Death Note

So I just got down watching the Death Note anime, and there are some things I really don't understand.

First off, what's up with the 3rd Shingami who appears in season 2? I assume that Ryuk stole his note and gave it to Light at the beginning. However, when he goes to pick up the note from Mello, it has the fake rules on it, implying that it is the same one that the police got from Higuchi earlier. So why did Rem follow Higuchi around instead of Ryuk? This makes no sense.

It's the way Raito switched the notes around to get the ownership right. I'll edit the relevant page in shortly.

Edit: Ok, Found it http://read.mangashare.com/Death-Note/chapter-054/page006.html It's a flashback chapter telling us what happened before Raitos imprisonment and the Yotsuba arc. Pages 1-8 are relevant, but the picture you're looking for is the first one on page 6.

Second Edit: Just realised, you said anime. Adaptation-Induced Plot Hole then. Haven't gotten around to wathcing the anime. Maby I will when I have the time.

Death Note is the only manga I've read, and I liked it. Liked it more when L was alive, though. Funny how Kira would've probably evaded capture/death if he'd just avoided detection instead of chasing the investigators.

edited 28th Sep '11 1:30:31 PM by Qeise

>Raito

Sigh. It's LIGHT, people. LIGHT. "Raito" is how the english word "light" is said in Japanese but the name is supposed to be Light.

Can't we just call him Laito?

I vote for Right-o.

Pip pip, cheerio, Bob's your uncle.

L-I-G-H-T.

Anyway, I'm pretty sure that that scene is in the anime.

Anyway, I'm bored and want to get some good discussion on this.

We're going through Shakespere in school at the moment and A.C. Bradley, a literary scholar in the early 1900s had this list of what makes a tragedy and what makes a tragic hero. It actually fits Deathnote and Light perfectly.

Tragedy:

• Concerned primarily with one person.
  • Obvious. Light.
• Essentially a tale of suffering and calamity leading to death.
  • Probably the point that fits least. Light doesn't suffer until the very end, though you could point out the loss of his loved ones and his sanity.
• The suffering and calamity are exceptional. They befall a conspicuous person.
  • He loses his mind and dies. He's a very conspicuous person even at the beginning of the story.
• The suffering and calamity are, as a rule, unexpected and contrast with previous happiness and/or glory.
  • Definitely. Light was essentially ruling the world for a few years and had everything he wanted.
• Suffering and calamity are attended by tragic pity.
  • If you consider his personality before he got the Deathnote, he was a really virtuous guy.
• When the tragic hero falls suddenly from the height of earthly greatness to the dust, his fall produces a sense of contrast, of the powerlessness of man, and of the omnipotence, or even the caprice, of fortune or fate.
  • Definitely. Light believes himself to be an almighty god but in the end, he's just a delusioned human.
• The centre of the tragedy must be said to lie in action issuing from the character, or in character issuing from action. Some of the common ingredients are: (a) abnormal conditions of mind, (b) the supernatural, and (c) at some point in the play (story), a significant role played by chance or accident.
  • Abnormal conditions of the mind, check. Light belives he's god. Supernatural, check. Ryuk, the shinigami and the Deathnote itself. A significant role played by chance or accident. Check. Light's death due to Mikami's mistake and him picking up the Deathnot ein the first place.
• The action can be defined as a conflict (a) between two persons, (b) between two passions, tendencies, ideas, principles, or forces, which animate these persons or groups, and (c) a conflict within the tragic hero's soul.
  • A and B are prominent. The battle between L and Light, as well as between Light, Mello and Near, and the idealistic conflict between Kira's views and L's views.

The Tragic Hero:

• He is an exceptional being: Highly born, an intelligent, highly educated courtier, a scholar and soldier, physically dynamic, well-mannered, a patron of the arts. He is a paragon of the concept "noblesse oblige".
  • Light is perfect dude. Fits all the categories, except maybe highly born, though he is son of a highly ranking police officer.
• His nature is also exceptional: this does not mean that he is an eccentric or a paragon; rather, in his character there is an intensification of ordinary qualities.
  • Light's initial goal is to bring about happiness in the world. I'm sure that everyone wishes for this. He just goes to an extreme to bring this about.
• In almost all tragic heroes, the audience observes a marked one-sidedness, a predisposition in some particular direction; a total incapacity, in certain circumstances, to resist the force which draws in this direction; a fatal tendency to identify the whole self with one interest, object, passion or habit of mind.
  • Light believes his way is the best way for the world. No arguing.
• In circumstances in which the hero is placed, his tragic trait, which is also his greatness, is fatal to him.
  • Light is so perfectly righteous, that he eventually brings about his own fall by going too far in enforcing it. He eventually dies because of it.
• In most cases the tragic error involves no conscious breach of right; in some, it is accompanied by a full conviction of right.
  • Light first tries the Deathnote without believing in its effectiveness. Later on, he begins to justify his actions and believes that he is in the right.
• The tragic hero has so much greatness that in his error and fall, the audience is vividly conscious of the possibilities of human nature.
  • It's hard not to empathize with Light's views at least a bit. Killing criminals might be extreme, but there is clearly a genuine interest in the good of mankind. Maybe you don't agree with what he does, but there is a clear righteous objective in mind.
• The greatness of the tragic hero is central to the essence of the tragedy. The overwhelming feeling at the conclusion of the play (story) is the impression of waste.
  • Light could have become the greatest detectives and forces of justice in the world, on par with L. He was intelligent, righteous and morally upright.

If you draw lines with Macbeth, it's pretty clear. They're both amazingly respected and talented individuals at the start of the story. Then their tragic flaws (Ambition for Macbeth, and an overwhelming sense of Righteousness and a belief in his own strength for Light) bring them into a position of power. Eventually, they become mad and are brought down in a pathetic fashion. If you take a look at what they were and compare it to what they become, there's a stark contrast. Just imagine what would happen if they never went down the road that they took.

Technically it is about two people, but you could argue it is two tragic stories in one telling.

honestly? I prefer to think the story had a Downer Ending, and Light won. The replacements stuff felt like an excuse to prevent a villain from winning, when the author couldn't think of another way out.

edited 2nd Nov '11 9:10:00 PM by crazysamaritan

I consider Death Note to be a pretty straight tragedy, but it's interesting to see it laid out like that.

Light is also very proud, in fact you could say that it is his fatal flaw; even in the end he's obviously become so enamoured of his own superiority that he assumes that no-one can touch him. Hubris and the idea of the hamartia (fatal flaw) are staples of the Greek tragedy. Light's rise and downfall hinges on his pride.

^I disagree. Light's story had to end to him dying because it is a tragedy. It's also lampshaded several times from the beginning. Light was never going to win, ever. I'm always surprised that people thought that there was a chance of him winning in a narrative sense.

edited 3rd Nov '11 12:30:22 AM by elemcee

Lampshaded? No. It was claimed several times. I thought the writing was good enough that I couldn't predict who would win between the two of them. But after it was over, the author suddenly brings in two extra characters for the champion to defeat? Total deux ex machina to prevent that character from actually winning. Until that point, it had been strongly indicated that L and Light were on an almost perfect level with each other, in intelligence. Nothing suggested that there was anyone else capable of being a threat to them. given that, I prefer the bad ending. However, I've heard of one adaptation where L writes his name in the death note, and uses that to beat Kira. I think that is the best ending.

The alternate ending you're speaking of is from the Japanese live-action movie adaptation series.

edited 3rd Nov '11 3:01:23 PM by Sporkaganza

"Suddenly"? Almost half of the story was about Mello and Near arc. They were around for over 5 books (out of 12).

He's talking about when they were first introduced halfway through the series after L died, "after it was over" referring to the mind games between Kira and L. During all the time L was alive, there was no mention or foreshadowing of L's successors. The story was set up from the beggining as "Kira vs L". Then the latter dies and all of a sudden it's "Kira vs the late L's less interesting successors." I agree that the live action films did it better by having L finish the job himself and cutting that arc out altogether, though I do bemoan the loss of Mikami.

edited 3rd Nov '11 5:35:04 PM by ManwiththePlan

I seem to be the only one who likes Mello and Near.

I mean, not as much as L, but I didn't suddenly hate the show when they became the antagonists instead of him.

They were okay but my problem with them is that they're basically two halves of one L (Mello being the competitive, immature one who lives like a slob and has a sweet tooth, Near being the calm, quirky, underhanded genius) and that just wasn't as interesting. Many fans have complained about Near in particular, saying there's nothing he did in the series that L couldn't have done. And indeed, in the live action films, not only did L beat Kira himself but he filled Near's role in the final confrontation, complete with the "The Reason You Suck" Speech to Kira.

I don't hate the new detectives and kiras that were introduced after L and Light's final confrontation. I just felt that after that came to a conclusion, the author reset the story to the midway point in order to Author's Saving Throw a different ending. I may not have liked the ending, but trying to go back to set up a different one rubbed me the wrong way. I like the series up until that point, and the rest was predictable.

But the movies sucked. Too much Narm and the actors were crappy.

What? I thought the movies had alot less Narm than the anime. And aside from maybe Light, what actors were crappy? And no matter how they looked, I say the films told the story a heck of alot better than the anime or even the original manga did. That's right, I just went there.

edited 3rd Nov '11 9:13:53 PM by ManwiththePlan

I'm not sure if I should quote The Big Lebowski or not...

In my opinion all of the actors sucked. L's actor was probably the worst one. Also the ending seemed like blatant pandering to L's fanbase to me... and it was horribly narmy all the time. And not in a good way.

And now you've lost all your credibility. L's actor the WORST one? He's been praised for his performance by many people, so much that he got his own spin-off movie (which wasn't very good but still.) Not many actors could pull off L in real life, but he did.

And about the ending "pandering to L's fanbase." Yeah, any ending that doesn't involve L losing to Light and dying must be "pandering", even if it's a logical ending that cuts out the Replacement Scrappy characters and spares us the increasingly dull convoluted-ness and Ending Fatigue of the series' second half.

and it was horribly narmy all the time. And not in a good way.

"Horribly narmy" HOW? At least this version didn't have overdramatic potato chip eating.

edited 4th Nov '11 8:14:11 AM by ManwiththePlan

I didn't watch the second one, only the first live-action film, but I wasn't a fan of it. It was okay, but I just didn't get nearly the same enjoyment out of it that I did from the anime. Plus, Ryuk looked like shit. Seriously, I know it was apparently intentional to make him look "cartoony", but it looked so horrible.

Eh, to big this back to the tragedy thing from before, I'm honestly rather fond of the fact that what ultimately defeats Light isn't really L or even Near or anyone, it's his own failings. It is, when you get down to it, Light's story, and I want to see him lose because of his own fuck-ups, not because someone else is super special awesome.

edited 4th Nov '11 8:20:52 AM by Drakyndra