honor as power vs. honor as respect

How is it that the heroes of the wild west are thought to possess great honor, despite the fact that they were content to remain anonymous? Honor, after all, seems to be primarily a matter of one's public persona: one's status and one's reputation. If one lives in anonymity, how can one enjoy high status and possess great honor?

First of all, note that one's perceived standing can differ from one's actual standing (e.g. if one has a lot of power that people don't know about yet). Now, the key to solving the above puzzle seems to be this: the amount of honor one actually possesses (i.e. one's actual standing in the hierarchy) seems to be a function of two independent factors: 1) the degree to which one is respected by others, and 2) the amount of power one actually possesses.

Now we are in a position to explain why Wild-West heroes possess honor, despite not caring about the opinions of others or being much respected by others. People like these wild-west heroes have opted for a route to honor that emphasizes just the power dimension of honor. These characters are highly capable, excellent marksmen, etc. and so have little need for the respect of others. If ever the need arises, they are confident of their ability to inspire the necessary respect. This accounts for why wild west heroes would rightly be said to possess a lot of honor, even though they don't possess fame or the respect of others, and are content to remain anonymous.

Not only can there be people who (like Claudius or the Clint Eastwood type) have lots of honor as power but not much public respect, the opposite set-up also seems possible. That is, there can be people who enjoy a lot of public admiration but no real power. The British Royal Family or Dimitry Medvedev might be good examples, though any ham-strung ruler or powerless public figure would do.

Thus there seem to be two independent factors that determine the actual amount of honor one possesses (i.e. one's actual standing in the hierarchy). These are the amount of power one possesses and the amount of respect one enjoys.

Unfortunately, it seems that matters are complicated by the fact that the degree to which a person possesses respect might affect the degree to which he/she possesses power. After all, if lots of people think you are very powerful, this might actually constitute the ability to enforce your will (i.e. actual power) Self-fulfilling prophecy seems to be a real phenomenon in this domain. Accordingly, there is a question as to how independent these two factors that determine honor really are.