Redcloak opinion survey: "redeemable" or not?

[Porthos]

In general though, Soon is correct. The first things needed for anyone to be redeemed by any definition is an admission of fault and a desire to change.

In that case, the oft cited 451 would be a good example.

...

Pity it didn't take.

Thing is though, I wonder how many of us are using slightly different definitions of redemption, even when taking 3.X books into account. Are we talking mechanics here (LE ----> LN)? Story viewpoint (OMG, what have I done?)? Plot (Yeah, no, time for Xykon to go down)? Some mixture of the above? Something else entirely?

Pretty nebulous, actually. Which is why I mentioned "depends on what you mean by redemption" in the first place.

Moving beyond that, there's even another level of redemption that can be looked at: Will Redcloak stop lying to himself about his motivations?

That is, a personal redemption.

For me, and I alluded to this previously, the biggest block for Redcloak to stop acting like he is currently is for him to look himself in the mirror and be honest about what he is doing and why. In some respects, Redcloaks's biggest analogue in Team OOTS isn't the oft-cited Roy, but Vaarsuvius (damn - guess I am opening that box after all ).

Not quite in the way you might think, though.

One of the biggest debates about V centered around "all the wrong reasons". More specifically just how much did V want to sell rent his soul for the sake of the good and noble reasons of saving his family at great personal cost versus how much of it was due to the more base reasons of pride, guilt, and thirst for power. Uncountable electrons have been splatted against various screens on that debate, so I don't wish to dwell on it too much. But we at least have Word of Giant that V's guilt and desire for power were the prime motivators in his little decent into madness.

But what about Redcloak? His often stated desire is "Equality for gobinoids". At the very broadest read, he wants the so-called monstrous races to be treated as the PC races are.

Great. Laudable goal. Worthy of a great story. I think Rich might even be telling it.

I'm increasingly of the belief though that's not Redcloak's REAL motivation.

No, I am more and more convinced that his primary motivation is revenge. Revenge for what happened to his mother and sister. Revenge for all of the goblinoids killed in the past. Revenge for a thousand slights. He may coat it in the language of egalitarianism. But when push comes to shove the raison d'être for Redcloak isn't equality or even The Plan. It's to get back at a world who wronged him.

"Screw you suckers, it's OUR turn now", indeed.

It's this attitude, and not the seeking for equality, that makes him do his worst deeds. And it's an attitude that shapes his worldview like no other. Plenty of textev for it I think, including a famous "You Suck" speech given to him by a certain character in SoD.

And I think it is this attitude that he has to overcome if he is going to, lets not use the malliable word 'redemption' and instead use the phrase 'change from his current path'. With the possible exception of throwing Xykon down the nearest bottomless pit (the SW analogue ), this attitude is going to stop him from the personal reflection that is, IMO, absolutely necessary for him to even possibly deviate from the current path he is on.

Sunk cost fallacy? Just another symptom of Redcloak not realizing why he's really doing what he is.

If we want a compare and contrast, V at least is in the process of facing up to what he did. And while Redcloak had a momentary flash of insight it doesn't look like it took at all. Or, rather, he only had a partial insight into his motivations. He rightly realized that he wanted revenge on hobgoblins as a whole, and was acting in a not at all proper way toward them. And with that insight, he changed his behavor.

Sadly, it didn't take as his even deeper motivation for revenge against the world at large is overriding that revelation and causing him to, well, act in the current way he is.

...

But I'm sure he feels really bad about it all.

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To tie all of the above into a bow and to try to get it a bit more in focus with the current thread, there is a rather close Real World analgoue to Redcloak in respects to motivations (if not deeds). Not really sure if I can go too deeply into this, but if people are at all familiar with the US Civil Rights movement, there is a classic case of a famous civil rights activist who was wandering very deeply into one path for most of his life but then veered away from it later on and went along another one after a life changing event.

On the other hand, there are countless revolutionaries with fairly dark motivations who never had a similar life changing event in their lives.

Is Redcloak destined to be the latter rather than the former? Time will tell. But if I had to place a bet, I ain't putting it one the first one at the moment.