Where the fuck did that person get letters like that.

Sounds fake. She doesn't think the Church ever hassled anyone over doing executions for a selective audience or having peasants scared of torture (aren't they supposed to be?) if it wasn't decreasing tax revenue.

Wait, there’s a secret chosen of asmodeus ordering them to vote for this? Why did the archmages let one of those into the convention? 

And because she's anonymous nobody can go after her for just making this up. Huh. Well, if she doesn't get tracked down maybe he should see about exploiting that himself.

"I cannot speak for the veracity of those anonymously-presented quotations," says Jonatan, who absolutely believes that she made them up. "But what I can say is that this statute clearly and explicitly outlaws the punishments their addressee was allegedly being ordered to inflict. It seems to me, hearing those quotations, that the primary factor driving men towards Hell was not anything about the punishments — indeed, those quotations contradict themselves, in their claims about the effects of the punishments themselves, which if these letters are accurate would suggest that the Church of Asmodeus was not confident in those effects — but rather the instruction to arbitrarily torture men for perceived blasphemy against Asmodeus."

"There are two matters I wish to speak to. The first is that when people expect a fate worse than death to befall them, they'll fight to the death; word has spread gradually, in Chelam, that it is the paladins meting out justice, and this means that sometimes bandits will surrender. This saves the lives of the men who fight them, and sometimes among the bandits are relative innocents, captives, twelve year old boys, who we save if they surrender and can't if they fight to the death. It is a powerful thing, to have it reputed that it might be worth surrendering. A slow public execution conveys to all who witness it that they should be afraid of the law, but I don't actually find bandits less dangerous when more afraid, and it is hard to make a man fear a fate worse than death when death he can buy at any moment with the blade in his hand.

The second is that these punishments are copied from, I assume, some old Arodenite book of law, though naming them the punishments practiced in the Empire is in fact wrong, as the Empire was large and accommodated many practices. But it is true that there are many magistrates now in Axis who judged by this code and handed down these punishments.

I can tell you what they would say, if you consulted them on this. They would say that the well-intentioned men who introduced this law have misunderstood the old Empire very badly. The most important guiding principle of the old Empire was that we would improve on the work of our parents, that our children would improve on ours. You cannot build an Arodenite Empire by digging up old laws and putting them back into force; you cannot resurrect any Empire, but most certainly not our own old Empire, by animating its dead laws to put back into force under new conditions. You are commanded to do better. The men who wrote these laws were improving on the laws that came before them, and we are commanded to improve on these ourselves.

The old Empire had many virtues, and many vices. But to put in place its laws without the sensibility that produced them imitates the vices, not the virtues. It is a mistake to try to model ourselves off a code of laws that our great-great-grandparents had declared unsatisfactory and were planning to change in the Age of Glory. It is a more serious mistake to call it Arodenite. The Arodenite thing is to think for ourselves and design our own code for the needs of our own country."

"Your Grace, I agree wholeheartedly that we are all commanded to surpass what came before us. But improving on what came before us requires wisdom, prudence, and a willingness to abandon experiments that have proved unsuitable.

If a man wishes to build a house, but having no experience with house-building, he attempts to construct it by intuition, it is very likely that his house will collapse with him inside of it. If he instead consults an experienced builder, and asks after house-building techniques which are known to be reliable, the final building may not be the house most perfectly suited to his needs, but it will at least keep out the rain. Year by year, century by century, we improve our knowledge of how to build houses; and year by year, century by century, we improve our knowledge of how to build laws. But we do not improve our houses, or our laws, by changing everything at once, by throwing out centuries of precedent in the misguided belief that we should simply copy Lastwall in all things.

And if our most recent attempt at a house has collapsed around us, it is better to rely on those methods which we know to at least be adequate than to fret that in doing so we are failing to surpass our predecessors. 

Westcrown's greatest needs right now are peace and stability. If our present code were suited for it, the riots of the Third would never have happened.

If this body, or whatever body succeeds it, or the Queen herself, finds that there are improvements to be made to this law — and I am sure there will be, one day, when our country is on stabler footing — I certainly hope they will make them. But we must build ourselves a firm foundation first."

The reasons bandits will surrender to paladins is not that their executions will be swift, but that the paladins will consider mitigating circumstances. He's had his own share of successes convincing people to abandon crime and re-integrate into society, and that he even thought it was possible for them to reform seems to him like the most important part.

Victòria has put her thoughts together and gotten in line, now, though there's still a fair number of people ahead of her. And maybe she should care about the person who's... pretending to be a priest of Asmodeus, for some reason?... but she's honestly a lot more focused on Laia's speech.

It had not particularly occurred to her that any of the rioters going out to murder innocent people might have just gone and turned themselves in. It feels kind of absurd that someone would take to the streets in a mob one night, only to decide after the fact that... they cared about breaking the law? They'd realized later that killing innocent people was Evil? But she doesn't think Laia was lying, there, so apparently one of them must have.

And — she wants him dead for it. Obviously she wants him dead for it. If you take someone who turns themself in for the sort of things people were doing during the riots, and then don't kill them, you're treating it like it's okay to kill innocent people as long as you tell the Watch afterwards.

But — if she holds him up next to Vidal-Espi-whatever-his-name-was—

Her heart feels like it's on fire. She wishes he'd suffered properly, that he hadn't just had a nice clean hanging, and — it helps, knowing he's in the Abyss, or if not that he's at least getting painfully torn to shreds in Abaddon — and maybe that shouldn't be forever, she's not sure, but it should definitely be a long long time—

—but she's not sure she wants that for the man Laia was talking about? And maybe part of that is that she doesn't know what he did, but — she was angry at Ibarra for burning down houses full of little children, but she was also angry with him for treating it like it was funny, like he didn't even care—

—and she wouldn't want someone like the person Laia was talking about to go around being a happy songbird in Nirvana, he shouldn't get to just be okay, but if she imagines him taking the Final Blade, that doesn't feel so upsetting, even if he's not tortured first. Which — she's not sure entirely makes sense, whatever he did was surely still awful, but — maybe death could be enough? She's not sure, but — maybe.

And most of what people say about 'repentance' doesn't really make much sense, but if it means treating people like Ibarra or Vidal-Espiwhatever worse than people who at least have the decency to regret it and turn themself in, that doesn't seem totally ridiculous? Of course, by that measure it makes what people have been saying about the Evil nobles repenting even more absurd, it's not like any of them are going around turning themselves in for all the awful things they've done and asking for the punishment they deserve, but it was already pretty obvious from the fact that they haven't even stopped doing blatantly Evil things.

After taking long enough to work up the courage to speak, even, anonymously that the conversion has somewhat moved on a sorition reaches the stand.
"How is this the first thing to go in the constitution we've already past like 10 things. I thought we were almost done. What have we been doing? Can we just say it is all part of the constitution. Can I go home now." Better not say that last part the archmage can probably see through the anonymity. 

"Honored delegate, our work so far has primarily been oriented towards producing a body of law for Cheliax. This is important and necessary work, though your frustration is understandable; when Asmodeus was overthrown, the laws of Asmodeus were repealed, and replaced with a limited law code covering only the most serious offenses. The constitution, when it is completed, will set out guiding principles for the government itself; this, too, is important work, but it makes the former no less important. I cannot say I agree with the decision to force unwilling delegates to participate in this work, but the archmage has made his will very clear."

As many as several delegates, mostly soritions, but including a few of the more clues members of other estates, who were also confused on this point are disappointed yet enlightened. 

"Torture is Evil." It should go without saying, but it apparently doesn't in this crowd. "Commanding that torture be inflicted on people is Evil. Allowing people to be tortured, when you could easily prevent it, is Evil. There are Evils to which no one has devised a good alternative; these are not among them. Lastwall has found, and Menador has found, that men do not commit more crimes in places where the law will put them to death swiftly - so long as the law is enforced without exception and so long as men do not imagine they will escape justice entirely. I am sure that some men would be dissuaded by a slower and more terrible death, who are not dissuaded by the prospect of Hell or the Abyss - but they are few indeed. And being dissuaded is not the only way that a man might react to such threats; For each man who avoids further evil out of fear of worldly torment, there may be another who turns from repentance and commits more crimes and evils to conceal his misdeeds, or one who sees the evil of the punishment and reasons that the whole state is turned to evil, or one who chooses to follow the example of the law, and torments his wife and children for their errors or perceived crimes against him. Whatever the forces which drive men's hearts, when the state is barred from torturing its subjects this does not cause those subjects to descend into anarchy and lawlessness.

Now, this proposal does have some merits. As the count of Cerdenya says, it does not require torture, and in fact it bans almost all forms of torture. But it could be better! We could, instead, pass a law which keeps most of these same punishments, and discards the harshest. I think that such a law would be better, for our country and for our souls. Burning at the stake? Turning to parts? There is no reason for these cruelties. The lords of Old Cheliax and of Taldor may have thought so. The lords of old Cheliax and of Taldor were wrong. We can do better.

In advocating for this law, its proponents have pointed to the night of the third as justification for harshness, but I do not think those cruelties can be defended as anti-riot measures. Molthune uses harsh punishments and has constant riots. Taldor employs all manner of torture and sees riots also, ones far far worse than those of last week. Lastwall employs no torture under any circumstances and almost never sees a riot of any kind. This return to Evil will not spare us riots. This body has already voted for a great many measures for security in the city: we have banned slander and banned pamphlets, with my full support. We have maintained an occupation of the city with the Glorious Reclamation. We have recommended a new Lord Mayor and made executions public. Each of these actions, it was argued, would restore peace and order, and to all appearances they have. Let us not damn ourselves to achieve a victory which we have already won."

...okay, she's pretty sure she's confused again. Obviously it's Evil to torture innocent people, but the paladin from Lastwall could barely even explain what he counts as torture as opposed to just regular hurting people, and no one thinks it's always Evil to hurt anyone, even the paladin from Lastwall didn't think that. And Valia trusted Delegate Cansellarion, he's not going to start saying things that are obviously stupid — well, Valia could have been wrong about him, if she assumed he had to be reasonable just because he's a priest of Iomedae. Maybe when Delegate Cansellarion talks about torturing people like it's always Evil he means it in a different way than the paladin? Like, there's some things you shouldn't do even to diabolists, if there's some really bad sort of torture that's more like rape or Maledicting someone or raising someone as a skeleton than like whipping them or beating them up or carving their offense into their skin. ...Actually, the arguments on Rights Committee make a lot more sense if people thought she was saying something more like "it should be legal to Maledict Evildoers" than like "it should be legal to whip Evildoers with a cat." Except the Lastwall paladin didn't want to allow that, either...

"The Lord-Marshal tells us that when men know they will certainly be punished, the prospect of death alone may be sufficient to dissuade them from crime. Perhaps this is true, and perhaps in Lastwall all crimes are caught and prosecuted so consistently that the criminals of Lastwall know certain punishment awaits them. But it is not true in Cheliax, not yet. Dozens of men have been put to death for their role in the riots — but far more than that were on the streets of Westcrown on the night of the Third. I will continue to support measures to ensure that lawbreakers are caught quickly and certainly, and perhaps with sufficient certainty we can render such punishments unnecessary; but if we need either certainty or severity to deter criminals, it is far easier to achieve the latter than the former.

He asks, also, why men who are not dissuaded by the torments of Hell or the Abyss might be dissuaded by the prospect of a slow death. The answer there is far simpler: the lawbreakers of Westcrown need not fear the torments of the Evil afterlives, because they can simply choose to be executed by Final Blade. Those who refuse the Final Blade do so because they believe that Pharasma will look kindly on their sins. They are mistaken, of course, but it is far easier to be mistaken about how Pharasma will judge their crimes than to be mistaken about how a magistrate of Westcrown will, when the judgments of Westcrown's magistrates are on display for all to see."

Deep breath. It doesn't actually matter what happens here. Except that people should know things, whatever they decide to do about them.

"In Egorian, under the Thrunes, there were executions at least once a week, different each time. I have seen flayings, impalement, people grilled alive and consumed by rats, forced hallucinations provoking death by fright, people turned into ice sculptures, slow dismemberment that opened the breastbone and briefly left the heart exposed and visibly beating, and - you know, a dozen things too gross to talk about without good reason, and a hundred too complicated to waste your time with.

And yet when I was thirteen, there were riots in Egorian. I couldn't tell you why, or how many died, though there were, briefly, bodies in the streets. It was not reported in the paper, so we all acted as if it had not happened. Men were executed for treason after, but there was no mention of their having succeeded at causing any civil unrest. The official story did not include them, and I am not surprised that they were not heard of anywhere else. But I was there, and they happened.

I think it is true that men are not dumb beasts. Beasts care only about pain, but men sometimes care more about other things. So you can hand out whatever punishments seem just to you. But if your hope is that through harshness, you will achieve no riots at all, ever? If such a level of torture exists, it must be more than what the Thrunes inflicted."

How do you kill someone with fright? If someone tried to do that to him he would simply not die. Kind of seems like the people getting killed that way just sucked at being people.

"No country, even Lastwall, has entirely eliminated crime. But there are circumstances that make it more likely, and circumstances that make it less likely. If the prospect of a slow death for the most egregious crimes can deter even one riot in ten, it would easily be worth it." This is an important concept in Aroden's holy book; hopefully it isn't too complicated even for random peasants.

"We have heard as well today that under the Thrunes, it was not uncommon for men to be seized at near-random and tortured to death for alleged blasphemy against Asmodeus, whether or not they had even broken the law. It does not surprise me that men living under such threats would have less fear of a slow execution for rioting, if they could not hope to avoid it simply through Lawful conduct."

How old is Tallandria, twenty-four? That'd be ....4703? No, probably 4701, which would make Tallandria 26. During the early part of the Galtan Revolution, when food prices spiked and the soldiers and priests had been rapidly shipped out. She doesn't actually know how many people died, it having never previously occurred to her to care. A lot of them. 

It would be kind of helpful to the cause for Lilia Ramona de Montero to show up at the podium to confirm Tallandria's account and say that she is in favor of the proposal because torturing people is fun.

That's an astonishingly terrible idea and would be very hard to pull off without risking important secrets. 

It's just hard to see a winning move on something as important as people not getting tortured to death and not play it. 

Mattin faces the crowd proudly. He is dressed in black with a few hints of red. Not enough red to look Asmodean, but enough to obviously be a modern urban Chelish man. He clears his throat and asks,

“What do the people of Cheliax want?”

He exaggerates his Ostenso accent when asking the question, to make his implication more obvious. These foreigners from Galt and Taldor and the afterlives just spent a while arguing about what is Good. They care about what Heaven wants, or what Aroden wants. I'm one of you, and I care about what you want. 

“More pamphlets? Less pamphlets? More war? Less war? Will any of these things stop riots? I don’t know. But there’s one thing I know we want. Lions. The people of Cheliax want to see the condemned sentenced to death in the arena, fighting lions and other wild beasts. It is necessary to see justice done, to see it in glorious spectacles of bloodshed. It is necessary and if the people are deprived of such bloodshed, we have already seen them take it into their own hands." 

“I asked the people of Westcrown what they thought about the trials last week. They did not say the trials were just in condemning Vidal Espinosa, or merciful in sparing Valia Wain. They said the trials were boring, a waste of an afternoon. Don’t just take my word for it. Outside the trial, the bookmakers took bets on the result. The most popular one, what the people hope and clamor for: lions!”

He points upwards and a few sortitions in the crowd cheer or shout the word 'lions'. There's no point to bribing delegates for votes anymore, but he can buy applause.

“Will the people learn the consequences of breaking the law? Will the people see the power of the crown? Not if the executions are so boring no one shows up! Maybe the Galtans, weak of stomach, are content with drinking watery wine and watching final blade executions. But we are Chelish people! We want strong drink, and fights in the arena!"

“This is not some cruelty born of Asmodeus. The arena has existed since ancient times. Ask any sage about the days when the empire was united and powerful. He will tell you of the great spectacles those emperors put on for their subjects. Chariot races! Shows of wizardry! Battles of man and beast! Are we not to surpass our elders? With even greater shows!”

“I propose an amendment. Add one more punishment to the list. The gladiator games!”

Mattin raises his hand in the air at the end of his speech, a second signal for cheers and applause.

The first person in this entire discussion to actually be a normal person who cares about normal person things!!!!!!! He wasn't even one of the people paid to cheer but he'll cheer.

Oh, that would be nice. They kill orcs in the games and it's great fun for the whole family.