Unpopular Opinion: Some characters shouldn't be redeemed - by Olivia Flanz

Unpopular Opinion: Some characters shouldn’t be redeemed. 

            I’ve found an unsettling pattern when looking at men that are romanticized in shows. This pattern can be easily summarized with the characters Chuck Bass and Damon Salvatore. For those who don’t know Chuck Bass is from the show Gossip Girl: a 2007 drama about the lives of privileged students who attend a prep school on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. On the other hand, Damon Salvatore is from Vampire Diaries: a 2009 supernatural drama about the horrors of Mystic Falls. The premises of the shows couldn’t be any different yet they both contain the epitome of the “bad boy with a good heart” trope. The careless, sarcastic, but charming individual who always seems to get the love interest. The problem with these characters is that most of the time they're extremely problematic yet always get redeemed in the end.

If we were to start with Chuck, many seem to forget that Chuck has been abusive in his relationship with Blair Waldorf, a girl who attends the prep school. Not only is he possessive of Blair, but he has gone as far as to be violent with her, yet the Gossip Girl went on to romanticize their relationship. People need to know that being possessive isn’t the same as being protective and shouldn’t be viewed as romantic. 

When you try to step away from his relationship with his girlfriend there is still the fact that Chuck has sexually assaulted both Blair’s friend Serena van der Woodsen and Jenna Huffrey. Nonetheless, he faces no real consequences and he only apologizes for it later. With all these red flags you would think Chuck wouldn’t be everyone's favorite face, yet he is still one of the most liked characters in Gossip Girl.

Now moving to Vampire Diaries, I guess the fact that Damon Salvatore is a vampire makes the fact that he murdered multiple innocent people make more sense, but his track record doesn’t end there. In the show, he has also compelled (a power used to control people) multiple women to sleep with him. Switch “compelled” with alcohol and this looks really bad. Throughout the earlier seasons of the show Damon kills and tortures many of the people who his love interest, Elena Gilbert, cares about, yet all seems forgiven when they end up as a couple. This isn’t even counting the fact that Elena is a 17-year-old in high school and Damon resembles the age of 25, who is actually 169 years old.

While both of these characters seem to have more of a villain complex they are very much forgiven for their wrong-doings and in the end, are perceived as the good guys. This begs the question: Should some characters not be redeemed? 

For Damon and Chuck, their “redemption arcs” were deeply rooted in the love interest pushing them to be better. This gives off the sentiment that it’s up to one person in a relationship to “fix” the other. This behavior can lead to very unhealthy relationships which we see easily with Chuck and Blair. I guess one could argue that these characters become “better people” throughout their own shows, but it doesn’t change the fact that most of the time their actions never have consequences. 

I still believe that Chuck and Damon shouldn’t have been redeemed, but that’s not to say that I think their characters are pure evil. Multiple times they have been seen doing something to be considered “good”, but just because someone has the capability of doing good doesn’t make them a good person.