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Originally Posted by Sol Falling
As such, Okabe's failure to demonstrate empathy for Moeka until after he's beaten and emotionally wrecked her is pretty much his failure as a hero.
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Sol... don't you think Okabe kind of has a right to hate (or at least strongly dislike) Moeka based on how he witnessed her kill Mayuri in cold blood?
In my view, Okabe shows empathy simply by restraining himself to delivering a lone punch, and saying some harsh words to Moeka while he had her pinned down.
If he had went any further than he did, I'd be inclined to agree with you, but the fact is that this is pretty restrained for a man confronting the person who he equates with his best friend's killer. Personally, I see such restraint as a sign of basic human empathy; a recognition that this is another human being that he's dealing with here, so while taking a
measure of revenge on her is understandable, he shouldn't totally brutalize or lynch her either. But for Okabe to not want to take
any measure of revenge on Moeka would not merely be showing human empathy, it would indeed be him acting like a total Saint, as Archon alluded to. And that's a standard that's higher than what I'm prepared to expect of an anime character outside of a magical girl anime.
Fact is that
many people in Okabe's position would have gone all the way here. They would have literally
killed Moeka, and/or brutalized her like she was a Jigsaw victim in a Saw movie. They likely would have considered it
justice in the name of Mayuri. Personally, I'm thankful that Okabe isn't
that much into revenge, at least. Going into this episode, I was expecting Okabe's inevitable meeting with Moeka to be dark and brutal, it just went on longer than I thought it would, thus starting to be discomforting to me after awhile. Did people really think that Okabe would go easy on Moeka given how he witnessed her kill Mayuri?
I didn't like this darker side of Okabe, and I hope we don't see much more of it, but given the extenuating circumstances, I think you're weighing it way too heavily against him.
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Okabe failed to either neutralize her as a capable enemy or reach out to her as someone who could be saved.
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That's simply not true. The punch did in fact neutralize her (i.e. it helped him get the phone from her).