The Irredeemable Exception

In settings that veer strongly towards idealism on the Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism, good and evil clash but evil rarely stays that way for long. Most villains there aren't truly all wicked, and with the right words and the right person to coax out their latent sympathies, even the most seemingly monstrous of people can be turned into good, because Rousseau Was Right.

Except THIS character. No matter what the hero says, no matter if there's no chance of winning, no matter if so many other characters who've done worse things have managed to come to the light, this Jerkass will never turn to good for as long as they live. As such, this trope often overlaps with Redemption Rejection. Expect Even the Loving Hero Has Hated Ones to apply to this character. If they are bad enough, they will likely be a Vile Villain, Saccharine Show, if not a Complete Monster, as well. Always the despicable party of a Sympathetic Villain, Despicable Villain duo.

Since this trope concerns the final fates of villains, including those that involve death, spoilers be warned.

For the comic book, see Irredeemable.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Dr. STONE: While all other antagonists got to experience Defeat Means Friendship, Minister Ibara is such a Hate Sink he is the only person who got petrified by the heroes and was never heard of again.
• EDENS ZERO has its fair share of villains all over the morality scale, and major arc villains will generally be unrepentant monsters that the heroes need to overcome... in normal timelines. When the protagonists get the opportunity to jump to a much kinder ultimate universe, most of the villains (even the warlord Draken Joe and the megalomaniac Shura) get the chance to be much better than they were in previous timelines. The lone exception to this is Doctor Muller, a Mad Doctor who gleefully experimented on two children for his own selfish interest and is outright willing to endanger robotkind.
• Fruits Basket either reforms almost all of its antagonistic characters in the present day or at most develops them just enough so that they have humanizing qualities and are understandable. But there remain two characters beyond reach, who refuse to see the error of their ways and try for a better relationship with their family: Akito Sohma's mother, Ren, and Kyo Sohma's unnamed biological father, who blame their offsprings for all of their woes all the way to the end, their inner rage and insecurity having only made them worse.
• Kill la Kill has nearly all its villains turn over a new leaf and joins Ryuko and the others in their fight to save Honnouji Academy and the world (or in the case of Rei Hououmaru, after the final battle). Ragyo Kiryuin and Nui Harime are the only two exceptions who remain evil and psychotic, and die on their own terms, with Ragyo literally choosing to crush her own heart than accept Ryuko's offer for redemption.
• Magia Record: Puella Magi Madoka Magica Side Story: Consistent with the magical girl genre, the Puella Magi Madoka Magica franchise goes out of its way to give all of its villains a humanizing side to them, and the anime adaptations are no exception. Kyubey's tricking of young girls into becoming Witches is needed to save the universe, albeit with or without humanity; Homura wants to make everyone happy in the end of Rebellion; the Witches are either well-intentioned or subject to Alternative Character Interpretationinvoked; and Touka and Nemu want to save Magical Girls from their eventual fate and are redeemed in the Magia Record finale. Alina Gray, on the other hand, is an unfettered, Ax-Crazy sociopath who not only doesn't care in the slightest about anything but her own skin, not even the Magius' well-intentioned goals, but she also is a Dirty Coward who will gleefully throw anyone under the bus to feed her Mad Artist cravings, her own planet included, and is completely unrepentant about her atrocities in the afterlife.
• Jail Scaglietti, the Big Bad of Magical Girl Lyrical Nanoha StrikerS, is one of the only two antagonists who has defied the Defeat Means Friendship mindset of the Lyrical Nanoha series (the other being Precia Testarossa from the very first Nanoha, who in the TV series was a monster) and steadfastly refused to reform his criminal ways (as did three of his most loyal underlings, if primarily out of admiration for him than of their own conviction).
• Pokémon Adventures: Of all the members of the Kanto Elite Four, Agatha is the only one who doesn't perform a Heel–Face Turn, and instead simply just escapes and gets away with her crimes.
• Rave Master: The series emphasizes on having their antagonists having understandable motivations, tragic backgrounds, and redemptions. Shakuma Raregroove on the other hand is one of the series most vile villains whose actions are part of the reason for the war in the first place. Upon learning this both Haru and Ellie see him as an irredeemable monster and show no hesitation in trying to kill him.
• The Seven Deadly Sins: Despite most of the villains being everything from genocidal warlords to demonic harbingers, most of them either redeem themselves, are brainwashed pawns, or genuinely care for others. Not so with the Demon King, who tries to destroy all races other than demons and wipe out all of Britannia; Bellion, the demonic leader of the Six Knights of Black; and the Supreme Deity, who tries to restart the Holy War after it ended.
• Yu-Gi-Oh!: Most of the main antagonists in the show had a sympathetic reason for their actions and underwent a Heel–Face Turn after being defeated by the heroes. The sole exceptions were Yami Marik, the evil Split Personality of the more sympathetic Marik; Gozaburo Kaiba, Seto Kaiba's abusive foster father; and Yami Bakura/Zorc, the evil spirit of the Millenium Ring and the Greater-Scope Villain of the series.

Film — Animated

• Atlantis: The Lost Empire: The expedition team to Atlantis, san Milio Thatch, are Only in It for the Money though many do give sympathetic reasons as to why (such as opening flower shops or helping out family). Thus it's easy for Milo to shame them for plundering a newly discovered living civilization that is dependent on the Heart of Atlantis they sought after (and thus will die if it is taken from them), and nearly all the named members undergo a Heel–Face Turn. The only exceptions are Commander Lyle Rourke and Lieutenant Helga Sinclair who, along with their army of Faceless Goons, take the Heart of Atlantis regardless, resulting in a big climatic battle over the fate of Atlantis. And of those two, Rourke proves to be the worst as Helga actually does have second thoughts of her actions while Rourke casually sacrifices Helga to save himself and get more of the profit margin. By the film, Helga uses her last breath to stop Rourke for his betrayal, while Rourke dies as a crystallized, mindless monster.
• Kung Fu Panda 4: While the previous films' villains refused to change their ways in their respective films, they were still shown to be complex and layered characters that could potentially be capable of change if they chose to do so. In stark contrast, the Chameleon is shown upfront to lack any of the sympathetic or honorable traits that her predecessors displayed, and the previous villains — particularly Tai Lung — quickly take a dislike to the Chameleon when she abducts them from the Spirit Realm and steals their kung fu abilities. After hearing Po's speech about the importance of change - which the Chameleon dismisses — and then seeing him go through the trouble of restoring their kung fu abilities in spite of their enmity, the past villains all bow in respect to Po as the true Dragon Warrior and willingly return to the Spirit Realm, while also taking the defeated Chameleon as their prisoner.
• The Lion King II: Simba's Pride: The film's conflict centers around the war between the Pridelanders, Simba's pride, and the Outsiders, followers of the deceased Scar, and it's resolved when Kiara and Kovu convince both lion factions to end their feud and become one pride for peace and prosperity. But the only lion unwilling to change their ways is the Zira, leader of the Outsiders and Kovu's mother. Fanatically loyal to Scar, Zira threatens to kill her children for refusing to fight (which prompts the rest of the Outsiders to turn against her) and then immediately attacks Simba, only to end up hanging precariously on the edge of the gorge above a torrent river. Despite Kiara's attempt to save her, Zira tries to attack her but ends up falling into a torrent river where she is swept away and drowned. A Deleted Scene would shown that Zira deliberately lets go to spite Kiara, swearing that she will never accept the aid of a Pridelander.
• Luca: All the inhabitants of Portorosso are convinced to stop killing sea creatures when Luca and Alberto win the race, except Ercole Visconti.
• Shrek:
  • At the end of Shrek the Third when the villains are about to kill Shrek, Artie gives them a speech about how they don't have to be evil and can choose to do whatever they want. All of them have a Heel–Face Turn except for Prince Charming who still tries to attack.
  • Puss in Boots: The Last Wish: Puss faces three antagonists in his pursuit of the Wishing Star: Goldilocks (and the Three Bears), "Big"/"Little" Jack Horner, and Death. Puss, Goldilocks, and Jack want to get the titular wish for their own selfish desires, and Death wants to kill Puss due to how much he disregarded his previous lives. In the end, both Puss and Goldilocks give up their wish, since their journeys through the forest as well as their Character Development have made them realize that they don't need their wishes. As for Death, he comes to realize that Puss' journey has genuinely changed the cat's outlook on life and lets him live the rest of his days in peace. The only character who never gets any sort of redemption is Big Jack Horner, who revels in his vileness throughout the entire journey, to the point that the Ethical Bug serving as Jack's "conscience" eventually gives up looking for any good in him and decries Jack as a monster.
• Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutant Mayhem: The Mutants are aiming to wipe out humanity and take over the Earth; however, they are largely Affably Evil, being sincerely overjoyed upon meeting the TMNT and wanting to welcome them into their Family of Choice. While the Turtles are able to appeal to the majority's better nature and help them realize that destroying humanity won't actually make them happy, Superfly refuses to be swayed.
• Toy Story: Most of the antagonists in this franchise have positive qualities and end up either turning over a new leaf, or were just never particularly threatening to start with. Sid is now a harmless and fairly well-adjusted garbage collector, Zurg and the other Buzz form a good father-son relationship, both Stinky Pete and Gabby Gabby found kids who were willing to own them and love them, Ken, Big Baby, and all the other Sunnyside toys all change their ways, the Cleric is last seen silently reconsidering his prior beliefs, and even Al gets off lightly for his misdemeanor, staying in business but as a Dollar Store now. Lotso Huggin' Bear, meanwhile, refuses to repent and rejects the chance at redemption and finding a new home with Woody and the other toys when it's offered to him, instead leaving them to burn in the incinerator. Because of this, he's hit hard with karma for his actions in the form of an ironic Fate Worse than Death.
• Inverted in Treasure Planet where Big Bad John Silver, being far more sympathetic, is the only villain in the movie to actually be redeemed, while all of his henchmen, especially his second-in-command, Scroop, are instead portrayed as irredeemable scumballs.
• Trolls: At the end of the movie, all the Bergens learn they can be happy without eating trolls, except Chef, who insists on eating trolls being the only way to be happy.

Live-Action TV

• Kamen Rider:
  • Kamen Rider Fourze: Hiroki Makise/Pyxis Zodiarts is Yuki's psycho Stalker with a Crush who uses his powers to bolster his obsession. He uses his Mind over Matter powers to toy with Yuki's emotions by seemingly destroying the locker leading to the Rabbit Hutch and later uses it to try and drive a bus full of Amanogawa school girls off of an unfinished bridge because they rejected him. It gets to the point where Gentaro pointedly decides not to offer his hand in friendship to Makise and lets the girls give Makise his comeuppance.
  • Kamen Rider Zi-O: Most of the Another Riders in the original series that aren't previous villains from the franchise turn out to have been nice people or at least not eager for world domination, merely being brainwashed by the Anotherwatches. Even the villains who set them up to begin with, the Time Jackers, eventually turn good or at least mellow out despite everything once they get exposed to the idea of a normal life through various means. However, Hiryu Kakogawa/Another Zi-O stands out as the sole exception; despite initially being a victim of Big Bad Swartz's manipulations, it becomes clear that he does not actually care about being a pawn and spends the entire series critically wounding the (now-freed) Anotherwatch holders and using Swartz to alter history to power himself up out of pure, Not Brainwashed spite towards protagonist Sougo Tokiwa. After his final defeat in the main series, he is last seen knocked out cold, with both sides completely apathetic to his well-being. When he returns in the Alternate Continuity stage show Final Stage, he is portrayed as a Born in the Wrong Century loser on top of all of his previous crimes and personality traits that Sougo decides to kill outright after he tries to power up one last time.
  • Kamen Rider Revice: Among the Deadmans trio, Olteca is the only one not given any redeeming qualities and his reason for villainy doesn’t make him sympathetic. As such, while Aguilera and Julio are Easily Forgiven and allowed to become atoners, Olteca gets locked away in prison for the rest of the show, escaping in the post-show media.
• Odd Squad: A majority of the series' Big Bads tend to be redeemed by the end of their respective seasons, with Odd Todd going through a Heel–Face Return, Otis's adoptive duck family reforming and apologizing to him, The Shadow reconciling with her sister and departing with her to fix the damage she caused, and Olando deciding to stay in the present time instead of going back to the past. The only Big Bad who doesn't get reformed, however, is Ohlm, who, after being defeated by Olympia, Oona, Otis, and Oprah, declares his intent to never stop until Odd Squad is down on its knees and gets dragged straight home to be grounded as a result.
• In Once Upon a Time, the Big Bads are almost always either redeemed outright or go unredeemed while still having tragic backstories that make you understand them and positive traits such as love for others. That is, except for Peter Pan, who is just a selfish manchild who abandoned his child to make a Deal with the Devil to gain eternal youth, always resented said child because he irrationally blamed him for his wife's supposed death which saddled him with the responsibility of parenthood, and is gleefully willing to manipulate, hurt or kill anyone, even his own family members, to get what he wants.

Video Games

• Blue Archive has Beatrice. While most of the villains in the game are either too comedic, too tragic, are too detached from reality itself or have redeeming qualities, Beatrice is one of the vilest villains to ever come out from a waifu gacha, taking breaking the cuties to extremes by turning the students of Arius into horrific, heartless killers through frequent physical and verbal abuse. At the end, she even seeks to sacrifice Atsuko to ascend to godhood. It's telling when the other members of Gematria decide to execute her when they find out she's working with the Chroma.
• Danganronpa Another Episode: Ultra Despair Girls: The Warriors of Hope are all established to be horrifically abused by their families to the point that they once planned a group suicide, and all of them are eventually treated sympathetically by the narrative and become allies of the Future Foundation by the end. That is, except for Monaca, who boasts about having no intention of going through with her companions' Suicide Pact, is the most gung-ho about continuing to spread the ideals of the Ultimate Despair, and is openly condemned by both the protagonists and her own former allies.
• Dragalia Lost: When it comes to most of the villains of the main campaign, almost all of them end up redeeming themselves in the end (Morsayati at least has an excuse for not doing so, being Made of Evil and all). All of Euden's siblings end up changing their ways and learning to become better people and actually start to aid Euden in the end. Nedrick is quite sympathetic, and eventually comes to a common ground to become the 11th-Hour Ranger. Even the Agito and Beren are implied to have undergone Heel Face Turns in the end. The only antagonist from the main campaign who never redeems himself is Xenos, who is stuck in his own personal opinions of how Humans Are Bastards and that taking away their free will is the only way for people to prosper. Euden repeatedly tells him that not every single human is evil and that they can come together with him. Xenos refuses to listen, and when he inevitably gets defeated, Euden says that it's because no matter what he did, Xenos just wouldn't bond with humans, and that his refusal to see humanity for the good that it really is is what led to his downfall.
• Livius Erimond in Dragon Age: Inquisition stands out among the game's arc villains in being a total Hate Sink; while the rest of them, even those who do despicable things, have some sympathetic motivations or chance at redemption, Erimond gets no such treatment. He is notably the only one who cannot be recruited by the Inquisition at his judgment under any circumstances. It's also telling that no one in your party will disapprove of your decision to execute him.
  Cassandra: What of magister Erimond? Do you sense a secret pain in him?
  Cole: No. Erimond is an asshole.
• Fire Emblem: Three Houses is a game about people having different motives and justifiable reasons to be against each other. Every main character has a route dedicated to them so you can side with them and see their perspective. Except for the underground organisation "Those who slither in the dark", who have no route dedicated to them and are generally nothing more than evil conflict starters. Though they might've had some sympathy back around one-thousand years ago, it has completely disappeared by the time the game takes place, where they view humanity living on the surface as below them in their quest for revenge and use them for their own gains, such as killing in mass slaughter to enact instability or perform experiments on them, especially children.
• Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity features a playable roster of characters that are primarily unlocked through the game's narrative, which culminates to all playable characters partaking the Final Battle against Calamity Ganon and his dark forces of demons. This means that villains like Master Kohga, Sooga, and the Yiga Clan have underwent a Heel–Face Turn to fight a common enemy with the Hyrulean forces. The sole exception is Astor, Ganon's evil prophet of doom. Despite having a unique moveset in the game, he is not playable in any fashion due to being an irredeemable, treacherous bastard who sticks with Ganon to the very end. Even Calamity Ganon, the Big Bad of the game, can be unlocked as a playable character, albeit in the post-story mode with in-game text hinting it's a sealed and somewhat tamed version of Ganon serving the Hyrulean forces.
• Inazuma Eleven: While the majority of the antagonists, from rival teams to the Arc Villains themselves get redeemed or at least grow to appreciate the fun of soccer more and show more respect to the main heroes, a couple of them like Garshield Bayhan, Kenzaki Ryuuichi and all the members of Makai Gundan Z (led by Desuta) remain evil until the end.
• Kirby
  • Kirby Super Star: Out of all the final bosses in each sub-game, Marx from Milky Way Wishes is the only character who's actually evil. King Dedede is Kirby's rival, Dyna Blade is trying to feed her babies, Wham Bam Rock and Wham Bam Jewel are just bosses without characterization, Meta Knight is trying to make Dream Land a better place, and even Galacta Knight is only Ambiguously Evil and turns out in Super Kirby Clash to have been a legendary hero before he was sealed away. By contrast, this character is a gleefully mischievous Jerkass who manipulates the sun and moon into fighting so he can trick Kirby into summoning Nova, who can grant his wish to take over Planet Popstar and wreak as much havoc as he pleases. When he reappears in Kirby Star Allies, he is a Token Evil Teammate, and only aligns himself with Kirby because the Big Bad happens to be even worse than he is.
  • Most of the "New Era" Kirby games (starting with Kirbys Return To Dreamland) feature a character who is the primary or secret antagonist who is defeated at the end and is accepted by Kirby as a friend; Magalor, Taranza, and Leongar are some examples. And then there's Susie. Susie is openly antagonistic to Kirby, corrupts and takes over her own boss, and only does anything moral out of pragmaticism, choosing to escape once the bigger threat has been dealt with. When she reappears in Kirby Star Allies, she, like Marx, is only doing it out of threat of destruction, and it's implied she'll be perfectly willing to continue roboticizing planets once she can.
• Pokémon games tend to have sympathetic villains, quite a bit of whom turn good by the end, but occasionally a game will have one particular villain who refuses to change.
  • Almost every villain in the Pokémon Mystery Dungeon series, no matter how bad, does a Heel–Face Turn in the end and becomes recruitable by the party. The Big Bad of Explorers, Darkrai, is the exception; a cold-hearted sadist who creates a Bad Future in which time and space are frozen and everyone suffers under his regime. While he is capable of joining the party, it's only after he has lost his memories and become a completely different person.
  • In the Pokémon Black and White duology, every leader of Team Plasma and a fair amount of the Mooks genuinely want to protect Pokémon and are capable of being persuaded to abandon their criminal ways — except for their true leader, Ghetsis Harmonia, who just wants to Take Over the World and is last seen being driven into a Villainous Breakdown before being taken away by the Shadow Triad.
  • Pokémon Legends: Arceus: Of the antagonists, Commander Kamado just wanted to protect his village and makes up with you, the Miss Fortune gang never poses a serious threat and even are said to help people sometimes, and Giratina lets go of its revenge crusade and becomes a protector of space time. The merchant Volo, however, is a Godhood Seeker who just wants to selfishly destroy and remake the world In Their Own Image, and simply flees when defeated, swearing revenge.
• Psychonauts: The major antagonist characters are almost all able to be redeemed thanks to Raz jumping in their minds and defeating their inner demons — Coach Oleander, Dr. Loboto, and Maligula all heal from their traumas and stop their evil ways because of this. But the Big Bad of 2, Gristol Malik, is the one villain who Raz cannot change, because he is fully in control of his mental faculties and just wants to make himself ruler of Grulovia and then Take Over the World so he can be Idle Rich again. When defeated, he is imprisoned in the Psychonauts HQ and, in a post-game conversation, shows that he has refused to learn the error of his ways.
• In the RosenkreuzStilette duology, almost every member of RKS and the Orthodox Church/Schwarzkreuz starts out antagonistic, but is eventually convinced by the heroines to stop their aggression and change their ways. However, there are a handful of exceptions:
  • Count Michael Zeppelin, the leader of RKS and Big Bad of the first game, is a more tragic and sympathetic variation. He is so devoted to protecting his beloved daughter, Iris, and the rest of his fellow Magi from the empire that neither Spirita or Grolla can dissuade him from his mission that endangers innocent lives. Ultimately, he gets killed by his own daughter, and revived in the sequel even more bloodthirsty and wanting to destroy and remake the world on Iris' behalf; he's only stopped when Freudia and Pamela kill him for good.
  • Iris Zeppelin herself, The Man Behind the Man in both games, is a sadistic chessmaster who goes out of her way to personally destroy the lives of everyone around her and pits RKS and the Empire against each other, never changing her ways despite Spirita believing she could do so, and Freudia declares her Beyond Redemption in Freudenstachel before imprisoning her in an ice crystal for eternity.
• In the Senran Kagura series, every single evil shinobi and other human antagonist turns out to be a good person deep down who eventually befriends the heroines — except for Dōgen, the Diabolical Mastermind controlling Hebijo Academy who, in all continuities, stands as the only Big Bad to actively remain evil and is ultimately killed.
• One of the main distinguishing features of Undertale is that it's "the friendly RPG where nobody has to die", allowing you to make peace and become friends with with every single character despite nearly all of them serving as an antagonist at some point or another. The one and only exception to this rule is the Fallen Child, as they're a Posthumous Character. During any route where your goal is to spread peace and make friends, their story will have ended long before the events of the game with a failed Suicide Attack against their home village (and possibly the rest of the human race, as they went to their grave a Misanthrope Supreme) that also took their brother down with them. Conversely, if you choose to play the game as violently as possible, the Fallen Child will be resurrected in a significantly worse state and destroy the world so utterly that the game will no longer be playable by conventional means. In other words, the closest thing you can give them to a path to redemption is just not making one specific series of choices that will cause them to become worse.

Visual Novels

• Spirit Hunter: In regards to the titular spirits, most of them are Vengeful Ghosts who, with enough effort, can be pacified by the heroes, allowing them to pass on without their grudges. But there are a few exceptions:
  • Mary Kujou, the Big Bad of Spirit Hunter: Death Mark, is the creator of the other spirits and the one spirit Kazuo cannot save; all he can do is seal away the monstrous, sadistic entity before anyone else gets hurt.
  • Spirit Hunter: NG:
    • Kakuya, the Big Bad, is this like her predecessor; she is completely unrepentant in creating the spirits and causing mass death and suffering, and has to be sealed away to stop her rampage.
    • Masaru Ishimaru, one of the many spirits who make up the Demon Tsukuyomi, is the only one of Kakuya's creations who cannot be saved, because his wish (to bring his mom back to life) is impossible; instead, he has to be destroyed by Killer Peach. This is also the only time destroying a spirit will not result in a companion dying.

Web Animation

• Etra chan saw it!: The episode called "Some people change, others don't..." features Tachibana, Akamatsu, and Hiiragi as a trio of delinquents who drink and smoke. Hiiragi convinces the other two to start shoplifting. Tachibana eventually feels guilty and gets himself a job to make an honest living and Akamatsu follows his example. Hiiragi is the only one who feels no remorse for his actions, committing a deliberate hit-and-run ten years later, while Tachibana and Akamatsu successfully turn their lives around.

Western Animation

• Amphibia has most of its villains see redemption in the end. Sasha and Grime both end up seeing the errors of their ways and become genuinely admirable leaders to Amphibia, Marcy ends up realizing her mistake of trying to cling to the past and move on, and most of the humans that antagonized Anne and the Plantars while on Earth end up helping them when the planet is invaded. Even Andrias learns to step out of his father's shadow, and that he does not need to be evil like him. The Core, meanwhile, never learns. It completely refuses to acknowledge change, and still believes that the world must always be the same, no matter how much everyone argues against it.
• Infinity Train:
  • Reflection Police Officer Mace in Season 2 isn't a passenger but stands out as the only major antagonist, not to have any kind of redeeming qualities or Hidden Depths, simply being a vicious cop. Even during a Chained Heat scenario with Mirror Tulip, the person Mace is trying to kill, Mace is consistently hostile and refuses to work with MT, even after she goes out of her way to keep him alive. In the end, MT is reluctantly forced to kill Mace after he tries to kill them both in a suicidal maneuver.
  • Downplayed in Season 3. The point of the train is for people to improve themselves and make up for their mistakes; they have a number on their hand representing their flaws, and as they become better, the number goes down. Reach zero, and you get to get off the train and go home. Whilst Word of God clarifies, the train is very flawed and many people die on it without ever improving themselves. All the protagonists we have seen in the show have made it off the train, even characters who have made very big mistakes with big numbers to match (such as Amelia, the dictator of the train in the first season, who has a number that goes up to her neck) can start working on themselves any time they want, and their number will go down accordingly. That said, Simon is the first character we see fail the train. The third season, stars Simon and Grace, Simon's best friend and boss, as the Villain Protagonists at the start of the third season. The two have been on the train for years without any sort of explanation for it, they eventually come to the conclusion that the denizens on the train are Always Chaotic Evil and that the point of the train is to raise your number and never leave. Grace slowly finds out they were wrong about the nature of the train, and having numbers that go up their arms is not a good thing, she makes a Heel–Face Turn and vows to dismantle the Apex, a cult she created. Simon, however, digs in his heels and refuses to accept that the ideology Grace was created was wrong, even trying to murder Grace twice. By the time he meets his Family-Unfriendly Death, his number covers his whole body, including his face, while the last scene of the season shows Grace's number slightly decreasing as she begins to take steps to atone for her past actions. It's made very clear that he was never inherently irredeemable and at several points, Simon shows progress and signs of doubt about the ideology he is in. However he doesn't progress due to a combination of a Detrimental Determination, some bad luck, and being failed by the mentor that was supposed to help him. One example of the latter being that Simon was told by his former Parental Substitute, not to trust Amelia, no matter what. Hence he doesn't believe Amelia when she tells him and Grace they were wrong about the train.
• In Miraculous Ladybug, almost all of the Akumatized villains show themselves to be nice (or not nice, but not in the "set Paris ablaze" way) people who were pushed over the edge and subsequently Brainwashed and Crazy... the sole exceptions being Lila Rossi and Chloé Bourgeois (who's also often the cause of said akumatizations in the first place), who expose themselves as Jerks with a Heart of Jerk by willingly accepting being akumatized. The chief difference between them is that Lila is revealed to be just one of many identities of someone who was already a supervillain prior to ever being akumatized, whereas Chloé is a regular person who just stubbornly refuses to change her ways.
• My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Over the show's course, a significant portion of its antagonists are redeemed and brought to the heroes' side or, at least, convinced to drop their antagonism to them. The most notable exceptions to this are Cozy Glow, Queen Chrysalis, Lord Tirek, and King Sombra, half of whom scorn redemption at various points in their personal histories and who all eventually band together to serve as the final season's main villains, where they're eventually defeated for good and turned to stone (or completely vaporized by friendship magic, in the case of King Sombra).
• Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town has the Burgermeister Meisterburger, the miserly ruler of Sombertown and a cruel Child Hater with a 0% Approval Rating who, unlike most other Rankin-Bass villains, never gets any redemption or forgiveness in the story. Instead, he quietly dies offscreen and is forgotten by all, with no one sorry to see him go.
• She-Ra and the Princesses of Power: In the final season, nearly every significant villain achieves redemption in some manner. Catra breaks out of her self-destructive cruelty to save the people she loves, Entrapta comes around to prioritizing other people over herself, Shadow Weaver chooses to die in the act of saving the children she abused, and even the Big Bad of the prior 4 seasons Hordak finds true love and prevents conquest. The one exception is Horde Prime, the Big Bad of the last season, who's so steeped in his centuries of xenocide and brainwashing that he has no desire to change. As such, She-Ra exorcises him from his last clone body without a hint of regret.
• By the end of Star vs. the Forces of Evil, pretty much all major and minor antagonists that weren't killed off, even Ludo and the ghost of Solaria, have found some form of redemption. The only exception being Mina Loveberry, who is too far gone to change her ways and flees the scene, declaring that even if she is gone, there will always be someone else to keep the Cycle of Hatred between Mewmans and Monsters going.
• Steven Universe: Nearly every antagonist Steven encounters is swayed by his compassion into reforming, whether they be agents for planetary harvest, an Eldritch Abomination, or the planetary harvesters themselves. Some of the more belligerent enemies like Jasper or the rogue Lapis Lazulis are at least intimidated into a ceasefire. The remaining enemy who still desires harm on Steven is Bluebird Azurite, the fusion of two gems who bonded over their hatred for Steven. In fact, it's their only shared trait that allows them to fuse, and otherwise they can't stand each other. The two of them block their ears when Steven tries to persuade them with a merciful spiel like he's done with so many other villains, and they're last seen fleeing while vowing revenge.
• The Grand Finale of Tangled: The Series implies that ZhanTiri and her followers (including Mother Gothel) are the only truly irredeemable villains in the entire franchise
• In Wander over Yonder, Wander, being the All-Loving Hero that he is, reforms pretty much every villain he comes across. Even resident Big Bad Lord Hater has his redeeming moments. However, the one glaring exception is Lord Dominator, who becomes the biggest threat to the galaxy in season two. She does leave the galaxy in the end, but not before calling everyone "a bunch of dorks". She does take Wander's peace offering in a very Tsundere fashion, but that's still the last time we ever see her (as that was the last episode the show got).

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