So far this book has examined how the reconciliation of human rights talk becomes meaningful for some members of its targeted audience; this chapter and the next explore ideas and practices of retribution and revenge. The high visibility of a revenge ethic in South Africa created a counterpoint to the TRC's vision of national redemption and forgiveness, and highlighted the disjunctures between formal and informal justice which I characterize as relational discontinuities. During acts of violent punishment on the streets and in cases heard in township courts, local actors draw distinctions between humanitarian and Christian values of forgiveness, reconciliation and redemption on the one hand, and vengeful notions of punishment on the other. At the level of local justice practices, this results in a rejection of the TRC's project in favor of more punitive and vengeful responses to ‘resolving’ past conflicts and violations under apartheid.