Redemption and Forgiveness

How Zoids: Chaotic Century Illustrates the Trope "Redemption Equals Life"

Welcome to the planet Zi….

Back in August, Crossover Queen posted an article on her site called “On Writing Redemption Equals Life.” It is a good post about the fact that in fiction we generally see a trope called Redemption Equals Death played out. Crossover’s example - one which is quite easy for most to recognize - is Darth Vader’s death in Star Wars: Return of the Jedi. Anakin Skywalker is convinced by the suffering of his son to kill the Emperor, leading Palpatine to retaliate with Force-lightning from the Dark Side. This overloads Anakin’s life support apparatus and kills him.

However, he died saving his son, and thereby the galaxy! If you include the prequels’ reading of Anakin’s life, he also died bringing balance to the Force at last. All his sins are wiped away in that final act.

That is great. It truly is great. As Our Lady tells King Alfred in The Ballad of the White Horse:

But you and all the kind of Christ
Are ignorant and brave,
And you have wars you hardly win
And souls you hardly save.

(Quote found here, by the way.)

If anyone counts as a soul “hardly saved,” Vader certainly qualifies.

But what about those stories where the villain - or the antagonist, as the case may be - doesn’t die? What about the tales where he lives? Most stories written during the 2010s that had this type of story just let it be a “kumbaya” moment, where everyone seemed to have amnesia about the character who wanted to destroy the world after he came in on the good side to save everyone at the last second. Or it was a simple matter of telling the villain to be good and suddenly, magically, he was!

This is noted in some depth by Lily & Mikaila Orchard here (warning, lots of language and no few politics here). [With thanks to BW Daily for the link.] As he noted, lots of writers skipped the important step of having a villain or antagonist actually come to the realization that they had done wrong and needed to change, as well as to atone for their actions. Instead, these writers relied on the idea that with a magic wand they could say: “Oh, this villain/antagonist is just misunderstood. Now that we’re caring for him, he’ll be all right.”

Far be it from me to tread where angels tremble, since ignorance is bliss, but if the redeemed villain was once ready to blow up the world after, say, eating the hero’s family alive before his eyes, then calling the redeemed villain “misunderstood” is a lie. A very big, bad lie that the writer ought to get soundly whacked for buying into at all, let alone trying to propagate to the masses (PARTICULARLY the young, impressionable masses). When a cannibalistic or truly wicked villain or antagonist turns over a new leaf, he first must face the fact that he has DONE SOMETHING HORRIBLY WRONG. Second, as Crossover implies in her post and Lily mentions in his video, while the heroes might forgive the villain/antagonist, there should still be some solid reasons for his staying alive and not being executed by the state for his crimes. As Crossover notes in her post, this can get complicated and messy really fast.

When I commented on Crossover’s post, I leaned on Marvel Comics and the Cinematic Universe for examples of “Redemption Equals Life” for two reasons: One, they were uppermost in my mind at the time. Two, talking about them would require very little explanation for casual readers of the site. Even if you have not watched the movies, you recognize the characters’ names and can go look them up. Talking about characters with less name recognition will slow a reader down, and when you’re reading comments beneath a post, that is just annoying.

It can also be rude. The comments are supposed to revolve around the subject of the post, not to be a place to write a dissertation. Newsletters and blog posts are for that type of thing. (And now you know why you are reading this article.)

My formative experience with characters who had “Redemption Equals Life” arcs that took the time to force the antagonists to face their sins and choose to atone did not come from Marvel. It came from a (now relatively obscure) Japanese anime translated into English by way of Canada. This anime would be none other than Zoids: Chaotic Century.

Rosso

Specifically, the subject which Crossover broached reminded me of four antagonists from the series. These were bandit leaders Rosso and Viola, whose initial presentation was as straight (if somewhat nuanced) bad guys. The other two were series’ terror Raven and the “Blue Devil” named Reese.

We will start with Rosso and Viola. The two lead the Desert Alca Valino Gang (as the Wiki admits, there is no defined spelling, so I go by what it sounds like the characters are saying), a group made up of outcasts from the Imperial Army of the Guylos Empire. It is never revealed why Rosso, Viola, and their crew were thrown out of the Imperial Army. Why they resorted to banditry makes sense, given the tense “ceasefire” between the Guylos Empire and the Helic Republic. If the Imperial army won’t keep them and their skills all lie in fighting, then they need to support themselves somehow. Mercenary work defending helpless villagers does not pay as well or as quickly as banditry. Not for a group greater than four, at least.

From what little is said in the English dub, Rosso appears to have gotten on the wrong side of the Imperial brass somehow. The rest of his gang were soldiers under his command and they followed him when he was removed from the army. But all of them desperately want to be part of the army again, which is what helps lead to their conflict with the hero of the series, Van Flyheight.

Pursued by the youngest member of the Desert Alca Valino Gang, Bole, who wants to “prove” himself to his more experienced elders (who are either blandly amused or irritated), Van comes across a silver, Tyrannosaurus Rex-type zoid he names Zeke. Zeke turns out to be a special kind of zoid known as an Organoid. Organoids can fuse with larger zoids, providing them with a power boost and enabling their pilot to achieve feats he or she couldn’t accomplish otherwise.

Zeke being curious and cute.

An Organoid in the hands of either the Imperial or the Republican brass is said to have the potential to upset the balance of power between the two countries, ending the tenuous “peace” between them and making their war go hot again. Viola, Rosso’s second-in-command, is at first dismissive of the idea that Zeke is an Organoid, preferring to berate her men for being “beaten by a kid” and thus making the Desert Alca Valino Gang “look like complete amateurs.” Right there we have the fact that she and the other bandits take pride in their skills as pilots with military-grade training. They are not pushovers, so to be shown up by a fourteen-year-old boy is a potentially lethal affront in their minds.

Rosso is less angry or humiliated, however, than he is intrigued. He is the one who believes that Zeke is an Organoid and he tells Viola they need to steal him from this kid so they can sell Zeke to the Empire. That way Rosso can “regain [his] former position” and the Gang “won’t have to waste time playing games out here [in the desert].”

From this little bit of dialogue it is possible to glean that, while they take pride in their skills and are an outlaw group, the Desert Alca Valino Gang does not prefer their current predicament to legitimate work. Their circumstances are such, however, that banditry is the only way they can survive - and, probably, keep their honor and pride. Whatever Rosso did to anger the brass, he might have been able to get in their good graces again with the requisite amount of groveling.

But neither he nor his gang will grovel. They have certain standards, a concept of honor even if it is presently tarnished, and a whole lot of pride. Just because Rosso prioritizes getting out of their situation does not mean he is not offended that his men were beaten by a snot-nosed kid from a random oasis in enemy (Republican) territory. It simply means he has more control over his pride than Viola does, in this instance, anyway.

Later, Rosso demonstrates this control has limits. When Van creatively bests him in personal combat, the bandit leader recklessly charges him, intent on taking the stunned kid down and making him pay for his humiliation. Only the timely aid of Van’s future best (human) friend, the mercenary known as Irvine, saves Van from being creamed by Rosso in his Red Horn.

Even after this, though, the Desert Alca Valino Gang does not seek vengeance on Van and his friends immediately. A call from the ambitious Imperial officer known as Marcus seems to be their golden ticket back into the Imperial Army. They are assigned a mission by Marcus to use a Republican zoid to start a battle between the forces stationed at Imperial Dragonhead base and their antsy Republican counterparts at Red River Base. The Imperials can overwhelm the “rebel” forces at the base if a battle is provoked and take it, bringing them that much closer to the capitol of the Republic via the land route.

The obstacle for this battle commencing immediately is the commander of the Dragonhead forces, Colonel Karl Schubaltz. He is content to let the two armies simply stare at each other all day because he believes the war is wrong and he doesn’t want a fight. But the Prime Minister of the Empire, Gunter Prozen, has used the willing Marcus to set up this false flag attack to get the war going once more so he can gain power. With Rosso’s blessing, Viola accomplishes the mission and the “Battle of Red River” starts.

But the Battle of Red River is ended quickly by Van and his friends, who have volunteered to help the Republican army for money and a get-out-of-jail-free card. (Long story.) With the fight ultimately ending in an honorable retreat for the Empire, Marcus withdraws his support from the Desert Alca Valino Gang. He makes Rosso and the others the fall guys for the attack to hide his and Prozen’s attempt to restart the war.

Desperate, Rosso and his gang make one last attempt to steal Zeke, but are thwarted by the hero and his friends. In the middle of this fight, the Imperial Army arrives in force to arrest Rosso, cutting the battle short. While Van and his friends make tracks out of town, Rosso disbands the Desert Alca Valino Gang to protect them, allowing the army to arrest and imprison him.

Rosso with his Red Horn, laughing after he tells a retreating Van: “Hey, kid! Don’t you dare get captured by the Imperial Army. Remember, you managed to defeat the Desert Alca Valino Gang!”

From here it is possible to see that Rosso is proud and willing to go against the law rather than humiliate himself in some manner to appease those of higher rank. He has honor, shown best when he puts his pride aside and disbands his gang rather than let them be arrested alongside him. The gang members protest, demonstrating that Rosso inspires, earns, and holds their loyalty. They believe in him and that means they are willing to follow him into hell if it comes down to it. He has a spark of goodness in him that they respond to and which makes them want to give him their best.

However, their eager desire to be reinstated in the army and leave outlawry behind leads them all astray. Marcus outright warns Rosso that if anything goes wrong at Red River, Rosso and his people will be the “fall guy” for the false flag attack. Since Viola wasn’t captured, Rosso assumed that they “follow[ed] orders” and that, even though the false flag didn’t get the brass precisely what they wanted, because he and his people held up their end of the deal they would receive what they were promised. He did not account for either Marcus’ or Prozen’s need to hide their involvement in the battle and was blindsided when they decided to avenge their loss on him and his gang.

In this Viola is slightly less naive, if only because she is quicker to at least desire revenge. We see this first when she tells off the gang members Van defeated, but her desire for vengeance comes out in full after Rosso’s arrest. She does not blame the military who betrayed them but the kid who again foiled their plans. Had Van and company not been there then the battle at Red River would have gone as intended and Rosso would be free right now, while the rest of the gang wouldn’t be hunted by Marcus’ soldiers.

On learning that Van and his friends were last seen heading toward Mount Iselina, though, Viola’s vengeance becomes tempered with caution.

Mount Iselina is home to a hidden colony - a colony where Viola grew up and where her younger sister Rosa still lives. Rosa, in keeping with her name, idolizes her sister, the Imperial soldier. While lost trying to traverse Mount Iselina, Van and his friend Moonbay are rescued by Rosa. Enchanted with the younger girl, Van takes the opportunity to brag to her about all his adventures, learning in turn about Rosa’s sister. That is when Viola and her fellow gang member, Jaro, fly over the village to draw Van and Moonbay out of it.

Viola

Here it becomes clear that even when she wants revenge, there are lines Viola does not wish to cross. Jaro’s suggestion for achieving their vengeance is to carpet bomb the village, but Viola countermands that idea to keep her sister and the village safe. This is in keeping with her earlier disdain for gang member Welda (pronounced Wel-day) hitting on Van’s older sister, Maria. She literally calls Welda a slime and, though she lets him kidnap Maria, makes certain the girl isn’t hurt by her subordinate.

In that instance, Viola also had her men fire on Van’s village but didn’t do so with the intent to destroy buildings or kill people. The shots did damage and scared the inhabitants, but they could have done much worse. Viola has standards even in her outlaw behavior.

These standards come back into play when she and Van confront each other at Iselina, only for Rosa to arrive and start figuring out how her older sister has fallen from grace. For Rosa’s sake, not Viola’s, Van tries (very poorly) to lie, pretending that he and Moonbay are the actual bad guys and that Viola is still a member of the Imperial Army. Shamed by her sister’s presence and Van’s gallant act, Viola lets him, Zeke, and Moonbay go. Her debt of revenge is cancelled by her debt to Van, who protected her sister when she did not.

A very foggy picture of Rosa, Viola’s much younger sister.

This takes a lot of time to describe and set up even within the series, which lets viewers intimate the details themselves, something Lily mentions in his video: Redemption arcs require setup, and sometimes that requires a lot of time. In cases where a writer must contract the time frame it is still possible, but it requires work and a clear understanding by the writer of what the character needs. You can’t just redeem them and wave away all the bad things they did because you like them and want them to be saved. It is perfectly all right to like them and want to bring them to the Light Side; you just cannot allow that to stop you from forcing them to face their sins, and be beside them as they choose to be better than they were.

For this reason it is interesting - and slightly surprising - later on in the series when Rosso and Viola reappear. Rather than go after Van again, Viola and her fellow gang members Bianco and Jaro break Rosso out of prison. Celebrating afterward, they comment that Rosso’s been made “way too thankful” for his rescue either by the liquor they served with his dinner or his “quality time in prison.” By this minor dialogue a change is made clear in Rosso and is hinted at in Viola; Bianco and Jaro are tertiary characters, but even they are implied to have let go of any grudge they held against Van and his friends. They tell Rosso the new plan: Forget about the kid and his Organoid or trying to get in good with the Empire.

What they want now is to kidnap the ten-year-old Crown Prince, Rudolph, “and get rich on the ransom.” It’s a bold plan, but opportune because the old Emperor, Rudolph’s grandfather, has recently died and the boy is going to be on his way to his coronation soon. They will have a window in which to grab him as he takes off for his coronation. Here we see that the gang has realized they have sinned even by their own standards. They are not ready to atone for that, as they still want revenge, but they HAVE decided to leave our heroes be out of respect for their determination to live by the principles they forgot.

As the gang examines the palace which Rudolph currently calls home, they find they aren’t the only ones looking in on the prince. A team of three special operators using Republican Command Wolves are also present, but the why of their presence isn’t clear. To keep them out of their way, Rosso and the gang wreck the Command Wolves and move up the timing of their own operation, successfully kidnapping Rudolph -

Only to figure out that their kidnapping has basically saved his life. Rosso quickly puts together that the operatives were assassins when they try to interrupt the kidnapping not to save the prince, but to murder him. He also knows enough politics to correctly guess that the man who hired the three assassins is the same man who ultimately betrayed Rosso and his gang: Gunter Prozen, former prime minister of the Empire and now Regent for it. When he prepares to hand Rudolph over for the reward (so it seems), Rosso makes sure to say as much right in front of the frightened prince. Rosso already knows Prozen and his henchmen need him dead, so telling them he figured out their little scheme serves no purpose to keeping him alive.

It does, however, provide the young prince with reason to doubt his rescuers. So when Rosso must trick them into activating their plan to kill him too early, Rudolph gets positive confirmation that Rosso and Viola are literally the only people keeping him alive. If he tries to escape the two of them and run to the Empire, he will be a dead boy walking.

Now Rosso and Viola are starting to face their sins. NOW they are being forced to make choices contrary to their own survival but in keeping with the principles they once believed in. The ones which Van and his friends have remained firm in, which shamed the two bandits into letting them go. All that remains to be seen is whether or not Rosso and Viola will fully make the transition.

Their decision to protect Rudolph makes life harder for the two former bandits. As Rudolph’s kidnappers, Rosso and Viola don’t have a lot of options for getting either the ransom money they originally wanted or keeping Rudolph 100% safe. This is made especially clear when the naive prince goes looking for food to replace their dwindling supplies and gets lost while trying to repay his new guardians for their kindness to him.

The two inevitably search for Rudolph in time to find him with Van and his friends, who are under threat by Raven, Prozen’s pet assassin. The same age as Van, Raven is often thought to be just a kid “playing zoid pilot,” a mistake most of his opponents do not live to regret. We’ll get to Raven in a bit, but for now it is important to note that (a) Rosso and Viola do not think that just because Raven is a kid he is a pushover and (b) they take his attack on Van and therefore Rudolph quite seriously.

In fact, they “die” holding Raven back so Van and his friends can get away with the prince. Rosso point blank tells Van: “You’re going to have to be the one to protect Rudolph now! Protect him at all costs!”

Since I put “die” in quotes, you likely guessed that Rosso and Viola lived through this fight. They were both severely injured but they did pull through, in part thanks to the help of the eccentric Dr. D (see the video below for some clips of him - the voice actor for Rosso AND for Dr. D was Dave Pettitt). But this metaphorical “death” is still important, as it is the final cost of “facing their sins” and deciding to atone for them. There MUST be a price paid for the evil they did prior to this, and they MUST pay it by choice. Otherwise they cannot be “reborn” as actual heroes, ones who later come to the rescue of the protagonists.

Dr. D and Rosso from Zoids Chaotic Century

From a viewer’s perspective, this “death” might seem to be a minor thing. But neither Rosso nor Viola were absolutely certain they would escape the fight with Raven alive. Rosso determined to do so, shown by his promise to Rudolph that he would not “lose this.” Yet even with that, he made what amounts to a deathbed confession/proposal to Viola seconds before Raven apparently murdered them.

The duo’s reappearance later, where they wore helmets that obscured the upper halves of their faces, is also a price of their turning over a new leaf. Not until the end of the first season do they remove their helmets and address one another by their true names. To get their “happily ever after” with each other and Rudolph, they have to maintain the facade that they’re still dead. It costs them to change. It costs them a lot.

But they pay the price out of parental affection for Rudolph. For love of the prince they adopted as a son, they are willing to go through hell for him. Even if it requires distance, masks, grand names and speeches, they’ll do it. The other option is not something they are willing to countenance at all, because the goodness buried inside them was brought forth by the hero who refused to compromise on his beliefs when he dealt with them.

It is a very impressive transformation, but given Rosso and Viola’s earlier behavior, it is a transition that feels like it was relatively easy to make. You cannot really hate either of them even at the start of the series. Dislike them, feel concern that they will win, and desire them to lose, but you definitely do not want Rosso or Viola to die. By the time of their fatal confrontation with Raven, you REALLY do not want them to die.

Raven, on the other hand…. Well, go to the 2:17 to the 2:52 mark in the video below and see what Raven did in his first appearance in Zoids: Chaotic Century.

The Perfect Antagonist - Raven | Zoids Chaotic Century

Described throughout the series as a “maverick” soldier who “does what he wants, when he wants,” Raven comes across in the first season and a part of the second as a borderline psychopath. When it comes to his skills as a pilot I have, in the past, referred to him as the Winter Soldier of zoid pilots in an effort to help people grasp just how physically dangerous Raven is, but this comparison lacks some clarity. The Winter Soldier - even before his memories are restored and Bucky Barnes reasserts control of himself - never takes pleasure in killing. He is cold, brutal, efficient, terrifying, and he will not stop until his target is dead. BUT he does not relish the hunt and the kill.

Raven revels in both the hunt and the kill. He grins with glee as he grinds one of the Godoses in the above footage into the sand, then pops its head off with a twist of his Zaber Fang’s paw. When Van stops him from destroying a wounded Godos and its terrified pilot, stating he will defeat Raven, Raven laughs in his face. He also laughs at, mocks, and derides the pilots he kills as he enjoys slaughtering their zoids.

Killing the zoids themselves is Raven’s primary objective. Since zoids are living creatures, this is a little like a very skilled cavalryman not only cutting down enemy (and allied) cavalry soldiers, but killing their horses either before or after he has thrown their riders to the ground. If you were to go with the analogy of zoids as “dogs of war,” the same picture would apply: Raven kills the dogs before, after, or in congruence with their owners, sneering at them for being such poor handlers of the animals as he does so.

Several times in the series Raven refers to fighting as a “game” - a game he has mastered and at which no one can beat him. “Game over” is what he says in a later battle against Republican soldiers, and he once tells Prozen: “Don’t worry. The hunt is the most interesting part of the game to play.” Add that type of attitude to his skills as a pilot, and Raven becomes not only an interesting antagonist but a terrifying one. Because he will not stop until he has Van under his heel, where he “wants to see [him] squirm, kid.” As far as he is concerned, maiming and killing is fun.

Zoids Chaotic Century Van VS Raven

While the connection between most zoids and their pilots isn’t as strong as Van’s is to his Shield Liger or Irvine’s to his Command Wolf, the fact remains that after a point, the damage done to the zoid IS felt by the pilot. So when you see Raven hurting a zoid while grinning, even if the camera never shows the other pilot’s face, it is quite easy to recognize that the other pilot IS suffering along with his zoid. The same way that a cavalryman would suffer if his horse was being whipped to shreds while he was helpless to stop it, or a dog owner would scream as his canine was beaten to death and he couldn’t do anything to save it.

On top of this, Raven’s got his own Organoid, a black, bat-winged dragon-type one known as Shadow. For his first appearances Raven hardly ever calls upon Shadow’s aid, something that adds another layer to his contrast with Van, who early on needs Zeke to help him pilot the Shield Liger. In direct contrast to the oft-stated need for an Organoid to grant a pilot or a side in the war more power, Raven does not NEED Shadow to be a holy terror on the battlefield. IF, however, he DOES summon Shadow to fuse with his zoid, the person who prompted him to call his Organoid is either going to die or will be in for a world of pain.

That is the person the writers still managed to give a “Redemption Equals Life” arc to, readers. This teenage psychopath, who would as soon kill a zoid and its pilot - whichever side of the war said zoid and pilot was on - as look at them, got to live straight through the end of the series. He also got to redeem himself. While not a genocidal maniac in the strict sense, Raven comes VERY CLOSE to that level of evil, as I will demonstrate. As an antagonist, Raven:

• Murdered many, many Republican soldiers even before the war restarted, and he killed more during the “hot” portion of the war before Rudolph called a ceasefire at his grandfather’s death

• Threatened to kill Moonbay along with Van’s girlfriend, Fiona

• Killed his own Zaber Fang in a furious attempt to kill Van

• Murdered several bandits while searching for Rosso, Viola, and Rudolph on Prozen’s orders

• Seemingly murdered Rosso and Viola

• Murdered loyal Imperial soldiers on Prozen’s orders so the Empire’s Regent could look like he was trying to find Rudolph as he was supposed to, but someone (implied to be the Republic, but really his pet assassin Raven) was hindering his attempts

• Almost killed Van and Zeke in combat when he took Rudolph hostage partly on Prozen’s orders, but mostly to provoke a fight with Van so he COULD kill his old opponent

• Turned Rudolph over to his assassins rather than kill the Prince himself because he had “no interest in him at all”

• Infiltrated Republican territory to destroy bases and kill soldiers, bleeding the Republic of needed personnel, zoids, and materiel at the same time he collected zoid cores from fallen zoids for Prozen’s conspiracy

• Murdered the Imperial backup sent to help him kill Van and kidnap Fiona because he didn’t want help dealing with his old foe and was offended Prozen thought he needed such aid (or insurance, depending on how you look at it)

And that, readers, is BEFORE SEASON TWO EVEN STARTS. In season two, Raven ADDS to that enormous tally from season one. With relish, as he tells the camera at one point in season two with a sinister smile: “Welcome to the gateway - to Hell.”

Raven’s body count puts the Winter Soldier’s to shame. The boy was a one-man murder machine who laughed as he killed. For all that the Winter Soldier still gives Bucky Barnes nightmares, at least Barnes can take solace in the fact that he never took the slightest bit of satisfaction or pleasure in what he was forced to do. The same cannot be said for Raven at all. And THIS is the character whom the writers for Zoids chose to redeem?

Yes - and here is how they did it.

Zoids - Raven's Theme Song [Original]

Zoids began Raven’s redemption arc in season two, episode 15: “The Distant Stars.” That is a late point in the story to begin a redemption arc, as it does not give one a lot of time in which to work, but the writers still managed to make the most of it by working off season one and Raven’s return in season two. When he first reappears in season two, Raven is a mute amnesiac who “walk[s] around like a zombie” - albeit a zombie who can finagle his way into a zoid’s cockpit and destroy an entire military base in under fifteen minutes. When we see him do this he uses a Godos - a “cannon fodder” zoid not known for its power - to completely annihilate a Republican base. It’s stated he has already done this to several Republican and Imperial bases BEFORE he reached the present one as well.

But even with that threat, Raven’s blank staring and need to be taken care of make him vulnerable. Without a zoid and trailed only by his loyal Shadow, Raven has to rely on the kindness of strangers for basic necessities. This terrifying creature out of hell can’t even get himself any water or food without someone handing it to him, and he’s so numb to the world he can drink boiling hot coffee without reacting to the heat.

It is the first time - the ONLY time - the audience has ever seen him truly weak. That weakness is startling and it gives the writers, despite the limited time frame, the opportunity to present viewers with a new image of this menace. An image of what he could have been if his path and his choices had been different.

That alternate view is furthered in “The Distant Stars,” which is a flashback episode that shows Raven as a happy - if quiet and somewhat reserved - boy living with his parents. His parents are shown to be researchers studying an Organoid capsule, giving Raven a reason for his dislike of the mechanical creatures: They have more of his mother and father’s precious attention than he does. When the Organoid is released - apparently by accident - and murders Raven’s mother and father, this furthers his anger at the mechanical beasts. Raven admits after his rescue from the house with his dead parents that he “really [doesn’t] like zoids,” though the trauma he endured has made him block off memories of the reason why. It might seem cliche, but it works because the writers have already shown us a Raven who is vulnerable earlier in the season. Expanding on this vulnerability in “The Distant Stars” makes the audience want to see if he will change.

When Raven’s rescuer turns out to be none other than Dan Flyheight, the father of his future rival and the hero of the series Van Flyheight, this desire is increased. Before Dan can introduce the two boys and let them grow up together as brothers, his village is attacked by a division of the Imperial Army…led by Gunter Prozen. Having found a different Organoid capsule in the desert, Dan and his men were taking it back to the Republic when Prozen attacked them. To protect the village, Dan had to hand over the Organoid, but another soldier accidentally released it trying to prevent the Imperials from taking it.

Dan had to take on the entire division by himself to save his village. He managed to wipe them out but it cost him his life, leaving a legacy Van would aspire to live up to but also leaving Raven to seek vengeance. In the chaos following the battle, Raven somehow got hold of a Republican soldier’s pistol and chased after Prozen, just as he earlier tried to fight the Organoid that murdered his mother and father. Since he was a child, he was easily disarmed and captured. Prozen took him in and had him trained to be the monster he would become in the rest of the series, and Raven had so much leftover resentment, hatred, and anger that he became a willing tool in Prozen’s hands.

Sounds like it would be a real “come to Jesus” revelation when Raven had these memories restored, right? In a 2010s series, this would be when he sought atonement, and everyone would simply forgive him for his past. Right?

Nope. Raven might have been willing to admit he had sinned by this point, but that admission didn’t lead him bury the hatchet with Van or to stop hunting him immediately after “The Distant Stars.” Once he faced these memories he became a little calmer, perhaps, yet he remained determined that the only way he could “know peace” was to kill Van. Remembering how close he and Van came to being brothers didn’t end his hatred for his rival or his desire to kill him.

Losing his Organoid - the one zoid he actually cared about and who had given him all his attention - however, did. And it broke Raven out of his hatred for Van because it brought him nose-to-nose with the results of his own sins. The battle Van and Raven were fighting at the time was interrupted by the main villain, which caused Shadow to stay fused to Raven’s zoid too long. If Raven had surrendered and stopped fighting before that point, if he had made peace with Van, then they would not have been fighting when the villain struck and Shadow would not have died.

When Shadow “died” (he’s a zoid, he can come back) saving Raven’s life, the normally psychopathic pilot broke down crying. It is a heartbreaking scene and a terrifying one, because prior to that point Raven had NEVER wept. He had NEVER shown such human vulnerability. Not even his parents’ murders did more than bring tears to his eyes, as he immediately tried to get revenge on the Organoid that killed them. To see someone that frightening break down and weep as he realizes he is all alone once more, while it does not erase Raven’s past crimes or the penalty he needs to pay for them, makes the audience willing to see what comes next in his story.

Initially Raven takes Shadow back to his abandoned home, as he has literally nowhere else to go and no where else to mourn his friend in private. But when the Organoid’s body disappears, he reverts to an old pattern and seeks revenge. Notably, however, he does not seek revenge on Van, the man he swore to kill and whom he could easily blame for Shadow’s death. It would be a lie, but then, Raven has lived by proud lies for most of the series. Yet instead of going after so easy a target, Raven chooses to hunt down the villain of the second season and the real person who killed his only friend.

This decision of his is suicide; the zoid Raven has been piloting by this point in the series is so powerful that without Shadow, he cannot utilize its full capabilities. For the first time ever, he will be truly handicapped in combat. He is also grieving and knows there is nothing left in the world for him after his career of brutal murder and violence. Death is all he deserves, all he can expect, and all he has any right to at this point. It is also all he wants, as a world without the only friend he ever had is not one he desires to live in any longer.

But the writers do not let him off with an easy “Redemption Equals Death.” They have the Blue Devil - Reese - come to Raven’s rescue. The Blue Devil he also threatened to kill.

Rease the Blue Devil

Out of all the antagonists in Zoids: Chaotic Century which I have mentioned up to this point, Reese is the one who gets the least screentime. But the writers make the most of what she has: Where Raven is the counterpoint character to Van, Reese is the dark opposite of Van’s girlfriend, Fiona. Although she has a grudge against the Republic and the Empire, from her introduction in season two forward, Reese shows a particular obsession with Fiona. She takes at least some pleasure in torturing and killing random innocents and soldiers, it is true, but her most sadistic moments are reserved for when she is emotionally and psychologically hurting Van’s blonde girlfriend.

It is later revealed that the reason Reese hates Fiona is that she is jealous of her. Fiona has what was ripped away from Reese and the “Blue Devil” wants her to pay for, essentially, getting lucky. Fiona and Van spare her, though Fiona does not tell Van why (not on camera, at least) she wishes Reese to live.

But as with our above examples, Reese was not willing to return the favor Fiona grants her at once. Determined that the couple and their friends should all perish for what she lost, she manipulated Van and Fiona into the village where her own life had gone wrong. Reese had the couple in her sights and pulled the trigger - only for the literal ghost of her lost love to stand in the way of her shot to save the people she despised.

Now Reese has to live with the knowledge that she is responsible for killing someone she loved. That this time, he died by her hand. If she had simply left Fiona and Van alone that would not have happened. It brings her face-to-face with her sins. It is also the first time that we see her weep. It is the moment where she is vulnerable as she admits that every villainous act - including attempted mass murder - that she has performed up to this point was all done for her lost love’s sake.

And now she is responsible for his second death.

While Reese may not have wanted to commit suicide as Raven did, her murder of her lost love’s ghost made her choose to stop pursuing Van and Fiona. When Raven went on his personal suicide mission, inadvertently buying time for the military to finish evacuating itself and the remaining civilians from the area, Reese held Van in a place far away from that battle. She kept the man in love with the woman she had hated alive, nearly wrecking his zoid and slowing him down to the point that he arrived long after the battle was lost and could, therefore, not get himself killed in it. Then she went to Raven to try to save him. She and Raven were “killed” standing feet away from the main villain in the second season.

Yet the writers didn’t let her off with “Redemption Equals Death” anymore than they did Raven. Both Reese and Raven survived their apparent demise, though the how is never specified. Reese got sick in the aftermath and, in an absolute personality shift - perhaps brought on by the fact that she cared enough to come for him, despite his previous threats to her and their earlier mutual antagonism - Raven nursed her back to health. He even apologized for not being able to save her zoid (though her own Organoid, Specula, made it through just fine). The two made a complete 180 turn from where they had been before by this method.

But they both had to “die” to do it. Their choice to turn away from their sins, which were FAR greater than Rosso and Viola’s, exacted a heavy price from the two of them. We are, unfortunately, never shown what became of them at the end of the series. It is likely that the Guylos Empire and the Helic Republic did not seek to pursue or arrest either of them because they helped to save the world. (Yes, saving the world has some perks to go along with the unwonted fame.) At most they might have had a show trial, but it is likely that both Raven and Reese were given pardons and simply allowed to “disappear” from the public eye.

Even so, as the clip below from Stargate SG-1: The Ark of Truth shows, that does not mean they ever forgave themselves for their pasts.

Teal'c and Tomin

Raven outright tells Reese at one point: “I don’t have a right to be angry anymore. Not after everything I’ve done. I guess it all comes back to haunt you, eventually. All of it.” He states that he can’t even count how many bases he’s destroyed and how many people he has killed. While he may remember many of them, counting is pointless; the number is too high. At least Reese was prevented from committing mass murder by Van and Fiona. She killed far fewer than Raven did in her career as an antagonist, though not for want of trying.

Considering one of those she murdered was the ghost of the boy whom she loved, though, that would probably be very little comfort to her.

Still, this shows the arc of transition from antagonist to redeemed hero for both of them in a short space of time. While they may not have cared about the world itself, Raven and Reese arrived ready to fight for it in the final battle. Reese herself gave in to despair a couple of times, but as she noted, Raven changed dramatically even as she watched him in battle. He asked her if the sole solution she could see to the problem - killing all the zoids on the planet to save it and the people who lived there - “would really be a victory for us?”

He covered it quickly by adding, “Forget it, it doesn’t matter. I’m going to fight my way out of this one. Let’s go, Van!” But that in itself was startling; previously, Raven fought for the fun of proving his skill by murdering his opponents. He also would have killed Van rather than fight alongside him, let alone state that Van was the only pilot he respected. Raven even saved Van’s life a couple of times during that final battle, claiming that he had no intention of letting the villain do what he had sworn to accomplish.

Van’s response was to grin and say, “Everyone wants a piece of Van!” before joining the man who had tried multiple times to murder him and his friends in the fight against the apocalypse.

No, Zoids: Chaotic Century never gives us a glimpse of the legal system or states definitively what happens to Raven and Reese after they save the world. It is an incomplete picture, but theirs are still two of the four best “Redemption Equals Life” arcs I have ever seen. The writers took the time to consider what the characters needed for their redemption arcs and then did the work to make sure that I, their audience, would find it emotionally satisfying and plausible. The fact that I have written this post for you shouts their success to the world.

Along with the examples of Marvel Comics and Stargate SG-1, consider those “Redemption Equals Life” arcs showcased in Zoids: Chaotic Century. Who knows? Maybe you can figure out what SHOULD have happened to Raven and Reese once the credits stopped rolling. Or at the very least, you might spark an idea or two for your own “Redemption Equals Life” tales and how they ought to go. Remember that you (1) need time, (2) you must make the antagonists and/or villains face their sins, (3) you have to let them show at least a little humanity when they begin to do that, (4) and you need a catalyst for their “Heel-Face Turn.” Then, (5) you need to maintain enough distance that you can say, “Yeah, this is going to hurt me as much as it will them. But it will be worth it.” And then you need (6) to do the requisite work to accomplish steps 1-5.

So, consider your redemption arcs - particularly your “Redemption Equals Life” arcs - carefully. They are not all made equal, but as long as they have the requisite impact, they will entertain your audience. That is what you want and need as a storyteller, but don’t take my word for it. Instead, live by the words spoken in the preview for each episode of Chaotic Century: “See you on the battlefield!”

Fiction is your battlefield. Are you going to let yourself be beaten by your lesser impulses? No? Then it’s time to, as they also said in Zoids:

MOBILIZE!