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Redemption arcs can be some of the most rewarding character journeys to watch play out in movies and TV shows. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and we’d like to imagine that we’d be able...
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00:00Redemption arcs can be some of the most rewarding character journeys to watch play out in movies and
00:04TV shows. Everyone makes mistakes sometimes, and we'd like to imagine that we'd be able to make
00:09things right and come back from however we may have faltered. I had gone from homeschool jungle
00:14freak to shiny plastic to most hated person in the world to actual human being. Well done
00:19redemption arcs give us the opportunity to experience this growth vicariously, while
00:24poorly done arcs can just make us dislike a character even more. So let's take a closer
00:29look at redemption arcs on screen, when they work and when they don't, and what we really take away
00:34from them. Just a heads up that since we'll be talking about the end of some characters arcs,
00:38there will be some spoilers ahead. So here's a rundown of the films and shows we'll be covering
00:42in this video. The desire for redemption stems from first having done something wrong, but what that
00:48entails can vary widely depending on the character and the story. The most important part about a
00:53redemption arc is that it isn't just one moment, but instead happens over time as a character
00:57encounters new obstacles and meets new people that change their perspective. Seeking redemption
01:02doesn't necessarily mean that one had to be an inherently bad person. Often those seeking
01:07redemption have just found that, over time, they've found themselves going down a pretty dark path
01:12and are now looking to turn things around. On the bear, Richie's abrasive slacker mentality has
01:18initially gotten him to a pretty unhappy place in his life. But in the second season, he finally gets
01:23his moment to turn this around. He finally embraces working as a team and thinking about
01:28everyone in the restaurant, the staff and the guests, and how to make everything work best for
01:33the whole.
01:33Send it. Chef, can I bring it to the table?
01:42Go get him, Richie.
01:43Melissa's biggest problem on how to die alone is how she's let her fear and lack of self-confidence
01:48totally rule, and in many ways ruin, her life. Like Richie, her redemption is about personal growth.
01:54She has to learn to love herself and find the fire within her to carve out a positive place for
02:00herself in the world. Breaking Bad's Jesse is an archetypal good person sent down a bad path by
02:05circumstance. As he becomes disillusioned with this world, he also comes to present his role in
02:11it more and more. While he's tried to avoid hurting others, it's been unavoidable. Jesse doesn't really
02:17get a proper redemption arc within the run of the original show, but instead in the follow-up film
02:22El Camino. He realizes that while he can't undo the past, he can take control of his life and move
02:34forward, and escape the horrifying existence he had seemed doomed to. We'd all like to think having
02:40that one big epiphany is enough to change us forever, but the reality is that it often takes a few times
02:46for the lesson to really stick and lead to permanent change for the better. This is often a major theme
02:51of sports movies and shows, where the team must learn a lesson, usually that they need to work
02:55together to succeed, before they're able to win the big game.
02:58This is about more than just football, gentlemen. It's about adversity and how we stand up to it.
03:06No one said they were going to hand us the playoffs.
03:08On Schitt's Creek, the Rose family have to learn to leave behind their self-centered and
03:12materialistic ways, but it's slow going. We didn't think that you'd want to hang out with
03:18regular people. Regular people? I mean, they made us who we were. What am I trying to say?
03:24We love regular people. They have a hard time adjusting to their new lifestyle and accepting
03:28that it isn't just a temporary blip, but they are indeed regular human beings just like everyone
03:34else. But over the course of the show, and with a lot of help from their new friends,
03:38they are able to become better people. I'd like to thank you all for helping to save my family
03:45over these past few years. I don't think we could have gotten through without you all.
03:50Crazy ex-girlfriend's Rebecca finds herself following the same destructive patterns over
03:54and over, creating havoc in her life and the lives of everyone in her orbit. Her life really begins to
04:00turn around when she seeks treatment and finds out that what was driving her down those unhealthy
04:04paths was her undiagnosed mental illness. I hope I can get the help that I need,
04:10but the truth is I don't know what the future holds. You know, for someone who's quote unquote
04:15crazy, you sound pretty sane. Armed with a better understanding of herself and a new willingness to
04:22be kind to herself, she's able to both take better care of herself and make amends with the people
04:27whose feathers she ruffled along the way. Time loop stories are a more literal version of this
04:32needing to relearn a lesson. Characters find themselves repeating the same period of time,
04:36often a day, over and over until they're able to figure out where they went wrong and how they
04:41need to better themselves. Groundhog Day's Phil has to relive the same day again and again until he
04:46learns the value of true selflessness. No matter what happens tomorrow, or for the rest of my life,
04:53I'm happy now because I love you. In Palm Springs, Sarah and Niles are able to escape their loop by
05:00working together, finding power in their own agency and making active choices to change their
05:06circumstances. I hope that blowing ourselves up works, but it's really irrelevant to me as long
05:13as I'm with you. Sometimes the characters' issues all stem from one big mistake they made, usually
05:19harming someone else, and so their redemption arc follows them attempting to set that right.
05:23On Happy Endings, Alex's problem isn't that she was unhappy in her relationship with Dave,
05:28but that she ended things by running away from their wedding with some guy she hooked up with.
05:33She has to work to repair her friendship with Dave so that the whole group dynamic doesn't fall
05:37apart. Labyrinth sees teenager Sarah wishing that the goblins from her book would come and take away
05:42her annoying baby brother, and she's immediately filled with regret when that actually happens.
05:47She has to solve the Goblin King's Labyrinth to save her brother, and also finds that she's grown a
05:52lot along the way. And Bruges is an interesting exploration of the gray areas of morality and
05:57redemption. It follows Ray, an amateur hitman who becomes distraught when he accidentally kills a
06:03child in the midst of carrying out a hit. Ray's boss Harry tells his mentor Ken to take out Ray for
06:07what he's done. But Ken believes that Ray deserves to at least have a chance to try to redeem himself.
06:13All of these characters are not only career criminals, but murderers. But they all feel like
06:17they have a code that they follow that makes it okay. They come to realize, however, that they all feel
06:23the need to redeem themselves for the pain they've caused in the world. While some characters might
06:29have rather simple redemption arcs, others have a lot more to atone for. They might have been full-on
06:35villains, or pushed into temporary villainy by someone else. Whatever the case, these characters
06:40often have a much rockier road to redemption. Sometimes a character just wants to clear their name.
06:47They never necessarily set out to be a bad person, but they also weren't really trying to be a hero
06:52either. But now, they've reached the point where they just want to do whatever they can to set
06:56things right and get out of the game forever. A lieutenant in the Imperial Army, Andor's Gorn
07:02was initially very loyal to the Empire. But after becoming disillusioned after the loss of his love,
07:07he quietly switches sides. He doesn't necessarily get some huge redemption moment, where he can feel
07:13like all of the evil he aided in has been washed away. But he does get to do his part in furthering the
07:19rebellion. Game of Thrones' Theon Greyjoy has a very up-and-down, well, mostly down trajectory,
07:25oscillating between doing what's right and what he thinks will win him the most power.
07:29He betrays Robb Stark, but that leads to him becoming captured by the terrifying Ramsay Bolton.
07:34Theon has his first big attempt at redemption when he helps Sansa escape this nightmare. Over the rest of
07:40the show, he continues to falter on his path towards good, but finds final redemption in the end by
07:45sacrificing himself to defend Bran. Even some of the biggest baddies have a heart hiding under all
07:51of those layers of villainy. And sometimes all it takes is a little looking inward, and okay,
07:56usually some major pushback, to realize that they don't want to keep going down this dark path forever.
08:02Buffy the Vampire Slayer's Spike was a notoriously evil vampire who tortured his victims and even killed
08:08two slayers. He was a major nemesis for the Scooby gang, but eventually had to learn to work with
08:13him for the greater good, eventually becoming a genuine part of the gang himself. After a
08:18particularly vicious attack on Buffy, he realized how messed up he truly was and worked to regain
08:23his soul.
08:24Mean Girls is a great exploration of the many ways pain and frustration can lead people down
08:28a bad path, and how, as hard as it can be, looking inward and working on yourself is the
08:34only real solution.
08:35While Katie Heron is the fish out of water who allows herself to become corrupted by the
08:39sparkle of power, both Regina George and Janice Ian have been on the mean girl kick for a while.
08:45They found their own ways to survive in the hell of girl world, and it wasn't through the
08:48power of kindness. But in the end, all three find redemption through introspection.
08:54Calling somebody else fat won't make you any skinnier. Calling someone stupid doesn't make
08:58you any smarter.
08:59The Good Place was all about redemption. All of the characters came to realize that they had
09:03things in their past that they needed to atone for, and personality faults that they needed to
09:08work on, if they were ever really going to be ready to move on to the next phase of existence.
09:13Even literal demon Michael. Game of Thrones' Jaime Lannister is self-centered and willing to do
09:18whatever it takes to secure power for himself and his family. One of the first interactions we see
09:23of Jaime is him pushing a child out of a window to keep him quiet. So it's unsurprising that Jaime
09:28has a very long, hard road to redemption. He began using his abilities to save others instead of hurt
09:34them, and in the end was willing to put himself in harm's way in an attempt to aid in defeating the
09:39White Walkers. Prince Zuko is initially a principal antagonist on Avatar The Last Airbender. As a member
09:45of the Fire Nation, he's been raised to believe in his own superiority, and that whatever he wants
09:50is right. But when he actually meets Aang and the crew, he begins to realize the error of his ways,
09:55and finds a new fire burning within himself. One that leads him to desire to bring peace to the world.
10:01But now, I have a new drive. I have to help you defeat my father and restore balance to the world.
10:08Sometimes, a story wants us to believe that a character has been redeemed,
10:12but no one really buys it. Often, this occurs because the writers have decided for whatever
10:17reason that they want a villain to be a good person now, but want to speedrun any actual
10:21redemption arc. So it ends up feeling more like just hand-waving away all of the bad behavior
10:25instead of actually redeeming them. Some Pretty Little Liars fans felt that the show's choice
10:30to race through Allison's redemption arc so that she could rejoin the liars felt a bit
10:34lackluster at best. She had spent seasons lying to and manipulating the girls, as well as being
10:40terrible to them in the time before her disappearance. But once she was back for good,
10:44it felt like a lot of her bad behavior got papered over to make it feel like she had a redemption arc
10:49instead of actually giving her one. Gossip Girl's Chuck Bass has probably one of the worst
10:54not-actually-a-redemption arc redemption arcs ever. He's a bad guy through and through,
10:58who literally assaults two young women in the pilot and generally treats everyone around him
11:03like garbage, including being willing to trade his girlfriend Blair to his uncle for a hotel.
11:08Over time, we're given more insight into why he behaves the way he does,
11:12namely because of the treatment from his evil father Bart, but he never really works on becoming
11:16a better person. The show just tries to say he's changed without doing any of the actual work to
11:21create any kind of personal growth. In the end, he's still just the same Chuck Bass.
11:27Redemption stories aren't all black and white. Sometimes a character does try to atone,
11:32but fails in the end. And some characters just don't really care for redemption at all.
11:37The wrestler sees Randy attempting to make up for the pain he's caused others in his life,
11:41and he almost succeeds, but in the end, gives it up for one last chance at glory.
11:47Siler on Heroes had a few attempted redemption arcs, but in the end,
11:50he always ended up back on the side of villainy.
11:53Atonement is about this very issue. In the end, we find that the happy ending we thought
11:58Cecilia and Robbie had found was actually a fiction written by Bryony in an attempt to
12:04atone for how she had set off the events that ruined everyone's lives.
12:08I wanted to give Robbie and Cecilia what they lost out of in life. I'd like to think this isn't
12:14weakness, but a final act of kindness.
12:17On the other end of the spectrum are the characters who never really tried to begin with.
12:22The Roy children of succession would all like to imagine themselves to be good people,
12:26but in the end, they were always willing to fight and harm anyone who got in their way on their quest
12:31for power until the very end. Breaking Bad's Walter White is the perfect example of someone
12:36who has no interest in being redeemed. As he comes to the end of his life, he does begin to
12:41understand the true gravity of all of the wrong he's done, but until the end, he's more interested
12:46in his glory and keeping his reputation alive than anything else. We all, or almost all, want to
12:54believe that at the end of the day, we're good people who do the best with the cards we're dealt.
12:58That's why we love watching a good redemption story. They remind us that even when we do make
13:02mistakes, there's always hope that we can make things right if we're willing to put in the work.
13:07Everybody loves a good comeback. That's the take. Click here to watch the video we think you'll love,
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