[ 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)]

I think you've mixed up redemption and repentance, or trying to apply the Christian concept of eternal redemption to secular life. Here's the thing with the Christian concept of "repent and be redeemed" -- it's supposed to be miraculous, i.e. impossible for anyone but God to achieve. That's what makes it special. It's what makes Christ "The Redeemer" in all caps. And it's something the person who seeks redemption only benefits from when they die. In both the religious and secular sense, redemption requires a beneficial act so powerful that it absolves the wrongdoer of their guilt. That is the actual definition of redemption, which is based on the Latin word for "to buy back." The redemptive act(s) outweigh the bad ones and buy back the penitent's good standing/innocence/what have you.

If someone has done something so evil that it can't be made up for or forgiven, then they cannot find redemption on Earth. I'm not qualified to say whether they'll find redemption elsewhere.

[(Anonymous)]

I think you've mixed up redemption and repentance

Swung by to say something like this--- because on the one hand you're right that "sincere repentance + efforts to make whatever amends to those you've wronged are possible + lasting behavior change" is different from, as you say, the Christian theological concept of "redemption" especially as applied to real people.

On the other hand, I'm inclined to argue that when talking about the fictional trope of a "redemption arc" for a character it's more likely to involve something like the former rather than actual divine intervention. (Heck, even in something like A Christmas Carol where there is actually some divine intervention involved, Scrooge doesn't actually get a do-over; he has to rethink his future behavior and change it, but the stuff he's done in the past does not just go away.) And maybe we all should be more precise in our language and talk about "repentance arcs" or "atonement arcs" instead.

[(Anonymous)]

But Scrooge actually gets a true redemption arc. No, his past doesn't go away. But, he's forgiven by the people he's wronged, reconnects with his family and becomes a fully integrated pillar of the community. (Also, he's no longer damned to eternal torment, so he gets the supernatural win as well.) This works, because at the end of the day, Scrooge's crimes were greed and indifference to the suffering of others. Hurting people was the side affect of his actions, not the goal. Also, everyone we personally see him hurt either has it made up to them later or lives happily ever after without him.

In fiction, a redemption arc doesn't need to require divine intervention, but it does need to end with the audience being on board with the whole "It's okay -- he's good now" thing by the end of the arc. I don't agree that all villains are redeemable in the hands of a good writer, at least not within whatever story is being told. A villain can be unrepentantly evil, and making them redeemable doesn't necessarily make the writing stronger or better. With fanfiction all things are possible, thanks to well-written AUs. Now, in real life, the audience is society. And it doesn't matter how sorry the cannibalistic serial rapist is or how many three-legged kittens he rescues from burning buildings, society's not giving him that second chance.

[(Anonymous)]

AYRT.

...okay, I'm actually really happy about this response even though I'm ambivalent in my agreement with it. Because I have seen and read (and for that matter played in really-small-community-theater-and-school-play-productions-of) a LOT of versions of A Christmas Carol... and all I can say is that there are A LOT of reads on the exact shape of Scrooge's crimes and for that matter how other people in his life were affected by them. And that that is peak fandom even before fandom was A Thing.

And... likewise, IRL when the audience is society, sometimes the repentance-and-atonement-arc (as in your example of a cannibalistic serial rapist) means that that person accepts that they don't ever get to rejoin society and that all they can do is (as someone elsewhere in the thread described) e.g., try to help fellow inmates (whose crimes may allow them to rejoin society) be less worse when they get out.

[(Anonymous)]

Which is all great, but is not a redemption arc as it is generally understood by humans. This entire thread is about redemption arcs, not feels bad for what they did arcs.

[(Anonymous)]

I think we're back around to a semantics argument, because I do actually think that the things that are colloquially called "redemption arcs" are probably better described as "repentance and/or atonement arcs".