Honor Harrington's Aristocratic Style

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

penny wrote:PPS I yield on the issue about the food. Not about the two becoming roomies by chance.

I don't think it was left completely to chance, but I don't think it was preordained either.

Let's say that every class year of the Academy had 150 young women applying as cadets. I don't think the pool of those who would have been in the selection lottery for Michelle would be 149. But I also think it was much higher than 5. It would probably be around 50.

Palace security would have done vetting alongside the Academy's. I don't suppose that anyone who would have failed Palace security would have been allowed at the Academy in the first place. Or, put another way, Palace vetting would be reviewing the results from the Academy and simply agreeing with their methods and means.

Where they may have participated is in excluding those cadets who would clearly try to incur favour with the Royal Family, because that would lead very quickly to Mike asking to be assigned a new roommate. Other than that, I don't think there was any finger on th scale. Imagine what would happen if Mike found out that the Palace had selected her roommate! She has the Winton stubbornness gene, after all.

Now that I think about it, could either of Honor's parents have pulled a few strings? Well, mostly I'm talking about Alfred, since he was in the navy at the time? But I don't wish to rule out the possibility that Alison may have had a little influence as well.

I admit, I'm having a hard time accepting the coincidence thing. Anyway, a fly on the wall their first night in the room.

penny wrote:Now that I think about it, could either of Honor's parents have pulled a few strings? Well, mostly I'm talking about Alfred, since he was in the navy at the time? But I don't wish to rule out the possibility that Alison may have had a little influence as well.

I admit, I'm having a hard time accepting the coincidence thing. Anyway, a fly on the wall their first night in the room.

Alfred, being a Navy officer, may have had a line to the Island administration and could have asked a few favours. But I don't think he did: why should either he or Allison think they needed to do anything? What would their motivation be? Of course they want the best to their daughter, but what possible benefit would they try to gain from preselecting her roommate?

Honor didn't have a high opinion of aristrocrats and by extensions the royals (she didn't think down on them, but she didn't put them up in a pedestal) because her parents taught her this way. So no one in that family would have thought that pairing Honor with an aristocrat, let alone a Winton, would be beneficial to her career or personal life.

In fact, it's very likely this pairing actually hindered Honor. Mike would have been approached by a lot of people who tried to incur favour with her family. Mike herself would have been equipped to deal with them and just dismiss them, but Honor would not. Honor must have been approached by those who wanted access indirectly to Mike.

Mike also sabotaged her own career by refusing anything that even smelled of nepotism and overdoing so. In doing so, she set the wrong example to Honor. Comparing to Mike's lacklustre progress, Honor may not have noticed that she was a victim of Young's shenanigans.

We actually know that Mike benefited professionally from that friendship more than Honor did.

penny wrote:Now that I think about it, could either of Honor's parents have pulled a few strings? Well, mostly I'm talking about Alfred, since he was in the navy at the time? But I don't wish to rule out the possibility that Alison may have had a little influence as well.

I admit, I'm having a hard time accepting the coincidence thing. Anyway, a fly on the wall their first night in the room.

I agree that it hasn't been purely random in case of Michelle. The academy (maybe in cooperation with palace security, or discretely asking Michelles parents) would have ruled out some candidates, narrowing the pool. No aristocrats, no people with conflicting political views (e. G. openly anti-monarchy), no people with a shady backround (but not shady enough to deny them access at all, like people who have a clean slate, but happen to have criminals in their family etc.). And most probably no males paired with females.

Of the remaining candidates, a commoner from Sphinx with good grades at school, a treecat (Michelle has experience with treecats) and a parent with Navy background (so she can be assumed to know what she has let herself in for, and won't quit after a few weeks) looks like a nice gut choice when pickin a candidate from the pool. And it doesn't look like a special choice, so it can still be sold as a "random choice" to anyone suspecting favoritism.

But I don't think that someone on Honors side pulled any strings, nor that the Queen or Michelle have been personally involved. The Queen has more important things to do than to care about the roommate of her niece, as long as there are no problems (she can rely on palace security, and the Academy administration to sort it out, Michelle's not the first royal cadet). And Michelle would have outright rejected anything even remotely resembling favoritism.

My father once told me ...

"Never let anyone pee on your head, son."

"Eww, why would I let someone pee on my head dad!?"

"That's not the question son."

"Well what's the question then!?"

"Why would you let them tell you it's raining."

Hmmm…

If we requested Honor's SAT scores, what would we expect to find?

I would expect to discover that she scored in the top 12% at the Academy, while simultaneously scoring the lowest acceptable grade ever on the Math section. How can that be?

It is possible if she got a perfect score on every other section. She did, Honor is very learned. But! Imagine she managed perfect scores in Tactics and a perfect score in Strategy. She did.

A perfect score in either category, let alone Tactics or Strategy, may have put Honor on someones radar. And that anonymous somebody took a vested interest in the Crown's future and pulled a few strings. Notice I said Crown’s future?

Nobody would have ever scored anywhere NEAR a perfect score in either Tactics or Strategy in the history of the Academy.

Here's how I think it went down.

"You've got to see these SAT scores! I think we have a perfect candidate from Sphinx!"

"Perfect candidate? There's no such thing as a perfect candidate? What is her Math scores?"

"Well, spit it out man."

"425."

"425? Out of a possible 400 - 800? She barely makes the cut. I'm not interested."

"She got a perfect score in Tactics and a perfect score in Strategy. A perfect score in Data Acquisition. A perfect score in Problem Solving. A perfect score in English. A perfect score in History … you can stop me any time sir … sir … sir …"

"A PERFECT SCORE IN TACTICS AND STRATEGY???"

"Perfect."

"Give me that file! I'll take it from here!"

FYI:

Robert E. Lee and Douglas MacArthur had the second- and third-highest scores at graduation in the history of the United States Military Academy. The highest scorer, Charles Mason, resigned from the US Army two years after graduating from West Point.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Honor didn't have a high opinion of aristrocrats and by extensions the royals (she didn't think down on them, but she didn't put them up in a pedestal) because her parents taught her this way. So no one in that family would have thought that pairing Honor with an aristocrat, let alone a Winton, would be beneficial to her career or personal life.

Weren't you the one that compared the Sphinx yeomanry to the Gryphon Highlanders? If so, then you should have remembered that royalty, particularly the Queen, were the exception. In From the Highlands:

For a moment, Anton's eyes seem to smolder. Gryphon highlanders had chosen a different political course than Peep's Dolists—like Anton himself, they were fierce Crown Loyalists down to the newborn babes—but no highlander had any difficulty understanding the fury of the underdog. Over the centuries, highlanders had had their own bitter experience with Manticore's aristocracy.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Honor didn't have a high opinion of aristrocrats and by extensions the royals (she didn't think down on them, but she didn't put them up in a pedestal) because her parents taught her this way. So no one in that family would have thought that pairing Honor with an aristocrat, let alone a Winton, would be beneficial to her career or personal life.

tlb wrote:Weren't you the one that compared the Sphinx yeomanry to the Gryphon Highlanders? If so, then you should have remembered that royalty, particularly the Queen, were the exception.

I did, so that's a fair criticism.

I think the sentence I put in parentheses is more correct then: they neither looked up to nor down on royalty or aristocrats. Those are simply "people." So no reason to try and get Honor an aristocrat or royal roommate. And many reasons not to want that. Plus, Mike was neither "Princess" nor the heir apparent to the Earldom of Gold Peak, so barring untimely deaths, she would inherit no title at all.

Requesting a room-mate that is ok with a treecat, sure. But I don't think they even had to request that: after Queen Adrienne, the Academy probably does that on its own initiative.

I suppose the Academy does have some algorithm running that attempts to pair room mates that would complement each other and help each other succeed. Pairing a shy, treecat-bonded from outside the Manticore planet with a Manticore-born, treecat-accepting mate with a thriving social life sounds like something Academy psychologists may want to try. At least, it's better than trying to give everyone exactly the same number of calories despite their metabolic needs to see if this engenders a spirit of camaraderie...

Neither Honor nor Mike would have been the only choices for those selections for each other. If you made the selection to restrictive, it wouldn't match anyone with anyone, and you'd never have different data to improve your selections in the future. But if you've reduced to 6 or 10 people in each match group, then the chances of this being the pairing that got selected are much better.

ThinksMarkedly wrote:

ThinksMarkedly wrote:Honor didn't have a high opinion of aristrocrats and by extensions the royals (she didn't think down on them, but she didn't put them up in a pedestal) because her parents taught her this way. So no one in that family would have thought that pairing Honor with an aristocrat, let alone a Winton, would be beneficial to her career or personal life.

tlb wrote:Weren't you the one that compared the Sphinx yeomanry to the Gryphon Highlanders? If so, then you should have remembered that royalty, particularly the Queen, were the exception.

I did, so that's a fair criticism.

I think the sentence I put in parentheses is more correct then: they neither looked up to nor down on royalty or aristocrats. Those are simply "people." So no reason to try and get Honor an aristocrat or royal roommate. And many reasons not to want that. Plus, Mike was neither "Princess" nor the heir apparent to the Earldom of Gold Peak, so barring untimely deaths, she would inherit no title at all.

Requesting a room-mate that is ok with a treecat, sure. But I don't think they even had to request that: after Queen Adrienne, the Academy probably does that on its own initiative.

I suppose the Academy does have some algorithm running that attempts to pair room mates that would complement each other and help each other succeed. Pairing a shy, treecat-bonded from outside the Manticore planet with a Manticore-born, treecat-accepting mate with a thriving social life sounds like something Academy psychologists may want to try. At least, it's better than trying to give everyone exactly the same number of calories despite their metabolic needs to see if this engenders a spirit of camaraderie...

Neither Honor nor Mike would have been the only choices for those selections for each other. If you made the selection to restrictive, it wouldn't match anyone with anyone, and you'd never have different data to improve your selections in the future. But if you've reduced to 6 or 10 people in each match group, then the chances of this being the pairing that got selected are much better.

Robart_A_Woodward brought up the wild card that is the treecat, whereas I must admit quite possibly isn't such a wildcard. As a matter of fact, as I ponder the notion, as many of you are correct to point out, Honor is not the first genie who has a very high metabolism, but she quite possibly is the only one who is bonded in the entire Academy during her stay. And the fact that Michelle has experience with treecats might have sealed the deal. And that, as they say, might have been that. But I also, as opined upstream, think Honor's SAT scores may have put her on someones radar as well. Can we say Courvosier?

Anyway, the Royal family has to marry a Commoner. But, as I read on the wiki, is there a penalty if they choose not to? Will the marriage be annulled? What exactly would happen if a royal member does marry royalty?

Also, the wiki mentions morgantic marriages. Is that a thing on Manticore?

Wiki:

Morganatic marriage, sometimes called a left-handed marriage,[1] is a marriage between people of unequal social rank, which in the context of royalty or other inherited title prevents the principal's position or privileges being passed to the spouse, or any children born of the marriage. The concept is most prevalent in German-speaking territories and countries most influenced by the customs of the German-speaking realms.


Charles Ferdinand, Prince of Capua (top), with his morganatic wife, the Anglo-Irish commoner Penelope Smyth (left), and their daughter, Vittoria (right).
Generally, this is a marriage between a man of high birth (such as from a reigning, deposed or mediatised dynasty) and a woman of lesser status (such as a daughter of a low-ranked noble family or a commoner).[2][3] Usually, neither the bride nor any children of the marriage has a claim on the bridegroom's succession rights, titles, precedence, or entailed property. The children are considered legitimate for all other purposes and the prohibition against bigamy applies.[3][4] In some countries, a woman could also marry a man of lower rank morganatically. As a result of the above, a king deciding to enter into a morganatic marriage who does not have children from a previous marriage thereby gives up the chance of being succeeded by his own children[clarification needed] and accepts that succession would pass to his other relatives.

penny wrote:Anyway, the Royal family has to marry a Commoner. But, as I read on the wiki, is there a penalty if they choose not to? Will the marriage be annulled? What exactly would happen if a royal member does marry royalty?

Also, the wiki mentions morgantic marriages. Is that a thing on Manticore?

There's no mention of morgantic marriages that that I can recall in the books, and that word doesn't appear. I personally doubt the concept exists on Manticore -- not with the requirement for the heir to marry a commoner. Plus I don't think the original nobles would have wanted to restrict their personal choice that way.

Also, it's not "the royal family" which must marry a commoner. RFC clarified in some posts here that the constitutional requirement applies only to the (current) heir.

runsforcelery wrote:The heir to the throne is required to marry a commoner; there have been references in the books to the fact that individuals who were not the heir at the time of their marriage and married someone from the nobility is not required to divorce his/her current spouse and marry again. The Constitution accepts that there will/may be occasions upon which the heir dies without producing an heir of his/her own with a commoner spouse but does not require someone who isn't heir to defer his/her marriage until the heir marries "just in case."

So if the 'spare' wanted to marry a noble that'd be just fine -- even if something happened and they became the heir (or the Crown) afterward that pre-existing noble marriage would be perfectly constitutional.

RFC hasn't specified what the penalty for violating that constitutional requirement would be. My personal suspicion would be that violating it would just abdicate the heirs position in the line of succession. (the heir shall marry only a commoner; you married nobility and therefore you are not the heir).

But their constitution might not spell out an explicit penalty for violating its requirement -- after all the US one lists thinks like requirements for various offices but doesn't say what happens if someone manages to run of, or get elected / appointed, to one without meeting all the requirements. The situation would presumably have to go to the courts to try to compel their removal for said office -- but it's unclear if there is, or could be, any penalty beyond that. (Unless some supporting law exists specifying penalties for violation of the requirements)

penny wrote:Robart_A_Woodward brought up the wild card that is the treecat, whereas I must admit quite possibly isn't such a wildcard. As a matter of fact, as I ponder the notion, as many of you are correct to point out, Honor is not the first genie who has a very high metabolism, but she quite possibly is the only one who is bonded in the entire Academy during her stay.

In her year-class, yes, I think so. Treecats weren't that common outside of Sphinx. But the other classes may have had one or more treecats.

And the fact that Michelle has experience with treecats might have sealed the deal. And that, as they say, might have been that. But I also, as opined upstream, think Honor's SAT scores may have put her on someones radar as well. Can we say Courvosier?

Michelle wouldn't have been the only one with experience with treecats. There would be other Sphinxian natives who might have even more experience than she did. But if you start adding more qualifications, like I posited (like pairing Manticore-born with non-Manticore-born), then the pool shrinks dramatically.

Anyway, the Royal family has to marry a Commoner. But, as I read on the wiki, is there a penalty if they choose not to? Will the marriage be annulled? What exactly would happen if a royal member does marry royalty?

Only the heir has to. Michelle had no such obligation, nor did her older brother (if the objective was to get him to meet Honor). Neither of them were ever in their life the heir apparent. That probably passed from Princess Caitrin (their mother) to Princess Elizabeth when she was born, then from when Beth became Queen that passed to Prince Michael her brother, until Prince Roger was born.

We don't know what happens if they do marry a noble against what the Constitution asks for. The only case we know is when an unmarried person ascends to the throne: they are not forced to marry at all -- that was Queen Elizabeth II's case, though she was actually a widow.