"Try again," said Ailee, "but arguing against my actual position this time. I didn't say that there should be no laws or enforcement. Like you illustrated, having laws is in the interest of the community because otherwise it's just strongmen. But say the Duke d'Nauvair starts that civil war at last and overthrows the King of Grand Jelt. From what Lucien says that might already be happening. He'll have proved himself through politics and warfare an exceptional individual - or at the minimum the most competent of the closed circle of land owning magnates who have a voice in the political system. The laws by definition won't apply to him, what with him being the king and head of a massive army. And yet his reign would immediately be constrained by laws he had nothing to do with! Laws that weren't far-sighted checks and balances placed upon an incoming magnate by a visionary founder-figure, but shit like 'the clerical estate has a veto over legislation' and 'thou shalt not regulate intercolonial tariffs'."

She leans down through the railing, stretching out her hand - and the gleaming magical talons that extended from it - and ran them through the sand as it raced by. She withdrew a handful of silver sand and looked at it thoughtfully.

"I mean, what's the point of having that civil war in the first place if the new king is exactly identical to the last king? Why are the laws vested with any sort of moral authority if they can't even perform their basic function of stopping a usurper? When an individual so exceptional they can single-handedly overthrow society arises, why would anyone hold to old, failed laws and traditions as inherently moral? Why not totally remake society in that instance?"

She's watching the sand fade through her fingers. 

She's worried.

She's not arguing this in the abstract. She's arguing this while she's thinking of her family at home, trapped in a nation on the verge of civil war.