Give 'em a Redemption Arc!
I'm a sucker for a good redemption arc. Heck, I'm a sucker for a redemption arc, period. There's something thrilling about a character turning from bad to good, from being a villain to being a hero (or at least on the side of the hero). It gets my story-loving soul stirred up in ways few other tropes can. I've been thinking about what makes a redemption arc powerful (and what makes a good one). My friend Mirriam has posted recently about good and bad character deaths and what makes a good story and she's even shared her hopes for Hive to be redeemed on Marvel's Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. Another friend shared the news that Benedict Cumberbatch is voicing the Grinch in a new animated movie and that turned into a conversation about how the live action film basically destroyed the Grinch's redemption arc by making him the victim of the materialistic Whos. While there's nothing wrong with multiple redemption arcs in the same story, in that case, they jus...