Tips for redeeming my villain?

[Empathy001]

In my novel, the main villain remains faceless for the majority of the book, but is later revealed to be extremely important to one of my protagonists. She is very child-like in nature, and has taken over as a tyrant princess. One of her biggest flaws is that she doesn’t know she’s doing anything wrong. I am hoping to be able to redeem her by the end, possibly through a hero’s sacrifice, but am struggling to figure out exactly how.

 

[Jackarandajam]

I don't know if I would even recommend FULLY redeeming your antag.
If she is childlike and doesn't know what she's doing, that could be a really good end scene, where in the confrontation she realizes it and is crushed...
Also, she doesn't have to be literally redeemed of any wrongdoing.
The protag could just make her promise to be good from now on and hide her somewhere - a decision your readers may be on the fence about morally depending on the seriousness of her crimes, but your protag doesn't always have to make the right decisions either.

 

[Empathy001]

I don't know if I would even recommend FULLY redeeming your antag.
If she is childlike and doesn't know what she's doing, that could be a really good end scene, where in the confrontation she realizes it and is crushed...
Also, she doesn't have to be literally redeemed of any wrongdoing.
The protag could just make her promise to be good from now on and hide her somewhere - a decision your readers may be on the fence about morally depending on the seriousness of her crimes, but your protag doesn't always have to make the right decisions either.

huh, that's actually really interesting. Honestly more morally grey characters probably would benefit my story, since the idea is kinda adult minds in a kid's world. I'll think about it a bit, thank you!

 

[The Dark One]

If the villain doesn't know she's doing anything wrong and is crushed when she discovers she is, then she's not really a villain. She's tragic.

A redeemable villain either changes their mind about a situation or has a powerful (later revealed) motivation for what they're doing wrong.

 

[pmmg]

In my novel, the main villain remains faceless for the majority of the book, but is later revealed to be extremely important to one of my protagonists. She is very child-like in nature, and has taken over as a tyrant princess. One of her biggest flaws is that she doesn’t know she’s doing anything wrong. I am hoping to be able to redeem her by the end, possibly through a hero’s sacrifice, but am struggling to figure out exactly how.

I think the way to do this is for her to see the error of her ways and start to feel for those she has been harming....or...one might say, she gains empathy....

Which soon leads to a desire to reconcile and seek to atone. If that ends with sacrifice, that's kind of up to what you are trying to show in your ending.

 

[Jackarandajam]

huh, that's actually really interesting. Honestly more morally grey characters probably would benefit my story, since the idea is kinda adult minds in a kid's world. I'll think about it a bit, thank you!

The greyness of the morality of the characters depends more on how they feel about their decisions and why they made them than about the decisions they make.
Good guys, even really good guys, make mistakes.
Sympathy for the antag, even a poor, improperly weighed decision based on emotion, wouldn't necessarily make the protag grey.

Not tryin to split hairs, just clarifying.

 

[Smokedog]

Bringing them back to human nature and it will make them be become a bit more emotionally relatable to the reader. The villan can be misled, emotionally manipulated, nieve, controlled, or lured. Once you trigger the start of a change, you can head to the acceptance which is typical of a coming of age, or redemption climb. Both can work to give the the readers characters you love to hate, or hint on the fact that nobody's perfect. To be Human is fallible. Human nature works almost every time. Its just my opinion. Im sure whatever way you do it will work.

 

[Finchbearer]

Someone who is child like suggests someone who is not yet emotionally mature. A princess would suggest someone not yet of marriageable age, which would also suggest that she is still quite young in her years anyway. The human brain isn’t thought to fully mature until (on average) it reaches twenty five years old and older. How old is the antagonist?

But there’s more to unpick here I think, and that’s what you could do at your end, because we don’t know the whole plot and the backstory of each character. I suppose you could have an antagonist where you don’t find out what their upbringing was like, but you could also have many varied reasons for someone to become a tyrant. Who is she surrounded by? What is her kingdom like? What is the rule of law there? Why is she intent on being tyrant, and most importantly what would lead her to not realise she’s doing anything wrong? Is her moral compass really that askew? Does she think she’s helping?

 

[Prince of Spires]

If your villain is really faceless for the majority of the book, then I think the best redemption example you could study is Darth Vader in Return of the Jedi.

Full on redemption arcs work because we follow along with the villain, and see them struggling to redeem themselves. If you don't give us that journey, then it's hard to make the redemption arc about the villain.

What Return of the Jedi does, is that it makes the redemption arc not about Darth Vader, but about Luke. He strives to see his father do the right thing. He strives to make his father turn away from the dark side. He needs to see his father redeemed because he's afraid of becoming like his father and he believes everyone can be saved.

That is what makes that redemption arc so powerful and memorable. It's not that Darth Vader redeemed himself, it's that Luke saved him and made him chose the right thing in the end.

 

[Rexenm]

You could try making her a double negative. I have one character in my story who works for progress. Really, she is caught between the two worlds of her innocence and her ultimate power. Getting your foot in the door for someone so powerful is easier than making do with the hero, because of all the lone wolf scenario, but they may perhaps be more right.