Forum - View topicTen Years of Death Note: Is Light The Bad Guy?
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Topgunguy
 Posts: 258 |
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I bet if he targeted Donald Trump he'd be considered a good guy by everyone.
But other than that, good guy or bad guy, the series was still awesome. I'm not looking for shows to be thought provoking, I just want to be entertained and Death Note was just that from start to finish. |
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mgosdin
 Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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It's what happens when you hand a tool to someone. If it's a hammer, and the only tool you have, then everything looks like a nail that needs to be hit. The only thing this tool can do is kill, bring death, to specified people.
Mark Gosdin |
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Ambimunch
 Posts: 2012 |
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I like Light as a character, perfection is not attainable, so characters with realistic flaws are always the most believable. I think Light was doing what everyone in the world had wished for at least once in their lives - that is, punishment of the wicked.
The modern Judicial and Legal system is beyond flawed. Bureaucracy, corruption, and downright abuse of the system are real issues. Everyone knows they exists, but nobody is doing anything about them. It is sickening to see people who don't pay their taxes go to jail, while pedophiles sometimes walk free after a trail. At the end of the day, it all comes down to money. Money talks. Human nature is that most of us cannot resist temptation, and when opportunities arise, most people cannot resist them. Politicians and many government systems abuse that, nearly every upper management council has backdoor deals going on, and even the legal bodies like public security/FBI agencies etc.. all have upper level corruption. Scum of the Earth sin, steal, lie, kill, and overall ruin people's lives - yet their actions do not go unpunished far too many times. Certain people don't care, they just prefer to live their lives with their narrow minded perspective of the world. They don't care if they drink from the river and another village is pissing in it upstream - as long as they don't see it, or choose not to see it, they remain apathetic. And other people who call out for change are purposefully being ignored, or in other instances removed. Society as a whole does not embrace the concept of justice, it is applied in a very abusive and twisted way, and there is nothing regular people can do about it. I personally was very pro-justice since a young age. I am also passionate about politics, stocks, the world economy, and the legal field. So I keep myself educated and informed, if even a little. And as such, once you start reading, you begin to notice the type of shit going on in this world. However, as any rational human being, it's obvious that neither I, nor others people, can do much. And as such, seeing someone like Light, even in a work of fiction, does provide some satisfaction. He is a personification of justice that people seek after they've been "had" by our legal system. I'm sure relatives of murder victims, or rape victims, or abuse victims - whose offender did not get a proper punishment would appreciate what "Kira" was doing, even if in a fictional setting. So to me, ever since I watched Death Note in 2007, Light has remained a hero. If anything, at the very least, his actions resulted in some raised eyebrows towards the current state of affairs with regards to the Judicial system we have in place now. |
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Dop.L
Posts: 724 Location: London |
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I always felt Light's path could be described with three sayings.
"Power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely" "No one man is above the law" and "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" If he'd not found the Death Note, his life would most likely have been very different. Before that point his only real failing was arrogance. |
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maximilianjenus
Posts: 2902 |
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matsuda is not incompetent per se, he is just an action character in a completely different setting; if you put him in something like gangsta, he would shine. maybe even on a life drama, like joshi deka
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Tuor_of_Gondolin
 Posts: 3524 Location: Bellevue, WA |
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Sorry, Gosdin, but I think you're wrong. If I were offered a Death Note, and it was explained to me what it did and how it worked, I would give it back, because I'm nowhere near wise enough to use it properly. I would probably even agree that there are a lot of people who we'd be better off seeing the end of, but I also know that I'm too limited not only in my thinking, but also in my knowledge. A Death Note would be wrongly used in my hands, no matter how careful or altruistic I was, or how thoroughly I researched possible targets.
It's not that a Death Note is a hammer. A hammer is a tool that *does* have a use, and one we can understand and use properly to the end for which it was created. That will never be the case, even if we *think* it *could* be the case, with a Death Note. There will never be a nail we're qualified to use it on. In Light's case, his definition of "nail" kept expanding, and since humans are all inherently flawed, would probably have continued to expand until it covered everyone (except himself). But he was already prone to view people that way. His megalomania and psychosis already existed -- the Death Note was only an enabling item. He was already prone to seeing everyone as nails, and then he was given a hammer. |
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plushy1emily
 Posts: 3 |
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The notion that light was some pure soul corrupted by the death note and/or Ryuk due to some hidden supernatural explanation was always ridiculous to me. My favorite parts of the series were in the middle when Light had lost his memories and had to contend with being suspected of being Kira, while simultaneously trying to catch him. To me it's this part of the series that shows how Light was always meant to be Kira, and that Light and Kira are one in the same. Even when being forced to face against Kira and work with everyone trying to catch him, he could never fully admit to himself that he couldn't have become Kira.
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Edl01
Posts: 117 |
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This article triggered some memories of a lot of arguments I've had with people IRL in high school about this very topic.
I agree basically unanimously with the article and think it pretty fantastically gets across the point I would often try to express, but in High School a lot of kids really liked Light and thought his actions were, "Justified", which I always found ridiculous. Hilariously enough the other point me and most Death Note mega fans disagree on is that I really like the ending of the show, thinking it ended exactly how it should have. But I guess if you believe Light really was anything but a Psychopathic Egomaniac maybe you could view it as a sad ending...maybe... Something I find very interesting is your quote about how the author wrote Death Note to be entertaining rather than an exploration of morality. I've suspected as much before but I never knew he'd came out and said it. |
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Fronzel
Posts: 1906 |
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The argument that Light largely chooses his targets through watching television is a good one; if the quality of Japanese journalism is anything like elsewhere he'd be frequently killing the innocent and it wouldn't be long before bogus news stories started being created to use Kira as a blind hitman.
To microscopically split a hair this was said about Mussolini not the Nazis(on top of not being true). |
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relyat08
 Posts: 4125 Location: Northern Virginia |
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Yes. This makes me wish I had screenshot some of the discussions I've had online about this. I'm increasingly surprised whenever I hear someone say they think he IS a good guy. Or one time recently, that, "yeah, Light's plan didn't work, but it was everyone else's fault. If only the world was ready to accept his glorious leadership it would have worked perfectly!" 
Very similar to how proponents of Communism just keep saying, "ah, it's not communism that's bad, it just wasn't implemented quite right. If only the world was ready for it's greatness." |
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dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
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rinmackie
 Posts: 1040 Location: in a van! down by the river! |
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I loved Death Note but I've sort of always felt indifferent to Light. I don't like him but I don't hate him, either. Someone had to be the "bad guy" in the story and he was it. Light was, in the beginning, a seemingly normal person. He was smart, athletic, and had friends. He didn't seem like the kind of person who would become a psycho killer. Of course, such people have a tendency to seem normal and likable. But I don't think Light was that much different from other teenagers and young adults. And lots of people see the world in terms of black-and-white. It could have been almost anybody though I know there are people who wouldn't dream of using the Death Note.
I do however, believe that the Death Note possessed Light but he was also the kind of person who would be easily influenced by it. If he hadn't found the Death Note, I think he would have had a normal life. He might have been still sort of a jerk, but not a killer. As for the villain versus hero argument, even though I do think Light was a bad guy, the tone of this article rubbed me the wrong way. "Ten Years of Death Note: Is the Light the Bad Guy?" Yes, most definitely, debate settled. Anyone who disagrees is just plain wrong (and maybe a bad person, themselves). Sounds like someone has a lot of confidence in their judgement. |
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KitsuneBella
Posts: 16 Location: Philadelphia, PA USA |
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I totally agree. Just based on who directed this series, I knew Araki was going to push some buttons in me and I also knew he was going to keep it real interesting all the up to the very end. Again I wasn't looking for anything that would make me think (it did, which was what I WASN'T expecting); I was looking to be entertained and watch a really great story which Death Note is, thanks not only to Araki for bringing it to live in anime, but to Ohba and Obata for writing (and drawing) such an amazing work of graphic fiction.
I'll leave all the politico musings for a series like PSYCHO-PASS 
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mgosdin
Posts: 1302 Location: Kissimmee, Florida, USA |
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Tuor, I don't think that either you or I would be silly enough to use a tool like that. But, I do think it isn't surprising that there would be someone, likely a lot of someones, who would use the Death Note and never give it a second thought.
Mark Gosdin |
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rizuchan
 Posts: 980 Location: Kansas |
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I always thought the idea that "the death note possesses the user and the user loses their soul the more they use it" was meant more as a metaphor than to be taken literally. Rather than the Note literally draining their moral compass each time they use it, I think it makes more sense as an example of how absolute power corrupts. Becoming desensitized to killing and inflicting suffering the more you do it is a pretty common theme in fiction...and non-fiction.
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