History Heartwarming / HonorHarrington

* Fleet Admiral Honor Harrington contemplating the top-level commanders of Grand Fleet just before the final run on Galton, and the note that "there was not a single officer at that table she would have replaced". The heartwarming really hits home, though, with the names of the three officers in charge of Task Force One, the Manticoran component of Grand Fleet -- Michelle Henke, Honor's dearest friend and "the one woman above all others [she] wanted at her side for this operation", as overall commander, with Alice Truman -- who has served with Honor since they first went to Grayson together in 1902 -- as commander of Task Group One. And in charge of Task Group Two? None other than ''Allen Higgins'', the man so traumatized by his wartime service that the treecats christened him "Shadow Heart" and gave him a mind-healer as a bodyguard. Not only did Higgins survive the EverybodyDiesEnding of ''Uncompromising Honor'', but he's recovered enough to take on one of the highest-level command slots in the entire Grand Alliance. No one could ''possibly'' deserve it more. Meanwhile, Task Group Three from Grayson is commanded by High Admiral Alfredo Yu. Yu led an invasion attempt against Grayson, defected to Manticore, was assigned to Grayson's navy as a captain, and worked his way up to being the senior officer in that navy. Graysons practice what they preach when it comes to redemption and forgiveness.

* Fleet Admiral Honor Harrington contemplating the top-level commanders of Grand Fleet just before the final run on Dalton, and the note that "there was not a single officer at that table she would have replaced". The heartwarming really hits home, though, with the names of the three officers in charge of Task Force One, the Manticoran component of Grand Fleet -- Michelle Henke, Honor's dearest friend and "the one woman above all others [she] wanted at her side for this operation", as overall commander, with Alice Truman -- who has served with Honor since they first went to Grayson together in 1902 -- as commander of Task Group One. And in charge of Task Group Two? None other than ''Allen Higgins'', the man so traumatized by his wartime service that the treecats christened him "Shadow Heart" and gave him a mind-healer as a bodyguard. Not only did Higgins survive the EverybodyDiesEnding of ''Uncompromising Honor'', but he's recovered enough to take on one of the highest-level command slots in the entire Grand Alliance. No one could ''possibly'' deserve it more.

* Fleet Admiral Honor Harrington contemplating the top-level commanders of Grand Fleet just before the final run on Dalton, and the note that "there was not a single officer at that table she would have replaced". The heartwarming really hits home, though, with the names of the three officers in charge of Task Force One, the Manticoran component of Grand Fleet -- Michelle Henke, Honor's dearest friend and "the one woman above all others [she] wanted at her side for this operation", as overall commander, with Alice Truman -- who has served with Honor since they first went to Grayson together -- as commander of Task Group One. And in charge of Task Group Two? None other than ''Allen Higgins'', the man so traumatized by his wartime service that the treecats christened him "Shadow Heart" and gave him a mind-healer as a bodyguard. Not only did Higgins survive the EverybodyDiesEnding of ''Uncompromising Honor'', but he's recovered enough to take on one of the highest-level command slots in the entire Grand Alliance. No one could ''possibly'' deserve it more.

* After Honor is injured stopping [[spoiler:the attempted assassination of Protector Mayhew]], most of those she interacts with - Grayson and Manticoran both - react with awkwardness or embarrassment at her scars. The one exception is the arch-reactionary Howard Clinkscales:

* A bit more violent than your typical Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but when [[spoiler:Honor's lover]] had been killed, her friends in the Manticoran Navy -- including an ''Admiral'', of all people, Admiral Mark Sarnow, Honor's CO at Hancock, who instigates the whole thing -- conceive and perform an op disguised as a training exercise for the sole purpose of tracking down the killer. This move was highly illegal and would have cost everyone involved their careers if found out. They did it anyway.
* When [[spoiler:Paul Tankersley]] is killed, Honor receives a number of letters of condolence from her friends and connections -- including Dame Estelle Matsuko, Resident Commissioner of the Basilisk System, whom she last worked with in ''On Basilisk Station''. Even though they haven't seen each other for years, Honor made enough of an impression on Dame Estelle for the commissioner to reach out to her -- and Honor is grateful to hear from her.

** Totally ''annihilate'' a brutal pirate ship and [[spoiler:rescue the two Manticoran {{MauveShirt}}s that appear at the beginning of the book]].
** Attack three more pirate ships in order to save a Manticoran merchant vessel from them. [[spoiler:When it turns out that the merchant vessel is Honor's Q-ship, she captures the ''Vaubon'', but also extends her personal thanks and congratulations to its crew. [[PetTheDog Awwwww.]]]] And at the very end of the book [[spoiler: she gives them a cover story to explain why they did it]].

* The first reunion between Honor and [[spoiler:Andrew [=LaFollet=]]], when she hugs him for the first time in the series, is beautiful:

Montoya started to stand, his face distressed, but someone else's arms reached out to support her. Nimitz spilled from her chest, lying beside her, and she pulled her right hand from Montoya's. Her arm went out, and the pain still rippling through her meant nothing at all as she hugged [[spoiler:Andrew [=LaFollet=]]] with all the fierce strength in her wasted frame.

* There's a surprisingly amount of in-depth discussion about the morality of various method's of providing an heir to Honor's steading. Chiefly the idea of the elder Harringtons having more kids to serve thia role and whether this would be fair to the child if they felt they had only been bred for the job not because they were wanted.

* Following this when Allison goes to see Reverend Sullivan about the results of her medical research. He hand serves her tea and not just tea, her favourite rare Beowulfian tea to boot, no easy task to get it just to set her at ease.

* Honor's return from [[spoiler:being believed dead for two years]] is a string of heartwarming moments one after another. And, for extra heartwarming, it's Christmas.

* "Oops." It was Shannon's revenge for all she went through, and that she got promoted between this book and the next to Vice Admiral, and put in charge of [[spoiler: Bolthole, the RHN's lead R&D site]].

* The aftermath of the [[spoiler:Theisman]] Coup, and [[spoiler:Eloise Pritchart]]'s revelation of the one thing [[spoiler:Thomas Theisman]] demanded of her before he handed her the Presidency on a silver platter: that she prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was just as committed to the restoration of the old Republic and Michèle Péricard's original Constitution as he was. She passed the test with flying colours, and now, for the first time in two centuries, Haven's guiding hands are those of two people who love her more than life. Despite all the heartache and bloodshed still to come, for the first time, what was once an "interstellar Athens" has a fighting chance to become just that once again.

* [[spoiler:Howard Clinkscales' funeral and the aftermath]], when Honor creates the legal equivalent of blood bonds between her family and [[spoiler:the Clinkscales family]].
* The epilogue: [[spoiler:the story ''David and the Phoenix'' being read by Honor to her young siblings and her own child. The story is not only beautiful, but a ready made allusion to the state of the empire]].

* Honor explaining her choice of her son's armsman. Her choice gets vindicated in ''Mission of Honor'' during [[spoiler:the Oyster Bay terrorist attack, in what serves as a DyingMomentOfAwesome for Andrew [=LaFollet=]]].

* Eloise Pritchart clinging to Tom Theisman's hand as she agonises over the decision to [[spoiler:launch Operation Beatrice]]. Given all the heartbreak they had both been through up until that point -- and wound up going through in the future, despite the decision to launch being the least awful of a number of terrible options -- to see this friendship born in fire blossoming into something true and lovely and ''real'' is just gorgeous. For all that the Second Manticoran-Havenite War was something of a military holocaust, their relationship is proof positive that out of even the driest ashes, something beautiful can bloom.

* [[spoiler:Eloise Pritchart and Elizabeth Winton]] thrashing out twelve books' worth of [[spoiler:issues between the Republic and the Star Kingdom, then committing to a military alliance]]. Twenty years and a dozen novels had been leading up to that moment, and to see the payoff, after all the heartache ''both'' sides have been through, was astoundingly beautiful.

* Thomas Theisman firmly putting a stop to Honor's self-pity party after she's forced to [[spoiler:utterly annihilate Filareta's command]]. He understands her ''so'' well, and after so long having to fight someone they each truly respect, to see them working together not just as comrades-in-arms but as ''friends'' is unbelievably beautiful.

* When the Solarians come to attack Hypatia, Admiral Kotouč could have stayed back in the face of overwhelming opposition (the Solarians have an almost 20-to-1 superiority in ships). The Hypatians would not have blamed him. And yet, when it becomes obvious that the Solarians are going to destroy all of Hypatia's space infrastructure [[MoralEventHorizon even though there's more than six million people there that cannot be evacuated in time]], [[HeroicSacrifice the Admiral leads nearly all of his ships into what amounts to be a suicide run]] just for the chance to allow the Hypatians to evacuate more people. [[spoiler:Not only does he succeed in the task - even if it leads to the destruction of his attacking ships, his last ship's commander manages to force the Solarians to back off - and both Kotouč and said commander's fiancé, who was on one of the ships in the attack, manage to survive.]]
* A minor one, but Admiral Allen Higgins, [[TheWoobie who was forced to destroy an entire fleet of pod-laying dreadnoughts at Grendelsbane, then had to watch]] [[spoiler:Oyster Bay]] [[TheWoobie rip apart the star system he was assigned to protect]], is now on the Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff, and is working tirelessly to smooth over problems between the constituent services of the Grand Alliance. His treecat protector is even stated to secretly be a "mind-healer", a sort of telepathic therapist. After being tread on for so many books, the fact that he is beginning to have a change of fortune is worth an entry here.

* [[spoiler:In the aftermath of Beowulf's main habitats destruction, with more than 43 million dead people, Honor is left wracked between the fury against the Alignment and the League and the pain of losing so many friends as well as Hamish (who was in Beowulf Alpha) and Emily (who suffered a deadly attack after learning of Hamish's death), taking it against the Solarian League's capital system. Just before her ultimatum against them ends, Hamish arrives, miraculously alive, and Honor nearly collapses into his arms in the grief and joy of still having him.]]

* Jack [=McBryde=] and Herlander Simeos' relationship as it builds over the course of the novel. The latter is a researcher that had his daughter killed as a result of Mesan machinations. The former is a former Mesan field agent tasked to monitor the latter and make sure he stays functional. Instead, they become close friends, and Jack eventually does everything he can[[spoiler:, including giving his own life]] to ensure his friend can get an opportunity for vengeance in a way even Herlander couldn't have come up with.

* Michelle Henke's reverent reflection on [[spoiler:Raoul Alexander-Harrington's]] birth (in ''At All Costs''), and what it felt like to [[spoiler:share that moment with her best friend]].

* The end of ''I Will Build My House of Steel'' has [[TheHighQueen Queen Elizabeth]] being woken up by Sir Thomas Caparelli to inform her of Admiral White Haven's [[CurbStompBattle victory at Barnett.]] He opines that the Star Kingdom will be in a position to [[ForegoneConclusion dictate terms to Haven in the next four to six months.]] [[StiffUpperLip She thanks him levelly]], and allows him to return to work. Then, in the middle of the night, alone but for her treecat Ariel, the Queen of Manticore descends to her family crypt to visit her father's grave. She reflects on the sacrifices made and traces her fingers over his [[TitleDrop epitaph]], letting her tears finally fall free.

* The entirety of the relationship between Eloise Pritchart and Javier Giscard. The series has surprisingly few prominent romances, and this one in particular is a shining example of two people finding love in darkness and using it to accomplish an extraordinary end. Not even [[spoiler:the tragedy of Giscard's death]] can take away what they accomplished together, and [[spoiler:Lovat or no Lovat]], their love story will [[spoiler:never end]].
* After [[spoiler: twenty years of fighting ends with the Grand Alliance]], Vice Admiral Shannon Foraker's friendship with Admiral [[spoiler: Sonja Hemphill]]. Given [[BreakTheCutie everything]] Shannon's been through (StateSec, The Vaubon Disaster, everything leading up to "Oops), it's nice to see [[PetTheDog good things]] like [[spoiler:Bolthole]] and [[spoiler: [[BirdsOfAFeather Sonja]] (with her [[RivalsTeamUp R&D team]]) heading Shannon's way. ]]Thank you, Admiral Foraker for everything you've done for the People's Navy and the Republic of Haven's Navy, to let us get to this point.

* After [[spoiler: twenty years of fighting ends with the Grand Alliance]], Vice Admiral Shannon Foraker's friendship with Admiral [[spoiler: Sonja Hemphill]]. Given [[BreakTheCutie everything]] Shannon's been through (StateSec, The Vaubon Disaster, everything leading up to "Oops), it's nice to see [[PetTheDog good things]] like [[spoiler:Bolthole]] and [[spoiler: [[BirdsOfAFeather Sonja]] (with her [[RivalsTeamUp R&D team]]) heading Shannon's way. ]]Thank you, Admiral Foraker for everything you've done for the People's Navy and the Republic of Haven's Navy, to let us get to this point.

*** ''David and the Phoenix'' is a [[http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/27922 real book]], as it happens.

* After [[spoiler: twenty years of fighting ends with the Grand Alliance]], Vice Admiral Shannon Foraker's friendship with Admiral Sonja Hemphill. Given [[BreakTheCutie everything]] Shannon's been through (StateSec, The Vaubon Disaster, everything leading up to "Oops), it's nice to see [[PetTheDog good things]] like [[spoiler:Bolthole]] and [[BirdsOfAFeather Sonja]] (with her [[RivalsTeamUp R&D team]]) heading Shannon's way. Thank you, Admiral Foraker for everything you've done for the People's Navy and the Republic of Haven's Navy, to let us get to this point.

* The entirety of the relationship between Eloise Pritchart and Javier Giscard. The series has surprisingly few prominent romances, and this one in particular is a shining example of two people finding love in darkness and using it to accomplish an extraordinary end. Not even [[spoiler:the tragedy of Giscard's death]] can take away what they accomplished together, and [[spoiler:Lovat or no Lovat]], their love story will [[spoiler:never end]].

* For this troper, Oops. It was Shannon's revenge for all she went through, and that she got promoted between this book and the next to Vice Admiral, and put in charge of [[spoiler: Bolthole, the RHN's lead R&D site]].

* Fleet Admiral Honor Harrington contemplating the top-level commanders of Grand Fleet just before the final run on Dalton, and the note that "there was not a single officer at that table she would have replaced". The heartwarming really hits home, though, with the names of the three officers in charge of Task Force One, the Manticoran component of Grand Fleet -- Michelle Henke, Honor's dearest friend and "the one woman above all others [she] wanted at her side for this operation", as overall commander, with Alice Truman -- who has served with Honor since they first went to Grayson together -- as commander of Task Group One. And in charge of Task Group Two? None other than ''Allen Higgins'', the man so traumatized by his wartime service that the treecats christened him "Shadow Heart" and gave him a mind-healer as a bodyguard. Not only did Higgins survive the EverybodyDiesEnding of Beowulf Alpha in ''Uncompromising Honor'', but he's recovered enough to take on one of the highest-level command slots in the entire Grand Alliance. No one could ''possibly'' deserve it more.

* There is something impossibly sweet about this bit of narration regarding Michelle Henke, who is laughing to herself about how, as much as she loves Honor, she ''refuses'' to "grow up" that much. It's a quiet recognition of the fact that, OvershadowedByAwesome as she might be, Michelle is also one hell of a commander in her own right.

---> '''Captain Ito Anders''': ''"...to be honest, she's always had something of a reputation to live down. She hasn't been fortunate in her commanding officers. I'm not going to add to that reputation. In fact, I'm going to clean it up properly at last."

--> '''Yours is the honor'''

* A minor one, but Admiral Allen Higgins, [[TheWoobie who was forced to destroy an entire fleet of pod-laying dreadnoughts at Grendelsbane, then had to watch Oyster Bay rip apart the star system he was assigned to protect]], is now on the Allied Joint Chiefs of Staff, and is working tirelessly to smooth over problems between the constituent services of the Grand Alliance. His treecat protector is even stated to secretly be a "mind-healer", a sort of telepathic therapist. After being tread on for so many books, the fact that he is beginning to have a change of fortune is worth an entry here.

** Treecats are seen as important as any other member of the crew, Bosun Sally McBride goes to some effort to rescue Samantha, Nimitz's mate, who is locked in a life support module in Honor's quarters because 'she's the only crewman still trapped.

* Jack Mcbryde and Herlander Simeos' relationship as it builds over the course of the novel. The latter is a researcher that had his daughter killed as a result of Mesan machinations. The former is a former Mesan field agent tasked to monitor the latter and make sure he stays functional. Instead, they become close friends, and Jack eventually does everything he can[[spoiler:, including giving his own life]] to ensure his friend can get an opportunity for vengeance in a way even Herlander couldn't have come up with.

%%[[AC:''Torch of Freedom'']]
* Jack McBride and Herlander Simeos' relationship as it builds over the course of the novel. The latter is a researcher that had his daughter killed as a result of Mesan machinations. The former is a former Mesan field agent tasked to monitor the latter and make sure he stays functional. Instead, they become close friends, and Jack eventually does everything he can[[spoiler:, including giving his own life]] to ensure his friend can get an opportunity for vengeance in a way even Herlander couldn't have come up with.

* As a result of the Battle of Monica, the HMS ''Warlock'' is placed on the List of Honor meaning that, even after the current ''Warlock'' is scrapped, its name and accolades will live on in another ship. The reason this is heartwarming is because ''Warlock'' was Pavel Young's ship up until he was discharged and, until that point, its reputation had been stained by its former captain's actions.

* In the aftermath of Honor's near [[MutualKill]] with a peep battlecruiser@
** Despite being certain they're all dead, Honor and Rafe don't give and rally and organise the crew to keep them busy and get everyone together, so at the very least no-one will die alone.
** Treecats are seen as important as any other member of the crew, Bosun Sally McBride goes to some effort to rescue Samantha, Nimitz's mate, who is locked in a life support module in Honor's quarters because 'she's the only crewman still trapped.
** Having a pinnace left they collect all the survivors from the Peep battlecruiser, so they can all work together to survive and sort out who's whose prisoner later.
** At Hauptmann's prompting no-less, the LAC squadron guarding the liner they were protecting disobeys orders to go back and find the wreck and rescue Honor and her crew.

* After Honor's injured stopping the attempted assassination of Protector Mayhew, most of those she interacts with - Grayson and Manticoran both - react with awkwardness or embarrassment at her scars. The one exception is the arch-reactionary Howard Clinkscales:

* A bit more violent than your typical Crowning Moment of Heartwarming, but when Honor's lover had been killed, her friends in the Manticoran Navy -- including an ''Admiral'', of all people, Admiral Mark Sarnow, Honor's CO at Hancock, who instigates the whole thing -- conceive and perform an op disguised as a training exercise for the sole purpose of tracking down the killer. This move was highly illegal and would have cost everyone involved their careers if found out. They did it anyway.
* When Paul Tankersley is killed, Honor receives a number of letters of condolence from her friends and connections -- including Dame Estelle Matsuko, Resident Commissioner of the Basilisk System, whom she last worked with in ''On Basilisk Station''. Even though they haven't seen each other for years, Honor made enough of an impression on Dame Estelle for the commissioner to reach out to her -- and Honor is grateful to hear from her.

* Honor's return from being believed dead for two years is a string of heartwarming moments one after another. And, for extra heartwarming, it's Christmas.

* The aftermath of the Theisman Coup, and Eloise Pritchart's revelation of the one thing Thomas Theisman demanded of her before he handed her the Presidency on a silver platter: that she prove beyond the shadow of a doubt that she was just as committed to the restoration of the old Republic and Michèle Péricard's original Constitution as he was. She passed the test with flying colours, and now, for the first time in two centuries, Haven's guiding hands are those of two people who love her more than life. Despite all the heartache and bloodshed still to come, for the first time, what was once an "interstellar Athens" has a fighting chance to become just that once again.

* When the Solarians come to attack Hypatia, Admiral Kotouč could have stayed back in the face of overwhelming opposition (the Solarians have an almost 20-to-1 superiority in ships). The Hypatians would not have blamed him. And yet, when it becomes obvious that the Solarians are going to destroy all of Hypatia's space infrastructure [[MoralEventHorizon even though there's more than six million people there that cannot be evacuated in time]], [[HeroicSacrifice the Admiral leads nearly all of his ships into what amounts to be a death trap]] just for the chance to give the Hypatians more time to carry out their evacuation. [[spoiler:Not only does he succeed in the task, his last ship's commander manages to force the Solarians to back off - and both Kotouč and said commander's fiancé, who was on one of the ships in the attack, manage to survive.]]
* Anton Zilwicki reuniting with Thandi Palane and Victor Cachat at Mesa.

* Following this when Allison goes to see Reverend Sullivan about the results of her medical research. He hand serves her tea and not just tea, her favourite rare beowulfian tea to boot, no easy task to get it just to set her at ease.

* [[spoiler:In the aftermath of Beowulf's main habitats destruction, with more than 43 million dead people, Honor is left wracked between the fury against the Alignment and the League and the pain of losing so many friends as well as Hamish (who was in Beowulf) and Emily (who suffered a deadly attack after learning of Hamish's death), taking it against the Solarian League's capital system. Just before her ultimatum against them ends, Hamish arrives, miraculously alive, and Honor nearly collapses into his arms in the grief and joy of still having him.]]

[[AC: ''Cauldron of Ghosts'']]
* Just before Anton leaves Mesa to go get help, he and Victor are able, for the first time, to say just how very much they mean to each other. This is a TearJerker as well because, at that moment, the overwhelming odds are that they'll never see one another again.

* When the Solarians come to attack Hypatia, Admiral Kotouč could have stayed back in the face of overwhelming opposition (the Solarians have an almost 20-to-1 superiority in ships). The Hypatians could not have blamed him. And yet, when it becomes obvious that the Solarians are going to destroy all of Hypatia's space infrastructure [[MoralEventHorizon even though there's close to twenty million people there that cannot be evacuated in time]], [[HeroicSacrifice the Admiral leads nearly all of his ships into what amounts to be a death trap]] just for the chance to give the Hypatians more time to carry out their evacuation. [[spoiler:Not only does he succeed in the task, his last ship's commander manages to force the Solarians to back off - and both Kotouč and said commander's fiancé, who was on one of the ships in the attack, manage to survive.]]