Yes, I didn't miss the fact that he felt a duty to help...Sark's mother? and that of all the things that he had lost by dying, his honour wasn't among them. Yes, a big difference between the idea and the reality of death.
I DO see where you're coming from in this story, many people dislike John intensely, and I'm not so blind to his character flaws that I don't sometimes feel an overwhelming desire to kick John's butt, but I really do have a hard time accepting John as anything other than one of the good guys... the result of seeing characters I like rather more sympathetically than many of their fans do. (;-)