"I don't think so; the problem, after all, is that a theatrical performance can start a riot, and any bill that passes the floor will be one that tries to approve only those that won't and not those that will."

nod “That’s all I have.”

Though now he wonders if they could get a bigger group declared private in another way. Let a nobles staff count as private, let a church use internal documents without having to publish, then eventually it gets to theaters and… lawyer nests? Enric isn’t sure on the details, he’ll have to ask his friends who actually know writing. 

If the problem is that theater causes riots and nobody knows how to prevent it from doing so, that seems like a reason not to prioritize having theater performances. Given that, you know, Chelish theater sucks. 

This would probably be impolitic to observe.

"I think saying that the passing of the theater's bills within its bounds is private might be achievable even if it can't be considered private in any more general way, which I agree it definitely can't. It's probably not worth it, though."

"People want to bring their programs home, but again not being able to sell programs won't cripple the industry as much as not being able to perform."

"Indeed. And I think if this means that programs become relatively dull and not worth making for shorter runs or in smaller towns, then they will, in places which are not already very tense, be publishable by ordinary publishing licenses. I think we can pass on from that topic."

"So there's the matters of copies and emendments for the cast and crew, selling onward marked-up scripts, assuring those who publish scripts in the first place that they won't be responsible for performances which are inflammatory, and assuring those who perform that the law won't suddenly call them inflammatory despite keeping the performance stable. I think the first two are matters of wording properly, now that we know to consider them, and the latter two are much more difficult."

"...Probably it's not wise to include in whatever we write that any exceptions we make don't apply to blood opera or anything else like it. It's mostly symbolic anyway, those ought to be illegal for the ordinary reasons."

"What's, uh, blood opera? I'm not from the cities." 

"We didn't do it in my company, but it's an opera where you enlist a convict as a character who's to be killed and then actually kill them. I'm not positive you couldn't do it in a beneficial way, giving someone a redemption arc to play their way through and try to believe in - if they're going to be killed anyway, I mean - but this is neither the time nor place to get into that."

"Wow, what the fuck."

He isn't going to say it but he really thinks "actually you could do blood opera if you fixed a few things" is an idea that ought to disqualify you from the convention and also all Good alignments.

"It is an Asmodean perversion," he agrees.

Enric has heard of this one. Mostly as one of the many, many, many, stories about young men or women who believe a stranger who promises a good life in the city. The man says he’ll make her an opera star, and then he does… for one night.

If Shelyn renounces her on the spot for her notion then she doesn't indicate this in any way!

It's not like he didn't know Shelyn was falling down on the job.

"If we're really worried about the murder opera we could explicitly say in the law that it doesn't make it legal to do actual crimes as part of your theater performance. Which would also cover the case where someone tries to use a play to get people to go commit murder or something."

"I don't think we need to specify that, merely to not specify that the theater is protected from charges of committing normal crimes."

"I've seen it more common to just place the convict as an... understudy, who is dressed up in a matching costume and only brought on stage for the death scene itself. Seeing it performed was excellent practice in concealing feelings of disgust so no one near me could detect them. But I am not, actually, truly worried, and if a few bloodthirsty votes vainly hoping this would relegalize it would be lost by explicitly banning it then it is not worth doing so."

And if they're reading the minutes of this committee they're intelligent enough to realize it won't, and no loss.

The theater is bad! News to follow... never, because they've re-instituted censorship without also re-instituting government news.

Victòria spent half the weekend expecting to be tortured to death and on some fundamental level finds the prospect of being executed by drawn-out opera performance more horrifying. If they'd just brought her out to die at the end that's — less upsetting, probably — but it still feels like it's treating executions like some sort of stupid game for rich people. Which to be fair they kind of are, sometimes, but just because this is kind of a stupid and pathetic way to feel about being executed doesn't mean she doesn't feel that way.

Oh yes it was absolutely making them entertainment for rich people. If somehow no one had been recently convicted who looked similar enough, one would be mysteriously found to have committed high treason. (Not in Kintargo. Restraint of her disgust only went so far. But the few blood opera venues noticed this and went outside the city to do it, because her power only went so far too.) That was the point. That the amusement of the high was more important than the lives of the low.

Fuck Asmodeanism.

Oh, it's not that she has any doubts that blood opera was entertainment for rich people, she just expects there's plenty of entertaining rich people you can do just by executing people the normal way with normal types of torture.

But yes, fuck Asmodeanism.

"The traditional policy practiced in most countries outside the reach of Asmodeus" that permit theater "is that an Office of the Censor, based in either the capital or with branches in every major city, has the duties of issuing licenses to each approved theatrical troupe and approving each script individually, charging fees for both to defray the costs of his position. The reason we would expect to do worse is that we have neither the men nor the money to carry this out effectively, and the chief question is if there is some innovation in the law" innovation in the law is not a dirty word in the lands of Aroden "we can design that would hope to do better."

"I don't know how to find the people, but if the money is an issue, could they just charge more to check the scripts? Or is it, like, they're already charging the most that would be fair to charge, and that's still not enough to cover the costs?"

"No, I think that can be done. A partial refund in the case of a rejection, perhaps; that would discourage turning it into licit bribery by requiring nine variations rejected before considering anything seriously, which I suspect would be the naive result. Getting the men and getting them together, to establish a shared understanding of what is permissible and then train any future additions, however, is still a cost which is harder to defray, and one which must be paid upfront. ...We might be able to prevail on the Queen's consort to allow us to import some of his censors; I've heard it said he attends the theater religiously, every week when not on campaign."

"A very insightful idea," he says, making a note of it.

Quietly, “Who do we mean by queen’s consort?”