I've been watching a bunch of westerns lately, including my all time favorite, and indeed one of my favorite films of any genre, Unforgiven (Clint Eastwood, 1992). And it's made me realize how many characters in this genre have done absolutely horrific things--civilian murder-y, no quarter given kinds of things--but are still capable of loving and receiving love. And those things are not presented as irreconcilably at odds. Will Munny can kill half the working age men in Big Whiskey and ride off with the bounty money and use it to start a new life with his children. But the audience doesn't see that. Instead, Eastwood leaves us with Astonia Feathers, the mother of Will's late wife, who still sees him as "a known thief and murderer" and a "man of intemperate disposition." No amount of prospering in dry goods in San Francisco changes what he's done even if the rumors Astonia hears are true.
On the one hand, this is a bleak view on the possibility of change, but it also gives Will genuine complexity. Loving his children and friends may not redeem his past wrongs, but it does matter in the context of the narrative. Positive relationships are not treated as privileges that must be "earned" with a redemption arc.