Okay, I’m going to have some spoilers for Guardians of the Galaxy 2 so if you haven’t seen it, skip this.
So Yondu is a Ravager. They’re basically space pirates so that means he has done a lot of terrible things in his past. We also find out he brought children to Ego and later found out that Ego killed his children. That is right. Ego hired Yondu to bring him his kids and Ego murdered them. Granted, Ego is the one at fault but Yondu helped despite not knowing this. So not only is a liar, a thief, and a cheat but he also helped a man kill countless children. Of course, Yondu regrets this. So that already makes him a decent character because he knows what he did was wrong.
Then, when Peter kills off Ego, Peter is left on the dying planet. He think he’s going to die. But Yondu comes and saves him. Yondu then gives Peter the only space suit, leaving Yondu to freeze in the cold grip of space. He doesn’t ask to be forgiven, he just tells Peter than he was happy to have Peter in his life. He doesn’t demand to be forgiven, he doesn’t feel like he deserves it.
And that is what makes a good redemption arc. A character must not demand it. A character must earn it but they must not demand it and we must know that they realize they made a mistake.
Sorry, I just have a lot of feelings about Yondad.
My favourite thing about Yondu’s redemption is that he specifically apologizes to Peter, because he wronged Peter too. And Peter doesn’t answer him (he barely realises what’s going on I think) but Yondu puts the spacesuit on him anyway, as he was always going to, because whether or not Peter forgives him isn’t the important part.