boltons are sick Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 I recently noticed this post. It is complaining about the lack of female villains that get redemption arcs both in ASOIAF and in fiction in general. I haven`t thought about this before but now that I think about it, most of the fictional characters that get redeemed are male and female redemption arcs are still pretty rare. So, in this post you can list your favorite fictional female villains that get redemption arcs and explain why you like them. My favorite one is probably Sarah Kerrigan from the video game series Starcraft. For those of you who don`t know, she lost her parents at an early age by an accident, then she was kidnapped by her goverment and underwent brutal training to become an assassin. Kerrigan was then rescued by the seemingly benevolent rebel leader Arcturus Mengsk who accepted her in his ranks. However, when Sarah Kerrigan expressed her disagreement with his atrocities (like massacring the population of an entire planet) Mengsk quickly left her behind to be killed by the Zerg. Instead of killing her, the Zerg turned Kerrigan into the Queen of Blades, a genocidal tyrant who has butchered billions of beings throughout the galaxy. However, this is not Kerrigan`s fault (at least not entirely) because she was brainwashed by the Zerg into becoming this monster. Later in the story her lover, Jim Raynor, saves her and turns her back into human and she doesn`t remember anything. However, she feels remorse about the atrocities she has commited as the Queen of Blades. In the end Sarah Kerrigan ends up saving the entire universe from extinction and defeats the main villain of the entire Starcraft universe and this is how she atones for her crimes. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Veltigar Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 I hear that the latest Wonder Woman film has an excellent example of a female villain getting a redemption arc. She starts the movie out conventionally enough, as a good and sympathetic character. However, due to the powers of the Mcguffin of that film, a stone that grants wishes, she is suddenly given the power to prey on other people. She proceeds to actually sexually assault a random guy, but she redeems herself in the end by defeating another female villain and saving the world Spoiler See what I did there? Fair point about the lack of redemption arcs for female villains. I'm sure I have seen a few, but if they aren't memorable enough to turn any heads, they must be pretty far and few in between. The only one that comes to mind and I'm not even sure if it counts, is connie nielsen in Gladiator. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
boltons are sick Posted January 4, 2021 Author Share Posted January 4, 2021 5 minutes ago, Veltigar said: Fair point about the lack of redemption arcs for female villains. I'm sure I have seen a few, but if they aren't memorable enough to turn any heads, they must be pretty far and few in between. The only one that comes to mind and I'm not even sure if it counts, is connie nielsen in Gladiator. I don`t think she counts because she doesn`t really do anything bad in the film (at least as far as I remember but I admit that I have seen this film a long time ago and I might be misremembering). She is portrayed more as a victim of her psycho brother who is the real villain of the film. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Leofric Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 Sorcha from Willow is one that comes to mind. Kidnaps a child to give to her mother to be sacrificed, but later turns on her mother after falling for a pixie-dusted Madmartigan. Though I guess you could say she has a similar arc to some Bond girls, except she and Madmartigan appear to be married at the end and plan to raise the baby girl, Elora. Then in MCU is full of redemption arcs. You have Gamora rejecting her adoptive father Thanos, and fighting against Ronan to save Xandar and later Nebula also rejecting Thanos and both fighting against Ego and Thanos himself. Wanda created by Hydra and helping Ultron, before joining the Avengers. That is also Natasha's, the Black Widow's backstory, trying to remove the red from her ledger. Though in none of these, the redemption is not the central story, more side stories for character development. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Stannis Eats No Peaches Posted January 4, 2021 Share Posted January 4, 2021 GLaDOS Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
felice Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Catra in She-Ra and the Princesses of Power! And I suppose She-Ra herself, though that's basically dealt with in the first episode, while Catra's arc lasts the whole series. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadlines? What Deadlines? Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Beth Smith Beatrix Kiddo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadlines? What Deadlines? Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Furiosa? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mr. Chatywin et al. Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 58 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said: Beatrix Kiddo? My first thought. The Bride is straight up evil at the start of her story. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Corvinus85 Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Caprica Six and Athena from Battlestar Galactica. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheLastWolf Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Cordelia in Buffy The Vampire Slayer and Angel Sansa in the Abomination Alexis Rose in Schitt's Creek Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 3 hours ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said: Beatrix Kiddo? I'm not sure wanting to revenge-kill your ex-boyfriend, and in the process regain custody of your daughter, constitutes a redemption arc. Especially considering all the people she killed/maimed in the process (although she was nice enough to only spank that one kid in Tokyo). In addition to the MCU females mentioned, if we're talking superhero movies Catwoman would be an obvious one. Not sure if Pfeiffer's completely redeemed herself but Hathaway's seemed to (I did not see Berry's). One that springs to mind is Juliet in Lost, although I'm not sure if she counts either once we're given her full backstory. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Toth Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Of fucking course my first thought went to Umineko, given its plethora of female villains. But... eh... it's a bit of a complicated case. If I look at the When they Cry series, Ryukishi has a habit of forgiving (most) of his female villains somewhere down the line by revealing more stuff about them that paints them as not really that bad after all. Which can sometimes be a bit jarring and not really count as a redemption arc if I am being honest. The villain in Higurashi... Spoiler ... remains spitefully unrepentant, but we are supposed to feel sad for her horrific backstory and when she has her villainous breakdown after her plan is foiled Hanyuu forgives her and the last we see from her is the boyfriend she tried to murder for standing in her way consoling her. I wondered several times in the alternate ending Miotsukushi whether Rika forgot that that woman fucking murdered her parents, when she went on and on about feeling pity for her. Umineko is significantly better in that regard, though even there the 'redemption arcs' are complicated if you look at them closely. My favourite character has always been Eva, who was introduced as a spiteful scheming bitch putting down her sister-in-law with misogynistic remarks to exclude her from conversation (because her idiot brother is easier to handle) and being abusive to her niece after her entire family gets murdered in front of her eyes and she breaks under the stress of the public and that niece accusing her of the murders. Well, yeah... Spoiler ... it turns out that she indeed didn't commit the murders, only killing the murderers in self-defense and instead has been revealed as purposely taking the blame upon herself because she thought learning the truth would be too much for Ange. Also her internalized misogyny got a pretty decent explanation when you see how much shit she got heaped upon by her comically misogynistic father and her being the most competent sibling and knowing it, so she had to adapt to the game in order to get the power she wants. I found it interesting that Eva only ever uses misogyny against Natsuhi, but never against Natsuhi's daughter Jessica whom she's technically trying to supplant with her son George. In fact Eva is shown to be nothing but nice and supportive to Jessica. Probably because she knows that Jessica would gladly step aside if it wasn't for her mother, so she's not a threat. Which I guess explains why she's so cruel to Shannon at the same time, what with the danger her relationship to George poses to her plans. Eva technically has a redemption arc when her evil alter ego Eva-Beatrice, the personification of the theory that she's the murderer, decides to help out Ange at the end. Of course it gets blurry when you realize that the actual Eva has been long dead at this point, but that's just the nature of Umineko as an extreme Meta story. Of course the main villain of Umineko is Beatrice, which... is also a very interesting case, because she did indeed get a redemption arc, kinda: Spoiler ... which also essentially boils down to Battler, the guy she tormented and subjected to his family getting killed four times over, figuring out her true identity and motive and getting to realize that the whole game has been just a means to the end of wanting him to understand her and stop her from committing the crime... ... of course at this point Beatrice is already dead, both in the real world as well as in the narrative. So Battler has her revive herself and have her have her redemption arc of saving him from Bern and Lambda who had taken over the villainous roles by then. Then they hook up and marry and work together to clobber the moral of the story into Ange's head. Which... I am aware got many readers stumped and angry as they expected the story to end with Battler revealing her true identity and destroying her. I guess it is pretty telling that I breathed a massive sigh of relief that after all the stuff about them being a couple, it turns out Beatrice never killed anyone in the real world as her murder-suicide plan got hijacked early on. Of course this also means that the entire redemption and the tragic conversation with Ange in which she contemplates her mistakes is all written by someone else as she's also pretty dead at this point. Yes, I know, it's... complicated. XD That's why I love this story so much! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadlines? What Deadlines? Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 1 hour ago, DMC said: I'm not sure wanting to revenge-kill your ex-boyfriend, and in the process regain custody of your daughter, constitutes a redemption arc. Especially considering all the people she killed/maimed in the process (although she was nice enough to only spank that one kid in Tokyo). In addition to the MCU females mentioned, if we're talking superhero movies Catwoman would be an obvious one. Not sure if Pfeiffer's completely redeemed herself but Hathaway's seemed to (I did not see Berry's). One that springs to mind is Juliet in Lost, although I'm not sure if she counts either once we're given her full backstory. I'm not sure either. In one sense she has to recon with her past instead of just running away from it. And her meeting with Bill isn't as straightforward as she planned. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DMC Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 4 minutes ago, Deadlines? What Deadlines? said: I'm not sure either. In one sense she has to recon with her past instead of just running away from it. And her meeting with Bill isn't as straightforward as she planned. I mean, casual antisemitism aside, Michael Madsen makes a compelling argument. Also, I agree Connie Nielsen's character in Gladiator doesn't count. She's basically a captive almost the entire movie. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Deadlines? What Deadlines? Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 43 minutes ago, DMC said: I mean, casual antisemitism aside, Michael Madsen makes a compelling argument. Also, I agree Connie Nielsen's character in Gladiator doesn't count. She's basically a captive almost the entire movie. A really long read but good. https://www.slantmagazine.com/film/blooming-lotus-redemption-and-spiritual-transformation-in-kill-bill/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GallowKnight Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Doesn't Gal Gadot's Fast & Furious character start as a villain in whatever movie she debuted in? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaughn Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Dolores Umbridge - we only see her through the eyes of a petulant trust-fund kid who doesn't want to follow school rules. Summer on 'the OC' Did Achren get redeemed in Pyrdian? It's been a minute since I read those books. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inkdaub Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 31 minutes ago, Vaughn said: Dolores Umbridge You're a bad person. Connie Nielsen in Gladiator isn't even close to being a villain. I think Kiddo should count. The first one that came to my mind was Maleficent. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Vaughn Posted January 5, 2021 Share Posted January 5, 2021 Valkyrie from Thor should count because she was, you know, enslaving people for liquor money but it was presented more as being a victim of circumstance than a villain. Veronica Mars (if you are Logan) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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