Some years back, I read a book on the history of the penal system – one of those random research things that pays off in unexpected ways. In this case, what struck me was the author’s summary of the history and theory behind law and punishment.
A quick summary goes something like this: The first and oldest theory of punishment was revenge, which was usually personal and extreme – blood feuds being an example. Eventually, Society took over getting revenge on wrongdoers. Gradually, the idea of getting revenge or payback for a wrong evolved into the idea of simply punishing the wrongdoer for doing it. Shortly thereafter, the idea of prevention came in – preventing future crimes by the wrongdoer and/or deterring other people from committing crimes and undergoing the same punishment. Last of all came the notion of rehabilitation – reeducating or reforming the criminal so he/she would become a productive citizen instead of a criminal.
This evolution has a lot of interesting implications for writers, especially for those of us who write historical or pseudo-historical fiction. The notion of rehabilitation was not around in the middle ages, not at all, and all too frequently, the way you prevented a repeat of a crime was by removing the criminal’s ability to do whatever it was – cutting off a pickpocket’s hand, for instance. That’s in places where the legal system was enlightened enough to consider this level of prevention; for lots of places, well, if you killed the guy, then he couldn’t do it again, and that’s prevention, isn’t it?
In addition to questions of historical accuracy in the legal system (and in various characters’ attitudes toward it), there’s the fact that the newer notions of punishment never fully replace the older ones. Once society and the legal system take over the job of punishing criminals, there’s a steady decline in the number of people seeking personal, over-the-top revenge on other individuals who steal their stuff, damage their property, kill their kinfolk, or otherwise commit some wrong against them, but that number never goes completely to zero. The number of people who want revenge, rather than equitable punishment (or, heaven forbid, rehabilitation), is a lot higher. And it remains so to this day, though it’s presumably not as bad as it was in Hammurabi’s time.
Which brings me to the other problem writers face: because there is this divergence of opinion in just what should be done about evildoers (do they deserve revenge, or punishment, or rehabilitation? And how do you prevent new crimes, if you’re not trying the rehabilitation thing?), the writer is never going to be able to please everyone when it comes to his/her treatment of the villains, most especially those villains whom the writer wishes to redeem. The closest you can get, I think, is to redeem the villain by having him sacrifice his life to save something/someone important – a child, the hero, the planet, the universe – and even then, there will be plenty of readers complaining that he didn’t suffer enough before he died.
This is one part of what makes it difficult to convincingly redeem a character who has done something wrong. The second part is that the redemption has to be in character for the character. Lois Bujold’s Sergeant Bothari was never going to be a fully normal, functional, moral human being; trying to redeem him by turning him into one would not have been true to the character. I’d argue that his struggle to rise above his limitations – and his occasional successes – make him in one sense a hero, though not the sort you’d want anyone to emulate in any other regard (and there are plenty of readers who disagree).
The third part of what makes redeeming a villain difficult is that real redemption is not easy, and there are certain things that the characters have to do (either right there on stage, or by strong implication through his/her actions) in order for readers to believe in it (and as I said, even then some readers will not accept it and will want revenge or greater punishment for the wrongs the villain has committed). Several times, I have seen writers make the mistake of skipping the process of redemption and going straight to the villain being accepted by the good guys as a former villain…and it never works. It especially doesn’t work if the villain almost immediately starts demanding things – forgiveness, love, generalship of the armies – because that always makes it look as if the “redemption” is just a trick so the villain can get what he/she wants (even if this is not supposed to be the case).
The steps the characters take have to do with the psychology of forgiveness and reconciliation. In short form, the villain has to admit what he did wrong (and that it was wrong – and preferably without making excuses), honestly say he’s sorry, promise not to do it again, and at least offer to make amends in some way (even if it isn’t really possible).
On the other side, the heroes have to say/show that they, too, think the villain has done wrong and that they are really hurt and angry about it, and they have to believe and accept (however reluctantly) that the villain won’t do it again. Whether they accept the redeemed villain’s offer of amends, reject it, or demand more is actually optional, so long as the villain is sincerely sorry and really means it when he offers amends.
In the case of the villain who knocks the hero out, shoves him into the heroine’s arms with a meaningful comment like “Try to think kindly of me,” and then takes the hero’s place on the suicide run that successfully destroys the alien invaders but kills the pilot, most of the steps on the villain’s side are implied by his actions. The not doing it again part is solid, since the villain will be dead; so is the making amends part (dying in someone’s place is a pretty good amends for most things). It’s the first two that aren’t always clear (the villain might still think he’s in the right, but he’s decided that the heroine’s happiness is more important and since she’s in love with the hero…well). Under the circumstances, though, most readers are willing to cut the guy some slack. The heroes don’t have to accept the live, reformed villain, so it’s a lot easier for them, too, to say that the guy did the right thing in the end, or died well, or whatever it is they would say under those conditions.
It’s been a while since I read them, and I think I’m going to get the name wrong, but I always liked the ‘redemption’ of the evil queen (witch?) character from Lloyd Alexander’s Chronicles of Prydain. She’s so unapologetic about what she did, but yet sorry at the same time. Perhaps it’s that she doesn’t disown herself by disowning her past actions?
I need to read those books again. I think the note struck by her character was one of the most memorable things about the series for me — it immediately came to mind when I was thinking about how to handle one of my character’s redemption arc without changing her personality violently (as a result of the changes she’s deliberately making in her actions is another matter…).
Thanks for the food for thought.
I haven’t read too many books with a redeemed villain (or a villain on that path), but these are all interesting things to consider. In order for it to work, authors have to have very fleshed out villains with real motives (not just because they’re bad). Not a lot of books have that, I guess…
I’m just finishing a fantasy book where the villain is, well, forgiven rather than redeemed. The issue is moral competence. The villain is really descended from a line of beasts with a human form (rather than the other way around). His actions, applied to his wife & her unborn child 25 years ago, and to our hero (his son) recently are more in the nature of “anything to survive” rather than human evil, so when the son survives and receives the option of setting punishment, he faces a quandry.
His father seems human, but when he forces him to show his true form (a red deer), the hero has to decide whether fatal revenge is justified. It’s not so much that the villain regrets his deeds, it’s more that he didn’t realize there were other (more moral) options. If he’d thought of that, he might have behaved differently (he’s not inherently malicious.)
Ultimately, a sidekick argues with the hero that killing his father will do the hero more harm than trying to bring him into the human fold, even if the villain is still dangerous (if temporarily subdued and pliant) and may never fully adapt.
I wanted to reflect some tough choices.
I loathe the ‘villain dies and redeems himself’ trope. It always seems like a very cheap way out – the writer does not have to deal with the sheer mess of a character who tries to do better and who might yet fail. Complex, ambiguous characters aren’t easy to write, but great fun to read.
Yes! It’s so hard to mess up when you’re dead. 🙂
C.S. Friedman’s Coldfire Trilogy made a deep impact on me as a young teen, because here was this unapologetically evil man working toward a good and virtuous cause. She made me believe it, too.
I’ve been debating what to do with the villain’s minions in my currently-being-revised WIP. The villain himself gets executed – there isn’t much choice, since he’s absolutely unrepentant about what he tried to do – but I’m not sure about the main minion. He’s not really evil on his own, but he hero-worships the villain so much that he would do anything he says. At the moment I have him getting executed along with the villain, but I keep wondering if I could get away with having him imprisoned or exiled instead.
Or escaped?
I’m not sure he’s bright enough to contrive an escape, to be honest…
I am partial to villains. They are at least as important as heroes, and often more interesting. And when they are also heroes … There is a great story.
I think JK Rowling did an amazing job redeeming Snape. I’d say this is one of the best written stories of redemption in that most people who remember reading the books forget all the terrible things Snape did throughout the stories because of what is revealed about him at the end of the books.
I do love a good redemption story, and I am very fond of both espionage and fantasy novels, which seem to be full of them.
I love your blog. I am not a writer, but love hearing about how books are crafted.
I won’t say “I created” a villain who ultimately died and sort of redeemed himself; he walked into my plot three times, did as he pleased, and walked out again. Finally I offered him a heroic death and he decided that would do. It’s fun when a character does that, though rather unsettling (because I could never tell what he was going to do next).
Can somebody fix my name-line in this forum so that it spells Heydt, not “Hetdt”? It used to be right, and I’m not sure when it got hosed. If I could always remember to fix it before posting, I wouldn’t need to ask.
I like tales about reformed villains. Though I’m not good at them because I grow weak when faced with the necessity of making them bad first.
The Wrede on Writing link at the top of the right sidebar goes to the main page, rather than the blog.
At the moment i don’t recall reading too many “redeemed villain” stories. But I most definitely appreciated Zukos character in Avatar The Last Airbender. They went through the entire process or redeeming him which i reaalllyyy appreciated. And in the reverse, this reminds me of the “villain” in Frozen, Hans. Some people enjoyed the twist of him being the villain. Can’t say i did, though i fully expected it, despite the lack of his actions indicating it. Whether the villain is being revealed, or redeemed, i feel like they need to be as fleshed out as the hero/ine to be truly successful in creating an enjoyable dynamic. And it is often more difficult because they get less “screen time”.
A review on _Slate_ a couple weeks ago said the moral of _Frozen_ was “Young ladies, do not believe in whirlwind romances, do not marry the first guy who shows up.”
I haven’t seen the film, but my daughter’s described it to me. I forget what happens to the wicked eleventh son … something picturesque, I hope.
Sent back home in chains to face his brothers.
I just finished watching the Lizzie Bennet Diaries on YouTube, and it’s interesting what Austen (and her adaptors) have done with the villian — George Wickham is not redeemed, but he is married off, shuffled off, and the topic of gossip so everyone knows what he has done and it would take a very sheltered little mushroom to fall prey to his wiles again in the original.
In the adaptation, I’m not so sure it’s as satisfying an ending. George Wickham has been bought off, and Darcy has threatened him (off-camera and I don’t remember exactly what he did) so that he’ll “never do it again.”
I think exposing the villain as a villain could work in an SF setting, as well, since a lot of SF is really about politics. Fantasy, too? But I wonder if that exposure is enough for SFF readers — maybe they want to see the bad guy dead.
Even Bothari wound up dead. But he’d redeemed himself and lived as a “good guy” for quite some time before his death.
It’s a neat little summary of history…except that it’s entirely wrong. There was no linear progression from individual revenge to punishment to deterrent to reformation. No where in history did this exact progression occur.
Instead, you find that throughout all cultures, when people don’t have enough wealth to feed prisoners, they chose means of addressing crime that required no prisons. To be housed and fed wasn’t a punishment that anyone who wasn’t from a fabulously wealthy background could expect–and only then could it be expected because he might prove useful one day or killing him seemed like a bad political mood or a bad precedent.
For all the societies that don’t have an abundance of food (which is most of them throughout history), the response to crime could take practically any form you can imagine that EXCLUDES imprisonment. There was revenge killing, blood money, execution, maiming, disfiguring, beatings, humiliation (of all different kinds–the stocks are among the least creative), loss of social status, required entertainment (yes, you could be punished by being forced to give the village a feast!), fines of various sorts, slavery, confiscation, exile, half-drowning, and other uncomfortable but not permanently injurious punishments. There was also punishment by proxy, some of which doesn’t actually seem like punishment at all to modern Westerners.
Prisons appear only when food is extremely cheap. Early in the development of prisons, prisoners were either not actually fed enough to stay alive (they relied on friends or relatives or saved up money) or they were forced to work–this was seen as a deterrent partially because if they got fed and could just sit around all day, there were plenty of people who would consider that a trade up, prison or no!
Reintegration into society has been a goal from the beginning of MOST legal systems–meaning that a person going through the system feels lucky to escape worse punishments (laws used to lay out not what WOULD happen but the maximum punishment–if the law says you deserve death and you get 20 lashes, you were supposed to feel lucky enough to be rehabilitated on the spot!). This isn’t the modern Western idea of rehabilitation, but it still worked reasonably well.