After seeing the finale I found that a majority of people believe that Azula's emotional breakdown showed them that there might be a chance of her becoming a good person if her mother was to return. I think that is a very valid argument that the main reason that she was so cruel was because she felt her mother didn't love her and if Ursa was to return and convince her otherwise not only do I think that she would become sane again but maybe see what she had done was wrong.

Now here's my harder sell and my belief that Ozai can find redemption in his solitude. I keep thinking back to the Ember Island story that showed when Ursa was still apart of the family that all four of them were happy as a family. In the episode The Beach we're told that when Azula and Zuko were children they would go to the Ember Island every summer and implied that it was a good part of their family memories. But it seems that as soon as Ursa left that everything started to fall apart and go very very bad. Now I'm not here to tell you that Ozai is a nice person he's not and he's done far more bad than good but that doesn't mean that there isn't still good in him. After the end of seson 2 Ozai seemed more than happy to let Zuko come back, and during the eclipse when Zuko tells him that he wasn't the one that shot Aang and that he knew the avatar was still alive Ozai though really angry didn't shun him. Now think about that he more or less lied to his face about killing the Avatar and kept the fact that he strongly felt that Aang was still alive to himself which is a major threat to his plans of winning the war and yet he didn't turn his back on him, it wasn't until Zuko told him that he was going to side with the avatar that Ozai threatened to kill Zuko. It seems to me that he was going to let Zuko get away with lying to him and putting the war in direct jeopardy because I think he wanted to keep his family together.

Then in the Finale when Zuko is crowned Fire Lord and visits his father in his cell Ozai doesn't really do what we would expect an evil person who hates Zuko would say. Though he's obviously not happy he doesn't seem hateful towards him, if it had been Azula he visits she would have said something like he's a fraud or that he's weak and didn't deserve the be Fire Lord. But with Ozai there was almost and air of acceptance that he was the lagitamite ruler. I've watched the scene many times and I didn't pick up any hate in Ozai's voice just extreme disapointment at how everything turned out that he had all the power in the world but was now a non-bending prisoner. And when Zuko tells him that he was lucky that the Avatar spared his life he didn't get angry about that he just shrugged a little at it. And there mustn't have been much hate for Zuko because he obviously told him where his mother was (Though we aren't let in on the secret ourselves)

But here is my most powerful reason as to why I think that Ozai was good and still has good in him is that Ursa married him. And she is debatably the most loving and caring characters ever shown on the show, and she loved Ozai enough to be his wife and have his children... doesn't that speak volumes? Now would a character that is so loving marry a monster? No, I think she saw the good in him that she saw in Azula that they were both probably very confused characters. And I think that if Ursa came back into both Ozai's and Azula's lives that they could find some sort of peace. I'm not going to go as far as to say that Ozai would totaly repent his ways and be a part of the Gaang that would never happen but perhaps he'd be willing to accept the directiong that Zuko will take the Nation as an acceptable one.

That's my two cents on the matter that I think both Ozai and Azula have good in them and CAN find some sort of redemption so what do you think?

You're right. It's much better for him to permanently disfigure and then banish his son by giving him an impossible task that was, to the fire nation's knowledge, impossible than to show him mercy.

He could've given him an easier task, like serving as a soldier to the general he disrespected for a year rather than make him hunt for a person who's disappeared for 100 years.