Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young

Honor was between 16 to 20 years of age when she was attacked. What where you like at that age range?

The Honor we first meet in OBS is the result of twenty plus years of life experience and growth after said event. IIRC even Honor herself wonders what she was thinking at the time and why she did not report Youngs actions.

Hornblower wrote:

cthia wrote:Considering Honor's relationship with a treecat strengthening her resolve at an even tender age, I'm really surprised that she couldn't and wouldn't come forth with the truth straightaway and report Young as soon as "the incident" in question happened.

Storyline always supported the fact that bondings made the human half of the bond mentally stronger. In fact, I always thought that that was one of the special ingredients that made a human's mind glow so appetizing. Certainly a coward of the Houseman variety wouldn't have an appealing mindglow. Honor had a strong will which would have been magnified with her being one half of a bonded equation.

How could she have held out against the mental and emotional onslaught of right and wrong that had to be constantly emanating from Nimitz so strongly that no bond was needed to detect it? I'd've thought that Nimitz' emotions would've relentlessly bombarded her to do the right thing.

Certainly Honor should have been internally ashamed of her actions being reflected in a treecat's sense of honor (pardon the unintentional pun). I suspect that it would have been terribly difficult, emotionally, for Nimitz to bear. My niece once stated that she didn't understand why Nimitz never needed therapy.

Of all the decisions Honor made, this one alone seems so uncharacteristic and alien of her. I have a hard time buying it. Factor in how her mother and father raised her with their acute sense of right and wrong and their abundance of love...

shrug

It was needed for the storyline

WeirdlyWired wrote:1) Two-legs have always baffled The People. All the customs and rituals, "diplomacy" ...

2) Honor's self-image as an ugly cow, especially compared to her mother, coupled with the difference in social status, the inevitable "he said, she said" all conspired in her mind to disuade her from speaking up.

1) Yes, but in the present discussion, the geiger counter is set to detect the bonding's effect on a human, Honor, and how Nimitz and his species' overall worldview would affect how a human, in this case Honor, assimilates her dilemma. A bonded human is always in a treecat's "peripheral vision." The human is always being watched. A human loses one very important intangible -- that of privacy. The need for privacy is synonymous with being human and is a basic need -- in complete opposition to a treecat and a treecat's world.

Rest in peace Joan Rivers. I miss you. But can we talk? Can we talk?...

To explain it without a doubt, a human should find it quite difficult to masturbate after becoming bonded.

<I know what you've been doing. I can appreciate your trying to hide the fact from me somewhere in your intense concentration. But you've got that same old shit eating grin on your face as you always do when you're avoiding eye contact -- even without the alarm being sounded in your mind-glow that's screaming at me>

There's an implied relationship that a reader can miss. Treecats are not pets, but they are constantly in your sphere, like pets but totally unlike what another human would be allowed to do. We take a break from our friends, our lovers, our spouses and our parents. If not, someone would always be there to judge us or make us feel self-conscious. Yet a treecat, a person not unlike a human — even worse since they can peer inside your mind via your emotions — is always present. "Seeing" with inhuman-like clarity your every move and misstep.

IOW, being bonded means there is always someone in your business.

The light that you shined on how a bond might effect a treecat in conjunction with being confused about two-legged weirdness is in chapter two, but just as important.

2) Under the surface I find Honor's "ugly cow syndrome" hard to swallow as well.

a) She wasn't ugly. She was simply in a weird place in the prolong stage, hardly an uncommon phenomena.

b) Even though she couldn't sense other peoples emotions around her then, Nimitz could. And it would have been obvious in short order after spending so much time with Nimitz when he was perturbed by someone for thinking bad thoughts about her.

c) No one ever told Honor she wasn't beautiful.

Direwolf18 wrote:

cthia wrote:Another thing. Why was it so easy for Honor to be able to leave Nimitz in her cabin in situations where Nimitz knew she would be meeting with Young?

A couple of points. First Honor should have told someone but when it came to her looks she was very very self conscious about her appearance. There is a great interview with David Weber talking about Mr. Baens first read through of "On Basalisk Station". It has been a couple of years but the premis is that Mr. Baen calls David Weber up going, "You made her ugly?!" Obviously she is not but you can see that her personal confidence was very lacking in the early books. In a professional sense she was on point. There are many many instances of women today surviving rape or attempted rape and never saying a word. This isn't just women with low self esteem it's one of those things that unless you are there it's really really hard to judge. And as surprising as it seems with the honor we see now 20 years latter, Midshipman Honor Harrington was a far different matter in the self confidence department.

Now the question of Nimitz. First she did not know she was meeting Young, he in fact ambushed her in the showers. After he had gone through the effort to have a sleeping drug put into Nimitz's food. He was stupid but not stupid enough to risk that kind of crap with a tree cat there. If he did half as much homework on his mark as he should have he would have realized physically assaulting her while not as suicidal as doing it with a tree at present, was not what one calls a good idea.

Your argument makes it even worse for me to swallow.

You see, Honor was on point in every other aspect of her life. She was very head strong. This was the young girl who set out to venture into the dangerous bush to visit Nimitz' clan without her parents knowledge, risking her life by chancing she'll run into a hexapuma. Which she does. That is how head strong she was. She was never a normal person.

That was the actions of a young girl raised by her parents to be independent. Strong willed. If anything, Honor's sense of vengeance and retribution should have overpowered any sense of unattractiveness and shame. Honor didn't even strike me as the type to even care about beauty. She was an overachiever.

Plus! Inside of her loins pulsed the same nuclear reactor of Alfred-grade plutonium.

Yes, the failure to report is a common thing in our world. But we are talking about in the Honorverse where the stigma of rape that is so prevalent and responsible for a lack of reporting in our world would not exist in the Honorverse. Especially raised by a mother hailing from Beowulf and factoring in Allison's forward nature. Sexuality isn't a taboo subject in the Honorverse. And most beautiful women in the Honorverse are beautiful by benefit of biosculpt.

Honor never shied away from a confrontation. She grabbed her first encounter with a hexapuma by the tail. Now factor all of that with the fact that this little Sphinxian minx was bonded. And sixteen is a pretty damned strong willed age -- even in our present century without being bonded!

Again, I'm only concerned with the aftermath. Of course Young wasn't stupid enough to try it in front of Nimitz. Besides, the incident had to first happen before we can discuss it.

Also, 20+ years later Honor was NOT much better in the confidence department as you say. She still failed to tell the truth to Hartley? I think was his name.

pnakasone wrote:Honor was between 16 to 20 years of age when she was attacked. What where you like at that age range?

The Honor we first meet in OBS is the result of twenty plus years of life experience and growth after said event. IIRC even Honor herself wonders what she was thinking at the time and why she did not report Youngs actions.

If you only knew. I was raised with the same morals, scruples and values and a sense of self and right and wrong that I imagine Honor endured. Every one of my 5 brothers and sisters are the same.

My 15-yr-old niece was headstrong enough at 12 or earlier. And none of us are living in a sexually-free world like the Honorverse. And bonded to boot.

Yet 20 years being bonded to the "epitome of right and wrong and confidence" didn't do anything for her own confidence or sense of right or wrong. She still couldn't admit it to Commandant Hartley, or whoever that was amidst that mess of a trial.

cthia wrote:a) She wasn't ugly. She was simply in a weird place in the prolong stage, hardly an uncommon phenomena.

It's not uncommon 'now' in the Honorverse. But 3rd gen prolong was very new on Manticore when she got it, and 2nd-gen and 1st-gen prolong recipients got prolong in early adulthood, not late adolescence and didn't have the same issues.

drothgery wrote:It's not uncommon 'now' in the Honorverse. But 3rd gen prolong was very new on Manticore when she got it, and 2nd-gen and 1st-gen prolong recipients got prolong in early adulthood, not late adolescence and didn't have the same issues.

If you think much about this there are some obvious issues. Like the fact that the markers of sexual maturity are directly linked to hormones that are in turn linked to a lot of things. For example, tanner stage 3 boys (or girls) wont build muscle like an older teen or adult even doing the same structured workout. They just don't have the hormones needed to rapidly build muscle (Though learning technique and effective activation of muscles will allow even preadolescents to lift more weight.) Mental development and maturity also appears linked.

cthia wrote:Another thing. Why was it so easy for Honor to be able to leave Nimitz in her cabin in situations where Nimitz knew she would be meeting with Young?

I couldn't understand why Nimitz and Honor didn't argue. After all, Nimitz wasn't a pet and had a mind-glow of his own. A very bright one too. An astute reader would suspect it went on between the lines and off-screen. Nimitz' love for his person radiated a fierce protective shell about Honor....

<Dammit Honor, you are not leaving me in my quarters! I'm riding atop!>

"No!"

<Yes! I'm coming with you! And if that SOB so much as even sneeze, I'm gonna phuck. him. up!>


Do forgive me. I have a friend that has no filter. He is worse than the Don! And when he imitates Nimitz and delivers this line in this fashion, its a side splitter! Thought I'd share. Hilarious.

Just another case of the human element again, this time manifesting itself in another species. Nimitz has an innate sense of right and wrong and he is fiercely protective of his person. And why shouldn't he or any other treecat, since their own life is tied to it? Nimitz would easily pick up on Honor's apprehension, disgust, fear of her temper being unleashed and many other emotions and fears all rolled up in a shell. And Nimitz wanted to crack that nut, in his shell!

Pavel attempted to rape Honor. I wonder... what is the measure of a treecat's sense of rape?

And now that you've made that known, you simply MUST provide us with an audio recording so that we can enjoy it properly!

Yes, Honor is headstrong and rarely backs down from a confrontation. BUT, I must disagree with you.

1) Honor worked with Nimitz about proper respect for authority. She mentions in a book, I forget which one, but an early one, that Nimitz thought it silly to respect a higher ranked authority who was stupid, but went along with her as the silly human authority concepts were important to her. Pavel Young was a upper classman, so even at the academy he had rank on her. He also had powerful supporters and Honor knew this. She had convinced Nimitz that this was how human society worked, which is why Nimitz didn't go after people except when they were a direct threat or it would not splash back on Honor. Think of how the treecats treated Mueller when they could get away with it, even though they would have almost certainly preferred to just ended the problem. Besides, Honor mentions that Nimitz was not happy at being left out of meetings with Pavel Young, we just didn't have it described explicitly. Nimitz knows that two-leg dealings are complicated and can't always be solved with treecat methods.

2) Yes, Honor is headstrong and capable, but our harshest critics can be ourselves. There are many, many beautiful women who do not think of themselves as beautiful. They only see their own flaws and not their beauty. Comparing yourself as a gawky teenager in a really stretched out growth period with your exotically beautiful mother, who you never saw go through that awkward teenage phase, and you could develop some quite strong self doubts about your beauty. Heck, that was central to her relationship with Paul Tankersley.

3) You are saying that Nimitz should have been a buttress to Honor and she should have told Commodore Hartley about the attack. This ties directly into the two points above. Yes they are bonded, but Honor mentions that of course Nimitz loves her, but he is a treecat. So his love and support for her isn't the right kind of attack to breach the walls she put around herself about being an ugly duckling. Paul's love for her was. And just because Nimitz may have urged her to come clean about what really happened, doesn't mean Honor would listen. Especially, when it was tied into something as emotionally charged as attempted rape. And when Honor could justify to herself that she kicked the stuffing out of him and this could splash onto the service if it came out into the open. Remember the rumor campaign and how they got her to accept command of HMS Wayfarer to get them out of a bind? It was predicated on how Honor wouldn't do something for herself, but would do anything else duty required.

As for the sexuality of it, treecats don't care about the human's business and Honor didn't care about Nimitz details. Yes, you have a relationship, great. But the details didn't matter as they don't really relate. NOTE: THIS IS NOT, I REPEAT NOT, AN INVITATION FOR FURTHER DETAILED EXPLORATION.

Kizarvexis wrote:And just because Nimitz may have urged her to come clean about what really happened, doesn't mean Honor would listen. Especially, when it was tied into something as emotionally charged as attempted rape. And when Honor could justify to herself that she kicked the stuffing out of him and this could splash onto the service if it came out into the open. Remember the rumor campaign and how they got her to accept command of HMS Wayfarer to get them out of a bind? It was predicated on how Honor wouldn't do something for herself, but would do anything else duty required.

And in some ways Honor probably felt that the physical damage she did to Young was an overreaction; she delivered the last few blows because she wanted vengeance not just to stop his unwanted physical contact, and that probably fed back into her refusal to report. If she'd used excessive force then she'd feel a bit guilty too and subconsciously all too likely to see it at least somewhat as offsetting offenses.

She'd be wrong about that - but it may have been a factor in her thinking... To the extent that you can categorize her choices after the attack as being thought through.


If she'd be unable to defend herself I feel certain that she would have reported the attack and rape.

Nimitz was not with her in the shower because TreeCats do not enjoy getting wet the way people do.

Young survived because he graduated before Nimitz had enough chances to take care of him.