Monday, January 29, 2007

Take your morals and stick them
Anyone who reads Death Note and posts around the forums will have been confronted with the moral discussions of the manga, being asked if they believe what Light is doing is right or would you do if you found a Death Note. Sadly I admit I have participated in these threads many times. But there is something that constantly annoys me about these discussions; I just can’t stand the fact that people constantly simplify the moral issues within the manga. People are constantly trying to distinguish Light as good or evil. When this happens I feel like I’m Donnie Darko in that scene where the teacher is trying to categorize life’s decisions as acts of love or fear and like Donnie I just want to say ‘well you can just stick it up your @#$’
Death Note isn’t a simple case of right and wrong, damn people are always overlooking the in-depth physiological struggles as to whether they can or could justify killing another human. Its instinct versus justice which I know is still a relatively simple way of putting it, but this way you’re looking at a wider view.
When Light kills criminals people can easily accept that as justice but when he begins to kill the FBI agents and people who threaten his freedom. Than he is easily criticized and the standard opinion of him is changed, they begin to further simplify his actions.
What they are forgetting is that Light is protecting himself and his dream of a utopia. It is at this point that Light begins to act on instincts and the story takes an in depth turn and leaves the majority of the readers behind.
Fundamentally we are all animals, as I have argued before. We act according to the situation we are involved in, if we feel that our freedom is being jeopardized we attempt to counteract the threatening actions at any cost. But how we actually act is overall determined by the individual and the situation in which they are involved in.
And don't take this and start screaming that I’m saying killing is ok, because again that would be simplifying the moral issues being discussed. All I’m asking is that people quit according to that pathetic love and fear system and stop trying to simplify the moral issues of the manga series Death Note, and for once in your goddamn lives think about something at an entirely independent level.

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