dvx versus discord-dave

Duchess Alice

dvx

19

Count Robert

discord-dave

22

The Jean Valjean Problem

A peasant caught stealing bread pleads for mercy while a merchant demands punishment. Duchess Alice defends compassion; Count Robert upholds order.

  1. The King Let us begin. Duchess Alice, what say you?

  2. Duchess Alice Politics — Commination of Zealots. The king’s father was known for mercy and is still widely beloved.

  3. The King Duchess Alice, you speak for mercy. Make your case—but tell me why mercy here does not invite a hundred more such thefts by week's end.

  4. Count Robert your highness, i would argue that punishment is the right side of the sword. not punitive, not evil, but grounded in truth and in honor. my opponent brings up mercy, and your father was indeed beloved, but let's not forget he was also an honorable man and a man that he himself ratified our current laws: laws that were meant to protect people like the very merchant this peasant stole form.

  5. The King You invoke my father shrewdly, Robert. He ratified laws, yes—but he also possessed the wisdom to know when a law served the realm and when it merely served itself. So tell me: if we imprison this man, his wife dies of illness untended and his children starve outright. Does that outcome honor the law my father built, or does it leave us with a righteous law and a corpse-strewn conscience?