History Heartwarming / VorkosiganSaga

** To elaborate - [[spoiler: Mark is a clone of Miles created by enemies of the family to kill and replace Miles in order to get at Aral. Mark rebels and at the age of 21 or so is adopted into the family, well...yeah. In this scene, just two years later, a friend of Aral's starts complaining about "your son," and Aral's first reaction is to ask "which one?"]] To be sure, he'd ''deliberately'' referred to Mark that way before; ''this'' was totally offhand. Considering Kou ''was'' referring to Mark, it's doubly heartwarming.

** To elaborate - [[spoiler: Mark is a clone of Miles created by enemies of the family to kill and replace Miles in order to get at Aral. Mark rebels and at the age of 21 or so is adopted into the family, well...yeah. In this scene, just two years later, a friend of Aral's starts complaining about "your son," and Aral's first reaction is to ask "which one?"]] To be sure, he'd ''deliberately'' referred to Mark that way before; ''this'' was totally offhand.

* When Baron Fell briefly become Georish Stauber and thanks Mark sincerely for helping him by killing his older brother (who tried to kill him). Later, Georish bids his sister goodbye after 80 plus years, reminiscing about escaping Ryoval together (through sewers no less). The farewells are edged, but still sincere.

* Ivan's ToughLove via ice bath shortly after Miles [[spoiler: gets fired from ImpSec and goes into a nearly suicidal funk]] is pretty damned touching for anyone who's been in a similar situation on either side.

** Even better is when Miles returns to the same village years later and finds that the poverty-stricken backwater has been transformed into a thriving community, and the mother of the murdered infant is now a teacher at the newly-built school.

** Even the antagonists of ''A Civil Campaign'' bear this theme out. Venal and corrupt as they are, they're cartoonishly harmless compared to people like Vordarian the Pretender and so are their actions. It's considered a horrific, political-career-ending-on-the-spot thing in ACC when one Vor Lord is caught sending several thugs to inflict a painful and humiliating yet entirely survivable beating on another; thirty years ago, a similar family feud would have been fortunate to ''merely'' involve grenade launchers as opposed to full-on civil war.

* Two from ''Ethan of Athos'':

* When Miles first meets Mark - a clone he had no idea existed who, as far as he knows, is a willing part of the conspiracy to kill and replace him - his first response is to work out what Mark's name should be and call him brother. Even as Miles is being dragged away to be tortured.
--> Your name is Mark Pierre.

* In ''Mirror Dance'', Mark finds an unfamiliar name in the Vorkosigan's celebrated cemetary: Amor Klyeuvi. Ky the Mail got his just reward after decades of service and his role during Vordarian's Pretendership.

* In ''Mirror Dance'', Mark finds an unfamiliar name in the Vorkosigan's celebrated cemetary: Amor Kyleuvi. Ky the Mail got his just reward after decades of service and his role during Vordarian's Pretendership.

* The wedding planning scene in ''A Civil Campaign''. At first it just looks like charming domesticity, but then it hits you. They're in the Green Silk Room. The very same room where thirty-some years ago Emperor Ezar Vorbarra and Lord Aral Vorkosigan were plotting how to murder Ezar's son and start an interstellar war to hide his corpse among. The inception point of "the most wasteful political assassination plot in Barrayaran history" has now become a peaceful place where Ezar's grandson and his fiancee happily work out the details of their wedding party and how soon they can bring new life into the world. And then it hits the reader; ''Barrayar has made it''. The barbaric, blood-soaked place that our heroes and their forebears have bled out their hearts and souls to try and save has indeed moved into the new era they'd always hoped for, a more peaceful and gentle age.

* The wedding planning scene in ''A Civil Campaign''. At first it just looks like charming domesticity, but then it hits you. They're in the Green Silk Room. The very same room that, one generation before, held Emperor Ezar Vorbarra and Lord Aral Vorkosigan plotting how to murder Ezar's son and start a war to hide his corpse among. The inception point of "the most wasteful political assassination plot in Barrayaran history" has now become a peaceful place where Ezar's grandson and his fiancee happily work out the details of their wedding party and how soon they can bring new life into the world. And then it hits the reader; ''Barrayar has made it''. The barbaric, blood-soaked place that our heroes and their forebears have bled out their hearts and souls to try and save has indeed moved into the new era they'd always hoped for, a more peaceful and gentle age.

* The wedding planning scene in ''A Civil Campaign''. At first it just looks like charming domesticity, but then it hits you. They're in the Green Silk Room. The very same room that, one generation before, held Emperor Ezar Vorbarra and Lord Aral Vorkosigan plotting how to murder Ezar's son and start a war to hide his corpse among. The inception point of "the most wasteful political assassination plot in Barrayaran history" has now become a peaceful place where Ezar's grandson and his fiancee happily work out the details of their wedding party and how soon they can bring new life into the world. And then it hits the reader; ''Barrayar has made it''. The barbaric, blood-soaked place that three generations of Vorkosigans have bled out their hearts and souls to try and save has indeed moved into the new era they'd always hoped for, a more peaceful and gentle age.