I mean there's some stuff in there that I guess falls on the redeeming end. I do believe, for instance, that Azula genuinely cares about Zuko a lot, and that her willingness to hurt or even kill him was a combination of "Not acknowledging how much she cares about him" and "She cared about Ozai more"
Azula both cared about Zuko and was willing to kill him for selfish reasons. Both of those things. The former is a good thing, the latter is a really bad thing that the good thing doesn't cancel out.
The fact that Zuko is willing to offer her forgiveness after that is a testament to his unbelievable moral strength and just how strong the unconditional love is for his sister.
It is despite the fact that she hasn't earned it, not because she is blameless. Once again, it's a relevant distinction
She knows that she's done horrible things, to people who didn't deserve them. She knows that she is the reason she's desperately alone, and that no matter how much she denies it, that loneliness is killing her. She knows that, no matter how sorry for herself she feels, she isn't the victim.
But Song, the lies aren't working anymore. She can't hide from all these realities about herself that she hates. For a while, she was dealing with this in the most mature fashion possible, which was "Hiding out in the wilderness hating herself and being afraid to be around people," which is really just self-pity with more steps.
One of the things that's been very helpful is her being forced into situations where her usual tactics and lies don't really work- and finding that there's a tiny handful of people she cares about anyway.
When she lost control in July, she had no more excuses or lies to hide behind- she hit rock bottom. She hurt people not for a scheme, not for a purpose, but due to sheer sloppy recklessness exposing her to nightmare energy. People she actually cared about.
The Doctor did a little, particularly in forcing her to stop being stubborn about the flowers, but Thor's been, like. This weirdly perfect foil to all of Azula's nonsense.
(Having Zuko around has been... mostly helpful as well, I think, since now she's gotta confront stuff. Also they had one (1) nice time in the Labyrinth, and their current thread will probably also end on an actually positive note once her paranoia collapses)
At home, every interpersonal conflict was also a larger-scale conflict. A war, a rebellion, a secret desire to kill her own mother (Also, "deciding not to go through with killing her own mother at the last minute" does not make her a nice person, shut up Azula stans)
It puts her on the back foot. She can't classify people as enemies or subordinates or allies. She can't engage with people by manipulating them for a mission.
And it turns out, she doesn't like people as underlings, she likes people as people, and pushing them away hurts because she wants people, and it just completely yanks out an entire structure for the narratives she uses
Ari does the same thing with classifying people but in her case she gravitates to the people she can classify, because that's comfortable. So military types are easy. Then Azula = competent ally. Jasmine = foreign leader, be diplomatic.
Yeah, Thor is watching closely for when the lies stop working in Lab, because he knows how bad that becomes when you don't have like, some kind of support system in place.
He was already drinking too much before he realized what he was actually doing to the Giants, and that realization, coupled with the fact that he still had to keep doing it because Odin, is what really sent it into overdrive.
Comic spoilers up to Smoke and Shadow, will mark any spoilers from Spirit Temple.
It is despite the fact that she hasn't earned it, not because she is blameless. Once again, it's a relevant distinction