On the concept of redemption in Hazbin Hotel. From my experience, a lot of the fandom thinks of redemption as doing as much good as you did evil. The character killed a hundred people, then saved a hundred people, welcome to heaven. But I don't see how that could work. For one, those previous people have already suffered, why would benefitting other people somehow make up for that? "Today I'll kill a person, but tomorrow I'll save two, yeah I'm going to heaven." It sounds pretty ridiculous.
It makes much more sense for a character to be redeemed when they changed as a person, regardless of what kind of good deeds that change inspired in them. If we look at Sir Pentious, what got him into hell is standing by when he could save people. And what made him go to heaven is taking action instead of being a bystander. It was that action itself that mattered and not the result of the action (did he influence how the battle went at all? I need to rewatch to remember).
Vox, for example, would probably need to overcome his envy, when given a chance to use someone for their own gain to choose to do the right thing, or to find a motivation that is stronger than his ambition, something like that. He'll be redeemed if he becomes a person who doesn't kill people out of envy, not if he saves a thousand people to get his raitings up.
Therefore, when people talk about how a character can't be redeemed, the argument being all the pain they caused, I can't help but be confused. The pain can never be taken back, what's done is done, if we take that as a reason for a character not to be redeemed, then redemption is impossible. The show just doesn't work in that case.
Valentino is the character a lot of people don't want redeemed (which I understand, I'm personally not a fan of him, just neutral). The horrible things he's done doesn't mean he can't be redeemed, if he becomes a person who would never again sa someone and do other horrible things, then he'll be redeemed.
If we look at this through a victim's eyes it seems like a horrible way for things to be, the people who hurt you getting away with everything. But the truth is, we've all harmed someone in some way during our lives, consciously or not, and often all we can do is learn from the mistake, move on and do better next time. I think it's a beautiful philosophy and can't wait to see how the future seasons explore this.
