The short answer is that Johnny, Chozen, and Mike Barnes were the Cobra Kai-adjacent characters most clearly redeemed, while Kreese and Terry Silver were written as the exceptions because their own beliefs kept pulling them back into villainy. The show frames Kreese and Silver as people who genuinely think their ruthless philosophy is the truth, which makes their redemption much harder to sustain.

Why some characters redeemed

  • Johnny Lawrence : The series centers on his point of view, so his arc moves from damaged ex-villain to someone trying to teach better lessons and repair the dojo’s legacy.
  • Chozen Toguchi : His redemption works because the show makes his regret and growth explicit, instead of pretending his past never happened.
  • Mike Barnes : He is shown as more easily pulled away from the old Cobra Kai mindset and manipulated by Silver, which makes his turnaround believable.

Why Kreese and Silver are different

  • Kreese is not just angry; he is deeply committed to “strike first, strike hard, no mercy,” so his worldview keeps justifying violence.
  • Silver is portrayed as even more extreme, insisting there are no morals and only winners and losers, which makes him almost impossible to redeem without undercutting the character.
  • Their relationship also escalates the conflict, because their rivalry becomes less about growth and more about destruction.

What the show is saying

Cobra Kai seems to suggest redemption only works when a character accepts responsibility and changes behavior in a lasting way. For Kreese and Silver, the show keeps them dangerous because their own philosophy rejects that kind of change.

TL;DR

  • Redeemed more successfully: Johnny, Chozen, Mike Barnes.
  • Hard to redeem: Kreese and Terry Silver, because both fully believe in their ruthless Cobra Kai ideology.
  • Core reason: the show gives them depth, but not enough self-rejection of their own worldview for a clean redemption.

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