The growing Hostility towards Redemption narratives in some circles.

I already hinted at how this bugs me briefly in my last post about The Last Jedi, called Subverting Expectations is not a substitute for actual Imagination.

The "some circles" I mean right now are largely SJW ones, but not all SJWs.  But it's ironic cause long ago, before I started these BlogSpot blogs, it was mainly a Conservative thing to complain about sympathetic villains in fiction.  While people on The Left were arguing we need to reject such superficial classifications as good and evil.

So the issue tends to be that redemption narratives are often a Privilege of Cis-Het White Males.  And like my feelings on other subjects, the answer to this should be making more redemption stories for Queer and Non-White characters.  Though those narratives can become problematic when it's primarily white people leading them to the right path.  Or when redemption for a Queer villain requires rejecting their Queerness. 

Plenty of these people are not against any redemption narratives.  But feel there are certain lines you can't come back from. My concern is that making people believe there is a certain line you can't come back from, will simply become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Actions have consequences.  A redemption story should not mean it's like that character's sins never existed, or that people have to trust them now.  And just as recovering alcoholics need to stay away form alcohol, people who have a history of abusing their significant other should stay out of romantic relationships, especially with the specific people they abused in the past.  Forgiving a lover who wronged you in the past does not mean you should then start a new relationship with them.

This subject can kind of be divided into two categories.  1. Villains repenting of their sins and being forgiven by the narrative represented by the protagonist in the end before they die or something else ends their role in the narrative.  Maybe while also doing some heroic redemptive act.  2.  A Villain flat out becoming a Hero.  I'm a supporter of both, the latter is a much more difficult thing to pull off well, which is exactly what makes the former often feel lazy.

There are times when Sexism makes it seem easier for female villains to be redeemed, the High-Heel-Face Turn as TVTropes calls it. Plus the endless number of Femme Fatales who changed sides from falling in love with the Hero they were sent to seduce.  The frustrating thing is when the now more virtuous version of the character loses the cunning she had before, like what happens to Ellen Palmure in the Rocambole novels.  Also every Zelda Villianess has been pretty soft compared to the major male ones.

On the subject of Star Wars.  Some people feel in The Last Jedi specifically Kylo Ren passed the point of no return.  And I can't call that wrong in the sense that I half way feel like that's what the film was saying.  But logically I don't really buy it.  Kylo (and the First Order as a whole) do not surpass the evilness of what they did in TFA, only in TFA were there attacks on civilians (if anything Rose and Finn's actions on Craite may have endangered more civilians).  TFO's actions are wrong in TLJ only in so much as they are on the wrong side of the War.  Kylo certainly hasn't done worse then Vader in either film. Vader also killed his father-figure, and was much more directly involved when a super weapon was used to blow up an entire planet.  And that's going off only Vader's OT Sins, just what audiences were expected to forgive him for in in 1983, not including what was added by the Prequels.

And once again I have to talk about Anime.  My love of Anime has a lot to do with how often enemies are forgiven.  Because in Japan the West's simplistic Good vs Evil dichotomy has only recently become an influence.

It's frequently been a big part of the Magical Girl genre.  Sailor Moon didn't do it all the time, but Wedding Peach, and PreCure do it frequently, and so do the Darker Ones.  So Rey setting out to try and save Kylo Ren because of the good she senses in him, and then that totally back firing on her.  Feels to me like far more of a Meanspirited deconstructive slap in the face to Magical Girl convention then anything Madoka or it's imitators have done.  And Rian Johnson could have been doing that intentionally, given how I saw a blatant homage to Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha episode 6 right in that very confrontation.

It's also a big thing in the Mecha Genre, where the message is often that War itself is the real villain.  And my love of the Prequels has been that I felt it was saying something similar, that The Empire was created because The Republic fought a war it shouldn't have.  When I started watching Mecha shows like Code Geass and Gundam 00, they reminded me of my love of the Prequels from day one.  So the Sequel Trilogy doesn't just bug me that it's staying stuck in the simpler OT formula.  It's the subtext that what happened between episodes VI and VII was that the First Order rose to power because the New Republic was too passive.  As an Anti-War person, that is a very problematic message to me.

I consider myself an SJW, (and also a Communist).  Maybe you want to question my status as one simply because I don't agree with TheMarySue 100% of the time.  But I've been banned from Christian Forums and Facebook groups for saying Homosexuality isn't a Sin, when I wasn't the one who brought the topic up.  The only stance I take on any major modern political issue that would be classified in modern America as a Conservative one, is not a Social Justice issue directly though it does come up on those websites, but I feel confident in saying it should not be part of the definition of what SJW means.  For the most part when I get into disagreements with other SJWs, from my POV I'm to the left of them.

I used to not be as much of an SJW as I am now.  Much of that transition happened before I even started these blogs, but since starting them I've moved to the Left on Abortion and a few other things.

It is not really relevant to mention that I'm a Universalist, this topic is about fictional narratives where characters change their moral enlightenment during their mortal life, and what real life lessens they teach.  Some of the people I'm disagreeing with here may not believe in an after life at all.  And probably would prefer Christians who reject Eternal Damnation.

The Christian value that is relevant is that you should always forgive those who wrong you, even if they never apologize.  And that you should love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.  For most of my life this seemed to be the most unambiguously Liberal of all Christian Values.  It's the main area where Conservative Christians fail at being Christian, and the main area where Liberals might quote The Bible whether they're believers or not.  It saddens me that this has changed about the Left over the same time period that I've moved to the Left.

But perhaps even that second Biblical subject may not be directly relevant.  The question is, are there Biblical narratives of villains who become heroes?  Well there is Saul aka Paul, who defined himself as the Chief of all Sinners.  But perhaps a better parallel for saying that yes you can reach even Hitler level villainy and turn back would be King Manasseh of Judah.  He made the streets of Jerusalem flow red with Blood from one end to the other.  But Second Chronicles records that he did repent and turn things around before the end.  It's interesting that the compilers of II Kings chose to ignore that part of his story.  But in the New Testament I think Matthew is siding with Chronicles here, since Manasseh isn't among the bad kings he skips in his genealogy in chapter 1.