If I read one more person saying “Kylo Ren has to EARN his redemption” I am going to drop my phone into a bucket of kerosene and light it on fire. THAT IS NOT HOW REDEMPTION WORKS.
He has to want his redemption, definitely. You can’t save a person who doesn’t want to be saved, and especially not one who doesn’t think they need saving in the first place. That’s why we aren’t going to see Hux redeemed, because he has never shown the tiniest hint of guilt, remorse or even doubt about the path he’s chosen — and the setbacks he’s experienced have only hardened his heart, not softened it in the slightest.
But Ben Solo is broken, and he knows it. He’s desperate to be whole, to find purpose and peace in his life, but instead he’s stumbling around in the darkness, wracked by guilt and self-hatred and helpless rage. He can’t earn redemption, because nothing can erase or balance the evil things he’s done, but he needs and longs for it desperately — and he would seize it with both hands if he could only believe that the family he betrayed still loved him, that he really could still come home, and that it wasn’t too late.
So no, Kylo Ren doesn’t have to do anything to earn redemption. It’s already been offered to him by Han in TFA, and then by Leia and Rey in TLJ. He just has to believe it, accept it, and act to claim his freedom, instead of living as a slave to his own past failures and Snoke’s twisted, insidious lies. And once he’s done that, he will start making choices in keeping with his redemption, and act like a good person, indeed a hero, should.
That doesn’t mean Ben won’t have to face any consequences for the things he did as Kylo. I expect he will, and the price may well be a high one — higher than any amount of remorse or penance on his part can possibly repay. Even if he escapes being formally tried and sentenced for his crimes against the galaxy, he’s going to live with the bitter regret of Han’s death on his conscience and many more regrets besides.
But none of that will be payment for his redemption: it’s simply the natural and inevitable result of it. For the rest of his life, however long that may be, every breath Ben Solo takes will be a gift he knows he does not deserve. But he will be bought back from slavery to the darkness and restored to the light, nonetheless. Because that is what redemption means.
