Why I Hate Hamish Alexander (White Haven)
Alex
Manticoran naval admiral have done to me?
Well, basically, I hate him because he's portrayed as a hero.
Personally, I think he's a piss-poor excuse for a man. A real dick. As
Harlan Ellison might phrase it, "Hamish is a major putz." For those of
you who don't speak Yiddish, a putz is all bad things rolled into one.
A dirtbag, a schmuck, a hopelessly disgusting individual.
To explain why I've got this opinion, I've got to digress, and tell
you a little about my wife's accident. Bear with me, because I'm gonna
come back to Hamish soon enough.
In 1990, years before we were married, my wife and I left Lost Angeles
for a weekend and went to San Francisco with some friends. While we
were there we got into a car accident. She was hurled out the window
of my friend's camper shell, then she bounced off the hood of the car
that had hit us, and after that she skidded across twenty feet of
asphalt, hit the curb, and flopped onto the sidewalk.
Her injuries were as follows; one broken pelvis, two broken hips, a
broken ankle (compound fracture), and three broken vertebrae in her
middle and lower spine. Fortunately, none of those bones cut her
spinal cord. As she was flung out of the truck one foot briefly got
caught on the fiberglass shell of the truck and she ended up
involuntarily doing the splits. This happened so fast and with such
force that a hole was torn in her perinium - (the flesh between a
woman's anus and vagina.) This hole was so large that it needed to be
packed daily with six curlex. (Curlex are fist sized rolls of gauze
bandage.) In addition, there were some internal injuries. When her
pelvis broke it threw bone fragments into her intestinal tract and
spleen. The spleen and eighteen inches of colon were removed that same
day. Much later, we learned that there had been a minor subdural
hematoma that the doctors had either missed or ignored while working
on everything else.
Diana was very lucky, if lucky is the word for living through such an
accident. We happened to be within a mile of San Francisco General
Hospital, which at the time was one of the best trauma centers in the
world, (and it may still be one of the best - I haven't seen any
statistics lately) and one of the few hospitals anywhere that could
have saved a patient with her injuries.
Notice any parallels to a character in the Honorverse?
I rode to the hospital with her in the ambulance. She was immediately
whisked away and spent ten hours in surgery, during which they
corrected her internal injuries and did what they could to fix her
ankle.
I spent Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday by her side in the
hospital, then had to go back down to Los Angeles to be at work the
next day. I'm not a rich nobleman, we had no money in the bank and
there were bills had to be paid. Tuesday morning I was awakened by a
call from the hospital - she was going back into surgery for work on
her pelvis and hips. When I called the hospital from work at lunch,
she was still in surgery. She was still in there when I called back
just before leaving work, and then she spent several hours in the
recovery room while I nervously tried to get the straight story from
someone who'd been there.
I was very lucky in the course of all this. The hospital treated me
like the next of kin despite the fact that I was only her boyfriend at
the time. I could have been out of the loop entirely. I think Diana
worked hard for that on her end during the brief periods that she was
conscious. If I'd had to give up that consideration I think I would
have gone mad.
She stayed in SF General for the next three months, and then was
transferred to a rehab center for another month. During that time I
drove or flew to San Francisco every time I had the money, though I
had to skip visiting every once in awhile due to sheer exhaustion or
lack of cash.
Never in that time did I seek out sex with another woman, though like
Hamish, I did lose it entirely at one point. There was one very
stressed evening I decided that Diana couldn't possibly have lived
through the surgery, and that she'd been replaced with a robot. The
friend I called was female and she had a BS in psych. Somehow she was
able to put me back together without fucking me. Imagine that.
Another time I woke up in a cold sweat after a truly horrible dream
that Diana wanted to have sex with me while gobs of torn flesh hung
down from her crotch. That dream had me in terror for weeks.
I still get physically sick thinking of the dream I had of my own
mother beating the shit out of me while Diana was in the hospital.
(Somehow in the dream these two issues were linked) In the dream she
was not only hitting my flesh, but my soul. I still haven't figured
out the psychology of that one AND I DON'T WANT TO!
When Diana got home, after leaving a truly horrible rehab center
against medical advice, I had to deal with a wound that was still open
(it had gotten infected despite several debridements and was being
left open until the flesh around it had healed enough for a surgery to
close it. She also had a colostomy, (an open hole in her intestinal
system) on the left side of her abdomen, which drained into a bag
filled with feces. Despite all these obstacles, the first thing we did
when we were alone was to give one another hand jobs, and we went back
to having vaginal sex as soon as the doctor gave his permission.
I tended the wound (with help from her mother and grandmother) for
seven months before the surgery to close it took place. Not long after
that the colostomy was closed. To date, Diana has had over twenty
surgeries related to the accident. I can't give you an exact number -
We lost count around number twenty one.
Now understand - I don't consider myself a hero. I'm a guy who
believes in standing by his gal. That's it. There are thousands of us
all around the world, doing our best to handle all the horrible issues
despite whatever our faults may be. Now Hamish Alexander… that's a
real hero. Everyone who's ever read the books knows that Hamish is -
right after Honor herself - the second coolest hero in Manticoran
space.
That being said (and I apologize for going on so long about my own
story, but we need something for contrast against Hamish's story) take
a look at pages 211 through 214 of "Echoes of Honor." We hear Hamish's
POV on Emily's accident. The narrative is interesting both for what it
says, and for what it doesn't say. Let's look first at what the
narrative says.
Let me quote a paragraph on page 212. "The actress and writer and
holo-vid producer, the political analyst and historian whose mind had
survived the ruin of her body unscathed. Who understood everything
that had happened to her and continued the fight…" Consider the
language. Fifty years after the accident, it is still significant to
Hamish's thinking that Emily ACTUALLY UNDERSTOOD WHAT HAD HAPPENED TO
HER!!! Wow! She's not a retard! Is it possible that Hamish has a
closed-minded view of the disabled? That he imagines them to be dumb
or mentally damaged? Taken alone, the paragraph doesn't completely
support that conclusion, but it is suggestive of a mindset, so let's
go on .
(I should probably point out here that my wife made it very clear from
the beginning that she was totally able to reason. When we visited her
in intensive care the day after the accident, the respirator tube went
into her mouth and down her throat. She couldn't talk, and one hand
was tied down so she wouldn't mess up the IV, but she was able to
spell out letters in sign language. Left handed. High level thought
indeed for someone with a subdermal hematoma who was getting enough
morphine to stun a horse.)
That night I went back to the hotel and wrote the alphabet on the
hotel stationary. The next day communication was MUCH better. Funny,
there's nothing in the text about Hamish doing anything like that.
But back to the text. Page 211. "It had almost destroyed him when he
realized at last that the doctors were right. He'd fought the idea,
rejected it and beaten himself bloody on its jagged, unforgiving
harshness. He'd denied it, telling himself that if he only kept
looking, if he threw all of his family's money into the search,
scoured all the universities and teaching hospitals on Old Earth, or
Beowulf, or Hamilton, then surely somewhere he'd find the answer."
Frankly, that sounds to me like a man who's in serious denial. Instead
of spending time with his wife when she most needs his emotional
support, he's going to meetings and visiting teaching hospitals trying
to put the worms back into the can. I imagine Emily alone in a private
hospital room, perhaps with all the necessary surgeries to connect
herself to the life support chair not yet completed. Maybe she's
unable to talk yet because she hasn't yet learned to control her
lungs, so she can't tell anyone about the verbally abusive orderly
who's making her life hell. (My wife had a similar problem at a time
when there was no-one around who knew sign language.) - and where is
Hamish? He's at a meeting. On Hamilton, or maybe even Old Earth.
I had to run interference for my wife with the hospital a couple
times, including the time her special air-bed broke down late a night
and I had to threaten the night supervisor with a truly angry midweek
visit if she didn't bring in the repairman. I was there for Diana.
Where was Hamish?
So back to the text. Page 212 "He'd come apart. He didn't know how
Emily had survived his collapse, his guilt, his sense of failure."
I have no doubt she'd figured out how to do without him by then. On
the other hand, she may have been too busy dealing with her own
medical and psychological issues, including the worry that her husband
didn't love her because he was off fucking Theodesia Kuzak.
"No one could change what had happened to her or make things "right,"
but it was his job to make things right. It was always anyone's job to
make thing "right" for the people he or she loved, and he'd failed,
and he'd hated himself for it with a bitter virulence whose memory
shocked him even now."
Yeah Hamish, it's all about you. This is your hurt, this is your
problem. And if you feel you're such a failure, if you need
forgiveness, tell Emily how you feel. She's a part of this too. She's
the only one who can let you off the hook.
You know what folks, I've been there too. There were times when a
sense of self-hatred hit me. (I'd invited her on the San Francisco
trip.) When that sense of self-hatred hits, you deal. You make up a
funny song or rent a comedy and watch it on the VCR. You wank. You go
for a walk. Then you get up at four am on a Saturday and fly to San
Francisco, and you smile at the woman in the hospital bed because IT'S
NOT ABOUT YOU!!
Back to the text. Page 212. "But he'd put himself back together again.
It hadn't been easy, and he'd needed help, but he'd done it. Of
course, it was an accomplishment which had come with come with a layer
of guilt all it's own, for he'd turned to Theodesia Kuzak for the help
he'd needed. Theodesia had been "safe" for she'd know him literally
since boyhood. She was his friend and confidante. And so - briefly -
she had become his lover as well."
So Hamish, if you were having a lot of stress in your personal life,
why didn't you find a good shrink? I realized fairly early on that I
needed some help, so I called my HMO and told them I was suicidal. I
got a counselor named Dr. Liu. She did a very good job and I only had
to pay $10.00 a visit. When I consider the psych help White Haven
money could have bought, and the hideous non-disclosure agreement it
could have gotten a doctor to sign, I've got to reconsider the
sincerity of Hamish's "collapse."
Actually, come to think of it, I did go chasing pussy one night.
Diana's cat had been gone for two days, apparently having lost it
because her person hadn't been home for weeks, and Diana was losing it
because her cat was gone. I found the cat in a tree at the nearby
Macdonald's, then I "borrowed" the ladder lying against the neighbor's
garage. That one had me up until a little past midnight and I had to
be at work at eight the next day after an hour-long commute.
Next paragraph, near the end. "And when she'd (Kuzak) reassembled him,
she'd shooed him gently away in a gift he knew he could never hope to
repay and gone back to being just his friend."
A gift huh. Did Emily consider this a "gift" I wonder? I'll bet she'd
rather Theodesia had given her husband a sedative, put him to bed, and
sent him off to a shrink the next day.
"He'd survived, thanks to Theodesia, and he'd discovered something
along the way - or perhaps rediscovered it. The reason for his
anguish, the intolerable burden which had broken him at last, was the
simplest thing in the word: he loved his wife."
Really? Funny way he's got of showing it.
Next paragraph, page 213. "She'd known. (Emily had known) He hadn't
told her, but he'd never had to, and she'd welcomed him with that
smile that could still light up a room… still melt his heart within
his chest. They'd never discussed it directly, for there'd never been
a need to. The information, the knowledge, had been exchanged on some
profound inner level, for just as she'd known he had run away, she'd
known why… and the reason he'd come back."
Let's take this one apart line by line. Remember this is being told
from Hamish's point of view. I'll imagine it from Emily's POV:
"She'd known. He hadn't told her, but he'd never had to,"
Theodesia isn't a total bitch, so she got away from Hamish for a few
minutes, called Emily and told her where Hamish was, and explained the
situation. Emily asked Theodesia to stop fucking her husband and get
him to a therapist, and Theodesia said she'd think about it then
decided not to. Or maybe Emily called Hamish's office and asked where
her husband's calls were being routed.
"and she'd welcomed him with that smile that could still light up a
room… still melt his heart within his chest."
Emily is an excellent actress. She could probably smile like that with
her tongue stuck in a light socket. However pissed she is, she knows
by now how expensive being disabled is, she might need his money to
survive, and she thinks its important that they stay together for
political and social reasons. She's not telling him that she's been
through some excellent physical and some cook high tech sexual
therapy, which has allowed her to move her center of sexual pleasure
to her left earlobe, which still retains feeling. (Do a google search
""spinal cord injuries" + sex" for more on this stuff.) She's never,
ever, ever going to tell Hamish about it, and she'll voluntarily touch
him again a million years after they start selling snow cones in hell.
"They'd never discussed it directly, for there'd never been a need to.
The information, the knowledge, had been exchanged on some profound
inner level, for just as she'd known he had run away, she'd known why…
and the reason he'd come back."
Yeah, his avoidance responses hadn't solved the problem, and the hard
work was over, so he came back. After all, it was his house too.
Or we can try a neutral retelling. Hamish was a techno weenie - a
basically insensitive guy who got lucky and married a beautiful,
smart, and artistic gal. When the accident happened he lost it, and
was unable to cope with the emotional needs of a badly injured woman
whose life had just been shattered. First he retreated by trying for a
technical solution to the problem. He got off the planet and spent
lots of time throwing money at the medical side of the problem. When
that didn't work he had a "breakdown" and went for help to an old
childhood friend and spent lots of time having sex with her and
assuming that a woman's "love" rather than a confrontation with
himself was the key to recovering himself. Once his wife was medically
cured and had spent enough time in therapy to heal some of her
emotional scars, he came back.
I could go on, but I think I've made the point well enough. Let me
just add the on page 213 Hamish uses the word "crippled" (in quotes)
to describe his wife's condition, and on page 214 (just after thinking
about his feelings for Honor, which may be significant) he describes
his wife as in "invalid" (not in quotes.) These are probably the two
words the disabled community hates most. "Crippled," among other
things, means "damaged" or "defective." "Invalid" contains it's own
definition - not valid. In the disabled community these words are the
equivalent of "spick" or "nigger."
Can you imagine being married to a black person and thinking of them
as a "nigger?" Being married to a hispanic and calling them a
"greaser" in the privacy of your own thoughts? Hamish is calling his
wife these names FIFTY YEARS after the accident. He's made no
accommodation at all to the facts of his wife's case, and he never
will.
What doesn't the narrative say? That's also significant. It doesn't
say he brought her flowers. It doesn't say he sat by her bedside for
long hours. It doesn't say he reassured her that he would always love
her. It doesn't say he held her hand. It doesn't say he made the long
walk from the prep room to the operating room with her. (This is a
scary, scary walk, and I've made it a couple dozen times by now. It
gets worse every time, because statistically speaking, one day she
goes into O.R. and doesn't come back. Statistically speaking, that
chance increases with each operation.) It doesn't say he spent the
hours while she was in surgery sitting in the waiting room reading the
magazines (no-one in the surgical waiting room ever talks to anyone
else) and worrying. The narrative doesn't say he went to any kind of
therapy (sexual, psychological, etc) with her, and doesn't say he
joined a support group for spouses of the injured. Have I made my
point yet?
So why does Nimitz tolerate him being in the same room as his person?
Why does Samantha bond with him? How can he possibly be the kind of
guy Honor can love?
Has the world gone mad?
Perhaps we're not being told the whole story. Maybe there's some
transition Hamish made between being the guy who runs out on his wife
when she most needs him, and being the guy Honor can love. Maybe he
finally got some counseling. For Honor's sake, I sure hope so! But I
doubt it. If Hamish had gone through such a significant experience I'm
sure we would have read about it in one Mr. Weber's famous info-dumps.
Frankly, I don't buy it. I hate Hamish Alexander, if for no other
reason than that someone with the name Alexander should be better
behaved than he was. Or maybe it's because I've never been tagged as a
hero despite not running out on Diana when she needed me. Or maybe I
just don't like the way David Weber writes about the disabled and the
"heroes" who love them.
Meanwhile, I have a request for Mr. Weber. If you're reading this,
could you make sure that in the next book some punk with a flechette
gun shoots Hamish in the balls? Maybe Emily can endow a fund for
ball-less admirals and then she and Honor can go off somewhere and
party in the company of men who deserve the company of such remarkable
women. And no, I'm not kidding. I'm not engaging in irony or sarcasm
or anything like that. I think people like him should be drawn and
quartered.
I may not be a naval hero or a member of the nobility, and I've got my
faults, being fat, undereducated, and even a little lazy. I'm sitting
here in my two-bedroom rental, typing this on my old computer in the
crappy clothes that are all I can afford. I'm out of work and out of
money, but Mr. Weber, I think I'm a better man than Hamish Alexander.
Were I single, I'd happily go on a date with either of these wonderful
women you've invented. I'd love to sit on Emily's lap and kiss her
into bliss, and I'd be equally happy to make love to a truly naked
Honor - you know, sans artificial arm or eye, covered with whatever
scars the quickheal didn't quite erase - just so she'd knew I really,
really love her.
And Mr. Weber, when Honor comes back from one of her death-rides, or
Emily's old life support chair has given out and she needs a new one,
and there's surgery plus six months in rehab, I promise I'll visit
them in the hospital every day - and I promise I won't fuck around.
Dorothy J Heydt
Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
[In which a man who has not provided love, comfort, and support
to an injured woman he supposedly loves, is analyzed by another
man who did these things when it was his turn.}
....
>Actually, come to think of it, I did go chasing pussy one night.
>Diana's cat had been gone for two days, apparently having lost it
>because her person hadn't been home for weeks, and Diana was losing it
>because her cat was gone. I found the cat in a tree at the nearby
>Macdonald's, then I "borrowed" the ladder lying against the neighbor's
>garage. That one had me up until a little past midnight and I had to
>be at work at eight the next day after an hour-long commute.
...
>Meanwhile, I have a request for Mr. Weber. If you're reading this,
>could you make sure that in the next book some punk with a flechette
>gun shoots Hamish in the balls? Maybe Emily can endow a fund for
>ball-less admirals and then she and Honor can go off somewhere and
>party in the company of men who deserve the company of such remarkable
>women. And no, I'm not kidding. I'm not engaging in irony or sarcasm
>or anything like that. I think people like him should be drawn and
>quartered.
>
>I may not be a naval hero or a member of the nobility, and I've got my
>faults, being fat, undereducated, and even a little lazy. I'm sitting
>here in my two-bedroom rental, typing this on my old computer in the
>crappy clothes that are all I can afford. I'm out of work and out of
>money, but Mr. Weber, I think I'm a better man than Hamish Alexander.
I think so too. I'm ready to rank you right up there with my
husband, who when I was in the hospital with pancreatitis (10 out
of 10 on the pain scale) and dopey with morphine, called in all
his vacation time so he could visit me every afternoon, talked to
the doctors, talked to the nurses, and made sure the nurses knew
where in my chart the doctor's orders were that I should have
yea-much Demerol every so-many hours, if I wanted it. He brought
me books, and when my eyes wouldn't focus he read _Kim_ out loud
to me, comfort food for the brain. When I moved to the nursing
home he checked out the wiring and the phone cabling and brought
in my laptop and got me online again. The nurses loved him. So
did I, of course, but the nurses were jealous and kept asking
where they could find a guy like that, did he have any brothers,
preferably single? (He hadn't.) He qualifies. You do too.
>
>Were I single, I'd happily go on a date with either of these wonderful
>women you've invented.
Were you single, I could introduce you to a whole wardful of very
appreciative nurses.
Dorothy J. Heydt
Albany, California
djh...@kithrup.com
http://www.kithrup.com/~djheydt
Marten Kemp
>
> Why do I hate Hamish Alexander? What could this enormously cool
> Manticoran naval admiral have done to me?
>
> Well, basically, I hate him because he's portrayed as a hero.
> Personally, I think he's a piss-poor excuse for a man. A real dick. As
> Harlan Ellison might phrase it, "Hamish is a major putz." For those of
> you who don't speak Yiddish, a putz is all bad things rolled into one.
> A dirtbag, a schmuck, a hopelessly disgusting individual.
>
> To explain why I've got this opinion, I've got to digress, and tell
> you a little about my wife's accident. Bear with me, because I'm gonna
> come back to Hamish soon enough.
You, sir, are a mensch (I hope I got that right). The type of hero
about whom sagas aren't written, whose heroism isn't the subject of
made-for-TV movies but whose heroism and love and devotion is a
glowing jewel in a world awash in selfishness and indifference and
cruelty.
Join me at alt.callahans for a Beverage Of Your Choice, and
a fireplace into which to throw your empty glass?
-- Marten Kemp
J.B. Moreno
> Why do I hate Hamish Alexander? What could this enormously cool
> Manticoran naval admiral have done to me?
>
> Well, basically, I hate him because he's portrayed as a hero.
> Personally, I think he's a piss-poor excuse for a man. A real dick. As
> Harlan Ellison might phrase it, "Hamish is a major putz." For those of
> you who don't speak Yiddish, a putz is all bad things rolled into one.
> A dirtbag, a schmuck, a hopelessly disgusting individual.
I think you're ovverreading what is there -- basically most of what
you're objecting to you are making up out of your own head instead of
his.
Self-denial? Yes, leaving her in order to pursue it? No implied.
It being about his self-hatred? No, he had it, he remembered it, that's
it.
He doesn't say he brought her flowers? Big deal, it doesn't mean he
didn't have them delivered by the ton.
Didn't sit by her side? Likewise.
Your idea that "he ran out on her when she needed her the most" is
totally unsupported by the text -- his first affair could have easily
been twenty-five years after the accident. There's no time table
established on that as far as I know, you're the one having it happen
while she's still recovering (given the amount of money he has it's
extremely unlikely that he ran out of possible therapies before she'd
recovered as much as she has, which means that his first affair wasn't
until after she was recovered as much as she has to date).
(BTW -- I'm not defending him, I think that some of what has been said
has some validity, for instance the bit about him continuing to have
affairs, if the culture and his wife supports it they should have talked
about it, if he can't talk to her about it, he should stick to Palmala
and her five daughters, but I think you've gone too far the other way).
--
JBM
"Your depression will be added to my own" -- Marvin of Borg
Paul Austin
"J.B. Moreno" wrote
Alex makes a good case for Alexander's failures as a husband. And
along the way, sets the bar mighty high for how to be a good husband
in the face of disasterous adversity.
That said, Hamish Alexander's place in the Honorverse _isn't_ as a
husbandly paragon. I'm reminded of Hornblower. Hubert Horatio
Hornblower ;) hero of his age and at least peripherally, savior of his
nation, is quite a bit of a cad. He marries poor, plain Maria for some
of the worst reasons and when something better comes his way, has his
way with her. Forester conveniently kills off Maria to clear the way
for a more suitable love.
Similarly Hamish Alexander's role makes him out a bit of a bastard.
Not, unfortunately more than a run of the mill bastard. When faced
with personal disaster, he failed his wife. Does Honor sense this
character failure? Does personal chemistry make her ignore it? That
doesn't speak well for Our Heroine but she _is_ human (mostly) after
all. Lots of us love unwisely in the real world.
I'd hope that _I_ could live up to Alex's standards. But I hope even
more fervently that I'm never tested that way. I'd die for my Lovely
Bride but sometimes _living_ for your spouse is tougher.
--
"It's not that it takes all kinds. There simply _are_ all kinds."
Paul F Austin
pfau...@bellsouth.net
Michael Sandy
apparently had a more overblown reputation than MacArthur.
Remember that scene where the fleet was about 7 hours from
completing preparation for attacking Lovat? On receiving
certain unexpected news, what does he do? Does he proceed
with the attack as planned, or, _without_ orders, does he
sit on his butt for a month or so waiting for the High
Ridge government to fuck things up?
Oh, and mister Super-Strategist can't force an engagement
at Trevor's Star.
Look, the absolute tip off to the Peeps that unexpected forces
are there is if they detect Grayson ships, so an _intelligent_
commander would do his best to disguise the Grayson ships
as pre-pod Manticoran ships.
Alternatively, have something 'suspicious' be done to the
Grayson ship's signature so someone might think that
he has pre-pod Manticoran ships pretending to be Grayson
ships, but that would be implausible, considering the
political situation.
Even if White Haven were raised as a spoiled brat who never
really encountered adversity, (heck, he has never been
wounded in combat), for a military man to be so thoroughly
unprepared to deal with a disabling injury strikes me
as odd, at least, unadmirable.
Probably everything in life that he ever broke he was able
to pay somebody to fix or replace it. That apparently
didn't teach him that fixing the injury was of trivial
importance compared to treasuring his relationship and
nuturing it.
Perhaps Emily is some kind of warped romantic who actually
gets off on faux-noble blockheadness.
Suffice it to say, he is such a piece of twisted flesh that
I wouldn't want anyone I care about to form an emotional
connection with them.
Michael Sandy
Alex
> Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > Why do I hate Hamish Alexander? What could this enormously cool
> > Manticoran naval admiral have done to me?
> >
> > Well, basically, I hate him because he's portrayed as a hero.
> > Personally, I think he's a piss-poor excuse for a man. A real dick. As
> > Harlan Ellison might phrase it, "Hamish is a major putz." For those of
> > you who don't speak Yiddish, a putz is all bad things rolled into one.
> > A dirtbag, a schmuck, a hopelessly disgusting individual.
>
> I think you're ovverreading what is there -- basically most of what
> you're objecting to you are making up out of your own head instead of
> his.
>
>
> It being about his self-hatred? No, he had it, he remembered it, that's
> it.
>
> He doesn't say he brought her flowers? Big deal, it doesn't mean he
> didn't have them delivered by the ton.
>
> Didn't sit by her side? Likewise.
He had "sit by her side delivered by the ton?" <Evil laugh.> Sorry,
you lost the argument right there. ;)
> Your idea that "he ran out on her when she needed her the most" is
> totally unsupported by the text -- his first affair could have easily
> been twenty-five years after the accident. There's no time table
> established on that as far as I know, you're the one having it happen
> while she's still recovering (given the amount of money he has it's
> extremely unlikely that he ran out of possible therapies before she'd
> recovered as much as she has, which means that his first affair wasn't
> until after she was recovered as much as she has to date).
I halfway agree with your point. Hamish's rememberances don't carry
dates. (How horrible to find myself wanting a nice, detailed
info-dump.)
There are two possible assumptions we can make as to Hamish's time
requirements. The first assumption is that he has limited time for his
search. After the accident, the navy gives him a big block of
compassionate leave - perhaps six months or a year - and allows him
the further option of applying for more leave. Ergo, he has to
complete his search in a limited time, probably no more than an
eighteen months. In this case he's got very little time to visit
Emily. While Beowulf is reachable via a day trip, Earth is a six month
round trip voyage, plus time to visit all the major research
facilities. The text states that he also went to Hamilton. (How far
away is Hamilton?) The text at the bottom of page 211 also implies
that his search took him to other places, though it doesn't say so
directly. (Can you imagine that he wouldn't head to an Andermani
teaching hospital before heading off on the six month voyage to
Earth?) Given this assumption, he spent a lot of time away from home.
The other asumption is that his superior officer says, "I can put you
on half-pay for as long as you like." In this case he's got time both
for visiting with Emily and going on a quest for medical help.
The most important issue here is once again what he didn't do. He
didn't hire an agent to do the searching for him. He can certainly
afford to hire a good doctor and a good lawyer and send them off on as
long a search as one might want. It's a big galaxy. They could make a
much more complete search than he has time for regardless of whether
you favor the "half pay" or "compassionate leave" alternative. Also,
by hiring people, he doesn't have to bear the practical strains -
making it to the spaceport on time, entertaining a jerk with a good
idea, etc. on top of bearing the emotional strains of dealing with his
wife's injuries. Whichever alternative you favor, he went away when he
didn't have too.
I'm a believer in the "compassionate leave" alternative myself, just
because he thinks about how he ran out of strength. If he'd had lots
of time he could have rested when he needed to. After all, he and
Emily will live for three hundred years, and if (per his initial hopes
for finding a cure quickly) she spends two or three years in the chair
it's not a big deal.
> (BTW -- I'm not defending him, I think that some of what has been said
> has some validity, for instance the bit about him continuing to have
> affairs, if the culture and his wife supports it they should have talked
> about it, if he can't talk to her about it, he should stick to Palmala
> and her five daughters, but I think you've gone too far the other way).
Well, actually, I could probably pull a couple other damning quotes
out of those several pages of text. However the text that proves I'm
in essence correct, even if I don't fully understand the details of
Hamish and Emily's estrangement, is in War of Honor, starting on page
204, where
*** SPOILER ALERT! MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! ***
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Hamish brings Honor into the atrium and introduces her to Emily.
Notice again what doesn't happen. Emily doesn't touch Hamish. Honor is
rumored to be boffing her husband and Emily doesn't do anything to
"claim her territory." She doesn't give his hand a squeeze, doesn't
hug him, doesn't kiss him, doesn't glide her chair over to him and put
her arm around him... and he doesn't touch her either. Emily is a
historian and politcal analyst. She'd got to know how important it is
to commmunicate clearly to another player that she loves her husband,
but she doesn't touch him - and Emily must know that this contains
it's own message. However, Emily DOES shake hands with Honor.
Then, just to make the point that something is wrong at White Haven
crystal clear, Emily immediately asks her husband to leave. (bottom of
page 205) Look at the phrasing. "Hamish, I think Her Grace and I need
to get to know each other. Go find something to do." That's not how a
woman talks to a male equal in front of someone important. Then later
she says (top of page 205) "If we take too long it won't be the first
time dinner's gotten cold. Now go away." She says it nicely, she
smiles, but she's actually communicating to Honor that Hamish isn't
important enough to be included in a vital high-level discussion and
that she's not terribly concerned with his input. Finally, she puts
the icing on the cake by making the entire plan with Honor without
Hamish being present.
This is NOT a healthy relationship. (Unless it's a Misstress/slave
relationship.)
Then, on page 216, Honor reflects on Emily's emotions when Honor
starts to cry because she can't control her love for Hamish as Emily
would like; "There'd been anger in her (Emily's) reaction. Not a lot,
but a sharp, knife-like flicker of fury that Honor should dare to love
_her_ husband, an automatic response that was built of raw instinct
and her awareness of how much more danger Honor's emotions threw them
all into... There was enormous potential for for jealousy and
resentment alike in the moment of realization, and the fact that she'd
put her rage aside so quickly and completely astonished Honor." That's
not a description of a healthy, monogamous female's response to the
idea that her man is in love with another woman and that the "other
woman" returns his love. Sure, Emily's got major zen, but let's be
real.
On page 236, just to serve us all some ice-cream with our cake,
there's the admittedly short scene where Honor, Nimitz, Hamish, Emily
and Samantha all show up at Queen Catrin's hall together to make the
VERY IMPORTANT POINT that they're all good friends. Honor and Emily
are talking together like best friends, but we don't see something
that would be enormously significant to making the all important point
that Honor is not boffing Hamish. HAMISH AND EMILY DON'T TOUCH EVEN AT
THIS TOTALLY STAGED EVENT. Can you imagine as brilliant a politician
and stage manager as Emily (not to mention the Queen's political
staff) not arranging for her and Hamish to be seen touching at the
party the Queen is throwing for the express purpose of making sure
everyone understands that Honor and Hamish aren't boffing? In other
words, Emily knows that no-one expects to see Hamish and her touch,
and that the two of them to touching looks like trying too hard.
Something is definitely rotten at White Haven.
Then in the last bit of the book, page 850 to 861, we get coffee and
an after dinner mint. Hamish and Emily STILL don't touch. Emily's off
to bed after making the declaration that at least strongly implies
that Hamish and Honor are free to party, and floats out the door
without giving Hamish a kiss goodnight...
The message from Emily to Honor is pretty clear. She's saying, "You
take him. I don't want him any more."
Now someone could argue that the total lack of touching represents
Weber's attiude toward the disabled, but this goes much too far for
that. Consciously or otherwise, MWW is making a major point about the
relationship here, and he'll likely drop the bomb in a book or two.
Alex
Alex
> Alex makes a good case for Alexander's failures as a husband. And
> along the way, sets the bar mighty high for how to be a good husband
> in the face of disasterous adversity.
Well, there were a couple occassions where I fucked up, but
fortunately they were minor. And its not a HIGH bar, its a long one.
If it ever happens to you, just hang in there.
> Similarly Hamish Alexander's role makes him out a bit of a bastard.
> Not, unfortunately more than a run of the mill bastard. When faced
> with personal disaster, he failed his wife. Does Honor sense this
> character failure? Does personal chemistry make her ignore it? That
> doesn't speak well for Our Heroine but she _is_ human (mostly) after
> all. Lots of us love unwisely in the real world.
Yeah, but Nimitz doesn't dislike Hamish, and Samantha bonded with him.
What I imagine is that at some point which MMW hasn't shown us yet,
Hamish redeems himself. However, Emily's emotions have gone too far
for her to ever trust him.
> I'd die for my Lovely
> Bride but sometimes _living_ for your spouse is tougher.
My favorite quote on that subject is from the first Addams family
movie. Gomez is gazing at his sleeping wife and he say, "I would die
for this woman. I would kill for this woman. Either way, what bliss."
As perfect a description of love as I've ever heard.
Alex
J.B. Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) wrote
> > Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Why do I hate Hamish Alexander? What could this enormously cool
> > > Manticoran naval admiral have done to me?
> > >
> > > Well, basically, I hate him because he's portrayed as a hero.
> > > Personally, I think he's a piss-poor excuse for a man. A real dick. As
-snip-
> > > A dirtbag, a schmuck, a hopelessly disgusting individual.
> >
> > I think you're ovverreading what is there -- basically most of what
> > you're objecting to you are making up out of your own head instead of
> > his.
-snip-
> > He doesn't say he brought her flowers? Big deal, it doesn't mean he
> > didn't have them delivered by the ton.
> >
> > Didn't sit by her side? Likewise.
>
> He had "sit by her side delivered by the ton?" <Evil laugh.> Sorry,
> you lost the argument right there. ;)
Not at all -- he bought flowers AND candy by the ton, and while the
flowers were a bit of a pain (had to arrange to clear out the rest of
the floor), he'd put the candy by her side and then say "do you mind if
I have just one piece". For while there they both had to use an
anti-gravity chair.
> > Your idea that "he ran out on her when she needed her the most" is
> > totally unsupported by the text -- his first affair could have easily
> > been twenty-five years after the accident. There's no time table
> > established on that as far as I know, you're the one having it happen
> > while she's still recovering (given the amount of money he has it's
> > extremely unlikely that he ran out of possible therapies before she'd
> > recovered as much as she has, which means that his first affair wasn't
> > until after she was recovered as much as she has to date).
>
> I halfway agree with your point. Hamish's rememberances don't carry
> dates. (How horrible to find myself wanting a nice, detailed
> info-dump.)
Heh.
> There are two possible assumptions we can make as to Hamish's time
> requirements. The first assumption is that he has limited time for his
> search. After the accident, the navy gives him a big block of
> compassionate leave - perhaps six months or a year - and allows him
> the further option of applying for more leave. Ergo, he has to
> complete his search in a limited time, probably no more than an
> eighteen months.
-snip-
> The other asumption is that his superior officer says, "I can put you
> on half-pay for as long as you like." In this case he's got time both
> for visiting with Emily and going on a quest for medical help.
>
> The most important issue here is once again what he didn't do. He
> didn't hire an agent to do the searching for him. He can certainly
> afford to hire a good doctor and a good lawyer and send them off on as
> long a search as one might want. It's a big galaxy.
There's a third option -- that the search took place over a period of
years. That he hired people to do the preliminary investigations, and
then when they'd found something hopefully, he'd arrange to go (probably
dragging Emily along with him) in person to see what they could do.
> > (BTW -- I'm not defending him, I think that some of what has been said
> > has some validity, for instance the bit about him continuing to have
> > affairs, if the culture and his wife supports it they should have talked
> > about it, if he can't talk to her about it, he should stick to Palmala
> > and her five daughters, but I think you've gone too far the other way).
>
> Well, actually, I could probably pull a couple other damning quotes
> out of those several pages of text. However the text that proves I'm
> in essence correct, even if I don't fully understand the details of
> Hamish and Emily's estrangement, is in War of Honor, starting on page
> 204, where
>
>
>
> *** SPOILER ALERT! MAN YOUR BATTLE STATIONS! THIS IS NOT A DRILL! ***
>
> Hamish brings Honor into the atrium and introduces her to Emily.
> Notice again what doesn't happen. Emily doesn't touch Hamish. Honor is
> rumored to be boffing her husband and Emily doesn't do anything to
> "claim her territory." She doesn't give his hand a squeeze, doesn't
> hug him, doesn't kiss him, doesn't glide her chair over to him and put
> her arm around him... and he doesn't touch her either. Emily is a
> historian and politcal analyst. She'd got to know how important it is
> to commmunicate clearly to another player that she loves her husband,
> but she doesn't touch him - and Emily must know that this contains
> it's own message. However, Emily DOES shake hands with Honor.
Given what she's about to do, I don't find the lack of territory markers
a problem.
> Then, just to make the point that something is wrong at White Haven
> crystal clear, Emily immediately asks her husband to leave. (bottom of
> page 205) Look at the phrasing. "Hamish, I think Her Grace and I need
> to get to know each other. Go find something to do." That's not how a
> woman talks to a male equal in front of someone important. Then later
> she says (top of page 205) "If we take too long it won't be the first
> time dinner's gotten cold. Now go away." She says it nicely, she
> smiles, but she's actually communicating to Honor that Hamish isn't
> important enough to be included in a vital high-level discussion and
> that she's not terribly concerned with his input. Finally, she puts
> the icing on the cake by making the entire plan with Honor without
> Hamish being present.
>
> This is NOT a healthy relationship. (Unless it's a Misstress/slave
> relationship.)
No, it's girl talk -- I've hears stuff like that, in relationships I
doubt were Mistress/slave.
> Then, on page 216, Honor reflects on Emily's emotions when Honor
> starts to cry because she can't control her love for Hamish as Emily
> would like; "There'd been anger in her (Emily's) reaction. Not a lot,
> but a sharp, knife-like flicker of fury that Honor should dare to love
> _her_ husband, an automatic response that was built of raw instinct
> and her awareness of how much more danger Honor's emotions threw them
> all into... There was enormous potential for for jealousy and
> resentment alike in the moment of realization, and the fact that she'd
> put her rage aside so quickly and completely astonished Honor." That's
> not a description of a healthy, monogamous female's response to the
> idea that her man is in love with another woman and that the "other
> woman" returns his love. Sure, Emily's got major zen, but let's be
> real.
Nope, no being real. Honor gets to be a superwoman in so many ways,
don't you dare try to take Emily's away from her.
(Not to mention that Emily's had years of practice with lesser affairs).
> On page 236, just to serve us all some ice-cream with our cake,
> there's the admittedly short scene where Honor, Nimitz, Hamish, Emily
> and Samantha all show up at Queen Catrin's hall together to make the
> VERY IMPORTANT POINT that they're all good friends. Honor and Emily
> are talking together like best friends, but we don't see something
> that would be enormously significant to making the all important point
> that Honor is not boffing Hamish. HAMISH AND EMILY DON'T TOUCH EVEN AT
> THIS TOTALLY STAGED EVENT. Can you imagine as brilliant a politician
> and stage manager as Emily (not to mention the Queen's political
> staff) not arranging for her and Hamish to be seen touching at the
> party the Queen is throwing for the express purpose of making sure
> everyone understands that Honor and Hamish aren't boffing? In other
> words, Emily knows that no-one expects to see Hamish and her touch,
> and that the two of them to touching looks like trying too hard.
>
> Something is definitely rotten at White Haven.
Emily's relationship with Honor *had* to be the focus -- if they'd
wasted time on Emily's relationship with Hamish, people would have
thought that she was being fooled.
> Then in the last bit of the book, page 850 to 861, we get coffee and
> an after dinner mint. Hamish and Emily STILL don't touch. Emily's off
> to bed after making the declaration that at least strongly implies
> that Hamish and Honor are free to party, and floats out the door
> without giving Hamish a kiss goodnight...
>
> The message from Emily to Honor is pretty clear. She's saying, "You
> take him. I don't want him any more."
This one has me stumped -- it seems a good night kiss would have been in
order, to say "I love you and understand".
> Now someone could argue that the total lack of touching represents
> Weber's attiude toward the disabled, but this goes much too far for
> that. Consciously or otherwise, MWW is making a major point about the
> relationship here, and he'll likely drop the bomb in a book or two.
I think it's more likely his way of preparing for her getting knocked
off.
Nancy Lebovitz
>realized at last that the doctors were right. He'd fought the idea,
>rejected it and beaten himself bloody on its jagged, unforgiving
>harshness. He'd denied it, telling himself that if he only kept
>looking, if he threw all of his family's money into the search,
>scoured all the universities and teaching hospitals on Old Earth, or
>Beowulf, or Hamilton, then surely somewhere he'd find the answer."
>
>Frankly, that sounds to me like a man who's in serious denial. Instead
>of spending time with his wife when she most needs his emotional
>support, he's going to meetings and visiting teaching hospitals trying
>to put the worms back into the can. I imagine Emily alone in a private
>hospital room, perhaps with all the necessary surgeries to connect
>herself to the life support chair not yet completed. Maybe she's
>unable to talk yet because she hasn't yet learned to control her
>lungs, so she can't tell anyone about the verbally abusive orderly
>who's making her life hell. (My wife had a similar problem at a time
>when there was no-one around who knew sign language.) - and where is
>Hamish? He's at a meeting. On Hamilton, or maybe even Old Earth.
How would all that have played out if he'd actually come back with
a cure?
(.....including Hamish having an affair)
>
>Next paragraph, page 213. "She'd known. (Emily had known) He hadn't
>told her, but he'd never had to, and she'd welcomed him with that
>smile that could still light up a room… still melt his heart within
>his chest. They'd never discussed it directly, for there'd never been
>a need to. The information, the knowledge, had been exchanged on some
>profound inner level, for just as she'd known he had run away, she'd
>known why… and the reason he'd come back."
>
My take on this is that Hamish is kidding himself. Emily had no idea
of what he'd been doing. She smiled because she was glad to see him,
and Hamish is going to have an interesting time if she finds out
and he says "but I thought you knew and didn't mind".
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
I want to move to theory. Everything works in theory.
Gillian White
> Then, just to make the point that something is wrong at White Haven
> crystal clear, Emily immediately asks her husband to leave. (bottom of
> page 205) Look at the phrasing. "Hamish, I think Her Grace and I need
> to get to know each other. Go find something to do." That's not how a
> woman talks to a male equal in front of someone important.
Mmm. Not sure if I agree with your conclusion. When I have female
friends over to my house, I quite often tell my husband to go away and
find something to do! It's not that I don't love him or don't want him
around, it's just that I know he'll be bored rigid by our 'girl talk',
and would probably much prefer to spend the day cleaning his motorbike
;-)
When I read this passage, I read it as an exchange between two people
who had been married so long that they don't have to worry about
saying the 'right' thing. My mother tells my father to bugger off all
the time in front of guests. Everyone knows she's joking, and everyone
knows he isn't offended. My mother would never worry about
mistreating a 'male equal', and my father would never worry about
being mistreated. It's just the way they are around one another, and I
think it's a stage you only get to once you've been married a very,
very long time.
IMHO, Emily's attitude to Hamish is an indication of how close they
are, NOT of how much she doesn't trust them. The fact that she is
willing to indulge in such cheeky exchanges in the presence of an
important guest tells me just how much they love each other.
I would also go one step further and say Emily's orders are her way of
claiming her territory. She may not be able to get up and kiss Hamish,
but she's certainly reminding any witnesses just how long they've been
married, and just how well they know each other. I know that I have
sometimes teased my husband in front of guests just to demonstrate how
wonderful our relationship is. It might not be mature, but I bet
everyone does it.
> she says (top of page 205) "If we take too long it won't be the first
> time dinner's gotten cold. Now go away." She says it nicely, she
> smiles, but she's actually communicating to Honor that Hamish isn't
> important enough to be included in a vital high-level discussion and
> that she's not terribly concerned with his input. Finally, she puts
> the icing on the cake by making the entire plan with Honor without
> Hamish being present.
How do you know that Hamish and Emily haven't discussed the plan to
death already before Honor arrived? Hamish has been on half pay since
High Ridge and Janacek took over. He'll have been spending plenty of
time at home, and it's fairly obvious that Emily is one of his closest
and most trusted advisers. Even if they haven't discussed it
explicitly, I can't imagine for a moment that Hamish doesn't know damn
well what she and Honor are going to talk about.
> This is NOT a healthy relationship. (Unless it's a Misstress/slave
> relationship.)
Well, no it isn't. At the moment, it has more than its fair share of
problems. But what marriage doesn't?
> Then, on page 216, Honor reflects on Emily's emotions when Honor
> starts to cry because she can't control her love for Hamish as Emily
> would like; "There'd been anger in her (Emily's) reaction. Not a lot,
> but a sharp, knife-like flicker of fury that Honor should dare to love
> _her_ husband, an automatic response that was built of raw instinct
> and her awareness of how much more danger Honor's emotions threw them
> all into... There was enormous potential for for jealousy and
> resentment alike in the moment of realization, and the fact that she'd
> put her rage aside so quickly and completely astonished Honor." That's
> not a description of a healthy, monogamous female's response to the
> idea that her man is in love with another woman and that the "other
> woman" returns his love. Sure, Emily's got major zen, but let's be
> real.
I don't know if it's healthy or not - that answer would depend on
which therapist you were speaking to at the time ;-). However, it's
definitely veering towards the saintly end of the response scale. As
I've said before, I'd feel much better if she threw a tantrum and
started flinging plates like the rest of us ;-)
Then again, maybe Emily realises the fact that Honor isn't the one
who's causing trouble. Hamish is the married partner, not Honor. I
would say that the onus is on him to nip the affair in the bud, not
her. I've never agreed with the attitude I hear from a lot of people
about how someone stole their wife or husband. Wives and husbands
cannot be stolen! If they're going to stray, they do it of their own
accord. Emily may briefly hate Honor for daring to love her husband,
but she probably also knows that it's Hamish she should tackle first.
Honor will get nowhere if Hamish isn't interested.
> On page 236, just to serve us all some ice-cream with our cake,
> there's the admittedly short scene where Honor, Nimitz, Hamish, Emily
> and Samantha all show up at Queen Catrin's hall together to make the
> VERY IMPORTANT POINT that they're all good friends. Honor and Emily
> are talking together like best friends, but we don't see something
> that would be enormously significant to making the all important point
> that Honor is not boffing Hamish. HAMISH AND EMILY DON'T TOUCH EVEN AT
> THIS TOTALLY STAGED EVENT. Can you imagine as brilliant a politician
> and stage manager as Emily (not to mention the Queen's political
> staff) not arranging for her and Hamish to be seen touching at the
> party the Queen is throwing for the express purpose of making sure
> everyone understands that Honor and Hamish aren't boffing? In other
> words, Emily knows that no-one expects to see Hamish and her touch,
> and that the two of them to touching looks like trying too hard.
I thought this scene was VERY staged and VERY convenient. I didn't
like it at all. Honor and Emily have only met for the first time very
recently, and all of a sudden, they're falling all over each other?
Okay, so I know it was *supposed* to be staged for the benefit of
North Hollow et al, but it just made me want to puke. Emily could have
made the point that she and Honor were friends without going so OTT.
One thing I would point out though. Just because there is no mention
of Hamish touching Emily doesn't mean he didn't do it. I think you're
reading too much into what *isn't* said, and I don't think that's fair
on the author. He can't be expected to mention absolutely everything
we might expect to happen. And even if he didn't, maybe there are good
reasons which have also not been explicitly mentioned. My mother and
father almost *never* do things like that in public. It's not that
they don't love each other, it's just that my father isn't that kind
of guy. Maybe it's a British thing, and maybe Hamish has just too much
of a stiff upper lip ;-)
> Something is definitely rotten at White Haven.
The curried eggs perhaps? ;-)
> Then in the last bit of the book, page 850 to 861, we get coffee and
> an after dinner mint. Hamish and Emily STILL don't touch. Emily's off
> to bed after making the declaration that at least strongly implies
> that Hamish and Honor are free to party, and floats out the door
> without giving Hamish a kiss goodnight...
>
> The message from Emily to Honor is pretty clear. She's saying, "You
> take him. I don't want him any more."
I didn't like this scene either. I couldn't help but wonder if Honor
has become a semi-permanent resident in the time since she first
visited White Haven. Is she going to get her own room? Will she be
allowed to leave her toothbrush? Will Hamish remember to put the
toilet seat down? These are important issues you know...
> Now someone could argue that the total lack of touching represents
> Weber's attiude toward the disabled, but this goes much too far for
> that. Consciously or otherwise, MWW is making a major point about the
> relationship here, and he'll likely drop the bomb in a book or two.
I think you should be VERY careful if you're going to come to that
conclusion. I certainly wouldn't like people to say it of me in my
absence. I think you're reading too much into the lack of touching
business. As I've said before, just because it isn't mentioned doesn't
mean it doesn't happen.
Gillian
George D. Phillies
> that Honor is not boffing Hamish. HAMISH AND EMILY DON'T TOUCH EVEN AT
> THIS TOTALLY STAGED EVENT. Can you imagine as brilliant a politician
I believe this is substantially overstated. In the atrium, well, they
have been married for a very long time, and may well have gone beyond that
sort of thing. They are not teenagers, after all. In the second event,
Emily might perfectly well have concluded that the stated event had to be
underplayed. Indeed, my recollection of how this would have been played
here and now in the 50s or 60s is that nothing sounds at all wrong with
what Weber wrote. It's a matter of current mores, which wander with time.
George
Sea Wasp
> My favorite quote on that subject is from the first Addams family
> movie. Gomez is gazing at his sleeping wife and he say, "I would die
> for this woman. I would kill for this woman. Either way, what bliss."
>
> As perfect a description of love as I've ever heard.
The frightening thing is that the Addams Family, as depicted in the
movies, seems to be one of the happiest and most well-adjusted
families I've ever seen in Hollywood film.
--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
http://www.wizvax.net/seawasp/index.htm
Louann Miller
that CS Lewis, not as a compliment, called "making up stories about
how the book was written." This is how things look to me, based on no
particular insights into Weber's writing process, and might be wrong.)
On Sun, 3 Nov 2002 21:29:38 -0800, wugg...@cmc.net (Michael Sandy)
wrote:
>Gee, and before this I only really hated him because he
>apparently had a more overblown reputation than MacArthur.
The thing about Hamish, I think, is that he's not the central
character. He isn't, or at the time he was created wasn't, important
enough to Weber to write him as if he were the hero of his own story
in Hamish's own eyes. Instead the way he's written is totally
subservient to two primary writing objectives:
1. Honor shall duplicate the career of Horatio Nelson in all major
points.
2. Honor shall have all (or almost all) virtues not only as a fighting
'sailor' but as a human being.
At first, there was no sweat in reconciling these two objectives. It's
no problem to have Honor lose an arm and eye, acquire a foreign title,
and shoot up the ladder of rank powered by a string of brilliant
victories. If the parallels continue that far, it will be no problem
to have Honor die gloriously at the moment of victory. Where we're
hitting a problem is in duplicating Nelson's open and notorious affair
with a married (member of opposite sex) while keeping Honor in
character.
I used Michael's remark about MacArthur as a springboard for this
because what I've read about Nelson makes him sound much like ol'
Dugout Doug -- genuinely gifted as a military leader, but a lousy
excuse for a human being. Nelson (in his private life) was a
swaggering git who could never get enough flattery. Lady Hamilton had
all the turns of personality generally attributed to Yoko Ono. And
Lord Hamilton, who was living with his wife and her boyfriend pretty
much the whole time, was a brainless old panderer.
Honor is too well established as a character to suddenly acquire
Nelson's personal flaws. And the Hamiltons, er, White Havens can't be
nearly as twisted as their historical models. Honor is not only too
Nice to be nasty, she's too Nice to fall in love with a guy who's
nasty. Her established personality by then includes being a sterling
judge of character. So Weber somehow has to set Honor up for an
adulterous affair with a guy who _isn't_ a rat bastard and who somehow
_does_ deserve her.
Emily's troubles are meant to be the reason why an adulterous White
Haven isn't a bad guy, a kinder gentler alternative to the classic "my
wife doesn't understand me" or to simply not caring what his wife
thinks. But as Alex points out in searing detail, the more you know
about living with actual paralyzing injuries, the less this works.
The kindest (and in my guesses, the most accurate) way to read this is
that Hamish simply fails to be a three-dimensional character. It's not
that Weber failed to research and realize that Hamish and Emily could
get sexual release. That enforced celibacy is the _point_ of Hamish's
marriage, the thing that forces him in the direction the plot needs
him to go. His function in the story is not to be the best man and the
best husband he can. His function is to hit that predetermined point
in the plot so Honor can have Nelson's affair without Nelson's
character failings. In the latest book, Emily flowers as a
three-dimensional woman who wouldn't just sit home being sexless and
understanding. Unfortunately it's too late. Her job in the plot line
is to not have sex, and no number of real-world people who have
managed exactly that in the face of such injuries is going to change
that now.
My opinion, worth every cent you paid.
Alex
I suppose I'd go half way there with you.
> In the second event,
> Emily might perfectly well have concluded that the stated event had to be
> underplayed. Indeed, my recollection of how this would have been played
> here and now in the 50s or 60s is that nothing sounds at all wrong with
> what Weber wrote. It's a matter of current mores, which wander with time.
This argument doesn't hold much water, both given the political
situation that generates the party, and the fact that Weber makes it
clear elsewhere that the mores among the Manticoran aristocracy are
substantially "looser" than the current mores. And even in the
fifties, a man could have stood up behind his wife on her birthday,
put his left hand on her left shoulder, and made a toast. Granted, it
might have been a little daring for her to reach up with her right
hand and actually touch his hand in public, but no-on would have made
a scene about it either.
Alex
Alex
> Mmm. Not sure if I agree with your conclusion. When I have female
> friends over to my house, I quite often tell my husband to go away and
> find something to do! It's not that I don't love him or don't want him
> around, it's just that I know he'll be bored rigid by our 'girl talk',
> and would probably much prefer to spend the day cleaning his motorbike
> ;-)
But Honor and Emily aren't having "girl talk." They're discussing a
vital political effort. I'm assuming that you don't kick your husband
out of vital political conferences that relate directly to something
he's involved in.
> When I read this passage, I read it as an exchange between two people
> who had been married so long that they don't have to worry about
> saying the 'right' thing. My mother tells my father to bugger off all
> the time in front of guests. Everyone knows she's joking, and everyone
> knows he isn't offended. My mother would never worry about
> mistreating a 'male equal', and my father would never worry about
> being mistreated. It's just the way they are around one another, and I
> think it's a stage you only get to once you've been married a very,
> very long time.
I read it that way at first too. Then I considered the other issues -
Hamish is not included in the political part of the conference, no
touching anywhere in the book, etc.
> I would also go one step further and say Emily's orders are her way of
> claiming her territory. She may not be able to get up and kiss Hamish,
No, clearly for a mouth to mouth kiss he has to lean over. On the
other hand, she can put her arm around his waist easily enough, she
can take his hand, she can park her chair as close to him as it will
go - she can even grab his ass if she wants to.
Now close your eyes and put yourself in Emily's position. Your husband
might be having an affair. You don't think so, but you really can't be
one hundred percent sure, and you are sure that he feels substantial
affection toward the other woman. You know that you and he are going
to be in the same room as the possible "other woman." Under such
circumstances you don't touch him? And this is Emily White Haven we're
talking about. The meeting with Honor has to be carefully stage
managed.
> How do you know that Hamish and Emily haven't discussed the plan to
> death already before Honor arrived? Hamish has been on half pay since
> High Ridge and Janacek took over. He'll have been spending plenty of
> time at home, and it's fairly obvious that Emily is one of his closest
> and most trusted advisers. Even if they haven't discussed it
> explicitly, I can't imagine for a moment that Hamish doesn't know damn
> well what she and Honor are going to talk about.
Certainly possible. On the other hand, Hamish knows Honor much better
than Emily does, and probably has a better grasp of how to talk to
her. After all, they've been working together on these issues for six
years. Leaving him out of the conference is just weird.
> > Then, on page 216, Honor reflects on Emily's emotions when Honor
> > starts to cry because she can't control her love for Hamish as Emily
> > would like; "There'd been anger in her (Emily's) reaction. Not a lot,
> > but a sharp, knife-like flicker of fury that Honor should dare to love
> > _her_ husband, an automatic response that was built of raw instinct
> > and her awareness of how much more danger Honor's emotions threw them
> > all into... There was enormous potential for for jealousy and
> > resentment alike in the moment of realization, and the fact that she'd
> > put her rage aside so quickly and completely astonished Honor." That's
> > not a description of a healthy, monogamous female's response to the
> > idea that her man is in love with another woman and that the "other
> > woman" returns his love. Sure, Emily's got major zen, but let's be
> > real.
>
> I don't know if it's healthy or not - that answer would depend on
> which therapist you were speaking to at the time ;-). However, it's
> definitely veering towards the saintly end of the response scale. As
> I've said before, I'd feel much better if she threw a tantrum and
> started flinging plates like the rest of us ;-)
> Then again, maybe Emily realises the fact that Honor isn't the one
> who's causing trouble. Hamish is the married partner, not Honor. I
> would say that the onus is on him to nip the affair in the bud, not
> her.
Emily's a fairly bright bulb. I imagine her being able to figure that
one out. I get the feeling that Emily is one of those people who get
more formal as they get more upset. By that standard Emily is very
upset during this meeting and there's no sign of saintliness in sight.
Contrast her language on pages 204-216 with her language on page
850-861. She's much more relaxed in the later pages.
> > On page 236, just to serve us all some ice-cream with our cake,
> > there's the admittedly short scene where Honor, Nimitz, Hamish, Emily
> > and Samantha all show up at Queen Catrin's hall together to make the
> > VERY IMPORTANT POINT that they're all good friends. Honor and Emily
> > are talking together like best friends, but we don't see something
> > that would be enormously significant to making the all important point
> > that Honor is not boffing Hamish. HAMISH AND EMILY DON'T TOUCH EVEN AT
> > THIS TOTALLY STAGED EVENT. Can you imagine as brilliant a politician
> > and stage manager as Emily (not to mention the Queen's political
> > staff) not arranging for her and Hamish to be seen touching at the
> > party the Queen is throwing for the express purpose of making sure
> > everyone understands that Honor and Hamish aren't boffing? In other
> > words, Emily knows that no-one expects to see Hamish and her touch,
> > and that the two of them to touching looks like trying too hard.
>
> I thought this scene was VERY staged and VERY convenient. I didn't
> like it at all. Honor and Emily have only met for the first time very
> recently, and all of a sudden, they're falling all over each other?
> Okay, so I know it was *supposed* to be staged for the benefit of
> North Hollow et al, but it just made me want to puke. Emily could have
> made the point that she and Honor were friends without going so OTT.
I'd disagree there. After all, the message is going out not just to
the common people, but to the opposition as well, and the opposition
aren't intellectual paragons. Emily and Honor probably have to go OTT
just to get their attention.
> One thing I would point out though. Just because there is no mention
> of Hamish touching Emily doesn't mean he didn't do it. I think you're
> reading too much into what *isn't* said, and I don't think that's fair
> on the author.
I'd agree with you wholeheartedly if the book had been only 600 pages
long. But 861 pages? More info-dumps than I'd care to count? If he
left out a piece of characterization, he left it out and he gets
judged on it.
> He can't be expected to mention absolutely everything
> we might expect to happen. And even if he didn't, maybe there are good
> reasons which have also not been explicitly mentioned. My mother and
> father almost *never* do things like that in public. It's not that
> they don't love each other, it's just that my father isn't that kind
> of guy. Maybe it's a British thing, and maybe Hamish has just too much
> of a stiff upper lip ;-)
The other important thing here, since this is an extension of the "Why
I Hate Hamish" post is the contrast between how Honor thinks of Emily
and how Hamish thinks of Emily in EOH. In WOH Honor begins with a
fairly reverent tone toward Emily, and never, ever uses a word like
"invalid" or "cripple," though Emily uses such words herself, whereas
in EOH Hamish's tone toward his wife was enough to make MY wife say
some thoroughly unkind things about my favorite author.
Alex
> The frightening thing is that the Addams Family, as depicted in the
> movies, seems to be one of the happiest and most well-adjusted
> families I've ever seen in Hollywood film.
Yes, the Addams family is an inspiration to us all.
Alex
Gillian White
"Alex" <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
news:82be6978.0211...@posting.google.com...
> The other important thing here, since this is an extension of the "Why
> I Hate Hamish" post is the contrast between how Honor thinks of Emily
> and how Hamish thinks of Emily in EOH. In WOH Honor begins with a
> fairly reverent tone toward Emily, and never, ever uses a word like
> "invalid" or "cripple," though Emily uses such words herself, whereas
> in EOH Hamish's tone toward his wife was enough to make MY wife say
> some thoroughly unkind things about my favorite author.
Fair enough - I can understand that. But we all get annoyed by different
things, and what may irritate your wife would slip past me unnoticed, not
because I'm deliberately trying to ignore disability issues, but simply
because I don't have her perspective. Having never suffered a serious
accident or injury, I am completely oblivious to how realistic his portrayal
of Emily is.
While we're here, I'll throw in my 2 cents about the things that *do*
irritate me. First and foremost is the system of honours and titles that Mr
Weber uses in the Harrington universe. He appears to have based it on the
British system, then completely ignored most of the rules. Okay, so he's the
author and he can tailor it to his requirements in any way he pleases, but
if we adopted that attitude about everything to do with his novels, this
newsgroup would be fairly empty ;-).
My second peeve is fairly concentrated in that it only relates to one story
in 'Worlds of Honor' called 'The Stray'. And it's not even much of a peeve,
given that Mr Weber didn't write it ;-). All that stuff about Scott
McDallan's psychic Scottish heritage really got on my nerves. It's absolute
bullshit! Is that what people really think of the Scots? Fair enough if the
author wants to chuck in a character with possible psychic/telepathic
abilities, but for chrissakes, think of something more original and more
modern than 'fey' Scottish heritage. Next thing you know, there'll be a
seventh son of a seventh son popping out of the woodwork. This is supposed
to be sci-fi, not Brigadoon! I'm surprised she didn't have him rambling
around in a kilt!
Actually, I've just remembered my third pet peeve. Can we please make Honor
a little *less* perfect? Okay, so she has problems in her private life, but
when was the last time you saw her screw up in her professional life? I
remember the first time I read the summary of 'In Enemy Hands'. I thought
'Oh good, her ship gets captured - she must really fuck up!'. But nnnnnoooo,
she even managed to do that in a noble and glorious way. Doesn't this woman
*ever* make a mistake? ;-)
Anyway. Rant over.
Gillian
Colin Whipple
"Gillian White" <gillia...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:aq6sdh$m38$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk...
> Actually, I've just remembered my third pet peeve. Can we please
make Honor
> a little *less* perfect? Okay, so she has problems in her private
life, but
> when was the last time you saw her screw up in her professional
life? I
> remember the first time I read the summary of 'In Enemy Hands'. I
thought
> 'Oh good, her ship gets captured - she must really fuck up!'. But
nnnnnoooo,
> she even managed to do that in a noble and glorious way. Doesn't
this woman
> *ever* make a mistake? ;-)
The last one I remember was in Honor of the Queen, when she left the
Grayson system to accompany the convoy.
A few more situations where McKeon chastises her would be nice. :-)
Colin
Colin
David E. Siegel
Yet another possibility is that he did this spaced out over years.
That is not incompatible with the text.
Yet another is that he infact did employ agents, at least to screen
possibilities, and when he remembers "I did this" and "I tried that"
he thinks of what he has doen via agents to be something he has done.
I think you are reading more into the text than it will support,
> The most important issue here is once again what he didn't do. He
> didn't hire an agent to do the searching for him. He can certainly
> afford to hire a good doctor and a good lawyer and send them off on as
> long a search as one might want. It's a big galaxy. They could make a
> much more complete search than he has time for
Nowhere did it say that agents and assistants were not involved,
AFAICR.
<snip>
I think that such body langauge is highly cultural, and somewhat
personal. I have known people who didn't engage in any public
touching, even with a much-loved spouse , and who were not, i belive,
signialing anything ammis with themselves odr their relationship.
We are told that standards in such things vary by world (Beowulf vs
manticore vs sphinx). We are not told mily's background. Perhaps her
basic cultural matrix is undemonstrative.
Not that your analysis may not be right, or partly right, but I think
you are building too much on too little evidence.
> Then, just to make the point that something is wrong at White Haven
> crystal clear, Emily immediately asks her husband to leave. (bottom of
> page 205) Look at the phrasing. "Hamish, I think Her Grace and I need
> to get to know each other. Go find something to do."
>That's not how a
> woman talks to a male equal in front of someone important. Then later
That can be how a woman talks to an equal who is making an ass of
himself.
<snip more of the samae analysis>
>
> This is NOT a healthy relationship. (Unless it's a Misstress/slave
> relationship.)
Relationships are so various, as your cavet suggests, that diagnosing
one on a page or two of dialog seems dubious to me.
<SNIP Honors reactions to Emily's emotions and analysis thereof>
That's
> not a description of a healthy, monogamous female's response to the
> idea that her man is in love with another woman and that the "other
> woman" returns his love. Sure, Emily's got major zen, but let's be
> real.
For the matter of that, is she basically monogamous in orientation.
Clearly other patterns are socially acceptable on Manticode, to say
nothing of Beowulf. Actaully all the text hints say she is, but it
isn't proved IMO.
>
> On page 236, just to serve us all some ice-cream with our cake,
> there's the admittedly short scene where Honor, Nimitz, Hamish, Emily
> and Samantha all show up at Queen Catrin's hall together to make the
> VERY IMPORTANT POINT that they're all good friends. Honor and Emily
> are talking together like best friends, but we don't see something
> that would be enormously significant to making the all important point
> that Honor is not boffing Hamish. HAMISH AND EMILY DON'T TOUCH EVEN AT
> THIS TOTALLY STAGED EVENT. Can you imagine as brilliant a politician
> and stage manager as Emily (not to mention the Queen's political
> staff) not arranging for her and Hamish to be seen touching at the
> party the Queen is throwing for the express purpose of making sure
> everyone understands that Honor and Hamish aren't boffing?
Again, this depends on the current customs in such matters on
manticore. maybe such a public display would be seen as tasteless and
look stageds or otherwise provoke a negative reaction. If Emily wants
to send a public signal that she is not intersted in Hamish, she can
do so perfectly explictly if she wants to.
>In other
> words, Emily knows that no-one expects to see Hamish and her touch,
> and that the two of them to touching looks like trying too hard.
>
> Something is definitely rotten at White Haven.
This assuems that not only is soemthing rotten, but the General
public, fo whom this event is being staged, know it well enough that
they would see a touch as false. That is not consistant with any
evidence I can see in the text.
>
> Then in the last bit of the book, page 850 to 861, we get coffee and
> an after dinner mint. Hamish and Emily STILL don't touch. Emily's off
> to bed after making the declaration that at least strongly implies
> that Hamish and Honor are free to party, and floats out the door
> without giving Hamish a kiss goodnight...
>
> The message from Emily to Honor is pretty clear. She's saying, "You
> take him. I don't want him any more."
>
She is clearly giving them permission to have sex. this may mean "I'm
wiling to share him" rather than "I don't want him any more".
> Now someone could argue that the total lack of touching represents
> Weber's attiude toward the disabled, but this goes much too far for
> that. Consciously or otherwise, MWW is making a major point about the
> relationship here, and he'll likely drop the bomb in a book or two.
>
Perhaps, but I'm not convinced by your analysis.
> Alex
I think that what has happend here is that you know very well what it
means to deal with the serious injury of a loved one, specifically of
a wife. This makes these scenes hit home to you. And, based on your
description of events, you acted in an exemplary and very loving
fashion when faced with your (future) wife's injuries.
But AFAIK David Weber has never been through anything like this
experience. Your point, for instance, that "Crippled" and "Invalid"
are words much disliked by disabled people and their friends, I didn't
know, and quite possibly DW didn't know.
Perhaps if Mr Weber had talked with you or someone like you about this
point before he wrote these scenes, he would have handled them
differently. But I suspect that you are confusing authorial ignorance
with authorial intent here.
Now it may be argued that no matter what, having an affair and
employing "escorts" makes Hamish a heel. That may be so. But if we
accept, for the moment, that Emily is *in fact* incapable of sexual
response, and has been for many years, perhaps a single brief affair
and a number of paid encounters isnot such a mortal sin? We don't know
whet the explicit and implicit agreements of their marriage were. But
in this culture, where an affair is generally not accepted by the
wife, many otherwise fairly good mean (and women) have hd affairs
without fatel damage to their marriages, and without beeing complete
heels or unlovable. perhaps your standard is not only high, buit a bit
narrow?
I also suspect, that when DW originaly wrote of Emily and her medical
condition, he did not plan for her to be an onstage character at all,
it was a minor bit of background, and later the implications made it
important, but the basic fact was already in print.
-DES
Captain Button
Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>(Warning: this post is an example of the school of literary criticsm
>that CS Lewis, not as a compliment, called "making up stories about
>how the book was written." This is how things look to me, based on no
>particular insights into Weber's writing process, and might be wrong.)
Instant digression: Is this what I'm doing when I speculate that the real
reason for thread in the Pern novels is so you can have stories about noble
knights riding dragons without the moral ambiguity of warfare against
sentient opponents?
--
American Express says I'm deceased. Boo! Consider yourself haunted.
Captain Button - but...@io.com
David Adner
person. Good tactician (never actually seen him do anything great),
supporter of the Queen, but that's about it. It's always struck me as
odd that Honor feels such an attachment to him. Guess not even she's
perfect.
Ross TenEyck
>In article <cv6dsu4cnfgoqm82k...@4ax.com>,
>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote:
>>(Warning: this post is an example of the school of literary criticsm
>>that CS Lewis, not as a compliment, called "making up stories about
>>how the book was written." This is how things look to me, based on no
>>particular insights into Weber's writing process, and might be wrong.)
>Instant digression: Is this what I'm doing when I speculate that the real
>reason for thread in the Pern novels is so you can have stories about noble
>knights riding dragons without the moral ambiguity of warfare against
>sentient opponents?
Yeah, pretty much. Lewis' observation of such comments about his
books was that they were 100% wrong. He expected, just on averages,
that some critics would be right at least some of the time; but in
his experience, they were always wrong.
(Note that he was careful to distinguish these sorts of comments from
statements about the quality or worth of his books, matters on which
critics were expected to give opinions. It was only when they ventured
into how or why some book was written that they became invariably
mistaken.)
--
================== http://www.alumni.caltech.edu/~teneyck ==================
Ross TenEyck Seattle, WA \ Light, kindled in the furnace of hydrogen;
ten...@alumni.caltech.edu \ like smoke, sunlight carries the hot-metal
Are wa yume? Soretomo maboroshi? \ tang of Creation's forge.
Alex
And Hamish goes to Hamilton while looking for a cure for Lady Emily.
(Page 211 - more or less - in Echoes of Honor.) Foreshadowing, or red
herring(ton)?
> Honor is too well established as a character to suddenly acquire
> Nelson's personal flaws. And the Hamiltons, er, White Havens can't be
> nearly as twisted as their historical models.
I don't see why not, though with the twist relating to their ignorance
of what they can have for themselves rather than malice or an
inappropriate lustfulness. Someone on the "Lady Emily White Haven -
What a Load" thread made the point that someone in Lady Emily's
position could participate vicariously in her husband's sex life by
picking out the registered courtesans and arranging their make-up and
lingerie. It has some possibilities...
> Honor is not only too
> Nice to be nasty, she's too Nice to fall in love with a guy who's
> nasty. Her established personality by then includes being a sterling
> judge of character. So Weber somehow has to set Honor up for an
> adulterous affair with a guy who _isn't_ a rat bastard and who somehow
> _does_ deserve her.
>
> Emily's troubles are meant to be the reason why an adulterous White
> Haven isn't a bad guy, a kinder gentler alternative to the classic "my
> wife doesn't understand me" or to simply not caring what his wife
> thinks. But as Alex points out in searing detail, the more you know
> about living with actual paralyzing injuries, the less this works.
>
> The kindest (and in my guesses, the most accurate) way to read this is
> that Hamish simply fails to be a three-dimensional character.
Good point as well - or at the very least that Hamish doesn't have
what it takes to make the transition from bit player to the center
stage.
> It's not
> that Weber failed to research and realize that Hamish and Emily could
> get sexual release. That enforced celibacy is the _point_ of Hamish's
> marriage, the thing that forces him in the direction the plot needs
> him to go. His function in the story is not to be the best man and the
> best husband he can. His function is to hit that predetermined point
> in the plot so Honor can have Nelson's affair without Nelson's
> character failings. In the latest book, Emily flowers as a
> three-dimensional woman who wouldn't just sit home being sexless and
> understanding. Unfortunately it's too late. Her job in the plot line
> is to not have sex, and no number of real-world people who have
> managed exactly that in the face of such injuries is going to change
> that now.
>
> My opinion, worth every cent you paid.
The best things in life are free. The above is an example of truly
excellent and intelligent criticism. Just effing brilliant!!
However, you realize that this sets up a difficult dilemma for Mr.
Weber... Does he continue to serve logic and consistency as he has in
the past, adapting to the newly acquired knowledge that disabled
people continue (with great joy and happiness) to boff? (Once again,
let me advertise that Google search, "spinal cord injuries" + sex)
Or does he stick to the plan, at which point logic and consistency go
down in flames, and his (so far) great work starts to read like a Star
Trek novel?
At least he can't do the "It hurts Emily to touch others thing." Honor
shook Emily's hand (on page 204 of War of Honor) and didn't detect any
distress.
Personally, I think there's great drama in the issue of whether Hamish
behaved inappropriately after Emily's injury, and the further issue of
how he might redeem himself.
There's great drama in the possibility that Emily/Hamish are ignorant
of what they've been missing through some medical error or
psychological issue and somehow get it back.
That's the story I'd like to read.
Kitsune
"Nancy Lebovitz" <na...@unix1.netaxs.com> wrote in message
news:E7rx9.2146$Ve3.1...@monger.newsread.com...
> >his chest. They'd never discussed it directly, for there'd never been
> >a need to. The information, the knowledge, had been exchanged on some
> >profound inner level, for just as she'd known he had run away, she'd
> >
> My take on this is that Hamish is kidding himself. Emily had no idea
> of what he'd been doing. She smiled because she was glad to see him,
> and Hamish is going to have an interesting time if she finds out
> and he says "but I thought you knew and didn't mind".
That doesn't give Emily much credit for knowing her husband as well as
she should after that many years of marriage. After a mere 5 years of
marriage, I was quite capable of telling when my husband was attracted to
someone else and whether or not anything was being done about that
attraction. I was also quite capable of judging just how serious that
attraction was in all it's different incarnations. I tend to credit Emily
with at least that much intelligence / empathy and I think that credit is
something which is missing from a great many of these posts regarding what a
heel Hamish is.
-Linda
Alex
> tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) wrote in message news:<1fl2ycs.u4ckty288v76N%pl...@newsreaders.com>...
> > > Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> Yet another possibility is that he did this spaced out over years.
> That is not incompatible with the text.
> Yet another is that he infact did employ agents, at least to screen
> possibilities, and when he remembers "I did this" and "I tried that"
> he thinks of what he has doen via agents to be something he has done.
> I think you are reading more into the text than it will support.
As Gillian said, it's not entirely fair to judge an author by what he
didn't say. That being mostly agreed to, and while it doesn't say one
way or the other in the text, Weber leaves SO MANY of the right things
to do out of Hamish's musings that it stands out like a sore thumb if
you've ever been in the actual situation. Also, the text does make it
some things very clear.
1.) Hamish had an affair.
2.) Hamish lost it over the issue of Emily's injuries and didn't get
adequate (or any) psychological counseling.
3.) Hamish was badly in denial.
4.) Hamish is unclear on the difference between mental and physical
disability.
5.) Hamish's musing are very self centered.
6.) Hamish doesn't deal well with personal adversity.
7.) Hamish hasn't got a clue about how his affair with Kuzak affected
Emily. My wife has told me several times that my treating her as if
she was attractive even during the worst of her hospitalization had an
extremely powerful effect on her morale. She thought it was sweet that
I would lie down next to her on the hospital bed and fall asleep,
(actually, I was simply exhausted) and it gave her hope that things
would be normal again. I also made it a point to actively kiss her,
hold her, hug her, etc. while she was in the hospital bed. It sounds
like Hamish did exactly the opposite.
8.) Hamish uses inappropriate language when thinking about his wife
even when he isn't angry. One could argue that this is Mr. Weber's
ignorance showing, but contrast his language and tone while thinking
about Emily with Honor's language and tone toward Emily in "War of
Honor."
There are substantial reasons for Emily continuing to live with Hamish
even if she no longer trusts/loves him. These include possible need of
his money to survive, politics, social standing, and being there if
one of his "blue sky" medical research projects pays off.
> Nowhere did it say that agents and assistants were not involved,
> AFAICR.
Yeah, but would you have even been able to disagree with the idea if I
hadn't brought it up as something the text didn't discuss? Weber very
clearly knows how people with lots of wealth and power handle things.
If he wanted us to think Hamish used agents, he's had four of five
thousand pages of books to tell us so.
I would generally have to agree that this evidence isn't nearly so
damning as the evidence in "Echoes of Honor," but it does follow
appropriately from the well proven idea that Hamish screwed up big
time in his initial reaction to Emily's accident.
Also, consider that Weber has shown at least one couple of similar age
to Emily and Hamish cuddling up (I'm referring to Allison and Alfred
in EOH) and that he's also shown us Eloise Prichart and Giscard in
bed. There was a bedroom scene involving the Youngs just after the
party scene in WOH, (note how he forshadows something hundreds of
pages away when Elaine sticks her tongue out at the mirror) and that
scene could almost be taken as contrast (these people don't touch and
these people do touch) etc.
> This assuems that not only is soemthing rotten, but the General
> public, fo whom this event is being staged, know it well enough that
> they would see a touch as false. That is not consistant with any
> evidence I can see in the text.
The general public wouldn't know who was touching and who wasn't, but
Manticore's nobility, royalty, (plus the "royalty watchers/fans)
political elite, and the press would have a good idea of who is/isn't
touchy feely. A single moment of high class touching would have done
it without looking overplayed. Hamish makes a toast to his wife. He
stands behind her, puts his left hand on her left shoulder. She
reaches up and puts her right hand on top of his left hand. The
picture in the papers the next day looks classy and everyone knows
what's really what. Remember that the party was also being staged for
the benefit of the opposition, who seem to be fairly dim bulbs. They'd
need to see something fairly obvious to know what was going on.
> > Then in the last bit of the book, page 850 to 861, we get coffee and
> > an after dinner mint. Hamish and Emily STILL don't touch. Emily's off
> > to bed after making the declaration that at least strongly implies
> > that Hamish and Honor are free to party, and floats out the door
> > without giving Hamish a kiss goodnight...
> >
> > The message from Emily to Honor is pretty clear. She's saying, "You
> > take him. I don't want him any more."
> >
> She is clearly giving them permission to have sex. this may mean "I'm
> willing to share him" rather than "I don't want him any more".
I would have patted him (and maybe her) on the shoulder and told them
to have fun.
> I think that what has happend here is that you know very well what it
> means to deal with the serious injury of a loved one, specifically of
> a wife. This makes these scenes hit home to you. And, based on your
> description of events, you acted in an exemplary and very loving
> fashion when faced with your (future) wife's injuries.
Yes, but I didn't discuss my history to toot my own horn. I discussed
it to give some credibility to my analysis of the text, and I can tell
you with no doubt at all from having been in the same situation that
Hamish made an ass of himself. That being said, yes, the writing about
disabled people and the "heros" who love them has pushed my buttons in
some really nasty ways, but I'm coming to believe that Weber is
pushing them deliberately to tell us about the relationship between
Emily and Hamish.
> But AFAIK David Weber has never been through anything like this
> experience. Your point, for instance, that "Crippled" and "Invalid"
> are words much disliked by disabled people and their friends, I didn't
> know, and quite possibly DW didn't know.
David Weber is a man who takes political correctness to the point
where the fact that they live in such a society is invisible to the
characters themselves. For example, I get the idea that Michelle Henke
has never heard a racial slur, and wouldn't know what it meant if she
did. To the entirety of the Manticoran population, she just has "dark
skin." she's not an "African Manticoran" or even black. She's just
dark skinned. If MWW introduced a character who thought of Henke as
"African Manticoran" he'd be making a point of how retrograde that
person's thinking was.
Now tell me again that Weber didn't know what effect he was trying to
achieve by having Hamish think this way?
> Perhaps if Mr Weber had talked with you or someone like you about this
> point before he wrote these scenes, he would have handled them
> differently. But I suspect that you are confusing authorial ignorance
> with authorial intent here.
Its possible. Comments anyone? Mr. Weber, are you out there?
> Now it may be argued that no matter what, having an affair and
> employing "escorts" makes Hamish a heel. That may be so. But if we
> accept, for the moment, that Emily is *in fact* incapable of sexual
> response, and has been for many years, perhaps a single brief affair
> and a number of paid encounters isnot such a mortal sin? We don't know
> whet the explicit and implicit agreements of their marriage were. But
> in this culture, where an affair is generally not accepted by the
> wife, many otherwise fairly good mean (and women) have hd affairs
> without fatel damage to their marriages, and without beeing complete
> heels or unlovable
> perhaps your standard is not only high, buit a bit
> narrow?
I don't think the registered courtesans were inappropriate, just the
bit with Kuzak.
> I also suspect, that when DW originaly wrote of Emily and her medical
> condition, he did not plan for her to be an onstage character at all,
> it was a minor bit of background, and later the implications made it
> important, but the basic fact was already in print.
Quite possible. For an interesting take on this, see the thread "Why
We Weren't Intended to Hate Hamish." The first post contains some very
intelligent speculation.
Alex
Alex
>
> > My take on this is that Hamish is kidding himself. Emily had no idea
> > of what he'd been doing. She smiled because she was glad to see him,
> > and Hamish is going to have an interesting time if she finds out
> > and he says "but I thought you knew and didn't mind".
>
> That doesn't give Emily much credit for knowing her husband as well as
> she should after that many years of marriage. After a mere 5 years of
> marriage, I was quite capable of telling when my husband was attracted to
> someone else and whether or not anything was being done about that
> attraction. I was also quite capable of judging just how serious that
> attraction was in all it's different incarnations.
I'm with you there Kitsune. I can't believe that a woman as smart and
sensitive as Emily wouldn't know (at the very least) that something
was up. How she found out exactly what was happening is, of course,
another matter.
> I tend to credit Emily
> with at least that much intelligence / empathy and I think that credit is
> something which is missing from a great many of these posts regarding what a
> heel Hamish is.
Both conditions could be true. Emily could be intelligent, empathetic,
sensitive, etc., and Hamish could (have been) be a heel. In fact, that
what the text in the books strongly implies.
Alex
Mike Van Pelt
>where the fact that they live in such a society is invisible to the
>characters themselves. For example, I get the idea that Michelle Henke
>has never heard a racial slur, and wouldn't know what it meant if she
>did. To the entirety of the Manticoran population, she just has "dark
>skin." she's not an "African Manticoran" or even black. She's just
>dark skinned. If MWW introduced a character who thought of Henke as
>"African Manticoran" he'd be making a point of how retrograde that
>person's thinking was.
I have to disagree here.
If Weber was being "Politically Correct" about race, Michelle Henke
would have to have considered being a "Manticoran Of Color" the most
important thing about herself, in oppostion to "Manticorans Not Of
Color", and constantly obsessed about it.
The refreshing completely un-self-conscious colorblindness of
Manticoran society is anathema to Political Correctness.
(I also think the Manticoran approach to race -- there's no
such thing; we're all just people -- is the ideal we should
strive for.)
--
Have you noticed that, when we were young, we were told | Mike Van Pelt
that "everybody else is doing it" was a really stupid | m...@calweb.com
reason to do something, but now it's the standard reason | KE6BVH
for picking a particular software package? -- Barry Gehm
Alex
> >If MWW introduced a character who thought of Henke as
> >"African Manticoran" he'd be making a point of how retrograde that
> >person's thinking was.
>
> I have to disagree here.
>
> If Weber was being "Politically Correct" about race, Michelle Henke
> would have to have considered being a "Manticoran Of Color" the most
> important thing about herself, in oppostion to "Manticorans Not Of
> Color", and constantly obsessed about it.
>
> The refreshing completely un-self-conscious colorblindness of
> Manticoran society is anathema to Political Correctness.
>
> (I also think the Manticoran approach to race -- there's no
> such thing; we're all just people -- is the ideal we should
> strive for.)
You're missing my point. If it holds true for Michelle, it should hold
true for Emily as well, as in: "We're all just people... some of us
just don't get out of our chairs."
If Manticoran society can avoid using loaded racial words, it can also
avoid using loaded words for disabilities. The fact that Michele Henke
ISN'T an "African Manticoran" but Emily IS a "cripple" is very telling
about Hamish's attitude.
I would have said the contrast is very telling about Weber's attitude,
but the way Honor thinks about Emily is VERY, VERY different from the
way Hamish thinks about Emily, so I think Weber is having Hamish use
loaded words in order to make a point about Hamish.
Read "Echoes of Honor" pages 211-215, and "War of Honor" pages 204-216
and you'll see the contrast.
Alex
Andrew Lannon
> You're missing my point. If it holds true for Michelle, it should hold
> true for Emily as well, as in: "We're all just people... some of us
> just don't get out of our chairs."
>
> If Manticoran society can avoid using loaded racial words, it can also
> avoid using loaded words for disabilities. The fact that Michele Henke
> ISN'T an "African Manticoran" but Emily IS a "cripple" is very telling
> about Hamish's attitude.
Except that "race" isn't a functional difference (well, OK, there're slight
differences in resistance to radiation and some other minor things, but
basically no differences), whereas Emily is _hugely_ functionally different.
Saying she's a cripple is just a recognition that some allowances are going
to have to be made. No tennis, she'll need large doors, she apparently is
rather sickly, she's not capable of sex, that sort of thing.
> I would have said the contrast is very telling about Weber's attitude,
> but the way Honor thinks about Emily is VERY, VERY different from the
> way Hamish thinks about Emily, so I think Weber is having Hamish use
> loaded words in order to make a point about Hamish.
>
> Read "Echoes of Honor" pages 211-215, and "War of Honor" pages 204-216
> and you'll see the contrast.
I think the key is a line pretty early in WoH (I'm not quoting a page, since
I've got the ebook instead of DT, and also because I should be taking a
shower and getting ready for class instead of writing this ;-) ), where
Weber is rehashing Emily's damages; he says something like "...and enough
motor centers were salvaged to give her use of her right arm..." To me,
this indicates that the neurosurgeons actively move nerves, nerve clusters,
and maybe even rewired bits of the brain to give her what independence she
has. At at least one point, it occurs to Honor that Emily's breathing is
probably controlled by her chair.
Also, even Emily considers that she can no longer satisfy Hamish sexually.
I think, if she were capable of it, it would have occured to the two of them
at some point. I don't think any less of Hamish for not using Emily; I do
think somewhat less of him for having the bad grace to fall for Honor, and
somewhat less for not being able to surpress his desires. However, the
first isn't always necessarily a choice, and I have trouble blaming him
overly much for being celibate for a couple centuries or so. :-p
Andrew Lannon
charles krin
snip
>> In the second event,
>> Emily might perfectly well have concluded that the stated event had to be
>> underplayed. Indeed, my recollection of how this would have been played
>> here and now in the 50s or 60s is that nothing sounds at all wrong with
>> what Weber wrote. It's a matter of current mores, which wander with time.
>
>This argument doesn't hold much water, both given the political
>situation that generates the party, and the fact that Weber makes it
>clear elsewhere that the mores among the Manticoran aristocracy are
>substantially "looser" than the current mores. And even in the
>fifties, a man could have stood up behind his wife on her birthday,
>put his left hand on her left shoulder, and made a toast. Granted, it
>might have been a little daring for her to reach up with her right
>hand and actually touch his hand in public, but no-on would have made
>a scene about it either.
>
>Alex
However, the man touching the woman's shoulder in this case would have
been a possessive act, not necessarily one of love...we also don't
know that Emily can move more than her hand, or even enough of her
hand and forearm to pinch WH on the butt...
I'm of two minds here...I've come to agree with Alex that there is
something flawed with White Haven's response, but had put it down to
the time *that Emily has remained alive and imprisoned* in her life
support chair.
One thing that DW has not commented on has been the chances that,
given a 200 or so year span of fertility and a life span of 300 or so,
a significant percentage of *non dynastic* couples would not stay
together for more than 50 years. I suspect that there are mechanisms
in place behind the scenes which allow for significant changes of
spice...if not a more formal serial polygamy/polyandry than we see
today with the divorce rate. The acceptance of formal Courtesans would
be part of this, but probably not all of it. I do know that the vows
that WH and Emily took were the "til death do us part" kind...but I'm
fairly sure that this was somewhat unusual on Manticore.
Among other things, I don't remember any mention of White Haven's
Heirs of the Body, and only a vague mention of Heirs of the
Blood...not even an adopted child...which considering DW's own
situation is rather more surprising.
ck
--
country doc in louisiana
(no fancy sayings right now)
Alex
> > If Manticoran society can avoid using loaded racial words, it can also
> > avoid using loaded words for disabilities. The fact that Michele Henke
> > ISN'T an "African Manticoran" but Emily IS a "cripple" is very telling
> > about Hamish's attitude.
>
> Except that "race" isn't a functional difference (well, OK, there're slight
> differences in resistance to radiation and some other minor things, but
> basically no differences), whereas Emily is _hugely_ functionally different.
> Saying she's a cripple is just a recognition that some allowances are going
> to have to be made. No tennis, she'll need large doors, she apparently is
> rather sickly, she's not capable of sex, that sort of thing.
Ok, let's try one more time. If you were in a conversation with
someone who's stuck in a wheelchair, and you called them an "invalid"
or a "cripple" there's an excellent chance you'd get a lecture, a
fairly good chance they'd shout abuse right back at you, and it's even
possible you'd be assaulted. To the disabled community, "cripple" and
"invalid" are those kinds of words. Of course, responses vary - some
disabled people are more political about it than others...
Now, back in the Star Kingdom, let's assume that someone was ignorant
and beastlike enough to call Michele Henke a nigger. Assuming she knew
what the word meant, and took umbrage, it's very easy to imagine
Hamish offering to be her second in the inevitable duel.
But I'm expected to believe this same guy is going to think of his
wife as a "cripple" or "invalid" instead of as "handicapped" or
"disabled" and not interpret it as having significance? Either Weber
is having Hamish use these words in conscious understanding of what
they mean as he leads up to something, or he is ignorant. (I'm leaning
toward ignorant today - yesterday I was being much nicer about the
whole thing.)
> > I would have said the contrast is very telling about Weber's attitude,
> > but the way Honor thinks about Emily is VERY, VERY different from the
> > way Hamish thinks about Emily, so I think Weber is having Hamish use
> > loaded words in order to make a point about Hamish.
> >
> > Read "Echoes of Honor" pages 211-215, and "War of Honor" pages 204-216
> > and you'll see the contrast.
>
> I think the key is a line pretty early in WoH (I'm not quoting a page, since
> I've got the ebook instead of DT, and also because I should be taking a
> shower and getting ready for class instead of writing this ;-) ), where
> Weber is rehashing Emily's damages; he says something like "...and enough
> motor centers were salvaged to give her use of her right arm..." To me,
> this indicates that the neurosurgeons actively move nerves, nerve clusters,
> and maybe even rewired bits of the brain to give her what independence she
> has.
But how do those nerves heal together properly if she is "immune" to
regeneration medicine? I suspect it means that the subdural hematoma
(internal bleeding in the brain) was controlled before it damaged
those nerves. If doctors in the star kingdom can get that far into the
brain, and if Honor can make use of artificial nerves in her face and
eye, why can't the doctor's run some artificial nerve from Emily's
clitoris/nipples to the pleasure center of her brain? Problem
solved!! I can think of at least two other possible solutions to her
sexlessness given the Star Kingdoms medical tech base.
> At at least one point, it occurs to Honor that Emily's breathing is
> probably controlled by her chair.
Yes, and doubtless she needed some physical therapy to have the chair
take a "deep breath" for her when she needs to speak, and further PT
in order to know what she has to do make the chair move. In addition,
she needed therapy to learn how to do things one handed that she'd
previously done two handed.
Once again, they've run artificial nerves to her lungs. Why wouldn't
an enlightened woman with gobs of money have them run some artificial
nerves to other places?
Simple answer IMHO. Weber never considered the issue. I suspect he's
not only disturbingly ignorant about disabled people, he's ignorant of
the fact that he's ignorant.
But let's make a practical test. Since you're on a college campus, why
don't you haul "Echoes of Honor" around with you for a couple of days,
find some people in wheelchairs (not hard to find, at least at a state
school) show them the bit on page 211-215, and ask them what they
think of Hamish's attitude toward his wife. If you can't find a
wheelchair user, I'll bet you've got an office on your campus that
deals with disabled issues. Ask someone there.
Kitsune
Not to all of us. Which is exactly my point. I DON'T consider Hamish a
heel and obviously, (to me at least) Emily doesn't either. I think the
interpretation on this one all depends on the world view you bring to the
story.
If Emily regarded Hamish the way you have interpreted things, I would
expect her to be absolutely _delighted_ by the accusations against her
husband. It would give her the perfect chance at revenge against him by
being the "wronged victim/wife" if she felt the way you claim she does.
Emily didn't respond that way when it would have been so easy for her to do
so and she had _nothing_ to lose by behaving any way she felt like.
Therefor, your arguments don't make any sense to me.
-Linda Fox
Alex
>
> However, the man touching the woman's shoulder in this case would have
> been a possessive act, not necessarily one of love...we also don't
> know that Emily can move more than her hand, or even enough of her
> hand and forearm to pinch WH on the butt...
>
> I'm of two minds here...I've come to agree with Alex that there is
> something flawed with White Haven's response, but had put it down to
> the time *that Emily has remained alive and imprisoned* in her life
> support chair.
If you are in fact a "country doctor," and I'm not simply failing to
recognize a quote that might refer to something else, perhaps you
could add a little grist to our mill; specifically, what would a life
support chair have to do?
I'm sure we're all aware that the lungs and heart have (at the present
time) to be connected to the brain to maintain life, but what about
the other organs? Do the liver, intestines, gall bladder, etc.
actually need to be connected to the brain or do they regulate their
function hormonally? If we only need to connect the heart and lungs to
stimulation to maintain life, is the whole concept of a "life support
chair" in some sense invalid?
Other than maintaining the organs, what does the life support chair
have to do? I assume it needs to massage the tissues and do something
to keep Emily from getting bedsores. I further assume that it might
have to perform dialysis, and that it has to do something to remove
wastes from her body.
If you could block out the basic parameters for us, and make it the
top post on another thread, that would be lovely.
> One thing that DW has not commented on has been the chances that,
> given a 200 or so year span of fertility and a life span of 300 or so,
> a significant percentage of *non dynastic* couples would not stay
> together for more than 50 years. I suspect that there are mechanisms
> in place behind the scenes which allow for significant changes of
> spice...if not a more formal serial polygamy/polyandry than we see
> today with the divorce rate. The acceptance of formal Courtesans would
> be part of this, but probably not all of it. I do know that the vows
> that WH and Emily took were the "til death do us part" kind...but I'm
> fairly sure that this was somewhat unusual on Manticore.
Interesting point. Perhaps Emily and Hamish have considered this
together, and Honor, as "nouveau nobility," doesn't fully understand
the offer that's been made, what her obligations are under that offer,
and what she and Hamish can and can't do.
On the other hand, perhaps MWW is just leading up to the old joke
about how one has sex - Honor Offer Honor Offer...
Alex
Andrew Lannon
> Do the liver, intestines, gall bladder, etc.
> actually need to be connected to the brain or do they regulate their
> function hormonally?
I'll chime in here: many, many body functions _are_ controlled hormonally,
and the brain produces the hormones. The brain senses a lack of element A
and produces hormone B, gland C sees hormone B and produces hormone D, which
makes you hungry. That sort of thing. :-)
(Or, in my case, my brain senses a lack of Dr Pepper and panics...)
Andrew Lannon
Andrew Lannon
> someone who's stuck in a wheelchair, and you called them an "invalid"
> or a "cripple" there's an excellent chance you'd get a lecture, a
> fairly good chance they'd shout abuse right back at you, and it's even
> possible you'd be assaulted. To the disabled community, "cripple" and
> "invalid" are those kinds of words. Of course, responses vary - some
> disabled people are more political about it than others...
<shrug> Honestly, I don't give a rat's ass for "politcally correct", for
the most part. Sure, I can see how calling africanoids "niggers" as a
matter of course is a problem...but I think banning Tom Sawyer because it
uses period dialogue (which includes "nigger") is stupid. "Cripple" is an
adjective...handicapped, crippled, invalid, whatever. They all mean the
same thing. I've known enough "handicapped" people who didn't give a damn
that I realize that the word makes no difference, it's all about intent.
White Haven was just acknowledging that she is by no standards "fully
functional".
> Now, back in the Star Kingdom, let's assume that someone was ignorant
> and beastlike enough to call Michele Henke a nigger. Assuming she knew
> what the word meant, and took umbrage, it's very easy to imagine
> Hamish offering to be her second in the inevitable duel.
I dunno. If another "colored" Manticoran called her that, and she
challenged, would he? More pertinantly, I think, if she just acknowledged
that yes, she's a "nigger", would he have any place to challenge the person
in her stead?
> But I'm expected to believe this same guy is going to think of his
> wife as a "cripple" or "invalid" instead of as "handicapped" or
> "disabled" and not interpret it as having significance? Either Weber
> is having Hamish use these words in conscious understanding of what
> they mean as he leads up to something, or he is ignorant. (I'm leaning
> toward ignorant today - yesterday I was being much nicer about the
> whole thing.)
Or, like probably 80% of the US, he doesn't see a problem with the word
unless it's used insultingly. Best comparison is that I don't mind being
called a redneck as a social identifier...to a large degree, I am. However,
when someone uses it as an insult it tends to irritate me...just enough to
ignore them.
> But how do those nerves heal together properly if she is "immune" to
> regeneration medicine? I suspect it means that the subdural hematoma
> (internal bleeding in the brain) was controlled before it damaged
> those nerves. If doctors in the star kingdom can get that far into the
> brain, and if Honor can make use of artificial nerves in her face and
> eye, why can't the doctor's run some artificial nerve from Emily's
> clitoris/nipples to the pleasure center of her brain? Problem
> solved!! I can think of at least two other possible solutions to her
> sexlessness given the Star Kingdoms medical tech base.
There's a differnce between rewiring a nerve bundle and rebuilding the
brain. The brain wires itself as it learns; if you go rewiring it, it'll
just have to relearn _everything_...like memories. It'd be like fixing a
surface trace on a motherboard with a soldering iron, as opposed to
repairing a chip; the trace is fairly easy, the chip is essentially
impossible.
> Yes, and doubtless she needed some physical therapy to have the chair
> take a "deep breath" for her when she needs to speak, and further PT
> in order to know what she has to do make the chair move. In addition,
> she needed therapy to learn how to do things one handed that she'd
> previously done two handed.
I doubt it, to either one. She controls the chair through "spinal shunts"
or some such; they probably mapped what nerve responds when she tries to do
something, and programmed it into the chair. "Hey, nerve line 11X54-Alpha
fires whenever she tries to speak. Map that to the chair's 'breath for spee
ch' function."
As for one-handed -> two-handed, how many people that break an arm need
therapy to learn to do things one-handed? I didn't (sprained wrist, not
broken, but I still couldn't use it for a few weeks). My typing speed went
down, and my handwriting got even worse, but outside of activities that
absolutely require two hands (playing a video game, shooting an unmodified
rifle), I managed just find one-handed. Humans are, you realize, immensely
adaptable...it's our main survival trait. It was probably harder for her to
learn not to try and lean over to pick something up than to learn to eat.
> Once again, they've run artificial nerves to her lungs. Why wouldn't
> an enlightened woman with gobs of money have them run some artificial
> nerves to other places?
I think the chair just stimulates her diaphragm. Again, it's a matter of
complexity; the human cheek doesn't have a lot of nerves compared to
erogenous zones.
> But let's make a practical test. Since you're on a college campus, why
> don't you haul "Echoes of Honor" around with you for a couple of days,
> find some people in wheelchairs (not hard to find, at least at a state
> school) show them the bit on page 211-215, and ask them what they
> think of Hamish's attitude toward his wife. If you can't find a
> wheelchair user, I'll bet you've got an office on your campus that
> deals with disabled issues. Ask someone there.
They almost have to read the whole series, not just a few pages, to get a
real feel for Hamish, Emily, and her accident. If they only base their
assumption, they're losing a _lot_ of highly pertinent data.
Andrew Lannon
Kitsune
quadraplegic. Do we think of him as crippled? Of course. He is. Did we
ever _say_ it? Not that I can remember. Saying and thinking are two
different things.
> Now, back in the Star Kingdom, let's assume that someone was ignorant
> and beastlike enough to call Michele Henke a nigger. Assuming she knew
> what the word meant, and took umbrage, it's very easy to imagine
> Hamish offering to be her second in the inevitable duel.
>
Just out of curiousity, do you happen to know what the word "nigger"
means? It is a misspelling of the Latin word "niger" meaning "black". In
other words, it originated as a way of saying someone was black. Now we
take it as an insult, so we started calling people "black" in english
instead. Then that became an "insult" so now we refer to them as "colored".
Personally, I don't usually worry about what color a person's skin is and
don't feel the need to refer to it unless I am trying to differentiate
between two people and that is the easiest means available. My point is
that it doesn't matter _what_ identifier you use, someone will take umbrage
at it simply because it does differentiate them from others. And yet, we
all use adjectives if only in our thoughts.
As I mentioned earlier, I do know a quadraplegic and if he has mentioned
any complaints regarding DW's write up of Emily or Hamish's attitudes
towards her, I haven't heard about them yet. On the other hand, he isn't
nearly as bad off as Emily is described since he only broke his neck and
rehab has given him back at least partial use of his upper body.
-Linda
Shadow Wolf
In addition, I believe the description of her accident and recovery
indicated that not only does she not regen, her system _rejects_ nerve
grafts and implants. Honor's does too, to some degree (she had to go
through several rounds of implants).
--
Shadow Wolf
shado...@softhome.net
Stories at http://www.asstr.org/~Shadow_Wolf
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Alex
> news:82be6978.0211...@posting.google.com...
> > "Kitsune" <kit...@wireweb.net> wrote in message
> news:<aq7d4...@enews3.newsguy.com>...
> > Both conditions could be true. Emily could be intelligent, empathetic,
> > sensitive, etc., and Hamish could (have been) be a heel. In fact, that
> > what the text in the books strongly implies.
> >
> > Alex
>
> Not to all of us. Which is exactly my point. I DON'T consider Hamish a
> heel and obviously, (to me at least) Emily doesn't either. I think the
> interpretation on this one all depends on the world view you bring to the
> story.
>
> If Emily regarded Hamish the way you have interpreted things, I would
> expect her to be absolutely _delighted_ by the accusations against her
> husband. It would give her the perfect chance at revenge against him by
> being the "wronged victim/wife" if she felt the way you claim she does.
> Emily didn't respond that way when it would have been so easy for her to do
> so and she had _nothing_ to lose by behaving any way she felt like.
> Therefor, your arguments don't make any sense to me.
I think you're not considering five very important issues.
First, Emily is in essence a "political wife." Political wives stand
by their men publicly regardless of what they've done. That's how the
game is played. We even have the very recent example of Hillary
Clinton, who has to know that her husband is totally non-faithful,
standing beside Bill and speaking her lines. If she'd gone after him
in public, or even let it be known that she had any negative feelings
at all, she'd have ceased to be a public figure so fast she'd never
have known what hit her. Emily is an extremely political animal and
knows how to play the game.
Second, Emily is basically a decent human being. She might (if she
still felt vengeful fifty years after the fact) sit back and enjoy
someone going after Hamish. However, to allow this attack to go
forward would harm an innocent (Honor) so unless she had actual
evidence that Hamish and Honor were sleeping together, she wouldn't
allow the attack to go forward.
Third, Emily agreed with the political position Hamish had taken on
renewing Manticore's naval build-up, and politics are very important
to her. She can get her payback in other ways - after all, they live
together.
Fourth, one of the "blue sky" medical ideas Hamish once championed
(and may still champion with a saner, long range kind of funding)
might pay off. If she dumped him, she might never know it existed - or
it might never exist because Hamish withdrew funding.
Fifth, there is a difference between trust and love. She might still
love him, but not trust him. In such an instance, she wouldn't act in
any way that would hurt him, and she might even help him, but there
would be a level of intimacy - physical and/or otherwise, she might
never again allow.
So Hamish could still have been a heel, and she wouldn't necessarily
act against him.
Alex
J.B. Moreno
> Fourth, one of the "blue sky" medical ideas Hamish once championed
> (and may still champion with a saner, long range kind of funding)
> might pay off. If she dumped him, she might never know it existed - or
> it might never exist because Hamish withdrew funding.
This point isn't really relevant -- both of them are supposed to be rich
beyond the dreams of avarice.
Not to mention, that if she dumped him in the right way, he'd almost
certainly keep on funding those projects (not least because they aren't
really that expensive at his level of income).
--
JBM
"Your depression will be added to my own" -- Marvin of Borg
Alex
> Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > Fourth, one of the "blue sky" medical ideas Hamish once championed
> > (and may still champion with a saner, long range kind of funding)
> > might pay off. If she dumped him, she might never know it existed - or
> > it might never exist because Hamish withdrew funding.
>
> This point isn't really relevant -- both of them are supposed to be rich
> beyond the dreams of avarice.
I always got the impression that at the time of the accident she was
reasonably rich from her film in somewhat the same way as a Tom Hanks
or a Julia Roberts, while he had billions and billions in old money
stashed away someplace.
> Not to mention, that if she dumped him in the right way, he'd almost
> certainly keep on funding those projects (not least because they aren't
> really that expensive at his level of income).
Possible. But abandoning him the middle of that particular debate
would not have been the "right way."
Alex
David E. Siegel
She had, until she was injured, an indepenant carrer as a performer,
and still has one as a coreographer. Not exactly the classic portrait
of a "politiucal wife". So much for implications. What actual evidence
is there that Emily is a "political wife": as far as i can see, it is
only that she stood by hamish when the rumors about him and Honor
started to fly, and gave good advice on how to handle them. remember,
for most of his carrer, hamis was *not* a politician, he was a navel
officer. only quite recently -- long after the accident, has he been
doing much about politics. Oh sure, he knew about them and was
soemwhat interested -- his Brother was a major politician, after all,
and politics affected the navy a good deal. But he was *not* an actor
on the political stage, so why would emily be a "political wife".
>
> Second, Emily is basically a decent human being. She might (if she
> still felt vengeful fifty years after the fact) sit back and enjoy
> someone going after Hamish. However, to allow this attack to go
> forward would harm an innocent (Honor) so unless she had actual
> evidence that Hamish and Honor were sleeping together, she wouldn't
> allow the attack to go forward.
>
This is reasonable.
> Third, Emily agreed with the political position Hamish had taken on
> renewing Manticore's naval build-up, and politics are very important
> to her. She can get her payback in other ways - after all, they live
> together.
>
So is this, iMO.
> Fourth, one of the "blue sky" medical ideas Hamish once championed
> (and may still champion with a saner, long range kind of funding)
> might pay off. If she dumped him, she might never know it existed - or
> it might never exist because Hamish withdrew funding.
>
Perhaps, but remember that she is rich in her own right.
> Fifth, there is a difference between trust and love. She might still
> love him, but not trust him. In such an instance, she wouldn't act in
> any way that would hurt him, and she might even help him, but there
> would be a level of intimacy - physical and/or otherwise, she might
> never again allow.
>
Possible, but there is litle to no text evidence that this is the
case.
> So Hamish could still have been a heel, and she wouldn't necessarily
> act against him.
>
> Alex
True, for the matter of that the number of people who have clearly
acted as heels, but been forgivn by spouses or SOs, must be very large
indeed, regardless of ther merit in many cases.
-DES
David E. Siegel
> > "Alex" <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
> > news:82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com...
>
> > > If Manticoran society can avoid using loaded racial words, it can also
> > > avoid using loaded words for disabilities. The fact that Michele Henke
> > > ISN'T an "African Manticoran" but Emily IS a "cripple" is very telling
> > > about Hamish's attitude.
> >
> > Except that "race" isn't a functional difference (well, OK, there're slight
> > differences in resistance to radiation and some other minor things, but
> > basically no differences), whereas Emily is _hugely_ functionally different.
> > Saying she's a cripple is just a recognition that some allowances are going
> > to have to be made. No tennis, she'll need large doors, she apparently is
> > rather sickly, she's not capable of sex, that sort of thing.
>
> Ok, let's try one more time. If you were in a conversation with
> someone who's stuck in a wheelchair, and you called them an "invalid"
> or a "cripple" there's an excellent chance you'd get a lecture, a
> fairly good chance they'd shout abuse right back at you, and it's even
> possible you'd be assaulted. To the disabled community, "cripple" and
> "invalid" are those kinds of words. Of course, responses vary - some
> disabled people are more political about it than others...
>
That may be, but --
In this current culture, pretty much everyone knows that the racial
slurs with which you are comparing these terms are generally used and
regarded as insults. Wheras, i think that most well informed people
who have not dealt closely with someone with a physical disability may
think of these as more or less neutral, descriptive terms, not insults
per se. i would have thought so, until you made this statement. I
honestly don't think that your understandign of the effect of these
terms is common enough to assume that Webber must have meant to show
Hamish as a heel by having him use them. Generally, when Webber wants
to show that a character is a heel, particulartly in his early books,
he isn't subtle about it, he bangs the reader over the head with how
vile the character is, again and again and again. Using this kind of
subtle linguistic device to show Hamish Alexander as a heel is way out
of character for webber, IMO. And if Webber didn't intend that
interpretation, than much of your evidience falls to the ground.
Yes you can still say, "Webber may think that this guy is a hero, but
he sounds pretty slimy to me, for having had the affair, and..." and i
might well agree with that point. But hten the whole argument about
how the relationship is portrayed must go, because if webber thinks
and is trying to show that Hamish is a hero, albiet with some
problems, and is trying to show a loving relationship with physical
impediments, then your points don't mean what you thinbk they do --
what they mostly show is that Webber doesn't know how a loving
relationship with physical impairmetns would realy look, or that he is
not good at showing a deep, subtle, loving relationship at all, or
both.
> Now, back in the Star Kingdom, let's assume that someone was ignorant
> and beastlike enough to call Michele Henke a nigger. Assuming she knew
> what the word meant, and took umbrage, it's very easy to imagine
> Hamish offering to be her second in the inevitable duel.
>
> But I'm expected to believe this same guy is going to think of his
> wife as a "cripple" or "invalid" instead of as "handicapped" or
> "disabled" and not interpret it as having significance? Either Weber
> is having Hamish use these words in conscious understanding of what
> they mean as he leads up to something, or he is ignorant. (I'm leaning
> toward ignorant today - yesterday I was being much nicer about the
> whole thing.)
>
By "he", do you mean Hamish? Perhaps, but why assume that Webber is
knowledageable but he paints Hamishg as ignorant?
> > > I would have said the contrast is very telling about Weber's attitude,
> > > but the way Honor thinks about Emily is VERY, VERY different from the
> > > way Hamish thinks about Emily, so I think Weber is having Hamish use
> > > loaded words in order to make a point about Hamish.
> > >
Yes, but they are quite different people in other respects. Webber may
be trying to show their diofferent styles -- honor is more thoughtful
of others, Alexander has been definately shown as self-centerd in
several ways. But I have known several people, including close and
beloved relatives, who were quite self-centerd, but nice as pie --
once they *noticed* that what they were doing or saying might hurt
someone else. But it might take a 2x4 to get that into their heads. I
read Hamish as quite possibly being like that.
> >
> > I think the key is a line pretty early in WoH (I'm not quoting a page, since
> > I've got the ebook instead of DT, and also because I should be taking a
> > shower and getting ready for class instead of writing this ;-) ), where
> > Weber is rehashing Emily's damages; he says something like "...and enough
> > motor centers were salvaged to give her use of her right arm..." To me,
> > this indicates that the neurosurgeons actively move nerves, nerve clusters,
> > and maybe even rewired bits of the brain to give her what independence she
> > has.
>
> But how do those nerves heal together properly if she is "immune" to
> regeneration medicine? I suspect it means that the subdural hematoma
> (internal bleeding in the brain) was controlled before it damaged
> those nerves. If doctors in the star kingdom can get that far into the
> brain, and if Honor can make use of artificial nerves in her face and
> eye, why can't the doctor's run some artificial nerve from Emily's
> clitoris/nipples to the pleasure center of her brain? Problem
> solved!! I can think of at least two other possible solutions to her
> sexlessness given the Star Kingdoms medical tech base.
>
I think you are assuming more than we know about how the medical tech
works in that worls. It is clearly established that there are multiple
ways of achiving most objectives -- those who, like Honor, can't use
"regen" can use other methods to achieve more or less the same
results, albiet slower. But it is also clear that there are limits to
what can be achieved, although the limits have never been clearly
spelled out, exacept as needed for a particular plot point.
> > At at least one point, it occurs to Honor that Emily's breathing is
> > probably controlled by her chair.
>
> Yes, and doubtless she needed some physical therapy to have the chair
> take a "deep breath" for her when she needs to speak, and further PT
> in order to know what she has to do make the chair move. In addition,
> she needed therapy to learn how to do things one handed that she'd
> previously done two handed.
>
> Once again, they've run artificial nerves to her lungs. Why wouldn't
> an enlightened woman with gobs of money have them run some artificial
> nerves to other places?
>
> Simple answer IMHO. Weber never considered the issue. I suspect he's
> not only disturbingly ignorant about disabled people, he's ignorant of
> the fact that he's ignorant.
>
Now that I could well buy. But it proves nothing about his
characters, only about webber.
> But let's make a practical test. Since you're on a college campus, why
> don't you haul "Echoes of Honor" around with you for a couple of days,
> find some people in wheelchairs (not hard to find, at least at a state
> school) show them the bit on page 211-215, and ask them what they
> think of Hamish's attitude toward his wife. If you can't find a
> wheelchair user, I'll bet you've got an office on your campus that
> deals with disabled issues. Ask someone there.
Which might prove soemthing about webber as a writer, but nothing
about his characters.
-DES
David E. Siegel
<dnip>
> On the other hand, perhaps MWW is just leading up to the old joke
> about how one has sex - Honor Offer Honor Offer...
>
>
> Alex
I have noticed on a number of occasions that you refer to the author
of these books as "MWW". What does this stand for or symbolize? I
would have expected the shorthand to be DW.
-DES
J.B. Moreno
> pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) wrote
> > Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Fourth, one of the "blue sky" medical ideas Hamish once championed
> > > (and may still champion with a saner, long range kind of funding)
> > > might pay off. If she dumped him, she might never know it existed - or
> > > it might never exist because Hamish withdrew funding.
> >
> > This point isn't really relevant -- both of them are supposed to be rich
> > beyond the dreams of avarice.
>
> I always got the impression that at the time of the accident she was
> reasonably rich from her film in somewhat the same way as a Tom Hanks
> or a Julia Roberts, while he had billions and billions in old money
> stashed away someplace.
More along the lines of Sienfeld who I believe was reported to be making
over 90 million a year -- then scale it up because she's playing for 3
worlds instead of 1 (at a minimum), all of who can understand her, and
she's probably been doing it for 20 years.
> > Not to mention, that if she dumped him in the right way, he'd almost
> > certainly keep on funding those projects (not least because they aren't
> > really that expensive at his level of income).
>
> Possible. But abandoning him the middle of that particular debate
> would not have been the "right way."
Yes, but if that's the way she'd felt she'd have dumped him before, and
it wouldn't have been to hard to set it up so that he'd keep funding
those projects in order to make up what he's done to her.
(Hell, a couple of public announcements and he'd *have* to keep doing to
avoid a sordid scandal).
Gillian White
"David E. Siegel" <sie...@acm.org> wrote in message
news:dbdfe7e0.02110...@posting.google.com...
Something about Mad Wizard - maybe Mad Wizard Weber? It's in the FAQ, but I
can't remember...
Gillian
David E. Siegel
> sie...@acm.org (David E. Siegel) wrote in message news:<dbdfe7e0.0211...@posting.google.com>...
> > tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > > pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) wrote in message news:<1fl2ycs.u4ckty288v76N%pl...@newsreaders.com>...
> > > > Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>
> > Yet another possibility is that he did this spaced out over years.
> > That is not incompatible with the text.
> > Yet another is that he infact did employ agents, at least to screen
> > possibilities, and when he remembers "I did this" and "I tried that"
> > he thinks of what he has doen via agents to be something he has done.
> > I think you are reading more into the text than it will support.
>
> As Gillian said, it's not entirely fair to judge an author by what he
> didn't say. That being mostly agreed to, and while it doesn't say one
> way or the other in the text, Weber leaves SO MANY of the right things
> to do out of Hamish's musings that it stands out like a sore thumb if
> you've ever been in the actual situation. Also, the text does make it
> some things very clear.
>
> 1.) Hamish had an affair.
Yes, this is ststed explictly.
>
> 2.) Hamish lost it over the issue of Emily's injuries and didn't get
> adequate (or any) psychological counseling.
>
Not clear. He clearly was very upset and unhappy, and felt that he
'needed help" and "couldn't be strong". Whether that constitutes
'loosing it" or having a breakdown might be debated. It is never said
that he seeks any counseling except form friends and from kuzak as a
lover -- but it is never explicitly stated that he didn't, either.
Stil, based on what is said, i suspect that he did not.
> 3.) Hamish was badly in denial.
Possibley, yes. At one point, anyway. This is acommon reaction to
grief and disaster, is it not?
>
> 4.) Hamish is unclear on the difference between mental and physical
> disability.
I see no evidence of this. If you mean that he negelcts the
possibilty that Emily could still have orgasm or non-rogasmic sexual
satisfaction, we don't really know whether he negelcts that
possibility or not, nor do we really know if some of the
possibilitiues you have mentioned arfe really physiclly possible for
Emil, since we know neither the details of her physical condition, nor
the full range of medical tech available.
What seems clear is that he doesn't think that Emily can give *him*
sexual satisfaction. He may be wrong, he may have hangups about what
activites are ok to get sexual satisfaction from, he may be
objectively right. We can't tell.
this does make him rather self centered, yes.
>
> 5.) Hamish's musing are very self centered.
Here I agree. All the evidence we have suggests that being
self-centered is his major flaw, just as Honor is to willing to give
over-much of self at any call of duty or claim of need by another.
>
> 6.) Hamish doesn't deal well with personal adversity.
Again, i agree, this is shown in matters other than his relations
whith Emily and Honor.
>
> 7.) Hamish hasn't got a clue about how his affair with Kuzak affected
> Emily. My wife has told me several times that my treating her as if
> she was attractive even during the worst of her hospitalization had an
> extremely powerful effect on her morale. She thought it was sweet that
> I would lie down next to her on the hospital bed and fall asleep,
> (actually, I was simply exhausted) and it gave her hope that things
> would be normal again. I also made it a point to actively kiss her,
> hold her, hug her, etc. while she was in the hospital bed. It sounds
> like Hamish did exactly the opposite.
>
Here you are making assumptions based on little to no evidince, IMO.
Ther was a 50+ year perioid from the accident to the first time we see
hamish and here about it -- we do *not* know when in that period the
affair with kuzak took place, except that it is "years ago" at the
time of FoD. We have no indication of HOW he treated her in the
immediate aftermath of the accident, except that he later thinks that
he felt guilty -- and not for how her treated her, but for failing to
prevent the accident, or to have a magic wand to cure her afterwards.
he is not reasonablely responsibel for either, but this is just the
ki8nd of irrational guilt that good people do in fact feel. As to
whehter he has a clue or not: we can't tell. he may well be fooling
himself, as another poster argued. OTOH she may well have demonstrated
clear and accurate perception into his moods and azctions, so that he
has good reason to belive that he couldn't have hidden the affair from
her. She is shown as perceptive enough that this is reasonable --
many close couples are very very good at reading each other, and know
it.
> 8.) Hamish uses inappropriate language when thinking about his wife
> even when he isn't angry. One could argue that this is Mr. Weber's
> ignorance showing, but contrast his language and tone while thinking
> about Emily with Honor's language and tone toward Emily in "War of
> Honor."
>
As I have said before, this doesn't hold up unless there is soem
evidence that Hamish knew that she would resent these terms, or that
other characters consider such terms as insults or slurs or otherwise
inappropriate, or at least that DW is well aware that many disabled
people so regard them.
> There are substantial reasons for Emily continuing to live with Hamish
> even if she no longer trusts/loves him. These include possible need of
> his money to survive, politics, social standing, and being there if
> one of his "blue sky" medical research projects pays off.
>
Remember it is explicitly stted that she is rich in her own right.
Neither he nor she was much involved in politics prior to the Cromarty
Assination. Given the accident, and her apparent widespread popularity
in her own right, I doubt that her social standing would be hurt by
leaving him if she chose to do so.
> > Nowhere did it say that agents and assistants were not involved,
> > AFAICR.
>
> Yeah, but would you have even been able to disagree with the idea if I
> hadn't brought it up as something the text didn't discuss? Weber very
> clearly knows how people with lots of wealth and power handle things.
> If he wanted us to think Hamish used agents, he's had four of five
> thousand pages of books to tell us so.
Yes, but it was a minor bacground detail until IEH at the earliest,
probably until EoH. Even webber can't tell us all the details about
how people accomplished minor background tasks. The only importnce
that it has for he story is that the search was made, it was
exhastive, that Hamish felt responsibel for the search and its
failure, a feeling which even he later admits to have been
inappropriate.
And he could certrianly ahd searched a month or two at a time over
years. Also recvall that he was on Half-pay (and so with time on his
hands) throughout Janack's term as First Lord, which had already been
going on for soem years as of the start of OBS.
Sorry, that idea is not "well proven" it ios more "Possible but
unfounde3d speculation" IMO.
> Also, consider that Weber has shown at least one couple of similar age
> to Emily and Hamish cuddling up (I'm referring to Allison and Alfred
> in EOH) and that he's also shown us Eloise Prichart and Giscard in
> bed. There was a bedroom scene involving the Youngs just after the
> party scene in WOH, (note how he forshadows something hundreds of
> pages away when Elaine sticks her tongue out at the mirror) and that
> scene could almost be taken as contrast (these people don't touch and
> these people do touch) etc.
>
yes, but they are quite different people. Newither ahs an
'aristocratic" background, and Allison comes from beowulf, where the
mores in such matters are clearly different.
Yes, he shows rouching when people are activly having sex just before
or after -- almost a s a surrogate for the sex scenes he doesn't
include. All of these scens involve couples who are actively sexual,
and all are with no other person present. (The same is true for the
scenes with Paul and Honor in ASVW, except as you consider Nimitz to
be an "other person present".
> > This assuems that not only is soemthing rotten, but the General
> > public, for whom this event is being staged, know it well enough that
> > they would see a touch as false. That is not consistant with any
> > evidence I can see in the text.
>
> The general public wouldn't know who was touching and who wasn't, but
> Manticore's nobility, royalty, (plus the "royalty watchers/fans)
> political elite, and the press would have a good idea of who is/isn't
> touchy feely. A single moment of high class touching would have done
> it without looking overplayed. Hamish makes a toast to his wife. He
> stands behind her, puts his left hand on her left shoulder. She
> reaches up and puts her right hand on top of his left hand. The
> picture in the papers the next day looks classy and everyone knows
> what's really what. Remember that the party was also being staged for
> the benefit of the opposition, who seem to be fairly dim bulbs. They'd
> need to see something fairly obvious to know what was going on.
Yes, but to assume that they didn't touch because that would have
looked false (as you suggested earlier) assumes that whatever audience
it would have looked false to (whether the general public, or
political elite and near-elite) must *know* that soemthing is rotten
inside the marriage, know it well enough that to have her show
affection looks false. There is not only no text evidence for such a
general view of the what haven marriage, but it is not consistant with
the public viw of it as "one of the great tragic love stories of the
kingdom" If she resents/dispises/dislikes him enough to be unwillign
to touch him or to make any touch look fake, it is not a love story
any more.
>
> > > Then in the last bit of the book, page 850 to 861, we get coffee and
> > > an after dinner mint. Hamish and Emily STILL don't touch. Emily's off
> > > to bed after making the declaration that at least strongly implies
> > > that Hamish and Honor are free to party, and floats out the door
> > > without giving Hamish a kiss goodnight...
> > >
> > > The message from Emily to Honor is pretty clear. She's saying, "You
> > > take him. I don't want him any more."
> > >
> > She is clearly giving them permission to have sex. this may mean "I'm
> > willing to share him" rather than "I don't want him any more".
>
> I would have patted him (and maybe her) on the shoulder and told them
> to have fun.
>
> > I think that what has happend here is that you know very well what it
> > means to deal with the serious injury of a loved one, specifically of
> > a wife. This makes these scenes hit home to you. And, based on your
> > description of events, you acted in an exemplary and very loving
> > fashion when faced with your (future) wife's injuries.
>
> Yes, but I didn't discuss my history to toot my own horn. I discussed
> it to give some credibility to my analysis of the text, and I can tell
> you with no doubt at all from having been in the same situation that
> Hamish made an ass of himself. That being said, yes, the writing about
> disabled people and the "heros" who love them has pushed my buttons in
> some really nasty ways, but I'm coming to believe that Weber is
> pushing them deliberately to tell us about the relationship between
> Emily and Hamish.
>
Remember, "never attripute to malice and conspiricy what can be
explained by ignorance and incompetance". I think you are reading into
this what would be there if you wrote it, and that Weber is pusing
your buttons out of ignorance of the perspective of people like you
and your wife, not on purpose. That kind oif fairly subtle
button-pushing would be rather out of character with him, when he
wants to push buttons he mashes them flat, when he wants to depict a
heel he shows us a really nasty viper, painted with very broad
strokes.
> > But AFAIK David Weber has never been through anything like this
> > experience. Your point, for instance, that "Crippled" and "Invalid"
> > are words much disliked by disabled people and their friends, I didn't
> > know, and quite possibly DW didn't know.
>
> David Weber is a man who takes political correctness to the point
> where the fact that they live in such a society is invisible to the
> characters themselves. For example, I get the idea that Michelle Henke
> has never heard a racial slur, and wouldn't know what it meant if she
> did. To the entirety of the Manticoran population, she just has "dark
> skin." she's not an "African Manticoran" or even black. She's just
> dark skinned. If MWW introduced a character who thought of Henke as
> "African Manticoran" he'd be making a point of how retrograde that
> person's thinking was.
>
> Now tell me again that Weber didn't know what effect he was trying to
> achieve by having Hamish think this way?
>
actaully Yes, i belive that. The issue of racial hatreds and racial
slurs, and what terms are seen as such slurs, is very well-known.
While the general issue of equality fo the disabled is well-known, the
objections to specific terms and actions is not. i often see and still
oftener hear-of quite well-meaning people treatign the disabled in
ways which the disabled people deeply resent.
Also, I don't think that DW is at all "politically correct" if
anything he would regard that as one of those "Liberal" notions that
peeps and political nitwits on the manticoran left p[ay lib-service
too, i think. he sows us a future where racial differences are no
longer a source of prejudice. But he does show (and mostly condem,
but not dogmatically) gender and religious prejudice, and he shows and
does not seem to condem nationalistic prejudice.
> > Perhaps if Mr Weber had talked with you or someone like you about this
> > point before he wrote these scenes, he would have handled them
> > differently. But I suspect that you are confusing authorial ignorance
> > with authorial intent here.
>
> Its possible. Comments anyone? Mr. Weber, are you out there?
>
> > Now it may be argued that no matter what, having an affair and
> > employing "escorts" makes Hamish a heel. That may be so. But if we
> > accept, for the moment, that Emily is *in fact* incapable of sexual
> > response, and has been for many years, perhaps a single brief affair
> > and a number of paid encounters isnot such a mortal sin? We don't know
> > whet the explicit and implicit agreements of their marriage were. But
> > in this culture, where an affair is generally not accepted by the
> > wife, many otherwise fairly good mean (and women) have hd affairs
> > without fatel damage to their marriages, and without beeing complete
> > heels or unlovable
> > perhaps your standard is not only high, buit a bit
> > narrow?
>
> I don't think the registered courtesans were inappropriate, just the
> bit with Kuzak.
>
ok I can see that. But then, this occured "many years ago" -- is he
still a heel? has he changed at all? Might Emily or even Honor love
him in spite of this lapse?
> > I also suspect, that when DW originaly wrote of Emily and her medical
> > condition, he did not plan for her to be an onstage character at all,
> > it was a minor bit of background, and later the implications made it
> > important, but the basic fact was already in print.
>
> Quite possible. For an interesting take on this, see the thread "Why
> We Weren't Intended to Hate Hamish." The first post contains some very
> intelligent speculation.
>
> Alex
Thanks for your response.
-DES
Charles Glasgow
> First, Emily is in essence a "political wife."
Actually, she isn't. Emily White Haven has a source of popular
adoration that is not only independent to her husband, but predates
her marriage. *She's* the beloved celebrity in that couple... Hamish
is a respected war hero, but she's the star.
[snip]
> We even have the very recent example of Hillary Clinton, who has to know that
> her husband is totally non-faithful, standing beside Bill and speaking her
> lines. If she'd gone after him in public, or even let it be known that she
> had any negative feelings at all, she'd have ceased to be a public figure
Correction -- *political* figure. There is a difference.
> so fast she'd never have known what hit her.
Exactly. Because Terry McAuliffe, the national Democratic party
chairman and official dispenser of the campaign funds and party
nominations, worked for her husband -- not for her.
Hillary had ambitions to run for office. This means that she
Absolutely Could Not afford to alienate her political party apparat
under unless she wants to jump across the aisle -- and since the other
major party was both ideologically anathema to her and despised her
utterly, Hillary couldn't.
Seeing as how a) Hillary wanted to get elected to *somewhere* after
Bill's second term b) the odds of her becoming Republican were
slightly lower than the odds of Charles Manson being elected pope and
c) the odds of her being elected as a third-party candidate weren't
much better, that inescapably added up to d) Hillary needed to stay in
good with the Democratic party.
Which meant standing up alongside Bill and taking one for the team...
and then collecting her payoff for that in 2000, a la being nominated
as the Democratic candidate for Senator from New York.
Emily White Haven, OTOH, doesn't need Hamish for any future political
or theatrical ambitions. She doesn't /have/ any. She's /retired/.
She's an ex-Hollywood superstar with a tragic story who's a media
darling simply by sitting in her chair and breathing, and being
tragically betrayed by her heel of a husband would only *enhance*
that... you know the paparazzi and scandal!
Playing the victim card would have made Emily White Haven even more
sympathized over, fawned over, and highlighted in the public media
than anything she'd done in the past forty years.
She didn't do it.
Conclusion -- enhancing or maintaining her popularity is not her first
priority.
Second conclusion -- She actually cares about Hamish as Hamish, not as
a necessary political adjunct. Because given the perfect opportunity
to make herself more of a tragic media darling at his expense, she
refused to take it. Ergo, she cares about *him* first.
[snip]
> Second, Emily is basically a decent human being. She might (if she
> still felt vengeful fifty years after the fact) sit back and enjoy
> someone going after Hamish. However, to allow this attack to go
> forward would harm an innocent (Honor) so unless she had actual
> evidence that Hamish and Honor were sleeping together, she wouldn't
> allow the attack to go forward.
You're forgetting the vast human capacity for self-delusion, even in
decnet people. An Emily White Haven who was embittered and wanted
vengeance vs. Hamish, who was already predisposed to believe the worst
of him due to prior affairs...
... would simply have leaped straight to the conclusion that Hamish
and Honor were having an affair, even if they weren't. Lord knows
the rest of Manticorean local space was more than capable of that leap
of imagination.
[snip]
> So Hamish could still have been a heel, and she wouldn't necessarily
> act against him.
I believe the lady's point was that if the alleged 'wronged' party --
Emily -- wasn't holding it against Hamish, then neither should anyone
else in the universe. Because your latter points make the presumption
that Emily has either forgiven Hamish for what he's done, or never
considered it to be really wrong in the first place.
Because if she felt wronged, he'd be a dead man. *Everything* about
Hamish's good reputation exists solely on her continued sufferance,
and there's *nothing* he could plausibly do to either retaliate and/or
hold threats over her head. She couldn't have him more dead to rights
if he were handcuffed to one of Warnecke's nukes and she were holding
the dead-man switch.
And yet the idea of Putting The Boot In on Hamish never even begins to
cross her mind.
This is very suggestive evidence that Emily isn't feeling put out with
him, isn't it?
--
Chuckg
David E. Siegel
> (Warning: this post is an example of the school of literary criticsm
> that CS Lewis, not as a compliment, called "making up stories about
> how the book was written." This is how things look to me, based on no
> particular insights into Weber's writing process, and might be wrong.)
>
> On Sun, 3 Nov 2002 21:29:38 -0800, wugg...@cmc.net (Michael Sandy)
> wrote:
>
> >Gee, and before this I only really hated him because he
> >apparently had a more overblown reputation than MacArthur.
>
> The thing about Hamish, I think, is that he's not the central
> character. He isn't, or at the time he was created wasn't, important
> enough to Weber to write him as if he were the hero of his own story
> in Hamish's own eyes. Instead the way he's written is totally
> subservient to two primary writing objectives:
>
> 1. Honor shall duplicate the career of Horatio Nelson in all major
> points.
>
> 2. Honor shall have all (or almost all) virtues not only as a fighting
> 'sailor' but as a human being.
>
I think that this analiusis has a good deal opf merit to it (I missed
the hamilton reference untuil I read thsi post, although i know how
much DW likes sticking in name references [Rob S. Piere, really!]) to
RL history.
But honor has fialed to die on schedule, and the history has ceased to
match that of the napoleonic wars when "Napoleon" failed to bring off
his (her) coup.
So maybe that need no longer drives the writing. But its effects
linger.
<snip>
> Honor is too well established as a character to suddenly acquire
> Nelson's personal flaws. And the Hamiltons, er, White Havens can't be
> nearly as twisted as their historical models. Honor is not only too
> Nice to be nasty, she's too Nice to fall in love with a guy who's
> nasty. Her established personality by then includes being a sterling
> judge of character. So Weber somehow has to set Honor up for an
> adulterous affair with a guy who _isn't_ a rat bastard and who somehow
> _does_ deserve her.
>
I agree, and i now think their affair was planned from the first
mention of Hamish Alexandeer (which i did Not think before).
> Emily's troubles are meant to be the reason why an adulterous White
> Haven isn't a bad guy, a kinder gentler alternative to the classic "my
> wife doesn't understand me" or to simply not caring what his wife
> thinks. But as Alex points out in searing detail, the more you know
> about living with actual paralyzing injuries, the less this works.
>
> The kindest (and in my guesses, the most accurate) way to read this is
> that Hamish simply fails to be a three-dimensional character. It's not
> that Weber failed to research and realize that Hamish and Emily could
> get sexual release. That enforced celibacy is the _point_ of Hamish's
> marriage, the thing that forces him in the direction the plot needs
> him to go. His function in the story is not to be the best man and the
> best husband he can. His function is to hit that predetermined point
> in the plot so Honor can have Nelson's affair without Nelson's
> character failings. In the latest book, Emily flowers as a
> three-dimensional woman who wouldn't just sit home being sexless and
> understanding. Unfortunately it's too late. Her job in the plot line
> is to not have sex, and no number of real-world people who have
> managed exactly that in the face of such injuries is going to change
> that now.
>
> My opinion, worth every cent you paid.
Worth far more than i paid (time, which i can't replace for cash)
-DES
Kitsune
with scum like the Clintons. I have also seen nothing - quite the contrary
in fact - to make me feel that Emily is a "political wife". Sure she enjoys
politics but she was a public figure in her own person _before_ marrying
Hamish and surviving the accident and everything we have seen points to a
woman who still loves her husband, not his power.
> Second, Emily is basically a decent human being. She might (if she
> still felt vengeful fifty years after the fact) sit back and enjoy
> someone going after Hamish. However, to allow this attack to go
> forward would harm an innocent (Honor) so unless she had actual
> evidence that Hamish and Honor were sleeping together, she wouldn't
> allow the attack to go forward.
>
Nonsense! If she _were_ feeling vengeful, she would be just as likely
to view Honor as being just as guilty as Hamish. If Honor had said she
_didn't_ love Hamish, I would agree with you but once Honor had admitted her
feelings to Emily, any sense of innnocence that E might have viewed HH with
went right out the window.
> Third, Emily agreed with the political position Hamish had taken on
> renewing Manticore's naval build-up, and politics are very important
> to her. She can get her payback in other ways - after all, they live
> together.
>
And she could (and I believe would!) have gotten that payback sometime
in the last 50+ years for his dealings with Kuzak, et al. Ergo, she still
loves Hamish and doesn't view him as the jerk you say she must.
> Fourth, one of the "blue sky" medical ideas Hamish once championed
> (and may still champion with a saner, long range kind of funding)
> might pay off. If she dumped him, she might never know it existed - or
> it might never exist because Hamish withdrew funding.
>
Others have already addressed this one so I'll leave it alone. Suffice
to say that I think you are mistaken.
> Fifth, there is a difference between trust and love. She might still
> love him, but not trust him. In such an instance, she wouldn't act in
> any way that would hurt him, and she might even help him, but there
> would be a level of intimacy - physical and/or otherwise, she might
> never again allow.
>
Sorry. Disagree with you completely and absolutely 100% there. I could
never love a man I didn't trust. Trust is a prerequisite of love - at least
as I define such and I have seen nothing to indicate that Emily defines it
differently than I do.
> So Hamish could still have been a heel, and she wouldn't necessarily
> act against him.
>
> Alex
Not bloody likely in my opinion.
-Linda
Kitsune
We dubbed Himself "The Mad Wizard Weber" back during The Great Frogging
a few years back - or "MWW" for short. (The anacronyms were flying kinda
thick and fast at that time so it seemed only natural that Himself should
have some too.)
-Linda
Alex
> tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.0211...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > First, Emily is in essence a "political wife."
>
> Actually, she isn't. Emily White Haven has a source of popular
> adoration that is not only independent to her husband, but predates
> her marriage. *She's* the beloved celebrity in that couple... Hamish
> is a respected war hero, but she's the star.
Emily married Hamish knowing that he either was (or would be, if his
father was still alive) a member of the House of Lords. That makes her
a political wife, and the text proves that she understands how the
game is played. You're right that if she betrayed Hamish while he was
fighting for his political life, the common people would still love
her.
However, the people with real political power in the Star Kingdom
would never trust her again. Also, she does state, (somewhere around
page 218 of WoH) that she is Hamish's primary political adviser and
analyst - in a sense, the power behind his "throne." Also, around page
858 of WoH she discusses her love of politics. So, yes, she has power
of her own as an HD star, that's very true, but she also has power
through Hamish, who's political career she helps manage. Why give it
up?
> [snip]
> > We even have the very recent example of Hillary Clinton, who has to know that
> > her husband is totally non-faithful, standing beside Bill and speaking her
> > lines. If she'd gone after him in public, or even let it be known that she
> > had any negative feelings at all, she'd have ceased to be a public figure
<snip stuff about Hillary)
> Which meant standing up alongside Bill and taking one for the team...
> and then collecting her payoff for that in 2000, a la being nominated
> as the Democratic candidate for Senator from New York.
I was going to make the same analysis, but decided not to for length's
sake.
> Emily White Haven, OTOH, doesn't need Hamish for any future political
> or theatrical ambitions. She doesn't /have/ any. She's /retired/.
> She's an ex-Hollywood superstar with a tragic story who's a media
> darling simply by sitting in her chair and breathing, and being
> tragically betrayed by her heel of a husband would only *enhance*
> that... you know the paparazzi and scandal!
Assuming that she felt what she had needed enhancement, (I don't think
it does) and assuming that she was willing to be seen by the
politically important set as a political wife who didn't play the
game. Also, her main issues with Hamish are (depending on which
timeline you like for hijinks with Kuzak) forty to fifty years in the
past. Any anger she felt then might well have run its course, or he
may have redeemed himself in the meantime, so making a scandal of him
might have been something she would have done 35 years ago if the
conditions were right, but might not do now.
> Playing the victim card would have made Emily White Haven even more
> sympathized over, fawned over, and highlighted in the public media
> than anything she'd done in the past forty years.
> She didn't do it.
>
> Conclusion -- enhancing or maintaining her popularity is not her first
> priority.
>
But playing the victim card is a little tough when you're (relatively)
rich and very famous through your own efforts. Also, she might see
playing the victim card as a "gutter tactic."
> Second conclusion -- She actually cares about Hamish as Hamish, not as
> a necessary political adjunct. Because given the perfect opportunity
> to make herself more of a tragic media darling at his expense, she
> refused to take it. Ergo, she cares about *him* first.
Or she cares about the political issue (rebuilding the fleet) Hamish
was fighting for first. As DW states in the last part of WoH, survival
trumps nice. Survival also trumps mean. Regardless of whether she gets
her power politically or through Manticore's equivalent of Hollywood,
if the Peeps land on Manticore, she's either going to be shot, or held
prisoner and forced to help create propoganda, probably while Kevin
Usher cuts bits off someone she loves.
> [snip]
> > Second, Emily is basically a decent human being. She might (if she
> > still felt vengeful fifty years after the fact) sit back and enjoy
> > someone going after Hamish. However, to allow this attack to go
> > forward would harm an innocent (Honor) so unless she had actual
> > evidence that Hamish and Honor were sleeping together, she wouldn't
> > allow the attack to go forward.
>
> You're forgetting the vast human capacity for self-delusion, even in
> decent people. An Emily White Haven who was embittered and wanted
> vengeance vs. Hamish, who was already predisposed to believe the worst
> of him due to prior affairs...
> ... would simply have leaped straight to the conclusion that Hamish
> and Honor were having an affair, even if they weren't. Lord knows
> the rest of Manticorean local space was more than capable of that leap
> of imagination.
I'm not sure I buy that. As Kitsune says, after seventy years of
knowing her husband, she probably has a pretty good idea about whether
he's gotten any recently or not. Also, Hamish spends a lot of time
away from home, and Emily has the money and smarts to develop a pretty
good intelligence apparatus if she wants to. If she was mad at Hamish,
she might well have gone looking for proof, and made the decision she
made about helping Honor and Hamish when she found none. Remember, the
meeting with Emily takes place about three months after the first
story about the affair is filed.
> [snip]
> > So Hamish could still have been a heel, and she wouldn't necessarily
> > act against him.
> Because if she felt wronged, he'd be a dead man. *Everything* about
> Hamish's good reputation exists solely on her continued sufferance,
> and there's *nothing* he could plausibly do to either retaliate and/or
> hold threats over her head. She couldn't have him more dead to rights
> if he were handcuffed to one of Warnecke's nukes and she were holding
> the dead-man switch.
Yes and no. Granted, Emily starts out with the the initial advantage
in such a fight, but Hamish is a member of the House of Lords, he's
related to the Prime Minister, he's got allies in high places, he's a
high ranking military officer and he's a supporter of the Queen, who
would support him in turn.
Yes, she could start the fight, but sooner or later, Her Majesty would
finish it. In fact, I can imagine the Queen, upon hearing the rumors
of Hamish and Kuzak, stepping in to make sure the fight never started.
> And yet the idea of Putting The Boot In on Hamish never even begins to
> cross her mind.
>
> This is very suggestive evidence that Emily isn't feeling put out with
> him, isn't it?
No it suggests that she's got the good sense not to start fights that
don't do any good. Remember, she lives with Hamish. She can make his
life as miserable as she wants to behind closed doors, (he _certainly_
can't leave her) for as long as she wants, and still get all the
public benefits of being his wife. And some would say that's the best
revenge of all.
Probably the best interpretation is that Hamish was a cad, and she
bought into it. As an actress, she'd probably have terrible body image
problems after a devastating accident that puts her into a life
support chair for life and assume that she had become ugly and
undesirable. Hamish's affair with Kuzak would simply confirm all her
worries about how others perceive her. If she'd gotten seriously
depressed over these issues, she might simply be glad that he came
home at all. Even the best sex therapy and psychotherapy would have a
hard time overcoming his "confirmation" of her ugliness. Something to
think about.
Alex
Mike Van Pelt
Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
>You're missing my point. If it holds true for Michelle, it should hold
>true for Emily as well, as in: "We're all just people... some of us
>just don't get out of our chairs."
Ah, OK. I see your point. I think I agree that Hamish is a cad.
>If Manticoran society can avoid using loaded racial words, it can also
>avoid using loaded words for disabilities. The fact that Michele Henke
>ISN'T an "African Manticoran" but Emily IS a "cripple" is very telling
>about Hamish's attitude.
>
>I would have said the contrast is very telling about Weber's attitude,
>but the way Honor thinks about Emily is VERY, VERY different from the
>way Hamish thinks about Emily, so I think Weber is having Hamish use
>loaded words in order to make a point about Hamish.
>
>Read "Echoes of Honor" pages 211-215, and "War of Honor" pages 204-216
>and you'll see the contrast.
I read "On Basilisk Station" on the Baen Books web page, and then
went out and bought all the other Honor Harrington books.
I liked them quite a lot.
I was really looking forward to the next books, what happens
now that Robspierre and St. Just have met their reward.
I did find the foreshadowing of the likelyhood of an affair
between Honor and Hamish ... very annoying. I was really hoping
that there wouldn't actually be one.
I think now that it's clear to me that Honor is going to have a
torrid affair with Hamish, that my interest in the series has
taken a sharp nose-dive. This just doesn't mesh with my
understanding of Honor's character, at all. And I don't want to
change my understanding of Honor's character. So, perhaps, I will
wave goodbye to Honor Harrington, and remember her as she once was,
rather than have that memory damaged by what she becomes later.
Steve Hilberg
>I read "On Basilisk Station" on the Baen Books web page, and then
>went out and bought all the other Honor Harrington books.
>I liked them quite a lot.
>I was really looking forward to the next books, what happens
>now that Robspierre and St. Just have met their reward.
>I did find the foreshadowing of the likelyhood of an affair
>between Honor and Hamish ... very annoying. I was really hoping
>that there wouldn't actually be one.
>I think now that it's clear to me that Honor is going to have a
>torrid affair with Hamish, that my interest in the series has
>taken a sharp nose-dive. This just doesn't mesh with my
>understanding of Honor's character, at all. And I don't want to
>change my understanding of Honor's character. So, perhaps, I will
>wave goodbye to Honor Harrington, and remember her as she once was,
>rather than have that memory damaged by what she becomes later.
I have to agree -- a coworker gave me OBS and I burned through it in
a day -- and then proceded to ravenously tear through every book up to
Echoes of Honor, at which point the endless Hamish-Honor hints and
handwringing just drove me nuts. I am reading them all over again,
and I'm hitting the exact same roadblock now. I was intending to go
on and read AoV and WoH (which I had never done), but now...I'm not
sure I want to risk my enjoyment of the first 8 books to see the rest,
especially if what people have speculated about the future volumes
comes to pass.
--
Steve Hilberg <Necromancer> CITES Workstation Services Group
<hil...@uiuc.edu> KB9TEV
Member, APAGear I don't even know what CITES stands
http://www.apagear.org for, so I don't speak for them.
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
"As we were forged we shall return, perhaps some day. | VNV Nation,
I will remember you and wonder who we were." | "Further"
Charles Glasgow
> Emily married Hamish knowing that he either was (or would be, if his
> father was still alive) a member of the House of Lords. That makes her
> a political wife, [snip]
It is entirely possible to marry a man who you know will later attain
political office without having political ambition of her own.
*Show me* that Emily White Haven's political skills were motivated by
ambition for herself and/or a personal desire to keep access to the
centers of power, and then your argument might sustain itself. As
is, your entire structure of thought is based upon the presumption
that Emily's marriage was not primarily for love.
*Every* argument you make comes back to the circle that Emily White
Haven is calculating on a basis whose cynical amorality could be
exceeded only by the former Lady North Hollow's. By your theories,
she's capable of putting up with a rake of a husband to retain access
to political power, capable of accepting gross personal betrayal to
retain access to political power, capable of *marrying* for greater
access to political power, and judges the should-I-shouldn't-I of her
choices primarily on the basis of what she can get away with, not what
would be right.
IOW, in order to prove your theory, you would have to demonstrate that
she is one major stone-cold calculating bitca. And your arguments
have proceeded forward based upon that presumption.
One slight problem, though.
Your theory *is* that she's one major stone-cold calculating bitca.
IOW, you're using your initial assumption to justify your conclusions.
Circular logic.
--
Chuckg
charles krin
>charles krin <ck...@iamerica.net> wrote in message news:<hteisuolrer15fbea...@4ax.com>...
>>
>> However, the man touching the woman's shoulder in this case would have
>> been a possessive act, not necessarily one of love...we also don't
>> know that Emily can move more than her hand, or even enough of her
>> hand and forearm to pinch WH on the butt...
>>
>> I'm of two minds here...I've come to agree with Alex that there is
>> something flawed with White Haven's response, but had put it down to
>> the time *that Emily has remained alive and imprisoned* in her life
>> support chair.
>
>If you are in fact a "country doctor," and I'm not simply failing to
>recognize a quote that might refer to something else, perhaps you
>could add a little grist to our mill; specifically, what would a life
>support chair have to do?
chuckle...the DO after my name indicates that I am indeed an American
trained physician, and since I do practice in rural Louisiana....
>
>I'm sure we're all aware that the lungs and heart have (at the present
>time) to be connected to the brain to maintain life, but what about
>the other organs? Do the liver, intestines, gall bladder, etc.
>actually need to be connected to the brain or do they regulate their
>function hormonally? If we only need to connect the heart and lungs to
>stimulation to maintain life, is the whole concept of a "life support
>chair" in some sense invalid?
There is a comment that I have already quoted that the life support
chair has a 'shunt connected to her brain stem', indicating that there
was indeed severe damage to the spinal cord high near the brain,
something that would normally be quickly fatal...think "hangman's
fracture", where the cord is snapped at the base of the skull.
with the notable exception of the diaphragm, which requires constant
stimulation to contract for breathing, most of the other internal
organs have some level of diffuse automatic responses that are
hardwired and local. Brainstem function, in particular the
parasympathetic system, is required for them to work to best effect,
but most of the basics are already there. One of the things that did
surprise me a bit was that she did need such intensive support, as
there is enough redundancy in the system to allow folks who have
lesions low enough to allow for even the partial use of one hand to
manage to survive with mostly breathing (ventilator) support. While
Christopher Reeves did not have the major body trauma that Emily did,
he is otherwise a case in point. It may be that the combination of the
body trauma (and her inability to regen) AND the high cord lesion is
what's keeping her in the support chair.
>
>Other than maintaining the organs, what does the life support chair
>have to do? I assume it needs to massage the tissues and do something
>to keep Emily from getting bedsores. I further assume that it might
>have to perform dialysis, and that it has to do something to remove
>wastes from her body.
Tissue massage would be a nice touch, however good nutritional support
and the prevention of excessive pressure and wetness would go a long
way to prevent skin break down. There have been numerous comments
about the 'plumbing connections' of the skin suits, and similar
connections, abet probably more intimate and long term, can easily be
anticipated in Emily's case. While she is frail, I suspect that at
least one kidney was salvaged, as it's doubtful that even with
SKM/Beowolf tech someone could have lasted 50 years on dialysis, as
the kidneys produce several hormones that are needed for proper blood
production and bone maintaince....hohwever, a vat grown kidney may
have been implanted. We do know how to replace those hormones at this
time, but like with Diabetes, without the functioning organ, we can
only control the symptoms and not cure the disease.
>
>If you could block out the basic parameters for us, and make it the
>top post on another thread, that would be lovely.
as per your request...
>
>> One thing that DW has not commented on has been the chances that,
>> given a 200 or so year span of fertility and a life span of 300 or so,
>> a significant percentage of *non dynastic* couples would not stay
>> together for more than 50 years. I suspect that there are mechanisms
>> in place behind the scenes which allow for significant changes of
>> spice...if not a more formal serial polygamy/polyandry than we see
>> today with the divorce rate. The acceptance of formal Courtesans would
>> be part of this, but probably not all of it. I do know that the vows
>> that WH and Emily took were the "til death do us part" kind...but I'm
>> fairly sure that this was somewhat unusual on Manticore.
>
>Interesting point. Perhaps Emily and Hamish have considered this
>together, and Honor, as "nouveau nobility," doesn't fully understand
>the offer that's been made, what her obligations are under that offer,
>and what she and Hamish can and can't do.
I suspect that the wet fish that Emily used to slap the two up side
the head will have something to do with Honor's understanding....
>
>On the other hand, perhaps MWW is just leading up to the old joke
>about how one has sex - Honor Offer Honor Offer...
>
>
>Alex
that's "Honor n' Offer...."
charles krin
Andrew, this is true, but there is an overall balance, especially of
the digestive system, that requires at least some nervous in
put...again, the parasympathetic system is a biggie here.
David E. Siegel
> cgla...@hotmail.com (Charles Glasgow) wrote in message news:<9e6aa7ec.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.0211...@posting.google.com>...
> >
> > > First, Emily is in essence a "political wife."
> >
> > Actually, she isn't. Emily White Haven has a source of popular
> > adoration that is not only independent to her husband, but predates
> > her marriage. *She's* the beloved celebrity in that couple... Hamish
> > is a respected war hero, but she's the star.
>
> Emily married Hamish knowing that he either was (or would be, if his
> father was still alive) a member of the House of Lords. That makes her
> a political wife, and the text proves that she understands how the
> game is played. You're right that if she betrayed Hamish while he was
> fighting for his political life, the common people would still love
> her.
To me, a "politcal wife" is not simply soemopne married to a
politician. It is soemone who makes it their primary aim to further
the political carrer of their spouse. Hilliary Clinton was a
political wife. So was Nancy Regan. (In SF, the prime "political
wife" is probably the wife of the prime minister in RAH's _Stranger_,
IMO) But Roselyn Carter was not. I don't see much indication that
Emily was, in this sense.
BTW, Alexander did not become Earl White Haven until after the opening
of the first HH book, IIRC. He speaks about his Father's ill health
somewhere in OBS, I think. If at that time he had been married for 50+
years, when they married the prospect of his havign a set in the Lords
might be tolerably remote. Nor are all the members of the Lords
*active* politicans -- after all, they don't have to stand for
election.
>
> However, the people with real political power in the Star Kingdom
> would never trust her again. Also, she does state, (somewhere around
> page 218 of WoH) that she is Hamish's primary political adviser and
> analyst - in a sense, the power behind his "throne." Also, around page
> 858 of WoH she discusses her love of politics. So, yes, she has power
> of her own as an HD star, that's very true, but she also has power
> through Hamish, who's political career she helps manage. Why give it
> up?
>
Yes she does help with this. Note that Hamish *had* no political
carrer until AoV -- he only really entered politics to oppose the
Highridge govt after the Cromarty Assination. Before that he had a
seat in the Lords, but almost all of his atention and interest was on
his military carrere -- he spoke several times of leavign politics to
his brother. So considerations of the political effect of Emily
leaving Hamish would have been rather different many years before,
when she had her accicent, or when he had the affair with Kuzak.
<snip clinton comparison>
> > Emily White Haven, OTOH, doesn't need Hamish for any future political
> > or theatrical ambitions. She doesn't /have/ any. She's /retired/.
> > She's an ex-Hollywood superstar with a tragic story who's a media
> > darling simply by sitting in her chair and breathing, and being
> > tragically betrayed by her heel of a husband would only *enhance*
> > that... you know the paparazzi and scandal!
>
Actaully, at least in the early books, she is stil an active
coreographer, IIRC. I'm not sure when or IF she retired. She ceased
to *perform* after her accident, but had an active, public, and
profitabel carrer long after that.
<snip>
> > Second conclusion -- She actually cares about Hamish as Hamish, not as
> > a necessary political adjunct. Because given the perfect opportunity
> > to make herself more of a tragic media darling at his expense, she
> > refused to take it. Ergo, she cares about *him* first.
>
> Or she cares about the political issue (rebuilding the fleet) Hamish
> was fighting for first. As DW states in the last part of WoH, survival
> trumps nice. Survival also trumps mean. Regardless of whether she gets
> her power politically or through Manticore's equivalent of Hollywood,
> if the Peeps land on Manticore, she's either going to be shot, or held
> prisoner and forced to help create propoganda, probably while Kevin
> Usher cuts bits off someone she loves.
>
True. Her actions coul;d support either interpretation, except that
all of her feelings which we are shown seem to favor the first, or at
least soemthing not too unlike it. (She does have the 'flash of
jealosy" but only a flash)
<snip>
> > She couldn't have him more dead to rights
> > if he were handcuffed to one of Warnecke's nukes and she were holding
> > the dead-man switch.
>
> Yes and no. Granted, Emily starts out with the the initial advantage
> in such a fight, but Hamish is a member of the House of Lords, he's
> related to the Prime Minister, he's got allies in high places, he's a
> high ranking military officer and he's a supporter of the Queen, who
> would support him in turn.
At this time the Primne Minisater hates his guts. he is realted to the
*former* Exchecker. He is a high-rankign officer on half-pay, most
of whose friends and allies in the military are also not on active
duty. he has soem allies in high places, but more enemies.
>
> Yes, she could start the fight, but sooner or later, Her Majesty would
> finish it. In fact, I can imagine the Queen, upon hearing the rumors
> of Hamish and Kuzak, stepping in to make sure the fight never started.
>
Possibly, but this is pure speculation.
> > And yet the idea of Putting The Boot In on Hamish never even begins to
> > cross her mind.
> >
> > This is very suggestive evidence that Emily isn't feeling put out with
> > him, isn't it?
>
> No it suggests that she's got the good sense not to start fights that
> don't do any good. Remember, she lives with Hamish. She can make his
> life as miserable as she wants to behind closed doors, (he _certainly_
> can't leave her) for as long as she wants, and still get all the
> public benefits of being his wife. And some would say that's the best
> revenge of all.
>
true, but if she felt like that, wouldn't Honor sense it? wouldn't she
be presented rather differently to us?
> Probably the best interpretation is that Hamish was a cad, and she
> bought into it. As an actress, she'd probably have terrible body image
> problems after a devastating accident that puts her into a life
> support chair for life and assume that she had become ugly and
> undesirable. Hamish's affair with Kuzak would simply confirm all her
> worries about how others perceive her. If she'd gotten seriously
> depressed over these issues, she might simply be glad that he came
> home at all. Even the best sex therapy and psychotherapy would have a
> hard time overcoming his "confirmation" of her ugliness. Something to
> think about.
>
Now that is possible. Not supported particualrly by any textev, but
not disproved eitehr AFAICS.
> Alex
This is interesting, even when i disagree with you.
-DES
David E. Siegel
> > Fifth, there is a difference between trust and love. She might still
> > love him, but not trust him. In such an instance, she wouldn't act in
> > any way that would hurt him, and she might even help him, but there
> > would be a level of intimacy - physical and/or otherwise, she might
> > never again allow.
> >
> Sorry. Disagree with you completely and absolutely 100% there. I could
> never love a man I didn't trust. Trust is a prerequisite of love - at least
> as I define such and I have seen nothing to indicate that Emily defines it
> differently than I do.
>
I have seen people who were still in love (or soemthing which they
called love, anyway, and which looked like it) with people they *knew*
they couldn't trust -- with compulsive liars, in fact. This is not
the best kind of Love, IMO, but it does seem to happen a fair amount
of the time. I couldn't say why.
-DES
David E. Siegel
<snip>
> While we're here, I'll throw in my 2 cents about the things that *do*
> irritate me. First and foremost is the system of honours and titles that Mr
> Weber uses in the Harrington universe. He appears to have based it on the
> British system, then completely ignored most of the rules. Okay, so he's the
> author and he can tailor it to his requirements in any way he pleases, but
> if we adopted that attitude about everything to do with his novels, this
> newsgroup would be fairly empty ;-).
Yes, but...
Clearly the Manticorans made up their own system, basing it in part on
the British one, but making at least some changes. Any difference
could well be a change that they introduced on purpose, or ignorance
on the part of their founders. This is not the same as getting physics
wrong, or the history of an actual period, IMO.
>
> My second peeve is fairly concentrated in that it only relates to one story
> in 'Worlds of Honor' called 'The Stray'. And it's not even much of a peeve,
> given that Mr Weber didn't write it ;-). All that stuff about Scott
> McDallan's psychic Scottish heritage really got on my nerves. It's absolute
> bullshit! Is that what people really think of the Scots? Fair enough if the
> author wants to chuck in a character with possible psychic/telepathic
> abilities, but for chrissakes, think of something more original and more
> modern than 'fey' Scottish heritage. Next thing you know, there'll be a
> seventh son of a seventh son popping out of the woodwork. This is supposed
> to be sci-fi, not Brigadoon! I'm surprised she didn't have him rambling
> around in a kilt!
I agree, this was a bit OTT, and could have been done a lot better --
i just skimed over that part and got back to the *story* -- but then I
get used to skimming overdone background and info dumps when readign
HH books.
>
> Actually, I've just remembered my third pet peeve. Can we please make Honor
> a little *less* perfect? Okay, so she has problems in her private life, but
> when was the last time you saw her screw up in her professional life? I
> remember the first time I read the summary of 'In Enemy Hands'. I thought
> 'Oh good, her ship gets captured - she must really fuck up!'. But nnnnnoooo,
> she even managed to do that in a noble and glorious way. Doesn't this woman
> *ever* make a mistake? ;-)
>
I tend to agree, although those who have pointe out that she is now in
a place where mistakes tend to have fairly fatle consequences haver a
point.
> Anyway. Rant over.
>
> Gillian
Nice rant.
-DES
Gillian White
I would certainly agree with this. Until I met my husband, who is the most
wonderful creature ever to grace God's clean earth, I had a nasty habit of
falling head over heels in love with the strain of man more commonly known
as The Utter Bastard. I don't know why, and now that I'm over them, I wonder
what the hell was wrong with me! One of them in particular, who I knew was
on the lookout for something better even while we were dating, had an
absolutely devastating effect on me, both in terms of how much I loved him,
and how much he totally f*cked me up when he did eventually find something
better.
Trust may be a prerequisite for love in many circumstances, but not all of
them. My track record is living proof ;-)
Gillian
David E. Siegel
Ah, I am reading this from rec.arts.sf.written, not from a.b.d-w. I
don't think this is in the RASFW FAQ.
-DES
Alex
> tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > sie...@acm.org (David E. Siegel) wrote in message news:<dbdfe7e0.0211...@posting.google.com>...
> > > tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > > > pl...@newsreaders.com (J.B. Moreno) wrote in message news:<1fl2ycs.u4ckty288v76N%pl...@newsreaders.com>...
> > > > > Alex <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote:
<snip>
> > 4.) Hamish is unclear on the difference between mental and physical
> > disability.
>
> I see no evidence of this. If you mean that he negelcts the
> possibilty that Emily could still have orgasm or non-rogasmic sexual
> satisfaction,
No, that's not my point at all. Somewhere around page 211 of EoH (and
this is fifty years after the accident) he's thinking about how she
understood everything that had happened to her. The fact that this is
significant to him makes me think he's one of those people who make an
incorrect association between physical and mental disabilities.
I don't know if you've ever seen something like this, but every once
in awhile you'll see someone in a wheelchair looking cross as a
non-disabled person SPEAKS. TO. THEM. LOUDLY. AND. CLEARLY. AS. IF.
THE. PERSON. IN. THE. WHEELCHAIR. IS. MENTALLY. DISABLED when if fact,
the disabled person had a terrible pelvic injury, but their brains and
ears work just fine.
> > 7.) Hamish hasn't got a clue about how his affair with Kuzak affected
> > Emily. My wife has told me several times that my treating her as if
> > she was attractive even during the worst of her hospitalization had an
> > extremely powerful effect on her morale. She thought it was sweet that
> > I would lie down next to her on the hospital bed and fall asleep,
> > (actually, I was simply exhausted) and it gave her hope that things
> > would be normal again. I also made it a point to actively kiss her,
> > hold her, hug her, etc. while she was in the hospital bed. It sounds
> > like Hamish did exactly the opposite.
> >
>
> Here you are making assumptions based on little to no evidince, IMO.
> Ther was a 50+ year perioid from the accident to the first time we see
> hamish and here about it -- we do *not* know when in that period the
> affair with kuzak took place, except that it is "years ago" at the
> time of FoD.
Obviously this is an issue of what time-line one uses for dealing with
these issues. I prefer the assumption mainly because it leaves room
for a wonderful story about how Hamish redeems himself.
> > 8.) Hamish uses inappropriate language when thinking about his wife
> > even when he isn't angry. One could argue that this is Mr. Weber's
> > ignorance showing, but contrast his language and tone while thinking
> > about Emily with Honor's language and tone toward Emily in "War of
> > Honor."
> >
> As I have said before, this doesn't hold up unless there is soem
> evidence that Hamish knew that she would resent these terms, or that
> other characters consider such terms as insults or slurs or otherwise
> inappropriate, or at least that DW is well aware that many disabled
> people so regard them.
That's being debated somewhere else in this thread so I won't go into
detail. I would suggest that you compare the way Hamish thinks of
Emily in EoH and the way Honor thinks of Emily in WoH. The difference
is startling. I have trouble believing that in a society which has
completely removed gender and race references to the point where it
seems that most of the characters don't know such references even
exist, that anything but a tiny portion of the public would use words
that demeaned the disabled. If this WAS the case, Honor would have
used such words too. Whether this represents an oversight on Mr.
Weber's part or not, is of course debateable.
> > There are substantial reasons for Emily continuing to live with Hamish
> > even if she no longer trusts/loves him. These include possible need of
> > his money to survive, politics, social standing, and being there if
> > one of his "blue sky" medical research projects pays off.
> >
> Remember it is explicitly stted that she is rich in her own right.
> Neither he nor she was much involved in politics prior to the Cromarty
> Assination. Given the accident, and her apparent widespread popularity
> in her own right, I doubt that her social standing would be hurt by
> leaving him if she chose to do so.
That's also being debated elsewhere, either in this thread or the
"Emily White Haven, What a Load" thread.
On the subject of the nobility touching, there are two other scenes
(at least) that have to be taken into account. In the scene with Honor
and Hamish on the target range, he kisses her hand. In the scene with
the Big Party To Prove That Honor and Hamish Aren't Boffing, Emily and
Teddy touch twice.
> Yes, he shows rouching when people are activly having sex just before
> or after -- almost a s a surrogate for the sex scenes he doesn't
> include. All of these scens involve couples who are actively sexual,
> and all are with no other person present. (The same is true for the
> scenes with Paul and Honor in ASVW, except as you consider Nimitz to
> be an "other person present".
Ah yes, the famous scene of the captain putting on his boots!!
> > The general public wouldn't know who was touching and who wasn't, but
> > Manticore's nobility, royalty, (plus the "royalty watchers/fans)
> > political elite, and the press would have a good idea of who is/isn't
> > touchy feely. A single moment of high class touching would have done
> > it without looking overplayed. Hamish makes a toast to his wife. He
> > stands behind her, puts his left hand on her left shoulder. She
> > reaches up and puts her right hand on top of his left hand. The
> > picture in the papers the next day looks classy and everyone knows
> > what's really what. Remember that the party was also being staged for
> > the benefit of the opposition, who seem to be fairly dim bulbs. They'd
> > need to see something fairly obvious to know what was going on.
>
> Yes, but to assume that they didn't touch because that would have
> looked false (as you suggested earlier) assumes that whatever audience
> it would have looked false to (whether the general public, or
> political elite and near-elite) must *know* that soemthing is rotten
> inside the marriage, know it well enough that to have her show
> affection looks false. There is not only no text evidence for such a
> general view of the what haven marriage, but it is not consistant with
> the public viw of it as "one of the great tragic love stories of the
> kingdom" If she resents/dispises/dislikes him enough to be unwillign
> to touch him or to make any touch look fake, it is not a love story
> any more.
Definitely debateable, mainly on the difference between love and trust
and the attitudes the White Haven's bring to the situation. Given the
amount of touching among the nobility in the other parts of the book,
I can't help but go with the idea that the White Haven's don't usually
touch, due either to personal issues (like his affair with Kuzak)
and/or their personal psychologies in relation to whether the disabled
(or at least Emily) are people who SHOULD touch.
> > > I think that what has happend here is that you know very well what it
> > > means to deal with the serious injury of a loved one, specifically of
> > > a wife. This makes these scenes hit home to you. And, based on your
> > > description of events, you acted in an exemplary and very loving
> > > fashion when faced with your (future) wife's injuries.
> >
> > Yes, but I didn't discuss my history to toot my own horn. I discussed
> > it to give some credibility to my analysis of the text, and I can tell
> > you with no doubt at all from having been in the same situation that
> > Hamish made an ass of himself. That being said, yes, the writing about
> > disabled people and the "heros" who love them has pushed my buttons in
> > some really nasty ways, but I'm coming to believe that Weber is
> > pushing them deliberately to tell us about the relationship between
> > Emily and Hamish.
> >
>
> Remember, "never attripute to malice and conspiricy what can be
> explained by ignorance and incompetance". I think you are reading into
> this what would be there if you wrote it, and that Weber is pusing
> your buttons out of ignorance of the perspective of people like you
> and your wife, not on purpose. That kind oif fairly subtle
> button-pushing would be rather out of character with him, when he
> wants to push buttons he mashes them flat, when he wants to depict a
> heel he shows us a really nasty viper, painted with very broad
> strokes.
Well, he may be growing as a writer, or Hamish may be a character like
Horace Harkness - a good guy with an obvious personality flaw.
> Also, I don't think that DW is at all "politically correct" if
> anything he would regard that as one of those "Liberal" notions that
> peeps and political nitwits on the manticoran left p[ay lib-service
> too, i think. he sows us a future where racial differences are no
> longer a source of prejudice. But he does show (and mostly condem,
> but not dogmatically) gender and religious prejudice, and he shows and
> does not seem to condem nationalistic prejudice.
Politically Correct is probably not the best word to have used here,
but a phrase like "a society that doesn't know about racist speech
because they don't differentiate between the races" is an unweildy
phrase to keep throwing out. I was using PC as a sort of shorthand for
that concept.
> > I don't think the registered courtesans were inappropriate, just the
> > bit with Kuzak.
> >
> ok I can see that. But then, this occured "many years ago" -- is he
> still a heel? has he changed at all? Might Emily or even Honor love
> him in spite of this lapse?
Yes. I suspect a redemptive moment in there somewhere, maybe one that
Emily doesn't know all about, but which causes him to change in a way
that makes him acceptable to Honor.
Alex
ed
>
<snip>
>> My second peeve is fairly concentrated in that it only relates to one story
>> in 'Worlds of Honor' called 'The Stray'. And it's not even much of a peeve,
>> given that Mr Weber didn't write it ;-). All that stuff about Scott
>> McDallan's psychic Scottish heritage really got on my nerves. It's absolute
>> bullshit! Is that what people really think of the Scots? Fair enough if the
>> author wants to chuck in a character with possible psychic/telepathic
>> abilities, but for chrissakes, think of something more original and more
>> modern than 'fey' Scottish heritage. Next thing you know, there'll be a
>> seventh son of a seventh son popping out of the woodwork. This is supposed
>> to be sci-fi, not Brigadoon! I'm surprised she didn't have him rambling
>> around in a kilt!
At the 1995 Worldcon in Glasgow in a session on Scotland iN SF/Fantasy
some of us real folk made the same point. There appear to be those who
seem to think that scotland (and the rest of the celtic countries) exist
only in some mythical mist shrouded twee little world of kilt-wearing
shillelagh waving leek munching couthy characters.
Did these people miss the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the
Clearances, etc etc etc.
Second Sight ma hielan granny
ed
--
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http://www.equus.demon.co.uk/ | Maidens Slain | o_/o ///
For devilbunnies, Diplomacy, RPGs, | Quests P.O.A. | __\ ///__
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Andrew Lannon
> don't think this is in the RASFW FAQ.
Slackers. No excuses!
Seriously, though, the FAQ is here (http://weberfaq.thefifthimperium.com/)
if you are interested.
Andrew Lannon
J.B. Moreno
> No, that's not my point at all. Somewhere around page 211 of EoH (and
> this is fifty years after the accident) he's thinking about how she
> understood everything that had happened to her. The fact that this is
> significant to him makes me think he's one of those people who make an
> incorrect association between physical and mental disabilities.
That's not how I took it at all -- I took it to me that in those
intervening 50 years, she has made rather a personal study of her type
of situation....basically that she probably knows more about her type of
injury than anyone not a doctor in the field (and possibly more than
quite a few of those).
Kitsune
that you would _still_ be in "love" with him? Or would you maybe have
gotten over the crush and come to realize that the relationship was not one
you wanted to stay in?
I maintain that after 50+ years of marriage, Emily is quite capable of
divorcing Hamish if she so desired and that the fact that she hasn't means
that a) she is still in love with him, b) that while not perfect, he also is
not the total jerk that some are making him out to be, & c) she would still
have to trust him or she would neither love nor stay married to him.
-Linda
Kitsune
-snip-
> > > 8.) Hamish uses inappropriate language when thinking about his wife
> > > even when he isn't angry. One could argue that this is Mr. Weber's
> > > ignorance showing, but contrast his language and tone while thinking
> > > about Emily with Honor's language and tone toward Emily in "War of
> > > Honor."
Or perhaps it was Himself's way of telling us about Emily in the first
place and - having already gone through it with Hamish - Himself didn't see
any reason to beat the subject to death by having Honor also telling us all
about Emily's accident and physical differences. Hmmm?
-Linda
Alex
> tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > cgla...@hotmail.com (Charles Glasgow) wrote in message news:<9e6aa7ec.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > > tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.0211...@posting.google.com>...
> > >
> > > > First, Emily is in essence a "political wife."
> > >
> > > Actually, she isn't. Emily White Haven has a source of popular
> > > adoration that is not only independent to her husband, but predates
> > > her marriage. *She's* the beloved celebrity in that couple... Hamish
> > > is a respected war hero, but she's the star.
> >
> > Emily married Hamish knowing that he either was (or would be, if his
> > father was still alive) a member of the House of Lords. That makes her
> > a political wife, and the text proves that she understands how the
> > game is played. You're right that if she betrayed Hamish while he was
> > fighting for his political life, the common people would still love
> > her.
>
> To me, a "politcal wife" is not simply soemopne married to a
> politician. It is soemone who makes it their primary aim to further
> the political carrer of their spouse. Hilliary Clinton was a
> political wife. So was Nancy Regan. (In SF, the prime "political
> wife" is probably the wife of the prime minister in RAH's _Stranger_,
> IMO) But Roselyn Carter was not. I don't see much indication that
> Emily was, in this sense.
Yes, but on the other hand, even though Rosalyn certainly married
Jimmy for love, you can bet she knows the rules of the game, and is
capable of acting the part of the political wife when she needs to. If
she hadn't been capable of this, he never would have been elected
president.
When I say the Emily is a political wife, I'm making the same
assumption about her that I make about Rosalyn Carter. She loves her
husband, but she also knows exactly how the game is played, and after
seventy years of watching SKM politics, she knows she has to play it
herself because the issues are so important.
Also, IMHO, Rosaly Carter is a much classier act than either Hillary
or Nancy.
> BTW, Alexander did not become Earl White Haven until after the opening
> of the first HH book, IIRC. He speaks about his Father's ill health
> somewhere in OBS, I think. If at that time he had been married for 50+
> years, when they married the prospect of his havign a set in the Lords
> might be tolerably remote. Nor are all the members of the Lords
> *active* politicans -- after all, they don't have to stand for
> election.
> > However, the people with real political power in the Star Kingdom
> > would never trust her again. Also, she does state, (somewhere around
> > page 218 of WoH) that she is Hamish's primary political adviser and
> > analyst - in a sense, the power behind his "throne." Also, around page
> > 858 of WoH she discusses her love of politics. So, yes, she has power
> > of her own as an HD star, that's very true, but she also has power
> > through Hamish, who's political career she helps manage. Why give it
> > up?
> Yes she does help with this. Note that Hamish *had* no political
> carrer until AoV -- he only really entered politics to oppose the
> Highridge govt after the Cromarty Assination. Before that he had a
> seat in the Lords, but almost all of his atention and interest was on
> his military carrere -- he spoke several times of leavign politics to
> his brother. So considerations of the political effect of Emily
> leaving Hamish would have been rather different many years before,
> when she had her accicent, or when he had the affair with Kuzak.
That's true.
<snip>
> > > Second conclusion -- She actually cares about Hamish as Hamish, not as
> > > a necessary political adjunct. Because given the perfect opportunity
> > > to make herself more of a tragic media darling at his expense, she
> > > refused to take it. Ergo, she cares about *him* first.
> >
> > Or she cares about the political issue (rebuilding the fleet) Hamish
> > was fighting for first. As DW states in the last part of WoH, survival
> > trumps nice. Survival also trumps mean. Regardless of whether she gets
> > her power politically or through Manticore's equivalent of Hollywood,
> > if the Peeps land on Manticore, she's either going to be shot, or held
> > prisoner and forced to help create propoganda, probably while Kevin
> > Usher cuts bits off someone she loves.
> >
> True. Her actions coul;d support either interpretation, except that
> all of her feelings which we are shown seem to favor the first, or at
> least soemthing not too unlike it. (She does have the 'flash of
> jealosy" but only a flash)
Granted. Remember that the issues with Kuzak are somewhere around
fifty years ago - give or take a decade. The fifty year (since her
accident) figure is used in Echoes of Honor, which takes place seven
or eight years before War of Honor.
My own observation (of others) is that anger about unfaithfulness
lasts for somewhere between 1-5 years, after which it becomes part of
the "background noise" of the relationship, after which it is only
brought out on special occassions, like during an argument. Whatever
changes the Kuzak issues and Hamishs behavior about the accident may
have made to the relationship are long term, stable changes, and while
they affect the substance of the relationship, they don't affect
Emily's emotional reaction to current events.
> > > She couldn't have him more dead to rights
> > > if he were handcuffed to one of Warnecke's nukes and she were holding
> > > the dead-man switch.
> >
> > Yes and no. Granted, Emily starts out with the the initial advantage
> > in such a fight, but Hamish is a member of the House of Lords, he's
> > related to the Prime Minister, he's got allies in high places, he's a
> > high ranking military officer and he's a supporter of the Queen, who
> > would support him in turn.
>
> At this time the Primne Minisater hates his guts. he is realted to the
> *former* Exchecker. He is a high-rankign officer on half-pay, most
> of whose friends and allies in the military are also not on active
> duty. he has soem allies in high places, but more enemies.
Exactly my point. This is the worst possible time, given her own
politcal beliefs, for Emily to leave Hamish.
> > Yes, she could start the fight, but sooner or later, Her Majesty would
> > finish it. In fact, I can imagine the Queen, upon hearing the rumors
> > of Hamish and Kuzak, stepping in to make sure the fight never started.
Actually, I have to admit a screw-up there. I don't think Elizabeth
was queen then. However, her father was also involved in actively
building up the fleet, and might have had similar issues. That's too
far back for me to make any kind of intelligent judgement.
> > No it suggests that she's got the good sense not to start fights that
> > don't do any good. Remember, she lives with Hamish. She can make his
> > life as miserable as she wants to behind closed doors, (he _certainly_
> > can't leave her) for as long as she wants, and still get all the
> > public benefits of being his wife. And some would say that's the best
> > revenge of all.
>
> true, but if she felt like that, wouldn't Honor sense it? wouldn't she
> be presented rather differently to us?
Once again. The issues with Kuzak/accident are fifty years in the
past. While they might affect the substance of the relationship...
Once again, think about how long spouses stay angry with each other
> > Probably the best interpretation is that Hamish was a cad, and she
> > bought into it. As an actress, she'd probably have terrible body image
> > problems after a devastating accident that puts her into a life
> > support chair for life and assume that she had become ugly and
> > undesirable. Hamish's affair with Kuzak would simply confirm all her
> > worries about how others perceive her. If she'd gotten seriously
> > depressed over these issues, she might simply be glad that he came
> > home at all. Even the best sex therapy and psychotherapy would have a
> > hard time overcoming his "confirmation" of her ugliness. Something to
> > think about.
> >
>
> Now that is possible. Not supported particualrly by any textev, but
> not disproved eitehr AFAICS.
No, this is based on personal experience. My wife experienced some of
the issues I discuss above fairly soon after her accident, and long
before she could walk or had regained feeling in her private parts.
She got "noble" on me in the same way Emily is "noble" with Hamish. I
turned her down for a number of reasons, some based on practical
reasoning, and others based on love/monogamy.
> This is interesting, even when i disagree with you.
Agreed.
Alex
>
> > Emily married Hamish knowing that he either was (or would be, if his
> > father was still alive) a member of the House of Lords. That makes her
> > a political wife, [snip]
>
> It is entirely possible to marry a man who you know will later attain
> political office without having political ambition of her own.
Yes, but Emily does love politics. The text of WoH makes this very
clear.
(Page 212) "I'm his chief analyst and adviser, though few people
realize it, and there's no way he would have failed to introduce us to
each other..."
And the whole conversation from 218 to 220 where Emily is analyzing
Hamish's and Honor's political skills.
Or (page 860) Emily says (to her husband) "Actually, is should be
rather interesting. You may not like politics, but that doesn't mean I
don't, my dear."
> *Show me* that Emily White Haven's political skills were motivated by
> ambition for herself and/or a personal desire to keep access to the
> centers of power, and then your argument might sustain itself. As
> is, your entire structure of thought is based upon the presumption
> that Emily's marriage was not primarily for love.
That's not quite what I'm saying. My point is that the reasons for
STAYING in a bad marriage aren't the same as the reasons for GETTING
MARRIED in the first place. Sometimes the reasons are noble (I stayed
for the children, he was having career troubles, etc.) sometimes
they're venal. (I don't love him anymore, but he's filthy rich.)
> *Every* argument you make comes back to the circle that Emily White
> Haven is calculating on a basis whose cynical amorality could be
> exceeded only by the former Lady North Hollow's. By your theories,
> she's capable of putting up with a rake of a husband to retain access
> to political power, capable of accepting gross personal betrayal to
> retain access to political power, capable of *marrying* for greater
> access to political power, and judges the should-I-shouldn't-I of her
> choices primarily on the basis of what she can get away with, not what
> would be right.
No, that's not what I'm saying. In fact, I'm suggesting that Emily's
decision to stay with Hamish is motivated by some fairly noble
sentiments.
1.) She agrees with Hamish's politics (and probably agreed with his
father's politics) and given her political acumen and historical
knowledge, she's an excellent resource and advisor. The threat of
Haven is on the horizon, and she honestly believes that the best thing
she can do for herself, those she loves, and her country, is to act as
part of the political team that's fighting for a military build-up.
2.) She does love Hamish. The affair with Kuzak and Hamish's behavior
after the accident make it clear that Hamish is weak in certain areas,
and sans some redeeming behavior on his part, she might never trust
him in those areas again, but she does love him.
3.) She's aware that due to her popularity, leaving Hamish will do him
AND HIS FAMILY permanent political damage. Given that she expects the
Star Kingdom to be fighting for its life soon, she doesn't do this.
4.) She'd like to encourage Hamish to continue lending his name and $$
to research that will get her out of the chair - and who can blame
her. Yes, she's got reasonable amounts of money, but he's REALLY
loaded. Remember that even an incremental improvement, like an
artificial kidney or an implantable unit that will stimulate her lungs
and heart would have a profound effect on her life.
> IOW, in order to prove your theory, you would have to demonstrate that
> she is one major stone-cold calculating bitch. And your arguments
> have proceeded forward based upon that presumption.
Yes and no.
No. her motives are not bad motives. She loves her country. She loves
Hamish, (even though she has learned that he cannot be trusted to
handle her disability sensitively) She loves her in-laws, and her
neices and nephews, and she agrees with their politics, which are the
correct politics for her country's situation. She'd also like some
help from the family money to improve her health or even fix her
completely. Worth staying around for, and not an evil motive per se.
Even without the idea of her loving Hamish, her solution the political
attack on Honor and Hamish was certainly a fair pay-off for whatever
checks Hamish may have written to the research facilities that year.
There's no evil involved (though there may be a certain amount of
cynical back scratching) if she sticks around so he'll keep financing
research toward a cure for her and pays him back with political help
of that caliber
Yes. She's every bit as tough as any other political player, behind
the scenes or otherwise. She's a good at politics as her husband is at
military combat, and she'd more (not less) dangerous because she's
behind the scenes. Cross her and she'll use her popularity and
political knowledge in a very dangerous attempt to run you out of
office, destroy your political career and make life so rough for you
that you move to Silesia.
In the end, to paraphrase Teddy Roosevelt, "She may be a bitch, but
she's our bitch."
> One slight problem, though.
>
> Your theory *is* that she's one major stone-cold calculating bitca.
>
> IOW, you're using your initial assumption to justify your conclusions.
>
> Circular logic.
Not at all. Before I decided to take up the issues involving Hamish
and Emily I read the relevant bits and bookmarked them carefully,
particulary pages 211-216 of "Echoes of Honor" and pages 204-237 and
850-861 of "War of Honor." These two books make it clear that Hamish
didn't handle her accident well, that Emily is tough as nails, and
that she loves her husband and her country. Read those passages again
carefully, and I think you'll agree with me.
Alex
Alex
>
> <snip>
>
> > While we're here, I'll throw in my 2 cents about the things that *do*
> > irritate me. First and foremost is the system of honours and titles that Mr
> > Weber uses in the Harrington universe. He appears to have based it on the
> > British system, then completely ignored most of the rules. Okay, so he's the
> > author and he can tailor it to his requirements in any way he pleases, but
> > if we adopted that attitude about everything to do with his novels, this
> > newsgroup would be fairly empty ;-).
Actually, the system used on Manticore is exactly what you'd get if a
bunch of Americans tried to implement the British system without a
reference to Salic Law in their database. I don't have trouble with
that, because as I recall, the original Manticoran expedition was
mainly an American expedition, and titles of nobility were adopted as
a bit of cynical political expediency, not out of any real belief in
the feudal system.
I am having more and more trouble with the behavior of the characters
in the Honorverse, however. The whole Honor Hamish thing, the Emily
doesn't boff thing, the Elaine marries Paul Young's brother thing,
etc.
Also, what is the deal with Honor and no sex or thinking she's
unattractive? Let's face it. As portrayed, she's gorgeous and exotic
looking, and due to Nimitz, she's got an empathic view of males. If a
man looks at her and thinks she's hot, she'll know it. Also, once she
notices that a man is attracted to her, she can ask him a few leading
questions and know almost at once if he's evil, or if he's a pig. She
can tell if he thinks she might be a good wife or girlfriend, or if he
just wants to hit on her. She'll know if he's discreet or whether he
brags to his friends. By the end of the first date, she'd an excellent
idea of whether he was worth sleeping with, though she might not do it
right away. Obviously her position as Steadholder and Admiral somewhat
shrinks the pool of available men, but give me a break.
I think Weber needs to take a page out of Alice Walker's book. She
talks about how, in the course of her writing, she has long talks with
the characters and asks them what they do next, what motivates them,
who they're attracted to, etc.
Just my .02
Alex
Gillian White
news:<dbdfe7e0.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > "Gillian White" <gillia...@mail.com> wrote in message
news:<aq6sdh$m38$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> >
> > <snip>
> >
> > > While we're here, I'll throw in my 2 cents about the things that *do*
> > > irritate me. First and foremost is the system of honours and titles
that Mr
> > > Weber uses in the Harrington universe. He appears to have based it on
the
> > > British system, then completely ignored most of the rules. Okay, so
he's the
> > > author and he can tailor it to his requirements in any way he pleases,
but
> > > if we adopted that attitude about everything to do with his novels,
this
> > > newsgroup would be fairly empty ;-).
>
> Actually, the system used on Manticore is exactly what you'd get if a
> bunch of Americans tried to implement the British system without a
> reference to Salic Law in their database.
Fair point, but I don't see what the Salic Law has to do with it. Britain
has never recognised it and never used it. It was heavily used in the German
states, and is the reason why Queen Victoria could not claim the Hanoverian
throne after the death of her uncle William IV, but it has nothing to do
with how titles and styles are used within the British nobility, which is
what I'm bothered about ;-)
> I am having more and more trouble with the behavior of the characters
> in the Honorverse, however. The whole Honor Hamish thing, the Emily
> doesn't boff thing, the Elaine marries Paul Young's brother thing,
> etc.
Indeed. The whole Elaine/Pavel/Stefan thing was a bit too much like Claudius
& Gertrude for my comfort. I'm just waiting for Pavel's ghost to turn up ;-)
Doh! There I go dragging Shakespeare into it again. What was I saying about
soap opera?!
;-)
Gillian
Gillian White
> Question: Do you think that after 50+ years of marriage to such a
jerk
> that you would _still_ be in "love" with him? Or would you maybe have
> gotten over the crush and come to realize that the relationship was not
one
> you wanted to stay in?
Probably not no. But my answer was related more to the issue of whether a
woman could marry a guy they didn't trust. I would have married this guy in
an instant. Probably wouldn't have stayed married to him for very long, but
that's another issue ;-)
> I maintain that after 50+ years of marriage, Emily is quite capable of
> divorcing Hamish if she so desired and that the fact that she hasn't means
> that a) she is still in love with him, b) that while not perfect, he also
is
> not the total jerk that some are making him out to be, & c) she would
still
> have to trust him or she would neither love nor stay married to him.
Agree with you 100% here. I don't buy the idea that Emily has stayed with
Hamish only through some displaced sense of political loyalty. It's
insulting and patronising. To quote HRC, she ain't baking cookies at home
and singing 'Stand By Your Man'. She stays with him because she loves him,
warts and all.
Gillian
Gillian White
"ed" <edh...@equus.demon.co.uk> wrote in message
news:pafosukb3qiv6iunm...@4ax.com...
> At the 1995 Worldcon in Glasgow in a session on Scotland iN SF/Fantasy
> some of us real folk made the same point. There appear to be those who
> seem to think that scotland (and the rest of the celtic countries) exist
> only in some mythical mist shrouded twee little world of kilt-wearing
> shillelagh waving leek munching couthy characters.
>
> Did these people miss the Enlightenment, the Industrial Revolution, the
> Clearances, etc etc etc.
>
> Second Sight ma hielan granny
Indeed! So tell me, which fair part of our country do you hail from ?
I'm a 'weegie myself...
Gillian
George D. Phillies
> has never recognised it and never used it. It was heavily used in the German
> states, and is the reason why Queen Victoria could not claim the Hanoverian
> throne after the death of her uncle William IV, but it has nothing to do
Now there is an interesting bit of alternative history.
"When Wilhemn dies, we are no longer linked to England...that's a really
bad idea..."
"For the purposes of this law, the English monarch is legally male."
It might realistically speaking have been impossible to sell without a few
orbital laser mind control satellites.
Gillian White
"George D. Phillies" <phil...@WPI.EDU> wrote in message
news:Pine.OSF.4.44.02110...@grover.WPI.EDU...
What's even more interesting is that if the Salic Law had applied to the
British throne, it would currently be occupied by Prince Ernst of Hanover
and his eurotrash wife Princess Caroline of Monaco, arguments about the Act
of Settlement and the Royal Marriage Act notwithstanding ;-)
Just imagine, Grace Kelly as the Queen Mum-In-Law. Beats old
dowdy-faced-peg-teeth Betty Bowes-Lyon any day.
Gillian
Charles Glasgow
> cgla...@hotmail.com (Charles Glasgow) wrote in message news:<9e6aa7ec.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > It is entirely possible to marry a man who you know will later attain
> > political office without having political ambition of her own.
>
> Yes, but Emily does love politics. The text of WoH makes this very
> clear.
[snip]
So what? As for me, I love computers. I *really* love computers.
The vast majority of my leisure time is spent doing computer stuff.
Doesn't mean that they're my first priority in life, or that I'm
willing to sell out for them.
Furthermore, Emily White Haven has always been described as a very
intelligent, outgoing, and energetic woman. You put somebody like
that in a quadriplegic situation, they've got to find *something* to
occupy their time and social energies with or else they'll go nuts.
In her case, that's politics. Note that she had zero interest in
politics /before/ her accident. (Note also that as JB pointed out,
White Haven wasn't anything but an extremely minor political figure
until about 50 years after his marriage.)
You are leaping to the conclusion that because she likes what she's
doing now, it's her driving passion in life to a point where it
overrides love and/or moral concern. That is a *very* unsupportable
leap.
[snip]
> That's not quite what I'm saying. My point is that the reasons for
> STAYING in a bad marriage aren't the same as the reasons for GETTING
> MARRIED in the first place. Sometimes the reasons are noble (I stayed
> for the children, he was having career troubles, etc.) sometimes
> they're venal. (I don't love him anymore, but he's filthy rich.)
And sometimes an argument is full of little red ants, as she's more
than rich and beloved enough. Hell, if Hamish turned out to be a worm
and she was the noble long-suffering wife, she could go hire out to
Elizabeth and/or Countess Gold Peak or someone else as a political
advisor and confidant *without* needing to keep him. By now she's
more than demonstrated ample qualifications for the resume.
[snip]
> No, that's not what I'm saying. In fact, I'm suggesting that Emily's
> decision to stay with Hamish is motivated by some fairly noble
> sentiments.
No you aren't.
Remember, this argument originally started as the assertion that Emily
can't be more than mildly offended and/or upset at Hamish's falling in
love with Honor, or else she'd have smacked him. Every
counter-argument you gave for the possibility that she could be
feeling deeply hurt and betrayed yet stay with Hamish anyway has been
from a very venal, self-centered viewpoint. (She'd need to keep my
access to politics, she can't get away with etc.)
> 1.) She agrees with Hamish's politics (and probably agreed with his
> father's politics) and given her political acumen and historical
> knowledge, she's an excellent resource and advisor. The threat of
> Haven is on the horizon, and she honestly believes that the best thing
> she can do for herself, those she loves, and her country, is to act as
> part of the political team that's fighting for a military build-up.
Which she can do without Hamish. Indeed, if Hamish really had had an
affair with Honor -- or was merely convincingly said to have been by
Emily -- *Elizabeth* would have to dump him. She'd still be employed
and he wouldn't.
> 2.) She does love Hamish.
Which she could not be doing if she felt as hurt, betrayed, or etc. as
some of you have been claiming. Which arrives us back to what I said
-- i.e., if Emily White Haven doesn't think that Hamish is such a
sleaze, then neither should we. If she wants to have an open or even
semi-open marriage, then it's her alternate lifestyle choice.
[snip]
> 3.) She's aware that due to her popularity, leaving Hamish will do him
> AND HIS FAMILY permanent political damage.
At the time Emily would have had to make this decision, the High Ride
Government was at the height of its power, and Cromarty's party was
pretty much dying on the ropes. Every fight they'd had for the naval
budget was a losing one *anyway*.
'Damage' calculations only apply this strongly if you actually have a
lot left to lose. When you're *already* losing big...
[snip]
> 4.) She'd like to encourage Hamish to continue lending his name and $$
> to research that will get her out of the chair - and who can blame
> her. Yes, she's got reasonable amounts of money, but he's REALLY
> loaded.
Speculative assumption on your part as to where the money is -- yet
again, you're using an assumption to justify a conclusion.
Besides, she could get hired the next week by Queen Elizabeth, and
well, that's that.
[snip]
> > IOW, in order to prove your theory, you would have to demonstrate that
> > she is one major stone-cold calculating bitch. And your arguments
> > have proceeded forward based upon that presumption.
>
> Yes and no.
Whaddya mean yes and no? So far, *all* of your arguments fall into
three categories
a) Love of Hamish -- which backs up what *I* said, that it's her
marriage and none of our damn business
b) No love of Hamish, but love of country -- which is fallacious, as
she could continue to serve equally as well after dumping Hamish the
heel. Remember, his friends are her friends too, and not only because
of him being in the loop. Not after this many decades.
c) Self-interest.
With a) and b) both shot full of holes, you *ARE* left arguing only
from c) -- which makes her out to be the Lilah Morgan of the Star
Kingdom.
No.
[snip]
> Not at all. Before I decided to take up the issues involving Hamish
> and Emily I read the relevant bits and bookmarked them carefully,
> particulary pages 211-216 of "Echoes of Honor" and pages 204-237 and
> 850-861 of "War of Honor."
Yes, and even they don't bear out your conclusions without including
at least two giant leaps of assumption, which I've outlined for you.
Sure, what you say is *possible* -- anything's possible. But in order
to convince me or anyone else, you have to show more than possible,
you have to show *actual*.
--
Chuckg
Jeffery S. Jones
<gillia...@mail.com> wrote:
>
>"Kitsune" <kit...@wireweb.net> wrote in message
>news:aqhuo...@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
>> Question: Do you think that after 50+ years of marriage to such a
>jerk
>> that you would _still_ be in "love" with him? Or would you maybe have
>> gotten over the crush and come to realize that the relationship was not
>one
>> you wanted to stay in?
>
>Probably not no. But my answer was related more to the issue of whether a
>woman could marry a guy they didn't trust. I would have married this guy in
>an instant. Probably wouldn't have stayed married to him for very long, but
>that's another issue ;-)
The trust issue might be worked out more. You'd figure out where
you stood with him, what you couldn't trust, and decide whether those
were more than you could live with.
If the areas in which he misbehaves don't hurt you, maybe you can
live with them?
Especially if he does more than enough good things to make up for
the misbehavior.
>> I maintain that after 50+ years of marriage, Emily is quite capable of
>> divorcing Hamish if she so desired and that the fact that she hasn't means
>> that a) she is still in love with him, b) that while not perfect, he also
>is
>> not the total jerk that some are making him out to be, & c) she would
>still
>> have to trust him or she would neither love nor stay married to him.
>
>Agree with you 100% here. I don't buy the idea that Emily has stayed with
>Hamish only through some displaced sense of political loyalty. It's
>insulting and patronising. To quote HRC, she ain't baking cookies at home
>and singing 'Stand By Your Man'. She stays with him because she loves him,
>warts and all.
Do they get along well as companions? I don't see evidence that
they do not. The lack of touching, the lack of sexual contact, is
harder to measure.
We don't see all of what happens when they aren't onstage. I
wouldn't want to read too much into what they do in public, or in
front of Honor. Maybe one or both is uncomfortable with showing their
affection that way in public?
It doesn't matter what others do.
I can think of a reason, not a grand one but maybe it makes sense
for Hamish and Emily: touching reminds both of the physical
affections they can no longer share.
Emily may have considered artificial neural stimulators to be too
mechanical in feel, not personal, like having someone play with you
via remote control. Maybe her nerves and brain cannot accept such
rewiring as pleasurable sensations?
What if the only thing which they can do is the approximate
equivalent of a drug high? Maybe she does have such thing installed,
but would having her husband push the button feel like making love to
her, or him?
In any case, the characters are set in a fashion which denies them a
physical relationship which both can accept. If it were merely
Hamish's problem, Emily could find some other nice person to interact
with.
Given the technology available, I doubt that there are many people
put into Emily's condition, alive but unable to interact like most
people. Artificial life support organs seem pretty effective, bionic
replacements sufficient to cover major limb and organ loss. But
repairing the brain itself seems beyond them, without regeneration.
In this, I think that her tragedy is greater than most readers may
imagine. If the story were set on a near future Earth, where severe
injuries cannot be repaired fully, where there is no expectation of
recovery from many problems, she would be one of many such people
suffering.
Emily is alive only due to unlikely circumstances, and very advanced
medical technology. Close to being a disembodied head, mostly just
brain and eyes functioning, for a long while after the accident. DOA
by current science, and very close to that by her own medical
technology.
In that, would Hamish have a great support network of other victims
of such tragic survivable injuries? Or is he in that position due to
a combination of luck, and maybe money -- would the less well off
victim have to worry about living at all?
Were stuck with a given fact: Emily and Hamish can't enjoy shared
sexuality. The why of that matters less than the fact of it. Emily
seems quite intelligent enough to think up possible solutions, but
maybe they wouldn't satisfy her own desires? If she isn't happy with
the possibilities, is it wrong for Hamish to reject them as well?
If the problem were merely with Hamish's attitudes, Emily could find
her own companions. Legal courtesans should be available for
everyone, right?
DW might need to give us more details on why Hamish and Emily lack a
sex life together, but I don't think that is required. If we trust
his statements about it, it doesn't matter why it doesn't work. It
simply does, end of story.
Hamish isn't perfect. But he has obvious affection for Honor, and
that is returned. If Hamish was a heartless cad, I just couldn't see
Honor liking him, let along loving him.
--
*-__Jeffery Jones__________| *Starfire* |____________________-*
** Muskego WI Access Channel 14/25 <http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/mach7/>
*Starfire Design Studio* <http://www.starfiredesign.com/>
*Graphic Reflections and Websites* <http://www.execpc.com/~jeffsj/>
Jeanne Hedge
>"Gillian White" <gillia...@mail.com> wrote in message news:<aq6sdh$m38$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk>...
>> Actually, I've just remembered my third pet peeve. Can we please make Honor
>> a little *less* perfect? Okay, so she has problems in her private life, but
>> when was the last time you saw her screw up in her professional life? I
>> remember the first time I read the summary of 'In Enemy Hands'. I thought
>> 'Oh good, her ship gets captured - she must really fuck up!'. But nnnnnoooo,
>> she even managed to do that in a noble and glorious way. Doesn't this woman
>> *ever* make a mistake? ;-)
>>
>
>I tend to agree, although those who have pointe out that she is now in
>a place where mistakes tend to have fairly fatle consequences haver a
>point.
Most of the ordinary things that could be done to humanize HH (that
is, make her a bit less perfect) go right out the window because she's
now got both personal and professional staffs to deal with such things
for her. So we won't see her oversleep; she'll never get the chance to
forget about some pre-planned event like a meeting, her mother's
birthday, or meeting Mike for lunch; other people are responsible for
her transportation, so we'll never see her run out of gas (or the
equivalent); she's never going to have the opportunity to run out of
clean underwear, etc
It might be nice to see her get up on the wrong side of the bed and
bite some undeserving person's head off for no real reason some time.
Does she ever PMS? Does she ever trip over nothing while walking along
the sidewalk? Does she have a favorite TV program that she doesn't
ever miss when she has the chance (and has tapes sent to her of the
episodes she does miss)?
Jeanne Hedge
http://www.jhedge.com
Fukurou,J11E M.O.M SekitoriToto,
M9 Hoshitori, LLMS
CompuServe Anime/Manga Forum via Your Browser
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Alex
> "Alex" <tung...@pacbell.net> wrote in message
> news:82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com...
> > sie...@acm.org (David E. Siegel) wrote in message
> news:<dbdfe7e0.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > > "Gillian White" <gillia...@mail.com> wrote in message
> news:<aq6sdh$m38$1$8300...@news.demon.co.uk>...
> > Actually, the system used on Manticore is exactly what you'd get if a
> > bunch of Americans tried to implement the British system without a
> > reference to Salic Law in their database.
>
> Fair point, but I don't see what the Salic Law has to do with it. Britain
> has never recognised it and never used it. It was heavily used in the German
> states, and is the reason why Queen Victoria could not claim the Hanoverian
> throne after the death of her uncle William IV, but it has nothing to do
> with how titles and styles are used within the British nobility, which is
> what I'm bothered about ;-)
Exactly my point. We Yanks don't know a damn thing about all that stuff!!
Alex
Alex
Also quite possible, but assumptions like that don't make debating the text any fun.
Alex
Alex
> On 6 Nov 2002 15:31:31 -0800, tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote:
>
> >charles krin <ck...@iamerica.net> wrote in message news:<hteisuolrer15fbea...@4ax.com>...
> >I'm sure we're all aware that the lungs and heart have (at the present
> >time) to be connected to the brain to maintain life, but what about
> >the other organs? Do the liver, intestines, gall bladder, etc.
> >actually need to be connected to the brain or do they regulate their
> >function hormonally? If we only need to connect the heart and lungs to
> >stimulation to maintain life, is the whole concept of a "life support
> >chair" in some sense invalid?
>
> There is a comment that I have already quoted that the life support
> chair has a 'shunt connected to her brain stem', indicating that there
> was indeed severe damage to the spinal cord high near the brain,
> something that would normally be quickly fatal...think "hangman's
> fracture", where the cord is snapped at the base of the skull.
What I imagine here is that the safely devices (seatbelts, tractor
fields, whatever) failed in a minor kind of way. Emily wasn't crushed,
but her head was shaken around enough to either cause a subdermal
hematoma in the brainstem/hindbrain (is that possible?) or to damage
her spinal cord in the area where the nerves branch off to service the
arms, or both. Weber, of course, maintains that the damage occured in
the "motor areas" of the brain, but I'm not sure that the phrase
"motor areas" carries enough meaning in the medical sense to
allow a real diagosis. Comments?
> with the notable exception of the diaphragm, which requires constant
> stimulation to contract for breathing, most of the other internal
> organs have some level of diffuse automatic responses that are
> hardwired and local.
Does that include the heart?
> Brainstem function, in particular the
> parasympathetic system, is required for them to work to best effect,
> but most of the basics are already there. One of the things that did
> surprise me a bit was that she did need such intensive support, as
> there is enough redundancy in the system to allow folks who have
> lesions low enough to allow for even the partial use of one hand to
> manage to survive with mostly breathing (ventilator) support. While
> Christopher Reeves did not have the major body trauma that Emily did,
> he is otherwise a case in point. It may be that the combination of the
> body trauma (and her inability to regen) AND the high cord lesion is
> what's keeping her in the support chair.
That's possible. I suspect that the chair is more a convenience than a
necessity as such. I imagine that since we can already implant
pacemakers an implanted device that runs the lungs would not be
difficult for a science 2000 years in advance of our own. If Emily was
not given "pacemaking" type inplants, I suspect that the chair is
handling (or providing failsafe service for) "immediate needs" like
control of the lungs and heart, which can't be interrupted for more
than a few seconds. It might also provide, "middle term" needs, like
waste management or daily/hourly medication. As for "long term" needs,
I'm a little out of my depth here. Hormone and endocrine regulation?
Electric muscle stimulation to prevent bone degradation?
> >Other than maintaining the organs, what does the life support chair
> >have to do? I assume it needs to massage the tissues and do something
> >to keep Emily from getting bedsores. I further assume that it might
> >have to perform dialysis, and that it has to do something to remove
> >wastes from her body.
>
> Tissue massage would be a nice touch, however good nutritional support
> and the prevention of excessive pressure and wetness would go a long
> way to prevent skin break down.
Right, plus SKM/Beowulf medicine probably has tech/medicine to handle
this which we do not.
> There have been numerous comments
> about the 'plumbing connections' of the skin suits, and similar
> connections, abet probably more intimate and long term, can easily be
> anticipated in Emily's case.
Catheters? Something more complex? If the chair does perform some kind
of dialysis function, and that function is always "on," would she need
any connections for the removal of urine?
> While she is frail, I suspect that at
> least one kidney was salvaged, as it's doubtful that even with
> SKM/Beowolf tech someone could have lasted 50 years on dialysis, as
> the kidneys produce several hormones that are needed for proper blood
> production and bone maintaince....
Do the kidneys produce these hormones in relationship to the amount of
exercise one gets?
> hohwever, a vat grown kidney may
> have been implanted. We do know how to replace those hormones at this
> time, but like with Diabetes, without the functioning organ, we can
> only control the symptoms and not cure the disease.
Has any research been done on an artificial kidney, particularly one
that is implantable or could be carried around in a backpack/purse?
Also, I just read in "Discovery" magazine that there is a lot of nerve
tissue in the abdomen that functions as a sort of "brain" for the
digestive system. What are the consequences of extensive damage to
this tissue? What support would be required if it was lost? Could the
chair "digest" Emily's food.
Thanks for the information,
Alex
Alex
> Emily's troubles are meant to be the reason why an adulterous White
> Haven isn't a bad guy, a kinder gentler alternative to the classic "my
> wife doesn't understand me" or to simply not caring what his wife
> thinks. But as Alex points out in searing detail, the more you know
> about living with actual paralyzing injuries, the less this works.
I've been sharing these discussions with my wife, and she pointed out
something that had escaped me. What about the moral consquences of
disability as the "excuse" for Honor and Hamish to boff? How disabled
does one's spouse have to be before you get to run around with other
women? Is it ever all right?
Not only do I imagine someone reading this and assuming that this is
the appropriate way to handle a spouse's disability - go screw around
- but doesn't Honor have a fairly good moral compass? I have to
imagine her agonizing over Emily's offer for days before she jumps
into bed with White Haven - if she ever does. Maybe all the years
since Paul get the better of her, but what happens the next morning?
Alex
Bill Snyder
>Louann Miller <loua...@yahoo.net> wrote in message news:<cv6dsu4cnfgoqm82k...@4ax.com>...
>
>> Emily's troubles are meant to be the reason why an adulterous White
>> Haven isn't a bad guy, a kinder gentler alternative to the classic "my
>> wife doesn't understand me" or to simply not caring what his wife
>> thinks. But as Alex points out in searing detail, the more you know
>> about living with actual paralyzing injuries, the less this works.
>
>I've been sharing these discussions with my wife, and she pointed out
>something that had escaped me. What about the moral consquences of
>disability as the "excuse" for Honor and Hamish to boff? How disabled
>does one's spouse have to be before you get to run around with other
>women? Is it ever all right?
What about brain-death or a reasonable approximation, e.g., Karen Ann
Quintan (sp?) ? There's a body in a hospital bed with various tubes
and wires connected to it, but your spouse "isn't in there" any more.
--
Bill Snyder [This space unintentionally left blank.]
Alex
> On Sat, 9 Nov 2002 11:28:33 -0000, "Gillian White"
> <gillia...@mail.com> wrote:
>
> >
> >"Kitsune" <kit...@wireweb.net> wrote in message
> >news:aqhuo...@enews3.newsguy.com...
> >Probably not no. But my answer was related more to the issue of whether a
> >woman could marry a guy they didn't trust. I would have married this guy in
> >an instant. Probably wouldn't have stayed married to him for very long, but
> >that's another issue ;-)
>
> The trust issue might be worked out more. You'd figure out where
> you stood with him, what you couldn't trust, and decide whether those
> were more than you could live with.
That's exactly what I'm saying. Or maybe a better way to describe it
is via something I've occassionally heard women say of their husbands;
"He's all grown up, but he's such a little boy." What I'm saying is
that after the accident (if my ideas about Hamish's behavior are
anywhere near correct) that Emily stopped thinking of him as a man and
started thinking of him as a boy. She might still love him, but that
love would be different in its form.
<snip>
> >Agree with you 100% here. I don't buy the idea that Emily has stayed with
> >Hamish only through some displaced sense of political loyalty. It's
> >insulting and patronising. To quote HRC, she ain't baking cookies at home
> >and singing 'Stand By Your Man'. She stays with him because she loves him,
> >warts and all.
I didn't say that politics was the only reason. I said it may have
been one of the reasons.
> In any case, the characters are set in a fashion which denies them a
> physical relationship which both can accept. If it were merely
> Hamish's problem, Emily could find some other nice person to interact
> with.
Maybe there are registered courtesans who specialize in people with
disabilities. While it is very true that disabled people do boff, it's
also harder for them to find partners for the horizontal tango. I
suspect that if Emily goes out in public she gets offers.
> Emily is alive only due to unlikely circumstances, and very advanced
> medical technology. Close to being a disembodied head, mostly just
> brain and eyes functioning, for a long while after the accident. DOA
> by current science, and very close to that by her own medical
> technology.
>
> In that, would Hamish have a great support network of other victims
> of such tragic survivable injuries?
How to organize these things is still something which is being worked
out by social workers, doctors, etc. 2000 years from now I suspect
that it will be an ordinary part of medical culture. Granted, of all
the people in the support group, he might be the one whose spouse had
the worst injuries, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't feel support and
get good coping advice from his mates in the group.
> Were stuck with a given fact: Emily and Hamish can't enjoy shared
> sexuality. The why of that matters less than the fact of it. Emily
> seems quite intelligent enough to think up possible solutions, but
> maybe they wouldn't satisfy her own desires?
It depends which of the desires that relate to sex you're talking
about? Orgasm? Specific kinks? The personal dignity of being able to
satisfy her man? The need to be touched and touch in return? The
feeling of being loved and cherished? The knowledge that Hamish finds
her beautiful despite her disability? The spiritual side of sex? It
isn't all about penises and vaginas, but it seems like the majority of
people responding to these questions can only think in those terms,
and where sex is concerned, that's grade school stuff, with many
levels beyond.
> If she isn't happy with
> the possibilities, is it wrong for Hamish to reject them as well?
Certainly, Weber is the omnipotent God of the Honorverse. That doesn't
mean he made good assumptions when generating that character.
"In the beginning were Hamish and Emily, and Emily's genitals were
without form, and void."
> If the problem were merely with Hamish's attitudes, Emily could find
> her own companions. Legal courtesans should be available for
> everyone, right?
I'm gonna respond to that twice - Yay you!!!
> DW might need to give us more details on why Hamish and Emily lack a
> sex life together, but I don't think that is required. If we trust
> his statements about it, it doesn't matter why it doesn't work. It
> simply does, end of story.
And if we don't trust his statements about that?
> Hamish isn't perfect. But he has obvious affection for Honor, and
> that is returned. If Hamish was a heartless cad, I just couldn't see
> Honor liking him, let along loving him.
That's why I speculate about some kind of redemptive event. Also,
while I don't like the way Hamish behaved, its certainly possible to
do worse. I had one friend, who while I was moping about things
several weeks later, said, "She's just a woman, dude, walk it off!!"
Emily could have been married to him. <Shudder!!>
Alex
Frank Ney
charles krin <ck...@iamerica.net> to write:
>>If you are in fact a "country doctor," and I'm not simply failing to
>>recognize a quote that might refer to something else, perhaps you
>>could add a little grist to our mill; specifically, what would a life
>>support chair have to do?
>
>chuckle...the DO after my name indicates that I am indeed an American
>trained physician, and since I do practice in rural Louisiana....
True. What he's failed to mention is that the "DO" means he's both an MD
and a Chiropractor. IOW, someone who *really* knows what he's doing.
I just wish he was living in West Virginia instead of Louisiana, but since
doctors are leaving the state like rats from a sinking ship (and for
comparable and good reasons)...
Frank Ney N4ZHG WV/EMT-B NRA(L) GOA CCRKBA JPFO ProvNRA LPWV
--
"Representative Republic: A form of government based on the assumption
that three drooling idiots ... er, _Congressmen_ are smarter than one
free man willing to think for himself."
- Carl Bussjaeger 13 Oct 2002
Just Say No to Gestapo Tactics http://reduce.to/justsayno/
Abuses by the BATF http://www.elfie.org/~croaker/batfabus.html
Gillian White
"Jeanne Hedge" <jhe...@enteract.com> wrote in message
news:3dcd6862...@news.enteract.com...
> Most of the ordinary things that could be done to humanize HH (that
> is, make her a bit less perfect) go right out the window because she's
> now got both personal and professional staffs to deal with such things
> for her. So we won't see her oversleep; she'll never get the chance to
> forget about some pre-planned event like a meeting, her mother's
> birthday, or meeting Mike for lunch; other people are responsible for
> her transportation, so we'll never see her run out of gas (or the
> equivalent); she's never going to have the opportunity to run out of
> clean underwear, etc
>
> It might be nice to see her get up on the wrong side of the bed and
> bite some undeserving person's head off for no real reason some time.
> Does she ever PMS? Does she ever trip over nothing while walking along
> the sidewalk? Does she have a favorite TV program that she doesn't
> ever miss when she has the chance (and has tapes sent to her of the
> episodes she does miss)?
Bingo! This is the kind of mistakes I mean, not the kind that ends up
killing several thousand people in the middle of a battle. ;-)
Gillian
Nancy Lebovitz
Wouldn't the latter kind of mistake be a natural consequence of
having military command?
--
Nancy Lebovitz na...@netaxs.com www.nancybuttons.com 100 new slogans
I want to move to theory. Everything works in theory.
Louann Miller
wrote:
I see that as a whole different can of worms, and not necessarily
wrongdoing. It sure isn't Emily, though.
Jeffery S. Jones
>Jeffery S. Jones <jef...@execpc.com> wrote in message news:<3dcd55df$0$1422$272e...@news.execpc.com>...
>> On Sat, 9 Nov 2002 11:28:33 -0000, "Gillian White"
>> <gillia...@mail.com> wrote:
>>
>> >
>> >"Kitsune" <kit...@wireweb.net> wrote in message
>> >news:aqhuo...@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
>> >Probably not no. But my answer was related more to the issue of whether a
>> >woman could marry a guy they didn't trust. I would have married this guy in
>> >an instant. Probably wouldn't have stayed married to him for very long, but
>> >that's another issue ;-)
>>
>> The trust issue might be worked out more. You'd figure out where
>> you stood with him, what you couldn't trust, and decide whether those
>> were more than you could live with.
>
>That's exactly what I'm saying. Or maybe a better way to describe it
>is via something I've occassionally heard women say of their husbands;
>"He's all grown up, but he's such a little boy." What I'm saying is
>that after the accident (if my ideas about Hamish's behavior are
>anywhere near correct) that Emily stopped thinking of him as a man and
>started thinking of him as a boy. She might still love him, but that
>love would be different in its form.
An evolution in their relationship, which might not have happened
without the accident. On the other hand, we don't really know whether
Hamish would have done better at staying faithful if Emily hadn't had
that accident.
But marriages in our real world survive a lot of changes, and
sometimes love remains even if it isn't the same as at the beginning.
>> In any case, the characters are set in a fashion which denies them a
>> physical relationship which both can accept. If it were merely
>> Hamish's problem, Emily could find some other nice person to interact
>> with.
>
>Maybe there are registered courtesans who specialize in people with
>disabilities. While it is very true that disabled people do boff, it's
>also harder for them to find partners for the horizontal tango. I
>suspect that if Emily goes out in public she gets offers.
She is famous and beloved as an actress, and it isn't too hard for
some fans to turn that into a desire for something else. That would
apply even for those in her social set, wouldn't it?
The desire to please someone you love or even admire can compel you
to try to satisfy that feeling, even if she couldn't return the favor.
We don't have comments in the story about such offers. I don't
think that most people would inherently think of her disability as
making sexual activity impossible inherently. Finding that it had
done so would make her situation even more tragic, I think, to the
public.
After 50 years, I'd guess that fans would have grown accustomed to
the circumstances, and not comment regularly on the situation.
Someone new to the situation might see it otherwise. Certain press
figures might try to present things in a tabloid fashion, but I don't
know if they still have those sorts of papers :-)
>> Emily is alive only due to unlikely circumstances, and very advanced
>> medical technology. Close to being a disembodied head, mostly just
>> brain and eyes functioning, for a long while after the accident. DOA
>> by current science, and very close to that by her own medical
>> technology.
>>
>> In that, would Hamish have a great support network of other victims
>> of such tragic survivable injuries?
>
>How to organize these things is still something which is being worked
>out by social workers, doctors, etc. 2000 years from now I suspect
>that it will be an ordinary part of medical culture. Granted, of all
>the people in the support group, he might be the one whose spouse had
>the worst injuries, but that doesn't mean he wouldn't feel support and
>get good coping advice from his mates in the group.
I believe that he would have support, but might not get the help he
desires: a way to have a relationship with his wife which has enough
of the original elements physically to make it enjoyable to them both.
Or at least, enough for Emily to enjoy.
His reactions do sound like classic denial. He simply couldn't
accept the situation, couldn't try to adapt to it as best as he could.
His behavior in that is flawed, but I don't know how many people would
have coped much better.
At least, he didn't reject her for it entirely, maintaining a sham
marriage while pursuing outside affairs entirely. Given what we've
seen of Manticoran society, he could have done that without destroying
his reputation entirely. Or at least not more than the other nobles
who behave like that.
Whose fault is it if he couldn't come to some happier solution to
the situation? I'll blame Hamish, but don't think that it is a fatal
hateful character flaw. He wasn't up to coping with the situation,
and the help given him didn't make things perfect. But at least he
didn't make it much, much worse.
>> Were stuck with a given fact: Emily and Hamish can't enjoy shared
>> sexuality. The why of that matters less than the fact of it. Emily
>> seems quite intelligent enough to think up possible solutions, but
>> maybe they wouldn't satisfy her own desires?
>
>It depends which of the desires that relate to sex you're talking
>about? Orgasm? Specific kinks? The personal dignity of being able to
>satisfy her man? The need to be touched and touch in return? The
>feeling of being loved and cherished? The knowledge that Hamish finds
>her beautiful despite her disability? The spiritual side of sex? It
>isn't all about penises and vaginas, but it seems like the majority of
>people responding to these questions can only think in those terms,
>and where sex is concerned, that's grade school stuff, with many
>levels beyond.
Any or all of them, it all comes down to knowing what Emily
considers necessary for her satisfaction. If all she truly can manage
is the emotional level of love, nothing physical, then she may well
have that -- as much as she can -- from Hamish.
>> If she isn't happy with
>> the possibilities, is it wrong for Hamish to reject them as well?
>
>Certainly, Weber is the omnipotent God of the Honorverse. That doesn't
>mean he made good assumptions when generating that character.
>
>"In the beginning were Hamish and Emily, and Emily's genitals were
>without form, and void."
By definition, to fit her character. Otherwise you don't get the
same degree of tragedy and limitations on the relationship, forcing
the development of the forbidden relationship with Honor.
Now, maybe someone with a deep medical background and knowledge of
theoretical methods of correcting nerve and brain injuries might come
up with solutions for any condition we postulate. But I don't find it
unreasonable that a particular injury, on a person unable to accept
certain medical treatment, would render any sexual response
impossible.
That assumption does make Hamish's reaction the simple tragic tale
that DW describes. If you go with the idea that Emily can enjoy some
form of physical relationship, then why hasn't she worked on out? If
not with Hamish, with someone else?
>> If the problem were merely with Hamish's attitudes, Emily could find
>> her own companions. Legal courtesans should be available for
>> everyone, right?
>
>I'm gonna respond to that twice - Yay you!!!
Thanks. I haven't had to deal with a lover recovering from a
disability, but I have found from personal experience that the sex
drive doesn't go away simply because the parts needed to make it work
best don't work. Love will find a way.
>> DW might need to give us more details on why Hamish and Emily lack a
>> sex life together, but I don't think that is required. If we trust
>> his statements about it, it doesn't matter why it doesn't work. It
>> simply does, end of story.
>
>And if we don't trust his statements about that?
Then we need more explanations, but I think that the research needed
would be extensive. Stating that the condition cannot be fixed and
renders sex life impossible together is one thing. Giving an
explanation for it which won't have holes to poke through is another.
>> Hamish isn't perfect. But he has obvious affection for Honor, and
>> that is returned. If Hamish was a heartless cad, I just couldn't see
>> Honor liking him, let along loving him.
>
>That's why I speculate about some kind of redemptive event. Also,
>while I don't like the way Hamish behaved, its certainly possible to
>do worse. I had one friend, who while I was moping about things
>several weeks later, said, "She's just a woman, dude, walk it off!!"
>Emily could have been married to him. <Shudder!!>
I do think that Hamish had to do more in support later, show more
devotion. If nothing else, a few decades of devoted friendship might
be enough to keep both of them happy together.
I figure that a lot of other nobles -- based on the other people
we've seen -- would have done that, pushing the damaged wife away,
either via divorce or affairs, with no attempt to fix the situation.
Hamish didn't handle it well, but as you say, he could have been
much worse.
Kitsune
>
> "Kitsune" <kit...@wireweb.net> wrote in message
> news:aqhuo...@enews3.newsguy.com...
>
> > Question: Do you think that after 50+ years of marriage to such a
> jerk
> > that you would _still_ be in "love" with him? Or would you maybe have
> > gotten over the crush and come to realize that the relationship was not
> one
> > you wanted to stay in?
>
> Probably not no. But my answer was related more to the issue of whether a
> woman could marry a guy they didn't trust. I would have married this guy
in
> an instant. Probably wouldn't have stayed married to him for very long,
but
> that's another issue ;-)
>
My apologies. I thought the issue was whether or not Emily could
continue to love Hamish after 50+ years of mistrust.
Yes, I agree that women will marry a man they feel they love even if
they don't feel the man loves them sufficiently in return. After all, one
can always hope that he'll come to appreciate you more over time, right?
And while some such marriages continue simply because the woman doesn't
believe in divorce and the man sees no reason to when he can have both
apparent legitamacy _and_ the fun, I doubt very seriously that women will
tend to stay in such marriages when they are looking at the idea of spending
centuries that way.
I just cannot see Emily both mistrusting AND loving Hamish after this
many years. She has to either love and trust him or mistrust and not love
him after this much time.
-Linda
Jeanne Hedge
Absolutely. But Honor Harrington seems incapable of making those kinds
of mistakes either. Those kinds of mistakes are left to the opponent,
the political opposition, and the otherwise all-around "bad" people
(when have White Haven, Alice Truman, Mike Henke, or any of HH's other
military friends been seen to make those kinds of mistakes either?)
Alex
> tung...@pacbell.net (Alex) wrote in message news:<82be6978.02110...@posting.google.com>...
> > cgla...@hotmail.com (Charles Glasgow) wrote in message news:<9e6aa7ec.02110...@posting.google.com>...
>
> > > It is entirely possible to marry a man who you know will later attain
> > > political office without having political ambition of her own.
> >
> > Yes, but Emily does love politics. The text of WoH makes this very
> > clear.
>
> [snip]
>
> So what? As for me, I love computers. I *really* love computers.
> The vast majority of my leisure time is spent doing computer stuff.
> Doesn't mean that they're my first priority in life, or that I'm
> willing to sell out for them.
>
> Furthermore, Emily White Haven has always been described as a very
> intelligent, outgoing, and energetic woman. You put somebody like
> that in a quadriplegic situation, they've got to find *something* to
> occupy their time and social energies with or else they'll go nuts.
> In her case, that's politics. Note that she had zero interest in
> politics /before/ her accident. (Note also that as JB pointed out,
> White Haven wasn't anything but an extremely minor political figure
> until about 50 years after his marriage.)
>
> You are leaping to the conclusion that because she likes what she's
> doing now, it's her driving passion in life to a point where it
> overrides love and/or moral concern. That is a *very* unsupportable
> leap.
<snip>
I'm cutting the rest of this because I think that last paragraph
underlines the deepest level of the disagreement between us. There's
no point in rehashing the arguments that both of us have made and
re-made to the best of our ability.
You seem to believe that I must respond to Emily on an either/or basis
- that I MUST think of Emily as either the virginal goddess or the
bitch. What I'm trying to say is that I think Emily has BOTH noble
virtues AND serious character flaws, (in other words, she's human) and
that these combine to make her behave as she does. In fact, I'm saying
that is this instance, her character flaws and her virtues reinforce
one another to keep her with Hamish.
I'll also add a point that I've made on another thread. Emily, in a
very important sense, may not be aware that Hamish's behavior is
inappropriate. Keep in mind that many of her ideas about her body
would have been formed by her association with Manticore's version of
Hollywood. I'm not saying that she was shallow, but that her
conception of her desireability was deeply tied into her concept of
herself as a physically beautiful person, and that this was reinforced
by the business she was in.
So when she was in a terrible wreck, with the resulting physical
deformity, paralysis, and possible scarring (we don't know how she
responds to quickheal) her conception of herself as desireable might
well have just died. This is a major issue with people who are
disabled - they always tend to think of themsselves as ugly. So when
Hamish has an affair, Emily doesn't necessarily get mad. She just says
to herself, "Well, at least he came home, and that's the best I can
expect now that I'm ugly," and life goes on.
And this is where I really get mad at the portrayal of Hamish. A
"hero" would have made it a point to kiss every scar, unmoving limb
and broken bit until she got the point, even though it might have
taken years. Instead, he's off boffing Kuzak.
Alex
Simon van Dongen
>sie...@acm.org (David E. Siegel) wrote in message news:<dbdfe7e0.02110...@posting.google.com>...
>> Now that is possible. Not supported particualrly by any textev, but
>> not disproved eitehr AFAICS.
>
>No, this is based on personal experience. My wife experienced some of
>the issues I discuss above fairly soon after her accident, and long
>before she could walk or had regained feeling in her private parts.
>She got "noble" on me in the same way Emily is "noble" with Hamish. I
>turned her down for a number of reasons, some based on practical
>reasoning, and others based on love/monogamy.
>
>> This is interesting, even when i disagree with you.
>
>Agreed.
*Your* personal experience. You aren't maried to Emily. Not every
person having the same problems will necessarily react the same way.
Nor will every person married to such a person. I think this whole
thread is based on you making very broad generalisations based on a
sample space of 1.
Simon van Dongen
--
Simon van Dongen <sg...@xs4all.nl> Rotterdam, The Netherlands
'Bear courteous greetings to the accomplished musician outside our
gate, [...] and convince him - by means of a heavily-weighted club
if necessary - that the situation he has taken up is quite unworthy
of his incomparable efforts.' -Bramah, 'Kai Lung's Golden Hours'
Eddie
<snip>
>
>Yeah, but Nimitz doesn't dislike Hamish, and Samantha bonded with him.
>What I imagine is that at some point which MMW hasn't shown us yet,
>Hamish redeems himself. However, Emily's emotions have gone too far
>for her to ever trust him.
>
What are you basing this assertion that Emily Alexander doesn't trust
her husband on? Granted I haven't quite finished WoH, but I have yet
to see anything IN THE TEXT that supports this particular position.
Obviously there's a great deal of backstory that we're *never* going
to see. Yes, Hamish failed. Isn't it simply possible that Emily
loves the man enough, in spite of himself, to have forgiven him?
--
Eddie -----> Just mulling some possibilities...
Johnny1A
>
> I've been sharing these discussions with my wife, and she pointed out
> something that had escaped me. What about the moral consquences of
> disability as the "excuse" for Honor and Hamish to boff? How disabled
> does one's spouse have to be before you get to run around with other
> women? Is it ever all right?
That side of the debate inevitably verges into debates about whether
morality is absolute, and religious issues. Sure you want to go
there?
Shermanlee
Alex
Oh, certainly it's possible for Emily to forgive him. But I recall
from one of the earlier books that Nimitz disliked Cal Popalous (I'm
not sure I got the name right, sorry) who messed badly with Honor's
self-esteem. If in fact, Hamish has a "soft center" I suspect that
Nimitz would detect it and get grumpy when Hamish did something like
kiss Honor's hand, and certainly Samantha wouldn't have bonded with
him, which was a plot development I found suspect for other reasons as
well.
Alex
Alex
> On or about 8 Nov 2002 19:51:36 -0800, Alex wrote:
>
> >sie...@acm.org (David E. Siegel) wrote in message news:<dbdfe7e0.02110...@posting.google.com>...
>
> >> Now that is possible. Not supported particualrly by any textev, but
> >> not disproved eitehr AFAICS.
> >
> >No, this is based on personal experience. My wife experienced some of
> >the issues I discuss above fairly soon after her accident, and long
> >before she could walk or had regained feeling in her private parts.
> >She got "noble" on me in the same way Emily is "noble" with Hamish. I
> >turned her down for a number of reasons, some based on practical
> >reasoning, and others based on love/monogamy.
> >
> >> This is interesting, even when i disagree with you.
> >
> >Agreed.
>
> *Your* personal experience. You aren't maried to Emily. Not every
> person having the same problems will necessarily react the same way.
> Nor will every person married to such a person. I think this whole
> thread is based on you making very broad generalisations based on a
> sample space of 1.
I suppose that's true in some ways. On the other hand, unless you have
some insight into the matter via a similar experience, you're working
with an even smaller sample set than mine. If you do have a similar
experience, please extend your knowledge into the discussion. I'd be
curious what someone else who either has a serious disability or has
coped with someone else's serious disability from the day of the
accident onward has to say about Hamish.
Alex
>
> Simon van Dongen
Johnny1A
> On 8 Nov 2002 11:00:55 -0800, sie...@acm.org (David E. Siegel) wrote:
>
>
> It might be nice to see her get up on the wrong side of the bed and
> bite some undeserving person's head off for no real reason some time.
> Does she ever PMS?
If she does, given the cultural background on Grayson, she can't
afford to display any effects. Her position requires, in effect, that
she never publicly give in to any impulse or behavior that would fit
into the traditional Grayson stereotypes about woman in power, whether
the stereotype contains zero truth, a little truth, or any degree of
truth.
On Maniticore, it might be a different matter, to some degree, but...
> Does she ever trip over nothing while walking along
> the sidewalk?
If she does, she's got trouble. Remember the mockery given to
President Gerald Ford when he tripped on the stairs of Air Force One,
or President Carter when a rabbit tried to climb into his boat? Part
of being who and what she is is that she has to make sure she doesn't
do something like that where it can be seen, or if she does, she has
to make sure it doesn't get _out_. If it happens in private, why
would Weber mention it? It's not much relevant to anything, I tend to
take the little private headaches for granted.
> Does she have a favorite TV program that she doesn't
> ever miss when she has the chance (and has tapes sent to her of the
> episodes she does miss)?
If she does, I doubt Weber would see any reason to mention it.
Shermanlee
Johnny1A
> Also, what is the deal with Honor and no sex or thinking she's
> unattractive?
>
> Alex
She doesn't seem to think about it much, or more likely Weber doesn't
see any reason to make us privy to those thoughts, but I do recall a
scene where she was in a swimsuit, and enjoying some mildly teasing
mischief from the effect she knew she was having on her chief Armsman.
Shermanlee