muffled sarah mclachlan playing in the distance

It’s probably really good SEO to give my blog posts titles like this, right? I don’t actually know if anyone else remembers when Sarah McLachlan’s ‘Fallen’ was on every single fanmix for every single morally complicated character, back in the 2000s when fanmixes were still on MegaUpload. Anyway: I write a lot about redemption, and I want to talk through why.

One of the four main characters of my book — Merle, specifically — was originally meant to be a villain. She was supposed to be an extremist who committed fully to the eldritch abomination that was riding the coattails of her trauma to victory. She was meant to come into direct conflict with the protagonists, and probably be neutralised somehow, and never particularly be taken seriously by the narrative. So what changed? I started to think about who she actually was.

This happens to me a lot. I can’t turn off the impulse that wants to understand, even if it also condemns. In real life, as you can imagine, this is not an easy impulse to negotiate — especially when it comes to my own pain, which is not exempt from the double-bind of compassion. I can recognise my trauma, and the source of my trauma, while being acutely aware that the source of my trauma was traumatised too. That’s a general statement. I’ll be angry if people hurt me, sure, but the anger will always be tied up tightly with a desire to see the whole picture.

I spoke to a friend about this recently, and their response was straightforward: very noble; can’t relate. They cut ties with their family years ago.

Not actually a prelude to a final boss fight.

Redemption isn’t necessarily in vogue right now. Steven Universe recently wrapped up a major redemption storyline, but the Extremely Online contingent of fans were split. Was it realistic? Was it fair that a eugenicist tyrant should get such an easy out, while those she oppressed barely got screentime at all? In the real world, the answer would probably be no — and that’s what I hear a lot, when people talk about redemption stories. This goes double for media meant for kids. What are we teaching our children?

Given that I have in my time written a YA book, albeit largely by accident, I feel vaguely qualified to comment on this: we’re teaching them that there’s a way forward that doesn’t end with a Disney villain getting pushed to their death from a great height (the actual death, of course, conveniently left out of frame; we wouldn’t want to think too hard about the ethics of heroic murder). Of course we are not literally saying to children that if they should ever encounter a space alien empress who may or may not have personally victimised their mum, they should leap headlong into forgiveness and disregard the consequences. We’re saying: here’s a way out of stories about revenge. Here’s why that’s rewarding and important. Here’s why compassion is hard, and worth striving for.

Because that’s the thing that gets lost in the conversation, I think. I’m talking about redemption stories, not redemption moments. It’s a process. And Steven Universe takes pains to show Steven working through that process — dealing with his moments of very comprehensible anger, reckoning with his desire to fight alongside the Crystal Gems, examining how his friends handle and mishandle conflicts large and small, and coming to terms with the fact that compassion needs to be thought-through and well-judged. That’s literally his whole story arc.

The furrowed brow of complicated forgiveness.

What are we teaching our children? We’re teaching them care, and empathy, and good judgment. Of course some oppressors, some abusers, some straight-up mean people won’t respond to those things, and it’s okay to let them go! But there is value in trying to understand before condemning outright.

I would certainly never insist that anyone who has ever been hurt take the time to consider the circumstances of the person who hurt them; society does enough of that without my help, and even for myself, I know there are people who I find difficult to forgive. Likewise, for a multitude of reasons, I am not going to smear my introspecting about restorative justice all over Twitter while everyone is trying to talk about patterns of abuse or oppression. I see the value of anger, and I know when it’s more appropriate to sit and listen than to wade blithely in.

But for myself, I don’t think it’s productive to see monstrous things and not try to look at what’s behind them. In all things, I want to be asking questions: where did you come from? What created you? Who would you be if your circumstances had been different? Fiction is a space for asking questions. More to the point, fiction is a space for trying to write your way to the answers — not for creating a definitive formula of what morality should look like, but for showing your working as you start to define your terms. It shows, and I think any given story is lesser for it, when an antagonist is nothing more to an author than their wrongdoing.

I’ve been burned, in reality, by trusting too readily; I think we all have. But I don’t want it to be a mistake, in the stories I tell, to believe people can be better than they were. I want kindness to prevail. I have that power, when I write; it’s about the only time when I do. So there are people who believe in Merle, and who see her as a whole person in terrible pain. She gets to recognise her mistakes, and become a protagonist, and stand with people who believe in her potential to create a kinder world. She gets to set things right. I can’t imagine a better way to be redeemed.