—There's what helmets? Normally she's annoyed when he makes good points but right now she's distracted trying to figure out what that even is, is that — does that flip you around like Zon-Kuthon, that sounds awful—

Just because the convention isn’t primarily a loyalty test doesn’t mean he should waste such a good opportunity to show loyalty to the crown.  He joins in the clapping enthusiastically.

If the nobility in fact leave because they're being treated unconscionably the country will more or less collapse - the reason the Queen brought them back was because she did not, actually, have any better way to keep the country free of monsters, and there are not hundreds of eager would-be royal appointees waiting in the wings, or indeed any of them - but naturally Ibarra doesn't care about whether the country actually survives.

Jonatan is really spending an awfully large amount of time questioning the decision to allow Norgorber cultists a role in the government.

She really does hate it when he’s the one that makes good points.

Every court needs a jester. This one enjoys skewering Jilia's enemies so she's in favor of it being him, really.

Also, have you seen real Norgorber cultists? She'd put Ibarra in charge of Vyre if she thought he could make it stick, he's a headache but they're so much worse.

As far as he can determine being a count is a thankless, not particularly well-paying job which they are having a great deal of difficulty staffing that most of the people in this room took because it is compensated in being high-status. It seems like a serious mistake to propose lowering compensation for a job they are having trouble hiring for.

And yet nobody offered a county to Alexandre! How strange of them.

It's because he's a terrible person.

...okay we're being a tiny bit hypocritical, there.

You're not the duchess, I'm the duchess. I would object to you being a duchess. Because you're a terrible person.

You know what this seems like a good moment for?

"I would like to introduce a motion banning the worship of Norgorber. The motion would be simple and as follows: the worship of Norgorber is hereby prohibited throughout Cheliax. The default penalty is exile from Cheliax."

"You need to put it through a committee!"

"You are mistaken, Norgorber cultist! We agreed that to be binding, a resolution must go through committee. But then Her Majesty clarified that no laws we pass are binding, but are merely recommendations to her; therefore, they need not go through committee."

He laughs.

....are you really going to cede "the queen shouldn't consider anything we pass a serious request for a law" in order to non-bindingly burn Ibarra?

Ooh, he didn't even think of that! Time to get in line.

"I had hoped the matter settled for now, but if Delegate Ibarra insists on sowing confusion then I must respond.

As befits someone so morally bankrupt, Delegate Ibarra asks you to only consider questions of might. Could the Queen strike any of us down? I do not doubt it. But only Gorum and Norgorber would see that as the final word on the matter. In the eyes of the good gods and men, what matters is why someone takes an action as well as what action they take. If the Queen arbitrarily strips titles from their holders, it would be tyranny, plain and simple. These are not temporary appointments; they are a sacred bond between lands and families. To rule, a man must set aside the life he would otherwise live and give himself over to the realm, and bind his children likewise. He must stand in defense of the land and its peoples; he must shepherd their development; he must be a virtuous example to all who observe him. It is as deep and permanent a bond as parenthood.

The president of this convention--far superior to Delegate Ibarra in every respect--asked you at the opening of this convention to consider questions of freedom, dignity, and happiness, not just for yourselves, but also for your children, and your children's children; your whole line. Freedom rests on predictable consequences, on clear law and upheld agreements. Dignity rests on legitimacy and propriety. Happiness rests on peace and security. Ibarra instead proposes anarchy, pride, and arbitrary rule backed by arcane enchantments instead of the justified love of a free people for their rightful and responsible sovereign.

I remind you that the Queen conquered Cheliax not just to restore herself to her rightful throne, but to liberate all of you from tyranny. She called this convention as a demonstration of just how far the modern Cheliax is from Infernal Cheliax; she neither wants nor expects slavish obedience from us. On the opening of this convention, she asked you to balance liberty with justice with security with compassion. It does not increase the freedom of a realm for it to be devoured by monsters; it does not increase the justice of a realm to promise something and then change one's mind; it does not encourage security to replace protectors with clearly delineated realms and responsibilities with roving bands of monster-hunters, and it is not compassionate to cast out those with experience of realms not tortured by Hell.

Thankfully, the ancients have given us a tradition that better balances those four concerns: hereditary nobility is the stablest form of human government yet found. Predictability and immutability of inheritance allows for investment in future rulers instead of competition between them. Stability of rule encourages investment for the future and repays investments made in the past. Nobles tied to realms are encouraged to deep familiarity with them, their people, and their woes, not the transient relationships and contracts of a teleport wizard. A Galtan administrator can paper over problems and hope to be promoted away from them, but a landed noble cannot leave them to fester, as on the morrow it will still be their problem or their son's problem. For proper nobility, when their people suffer, they suffer; when their people prosper, they prosper. What better inducement to compassion could there be?

Let other countries experiment, and let us see the results of their experiments in forty years when we meet again. But make no mistake, Cheliax needs the nobility it has now, and suffers from having too few, not too many. The riots drove away the Lord Mayor of Westcrown, a transplant without blood ties to Cheliax; where is the royal appointment to do the duties Her Majesty wishes done? The Queen and her companions did not resurrect and restore so many nobility on a whim, but rather because it was both the right thing to do and we are sorely needed. Those immigrants who have come to participate in our great work should be applauded and appreciated, and it is an insult to suggest they are easily replaced, rather than making a sacrifice for the good of Cheliax.

And neither were we all as helpless as Delegate Ibarra suggests. I fought the Thrunes in Galt; I fought the Thrunes in Andoran; I was sharpening my skills and forces at the Worldwound to be ready to fight the Thrunes in the Heartlands, when the time came. I am eternally grateful to the Queen and President for bringing down the Thrunes, and for clearing the pretender from my seat, but I have worn the ducal coronet of Fraga ever since the death of my father, not simply for the last year and a half. I was recognized, not appointed, and that means something. I spent decades saving, training, and planning, hoping that I would be the one to help Cheliax rebuild itself, to overcome and surpass its past. I spent the last decade preparing my son to take up that obligation if I died first. And I hear that the nobility are obsolete? What ignorance and ingratitude."

Didn't the Queen already arbitrarily strip a bunch of people's titles? Or does it not count as doing that if she killed most of them?

It’s a nice speech with some nice arguments, Fernando even agrees with most of it.  But he can’t help but sarcastically and bitterly note that it just so happens that the best form of government happens to be one the that puts the Duke in a position of power and privilege.

Also Fernando is pretty sure that Absalom has existed for like, millennia, and isn’t governed primarily by nobility, so the Duke’s point about stability isn’t even factually correct.

But… this entire argument is kind of moot.  When Valia brought up the idea of ridding the country of nobility (and not even all nobility, just evil nobility) the Archmage shut the idea down… and Valia was de facto exiled for the actions of a bunch of unrelated riots.  And in between the Counts and above directly given delegate seats, Barons and such that won elections (in hindsight Fernando can admit he had some luck to getting elected), and bribed or otherwise influenced sortition delegates, nobility of some form controls over half the vote.

The King-In-Irons strides to the podium. As he does, he pulls a large, heavy volume out of a beltpurse that doesn't look large enough to hold it and lays it flat on the podium with a crack. 

"Ignorance and ingratitude." He tastes the words, flipping the book open and letting its pages rustle in the air as he flips it over. "Very true. You are an ignorant man, Your Grace, and an ungrateful one. I am pleased to hear that you agree. I am most grateful to Her Majesty, of course, but I am also grateful to Iomedae, the goddess who sponsored her, and well aware of what she has to say on this topic - for you have made so many claims that I could hardly refuse them all if I spent the entire day at it, in spite of my own learning.

"So I'll have to let the goddess do that for me."

And then he speaks. He doesn't need the book - this is poetry, easier to memorize than any of the many complex texts Chelish schoolboys are meant to devour and regurgitate and forget at their masters' command, and the thundering syllables of the Acts ring out, rhyme and meter and alliteration filling the chamber as the words of the long-dead paladin take from, and the goddess speaks through Alexandre - 

"- Or, for those who have trouble with Menadorian-Opparan Taldane and would prefer it in plain Chelish Avistani, 'If Lastwall succeeds and my country thrives, there are people who will say that I only pulled off building a system that isn't aristocratic because I'm a god, but they're wrong and un-Arodenite to boot,'" (he pulls out another thick book), "'because anyone could do what I did if they really tried and if we just keep using systems like hereditary noble rule instead rule of the best because our grandfathers did them, we're dooming ourselves to never improve and betraying Aroden's instructions to build Axis on Golarion.' Now, then, was His Grace an open denier of Iomedae, or just ignorant of the words she wrote?"

With a thump, the second book lands on the podium and he whips through the pages. Now he's reading in old Azlanti-Taldane, and it is a god whose words ring out. "- And to translate, that is Aroden saying just about the same thing that Iomedae said on the topic of Absalom. Except without the appeal to him, since he was just an archmage at the time."

"I could start pasting the Placards of Wisdom on the walls -" the packet of thin slips lands on the table with the two great tomes "- but I don't think I need to to claim that every human-ascended god is with me. So, Your Grace. Aroden built a thriving state that can outfight and has outfought the greatest empires and archmages. Iomedae built a thriving state that is keeping Tar-Baphon sealed, beating the orcs of Belkzen, holding the southern Worldwound and sending the Glorious Reclamation as an army to save Cheliax. Neither of these faces the persistent civil wars that remind us why Taldane politics is considered such a thriving model of virtue and decorum the world over."

"The nobility is obsolete."

She's so tired of him making good points, even if he's just copying them from Iomedae. 

The part with complicated foreign poetry was pretty boring but the part where he insulted the fancy duke was really funny! Clap clap clap!

He's not about to rush a proposal to exile Norgorber cultists when he just spoke with the Lord Marshal about the risks of moving hastily with regards to outlawing the worship of Evil powers, but he won't pretend that it isn't tempting.

He's already stepped back from the podium, but maybe Ibarra essentially calling for the abolishment of the nobility will make it easier to persuade the Duke of Fraga and his associates to support his next draft. No one wants that.