Murderin' officers sleep better at night.

[gement]

This is not entirely a surprise, but the results of the officer poll are in, and I had a lot of fun with them. They turned out to be pretty good questions for dividing people up. The short results:

1. No one agrees about the Doctor. It's 9 against 9. However, more people who thought he was a killin' officer were conflicted about it. The people who said he was a murderin' officer were like, "Yep."

2. You can't tell what people think of the Doctor from what they think of themselves, or vice versa. This one surprised me. People were about as likely to classify the Doctor either way, no matter how they classified themselves.

3. Killin' officers are less decisive. Shock of the century! Only one self-identified murderin' officer hesitated about classifying the Doctor. Half the killin' officers did.

Doctor as officer raw data Is the Doctor a killin' or murderin' officer? What about you?

Doctor as officer, conflicted or sure? Opinion is exactly divided on this topic, but people who classify him as a killin' officer are much more likely to be conflicted on the subject.

Doctor as officer, self as officer. There's no strong link between the Doctor's categorization and self-categorization; people are very slightly more likely to categorize him as the opposite, but it's nearly even.

Self as officer, decisive about the Doctor? Half the people who identified themselves as killin' officers were conflicted about the Doctor. Only one murderin' officer had doubts.

Comments

[ilmarinen.livejournal.com]

For the record, I suspect the Dr. of being a murderin' officer. Not much that he does is by accident. He gets very upset when he doesn't have control, but I could see him making a choice to sacrifice for the greater good. (I'm not sure the writers would allow that to happen, but I think being true to the Dr.'s character might require it.)

On the gripping hand, he did almost lose Rose to the void (don't I wish) and that appeared to be a simple killin' officer event. (It was through no act of his own that she survived.)

Myself, dunno, which I suppose puts me in the killin' category. But, I'd try damn hard, if in that situation, not to accidentally get anyone killed. However, I could see making the calculated choice of greater good, etc. That's the problem with warfare analogies though, it's an inherently immoral activity, so hard to make hypothetical what's the right thing to be doing decisions.

The ends never justify the means, but sometimes they necessitate the means.

-B.

Ends, means.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Yep, you definitely sound like a killin' officer to me.

I've been chewing on it, mentally, quite a bit, and trying to define the relevant behaviors. I don't think ordering a suicide mission is automatically the purview of murderin' officers. Any time you lead people into battle, people die. Whether an individual's chances are 0% or 50% or 90% isn't necessarily the issue, and both flavors of officer have to take responsibility for that.

What I came up with, mostly from pondering killin' officer Commander Samuel Vimes, was that the only ideal a killin' officer will consider worth the sacrifice is maximum preservation of life and safety for his own side if not both.

Not for a flag, not for a country's honor or the symbolism of this gate that has not been breached for n years, but optimizing for the number of people who will get home safe and will have homes to go to. And that usually is best accomplished without plans that include certain death.

A murderin' officer's victory condition is that the principle has been upheld. A killin' officer's victory condition is that everyone got home again.

But this is just my thought.

Re: Ends, means.

[gfish.livejournal.com]

Graphs!

But if the 'death for idealism' is the important distinction, I really don't see how the Doctor could be a murderin' officer. Yes, he is willing to kill, if forced, but I can't think of a time he did it for anything less than saving lives/preventing cosmic chaos/etc. Hell, he has qualms about committing genocide against the Daleks.

Re: Ends, means.

[gement.livejournal.com]

Yup yup. As demonstrated on at least four occasions. On the other hand, he's blown up their planet twice, and we don't even know how much responsibility he's bearing from the Time War.

It's very possible the people defining it otherwise are using the "suicide mission" test. As the terms are ambiguously defined, there's a valid range of reactions there.

[garillama.livejournal.com]

Have you seen the newest episode of New Who? I think it's relevant, although I can't tell which side it supports, exactly :P

Re: Ends, means.

[maribou]

Having seen all the Sharpes, I think
"A murderin' officer's victory condition is that the principle has been upheld. A killin' officer's victory condition is that everyone got home again." is awfully true.

And that Sharpe, sadly, has lost a lot more battles than he's won.

[gement.livejournal.com]

As of today, I had a belated voter (Murderin', Murderin', No Hesitation), and discovered that I can't click to see the answers listed anymore! Argh! I know this individual's answers only because it's the only response since I posted these graphs, but now I'm irritated. I obviously should start archiving these things. I though LJ handled that.