Capability, Credibility, and the Problem of Mistakes

Job Interviewer: Could you tell me what your greatest weakness is?
Honor Harrington: Well...(thinking)...I'm just too heroic for my own good. (goes into long story about rescuing wounded armsman when she should have been fleeing like a craven dog)
Job Interviewer: Uh-huh (makes notes). Okay. Any mistakes you've made?
HH: Hmm...there was this one time that I was about to shoot a bad bad bad man out of hand. He had it coming, I mean really really had it coming, but it would have been a big mistake.
Job Interviewer: So you didn't end up shooting him?
HH: A friend stopped me.
JI: Hokay. Anything else?
HH: I think that I'm right too much. I try to warn people about the lurking dangers around them and they just don't believe me as soon as they should because they're small-minded, or they're politicians, or they're the 24th century equivalent of wussy liberal types. Or they're small-minded-24th-century-equivalent-of-wussy-liberal-type politicians.
JI: I see.
HH: But then I save them.
JI: Uh-huh.
HH: And the universe.
JI: Right.
HH: Well, the civilized part of it.
JI: Sure.

Perhaps part of the problem is that nearly all of your main characters across several series share the same flaws, and none of the villains do?

I've loved the Honor Harrington books since I picked them up in middle school or high school, and I still say that I want to be Honor when I grow up (now that I'm in my mid twenties and going to grad school). But I've only recently gotten around to reading your March Upcountry series that you wrote with John Ringo and a few of the other stand-alone books you've written. You know, avoiding studying for my comprehensive exams and all that... Anyway, the main characters from these books all seem to share the same basic flaws--murderous temper, putting the safety of those they care about before themselves even when it is bad given their position, and omni-competent when it comes to getting things done. I can see why some of your readers might start to see this not simply as internal character consistency, but actually being lauded by your writing. And, since few of your villains share these same traits, well . . .

@Totalitat: *exactly* what I was thinking. Those "faults" are the equivalent of "I'm a perfectionist", "I care too much", and "I push myself too hard, in the service of the company." Don't get me wrong, I read the first 13 or so HH novels, got my Dad hooked on them (he's read every one ever published, I believe), so there is obviously something there. But I eventually gave up when I realized that HH would never be *really* wrong, just weaselly wrong.

Weber: even competent, well-meaning people, sometimes do *dumb* and *bad* things. They get drunk, and lie, and don't give 100% every hour of every day of every week, and are petty, and, and, and... In summary, HH didn't do a single thing that *surprised* me, over the last four or five books that I read. And honestly, her character is so set now, that I don't know that you could believably have her do any of those (human) things. I could be wrong though, as you're a hell of a writer. I just think the books could be even better, if Honor was a real human being, not Warrior personified.

I really can't agree that Honor Harrington is "too perfect." The fact is, that she has to be damn good--and damn lucky--to survive all that Weber's put her through. And, as he points out, she obviously has made mistakes, even grievous ones.

No, my problem is more with some of the "bad guys" in the series, specifically the Manticoran liberal politicians. These people are the most craven, lazy, incompetent bunch of idiots I can ever recall meeting in a novel--sneering villains right out of central casting. It frankly stretches credulity that they ever manage to do anything right!

And they stand out all the more because usually Mr. Weber takes such great care to make his villains recognizably human. The Peep navy types, the Mesans, even Ransom and Pierre are understandable (if sometimes evil) people trying to do what they think is best. Not so the Manty liberals--with the exception of Montaigne, for which I think we can thank Eric Flint.

(An aside, I loved Weber's rehabilitation of John Simpson in 1633--who had been a similarly one-dimensional sneering management type in 1632. I always thought that Weber's rehabilitation of Simpson and Flint's rehabilitation of Montaigne were a good match for each other.)

I don't know if this just reflects Mr. Weber's general opinion of liberal politicians, but it's a glaring blind spot, and a rare sour note in an otherwise masterful series.

I believe you mean Stockholm Syndrome.

I haven't read the Honor Harrington novels, but every "flaw" that gets mentioned here is utterly familiar from decades of TV shows and media tie-ins: "24," "Battlestar Galactica," various incarnations of "Star Trek." Not to mention Jerry Bruckheimer movies, Star Wars novelizations, Dirk Pitt novels - anything with an omnicompetent hero holding to his/her own code of honor... i.e. anything that edges into formulaic suspense/action.

Given all that, it makes sense to say that Weber has avoided literary Copenhagen syndrome. Copenhagen syndrome is a spinal defect, and Honor Harrington sounds like backbone personified (with all the one-dimensionality that implies).

I haven't read the Honor Harrington series, but your example of a character "flaw" isn't terribly convincing. Pretty lame, actually. As p-l says, what heroic character doesn't have that flaw? Honestly, from a storytelling standpoint it's a virtue: characters who are willing to sacrifice themselves to save others are the very definition of heroic. It's a great shorthand for "See? This guy/gal's a real winner!" A protagonist who is willing to sacrifice others for the greater good--especially when the greater good just do happens to include their own survival--would be far more challenging to write sympathetically. Same for a protagonist who isn't willing to hit a superior officer, or who isn't willing break the rules when it suits them.

Our historical and mythic experience tells us that everyone has a dark side, with which they wrestle. Many of our most pious would-be leaders have turned out to have only hidden, not vanquished, their weaknesses.

Wellington was an incurable womanizer, I'm told. Churchill, an alcoholic. Bobby Inman, a paranoid. Martin Luther King, a womanizer. The Kennedy brothers... Strom Thurmond... etc. This extends into fantasy: consider the Perfect Knights, Lancelot and Gawain. One, a man who couldn't keep his hands off the only woman in the land who was forbidden to him; the other, who lied because the truth would have been embarassing. The Jews contribute Saul (whose weakness was jealousy) and David (covetousness of Bathsheba).

My issue with Honor Harrington is that she has, IMO, the vices of an angel, not the vices of a human being. And she doesn't much struggle with them; they have, in a series of thirteen? books, led her into error... three times? All three of which conformed to the Heroic archetype.

I'm sorry, David... I think she's two-dimensional in at least this one important way. She's warm and caring and funny and lovable and fiercely loyal to her friends, and deadly in a fight, and hyper-rational when it comes to politics, and I like her but I don't believe that someone like her exists in reality or ever will. She reflects a composite of the best sides of a lot of good people without their worst sides.

--Phil

While HH does seem a bit too good to be true, part of the issue might be that she's rarely in a situation where her flaws, or at least her weaknesses, might be more exposed.

What sort of situation might make her sweat, mumble incoherently, or even run for the exits? I'm thinking Honor on an HD talk show, ambushed by a Bruno-esque co-guest and forced to somehow comment on the latest galactic fashion trends...

A more believable character, I think, is Michelle Henke. She would like to be like Honor, but she can't think that fast, or shoot that straight.

RvW

@9: Character creation is nothing more or less than putting characters into situations that illuminate their personalities. If a writer hasn't done this, then shame on them.

@heresiarch you make a valid point. The challenge is developing unique characters with which the reader identifies on some level while delving into a mind filled with Jim Kirks, Darth Vaders and Ripleys. The cool part of it all is that writers have borrowed archetypal heroic traits since The Iliad and Beowulf - and made it work to the point that we keep reading and can't wait for more! I don't know that it's the flaws that are the issues. More likely it's the packaging you're not buying.

I DID point out that not everyone likes my writing [G].

Totalitat, I agree with you that even competent people sometimes do really dumb things. Unfortunately, where literary characters are concerned, I usually have more problems with the credibility involved in a competent person making a DUMB mistake than I do with the notion that the competent characters in question are "too perfect." Mistakes happen, and people DO do dumb things, no question. But they usually do it even dumb things for a REASON, and absent an explanation of that reason, it comes down to "I am the author, I needed this character to do a stupid thing, so he did it." That's where the credibility of mistakes comes into play for me.

The problem of competent -- even overly competent -- characters is another question entirely, of course, and from the tone of your comment, I suspect it's not one where we'd be likely to be in total agreement with one another. Not total DISAGREEMENT, either; just not complete accord.

One problem that I personally have with some fiction is its tendency to focus on the faults, the failings, of its protagonists. To be unable or unwilling to accept a literary character who isn't "tragically flawed." Do not misunderstand me -- I think the "tragically flawed" hero or heroine can be superbly engaging and, handled properly, becomes one of the most enduring literary personalities. People have criticized me -- or, at least, my characters -- on the basis that I write about people who are "larger than life." "Omnicompetent" is thrown out quite often, and undoubtedly has at least some validity, but most of the characters I write about are composites of people I've known and admired. I KNOW people who would -- and in some cases have -- made exactly the same heroic (and I am using that word in its truest, most basic sense) decisions my protagonists have made. In some cases, they have paid the price for having made those decisions, as well. I have personally known politicians -- and, yes, liberal as well as conservative ones -- who have been just as stupid, just as self-serving, and just as focused on maintaining their personal power at the expense of their public responsibilities, as any character I've ever incorporated into a novel. But, I've also known, personally, politicians -- and, yes, liberal as well as conservative ones -- who have made the hard choice where personal integrity was concerned. In at least one case -- and, it happens, it was a liberal politician -- a man on whose campaign staff I served made a very hard choice when someone suggested what many people would have considered a win-win campaign proposal that would simply have required him to lie -- once about his personal beliefs, and once (and only by implication, this time) about something his opponent had said. He refused to do that, and while I'm pleased to say that he won the campaign in the end, it was by a VERY narrow margin. I know, because I saw some of the correspondence, that quite a few -- the majority -- of his senior staff and political allies thought he was foolish to have made the decision that he made. I never did. It represented integrity, which I happen to think is more important in a politician than whether or not I agree with his political philosophy.

Those are the qualities that I celebrate in the real world human beings who are important to me, who I respect and admire, and so those are the qualities that I celebrate in my literary characters. I suppose you could call that my "literary baggage." It's

Most writers, I think, have a tendency to have "heroic types" (or "anti-heroic types") who are recognizably "theirs." The more books they produce, the more noticeable that becomes. That's probably especially true of series writers, but I think it's true over all, as well. In some ways, it's a good thing. For example, presumably, if they are successful writers, it means they write "their" particular type of hero well. It also provides a certain "comfort level" for readers who have decided they like a particular writer's work. We're talking about entertainment here, after all, and while "entertainment" doesn't have to equate to "light and frothy," for most of us it does have to equate to something we enjoy. If we don't enjoy it, we don't do it, and where fiction is concerned, if we don't like the characters, we don't pursue it. If the hero or anti-hero a writer produces is one-dimensional, then the books tend not to succeed and generally aren't going to build a large and devoted readership. My particular mindset, a "Weber hero," if you will, tends to reflect the qualities that I find admirable and to be someone I enjoy reading about. I don't enjoy reading about small minded or mean spirited characters, I don't enjoy reading about characters who do EGREGRIOUSLY dumb things, and I also don't enjoy reading about characters who are SO "flawed" that watching them painfully drag themselves through the current plot sets my teeth on edge. Other people, obviously, have different literary tastes, and that's fine. This is one of those cases where I think differences are genuinely something to be celebrated, and I'm not touting MY tastes or MY characters as representing "The Way Every Story Should Be."

Just as most writers tend to have a set of a heroic qualities which are recognizably theirs, they also tend to have a set of UNHEROIC, or even actively villainous, qualities. Many people have remarked upon my apparent distaste for "liberal politicians." I would submit to you that I've had a slew of "conservative" characters who have been even more villainous, shortsighted, and fundamentally stupid. Using the honor Harrington novels as an example, I doubt very many people think of Baron High Ridge as a paragon of civic virtue, and Edward Janacek (conservative) is at least as stupid -- and inflicts considerably more damage on his society -- than Reginald Houseman (liberal). Clearly many people would consider my personal politics . . . right of center, shall we say, but if you scratch the surface of one of my political villains, regardless of where they lie on the political spectrum, what you usually find is (1) selfishness, (2) corruption, (3) ideological blinders, (4) arrogance, and (5) the cynical manipulation of the sincere beliefs and desires of their constituents/supporters in the pursuit of their own power. Because so many of my characters are military people, and because my own 40 or 50-year reading of history has provided me with so many examples of the disastrous consequences politicians (as opposed to statesmen) have so often inflicted in military situations, they are constantly grappling with political interference, political incompetency, political shortsightedness, etc.. In addition, they tend to come up against people who don't like, don't understand, don't trust, or all three of the above, the military and military institutions. (Please note that while I very strongly disagree with a lot of these people, I am not accusing everyone who feels that way of being bigoted, intolerant, or even necessarily wrong. Indeed, they certainly are NOT wrong in all cases. I'm simply saying that people for whom those attitudes are spinal reflexes exist, that POLITICIANS with those attitudes exist, and that they form the natural foil for my military heroes.) Frankly, anti-military attitudes tend to be more concentrated, at the current time, among liberal politicians than non-liberal politicians. I think that has been historically the case, at least in Western societies, more often than not. So the template for my political-military conflict -- our own historical experience -- pushes me in that direction.

Most of my feckless liberal politicians have been venal and/or stupid, not actively evil. Most of my feckless conservative politicians, on the other hand, HAVE been what I think of as actively evil . . . generally IN ADDITION to being BOTH venal AND stupid. [G] Several people have commented on Cathy Montaigne and on the fact that she's been something of a breath of fresh air in the arid desert of my disparagement of liberal politics and liberal politicians. The truth is that Cathy represents the kind of liberal that I was raised to be, and with whom I am entirely comfortable. Please note, however, that she, too, is the consummate "outsider" as far as the Political Establishment wherein most of my political poltroons are to be found is concerned. Although she was introduced originally by Eric Flint in "From the Highlands," I have enthusiastically incorporated her into the mainstream of Manticoran politics and expanded in many ways on Eric's original character. In fact, she represents the "salvation" of the Liberal Party in much the same way that Michael Oversteegen represents the "salvation" of the Conservative Association. The two of them could not disagree more on many aspects of their political philosophy, but both of them recognize the concepts of responsibility, duty, and personal and political integrity, and each of them RESPECTS the other.

I'm not trying to get into value judgments on liberalism or conservatism. Obviously, everyone is going to have his or her own view of that, and I've never really tried to disguise my own political and ideological beliefs. I do think, though, that readers tend to view characters through the prisms of their own political philosophies. Sometimes, as a consequence they tend to see a writer using a broader brush than the writer intended to use. No doubt there are also times where the writer, whatever he THINKS he's doing, DOES end up using a broader brush than he intended, but my point here is simply that as readers we (and I include myself in this) tend to pigeonhole a writer's political views in relationship to our own. "Oh, God, another liberal-bashing, military-worshiping, cutthroat capitalism, right-wing, neo-Nazi nut!" versus "Oh, God, another tree-hugging, pablum-brained, anti-military, unpatriotic, save-the-whales, socialist lunatic!" Well, maybe not EVERYONE is quite that . . . polar, but I think the tendency clearly exists. And the consequence of that is that we react to characters, and the writer's presentation of them, through that same very human tendency to categorize for ease of reference. I think that's just part of the way our brains are hardwired to process information, but I also think that it tends to lead us into sometimes misreading the reason a WRITER thinks one of his characters did something. "Edward Janacek was a stupid, self-serving, incompetent BECAUSE he was a Conservative," as opposed to "Edward Janacek was a stupid, self-serving incompetent WHO HAPPENED TO BE a Conservative." Or, conversely, "Reginald Houseman was a cowardly, arrogant ideologue BECAUSE he was a Liberal," as opposed to "Reginald Houseman was a cowardly, arrogant ideologue WHO HAPPENED TO BE a Liberal." I will concede that the fashion in which those negative qualities express themselves is going to be bound up in the political ideology of the characters -- that is, a stupid Liberal is going to make stupid LIBERAL mistakes, whereas a stupid Conservative is going to make stupid CONSERVATIVE mistakes -- but for me, the negative qualities are more important than the ideological matrix within which they operate where characterization is concerned.

I've run on longer here than I intended to, and I really need to get back to the current book. In case it isn't clear from the above, I think you've made some excellent points. As a writer, as someone who considers this his craft, I try to remain constantly open to ways I can learn to do better work. Comments like yours come under the heading of data to be entered into the central processing unit. I doubt very much that I'll change my BASIC perspective as a writer, but there's a lot of room for nuances and adjustments. The truth of the matter is that I'm not really comfortable with dumb people who make dumb mistakes and, as a consequence, I don't write them well. I'm working on that, but I'm inclined to think that I'm never going to become sufficiently comfortable with that type of person to incorporate one of them into my work as anything besides an obstacle for the Good Guys™ to overcome. Call it a limitation, if you will, but there is.

David

RobertVW --

I just finished replying to your comment, hit the "preview button," and had my reply disappear. So if you wind up with two responses, that's the reason.

Having said that, I think I agree with you that Honor hasn't really been put into positions to showcase her flaws and weaknesses very often. As far as her . . . social weaknesses, shall we say, are concerned, it would be rather more difficult to put her into one of those situations today than it would have been several books ago. Her armsmen have her so well protected from intrusive reporters, and her military rank and political stature have her so well protected from rogue senior officers and politicians, that I think putting her into an "Oh, my God! Get me out of this!" flustered, red-faced, or otherwise obfuscated state would smack of contrivance. I'll think about it, though.

On a more serious note, I would point out that we've seen her, at least once, flub a serious challenge which led to significant loss of life, including the death of her own beloved mentor. I'm referring, of course, to her decision to cut and run rather than stand her ground and confront the prejudices of the Grayson officer corps on her first visit to Yeltsin's Star. In fact, one of the reasons that she wanted so badly to shoot the commander of Blackbird Base out of hand (although she didn't realize it herself) was that she blamed herself -- her decision to pull her other units out of Yeltsin's Star -- for what happened to the destroyer (and its personnel) which she left behind.

David

I think you're mistaking my comment for teancom's. I did the spoof job interview. The point of that spoof, though, was what later commenters have noted. Even the flaws and mistakes that HH has and makes are of the "oh-look-how-heroic-and-honorable-she-is" kind of things that are the staple of bad summer action films. Honor started off in the early books as a reasonably flawed central figure, much akin to Horatio Hornblower. In the later books, she developed into an Arnold Schwarzenegger character. The evolution is not for the better.

As to your reading of history, it is seriously skewed. The three greatest war leaders in American history--Washington, Lincoln, and FDR--had very limited military experiences before their defining conflicts. The British government which led that nation through World War I to victory was a Liberal Party one. The British government that led the nation through World War II had a former liberal at its head (who left the British Liberal Party because it was being subsumed by the Labor Party). That government included a large number of Labor ministers in it. The Republican party in the United States has not won a major war since the Civil War; the Democrats, by contrast, have won both World Wars.

As to the last forty years of American history, the Democrats retreated into a somewhat anti-war stance (though Sam Nunn would surely be surprised to hear *that* characterization of him) and the Republicans turned to a fantasy version of history which allowed the military to escape having to actually to learn the lessons of Vietnam, something which cost the U.S. dearly in the initial period of the Iraqi insurgency. Neither of those reactions strike me as particularly healthy.

Totalitat --

I strongly suspect that you and I are going to have to disagree on my reading of history. Which is fine. It happens all the time. On the other hand, I never said that extensive military experience was necessary for a wartime leader. In fact, I don't believe I've ever said that military leadership is superior to political leadership, and the vast majority of my military characters reflect my own (and the basic US) belief that the military MUST be subject to the control of the political leadership at all times. What I said was that I write about military characters, and that military characters clash with political leadership, with the implication (on my part) that the political leadership is frequently wrong. The political leadership in question can be wrong about macro issues or micro issues. The political leadership can be wrong in its reading of the international diplomatic situation. It can be wrong about devising the famous "exit strategy from a war. It can be wrong about whether or not the troops need a raise. It can be wrong about what color to paint the executive washroom's walls. Some of those are important errors, some of them are only moderately important errors, and, frankly, some of them could matter less. (From a storytelling perspective, the point is that if they're going to serve as dramatic foils for my military characters, they have to be wrong about SOMETHING).

Please observe that in relation to this particular point, what I actually said was "In addition, they tend to come up against people who don't like, don't understand, don't trust, or all three of the above, the military and military institutions. (Please note that while I very strongly disagree with a lot of these people, I am not accusing everyone who feels that way of being bigoted, intolerant, or even necessarily wrong. Indeed, they certainly are NOT wrong in all cases. I'm simply saying that people for whom those attitudes are spinal reflexes exist, that POLITICIANS with those attitudes exist, and that they form the natural foil for my military heroes.)" Please note especially the final clause of the last sentence.

I did say, in relation to general attitudes by political philosophies towards the military, "Frankly, anti-military attitudes tend to be more concentrated, at the current time, among liberal politicians than non-liberal politicians. I think that has been historically the case, at least in Western societies, more often than not." Note that I said "more often than not," not "invariably." I stand by that statement. You point out that the British government which led the United Kingdom through World War I was a Liberal Party one. That's odd, I thought Balfour wound up part of that government. It was, in fact, a COALITION government, in effect if not in name, which was formed because of the British public's intense distrust, after the brutal shock of trench warfare in Belgium, of the prewar Liberal Party government's ability to win the war. Prior to World War I, the Liberal Party's attitude towards the military -- and, specifically, towards the Royal Navy, which was the spine of British military power at the time -- while generally more supportive than that of 20th-century American left for ITS military -- was still noticeably LESS supportive than the Tories. The debates over the Naval Estimates during the period 1906-1914 will serve as a case in point.

You chose Washington, Lincoln, and FDR as the United States' three greatest war leaders and point out that they had "very limited military experiences before their defining conflicts." As the second sentence of my first paragraph in this post points out, I never said that extensive military experience was necessary for political war leaders. (To go back to the Honorverse, the Duke of Cromarty had ZERO personal military experience, and so did William Alexander, when he became Prime Minister.) In so far as your triumvirate is concerned, I would point out that, of the three, Washington had the most military experience, and probably the best strategic instincts, but he was responsible for the MILITARY leadership of the American Revolution, not for the political leadership and direction of that effort. Lincoln, with very limited military experience, probably had more experience than either of the other two you've mentioned with the disastrous consequences of POLITICAL interference with the war effort. Unless you want to suggest that he kept Benjamin Butler in uniform because of his high regard for Butler's military capabilities? Or that the Radical Republicans and their committee on the prosecution of the war was helpful to him? FDR's contribution to military operations during World War II was primarily to stay out of the kitchen. One area in which he took a special interest -- the Navy, in light of his earlier experience in the Department of the Navy -- could have wished that he hadn't been quite so interested in it, in some respects. His interest in the destroyer escort program, in the escort carrier program, and in the light carrier program, arguably (and I think the case for this is quite strong) led to serious misallocations of industrial manpower, steel, and other resources whose negative impacts were as light as they were primarily because the industrial capacity in question was so great that a certain degree of inefficiency was acceptable.

I find it interesting that you argue that Democrats won both world wars. While I certainly can't disagree with you that both wars were fought under Democratic administrations, I would also point out that our involvement in World War I was primarily the result of Wilsonian policies. It was Woodrow Wilson's deliberate decision to take the United States into World War I for reasons which I realize seemed quite compelling to him (and which make an interesting parallel, in some respects, to George W. Bush's decision vis-à-vis Iraq). From the perspective of almost a century later, Wilson's reasons look somewhat less compelling to me, but I wasn't there. I would argue, however, that the peace settlement of World War I -- which also had Wilson's fingerprints all over it -- was a major factor in a second Democratic administration's having to fight the SECOND World War 20 years later. And that carries us to the Korean Conflict (Democratic administration) which was never officially ended at all, and to the Vietnam War (2 Democratic administrations, I believe, and shenanigans which included the assassination of an allied head of state during the first one). My purpose here is not to point fingers at the Democrats as the Party of Military Ineptitude™ nor to extol Republicans as the Party of Incomparable Military Excellence™. My point is simply that I made no attempt in my original post to award credit or assign blame for any real-world military conflict resolution.

I did comment that I believe that liberal parties, by and large, have been less than friendly to the military, and I think that's inevitable. Most liberal political parties have their eye on different objectives than the military. There have been timeframes when that was different, of course. The height of the Cold War comes to mind. No one could ever have accused JFK of being "soft" on the military. Even those who question his military JUDGMENT in, for example, the specific instances of the Bay of Pigs and our slide into Vietnam, have never questioned the fact that he strongly supported the military. Indeed, it was his REPUBLICAN predecessor -- who, arguably, had quite a lot of personal military experience -- who warned of the dangers of the "military-industrial complex." But, the fact remains, that liberal priorities tend to be focused on social issues, that militaries tend to be expensive, that liberal political parties with their social focus are generally suspicious of "military adventurism" (which is a damned good thing to BE suspicious of, frankly), that suspicion of military adventurism, coupled with a desire to grapple with (and fund) domestic social and economic issues, leads to a hostility towards funding the military, and that hostility in all too many cases does turn into an active dislike/distrust of the military because of the polarizing effect of that perfectly legitimate struggle over priorities.

I would also dispute whether or not the MILITARY failed to learn the lessons of the Vietnam war. I would agree wholeheartedly that the Iraq War was very, very, VERY badly handled, but I would argue that that was more a failure of the political direction and leadership (which, by the way, please note was NOT composed of liberals). The military had done a very good job of fixing the "nuts and bolts" problems which had arisen during the Vietnam War. The development of specific military capabilities -- that is, counterinsurgency as opposed to armored conflict on the plains of Germany, or brown water, littoral naval capability as opposed to blue water battle fleets and commerce protection capability -- is as much a political as a military question. Funding governs, and political leadership can (and should) direct the evolution of military policy if only by defining probable military objectives and allocating funding accordingly. The war-fighting capability which the United States took to Iraq was certainly capable of defeating any organized, conventional force, and if our sole objective had been to level cities, it was fully capable of doing that, too. Certain breezy assumptions were made, more in Washington than anywhere else, about what was going to happen after the standing Iraqi army was defeated, and we found ourselves transitioning to an insurgency-based resistance without anyone's having planned effectively for it. That was not a failure of the military to learn lessons from the Vietnam War; it was a failure of military-political leadership to recognize that we were walking back into an insurgency situation and plan accordingly. And, as I said above, no one could possibly blame that failure on American liberals, and I never have.

All of which is rather far afield from questions of writing novels and dealing with character flaws. I'm sorry that you disapprove of Honor's evolution, and I actually have quite a bit of sympathy for your viewpoint. The main reason that she turned into the Avatar of the War Goddess™ was that I had always intended to build her into a considerably larger than life, Horatio Nelson analog, who would die in her version of Trafalgar by about book six. The storyline grew, the publisher (and readers) wanted more books, and you couldn't really put the genie back into the bottle. She still has most of the flaws that she did have, they're just not in a position to cause her the kind of grief they caused her earlier in her life. In that respect, I sometimes find myself regretting a decision I made at the very outset. I decided when I wrote the first Honorverse novel that there would never be a novel set earlier than On Basilisk Station. I made that decision to avoid the "bump in the road" effect writers like CS Forester have experienced. By the time he went back to write the earlier Hornblower stories (earlier defined as in set earlier in Hornblower's life) Hornblower was a fully developed character, and Forester's own writing style had evolved considerably. So if someone reads the novels in chronological order by events, rather than by publication date, they get a fully developed young Hornblower and then, suddenly, run into the very early Hornbloder of Beat to Quarters. I still think I was wise to decide to avoid that particular problem, but it also means that it's going to be difficult or impossible for me to go back and write "early Honor" before she acquires the stature, the skill set, the support team, etc., etc., that she has right now.

David

Oh, by the way. I should probably point out that if people see the occasional "interesting" typographical error in my posts, it's generally because I use voice-activated software rather than a keyboard. That's the result of a badly broken wrist some years ago, and it has its pluses and its minuses. The biggest problem is that the software could care less whether or not a sentence makes sense, which means that voice recognition errors can lead to some . . . odd word choices.

strongly suspect that you and I are going to have to disagree on my reading of history

I suspect so, yes.

hat I said was that I write about military characters, and that military characters clash with political leadership, with the implication (on my part) that the political leadership is frequently wrong.

What you said was that your "40 or 50-year reading of history has provided me with so many examples of the disastrous consequences politicians (as opposed to statesmen) have so often inflicted in military situations, they are constantly grappling with political interference, political incompetency, political shortsightedness, etc." It should have also provided you with a lot of disastrous consequences that militaries have inflicted on military situations. When you only choose one kind of historical example to use, and use approvingly, the implication is clear.

What I said was that I write about military characters, and that military characters clash with political leadership, with the implication (on my part) that the political leadership is frequently wrong.

Not having read the later books, I don't know the answer to this: have you ever had a situation where the political leadership was right and the military leadership (including HH) wrong?

As to experience, you noted that "n addition, they tend to come up against people who don't like, don't understand, don't trust, or all three of the above, the military and military institutions." My point about Washington, Lincoln, and FDR is that understanding and knowledge of the military and military institutions is not necessary and may even be counterproductive to being an effective war leader (Jefferson Davis being a good example).

That's odd, I thought Balfour wound up part of that government. It was, in fact, a COALITION government, in effect if not in name, which was formed because of the British public's intense distrust, after the brutal shock of trench warfare in Belgium, of the prewar Liberal Party government's ability to win the war.

Yes, I should have specified that after May 1915, it was a coalition government. It remained one, however, led by a Liberal politician (first Asquith, then Lloyd George) and supported by the Liberal Party majority in Parliament.

I find it interesting that you argue that Democrats won both world wars. While I certainly can't disagree with you that both wars were fought under Democratic administrations,

I'm glad to see that you're not disagreeing that Democratic Presidents led the winning efforts in both world wars. It is, of course, possible to list problems with any large scale war effort, and I would note that 1) Ulysses S. Grant also became a general owing to political interference, 2) Your analysis of FDR's role in the war effort would come as an enormous surprise to Ernest King and George Marshall, 3) the Versailles Treaty might well have worked if the United States Senate (majority Republican) had not refused to ratify it and the attendant military treaties, giving Britain an excuse to pull out of their military commitment to France, and leaving the French alone to deal with a resurgent Germany.

(Everytime somebody criticizes the French, they should remember Lafayette et al and the fact that the Anglo-Saxon world essentially abandoned them in 1919-23).

The development of specific military capabilities -- that is, counterinsurgency as opposed to armored conflict on the plains of Germany, or brown water, littoral naval capability as opposed to blue water battle fleets and commerce protection capability -- is as much a political as a military question.

Forgive the indelicacy, but that's just bullshit. If the military in the post-Vietnam era had pushed wholeheartedly a strategy that emphasized counterinsurgency they would have gotten what they wanted. Instead, they pushed an entirely conventional force, and politicians like Reagan, Bush, and Clinton gave them exactly what they asked for. Even minor deviations from the military's image of what it wanted--like the F-16 and A-10--were fought against tooth and nail by the military establishment. The military is supposed to be able to fight the kind of wars that the United States is likely to wage and in Iraq, it manifestly was not. That's not down to the politicians, who spent several decades giving the services almost everything that they wanted, but down to the military establishments deciding that they weren't going to prepare for a counterinsurgency.

That the Bush Administration cocked up the execution the Iraq War is undoubtable. That the military cocked up the operational execution of the counterinsurgency campaign at the start is also undoubtable. Those mistakes cost a lot of blood before the administration sort of figured out what to do and the military began to think that they might have to do some of those awful "nation-building" things that they'd spent the '90s deriding.

There's a reason why H.R. McMaster was denied promotion to Brigadier General until Petraeus was appointed to the promotions board and it ain't a political one.

--

Your comment about Horatio Nelson is interesting, because Nelson was exactly the kind of flawed, yet larger-than-life character that HH is not. She resembles more closely the legendary figure of Nelson than the real one.

I've read the HH series up to "At All Costs", though not all other Honorverse books, and have a comment or two about flaws.

I suppose some flaws and faults depend on perspective. Frankly, I thought her affair with White Haven was a pretty serious mistake, and the solution of her somehow marrying the White Haven couple wasn't convincing to me (if White Haven had done something like the Grayson's do and gone polygamist, that may have been more believable to me, though it would raise other concerns...). More unbelievable to me was that Lady White Haven accepted the situation as well as she did, after of course the initial problems on learning about it.

The idea that Harrington may not be completely believable, as being someone who is not very like real people, doesn't bother me so much, though. Such could be said of, for example, the heroes in Louis L'amour books, who are always tough and loyal and ride for the brand. I suppose that, by definition, fiction is always at least somewhat unbelievable. The hero or heroes is/are usually idealized--they embody the virtues the writer respects, often to a degree that most people may never see in real life.

Thank you, Mr. Weber, for your thoughtful replies to all of us.

On the subject of a writer's vs reader's political prejudices: In general, I think you do a pretty good job at "not being a jerk about it," as they say. Yes, it got annoying that ALL of the Manty liberals were such scumbags until Montagne showed up. And I have to tell you, though I loved "On Basilisk Station," it took me two tries before I got through all the nonsense with Houseman at the beginning of "The Honor of The Queen." But I've learned that skimming over a few pages of political ranting is a small price to pay for the compelling crew interactions and dynamite action we get from your work.

As to "The Salamander" being so ridiculously omnicompetent, I think she really just ends up with the capabilities she needs to have in order to accomplish what she's done. The problem, as some other commenters have mentioned, is that such incredible powers require Honor to have equally daunting faults in order to keep her understandable to the readers. (Think of Miles Vorkosigan's crippling birth defects and general mental instability) Along these lines, I wonder if you may have been better off actually letting her shoot the commander of Blackbird, then exploring the consequences of that lapse in judgment.

Finally, I want to point out that in my opinion you've done a masterful job avoiding this problem in the Safehold series. By all rights, Nimue, with her superhuman PICA reflexes and near-immortality, should be even more daunting than Honor Harrington. But in fact, as I dare say anyone who's read "Off Armageddon Reef" can attest, the opposite is true. For my money, I think the scene in which Pei Kau-Yung awakens Nimue and lays upon her the burden of saving the whole human race is one of the most powerful non-battle scenes you've written. Honor may inspire us with her heroics, but Nimue, burdened by a truly herculean task and nursing the unimaginable loneliness of knowing she's outlived everyone she ever met, can break our hearts.

Totalit --

Sorry about the delay getting back, not just you but to everyone, but I've been up against sort of terminal deadline pressure. Like a book it's due to be shipped with about two months of the time my collaborator and I got it turned in. That's sort of been absorbing my attention lately.

I really didn't intend to set off a political debate, except inasmuch as to explain why politicians -- and particularly anti-military politicians -- form a natural foil for military characters. Having said that, however, my 40 or 50-your reading of history has, indeed, provided me with many examples of the disastrous consequences of politicians (as opposed to statesman) have often inflicted in military situations, and the military is constantly grappling with political interference, political incompetence, etc.. You tell me that when I "choose only one kind of historical example to use, and use approvingly, the implication is clear," and if the implication to which you refer is that politicians have, indeed, very often had disastrous effects on military operations, then you're correct. If, however, you are imputing to me the belief that the military never has disastrous effects on military operations, then you are incorrect, and I am not responsible for the inference you draw. There are incompetent military figures, as well as political figures in my books, quite a few of whom have gotten quite a lot of people killed through sheer stupidity. If you really want me to begin listing examples of disastrous political interference (or disastrous military mismanagement) from real life, though, I can certainly do that, beginning with the North Government and George III and their mismanagement of that little unpleasantness in North America, and continuing through the failure of the Howe brothers in North America to deal with it (which was sort of a joint military and political FUBAR), and moving forward and/or back in history. And please do note that no one would ever have called North and George III liberal politicians. The term "politician" in the sense in which I used it was definitely intended to be generic in this instance, whether that was the way I managed to express it or not

You ask "have you ever had a situation where the political leadership was right and the military leadership (including HH) wrong?" I don't believe I've ever had a situation in which Honor disagreed with the political leadership and was wrong, and, by and large, I don't believe that the military -- in the Star Kingdom, at least -- has found itself on the other side of a political question from the political leadership and been wrong. However, having said that, I don't believe I've ever had a situation where only the military was on one side of the issue, either. Political leadership has been split in such cases, and the military in the Star Kingdom of Manticore doesn't usually make policy. At the same time, members of the military establishment -- like Edward Janacek and his choices at the Admiralty, that matter for his fleet commanders -- is fully capable of screwing up by the numbers. As a rule, however, the Manticoran military doesn't see it as its business to make policy, and the military issues -- for the Star Kingdom, please note that I'm not saying this is the case consistently in real life -- are usually fairly cut and dried in that we're talking survival or failure to survive.

In response to your comment about my analysis of FDR's role in the war effort coming "as an enormous surprise to Ernest King and George Marshall,' I can see where you may have interpreted my remarks to mean that I was arguing that he had no significant input into the management of the war. That was not my intention, and my only defense is that when I phrased the sentence it was, for me, a complete given that he was deeply involved in the formulation and prosecution of the war effort. When I remarked that FDR's contribution was to "keep out of the kitchen," I was referring to micromanagement of the war effort, which, by and large, he avoided with enormous success. (The reason I chose that particular phrase was that I had in mind the notion of "too many cooks" spoiling the broth. Looking at it now, I can see, as I said, why you may have read it as being dismissive of him, which was not my intent.) I never intended to suggest that the formulation of policy, both political and military, at the highest level was not something that FBI was deeply involved in. Unlike, say, Winston Churchill, however, he seldom intervened in military minutiae. He didn't worry about the deployment of battalions, and he certainly didn't harass his field commanders or create a situation in which the Chiefs of Staff saw one of their functions to be keeping the head of state out of the day to day management of individual theaters. He assumed he had professional military people to run that side of things within the general guidelines formulated by the political leadership, which is, after all, the American tradition. There were several things that he did during the war which I wish he had done differently, of course. As you say, it's always possible to find errors or mistakes in a war of that size. One of the biggest, I think, was his misreading of his ability to "manage" Joseph Stalin, and I've never felt that it was politically wise of him to insist that Chiang Kai-shek ought to be considered a coequal partner, but those are both things which are far more evident from a perspective 60 years after the event than they were at the time. Where he did "meddle" with some significant ill effect was in his intervention in the assignment of naval building priorities, which is why I made the reference I made in my earlier post. Even there, what he did wasn't totally off the wall, so I'm not saying he was arbitrarily and ideologically shifting priorities. I'm only saying that the priorities he was pushing were not always the ones that Ernest King and Chester Nimitz would have preferred, and that they diverted significant industrial effort from genuinely decisive construction progress. Fortunately, there was more than enough industrial effort to go around.

As far as the Versailles Treaty having worked if the United States Senate (majority Republican) hadn't refused to ratify it, no one can disprove a negative. I, personally, think it wouldn't have mattered either way, and I'm inclined to think that way because the situation which left France alone to deal with a resurgent Germany became as dire as it did largely because of the terms the treaty itself contained. It was guaranteed to generate revanchist feeling on the part of the defeated parties, and if you're going to do that, then you really have to go whole hog -- the way the Allies did after World War II -- if you want to keep it from coming home to haunt you, and even if the Republicans had ratified everything in the Versailles treaty, that wasn't what was going to happen.

I'll forgive your indelicacy, if you don't mind my saying back to you that it's bullshit to say that the development of specific military capabilities isn't as much a political as a military question. It certainly is in the United States, at any rate. That's why we have, oh, civilian secretaries of defense, not to mention little things like committees in the Senate and the House with direct oversight of military affairs.

I won't argue that the military could have developed a far more effective counterinsurgency policy and posture than it did following the Vietnam war. I won't argue that there weren't people in the military who felt that way at the time, either. What I will say is that in a system in which the military is responsible to political direction and leadership, the politicians have the big stick. You say "instead they pushed an entirely conventional force, and politicians like Reagan, Bush, and Clinton gave them exactly what they asked for." That's absolutely correct, except for the "entirely conventional force." Special forces and counterinsurgency doctrine have always been something of a military stepchild, it's true, for a lot of reason on the including a "fight the last war over again" mentality on the part of many in the military. Never argued otherwise. I would say, however, that at least a part of the military leadership's position in pushing for conventional forces is that the military is supposed to plan for a worst-case scenario. Counterinsurgency forces cannot fight a high-intensity conflict; forces optimized to fight a high-intensity conflict cannot fight a counterinsurgency conflict well. I'll go farther and acknowledge that a force optimized for high-intensity conflict is going to make a lot of mistakes when it finds itself in a counterinsurgency situation. However, the primary function of the military pretty much requires that it adopt a pessimistic viewpoint when it assesses threats, and that it gear itself to respond to the more severe threat, not the less severe threat. That naturally biases military thinking towards developing a strategic posture and the weapon systems to defeat an opponent who could pose an immediate threat, and to put money (and please don't take the position that I'm saying our military has efficiently put money) into buying the "big ticket" items there won't be time to buy in a hurry if the penny drops. So things like counterinsurgency strategy, and brown-water strategy, automatically take second place when the military starts prioritizing. And there are always people in the military who scream that this is a mistake, because it genuinely is neglecting capabilities we're going to need -- and need badly -- some day. I never said that it wasn't a mistake; I said that it was inevitable, that it was natural, and that it reflects the military's most important single responsibility.

When I said that it was up to the political leadership to help shape military strategy and military postures, what I meant -- and what I thought I had both stated and implied -- is that it is up to the political leadership to set the policy goals of the nation, including foreign policy, which ultimately is supposed to provide the basis for the formulation of military policy. And it is also the political leadership's responsibility to oversee military policy and to point out when it appears to be . . . in noncompliance, shall we say, with the nation's stated foreign policy goals. And to manage the financial resources made available to the military. You specifically cited Reagan, Bush, and Clinton as giving them -- the military -- "exactly what they asked for. Even minor deviations from the military's image of what it wanted -- like the F-16 and A-10 -- were fought against tooth and nail by the military establishment."

First, the F-16 and A-10 were fought against tooth and nail by much of the military establishment, but not all of it. I think those who fought against it were wrong, and I will concede that they included an awful lot of people who were awful well-placed to kill programs. I would also argue that the opposition to the A-10, in particular, stemmed from what I've always felt was a really bad idea, which was giving control of tactical (ground support) aircraft and their development to the Air Force rather than leaving it with the Army. (I think it's bound to create a situation analogous to the one the Royal Navy faced before World War II, when the Royal Air Force have been responsible for aircraft procurement and development with the result that the specialized needs of naval aircraft had been pretty thoroughly ignored, and I think that's what happened in the case of the A-10. The Air Force's position is always been that it needed to build the very best fighter it could, and that it would figure out how to screw on napalm and bombs and antitank missiles later if it really had to.) I wish we'd bought a lot more A-10s, and there's not much question that you get a lot more air superiority capability for your dollar buying F-16s instead of F-15s, although the various upgrades to the basic platforms probably do tend to erase at least a significant portion of the economic advantage over the lifetime of the aircraft.

More importantly, however, even assuming that your statement is entirely accurate (and I think you have a very good case) and that Reagan, Bush, and Clinton gave the military "exactly what they asked for," my position is simply that there were plenty of people who were arguing for different priorities, and the political leadership didn't have to give the military "exactly what they asked for." (Of course, getting all those congressmen with defense contracts in their districts to go a lot of them might have been just a tad difficult. :-)) Which was my point. That in a representative democracy, those elected to govern have both the opportunity and responsibility to put their impress on military policies.

Jazzact13 --

Actually, what White Haven did was exactly what they do on Grayson. I believe there's actually a scene in which Honor points out that on Grayson it's the senior wife who normally presents the ring to the junior wife when a man marries a second or third wife. Some people have had serious problems with the relationship; other people have found it a natural and satisfying resolution to the situation I'd put these three people into. All I'll say is that marriage mores on Manticore are extremely flexible and run to all sorts of relationships. Hamish and Emily had married under a particularly restrictive (by the standards of many in their society) set of rules, and those rules had to be modified to accept the solution Reverend Sullivan put forth, but that particular form of relationship was by no means unheard of on Manticore well before Grayson ever came over the horizon.

I think you're right in your comment that "by definition, fiction is always at least somewhat unbelievable. The hero or heroes is/are usually idealized -- they embody the virtues the writer respects, often to a degree that most people may never see in real life." That's always going to be the case to at least some extent, I believe. To be completely honest, I'm less interested in giving my characters grievous weaknesses against which they must struggle as I am in exploring what people are capable of and the heights to which they can rise. As I've said before, Honor has gone rather farther in that respect than I originally had in mind, which is one reason I've been bringing forward other characters, like Aivars Terekhov and Mike Henke and Michael Oversteegen. And I'd argue that Honor's threat to Lester Tourville at the very end of "At All Costs" showed a fairly ugly side of her, as well. The problem, as I've said before, is that the reader knows why she did what she did and agrees with her (or doesn't, but if they don't, they probably don't like her anyway).

David

feldhake --

If you think YOU had trouble getting through "all the nonsense with Houseman," you should try it from my side. I happen to have a very good friend whose last name is Houseman, and who is considerably to the left of my own position, and I swear to you -- as I've sworn to him, on more than one occasion -- that I never, ever, even once, for a skinny New York minute had him in mind when I created Reginald Houseman. I didn't. I really, really didn't. (And if you think that the highly sympathetic -- and, I might point out, LIBERAL -- Ehdwyrd Howsmyn on Safehold is a belated effort to placate one Edward Houseman, I can only say that I am shocked -- SHOCKED -- that you would believe for a moment I might resort to such an obvious ploy.)

On a slightly more serious note, I deliberately structured Reginald Houseman to be the very worst version of a rabid, insufferably arrogant liberal politician I could, much as I've structured Michael Janvier (otherwise known as Baron High Ridge) to be about the slimiest, most self-serving, calculating, shortsighted, and fundamentally stupid elitist of a conservative politician I could come up with. I think part of the problem is that while, yes, I'm definitely not what you might call left-leaning in my own politics (and I've never tried to fool anyone about that, either; I believe in truth in advertising), readers tend to identify themselves in their own minds as falling at a particular point on the political spectrum. Having placed themselves there, they relate to fictitious politicians from that perspective. So if I create an idiot liberal politician and someone sees himself as essentially liberal, then I think he tends to see that particular idiot as even more of a caricature that I may have intended, and may also see him (the idiot politician) as being aimed much more directly at his (the reader's) actual beliefs. And to assume that I completely reject those beliefs.

As it happens, I was raised as just about as liberal a Democrat as anyone could find in the 1960s (in South Carolina, at any rate), by a Democratic father from Chicago and a Democratic mother from Ohio who was a founding member of the Greenville County Urban League in my hometown. My parents had Vernon Jordan as a houseguest when I was in high school. I have worked on political campaigns for liberal Democratic candidates in South Carolina, and back in the eighties when James Clyburn, who is now a Representative from the state of South Carolina (and a very liberal Democrat he is, too), was active in state government here in South Carolina, I worked with him and Phil Hungerford to do a survey of housing practices in the state, looking specifically for barriers to open housing, as part of a national HUD study program.

The reason I bring this up is simply to say that, in general, I am probably much more sympathetic to liberal perspectives than some people are prepared to believe. What I am NOT sympathetic to are people who adopt doctrinaire stances, put on their ideological blinkers, and refuse to even look at the other side. Politicians like that exist on both sides of the political spectrum. I've seen them in both of our major political parties here in the United States, and I've opposed them when I saw them. I'll happily concede that as I've grown older (and, no, I'm not going to say exactly how MUCH older), I've come more and more to appreciate Winston Churchill's statement that "If a man is not a Liberal at 20, he has no heart; if he is not a Conservative at 40, he has no brain." I'm not quite prepared to go so far as to say NO brain, but I do think that people have a tendency to move further to the right on the political spectrum as they grow older. I think that as often as not that's at least as much because the spectrum itself has shifted as because he himself has grown more conservative as he's gained in life experience and perspective. That is, a liberal position for a New Dealer from the 1930s would be seen as downright Reaganesque by the 1990s. And I also happen to think that we need ardently committed people at both ends of the political spectrum. I could wish that all of them spent more time talking TO each other and less time talking AT each other, but, hey, we live in the real world. :-)

Thank you for your kind words on the Safehold books. I'm enjoying writing them, and I hope people will go on enjoying reading them. I think you're right about Nimue-versus Honor in terms of the burdens they carry, on a lot of levels. I'm working hard at maintaining that "burden of immortality" on her part, and I hope you'll be satisfied with where the books finally go.

David