History YMMV / AubreyMaturin

** Lord Clonfert in The Mauritius Command qualifies, being a genuinely capable and courageous officer who is crippled by an undetermined mental affliction (thought to be bipolar disorder), and who agonizes over his self-perceived inadequacy when placed next to men like Jack and Cochrane. His anxiety to be popular with his men and desire to be as successful and dashing as his idol Sir Sidney Smith prompts him to make foolish choices. [[spoiler: He loses his ship and is hideously disfigured in a bungled engagement with the French. As he recovers in the hospital, he learns of Jack's successful conclusion to the campaign. Unable to bear the shame of his failure and yet another instance proving Jack's unconscious superiority, Clonfert purposefully reopens a dangerous wound and bleeds to death. While Clonfert's surgeon and friend tearfully blames Jack for Clonfert's death, Stephen reflects "You cannot blame the bull because the frog burst: the bull has no comprehension of the affair."]]

** Lord Clonfert in The Mauritius Command qualifies, being a genuinely capable and courageous officer who is crippled by an undetermined mental affliction (thought to be bipolar disorder), and who agonizes over his self-perceived inadequacy when placed next to men like Jack and Cochrane. His anxiety to be popular with his men and desire to be as successful and dashing as his idol Sir Sidney Smith prompts him to make foolish choices. [[Spoiler: He loses his ship and is hideously disfigured in a bungled engagement with the French. As he recovers in the hospital, he learns of Jack's successful conclusion to the campaign. Unable to bear the shame of his failure and yet another instance proving Jack's unconscious superiority, Clonfert purposefully reopens a dangerous wound and bleeds to death. While Clonfert's surgeon and friend tearfully blames Jack for Clonfert's death, Stephen reflects "You cannot blame the bull because the frog burst: the bull has no comprehension of the affair."]]

** Lord Clonfert in The Mauritius Command qualifies, being a genuinely capable and courageous officer who is crippled by an undetermined mental affliction (thought to be bipolar disorder), and who agonizes over his self-perceived inadequacy when placed next to men like Jack and Cochrane. His anxiety to be popular with his men and desire to be as successful and dashing as his idol Sir Sidney Smith prompts him to make foolish choices. He loses his ship and is hideously disfigured in a bungled engagement with the French. As he recovers in the hospital, he learns of Jack's successful conclusion to the campaign. Unable to bear the shame of his failure and yet another instance proving Jack's unconscious superiority, Clonfert purposefully reopens a dangerous wound and bleeds to death. While Clonfert's surgeon and friend tearfully blames Jack for Clonfert's death, Stephen reflects "You cannot blame the bull because the frog burst: the bull has no comprehension of the affair."

** Lord Clonfert in The Mauritius Command qualifies, being a genuinely capable and courageous officer who is crippled by an undetermined mental affliction (thought to be bipolar disorder), and who agonizes over his self-perceived inadequacy when placed next to men like Jack and Cochrane. His anxiety to be popular with his men and desire to be as successful and dashing as his idol Sir Sydney Smith prompts him to make foolish choices. He loses his ship and is hideously disfigured in a bungled engagement with the French. As he recovers in the hospital, he learns of Jack's successful conclusion to the campaign. Unable to bear the shame of his failure and yet another instance proving Jack's unconscious superiority, Clonfert purposefully reopens a dangerous wound and bleeds to death. While Clonfert's surgeon and friend tearfully blames Jack for Clonfert's death, Stephen reflects "You cannot blame the bull because the frog burst: the bull has no comprehension of the affair."

** Lord Clonfert in The Mauritius Command qualifies, being a genuinely capable and courageous officer who is crippled by an undetermined mental affliction (thought to be bipolar disorder), and who agonizes over his self-perceived inadequacy when placed next to men like Jack and Cochrane. His anxiety to be popular with his men and desire to be as successful and dashing as his idol Sir Sydney Smith prompts him to make foolish choices. He loses his ship and is hideously disfigured in a bungled engagement with the French. As he recovers in the hospital, he learns of Jack's successful conclusion to the campaign. Unable to bear the shame of his failure and yet another instance proving Jack's unconscious superiority, Clonfert purposefully reopens a dangerous wound and bleeds to death. While Clonfert's surgeon and friend tearfully blames Jack for Clonfert's death, Stephen reflects "It is not the bull's fault that the frog burst."

** Throughout most of the series, Aubrey takes what has to be characterized as an indifferent view to slavery (though, to be precise, he is following the opinion of his hero Nelson). This view changes DRASTICALLY in ''The Commodore'' when he captures a slave ship and comes face-to-face with the horrors of the Middle Passage. This produces yet another SugarWiki/MomentOfAwesome when he has some of the slavers arrested, has them forcibly issued with mops, and thunders at them to clean up the filth on the lower decks.
** By contrast with Jack, Stephen is a fervent abolitionist. He never quarrels with Jack about that subject, but in a NoodleIncident he verbally savages a slaveholder in the West Indies (Jack is still surprised that Stephen wasn't called out).

* HarsherInHindsight: The above-mentioned mistaken belief of Yazidis "worshipping the Devil" [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide_of_Yazidis_by_ISIL has been used by Islamist fundamentalists as pretext for genocide]].