Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-33754845-20190916192846/@comment-27234079-20191202185832

What I'm interested to see is how RWBY (the series) handles fully realized villain redemptions. Despite the controversy surrounding Adam, what it nails down in my opinion is the thematics as to why Adam died.

Redemption isn't atonement, or forgiveness, or justice, or karma, or balancing the scales, or wiping the slate clean. It's a choice to be better. Only someone who has done bad things can be redeemed in the first place, and that's everyone. No one deserves redemption, but everyone is capable of it.

Ultimately, Blake and Yang opened a very clear choice to Adam, to recognize his mistakes and leave to do better or to keep fighting. Adam always believed he was in the right and could do no wrong, so he chose to fight in blind hatred. Even if he chose to leave, I don't think the main cast would ever want anything to do with him.

Anyways, what I'm trying to get to is the villains don't need to be forgiven by or join the main cast to be redeemed. The redemption arc is much more an internal matter.