#i've been in fandoms with the stupidest type of redemption arc discourses | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

icharchivist · 6 months

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I agree on multiple grounds

1) it's fiction, it doesn't reflect on your own moral character what you like to engage with. If you're attracted to characters who commit atrocities (God knows I am) there's nothing wrong with that as long as you acknowledge that it's fiction and don't try to emulate that behavior in real life

2) This debating over whether people deserve a redemption arc or not seems like an add-on to cancel culture where a rabid mob that never touches grass arbitrarily decides what's right and wrong. Characters do things. So do people. Sometimes they're bad and sometimes they're good. Sometimes the definition changes. Sometimes how you feel about it changes. Also, a character showing regret for something bad they did doesn't mean that a redemption arc will follow. They might dig in their heels. They might not. Truth is, neither characters nor people depend on other people telling them whether they deserve forgiveness or not. We should strive to be able to forgive ourselves and make mistakes we can live with, rather than trying to attain somebody else's approval above all things

Idk that just came to my mind. Sorry for rambling. Anyway, here's more rambles

Redemption arcs are kind of contentious in fiction anyway, because some characters whose only crime was not agreeing with the designated hero are branded as irredeemable and sometimes characters are just redeemed within seconds because they revealed that their reason for committing 50 million war crimes is that they felt sad once

As all things, it's about balance and that can be tricky to achieve

oh man, yeaaaahhh

i got a little long lmao

I also think one element that is rarely really discussed in portrayal of pain is how if you're looking for resonance with our own pain, you will rarely find it with people who has the exact same experience.

I personally find myself to resonate with characters who express my own hurt tenfold. If their stories is too similar to mine, i get heavily uncomfortable. It's too real, too close. but multiply the pain, the mistakes, ect.. and it actually feels more like how it feels like to live with this pain on the daily.

Not to mention you kinda have to adjust your expectations to the setting you're in. Like someone who kills someone is a bad look in a slice of life story, but in a story where everyone has a bodycount, what's the moral there?

And also i did mention that i'm talking about characters with rich inner lives (so, not allegory) specifically about that last point you bring up. Redeem a character who has been an allegory for fascism or abuse is something that is frown-worthy. But if you create a rich character with a rich inner life, and the crimes are an extensions of this inner life, it is reasonable to want to see this narrative unfold properly.

And it's not like writers always manage it! like sometimes a redemption is written like garbage. I totally agree on that. But the problem i have with that is less that "the characters doesn't deserve to be redeemed" but "this is not how it should have been written to make the point across."

Everyone deserves to have the chance to become a better person if they are willing to become so. That doesn't mean that when a character becomes a better person, the writer went the right way about it.

It's such a case by case thing.

I'm not saying every single redemption arc is always okay no matter what. I'm saying that the judgement basis for redemption arc in fandom space is skewed in a direction that is imo antithetical with interreacting with the text on a thematic level.

Also back to your point 1), yes and also like, there is more to a character than morality. My mystery blorbo (still not disclosing who they are) murders a lot of people and i believe they're wrong on a moral standpoint about why, but as a story about life-consuming revenge over the intense trauma, some elements of which i can resonate with, it becomes less about the atrocities on their own and it becomes about how to navigate a pain that eats you up to the point of leaving you an unrecognizable shell of yourself. Are you not allowed to get better because you're morally on the wrong side? are you not allowed to grow out of the horrors of your own making to get better? It's no longer about morality -- it's about a personal journey of emotional hurt, and the idea that morality is the only angle on which to take such a character to me is bewildering.

and i'm not saying people can or should forgive them -- even in universe. I'm saying no one should be making up hard rules to say that anyone who believe they do is a irredeemable person on their own.

and 2) yeah and the classic "judging real people like they're character in a story" thing. Also it's extremely christian as a behavior which makes me go very much lol about it. Refusing the depth people can feel or can bring on the table to ideas seems pointless to me.

Anyway it's a case by case topic and it's complicated on its own but i've seen how people talk online and it's not people who are trying to be complex about that. They put words on what they just consider it to be a bad vibe and then they mercilessly judge people about it because they made a moral judgement about it. This is exhausting.

and my main point actually is like, it depends on what the THEME of the story is and how is the redemption serving it. Discussing only if a redemption is deserved is pointless imo because it says nothing about what the redemption's purpose is. Is it a story about personal growth? is it a story about communication? Or is it a story that is completely undermined by a redemption???

and again i'm not saying every redemption arc are always good. It's really just that the basis to judge how a redemption arc has to be accepted is flawed in fandom space.

And also like i just grew more and more angry because i've seen people genuinely go on about how the only type of good redemption storyarc is a Zuko-type storyarc and i'm just stopppp he was barely even a villain to start with, look at a fictional killer in the eyes and try to find yourself and then you can discuss. for crying out loud.

So yeah. I have Opnions:tm: on things.

#ichareply #ichasalty #anonymous #i've been in fandoms with the stupidest type of redemption arc discourses #a3fans who follow me for a long time know exactly the one i'm thinking about #but yeah now i'm at a point where i'm just so very tired #it's so shalloooooowwww #and idk as someone with two diplomas in media analysis (humble brag) this is just making me benaffleckesmoking.jpg #like gosh that's boring

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