#I'm saying this with the greatest sympathy as someone who has made some whopping mistakes in my life—he is so fucked up for this

[mayasaura]

do we actually know for sure john *deliberately* wiped everyone's memories, or is it just likely? because it is likely, i'll give you that, but i don't remember anything in the books concretely proving it

It was deliberate. From John 5:4:

"And my loved ones . . . the ones I left, I'll bring back. I know I can. Even G—. In fact, G—'ll be easiest—he won't remember the compound—none of them will have to remember anything. I know where remembrance lives in the brain, and he won't have any of it. You know that too, don't you? It's the easiest thing in the world . . . to forget."

She said, "To forget . . . everything?"

"Yes," he said, and more sharply— "Yes. It's the only way."

"Teacher, why?"

"They won't forgive themselves," he said. "They'll spend the rest of their lives asking what-ifs. 'What should we have done? How could we have done it differently? Did you need to do it?' And—I did need to do it, Harrow. There was no other way. Once the bombs were going off, there was no hope for Melbourne anyway—G— was dead meat."

She said—

"You said that G—'s bomb went off first."

He's justifying it to himself as sparing them the grief and the guilt of having to face what happened. In combination with the ending of Harrow the Ninth, I think it's pretty clear he's afraid of their judgement. He can't bear to be asked to face what he's done, so he makes everyone else . . . forget. And then does his best to forget, too.