Though to be completely serious on the Ciaphas Cain topic I'm seeing a lot of surface level reads like "the memes will have you believe Cain's a buffoon but he's really a super badass" or "Cain's not really heroic, he admits he's a coward," and it's all missing the point.
Ciaphas Cain's a genuinely kind man. That's the 'real' guy. His heroic reputation, his inner insecurity, are BOTH shrouds over what's up with him. Cain's badass accomplishments flow down from kindness and patience he displays, not from just being really competent. He also is competent, but he would not be in the situations to express competence without his core character trait.
He's an unreliable narrator, so you have to look at his choices and reflexive reactions instead of his excuses:
He says he 'pretends' to care about the troops to avoid being fragged, to be manipulating them so they stand between him and danger, but he will genuinely care for them without thinking, often asking them what's wrong or intuitively taking action on their behalf.
He will talk someone with him down from a mental health crisis kindly instead of immediately shooting them, which is what he's 'supposed' to do.
He will defend his allies not just from enemy attacks when possible but also from criticism, punishment of other Imperium-aligned parties.
He is explicitly not sexist and overtly opposes peers who are sexist in his presence (this is notable also given his easygoing, friendly preferences, he won't make an appeal to other men or befriend them on the basis of sexism)
On this topic, he is able to make note that a woman looks nice to him without being creepy about it, or avoiding the topic, or undermining respect for her at all.
He is disturbed when those he works with don't display humanity, are cold towards friendly casualties.
He tries to remember the names of everyone with him at a time, and is disappointed in himself when he fails. Sometimes he also remembers nicknames and other accomplishments.
He makes dad jokes to alleviate tension for others around him.
He reflexively tries to save the lives of those in danger around him, even putting himself at risk to do so which causes him to remark that he did so 'against his nature.'
He makes sacrifices to make sure his wounded get care when possible, and often checks on the status or condition of his wounded when it's common to euthanize and/or abandon casualties.
He narrates in a traumatized fashion when he can't save someone's life and they die in front of him, remembering the gristly details of their demise. Sometimes this includes enemies if he thinks their deaths weren't necessary.
His job requires that he's around the troops when they're in danger. When the troops are in danger, they often are killed. He explicitly fears others around him being killed. I wonder why (apart from self-preservation) he says he wants to be as far from combat as possible? 🤔
He says the only man he's ever really trusted is Jurgen, who is a Blank and therefore in this setting constantly exuding an aura of don't-trust-me. His goodwill skills must be triple S tier to grow to trust Jurgen MOST of all people.
And more. Yeah, true, the Grimdark Universe is a scary place and he fears for his life. But typically we feel more fear when there is more for us to lose, and no matter how many guys he puts between himself and danger, no matter how relieved he says he is by that act, he doesn't behave as if relieved. He displays even more 'paranoia'. Those are his fucklings and the Mother Fuck's afraid for them as much as for himself.
He would HAVE to see himself as a coward, because he has been trained to kill anyone who shows such concern as he does for other people in a crisis. He has not been given the vocabulary to understand that how he feels is a symptom of being a good guy in a seriously bad universe.
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