Why would they remember? The body is dead, the mind is no longer storing memories...
That to me is the second hurdle, restoring the body once the Bampire is "ousted". The third is re-Souling it...
Have you read the short story where Harry goes to the mall to give Thomas a birthday present?
BCVs definitely still retain their personalities and memories they had in life. They're just... more evil and a lot more powerful.
Based on how Mavra acts too, I really don't think that vampires are easily classified.
In fact, they could still have a warped kind of soul.
Perhaps the reason they are so powerful and so unnatural is that the process changing them damages and tears apart the soul itself.
Whatever cost is dramatically appropriate. I understand your perspective and probably would not personally give BCV redemption as an option to my players, but I am a firm believer that all options and game styles should be supported as long as they don't start damaging anyone's fun.
I am willing to concede that point.
I just think the notion is up there with letting a character perform a darkhallow
If I did allow this to happen in my campaign, once the BCV was "redeemed", I'd have the characters over time discover that the x BCV is even more evil than ever, learned some magic while still mortal, did things that a walking rotting corpse would not be able to do, and then got turned again.
After being turned again, the BCV comes after the party with a vengeance, looking for blood for what they did to it.
::shrug::
We can't even reform sexual predators who are still human. I really don't believe it would be possible to redeem a BCV - even with magic.
WOJ is that Renfields are done, their fates irreversible. Harry says so with great authority in the casefiles. I believe him.
I have a hard time believing that in the last few thousand years, a BCV has not turned a wizard's family member into a renfield out of spite. And just like Harry did for Susan, I have a hard time believing that said wizard would not turn every resource they had available to them to the cause of "curing" their loved one.
If thousands of years of wizards could not do it, I doubt PCs could.
A caveatI would allow my PCs to "redeem" a BCV /IF/ they went to knowledge from the outer gates or killed other people to do it - especially innocents.
Something equally dark, staining the souls of the PCs in order to save a BCV from the darkness it has would be thematically appropriate imo.
Kind of like the debate about extreme consequences, allowing them to heal quickly really devalues the consequence. Allowing PCs to "cure" ridiculously evil monsters with easily acquired magic or favors would really detract from the horror and relevance of said monsters.
I think for PCs to cure a monster, they'd have to become monsters themselves.