i genuinely think that it's so so valuable to have stories about people that have done horrible things existing. and getting better. and worse. forgiven and resented. seeing their crimes age with them, their weight shifting, shrinking, growing. is it redemption? further corruption? is it just existence?
you lived, now what? is i think one of the more interesting questions we can pose with fiction, and i think it's maybe one of the powerful vehicles for conveying the notion that there is no point at which you stop being a person. the most unforgivable irreparable harms are caused by people making choices. and we will make bad ones and keep making them. you're not immune. no one you love is immune.
and crucially, we don't necessarily build a better world by defining criterion for forgiveness, redemption, punishment, penance. forgiveness is relational and as much about the person who has been harmed as it is about the culprit. punishment's effect is rarely improvement. societally, our ideas of redemption and penance are firmly rooted in legalistic notions of judgement — whether based on human morals or divine — where personhood and worthiness are contingent on ticking off boxes that we could argue endlessly about redefining and relitigating.
if you move the story out of that frame, though, it's not a story about "making it up." its a story about living. it's a story about making choices. it's about reflecting on the ones you've made. it's about their impact on your relationships, your sense of self. and i think that inherently has value.
you're going to fuck up. you're going to do something bad. you're going to hurt someone. you might be forgiven for it. you might carry it with you forever. you'll always be the person who did that, so long as you live. but you're going to live. you have not become a different category of person condemned to non-existence. you still have choices to make. you get to keep making them. that's the point.
