The intense US cultural focus on the concept of "redemption" mystifies me. The Swedish equivalent is culturally unimportant to us. Swedes don't seem to know or care whether redemption is possible or indeed desirable.
@mrundkvist What do you mean, like religious redemption?
@si_fuller I don't know, but Americans talk about it all the time without specifying. Swedes are exceptionaly secularised.
@mrundkvist
What context are you thinking of? The American sense of justice is very focused on punishment as revenge these days, there's little talk of redemption or rehabilitation in this concrete aspect.
Are you thinking of American fiction, like superhero movies and the like? There's certainly lots of "redemption arcs" going on there, and in particular the selfless sacrifice of one's life as the surefire way to redemption is quite popular in some genres. But how much that is truly religious sentiment and how much is just lazy writing I can't say. Thought I expect laziness can at least partially explain many instances, because the heroic sacrifice of a good characters life is pretty popular too.
@si_fuller
@tobychev I'm thinking of the blurbs and marketing of US fiction, TV, movies. I have very little insight into what's behind the term, as I don't actually partake of the products.
@mrundkvist
I think you overestimate the religious connotation, an example of a redemption is when Vargen blir snäll i Bamse, so it is much more about gottgöra tidigare fel than explicit religious themes. My uninformed guess is that it is probably a type of story structure that is older than organised religion.
Also, see the tv tropes pages for more explanation and examples: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedemptionQuest and
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/RedemptionEqualsDeath
