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Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48440
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/48440
License name: CC BY-SA 4.0
License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

I think they have to more than balance the scales, in the reader's eyes.

Anytime a soldier kills an enemy combatant, she may be depriving a parent of their child, a child of their father, a wife of her husband, a man that was in fact just doing his duty to his own country. Philosophically speaking, what makes that justifiable?

The same goes for cops killing criminals. The truth is, when it comes to us humans, the ends very much **can** justify the means. If we defend our country, or our friends, then the grief we cause by killing is (hopefully) made up for by the grief we aim to prevent. Our scales are more than balanced, and we can see our soldiers as heroes.

I have said earlier, I think some acts are beyond redemption, but if you want to redeem a really bad guy, you need him to more than balance the scales in the altruistic sense, he has to end up preventing far more grief, misery, and pain than he caused; making a choice to save many lives instead of taking them. He doesn't have to die in order to do this; but must convincingly change to a different tactic.

The people he made suffer may not get over it, that's fine. They may be dead. These are probably two separate incidents in a redemption arc; one in which he causes grief and misery out of selfish aims, and a second one in which he prevents far more grief and misery out of altruistic aims. In order to be convincing for the latter, the MC has to undergo a fundamental and plausibly permanent personality change, realize they were wrong, regret it, AND reverse the karmic scales by preventing far more grief and misery than they ever caused.

There is some hint that Darth tilted the scales in the opposite direction by sacrificing himself to kill the Emperor; but I don't think that was well written. I thought Vader's "redemption" a cheat. There was proof he killed two billion on Alderaan, no proof he saved far more than that, or even regretted it, in my opinion.

Original score: 1