What makes a character evil and when is that evil redeemable?

[Jerynboe]

Self-awareness means a lot, and effort. A lot of the time good acts change to bad ones in peoples perception because their motives are revealed to be impure. A character I’m quite fond of in a fairly mainstream book is a goodboy for two books before really digging into his backstory where he was a psychopathic warlord, burned his own wife alive, and seriously considered murdering his brother for power. He is still considered good by the Fanbase because he is actively acknowledges his bad actions as bad and wants to do better.
If someone instead tries to justify or dismiss their actions, it gets a lot more grey but most people won’t condemn them unless they were galactic mega Hitler or a gaslighting and manipulative love interest. Certain kinds of evil seem to cancel out all good in the audience’s eyes, and being manipulative/untrustworthy towards sympathetic characters for purely selfish reasons is pretty up there. It makes every good act into an outgrowth of the evil plan. Being in a death game and cultivating a bunch of other contestants (through acts of kindness) to join a team so you can use them as gullible meat shields, for example.

 

[Lomyril]

What makes a character evil and when is that evil redeemable?​

I would say a character is evil when most of their actions harm others. This is beyond taking something like stealing or saying nasty words, but when there is lasting damage that stays with the other person (or people).

That evil can be redeemed if the person recognizes their actions as being harmful to others... or in other words, that other people have thoughts and feelings that are worth something and have value. Then the person can begin the process of reducing the harm they do to others and perhaps even make amends.

 

[2wordsperminute]

I personally think anyone can be redeemed, especially in writing. But the worse the evil, the harder it is. Not necessarily because of forgiveness, because a person can change without ever being forgiven by the people they wronged. It's harder because the person who did evil has to come to terms with the sheer amount of suffering they have caused, which would make it easier to just stay evil.

 

[Zinless]

As an author, you can make most evil redeemable one way or another. Everything falls to your writing skills, creativity, believability, so on and so forth.

But if the character kicked a puppy at some point in their journey... there's no hope, literally. I couldn't think of a single way they could be forgiven/redeemed by the readers.

 

[Voidiris]

But if the character kicked a puppy at some point in their journey... there's no hope, literally. I couldn't think of a single way they could be forgiven/redeemed by the readers.

Just make the puppy a force of evil/nature like the bringer of a world ending plage.

 

[Lorelliad]

When they commit atrocities and even after copious attempts from an oppositely aligned character to get them to cease or change their ways but still do so. The ones who truly believe they're correct are the ones who have truly gone off the deep end.

 

[NineHeadHeavenDevouringSerpent]

Sigh...

There are many axis of morality

Objective: Good-Evil
Subjective: Right-Wrong
Social: Legal-Illegal
Outcome: Positive-Negative

To boil it down to ONE AXIS is foolish and a waste of time.

Furthermore, every society is built on evil acts. In order for you to enjoy the peace and prosperity that you enjoy, evil acts were committed in your name. Those acts were "right" in the eyes of their enactors because the outcome was positive.

Objectively, there are acts that are almost universally evil and acts that are good. YES, everything is subjective. Guess what? You could be a brain in a jar. Reducto ad absurdum is pointless and has no bearing on a conversation about morality.

I think we can all agree a step father raping and murdering a 18 month old girl so the mother can film it and sell it on the internet for money to buy drugs is evil. If you are going to argue, that is not objectively evil, there is just something wrong with you.

And no, this is not a hypothetical. So if you are going to play, "Morality is just chemicals in your brain" bullshit, all you are doing is bitching about your operating system, you are not invalidating my point.

Some things are objectively evil, and other things are objectively good. Just because we are subjective beings doesn't mean we can't try to figure out what those things are. Perception only makes SUBJECTIVE reality, so no amount of "But I think raping babies for drug money is good" will change the fact you aren't talking about objective reality.

I think without getting stupid we can all agree there is an internet that exists, objectively.

So, if objective reality exists, we just have to guess what it is, that doesn't mean it stops being objective and becomes something you can just change because you feel like it.

Don't be an ass.

That all said, now that I headed off 95% of the arguments before they happen.

All you are talking about is hypotheticals. The Trolly problem. Do you flip the switch to kill one man to save five? Do you let one person suffer so the entire world can know happiness?

The problem isn't the question. The problem is when people are fooled into believing there are only two choices.

There's a street scam where you hide a ball under a cup and there are three cups. if you guess the right cup, you double your money. You fail, you lose your money. The guy hides the ball, moves the cups around, you guess.

For the guy before you, he wins quite a bit. The guy running the scam says, "Under which cup is the ball?"

When its your turn, the guy asks, "Where's the ball?"

Now, the ball can be anywhere, but you THINK you are limited to three cups. Every answer you think you are allowed is wrong, because the ball is in his pocket. He didn't ask which cup. He asked, where is it?

You went in, thinking the rules had to be one way, when there is always a chance to change the rules.

Your example is like that scam. You think you are limiting the readers choices, when most readers will come up with a hundred different ways to absolutely body your scenario.

Just keep that in mind.

Have you written any books on this site? Can I know its name?

 

[RecursiveDescent]

I think reading Funouhan can give you really good examples.
It's about a contract killer that kills with powers of suggestion/hypnosis
His main motivation is to find the true nature of humans or something like that.

Sometimes people that contract him are jealous or driven by ego and the contract they give him ends up backfiring on them.

Or sometimes they think they are doing the right thing, but the person they just ordered to kill ends up being completely different than the information they knew.
It's hard to explain, but the psychology and the twists in each chapter are insane

 

[GoodPerson]

Morality and redemption are based solely on the character of God.

That's the religion's view.

 

[Voidiris]

That's the religion's view.

for monotheistic religions.

 

[GoodPerson]

for monotheistic religions.

Ah... So mine's a monotheism. Got it.

Now gimme sum of Solar's money.

 

[TheEldritchGod]

Have you written any books on this site? Can I know its name?

You can't see my Sig file?
All the links are there.

copy paste:
Hara-Kiri Nonfeasance (Book 2: Ch 9 - Hiatus: Until June)
Flip The Script (Book 2: Ch 30a - Hiatus: Until April)
I Was Summoned (Book 1: Ch 75 - Hiatus: Until May)
Hotrod Lantern (Book 1: Finished)
A Rules Lawyer Stuck In A Literal RPG (Book 1: Ch 1a - Ch 12c [4/19/24])
Tales From The Trenches (Ch 1 [4/19/24] - Ch 43 [?])

 

[LesserSarcasm]

Morality and redemption are based solely on the character of God.

No, your book the bible says counter to that.

Refer to the good Samaritan story

 

[laccoff_mawning]

No, your book the bible says counter to that.

Refer to the good Samaritan story

I know the good samaritan story well enough to know that it doesn't contradict what I said at all. I don't know why you would think it does contradict what I said.

 

[LillyWhite]

Cruelty.

That's evil, the rest? Objectives, there's really nothing else to grade evil between 0 and 1 other than cruelty as the baseline.

 

[Flashwolf96]

The nuance of good and evil is one of my most favorite topics ever, and I absolutely love stories that play with and examine it. For example, it was brought up earlier the idea of killing a child being evil. Well, what if one were convinced that killing the child would save others, or that the child was somehow evil and killing it was an act of punishment? What if one had to choose between saving themselves and saving an innocent child from death? Is lacking the courage to sacrifice your own life for a child's "evil" since you're failing to do the objectively correct thing? It's all just so fascinating to me.

Personally I don't think there's such a thing as pure good or pure evil, unless a writer so chooses to establish those concepts as fact through pure good or evil characters. For the most part though, the things that people do can be broken down by action and intent. What you do and why you do it are things I like to analyze in characters to decide whether they're worth my sympathy, and if they show remorse or guilt for their actions it humanizes them for me in a way that supercedes however awful the thing they did was, even if they're still determined to do them for whatever reason.

This is more or less one of the primary themes of my novel Micah Ever After, and I actually tried to highlight that sense of moral ambiguity in a particular scene, where, to heavily simplify the situation, a mother abandons her child because she's too afraid of dying. After finding a safe place to hide amidst a terrifying crisis where she nearly lost her life in a horrible, agonizing way, she can't find the courage to expose herself to danger anymore, despite knowing her family is still in danger. It's pretty sickening to think about; the idea of letting your own child die because you're a coward is so ugly and wretched, so evil, but there was also this sort of catharsis she found in acknowledging that side of herself, and how utterly human it was to be so weak and fragile.

I don't think I pulled it off that well in hindsight, but I still like that scene a lot. Like others have said, evil can always be redeemable if the one in question makes it so, but it's also in the eye of the beholder. Only those who were wronged have the right to forgive.

 

[Prince_Azmiran_Myrian]

General thought process question for something I'm working on right now.

I've actually had a character who is an antagonist go from seeming like a total scoundrel to redemption in their backstory. While I'm tempted to take the same route again with another character, I have something different in mind. I was reflecting on the nature of good and evil.

I was fascinated by the reaction that can happen when a character doesn't do anything wrong, behaves kindly, is otherwise sympathetic but when readers learn their identity they suddenly turn on them and see all their actions in the new light even though nothing has changed but their preconceptions. How a character can divert from or feed into those preconceptions fascinates me.

Example show a little Austrian boy in the late 19 century who is strongly connected to his mother. Maybe make it not so obvious. Or even misdirect like how Adolf Hitler, Leon Trotsky, Joseph Tito, Sigmund Freud and Joseph Stalin all lived within a few miles of each other in Vienna in 1913.

It's fascinating how a reader might interpret even the most insignificant actions of a character they think is evil as a clear sign of their eventual evil doing or if they think a character is virtuous then every positive sign will be a note of that virtue.

One inspiration I had in mind for my writing was Ursula K Le Guin's "Those Who Walk Away From Omelas". And how the utopian society is built on a horrible, evil act and how that's basically an indictment of our society as well. Children live in that perfect society but one day have to learn the secret... it's somehow maintained by keeping a single child in horrible squalor, darkness and suffering forever.

Is it evil to maintain that society knowing the cost? Do you walk away? Alternatives I have heard is to kill the child and release them from suffering and screw the society, let it crumble. And take the place of the child as the one who endures as the scapegoat in suffering.

It's a complicated thought without any easy answers. But I was just wondering considering the nature of all those factors, what is good and what is evil. Are either absolute? How can they vary and how might a character transition to evil or to good credibly and what might be a point past redemption or past corruption?

Mankind does not determine good and evil, we only recognize it. God is the one that sets the standard.

The issue with mankind is that we are selfish and choose to follow our desires regardless even if they are evil. Those who propose moral relativity have been given up to a reprobate mind. The truth is that societies are a reflection of the people's heart. Is their heart set towards God or towards their own selfish desires? No man is without sin.

However, there is good news. Redemption is an option that has been provided to us by God. The only unforgivable sin is to have a heart set against God, to call His works evil. Repentance is the turning of your heart towards God, He will forgive you and begin good works in you.

As the author, you are playing as God. What you set up as good and evil is a reflection of your heart. Your readers (the ones who love your work) are those who are of a similar heart and desire. To remain faithful to your story, the redeemability will stem from what the character's diposition/heart towards your (God's) standards. Reader reaction will come from how closely aligned they are to the author's heart.

 

[Iloveshovels]

Everything is redeemable.

No

 

[doravg]

Humans are complex and social creatures, and no one is completely evil. Someone can be a complete a*hole to you, but there are still people out there, to whom they are nice. Even caring.

 

[CarburetorThompson]

and no one is completely evil.

I’m afraid that’s where you’re wrong