#The changing of your behavior. Checking yourself. Admitting that your victims dont have to forgive you.

[bonefall]

Is there a cat in cannon who got a good death who you think didn't deserve it? Especially if they committed crimes?

Tom the Wifebeater and his redemption death. No question. It's not even close.

Not only do I reject to the "redemption death" on the grounds of it being Tom the Wifebeater who is bullying others until his dying breath, even taunting Thunder about Turtle Tail is dead and the kits must be very torn up about it, but I reject "redemption through death" entirely. I don't like it in stories. It's a theme I deeply object to.

And again it's fucking wild that every time a character is a father, even if they are a wifebeater or a child abuser, the writers think that it bestows a glimmer of goodness into them which every abused child is forced to appreciate and cry about. Breezepelt, Thunder, Tallstar, Tom's children, all of them forced to reconcile and admit how much they wuv their papa.

Abusive dads in WC regularly get redemption deaths, too. Clear Sky dies saving his grandchild, Sandgorse died saving a rando in a tunnel, Tom the Wifebeater saving his daughter.

But Tom the Wifebeater is the worst example of it. Hands down.

#Though I will say it's not exactly a matter of a crime being 'too bad to come back from' #ANYONE can change. #But these ones DONT. #These fathers are *recontextualized* by their deaths and their victim is pushed into rethinking their anger towards them #IF they even had anger towards them at all. All of Tom's victims were too dead to have those feelings because DOTC hates women #And his children are destroyed when they learn that the guy they met once who kidnapped them and got their mom killed died #And that's why I generally hate redemption deaths. By their very nature they don't display what's so HARD about accountability #The changing of your behavior. Checking yourself. Admitting that your victims dont have to forgive you. #It's hard work! #It's painful sometimes! It's worth it but it's not always easy! #It's also its own reward. Your relationships improve. You feel better. You understand yourself. #but no. a redemption death is the end. You never really have to face what you did. #And I hate the way that lots of storytellers think it means it undoes the violence they did #IT does nothing. They're gone. The victims continue. #Where are my stories with RESENTMENT for that? How DARE you die for me?? How dare you run away from the hole you cut into my flesh??? #You think the end of you becomes the missing piece of me? #Awful. No thankz #Bone babble #Tom the Wifebeater #child abuse #cw child abuse #tw child abuse