#the narratives wtire themselves

[ad-write-it]

Ranting On Villains and Redemption

An important thing to recognize in wtiring is that every character is created to suit the story that you, as the writer/animator/artist, desires to tell. While the ever-increasing trend of redeemable villains is nice to see, it’s also lead to some confusion in several creative circles.

I’ve seen people take strong and often nonsensical stances when it comes to the redemption of certain villains. People will say mass murderers or despicable crime lords didn’t actually do anything wrong because they were exposed to a side of that antagonist they resonated with. Or they’ll claim that doing anything wrong at all ever only makes you a horrible person beyond redemption, a perspective I will now coin as the ‘Twitter Approach to Morality’. Both of these examples are obviously at the extreme ends of the discussion, and are almost definitely inconsistent in their application, but are important conclusions to consider.

I think a large portion of the origin of takes like these is that there seems to be a seperate but parallel trend of trying to remake old villains and letting us see their perspective on things. Primarily Disney villains, suspiciously enough.

I’ll just come out from the get-go and spoil my approach to the discussion: not every villain needs to be a complex character. If you want to tell a simple good-vs-evil story with a one-dimensional antagonist, that’s absolutely fine. A villain doesn’t have to be deep or complex to be well-written, what matters is that they’re consistent with the world and themselves and are good at fulfilling their purpose in the story.

Sauron isn’t a particularly deep or complicated character, his motivations are that he wants to control and corrupt Middle-Earth, yet he is one of the most memorable and imposing villains in both cinema and literature due to the nature of how he does it. Cruella De Vil is even less complex, but is astoundingly memorable for how wicked and insane she was, in both the original animated feature and the 90′s live-action adaptation. You don’t need to know the tragic childhood or backstory for every single villain, sometimes characters are just evil.

Obviously simplicity isn’t the only correct approach, you can make a character as simple or as complex as you want, there will always be an audience for it. And the same goes for the heroes in all honesty, you don’t need oomplex characters to make a good story, you just need good writing. Don’t pressure yourself into writing large intertwining character-driven narratives before you’re ready for it.

But to go back to the title of this post, when a villain is complex on either a moral or character level, should they be redeemed?

I’m going to be daring and say no, they shouldn’t always be redeemed. It’s all dependant on the story being told and the desires of the author, but a just because someone wears their humanity on their sleeve doesn’t inherently mean they should get a redemption in your story. Even sympathetic villains can go too far, to the point that they need to be stopped above all else. If your character is headed in that direction, either divert them from that course through some means that isn’t contrived, or commit to it and let your audience taste the frustration that comes with seeing enjoyable characters falling to their own choices. Don’t shy away from that path, embrace it.

On another note, if you want to communicate that an antagonist is beyond empathy or redemption... don’t make them do justified, good things and frame it as if they did wrong. There’s only one example of this happening that I can think of off the top of my head, and it was John Walker from the first season of the Falcon and the Winter Soldier series. Whether it was due to pure ineptitude or a concerning approach to ethics, the writing staff on that show tried everything in their book to make the audience believe that John Walker was evil without him ever actually committing to any evil actions. They could have had him save 5,000 puppies from a burning building, but played villanous music over it so you know him doing that was a bad thing.

Don’t do that. Make the writing support the intent, you have the power. You are literally the god of the world you’re creating, if it doesn’t fit your narrative either change your narrative or scrap it and start over. If you want a villain to be irredeemable, make them genuinely irredeemable. Make them manipulative, sadistic and cruel. They can either relish in how evil they are, or be purely driven to want everyone to experience misery.

Back to redemption, another viable option I rarely see explored is this: have your protagonist forgive the villain to their face, and have that in turn lead to a redemption. This concept has powerful, powerful potential and I don’t think I’ve ever actually seen it executed in any stories I’ve come across. I could have just forgotten it, but it’s still so incredibly infrequent that it deserves more exploration.

Imagine the antagonist on his knees after a long battle, bruised and battered just as much as the hero, their plans dismantled to the point that regaining any of their former power would take years. They are functionally and physically defeated, and instead of killing or imprisoning them, the hero forgives them and walks away calmly. With the right amount of character work, that could leave an astounding impact.

Closing thoughts: villains are what the story wants them to be. They don’t have to be complex, they don’t have to be one-dimensional, they don’t have to be redeemable, and they don’t have to be beyond saving. Do what’s right for the story you want to tell. And as long as it’s internally consistent and well-presented, you’ve done your job.