S08.30: Irredeemable Characters: Morality Chain Redux
Fated Mates - Romance Books for Novel People
Fated Mates
4.9 • 964 Ratings
🗓️ 15 April 2026
⏱️ 90 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
By request, we’re talking about the characters who have been exiled from family, from community, and from themselves—the irredeemable characters in romance. This is Morality Chain all over again. We’re talking about characters that have done terrible things on and off the page, to the detriment of their reputations in the text and outside, with readers, and somehow, by the end of their own book, are made whole and worthy of love. Here lies St. Vincent, Mr. Vivisection, and more.
Tell us about your favorite irredeemable characters in romance on our social media or head over to join the Fated Mates Discord, which is accessible to our Patreon subscribers. By joining the Patreon, you meet other Fated Mates listeners and get an extra monthly episode from us. Support us and learn more at fatedmates.net/patreon.
Our next read along is The Madness of Lord Ian MacKenzie by Jennifer Ashley. Get it at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books or wherever you get your books.
Notes
- We have been so inspired by all the moon joy in the world. Here is the Artemis II path from the Astronomy Picture of the Day; splashdown was awesome; the dark side of the moon isn’t like a real thing, exactly; and here’s a bunch of other stuff from NASA. Check out our episode from season 1 with astronomer Summer Ash (her interview is at the end of the episode), and learn all about that golden record they sent out to space on Voyager.
- Michael Corleone was irredeemable! Tommy Shelby? Well, apparently that’s open to interpretation!
Sponsors
- Neyha Liu, author of Midnight at Soulfield, available in print or ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
- Avery Maxwell, author of The Forgotten Billionaire, available in print, ebook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
- Little Brown & Company, publishers of Ruth McKell’s Honey in Her Veins, available in print, ebook and audiobook from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo or wherever you get your books.
- Claire Contreras, author of Isle of Wrath, available in print, ebook, audiobook, or with your monthly subscription to Kindle Unlimited.
The Rest
- For even more info about this episode, and to explore everything Fated Mates has to offer, visit: https://fatedmates.net
- If you wish you had six more days in a week of people talking about romance, may we suggest joining our Patreon? Aside from an additional episode every month you get access to our Discord, where other romance readers are talking about books they love (and many other things!) all the time. It’s so fun! Learn more about the Patreon and go join those cool people who love romance as much as you do at patreon.com/fatedmates.
- Beyond your favorite podcast app, you can find us on Instagram, Threads, Blue Sky, Tumblr, and probably some other places, too, if you look hard enough.
- If you've never listened to our Stop Book Banning episode, there's no better time than now.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Jen. |
| 0:01.0 | Yes. |
| 0:01.9 | We went to the moon. |
| 0:03.7 | It's really been very awesome, Sarah. |
| 0:09.0 | Um, yes. |
| 0:09.7 | So, okay, I will put this in show notes. |
| 0:11.8 | There's a, there's just been a lot of obviously really cool stuff. |
| 0:15.5 | But one of the coolest things I've seen, um, despite like in, like, not just like, obviously the footage and all that stuff, but there's |
| 0:23.7 | something called the, I think it's called the like NASA Daily something or whatever. |
| 0:29.3 | And what it is is it's like the NASA Daily picture. |
| 0:32.7 | It's like a picture of something. |
| 0:33.8 | And two days ago yesterday, it was a really cool essentially like animation of the actual like where like, right? Like so it shows the earth. And then it shows like a little thing like taking off from it. And then it like zooms all the way out. |
| 0:50.4 | Yeah. Of Artemis. And it shows like the whole edit. You know, it's funny because I was showing my students today, of course. They're like, you don't teach science. I was like, shut up, kids. I didn't say that. I know about the moon. I was like, I love the moon. And, you know, it's like you can really see that like it's going to where the moon is not. Right? Because they're meeting the moon. Yes. And the kids were like, but it's going to miss it. |
| 1:11.9 | And I was like, no, it's not. |
| 1:15.0 | Listen, I tried to explain to my daughter this morning. |
| 1:18.3 | We were walking to school and she was like, I don't understand how they were on the back side of the moon. |
| 1:23.3 | And the moon was light. |
| 1:25.7 | Like, isn't the moon always dark at the back? |
| 1:28.8 | And I was like, no, because the moon is going. |
| 1:31.7 | Yeah, around. |
| 1:32.4 | You got to keep a lot of things in your head, kid. |
| 1:37.7 | And so as we were walking to school, I was like, my hand is the earth. |
... |
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