"I would," he answers, without hesitation. "If there is no hope of forgiveness, then the flawed have no reason to seek it. The burden on such a soul as his would be terrible, the harm that he has wrought with his deeds calculable perhaps only by the gods, but if he sincerely sought redemption and to make amends for his crimes, I would forgive him, and even aid him."

He considers, then adds an amendment. "I might find it difficult to see him as a new person, for the choices he made in the past would still be there, but I would place greater weight on the choices he is making in the present, and the direction in which he now strives. We all have pasts of which we are not proud--not half a year ago, I sat in a cell under a sentence that was not meant to end, for a crime I did not understand."