Obviously not. A lot of villains may be redeemable, but why would anyone bother? A bullet to the head solves a lot of problems. Besides, redemption doesn't mean absolution from your crimes.
If a mass-murderer has a change of heart, I'll let him surrender and then I'll kill him. He was going to be executed anyway, I'm saving everyone the rigamarole of a trial.
Also, the girl in the opening image has incredible tits, but that hood is really silly.
>To write a villain that is well written and affirm that they are irredeemable or beyond saving is to state the notion that there can be no hope for yourself in your darkest hour.
This statement is incorrect.
The villain is fiction and thus need have no basis in reality whatsoever.
That is all.
If a villain is redeemable is one thing.
If they are going to take the opportunities that would be needed for them to be redeemed is another.
That the PCs are at all interested in a redeemable villain managing it is another thing entirely.
When all three things align, there can indeed be redemption. Most of the time, though, I've found PCs tend to be pretty scorched-earth in dealing with their enemies.
Which can get kind of irritating at times when they're not consistent with it, like when they're more willing to try being diplomatic with a creature they know is PURE EVIL than with a fellow human whose goals run contrary to their own.
Kind of two very different answers to that question, man.
The first answer is that I don't really have villains in my games. I design characters who have goals, motives, and reasons for being who and what they are, and even if most people would consider much or all of what they do to be wrong, at least in their own minds, they have logical justifications for their actions, and see themselves as ultimately "good" people.
The second answer though, is that it doesn't matter what kind of "villains" I make, because there is no such thing as good, evil, hope, or redemption as far as my players are concerned. Are you a baby murdering Nazi who pays us money? We'll do whatever you say. Are you the embodiment of kindness, but you said something we took as a sleight? We'll kill you and burn your house to the ground.
They don't care about whether my villains are redeemable or justified. Anyone who crosses them deserves to die horribly. Anyone who doesn't they can barely be bothered to remember their names.
Yeah I thought that comment in OP's post was a little strange.
The Empire is beyond saving.
The Emperor must die, and his puppet Vader too.
They are pure evil, having enslaved most of the Galaxy.
But Vader does get redemption.
Ehh. Some of them are. The 'main' villain is probably a write-off though. He's a monstrous sadist who only maintained a pretence of being good and noble while he was trying to live up to the hopes and expectations of a single person. When that single person died due to the neglect of a few other important characters, he lost all reason to hold himself in check, gained a newfound loathing for society, and proceeded to knuckle down and start making the world awful for everyone in the most efficient manner possible.
I mean, it's certainly possible for him to find redemption, but it'd take too much effort to be worth it vis a vis the fact that while you're trying to do that, he is actively committing horrible atrocities and causing the pain and suffering of thousands if not millions of people.
Better off just taking his head, really. He'd be happier in the afterlife.
Yeah, but that's at the hand of his fucking son the magical space wizard, who is dying before him being electrocuted by a man he hates.
We're no-name chumps with a big mission, no funding, and little hope.
You'll excuse me for not wanting to show him how life can be free and beautiful.
The Emperor approves.