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Comment by TonyStr | Hacker News Reader

> [...]and the redemption, when it comes, is Red’s.

(spoilers)

It never sat right with me that Andy is shown to be innocent, and some viciously evil irrelevant character did it instead. This, I thought, takes away the whole redemption aspect of the movie, turning Andy into an innocent Mary Sue. I'd never considered that it may be more about Red's character instead. Though I didn't catch a satisfying explanation for that idea in the review, and it's been a long time since I watched the move.

I think I'll rewatch it today.

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Andy has to be innocent for his escape (and bringing down of the warden) to be a redemption. It's a redemption of his life against the injustice he was subjected to, not a redemption of his soul for some evil that he committed.

If he was a double murderer, plotting to and successfully escaping isn't a redemption, it's just a murderer getting away with it.

I rewatched the movie now, and I think you're right. There were a lot of details I'd forgotten.

The way I remember thinking about it was that he was jailed for revenge murder, then spent his life in jail doing his best to atone by being helpful (building a library, teaching, helping with taxes, etc.). When the prison system refuses to set him free despite him proving through his actions in prison that he's not a threat to society anymore (I hallucinated this part -- this happened to Red, not Andy), he escapes, and his freedom is his redemption.

I'm not a native English speaker, and I think I may have conflated redemption and atonement. Looking at some definitions, it looks like you can receive redemption without atonement -- it doesn't necessarily have to come from within.

You’ve correctly hit the atonement v redemption distinction! That’s something few English speakers could do!

I created this account just to say this was one of the most thoughtful and well-written replies I've ever come across on the internet.

Cool Hand Luke, which I prefer, has its protagonist sentenced to a work camp for an absurd crime.

A more recent prison movie which made me feel similarly to Cool Hand Luke and Shawshank Redemption while watching it is "I Love You Phillip Morris" (starring Jim Carrey and Ewan McGregor).

It was my first movie about prison life in the US and the failures of the American justice and correctional system. I since learned it was realistic in every aspect apart from the escape, and that not much has changed since.

Everything about it is depressing and somehow it’s the best movie ever.

Andy is by no means innocent, he’s just not guilty of any crime he should have been imprisoned in Shawshank for.

The guy who sits drunk in his car eyeing a revolver is not a Mary Sue. And his demeanor of resignation at Shawshank suggests he doesn’t consider himself just an unlucky victim of blind fate & a golf pro.

Yes, it was a bit too uncomplicated to me and smacks of "Oscar Bait."

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