>>115391644Being compelled to follow orders does to a certain degree mitigate the moral responsibility of the individual, but it cannot eliminate said responsibility. Following an unjust order is less immoral than simply doing an immoral thing without prompting, but it is still far more immoral than avoiding or refusing that order, or finding some clever way to bend it's interpretation to avoid immorality.
Taking part in the deliberate and unprovoked extermination of civvies is at the high end of immoral acts and responsibility for it cannot be mitigated fully simply by claiming to have followed orders or that your CO has compelled you to do so against your will.
He also wasn't helpless, just an incompetent coward who was fine in his position attacking barely-armed, barely-trained civilian settlements, he folded not because he was innocent but because he was faced with two fighters much better than himself, and then tried to barter away his own mother's life in exchange for his own.
He's definitely nowhere near the tops of the "evil acts" hierarchy, but he's not helpless, nor is he an innocent, nor does the fact that he's simply "war crime middle management" alleviate his moral culpability for acts he was knowingly complicit in.
>>115392423As portrayed in the original show she doesn't have one or need one, there's nothing there to redeem. From really early on it's obvious that she's one of the very few natural sociopaths, she's got no underlying trauma to justify her behavior, she just completely lacks empathy. She's more like a snake or alligator which happens to have a human face and human intellect.
Being redeemed implies there's a person inside capable of goodness and guilt who's worth saving. Not every character needs to be redeemable though, some people like Azula and Ozai are just not entirely there as human beings.
