[ SECRET POST #4333 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #4333 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

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Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 15 secrets from Secret Submission Post #620.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

Disagree.

But I don't think "people who can't be redeemed" is a matter of "how bad was the thing they did." There are some people who, when their warped worldview is challenged or undermined, will only double down. There are people who are so attached to their anger, or whose ego/identity depend on their awful values, who will refuse to consider alternatives.

There are a few - very few - characters whom I would look at and say.....no, *could* be redeemed, if they chose to try. But if you write them choosing to try, that in itself is an OOC/AU decision, and it's just not that character anymore.

There are characters, specifically, where the entire point of their arcs is that they have opportunities for redemption, and turn them aside. I think you could write a really interesting story about someone very similar who made a different crucial choice, but at that point, it's about a fundamentally different character.

In real life, you don't have that kind of outside perspective. You can't ever know all of someone's life and they don't have an "Arc". People can have strong defense mechanisms that erode over time, and I would never say for sure that a real person couldn't be redeemed.

eg, Eugene de Kock, basically the top death squad guy for apartheid south africa, has had really interesting interactions with the truth and reconciliation commission, and has tried to counsel young white supremacists in prison with him away from racist beliefs. (Source: A Human Being Died That Night, by Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela, the TRC psychologist who interviewed him over several months.)

But in fiction...I think a skilled enough writer can redeem a character who has done anything, but equally a skilled enough writer can create a character who can't be redeemed, because they can create a character who won't be redeemed.

[(Anonymous)]

excellently put, anon, and I agree.

if part of what defines a character's personality is that they fundamentally can't or won't turn aside from their path and the only way to give them a redemption plotline is to actually write them OOC so that they do make those choices, then it's not a case of skilled writing (or lack thereof in the character's original sense). in that sense it's the author wilfully bending characterisation in order to force the plot.

[kittydesade]

... yep this about sums it up *thumbs up*