First of all redemption is subjective it will never mean the same thing for two people regardless. Most of the terrible things Regina has done that Epona mentioned were committed during the first season of OUAT when Regina was the Evil Queen, since then it is undoubtable that she is ‘trying’ in some way to be a better person like when she was able to use light magic so in that sense is she all bad with no good at all in any way.
So…they were committed two years ago, so they don’t matter? She’s never taken responsibility for them and she straight-up doesn’t regret them! Trying (at least when people are looking) to be a better person doesn’t mean much when she’s never apologized or expressed any kind of understanding why what she did before was wrong. And look at how she is when no one’s watching, how she treated Sidney in this most recent episode…that doesn’t seem like she’s even trying anymore. We’ve at least seen some semblance of regret from both Rumple and Hook during their pretty heartfelt apologies to Bae and “Ariel” respectively, and in their actions as well.
Let us not forget the other main villain (of sorts) in this show Hook. The writers have shown a great deal of change and goodness in Regina and Rumple, in Hook it appears to me as if they have barely or partially shown any of this and have decided to fast forward his redemption and just hand him his happy ending on a golden plate. We have not really seen him go through the turmoil Regina and Rumple have experienced and it very much irritates me as it would be good to have an insight into that side of Hook’s character which I think has been skipped.
Well this should spark quite a bit of debate, haha. My view of this is that first of all, Hook’s crimes weren’t remotely on the same level as either Rumple’s or Regina’s. Unless I’m forgetting something, the only actual murders we’ve seen from him are the two guards in Regina’s castle in 209 (and from what we’ve seen of Regina’s black knights, they were pretty horrible people). He might’ve killed Blackbeard (no body though), but that wasn’t just an unprovoked murder; they both agreed to a duel. The worst thing he did, IMO, was hit Belle and almost kill her in 209. But of course she didn’t actually die, so there’s that, and he technically apologized in 315 (admittedly it was a lousy apology, more of a question than a statement) but then he did follow through and stick around to defend her right after that.
And let’s talk motivation–I honestly cannot blame the guy for wanting to get some kind of justice for the woman he loved, who was murdered by the same man who then permanently maimed him and suffered no consequences. Not that he went about it the right way of course, but at least I can understand and sympathize more with that than, say, choosing power over your son and then throwing an entire group of people under the bus to undo your mistake or blaming a child for something that was not remotely her fault and spending the next who-kn0ws-how-many years tormenting her. And while he did some awful things in pursuit of said revenge, he didn’t murder entire villages or create or cast curses that “devastated an entire population”.
And as for actually demonstrating regret, let’s see…pretty much all of his actions from the end of 222 through Neverland involved him making great personal sacrifices and taking huge risks in order to save a child he didn’t even know in an effort to make amends for wrongs against both Bae and Emma. Of course we did see some backsliding in the EF, in that whole thing with Ariel and Blackbeard. Now personally I don’t understand that situation; it makes no sense at all. But without getting in to that, he gave “Ariel” one of the most heartbreaking and sincere apologies we’ve seen on the show (for not agreeing to give up literally everything he had and most likely the possibility of rebuilding in order to save a stranger’s boyfriend when, it turns out, said stranger was capable of saving him herself all along…right, sorry I couldn’t resist getting into it a bit), which somehow led to his being cursed (another issue I have: how is confessing to something, then apologizing and wishing you could take it back “selfish”?)
So most of that seemed like a fair amount of turmoil to me (and if speculation/rumors are true, there’ll be some more “turmoil” coming up when he and Rumple are at odds with each other again). And he doesn’t exactly have a happy ending at the moment either. So to sum up…it’s far easier for me to accept Hook as having turned around because (a) he has done far fewer and far less severe acts of “villainy” and (b) he has consistently expressed remorse in both words and actions. I guess I see Rumple as farther along the road than Regina because at least he has started to take a bit of responsibility for what he’s done (although apparently he still feels justified in having murdered his wife and mother of his son because she hurt his feelings; I’ve seen no inkling of acknowledgement at all that that was wrong.) With Regina I get no sense that she even believes that her past actions were wrong at all, just that she was and is misunderstood and thinks that everyone she’s done immense and irreversible harm to should forgive her (you know, just like how she forgave Snow for being duped by Cora and doing what she actually thought was right by Regina. Oh wait…)