remedial goodness for Chelish archdukes
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"Of course."

Iolanda has been watching, and swaps in. They can walk a ways off, and avoid the audience.

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"I am sorry to interrupt. You are a capable teacher and I am impressed with your pupils. But - I want to understand what recommendations to make the Archduke about - relationships in this household."

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"I would like to understand what exactly you're trying to accomplish."

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"I would like no one to go to anyone's bed by force, or under threat of death, or ideally even under threat of sale to worse monsters elsewhere but I realize I perhaps can't get that much until something's been done about the monsters elsewhere."

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"Well, you have your work cut out for you. Everyone is in everyone's bed by threat. - no, you'll take that too seriously. Many of them are. But not necessarily threat by the people they're in bed with, and not necessarily for reasons that have anything to do with what the papers say."

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"It has occurred to us that possibly no one here is doing anything conscionable by the standards of other places. But - we are not trying to make rules that prohibit everything unconscionable, not exactly. We are trying to make rules that make things better and not make rules that make things worse. Possibly a lot of situations are very bad but the thing that happens if they are prohibited is, somehow, worse."

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"Mm. 

I think that the rule as it currently stands makes things worse for a lot of people. It might not make things worse for the captures, though I have complicated feelings about that, too. But their sons, in particular, almost always have relationships with free women, and by and large they have the ones they want to. The women, for their part, are often with them because they're afraid, but not because they're afraid of them. They're afraid of what it means to be alone."

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"Would it make anything worse if their sons were just - freed?"

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"I don't know, maybe not. There are free half orcs in other parts of Menador. This house hasn't manumitted anyone as long as I've lived here, but that might just be because of how it looks."

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"How it looks?"

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"Like the lords of Cheliax care at all about their children. Or like they can respect a man for his deeds, even if his birth dictates that he should be looked down on. It's a very small thing, in the end, who the law says the Archduke owns, and who he can merely do anything he wishes to."

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"Under the Asmodeans it would - reflect poorly on a man, to be bothered by his own son being a slave?"

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"Mm. It would reflect poorly on him not to want to control anyone he could. Perhaps he could construe it as an insult to him, for his son not to be free, but no one in the south likes the idea of a free orc, at least when it's not the Day of Wrath. But a tool, that's fine. One can take very good care of one's tools, if they serve well."

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"It is a good thing to care for one's children, and to respect a man for his deeds above his birth. ...I do not say that with the intent of being condescending. It can be hard to tell what people have figured out about good. But those are - virtues, and I think that is why Asmodeanism feared them."

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"They are our virtues, then.

I think that you could safely free the sons of this household. I don't think that it would change anything. Either way, they would fight beside their brothers, and either way, they stand to inherit nothing. If it makes you feel better, we can change what the papers say. But it won't be anything more than that."

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"Is there some thing you think would better achieve the - substantive thing, of people being freer to choose their own life course?"

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"What do you want them to be free to do?"

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"To be warriors here, or go off to adventure in some other places they heard had greater need of them. To join the Church if they want to - ours or some other one. To study to be a wizard if they have the aptitude, to marry if they wish to to who they choose to."

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"No one has all of those all the time. The people in the house can do what the Archduke allows us. He can do what the Queen allows him. Right now, half the people in the house are trying to determine what that is. You should probably work it all out for everyone, but I'd ask that you not wait until you've finished it to give me back my room."

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"We're going to talk to the Archduke today about - probably just about freeing most of the slaves who aren't recent captives. I understand that everything else will have to wait."

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"Mm. What are you planning to do with the captives?"

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"I am planning to write the Queen and get some clarification about slavery. There is not much point trying to get the Archduke's household to personally cease it if that means the slaves are just shipped south. There is not much point in pleading with everyone here to get some standards about conduct towards slaves if they're all soon to be freed by decree anyway. Until we hear anything I think we are planning to continue to insist that no one may take to bed anyone they have to drag there bound or at knifepoint."

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He considers parroting back the 'I don't mean to be condescending' line and decides he doesn't know how to deliver it in a way that can't possibly be taken as sarcastic.

"Unfortunately, an actual knife is usually not necessary."

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"How would you make the rule, if you wanted to prohibit every case where someone would refuse if they thought they were allowed to but not - cases where people are no more constrained in this than in all their other decisions, and prefer having the option?'

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"Hmmm.

 

 

I think I'd look first at where I can expect it's happening. For the captures I'd decide if I was willing to commit to not selling them regardless. If I was, I'd tell them that they could refuse anyone they wanted now, and that they should tell me if any man tried to do it anyway, and punish him. That might only help if I was me. If I wasn't willing not to sell them, I wouldn't do anything. It would just be hiding the knife, instead of using it openly. Maybe in the future I'd only keep ones who said they preferred it. That one might only help if I was Ivet.

Then after the captures, and their daughters, and maybe the halflings, I would go through the contracts, marriage and employment ones. See whose contracts say they're not allowed to refuse, or effectively can't, and offer to change their conditions. And then figure out where the knife is for them - because there has to be a knife, if they signed in the first place - and whether I'm willing to drop it.

At that point you're left with everyone who's having sex for protection. I don't know that most of those should be broken up, or that you can fix it with a rule."

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