June 5, 2007
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DeathNote
Death Note is a fascinating anime series that I have started watching. It has a bit of a philosophical bent if a twisted one. It asks the question if you had the power to eliminate all of the evil people in the world, should you?
The basic premise is this, the main character finds a mysterious notebook dropped on the ground by the mysterious Death Gods. The note book has instructions on it written in English that basically say if you know a person’s name and their face you can cause them to die through using this notebook. So the main character a high school kid named “Light” (a great name by the way imo, I wish they hadn’t ruined its reputation by using it for this character) is at first afraid and shocked but pretty quickly decides that the obvious thing to do is to use the notebook to cleanse the world of all evil and create a perfect world which he can rule over as a God. Yes he’s a total jerk and fundamentally evil IMO but it is clear that the series is trying to make the moral aspects a little ambiguous with this character. After all he is getting rid of the evil people in the world.
Anyway, the other important aspect of the series is that there is a foil to this pseudo-villain protagonist. Once they realize that all of the worlds worst criminals are dieing and they can’t figure out the cause, the worlds governments call upon their ace in the hole, a genius detective who goes only by the name of “L” and never appears in person (though of course there’s no doubt he is also around the age of a High School student I mean this IS anime afterall). Hence begins the complex mental battle between Light and L where at stake is nothing less than the fate of the entire world.
The series is a lot of fun. It has the feel of a detective story if and oddly backwards and twisted detective story. I haven’t seen an anime with that kind of an aspect to it in a long time. Most are either more socially oriented or more overtly action packed. Few have that element of a mental duel. Here, the combat that takes place is one of words and tricks as each character tries to create situations where they can find more information about the other and expose their identity. Both Light and L believe that they are in the right and both use questionable methods to achieve their ends. That creates a fun kind of dynamic where you aren’t quite sure who you should be rooting for and makes it so that different viewers can come out of it with differing opinions about who is in the right. Artistically, the anime does a lot of cool things with color shifting of the characters hair and eyes at various key moments. At times Light can take on an angelic aspect and at other times a clearly devilish persona. Other characters have similar shifts. The artist who did the Manga is apparently the same one who drew the pictures for Hikaru no Go. BTW I’ve read the first volume of the manga too. It seems pretty identical to the anime.
Of course the thing that interests me the most about this series is just the very idea of a Death Note. It can’t help but make you think. To ask those kinds of philosophical questions. You just can’t help but at least wonder what you would do if you had a Death Note at your disposal. Who would you kill? Who would you spare? And would you be justified in doing it? Most I think from my observation would at least use it to kill a few of those who they perceive as the most terrible people in the world. A great many also though would say that they would refuse to use it at all since it would be principally evil to take human life. Its unclear how many of them would actually stick to that if it came down to it but I think a lot probably would. Many would surely destroy the notebook to avoid the temptation, those that don’t would have a substantive probability of at some point in their life succumbing to a crime of passion and use the notebook for revenge. It also seems likely that anyone who has used it a little is likely to increase in their use of it over time just because of the natural allure of the power it brings.
As for me, I don’t think I would use it very much or at all but not out of some deep concern for the sanctity of human life. I wouldn’t use it primarily because I would not trust the data with which I could evaluate. Now make no mistake if I ever did have near perfect certainty that the consequences of the removal of a person would be good for the world I would use the notebook to do that. I’d still believe I was doing something evil and feel ashamed and likely also try to find a way to punish myself, but I’d also think it is my fundamental responsibility to do so. In this way perhaps I am a lot like Light even though I hate him so. The only differences perhaps are that he seems to put waaaay more faith in the veracity of the Justice systems throughout the world and the accuracy of what he sees on the news media. And of course the other difference is that he wants to rule the world which is an alien concept to me. Who would want that kind of a burden?
Although I would be hesitant to use it and skeptical that I would ever find a situation where I was morally justified in removing someone because they are “evil” and the world would be better off without them, I also would not destroy the notebook for two reasons. One is that it is an extraordinary artifact and I would hate to see the world loose such a thing. I would want to study it or at least preserve it for as long as possible just out of respect for the existence of such a thing.
The other reason is that there are certain situations whee I think that use of the death note is perfectly morally acceptable and for which I would feel significantly less guilt over The first is the case where someone is directly imminently threatening the lives of others and there is no apparent way to stop him or her without the loss of lives or not enough time to stop him in time to prevent the loss of life or the suffering of people. In that case I would use the death note in the same way I might in the spur of the moment use any weapon I have at hand to stop someone from doing such an evil.
The other case is if someone asked me to end their life and I could tell that they were serious and truly wanted it for legitimate reasons even if those reasons aren’t necessarily reasons I can understand. If there was no other way to grant that person their wish of death, I would use the death note to bring them peace.
Two cases I’m on the fence about are these:
If someone is directly threatening my own personal life, I would hesitate to use the Death Note because it feels like an unfair advantage to me. I would feel pretty dirty about using a otherwordly trick the person could not possibly have known about to end the persons life. Now if the person knows about the Death Note or better yet has a Death Note of his own well then I wouldn’t hesitate to use my Death Note to stop him from killing me as then it is fair.
The most difficult scenario for me is a case where a figure willingly admits to having committed atrocities and proclaims a desire to commit more and are still at large. This seems like it should be cut and dry but I think it depends on the nature of the atrocities and the justifications behind them and the circumstances under which they were committed. Not because I believe any justification is valid for truly terrible atrocities but because I am not sure that simply Death Noting them to death would be the best course for the world. We may as a society grow and learn something from the pursuit apprehension, trial and bringing to justice of such criminals. But if they just die happily unbeknownst to the world who is to say what will happen next? Will their organization become more subtle and harder to stop, more fragmented and create chaos and strife in the regions they once controlled? Will they become a martyr for their cause? Will someone try to create some sort of pretend story to blame is death on others in order to further a political agenda? And so on and so forth… Again its that whole lack of knowledge thing. Who can make such decisions with certainty and not be lying to themselves?
On the other hand if you could kill Hitler there’s no question that you should kill Hitler. You just have to take that risk because of the nature and severity of the crimes. If you choose not to then people will rightly make the argument that you share some of the responsibility for each person who suffers under his regime thereafter. Things could get worse, but in cases like that the probability of things actually getting substantively worse seem slim.
Here’s another tricky one I haven’t really given much thought to but interests me. What if you were to discover someone who had gotten away with say murder and you had evidence that completely convinced you but nobody else knew and nobody else believed and nothing you could do would bing this evidence to the attention of others. What if in addition to that you also know that this person won’t kill again or at least is extremely highly unlikely to, but at the same time the person feels know remorse whatsoever for his act and take s great pleasure in the act he did, thinks he is totally morally justified in doing it. And you also don’t feel the person who was killed by the killer was an evil person who deserved what he got. What then? The situation seems utterly unfair doesn’t it? But at the same time, who would I be to judge? And what good is the killing going to do? None whatsoever as far as I can tell. I think in the end I would opt not to use the Death Note in this scenario, but boy would it irk me. Now if you had some kind of Pain Note or a Misfortune Note I’d probably not be able to help myself.
Anyway, those are the kinds of fun thoughts evoked by thinking about this twisted new anime that I think is definitely at least worth people giving a shot.
