Death Note, Vol. 1 discussion

What do you guys think. L is my favorite and my second favorite is misa.

Ryuk, fo' sho'.

Seriously, though, I love Mikami Teru. He's the most interesting character aside from Light.

Amen peoples amen!

I LOVE L and near!! but then matt and mello

Gotta be L. to bad he died

Ryuk.

ryuk wants apples help

L *still crying over his death*
Ryuk *hands him a apple*

Well, I think both Light and L *_*

I am quite a fan of L. I loved him to the point that when he was killed, I stopped reading/watching bc it upset me so much. Yes, I will admit it, I cried, but now that I am over it. I still like the series.

well i think i love matt the best because in order for mellow to catch kira he sacrificed himself. i love how he is an idiot in a very smart way(shhh it makes sense).
i was waiting for matt to comeout throughout the entire series and boy was i mad when he died in less than 30 seconds>:(

It's L, for me. I like the way he thinks and investigate the case. But unfortunately, he died.

L! Right from the first moment, he had my heart :)

L , definetly

Ratio because he started with good intent but then turned into the most feared killer out there. He's just a great example in showing that, no matter how good your intent is, if your ways to achieve that were built on a wrong base then everything you wished for will fail sooner or later. So yap!! Ratio my favorite.

Remu...the Honest and Objective God of death...

for sure .. It's Yagami. I love the way he plans. so evil, also so clever.

the father _ i can't remember the name_ because he cared a lot about his family
he sacrificed him self to save his daughter and he never wanted to doubt his son

Yagami Raito. I love L at the very beginning, then I start to love Yagami Raito since I watched the live-action movie. You know, Tatsuya Fujiwara is charming somehow haha.

i like near!he's pretty smart and stuff but i mean come on nobody can surpass L!

Ryuk of course! No one's as awesome as he is!

L of course!

I liked Light's character. his personality is so interesting and develop continuously while the story progress. And I kind of liked his justice sense.

I liked both Light and L. Light with the initial good intentions and his transformation to a bad guy. I loved the arc when both Light and L worked together and wished that it was for real, instead of part of Light's plan.

I like L!

I loved L he was my everything, but his one track mind bothered me a little, so killing was wrong, no matter if they were murderers; Light on the other side was the troubled character the one who wanted something more, something better, not just to do what is supposedly to be right. So Light it is , he is my favorite.

L OFCOURSE. i did not feel like watching the series when he was dead.. but still did.. couldn help it

Playing devil's advocate, perhaps literally, heheh.

I prefer Light, overall he seems like a more balanced individual than L except for the megalomania. Is capable of interacting with individuals in way L is unable to and takes lots of risks to achieve what he sets to do.

Light, of course.
And Ryuk ^___^

L and his "brothers": Near and Mello

L is my favorite!!and my second favorite is near!
(least favorite misa -_-)

Sarah wrote: "L is my favorite!!and my second favorite is near!
(least favorite misa -_-)"

I AGREE

Misa Misa

I loved Ryuk! He was great fun and I liked watching how he bided his time waiting for his moment to kill Light.

Laci wrote: "I am quite a fan of L. I loved him to the point that when he was killed, I stopped reading/watching bc it upset me so much. Yes, I will admit it, I cried, but now that I am over it. I still like th..."

I stopped too. :'(

I guess I have a thing for bad guys, but my favorite would definitely be Light. I find him much more interesting than L...

I didn't really like Misa and although L is super attractive I'm definitely going for Light.
Some of the times it shows him as so deliciously evil.
I love it.
But who would really be the bad guy in this book?
Light just wants to make a better world.
L just wants to stop the murders.
A juicy contradiction.

Delynne89 wrote: "I didn't really like Misa and although L is super attractive I'm definitely going for Light.
Some of the times it shows him as so deliciously evil.
I love it.
But who would really be the bad guy in..."

I'm pretty sure Light is supposed to be the "bad guy", but that's not to say we shouldn't like him. the author set it up so we would root for him and understand his motives.

Dramapuppy wrote: "Delynne89 wrote: "I didn't really like Misa and although L is super attractive I'm definitely going for Light.
Some of the times it shows him as so deliciously evil.
I love it.
But who would really..."
that makes sense but from the perspective of Light L would be the bad guy because he is obstructing the justice of his new world
would Light be the protagonist in that aspect since hes the main character?
then L the antagonist?
cause good guy / bad guy has a lot of different pull with this series

Delynne89 wrote: "Dramapuppy wrote: "Delynne89 wrote: "I didn't really like Misa and although L is super attractive I'm definitely going for Light.
Some of the times it shows him as so deliciously evil.
I love it.
B..."

Hmm, good point.

L would be the obvious "good guy" in my opinion, but Light is definitely the protagonist...

And in Macbeth, Macbeth is obviously the protagonist who is manipulated by his wife (the antagonist). Following this pattern, Light is the "good guy" who is being influenced by the Death Note, but by this logic Ryuk would be the bad guy, if we're following the Macbeth comparison.

Then again, if you take Macbeth at face value it's just a battle story between Macbeth and Macduff and I guess in that case Macbeth is the protagonist, but not a very good guy. Then in Death Note Light would be the "good guy."

So that raises the question: Is Death Note a series about a boy trying to kill people that just happens to be from the boy's perspective to give us a peek at a villain? Or is it the story of a boy trying to achieve a new world? Now that depends on how you see Light. I suppose after writing this I see Light as a Macbeth type- one influenced by the Death Note, but Ryuk certainly isn't the villain.

Disregarding everything I just wrote (sigh) I guess "good guy" and "protagonist" aren't the same thing. Same goes for the villain. So Light is the protagonist but the bad guy. Yes, it is from his perspective and he sees himself as the good guy but that doesn't make him the good guy. We as readers can see that our protagonist is the bad guy, which makes it interesting.

Your thoughts?

That's actually a very interesting point
Ive never actually read MacBeth but from your argument i can see where you're coming from
I've never actually thought of Light being influenced by the Death Note rather than him just being naturally evil but that is a good point because Light did seem to be a regular high school student before the Death Note
I guess you cant be for sure unless you know what his life was fully like before picking the Death Note up
That makes me wonder if picking up the Death Note allowed him to ascend into a sort of God-like level
because he was already smart before it
like top of the class smart
but could the Death Note have allowed him to ascertain that level of knowledge?
(maybe also affecting his mental state)
and Ryuk is always eating apples which could be associated with the Biblical story Adam and Eve because the apple Eve eats is off of the Eve of knowledge and she was tricked by Satan into eating it
could this parallel into Light being tricked into evil by the Death Note?
or Ryuk?
idk
what do you think?

I like your idea about the God-level thing. It makes sense. That's a classic theme in writing (The Fall From Grace) and it explains the thing with the apples.

Remember how earlier in the series the Death Note rules said that suicide is a reasonable cause for death because everyone has the capability deep inside? Maybe that's sort of the same thing as the Death Note's influence. Everyone is negatively affected by it. The power is beyond what a human can accept. But Light's intelligence was great enough to use that influence as a weapon of mass destruction. The Note brought out the intelligence that was already there. But by this logic the Death Note would have a similar effect on Misa. Now, Misa is not intelligent at all, but by this train of reasoning the Note would have to bring out some kind of evil that was lying dormant inside her. I didn't really see that happening. But there's no way to know. Maybe her insane love for Light was actually supernatural. (It certainly seemed like it) We know Misa even less than we know Light. This makes it impossible to determine how the Death Note is affecting her.

This all points to Light being the protagonist. But as I said before, this follows the deeper chain of reasoning which blames the Death Note for Light's problems. Not L. But Ryuk does not act an antagonist through the series. That's L. But following this logic, would L be helping for trying to stop Light in what this chain classifies as his downfall? No, that's not his goal. He is simply trying to stop the murders. The whole series is Light against L, but L is not a "bad guy" to us. He antagonizes Light, but as we said before, it's not always as Light sees it. So classifying Light as the protagonist and L as the antagonist seems to make sense at first glance, but when we dig deeper we realize that this pulls characters from both views of the story. Light as the protagonist is from the storyline following Light's Fall From Grace. But L as the antagonist is from the storyline following L and Light in a sort of battle of wits. (This is another classic theme, The Great Battle.) This would be like classifying L the protagonist and Ryuk the antagonist. It doesn't seem to line up quite right.

However, I have no idea. Maybe there is a way to explain Light versus L. Or is there something else we're just missing?

That's a very interesting point about Misa.
Her love for Light doesn't seem to follow any reason whatsoever but it could just be the pull of the Death Note that's drawing her in. (Women's pull towards power?
that's certainly seen a lot in literature) and we don't get a lot of info on her aside from the fact that her parents died and Kira killed the guy who did it.
Maybe in Light's fall from grace (as you mentioned earlier) he gained this new level of evil in the dual personality of him and Kira.
He refers to himself as Kira when he writes names in the Death Note and Light when he is a normal High School student.
Ryuk definitely doesn't act as an antagonist because of his repeated detachment from the situation. Him always saying that he's not on either party's side and is just in it for the entertainment.
The need for entertainment definitely parallels Ryuk and Light which I think is something important in connecting Light to the Shigami.
L trying to stop Light in his down fall is certainly interesting. That would make L a bit more of a "good guy" although the concept of good and bad is very blurred in this series.
I think that the story wants you to pick your own antagonist and protagonist.
Encourage a choice to pick who you really think is right or wrong in the situation.
The battle of wits is definitely there with them constantly outsmarting each other.
Another thing I've noticed is the light and dark imagery throughout the series.
Even in his name Light is constantly associated with the light and in literature this usually goes with good characters or godly figures.
But L is surrounded by dark imagery.
Could this be a point to the protagonist and antagonist?
Good and bad?
idk
Ideas?

I never thought about the conflict between Light and Kira. That follows the line of thought where the potential to do that is in all of us, though. And Ryuk and Light do have some similarities I never noticed before; I wonder if that means something...

You are probably right about the author wanting you to pick your own protagonist. This is a very thought-provoking series once you get into it's deeper layers so it would fit. And the light and dark symbolism is interesting too; I'll have to go back and look at that.

However, now we're back to the difference between protagonist and "good guy." The definition of protagonist is "the leading character or one of the major characters in a drama, movie, novel, or other fictional text." So Light is definitely the protagonist. Antagonist means "a person who actively opposes or is hostile to someone or something; an adversary." That would leave L as the antagonist. However, your point about Kira got me thinking. Maybe Kira is an antagonist in the fall from grace storyline. Or maybe Light is. However, that's probably over-thinking things. On a basic level, this story is Light vs. L.

But now we're to good guy vs. bad guy. This is where I think your choice theory comes into play. The author must be trying to encourage you to make a decision, as you said.

Still, I like your point about the light vs. dark. How does this play into things? It was an interesting choice to make the murderer Light. Maybe it's showing that he was a normal person before the Note. I really wish there was more information. I can't tell who's Light and who's Kira. If most of the killing is Kira, then maybe the light is to show that he isn't a bad guy; he's just been influenced. But maybe Light's just evil. That would kind of break this reasoning. However, if this is so, the light imagery could be explained away by irony.

Back to your theory, it's hard to tell who's in the right here. Is it possible that no one is? Light is doing bad things, but he is not exactly doing them under normal circumstances and the author made him the protagonist for a reason. If this is the case, who is the "good guy"? IS there a good guy?

Maybe the author's point is to try to emphasize that there is no real good or bad guy. They both have their own intentions for the reasoning behind what they do but like you said it has to be significant for the author to focus on Light as the protagonist.
Along with the light and dark imagery L is definitely surrounded by the dark from his hair color to even the first time it showed like half his face and the rest of the room was black while he looked at the computer screen. But I don't think this means he's bad. Maybe just making him more of an antagonist?
As far as Light and Kira they are really well blended but there are certain points in the series where he does something bad or especially deceptive and his face gets all dare disrupting the light imagery surrounding him.
Is this significant as far as that goes?
Making him look more evil?
Or possibly in the whole choice theory trying to sway the reader's opinion?
Along with the whole Light and Ryuk similarities thing could that be trying to say that he is a better Shigami than the real thing?
He puts more effort into it than the other ones and Ryuk does compare Light to a Shigami.
Could it mean something?

That's interesting. I never noticed how Light gets darker occasionally. I'm sure it is significant. The author is probably trying to say that the dark crosses the light and overpowers it. I think it is trying to inform the reader completely before they make a decision. That also fits with them being well blended- the belief that everyone is light and dark.

It never occurred to me to consider Light as Shigami, but it makes total sense. It must mean something, but what? All this is symbolic, now that I look at it. Shigamis are death, but when Light is influenced by death he gets darker. The evil part shows it's face. But following this logic, the Shigamis should be completely evil and focused on death. Does this mean the theory is faulty? Or does it mean we need to go deeper?

Ryuk is dark by nature. But Light is, well, light by nature. (Or pretty much. He has evil inside.) But when touched by death, the light turns even darker than the pure dark. It has that human desire to kill. But then we have to consider Light's motives; he was still a sort of himself. He wanted a perfect world. The Note clouded his mind and muddled with his ideals just enough to give him an "ends justify the means" mentality. So maybe it is his initial light that causes this? But I'm not sure what that would mean. What exactly is the author trying to say?

Shigamis also aren't necessarily evil but rather just doing what they were born to do. Just how they survive.
As far as Lights face getting darker I think we should zone in on a certain point to get a better perspective.
*spoilers*
right before Light beats L and he gets the Death Note back and remembers being Kira he remembers everything and his face gets really dark
(This was by far my favorite part and made me gasp out loud in the middle of class)
Could it be that Kira is a Shigami?
That dark turned back right when Light remembered and it was clear that Kira was in charge at this point in time.
The initial light causing the darkness is very interesting because his aspirations to create a perfect world cause him to do great evil in killing every one.
Maybe the author is saying that creating a perfect new world will come through the suffering of the old one?
But as I am not the author I can't accurately speak to the author's intent.

That's cool to think about. Thinking about Light being a Shigami brings us to thinking about what a Shigami is. In the book on base terms, Light is not a Shigami. But is he on the inside? (That sounded so cheesy.) I think the real question is "What is the difference between Light and the Shigami?" What you said brings up an interesting point: Is it truly evil to just do what you do to survive? No, not really. That's the circle of life. (So much cheese.) But Light's actions aren't geared toward survival. Also, the Shigami naturally kill people. But Light's contact with this is unnatural. There's a difference. However, I have no idea what this difference means. But your point leads me to believe that there might be no true evil. Or maybe the darkness that overcomes the light is the true evil.

Interesting theory about the suffering of the old world; you may be right. It touches our original question: Do the ends justify the means? Your opinion on this would influence your opinion on Light and transitively good vs. evil and Light's possible Shigaminess.

I agree. Most people dig deeper into certain texts than the authors probably did. There's a possibility the author was just trying to write a fun story about a boy who kills people with a notebook. But it's still fun to think about. :)

ryuk

He's freaky in the movie