As we all know, good villains should have sensical (if not sympathetic) motivations for the things they do. We should be able to look at their actions, and even if we don't condone them, we understand how they got there. Whether it's the Phantom of The Opera's obsession with Christine, or the Punisher's one-man war on criminals, we can see why they chose the course of action they did. This rules out characters like General Kael from Willow, or the Kurgan from Highlander because they simply aren't given that crack in their villainous facade. All we see is bloodshed, greed, and a desire for dominance and death. There's no glimmer of gold beneath the black armor, there.

Where I would argue that Star Wars (and a lot of other series) fails, though, is that a redemption arc that ends with immediate death is not an arc; it's a moment. A villain cannot do the right thing one time then die, and have that single sacrifice undo all the bad things they did. It's something that takes time, energy, effort, and which should be expanded on over time. If you watch Mad Max: Fury Road you see how this can be done in under two hours with all the character development Nux goes through, and his final sacrifices to save the main characters (the motivation for the act now being to protect, rather than for some sort of toxic, self-aggrandizing idea of glory and martyrdom).

A better example of a long-term arc, though, can be found in the character of Prince Zuko in Avatar: The Last Airbender, or in the character of Nebula from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. In both cases we have an antagonist who has been doggedly following a protagonist with ill intent, whose mask begins to crack around the edges. In both cases we find characters who, despite their flaws, are acting out of pain, pride, desire for control, and to prove something, only to come to terms with who they are as time goes on. And once they have that moment, they don't just exit stage right... they hang around, become part of the ongoing story, and have to grow as characters into new roles. They stumble, make mistakes, and at least once or twice we see glimmers of who they used to be, and it makes it all the more triumphant when they manage to hold on to their new selves.

It Doesn't Count if They Don't Change

Another point that I feel should be made in this discussion is that if the villain does not change, but the situation alters around them, that doesn't count as a redemption arc. For those looking for examples, Dr. Doom remains a villain in most of his stories, even if he is helping the heroes in a given endeavor. Doom isn't turning over a new leaf, and he isn't trying to be a better or different person... it just so happens that his goals and the heroes' goals coincide in that moment, which makes an alliance more advantageous than antagonizing them.

While this can be a good place to start a redemption arc, usually by allowing the villain to win some respect from the heroes and to get that tingly feeling that comes with being part of a team and a good cause, it is not in and of itself a redemption arc. Much the same way as having the Punisher put supervillains in his crosshairs doesn't immediately make him a good guy... Frank's nature, and the actions he's taking, haven't changed in this situation, even if his targets have.

Faces change. War's still the same.

Changing situation, and altered circumstances, can do a lot to let us see villains (and anti-heroes) in a different, more relatable light. But they do not turn these characters into heroes, even if it makes them more palatable as protagonists.

Most of The Time You Should Let Your Villains BE Villains

Being a villain doesn't mean you're not a sympathetic character. It doesn't mean you lack depth, or that the audience isn't going to absolutely love you. It doesn't mean you don't have humanizing qualities that can add context for the things you're doing. Villains, in my experience, get a majority of the love (as well as the best lines) unless they are either bland, repugnant, or irredeemable... and sometimes even that's not enough to stop fans from falling in love with them.

But you don't have to apologize for them. You don't have to clean them up, or make them play nice with the good guys. You don't have to make every villain just a hero-in-waiting who needs the proper push to put them back on the right path. You can do that, and it can be a lot of fun both as a creator and as a fan to see it happen. But choose which villains you're doing this with carefully, and ask if it's really necessary. Because a lot of the time villains are most effective when they're just allowed to be villains.

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That's all for this week's Craft of Writing! For more of my work, check out my Vocal archive, or at My Amazon Author Page where you can find books like my cat noir novel Marked Territory, my sword and sorcery novel Crier's Knife, or my most recent short story collection The Rejects!

 

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