What does Honour mean to us?
At first glance, it's easy to conflate honour with pride. They can both be inherited through lineage or succession. They can both be gained through accomplishment or recognition. They can both be their own reward. However, while pride is a sensation, honour is more of a presence. Pride is something you feel. Honour is a way of life.
Personal integrity; allegiance to a moral way of life.
To be honourable is to pursue and engage with the truth of a matter at all times. It's what makes you return the shopping cart before driving off. It's why you don't sleep with your friend's surprisingly promiscuous girlfriend, even though you really wanna say yes. It's doing the right thing because it's right, even if no one knows you did anything at all. But, like most of these concepts we're discussing in this series, even honour can have a dark side. Because, like pride, honour can be externally ordained, where it can take on an entirely different meaning.
Great respect, regard, esteem, etc, or an outward sign of this.
One can have honour bestowed upon them by a respected entity. To be honoured by a council of your superiors or a panel of your peers can be a satisfying achievement. It can also be a tool to manipulate those most devoted to those who seek it. The respect or regard that a young student or hopeful entrepreneur is in hot pursuit of can be dangled in front of them like an angler's light, playing on their passion for a particular ideal to force them to overreach or overcompensate.
This is the predicament in which T'araan of the Kalakaar finds himself.
T'araan is a man who has a bit in common with Mira. He was born marked for death, and by the same people who outlawed Star Callers, no less. There is a dark aspect to his power that he cannot always control. And, because of the consequences of his birth, the validity of his existence is called into question. However, while Mira simply has her own agency to regain, it is the restoration of his honour that T'araan seeks.
The At'aasi are an academic people who value knowledge and wisdom over all else. They pride themselves on being the arbiters of truth and dignity. They position themselves as the embodiment of honour. Yet the very nature of T'araan’s life calls to light some ugly and dishonourable secrets his elders have been hiding. Those from whom he would seek judgement have hidden their history for fear of being judged. And, T'araan wants to know why, in order to maintain peace, the honour of those like him - and Mira - should have to be sacrificed. T'araan wants the truth.
This is why true honour can only come from within, and is often at the expense of adulation or celebration. True honour is having a code you stick to and a goal you stand behind. But, more than that, honour is a commitment, not to being liked, but to being just. It's a commitment to doing what is supposed to be done, even when there is no reward or recognition.
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