Feedback wanted: Some questions on Ending (spoilerish)

[Renegade_]

Am I missing anything? The only part of Daniel that I don't like is that he loses sight of the above, and breaks down because of it.

Yes, a rather large chunk of definition for Daniel's character: he knowingly hunts down and kills an innocent child for his own salvation as revealed in the last chapter. As he states in his own notes, he may be forgiven for taking the life of a degenerate but "to take the life of an innocent" made him in his own words a vile "murderer". Furthermore he quite clearly suppressed his own doubt to the point of willful ignorance (many of the tortured were professingly innocent men, women, and children), taking Alexander's word not because he believed it, but because believing it would allow him to justify taking life to save his own. That is dubious and selfish moral ethic. As you say, Alexander's rationale, though trivializing human life, did at least seem to have merit towards an actual (possibly altruistic, since his departure is best for all parties involved) goal other than sheer terror/evil. Daniel on the other hand is a human, and so by those standards and his own, truly evil for no other reason than to save his own.

The profound bit of character reveal towards the end is when even Alexander scorns and shames Daniel about the lack of moral to which he (Daniel) subscribes himself to; he reminds Daniel that had he simply let the Shadow take him, he would have spared so many lives, instead of having so many to pay for his own mistake. This is why Alexander's character seems more honorably intentioned, whereas Daniel's is dubious at best. It is to say as if he (Alexander) can justify his actions because the morals he holds himself to are upkept, even though seemingly beyond human comprehension. Whereas Daniel, by his own morals and self-admittingly has willingly and knowingly committed evil.

This, to me, paints a very unrighteous picture of Daniel (though he is often insufferably sanctimonious in his notes to himself) and quite far from Agrippa's "good boy" image, nor deserving of it.