Thread:Mesektet/@comment-27729149-20160128170019/@comment-3581997-20160615151040

Done wrong. Well there is Reno, Rude and Rufus Shinra from Final Fantasy VII. If you have not played the game, (it was made in 1997 and I recall you are only now in your teens) I will summarize, at least the parts involving these characters.

Summery of plot involvment FF VII

 * if you are unfamilar

Rufus is vice-present for Mega Corp Shinra corp. A division of Satan EDU. Big evil corp, runs the planet, both in the figurative since and the literal one since they are a power company. Drain life from the planet. Heroes of AVALANCHE are a radical eco-terrorist group, going to save the planet from big evil, blah, blah blah. Sephiroth- Super solider who previously worked for Shinra but then went crazy when he found out he was the anti-christ decides he is going make up for helping Shinra at first by wiping out all life on the planet for his mommy, etc etc.

Sephiroth kills President Shinra and Rufus becomes president, thus most of the pre-game stuff is on his dad but most of what happens from the second half of the first disc(of 3 discs) is all on Rufus. Rufus is more concerned with finding the promised land, a place of pure energy that Sepheroth is supposedly hiding out at so he can kicks that whole, crazy guy with a sword and a god complex thing while also finding a place of limitless energy he can drill into and sell to the masses for infinite energy.

During all this we have the Turks, Shinra's black opts team. The two most commonly seen ones are Reno and Rude. They cover up Shinra's involvement in everything, kill witnesses, destroy insurgence, and in this pursuit at one point blow up two parts of a city.

Midgar is a city controlled by Shinra divided into a 8 slices as sectors, The city is held up above the slums on massive pillars, so you have a literal upper-class and lower-class. Reno blows up one of these pillars to literally crush the rebellion. Shinra really doesn't mind losing the upper class since it is only 1/8 of their power base to definitively destroy the rebel base somewhere beneath it once and for all, especially since they can just blame it on the rebels as a terrorist act. Over the course of the game, the Turks are shown to just be working class stiffs. They kill things pretty much just because they are getting paid. They get bothered during their vacation and are 100% adamant that they are not helping out Shinra because that is during their contractual break time. Once one of their members gets kidnapped by one of Shinra's and the heroes' enemies, they begrudgingly team up with the heroes to stop them, then promptly get in a few more drinks at the local bar before their vacation ends.

Analysis
Now this establishes the characters to the audience for both Rufus and the Turks, The Turks will wipe out two cities for a pay-check but won't budge if they are required do something during their official time off unless something is directly inconveniencing them. Rufus gives maybe 1 out of 2 craps that his father is murdered at most and is more of a problem solver than abject hoarder than his old man. Shinra is eventually blown-up by Sephiroth with Rufus inside the HQ and the Turks are out of a job. That all works well enough for the story being told... But then they made a movie as sequel to the game and it as done very wrong.

Advent Children
The movie has hero, Cloud, discover that Rufus survived the explosion, kept alive apparently with the power of plot-armor given to him by his fans. To the movie's little credit, he tries to explain it but Cloud cuts him off, saying, he doesn't care. The Turks are alive and well, and the two most active ones are as before Reno and Rude. With Rufus alive they have a job to do, keeping him safe. In the movie Rufus has the last part needed to resurrect Sephiroth and Spehiroth's demi-clones, AKA fan-boys, all want to get their hands on it. Rufus fanes cooperating with them at first but quickly turns on them and makes his escape.

Analysis
Now this movie has a lot of problems but most are irrelevant for now. The big issue you wanted to know was how is redemption done wrong. I have heard numerous fans, inbetween their orgasms talk about how Rufus and the Turks are now redeemed.

"After all, all that bad stuff done pre-game was Shinra senior's doing. So Rufus is clean. And the Turks were just doing their jobs, cause their professional bad asses, ew look at their cute faces and awesome hair, they were just doing what they were told but they're really alright."

At one point the Turks even suicide bomb to stop to of the demi-clones, Cloud just nods a moment of respect to them as he is riding by and they blow up the two ya-hoos behind him.

Arbitrary bull crap.

The fan service is so bad it hurts. Ok, there is a part of all of this that I see fans try to wave off and that the movie barely acknowledges. These two guys who were "just doing their job."

Blew.

Up.

A.

Skyscraper.

And.

An.

Eighth.

Of.

A.

City.

They are essentially Osma Bin Laden with less ethics. But they have nice hair and suits so let's redeem them. This is beyond bad writing, the fans and apparently the writers, like certain bad guys and try to redeem them without really thinking of what it is they are trying to redeem. They just become star-struck with how "awesome" they are and try to use that to validate making them the good guys no.

Do not do this. If someone is evil. You need to establish that some bridges are burned. Now you can add to them, build character off them. But don't try to undo murders. In order to redeem the lose of lives, the villains need to acknowledge before hand, what those lives are worth.

The Master and Albert Simon, know they are hurting, people, have come to grips with it, and are moving ahead with a clear plan of what is worth those hurt. Rufus and the Turks barely acknowledge the people killed while they are killing them and then after the fact seem to realize that they should be good guys instead. Do not try to undo evil straight up, either give your villain a cause they have long since come to terms with the cost of, or have them kill themselves once they realize what they have done, like Patrick Heyworth. But don't try to all of a sudden rewrite the characters to be more likable once you decide they are now the good guys. That only ever works if they are schizophrenic or possessed.