Wednesday, April 30th, 2008...3:59 pm
Death Note and Light’s character
A few months ago, I was sat in my living room with my sister and my mother, a typical lazy winter evening. They were watching some terrible reality-tv show, whilst I was minding my own business, engrossed in a volume of Death Note.
‘What are you doing?’ enquired my Mum. I explained that I was reading a Japanese comic book. ‘Oh right’, she said, ‘What is it? What’s it called?’. I told her what the series was called. ‘Ooooh, that doesn’t sound very nice!’ she exclaimed. I explained that, yes, it’s not very nice, that the Death Note is a notebook which has the power to kill a person whose name is written within its pages.
My sister chipped in. ‘That’s horrible! Why couldn’t it be a notebook where, you write someone’s name, and they, I don’t know.……..get a present?’.
This got me thinking about a number of things. Firstly, I thought about how my Mum and my sister really don’t understand manga! But they did have a point. Death Note is an awesome series, and one that I truly love. But it is, in many ways, a grim tale. The amount of deaths within the series is vast. If you had to put a number on it, it would be incomprehensible, simply too large to calculate or to imagine. I had never really thought about it before, but the scale of murders in Death Note is truly shocking. Light is, essentially, a serial killer on a gargantuan scale. So why had I not realised it before? Why was I, right up until the final pages, ‘rooting for’ Light?
I tried to explain to my family. No, you don’t understand, I said, he’s only using it for good, he’s trying to create a better world. But they weren’t convinced, and, as I was trying to justify Light’s actions, I realised I sounded like a bit of a lunatic myself! I had been sucked in by Light. I believed his rhetoric. I was a Kira-worshipper! I believed that Light had to do these things in order to create a new, safer world. But then, for the first time, I started to question Light. Did he really have to do it that way? Was there another way that didn’t involve such grisly means?
I wondered, what would Light have done about the state of the world if he had not found the notebook? Would he have joined the police and tried to change the world that way, by capturing as many criminals as he could, and trying to prevent crime? Yes, he probably would. But what if he still found a special notebook, but it was a completely different one. My sister wanted to use it for gift-giving. Could that have changed the world? Could Light have given presents to criminals, thus making them happy and grateful, and thus giving them the desire to reform? Well, probably not, that’s a fanciful and unrealistic idea (even for manga!).
Or how about this – the notebook could be used for anything the user wishes, EXCEPT killing. Instead of being an ‘evil’ notebook, it was, in some way, an inherently ‘good’ notebook. Would Light have still tried to change the world, but somehow trying to do it through good deeds? Was there another way for Light to achieve what he wanted? There is no right or wrong answer to this. I’m just trying to ask an interesting question about the nature of Light’s character. My own belief is that, Light was a twisted megalomaniac, a flawed genius. Although I did ‘support’ him, he was pretty much a would-be despot. I think the crucial thing to remember is that he wasn’t just interested in creating a new world, he wanted himself to reign over that world. I think that he and the Death Note were made for each other.
9 Comments
April 30th, 2008 at 8:04 pm
“My own belief is that, Light was a twisted megalomaniac, a flawed genius. ”
Pretty much. From the start, you got the impression that Light was someone who held himself higher then everyone else at the start. I believe he was bored with how things were going since achieving all that he’d done so far was easy. So for me, when I started reading Death Note, I came in wanting to see how far he could take his “holier-than-thou” ideals with his possession of the notebook. And thinking about what would happen to Light at the end of the story, which turned out to be the case. It was an enjoyable ride though.
April 30th, 2008 at 8:07 pm
Light indeed has a totalitarian mind of a despot, one for whom a Grand Master Plan must be achieved regardless of human cost. (When one becomes used to killing on a large scale, death becomes a statistic, as Stalin once said.) However, I think being given such vast power over death and life is inherently corrupting no matter who wields such power. It is like the Ring of Power in Lord of the Rings; even someone as good as Gandalf would eventually have given in to using it for evil in the long run even if his intentions would be good at the outset, just like Light’s search for justice.
April 30th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
I’ve only watched the anime but I think it’s demonstrated in the first episode how quickly the notebook warps his perspective on his role in the world. It definitely allowed his inner, sociopath demon the freedom of expression. Had the notebook been good for presents or just even random acts of kindness, I think the series could have still be good (changing the title) but it’d probably be less popular and possibly bumped into the girl’s section. o.O But I like that idea far more, even though Death Note was awesome.
May 1st, 2008 at 8:52 pm
Thanks for the comments. Mike, I almost used that quote, that is widely attributed to Stalin: “One death is a tragedy, a thousand deaths is a statistic.” That is a quote that totally fits in with Death Note, and it’s one of the reasons that you can easily turn a blind eye to Light’s killings. I think the other reason is because Light himself is detatched from the murders and you don’t really see them happening. Interesting comments about the Death Note being able to corrupt anyone, I am not sure it could. I could imagine some other person just testing it out and getting caught, or being too scared of it and destroying it. Anyway, Light is a great character and he is worthy of lengthy study.
May 4th, 2008 at 8:47 pm
iv been reading bleach for a while and thought before the soul reaper mother died hes been smiling and now all he dose is sulk…
and i really wonder why.
any hoo im so into mewmewpower
it rocks and if you want to see it tune in to pop girl [ you have to have sky]
at 4:30 evrey day on channle 626
May 14th, 2008 at 3:22 pm
He probably would have done it different. But, he probably releized that the jail would be to full for everyone that committed a crime, and still some of them would get out of jail just for that to, so putting that into play he would still have to kill people to make a new, and safer world
August 25th, 2008 at 9:44 am
Thank you to all of you for sharing your ideas. I follow the Jedi Phylosophy, so I was really shocked about worship Kira, too. You are right, indeed. I didn’t question Light’s procedure, only congratulate his deeds, and that was causing me some kind of trouble. Thank you again, I feel much better now. I recognize he is only a serial killer, and a tragic one, as Anakin Skywalker: he wanted to do “good”, but thinking only in himself.
February 17th, 2009 at 7:00 am
Anikin Skywalker is the best and saved the whole galaxy. One the Death Note topic, it’s quite intressting that most people never thought of him as a serial killer. I know fully what he did and he recoeved the punishment for his actions just as Reouk promised. However, I, and some of my friends agree, that Light or Kira is still the best. Many stories have revolved around cleansing the world of bad and that itself is unrealiztic destiny. For good can survive without good, but evil needs good to survive and is always lying in wait in the shadows. (lol L and Kira 4ever)
August 28th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
What if there really was someone like Kira, killing all the criminals in the world? The criminals would hide, putting themselves away from society before the government did. Then the world would be left for the good, those who truly deserved it. If people did hate Kira for killing so many people, they’d have to admit the world was a safer place for everyone. Light, in the anime at least, said that if the world was a safer place, it was worth sacrificing himself. So maybe Kira was evil, but the world was better for a little while.
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