 Used as a declarative, utterances or expressions may have the effect of (to put it crudely) changing reality in various ways. An appropriate authority might, for example, say, “I christen this ship”, or “I hereby find you guilty”. By making such an utterance, one is actually able to make it so that a ship is christened or that one is found guilty. Understood as a declarative, the utterance “I forgive you” (or one of its cognates) makes it the case that one has been forgiven, thereby altering the operative norms governing the interaction between victim and wrongdoer (Warmke 2016a, 2016b). Much like one can declare a debt forgiven (or a criminal pardoned), one can declare that one has been forgiven by sincerely saying something like “I forgive you” (Swinburne 1989). Such a declaration could release a wrongdoer from certain kinds of personal obligations to the victim (such as further apology or restitution, remorse or penance) (Nelkin 2013). It might also function as a way for the victim to relinquish certain rights or permissions to continue blaming the wrongdoer (Warmke 2016b).