The Screechfeed Dispatches - Letter IX: On Making Apologies Impossible

 

📍 From: Underfiend Griphax
📍 To: Screwtape, Tormentorship Emeritus
📅 Filed under: #NoForgiveness #ApologyAsAmmo #JusticeNeverSatisfied

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“Make repentance a trap, and they’ll stop seeking it. Make forgiveness conditional, and they’ll forget it existed.”
— Screwtape, On the Eternal Tribunal

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Worthy Uncle,

We’ve made marvelous progress. The patient now fears being wrong more than being evil—and that’s the critical shift.

His conscience no longer guides him.
His audience does.

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⛓ Apology as Performance, Never Closure

He has internalized that apologies are no longer about restoration.
They are content.
Confession as spectacle.
Contrition as ritual.
And worst of all: forgiveness as optional.

When he wrongs someone, he no longer considers the injured party—only the perception of his apology. He writes statements, not letters. He posts videos, not confessions. He asks forgiveness from strangers, not the soul he hurt.

And still, it is not enough.
Because we have ensured it never is.

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🪤 Every Apology Is a New Offense

He’s learned that the very act of apologizing may itself be offensive:

• “Too late.”

• “Too rehearsed.”

• “Too emotional.”

• “Not emotional enough.”

So he hesitates.
Then he panics.
Then he performs.

And when he is told, yet again, that it wasn’t “good enough,” his shame curdles into resentment. He begins to believe that apology itself is a power game—and he's not wrong, anymore.

We have made repentance a spectacle, not a sacrament.

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🔁 No Redemption, Only Recycling

The brilliance of this design is that it keeps him in orbit.
Even if he tries to apologize well, he’s never allowed to leave the gravitational pull of his offense. Someone always digs up the past. Someone always questions the sincerity. Someone always says:

“You didn’t change fast enough.”

So he never does.
He grows bitter instead.
He eventually decides that growth is a lie, that virtue is just branding, and that guilt is weakness.

Now we have him.

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Should I nudge him toward moral nihilism next, or simply let him turn the same cruelty inward? Either path leads downward, and both are delicious.

Forever accusatory,
Underfiend Griphax
🎭 Department of Repentance Disruption and Forgiveness Obfuscation

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🗂 Tags: #CancelCultureIsHellApproved #RedemptionNotFound #SorryNotAccepted #ConfessAndBurn
🖼 Header Art: “Christ and the Woman Taken in Adultery” by Rembrandt (1644, public domain)
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