Trope Talk: Redemption Arcs

Hello!

Everyone loves a good redemption arc. The bad guy helping the good guy save the day, it’s extremely satisfying! But what makes a good redemption arc?

To me, a good redemption arc has to feel earned by the character. The character has to show they deserve to be redeemed. I’ll go into that more later. I have a good and bad example of redemption arcs. My examples are from Leverage: Redemption, The Walking Dead, and Supernatural.

This is your spoiler warning for those shows just in case.

So, first, I’m gonna start with what I think is a bad example of a redemption arc, Supernatural. Specifically, I am going to be talking about the character of John Winchester, the father of the main protagonists Sam and Dean Winchester. To explain why John’s redemption arc was bad, first I have to explain why he was a bad character. It’s canon in the show that John would leave his boys alone for long periods of time in seedy motels with no income to get food. He forced Dean to grow up faster than he deserved, and isolated Sam when he wanted to rebel and go to college. Plus a lot more headcanons from fans that show John as a bad father.

Then at the end of season 1, the brothers and John are racing to the hospital in Dean’s 1967 Black Chevy Impala named Baby, and they are hurt. But they get in an accident. Then at the beginning of season 2, John is in a hospital bed, and Dean is in a coma, clinging to life. And Sam and John have a blowout after Sam finds out that John wants to summon the Yellow-Eyed Demon they’d been tracking to make a deal. John ends up making the deal to save Dean and then dies after making sure Dean was okay. Now, at first, you’re probably thinking “father sacrificing his life to save his sons life, how noble”. But before John died, he told Dean something. That something is revealed later in the season, which leads to a fight between Sam and Dean. Dean reveals that John told him that he may have to kill Sam and to watch out for him. Then at the end of season 2, John comes back from the afterlife to tangle with the Yellow-Eyed Demon, saving Dean.

Now, why doesn’t John earn his “redemption arc”? Now, when I first watched Supernatural, I was upset at John’s redemption arc because it didn’t feel earned or deserved. And until recently, I didn’t know why. I was watching a show called “Leverage: Redemption”, a show about a hitter, hacker, grifter, thief, fixer lawyer, and maker taking down the rich and powerful, where a particular speech was given.

One of the characters, Alec Hardison aka the hacker, talks to Harry Wilson, a fixer lawyer on his own redemption arc, after they have taken down Harry’s old boss. Harry thinks he’s done, but Hardison tells him otherwise, saying, “In the Jewish faith, repentance, redemption, is a process. You can’t make restitution and then promise to change. You have to change first. Do the work, Harry.” It wasn’t until I heard that line that it clicked for me.

What Hardison is essentially saying is that to be redeemed, you have to change first, then put in the work to repent. And that is the exact reason why John Wincheters redemption arc doesn’t work. When John shows up, he doesn’t change at all. In fact, he’s pulling similar stuff that he did when the boys were young. Keeping info from them, keeping them at a distance, even uses Dean’s beloved car as a way to poke at him, saying “Hey Dean, why don’t you touch up your car, before you get rust. I wouldn’t have given you the damn thing if I thought you were gonna ruin it.” It’s established pretty early that Dean takes extreme pride in that car. So for John to make a jab like that?

Even in the same episode that jab is made in, Sam and Dean argue cause Sam’s upset John’s keeping stuff from them. And after all the stuff John put his boys through, the “noble sacrifice” route doesn’t work as a “redemption arc”. Even when John shows up in Supernatural’s 300th episode titled “Lebanon”, while he does apologize, Sam got his closure, and Dean gets his “I have a family” moment, it does nothing to change how we as an audience are supposed to feel about John. I should point out that this has nothing to do with how Jeffery Dean Morgan plays John Winchester. This is about the character only, and any hate towards an actor about a character is not tolerated here.

In short, because John Winchester doesn’t change, doesn’t make any effort whatsoever to fix his relationship with his boys. So that is why his whole “redemption arc” doesn’t work.

Now onto a good example of a redemption arc, Leverage and Leverage: Redemption. This is one of my favorite shows of all time! As I’ve said before, Leverage follows a group of thieves who act as modern-day Robin Hoods. Leverage: Redemption follows the group of thieves 8 years later, minus one member. Now, there are a couple different redemption arcs that happen in this series. The main one that is shown, and I kinda hinted at earlier, happens in Leverage: Redemption with Harry Wilson.

Now Harry was a fixer lawyer who aided bad guys in doing bad guy things. And Harry originally thinks that after he takes down his former client as payback, he’s done. Which is where Hardison’s “Redemption is a process” Speech comes in. Because every character is on their own redemption arc. Though the main one that Hardison points out is Eliot Spencer’s, aka the hitter. Now Eliot worked as a mercenary for a while, getting his hands dirty and filling his ledger with red. What’s interesting about Eliot, is that according to Hardison in that speech, he’s been redeemed. He’s changed from a loner escaping his past to having a family and becoming comfortable with his past to realize he’s allowed to have more in life. And he’s put in the work. But Eliot doesn’t feel he can be redeemed, which is his arc in Redemption season 1.

In fact, Eliot and Harry’s redemption arcs are parallel to each other. Cause both of their jobs, though Harry’s more inadvertently than Eliot, hurt people. This is also shown with the relationships they formed. Thanks to Sophie Devereaux, the main grifter and leader of the team, Harry learned to accept himself and rethink his morality. And thanks to Maria Shipp, a US Marshal Eliot meets on a job and forms a relationship with, Eliot’s able to open up and accept that he can be happy without feeling guilty about the bad things that are happening, and that he’s a good person, despite his red soaked ledger.

Now, here’s a potential redemption arc that I don’t think is quite done. I’m talking about Negan from The Walking Dead. Now, this arc I can see potentially being good. For those of you who don’t know, Negan was introduced as a villain and leader of a group called The Saviors. And he killed multiple beloved characters. And he got majorly hurt for his trouble during the “all out war” storyline.

Now we see Negan become this reluctant ally. He becomes a part of the group, trying to slowly get in their good graces by being of service. And I personally think he is making good progress. But a roadblock happens in season 11B when Negan leaves because the widow of the guy he killed, Maggie, was close to killing him. Then there was a time jump of three months I believe. In the most recent episode, “The Rotten Core”, it is revealed that Negan became a part of another community called Riverbend, and even got married to a woman named Annie. We see that Negan is a mostly changed man. He still has his charming, inappropriate whit, but he didn’t hesitate when he heard that his people, Aaron, and Gabriel were in trouble to step in to help them. He even saves Maggie, Lydia, and Aaron from a slight confrontation by advocating for them.

Even earlier, during the final battle with the Whisperers, a group who lived among the walkers, Daryl tells Negan off for staying behind, which Negan passes off as he’s protecting them by staying away, as he would get recognized. Daryl tells him that he needs to put himself on the line if he wants to help. Which, he does end up doing to save Daryl. And he does again when he lets Annie go with Maggie to round up the rest of his people, who were separated in this attack. In turn, Negan saves Maggie’s son, Hershal, and there’s this moment of “I’m forced to trust you because you have someone I love” and this fear of if they fail, it wouldn’t end well. Nothing bad happens, and they’re all reunited.

What actually inspired me to write this blog post was what Annie tells Maggie, after revealing she’s pregnant, is that she knows what Negan’s done. Maggie asks Annie how she can forgive him for his past. And what Annie said is that everyone has a past, and everyone did what they did to survive.

So the question becomes does Negan deserve his redemption. And going from the idea that you have to change first and put in the work, I think Negan does deserve his redemption. He’s shown that he’s starting to care about what he did, and he’s wanting to change and repent for what he did.

That’s all I have for today. Hope you enjoyed!

Kaylee