House of Forgotten Thoughts

So I've been imbibing a tiny smidge of media I didn't write lately, thanks to maribou, who turned me on to Sharpe's Rifles. I've both read the book and watched the BBC now, and enjoyed them both. The video adaptation felt rushed and clunky right after the book, but Sean Bean covers many sins.

For those who aren't familiar, it's Napoleonic infantry slogging, brutally described, which should send me screaming in the other direction. But it's also delicious character development, and honor porn, which I'm going to go make an LJ interest RIGHT NOW. (If you don't know what honor porn is, I'm not sure I can describe it, but if you like Bujold, you know honor porn. By the way, if you like honor porn, my work contains scads of it.) The main character is a lieutenant raised from the ranks, which is to say spat on by "real" officers and distrusted by enlisted men as no better than themselves.

But I had a point here, which was types of officers. In the BBC adaptation, there's a lovely little speech near the end, and it goes roughly like this (I'm borrowing someone else's transcription and have not verified its accuracy):

Harper: "Ye'll make a fine killin' officer, sir."

Sharpe: "A what?"

H: "Ye don't know about killin' officers?"

S: "No."

H: "Oh, now that's too bad, sir. I thought you'd 'ave known, coming up yerself from the ranks as ye did... There are only two kinds of officers, killin' officers and murderin' officers. Killin' officers are poor old buggers that git you killed by accident. Murderin' officers are mad, bad old buggers that git you killed on purpose, for a reason, for a country or a religion, maybe even for a flag. They're mean, murdering old buggers."

It is my opinion that Miles Vorkosigan is a killin' officer. Captain Jack Harkness of Torchwood, at least in the first four episodes which I have now seen, is a murderin' officer if there ever was one. And I started thinking about it, because you don't need stripes to be in a position of authority where things of value are at stake and hard choices have to be made, particularly if you're a fictional character.

[Poll #1171534]

Edit: A summary of the first 48 hours of results (18 respondents) is available in the next entry.

If you think you can define honor porn or the difference between killin' and murderin' officers articulately, please attempt to do so in the comments. That would make me happy.