: Had they done it the scene more morally ambiguous, I think that would've been
: better. I'm reminded of Halo 3's meeting aboard the Shadow of Intent with
: Lord Hood, Miranda, Chief, and Halfjaw. It's only a three minute scene,
: but it manages to depict a gray conflict much better. Vadum wants total
: destruction. Lord Hood wants to prepare and fight. Miranda and Chief want
: to take a chance on Cortana's message. And even though they end up
: disagreeing with Hood and leaving without him, he's not vilified for it,
: just out of his depth.

: Perhaps Del Rio could've had good reason to view Chief as delusional. Maybe
: Chief could've tried showing him video of the Librarian from his helmet
: cam only for it to show him talking to seemingly nothing. Maybe the
: Infinity's damage could've been shown to be more drastic. But neither was
: done, and Del Rio was shoved out of the plot as soon as he wasn't
: necessary anymore.

Chief and Cortana both didn't have any evidence of the Librarian's messages, and even less on the Didact's motives. I think Del Rio made the right call, except that his opponent is the Protagonist.

As stated quite explicitly in Thursday War and demonstrated by his botched attempt to disable the gravity well, Del Rio's real failure isn't one of cowardly action or for not listening to a crazy old Spartan, it's that he's clearly not a great commander, from a leadership or operational standpoint.