>>6135707>ELECTIONSa return to a system of sortition is needed, when making a sacrificial offering to the dragon
ELSPETH
My father is a wonderful man, a wise man.
The lottery was his idea (...)
You don't understand.
From the moment it began, the dragon was tame.
The kingdom prospered.
GALEN
And only a few had to be sacrificed.
ELSPETH
Yes, that's true.
Isn't it better that a few should die
that many might live?
GALEN
Depends on who does the dying.
ELSPETH
Oh, but we all take our chances.
My father is a just man.
My name is entered on the lists,
along with every other young --
GALEN
Virgin?
ELSPETH
Maiden.
GALEN
If you say so.
ELSPETH
What do you mean? (...)
GALEN
I'm sorry. I heard a rumor.
Families with money, that sort of thing.
ELSPETH
Don't listen to rumors. They're lies.
I have to go now.
(...)
CROWD
The name! The name!
(...)
KING
That's not the name. It's been
misread.
The King moils through the tiles, finding his daughter's name again and again.
KING
The lottery is invalid.
Another and another. What treachery is this?
ELSPETH
Hear me, good people! It is true,
that my name appears on many of the lots.
This does not falsify the drawing, it certifies it!
I have learned that my name has been kept from jeopardy
in all the drawings in the past.
So I have put my name among the rest many times --
once for each risk that, over the years,
you took and I did not.
