Best Characters Who Redeemed Themselves and Remained Redeemed?

There's characters who had redemption arcs but then went back to anti-hero or villain ways, but what are characters who remained heroic after changing their ways?

Two characters that come to mind are Piccolo from Dragon Ball and Boromir from the Lord of the Rings.

If anyone could quote this tag list. Much obliged!

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Edmund Pevensie springs to mind. I should really write up an essay on him at some point.

Zuko. This is complete, total, and unequivocal.

Piccolo is definitely one of them, and Tien, and Vegeta.

As for non-anime/manga characters I guess Gru from Despicable Me?

Arthur Morgan.

Of all the fiction I’ve seen, this.

Her

My boys Bardock and Tienshinhan.

Anakin Skywalker

Zuko and Anakin

Somehow forgot about Vader. Definitely him, followed by Zuko.

This has made me realize that most of my favorites are actually the opposite of this, lol. They're mostly the creation of villains. Maybe with light redemption towards the end (never fully becoming heroic). If that counts, I'd put a couple above these two.

https://acciokenobi.tumblr.com/post/621359782653198336
Definitely these two.

Great thread. I agree with Piccolo and Boromir.

Another favourite of mine is Red Donkey from War for the Planet of the Apes.

You know...this is actually tougher than I thought lol. There are a lot of scenarios that I would exclude here:

1. Villains who turn good for a time -- maybe even years -- but eventually turn evil again.
2. Villains who oscillate between villain and hero/antihero.
3. Villains that turn good right at the end, and we don't get to properly see them as a hero.
4. Villains who turn good right before they die, or even sacrifice themselves (sort of like a pre-death redemption lol).
5. Heroes who became villains, and then became heroes again.
6. Characters who were barely villains (and sometimes only in a minor sense), and who we've seen the vast majority of their time as heroes instead (e.g. Gambit, who was part of the Thieves Guild).
7. Characters who are only "villains" in the sense that they oppose the protagonist. This role is often filled by a cop or agent of some kind.
8. And then there are some that technically work here, but I'm just not the biggest fan of their characters (e.g. Winter Soldier).

So as far as people who actually fit the bill, I'm going with:

• Vegeta
• Hiei
• Zuko
• Piccolo
• Rogue

And that's about all I can really think of. I might be missing some.

For sure, these two are some of the best and they are extremely similar. https://acciokenobi.tumblr.com/post/621359782653198336

Isn't he one of your favorite characters in general?

I only read a few of the books so I didn't know his whole arc.

Nice. I never finished the sequel series, but thought he was great in Avatar.

The sequel's 95% A:TLA's quality IMO

Anakin for sure for sure

Butch Coolidge and Jules Winnfield from Pulp Fiction are two other characters I'd add. Both redeem themselves by the end of the movie.

Jules quits being a hitman after a near death experience makes him question himself and his occupation.

Butch saves Marsellus from Zed and Maynard in the pawnshop, thereby living up to his father's name.

No, we're not going all Padme here. These characters have to be fully redeemed when we're alive.

I was going to make a thread like that for open-ended characters like Michael Corleone who audiences might hope will redeem themselves in the end, but you can make it, if you'd like.

You run a tight ship, @indomitableregal, but not tight enough.

How culpable was the Winter Solider for his actions? If he wasn't culpable...actually you do run a pretty tight ship. Dang. lol

I don't think he was culpable to be a villain, but either way, he's the reverse of your third rule since I don't think we see much of him even acting as a villain since it's more flashback stuff, right? I don't remember.

Also, you're not the biggest fan of Winter Soldier? I may or may not have been planning something for your birthday, and I may or may not have to check eBay right now so I may or may not be able to return a replica...do you have a fire place to melt a metal arm into something?

That's a fantastic set of rules. I like them.

Boromir has to walk the plank too then.

I thought Rogue might have behaved like an anti-hero during the Remender Avengers stuff though. Was she part of the time travel stuff?

@infantfinite128: Mabe zuko, but from the ones u have their the lotr guy, i'm a true lotr fan.

Proto Man

Thanks.

Great thing to be a fan of.

• Jaime Lannister
• Theon Greyjoy
• Bojack Horseman
• Megamind
• Steve (Stranger Things)
• Severus Snape
• Michael (The Good Place)
• Regina Mills ( Once Upon A Time)

Off the top of my head.

Tag me for it if you make a blog or something, the Narnia books are pretty underrated.

Steven Strange

Hmmm....I dont know if Bojack has redeemed himself yet, and I feel like the show was trying to say that Bojack will relapse and do bad things again but that at least now he's trying to get better

• Zuko (Avatar the Last Airbender)
• Boromir (Lord of the Rings)
• Theon Greyjoy (Game of Thrones)
• Anakin Skywalker (Star Wars)
• Severus Snape (Harry Potter)
• Jellal Fernandes (Fairy Tail)
• The Arbiter (Halo)

Some of them didn't REALLY need to be redeemed in-verse, but in the eyes of the audience they needed to go from bad to good

@infantfinite128:

Isn't he one of your favorite characters in general?

Yeah, he's consistently in the top 5, and sometimes in 1st place depending on my mood.

I only read a few of the books so I didn't know his whole arc.

He's actually a stagnant character across most of the series, and acts primarily in a support role. He gets his redemption in Lion, and that's maintained across the rest of the books.

@blackspidey2099:

Tag me for it if you make a blog or something, the Narnia books are pretty underrated.

Sure thing.

Thanks for the list.

I want to make a thread for characters like that. Open-ended characters like Michael Corelone who haven't completed their journey into taking a virtuous path but the audiences are left hoping they might.

Gotcha. I read that book! And saw the movie.

That's a valid take, I think it was open ended enough for the audience to make their own "ending", because as the show itself said numerous times, real life doesn't have endings, it just goes on, and I like to think that Bojack learned from his mistakes and became a better person, like that talk at the end with Todd clearly showed.

I still can't get over the ending and especially that final scene, it totally devastated me, I remember perfectly I was just waiting for them to say something to each other, and as the silence continued I remember thinking "don't you dare end it now, don't you dare end it now" and boom they ended it there, and the song "Mr. Blue" was absolutely perfect in that moment.

Accelerator , I even cosplayed him !!

Snape, Anakin, Sasuke, Piccolo, Zuko.

These are the one that come to mind

Neat. What he from?

@infantfinite128:

Toaru universe, I watched this verse solely for him.

Start from toaru majutsu no index and move from there :)

@evyhl: Thanks. Just looked it up and saw that one of the questions was what order to watch it in, so I appreciate it!

Lmao. Damn. Missed out on a metal arm. XD For the record, I don't dislike Bucky. I just have no strong feelings for him either way. Like his presence or lack thereof in a story isn't gonna influence my interest in either direction. Well except when Captain America: The Winter Soldier came out. Admittedly...he was the hype lol.

Really, Winter Soldier should be eliminated on a few criteria. Technically he was a hero first when he was just a soldier or Cap's partner. Then the majority of his tenure as Winter Soldier has been as a hero, or at least antihero. His culpability as Winter Soldier is dubious as you pointed out. And probably a couple other infractions lol.

As far as Rogue, she was a bit more uh...violent under Remender. But for what it's worth, she was pretty much evil during AXIS, which means her default has to be good...right? Lol.

Side-note: Yes I'm aware this reply is 2 weeks late. I have some threads pinned that I've been meaning to get back to...

@indomitableregal: On your side note: Take 2 years. Always great to hear your insight.

Although, if you take that long, and it's a simple "yes" or "no" then it better be the greatest, most simplest of simple "yes"'s and "no"'s in the universe. lol

Vader, Scrooge, Jaws from Bond

Tag me later.