Joan-Pau is too busy clapping.

Oh, ballsy, he'll clap for that.

Half-assed, but half an ass is better than none.

What is Chelam thinking??? Presumably her title protects her but does it protect her so far as antagonizing apparently everyone she can think of—

Panicked message to Chelam, who Lluïsa doesn't really like but maybe she's just not a lawyer and missed this and shouldn't die for it—

Fines are but the minimum, the maximum is death or perhaps more, do not take the risk—

She’s drawing the line at slander in an aggressive way, to establish precedent protecting other delegates?  Assuming this isn’t the final snap of jaws of a trap?

Enthusiastic clapping, it’s the right response to both scenarios!

A bunch of people here were just literally killed by convention speech. Why should the standard for responsible speech be lower when going about the process of drafting laws, especially when irresponsible speech there has just been proven to be insanely deadly?

...this is a stupid thought. Cotonnet killed most of the higher nobility in the country, and Llei's entire family lives at his whim. Obviously the convention is not about what they want. Obviously it is a game, obviously there are right answers, and obviously the archmage does not care if there is any space between the right answers and the practical ones for them to actually survive in.

.....not a stupid thought, but an unworthy one. There have always been right answers. They have never been the practical ones. There has always been a space to live in anyway, even when it hurt, even when it wasn't allowed to exist, even when the sword hung above everything that mattered. There has never been safety, and is not now.

But the law passes, right or not. They will see, now, whether the Queen decrees it, right or not. Whether this is a stupid and pointless game that one can only lose at, or whether this is, in fact, the work of governance, and only as deadly as it ever was before.

Iomedans do not give up on what is worth having because it is not safe. Iomedans find what can be had, and fight for it.

He'll clap for the duchess.

Why is she pushing the boundaries on the law right after it passed?   Is that the Chaotic Good way of dealing with a bad law?  He was going for Lawful Good himself but maybe to appeal to the Archmage Chaotic Good is best?  He hears clapping so he claps along with it.

Wow, they actually are allowed to be wrong. Not limitlessly wrong, apparently, but some amount of wrong. 

No one wants to put a duchess to death for saying obviously correctly that the army contains soldiers who want to desert, so it's a good place to set the precedent. She doesn't answer Lluisa as it'd involve moving her lips.

"Right," she says after a silence of suitable length. "I would be embarrassed were this body to turn to attempting to prosecute one another for political disagreements. I am glad that we can pass laws that the Archmage disagrees with, and understand him to be saying that we have been doing so, that he has deliberately avoided killing the laws by telling us so, and that we can continue to do so, so long as those laws are about governing the country and not hanging one another. In Axis you also cannot pass laws that are about hanging each other, nor run around conducting selective prosecutions; it's really not that much of a constraint.

The most actual patriotism I have heard from a subject of Her Majesty in the last day is from Valia Wain, who was wholly overawed by the innovation of interrogators not torturing you and guards not raping you. I really think we can do better than her. This body abolished slavery of halfings today. This body wrote and enacted censorship and slander laws, and had two nearly tied votes on controversial matters of great importance. You do the work of Kings! You do it even sometimes over the objections of archmages! Act like it! By which I mean, have some pride, but also, have some dignity! Don't treat this like a game, because it isn't; don't jump to convince yourself it's fake, because it's real."

Victòria is pretty sure this is a silly thing to get hung up on, and not the point at all, but the Church of Iomedae thinks they should go to other gods instead about Cheliax's problems, and not her? Why?? Like, she's perfectly happy to go to other gods, she's just confused about why Iomedae would want that.

Enric doesn’t understand exactly what Aroden is doing, but he was always a complicated god with complicated plans. Like faking his own death and then becoming a human wizard in Galt and teaching them how to be radicals and overthrow Asmodeus.

Still trusts him, though, and it sounds like he’s right to. Aroden just said that he’s not going to let delegates get each other executed or dragged away for saying things in the convention. He’s not interfering with the results because ‘surpass your fathers and gods, not just obey them’. But he’s making sure it’s safe to try. 

Enric spent the last week worried he was going to be executed. He’d come to terms with never going home— it’s not like he has a wife or kids to support anyway. With the Sower blessing the harvests and no lord to take dues, the people who need him will have enough food even if he dies. But it turns out he didn’t need to. 

When you get up and talk about how serfdom is unfair or tell an archduke that necromancy is evil, it’s safe. Safe to try and even safe to fail. Valia made a mistake and so many powerful enemies, and the worst they did was send her to Lastwall. Victoria probably was let go without being hurt, like she said. Namia, who is aparrently Aroden’s wife, is bringing people back from the dead. Aroden is working some mysterious plan, but it’s obvious he’s protecting his own.

Sounds like the archduchess of creating committees understands it too. Took the risk herself to show everyone it’s still safe to talk up there. Enric definitely misjudged her at first. He takes the speech in but doesn’t applaud. Just listens, and stares at the mark on his hand. 

Well that ruins some half baked to embarrass nobles by winning damages from them commiting slander, but that’s fine, they weren’t very good plans anyway.  And she does appreciate Cotonett laying down the line that the nobles are going to have to actually try if they want to have her killed. It’s not safety, not when you can’t flee the country, but it’s a much better position than she thought she was in. She claps for his speech and for Delegate Chelam’s; for all she suspects the pamphlets have the right of it about her hand in the censorship bill, it’s not the worst bill imaginable and this is at least something to mitigate things.

Don't treat this like a game, because it isn't; don't jump to convince yourself it's fake, because it's real.

Something finally clicks and another thing finally snaps in his brain.  It had started with realizing why the port was closed, and now the rest of the revelation comes together at once.  The Queen is actually going to put everything they vote through into effect.  The constitution he spent less than a week writing to win some points in his monarchy committee could become the actual law of the land.  He needs to rethink some things… he is going to separate out the pieces of his constitution to make sure the critical parts that are actually good ideas can get votes through.

…he should have put a lot more work into debt relief.

The archmage has nearly killed the convention, Felip thinks. Even if the whole idea was misbegotten, he owes the man, and will do what he can to repair the damage, and takes the lectern after Carlota.

"Cheliax is in need of many virtues. Courage to speak the truth is one, but another is courage to have independent judgments. I fear that many of you will take away from the Archmage's comment that you voted wrongly. You did not. You were called here to vote as you saw fit, and this body exists to discover what laws we wish Cheliax to have, not which laws we imagine the archmage wishes Cheliax to have. He elected to call this body together instead of dictating the laws to our Queen."

He angles his head, clearly looking at the archmage, while still projecting his voice to the crowd.

"We all owe a great debt to the archmage. He perhaps has forgotten had gratitude may move men, but I have not. This deliberative body is ruled better by The Queen in her absence than it would be by her presence, as we may focus our attention to the law, and not to which speakers and statements cause her to smile, and which to frown. The people of this country have been forced into too many tests of loyalty to not have those old habits appear now. Already someone is considering racing to the line to propose that we repeal the law we just passed, in the hopes of earning your favor; acting out of fear, not loyalty to Cheliax. Already people are reviewing who spoke in favor and who against, guessing whose opinions are more likely to match yours.

Rulership is both by word and by example, and it is right for people to seek out the guidance of their superiors and to follow their attention. My fellow duchess referred to you as the delegate from Galt. If there are things you will not allow this assembly to do, openly grant yourself a veto and let us vote freely, instead of having to guess your will. If you wish this assembly to bow to your opinion on matters not procedural, accept the title of Spell Lord the committee on Magic wants to grant you, and then you will have a voice and a vote and may enter the debate. If you simply cannot restrain yourself from sharing your opinions, at least limit your comments to the system for anonymous delegates you have set up. But in the eyes of many, you have declared our vote a failed test, which I hope was not your intended meaning."

"We are here to write the laws with our judgment, and our wisdom in balancing virtues, not to take dictation from Elie Cotonnet."

She doesn't like this guy at all but she agrees about not just listening to the Archmage and the Queen because they're the Archmage and the Queen. She claps but not very enthusiastically.

He's mad that the archmage is telling them the answers, because it's going to make it harder to find and punish the people who answered wrong?

Carlota's still at the podium, having given the original speech.

It's not that Felip is wrong about how many people including both of them instinctively interpreted Cotonnet's comments, it's that she's trying to smooth fights over, here, not pick them. "And for that reason the archmage has, in fact, allowed us to pass laws that he disagrees with strongly, and will continue to allow that; we should take comfort in the knowledge that he does not like this bill, rather than be frightened by it. Now we know what happens when this body does not see in accord with the archmage, and it's that our bill still passes, so long as it is about running Cheliax and not about using Her courts to assassinate each other."

If Fraga is a madman spitting on the outstretched hand of the archmage he deserves what he gets.

Chelam on the other hand is dangerously naive.

So is this the part where the other two major players fall for the bait and get crushed by the archmage, leaving his boss the biggest name in the building?

The convention is allowed to pass laws, even if the Galtan archmage and Iomedaean queen don’t like them. Mattin likes that. Galtans and Iomedaeans are squeamish prudes, and they definitely wouldn’t like bringing back gladiator games and proper opera. But the upper crust enjoys opera and the rabble enjoy the games, he should be able to convince them.

Oh, for gods' sake. 

"Certainly I did not intend for my words to influence your vote – that's why I waited until after the vote had been concluded to speak. I had hesitated to share my opinions before for fear that you all would interpret them as commands: I see now that I was right and will be more cautious in the future. But, for what it's worth, the Duchess of Chelam is correct: all I ask is that you use the powers you have been granted to make laws for your country instead of pursuing personal vendettas. I hope and expect that you can manage this without my intercession."  

Are you going to bring back my dead son, then, Cotonnet?

He is not suicidal enough to say it.

Felip returns to his seat, watching the room. Do they believe in their independence, now?