Actually, in the Empire of his day, the people fighting in the arena were nearly always slaves, not convicts. ...Admittedly, now that he thinks about it, that isn't actually better.

This has the potential to be an enormous disaster — maybe he can just not have people vote on the proposed amendment—

"I second the amendment!" shouts a man who was absolutely not in line.

"LIONS!!"

Oh, he definitely didn't mean to ban lethal arena games, those are the heart of the empire. They keep the masses entertained. He'll applaud for the amendment.

—Oh, right, lions were created by Iomedae! Probably that's how you torture people to death in a Heavenly way.

"LIONS!"

This man has lived in Cheliax for more than fifty years and is trying to be an Iomedan and is not going to laugh, damn it.

They almost banned the gladiatorial games by accident? Good thing they caught that, that would have sucked.

Oh, are they supposed to be shouting "lions" now? She doesn't really understand why they're shouting "lions" but she can follow instructions. 

"LIONS!" Oh no, what if that was too quiet and now she's in trouble.

Honestly it's a good amendment. Does torture deter criminals? Who knows! Does a better thing to do with their time, like watching the games, deter criminals? Absolutely! She'll applaud. Yelling 'lions' isn't dignified.

...Look, Victòria agrees that the list of "Arodenite" punishments is missing a bunch of important punishments, but gladiatorial games aren't one of them! If you punish people by throwing them to the lions you're just saying that anyone strong enough to fight a lion can hurt people as much as they want! Unless you just punish them properly even if they survive, in that case it's fine, but she really doesn't want to count on that! 

Maybe she can try to explain that in her speech, once she finishes explaining why you need to be able to punish people as much as they actually deserve.

"LIONS!" Ysabet has never seen a lion, but that's not the point!

If he had not heard it claimed that Mephistopheles currently ruled Razmiran, and that he should therefore be more proactive about advocating for things he supported, would he be getting up right now to attempt to explain that feeding people to lions is generally still torture and generally still Evil? ...Probably not. He didn't speak yesterday, even on issues of fairly significant importance.

... Lions?? Really?

C'mon guys, wolves are much more easily sustainable in this climate, are you planning to keep your lions in little tiny pens and only feed them with people? What a terrible way to treat lions. Wolves can be allowed to roam free in the woods of Cheliax, and come back around at appointed times to devour whomever the populace wishes. Much better lives, much less logistical trouble.

They're supposed to try to save criminals from Hell, right? Well, people like watching gladiatorial games, so probably it's Good for criminals to participate in gladiatorial games, so maybe they'll be less likely to go to Hell. Therefore voting for lions is the right thing to do.

Obviously the original proposal didn't ban the gladiatorial games, but if that needs to be clarified explicitly, then fine.

Getting mauled by large predators sucks even if you're heavily armored and the family cleric is on hand!  Can we please not actively try to make that happen more?

"Your amendment is heard," Jonatan says. "With that being said, I would not wish to confuse the issue of restoring the Arodenite punishments with the issue of the gladiatorial games. I propose, therefore, that we first vote on whether to restore the Arodenite punishments — and thereby no longer wholly prohibit torture — and then, if that proposal passes, additionally vote on the question of adding the gladiatorial games to the list of approved punishments."

There, that should get all the peasants who just want to watch people be eaten by lions to vote for the actually necessary part of the law, and then the sort of people with any business actually making law can vote down the proposal to wantonly throw convicts to the lions.

"Boooooo!!! Add the lions or we'll vote down the bill!" He doesn't even care that much but the man clearly thinks they're all idiots and contemptible so now he wants to screw him over.

"As a point of order, amendments have usually been voted on before the bill, so that the version the convention votes on is the one we mean to put into effect."

Message to Jonatan: Your excellency, accepting the idiotic amendment doesn't require any officials to ever apply the punishment, and wins the bill votes.

For the love of Aroden. Is the Archduchess interested in making her love for procedural nonsense useful to achieve their shared interest here — apparently not, she's in line but she hasn't said anything — no, that's not entirely fair, she could simply not have thought of anything to say. She was the person who introduced the idea that amendments needed to be voted on before the bill.

"My apologies, as a matter of procedure you are correct," he says, after a regrettably conspicuous pause. "When voting opens, we will vote first on whether to add the gladiatorial games to the list of punishments permitted by the proposed law, and then on the law itself."

The amendment should, at least, only pass if Montcada is correct.

A Mislead would do it. You could get up there and just talk about how sometimes for stress relief you and Aspexia Rugatonn would disembowel people just like this bill proposes and that'd probably kill it and I'd be sitting here the whole time.

Elie'd be furious with me. Why are you this worked up about this. It doesn't matter.