Honorverse ramblings and musings

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.

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

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>

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.

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.

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

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.

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.