u/F11SuperTiger

1. Baatar Jr: Fascist leader who gets last minute "redemption" because he finds out that Kuvira thinks that fascism is more important than his life.
2. Desna and Eska: Last second half-assed redemption. Also Eska's abuse of Bolin gets handwaved away.
3. Zhu Li: Random redemption.
4. Varrick: Literally randomly depicted as suddenly "growing a conscience" out of nowhere.
5. Zaheer: Not quite a "redemption" but he ends up helping Korra.
6. Tarrlok: gets a redemption.
7. Tahno: minor antagonist, but gets a whole sequence where he reconciles with Korra.
8. Hiroshi Sato: gets a whole redemption arc complete with a heroic sacrifice.
9. Kuvira: Last second "redemption" because Korra saved her life, than instantly gets a full redemption arc in the comics.

Some of these arcs were better written than others, but overall the entire series just seems obsessed with giving out "redemption" or "quisi-redemption" to almost everyone.

Edit: I want to make it clear, I think some of these "redemptions" suck, but the writer intention was for the audience to take them as "redemptions."

Also, Zhu Li was the right hand woman for an amoral, villainous character (Varrick). She probably helped him bomb Republic City and she definitely helped him escape justice. Then she served by his side as the follower of a fascist dictator. Her "becoming good" (she even ends up as President of the United Republic in the comics) is in fact a "redemption."

Edit #2: I thought about using "TLOK hands out redemption and quasi-redemption like crazy" as the post title and evidentially I should have, because everyone get obsessed over arguing certain character arcs count as redemption. For me:

1. Baatar Jr.: I think we're supposed to take what happened with him as redemption, especially when we take into account the comics.
2. Desna and Eska: obviously it's supposed to count as "redemption."
3. Zhu Li: redemption I guess?
4. Varrick: redemption.
5. Zaheer: Not really a redemption.
6. Tarrlok: It's a redemption.
7. Tahno: not a really a redemption.
8. Hiroshi Sato: obviously a redemption.
9. Kuvira: once we include the comics, it's obvious she's supposed to get a "redemption."

Azulon's whole thing as a ruler was that he came to the throne as a young man and continued his father's genocidal war of conquest for the next 75 years. He ordered the genocide of the Southern Water Tribe, and most likely Kya was murdered during his reign, not Ozai's.

But all that applies only to foreigners and maybe the Fire Nation grunts who were suffering and dying. We all know the only people with feelings who matter are Fire Nation royalty, especially Zuko. How did Azulon treat his own family?

Well, he was mad at Ozai, so he ordered Ozai to murder his own 10 year old son as a punishment for Ozai. There are some people who for some reason believe that this isn't what Azulon did but we have two different people, who both witnessed his order and who never consulted with each other about it, tell Zuko the exact same thing, six years apart.

Ozai's treatment of his family is awful, but I think what Azulon did was significantly worse than anything Ozai ever did. The equivalent would be like ordering Zuko to murder Iroh, purely as a punishment for Zuko.

There are fans who whitewash Azulon, since he likes Iroh and dislikes Ozai and we all know that that's all you need to qualify as a "good person," but all indications are that Azulon is just as bad or worse than Ozai.

Zuko's quite likely about to say something that Ozai will take very poorly to, and then Azula jumps in with a fairly inane comment that she knows Ozai will like.

Maybe Azula was just jealous of Zuko getting Ozai's attention and wanted to get some herself, but it's also possible that Azula was (maybe irrationally) worried that Zuko was about to say something that would get himself exiled again and jumped into the conversation to cutoff Zuko and distract Ozai.

With regards to why Ozai wasn't OK with 13 year old year old Zuko interrupting a general but was OK with Azula interrupting Zuko, Zuko was an unproven 13 year old boy who forced himself into a meeting he wasn't invited in and then started yelling at people, even though he had done nothing to prove himself worthy of having his opinion taken seriously. Azula was a proven leader who had just won the Fire Nation's most glorious victory and who Ozai himself had invited to sit at his left hand. It's clear why Ozai might react differently.

Finally, I want to emphasize that Azula's comment was simply inane and vacuous. Ozai's plan included crucial three elements:

1. Using Sozin's Comet.

2. Raining fire down from airships.

3. Destroying the entire Earth Kingdom.

None of these elements are present in Azula's comment. She simply makes a vague statement about burning hope and land. If we were to take this seriously, it would seem to be a suggestion of using scorched earth tactics on the Earth Kingdom, but I don't think the comments deserves to be dignified to that degree. I don't think anything like a plan or thought on Azula's part was behind it; she was merely stringing together words in a way she knew Ozai would like. Whatever she later claimed when she was trying to get Ozai to bring her along, Ozai was the author of the plan, not her.

The United Republic is a fairly large country, only a little smaller than the Fire Nation, yet The Legend of Korra tells us nothing at all about the country outside of Republic City. The entire place comes off as a city-state rather than as a nation.

If you look at the combined surface area of the three sets of islands the Air Nomads claimed as their own, it seems to be not that smaller than the Fire Nation's surface area. We don't have the best understanding of what Air Nomad subsistence looked like or how much territory they needed for it, but, given the apparent relatively small size of the Air Nomad population and the fact that the Northern Air Temple lacked a hinterland but managed to do just fine, it seems likely that the Air Nomads had more territory than they needed for survival, and it's possible that they allowed people from other nations to settle in their territory. It's quite possible that some people moved in after the Air Nomad genocide. Although the brief glimpses of Air Nomad territory (we really only spend time at the temples) don't show any settlements, we do know that at least some people were living on Whaletail Island by 100 AG.

The omni-present claim within the fandom is that Season 1 is bad, that Season 1 is terrible, that Season 1 is unwatchable, that no one in their right mind would ever watch Season 1 in a million years if it wasn't followed by Seasons 2, 3, and 4, even that new viewers should just outright skip Season 1.

I was well aware of this discourse, so, when I decided to rewatch Babylon 5 a few years ago for the first time in many years, I was fully expecting Season 1 to be outright terrible. Yet I ended up being pleasantly surprised at the quality the episodes. They represented good TV.

Season 1 lacks the degree of arc based story telling found in later seasons, but what it did have is competently and effectively executed individual episodes. Compared to early 1990s Star Trek, the average quality is significantly higher. Moreover, the season extremely effectively introduces the characters and universes.

It has its share of lackluster episodes (Infection, Soul Hunter, TKO, Born to the Purple, etc.), but that's true of all Babylon 5 seasons (aside maybe from Season 4, where episodes no longer really had individual plots anymore and the good and bad basically became completely blended across episodes). And, in true Babylon 5 fashion, some of the episodes with lacking A plots are saved by having really good B plots. "Mind War" has the G'Kar, Catherine, and First Ones plot. "Born to the Purple" and "TKO" have Ivanova dealing with her father's death.

Season 1 also has some really good episodes.

"Midnight on the Firing Line" is a very effective pilot (and is in fact way better at being a pilot than "The Gathering").

"The Parliament of Dreams" recontextualizes G'Kar and centers religion as a critical element of the show.

"Believers" was simply far beyond anything shown on TV at the time.

"Signs and Portents" and "Babylon Squared," well, I don't think I need to say anything about them (and a lot people cite "Signs and Portents" as the first time they realized the show was going somewhere far bigger).

And "Chrysalis" had the balls to do what no other TV show of the time would have considered.

The simple reality is that Babylon 5 was a show operating in a very marginal place. Unlike Star Trek, it had no brand name to carry it through troubles. If Season 1 was really as unwatchable as people claim, Babylon 5 never would have got Season 2.

Every story needs exposition to establish who and what the characters and setting were. JMS needed to define the universe and the characters before he could begin changing them. People like to praise how Babylon 5 is "like a novel" while simultaneously disparaging Season 1 since it lacks the tight plotting of later seasons, but the reality is that Seasons 2 through 5 were only able to tell the stories they did since Season 1 set up everything first. Season 1 is an integral, critical part to the Babylon 5 "novel."

I don't think fans necessarily appreciate the degree Iroh is a passive person, who goes with the flow and lets the world happen to him rather than actively try shape his path through it.

1. Let's look at Iroh's life: 1. We don't have many official depictions of Iroh's early life (to this day his wife is unnamed!), but this old interview with Bryke implies that the whole reason Iroh became a general and a conqueror was that getting in the "family business" was the easy thing to do and the path of least resistance, rather than any particular conviction on his part. If you want a more official source, I think the Legacy of the Fire Nation scrapbook more or less implies the same.
2. When Iroh gets home from the war and finds that his brother his murdered his father and seized his throne, he just sort of accepts it and roles with it. Yes, Lu Ten's death plays into Iroh's reaction, but a different sort of character still wouldn't have surrendered so easily to it.
3. Iroh seems to have been entirely to hang around the court afterwards, attending war meetings and probably even offering useful military advice there rather than doing anything to oppose Ozai or try to bring an end to the war. A lot of people headcanon Iroh being a White Lotus spy then, but there's no reason to believe the White Lotus was doing anything to actively oppose the Fire Nation back then.
4. Iroh lets Ozai burn Zuko in front of him while doing nothing to try to stop him. You can argue whether it would be have been a good idea to do anything or whether Iroh trying to do something would have only made things worse, but there are other characters I can think of, like Zuko himself, who would never let their nephew be burned in front of him while doing nothing.
5. Iroh goes with Zuko in exile for three years, but despite spending that time practically alone with Zuko, apparently never manages to or bothers to talk to Zuko about imperialism being bad or about Ozai being bad news. I think the reason for that is that having those sorts of conversations would have been difficult and awkward, and by Iroh's nature he is inherently disinclined from getting into difficult or awkward situations.
6. Yes, Iroh does try to stop Zhao, but only because Zhao is about to permanently massively screw up the world.
7. When Ozai declares Iroh and Zuko traitors, Iroh's natural reaction is to try to run and hide as a fugitive, rather to, for instance, try to start a rebellion against Ozai. Again, very understandable on Iroh's part, but other characters would have made a different decision.
8. When we get to the end of the series, Iroh finally plans major action against the Fire Nation. However, even then Iroh refuses to fight Ozai or to help seize the Fire Nation throne. Again, different characters would have made very different decisions here.
9. Finally, Iroh chooses to retire to Ba Sing Se, rather than to return home and participate in rebuilding the Fire Nation.

I think when we put this all together, we get a passive character who likes to take things as they come and follow the current wherever it will take him, instead of trying to chart his own path forward through the world. This is not a moral judgement, yet it is easy to think of many other characters in the show who, like Zuko, Sokka, or Ozai, take a far more active approach in trying to chart their own path.