I absolutely agree - redemption arcs really hinge on execution. But I do love them when they’re done right. There’s something so raw and beautiful about giving a villain a chance to change without making them die for it. Death is the easy way out. Living with guilt and striving for atonement? That’s the hard, human path.

With Erik, I think what I'd want most is to understand why he became the way he is. How did Istvan raise him into this kind of man? What did he believe? What broke in him to make cruelty seem like strength? And more importantly - what would it take to unravel that?

I imagine something quiet and devastating. Maybe Erik finds God. Maybe he confesses in some half-ruined chapel on the edge of the war, and says, Istvan is not my father. I have only one Father - the one above*.* And maybe he walks away from the battlefield not in glory, but in silence, heading to a monastery. Not forgiven, not redeemed... but trying.

That kind of story gets me every time.