Evil is forgiven if it turns Good

Visual Novel Community Anime/Otaku Discussions
#1

Not a political discussion, but rather, a main stay in storytelling. Oftentimes there is a character who commits terrible acts of evil. Sometimes the villain does so for a “worthy cause”, following an end justifies the means methodology (sacrificing souls to power a weapon that can kill the Devil when he resurrects). On the other hand, the villain may just be committing acts of violence because they feel it’s their right (she was raised to be evil, and doesn’t know better). Suddenly there comes a point in the plot, where this evil joins forces with the good guys. Vegeta from Dragonball Z for example.

Now no matter how horrible these person’s actions were, no matter how many innocents they’ve killed before joining Team Justice, they’re exonerated for all their crimes. Hell… sometimes they become a lover for the heroic Chosen One.

Has anyone ever put any thought into the ramifications of these resolutions?

Why should such people be forgiven? True… it’s only a story and what have you… but shouldn’t these individuals STILL be held accountable for the evils they committed? Aren’t there crimes that can’t be atoned for? What does this say about the heroes? Is it really a case that they’re so good, they’ll forgive anything? Of course historically, real life has the same. The British and America joining forces with the Soviets to defeat NAZI Germany for example… yet history looks back and stills sees it as an act of evil. Not to mention the Soviets still “paid” for their actions following WW2 (the whole Cold War deal).

Does anyone ever see this as a device of poor storytelling? Now I’m not saying that all evil that joins good, has to be in a situation like Alucard of Hellsing or Chrono of Chrono Crusade – but if evil isn’t held accountable for being evil, and certain degrees of evil are tolerable, when does crossing the line of no return happen?

#2

Why would there be a line that can never be uncrossed with respect to Vegeta? “I wish none of this ever happened” – okay, it never happened. The idea that some sins are unforgivable is related to the fact that some acts have permanent consequences, which is lacking in DBZ. (Eventually they introduce the new set of Dragon Balls that can only resurrect any given person once, but IIRC (not really a follower) that happens after he turns antihero.)

#3

Also, the main reason (as in, one of the motivators behind this everywhere except the DBZ universe) is a simple fact: compromise is necessary. Totally inflexible ideals tend to backfire when applied to a grey world, in undesirable ways. In particular, if someone cannot be forgiven for what they’ve done, then they can expect no quarter or mercy. Why should someone in that position ever stop, or surrender?

Similar logic is why Cortez was able to smash the Aztec empire: they were hated by just about everyone else for their practice of human sacrificing their enemies. So Cortez was able to exploit this quite effectively and get a horde of allies to assist him in crushing the Aztec empire. Nobody ever surrendered to the Aztecs, because it meant being a human sacrifice. This was quite successful for them in the short term (they had a huge empire) but eventually people hated them so much it didn’t take much to build an alliance to break them.

#4

Are there any crimes that can be atoned for? I mean, other than stealing something and giving it back before a person even notices it’s gone. Most pain that you cause, you can’t fix, not really. You can give compensation, and that might help the victim recover. You can be punished, and that might help the victim feel better, (or possibly convince you not to do it again although that’s… uncertain at best). You can be imprisoned forever to ensure that there won’t be any future victims (well, assuming the prison actually works). But being truly sorry and becoming Good would achieve the same result.

Now sure, it feels a bit lame if a villain’s been horrendously evil and then changes his/her mind and never suffers any consequences for all the crap they did. OTOH it’s quite common in fiction for evil that becomes good to immediately get killed, either in the process of making up for their evil, or by a secondary Good character (usually not the Hero) deciding that sorry isn’t good enough and murdering them.

Even Xena, in the shit-tastic finale which should never be mentioned again except in curses, decides that “Y’know what? I was a bad person once, so it’s better for me to just get killed than to live and do good.”

#5

There’s the Kenshin philosophy: it’s easy to atone by dying; it’s harder and, in the end, better (or more productive to society, if you want), to atone by living.

#6

Yea, but often society can place unreasonable expectations upon someone (see the debates on some threads here).

My problem is not the turning to good, but the trust issue. Someone who turns to good in most stories either is completely trusted or never trusted by anyone (except 1 or 2 people even if they bend over backwards).

#7

You also have to look at the Character him / herself. With the atrocities he committed (Especially the wholescale murder of young children) Anakin Skywalker’s redemption is really weak in my opinon. He turns back to good for totally selfish reasons (to save his son). Technically you could say that saving Luke saved the Rebel alliance and all that, but you can’t. After the Funeral Pyre we get the “look I’ve been Redeemed” scene at the end and really he shouldn’t have been there, and had the audience figure it out for themselves whether he’d been redeemed.

Another example is in the Bible. Paul, before he converted to Christianity, Prosecuted and Murdered Christians, and he was good at it. After he became a Christian, He embraced it and truly changed his life from the man he was, to the Apostle who founded quite a few churches.

Honestly, it all depends on the presentation in the story.

#8

Careful now if you try to claim true objective morality exists , I shall insist that you prove it . :wink:

People perceive the world based on experiences they have. Vegeta was bourne into a warrior race then indentured to a galactic dictator . It’s only natural he would view the universe as a conquest and life as cheap.