"Well, it's not-- instead of having kids reason things out and figure out what's happening based on evidence we protect their childhood innocence and faith which is all just a nice word for adults lying to you because they think it's cute when you're wrong. And then you get bribed with presents for believing things that as far as you can tell aren't true, and--"

"....did he really have the policy that you stop giving presents when the kid stops believing -- yeah the timing matches up, he totally did, I shouldn't be surprised but I still am somehow -- sorry, you did not sign up for 'man who thought he had thrown away all faith loses additional bit of faith he didn't even know he still had,' you're right that this is lying to everybody." 

That is a Face. It is a face of someone who just got stabbed in the heart with something.

"We should probably try to figure out how to roll out the existence of magic in the least disruptive way possible. We'll also have to do diplomacy with the other fairytale beings. --Oh, by the way, I'm your personal assistant, that's my job, in case you're wondering how exactly I fit into this whole business. I interface between you and the elfin government."

Maybe I want to be disruptive actually, Mordred does not say, because Lev is almost certainly right. 

"What other fairytale beings, is the Great Pumpkin also real?" 

This is a much better topic.

"No, but Jack O'Lantern is."

"...nice."

Mordred is going to have an existential crisis and a half probably when he tries to sleep but for now he just appreciates the existence of a Halloween spirit. It is nice to feel uncomplicatedly positive about something. 

"Are you going to need anything as regards your servants? Your house has a kitchen stocked with your favorite foods already but I don't know what your preference is about the cook, or cleaning schedules-- I guess you'll probably want to pick out your own bedwarmer but that's not, like, urgent--"

"-- if I am supposed to have a bedwarmer I am going to -- okay realistically what I am going to do is bite myself and scream but that's not very dramatic as an expression of how much I disapprove of that idea. I can cook for myself and pick up my own house." 

"I mean you're not supposed to do anything, it's just. Most Santas want one?"

"Well I don't." 

"Okay! Okay. No bedwarmer."

"-- sorry. Not your fault." 

"It's... fine? Our job is to make sure you're happy so you can be Santa."

'That doesn't make it okay for me to take out being mad at everyone else who has ever held my job on you,' Mordred does not say, because he does not trust himself not to just make things worse, because he is a dumbass with maybe two thirds of a social skill. 

"I should probably get this over with since I keep being surprised by things, can you just. List off all the things the previous Santa did that sucked." 

"It... would not occur to me to put 'bedwarmers' as a thing that sucked."

"...that is very fair. I still want to know about the things you thought sucked just on the basis that it's probably a faster way to fix the things that urgently need fixing than going through the whole list of every policy that exists?" 

"We only give presents to nice children and not naughty children. 'Niceness' is defined in a way that makes it harder for kids who are abused or poor or have ADHD or autism to be nice. Obeying your parents is nice even if they suck. No presents for kids who don't believe in Santa Claus. Worse presents for poor kids than for rich kids."

"...sounds about typical."

If this were about anything more important than Christmas presents he'd probably be pissed off. As it is he's mostly just really tired.

"I think we should give better presents to poor kids than to rich ones and give presents to all children everywhere. We should also stop tracking naughtiness versus niceness and use the elfpower that frees up to give more generous presents and to work on solutions to common but difficult requests."

"How much ability do we have to fix things other than 'the wrong people get nice Christmas presents'." 

"We can fix anything you can fix by either giving children appropriate presents in December or nudge-based mind control."

"So can I give someone the gift of basic bodily autonomy."

"Depending... on what you mean by that? We can only give people presents that are concrete physical items already invented by humans. The Spirit of Christmas-- uh, Human Rights Day, I guess-- can do more but, well, the last Spirit of Christmas was about enjoying spending time with your family and you see how well that went."

"Yeah. I do."

"But we can give kids vaccines and medicine and vitamins and food if there's a famine-- if we stretch the definition of "child" a bit we can get birth control to all teenagers and maybe to their adults, if the kids feel strongly about their parents not having more kids--"