[ SECRET POST #3102 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3102 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Zack and Miri Make a Porno]


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03.
[Video Games Awesome]


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04.
[Steven Universe]


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05.
[House MD]


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06.
[Blazing Saddles]


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07.
[My Love Story]


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08.
[Gordon Ramsay, Kitchen Nightmares]


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09.
[Robert Vaughn, Jack Lemmon, William Shatner]


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10.
[MMOs]


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11.
[Death Note]









Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 019 secrets from Secret Submission Post #443.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

11. http://i.imgur.com/t3L7iu2.png
[Death Note]

[silvereriena]

Ooooh this is an interesting interpretation. Not too sure why this is a secret though, it seems like a good start to a discussion about Light's character. Is it because you say you pity him which might not go over well in some circles?

OP

[(Anonymous)]

Kind of.

Partially because I feel like some people might take it as me making an excuse for his behavior when it's really not meant to be -- more of an explanation.

I think that if Light was less extreme in his views, he could have viewed his killing of the biker guy as a tragic mistake and stopped using the Death Note. But because he had such a strong sense of justice and was very black and white in his thinking, he couldn't step away from it.

There's one panel, when he's lost his memories, where he thinks of how Kira's ideals mirror his own but he dismisses the possibility of being Kira because he thinks that he'd never MURDER anyone.

And he's absolutely right in that sense -- his first killings are basically accidents (there's no way he SERIOUSLY thought the Death Note was real). And then he had to find a way to live with the consequences.

That's also a big reason why, when people say Light is so "dumb" for killing Lind L. Tailor that I don't buy it. It wasn't stupidity, but desperation and anger -- Tailor, by saying Light/Kira was evil, struck at the very heart of his fears and so emotionally he had to respond.

Basically, I just see him as absolutely trapped by his own sense of morality. He'll NEVER admit that he fucked up or could be wrong because to do so would make him an evil murderer and he can't live with that.

[solticisekf]

He trusted newspapers to get the right man and never make a mistakes. I was waiting for Light to read an apology in a paper about how they mixed the criminal with someone else in the previous issue.

I believe the justice system in Japan is not so bad that he had to take it in his own hands. He could've stopped after he knew what the note did if he didn't like the results.

OP

[(Anonymous)]

What I mean is more that Light was emotionally incapable of stopping because to do so would mean he was a BAD PERSON according to his own moral system.

He killed a man. If he was less of a black and white thinker, he could have seen it as a tragic mistake, recognized how dangerous the Death Note was, gotten rid of it, and striven to do better.

But because he has such a very harsh sense of justice, to ADMIT to himself that he wrongfully killed a man (that he was now a murderer) would destroy him. So he can't -- he has to find some way to justify it to himself. And that means being God.

Japan's justice system, whether good or bad, doesn't even matter in that context, IMO.

Re: OP

[solticisekf]

I don't think it was explicitly written this way but it's a solid interpretation.
I was more mystified about L's cake intake and regarded Light as just an evil guy without much thought of why he kills killers when he's a killer himself.

Re: OP

[(Anonymous)]

I'm the opposite!

I never really got into L (blasphemy I know!). I don't dislike him but I feel like we know so little about him that he's not particularly interesting to me. But I get that the lack of backstory can really interest a lot of people. Mysterious, enigmatic characters and all that.

With Light, it always seemed pretty clear to me that his "God of the New World" thing was a combination of him thinking himself better than others for so long and, as importantly, a defense mechanism to protect his ego (his view of himself as a good person) from the acts he'd carried out (murder) which so clearly went against the justice that his father taught him.

Granted, I might be talking out of my ass, but I think there's a lot of support for it in the manga.

Re: OP

[solticisekf]

because the God is beyond reproach? Makes sense that Light wants to avoid the self blame of murder. If he knew what the notebook did perhaps he wouldn't have used it.

[(Anonymous)]

This is a very cool interpretation, OP! I'm not sure I totally agree with it, but this might be the most well thought out and logically consistent headcanon I've ever seen someone post.

I've always liked that Light was such a horrible person while still having such a strong moral compass. There's a lot of grey morality in the media, but it's generally reserved for characters who have some sort of tragic backstory or something. Anti-heroes and anti-villains. Light is a straight-up villain while still being the protagonist of the show and being in many ways profoundly un-sympathetic.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah that's one way of rationalizing it. As for the first part, you are supposed to have fairly mixed feelings about him. I disliked him pretty much the whole time, but it's still interesting to think about.

[(Anonymous)]

Eh, he was my favorite character and frankly, I'm surprised that so many people didn't feel at least a little sympathy for him. I agree, by the time he used it, he was pretty much tied into it, and for the most part, he did use it "morally" - unlike Misa, who seems to garner more pity among fans, who was happy to use it if any other girl so much as looked at Light, for example. It's also worth perhaps noting that his actions as Kira "worked". In the manga it's stated that wars were a thing of the past, crime was at an all time low, etc. I'm not saying that justifies what he did, but the show simplifies the scenario by essentially yielding a "good" result.

But that's not necessarily why I personally liked Light, or sympathized with him (without supporting what he did obviously). I just thought he was interesting, and the psychology of his character fascinates me even ten years later.

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, I can see reading it like that. I don't think that's all there is too it, I think Light was just a megalomaniac anyway.