This is on my mind due to a few of my fandoms but I’ve seen it pretty much everywhere: whether a character deserves redemption is far more about genuine remorse and restitution, not the magnitude of wrongdoing nor the severity of punishment. A guy who kicks one dog, is beaten nearly to death, recovers, and kicks a second dog doesn’t get a redemption arc. A guy who commits a war crime, is given a stern talking to and a slap on the wrist, and changes their ways and goes about attempting in good faith to make amends does. You cannot punish someone into redemption and you cannot traumatize someone into blamelessness and it’s pretty fucked up people act like the quantity of suffering is what brings about redemption and not the actions willingly taken.