"Can you think of a yes-or-no question you could ask which doesn't sound lawyery. ...or confrontational."

"...It depends on what I'm asking about? I've lost track of all the things we were talking about.

......and it kind of sounds to me like you think I know more things than I do? I don't know how to explain it properly, but — I think there's a lot of things where just asking one yes-or-no question will take less time than asking one normal question, but it won't actually make me less confused. Which is fine if it's something that's not really important, but bad if it's something that is important, and I don't always know how to tell whether or not something is important. ...I can give examples if it would be helpful. Do you, uh, want me to do that?" There, that's a yes-or-no question.

Approving nod. "- maybe start with one example."

"So, before I got to the Convention, I had never heard of the idea of it being bad for people who've done really bad things to go to Hell. And then on the second day of Rights we were talking about whether people should have a right to the Final Blade, and I was really confused about why the other people on the committee wanted it, and if I'd just said 'it sounds like you're saying we should Final Blade people even if they've done things that are really awful, is that right' it definitely wouldn't have helped at all, and even if I'd gotten far enough to realize that they wanted it as a right to keep people out of Hell I don't really think it would've made me less confused to say 'it sounds like you're saying it's bad for people to go to Hell even if they're really terrible, is that what you're saying?' so instead I'd've just kept being confused and upset. —I'm not confused anymore, they and Alicia and the azata explained it to me."

"What exactly would have been the problem if you'd said 'it sounds like you're saying it's bad for people to go to Hell even if they're really terrible' and gotten a 'yes', I'm not sure I see what the issue with that is."

"...I'd have assumed their reasons were stupid or Evil or both? And so I wouldn't have figured out that actually there are good reasons not to want really bad people to go to Hell, and I'd have had worse ideas in committee and worse votes on the floor, and when Feliu had explained why we can't just stop having nobles even if some of them really suck it wouldn't have made sense at all."

"Okay, so... the thing I most want to work on here is the thing where you would assume their reasons were stupid, Evil, or both, unless they chose to spend their time on the spot accounting for themselves and their motives to you. Sometimes people are stupid, Evil, or both. But - you keep being surprised, and so I think you should have fewer expectations to surprise."

"...it sounds to me like you're saying that if someone says something that sounds obviously Evil I should assume that they secretly have a good reason that I don't know about. Do you... normally... assume that people saying things that sound obviously Evil secretly have a good reason?"

"I assume they might. They often do. It's... actually exactly how most of what I've heard of Calistrian theology sounds to me, obviously Evil but with secret good reasons that may or may not make up for the obvious Evil but sometimes can."

Victòria looks really unimpressed with this claim. "...well, I don't think it's Evil to be a Calistrian, obviously. But I also don't see how I'm supposed to find out about people's secret good reasons without asking what their reasons are, even if they do have them?

And there's also — I'm not sure how to explain this well — if I just say 'I was raised Asmodean' is that a good enough explanation or should I try again?"

"Some Calistrians aren't Evil. I served with a Chaotic Good one briefly at the Worldwound. You won't usually be able to find out about people's secret good reasons without asking but you understanding everything is usually only worth a limited amount of people's time, and in particular a limited amount of committee time, let alone floor time, and often the right reaction to being confused is to note the confusion, act conservatively for the short term - if I were as confused as you often seem I would abstain from a lot of votes and belong to fewer committees - and follow up on it later, or bear it in mind to see if other information comes to light that makes it make sense. This is also what I would do if I found myself for some reason in possession of a convention seat while unable to speak fluent Chelish, or unable to stay awake for the entire session, or suffering from a curse that left me with frequent memory lapses. - well, in that event I might better give the seat to another Iomedaean, but presuming this to be impossible.

"I'm aware that you were raised Asmodean but I'm not sure what thing you are trying to explain by referring to it."

".....it sounds to me like you're saying that anyone who didn't somehow magically learn every single thing the Asmodeans were lying about should just act like their contributions are totally worthless. Which, I mean, maybe you think all the laws should be made by a bunch of foreign priests of Iomedae with no idea what it's actually like to live here, who act shocked every time people mention bad things that anyone who grew up here already knows about — is that, uh, what you're saying—"

"...no. I don't actually think the convention's a particularly good idea but if it's going to happen at all it will need to have born-and-raised Chelish people in it. But there are hundreds of people in the convention and if even half of the delegates spent just ten minutes of one randomly selected committee's time per day, each, on their catechism and their personal misunderstandings and their recriminations and so on, then every committee would run over time and have no other content in it at all. Working in groups requires scaling back one's own demands for time and attention accordingly. If you are ill-suited to work in groups you should work in fewer of them."

"I'm fine with asking fewer questions, or different questions, or writing down my questions to ask later, so that I take up less time in committee with questions. But that's not what you said, you said I should act like — someone who was cursed not to be able to remember things—"

It's not like all she's been doing is asking questions, anyway, she's been doing important work. Maybe it's not the sort of work Delegate Jornet cares about, maybe Delegate Jornet would be find if — the Rights committee had never voted that people have a right not to be raped, or no one on Family was willing to point out that some men beat their wives unconscious, or the publishing law had accidentally banned petitioning the Queen, or any of the other things she's trying to get through never happen — but Victòria cares about it.

"I did not say that." Ironically. "I said that if I had a problem which led to me being confused as frequently as you are, and I gave several examples of which that was one, then I would avoid committee memberships and abstain from votes if I could not give over my seat altogether. That may not be a good way for you to approach the situation, I don't know if you could give up your seat even if you wanted to and it might be that the committees you've happened to join would be without an essential vote or voice if you were to leave suddenly; but I think spending much of most committee meetings in which you are a participant talking about... your opinions on Delegate Ibarra, for example... is a poor way to spend people's time."

"...I don't mostly talk about Delegate Ibarra on committee? I think I've brought him up a couple times as... an example that had to do with the thing that the committee was already talking about? And obviously the Diabolism Committee talked about him when we found out he was secretly Evil and hiding it with magic."

"I said 'for example'. It was also not a good use of committee time to - again, for example - swear to wear shoes in the winter, and separately I think it would have been alarming if anyone expected you to treat oaths seriously, though I credit that you noticed that particular digression yourself at the time."

...Okay, that one is actually fair, she could have just not said that during committee. "I can try to say fewer things like that, that's not an issue."

"I'm gratified to hear it.

"But since right now it's just the two of us and I've blocked out this time I do want to try to actually resolve some of your confusions; which do you think are - most pervasive or most urgent or otherwise top-of-mind?"

"...What does it mean that Iomedae is the goddess of tradeoffs? I'd never heard that before, uh, a couple minutes ago."

"That - actually ties back into the thing you thought was about gods spending money. They don't; but 'spend' is a general term, you can also spend time or other resources. No god has unlimited resources. I'm not sure how most of them decide what to use theirs on. Iomedae buys the most Good She can. Sort of like if you went to the market with a few coppers and wanted the most potatoes you could possibly buy, you could wind up with a bagful of potatoes that were especially cheap for some reason - maybe they're bruised, or each very small and more peel than potato, or they're half sprouted, or they're a kind of potato nobody likes, or the seller's going out of business because he's so unpleasant to deal with that no one else will shop at his stall and he needs to sell everything today. As long as they're still potatoes - as long as the Good is still Good - then getting it cheap is best, and Iomedae is interested in that kind of tradeoff. Usually whatever Good is cheapest is going to be cheap for a reason, and when we're talking moral philosophy and not potatoes those reasons can be hard to navigate well."

That... doesn't really seem like it makes a lot of sense? Like, there's lots of different kinds of Good, it doesn't seem like there's any way to find the absolute cheapest kind, or to say that one way of doing Good is necessarily always better than each other — or, maybe you could occasionally, like how she's focusing on avenging wrongs by people who are still doing Evil, but not most of the time. But that's — different, anyways — and really it seems like the most important thing is that you're doing something Good, not that you've picked out Iomedae's favorite type of Good. 

"Can you, uh, give me an example? Like, a real example, not a potatoes example."

"Do you want me to think of a situation I have faced in real life, or just a situation that could occur and features lives instead of potatoes?"

"It doesn't have to be from your life specifically, just... there's lots of different Good things? And I don't really see how you could decide which one is cheapest, if they're really different sorts of things."

"Iomedaeans are actually also unusually willing to - insist on and use numbers for - comparing the same type of Good. If there's two options for... stopping a monster that is eating people... and one would be slightly likelier to work, but also a little slower, so some people will certainly be eaten while you're setting it up, it matters how much slower and how much likelier. But also, hm...

"Peace is Good, because war is a terrible Evil. The best possible war conducted in the best possible way by the best possible people is still awful. Lastwall has a perpetual war on the front with Belkzen, because it's full of barbarian orc tribes that have no means of support that doesn't bottom out in raiding. Iomedae could have in her day conquered Belkzen, and then they wouldn't have that problem. They'd have a larger wealthier Lastwall and peace where now they have endless self-defense.

"It just would have required... killing a lot of innocent people... because a lot of orcs, possibly most orcs at any given time, are children."

"So she didn't do it."