The Owl House's Collector is a child of the stars who can bend reality to his will. This has led him to commit destructive acts: assisting xenophobic witch hunter Emperor Belos in committing the genocide of witches, rearranging the Boiling Isles realm into a twisted whimsical fantasy, and converting the residents into mindless puppets to play the child's games. His actions are entirely self-motivated, with the goal to have amusement regardless of any casualties. However, despite these crimes, Collector is a redeemable character because of his capacity for respect, honesty, non-destructive nature, feeling and understanding pain, and his actions being performed under ignorance.

I need to define the redeemable character as someone with benign intentions (wishing to help others or commit other harmless deeds), positive character traits (creativity and caring), and a conviction to change.

First, he is capable of respecting others. Collector safely plays "pretend" per King's request despite wanting to engage in more reckless competitions and believing the Titan to be boring. Collector turns sadistic covenhead Terra Snapdragon into a puppet not because she called the immortal child a "brat", but because she insulted King, referring to the latter as a "stupid dog". He also respects King enough to not touch his stuffed toy before he sleeps, which is an unexpected choice from a child who literally has the power to do anything he wishes. In fact, Collector never infringes on King's privacy because of this respect and lets him go to other places alone, spying on him only because a puppet-possessing Belos had planted a seed of doubt in his head that "someone close to him is going to betray him". 

One could argue that it is callous of him to respect anyone who is “on his level” like King, thus there's no chance he's capable of being good. I will rebuke that by stating that the Collector's lack of respect towards mortal beings mirrors our apathy towards small creatures when we were young; we humans never truly respect anyone unless they're of a higher status or emotionally relatable, like our guardians or friends. It's only when a beaten dog whimpers that we see it as a living thing worthy of the same respect we give ourselves and our loved ones, just as how it's only when King brings up the sobering near-extinction of the Titan and Collector races that Collector feels his pain and respects him, since he can relate to him.

Respect is one of the hallmarks of a constructive, and caring individual who nurtures a wellbeing in their surroundings. It’s a positive trait that can help a flawed character redeem themselves into a better person. Collector is a generally disrespectful being to most people, but it is commendable that he has a sense of respect at all given his cosmic origins. If he expands on his ability to appreciate King's point of view, to mortals, he may be able to solve people's problems and improve their lives. If only he could have a chance.

The second characteristic is that he is honest. The most explicit example is when he tells Emperor Belos to "have more faith in pinky swears", implying that he’s never broken a promise himself. This personal principle is so strong to the point where if he understands that someone abused his trust, he becomes enraged and punitive, like when he rendered Belos to a rotten, green stain or prepared to confront King over the latter's supposed betrayal. This is also one of the reasons why Collector became calmer and kinder with King; the baby Titan not only promised to free him in exchange for stopping the Draining Spell that would kill the witches, he immediately fulfilled his promise and freed Collector instead of keeping him waiting. In return, the godlike boy felt it safe to trust him and helped stop the genocide attempt. It also must be noted that the Collector is a trustworthy person even when no one is around to call him out. When he asks to hold King's plush toy Francois and is refused, he leaves it untouched even when King leaves. 

There aren't any instances where the Collector is truly dishonest. You could only ever say that the only downside to his honesty is that he expects others to be the same, which is what lets Belos take advantage of and betray him and King to freely walk away from the child and plan to stop him.

Honesty is another positive trait that makes a character worthy of redemption; because the Collector is transparent with his intentions, he will not manipulate anyone in harmful ways and will be easier to work with. Since he’s not deceptive, he’s not withholding information needed to solve problems and heal any physical or emotional damage that people suffer through. If he wisens up to deception and maintains integrity, he'll be a trustworthy individual who may teach others to be the same.

The third positive quality that earns Collector a shot at redemption is his creative rather than destructive tendencies. Several of his actions involve physical transformations instead of destroying them; he never once personally erases an object or person from physical existence. When Collector begins to rip open the ancient Titan's skull, he converts the organic matter into a castle to live in. When Terra Snapdragon insults him and King, Collector turns her into a puppet instead of annihilating her. But the most important display of creative tendencies is his disdain for his kind's habit of destroying any world that resists them: when he wrote over the Collector race's decree to incinerate any mortal who opposed their preservation attempts with the claim that interacting with mortal creatures is more fun.

There are many instances one can use to prove that the Collector enjoys destroying people and things. First, he had taught Emperor Belos the Draining Spell (a spell that kills witches and maybe disintegrates them) and encouraged his "Day of Unity" plan. Second, he expresses glee at watching Belos kill the previous Grimwalker clones, anticipating Hunter's death in the present day. Lastly, upon being freed by King, Collector takes great pleasure in rendering the decomposing Belos into a rotten smear on a wall. It is completely true that the Collector made these choices by himself. However, one needs to factor in that these destructive instances were when Belos was around. Keep in mind that our godlike Collector is a child in mind and body, who became trapped in a mirror prison where he had no contact with anyone for centuries or even thousands of years. I argue that such social deprivation kept the kid from being taught the value of empathy and life, and that his misguided view of destruction as fun is the product of Belos' manipulation. Let me paint you a picture; Collector needed freedom and a friend. To get Belos' friendship he had to engage in his interests. Belos knew that Collector could only be useful if they were playing a game, so he told him how to play one: the Day of Unity. The objective is to annihilate witches and the best way to play is to use the Draining Spell. This ignorant and isolated boy was completely sold on the idea that destroying people was fun because it would earn him a friend, so he played along. That's also why he didn't protest the murders of the Golden Guards; he was led to believe that killing the Grimwalkers - much like discarding chess pieces - was part of the game. Collector was influenced by Belos that destruction was part of the fun so that he could be freed someday, but that was the latter's downfall: when the witch hunter abandoned the god in a pit instead of freeing him and Collector finally escaped, the angry and aggressive child smashed him to pieces in retaliation to the monster's centuries-long manipulation and his sadistic choice to deprive the kid of any company. Collector couldn't be a naturally destructive person because his crimes were committed out of desperation to escape isolation and have friends who like him. Collector's destructive acts ceased (or temporarily paused) when he believed King was a real friend, since he became calmer and light-hearted in his play. Second, he has always disagreed with his kin's destruction of resistant creatures.

Collector's tendency to convert and create instead of destroy is a positive trait found in good people who help people grow instead of hurting them. If he maintains this constructive mindset, he can fix his messes and redeem himself.

The fourth positive trait Collector has is the ability to recognize, feel, and understand pain and see it as something to avoid. You could even argue that he processes actions not in good or bad, but in joy and pain. Isolation in his mirror prison made him anxious and fearful, shown when he begs Emperor Belos to release him from this prolonged painful experience. Another notable instance of perceiving pain is when, after watching countless "nephews" of Emperor Belos being agonizingly demolished, Collector "protects" King from Lilith after she refers to the Titan as her nephew. This is because the Collector thinks that nephews exist to be tormented, so now that he is King's friend and away from Belos' influence, he is unwilling to let another nephew be supposedly killed. Another example of him experiencing hurtful feelings is when he is angered by Terra’s insult of King as a “stupid dog”, perceiving her words to be hurtful to King and therefore unacceptable. The final instance of understanding hurtful events is when King recalls the extinction of the Collector and Titan races, an event that led to both of them being abandoned with no guidance or people their kind to relate to, that leads to a sorrowful reaction from the child that shows us he recognizes King's pain of feeling alone. Collector's need to seek relief from stressful situations proves that he may be more benevolent at heart than his actions display.

One could posit that while Collector's capable of feeling pain, that doesn't mean he can recognize it in others. After all, he watched Belos sadistically kill Grimwalkers with some amusement, turned anyone into a puppet because he was personally insulted by people threatening his "best friend", and may have only focused on how only he was affected by the extinction event. My first rebuttal is that Collector, at the beginning of the series, was never taught to care about how someone felt since he had a psychopathic witch-hunter by his side for years, so it can explain his apparent apathy towards the deaths of the Grimwalkers, Collector played along with the annihilation of the clones because he needed to play Belos' "game" in order to be freed. Collector also cares more about King's best interests than his own thanks to two choices: the first is that he compromised with King to play games of pretend rather than competition so that his reckless activities wouldn't hurt anyone, and the second is that while he became irritated with Terra for callously calling the god kid a "brat", he only lost his temper when the crone called King a "stupid dog" to hurt his feelings. This demonstrates that while Collector is generally ignorant to the pain of people whom he doesn't know well, he's capable of understanding the feelings of those he does know well and wanting to avoid hurt feelings.

Collector's ability to feel pain is a characteristic of a good person because if a good person can feel pain themselves, then they'll be able to perceive it in others and want to stop people from experiencing it so they can be happy.

Finally, the last characteristic that makes Collector worthy of redemption is the fact that his whole life has been shaped by the influence of uncaring people, namely the Collector race and (most recently) Emperor Belos.

Collector was raised by a cosmic immortal species known as the Collectors who loved to preserve mortal life from dying. They were arrogant with their belief in their own great power and significance, apathetic to the feelings of "lesser beings" - whom they forcibly prevented from having a natural and full life in preserving their bodies, and had controlling tendencies like despising resistance to their goals from mortals. Because he grew up around them, our very young survivor may have adopted the same tendencies: he is unwilling to listen to mortals' concerns of being forced to play his games, he turns people into puppets with limited consciousnesses with ignorance to the fact he's trapping them in a similar he himself was trapped, and he does so because they resist his wishes to play games.

After his kind died and he became trapped in a prison, Collector's only contact was Emperor Belos. After the witch-hunter found him, the boy latched onto the human so that he could finally have a friend and never be alone again. This allowed Belos to reveal his plan under the guise of a "game", one where you kill witches with the Draining Spell. Belos was a manipulative and callous monster who treated people as disposable pawns. As a result, Collector became manic and gleeful at the destruction of innocent people because it would help him escape his prison, becoming even more reckless and callous.

Collector is worthy of a chance at redemption because he hadn't previously been given the opportunity to make his own conclusions and practice empathy and kindness. He enabled the destruction of numerous lives and violated people's boundaries because, as a child, he was raised by people who were arrogant and disrespectful of anyone else's feelings. If he surrounds himself with empathic and conscientious people, he can mend his behavior and grow up to be a better person.

In conclusion, the Collector is an impressionable child of the stars who is capable of respecting others, honest, non-destructive in nature, wishes to perpetuate fun instead of pain, and whose destructive actions are informed by cruel adults. If caring people reach out to him, Collector may be able to reinforce his kinder traits and improve on his carelessness and ignorance. This makes him worthy of redemption, especially since he is essentially a godly child.