Honor Harrington - Character Trademarks

Character Trademarks

Honor is physically very tall (over six feet in height). This is a source of much humor in the series, especially when compared to her "tiny" mother Allison Harrington.

Honor is recognized as a great teacher both in the classroom and shipboard environments and has a calm, tolerant management style. Her subordinates have ample opportunity to learn from their mistakes and improve performance; the Bureau of Personnel has noted a distinct increase in efficiency from her subordinates. She rarely loses her temper without severe provocation (although when she does get angry this usually results in devastating if not fatal consequences for the object of her anger). Warning signs include a flat, deadly calm tone in her voice, a facial tic in the right corner of her mouth and more obvious warning signals that Nimitz gives such as flattened ears, hissing, and tail twitches that are exactly in time with Honor's facial tic. Her most loyal subordinates, including Scotty Tremaine, Alistair McKeon and Andrew LaFollet, are very aware of these warning signs and will sometimes intervene to stop her. (The Honor of the Queen, Echoes of Honor).

Honor loathes coffee and considers hot cocoa far superior.

She regularly is seen drinking "Old Tilman" beer from a bottle.

She owns and practices with a replica Colt M1911 .45 caliber semiautomatic pistol, a weapon considered to be an anachronistic "hand cannon" by her contemporaries, who prefer pulsers, which fire small-calibre high explosive darts at extremely high velocity using a gravitic propulsion system. She acquired a taste for obsolete handarms from her uncle, Jacques Chou, who is an active member of the Society for Creative Anachronism. His training made her a pistol expert (useful on Sphinx outside its protected areas, given its native predators).

Honor lost her left eye while defending Protector Benjamin Mayhew from an assassination attempt. The eye was replaced with a prosthetic, though on occasion it has been disabled (as when she was captured and transported to Hades). Additionally, some of the nerves on the left side of her face were damaged during the same incident, and were replaced with artificial nerves.

Most of her left arm was lost during the escape from the PNS Tepes and was replaced by a cybernetic arm which, among other interesting features, contains a hidden pulser pistol inside the index finger. Its sight is slaved to her prosthetic eye via a small video camera embedded in the cuticle.

Honor practices a fictional martial art known as coup de vitesse (French for blow of speed). This is a fusion of several western and Oriental martial arts, where emphasis is placed on offense at the expense of defense, resulting in a very brutal and effective style. As of War of Honor, Honor has earned an eighth level black belt. There is only one higher rank. Her proficiency has saved her and others several times.

Honor has become proficient with the Grayson style of swordplay, involving a blade very similar to the katana, which by a quirk of history is used ceremonially by Steadholders and is the center of a martial art on Grayson. The sword style of the Graysons is derived from the film The Seven Samurai - presumably the Kurosawa version - the only recording of swordplay that existed on Grayson once their culture had devolved to the point where swords were desired.

Honor has a mental block regarding mathematics, despite her high intelligence and kinesthetic aptitude. This has absolutely nothing to do with her ability to perform; on at least one occasion she has instinctively computed complex four-dimensional intercepts in her head during combat. In a normal situation even simple mathematics are challenging for her at times. Honor's problems with mathematics almost resulted in her failing out of Saganami Island.