Reformed but Rejected: Difference between revisions

[[Heel Face Turn|Turning over a new leaf is hard]]. Especially when [[Cassandra Truth|no one believes that you're sincere about it]], and won't forgive willingly.

 

 

Unlike [[The Atoner]], this character was usually [[Anti-Villain|not overwhelmingly evil]]; while he may have done bad things, he hasn't gone [[Complete Monster|completely overboard]]. His sins are more along the lines of "stole some bread" or "robbed a bank", not "[[Omnicidal Maniac|destroyed ten inhabited planets]] and built pyramids of [[Nothing but Skulls|skulls]] while [[Evil Laugh|laughing wildly]]." Thus, he is generally not of the opinion that he needs to spend the rest of his life and possibly his afterlife as well trying to make up for his misdeeds, and is in fact [[Karmic Protection|due some good karma]]. All he wants is a chance at a [[I Just Want to Be Normal|normal honest life]]. It's getting people to give him that chance that presents a problem.

Often the disinclination to believe that a character has truly become good is not limited to just the hero or heroes, but is the reaction of [[All of the Other Reindeer|society in general.]] The reformed character can find this a bitter pill to swallow, particularly if they have "done their time" in prison, or paid their debt to society in some other way, yet find that society is not prepared to let bygones be bygones.

 

 

In the best case, the reformed (or genuinely innocent) character finds the strength of will to withstand the scorn and derision of the heroes and/or society at large, and is eventually able to prove themselves truly changed (or is able to maintain the good character they never actually lost) despite the enormous pressure. They succeed in making a place for themselves in honest society, however humble that place may be. (They may even realize that their previous attempts were [[Buy Them Off]] and, if not spending the rest of their lives atoning, do more to make up for what they did.)

A character who reforms in a particularly unsubtle way and does not face rejection and scorn afterward, but instead finds the heroes [[Easily Forgiven|welcoming him with open arms and perhaps a nice cake]], has undergone [[Badass Decay]].

 

 

 

{{examples}}

 

== Anime and Manga ==

** Jellal gets the same treatment. It takes a multiple chapters to convince the only person likely to still have any faith in his ability to turn over a new leaf that he's {{spoiler|developed amnesia and believes from the bottom of his heart that he needs to help her cause}}. Granted, once she accepts him he starts to get a little more slack, until {{spoiler|the new council says they don't care that he has amnesia and became good or that Nirvana would still be rampaging were it not for his aid and arrests him anyway.}}

** Auris notes after Hayate suggests {{spoiler|correctly, as it turns out}} that Gaiz has ties to Scaglietti that while Hayate was a criminal 10 years ago, Gaiz has been serving for 40 years, although this seems mainly motivated by her being offended by the accusation. It's indicated at a few points that Hayate works as hard as she does in order to remove the stigma associated with her being at the center of the Book of Darkness incident.

 

 

** Another old comic actually went the same way as the first example, with Batman opposing the ruling of the parole board and tracking the Penguin mercilessly. But when Batman cracks down on his suspicious-looking business, he discovers (much to his chagrin) that the operation was almost legitimate... except for the security, who were fellow ex-cons that the Penguin had hired as a favour, to help them gain employment. Sadly, though, this violation of parole means that the Penguin has to return to prison... but Batman puts in a good word for him this time. (The Penguin's love interest also happens to be a honest woman.)

** [[The Joker]] also went straight when he found out an old associate left him millions of dollars in his will. He had to return to crime, however, when he found out the majority of the money was fake.

** Things went somewhat easier for [[Arch Enemy|Magneto]] as far as the X-Men themselves were concerned (the transition aided by the end of their last battle and multiple [[Enemy Mine]] encounters since), but the treatment by the [[All of the Other Reindeer|rest of the world]] in addition to his own [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|instability]] kept things from sticking ([[Status Quo Is God|at least]], [[Executive Meddling|that was/is the official line]]).

* In the "Tarnished Angel" arc of Kurt Busiek's ''[[Astro City]]'', the former supervillain Steeljack emerges from jail tired of the supervillain life and seeking only to put it behind him and live normally. However, the only work offers he gets are for supervillain jobs. When he uncovers evidence of a truly evil plot, he takes what he has learned to the city's superheroes but is repeatedly rejected, scorned, and attacked. After many difficulties, he eventually manages to stop the actual villain, proving himself capable of true heroism in the process. While this does not make him beloved of the city's heroes or citizens, it earns him enough elbow room from them to start building a new life for himself.

** To be fair Rorschach did get good info from him the first time.

* The entire premise of [[Thunderbolts]] 10 - 70-ish is about this trope. After the team has been outed to be (former) supervillains, they instantly seem to end up on the most wanted list. It takes several heroic moments for them to be somewhat accepted (and not even publicly until either Zemo or Osborn takes care of that).

* A sad form of this one is the original Tinkerer, a former mad scientist who served as Marvel General Villain (mostly the [[Fantastic Four (Comic Book)|Fantastic Four]]), over a decade after he gives up villainy he's arrested for violating the Superhuman Registration Act when he uses some of his old toys to stop a robbery. It turns out he was protecting his two grandchildren that he had been taking to get ice cream.

* [[Spider-Man]]'s occasional nemesis the Scorpion actually went though a [[Villainous Breakdown]] and reformed, vowing to go straight . . . and promptly ran into Spider-Man in a bad mood, who thrashed him and thereby put him back on the road to crime.

 

== Film ==

* The entire plot of [[Kevin Bacon]]'s character in ''The Woodsman''.

* Norman Bates. [[Easily Forgiven]] by his town, but not by the family of Marion Crane in ''[[Psycho]] II''. Lila Crane and her daughter eventually play a huge part in driving him back to mania.

 

== Literature ==

* Subverted in ''[[The Scarlet Letter]]''. Shunned by the Puritans for her adultery, Hester is forced to bear an "A" on her dress. She continues to dwell near the community out on the outskirts out to bear responsibility for her actions (and wait for her lover). The community later commends Hester for her charity work and resuming kindness in the face of her past sin. Double subverted that Hester does not accept being accepted, loathes the idea that the magistrate consider having her remove her A, and looks to cope with her sin on her own. Considering it has plenty to do with the [[Defiled Forever]] trope, that's quite impressive.

** Jaime was never exactly ''evil'', and the actions that earned him so much enmity are things where he still thinks he did (and probably did do) the right thing. It can be argued that Cersei is the influence behind most of the legitimately villainous acts. "The things I do for love..." Though, interestingly, she thought that was the wrong thing to do for love, and argued that she could have simply frightened Bran into keeping silent.

*** The man saved {{spoiler|hundreds of thousands of people in King's Landing from a horrible, fire-related death at the hands of Aerys the Mad}}. He was subsequently reviled and held up as the very opposite of everything that a Knight should be (It's worth noting no one in the series knew about the spoilered bit - he never even tried to explain it thinking no one would care because of his betrayal, and as it turns out he was right, with the exception of Brienne). You would get a little bit bitter too. He also shows genuine remorse for the whole eight-year-old thing.

*** [[Berserk Button|Don't call him a knight]], dammit!

** Tyrion Lannister also has some shades of this; he was never evil, but he's deformed and ugly, and the people of Westeros believe that [[Beauty Equals Goodness]]. Despite being the [[Only Sane Man]] in the ''entire realm'' and all that protected the people from their sociopathic king, he was hated and reviled by nearly everyone he encountered. Becoming a {{spoiler|patricide}} has not helped matters.

** In ''Red Fury'', Ajir cannot comprehend how Rafen accepted two of these "penitents" into his company, and when one goes to help him, he bitterly rejects it.

* Xanth, from ''[[The Edge Chronicles]]'' is an example of someone who actually ''was'' that bad before his [[Heel Face Turn]], but still isn't accepted by anyone except Rook ([[The Hero]]) and Magda. They do form a solid Nakama, however.

** By this point the fandom has a hard time trusting anyone who has ever been on the Dark Side, given the lunatics [[Running the Asylum]] and Jacen in recent years...

* In one of the St Clares books, new girl Mirabel is angry at being sent away to school, so she pulls every prank she can to annoy the teachers and hopes that the other girls will enjoy the pranks... which they don't, since she's simply making a nuisance of herself and holding up the classes (and occasionally gets them all punished). Finally, Mirabel realises what an idiot she was and tells the principal, Ms Theobald, that she intends to turn over a new leaf since she was tired of being silly. Ms Theobald gives her a [["The Reason You Suck" Speech]] that basically goes, "Oh, I see. You haven't really realised the errors of your ways at all, have you? No, you just got tired of having everyone think you're an idiot, so you've decided to play it nice. I really thought you had something more than this in you, but now I see that you're just a total cow, and you're not worth putting any effort into," in response, and Mirabel never gets to explain what she meant.

** {{spoiler|Of course, he's freed of this at the end of the first book in the series; it's just that most members of the White Council of Wizards still think he's a ticking time bomb.}} And in ''Proven Guilty,'' the eighth book in the series, {{spoiler|Harry does come under the Doom of Damocles again, indirectly. He takes an apprentice, Molly Carpenter, who is a warlock in the judgment of the White Council, and she is under the Doom; if she again commits an act of black magic, she dies, and Harry dies with her for failing to keep her on the straight and narrow.}}

* In Guardians of Time Trilogy by Marianne Curley, [[The Dragon|Marduke]]'s trusted helper, {{spoiler|Rochelle}}, suffers this big-time. Only trusted by {{spoiler|Arkarian}} initially, eventually {{spoiler|everybody by Ethan}} comes around, until the end, where {{spoiler|he does too, getting together with her as his soulmate--only to be thwarted immediately by a [[Heroic Sacrifice]] on her part, and go momentarily bloodthirsty...only to let it go and decide to let the curse placed on anyone who kills her turn the murderer to stone at sunset. The only solace depressed readers have in the face of this possibly [[Bittersweet Ending]]-making even, as the trilogy ends right after it, is that at least they can be together in the heavenly realm after he lives out his mortal life.}}

 

 

== Live Action TV ==

* This is a recurring theme on ''[[Law and Order Special Victims Unit]]''. As in [[Real Life]], sex offenders on the show are often unable to leave their pasts behind, even after serving their time. Detective Eliot Stabler also exhibits distinct Javert-like tendencies toward many of the perps on the show.

*** A recent example featured a family of crooks that completely falls apart, culminating in {{spoiler|the obsessed father of the kidnapped [[MacGuffin Girl]] pretending to rob the hotel Stabler sent them to because he realized he could never lead a normal life and be a good father.}}

* Cole from ''[[Charmed]]'', to the point that he was eventually driven back to [[The Dark Side]] by his attempts to get back into the good guys' good graces.

** Probably didn't help that blasted witches couldn't decide whether they wanted to help him or vanquish him.

** On the other hand, 120 years of him killing for fun. Plus, when he was originally forced to beg for their help, he spent a lot of time telling them how much he hated them and how he was going to kill them all, first chance he got. The abuse and scorn wasn't exactly one-sided. Even when he started trying to be what Buffy wanted, some of his attempts were... off, and the gang knew quite well that he was motivated by feelings for Buffy rather than a genuine desire for redemption. There's a difference. Even if he was planning not to repeat his past evil actions, he didn't actually feel remorse for them. Speaking pre-Season Seven.

*** Also, there's a lot of confusion about just how responsible vampires are for their actions. When soulless Angel kills Ms. Calendar, it's made arguably clear that Angel wasn't responsible, his evil counterpart Angelus was. This line gets a lot more blurred around Spike, because he doesn't even get a soul until the seventh season, by which point he's insane and being manipulated by the [[Big Bad]] anyway, so there's even less reason to trust him.

** Five did admit his own fault and unlike the other Doctors, he showed remorse for disbelieving the Master on this occasion (of course, it's not like the Doctors had good reason to believe him in the first place).

* High school student Rick from ''[[Degrassi]]''. Had anger issues and pushed his girlfriend into a rock by accident, putting her in a coma. Came back a season later, having undergone anger management, but everyone hated him, to the extent that two students dumped a bucket of paint and feathers on him. Rick snapped, took a gun to school, paralyzed one of the students who bullied him previously, then died after a struggle with another student from his own gun.

* Lionel Luthor in Season 4 and the start of Season 5 of ''[[Smallville]]''. Eventually everyone gets over it.

* This happened {{spoiler|twice}} to [[Heroes]] villain [[Big Bad|Sylar]]. {{spoiler|His [[Face Heel Turn]] presumably stuck the second time, though.}}

 

== Music ==

 

 

== Video Games ==

* In ''[[City of Heroes]]'', Julianne Thompson had trouble getting heroes to support her ideas for improving the world because of her criminal record charges... that had been manufactured against her by a crooked politician she was trying to expose. Obviously, at some point she snapped, because she eventually became Countess Crey, one of the game's [[Moral Event Horizon|nastiest enemies]]. You can meet an alternate version of Thompson in [[Another Dimension]] where Nemesis has taken over; there, free of her criminal background, she's one of the leaders of [[La Résistance]].

** This is a bit different though, as Ghaleon spends nearly the entire game making sure the heroes think he's really [[The Dragon]] to the new [[Big Bad]], while [[Stealth Mentor|covertly training]] the heroes to beat said [[Big Bad]]. He doesn't actually ''admit'' to being reformed until the [[Meaningful Name|meaningfully named]] [[The Hero|Hiro]] figures it out on his own.

* In ''[[Trauma Center|Trauma Team]]'', Maria loudly and violently rejects CR-S01's genuine attempts to make amends for the crime he might have committed, driving him into a [[Heroic BSOD]] which he has to be talked out of by the agent who captured him. After this, he ''does'' manage to convince Maria of his good intentions, but the initial rejection was pretty harsh.

** Later, in Borean Tundra, Thassarian is sent on a [[Suicide Mission]] by General Arlos (who is later revealed to have been brainwashed by a Scourge agent).

* After getting over the [[Demonic Possession|influences]] of [[Artifact of Doom|Soul Edge]], Siegfried runs into this quite a few times, most often from vengence-seekers searching for [[Names to Run Away From Really Fast|Nightmare, the Azure Knight.]]

* Happens to {{spoiler|Aribeth}} in ''[[Neverwinter Nights]]'' even if the player character personally forgave {{spoiler|her}}. Then [[Trauma Conga Line|it happens again]] before you meet {{spoiler|her}} in ''Hordes of the Underdark''.

* [[Mass Effect]] lets you do this to various people. Subverted with {{spoiler|Elnora}}, who puts on a facade of being an air-headed repenter, but in fact displays disturbing sociopathy in her [[Apocalyptic Log]].

 

== Web Animation ==

 

 

 

== Western Animation ==

** Justified by Jet having proven to be an adept liar, [[Manipulative Bastard|manipulator]], [[The Charmer|charmer]], and tale-teller in his first appearance and that the last time the Gaang and Jet interacted he tried to trick Katara and Aang into murdering a whole village of innocent people.

** Later in the same series, this scenario is repeated almost verbatim with a repentant (though hopelessly tongue-tied) Zuko. See this quote:

'''Zuko''': ...Yeah. That's what I'd say too. How am I supposed to convince these people I'm on their side? }}

** In the episode "Harley's Holiday", Harley Quinn tried to reform. The chain of events that got her sent back to Arkham started with her panicking after setting off a detector in a department store. The clerk never got a chance to explain that they just forgot to remove the security tag on the dress she just bought.

** And three certain meddling kids ''and'' his own bad reputation coming from the multiple times he and his group attacked the X-Men. Heaven forbid Scott (and Kurt, but everyone conveniently forgot that he was ''as much of a Jerkass to Avalanche as Cyclops was'') isn't that forgiving to a [[Draco in Leather Pants]], huh?

** Rogue inverted this trope in ''Evolution'', refusing to trust the X-Men for most of season 1 for what she ''thought'' was a series of attacks on her. {{spoiler|These were staged by Mystique}}.

** Since the brothers are played by [[Kelsey Grammer]] [[Frasier|and David Hyde-Pierce]] we can be sure that they'll have plenty to talk about in jail.

* Hawkg- er, Shayera Hol went through this a little, especially with [[Wonder Woman]], upon her return in ''[[Justice League Unlimited]]'' after she had turned out to be [[The Mole]] for her people, who in turn, almost destroyed the Earth. WW and Shayera eventually came to see eye to eye, though they never exactly became friends again. In a subversion, though, she is not rejected by the League at large (Superman, Flash, and J'onn <s>(or Batman)</s> vote for letting her stay; GL withholds his vote but it's obvious that he trusts her) but she resigns voluntarily before they can announce the result of their vote.

*** It was really less about humiliating Diana and more about her having no real weaknesses to exploit. Batman? Take his belt. Flash? Gravity. Superman? Red solar radiation field. But Wonder Woman's strength is comparable to Superman's, while she lacks a [[Kryptonite Factor]]. Best one could do is tie her up with her own rope and make sure she has no leverage to use.

** When Chase Young used a Shen Gong Wu to induce Omi into becoming Heylin, Kimiko commented, not knowing the truth about the Wu, that she'd expect Raimundo to betray them. Raimundo didn't take offense.

** Twice in the series (once in Season 4 and once in Season 5), Finn, Ratso and Chow got themselves on probation and Jackie refused to believe they were reformed for real. Ironically, it was around the time Jackie really started believing them that they revealed that all it took to revert them back into their criminal ways was a chance to score big.

** Of course, {{spoiler|this is because they LIKE being scared. They haven't seen her ever since her attempt to make eternal night, but at the very least word got out she was reformed. They just figured she knew about the holiday and was having fun with it, and presumably future appearances of Luna will have her treated like royalty.}}

 

== [[Real Life]] ==

{{reflist}}

[[Category:Characterization Tropes]]

[[Category:No One Respects the Spanish Inquisition]]