: I think he's one of the more enjoyable characters we've been introduced to.
: Of course he's a bit of a jerk and someone you love to hate, but looking
: at it from his perspective, it's not hard to see the Chief has wrong—he
: did disobey orders, protect an AI that was clearly rampant, and bug off.

: Based on the stuff we see in Halo 4 and the preface in The Thursday War, I
: think Del Rio is an interesting and really unseen character in Halo—a
: career guy who's not always competent. In other words, just like a lot of
: people out there. He's got legitimate beef with Chief, because unlike the
: players he isn't experiencing the world through Chief's eyes. But it's
: also colored by his own nagging doubts about his abilities. So he projects
: them onto other people, and ends up weakening his command further. The way
: they play the "give me that chip" scene at the end of Reclaimer
: makes him feel like he is incredibly insecure about his command and as
: soon as someone confronts it he loses perspective.

: Doesn't mean he isn't a dick, but I think he's a refreshing character in a
: world where it's usually hyper-competent, lay-down-their-lives soldiers or
: evil scheming ONI chaps.

You make some good points. I think what bugs me and a lot of people about him is he's so transparently there to be hated, but in particular (I realize now) he seems to be lacking any redeeming qualities. You could say he's protective of his soldiers based on Halo 4 but you could also cast that as cowardice or shortsightedness or something else. They're trying to give him a clear redeeming quality now, by showing he's committed to what he stands for even though he happens to be wrong, which... I guess helps? I can kind of respect the dedication, if that's actually what this is and not a transient self-serving motivation, but he still mostly feels like a bit of grime I'd just as soon like to see wiped off Halo's boot.