Trans-Redemptive Symbol

A Trans-Redemptive Symbol is a prop or other symbolic element in a story that represents a character's failings, limitations, or obstacles early in a work. When the character subsequently overcomes the things in his way, by dint of personal growth or explicit effort, the way the symbolic element is used, presented or perceived changes in some way to represent the character's evolution. Note that the symbol does not necessarily have to be a concrete object -- things like songs and celebrations can serve as Trans-Redemptive Symbols just as easily as a baseball or a gun.

The trope was identified and named by Wayne Gladstone of Cracked.com in his article, 4 Famous Movies With Deceptively Complex Symbolism.

Compare/contrast It's All Junk.

As with all tropes involving symbolism, expect large amounts of Everyone Is Jesus in Purgatory.

Examples of Trans-Redemptive Symbol include:

Anime and Manga

• In the second season of Darker Than Black, Hei has become The Alcoholic, and carries a flask of booze with him everywhere. The first sign that he's begun dragging himself out of the depths to which he's fallen is when he uses the alcohol in the flask to cook for a young girl he's taken under his wing, instead of drinking it.

Fanfic

• Cold Flame, an Avatar: The Last Airbender fanfic by "keeganft", uses Azula's dreams as a symbol underlining the evolution in her character.

Film

• Children of Men starts with Theo Faron (Clive Owen) carrying a liquor flask representing his apathy. Later, once he joins a resistance movement and has to help deliver a child, he pours out the liquor to wash his hands. And at this point the flask represents his compassion.
• The Dream Team starts with Christopher Lloyd's mental patient character carrying a clipboard where he logs all his obsessive-compulsive activities. Later, he gives the clipboard to his daughter so that she can show him her drawings. Letting go of the clipboard represents letting go of his OCD.
• Up starts with Carl protecting the house in which he and his late wife had spent their life. Later, Carl has to cut the house loose to save the not-Boy Scout accompanying him on his journey as a symbol of love and no longer living in the past.
• Mikey's asthma inhaler in The Goonies seems to play this role. He takes a hit off it every time things get too intense all the way through the film, until they find the ship in the cave. When Mikey comes face to face with the skeleton of One-Eyed Willy, it seems to be some kind of epiphany or transformative moment for him; he spends a while considering the skeleton, and when he turns away, he leaves his inhaler with it. He never needs it again for the rest of the movie.
• Rick's rigged roulette table in Casablanca, which he uses to cheat fellow refugees of their money, initially serves as a symbol of his moral apathy and his failure to take a stand against evil (as embodied by the Nazis). When much later in the film he tells a desperate Hungarian couple how to take advantage of it to win enough money to get out of Casablanca, it becomes a symbol of his growth and redemption.

Literature

• Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix: The song "Weasley Is Our King", initially used by the Slytherins to mock and demoralize Ron during his first game on the Gryffindor Quidditch team, becomes a triumphant anthem sung by the Gryffindors when Ron finds his confidence and becomes an unbeatable Keeper.

Live-Action TV

• Cheers offers an inversion in the tenth episode of its first season, "Endless Slumper": Sam keeps the cap from the last bottle of beer he had before quitting drinking as a good luck charm. When he lends it to slumping Red Sox pitcher Rick and Rick loses it, Sam almost starts drinking again.

Western Animation

• In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Prince Zuko's burnt face functions as an evil scar that marks him as The Antagonist when he is introduced in the first season. However, along with an Important Haircut it becomes a symbol of his nobility and his progress from Anti-Villain to hero when he gives up his obsession with redeeming himself in his father's eyes by capturing the Avatar; his Backstory is revealed and it is shown that his father inflicted the scar upon him as punishment for objecting to an unnecessarily cruel strategy.