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I actually liked Kuvira and felt like she had a good, logical argument for most of the actions she took. The Earth Kingdom monarchy was corrupt. After spending years working to bring back peace from that calamity, she wasn't going to just hand it over back to that very same inept monarchy. The premise is fantastic. Her actions can definitely seem justified and the other nations didn't really care all that much to stop her. Until she went after Republic City, thinking that it rightfully belonged to them. That was her fatal flaw, the mistake that brought it all down on top of her.

Best resurrections would either be Gandalf in LOTR or half the universe in Avengers: Endgame. Worst is of course Rise of Skywalker.

Sometimes, you can even have a non-evil character never reach redemption, while looking for it enough to understand they didn't even want it anyway. This is a great way to spin the "redemption arc" trope, imo. For Evil Characters i'm more into the "Thanos never did anything wrong" kind of vibe, where a seemingly good person falls into evil deeds enough to understand they have to be the bad guy and they do not seek redemption at all, they feel like they're doing the right thing, they feel like they aren't at all evil, it's a blurred concept. Having redemption arcs only works well when the evil character has been wronged in such ways that it isn't nearly their fault that they turned out evil, so someone needs to show them the "good path" and steer them towards it, so it feels rewarding and finished, the cycle.

Me every time a clip from the show appears ":D", everything else (except for drunk humor) "._."

I'd also like to point out that a character deserving redemption doesn't have to have that redemption fulfilled either. Some of the most interesting stories I've ever watched/read play with this concept and how all of the characters reapond to this.

Disney birthed a meme.

I love the idea of a healing arc, that maybe eventually turns into a redemption arc. I dont think she NEEDS it, but I'm okay with it happening eventually.

I am of the opinion that nobody deserves anything. You do not deserve life nor do you deserve death, you do not deserve wealth nor do you deserve to be poor, you do not deserve forgiveness nor do you deserve to forgive. But because of that, and because I think humans are entirely influenced by their environment, I am of the opinion that we are free to act in a way we deem most appropriate. Recognizing that any of us could have been an Azula if we were blessed with talent and cursed with a terrible father can help us empathize with them. We can be more willing to let go of past grievances and instead, focus on helping that person change themselves.

Torchwood jumpscare omg, based Whovian

There is a subset of the Brony Fandom that has a real problem with the character of Cozy Glow being turned to stone and not given a chance for redemption, and the biggest reason is that she's a child. The thing is though, despite being a child, she absolutely knew what she was doing , was acting of her own accord with no hints that she had been abused or had some kind of trauma that makes her act this way, she's just power hungry and wants to rule over Equestria, even willing to destroy it if she must to obtain dominion. Her cutie mark is a chess piece, specifically a rook, but that also points to her strategic planning. In the ninth and final Season of Friendship is Magic, when all the villains are brought together, they each reject the notion of teamwork, but she's in favor for it, going to each one and manipulating the adults into doing what she wants. They all want to betray each other in the end, but their teamwork pays off only to then split the team apart in the final moments when Cozy Glow is able to obtain near ultimate power. Eventually all the villains are defeated, and then she claims it was all the adults' doing, she's just an kid, but the heroes aren't buying it, and encase them all in stone. But now that's suddenly a problem because she's a child. She wasn't going to change. She blatantly went against a world that was constantly offering her friendship, there was no redemption for her. Sometimes there are just people you can't trust, even those from whom you least expect, that's the lesson, now turn the kid to stone and knock them off a cliff!

Scar from FMA:B has to be my favorite anti-hero of all time. He is so well written it's so damn good. Also Stoic from HTTYD, I love his redemption arc as well. Jett from ATLA is also a well fleshed out and very compelling anti-hero and a good foil to Sokka.

I’ve seen the word “deserve” so much regarding redemption arcs, and it just doesn’t make sense to me-it reminds me of talk about cancelled celebrities, etc-“do they deserve a second chance?” It doesn’t really matter what we think about a character (i.e. if we don’t like them), or what their equivalent in the real world might or might not do-a redemption arc is not needed for someone who is already evolved, or a good person. The whole point is that they need redemption, and are going to be in a bad place at the beginning of the arc. That’s why it’s not a flat arc. I feel like “deserve” implies that the character has already made those changes and we are asking if they deserve forgiveness/happily ever afters, which is a different thing.

I was extremely surprised when I first learned darth vader was supposed to have been redeemed. I really still do not get it. Yeah, he can save one person, but dude just wants his son to sit on his lap while he continues to blow up planets.

It is useful to have a failed redemption arch too To show how is fails can reveal the healing process Is it a failure of " the villain", "the healer" or a combination of both?

I really appreciate the delineation you made between real life and fiction. I think it's absolutely valid to view media through both lenses, as long as you're aware that's what you're doing. There's a much longer conversation about the need for media literacy in here.

I think the people who are so insistent on certain characters getting redemption is a form of projection. They relate to the character who's done something bad and want them to be able to redeem themselves and 'get better' because the person also wants to be redeemed for whatever they did. side opinion: I really dislike the name of that group Azula makes, KemuriKage. From what I remember of the comics (and I am likely wrong, pls correct me if so), they use a whole lot more of *only* Japanese culture and language. It wasn't a mix of Asiatic cultures anymore, just Japanese. And KemuriKage being such a mouthful sticks out the worst for me, even if it is a literal direct translation of the individual words "smoke" and "shadow". None of the nations are monoliths of one culture, they were all a mix of things. The last graphic novel I read was North and South, and that was years ago, but from what I remember a majority of newly introduced concepts seemed to be entirely Japanese based and I remember being disappointed by the laziness.

She does. She's a 14 year old child, brainwashed by her father. That's not 'just' a character trait, that IS her. What the hell are you trying to say if there's no redemption for that ?

Nothing proves the belief that some people can’t redeem themselves better than watering down a character because you think it is necessary to successfully redeem them.

5:40 "If an evil character is sympathetic or likable or, God forbid, *hot*--" I'm absolutely cackling

"Character laundering" is good--I used to call it "caught in a Blizzard."

I know my interest in redemption arcs has always been my interest in concepts like restorative justice and what that might look like over punitive justice, but I also REALLY like "CHARACTER LAUNDERING" because some of these redemption arcs really seem to be more about something other than narrative realism or commitment to an ideal, but more so about getting to keep the character around for external meta textual reasons.

All people deserve redemption, but not all people choose to pursue it. Characters should be the same.

I think another good discussion is the difference between a "tragic" villain and a "sympathetic" villain; there is strong overlap, but a villain can be tragic without being sympathetic, and I think too often "tragic" and "sympathetic" are conflated.

Modern fandoms don't understand the difference between self respect and redemption. Redemption = reconciliation while self respect= self growth in spite of how terrible the actions are and the other characters are given the choice to forgive or not.

That’s why the music of the last agni ki is so good! It wasn’t triumphant; it was sad and somber. They did so well

Redemption, much like grace and forgiveness, are not things that are "earned" or "deserved" by their own definitions. Ultimately, they are all choices. So, when it comes to narrative, what matters to me is whether or not it fits for these characters to choose grace/forgiveness/redemption.

Conspiracy theory: I think kuvira is getting redemption because a lot of korra’s modern fanbase is lesbians and kuvira is pretty and you can ship her with kora for the angst points.

18:27 got a small spelling error in your vid Tim

There's a building in my hometown which is an abandoned warehouse/office building called the Campana building. It's a horizontal rectangle with a big turret in the center several stories high. Real weird looking. I grew up hearing stories of a woman who jumped from.the top of that tower to her death and that's the reason the building is no longer used. But her soul still haunts the building, especially the basement. Guess where my school held our annual haunted house?

Redemption arcs can feel out of character. People dont tend to just change the way they think and feel. Especially those who lack empathy and dont feel remorse about what they did

She’s an emotionally unstable 14 year old. If she’s not redeemable I would reconsider a lot of what I like about avatar.

7:13 - Did you edit this together yourself I love it 😂

This reminds me of another form of - I guess you would call it? - Character Laundering, which maybe you can do a video about someday. I call it the "The Villain is Sad" trope. Wherein we generate lots of prequels (aka cash) by cranking out stories showing how the villain became bad because they had a tough childhood, wah wah wah, cry me a river. It really sticks in my craw! Lots of people had absolutely horrible childhood but grew into the kind of people who empathize with others and do everything in their power to lessen the pain in the world. The only difference between the person with a bad childhood who grows up to be a villain, and the one who grew up to be a healer, is that person's Choices that they made of their own Free Will. Therefore the villain does not, in fact, deserve my sympathy. Maybe the child they once were does, but the adult they became does not - they deserve nothing but my contempt. But the worst part about stories like these is the implication that if bad things happen to you, you have no choice but to become bad, yourself. You have no free will. And that is a really insidious premise that I absolutely loathe.

I wrote a redemption arc (or maybe it was an atonement arc) story awhile back, and the only reasons I felt it worked was 1) the person wronged would not (or could not) forgive the character, and 2) the character accepted this and resolved to do better anyway. Because, however genuine your atonement, it does not obligate the person(s) you wronged to forgive you.

Kuvira’s “redemption”, particularly downplaying her literal concentration camps, always seemed gross to me. That’s the same argument literal Hitler apologists use about the Holocaust.

Everyone has the _chance_ to be redeemed, but not everyone wants to take it, or worse, they don’t think they need to be redeemed of anything.

P.P.S. If you're reading this Tim, I'd love to know what you yourself thought of The Last Jedi. Love it, hate it, don't care about it, I want to know because I think it would help me put my obsession with it to rest to hear from you. At the end of the day it really just comes down to whether or not it has a place in the narrative. I'm all for redemptions where appropriate, and even for characters who are "irredeemable"; the problem is whether these redemptions fit in the narrative. A character like Azula could certainly learn to change, could certainly redeem herself a bit, but I don't think that there's room for that in A:TLA, at least not right now. As Tim says at about 5:13, characters exist within the structures and strictures of stories. Just because they can drive the narrative doesn't mean the narrative can accommodate everything we can explore of them. Especially with the glut of sequels and spinoffs. We need to remember to extend forgiveness to real people though, those who try to make amends. And even for those who are as yet unrepentant, we need to have our minds open to the possibility of their repentance, lest we reject them when they might otherwise change their ways for the better. But that doesn't mean character laundering, either for real people or fictional characters. P.S. 12:48 - The official retconning of and disrespect for The Last Jedi infuriates me. They didn't even do that with Solo, for God's sake, but they'll throw Rian Johnson--let alone fail to stand by Kelly Marie Tran--under the bus when he actually tried to do something innovative?! Sorry for that outburst, but I'm still gobsmacked that the SW actors, no disrespect to them but just WHY, would come out and dump on TLJ so blatantly while it's still so recent. Have they issued any statements about TRoS' dumpster fire of a story? Again, I'm sorry for ranting but I still haven't been able to excise this, so it comes out.

AI people are the same people who say rage against the machine was better before they got all political

4 ideas from this video! 1) Gas: isn’t very noteworthy, but will find its way around any obstacle. 2) Liquid: while gentle yet resilient, it may still be polluted in the wrong environments. 3) Solid: indomitable as it is to most, even it will crack with enough force. 4) Thermal energy: a natural force beyond all, that could either nurture or disrupt

Healing arc is a good notion. It's good to consider who needs "redemption"... Not sure Zuko needs redemption, but he does need a journey to understand how to break a cycle of abuse. And there is a matter of scale if you compare Kylo Ren who destroyed a planet full of people. The trope going back to Vader who redeemed himself for and through his son, then dies dramatically.

I generally love your videos but I fundamentally disagree with parts of this one, although obviously you still make good points and I agree with many of your individual points. Yes, fictional characters are not real people, and can sometimes be compelling without necessarily being multi-dimensional (although I think being complex does generally make a character more compelling). But I do not think that fictional characters should be treated differently from real people - I try to judge all fictional characters the exact same way I would real people in their situations, and tbh I think this is what everyone should do, particularly as it helps build compassion and understanding of real people. I do not like this trend of having far more compassion for fictional characters than for real people - and I don't think that should be fixed by having less compassion for fictional characters but by having more for real people (by the way I know with that last point you're not implying otherwise, I'm just saying)

whop gotcha airbending isnt magic confirmed by like... a lot of important stuff

Ultimately this reminds me of the dynamic between Jimmy and Chuck in Better Call Saul, the latter of which demonstrates he can _never_ change nor let go of his hatred of his brother providing an interesting parallel to the finale of the show where Saul (now Jimmy) genuinely atones for his actions by going to prison. Chuck had multiple opportunities for redemption but instead chooses to “burn” all his bridges with everyone who once respected him and held him dear, which causes him to unravel and meet his fate.

Technically Gloucester gets its name from the Brythonic Celtic "Glevo" meaning "bright place" and Latin "castrum" meaning "fort/castle". Gloucestershire gets its name from Gloucester, not the other way around.

Reminds me of Endeavor from My Hero Academia. He realized what he did to his family, and has asked for forgivness, tried to change. But if he has to live with his kids still hating him even though he changed/ is trying to change, that feels like a realistic outcome to me. He ignored two of his kids, one was his 'favorite' until a 'better' kid with a better combination of his and Rei's quirks came along, and he could 'favor' the youngest to force him to become the next top hero. Not getting everyone's love is a fitting punishment.

WHERE ARE Y'ALL FINDING ALL THESE "UNNECESSARY" REDEMPTION ARCS?????? I am so serious, I'm starved for them so bad, I go after them in fanfiction all the damn time, what are y'all even reading that this is a problem?????

Alright, let me just weigh in on this: If Avatar: the Last Airbender's story had ended with the show, then yeah, there was no need for a redemption arc, because we can imagine that Azula got the help she so clearly needed. But it didn't. It continued in the comics and Azula was brought back into those. And that's when you run into a problem if you don't at least address whether Azula, who is a teenage girl moulded by an abusive father into adopting a supremacist ideology and the views that led to his abuse of his children, can be redeemed and, if she can't, portraying that as due to her own conscious choice not to be better. Because Zuko isn't the sibling who gets redeemed because he's somehow fundamentally a better person. He's redeemed because his mother, who was more kind than his father, paid special attention to him and not his sister (and I've seen other AtLA fans try to justify this by saying she was cold-hearted and Zuko was kind-hearted even back then and... She was _a small child_ whose mother was playing favourites just as much as her father was), because his uncle treated him as a surrogate for the son he lost and because he was lucky enough (even if he wouldn't have considered himself lucky) to be removed from the situation where he was constantly under the power of his abuser. The reason why Zuko was redeemed is that the two somewhat good people in both siblings' lives decided to take the easy route and focus on Zuko, who was already somewhat more emotionally mature (and so he fucking should be, he's two years older), rather than Azula, who needed that help waaaaay more and was instead abandoned to the influence of her abusive father. And in that light, telling the story that Zuko deserved to be redeemed, but Azula does not means telling the story that only people privileged enough to have already received help and moved towards breaking out of the trauma, condition or abuse that made them behave badly deserve redemption, while people who have not yet received that help and aren't yet on that path _don't deserve_ that help, let alone redemption and it's fine if we just discard them as 'too far gone'. And saying 'well, that's their narrative role in the story, they're characters, not real people' ignores that it is just as easy for the people in the audience to reduce how they view real people to viewing them as if they were characters in a story as it is for people in the audience to view characters as people. There is a real life cost if people who've watched Avatar the Last Airbender and had it shape their preconceptions, go on to become social workers and view abuse victims who act like Azula as 'not worthy of effort, because they're too far gone to help' when in reality they're the ones who need help the most. This is a very different situation from characters like Kuvira, who was an adult when she chose to become a fascist dictator, and Kylo Ren, who grew up with two loving parents and chose to become a pawn of a fascist dictatorship in a fit of late-teens angst and then consciously chose to reject his last chance at redemption and murdered his own father.

Can I also just say that I didn’t really like how the actor for Ozai played/was directed to play him. He plays Ozai with a lot more remorse and it just doesn’t fit his character at all. Like in the netflix show, it seems like Ozai forced his son to fight him and banished him in a genuine attempt to strengthen him and make him what he believes to be a better, more ruthless person. To me, he’s played as regretting that he “has” to do this and you can see sadness in his eyes…now, original animated Ozai??? Nah, that mf straight up challenged his 13 yo to a duel because it was an opportunity to express his power over Zuko and even a chance to just physically abuse him in a more socially acceptable context. He TOLD Zuko he dueled and banished him to teach him “respect”, but Ozai doesn’t give a shit about respect…he doesn’t care about other people’s personal honor and strength. He only sent Zuko away to get rid of him. He gave him an impossible task because he simply hates his son…maybe if he’s lucky, Zuko will be captured and executed by some Earth Kingdom troops while he’s out… Iroh confronting Ozai about banishing his son: “you can’t do this, he’s your child!” Netflix Ozai: “it must be done, brother. He is weak. This will make him strong!” Cartoon Ozai: “motherfucker, I got two.”

Nice video. Personally, I think Kuvira had a good redemption, but I can understand why you think otherwise. Hope Azula does get redemption.

Just get rid of book 2 and we’re fine.