Death Note Episode 17 Reaction

Light is essentially Obama in 2008 with the fledgling US drone programme. He tries to justify it all as killing "bad guys" and "making the world a better place" but you cannot fix systemic issues by killing individuals. The vast majority of crime is caused by the effects of social inequality - which creates a lack of access to basic human needs like food, water, housing and mental/physical healthcare - all of which is sustained by the profit motive in a capitalist political economy. When profit is put ahead of human prosperity there needs to be many kept in precarity to maintain the excesses for the few. However, alternative and criminal markets/actions will emerge to meet those needs of some of the many. Why did Walter White get into the drug business in the first place? To pay for his chemo treatment. In short, Light not having the deathnote anymore illustrates that personal individualised morality is less of a factor than we'd like to give it credit for, remember Berthold's "Why would anyone want to kill innocent people" speech, and it's the systems that we create that lead to "evil" or inhumane outcomes. If we create a society of co-operation that cares for people and allows them to be fully functional people crime would end. Lights fantasy is extremely childish/egotistical and would not end crime. If it did then public executions would have ended crime long ago. We need to end the systemic roots of crime not the individuals that are victims to it.

Dylan Murphy

imo the only thing you guys only missed was Light never had his god complex displayed before getting the notebook(which was a very short time, as you guys mentioned before). This was only really seen after using the notebook and realizing he can do these without any consequences til L showed up. So seeing Light not all messed up without recollection of the notebook shouldn't really be out of this world for me. As Ryuk said, anyone who uses the notebook is cursed Aside from that, I think you're all good :-)

rafa

The message is very simple to me: "What would you do if you had the power" -> this is completly different for each person

akira RK

I don't agree completely with the second part, its told already that he wants to be detective/work for police, for the whole time Light is without Death Note he was never shown as any type of psycho, only trying to predict what would happen if he had Death Note and that's normal. I don't get the part of him losing his morality that easily, he needed Death Note to change himself absolutely with whole vision in his head of "new world" do you really think someone can threw his whole 17/18 years of life/culture/morality just like that without some really big even happening in his life? i doubt it. I think you trying to hard to imply something, you think would happen/is happening and what you want to happen, but its really not in big picture. Also looking at Japanese culture/mentality/society its very unlikely.

Vasto

Commenting that I agree with ya'll for visibility, just usually don't comment. You are both kind, empathetic people and are able to emotionally interpret this show on a level many others perhaps haven't.

Kolton Nay

bro you really had time to type all of this, cm on...

With the Death Note, Light is a psychopath with a godlike power that he can use to kill with on a whim. He uses that to his full advantage to force his egotistical ideals onto the world, because he can. Without the Death Note, he's a psychopath college student whose only advantage is being smarter than most people. If he lived life without the Death Note he definitely would have worked his way into a position of power and then abused that power (manager of a company, police officer, whatever) to do harm to others. But since he doesn't have that sort of power now, as a college freshman, he has to play nice most of the time instead of letting his ego do the talking.

Hannah N

Light's change is rather abrupt considering how he's acted so far in the show but since he gets the Death Note right off the bat, we don't really get to see how he was like before. From the little bits, we do get at the very start, the anime does change up his characterization a bit from the manga which makes him look more psycho which might make the transition back to his normal personality in the anime seem even more abrupt. He has a bigger negative reaction there, calls the Death Note evil, and doesn't do that evil laugh after seeing all the names he had written. He also says he's lost sleep, had nightmares and lost weight to Ryuk when he first showed up which clearly shows that initially being Kira was still causing internal strife. He still did have a massive ego and a strong sense of justice and it's kinda implied that after the initial two murders he deluded himself into believing it was the right thing to do instead of having to admit to himself that he was a murderer and not a perfect person. That combined with the boredom and disaffection with the world that he was feeling at the time all came together and made him into Kira. With his memory of the Death Note wiped, he still has the strong sense of justice he had before but the boredom and disaffection are gone now that he has something interesting to do, catch Kira and prove his innocence. Misa's is a pretty controversial character and while I do really like her and think it makes sense that she became so attached to Light considering the trauma she went through and the vulnerable state she was in that he took advantage of, I also think that she could have been done better since she is the most prominent female character and she immediately becomes subservient to Light the moment she meets him. She is also sexualized a bit and while it isn't extreme and very tame compared to many other anime, it is unnecessary. To end this long comment I'll talk about my very basic take on the morality of what Light is doing. I do think his actions are wrong but I do kinda agree with the people who think his actions can cause good in the long run. If the reduction of the crime rate is high enough that it causes more lives to be saved than the people he's killing then there's a net bonus of human life and along with that, there would be a reduction in the trauma and pain caused by crimes that aren't murder so I really do see why some people would support that.

Lights change in character is very interesting. It makes me think that some people only uphold a sense of morality to uphold their own ego, like light. The moment they taste real power though, the facade evaporates and their real values are revealed. Could get into a whole topic about morals as "a code" vs morals in the sense of deeply held and felt values.

Daniel Badour

This is what I love most about you both. Real emotional depth and genuine reflection. This is something i've noticed with other shows dealing with dark topics like Attack on Titan, is there is always a group of edgy fanboys who just sort of join a "team" represented by the idea of being an edgy sociopath lol. As if that's actually the wise or superior way to be. Ironically, the deeper conversations and the bigger emotional or philosophical picture underlying those shows usually go completely over their heads too. And yeah... a lot of animes are really weird with grossly over-sexualizing one or more female characters and that happens here. I think that trend is correcting itself now that anime is finding a wider audience, but with these older shows it is rly cringe in retrospect.

Daniel Badour

from now on is gonna be my favourite section of the show, it shows what could have happened if Light didn't get the Death Note and him working with L.

Floater

Thank you for another great reaction! I think you ladies will absolutely LOVE what's to come and I am so looking forward to hearing your thoughts and interpretations! Happy New Year to you both!

I am agree with you girls, always I am. Firt time I comment, many time people that are agree just didnt comment.

Jose Benitez

I hope you don't mean those two... because they fit the category "not a very well written character" at least for me and many people as far as i know. But yes Misa is average written could be much better, about what happened to her people are exaggerating a lot.

Vasto

It will be murder without any proof and killings will still continue, yea great solution.

Vasto

no, you guys get it. you're very emotionally intelligent and you're genuinely good people. just like with other big fandoms, death note fans can be a bit much sometimes and there are some weird light fanboys out there. i'm a 24 year old woman who is basically rewatching this through you guys for the first time in maybe 10 years, and my opinions on some things have definitely changed. as a 13/14 year old i thought misa was annoying and now i think she's just not a very well written female character (for one example). i do have to say, some of my favorite characters haven't even shown up yet and i can not wait for your reaction to them!

aerifia

I mean this was 2006, not the 80s. It was fairly recent and people were critiquing the lack of good female writing even back when it aired. Time doesn't excuse this. The writer just dropped the ball on this one but I guess it worked out as L and Light are staples of Shonen anime.

But that doesn't describe Light. He lives in Japan and has had an extremely privileged life, being afforded every luxury and comfort a person could ever want, all provided by a family who love him and a dad who'll go to unbelievable lengths to prove his innocence. He's never faced any hardships. Yet despite all that, he still has to REMIND HIMSELF to act more concerned when he can't physically bring himself to give one iota of a fuck about his dad almost dying. God, he's such a fucking piece of shit.

I agree with you. It's not the most egregious (though certainly more so than the previous episodes), but it definitely is a bit of a blight on an otherwise fantastic show.

TeaDrinker3000

Given the large gap in time between my previous viewing of the series and now, I underestimated how aged the gender politics are. It's not enough to tarnish the show's legacy or anything, but I can understand how current and future viewers will be put off from watching given how Misa is characterised.

TeaDrinker3000

Fanboys will not admit it, but this show makes misa "sexy" and has those weird moments like when they tie her up , just for the male audience. I dont watch anime regulary, But in a few animes they do similar things with most female characters

J. Valentine

Here in Brazil for example we live in houses with very high brick walls because otherwise you would be robbed (or worse). And is not something that most people even think about, is just the normal thing to do. So when some of the people that live in the more violent areas have the opinion that criminals should just be killed, I'm not so quick to judge their morals

BBT

If only that gun was loaded...

Not sure if I agree with some of that stuff Lola was saying at the end there, but great reaction nonetheless! Y’all should really just watch the full show before making assumptions about the writer’s message they wanted to convey.

Zekrom XI

Woooo I totally forgot today was DN, lets go!!! And happy new year.

Mati D.

Maybe try to think about what this show wants to convey once you have finished the last part I don’t think it’s possible to figure out what it wants to say at this point in the show. xD

Melkor