Redeeming Qualities

Redeeming Qualities are the good qualities presented in a character. These qualities make it where the audience can feel a degree of sympathy or admiration for the character because they display good qualities that humanizes them. Heroes who do good for others have redeeming qualities by default. Not all villains have redeeming qualities, some villains who are Pure Evil for example have no redeeming qualities making them stand out as lacking any sense of humanity or decency. These traits are often connected to the character traits of the character.

What is considered to be a Redeeming Quality?

List of actions and characteristics that would be considered a redeeming quality.

Assisting someone who is in need of help because they are doing it to be of genuine help the person.
Giving a genuine apology to someone for doing something wrong.
Showing remorse or regret for having committed or participated in committing a crime that harmed someone.
The character puts their life in danger to protect someone that they love, care for, or respect.
Showing honor for someone or something and following it earnestly without showing signs of being duplicitous or manipulative.
Showing genuine disgust or outrage over the wicked actions of a villain which shows that the character have standards and they are not willing to commit an egregious act that the villain committed.
Genuinely mourning the loss of a friend, family member, or someone the character cared for.
Showing relief or happiness that someone the character cared for is safe.
Showing concern or being worried that someone the character cared for was harmed.
Taking responsibility for the bad deeds the character has done and making genuine attempt to atone for their actions.
Caring for the feelings of the people the character is around.
Stopping a dangerous villain or criminal who is out to harm others because they are doing this to protect the people against them.
Standing up to a dangerous individual or a bully to defend someone who is being harassed or mistreated.
Deliberately choosing to give up one’s own life or freedom to secure one’s safety so that person can not be harmed.
Trying to lead or guide someone because the character cares to support them not because they are trying to manipulate them.

What is not considered to be a Redeeming Quality?

List of actions and characteristics that would not be considered a redeeming quality.

Making a fake apology that is stated with sarcasm or was not made to be genuine.
Doing a good deed or multiple good deeds with the intention of making oneself look good to others for ill-intentions such as to deceive someone or multiple people.
Showing fascination and an obsession for someone than actual care for their being. This means the character does not care for the person’s desires or feelings and is only interested in them to satisfy a psychological gratification. The character would not mind crushing the spirit of the person they are fascinated with or obsessed with and violating any boundaries as long as the offending character gets what they want from the individual they obsessed over.
Treating people as tools and expendable material. A common example is seen with how bad bosses regard their minions.
Showing no reaction or care that a person close to the character was seriously harmed or killed.
Not wanting to commit depraved acts out of pragmatism or disinterest. They may simply not have a particular reason to commit a specific crime, or committing it may have negative consequences for them.
- An example is a character not being sexist, homophobic or racist. It’s possible the character simply sees discrimination as unnecessary rather than opposing it for altruistic reasons.
Being in a romantic relationship or married. Characters can be in romantic relationships and not show any care for the person they are supposedly in love with. They are only interested in either asserting power over them in the instances of domestic abuse, manipulating them or psychologically abusing them.
Lying to someone with the intent to have them harmed or killed.
Using the idea of maintaining order in society to violate people’s rights and inflict harm on the innocent.
Worshiping a being. The character may only be doing this to follow an ideology and is doing this as self-interest as they see the being they worship as an extension of themselves and their ideology. They are not doing this because they have any beneficial intention for anyone.
Saving someone’s life in order to manipulate them later or to maintain their palatable appearance or to improve upon it while only looking out for their own self-interests.
Joining a temporary alliance to go against another villain or another character, not because they care about helping others but because of what the character can benefit from the alliance if they succeed in stopping the threat to them.
Raising someone such as child or mentoring someone while not caring for them as individuals and also using them for their personal agendas.
Faking concern for someone who is dire situation.
Using one’s own tragedy as an excuse to harm or kill innocents.
Showing interest to someone after having mentally or physically abused them and viewing them as a pet.
Constantly lying to someone that one claims to be in love with or care for.
Showing shallow emotions that does not reflect genuine care or empathy for an individual or others.
Showing a degree of anger or rage that is irrational and motivated by pettiness.

Types of Redeeming Qualities

Care

The most simple and common redeeming quality. Genuinely caring for another sentient being humanizes a villain, showing they don’t think only about themselves.

When a character cares for someone (like a relative, a friend or a pet) they want their good, protect them and enjoy their company. They may get enraged when the person they care for is harmed.

Many otherwise irredeemable villains can’t be Pure Evil because they care for a selected few people.

A character doesn’t have to be in a perfect relationship with the other person for their care to be genuine. A villain may constantly bicker with their sibling or have a bad relationship with a parent, but that doesn’t mean they don’t love them, and they may still feel sad if something bad happens to them.

In some cases, a villain can be awful or even toxic with the person they care for. It’s still possible for the care to be a genuine redeeming quality even if it’s twisted. An example is Jimmy from Mouthwashing, who despite harming his friend Curly in horrifying ways, felt regret for what he did to him and broke in tears over it, showing he does still care for Curly even if in a twisted way.

But sometimes the care can be so twisted that it stops being genuine. An example is Emperor Belos from The Owl House. He did genuinely care for his older brother Caleb during their childhood, and still holds a form of loves for him since killing him was his worst memory and he hallucinated his ghost at one point. But this care falls flat when considering that Belos not only killed him, but kept making clones of Caleb and killing them when they rebel to him. He also treated the Grimwalkers poorly, abusing and indoctrinating them while defining himself their uncle rather than a younger brother. He also refuses to feel remorse for his murder and repress any regret he has, telling Caleb’s hallucination that he tried to save his soul, justifying himself and victim blaming him rather than actually feeling sorry. This shows that Belos ultimately cared more for the image he made of his brother rather than Caleb as a person.

Another example is Ego from the Marvel Cinematic Universe. He’s not unable to feel love, since he truly fell in love with Meredith Quill, which is the reason why their son Peter is stronger than his other children, but he considered this love a distraction from his plans, so he killed her with a tumor. Ego refusing the concept of love and purposely removing his possible redeeming quality shows that despite being able to love someone, he will never allow himself to have a loved one.

Respect

Respecting someone means that the character is able to have a good opinion of someone.

While a villain doesn’t need to hate everyone to be Pure Evil, a PE rarely consider someone else respectable as a person, since while respecting someone is not completely the same as caring for them, it does mean you hold them in high regard and see them positively.

Respect may not be genuinely redeeming if it is for self-serving reasons. A villain may admire the hero’s strength because they like the thrill of fighting them, but then attempt to kill them and not giving them any respect as a person. A villain can also acknowledge the hero’s skill and aspire to reclute them, but being still willing to greatly harm them, showing they only respect the hero’s skill and not them as a person.

Standards

Many people, even the most despicable, tend to have a couple of lines they wouldn’t cross.

A villain may have zero problems with killing innocents, but show disgusta at the idea of sexual crimes. This would prevent them from being Pure Evil since they’re refusing to commit a crime out of moral standards against it.

Standards can be specific. For example, a villain may not have a problem with murder overall, but still think that killing someone for a particular reason or killing a particular person is wrong. For example, the villain may think that killing your own sibling is unacceptable and show disgust at someone who committed fratricide. Even if the villain has no problem with murdering other people, their standard would be still genuine.

There are two ways a standard may not be genuine. In the first case, the character is hypocritical and cross the line they showed disgust at.

The second case is when the standard isn’t for moral reasons, but for pragmatic villainy. A villain may be against racism not because they feel repulsion at the concept of discrimination, but because it’s possible they may find an useful ally who happens to be black, meaning that being racist would be negative for their plans.

Also, just because a character understands that something is wrong it doesn’t necessarily mean they have standards against it. To have a moral standard, a character must refuse or at least being unwilling to commit an action because they consider it morally reprehensible.

Honor

Having honor means the character acts according to a code. While almost every character follows some sort of code, someone who is honorable will avoid doing things they consider cheating, even when it would be beneficial to them, and they will follow their code even when doing so would harm themselves.

Honorable characters often have moral standards and show respect to other people. They will keep their promises even if they have nothing to gain from it.

A villain who kept their end of the deal with someone may not be genuinely honorable if they have something to lose by breaking the pact. A villain may ally himself with another villain and never try to betray their partner because they’re useful to them.

Affability and Pet the Dog moments

Affability is when a character acts genuinely nice to someone else for no pragmatic reason. When a character who is not the best morally or personality-wise does something kind, these acts are known as Pet the Dog moments.

This is redeeming since while a villain who is Completely Evil doesn’t need to be rude to everyone, they’re still not supposed to be nice or ever do something altruistic, since that would present them in a more human light.

Even a single moment of kindness is redeeming. If a villain at one point steals from a shop and decides to leave some money to a cashier to be nice, they would never count as Pure Evil, no matter of how heinous and cruel they are otherwise, unless they do something to subvert that Pet the Dog act.

There are villains who are Faux Affably Evil. They speak in a way that may sound affable, but either that’s a façade to hide their true nature, or it’s just superficial. An example of the second situation would be a villain who mockingly refers to the hero as their friend and speak in a way that mimics cordiality, but their behavior and actions make clear that their affability is just a shallow imitation of niceness.

Good Intentions

A character who has good intentions is acting out of genuine desire to do good. Even if their actions are extreme and unjustifiable, they still think they were for a good reason.

Sometimes the villain and their good intentions are treated with a large amount of sympathy, making them an anti-villain, but just being well-intentioned doesn’t automatically them one.

Some characters are Not So Well-Intentioned Exremists, who appear or claim to have good intentions but in truth they’re only thinking about themselves. They affirm to be doing their crimes to help other people or make a better world, but all they care about in reality is to satisfy their own needs.

Just because a villain is partially selfish in their motivation, it doesn’t mean their good intentions are insincere if they still genuinely think they’re doing what is best.

Acting out of Care

A mix of care and good intentions, some characters are motivated by their care for someone. They may be committing crimes only to protect them, or be influenced by their lost and aspire to avenge them.

This will be given a large amount of sympathy by the audience and make the character an anti-villain. They’re a type of Villain by Proxy, as they lack a true malicious intent, only being motivated by their care.

Remorse

Feeling remorse for something you did means that you feel bad for what you’ve done. A character feeling remorse for one of their crimes is a disqualification from Pure Evil, since a PE cannot regret any of their evil actions.

Remorse is typically accompanied by another redeeming quality. A villain may feel remorse for having hurt someone they care for or for having done something they consider disgusting.

Many times, severe remorse can lead a villain to seek redemption or at least retire from villainy.

While normally feeling remorse is preventing from Near Pure Evil only when the villain is remorseful for too many of their actions, it’s possible for a villain to be too remorseful even if they only regret one deed they committed. An example is the Wizard from the theatrical adaptation of Wicked. When he discovered that Elphaba was his daughter, thinking he caused her death, he abandons his evil way and accepts to being exiled. While this isn’t a genuine redemption and he doesn’t regret his other crimes, the fact he decided to retire from villainy out of remorse is too mitigating, as a villain who is close to Pure Evil would only abandon their evil ways for selfish and personal reasons.

Levels of Redeeming Qualities

Main article: Moral Prevention Severity

While having a single and minor redeeming quality automatically disqualifies a character from being Pure Evil, it doesn’t prevent them from being Near Pure Evil.

A villain is prevented from being NPE if their redeeming qualities are too many, too mitigating, or both.

Caring for someone is rarely too preventing. A villain may care for one or two groups of individuals (like their whole family or a team they’re part of) and still count as Near Pure Evil. Caring for multiple people is usually considered a single prevention. But there’s still a limit to how many people an NPE can care for. If the number of people they care for is extremely high it may end up overshadowing their villainous side and humanize them too much.
Respect is similar to care since it’s difficult for it to be too preventing by itself. It’s also fairly rare for a villain to respect too many people, but if it reaches the point they respect almost all their adversaries, they may end up feeling too honorable to be close to Pure Evil.
Honor’s severity as a prevention largely depends by the specific case. A villain who a couple of times keeps promises can still qualify as NPE, while a villain who has honor as a prominent part of their characterization may be too inconsistent. If a villain renounces to their evil plans because the hero won against them and permanently abandons villainy, their honor may be too redeeming for NPE.
Good Intentions, if too prominent or if the villain’s crimes don’t minimize them, can make a character too inconsistent to be NPE. For this to be a minor prevention, the villain’s actions must be emphasized in the work and the story needs to make clear that their goal or methods aren’t completely understandable.
Being affable a couple of times is a minor prevention, but if the villain is consistently portrayed as nice and genuinely polite it becomes too preventing. Similarly, a Pet the Dog moment needs to be minor for the villain to be NPE. If a character has a Pet the Dog moment that is too major, like sparing a whole population because they found them nice, their evilness is significantly diminished.
Acting out of care often prevents a villain from being NPE. While a villain who wants to a avenge a loved one can reach Rank 2-, a villain who is only a evil due to losing said loved one and whose desire to avenge them is given a large amount of sympathy by the narrative is difficult to see as close to being Pure Evil. A villain who only wants to protect their loved one tend to be even more inconsistent, since often they’re portrayed as broken individuals acting out of desperation rather than monstrous characters with little humanity.