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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48210
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

There's an ambiguity in the OP's question which we need to consider first.

_When we say a character is irredeemable, do we mean in and of themselves (without external reference), or to a neutral third party (such as a reader?), or to someone affected by their actions (another character)?_

# What does it mean, to describe someone as "redeemed"?

This is a truly "real world" question. A person commits murder or rape, they get 20 years in prison, they are deemed to have changed and get parole. They do in fact reform and never repeat. Society considers that they have "paid the price" and are fit to live in society again. But often the direct victims of their crime (and those connected to them) feel that nothing can atone - "My relative is dead, they aren't". It's commonplace in real world possible-redemption, so we'd expect it in literature and fiction too.

So we can't discuss whether irredeemable characters exist, until we decide what redeemed actually means.

That's really a question of philosophy and definitions. I'm going to take as my starting point, that the victims view may be unchangeable. That means if we listen to victims, typically very few villains would have potential to be redeemed, because you can't unkill or unmain people, undestroy lives, or wipe out past harm. In particular (important for fictional narrative), _you cant say "do this and the victims will forgive you"_. Typically for very serious "rot in jail and burn in hell" type of cases it leaves nothing that the perpetrator can do to be redeemed in the eyes of those affected. If this were "redemption" then it's all down to what an affected third party feels, limited agency to redeem oneself if they dont agree.

So I'm going to start a different tack.

_A character is redeemed, if they realise truly, that their past acts were wrong, and truly try to do good or make amends, as a result of that realisation -- for real, and not just because it doesn't matter to them any more what they do._

This seems to tick most boxes for our everyday fictional understanding. A person sacrifices themself for good, after realising their past deeds were evil. A person on their deathbed confesses and tries to set things right.

Generally we don't consider the scale of their wrongs, in that equation. The canonical fiction example of this is given in another answer, of Darth Vader - kill a few million, then save one Skywalker - and yet we dont really think about that. He repents in the end, and we apparently consider him redeemable. Not how real life would go, but how it is in fiction.

**What that suggests is that no character is irredeemable**.

And indeed, a fictional character can lead a terrible life and yet the author can choose that they repent in the end, or don't.

To make that _plausible_, the seeds for it, or the cause behind it, have to be sown earlier, but there is no specific way that has to be done at all.

Original score: 2