Board Thread:Character Discussion/@comment-28162607-20180101191335/@comment-27060727-20180101210929

I personally don't think Zelena has had a redemption arc. She'd have what I call a "redemption episode" and then the writers would have her backslide again....until her next "redemption episode." Like I thought it would've started with season 6 after what happened with Regina and Robin, but Zelena spent a lot of time after that at odds with Regina and the Charmings until that one episode she decided to sacrifice her powers. Good for her, but I have trouble seeing the arc.

For Regina, obviously if you compare season 1 Regina to season 7 Regina, she's not hunting down Snow or murdering villages, so she has changed lol. But I have a hard time putting into words what I think of her redemption arc. And I think that's because while she is now, in season 7, a totally good person who has matured a lot and is capable of making good, heroic decisions, there are quite a few things she has never had to answer for. We just kinda accepted her as a hero circa season 3. Those writing decisions have done her character a bit of a disservice.

Nearly all of Hook's centrics followed a formula in which we saw him make a bad decision in the past and then trying to make up for it in the present, which is definitely "redemption," so I would consider his journey to be the most obvious and direct of the villains in the main cast. Though he was easily the least villainous to begin with, out of the 4 who were mains, so there's that.

I think Rumple's real redemption arc would have started with the season 6 finale but sadly we didn't get it see it play out after that. I can assume S7 Rumple has good intentions now. But yeah, he spent most of the series in a grey area, leaning towards the dark side, so while he had moments of "good," they pretty much treated his character as a background Big Bad the entire time.