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Honorverse ramblings and musings

Join us in talking discussing all things Honor, including (but not limited to) tactics, favorite characters, and book discussions.
Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Tue Oct 20, 2020 1:10 am

cthia
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RESTART

Let's stop the sniping and let the fun begin anew. I promised to restart this thread on Valentine's Day. There is still lots of interest, if the views were any meter stick. It garnered over 40,000 views in less than three days on a false restart. (My apologies, I got busy and didn't have the time this thread requires.) Especially when you are a lone wolf in the forum pointing out the unfairness of this can-o-worms to Burdette.

But more importantly, the "disgrace" to the teachings of any God.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Tue Oct 20, 2020 1:41 am

cthia
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cthia wrote:Is Nimitz still aware of Honor while he is sleeping? I know not when he is drugged, or Nimitz would have sensed Honor's trouble in the shower with Young. The author saw that problem ahead of time and had Young poison Nimitz. Yet he didn't see that he needed some sort of similar measure when Honor fought Burdette.
ThinksMarkedly wrote:Huh? First, Nimitz is perfectly capable of not acting when told to stay. He can also be left at a distance, like she did when duelling with pistols. If Nimitz was going to intervene, he'd have done much sooner. Remember, for treecats, there are only two types of enemies: those that are dead and those that still need to be dealt with. They don't understand leaving enemies alive or ritual duels. Or Dr. Evil's unnecessarily slow-moving dipping mechanism (treecats would have acted like Dr. Evil's son and grabber a gun).

Second, what danger was Honor in? She was in no physical or emotional distress. She was actually perfectly self-centred. She probably drew from Nimitz to achieve this state. So this is not the same situation as Young's rape attempt. Meanwhile, Burdette was feeling smug and self-congratulatory, so not the same thing as the assassins during the Maccabeus Plot.

If Burdette had killed Honor, that's a different story. But he didn't.

Nimitz is not a child. And he isn't a pet that you can tell to stay. In every other situation, the duels, it was a formal confrontation sanctioned and presided over by humans. Both Honor and her opponent had a fair chance to win.

In the attempted rape, Honor was blindsided and naked. And there was no way of knowing whether Young had a weapon. But you mustn't forget that Nimitz' life is tied to Honor's. You can't expect any lifeform not to fight for its own life in that situation. Not even a dog can be asked to "stay" in that situation. Perhaps you'll have to rap a dog on its snout later for disobeying, but not before he bites your attacker in the ass.

When attacking Honor, you are also attacking Nimitz. When threatening Honor's life, you are also threatening Nimitz'. If you are an enemy of Honor's, you are also an enemy of Nimitz. Must I remind you about treecats and their enemies?

A sanctioned duel and Nimitz will stay put. A mugging in an alley and you're going to get scalped. Why do you think Honor chose to leave Nimitz in his quarters on occasions when she met with Young? You can only ask so much of Nimitz. He's being disrespected too.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Tue Oct 20, 2020 2:06 am

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cthia wrote:"What is the measure of a treecat's sense of rape?"


The Measure of Rape

You know, in considering the analytical depth of Nimitz' thoughts, if he did have a notion of rape then how must he have felt as the "man" in the relationship? A thought that comes to mind when I project the human nature of human foibles onto a cat.

How would you feel if someone tried to rape your girl? God forbid he succeed. No, Honor and Nimitz weren't lovers. They were love-ers—the real thing, which had to be much worse for Nimitz. An order of magnitude worse than what it would be like for you or me had our mate been raped. Although what we ourselves may feel in this circumstance would certainly be devastating, factor in the fact that Nimitz had to sit on his anger and ride it out against opening the flue. He couldn't exact the primal penalty of treecat justice. Treecats aren't exactly accustomed to having their enemies quartered and vulnerable and failing to quicken the kill. How does a treecat stifle the most raw and primal emotion? After the incident, Nimitz must have wanted to rip Pavel's throat out.

The more I consider it, the more I understand my niece's sentiments. Nimitz should have received therapy, at least some appropriate counsel. Someone should at least talk to him about it. (None of you have benefit of the overpowering concern that I witnessed in my niece's eyes and body language when she first told me that. The thought really affected her. And me too.

Never have I failed to understand how a man could feel impotent when his girl, wife, lover, sister is raped. He couldn't protect her from one of the worst acts that could be committed against her. It is whatever psychological guilt feelings a MAN would feel from a perceived failure to protect. It has been and remains an oftentimes insurmountable post-rape marital problem. Rape, also oftentimes, destroys something intangible and emotionally unrecoverable in the victim and the partner.

Nimitz likewise, couldn't protect his mate, Honor. Which you and I both know he had long since pledged to do. That pledge was made as long ago as that trip back to Nimitz' Sphinxian brush.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Tue Oct 20, 2020 2:08 am

cthia
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The Trinity
by cthia


For a blue-ribbon of an understatement, there are some very interesting psychological undertones regarding this particular trinity. The entire relationship is one for Freud and the more modern psychologists to bask in and kill each other over.

I'm always talking about the human element. And I know it probably wears many of you thin. Does me too. Yet it is always there, smiling.

The problem is that truthfully, if we are honest with ourselves, Honor couldn't handle Young. She couldn't. He was, and is, the only one in the Honorverse who ever got the best of her (Tourville notwithstanding). And he did it constantly. Honor didn't win a single engagement with Young before she finally killed him in-between beating his ass. But even in that, she lost. Lost because Young forced that ugly side out of her and lost because she couldn't and wouldn't bring herself to turn him in and see real justice done. But from that point on, Young owned her, in Honor's mind.

Now, to be accurate, she got the best of him in the way she played her cards in the Basilisk System when he tried to set her up but that was at a less than perfect remove, a dish NOT served cold.

Strategically, she didn't know how to deal with him. He wasn't a Peep enemy in an inferior ship. Every confrontation she had with him Honor ended up tucking her tail between her legs and walking away. She had to. He embarrassed, taunted, disrespected, humiliated and every other thing he could think of to do to her. Her achievements were nothing to Young. That hurt her too. Young never recognized Honor as an equal in spite of all of her accomplishments, especially in spite of her accomplishments. To Pavel Young Harrington was a baseborn bitch socially beneath him and always would be. Young constantly pulled at the frayed little Yeomen string. And Honor knew that.

And this is where I see Nimitz coming into play. Nimitz would have picked up on all of that in her mindglow, where she was constantly being berated and humiliated by Young. Nimitz would have known the truth of the psychological defeats Honor constantly suffered internally at the hands of her arch nemesis. It wasn't just a question of physical danger from Young. That wasn't a question, though it was a possibility if the creep played very unfairly as he did in poisoning Nimitz. If he would have somehow slipped Honor a Mickey, he could have had his way with her.

Of course Nimitz knew that if it ever came to blows that Honor could deal with Young physically, but that was never what was at stake. It was her sanity. It was her emotions, raw and unbalanced and always flayed open by Young with a dusting of salt. Honor's emotions—a plane of existence that treecats have no problem assimilating and by relation Nimitz is always conscious of Honor's emotional health—is on many levels vastly more important. In fact, the importance of her emotional health, which took an accumulative beating, rang true when she ended up on Grayson an emotional wreck, a mere shell of a woman at her breaking point having endured accumulative harassment from Young. It was her self respect, her self esteem, her self worth and it was all taking a serious beating which again would have constantly bombarded Nimitz at a very native level. The love between Nimitz and Honor runs deep and that alone would have made it rather difficult for Nimitz, emotionally, to honor some of his person's two-legged requests.

<Rubs me the wrong way Honor>

On the mat in the ring of life, Young was kicking Honor's ass every round. I only imagine Nimitz not wanting to be left in his quarters because well, the human element of wanting to end Honor's emotional nightmare. The telempathic onslaught just couldn't have been a walk in the park for Nimitz, exacerbated by an accompanying feeling of helplessness. I imagine that Nimitz had an emotional breaking point as well. Imagine seeing someone you intensely love constantly dragged through emotional hell. Emotional hell that your natural senses just so happen to broadcast to you quite clearly and loudly. I really agree with my niece that it's a wonder Nimitz never needed therapy.

<Honor, let me deal with the asshole>

With Nimitz there, none would have been another occasion for Young to intimidate Honor. That's like trying to intimidate Tarzan with his lion there.

Under the surface of things, it seems that Honor was aware of the emotional beating that Nimitz repeatedly endured and that he wanted to end it for her. Or she wouldn't have constantly left him in her quarters. Why didn't she trust that Nimitz could and would maintain? Is it because she knew internally that it was a bit much for her to even require it of him?

I know Nimitz has a hard time with many two-leg concepts; many of the intangibles like embarrassment and privacy and the like wouldn't be an issue in a world of telempaths. This fact also makes it rather difficult for Nimitz to shelve his own natural tendencies. Like the innate charge to protect someone he loves.

I don't quite know how the treecats assimilate a human emotion like disrespect. But I'm fairly certain they have a related concept in their own world. And I cannot see the cats allowing an enemy to get away with it. It would rub a treecat against the grain in a very primal way. Allowing that same disrespect to bombard one's mated half from one's mated half's enemy would be as naturally irritating to Nimitz as scraping his claws against a blackboard.

<Can't do it>

Having a chance at further consideration, absolutely repugnant I'd tend to think.

It would not have been all that difficult for Nimitz to give in on other points. But the level of disrespect that Pavel Young represented in light of the obvious emotional toll it was exacting on Honor would seem to have been too basic and primal of a transgression for Nimitz to suffer. At any rate, he naturally would have wanted to handle the light work.

<Why are you letting that SOB intimidate you? He is getting to you, Honor. Let me get to him. I'll show him intimidation and I promise not to lay a claw on him. It won't be necessary. I'll just look lovingly into his eyes and ensure that he sees death. The coward that he is will simply flip his end and run. Simple>

Thank Tester for Samantha. I'm sure Nimitz needed some emotional recharging after constantly dealing with the overtones of Honor and Pavel Young.

<Sam, I need some crooning babe>


I hope that answers your questions on that subject. On to the can of worms, shall we?

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Tue Oct 20, 2020 11:53 am

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cthia wrote:The more I consider it, the more I understand my niece's sentiments. Nimitz should have received therapy, at least some appropriate counsel. Someone should at least talk to him about it. (None of you have benefit of the overpowering concern that I witnessed in my niece's eyes and body language when she first told me that. The thought really affected her. And me too.


He might have and we don't know about it. Or even Honor might not know about it. She did return to Sphinx on multiple occasions after this and Nimitz had a tendency to go off to visit the Clan on his own. So he might have sat down with mind healers to help him cope with his feelings.

And in doing so he spread the news via the Treecat Network that Pavel Young was "enemy not yet dealt with."

Never have I failed to understand how a man could feel impotent when his girl, wife, lover, sister is raped. He couldn't protect her from one of the worst acts that could be committed against her. It is whatever psychological guilt feelings a MAN would feel from a perceived failure to protect. It has been and remains an oftentimes insurmountable post-rape marital problem. Rape, also oftentimes, destroys something intangible and emotionally unrecoverable in the victim and the partner.


Not a topic I want to discuss here in the forum, besides saying "I agree."
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Re: Honorverse ramblings and musings
Post by cthia   » Wed Oct 21, 2020 5:42 am

cthia
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Sewing up the thread and closing this can of worms

As I mentioned, this particular can of worms has raged across the globe amongst my social circles. There were only a handful of my friends who agreed with me. My niece was my biggest hurdle. The topic has died down, now, because something happened and I began winning them all over, one by one, two by two, without even knowing it. Even my niece has relented since that fateful day. Fireworks on the beach proved my point! Fireworks of all things. Let me explain . . .

The conversation had taken a religious turn, and it all came down to a couple of things, one being a treecat's sense of morality. That conversation spurred the following thread, A copper-plated moral decision for the Cats. What is a Cat's sense of morality? And it has resurfaced a time or three since.*

So, conversation took a devoutly religious turn. After all, this can of worms becomes huge on a devoutly religious planet like Grayson. Indeed, a devoutly religious system. So the question became,

"Does Nimitz even have the ability to refrain from helping Honor?"


Because "cheating" might not be a concept easily grasped by the Cats when applied to life or death. And when applied to their own abilities. Can Cats even grasp the concept of cheating? Especially when the "life or death" in question is theirs, or one of their own.

How do you explain to Nimitz that his skills would be unfair and that he needs to keep his "insight" to himself? How does that conversation go exactly . . .

"Nimitz, you cannot warn me of Burdette's moment to strike."

<Why? It will help you to kill him for certain>

"That would be cheating."

<What is cheating?>

Now, that may be a difficult concept for Honor to relay to Nimitz, even with her direct line of communication.

"It wouldn't look good in the eyes of God."

<Who is God, and why haven't I ever seen this God?>

"He is a higher power," pointing to space, "up there."

<Y-o-u are the higher power up there Honor. Every Cat knows that>

So, the question was floored, "Can Nimitz keep his mouth shut", so to speak. Even when his own life may be in danger? My diehard supporters say no way. My niece's side say yes, though there were those who were on the fence.

"Can Nimitz keep his mind closed?"

Enter the beach and fireworks. Everyone knew fireworks were coming. The beach is the perfect place for the most amazing fireworks because the ocean can't catch ablaze. The amount of fireworks spent always goes overboard and the reflection off of the ocean is awesome!

There came a loud bang. Everyone was startled and caught a moment of fright even when they knew it was coming. I warned them, but warnings just can't prepare you for your body and mind's natural reaction.

At any rate, it sparked conversation amongst my most staunchest dissenters. They came to the conclusion that Nimitz would have had a slip in his poise when Burdette's emotion to strike spiked. Burdette's "crease."

—ThE EnD



*
cthia wrote:Sigh

Sometimes my notions seem to be a bit too cerebral, and it perplexes me. Running to the litter box and hunger pains is a far cry from a mate who has just fallen into mortal danger and who is most likely about to kill, and, or, die. Especially when the Cat's life itself is directly dependent upon the bond. If his mate dies, he dies. A bonded pair discussing the possibility of succumbing to compulsion is one thing, but if it actually happens it might turn out to be quite another.

Applying the notion to the intense and unprecedented bond which exists between Honor and Nimitz, I'd imagine the notion is greatly exacerbated. Nimitz may be able to see the actual imagery that Honor is about to kill the Queen. Nimitz might become paralyzed by the more intense imagery of what he actually sees—being closer to the heart of the matter and closer to the surface of the emotions of her horror—than what is generally experienced by a regular Cat outside of "a" bond.

And, if what Nimitz feels and sees is the actual horror which Honor is feeling because he is the trigger and target would have to be a copper-plated bitch of a moral decision for Nimitz; who also may be simultaneously bombarded by both the emotions of Beth's Cat, Ariel, and the Queen's own bodyguards' copper-plated decision of possibly having no other available option but to kill her.

In case it isn't clear, I'm not positing a physical effect on the Cat, but an intensely emotional one.

The resultant shock wave of extreme emotions emanating from the minds of Ariel, the Queen's own bodyguards, Honor's bodyguards, and mixing with the horror induced emotions from Honor that she is about to kill someone she loves dearly. . .may be paralyzing to Nimitz. I Imagine it would approach or even exceed what was felt by the Cats at the appalling Yawata Strike.

I like book discussions guys. And I don't like leaving any stone unturned. S'times the author will say there's nothing under the stone. Oftentimes the stone is in the next book.




Afterword:
Important organ transplanted from another thread. Thanks tlb . . .


tlb wrote:One of the things that I disagreed with you in that discussion was the extent that Honor could receive mental communication from Nimitz. On reading the short story The Best Laid Plans in the book Beginnings Worlds of Honor #6, it is clear that RFC has retconned that connection in your direction. The story is about the bonding of Nimitz and Honor.

PS. That does not change my conviction that William Fitzclarence, Lord Burdette, got exactly and justly what he deserved.



The last stitch is done.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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