Forgiveness: Everyone Loves a Good Redemption Arc

Forgiveness is arguably one of the hardest concepts for us to wrap our brains around���which might be why we���re so fascinated by it. What is forgiveness, really? Who is redeemable? What does restoration look like?

Last fall, I wrote about a universal emotion: Schadenfreude���Misfortune, Revenge, Justice & Catharsis. It���s not hard to feel a little thrill when ���bad��� people get what���s coming. In fact, revenge is one of the most common tropes in our favorite stories.

From Edgar Allan Poe���s The Telltale Heart to Kathryn Stockett���s The Help, audiences rarely feel satisfied until there���s some form of comeuppance.

Yet there���s another kind of story we might love even more: the redemption story.

That���s the beauty of fiction. Life is messy and relationships are hard. Stories not only give us a vehicle to make sense of a crazy world, but they are critical for training our moral imagination. It’s why we tell fairy tales, read bedtime books, and pass down parables.

Many of our earliest lessons in ���people-ing��� came through allegory.

A tortoise and a hare show us what persistence looks like in practice. Green eggs and ham feel absurd until we understand context. When Horton hears a Who, we see that every voice matters. From sharing to sacrifice, stories model the way forward���if we let them.

Here���s the funny thing: we never grow out of loving stories. And that���s a very good thing.

Forgiveness in Story

As I just mentioned, there may be only one kind of story we love more than a ���just desserts��� tale: the redemption story. And nowhere is this clearer than in the redemption arc.

The irony is that a redemption arc only works if the character starts out awful. In fact, the more vile the character, the more we LOVE them once they finally see the light.

If Melvin Udall had been anything other than a misanthropic nightmare, As Good as It Gets would have collected dust instead of Oscars. The magic is in watching him evolve���from a miserable, self-centered, isolated hermit into a man who can love and care deeply for those around him. And when that happens, we cheer.

He begins alone and broken, and ends surrounded by loved ones and a renewed sense of humanity (his own and others���)���and we are so here for it!

From The Joy Luck Club to Finding Nemo, stories provide a pattern for what forgiveness looks like and how to maybe even bring some of that redemption arc into our own lives (Re: Redemption: Can All Characters Be ���Saved���?).

How can forgiveness in story shine a way for us to be better at doing it in life? Either asking for it or giving it? Redemption stories captivate us, but they also beg a harder question: is forgiveness simply forgetting the past, or is it something far more radical?

What IS Forgiveness?

Here���s the thing: half the battle with forgiveness is realizing what it isn���t .

As writers, we are keenly aware of the mercurial nature of words. “Cool” can be a temperature on the car AC or a word we toss around to let others know we like something. Words can twist and turn and gain or lose meaning over time.

Few words can be twisted more than…forgiveness.

In our minds, often “forgiveness” is this notion that we just reset the board. Everything is in the past. Forgive and forget, right?

WRONG.

Not a get-out-of-jail-free card ��� consequences can still stand. So if forgiveness isn���t forgetting, excusing, or fast-forwarding���what is it, then?

Welcome to the Process

Personally, I think we���ve become a culture out of tune with our emotions.

As a Gen Xer, I���ll take part of the blame. We were a lost generation of latchkey kids. Our Boomer parents were just trying to survive, feeling like failures because they couldn���t recreate the ���Golden Age��� they���d been handed���an era probably gilded more with asbestos and sadness than gold. We inherited their brokenness and passed it on to our kids, just in a different flavor.

Our parents gave us nuclear strike drills. It was their way of keeping us ���safe������or at least confused enough to be calm. In a world spinning out of control, they handed down what little they had. And, like generations before, we overcorrected. They raised us to be stoics���the Red Dawn Generation. We told ourselves we didn���t care and wanted to be left alone���until we had kids.

Then we lost our minds.

Suddenly everything had a Lisa Frank neon glow. We went to every game our parents missed. We sewed the costumes, baked the cookies, and even invented something as FRIGGING DUMB as the ���Participation Trophy.��� Everyone was special, every feeling mattered, and everything had to stay positive.

Like the cereal of our youth, we drowned our kids in sugar���only this time it was sugar-coated emotions.

It took a kids’ movie (Inside Out) to remind us that anger is actually a useful emotion. Of course, we overdid that too. The pendulum swung from a Stepford-smile ���everything is fine��� to raging about everything. Neither extreme is healthy. Both are denial.

The first step in forgiveness is giving ourselves permission to feel, even when the feelings don���t make sense. Forgiving someone doesn���t mean we won���t feel anger, hurt, or resentment. And being forgiven doesn���t guarantee we���ll feel absolved or at peace.

Bitterness and guilt are just two sides of the same coin.

Emotion is fuel���but like all fuel, it can either move us forward or burn everything down.

The Problem of Pain

It hurts. Simple as that. You���d think it would be obvious, but humans can be remarkably slow on the uptake. Since we don���t like hurting, we���ll avoid confrontation at almost any cost. If we���re the injured party, we steer clear of the people who wounded us.

Instead of doing the meaningful work, we gloss over the hurt, slap on a smile, and insist everything is ���fine��� when it isn���t. Meanwhile, the bad feelings stew and ferment. Super adult, right?

The irony is, the other person may be completely oblivious that they tromped through our emotions like a toddler playing Godzilla in Lego Land. Doesn���t matter. In our minds, we���re convinced they knew exactly what they were doing.

On the flip side, if we���re the ones who need forgiving���well, we don���t want forgiveness so much as ���understanding.���
See, if you understood that we were tired, in pain, late, sick, hungry���or gassy���when we acted like a complete horse���s butt, you���d see we weren���t really wrong at all. In fact, you just misunderstood. That makes it all better, right?

���Right?

Wrong.

The first step in forgiveness is admitting the wrong.

If we���re the one injured, then we need to face that. Look at the wound, triage it, and make a plan to forgive. If we���re the one in need of forgiveness, we need to accept that���even if we felt totally justified or believe we did nothing wrong���someone else is hurting because of our actions (or inaction).

We might not feel the crushing injustice, but they do. Isn���t that exactly what we want when the shoe is on the other foot?

Feeling Feelings is Okay but Not Everything

This is where most of us get stuck. When someone hurts us, even thinking about forgiveness feels like we���re about to puke in our shoes. So we do one of two things: we stuff it airtight or we spew it nonstop.

Enough.

It���s far easier to let go once we understand that forgiveness is an act, not a mood.

In real life, there���s no magical moment where we forgive and���cue the orchestral swell���we���re suddenly living in a warm-and-fuzzy montage. You want that? Go to the movies. Stories can model real life, but they aren���t real life.

Just like we can���t wrap up a murder investigation in 90 minutes, we can���t heal wounds instantly either. If we expect emotions to rise, fall, flare up, vanish, then come roaring back, we won���t be blindsided.

Yes, if someone hurts us badly, we���re going to feel it for a while (and vice versa).

A Parable on Forgiveness

I didn���t fully grasp forgiveness until I heard this story.

There was a monk whose job was to ring the church bells every day. In the course of life in the monastery, a fellow monk deeply wounded him. No matter how many times he went to confession, he couldn���t look at the offender without feeling anger and pain.

Finally, distraught, he asked the parish priest: How can I say I���ve forgiven when I still feel so much anguish?

The priest answered with a question:

���When you ring the bells, does the sound stop the instant you let go of the rope?���

The monk frowned. ���Of course not.���

���It echoes, doesn���t it?���

���Yes.���

���But eventually the sound grows fainter and fainter until it���s gone, right?���

���Yes.���

The priest smiled. ���It���s the same with forgiveness. Your fellow monk rang your bell, and you���ll hear it for a while. But forgiveness is the decision to let go of the rope.���

Every time we ruminate, gossip, backbite, or replay the injury, we���re yanking that rope again, keeping the sound alive. Forgiveness isn���t a feeling. It���s a choice. We decide to let go���because we���re the only ones who can.

Forgiveness and Restoration

These are two entirely separate events ��� and glossing over that fact is dangerous.

Forgiveness is a decision. It���s the mental shift to let go of the rope. Period. We do it for our own sanity, because if we don���t, Hell���s bells will keep ringing in our heads. Enough ringing will drive anyone mad.

Restoration, however, is another matter entirely.

We are under no obligation to rebuild a bridge someone else torched. Nor do we have to hand out ���bridge-building permits��� to people who���ve proven unsafe. Sometimes, relationships can���t be restored because doing so would be unwise���or downright dangerous.

Think of a battered spouse. She might believe with everything in her that she can save the relationship if she just tries hard enough. But if the partner keeps escalating, the day will come when she realizes: If I stay, I will die.

So she leaves. She gets safe. But she still needs to forgive. Because if she doesn���t, the poison of bitterness will seep into her, and into every relationship that comes after.

That doesn���t mean she has to go back. No one in their right mind would say she hadn���t forgiven if she took out a protective order or never spoke to him again. He simply isn���t safe.

Toxic people want us to believe forgiveness means saying, “What you did was fine. Let���s be friends again!”

No.

Forgiveness is for us. It���s so we can heal, move forward, and build something better���without dragging yesterday���s rotting garbage with us. But don���t confuse forgiveness with absolution. It doesn���t erase consequences. Forgiving someone doesn���t mean they skip the sentence���it means we refuse to let their actions keep us chained to bitterness.

Forgiving and Forgetting

���Forgetting��� is the part of forgiveness people most often skip���or butcher completely.

***Wow, we really do suck at this.

Forgetting doesn���t mean life is a video game where we hit RESET and go back to the last SAVE point. Memory matters. In fact, it���s wisdom. Only a fool allows the same injury over and over. Being a doormat isn���t divine.

But here���s the rub: have you ever been in a relationship where, every time conflict flares, the other person unrolls a scroll of every wrong you���ve ever committed? Did you feel forgiven?

Or maybe you���ve been on the other side���feeling generous for ���forgiving,��� then dragging out the record book the moment things get rough. That���s not forgiveness. That���s stockpiling ammo for the next fight.

The hard truth is this: once something is forgiven, it must be released.

Let. Go. Of. The. Rope.

It���s okay to get angry. It���s not healthy to stay angry. If we cling to the rope too long, it won���t just hold us back���it will become a snare. Or worse, a noose.

If Stories Forgave Like We Do

The tales we love would collapse if their characters forgave the way most of us do in real life.

Imagine if Simba went back to Pride Rock, ���forgave��� Scar, and then reminded him of Mufasa���s death at every family meal. That���s not a redemption arc���it���s a sitcom with no laugh track.

Or what if Elizabeth Bennet married Darcy, only to bring up every slight, insult, and misunderstanding for the rest of their days? Pride and Prejudice would be less classic romance and more reality TV.

Even Melvin in As Good as It Gets would never have found love if he���d clutched a grudge ledger. The movie only works because he lets go���because he changes.

Stories demand true forgiveness. Characters can���t evolve if they���re chained to past injuries. If they could, the plots would grind to a halt, and the redemption arcs we crave would be dead on arrival.

And so it is with us. If stories can���t move forward without forgiveness, neither can we.

Grudges keep us trapped in reruns���same plot, same conflict, same ending. Forgiveness, on the other hand, gives us new material. It doesn���t erase the past, but it frees the future.

We forgive not because it���s easy, or because the other person ���deserves��� it, but because carrying the rope keeps us stuck in the wrong story.

Letting go is the only way to write a better one.

What Does Forgiveness LOOK Like?

At the end of the day, forgiveness isn���t neat or cinematic. It���s clumsy, awkward, and sometimes downright painful. But stories remind us it���s possible. They give us a model, a light in the dark, showing us what love and forgiveness look like when lived out.

Writers, in many ways, are the torchbearers of this process. Through the arcs we create���through villains redeemed, grudges released, and broken people finding their way back���we hand our readers a vision of what could be. We remind them that love is more powerful than bitterness, and that forgiveness, though rarely easy, is always freeing.

Because without forgiveness, stories stall. And so do we.

Stories don���t just entertain, they teach us how to be human. Writers sketch the messy, awkward maps of forgiveness: how people say sorry, how they stumble, and how they finally let go.

That���s the small miracle of a redemption arc ��� it shows that even the meanest bell can be quieted if someone decides to loosen their grip. We forgive not because the past is erased, but because we choose a future that isn���t chained to old injuries. If stories can do that for characters, maybe they can do it for us too.

So maybe that���s the real gift of story: not to entertain us, but to show us the road ahead. To remind us that though the bell may still echo, we can choose to let go of the rope���and in doing so, step into a better story.

What are YOUR Thoughts?

What about you guys? I���d love to hear your thoughts.

What���s your favorite redemption story���book, movie, or show���that really showed forgiveness done right? Have you ever had one of those moments where forgiveness wasn���t about ���feeling good,��� but more about finally letting go of that rope? Has a story ever taught you more about forgiveness than real life managed to?

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