i almost called it forgiveness...

when i began the previous entry on "mercy," i orginally titled it "forgiveness."  but as i wrote the word mercy that kept coming up, so i changed it.  an interesting comment on that post asked me to compare pity, mercy and forgiveness. i don't believe a single blog entry can fully deal with these words, but I do have some thoughts, so here goes:

i believe mercy, as seen in the Harry Potter/Peter Pettigrew moment is Harry realizing that Pettigrew's life has worth, no matter what he has done... and in fact, i believe you can have mercy for someone without forgiving them... and i think that's exactly the case with Harry in that moment in Prizoner of Azkaban (POA).  he's still ready to hand him over to be taken to prison, but he's not ready to be the person who chooses death for him; nor is he willing to let those he cares for do so.

mercy has a lot of definitions, depending on where you look, but the one i think best fits here is the 3rd listed at dictionary.com: the discretionary power of a judge to pardon someone or to mitigate punishment, especially to send to prison rather than invoke the death penalty [italics mine]

i believe forgiveness is what happens when a person is able to let go of whatever has been said or done to them by another, when the forgiver is able to release what they feel needs to be forgiven... in this case, that would be Harry being ready to release Peter from his part in the deaths of James and Lily.  i don't see Harry as being ready to let go in that POA moment and i don't think he should be. 

before forgiveness can be real, i think the feelings of anger, hurt, betrayal need to be felt, and Harry's barely had a chance to do this at that point in the story. in the long run, i believe it does a disservice to the person forgiving to offer forgiveness before they are ready.  and in the same way i believe that prayer doesn't change God, it changes me, i believe the gift of forgiveness is more for the person forgiving than for the one that is forgiven. it's also probably important to say i'm talking about forgiveness between people, and i think this is different than when it comes from God.  but that's a whole other entry.

i understand pity to be feeling sorry for another, and it may be a beginning step toward mercy or forgiveness. i'm not sure i see it at play in the scene in POA. that, and this is a pretty long entry already.

lastly, as i said at the beginning,  a single blog entry can't hope to completely address such rich words as mercy, forgiveness and pity, but it's a start. 

and ultimately, i'm saying that context, in this case Harry's, helps to shape meaning. 

i think that's true in my own life as well.

do you see it true in yours?