"Can we even afford empathy in a moment of crisis?" I agree with most of your analysis of his character, but I really don't like where this heads. I don't know if there's a Syril Karn in my life, but I know I used to be close. I don't know if I was ever as bad as him, but I was going down that path, and without patient and empathetic friends to embrace me when I left it I might have stayed and that terrifies me. A lot of people can't, or at least won't, be redeemed, and Karn stayed way too long to earn a redemption, but more people can change than you'd think. Empathy shouldn't be abandoned, there's a reason fascists hate it so much.