The Vampire Queen

In my opinion, the main thing that defines a redemption arc is the way that the character is framed in a piece of media; to simplify, starting with them being generally seen as a “bad” person and at some point in the story having a change of heart in a pivotal moment, followed up by action, so they are seen as a “good” person by the end of the show. I think this has less to do with how other characters in the story see them and more to do with a meaningful action to (at least somewhat) correct their past mistakes.

I think one good well-known example is Darth Vader from Star Wars, he begins the series as one of the main villains leading the (evil) Empire. In the end, he realizes that what he has done is wrong [change of heart] when the Emperor tries to kill his son Luke [pivotal moment], he then sacrifices himself to save Luke, killing the Emperor and then himself in the process, and ending the reign of the Empire [meaningful action], ending as a “good” person in the eyes of the story [redemption]. His actions did not necessarily undo all of the harm that he did in the past, nor would most of the Star Wars characters probably view him as “good”, nor did he necessarily “ask for forgiveness”. It’s about the impact that he had on the story; not just having a change of heart and stopping being evil, but actively taking a significant action to fix things.

As far as Endeavor’s story, I think that it is intended to be a “redemption arc”, in that it seems pretty clear that Horikoshi’s framing of the story is intentionally written for Endeavor to be viewed as generally “good” by the end of the story. Yes, he stops abusing his family and yes he feels bad, but he doesn’t take action to make any significant change, especially when it comes to the damage and trauma done to Touya. For a story that engages so deeply with the idea of performative heroism, especially as it comes to Endeavor’s story, in the end there is no meaningful challenge to the concept of heroism or the issues within hero society.

Another reason why I feel that Endeavor’s “redemption arc” doesn’t work is because of the concept of the pivotal moment; what happened that made the character want to change their actions? For Endeavor it seems to have been a combination of finally reaching the number one hero spot, as well as the backlash he received when his abusiveness was exposed the public.

It feels like the equivalent of *mediocre analogy incoming* a child throwing a temper tantrum jealous that another child has an ice cream cone that they beat up the other kid up and steal their ice cream cone, only to feel like now that they have the ice cream cone, it doesn’t have as much appeal as before they had it. Then the adults or whoever come in, and the kid who beat the other kid up and stole their ice cream cone gets scolded for what they did and THEN the kid acts all apologetic.

And honestly though, I could MAYBE look past it if it were not for the fact he DROVE HIS OWN SON to the point of self-destruction, and (at the time he would have believed) LITERAL DEATH. And THAT was not enough to make him realize how abhorrent his behavior was.

I think it is such a crucial detail to remember that the actual turning point of Touya becoming Dabi, was NOT Endeavor’s abuse nor when he lost control of his powers leaving him on the brink of death and his body permanently mutilated.

It was the fact that when Touya returned home, NOTHING had changed, Endeavor still perpetuated the same shitty, abusive patterns that lead to what happened to Touya. Not even HIS OWN DEATH would have motivated his father to change.

It’s only through becoming a villain that Endeavor ACTUALLY acknowledges the impact that his behavior might have had on Touya. But again, it seems to largely only follow after he gets scrutinized by the public.

And then what is the response? How does Endeavor “take responsibility” for Dabi? By saying that he will fight him… By just resigning to kill his son a second time (I know it’s ultimately Shouto who fights Dabi, but still).