Honor & Nimitz & Pavel Young

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?

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.

Once acrimony developed between Honor and Young (before the attempted rape), it would be easier for Honor to leave Nimitz at home rather than risking a confrontation. Treecats aren't good with pretending to get along so as to not cause a scene.

noblehunter wrote:Once acrimony developed between Honor and Young (before the attempted rape), it would be easier for Honor to leave Nimitz at home rather than risking a confrontation. Treecats aren't good with pretending to get along so as to not cause a scene.

Especially when that 'scene' is likely to cover the deck and bulkheads's with blood spray.

saber964 wrote:

noblehunter wrote:Once acrimony developed between Honor and Young (before the attempted rape), it would be easier for Honor to leave Nimitz at home rather than risking a confrontation. Treecats aren't good with pretending to get along so as to not cause a scene.

Especially when that 'scene' is likely to cover the deck and bulkheads's with blood spray.

Yes, but I'm talking about after the incident.

Before the incident, Young was just a horny nuisance to Honor and probably just someone Nimitz regarded with disdain. But after the incident, Young became an enemy to Nimitz as well, having crossed the line. And to a treecat, there are only two kinds of enemies. Those who have been dealt with and those who haven't.

I'm not sure how many scenes there were after the incident in question where Honor engaged Young and left Nimitz in her cabin to bite and sharpen his nails, but when Young met with Honor in his cabin in the Basilisk system and wouldn't invite her to sit was one such incident, and she had left Nimitz in her cabin, iinm. I can't see that going over so well with Nimitz.

Not sure, but I think there was at least one more occasion before the trial.

cthia wrote:
Before the incident, Young was just a horny nuisance to Honor and probably just someone Nimitz regarded with disdain. But after the incident, Young became an enemy to Nimitz as well, having crossed the line. And to a treecat, there are only two kinds of enemies. Those who have been dealt with and those who haven't.

I will add one qualifier: haven't been dealt with yet.

Fox2! wrote:

cthia wrote:
Before the incident, Young was just a horny nuisance to Honor and probably just someone Nimitz regarded with disdain. But after the incident, Young became an enemy to Nimitz as well, having crossed the line. And to a treecat, there are only two kinds of enemies. Those who have been dealt with and those who haven't.

I will add one qualifier: haven't been dealt with yet.

IIRC the actual adage is, "...Only two sorts of enemies. Those who have been suitably dealt with and those that are still alive."

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.