Tear Jerker / Honor Harrington

• The horrible discovery of what happened to the survivors from HMS Madrigal in Honor of the Queen. Especially Courvosier's death, and Honor's bitter realization that she never told him she loved him. Some things just aren't fair... but oh, Honor, he knew. He knew.
• In The Short Victorious War, when the Havenites step up their harassment campaign to attacking convoys, the captain of the convoy's escort brings her ships about to face the Havenites in a fight she knows they will not win, or survive... but just might buy enough time for the convoy ships, including the one with her husband and daughter^note Anton and Helen Zilwicki on board, to escape. The chapter ends with her husband breaking down in tears as he holds his four-year-old daughter, watching the readouts of the battle.
  Daughter: What's happening, Daddy? Are the Peeps gonna hurt Mommy? Are they gonna get us?
  Father: The Peeps won't get us, baby. We're safe now. Mommy made it safe.
• Mike Henke bringing the news of Paul Tankersley's death to Honor in Field of Dishonor.
• Honor's funeral in Echoes of Honor and her reunification with her parents in Ashes of Victory.
• Mesa's attempt to assassinate Queen Berry in Torch of Freedom. In particular, Lara, realizing she can't get out before the nerve gas hits her, hurls Berry through a door where her lover, Saburo X, catches her. Lara has just enough time to say "I love you!" before Saburo closes the door.
• The aftermath of Operation Oyster Bay in Mission of Honor, where not only was there damage to the Manticoran military, but debris from the attacked space stations fell onto Sphinx, wiping out much of the city of Yawata Crossing, nearly an entire colony of treecats, and most of Honor's family — including Andrew LaFollet, who died as he lived, saving Honor's mother and son. Some things are just. Not. FAIR.
  • The destruction of HMS Hexapuma during Oyster Bay. After everything that ship had been through... why, Weber?? WHY??? At least... at least her name was on the List of Honor. Terekhov's Hexapuma may be gone, but her legacy will forever live on.
• In War of Honor, Hamish literally begging Honor to come back alive from Silesia, because no matter how impossible it is, he loves her and he can't bear to lose her again.
• Sorrow Singer, the sole survivor of the Black Rock Clan of treecats all but wiped out by Oyster Bay, telling Honor that the Harrington clan has protected the treecats for centuries out of pure love — and now, the treecats will protect everyone fighting against Mesa for the same reason. Sorrow Singer felt her entire clan die thanks to treecat telepathy, and her sorrow should have broken her, but somehow, it didn't.
  Sorrow Singer: We know how to deal with those who would slay those we love. Do not forget how Death Fang’s Bane and Climbs Quickly first met. They fought, and they bled, and each almost died for the other. Now it is our turn, and we wish you to go to Soul of Steel and Truth Seeker. Tell them the People — all the People of this entire world -— know who would protect them and who would slay them. We know how you and your clan have always loved and protected and shielded us from harm, Dances on Clouds. But the time has come for that to change, and we do not choose to be kittens forever. If you would guard us, then we will guard you, and if we die as Far Climber did, as Climbs Quickly almost did, as Laughs Brightly has almost died for you and you for him, then we will die. But we will not hide. We will not be children. If you will fight for all this world, for all of us, then we will fight for you.
  • From what we already know of treecat culture, that is not simply a Meaningful Name. When a treecat changes significantly, their name may be changed to match. Essentially she has dealt with her grief by becoming it.
• Admiral Higgins having to nuke Grendelsbane, because he couldn't let what was there fall into enemy hands, and he had no way to defend the base with the force he had. His self-loathing is heartbreaking, and even more so because he had no choice at all.
  • It gets worse: Higgins is the Admiral commanding Home Fleet during Oyster Bay. In Uncompromising Honor, his treecat bodyguard, who is secretly a type of telepathic therapist the species produces called a "mind-healer", gives him the treecat name "Shadow Heart" from all that he's gone through.
• The entirety of "Last View" in The Shadow of Saganami.
  "God damn it to Hell, Eddy!" Hargood exploded. "There are six of the bastards, including two battlecruisers! Just what the fuck do you think you're going to accomplish? Unlike us, you've got the legs to stay away from them, so do it, damn it!"
  "There won't be six when we're done," Saganami said grimly, "and every one we destroy, or just cripple badly enough, is one that won't be chasing you or another unit of the convoy. And now, I'm done arguing with you, James. Take your ship, and your people, and get your ass home to that wife and those kids of yours. Saganami, clear."
  • Then, after HMS Nike manages to destroy or cripple five out of the six enemy ships by herself, and despite massive damage:
    "We're done, James," Saganami said. His voice was hoarse, harsh with pain and the exhaustion of blood loss, yet his expression was almost calm. "Tell the Queen. Tell her what my people did. And tell her I'm sor—"
• In At All Costs, Howard Clinkscales' funeral and the aftermath, when Honor creates the legal equivalent of blood bonds between her family and the Clinkscales family.
  • The end of the book, where Honor mourns the death of Alistair McKeon while reading to her children:

    Wherever you are, wherever God takes you, fly high. I'll guard the Phoenix for you, I promise. Goodbye. I love you.

    • A page earlier, when at the end of the battle of Manticore, where millions of people have been killed, including many of Honor's friends and colleagues and then she gets confirmation that Alistair's ship has somehow survived and gets a good signal to the bridge. And then she learns that while the main bridge survived, flag bridge did not.
    • Not just Alistair. Everyone who died in the Battle of Manticore, on both sides... and it was all for nothing.
  • On the other side of the conflict in the same book, the death of Javier Giscard. One of the most sympathetic Havenite officers, who's been around nearly the whole series, and who's just gone through so damn much and survived, only to die because of the resumption of a stupid war that he knows happened because of an engineered misunderstanding, and killed by Honor herself, who had known him personally, and who also knew that the resumption of hostilities was on false premises, but can't do anything to stop it. All of it happening when by all rights, Honor should have been home, watching her daughter be born. Seeing his lover, Eloise Pritchart — the unbreakable President of the Republic, who has faced down two corrupt regimes and two coups d'etat and come out on top, who along with Tom Theisman gave everything she had to bring back the true Republic that had lain in ashes for two hundred years — so broken afterward just makes it so much worse. Suffice it to say that of all the deaths in the whole series — and good God, have there been a lot of them — this one might just be the most heartbreaking.
  • Honor is notorious for never betraying a single emotion, but the readers get to see it all from the inside.
• The scene in The Short Victorious War where Helen Zilwicki's convoy (carrying her husband and four-year-old daughter) is attacked, and she almost doesn't say goodbye because no one in her crew will have the chance.
  "The peeps won't get us, Baby. We're safe now. Mommy made it safe."
• Even though she has Plot Armor, a young Helen Zilwicki Jr manages to get one of these when she resolves to lead a group of assassins far away from Berry and Lars, believing they'll be content just to kill her.
  And so, in the end, Helen belonged to her mother also.
• The entirety of "The Stray" from World of Honor. David Weber's not the only Honorverse writer who can break hearts. Just... fuck you, Linda Evans.
• The deaths of several recurring characters and a class of schoolchildren in Flag in Exile are pretty sad, especially given the sheer wastefulness of the situation. Somehow, though, the saddest moment is arguably reserved for one of the perpetrators of those crimes, given his agonized and drawn-out Heel Realization.
  He whispered the words he'd said to priests so often during his life with a desperate need he'd never before dreamed was possible. "Help ... help me find God's forgiveness for I have failed in the Test He sent me, and I am afraid."
• The senseless slaughter of a RMN shuttle by a mentally unbalanced crewmember of the Marianne / Golden Butterfly, in The Shadow of Saganami.
  • Pavletic, too. Mr. Weber is a cruel man. And it gets so much worse when Helen breaks down in Paulo's arms.
• The end of The Shadow of Saganami when Hexapuma and Warlock limp back through the Junction, having foiled Mesa and prevented the war (briefly), and Home Fleet is waiting for them, and gives them the traditional salute to the Queen's yacht.
  Yours is the honor.
• Once upon a time, Bernardus Van Dort married Suzanne Bannister, and only a bit too late did he learn that she would not be able to benefit from the prolong treatment, which meant she would die a long time before he did. But they were still able to have a happy family, with two little girls. Then, when negotiations were needed in another world, Suzanne said she would take care of it, and Bernardus took the shuttle up to the ship with her and their daughters, kissed them and watched as they set out for New Tuscany. That was the last time he saw them.
• The Mobius Uprising in Shadow of Victory starts as a well organized push by the locals to seize control of the planet from the Trifecta Corporation and their State Sec forces before they clear cut the only valuable commodity on the planet for the sake of unbridled greed. For a while it looks like they might even succeed- until the reader remembers who exactly promised them Manticoran naval support. They're winning the war and in a position to declare victory when Solarian ships arrive in system and begin dropping an Orbital Bombardment on rebel held city after rebel held city. When the Manticorans eventually show up, they look upon what could be politely called a genocide. Commodore Terekhov responds in kind to the Solarian ships, but the damage has been done.
• Uncompromising Honor: As part of their "Operation Buccaneer", the Solarians send a fleet to raid Hypatia, who had just voted to leave the Solarian League. The Solarian admiral gives the Hypatians thirty-six hours to abandon all their space infrastructure before they blow it up - time that is clearly insufficient to carry out a full evacuation. What follows is chaos as families have to leave their homes with just the absolutely necessary and hundreds of men and women that know they will not be able to leave before the Solarians attack.
  • A small Manticoran fleet that is completely outnumbered has been hiding nearby. No one at Hypatia would blame them if they stayed out of it. Do they stay back? No, they throw themselves into the fire, drawing the Solarians' attention to themselves and attacking them to give the Hypatians just a couple more hours to save as many people as possible. Because the Manticorans follow Edward Saganami's tradition, and they'll be damned if they let innocents die in front of them!
  • One of the big motivations for the Manticoran task force's defense of Hypatia? Seeing another Yawata Strike about to happen throws the grieving Manticoran crews into a desperate berserker mindset, throwing themselves at the Solarian fleet with reckless disregard for their own lives. The entire book focuses on how the many characters are dealing with the trauma and grief of recent events and decades of war.
  • The destruction of Beowulf's three main space stations. The Alignment planned it so Alpha - which was, at the moment, hosting a high-level conference of the Alliance - would get destroyed last, and the people within know they only have the time to call their loved ones. Total casualties: 43 million people, several of them big mainstays of the story such as Thomas Caparelli, Pat Givens and many others - with Hamish, Honor's Uncle Jacques, their cats and two or three more people surviving just because they were just in the place to get skinsuits. And, to make it worse, they had just managed to stop the Solarians' attack on the stations thanks to a last-ditch defense effort.
    • And the villains' motivation for this? It isn't part of some clever Long Game plan. It is simple grief and a need to hurt their enemies in revenge for their own personal losses. Which makes it seem all the more meaningless.
  • All along the book, there's hints that Emily's health is getting worse in spite of all medical treatment, yet she shoulders on, with the hope of being able to have a second child with Hamish. Then the Beowulf Massacre happens, and Honor has to tell her that Hamish died in the explosion at Alpha. Emily suffers a massive arrest that kills her instantly, leaving Honor with yet another loved one she has lost, but this time she thinks it's all her fault.
  • During all the run at Sol and Earth, Honor is in a constant state of terrifying, bloodthirsty Tranquil Fury that barely hides the incredible pain she's suffering since the Beowulf Massacre. Cue Hamish arriving (after surviving by pure chance) to her ship - and she breaks down in his arms.

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