The Morality of Death Note

I noticed that most Death note threads end up being about the show's morality. So what the hell, I want to know what you think about the morality of the 6 main characters. What you thought of them, whether they were right or wrong etc

Light

Misa

Mikami

L

Near

Mello

"Contests fought between two masters are decided instantly. An invisible battle is now raging between the two of them." Lulu vs Schneizel

Come on, this thread again? Let's make it short:

Crazy fuckwad.

Crazier fuckwad.

Entertaining fuckwad.

Crazy bitch.

Not so crazy, but still a bit dickish.

Who gives a fuck about Near?

I give a fuck about Near

"Contests fought between two masters are decided instantly. An invisible battle is now raging between the two of them." Lulu vs Schneizel

We...actually had a thread for this but it seems like it got deleted. :/

huh? and here I thought I was being clever. Meh. Delete at your leisure. I just wanted to hear people's thoughts

edited 6th Jun '11 1:44:24 PM by gingerninja666

"Contests fought between two masters are decided instantly. An invisible battle is now raging between the two of them." Lulu vs Schneizel

It's probably fine as long as there's no arguments. If the last thread had just been locked instead of deleted it would probably have been easier to know what thoughts tended to be on this forum.

Really, though, none of the main characters in Death Note are particularly nice people. Light's probably the worst of the lot, but mileage always varies.

That was something, what about L makes him a bad person. I mean everywhere I go he's called a Draco in Leather Pants but I don't see why. A Knight Templar definately but still

"Contests fought between two masters are decided instantly. An invisible battle is now raging between the two of them." Lulu vs Schneizel

I don't think he's a bad person. But he does do some slightly dubious things like the whole thing with Misa, and the restraining was probably justified, but not the torture.

He's my favourite character, though, so I'm biased.

Light: Mostly agreed with him in season one but he went off the deep end in season two.

Misa: Misa wasn't a very moral character. Practically everything she did was based on emotional reasoning.

Mikami: I agreed with him to an extent, but his philosophy was black and white to the point of insanity.

L: I see L as basically an egotist like Light, but one who is working mostly within the law. I think his goal is pretty much to catch Kira but doesn't truly care about whether it is just or not.

Near: Near is a lot like L, but with a little more self-righteousness thrown in.

Mello: I see little to nothing moral about the guy.

Light: Was a crazed but sympathetic Knight Templar up until he killed Naomi Misora, a straight-up Villain Protagonist up until he killed L, and a Complete Monster for the remainder of the series. Before getting the Death Note, he at least had his heart in the right place.

L: A Knight Templar through and through, and one that wasn't fixated on "justice" so much as he was with "winning." Very morally dubious but not evil at heart.

Misa: Thinks with her heart 'cause her head's all crazy. Not very evil, though.

Mikami: He had a pretty valid morality but was totally Ax-Crazy insane about it.

Near: More self-centered than L and is in it out of some sense of righteousness.

Mello: Has all of L's obsession with winning and none of his morality.

That said, the highest major character on the morality scale would probably be Souichirou, with the lowest probably being Higuchi. Ryuk is the pure Chaotic Neutral in the middle.

edited 6th Jun '11 9:05:03 PM by ManwiththePlan

Despite all of our past grievances, I actually agree with most of your opinions.

edited 7th Jun '11 12:19:16 AM by hishighnessofheretics

Damn it, this site has too many ads and it's making my laptop lag so I guess I'll have to say the short version of what I was going to say...

The only reason why I got into Death Note is because someone said I reminded them of Light because of a theoretical thing I said about what it would be like to force people to do good instead of inspiring them to be that way if it more or less produced the same results and I had no idea what Light was somewhat of a deconstructed anti-villain or so.

For most of the anime I actually really hated him for being so manipulative and having a complete Lack of Empathy, including the people he used...

However, at the end of the anime when he had a Motive Rant about what he did, I knew he wasn't bullshitting since he had nothing left to lose and that he was trying to make an inspiring speech about how much he changed the world, from stopping wars and putting the crime rate down by 70 percent, and then when he said he felt like he was the only one who would have done what he had to do to make the world a better place, and being an Übermensch, it really got to me because I relate to that a lot...

I definitely like the seemingly more heroic counterpart to him that everyone compares him to though, being Lelouch. :p Since like, he at least cares about Nunnally and the way they react to death are at complete opposites. ^^;

But like... I knew he had to die and that he should but he was also a character I could relate to a lot, like I was watching the worst aspect of myself become something I would consider a hero at that time and that I would be losing myself...

I feel kind of crazy for saying stuff like this...

I mean... there's a lot of Jerkass people that constantly get away with hurting people and they usually get away with it because it's hard to know what you should do to get back at them, right?

They just do all of these horrible things and feel no regret for their actions, and they just remain the same as ever no matter how many years go by... it makes me sick... there's so much suffering... I hate seeing others say that their in the same position as me and watching them be hurt... I want to help them but I don't know what to do. :(

So um... I guess that's all I have to say...

"Hell exists not to punish sinners, but to ensure that nobody sins in the first place." - Eikishiki Yamaxanadu (Touhou)

By the way, rather than Higuchi, Demegawa, even Light, or maybe even Ryuk, I read on the wiki that the most evil character stated by Word of God is simply Rod Ross for being the leader of the mafia. :p

If only he had more characterization...

"Hell exists not to punish sinners, but to ensure that nobody sins in the first place." - Eikishiki Yamaxanadu (Touhou)

Evil exists in this world, and it sucks, but becoming something far worse is never the solution. Light killed anyone who was reported as having committed a crime on the news. Anyone who was ever arrested. Do you know how many people are arrested but later found innocent in law? Light killed a lot of innocent people just because someone claimed they did something. The justice system exists for a reason, and going around it to murder anyone who is ever accused of anything isn't justice, it's a Witch Hunt through which a lot of innocent people suffer.

By the end of the series, Light admitted that down the road, he was going to start killing lazy people too, which is another example with the problem with Light's methods: hate is never satisfied. If you decide that all the killers are bad, and then you kill all the killers, the world still isn't perfect. Who else has to die to make it perfect? Rapists? Sure. Who dies next? Eventually you're going to run out of people to kill and the world still won't be perfect because the world will never be perfect, because utopia is a lie, and anyone killed to create it was killed for nothing.

Most of Light's victims who genuinely were killers believed they were justified too. They don't kill for lulz. They all had their reasons, just like Light did. People are complicated. They aren't just "Good" or "Evil", and when you start thinking one-dimensionally like that, "Protect the good, destroy the evil," you attain one of the most powerful and destructive forces in the world: blind conviction, for which many will suffer. That's what Light had.

edited 10th Jun '14 9:57:03 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Yeah, I learned about that in criminology. Crime, in a way, has a societal function; it teaches normal members of society what 'not' to be. If you eliminated all crime, you'd begin to overly scrutinize yourself.

The problem is Light literally believed himself to be so noble and pure that he was in fact a God; that because he had the power to control human lives completely that his morality was absolute. I don't think that Light was perfectly normal before the Deathnote either; it would seem he has some form of NPD. Then again, his time without memories shows that him without the deathnote thinks that Kira is wrong, even if he is somewhat sympathetic. Either way though, he definitely has NPD by the time he starts really using the Deathnote.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

I really like the sequence with Light's Memory Gambit because, to me, it indicates that the real villain of the story is the Death Note itself; of all the characters to be granted Absolute Power, Light is by far the worst, but nobody else is particularly responsible with it either. It goes back to the saying of Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely; the only characters who ever touch the Death Note and don't immediately try to abuse it in some fashion are experienced law enforcement professionals, already well aware of its capabilities, who've dedicated a portion of their life to overcoming it and are thus mentally and emotionally prepared for the temptation that obtaining one brings.

There is no "correct" way to use the Death Note. Both the level of power it holds and the context of that power is, by its very nature, a corrupting force. It is the ultimate expression of freedom from consequence, the ability to do and to have anything your heart desires, so long as you continue feeding human lives into it; at its worst, it is the perfect murder weapon, and at its best, it is a wish-granting machine that runs on death. No matter how good your intentions are going in, it will destroy you as a human being, and leave a monster in your place. The only way to win is not to play.

edited 10th Jun '14 10:34:25 AM by TobiasDrake

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

I wouldn't say that. I think the Deathnote is morally neutral; there is no intrinsic value to anyone's life in universe. The issue is that the absolute power of the Deathnote almost inevitably empowers our inherent capacity for evil.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Life and death are neutral, but killing for one's own benefit is inherently a moral act. And there's literally no other way to use it.

But Light doesn't see himself as killing for his own benefit. He sees himself as killing people for the Good of mankind.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

So do plenty of the people he's killing. Racial supremacists, for instance.

My Tumblr. Currently liveblogging Haruhi Suzumiya and revisiting Danganronpa V3.

Light considers himself personally invested in the "Good of Mankind" as he sees it, so it's for his own benefit.

I don't think that's entirely fair, because the way you frame that then 'everyone's' actions would be in their own benefit.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

I don't think that's wrong, but more to the point do you seriously think Light was acting selflessly? I never got the feeling that he cared about anyone else ever.

Well it depends on what Selflessly really means. Does anyone truly act selflessly? But yeah, I do think that ultimately it was for his own self-glorification.

These are the words that shall come from my mouth. I shall be known for speaking them.

Saying that Light was killing for the "good of mankind" is still meaningless, because he is setting himself up as an autonomous judge, and nobody has the right to that authority. At best, a user of the Death Note would be a vigilante.