"That's the stupidest thing I've ever heard."

...

"What could posses you to say such a thing?"

"...It's obviously true? There's hungry children on the streets of Haven!"

"There's hungry children everywhere. Most places have more hungry children than Haven. Karse has more hungry children. Hardon has a lot more hungry children. Rethwellan has slightly more hungry children. The Tayledras don't have hungry children in the vales, but their protectorates certainly do.  Maybe Iftel doesn't have hungry children but notice the giant god barrier around the entire country.

"Actually, I'm noticing that the number of hungry children is a lot smaller the more divine intervention you see."

"Karse is a theocracy. They're not doing so hot."

"Karse hasn't had a suncat show up in living memory. They might talk a lot about Vkandis, but Vkandis doesn't favor them and I don't blame him."

"What do you even expect the gods to do? They're not omniscient or omnipotent. I don't expect making people glow or making a statue move is going to feed a lot of children."

"They can make crops grow. They might not be limitless, but it's not as if they can do nothing.

"More importantly, they're holding back civilization. No one has advanced back to where we were before the Mage Wars."

"...You mean when Ma'ar caused the Cataclysm and nearly destroyed the world? I think I can give the gods a pass on holding us back a little given that."

Victors history. It was Urtho's fault.

"I wouldn't be surprised if the gods manipulated Urtho to stop Ma'ar. They opposed him from the beginning."

"Urtho getting tricked into causing the Cataclysm isn't any more reassuring! What, he just had a doomsday weapon laying around they could trick him into using?"

"He likely had several but that's not really the point..."

"I'm sorry, but several world ending doomsday weapons is kinda enough to justify a lot!"

"That's really not the point. The gods opposed Ma'ar well before that! They did everything they could to stop him!"

"Which apparently they could not do except by tricking Urtho into the Cataclysm."

"Even if we accept all that there's plenty of alternate possibilities than the gods being evil. The historians all think Ma'ar caused the cataclysm.  They could have been trying to stop that and failed. Foresight is a thing that exists and that the gods have access to, so that applies if it was Urtho too. Maybe there was a good reason for them to oppose Ma'ar. History doesn't remember him fondly. Even if the gods did cause the cataclysm, it's possible that the alternative was worse."

"I can't imagine anything that could possibly justify the cataclysm!"

"I can. He was trying to rule the world and live forever. An immortal tyrant is pretty bad! And his makaar weren't even slightly people. I can imagine a thrall rebellion wiping out all the people, for example."

"Impossible. Ma'ar controlled the makaar reproduction."

"Urtho did the same to the gryphons, but they're still around. Sometimes life finds a way."

"Ma'ar wouldn't have endangered the world that way. Even if he did! There's plenty of improvements that aren't possibly world ending that people could have! Things could be better without those meddling gods."

"It's not like civilization isn't advancing. The palace artificers put in a copper water heating contraption just recently. I don't imagine that's going to end the world."

"Listen, the core claim is that children are hungry because the gods are holding civilization back. Maybe there's some form of civilization that's even better than feudalism at making things better and doesn't need a magic sword or a magic horse or a magic cat to choose good leaders. If so, Velgarth has never seen it. The mage warlords were all tyrants. The Eastern Empire is a tyranny. The barbarians to the north are wolves on two legs. The Tayledras might not call themselves feudal lords but they are in all but name. The Shin'a'in might be the only non feudal society worth living in, but it's not like they have less divine intervention on the Dhorisha Plains."

"There's tension in this entire thing. The gods can feed all the hungry littles, but they can't defeat Ma'ar. Civilization is stagnant but advancing. Urtho did the cataclysm, or the gods did. The gods are holding us back, but the places the gods act the most and the most obviously are the nicest. It doesn't hold together."

"I've tried everything, Vanyel. The gods oppose me even now. What other explanation could there be?"