[ SECRET POST #541 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #541 ⌋

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

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Notes:

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Secrets Left to Post: 00 pages, 00 secrets from Secret Submission Post #078.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 1 2 3 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 1 - too big ], [ 1 - repeat ], [ 1 - empty comment ], [ 1 - random link ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

Re: 101, 107, 151

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

I think the concept of utopia is just that, a concept. I think it's theoretical and postulates a change in essential human nature if utopia is to occur, and since that change is unlikely then utopia remains theoretical. I don't think a world built on fear can be a "better" world at all, either, and law enforcement is not so much built upon the idea of using fear as a deterrent as it is the idea of restraining lawbreakers away from the law-abiding populace. And law enforcement has a lot of checks and balances upon it; it isn't just one person making the judgment of life or death as the sole punishment/restraint.

Your analysis about Light making an example of Lind L. Taylor is valid! However, what does it say that Light killed him to make an example of him? Don't you think that crosses a line?

Re: 101, 107, 151

[cloudyfeet.livejournal.com]

I guess this is just the idealist in me, but I think that a utopia is only theoretical because it's never existed before, or even been possible. In the second half of the series, Kira's "utopia" was starting to develop, and the world seemed to be functioning pretty darn well. Wars had ended entirely, and crime rates were lower than ever. I guess "better" is a bad term for it, as it is completely subjective, but my view is that a world built on fear is easier to live in than one filled with chaos.

I'll concede that law enforcement is more about containment than punishment, because I can't argue against that. But I do think at least 99.9% of the criminals Kira killed would have gone through those checks and balances and gotten similar results. As I said in my first comment, Light was very selective about who he killed, many of his victims were already in jail. Also, Kira never did anything to suggest he would be the sole punishment; as a matter of fact, he depended on law enforcement to find the criminals and reveal them, so that he could judge the ones that were bad enough to be killed.

Of course killing Lind L. Taylor crosses a line, but Light was crossing lines from the very beginning. He freely admitted that. He killed him to establish that Kira existed, and had the power to kill anybody, anywhere. Otherwise, people would always be uncertain about what Kira was really doing.

Re: 101, 107, 151

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

Anyone who isn't 100% a cynic has idealism in him/her, I'd say. But I'm still rooted in the camp that utopia is a theory. I certainly can't use Kira's world as any example! Do you think Kira's world was really functioning well? People were either running scared or caught up in the cult of Kira. Okay, yes, there was probably middle ground, where people didn't think about it too much, but crime still existed. Deeply in existence. The mob/mafia that Mello infiltrated wasn't unique; organized crime had just gone underground as anonymously as it could.

A good point about law enforcement being part of Light's checks and balances, and them doing Light's work for him. But a breakdown occurs when we remember Light and law enforcement are not on the same side, because law enforcement has not ordered the deaths of these criminals. Light didn't target only those criminals who were on Death Row. Law enforcement deemed the criminals who were not already caught should be caught and then put through the process of trial, and deemed the criminals who were in prison should be in prison--not killed. So Light is taking on sole responsibility to judge who should live and die.

I don't know that Light killed Lind to establish that Kira existed. He killed him because Lind opposed him, because Lind called him evil. That's huge. Freedom of dissent is a significant right of a free society. I harbour a bit of belief that if Light had said at the beginning that he would use the Death Note to punish the wicked and that he would never touch the non-wicked under any circumstances, and stuck to that, he'd have stayed in the "only I can do this thing for the greater good" grey realm of things. But as soon as he gets into the "...um, and those who speak against me and those who run the risk of stopping me," excuse, he's fallen.

Re: 101, 107, 151

[cloudyfeet.livejournal.com]

Unless the possibility opens up, utopia will always be a theory to everybody but dedicated optimists. If a perfect or near-perfect world ever became possible, through any sort of method, would you still think that the idea is only a theory? I believe that Kira's world was functioning better than the one before. The only people who needed to be scared were the criminals, nobody else would have to worry as long as they led a crime-free life, which is not unreasonable. That's what Kira was trying to do, change things so that becoming a criminal automatically became something to fear. About the organized crime: there is no possible way, short of omnipotence, that anyone can wipe out crime 100%. Ever. There will always be criminals, but Kira forced them to be less bold about what they did, and therefore they became less of a threat. Also, the "Kira's Kingdom" cult was just a bunch of businesspeople trying to make cash off of Kira and the gullible. Any intelligent person could see that. Even Mikami, who is the biggest Kira fanboy ever, started killing them off. Odds are that they would fade or turn into a fringe group with time.

Yes, Kira and law enforcement were at odds, but if the justice system wasn't flawed then there would never have been the need for Kira in the first place. People who commit crimes can go free with a good lawyer and/or circumstantial evidence, and because Light saw that as unfair, he killed the people who were certainly (or at least very likely to be) guilty. I'm not mistaking him as anything less than a vigilante, I just happen to think that he's a vigilante who was right. If he had been handed an Imprison Note that locked people in cages instead of killing them, I'm sure he would have used that in the same way and for the same reason. But he was handed a Death Note, so he made use of the power he was given.

Light got mad because Lind called him evil, but what makes him mad and what makes him act can be different things. If he was killing anybody who spoke out against Kira, I think they would show more than just one open-to-interpretation example of it. Light went after L more intensely than he should have, though, and that's where Kira and I differ--if I was Kira, I would not think L was a big deal at all. But Light was always bored with life, and he starting to get bored again even after he became Kira, so he threw himself into the excitement that L's chase created. Without that conflict, though, Death Note would be a pretty dull story, so it was pretty much required.

Re: 101, 107, 151

[amanuensis1.livejournal.com]

(By the way, thank you, this is great, I haven't had the opportunity for discussion like this yet!)

I think I cannot go further with your thoughts regarding utopia--my perception is that the question has become, "If the theoretical became real, would you call it only theoretical then?" The equivalent of "If b be came a, would you agree that a=a?" when my argument is that b is highly unlikely to become a.

One of the most significant characters in Death Note, I'd argue, is Matsuda, because his thoughts reflect what a lot of the audience thinks. Matsuda knows at heart that what Kira is doing violates ethical decency, in performing killings, but is doing it for the greater good, to remove bad people from the population and make the world a better place. And there are a lot of positives in what Kira's doing. Matsuda's not afraid to say these things to his fellow agents. (Well, he's afraid, but he does say them at one point.) If you were to ask me if I'd like living in a world where Kira ruled, I'd feel pretty mixed myself. On the one hand, I'm not likely to commit willful crimes and be at risk. And I'd like it if I felt safer with a lot of the serious criminal element out of the way, and the petty criminal element afraid to act. What you have to say about Kira being a vigilante is true, and if I felt he had good judgment in his vigilanteism, I might be very much on the Kira bandwagon myself.

Except. Except even with perfect judgment, what happens in such a society. It becomes a witch hunt. We saw it happening in Kira's world, where people arrested begged their names to be concealed. We saw it among Kira supporters, who were eager to expose criminals. I may be right in thinking Kira even encouraged this, though I can't cite a quote from memory. At any rate, Kira never told people to mind their own business when it did occur, so Kira is guilty of perpetuating the witch hunt. Tell me I don't need to explain why that's a bad thing.

And Kira the vigilante relied upon a flawed, as you say, law enforcement system. Very dangerous, when you're dealing death. Too much risk to punish those incorrectly accused and/or imprisoned, if you have any perspective of how final death is as a judgment.

Which leads to your discussion that Kira might have used lesser powers if he'd had them (such as imprisonment). Yes, he might have--but he had the power of death and chose to use it. I don't think one can argue "that's all he had, so he had to use it." If someone gave me the power to give criminals a teensy electrical shock whenever they did something illegal, and I chose to use it, I might be doing a good thing with very little grey, in trying to warn them "I know what you're doing, so stop it." Give me the power to point out criminals to the police, so that the police can take their own legal action, and I might use that too. Give me the power to freeze people in place until I let them go--maybe so they have to wait until the police get there--now we're getting into a scarier area. I don't know that I would accept such a power. Give me the power to kill, and I am not allowed to argue, "But that's all the power you gave me to work with, you didn't give me a lesser power, so, I had to use it." I must still take responsibility for accepting it at all! And with it I have to accept the consequences.

And ultimately, no, I don't think Light showed himself to be a good vigilante. As soon as he started to kill the innocent to keep them from criticising him or catching him, using that Death Note, he violated the line of justice. So a Kira who was a good vigilante, I could support. But this Kira, no.