I think The Dutch House by Ann Patchett has a thread in it about the difficulties (in some ways, the monstrous unfairness) of forgiveness? The children’s mother, who has abandoned them, insists on forgiving their stepmother, who has harmed them, in what is felt as yet another betrayal/abandonment by the mother—but somehow by the end the spiral comes right and forgiveness is achieved.
Just finished Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim, and it kind of fits this model. It's a riff on the story where a girl needs to weave nettle shirts for her brothers to save them from being swans forever. There's a forgiveness arc for the stepmother, who is the one who transformed them. She isn't as malevolent as the one in the original story, so it is *partially* finding out there is less guilt than the protag first suspected.... but she still causes a lot of suffering! Even if she felt like her options were limited. I still think actual forgiveness is what is required and ultimately what is offered.
I think The Dutch House by Ann Patchett has a thread in it about the difficulties (in some ways, the monstrous unfairness) of forgiveness? The children’s mother, who has abandoned them, insists on forgiving their stepmother, who has harmed them, in what is felt as yet another betrayal/abandonment by the mother—but somehow by the end the spiral comes right and forgiveness is achieved.
Just finished Six Crimson Cranes by Elizabeth Lim, and it kind of fits this model. It's a riff on the story where a girl needs to weave nettle shirts for her brothers to save them from being swans forever. There's a forgiveness arc for the stepmother, who is the one who transformed them. She isn't as malevolent as the one in the original story, so it is *partially* finding out there is less guilt than the protag first suspected.... but she still causes a lot of suffering! Even if she felt like her options were limited. I still think actual forgiveness is what is required and ultimately what is offered.