Forum - View topicTen Years of Death Note: Is Light The Bad Guy?
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Top Gun
 Posts: 4749 |
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I did say premise, not execution.
 At the risk of belaboring a comparison that's been made thousands of times before, Code Geass is another melodrama-laced shounen series, yet it it treats some of the same themes with far greater nuance, and I don't think it sacrifices any of its basic entertainment value by doing so. It's perfectly reasonable to expect a piece of fiction to both give you a good time and send some sort of message, even a basic and time-worn one.
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jl07045
 Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
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There's no continuum, cynic is just a disillusioned idealist. As such cynics as a group would not support Light. In fact I'd guess cynics would distrust Light's motives from the get go and thus never approve of his actions. Light would be a hero for an egotist - intellectual pretenses, lacks empathy, misplaced sense of self-importance. |
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residentgrigo
 Posts: 2542 Location: Germany |
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I remembered that there is a term for people like Yagami over here. Schreibtischtäter, meaning perpetrator from a desk.
I constantly get to read how Griffith isn´t that bad a guy (WHAT?), or how "relatable" Nolan´s or Moore´s Joker are but i tend to view such responses as a check for basic reading skills and sanity. Yagami also 100% stopped doing anything positive during the first act of the manga. "A man's gotta have a code" are words to live by but Yagami couldn´t even face death with dignity. Isn´t it awesome how the first chapter belatedly stated how the manga will end. Not so much for the anime. Sigh (and DN is 12,5 years old). |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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I'd just like to point out that liking/understanding a character does not equate to approving or endorsing their actions. I didn't hate Light but I don't think what he did was right. And he had be stopped and punished. But I never saw him as inherently evil; he was a just a regular teenager who gained the power to do what lots of people often dream of doing. And because he was young, he lacked the awareness to foresee what the potential consequences could be; also the Death Note did corrupt him. Once he got a taste of it's power, he couldn't easily let go.
When he died at the end, I just accepted it as inevitable. I wasn't happy but I wasn't too sad. I do remember the look of shock on his face; the tragedy was that he never realized what he did was wrong. |
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vashfanatic
 Posts: 3492 Location: Back stateside |
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Long time no post - I loved Death Note, though I haven't re-read or re-watched it recently (as in, probably 5 years) so I don't know how my older self would think of it. I remember having these exact same kind of arguments and making the exact same points Jacob does here so many times. It's all very nostalgic.
I think Light was a pretty great villain protagonist partly because oh wow do I hate him. He's just a detestable little sociopath, and as commenters have noted Jacob didn't even touch on his treatment of Misa and just women in general. He's a manipulator who uses and abuses people in the name of his greater vision. The fun part of Death Note was watching L and the rest of the law enforcement trying to bring him down. And the only moral questions I ever felt it raised were those surrounding the actions of L in trying to bring him down. L does some pretty awful things - again, to Misa, she may not be nice but I had a lot more sympathy for her than Light - trying to bring down Light, and if you want to have a discussion around whether and/or when he goes too far, that's worth talking about. |
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noigeL
Posts: 149 |
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Light is a villain. But more specifically, he's a good villain. And what makes a good villain? Someone who truly believes what they are doing is right and whose actions are not, in fact, 100% wrong; there's gotta be that sliver of truth to what they say.
Light fits this definition to a T. |
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Brian_FTP
 Posts: 88 |
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I would say that in the early episodes, you could pose the question "is Light the bad guy?" and it would be up for debate, but by the end of the series, there's no doubt about it. He didn't give a second thought to who he manipulated and who he killed.
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leafy sea dragon
 Posts: 7163 Location: Another Kingdom |
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Do you think so? The pattern I noticed is that people who think the world is rotten and people deserve to die would be the people who would sympathize with Light and do what Light did. The people who think there are better options than to kill all perceived wrong-doers in the world (and someone can be an egotist and believe there are better options than that) would be less likely to side with Light, and depending on their perspective, identify with L, Soichiro, Matsuda, or even Sidoh.
That was definitely one of the defining points of the series for me (to where I used that as the basis for a college paper--got an A- on it). The big thing to take out is that Light is the only character who isn't prepared to die in this series, and when it becomes inevitable, he's the only one who panics over it (though how he tries to resist it, and in what ways he panics, differs between anime and manga--but it happens in both versions). All of the others either accept death as it comes to them (Mikami, Rem, Misa), it happens so suddenly that they can't properly react to it (Matt, Aiber, Wedy), or they resist death to try to help someone else (Ukita, Soichiro). Light is also the one who is by far the most desperate to prolong his life. It basically reinforces the message that Light is not someone you're supposed to identify with. His death is the only one in the whole series without dignity. |
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Kadmos1
 Posts: 13597 Location: In Phoenix but has an 85308 ZIP |
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I am actually glad Light dies. Sure, he and Lelouch were responsible for many people dying, at least Lelouch was willing to admit he was a demon/monster and wanted to atone for his sins. Light was so power-hungry that Light lead Soichiro Yagami to his death. If Soichiro was more of a bad guy like Lelouch's dad, then I could Soichiro's death being less sad.
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WatchforMoons7
 Posts: 529 |
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Dark justice, challenging L, straying down the wrong path against the police, I'd sai "bad" but entertaining.
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Nonaka Machine Gun B
 Posts: 825 |
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I won't argue that Light isn't entertaining and interesting, but even if he won't admit it to himself, he liked being a God and being in control. He doesn't actually believe that he's making the world better. He's selfish. |
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rinmackie
Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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^No, I think Light did believe that he was making the world a better place. Crime rates did fall. The problem was that he thought he knew best; also he started going after the people who were trying to stop him. And the definition of deserving evil-doer changed. He became what he was trying to destroy but he never realized it even at the end. People can easily see the faults of others but fail to recognize their own. I don't think Light was a particularly evil person but he had the kind of personality that made it easy for the Death Note to corrupt him.
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Spike Terra
 Subscriber Posts: 361 Location: Maryland |
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This article was an excellent read and the comment section has been a good time killer. Personally, I really enjoyed watching the anime for Death Note but I was not a fan of the manga.
In my opinion, Light is a terrible individual whose pathetic downfall makes for the best scene in the series. The ending sequence where he's frantically trying to escape his former comrades as he's suffering from several gunshot wounds is just a fun scene to watch. It gave me time to reflect on all of his failed keikakus (remember keikaku means plan). While I thought Light was a great villain, I often thought that L was a terrible hero. L doesn't solve crimes out of some moral obligation but out of a way to kill boredom. L will use any method to solve crimes and he doesn't seem to have any regard for human life at all. I have always felt that if L had come across the death note before Light, that he would have become the villain instead. But he wouldn't be a crazy cult leader with a god complex, he would be a more cleaner and less restrained version of the Punisher. |
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jl07045
Posts: 1527 Location: Riga, Latvia |
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Cynics distrust any good intentions and think that everyone acts out of self-interest. That would include Light. Why would they side with him? They know that he's either an asshole or will never accomplish his goal, because he'd eventually have to kill too many for the society to function. Where do you get the idea that a cynic necessarily thinks a person deserves to die for wrongdoing though? He just thinks that it's in man's nature. What is more likely that people with sociopathic tendencies would agree with what Light is doing, and egotism goes hand-in-hand with sociopathy much more than cynicism does. |
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TarsTarkas
 Posts: 5913 Location: Virginia, United States |
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She was more than not nice. She was a murderer also. By law enforcement standards she was an knowing accomplice to Light. She was also a murderer of people she knew were innocent of any crime. Think it was safe to say she is evil. Law enforcement were fighting a human being that had god like powers, and if that god like human being could identify them, they were as good as dead. I think any normal human being could sympathize with the police in this case, over Misa a murderer and an accomplice to Light. |
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