Challenge #11
In your own space, Talk about your favorite trope, cliché, kink, motif, or theme. Leave a comment in this post saying you did it. Include a link to your post if you feel comfortable doing so.
Oh this one is hard, because I have a lot of things I enjoy.
But one I really like is where a character who has made terrible choices and done a lot of harm does NOT get, or accept if it’s offered, the opportunity for the single ‘redemptive’ heroic sacrifice. Because you can’t undo a lifetime of harm with a quick gotcha or a single gesture. I love stories that confront the fact that redemption is a slow and painful road. That you can’t ‘undo’ harms at all–you have to redress them as best you can, and sometimes there’s no fixing it, no forgiveness that you’re going to receive, but that doesn’t change the fact that if you’re committed to doing better, you still have to work to make the world better a little at a time, the same way you once made it worse.
And I love the courage it takes for a character to confront this, and to walk this path. The acceptance that some people will never forgive, but others will. The truly redemptive presence of love and devotion and dedication in their heart, that drives them to choose this and to try.
I think it’s a story that we need more of. Less of the ‘how to be a pure and good hero who doesn’t do bad things in the first place’ and more of the ‘how to be a person who has fucked up big-time but is still trying to be better.’
