My favorite part about Death Note is that the whole point of the series is “Nobody could be trusted with a power such as this and the existence of such a thing would only lead to ruin,” but every single person who watches it, including me, can only think “yeah, but if I had that power, I would weild it responsibly and only use it to fix things.”
It’s kind of genius in a metatextual way, because that’s exactly what would make an artifact like the Death Note so tempting in the first place. During the stint where Light loses his memory for a bit, you get the impression that he would just be a regular person if he never had the notebook in the first place. He could have grown up to be a cop like his dad. But one day he finds himself with the power to kill instantly and anonymously, and who wouldn’t at least think about using that in a world where injustice happens every day?
I think it’s a near universal human experience to see a horrific crime on the news and think “that person should hang”. It’s a form of temporary tribalism that affects even the most hardened opponents of capital punishment. But most of us are never given a means of acting on that dark thought, so it just remains a thought and we move on. I think what makes Death Note such a great concept is that Tsugumi Ohba tapped into this experience and really examined it.
On average, most people given a Death Note would probably list at least one high-profile idiot that would have caused way more deaths through their reign of terror than a Death Note ever could. In that respect, I would say no amount of evil wreaked by writing names would outweigh the good from that one name, and it’s arguably a net good.
Honestly, some of the worst idiots would have to slow down the kill people with a Death Note, so giving them one might be considered a net good as well.
I mean it says ‘nobody should be trusted with it’ but then it gives it to someone most people would agree would be absolutely horrible to receive it and it goes about as well as everyone expects.
If they wanted to prove in it’s absolute corrupting influence then give it to someone like Mr. Rogers and then show how it corrupts even the best of us. There are dozens of better media showing the downfall of a good person with good intentions being corrupted by power. Death Note is a show about giving an artifact that could be an incredible force for good but is instead mishandled horribly and stupidly by basically everyone involved.
Honestly I think a good 40-60% of the population would do a better job than Light did with the power. For one, most people would immediately use it to kill the vast majority of the world’s most evil people before they actually started using it for dumb shit. The show overly focused on small time criminals rather than corrupt politicians and the rich in an effort to avoid shifting the tone into something more political (or simply because politics was less insane back then, I’m not sure). Either way it hasn’t aged well given our current global environment.
Light was a self-righteous authoritarian megalomaniac to begin with though, so it’s easy to imagine someone else being more ethical about it. To me it seemed like the point was that it’s really tricky to stay anonymous with a maxed out threat model.
My favorite part about Death Note is that the whole point of the series is “Nobody could be trusted with a power such as this and the existence of such a thing would only lead to ruin,” but every single person who watches it, including me, can only think “yeah, but if I had that power, I would weild it responsibly and only use it to fix things.”
It’s kind of genius in a metatextual way, because that’s exactly what would make an artifact like the Death Note so tempting in the first place. During the stint where Light loses his memory for a bit, you get the impression that he would just be a regular person if he never had the notebook in the first place. He could have grown up to be a cop like his dad. But one day he finds himself with the power to kill instantly and anonymously, and who wouldn’t at least think about using that in a world where injustice happens every day?
I think it’s a near universal human experience to see a horrific crime on the news and think “that person should hang”. It’s a form of temporary tribalism that affects even the most hardened opponents of capital punishment. But most of us are never given a means of acting on that dark thought, so it just remains a thought and we move on. I think what makes Death Note such a great concept is that Tsugumi Ohba tapped into this experience and really examined it.
God, I love this series. Can you tell?
On average, most people given a Death Note would probably list at least one high-profile idiot that would have caused way more deaths through their reign of terror than a Death Note ever could. In that respect, I would say no amount of evil wreaked by writing names would outweigh the good from that one name, and it’s arguably a net good.
Honestly, some of the worst idiots would have to slow down the kill people with a Death Note, so giving them one might be considered a net good as well.
I mean it says ‘nobody should be trusted with it’ but then it gives it to someone most people would agree would be absolutely horrible to receive it and it goes about as well as everyone expects.
If they wanted to prove in it’s absolute corrupting influence then give it to someone like Mr. Rogers and then show how it corrupts even the best of us. There are dozens of better media showing the downfall of a good person with good intentions being corrupted by power. Death Note is a show about giving an artifact that could be an incredible force for good but is instead mishandled horribly and stupidly by basically everyone involved.
Honestly I think a good 40-60% of the population would do a better job than Light did with the power. For one, most people would immediately use it to kill the vast majority of the world’s most evil people before they actually started using it for dumb shit. The show overly focused on small time criminals rather than corrupt politicians and the rich in an effort to avoid shifting the tone into something more political (or simply because politics was less insane back then, I’m not sure). Either way it hasn’t aged well given our current global environment.
Light was a self-righteous authoritarian megalomaniac to begin with though, so it’s easy to imagine someone else being more ethical about it. To me it seemed like the point was that it’s really tricky to stay anonymous with a maxed out threat model.