#and that's bc this could arguably be will's pov we're getting or at least his worst fears in these moments of confrontation

[chirpsythismorning]

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How Can I Be Sure by The Young Rascals

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Will Won't Believe Mike Has Feelings For Him, Until Mike Unpacks EVERYTHING!

[edoro]

Do you think Caleb would forgive Philip if they were somehow able to meet again and he was genuinely sorry for what he did / what he's done?

I like to think he would since he doesn't seem like the type to hold grudges.

hmm you know... this is tricky. there's kind of a lot here. we're going to get, like, semantical here.

(under a cut bc it's long)

like, what does 'forgive' mean here? "think it's all okay"? "don't hold it against him anymore"? "don't be mad at him for it"? "accept and love him even though he did terrible things and hurt people very badly"?

some people see 'forgiveness' as like, an act of wiping the slate totally clean, more or less pretending the offending action didn't happen, others see it as acknowledging that it did and being willing to still have a relationship with that person and care for them despite their actions

and sometimes forgiveness doesn't really mean anything in terms of having a relationship with the person, but simply means like, acknowledging what they did, that it can't be undone, and letting go of your own sense of hurt and anger towards it, while still not allowing them back in your life or deciding that it was in any way 'okay' or 'acceptable' for them to have done - this is the way i, at least, often think of 'forgiveness' in terms of abuse; it's not me saying that what you did to me was okay, because it wasn't, but it's me accepting that it happened, the past can't be changed, and that i want to move on myself rather than dwell on it.

so... i could see Caleb still deciding he loves Philip and wants him in his life, if he demonstrated like, genuine remorse or any kind of understanding that what he did was wrong and it seemed like he would, you know, change his behavior.

then again, Philip did fuck up pretty badly... i mean, i'm not sure if "holding a grudge" is the right language to use to discuss "not wanting someone who literally murdered you and then went on to use your death - which he caused - as an excuse to do centuries' worth of damage culminating in attempted genocide, while also cloning you and horrifically abusing and murdering the clones during that entire time", you know?

so, you know, it would also be pretty reasonable and understandable in that circumstance to say, "i still love you, but i don't like or want to be around the person who you've shown yourself to be"

he not only ended Caleb's life, widowing his wife and ensuring that his child(ren) would grow up without a father, but he then proceeded to violate Caleb's body and use Caleb as an excuse for committing further atrocities... and he did it after Caleb was ready to welcome him right back into his life.

from Philip's pov, Caleb left him to go shack up with a demon in hell; from Caleb's pov, Philip waltzed in just as he was happy for the first time in his life and threw everything - the years spent laboring to raise and care for and protect him, the effort to give him a better life, the immediate and open invitation to join his new life in this new place - right back into his face in the most violent way possible.

so... i don't know. it's hard for me to imagine, personally, being willing to welcome someone who did that back into my life. even if you still love someone, sometimes they hurt you so badly that you just can't be around them anymore, you know?

it is, i suppose, equally hard for me to imagine that Philip might actually demonstrate genuine remorse and change his behavior, without just getting completely out of character - he just isn't a person who does that. he doubles down. he sees himself as right. he is, at this point, in so deep that recognizing the enormity of what he's done would be a sort of psychic death for him, and the guilt and pain of it would be so crushing that he has to avoid it at all costs.

i know the premise of your question was if he did but i just really struggle to imagine it happening.

there is also the very important point that... a lot of what he's done, arguably MOST of what he's done, isn't Caleb's to forgive.

which again gets into a semantic discussion of what 'forgive' even means - sure, if someone you know and love hurts someone else, you can make a decision to stay in their life despite what they did - but Philip's abuse of the grimwalkers isn't something he did to Caleb. it's something he did to each and every single one of those individual people. every single one of those boys came into existence and lived a life full of pain, fear, and grief, all caused intentionally and deliberately by Philip, and then they all died at Philip's hand.

Caleb doesn't get to forgive him for that. Caleb can't absolve him of having done that. Caleb can decide that he, personally, is willing to forgive Philip having murdered him, but he can't forgive Philip for things he did to other people, and the grimwalkers are all very much other people. every grimwalker was their own individual person, and the fact that Philip himself saw them as simply versions of Caleb is part of his abuse of them.

so... i don't know. i just don't know if you can really apply this framework of forgiveness to the whole thing, i guess. i have trouble imagining how Philip, as he is in canon, could ever really be genuinely sorry or willing to change his behavior, and even if Caleb was able to decide that he can forgive Philip for killing him, the abuse of the grimwalkers and the attempted genocide and the damage he did to the culture and history of the Boiling Isles aren't things that Caleb has any right to forgive in the first place.