Redemption arcs are one of my favorite kinds of stories to tell, and I was trying to think of all the redemption arcs that I know of in the Star Wars universe. As I thought of this, I realized that there actually aren’t that many that I truly enjoy and feel were executed well. I also realized that there was one in particular that I found to be one of the most poorly written redemption stories I know of.

One of my most favorite redemption stories was that of Agent Kallus. Agent Kallus is introduced in the Rebels TV show and starts out as one of the main villains. He is determined to hunt down the Ghost crew and proves to be kind the hindrance to them. In a failed attempt to take down the Ghost crew at Geonosis, he becomes stranded on a moon with Ghost crew member Garazeb Orrelios. As they are stranded, they are forced to work with each other in order to survive. While working together, Kallus learns more about the enemy he has been pursuing and learns more of the close relationships that all have with one another. At the end of the episode, Zeb makes it back to the Ghost and Kallus makes it back to his Imperial ship. Returning to the Ghost crew, Kallus saw that Zeb had friends who were searching for him and were glad that he was safe. When returning to Kallus’ ship, he has no friends to greet him and we see that there is no one that seems to care for him. With an injured leg, he limps all alone to his empty room. Even though I had always hated Agent Kallus, that scene was pretty heartbreaking and it made me start to care about the character. Later in the show, we come to learn that Kallus has switched sides and was acting as a spy for the Rebellion. He later escapes the Empire and joins the Rebels, continuing to fight with them. I was honestly surprised that they were able to take this character that I had learned to hate so much and then turn him around to be one of my favorites in the show. We learned more that he wasn’t a horrible villain, but rather a soldier on the wrong side of the war. He was able to learn that he wasn’t fighting for what he believed in and was able to change that.

Another and more widely known redemption arc is that of Darth Vader’s / Anakin Skywalker’s. From his introduction in the original trilogy, we see just how formidable and terrifying of a villain he is. Despite everything he’s done, Luke still sees good in him. Luke believes that his father was once a good man and can be that man once again. We finally see this light in Vader surface when he saves his son from the Emperor. Seeing his son suffering at the Emperor’s hand helps him to see just how much he loves his son. He kills the Emperor, finally returning to the light after being in darkness for so long.

The story of Asajj Ventress was an interesting one and I honestly never expected them to have a redemption arc in her story. In the Clone Wars TV show, she is introduced in the first episode and I hated her so much already. Through the show, she shows how vicious and awful she could be. This Sith Assassin was full of much rage and allowed the darkside to consume her. She was a horrible villain and the creators of Clone Wars did an excellent job making me hate her. So you can imagine my surprise when they started to make her a likable character in the 5th season. When she and Ahsoka came to a truce and created a small alliance, I started to actually like Ventress and thought they could actually redeem her. I then read the Dark Disciple, where Ventress spends her time as a bounty hunter. Throughout the book, she still does some pretty horrible things and I was actually unsure whether they would or actually could redeem her. But, I think that they actually did a pretty good job redeeming her character. At the very end, she feels the lightside of the force inside of her and feels that she, for once in her life, knows exactly what the right thing is. She then sacrifices herself to save Quinlan. From her introduction in Clone Wars, Asajj Ventress started as a ruthless Sith Assassin, became an opportunistic Bounty Hunter, and died as someone finally feeling the lightside and using it to save someone she loved.

This one might not be viewed as a redemption arc normally, but I like to think of it as one. In Rogue One, we learn that Cassian takes orders from the Rebel Alliance and executes them, even though they might not be the right thing. One such order was the order to kill Galen Erso. Cassian almost goes through with it, even though he doesn’t believe it to be the right thing. He decides to not kill Galen, however, finally disobeying orders from the Rebellion. After deciding to not kill Galen, Cassian still seems to struggle knowing what is right and what is wrong, having always done what the Alliance ordered him to. He ultimately decides that doing what he believes is right is more important than following any and all orders from the Alliance. He gathers up a crew to take to Scarif to help Jyn find the Death Star Plans. Even though this would be going against what the counsel had decided to do, Cassian knew it was the right thing.

While there are many redemption arcs that I love, as mentioned before, there is one in particular that I thought was so horribly written. That one is none other then that of Kylo Ren’s. I was going to go into great detail about all of the issues I have with his story, but I decided against it. Instead, I’ll just sum up my thoughts on this. My biggest issue with his “redemption arc” was just how fast it was. Throughout the entire trilogy, we see just how evil, reckless, and unstable he is. He murders countless innocent civilians, tries so hard to hunt down and kill Rey and the Resistance, murders his own father and almost kills his mother. Then, in the last movie, he just made a sudden change and decided to not be a bad guy anymore. I wasn’t entirely sure what sparked this change in him. His turn to the lightside was just so fast I felt that I had no time to process it. One second he’s a ruthless killer, the next he just decides “nah, I don’t want to do that anymore” and decides to go help the one person he was trying so hard to kill. The writers should’ve done more to redeem his character rather than just having him change sides in an instant. Anyway, I’ll be done ranting about this story now.

Star Wars has many great redemption arcs and I enjoy seeing them (even if they might not always be executed in a way that works for everyone). I love it when writers are able to take characters that seem irredeemable and then turn them into likable, good people. It’s always great to see characters learn, change, and become better people.

I know that there are so many redemption arcs in the Star Wars universe that I don’t know of. I’d love to hear what your favorite redemption arcs of Star Wars are!