WRAITH

Well first of all we need to assume that the character is even worthy of redemption in the first place. There's quite a few sloppy character "redemptions" in which they show that the character feels a bit sad that they did an oopsy and they say sorry and all is magically forgiven. Fuck that, its boring and undeserved.

I want a character to go through the ringer and struggle to earn their redemption. Some characters might openly welcome their apology, some might take a while to trust them, some may never accept them regardless of how hard they try, it has to be natural and fitting for the character.

Secondly, give the villain a good reason to suddenly change their beliefs and ways of life.
Death of a loved one, usurped from their own rule, realisation of common interests between them and the good guys, you have plenty of potential ways for the character to come around and my personal favorites are the ones in which the character struggles to come to terms with the fact that their way of life was flawed and that it needs to change, it's not easy pulling a 180 on your beliefs.

Thirdly, redemption through death can be super fucking cheap. I don't like when they give a character sudden tragic backstory just to make you feel bad cos they get killed off in the next scene, it's pussy shit and it's not earned.

Fourthly, redemption must scale with the sin, someone who murdered hundreds needs to put in a LOT more work than someone who smacked a single person, and obviously Murder McGenocide is gonna take much much more time to balance out their transgressions than Smacking Tom over here.

Fifthly, redemption comes with risk, a character usually has something to lose or a trial to face (whether that be physically or mentally) on their path to redemption. Sacrifice is usually a very easy and poignant way of achieving this, risking or even giving up ones own life for atonement, throwing ones self into a seemingly unwinnable situation to make things right, anything that shows that someone is willing to commit to the shit they say and prove it.

Sixthly? Consider the fallout from their actions even after everything is said and done, consequences can't magically disappear if its a bigger issue because of an apology and that will just have to be something that character has to live with. However, just because they have to clean up the mess doesn't mean that character is now only defined by who they once were, give them room to grow into someone new instead of just "the bad guy that was redeemed"

An example I want to give of cut and dry solid redemption is of the character Rider from the game Furi, I'd recommend playing it before reading this cos it's a good game, but anyways:

In Furi you play as a silent swordsman who has been imprisoned in a series of prisons orbiting the planet below, and it's your task to cut through the jailers keeping you there.

The game starts out with the moral compass seemingly pointed in your favor, your first jailer is a cruel and mocking person who takes pleasure in torturing you and keeping you locked up making sure you'll never see the surface again, you're lead to believe that you are the good guy out of the gate and that whoever is keeping you here is the villain.

However, the further you progress through the story, working through each prison cell and meeting jailer after jailer, you start to learn that you were infact locked away for a reason, we're not told what, but apparently it was bad and now we start to question whether our protagonist should actually be free.

The game hits its first turning point when you meet a jailer called The Song. The Song offers you the opportunity to stay with her for the rest of your life in a beautiful garden, with no punishment as long as you don't leave and go to the surface. And you can end the game right here! If you stop and wait at this spot the game can end and you can choose to give up your escape attempt and live out the rest of your life with The Song seemingly without worry.
But you kill her and proceed anyway. Because you want out. Well into the game the people that you have killed have now been made apparently clear that they are infact the good guys. A woman who just wanted to keep you away from the surface, a father protecting his son and the people he cares about, a fellow swordsman who sees you as an equal, until the final jailer... is nothing but a defenseless young girl.

She has no attacks whatsoever. All she can do is run away from you and use turrets in the stage to try and keep you at bay but its useless, you get past all her defenses and plunge your sword through her chest with no effort, ending the life of a child who was put at the very tail end of this prisons defenses just to keep this mysterious prisoner away from the planet below. But now you've killed everyone standing in your way and you're now finally free! Sure those people might've been good guys but they NEEDED to go because they were preventing your freedom. So you finally make it down to the planet below... and everything around you begins to die as you take your first steps on the surface. Grass turns black and withers, soil dries up and cracks like sunbaked clay. You absolutely were a threat that should've been locked up and for good reason, you're a walking bioweapon that can do nothing but cause death around you. And as you walk through an open field, now a free man causing endless decay around you, the credits begin to roll and the main theme of the game "My Only Chance" plays.

So now this is where Furi elevates from 10/10 to an 11/10.

The Rider is given his chance at redemption after the credits conclude. You discover a tower in the middle of the field which lets you take flight into space to take on an optional final bullethell superboss. This boss, The Star, is an advanced AI that created you and many others like you as weapons to prepare planets for invasion and takeover. You can either allow The Star to begin the takeover and colonise the planet sending down dozens of other Riders to wipe the planet clean, OR, you can reject this idea, you can reject your identity as a weapon and your entire purpose for the sake of doing the right thing, to make things right. You can throw yourself through an incredibly brutal bossfight for the sake of preventing any more bloodshed, even if you cant return to the planet because of what you are. The Rider learns his humanity through the jailers he's murdered and people he's met on his conquest for freedom.

This silent protagonist develops morals and compassion for life on the planet as he fights for his freedom and decides to go against everything he was made for simply for justice.

I just think the Rider is an excellent example of character redemption and giving up everything to do the right thing.

This got derailed quickly, villain redemption can be fun, play Furi, it's good.

Both are surprisingly different beasts to tackle.

Heroes:
Heroes are odd to tackle and make interesting, where do their struggles and development lie? The easiest one to write is the "I need to get stronger to beat an evil and then I'm done" which is OK but theres plenty others you can mess around with. For example two of my hero characters;

Epoch's struggles lie within profession burnout and imposter syndrome, early on in her career she made a grave mistake during a mission that caused many civilian casualties that she blames herself for, and yet the wider public isn't mad at her and still adores her. She as a character strangely longs for some form of persecution and accountability for her error. To me, Epoch exists to illustrate the issues that stem from idolisation and the fatigue that comes from feeling like you're being railroaded into doing something that you're not even sure you can do anymore. It's her struggle with humility and wanting a choice.

Wicker is my latest character in the hero universe and she has pretty much the inverse of Epoch's problem. Wicker is fundamentally pure in her ideals and beliefs, but her issues lie in the fact that the world around her is more inclined to push her towards being a villain than the hero she would like to be. She's a socially awkward skull-headed looming figure that causes general fright in the majority of people she comes across and it would be so much easier for her to just be a villain because of that, but she doesn't want to. Wicker's struggles lie in the problem of wanting to pursue your ideals and goals in a world that is heavily weighted against them and wants you to be something you're not, and how society and systems don't give some people the opportunities they would need to attain them.

So for heroes yeah i like when good guy punch bad guy, but i definitely enjoy a lot more seeing the person behind the mask instead of this godly alter ego that is a beacon of justice.

Villains:
Hooooo boy villains are a LOT of fun but also VEEEERY tricky to write sometimes. The issue with villains is balancing their morally corrupt ideals in a way that is intriguing to viewers and makes them interesting to watch, one of the most iconic examples being somebody like Walter White from Breaking Bad, from all angles he is a BAD guy but the interesting part comes from his decline from a family man to a crime lord. Or, sometimes you want a character that is just plain fuckin nasty and evil like Homelander from The Boys. To me a good villain isn't just "raugh i want to conquer the world" because that's unrealistic, but I also don't like the whole "guys im so misunderstood and need redemption" because some characters can just be BAD and suffer because of it. Lemme do a rundown of Mania based on what I have with her so far;

So Mania isn't a malicious actor by any means, her villainy comes from her rash decisions and general lack of care about how her actions can hurt many people. Mania has a philosophy of "never punch down" and "never be a coward", those who want to fight and risk their lives are entirely fair game to her, it's when you get innocents that have no part in it involved is where she draws the line. However, her gang is responsible for one of the largest illegal arms distribution across the world, these guns will and have caused the deaths of innocent people across the world. Mania by herself is all about the passion for weapons and the honor of fair fighting but refuses to acknowledge the fact that this gun trade does indirectly cause suffering around the world. Paired with the fact that she was a runaway kid and fell into gang culture quite young, some aspects of the crime world are just natural to her.

Overall I like writing for both of em, they both have their kinks and eccentricities that are fun or difficult to work with. Heroes are easier, but Villains are more interesting i'd say.