Who else find villains reformation story arcs over use these days.

[Basic Blonde Boy]

Avatar is typically credited as the best villain redemption series in western animation, and for good reason. Zuko was a character constantly teetering on the side of good. I think many neglect that fact when trying to parrot him. Zuko was a confused teen from an abusive household, but inside was never evil, just trying to justify himself to his father. The show also went to great lengths to show his good nature while he was a villain. He protected his crew rather than pursuing the Avatar, protected the village from bandits, saved the Avatar multiple times, and his arc in Ba Sing Se played up his humanity greatly. It also helped that his origin was him making a humane call to save the lives of men, which angered his war lord father. By all accounts, Zuko was a good person thrust into a complex situation, and his actions reflect that.

Iroh is a different form. Iroh was a ruthless war lord back in his day, but you really see how blatantly unaware of the damage he is causing was. As such, he suffered for his poor traits and had to learn to humble himself. His kid dying from his own decisions was a massive punishment for his character and the correcting he performed was even larger.

Avatar had two distinct redemptions. Where it succeeds where its followers fail is that one is shown to be good throughout the series, so his redemption was for seen from the start, and the other suffered and had to undergo a character 180 to be redeemed. Many redemptions now are too simple. The character is a monster that just says I will stop. There is no loss, no showing of compassion in the past, and no worldview change. They are simply redeemed.


Before I end off, I want to discuss my favorite redemption, one that really isn’t a redemption. In you initial post you say @Oats12345, but there is one character where this was done extremely well in modern times:

Because most of the time writers think that means a character can't be a villain anymore for instance Loki and alot of times there even retcon shit just to show that " said villain was never really evil the whole time"

I really want to focus on the end point about retcons as it can be done well.

Ice King! Fucking Ice King! The definition in how a retcon practically saved a character and built him to be the best part of the show. The Simon plot line was a random addition, but by God did it change Ice King for the better.

Ice King is my favorite villain redemption, mostly because it isn’t. Ice King is actually never redeemed, but rather the characters learn to deal with him better. Going back, I absolutely love how mature and well done they handled this plot line, and I like how it fits into AT’s larger themes of maturity. At the start, Ice King is a bumbling joke villain just there for Finn to pick on. Then the Simon plot gets revealed, and we start to see dynamics shift. Finn is still apprehensive towards him, but sympathizes a lot more. By the later parts of the series Finn starts acting like a parent and friend to the Ice King. This is one of my favorite scenes to highlight that:

I love this redemption as it is pretty much the opposite of one. Ice King doesn’t change, Finn changes and learns to deal with him better, and as such Ice King is way less hostile. Ice King is an old man clearly suffering from mental lapses and dementia, him being a villain is the by product of things out of his control. Finn learns to recognize this more over the course of the series and starts accommodating for him. Along with Finn, characters like Marceline and Bubblegum also seem to accommodate for his condition, though on lesser scales. I really like this switch up and I believe it made for the perfect, “they aren’t really evil” trope. Ice King isn’t evil. He is an old man clearly suffering and ostracized for such, whether right or wrong. The redemption being that characters learn to work around his faults and include him more is honestly a really interesting change to the trope. Given that many do suffer conditions similar to Ice King, especially elderly people, it is a really sweet and kinda mature way of handling a redemption. Again, Ice King never changes as he has multiple relapses to prove that. He can’t change, but others can learn to work with him and nullify the bad, and in the end, it created some very sweet relationships between him and the rest of the cast.

While I am glad Simon got to be saved, I honestly feel like leaving him to just being Ice King would have been equally as good of a move given how much the show highlighted that he was a different entity but worthy of as much care.

 

[Ted's of Beverly Hills]

True. But now and days I feel like villains who who weren't portrayed sympathetic are now being redeem way to easily.

For instance the chilling adventures of Sabrina tried really hard to redeem the villian Madame Statan who had killed plenty of innocents in the first season with out remorse. Granted the show tried to be very woke. So that may have been wokness in the end of the day.

But still goes hand to hand

Wokeness is a big part of it. Somebody else already mentioned Malificent, where the entire story of Snow White is hijacked to transform the villainess from a primordial force of evil (symbolized by the dragon) into a symbolic rape victim lashing out at the world for her hurts. I think with western writing in particular you commonly see this kind of psychoanalyzing of villains in order that blame for their crimes can be shifted to someone else (a White man, generally). But underlying the intrinsic anti-White/Western/Christian subtext of such writing moves is the underlying denial of an intrinsic difference between Good and Evil. She isn't *really* evil, and in fact, she's admirable for how powerful she has become (in spite of the sinister and unnatural form it takes, because modernity worships power). Such revisions sweep under the rug anything wrong she does (if they bother to show her doing anything really vile at all) while attributing her moral failings to some external cause (she's "evil" because she's sad, and she's sad because of "toxic masculinity") and inventing crimes to besmirch the character of symbolic paragons (such as the king in Sleeping Beauty, who barely has a role in the original story, but has important symbolic value for the validity of the order that the villainess is disrupting with her actions). If it feels cheap, it's partly because it really is poorly-written dreck, but it's also because it subverts the logic of "faerie stories" in a deliberate and pernicious way, and we recognize that on a subconscious level if we're not ourselves consumed by cults of modernity. Tl,dr - they turn "redemption" into something cheap and tawdry because they deny that the villain was ever really a villain at all, and that "redemption" is usually just the recognition that a "villain" was right all along, or at least only "bad" insofar as she is a victim of circumstance who is too traumatized by society to be morally culpable.

Likewise with Cruella and Frozen 1 and 2. I haven't paid much attention to Disney movies since the last time I was forced to sit down and watch one while visiting family, but I'd be more surprised if Disney hasn't gone all-in on this trend since then. I'd be even more surprised if what they're doing isn't broadly similarly to the subversive strategies that other woke cultural vandals are also employing in their deconstruction of the basic structure of western storytelling in other media as well.

 

[Tasty Tatty]

I think many writers have jumped on it because you cant make a good antagonist in modern media, so the only way to make them interesting at all is to have a redemption arc.

Or rather they create a charismatic villain/antagonist and fans "fangirl" so much about them that they need to make them more relatable and "good" so they won't feel bad for doing so.

 

[Oats12345]

Avatar is typically credited as the best villain redemption series in western animation, and for good reason. Zuko was a character constantly teetering on the side of good. I think many neglect that fact when trying to parrot him. Zuko was a confused teen from an abusive household, but inside was never evil, just trying to justify himself to his father. The show also went to great lengths to show his good nature while he was a villain. He protected his crew rather than pursuing the Avatar, protected the village from bandits, saved the Avatar multiple times, and his arc in Ba Sing Se played up his humanity greatly. It also helped that his origin was him making a humane call to save the lives of men, which angered his war lord father. By all accounts, Zuko was a good person thrust into a complex situation, and his actions reflect that.

Iroh is a different form. Iroh was a ruthless war lord back in his day, but you really see how blatantly unaware of the damage he is causing was. As such, he suffered for his poor traits and had to learn to humble himself. His kid dying from his own decisions was a massive punishment for his character and the correcting he performed was even larger.

Avatar had two distinct redemptions. Where it succeeds where its followers fail is that one is shown to be good throughout the series, so his redemption was for seen from the start, and the other suffered and had to undergo a character 180 to be redeemed. Many redemptions now are too simple. The character is a monster that just says I will stop. There is no loss, no showing of compassion in the past, and no worldview change. They are simply redeemed.


Before I end off, I want to discuss my favorite redemption, one that really isn’t a redemption. In you initial post you say @Oats12345, but there is one character where this was done extremely well in modern times:

I really want to focus on the end point about retcons as it can be done well.

Ice King! Fucking Ice King! The definition in how a retcon practically saved a character and built him to be the best part of the show. The Simon plot line was a random addition, but by God did it change Ice King for the better.

Ice King is my favorite villain redemption, mostly because it isn’t. Ice King is actually never redeemed, but rather the characters learn to deal with him better. Going back, I absolutely love how mature and well done they handled this plot line, and I like how it fits into AT’s larger themes of maturity. At the start, Ice King is a bumbling joke villain just there for Finn to pick on. Then the Simon plot gets revealed, and we start to see dynamics shift. Finn is still apprehensive towards him, but sympathizes a lot more. By the later parts of the series Finn starts acting like a parent and friend to the Ice King. This is one of my favorite scenes to highlight that:

I love this redemption as it is pretty much the opposite of one. Ice King doesn’t change, Finn changes and learns to deal with him better, and as such Ice King is way less hostile. Ice King is an old man clearly suffering from mental lapses and dementia, him being a villain is the by product of things out of his control. Finn learns to recognize this more over the course of the series and starts accommodating for him. Along with Finn, characters like Marceline and Bubblegum also seem to accommodate for his condition, though on lesser scales. I really like this switch up and I believe it made for the perfect, “they aren’t really evil” trope. Ice King isn’t evil. He is an old man clearly suffering and ostracized for such, whether right or wrong. The redemption being that characters learn to work around his faults and include him more is honestly a really interesting change to the trope. Given that many do suffer conditions similar to Ice King, especially elderly people, it is a really sweet and kinda mature way of handling a redemption. Again, Ice King never changes as he has multiple relapses to prove that. He can’t change, but others can learn to work with him and nullify the bad, and in the end, it created some very sweet relationships between him and the rest of the cast.

While I am glad Simon got to be saved, I honestly feel like leaving him to just being Ice King would have been equally as good of a move given how much the show highlighted that he was a different entity but worthy of as much care.

Oh no I wasn't referring to Ice King when I was talking about "the villain is revealed to have never been evil" I was referring to the constant retcon of Loki's past so the writers can make excuses for ruining his character and reforming him.

I actually like the Ice King's "redemption" as you said it's not really a redemption and more the characters learn to deal with him more thoughtfully after learning he basically suffers a mental illness. And as a villain Ice King wasn't that threatful and as we later see its because he's not really evil but someone dealing with something out of their control.

I feel Ice King's reveal happen before we saw the current wave of unnecessary redemption arcs for villains.

Similar to Zuko for animation Ice King is the perfect example of a antagonist character whose whole character doesn't so much change but we learn of more about him and the sad reasons he is even considered a villain.

Ice King I can say goes alongside Darth Vader, Megamind and Zuko in characters who had good villain redemption stories that people miss the point entire of these days.

Like for instance I don't think the crystal gems deserve redemption in Steven Universe. Or the fact that characters like Loki were ment to be villains but fangirls pretty much couldn't have it. So they redeemed him because of that.

Like I don't hate Loki as a character. No it's more his character was better as a villain.

 

[Basic Blonde Boy]

@Oats12345

Like for instance I don't think the crystal gems deserve redemption in Steven Universe. Or the fact that characters like Loki were ment to be villains but fangirls pretty much couldn't have it. So they redeemed him because of that.

The sad part is that Loki technically had a good redemption arc prior to the show. People really shit on Thor and The Dark World, but Loki was really well written in that one and him choosing to help his brother and grow a stronger relationship with him. Him visibly being distraught over his adoptive mother’s death was pretty powerful in that film and gets overlooked far too often. Then in Ragnarok, I guess he aides Thor throughout the film. Finally in Infinity War, Loki gets killed protecting Thor, and for real this time, unlike Dark World. Honestly, I think Dark World and the beginning of Infinity War basically carried the redemption, which is the problem. Ragnarok just restarted the damn thing and acted like Dark World didn’t exist just to do a serviceable, yet inferior job of handling it.

Ice King I can say goes alongside Darth Vader, Megamind and Zuko in characters who had good villain redemption stories that people miss the point entire of these days.

I think many get the idea for redemptions through comic characters mostly, many of which you should add to your list. I feel like after Batman’s popularity boom, the tragic villain you sympathize with basically became a must for the medium, but once again, Batman did this stuff super well, while many others didn’t. Though I will say, for many of these characters coming from comics, they are unironically done way more justice outside of comics and have much better arcs in tv, films, and games. I feel like comics suffer hard from repetition and go big or go home mentality. The Joker can nuke a city, yet he is still redeemable in comics, which is obviously bullshit. Even well done redemptions in other mediums suffer, as even a well handled Darth Vader in the films suffered from comics making Vader a killing machine both Disney and pre-Disney eras, making that redemption sour over time.

That said, I want to add some redemptions that work:

• Doctor Octopus (Spider-Man 2) - This one should be obvious. Sam Rami’s version of the character was a major improvement from the comics and an adaptation that has lived on in other Spider-Man works for a reason. Making Octavious a mentor to Peter Parker, a nuclear physicist looking to better the world, and a loving husband added so much to what was a silly villain. Already, the film establishes that Otto is a great man, so you want to see him redeemed when he turns especially so Peter can get his mentor back. I also like that the film doesn’t justify his evil deeds, if anything it punishes him by making him go through a Vader style sacrifice at the end. Otto is great in that he has a good set up and pay off, something many modern redemptions lack.
• Mr. Freeze (Arkham series) - Mr. Freeze is usually pretty great outside of comics, god is terrible in comics, but I think Arkham takes the cake as the overall best adaptation. With this you still get the sympathetic backstory of a scientist trying to cure his wife and taking revenge on the man that tried to shut down her help. I think what makes this adaptation good is the added addition of Freeze’s obsession prolonging things. An admission of of selfishness. In the Strange tapes for Arkham City it is revealed how obsessive Freeze is and how unable to let go of things he is. I like a sympathetic Freeze, but it always bothered me why Bruce never stepped in to aid his research. Hearing that Freeze is just selfish and wants to do it all alone is a good extra layer. He is sympathetic, but he is also the cause of his own misery. As for the redemption, City’s shaky relationship then turned into Knight’s strong bond between him and the Bat was a well developed plot line. I love how he gives up and immediately trusts Batman in Knight, it was a great character moment after City. By the end, Freeze is given a bitter sweet ending that fits his character, as he is given a few days with the women he loves before death.
• All three main female Batman villains - Yeah, it is pretty clear that the writers of Batman have way more sympathy for women then men as all three main fem-fatale have been redeemed at some point. Catwoman and Harley are pretty easy. Catwoman is a just a thief looking for thrills. In most, good, adaptations she never kills anyone in her antics unless they explicitly try to kill her. It makes sense that Batman can pull her over to the good side through a good dicking, her moral compass is not that fucked. Harley is harder, but her abusive relationship and illness make Batman way more sympathetic towards her than any other villain. I think the general trust her and Batman share a good chunk of time is sweet. Injustice is the best redemption for her, well, if you look past the whole blowing up of Metropolis bit. Ivy is the hardest to redeem, but has been getting redeemed more often nowadays. Her cause is just, but the destruction she causes is hard to overlook. It is weird as the more chilled out Ivy in Harley Quinn works is really well done and believable. Hell her redemption in Knight is also really good. She is just weird, IDK? Sometimes it feels like her story lacks a middle.

 

[Oats12345]

Honselty with Harley I don't think I hate her redemption. It's more of writers trying to make her a feminist icon way too hard that I hate about the character lately.

 

[urr13 account]

I generally dislike when villians who are initilay established as badass are then softened in follow-up stories.

There are times when it works, Godzilla protects Japan now (or Godzillas son or something?), The Terminator is a good guy in T2 (its a different robot, but still).

Mostly it just gets annoying, same with giving them overly tragic backstories/making them antiheros (Cruella), it makes everything grey and sometimes awkward if the character was previously established as doing really evil shit because now you just have to gloss over that (or say they were under the influence of a magic orb or something, right? isnt that what happened with loki?).

It really depends on the story though, all of this can work when done right. It seems like things go in cycles, and when you have a long-stretch of overly-sympathetic villians or villians becoming antiheros you start to just want a bad guy thats bad in a classic black and white good vs evil story.

 

[Basic Blonde Boy]

Honselty with Harley I don't think I hate her redemption. It's more of writers trying to make her a feminist icon way too hard that I hate about the character lately.

Harley’s problem is that no one figured out what to do with her past Joker. Not even the animated series figured it out. This is a problem that doesn’t just affect her as Mr. Freeze is equally a train wreck in that regard. Remember when TAS made Freeze a fucking head with spider legs and he just gave up on humanity, because?

Harley suffers from this and her abundance of popularity making DC think that a character whose main characteristic is latching onto others should be the main star. Harley wasn’t designed to be a main character for extended periods of time, and her stories suffer for it. Honestly, if they changed the stories to make her a cling on for Poison Ivy, rather than the current reverse, the stories improve dramatically. I say Injustice is her best redemption, but that is mostly because she just becomes a cling on to Batman, which gifts her a strong dynamic which she needs to shine. DC just needs to stop forcing her to be a main character, it clearly doesn’t work.

 

[Oats12345]

Harley’s problem is that no one figured out what to do with her past Joker. Not even the animated series figured it out. This is a problem that doesn’t just affect her as Mr. Freeze is equally a train wreck in that regard. Remember when TAS made Freeze a fucking head with spider legs and he just gave up on humanity, because?

Harley suffers from this and her abundance of popularity making DC think that a character whose main characteristic is latching onto others should be the main star. Harley wasn’t designed to be a main character for extended periods of time, and her stories suffer for it. Honestly, if they changed the stories to make her a cling on for Poison Ivy, rather than the current reverse, the stories improve dramatically. I say Injustice is her best redemption, but that is mostly because she just becomes a cling on to Batman, which gifts her a strong dynamic which she needs to shine. DC just needs to stop forcing her to be a main character, it clearly doesn’t work.

Yeah sometimes when even a good redemption story happens. It becomes hard alot of times on where that villain goes. Like you said Mister Freeze whole character goes to this weird phase of "screw humanity" after everything.

Like certain characters like Zuko get to start a new chapter in their life and it works well. Some like Vader redemption equals death same with Dr. Octopus (before No way home came out of course)

 

[Basic Blonde Boy]

Yeah sometimes when even a good redemption story happens. It becomes hard alot of times on where that villain goes. Like you said Mister Freeze whole character goes to this weird phase of "screw humanity" after everything.

Like certain characters like Zuko get to start a new chapter in their life and it works well. Some like Vader redemption equals death same with Dr. Octopus (before No way home came out of course)

Again, I think this is mainly a comics issue as the status quo is king fucks so many redemption in the medium. It is why comic redemptions are better off the pages than on, though some adaptations still carry the problems.

Catwoman is the worst offender of comic fuckery. The bullshit they pulled to make sure a Bat-Cat marriage never came to be in comics is utterly ridiculous. The explanation was literally if Batman isn’t the big sad then he won’t be Batman. Fuck off writers. Over 70 years of this fucking dynamic and the one chance at having a full redemption story completed in mainline comics, they say no because that wouldn’t be Batman apparently.

Mr. Freeze sucks because the initial story is great. It is sympathetic, Freeze shows a great deal of humanity, etc..it is just after that, it is all downhill as Freeze doesn’t seem built to last past one story in his current form. His problem is his wife, yet no one in the DC universe ever seems to give a shit. Like, again, how does Batman not find a means to get her a cure? He never even tries to fund something for her, which feels way out of character given his push to better Gotham’s criminals. Many adaptations seem to side step this, but fuck the story and characters in the process. Many have Nora cured but she is evil now because reasons? And since that pussy fire, sometimes literally, Freeze just gives up his morals and becomes a criminal with her. Other adaptations give Freeze the depth of his 60s incarnation by just making him a crazy person. Nora isn’t his wife, or she is not even a factor of his villainy. I say the Arkham series did him best mostly because it felt like he grew over the course of Origins to City to Knight, and his redemption was the more fitting last few days with Nora. A tragic end, but one that will give him at least some happiness.

As for Harley, what the hell? I genuinely don’t know what the thought process is for this character. The idea that her and Ivy restart their lives is a good one that feels fitting for both characters strangely. After that though, you can tell writers have no direction. Harley just hobbles between being a villain than a hero, then back. Her character goes from wacky Deadpool rip-off to a more stable protagonist. Her romance goes from Ivy to hopping on Lobo’s cock in a second’s notice. I don’t get feminist vibes from Harley, I just see a mess of a character that no one seems to want to put there foot down on and write up a plan for. Injustice works because her redemption had a clear direction, she joins Batman and learns to adapt to his style until the two work on even terms. With the Harley Quinn series, fuck it, who knows where she is heading as she changes every week.

 

[Crybaby Xianghua]

As for Harley, what the hell? I genuinely don’t know what the thought process is for this character. The idea that her and Ivy restart their lives is a good one that feels fitting for both characters strangely. After that though, you can tell writers have no direction. Harley just hobbles between being a villain than a hero, then back. Her character goes from wacky Deadpool rip-off to a more stable protagonist. Her romance goes from Ivy to hopping on Lobo’s cock in a second’s notice. I don’t get feminist vibes from Harley, I just see a mess of a character that no one seems to want to put there foot down on and write up a plan for. Injustice works because her redemption had a clear direction, she joins Batman and learns to adapt to his style until the two work on even terms. With the Harley Quinn series, fuck it, who knows where she is heading as she changes every week.

I agree with this 100%.

I find Harley Quinn to be a darker, villianous, nymphomaniac version of Lois Lane, and not a female empowerment icon.

Good god, the "Girls need role models" trope is such a (unintentionally) sexist and misogynistic mistake indeed.

 

[Basic Blonde Boy]

I find Harley Quinn to be a darker, villianous, nymphomaniac version of Lois Lane, and not a female empowerment icon.

The funny thing is, Lois Lane actually works when switched to a more female empowerment icon as she has done crazy shit to protect Clark or her son. I have grown to enjoy Lois's jumps into danger.

Harley probably could work if they actually had any plan for her. The idea of a woman escaping her abusive relationship is a great base, but DC can't take it past that. I kind of wish they would go full on reform with her. As of now, Harley feels like a character that got so popular that DC said she needed a series, but never questioned what that series would entail. How would she operate?

 

[starborn427614]

God forbid a bad guy become popular. You've got a real problem on your hands when that happens, like Shego and Drakken in Kim Possible. Granted they steadily got more and more pacified the more the show went on, so I'm not surprised they made a chaotic evil pair with those aliens to take their place.