Xander's redemption arc vs Kristen's redemption arc

[Jungle Madness]

Here are my two cents as to why Xander's redemption arc, while not perfect, has worked whereas Kristen's has failed -

1) Unlike Kristen, most people in Salem haven't given Xander a free pass for his past misdeeds. Xander lacks a dedicated cheer squad thus he is constantly reminded of his shortcomings.

2) Xander's genuine friendship with Maggie. Xander does seem to care about Maggie independently of Sarah.

3) Unlike Kristen, Xander doesn't constantly play the victim but rather owns his checkered past without excuse or complaint.

4) Unlike Kristen, Xander's attitude towards senseless violence has greatly tampered. When Victor ordered him to kill Ben in cold blood Xander refused. Xander recently tolerated much verbal and physical abuse from Kristen while demonstrating great restraint by not resorting to violence.

5) Unlike Kristen, Xander's recent bad acts have been motivated by his misguided desire to protect those he loves, namely Sarah and Maggie. At the hospital switching the babies was not Xander's idea but rather Victor's. While Xander did benefit from the switch his initial reaction was not to do it which only changed once Victor convinced him by dangling Maggie's and Sarah's happiness.

6) I think Kristen's redemption could have worked but the well was poisoned from the start by Haley's death. I have no idea why the "writers" decided to have Kristen accidentally/on purpose push Haley down those stairs. They could have had Haley rush away from Kristen and fall on her own thus everyone mistakenly thought Kristen killed her.

 

[robinsnest]

Kristen's redemption arc is failing because she has a much longer history of TERRIBLE HORRIBLE things.
Faking a pregnancy after losing the child to keep John in line, stealing a baby to keep up the ruse
Being an almost-stepmother to Brady when he was less than 5
Stealing Theresa's baby from the womb, carrying it to term and raising him as her own
These are just a few items of what she's done.
I don't think she is redeemable, she is a horrible monster who should go to jail and NEVER see her child ever again.

 

[LisaK in AZ]

On another thread I posted that I thought that Kristen is a psychopath. I looked up the difference between a sociopath and a psychopath, because she is clearly one of them. A psychopath is incapable of feeling guilt or remorse, but can portray those feelings to convince others. BINGO! She can cry and pretend that she feels so bad about all those things she has done in the past, but she doesn't mean it. Now, is it fair to condemn her for being mentally ill? That's a whole other discussion, but as a character, she is not redeemable to me.

Xander, I agree, did horrible things, but he does show remorse and, like fan favorite Nicole, he does the wrong things for the right reasons. He seems to have changed and won't repeat some of the behaviors he has previously shown. I believe that because we have seen him trying so hard to win Sarah and how truly happy he has become at winning her and Victor's approval, he is now a broken man. Hopefully, he won't regress because he has lost everything. Xander shows that he can be a decent person, Kristen has not.

 

[Jungle Madness]

Another thing, I don't understand why the "writers" are writing Kristen this way? If they are hell-bent on showing she has indeed changed then write her as remorseful and have her resist the temptation to backslide. Her redemption arc has been a complete failure because the "writers" have made it a failure. They do know how to redeem (to a degree) characters: see Xander and Ben. The only explanation I can think of is that we are correct and Kristen as a character is incapable of true character growth, either that or the "writers" are incompetent.

 

[TinaY]

Kristen's redemption arc fails because just when we got to the part where she had to resist her vengeful impulse, the writers had her nearly commit murder instead. The whole thing is so poorly executed. Both Ben and Xander have had opportunities to murder again, and they chose not to. That's the big difference.

 

[DrBakerFan]

Kristen's redemption arc is failing because she has a much longer history of TERRIBLE HORRIBLE things.

This is a big part of it. In addition, a big reason viewers despise Kristen is her persecution of longtime fan favorites, John and Marlena. Most of Xander's past evil deeds were directed against Nicole and Eric. (He was involved with holding the popular Steve and Kayla hostage, but the moving force there was Clyde and Orpheus.)

• He locked Eric and Nicole in the overheated crawlspace.
• He put Eric and Nicole in a cage at his Greek villa. (By now, some viewers probably wish he'd kept them there.)
• In Canada, he kidnapped Nicole and shot Brady.
• He forced Nicole to marry him.
• He kidnapped Nicole's daughter on the orders of Ted Laurent.
• He did shoot Marlena, but that was an accident. He was aiming at Eric.

In addition unlike Kristen, Xander has been unfairly treated.

• Victor treated him like dirt because he was the son of his despised brother, Titus.
• He was wrongly accused of attempted rape by Jeannie T. and sent to prison.

 

[JasonDíSpeech]

I love, love, love this thread! I'm ashamed on twitter that so many think Sarah's choice to name Xander as Mickey's father makes her as unfit to parent as Kristen.

NOT EVEN CLOSE, for all of the reasons above.

I don't understand why the "writers" are writing Kristen this way?

There is another possibility: The writers are trying (and I would argue failing) to do a "fake out redemption" story.

 

[JasonDíSpeech]

I would also argue any time we question the writers - we should look at what was airing 9-10 months ago (though that count is off because of the shutdown from the virus) when the material was written. It is often possible to see sharp left turns that frequently mirror fan reaction to the on-screen events when the now-current material was written.

I'm not sure if that tracks with Kristen's story, and don't have time to research it now, but it often helps explain why a couple that was frosty is suddenly friendly, or a character who was booted out of town as a murderer is back in some form.