[quigonkenny]

Originally Posted by DKN117

I still think that Fate's girls have 'merely' been indoctrinated. If something big were to happen, they could be redeemed. And again, I draw attention to my comment on Homura thinking that 'killing' the good guys wouldn't have actually killed them.

Don't see how you get that from "I will turn you to ash in an instant!", but even if it's the case, that's not really a justification for her clear enjoyment.

Originally Posted by OverMaster

With enough of a big event, almost any character in any work of fiction can be redeemed. I actually see Homura as being more redeemable than Shirabe, since Homura at least seems to be dead-set on her actions being for a fully serious greater good (her enjoyment on roasting enemies alive seemed to be born out of self-righteous rage more than anything else) , while Shirabe actually takes smiling pleasure on mocking her enemies before trying to kill them (like she almost did to Nodoka). I find the latter much crueler than the former.

Fate is hard to pin down. Worse villains have been redeemed (Jeebus, Vegeta!), and I get the feeling the new Averrunci are a desperate attempt from Akamatsu to make Tertium look good by comparison. I wouldn't bother redeeming him, but we gotta admit he's the kind of character creators usually scramble to toss saves at mostly because they're so pretty and 'cool'.

"Her enjoyment on roasting enemies alive seemed to be born out of self-righteous rage more than anything else"? Oh, yeah, that totally makes it okay. Let me introduce you to some guys in the Spanish Inquisition who probably felt much the same way...

Once again I go back to my line that blind devotion only goes so far. Whether or not Homura is following Fate, or LifeMaker, or Cosmo Entelecheia, she is ultimately responsible for her own actions. She's hardly being forced to do what she does, after all. And she might say the ends justify the means all she likes, but most evil people feel that they are doing things for whatever their "greater good" is, whether that's killing people remotely to rid the world of criminals or taking over a world filled with war in such a way that the only impetus for battle is to unseat its new despot. Good and evil are defined more by how you reach your goals than what your goals are. TL;DR: good people don't have to justify their means.

I have no idea what translation you read with Shirabe, but your raw at least must have been substandard to think she ever smiled. She was nothing but respectful during her confrontation with Nodoka, Chisame, and Paru, and was only going to kill(?) Honya (and only Honya) out of necessity. An evil act, certainly, but not one she appeared to enjoy, and she was on the battlefield. She's on the dark end of neutral; not as obviously evil as Homura.

And of course anyone can be redeemed in fiction. The question is how believable the author makes it. Vegeta is probably a bad example, since what redemption he did receive rang hollow thanks to the fact that it was fairly out of character, and he was clearly only keeping himself from killing Goku because he couldn't...yet... And he was getting some tail...

I don't think any of us are really arguing whether Fate, or Homura, or even Tsukuyomi "can" be redeemed. KA can do what he wants. If the story tells us they're redeemed, then they are. The argument is whether, at the end of the day, 1) it's a reasonable development, or 2) it's out of character or makes no sense and is thus bad writing. By that criteria, Homura is easily the easiest to redeem out of the three I mentioned in my previous post. Namely since neither of the other two would have any reason to wish to be redeemed. The only reason I could see Fate being redeemed (which is the same reason I left him off the evil list) is that I'm not sure whether he's always been self-aware enough to actually be evil. He probably is now, but the appearances of the other Averruncii only serve to illustrate how "programmed" onto his current path he may have been when he started out. Unlike Homura, he may very well have been "forced" by his ingrained nature into many of his evil actions.