Welcome again to the Wednesday Weekly Blogging Challenge, a year-long challenge set by the good folk at Long and Short Reviews that anyone can participate in. Check out the site to see who else is playing along.

This week’s topic:

A villain I wish could be redeemed and why

This one has left me completely stumped. I can’t think of any villain I would like to see redeemed. Maybe because I read a lot of horror and dark crime novels with villains so evil and icky they’re beyond redemption.

The only character coming to mind who I’d hoped would find the right path is Dirk Courtney from Wilbur Smith’s The Courtneys: When the Lion Feeds trilogy. Not because I thought Dirk had earned redemption or I felt any particular need for it – he was a horrible character who deserved whatever comeuppance he got – but because I wanted his father Sean to be happy. Dirk becoming a decent human would help achieve that.

I can’t reveal much about what happens because it’d be a massive spoiler. Let’s just say that I was hugely disappointed by Dirk’s actions in the climax of book three, The Sparrow Falls. Actually, shocked is a better description. I really hadn’t expected Dirk’s evil to manifest itself in that way and after such an epic life I thought Wilbur Smith would have wanted to give Sean a fairytale ending. Alas, no.

I’m sure there are other characters. I just can’t think of any. I blame my lockdown brain which seems to be more focused on cooking than anything else.

Not to worry. At least we’re being well fed, if perhaps a tad too well fed, and the freezer won’t need restocking for months. Which is handy because I have a big book I need to write. Just thinking of the positives!

Can you think of a villain you wish could be redeemed?

.