Sunday, October 7, 2007

Justified Chaos
I finished reading the Death Note manga the other day damn I was disappointed, I’ve always argued the in depth phycology of this series saying that most of its readers have attempted to simplify the morals of the series. I don’t know what Ohba’s intentions for this series were and I’ve never read any of his previous series but I thought I had an understanding as too how this might end and I guess I even admired him throughout reading this series. He was like Ryuji in Ring 2 the ultimate individual rebelling against society. He was constantly blurring the lines he never painted Light/ Kira as purely good or evil he kept his audiences constantly arguing about the justification of the murders. The whole atmosphere was so controversial and even including the discussion of after life. He dismisses the idea of life after death, there is no heaven or hell there is nothing whether a person uses the death note or not. He is removing the concept of religion from Lights character, which enhances the idea of him being a god. He does not refer to himself as a greater being as such but rather as someone that can protect the innocence. And throughout the series he is painted as a genius in the way that he can calculate each situation but at the same time he is still human he does panic in situations. If he had not killed the FBI agents then he would not have been contained by L. This proves what I’ve said before about humans just being animals, he felt threatened and panic killing the FBI agents was an instinct to ensure his freedom.

But then after what seems to be an effort to rebel against socially acceptable beliefs he end the series in a way that is so damn carbon copy it isn’t funny. He takes all the blurred lines and condenses it all into the single black and white of good versus evil. All of Kira’s most devoted followers reject him they no longer consider him as a god. Near attempts to bring him to justice and states that he was evil, even though through Kira’s rule crimes have decreased by 70 % the world is much safer he has almost created a world in which the weak can live and survive, he has eliminated survival of the fittest. But then its all lost he dies in absolute fear, our last impressions of him are pathetic and weak like he was never really meant to be a god but just another pathetic human attempting to achieve power and immortality. The world returns to the crimes that control the weak and it again becomes a matter of survival of the fittest. But even Matsuda raises the point that was it all for the best? The only way he’s comrades can justify that it is that if Light was not killed they would have been.
Ahh I totally hated this ending I mean these characters were so afraid of losing their own lives that they would rather have the world ruled by chaos. After all his efforts to rebel he gave in right at the end with a socially acceptable finale.

But the more I think it I guess the more I think that maybe I’m just simplifying the ending in a way that many readers simplified the morals. Yes this ending is socially acceptable but at the same time it’s a reflection on human behaviour. Was Kira really thinking about creating a utopia where survival of the fittest didn’t apply to humans or did he just want to be a god like the megalomaniacs throughout history?
Then there is again the idea raised that people will do anything to ensure their own survival the detectives justify the world falling back into a crime riddled chaos through keeping their own lives. They are selfish but that is just the way humans are and always will be, that is our ‘destiny’ and no one can change that.

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