Politics in Media - The Good, the Bad, and the Preachy

Plus, Murderers are easy targets for public rage, nobody is gonna weep if the Serial Killer Serial Rapist of Children died. Light is doing it for a ego stroke, not any good intention and the narrative really don't tries to hide it, Draco in Leather Pants is fan stuff.

Light also embody the idea of corrective justice, the idea that punishment must be have in order better sociaty, usually by getting rid of "Undersiable", the diferent between him and let said, the punisher is that kira have a end goal.

I think people were right when saying that light is pretty easy to americanize because he is not diferent from a mass shooter.

I mean, the American mass shooter don't even tries to attack criminals, just people in highschool or minorities in a civil non-criminal context.

Light's case is very simple, he's a Egomaniac that wants to be praised, he likely would become a arrogant but effective detective if he lived a normal life but now that he had the DN he wants to be God. He really don't believes in what he does.

If Death Note truly was about punitative justice, then Light would be feel bad about killing the investigators, but he doens't

Edited by KazuyaProta on Oct 21st 2019 at 2:11:34 PM

Which is the point, they do because in their eyes they are criminals by sole right of existince, which is pretty close to Light mentality.

Is diferent that the punisher who kill criminals in a very mechanic way of "You comit crime, you die".

He kill the detective because they were a threat to him, Light is not over such things, he is pretty much "well, you have to break some egg here and there", easy when you dont give a shit about anyone.

Edited by unknowing on Oct 21st 2019 at 3:15:42 PM

Nah, Light literally kills the people in jail or the arrested ones in the news, the American Mass Shooter is mostly just about racism and/or personal resentments. Light is a dick, but he puts a show of being genuinely well intentioned.

Light's style of justice would be seen far more differently in several parts of the world. In countries like, let's say, Peru, he would be praised. If he was in USA, then people would be wondering "he's genuine or he's a racist?".

Edited by KazuyaProta on Oct 21st 2019 at 2:16:54 PM

And in most of his incarnations, even Castle avoids killing (non corrupt) cops.

That actually help my point because some people think having capture criminals is a waste of resource and want the bullet to the lot of them, Light is pretty much a japanise socipath, like that one guy who kill a binch of elderly people because he though they were just a waste and even send a letter explaning is actions.

the strech for that to mass shooter is not much diferent.

Light does seem tad fascist, isn’t he?

I would like to say that, there is no moment where Light goes, "Oh shit, I have no choice but to kill those FBI guys on my trail."

The moment Lind L. Taylor showed up on TV and called out Light for being a shitty asshole, Light decided to murder him without a second thought because his precious ego was slighted. Light has never shown any qualm killing people who are in his way.

The exact moment I fully turned on Light was when he killed Naomi. That's when my motivation to read the manga turned from "ooo, I wonder how this morally ambiguous/dark protagonist thriller story will work out" to "I can't wait for this shitbag to get what's coming to him". Which is possibly part of why I have a higher opinion of the second half than some people, that conclusion redeems so much.

Define "fascist" in this context.

Edited by GoldenKaos on Oct 22nd 2019 at 9:29:33 AM

Making the world a better place by killing all the undesirable people. I don't think that's actually part of fascist doctrine, but its most prominent proponents were certainly big on it.

Light is a fascist dictator and visionary without need for armies.

I dunno, I'm a bit picky about calling stuff fascist, and meeting one or two criteria doesn't cut it for me. Besides, "killing the undesirables" is hardly unique to fascism.

I don't actually think fascism is a coherent ideology to be honest. It's basically a vague collection of nationalist, racist, militaristic leader worship and authoritarianism that got tossed around a lot to a bunch of similar military dictatorships. Its basically a pejorative that should probably be treated as such.

So while, no, Light is not a fascist, I think it's not too terribly inaccurate to say he has a fascist worldview of Visionary Villain reactionary law and order.

Fascism has many different versions, which is why it is kind of hard to pin it down at times, but it has enough similarities that span the different versions to be able to make a decent checklist.

The Other Wiki has a decent page on it, and I favour the Umberto Eco and Emilio Gentile lists in particular, although I have time for the Marxist interpretations as well.

This is an "early warnings of fascism" list from the US Holocaust Museum, which is a good a shorthand as any I suppose:

• Powerful and continuing nationalism
• Disdain for human rights
• Identification of enemies as a unifying cause
• Supremacy of the military
• Rampant sexism
• Controlled mass media
• Obsession with national security
• Religion and government intertwined
• Corporate power protected
• Labor [sic] power suppressed
• Disdain for intellectuals & the arts
• Obsession with crime & punishment
• Rampant cronyism & corruption
• Fraudulent elections

Light is certainly authoritarian - which is what a lot of people actually mean when they say "fascist", or "Nazi" for that matter - but he lacks most of the features of an actual fascist IMO. The main two from this list is his disdain for human rights (extended to human life) and obsession with crime and punishment. Arguably sexism? But no nationalist sentiment or veneration of the military or populist mass movement (I don't that cult of his counts), which are some of the main hallmarks of Fascism.

To quote Orwell from 1944:

People always misuse fascism to means Authoritarian. I'll call Nationalist Millitarism the biggest part of fascism, but that also would make some Third World Authoritarian Leftist movements be fascist.

Yeah, it really didn't had time to develop into a coherent doctrine (read coherent as "makes internal sense", not as "morally good").

I don't think "morally good" is an accepted definition of "coherent" anyway...

This definition applies to any genocidal or politicidal ideology, I don't think it's nearly enough to make Light a fascist.

Well, Light eventually does gain his own underlings and a cult that worships him.

Granted, one that is mostly autonomous of him, and basically project their own beliefs upon him.

Cult of Personality =/= Fascism

Indeed, it's a characteristic of fascism but like any one characteristic, it's not nearly enough to declare a person fascist on its own.

https://sfdebris.com/videos/films/theylive.php

Really amazing economic review of THEY LIVE.

When people think of facist, they really have three things in comon:

They are authoritarian.

They are war like

They dont like some kind of people.

Which is oretty much a reduction of Nazi germany as a whole which is why is so easy to misused "X group is try to use their unfluence against me, they are facist!" and like Orwell said, is usually a way to make a hill of a mole.

DC has announced that, coming this fall, Superman will reveal his secret identity to the rest of the world.

Naturally, this announcement has upset some people, especially those who weren't fond of the last story in which Superman's secret identity was exposed to the public (although this upcoming story seems to have Clark choose to come out of his own volition).

Scans daily has a summary of an interview that Brian Michael Bendis gave about the upcoming story seen here. This part stood out to me.

Emphasis mine.

Granted there are those in the comments who disagree with this view, siting reasons for people to want to keep anonymity. I don't feel those reasons really apply to people like superheroes who often are very public.