Do you think every villain can be redeemed, or are some people and some actions unforgivable?

Do you think every villain can be redeemed, or are some people and some actions unforgivable?

I've been stabbed by "redeemed" villains too many times to even try anymore. Bad guys get smote. Period.

You sonuvabitch. Fuck you.

The Hentai is Layers of White. It could almost be a Shindol

I always love it when certain people rush to try and "redeem" villains, but only as long as they're female and sexy.

>B-but she gives me a stiffy, that must mean there's still some good left in her!
Admittedly, my paladin redeemed a male bandit

I think almost every villain could be redeemed but it'd take more than a tragic back story in severe cases. Like if it's a villain doing evil things out of revenge to people who deserve it, or a villain being controlled by a higher power, these are things redeemable by a tragic backstory. Once you get into wifebeater, child killer, sadistic torturer territory you're gonna need the villain to take active steps to redeem him/herself, but realistically you wouldn't be able to fit that into a campaign.

I've always had a soft spot for well written villains who become powerless or lose hope pf achieving their goal. Both villains from Wakfu and The Witch of the Waste are some examples that come to mind.

So, yeah, I love a villain's change of heart.

...

Often redemption is not a price that can be bought with only death. Often one does enough evil that the scales of their life can not be rebalanced in a single life time. It is not the prerogative of the hero to forgive the villain, but the villain's victims. A monster who regrets is still a monster and a monster's lot it shall have.

That's how I see it. If they are truly seeking redemption then they will give themselves over to punishment.

How is answering death with more death truly just? How is it anything more than bloody vengeance, possibly the very same motovation as the villain?

A dead man cannot repent or even really be redeemed.

You best not be implying my waifu is the villain here, son

That is what I am saying. Often death will not solve it, however often they have done too much evil to be redeemed in a single life time. So if they work until their natural dying day they are still not redeemed and will never not be a monster, merely a monster in repentance.

I still don't understand what happened in between 2 and 3.

I mean, any villain who isn't magically bound to be "evil" could change their views and become forces for good from then on. From a pragmatic/utilitarian perspective, it would be better (if we know they're genuine) to just let them be productive and leave it at that. This is the jedi way; what matters is who you are now, that sort of thing.

The average movie goer will agree depending on your portrayal of the character.

How do you even make the determination that a life in repentance isn't enough? Because it sounds like you're just pullin g thay scenario out of your ass.

And doesn't a monster in repentance for the rest of their life (possibly even giving their life to protect those they hurt) create more good in the world than simply killing them because "eh we'll never really forgive them"?

>And doesn't a monster in repentance for the rest of their life (possibly even giving their life to protect those they hurt) create more good in the world than simply killing them because "eh we'll never really forgive them"?
I have never advocated killing them. I am merely saying that being in repentance is very different from being redeemed.

>How do you even make the determination that a life in repentance isn't enough? Because it sounds like you're just pullin g thay scenario out of your ass.
Like I said, it is the victim's prerogative. A hero taking away that prerogative is no hero at all.

Probably most everyone besides some ideologically inclined guys and those with screwed up brains. But even in such case you have some avenues of approach that can at least make them not a danger.

The question is - should you? What's the point in this beyond you feeling good for breaking these people minds? Won't it be more kind to just kill them?

4 is the end. Bad end. Everything before is his drained and dying body dreaming alternate scenarios that are better than what's happening to him.

>Do you think every villain can be redeemed
Sure, it's a matter of how much coercion and brainwashing you're willing to use to do so.

Obviously not. One look at the real world is your answer.

There's more than one?

One was head ducky enough

More like that means you can leave some good in her IYKWIM

What is the difference though? Functionally they're exactly the same state.

Leaving the treatment of a criminal to the family of their victims is not right, that's why no modern society does that.

I only know of three, I didn't know there was a fourth one and I can't find it anywhere.

I think that in theory anything is forgivable, but not everyone can be redeemed, although a lot of villains can.

My paladin redeemed many. It was through the option of being put into ordained slavery in the service of the church. If one was willing to give up their rights, titles, and holdings and be put to the holy yolk of service then they perhaps might be able to buy a kernel of redemption.

Needless to say many thought this was beneath them, and this I delivered them to their final judge myself.

It did not matter their race, religion, creed, sex, or age, all could participate in the great work and buy redemption. Even may character wore his holy symbol on the collar, his leash held by his god on high to remind him of his duty.

The character himself was a frontier cleric sent by the church to right the wrongs of the faithful beyond the arm of the main church infrastructure. He amassed and converted enough faithful to build abbeys.

It was nice. He was LE, but a personable guy.

...

Depends on how much they realize what they're doing is evil. The more they know what they're doing is evil, the less redeemable they are. On the other hand, those who don't know what they are doing as evil should probably be put down anyways since they'll never learn.

People are always people first, alignment second. Alignment changes based on a person's actions, so even a chaotic evil entity may learn and become Lawful Good, it'll just be against their nature to do so. It's still possible to make the alignment change though.

Bad roleplaying makes this process incredibly quick, and is the main reason why most GMs don't practice the whole "actions change alignment" shpiel because "oh if you're that alignment you'd NEVER DO THAAAT"

Some people say everyone has a seed of good inside of them. I say some people need that seed added.

Yeah
Everything is mutable, and to redeem someone is to erase who they were and replace it with something better. So if something can and is guaranteed to change in any number of ways, it can also be redeemed. I don't know if this applies to immortals or things that represent universal, immutable concepts. That depends on how immutable they really are.

Punishment is the act of justifying the evil that someone else's evil has infected you with. If you're redeemed in the eyes of a sadist who plays by the "you started it" rule, what does it really even mean aside from the fact that now instead of one shithead there are two? The point of redeeming someone is to change them, not to derive satisfaction from hurting them. Suffering often goes hand-in-hand with being changed but when you make it the focus you're being an opportunistic, hypocritical version of the things you supposedly hate. If you let the ideas that your future evils against this entity are now justified run rampant, it becomes a vehicle for your abuse, you become the new villain, and if it decides to punish you for it, the cycle repeats.

The truly repentant will do whatever will make them a better person and the world a better place. That could be accepting punishment, but it could also not. A punisher doesn't want to make the world a better place, they just want the control that they didn't have before.

It helps to see a man covered in dirt rather than a man that is dirt. If you can't see potential goodness in a monster then the monster does not have a reason to seek your approval and it will continue to be one.

Anyone who seeks redemption can find it.

People who need redemption never seek it.

Usually for BBEGs, redemption can only come from great pain or sacrifice on their part.

No one will believe they're 'redeemed' unless they do a 180 on their evil actions. Even risking their lives to do something good.

All the raping this guy does is balanced by the amount of people he regularly saves.

>Implying he isn't Lawful Good

He's a sustainable rapist. If he never saved anyone, eventually he'd be out of people to rape.

Anyone can be redeemed, but that doesn't mean that their crimes can go unpunished.

Sure are a lot of people who think they're fit to administer God's judgement.

You gotta live by the laws of the god, punishment of the soul isn't really your business.

My character was quite literally trained as a traveling judge of the faith. He is in fact qualified to do this and educated in the law to the point he knows more than the vast majority of lawyers.

If anyone is qualified it is him.

If gods didn't want people to administer judgement they should have acted faster.

Evil can't be forgiven. But a judgment isn't passed to bring forgiveness, it is passed to right the wrongs.
Sure, the parents of those childs you raped and killed will never forgive you. But if you truly want to make things right, spend the rest of your life caring for those in need. Culpability will be your punition.

>Be a harpy
>Remember growing up with two sisters and mother
>Mother made it clear the three of us were *never* to leave the cave
>Sometimes there were strange sounds outside before she brought us food.
>Happiest memories are of holding one half of a rib cage while my mother or a sister holds the other, and pulling with all our might.
>Finally allowed out of the cave when we're old enough to learn to fly.
>A few days later we go hunting for the first time.
>I find out where meat comes from. I start crying.
>Mother laughs it off at first, but gets mad when I won't stop.
"This is completely normal. What's wrong with you? STOP CRYING!!!"
>My sisters are so scared.
>Can't stop. Not even when mother slashes me with her claws.
>Run. Fly.
>Get captured by adventurers
>They had some plan to put me in a zoo, I think, but the short one kept talking and talking to me and eventually I said something about my mother and...
>Take pity on me
>Learn to bathe, learn to wear clothes, learn to read and write
>Become an adventurer.
>They're proud. The cleric talks to me a lot about redemption.
>The cleric taught me to read. I'm so grateful to her. Too grateful to tell the truth.
>If I kill a bunch of orcs and goblins, I can show my mother and sisters.
>We can be a family again.

The problem isn't so much that they're unforgivable (although they still very well may be by anyone's standards), so much as it is that they're so far gone that they wouldn't even let you save them even if you wanted to.

I know this can only end miserably but dear god I want more

Depends on the setting and characters, not to mention a bit of the DM. If playing a paladin they normally think so, but they redemption doesn't equal forgiveness. If they were sorry they'd be willing to atone for their crimes.

If it's a person, they can in theory be redeemed. In practice most can't. And erring on the side of caution is totally acceptable.
And demons and the like can't be redeemed in theory.

When it happens, it's great. Mostly because it almost never happens.

I keep seeing comments like this and thus never actually reading it anyone willing to give me a quick plot summary of just wtf makes it so horrific?

>inb4

>Vegans

Given enough time, sure.

Ten thousand years of penance might let someone eventually atone for even the most heinous crimes (I.E the Nameless One in Planescape:Torment is STILL working off his bad karma)

Within a single lifetime? No.

>konosuba
never has there been a more overrated Veeky Forums related animu

Thank you for your opinion. I'd reward you with a shiny fuck but I'm fresh out.

So, what you're suggesting is that we take these evil, yet 'redeemed', souls, and curse them to a fate worse than death, so that they can work off their vile acts, gracing them with the abilities needed to do more to fix things than they could before, and hope REALLY hard that they stay 'redeemed' over the centuries of maddening effort for seemingly no reward.

This sounds familiar...

Even the likes of me have no hope of redemption, and all I've done is fail to meet expectations.

Actual murderers? What chance do they have?

Someone post that alignment chart where every alignment is Rance.

so liches who go around slaying bandit lords are inherently Lawful Good, right?

Cheh. Yeah, those D&D alignments sure are good storytelling mechanisms

The person you're replying to said that death is NOT a good means of redemption, and that a life of repentance is preferable. I don't know if you misread it or you're trolling.

All can be redeemed with enough sex.

(OP)
Sometimes a person with a history of causing more evil than good can be turned into a person who can be relied on to cause more good than evil, sometimes they can't. In the latter case a swift execution is often the most efficient solution, though depending on the circumstances it may be easier to imprison them for life. Otherwise it's only sensible to reform them; whether this constitutes "redemption" is irrelevant to its being the best course of action.

Liches are inherently evil by means of their creation.

Also, they're immortal and already fuckibg power mad to become a lich in the first place, so why should they try and be good at all?

Did you actually read the post you're replying to?

I think it's possible some villains are simply too insane, selfish, or hateful to ever reform.

Back before I stopped watching Arrow (inb4 capeshit) there was a great exchange between Oliver Queen and his bodyguard/partner Diggle regarding the Huntress. Even though the Huntress was unstable, violent, and had already fucked him over once, Oliver couldn't bring himself to kill her and wanted to help her redeem herself.

Diggle kept pressuring him on this, claiming Oliver would have killed her already if she wasn't a hot brunette.

Depends on many factors. Many, many factors.

Why or what made them turn into who they are now, what they did, did they for example gave a damn about how many people they killed and did they regret it even if it was to further their agenda...

Life is fucking more complicated that one can think of.

And then there are those that do atrocities and think it is the right thing to do because their end goal will allow them to make up for all the thing they did to reach it.

Poor Nox didn't get his family back.

Twenty minutes, user. It still hurts.

And fucking how...

Every villain can be redeemed, every action can be looked and moved past, but that doesn't necessarily mean you yourself are capable of redeeming them. Like always, knowing your limits is the most important part, and you need to understand sometimes YOU'RE just not good enough to help, YOU don't have the talent or ability to redeem someone, and it can be way too dangerous to let that villain live just because the person who can bring them back from the dark MIGHT one day enter into their life.

>Depends on many factors
Just one, really.

Are they white?

That's not a factor.

Depends on what you mean by redeemed.
>Redeemed so that everyone forgives them for their actions?
No
>Redeemed so that they are considered good using system objective standards such as DnD?
No
>Redeemed so that they decide to change their ways?
Yes
>Redeemed so that their net effect on the world is positive?
Potentially. I mean if they already destroyed all of existence it is kind of hard to have a net good effect on the universe.
>Redeemed so that they view themselves as good?
Sure.

My Paladin took a goblin as a traveling companion after he killed some bugbears that were bullying him. Started out with him just doing basic tasks around camp and shit while keeping him tied up at night like Smegol. Eventually we began to use him as a scout and DM started giving him levels in rogue. Loved that tiny fucker to death, if someone killed him I would have abandoned my oath in despair.

Some yes, some no. I've had some villains be capable of redemption but fail to achieve it, some who have redeemed themselves, and some who IMO were too far gone and deserved a bullet. In some cases my players have redeemed villains I thought were disposable or tried to futilely help the irredeemable.

I think a good mix is important to avoid players doing shit like does. That's a learned behavior, and if you're using every villain to backstab people as a DM, then get mad when the players don't give them a second's pause to infodump their sympathetic backstory, that's on you.

What's even the name for this meme game?

Rance 1 through 9.

It's basically a mind fuck. It's not guro or anything like that, but the protagonist is trapped in a temporal loop where he isn't sure whats reality and whats delusion. Also he's being raped over and over by a yandere moth girl. Aside from the whole caught in existential hell that parts not too bad

>all villains are treated as unredeemable
villains knowing there is no quarter for them, fight far more desperately, as only a cornered animal can
>all villains are reedemable
they take advantage of your weakness

dont apply rules universally and without exception
check the villains intent
check their motivation
are they conflicted about their decisions, or they they rub their hands in glee when they cause harm

a person with really high body count can stil lbe redeemed if he shows genuine conflict about his actions, and willingness to change

a villain with a lower body count can be irreedemable, if he is a hand rubbing moustache twirling asshole who derives pleasure from what he does, and its pretty obvious any attempts at redemption is a ploy

>mfw Rance is Flashman: the VN
How did I not realize this?

redemption arcs are always bullshit. I don't into forgiveness

Imhotep was never meant to be released. His powers are a side-effect of the forces used to bind him to a hideous unlife. There was no end Point for him, the curse is not a penance, it's punishment eternal

I'm a firm believer that anyone can be redeemed
Yes even demons and other things of pure evil
It's just not always the best option, you shouldn't let that vampire have a pass to freely feed off of people just cause she might one day be good

>The more they know what they're doing is evil, the less redeemable they are.

Those are very wise words that basically describe my every villian as a GM. Kudos to you.

>filename

I don't think people actually think it's good. It's just probably more meme worthy

>redeeming villains
Stupid anime-tier bullshit. Look at this villain waiting to be redeemed! Good thing my character's morality is fucked sideways where forgiving mass murderers is concerned!

Depends on the character.
Of the last two I played, my psion believed everyone could be redeemed and went way out of the way to fight non-lethally and accept surrenders.
My twi'lek engineer wanted to be a pirate and thought that meant being merciless when money was at stake, so she played her part. (As an engineer, she never had to look anyone in the eye as she killed them, though.)

I couldn't get aroused by her. Can't STAND clingers. Let me breathe woman, damn! Do you have a life outside of me? Am I your emotional crutch? Get help bitch

Don't be an asshole

Everyone knows that violent psychopaths just had lonely childhoods which justifies treason, torture, rape, and omnicode

Well shit im rewatching season 1 of wakfu again

huh. I thought it was just about a busy salary man with a moth wife that he fucks after a few weeks/months of being to busy to fuck.

To stay on topic, I'd say that whether or not redeeming your villains in your games depends on the players to a degree. Regardless of how much thematic sense it makes for Sgt. Skeleton to turn his back on the Spookyian Empire, if the players don't like him they'll most likely not give a shit about him an ax him off first chance they get.

The issue is most villains for tabletop are mostly various forms of murder, which is one of those things that you have to do a hell of a lot for history to gloss over.

Unless they murdered people who could be spun as bad people, too. Or, more importantly, people that are too dead to care about.