CONVERSATION: Redemption and Reparation in Romance
A couple of weeks before Yom Kippur, Judaism’s Day of Atonement, I started this conversation about redemption and reparation in the genre. I’ve scrapped my original intro because the Yom Kippur is well past, so I’ll just say that Rose (once a DA reviewer) joined us for this one and she’ll be doing that in the future, too. And that tomorrow we’ll be running a post discussing specific examples of fictional reparations that worked or failed for us.
Janine: Any trope can be executed well or poorly, but generally speaking, how do you feel about romances where one protagonist wrongs the other and has to make it up to them? Is it a trope you’d like to see more or less of?
How do you feel about smaller subplots (often having to do with the characters’ family relationships) where tension over a past wrong has to be resolved? Do you enjoy that less or more than a redemption plot involving the main characters?
When it comes to reparation, which do you most like to see a character do to convince the other character (and you) that they have earned forgiveness–suffer as a result of their remorse, apologize, make tender love, or behave very differently to prove they’ve changed?
Thoughts on the Trope
Sirius: In theory I really like redemption storyline, but same as with many other tropes it very much depends on the execution and what the character needs to be redeemed from.
Layla: I like a good grovel but there’s lots of circumstances where it doesn’t work for me. There are some wrongs that just can’t be forgiven and go on to have a healthy or romantic relationship. But making mistakes and hurting people you love is normal and I think when romance writers depict it well it’s deeply satisfying.
Janine: This is a trope that can go pear shaped easily, but when it works, it works so well. The effort involved in making up for a mistake is romantic to me because often it involves the character who hurt the other person putting that person’s needs ahead of their own. The struggle to be forgiven and sometimes to forgive also resonates with me personally. I’ve made mistakes and I take them seriously. Seeing someone else grow into a better person helps me believe that I can and that maybe I can make it up to the other person.
Kaetrin: There are two (or more) parties to the process but they don’t always have to agree. One to do wrong and apologise, one to be wronged and forgive. Forgiveness does not mean a return to relationship necessarily – I’m in the school of forgiving being good for me because I’m not carrying around bitterness – and it’s not an open invitation to be walked on like a doormat. There can be a true apology without forgiveness (an apology does not have to be accepted. It’s not the law!) and there can be forgiveness freely given (although, again, this doesn’t even have to be communicated to the other party – it may well be only an internal action) without an apology.
Earning Redemption
Rose: I know some readers want a satisfying grovel or an equivalent big gesture and they’re good to go. That’s not really my thing; I want to feel like whoever caused harm to understand where they went wrong and do something meaningful to fix it and change whatever led them to behave like that. The HEA/HFN has to leave me believing that something similar won’t happen again, and that it’s been resolved in a satisfying way and won’t be a source of endless conflict in the future.
Kaetrin: For me, the essential things in a true apology in romance are the same things as in real life: an acknowledgement of the wrong, personal responsibility for it, commitment to change and then an actual change in behaviour being demonstrated. Weasel word apologies are meaningless as are words without actions. I need to see that changed behaviour on the page. In romance the reader has to accept the apology as well I think or the HEA is tarnished. (At least when issue is between the love interests.)
Jayne: I agree with you Rose that a grovel, no matter how grandiose or heartfelt, isn’t enough for me anymore. Including one is all fine, well, and good but if the person who did something that needs forgiveness still doesn’t really get what they did and that it hurt someone, then what does that gesture mean in the long run? Bupkis.
Janine: Agreed. When it comes to apologies, actions speak louder than words. And by actions I don’t mean hiring a violinist to serenade the other person under their window or presenting them with a humongous diamond pendant (the latter happened in one of Judith McNaught’s books, Something Wonderful). You can’t just throw money at the harm you did.
I want to see the character who earns forgiveness understand what they did that hurt the other person, understand how wrong it was and how badly they hurt the other party. I want to see it really sink in with them, to see them feel genuine remorse, and preferably to see the changes they’ve made in action. That’s the biggest gesture at all–not getting out an engagement ring or pulling out the keys to a house to live in together, not even begging forgiveness or touching the other person with tenderness and showing remorse in the eyes. All that can be satisfying but it doesn’t substitute for making genuine changes and showing growth.
Sirius: For the redemption storyline to work, I can take or leave the apology from the character who did the wrong, what I need is for him to show that he means business and tries to correct what he did. If in addition to that the character *suffers a lot* – even better.
Janine: Yes! I couldn’t agree more with this observation. The character suffering a lot because of their misstep makes a big difference to me–it’s emotionally satisfying and also helps convince me that they are genuinely motivated to make a change and that the change will stick.
Jennie: When I think of reparation stories that work for me, for some reason the first two that come to mind are both by Patricia Gaffney:
Lily, in which the hero treats the heroine terribly multiple times throughout the book (he has trauma from a faithless wife). In the end she is pregnant with his child, and he makes amends by telling her she can leave with the child and he won’t stop her. Knowing that he had already lost a child, and how hard it was for him to give Lily and his second child up – it really worked for me as absolute remorse in action.
In Sweet Treason, in which the hero rapes the heroine, in a scene that is particularly awful to read. She is recovering from a gunshot wound and can’t even fight him. (He thinks she’s betrayed him.) Later she leaves, and then arranges to have the hero framed for treason so he has to flee England, presumably forever. They then reunite and ride off into the sunset. This is admittedly batshit and awful, but it worked for me precisely because it wasn’t real – it was only in a fictional setting that I could imagine a revenge – a huge and intense revenge – as somehow balancing the scales between the two characters.
I admire those here who say that they want to see the same thing that they’d want in real life when they’ve been wronged – appropriate remorse and working to repair trust, etc. I think I may just have too much of the sturm-und-drang-lust still left in me to appreciate that fully, LOL.
Kaetrin: Jennie, your comments make me think of Stormfire by Christine Monson. The hero kidnaps and rapes the heroine and puts her in a dungeon in the first half of the book and then other things happen and they fall in love but after that in true bodice ripper saga style, (spoiler) they come to believe they’re half-siblings and so they can’t be lovers anymore. Then they go to France and he ends up getting tortured by a French guy who is jealous (plus some politics) and, among other injuries one of his testicles is cut off. She rescues him and then she goes to live in a convent and later he comes to take their son who can’t live in a convent forever because reasons and then they finally understand they’re not actually related and queue HEA. I don’t recall Sean ever really apologised for raping Catherine but I wonder, given my theory about reparations being necessary to the reader as well, if that torture and lost testicle may have substituted as a kind or reparation for readers?
Jennie: That’s the sort of thing that I can see as being yes, a balancing of the scales, in a way. I mean, I think it especially works in some of these older, already totally over-the-top romances. I want to be clear that my taste in redemption in romance (particularly in the examples I gave!) are far from anything that would work IRL.
Rose: In The Tea Rose by Jennifer Donnelly – which also has cheating, and a decade-long separation between the couple – Joe at one point reflects on something his grandmother told him as a child, that we’re not punished for our sins, we’re punished by them. And so “God didn’t have to punish him; he’d created his own hell. By himself and for himself.”
I guess that’s what I’m looking for with redemption/reparation stories; that the character involved will internalize what they’ve done and atone for it (whether Joe does enough of the latter is another matter). So a character being tortured and losing a testicle won’t do it for me, and anyway I’m too squeamish for that.
Sirius: Physical or moral sufferings alone are not sufficient for me. In Song of the Navigator by Astrid Amara, Cruz eventually loses his mother. It is not a punishment or revenge or whatever, but one can see it as very indirect consequence of his actions. And that was fine by me as much as I liked her character, but if I did not feel that he was really really remorseful for what he did to Tover, it would not have been enough for me.
Funny thing though that initially Cruz was trying to do a really good thing. Him sacrificing Tover to the pirates in his mind was not really a sacrifice (he did not think Tover would be hurt at all, let alone as horribly hurt as he was) and he intended to be back next day. Oops. what I am trying to say that really most that he was guilty of was thoughtless stupidity (because yeah sure, they won’t hurt Tover). And his punishment and self-punishment may have been over the top, but to me better over the top than not enough.
Redemption / Reparation in a Subplot
Janine: With regard to smaller plots about the protagonists’ family members or friends earning forgiveness from the main characters (or vice versa), those can be satisfying when well executed, too, but not as much for me. Often the author can’t take them as deeply because in a romance they can’t be the main focus of a book. Sometimes protagonists take toxic family members back and that casts a pall over the HEA for me.
Kaetrin: When it comes to those outside of the main romance, such as toxic family members for example, I’d like to see that explored more. I’ve read too many books where a family reconciliation is forced (Carla Kelly’s Mrs. Drew Plays Her Hand springs to mind) which left me dissatisfied. Why force a reconciliation? Sometimes the happiest outcome is an end to the toxic relationship and others in the family endorsing and supporting that.
Janine: Yes, that’s what I meant about forgiving toxic family members. It casts a pall over the HEA because I know that the toxic people aren’t going away and neither is their toxicity.
Rose: Kaetrin, that’s very true about resolution of family conflict: unlike the romantic relationship, which must have some kind of a reconciliation for the book to be a romance novel with an HEA/HFN, family dynamics can have a greater variety of satisfying resolutions. This can be an opportunity to explore forgiveness and reparation in interesting ways, but as you observe, not everyone is able to do so.
The Evolution of the Redemption Trope
Janine: In recent years I’ve noticed that this trope has taken something of a backseat, at least when applied to protagonists. Characters don’t have as steep a growth arc as they used to. Some say that’s just as well because in the past many characters (often heroes) did unforgivable or unacceptable things. To that I say that there are plenty of characters who still do (assassins, mobsters, vigilantes and such) but now they don’t apologize for it. That’s worse IMO.
Characters are also more moving to me when they have a growth arc. I haven’t met anyone who didn’t need to grow, either. And I think it’s valuable to impart to people that growth is possible and possible for everyone or almost everyone. But with that said, there have been many examples of this trope that have failed for me. Books where the heroes were cold-blooded killers or rapists or what have you–I enjoyed some of that as a young person but now that I’m older, I can’t.
Jayne: I began reading romances when the (literal) bodice rippers were all the rage. As you say Janine, back in the day books using this trope often had characters (usually the asshole hero) do awful things and yet somehow they still got the girl, often without (I think now) really earning the forgiveness of the person who was wronged.
Sirius: I understand the popularity of bodice rippers, I do, but for me rape is something that never worked as the reason for redemption. I know I mentioned in the past that Whitney, My Love sent me on the run from m/f romance for years (well, almost on the run – with couple of authors being an exception).
I didn’t want an apology from the hero, I wanted him to drop dead or at least go away – far far away.
I am the same way with m/m romances. Rape never works for me as the reason for the conflict between two leads. If the character is being raped by someone else, that someone else better stay a villain, all I am saying.
Jennie: I feel like my thoughts on this have changed over the decades. As someone who’s had a huge attraction to the concept of the hero behaving badly to the heroine and having to grovel, I’ve read and loved a lot of reparation stories that I’d find horrifying in real life. (As an aside: I think I just started reading romance when groveling became a thing – when I tried to read the older bodice-rippers, the heroes are AWFUL and then never apologize or relent on their behavior at all. I found this appalling and will probably never understand the appeal.)
Today I think I’m still capable of being moved emotionally by the dynamic I once loved, but my mind gets involved and I view it through more of a real-world lens. I think also I’m old enough now to be aware that some behaviors can be forgiven, but not forgotten. Misbehavior doesn’t exist in a vacuum. In the real world, a man that rapes a woman because he mistakenly thinks she’s not a virgin is not just SO in love with her, and so jealous, and beset by momentary madness. He’s a monster. I guess what I’m saying is that in the real world some of the behaviors that have made for the best grovels in romance would never lead to grovels at all because the person wouldn’t be capable of both such terrible acts and true remorse. At least not in the timeline that you find in most romances.
Rose: Regardless of whether it’s a romantic relationship, a familial one, or a friendship, it comes down to whether the reconciliation is actually good for the protagonists, or is there just to wrap everything up in a neat bow. If an author can’t convince me that what’s under the wrapping is worthwhile, what’s the point of all the trimmings?
It’s your time to weigh in, readers. What are your thoughts and feelings about this trope, both in main plots and in subplots? When does it work for you and when doesn’t it?
Well, making “tender love” doesn’t cut it for me, that’s for certain! Suffering as a result of the wrong action is good; promises are worth only the breath they take to utter; so that leaves behaving very differently. For an extended period of time. Towards everyone, not just the person who was wronged. Yep. That’s a lot to ask because where in that transformative character arc does the character stop being themself?
I agree with @Janine, that characters in a subplot don’t receive enough attention to work through this trope.
@LML: Yeah, that making tender love was in a lot of Judith McNaught’s books after the reconciliation. She was very fond of the words “tender” and “tenderly” (also “poignant” and “achingly”). When i was a teenager and in my early twenties I did like her books, but as I got older I liked them (particularly the oldest couple) less and less.
One of the things that bothered me was that (excepting in Something Wonderful, which was my favorite of her historicals, diamond pendant notwithstanding) the heroes never really evinced a desire to change the kind of person they were. Their treatment of the heroine changed, sure, but other than Jordan none of them questioned their own cynical and suspicious nature and I always got the feeling that they would jump to conclusions just as easily in the future. If not in regard to the heroine then in regard to someone else.
I enjoyed this discussion. No matter what you’ve done, saying I’m sorry and meaning it is hard. As mentioned above, the after is hardest of all. That’s probably why end of book forgiveness doesn’t always work for me.
I just read a real life story of a “celebrity couple” who experienced cheating, they wrote a book about forgiveness and then he did it again. My best friend had this happen (without the book). In the words of Rachel from Friends…Once a cheater always a cheater. Very often I’m thinking this at the end of second chance romances.
The discussion also made me glad that I never read Stormfire.
Coincidentally, this theme factors into the book I’m reading right now: LAST CHANCE REBEL by Maisey Yates. It’s a contemporary cowboy romance (published in 2016) about the relationship between a woman, physically & emotionally scarred by a terrible automobile accident in her childhood, and the man whose reckless driving caused the accident. He’s spent the 17 years since the accident drifting from job to job and trying (anonymously) to alleviate the heroine’s situation. The heroine, understandably, has grown into a rather prickly and isolated woman. When the MCs first meet, there’s an incredible amount of anger on the heroine’s part and an acceptance that he deserves the heroine’s enmity on the hero’s. This felt very realistic to me, as the heroine confronts the man who has caused her so much pain. But as the story progresses, both MCs begin to view the other in a more nuanced light: the heroine stops seeing the hero as nothing but a thoughtless teenager who caused the accident that injured her, and the hero stops seeing the heroine only as a victim of his entitled adolescence. Yates does a fabulous job with describing the gradual process by which atonement, contrition, and forgiveness morph into love. Yates is one of my “Queens of Angsty Heartache” and her style may not be for everyone, but I love it. LAST CHANCE REBEL is a lovely, melancholy story and it’s made my list of favorite reads of 2022.
@Jenreads: I don’t necessarily believe “once a cheater, always a cheater” but that doesn’t mean I want to read about it. Infidelity plots rarely work for me because often the author’s explanation for why it happened is a turnoff.
The Ilona Andrews co-writers have used the opposite kind of subplot a couple of times in their Hidden Legacy series–a third party tries hard to win one of the couple for themselves but that protagonist doesn’t give the idea of leaving the other one a second thought. They are 100% loyal and committed. I find that really romantic.
Was the celebrity couple fictional or real life? If it was the latter, I’m curious who.
@DiscoDollyDeb: I think in the premise of the Maisie Yates book it might help the readers except the redemption. (A) the hero was really young when it happened, and many teenagers are reckless drivers. (B) The reckless driving isn’t a thing that the hero did deliberately, in fact he didn’t want it to happen. (C) They also didn’t (I assume) know each other when that happened.
The hurtful act wasn’t an outgrowth of a personal relationship or a reaction to that particular girl, so there wasn’t that same level of expectation for the heroine of the being safe with this boy, loving him, choosing him over many other people as the one to trust with a lot. If they were dating and he got hurt or mad because of something she said or did, and drove her on the road or rammed her car on purpose, that would be a dealbreaker for most readers, IMO.
@Janine: yes, all of your comments are correct. I should also stress that the hero was not drinking or using drugs when he caused the accident; he was driving recklessly and veered into oncoming traffic. And he did not know the people in the car, although they did live in the same town.
@Janine:
It’s Jana Kramer and Mike Caussin. To be honest, I put celebrity in quotes because I’ve never heard of them. I guess they wrote a book about her sort of forgiving him enough to go on with the relationship for the kids. She then found out he had 13 affairs after the fact. Of course, he says he has a sex addiction. It’s a sad story all the way especially since it’s on Yahoo and everywhere else now.
I agree not everyone is going to do it again, but boy, if they do it twice they may do it three times. I’m not a fan of the cheating romance even with a good grovel.
@Jenreads: I think it’s interesting how it’s always men who say that it was all due to a sex addiction. Female celebrities never do. Probably because they know it wouldn’t improve their image any.
I would actually enjoy reading a book where one of the protagonists had a sex addiction, as long as they didn’t cheat or lie about it. If it was all out in the open–if it started as a one night stand, then became friends and benefits, and that character was upfront and said “I can’t do monogamy” in the beginning, and then the struggle was about how to change that–I would be interested in a book like that. Do any of you know of one?
@Janine:
I can’t recommend a book like that but I can recommend a movie. The Escort (currently streaming on Hulu) is about a sex addicted male and a female escort/sex worker. It’s listed as a rom/com. You can decide for yourself if it is funny or a romantic. To be honest, it wasn’t quite what I was looking for when I started it. I may finish watching it before my Hulu deal expires..
@Jenreads: That doesn’t sound romantic to me. Neither of them is the faithful type! I think I would need at least one of the protagonists to be for this to work.
@Jenreads: I never heard of them, but I just looked them up. With all the proliferation of the media, there are so many celebrities now that it’s hard to keep track.
Judith McNaught! Wow, haven’t heard that name for a while and I haven’t read or reread any of her books for such a long time. Probably since I started reading ebooks, and hers aren’t available outside of the US.
@ShellBell: It’s so frustrating that the Powers that Be at publishing houses still haven’t figured out how to solve geoblocking.
it is frustrating, but also a really good reason for me to stop reading some authors and discover more new-to-me authors that I love