Honor Harrington verses Alfred Harrington.

cthia wrote:Does textev list the specifics of Alfred's training? Does he have a master himself?

If you read Weber's short story BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, in the BEGINNINGS anthology, you will find that Alfred was in the Royal Manticoran Marines prior to going to Beawulf for medical school. Weber alludes to Alfred being involved in some very serious violence that was heroic but diplomatically problematic. The incident caused Alfred to fear himself. The story evolves to Alfred having to rescue Allison Chou from some Mesan nasties whom he kills quite a few of.

BTW,

I was slightly disapointed in Weber describing how Alyson was only half naked when Alfred rescued her from being tortured with a neural whip. Come on. If an author is going to be salacious, don't hold back. Alyson should have been portrayed as being totally naked when she was being tortured. The cover illustration of BEGINNINGS could then show her naked butt peaking out from under Alfred's coat as he carries her to safety.

Then again, authors have spouses. I am informed by Jerry Pournelle that the cover illustration of EXILE AND GLORY cost him a night of sleeping on the couch.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:BTW,

I was slightly disapointed in Weber describing how Alyson was only half naked when Alfred rescued her from being tortured with a neural whip. Come on. If an author is going to be salacious, don't hold back. Alyson should have been portrayed as being totally naked when she was being tortured. The cover illustration of BEGINNINGS could then show her naked butt peaking out from under Alfred's coat as he carries her to safety.

Then again, authors have spouses. I am informed by Jerry Pournelle that the cover illustration of EXILE AND GLORY cost him a night of sleeping on the couch.

I was aware of the military training but no formal training other than the basic hand to hand combat taught in mil school.

Just checked out that cover and I can see why his wife was so upset. I need a cold shower.

George J. Smith wrote:

glott wrote:I think a more interesting contest would be Honor vs. Thandi.

That has already been discussed and is a horse on its last legs.

------------

I think the closing phrase on Honor vs Thandi thread was "Shut up and drink your beer"

-- Stewart

TFLYTSNBN wrote:

cthia wrote:Does textev list the specifics of Alfred's training? Does he have a master himself?

If you read Weber's short story BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, in the BEGINNINGS anthology, you will find that Alfred was in the Royal Manticoran Marines prior to going to Beawulf for medical school. Weber alludes to Alfred being involved in some very serious violence that was heroic but diplomatically problematic. The incident caused Alfred to fear himself. The story evolves to Alfred having to rescue Allison Chou from some Mesan nasties whom he kills quite a few of.

---------------

As a RMMC Platoon Sargent, one can assume that Alfred was skilled in hand-to-hand as well as projectile weapons. (Think Iris Babcock as a parallel).
Alfred walked away (partially) when he transferred to Navy Med, but still was an avid hunter.
Both Honor and Alfred have their "inner monster/beast" that can drive their aggressions if un-leashed.

If a sparring contest, Honor would likely win due to more and more recent practice;
against each other for real, both would refuse combat;
against selective other opponents (hypothetical against Benjamin Det / Colin Det or their brothers and sisters) I suspect the beasts would be unchained.....

-- Stewart

NOT going to happen, but if it did there is no contest. Honor is an 8th (or 9th?) level black belt in coup de vitesse in current training and has prosthetic enhancements, none of which applies to Alfred.

Randomiser wrote:NOT going to happen, but if it did there is no contest. Honor is an 8th (or 9th?) level black belt in coup de vitesse in current training and has prosthetic enhancements, none of which applies to Alfred.

Even without the prosthetic advantage, the high training- and the experience of having used it in combat- is enough to give Honor the nod in this one, as far as I'm concerned.

In my experience, you don't attain that high a rank in a serious martial art form by getting lucky in your prizes from the Cracker Jack box.

Back to the dead horse, I STILL think that Honor- with all of her advantages- isn't taking down someone considered 'a force of nature' (as per Shadow of Freedom- early in the book) in a hand to hand environment.

Friendly in a dojo? Thandi- in a very close 2 out of 3 falls. After all, it's friendly. Friendly normally means no killing or maiming- unless you are dealing with unruly supposed super humans like the Great Kaja has to do on occasion.

For real, no holds barred? Thandi but with her taking serious damage because Honor is really that good.

cthia wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:BTW,

I was slightly disapointed in Weber describing how Alyson was only half naked when Alfred rescued her from being tortured with a neural whip. Come on. If an author is going to be salacious, don't hold back. Alyson should have been portrayed as being totally naked when she was being tortured. The cover illustration of BEGINNINGS could then show her naked butt peaking out from under Alfred's coat as he carries her to safety.

Then again, authors have spouses. I am informed by Jerry Pournelle that the cover illustration of EXILE AND GLORY cost him a night of sleeping on the couch.

I was aware of the military training but no formal training other than the basic hand to hand combat taught in mil school.

Just checked out that cover and I can see why his wife was so upset. I need a cold shower.

Exhile and Glory
Or
Beauty and the Best?

cthia wrote:

TFLYTSNBN wrote:BTW,

I was slightly disapointed in Weber describing how Alyson was only half naked when Alfred rescued her from being tortured with a neural whip. Come on. If an author is going to be salacious, don't hold back. Alyson should have been portrayed as being totally naked when she was being tortured. The cover illustration of BEGINNINGS could then show her naked butt peaking out from under Alfred's coat as he carries her to safety.

Then again, authors have spouses. I am informed by Jerry Pournelle that the cover illustration of EXILE AND GLORY cost him a night of sleeping on the couch.

I was aware of the military training but no formal training other than the basic hand to hand combat taught in mil school.

Just checked out that cover and I can see why his wife was so upset. I need a cold shower.

TFLYTSNBN wrote:Exhile and Glory
Or
Beauty and the Best?

Exhile and Glory. The female character on the cover is sporting a pair of double dangerouses. Formidable weapons.

I found myself imagining a cover like that with Cauldron of Ghosts with the ex-Mesan-sexslave wife of, what was his name, that gave Victor such a sweat.

Kinda hard not to imagine DWs depiction of sex slaves.

Easy for me to imagine Weber's genetically engineered sex slaves of the female gender.
Harder to imagine the male sex slaves sold to Adm Sandra Crandall.