Remember the initial setup for the entire story. In the previous novel (Short Victorious War), Young had deserted out of sheer, inexcusable cowardice. Against direct orders. The only people who didn't see, or admit, that Young ordered not just his ship out of formation, but the squadron of other ships he was leading as well, to flee was because of cowardice and panic were his political allies. Young's own first officer saw him, the captain of Warlock, as a coward and deserter.

His ordering of his squadron out of formation, and then continuing to flee the formation against orders to return while the fleet was engaged against overwhelming odds, got Manticorian spacers killed. Warlock's absence weakened missile defense nets. It caused confusion and chaos in the tactical situation. These things are directly responsible for the death of Naval Personnel.

The first section of the story deals with how Young's political connections are shielding him from the consequences of this action. Desertion and cowardice in time of combat is a firing squad offense in the Royal Manticorian Navy. In most real world militaries it is as well. For what he did at First Hancock he was facing the death penalty.

Yet and his political allies abused their power to spare him of this penalty. To the detriment of the RMN and the Manticorian government. One of the reasons militaries punish what he did (desertion in battle) so harshly is the damage it does to the overall fighting spirit of the entire service. When soldiers/spacers know they can cut and run without consequence, some will. It'll happen more often. Which gets people killed. Which loses battles. Which loses wars.

This point is made throughout the trial deliberations as the factions (Navy vs Young's Allies) argue over whether or not Young should be punished (killed). It's not that the Navy wanted Young to die, it's that he needed to because sparing him told the rest of the Navy "desertion and cowardice that gets Naval Personnel killed won't be punished."

After merely being dishonorably discharged, Young hates Honor more than he already did. He resented her previously because he was a noble, and she wasn't. Yet she had a brilliant career, and was getting promoted past him. He was a small, petty man who wanted revenge. He didn't see that his own personal failings were the source and cause of his stalled (and then ruined) career. He just decided Honor was to blame because if she'd never showed up in his life, he would've risen just as a noble should because that's his noble birthright; to ascend and be lauded.

So he plotted to kill her.

When Honor challenged him to the duel, she didn't just say "you killed my lover/friend."

> "My Lords and Ladies, there is among you a man who has conspired at murder rather than face his enemies himself. A would-be rapist, a coward, and a man who hired a paid duelist to kill another. A man who sent armed thugs into a public restaurant only two days ago to murder someone else and failed in his purpose by the narrowest margin." ...

> "My Lords and Ladies, I accuse Pavel Young, Earl North Hollow, of murder and attempted murder. I accuse him of the callous and unforgivable abuse of power, of cowardice in the face of the enemy, of attempted rape, and of being unfit not simply for the high office he holds but for life itself. I call him coward and scum, beneath the contempt of honest and upright subjects of this Kingdom, whose honor is profaned by his mere presence among them, and I challenge him, before you all, to meet me upon the field of honor, there to pay once and for all for his acts!"

Emphasis mine.

Honor used the dueling laws for arguably one of the very purposes they exist (in the story and in real world nations that had them). Young had wrapped himself in political advantage to gain power and avoid consequences. He sought to use his position to abuse and shirk his responsibilities. Dueling was, and is, a way to "even the scales." Officers in England on occasion challenged other officers to duels over the same kinds of things Young was doing, and for the same reason Honor did; to even the scales and impose consequences where the system had failed to.

She didn't just seek revenge for herself, though she definitely wanted that. She also sought revenge for fellow crew members and officers of the RMN. She sought to correct the error of the story's initial tribunal that issued a flawed verdict that spared Young and allowed him to escape the deserved consequences of his action.

He got people killed. They died because of his cowardice. They died because he planned it. They died because he didn't care to discharge his responsibilities as an officer and member of the House of Lords in an honest and forthright manner. They died because he felt his life and his plans for his life mattered more than their lives did to them.

I submit that, if anyone "ever needed killing", Young is on that list.

Honor is not a murder. Young deserved to die many times over. Many. She was justice come knocking. Not just for herself. For the Navy that was too weak to impose it themselves.

> (I still maintain that she murdered Pavel Young, even if he cheated. She intended to leave him dead for what he did to her.)

I'm going to have to categorically disagree with any definition of what happened between Honor and Pavel on the field as murder. I really do.

First, what she did was legal. In the Kingdom of Manticore, dueling is legal. Debating the morality or "rightness" of dueling is a separate discussion I feel. In Manticore, dueling is legal.

Second, I've got the file for FoD open on another screen, but I'd have to literally skim through the whole thing to count to be certain I hadn't missed something. But Young was attempting to destroy her, and doing it via violence. Some of it was legal, some of it clearly wasn't.

He abused the dueling regulations by hiring a ringer; legal, but of questionable morality. Dueling is designed for two people of good standing to settle differences they can't settle via other means. Young hired a professional duelist, a literal killer who does it legally, to kill Paul.

I don't remember just how clear Young was about his ideas for "the full plan", but IIRC his thinking was Honor would go after Summervale for "revenge" and die in that duel. Because Summervale was supposed to be death with a gun, fast and accurate and unstoppable; that's why Summervale had a career as a professional duelist, and why Young had hired him.

Clearly, Honor was better with a gun than anyone expected. Mary Sue, but that's also a separate discussion (and not an interesting one IMO). Honor challenged Summervale and took him out, legally. Young also didn't expect Summervale would have been made to talk and spill Young's involvement, when Honor's subordinates forced Summervale to reveal the whole scenario when they 'questioned' him.

So now Honor knows Young orchestrated the whole thing. Young immediately begins using politics and the dueling code to avoid her being able to challenge him. The setup was a challenge (to duel) has to be issued in person, so he moved Heaven and Earth trying to ensure she'd never be in a room with him.

He, and others in the Navy and Government, started trying to force Honor to either accept orders and be shipped out to a duty station (away from Young), or resign and continue seeking to challenge him. Then Young hired mercenaries (common criminal hitmen IIRC) to attempt to assassinate Honor in public.

At that point Honor (and Weber, in a twist I rather enjoyed) took advantage of the fact that while she despised politics, she actually did have the legal right to be seated in the House of Lords. Which was where Young was hiding from her, thinking she couldn't go. Where she was finally able to challenge him.

The entire setup was Young was trying to hide behind politics and position, including his position in society. He couldn't decline the challenge without suffering political damage (another discussion about dueling, not the story) so he was 'forced' to accept.

Then, at the duel, he broke the dueling rules. Which were quite simple; stand back to back, walk thirty paces, and stop. When the master of the field says turn, they can both turn and fire a single shot at the other.

After that one shot was exchanged, Young would be able to "honorably" declare honor had been satisfied without political damage. Except he felt Honor would kill him with that single shot. So he panicked, acted without honor, and attempted to murder her by turning early and shooting before the master of the field had declared turn.

The very story states Young's life was forfeit when he broke the rules. The master of the field, using a space gun, was in the process shooting him as penalty for violating the dueling rules. Honor was hit by Young's shot, seriously wounded. Yet (Mary Sue, gotta love Mary Sues) even wounded she manages to roll back to her feet and shoot Young three times in the chest before the master of the field could get his own shots off.

Young was dead the moment he fired at Honor early. The master of the field was empowered to kill him for that, and did fire. Honor was entitled to defend herself from someone who broke the rules of the duel in an attempt to murder her before being killed himself for his actions.

The Kingdom of Manticore didn't charge her with murder. None of Young's political allies were able to charge her with murder. They used political maneuvering to dismiss her from the House of Lords and active service because they're evil villains who just seek to torture and punish all who dare oppose them, but that was the extent of the penalties.

The fact that she got her own shots off in self defense against Young doesn't make her returning fire murder. It really doesn't. I strongly reject any contention that it does. Of course each reader is always encouraged to have their own reactions. Mine will never include characterizing Honor as a murderer. Ever.

Everything below is In My Opinion. Also I get you (OP) probably know the stories, but I talk about them for context for myself and for other thread participants.

I used to be a huge David Weber fan. Huge. I would preorder the books and devour every snippet, and later the ARCs. I'm much less of one now because he got infected by Flint and a few others and turned to writing political opera instead of military SF.

Honor is a Mary Sue, clearly. Just because a character is such doesn't have to mean they're not fun or interesting to follow along with, and clear through Honor7 (In Enemy Hands) the tales of her rise were intriguing and enthralling.

Honor is one of those characters you dream of getting to meet. A character you wish would be a leader in real life you could follow. Dedicated, competent, just, determined, and honorable. Without any smudge of corruption or selfishness. She was so fascinating and fun to follow along with. Weber excelled at putting her into situations where all of these qualities could be enjoyed and heralded, could be taken as cathartic joy for so many of us stuck in lives where none of these things are true, where evil does always win and gets to laugh hysterically while doing it.

The first Honor book I picked up was Honor4 (Field of Dishonor). At the time, though I found out afterwards when I realized that book was an "anomaly" compared to the prior ones that focused on space naval action, I just took it as a really interesting Space Hornblower tale (which, obviously, was exactly what Weber was going for.)

The passage you mention from Field is so fantastic. When a senior (arguably the senior admiral of the Manticorian Navy she serves) comes to her begging for Honor to do the political thing and swallow her pride and pain, and let the murder of the first and only man she'd ever loved go. The scene you reference comes to a head right here when Honor replies to his plea:

> "Then what's the point, Sir?" The anger had gone out of her voice, and despair softened the hardness of her eyes, yet she held his gaze with a forlorn pride that cut him to the heart. "All I ask of my Queen and my Kingdom—all I've ever asked—is justice, My Lord. That's all I have a right to ask for, but I have a right to it. Isn't that what's supposed to separate us from the Peeps?" He winced, and she went on in that soft, pleading voice. "I don't understand politics, Sir. I don't understand what gives a Pavel Young the right to destroy everything he touches and hide behind the importance of compromise and political consensus. But I understand duty and common decency. I understand justice, and if no one else can give it to me, then just this once I'll take it for myself, whatever it costs."

That is so powerful. And she does it. At that point in the story the reader believes she's not rolling the dice. The question isn't if she can, but what happens to her if she does. And she doesn't care, she wants justice, she wants to see right done even if it costs her everything. Even if it costs her Queen and her Navy both her and a whole lot of other trouble as well, she's going to take that justice no matter what. Because they're all too weak, too political, to give her this one thing after everything she's given them.

It's fantastic. The whole tale is just fantastic.

Honor8 (Echos) and Honor9 (Ashes) started to shift everything that "An Honor Harrington Story" was, from death rides, space and fleet battles, navy life ... into politics, more politics, and still more politics.

Honor10 (War) mostly brought it back to Honor doing what she was at her most interesting doing (fighting a ship or a fleet in battle), but then every subsequent story just shuffled fleet actions further and further off stage. Some that might've been really interesting to see played out were just handled completely off screen, and you'd just hear characters talking about the ramifications of the battle.

Safehold turned it even worse in this direction with Weber's stories. The setup for Safehold was extremely interesting. A literal last gasp of humanity, days from being utterly wiped from the galaxy by a violently aggressive alien race, manages to launch a last gasp colony ship that isn't detected by said aliens.

Then the leadership of that colony fleet decides to create a theocracy, with themselves as the literal angels and gods worshiped by the society of humans who are born and raised on the colony planet humanity's final sons and daughters end up on. A single low ranking officer (who, through plot stuff, has her consciousness transferred into a nearly immortal android body) is put in hibernation by the handful of leaders who opposed the theocratic plan.

Then she wakes up five hundred years later (after the 'gods' are finally dead), and is briefed via recording as to what happened and what her goal is; to prepare humanity for the aliens' eventual discovery of them. She goes out into the world and finds the theocracy has infected humanity and deliberately held all technology at or below medieval levels. The number and mathematics system uses Roman numerals specifically to make any sort of calculations or economics as difficult as possible. Any technological advancement is considered the Devil's work and inventors are tortured or executed.

Her goal is to overthrow the theocracy, and do it in standard Weber fashion (superior technology; all Weber combat scenes revolve around someone, almost always the heroes, having a technological advantage). So our android heroine needs to convince a chosen faction to be her tool to rise up and free humanity from the chains of brutal, misguided, selfish theocratic cretins, and we'd get to have a whole walk through military history as they move from swords and arrows to muskets, repeaters, cannons, sailing ship technology, eventually (I assume) tanks and then aircraft and so on.

That's all fantastic. Great world building. Super interesting character who has a big challenge ahead of her.

But every name in the series is so hard to read, so weird and alien with strange letter combinations. And There Are So Many Of Them. Not just the characters, but the places too, the cities, the geography, the everything. None of it flowed off the page for me, and with half a dozen factions or more, each with dozens and dozens of characters, it was just way too much to try and keep track of. Especially since he would jump around constantly; some setting would appear for part of a chapter, then vanish for most of the book only to reappear and it's supposed to make sense even though they've been lost in the weird wash of stuff.

Obviously a lot of people like "political theater." That's fine. Enjoy the stories. I miss the Weber who wrote about a hero. Not seventeen minor heroes being opposed by seventy-four different villains, split into four or five different factions with varying goals, all being dropped in and out of "the story" in a confusing fashion.

I liked Honor stories because I wanted to read about Honor. She was the draw. The world she was in was interesting because of her, not for its own sake. Same with Safehold. I found Nimue interesting and wanted to follow her, but Safehold stories treat her like a side character.

I really miss what Weber used to be. I really do.