Death Note

I've already thought that, if I were to own and use a Death Note, I'd only use it to kill important, powerful people, and I'd do it with the best of intentions.

But every time I thought of the specifics of such a thing, I realised how unfeasible it is: would the spontaneous death of [horrible person] make things worse? Would I have to kill their allies as well? Would anybody get suspicious as a result? If I went through Light's route and make it look like divine punishment for something, would the world even get the right message? And even if they did, everybody else who I didn't kill would now believe themselves to be virtuous, since they escaped the wrath of "God". All of that assuming people don't figure out some random dude is doing it. And through all that, the world may actually become worse because I killed someone who was vital to keeping the world economy running, or something.

So yeah, a murder machine is likely a terrible way to bring positive change to the world.

The fact that you can force them to do things for quite a while before they die helps. "Sign all these climate change bills and then go get hit by a truck" is perfectly valid.

Still probably wouldn't work, though. Even ignoring people realizing something was wrong (and the whole morality thing), they'd just get replaced by similar people. I suppose the most effective way to change things would be to kill off members of the Supreme Court so that a president you agree with can replace them. But that's not foolproof either.

The point is that Democracy is pretty much designed to be as murder-proof as possible. You might end up having to kill literally everyone in elected office. If you're bloodthirsty enough, there's a chance that would actually work, but at that point you may as well just make a brand new government.

And, you know, the more than half of the voting population who just elected them and would elect them even harder if they get killed before the people has a chance to get tired of them. You might need to kill all of those, too. Better start training your wrist.

edited 24th Nov '16 6:42:41 AM by Cozzer

I'll quote myself (from elsewhere) on this issue:

Dude, no. Seriously...

The fourth Death Note live-action film: Light Up The New World.

edited 5th Feb '17 2:00:15 AM by Soble

That movie came out last October, alongside this miniseries.

YOU'RE TELLING ME THIS NOW!? Smithers, release the hounds!

So I take it no one's watched it then.

Did Light ever go through with actually marrying Misa or was she just his fiance?

Regardless, I'm pretty sure we never see the two of them with Light's family. I was suddenly thinking of this when reading the DN trope page. (Jesus Christ it's long) "All Love Is Unrequited: This is played 100% straight with Sayu, Misa and Light"

Disregarding the subject of whether or not Light actually did care about Sayu, this just made me think if there is like a fanfic out there of Misa meeting Light's family. That's a pretty natural thing to do, ya know. I wonder what they all would think of her, like if Sayu maybe saw her as a big sister or something.

The Yagami family needed more focus outside of the dad and son. Bystanders are the unsung victims of war.

edited 9th Apr '17 4:36:48 AM by Nikkolas

Would the Death Note work for death-by-meteor?

...I mean, if it can cause car accidents through predestination... though how many people have died by falling meteorite in the past decade?

You'd probably need to have the meteor hitting in very specific circumstances to steer clear of How to use X and be written as a delayed death so there's time for the meteor to get to Earth. Basically, you'd need something like "{name} goes in his boat to the middle of the ocean {23 days from now} and a meteor destroys his boat, killing him". Or simply, kill an astronaut.

Meteor would probably fall under "Impossible death" in which case they'll just die of a heart attack.

Like when Light tries to have someone jump off the Effiel Tower in one hour and it doesn't happen because it's physically impossible to get from Japan to France in one hour.

I suppose it depends how many meteors are around that fate could divert to kill someone. Car crashes are easy because pretty much everyone he might want to kill is within reach of a car at any given time. More exotic means of murder are more difficult.

Really dumb question:

Do you die if you write your own name in the death note?

Plus, I always wondered what would have happened if two people had picked up the first book Ryuk dropped at the same moment back when all this first started.

Would they both own the note? Are there any rules for shared ownership? Inquiring minds (aka me) want to know.

Considering the originally planned ending (which is the ending of the Japanese films), yes, you do die if you write your own name.

Oh right. Forgot about L doing it in the movies.

What was the original planned ending? Was this from when the Death Note belonged to a bunch of kids, and there was a also a Death Eraser that could undo deaths?

I do think I remember one of the kids in that version of the story did put their own name in it.

If I recall correctly, the original ending was L writing his own name with something along the lines of "dies peacefully in his sleep in two weeks." That rendered him immune to the Note, and he was able to use that advantage to defeat Light within two weeks, at which point he died peacefully in his sleep.

So the Japanese films used that ending instead. Interesting.

I really liked the movie ending. Major props to Takeshi Kaga for his portrayal of Soichiro Yagami; the look of utter heartbreak on his face upon hearing his own son scream at Ryuk to kill everyone in the room always gets me. I mean, he's already saddened enough that his own son tried to off him, but to actually hear him call for his death...

Also, fun fact for any fan of Drakengard: Rem's voice actor in the film is the same guy who voices Angelus the dragon.

edited 5th Sep '17 6:41:35 PM by dragonfire5000

Death Note is a lot of things. But one of the things I could never understand about it was the second opening.

They went from golden opening to just having a lot of noise, screaming and heavy banging. I don't hate the song, in fact, the last shot of Light in some kind of underworld is poignant. In any other circumstance I might actually like this opening.

But... how do you go from an opening with all of this seemingly religious symbolism and visual metaphor - the conflict between Light and L that encapsulates the plot shown when the two of them are standing on opposing skyscrapers (images we would later see represented in the hsow proper), Light's corruption when he bites apple, the images of Shinigami and glass breaking and demons flying into the night, the distant stare-off between Light and L as the camera zooms past them in a hallway, Light extending his hand to Misa, and Light framed against a picture of some godly being.

All of this reeks of purpose but the second opening... doesn't?

The most common interpretation I've heard is that it's supposed to be about Light's mental state, but everything's so chaotic in this opening it's hard to really discern anything.

edited 4th Mar '18 11:01:45 AM by Soble

It's DEATH Metal! :P

If someone who played the Oregon Trail had a Death Note everyone would die of dysentery and rattlesnake bites.

Or swept away trying to cross a river.

So did anybody watch enough of TV Death Note to determine where it was a good adaption? Better than the Netflix one?