Poll: Anime #2- Deathnote: who was in the right, Light or L? (potential spoilers)

[goldfalsebond]

So...Deathnote. If you have seen it, who do think was in the right/who were you "rooting" for? If you havent, go see it if you like mystery and drama stuff (and anime, of course) Also for those who havent seen it, here is the gist for the beginning. A highschool student named Light Yagami comes across this powerful note book. Any name he is to write in it (while thinking of the matching face so only that person will be affected) will die. After discovering that it is no joke, he immidiatly starts killing people. but here is the catch, he is using it to kill criminals who are at large or have gotten away. For example, if Osama bin Laden was still alive, he would have used it to kill him from across the world. A famous detective known only as "L" then starts to track him down, because killing is killing.

So, who is it going to be? note that the choice "L" includes everyone working with him to take down this mysterious killer known as "Kira"

Also, would you use the death note?

 

[Raggedstar]

Tough call. I guess that's one of the better things about DN because there is credit to both sides and odds are we thought as one or the other at least once.

I guess I'll say L (though I must say that apples are quite yummy). Someone with that power can do great amounts of good (like changing the tides of a hostage situation), but someone that strong could easily sway and use it for evil or even in personal matters where there are people that just don't deserve it. Sometimes killing straight away without enough knowledge could lead to innocent people being killed (and we all know how many times this happens even with trials and such. Though prison I guess more reversable than death). I guess it's for different reasons than L, though I don't disagree with the whole "killing is killing" angle. Also, Kira fangirls (both in and out of the anime) freak me out a little 0__0, but I swear that didn't decide the vote!

Would I use the death note? Most likely, if only just for the curiosity factor. Though then again, that's where Light started. I think a lot of us at a younger age went through the same thing with stupid chain letters.

 

[Lilani]

I think L was right. Light was taking on the roles of judge, jury, and executioner. At first he was sort of in the "right" by "punishing" only criminals, however he did on several occasions kill those who had something bad to say about him. That's where he went astray. If what he was doing was truly "justice," he wouldn't have had to cover his own tracks and hurt so many innocent people. Justice is order, not chaos. Light's behavior was chaotic. It didn't make people feel safer--on the contrary, people stopped committing crimes out of pure fear.

People should be compelled to follow law because they believe those laws are inherently just and fair, not because they are afraid of punishment. Punishments should exist firstly to protect the public from harm. People commit crimes regardless of punishments, and rarely are punishments successful deterrents of crime. Light forgot that. He went from defender of the defenseless to an attempt at a deterrent. He just lost his marbles, and his own moral compass wavered because of how mad he was with power.

 

[aegix drakan_v1legacy]

Light was in the right up until he started seeing himself as the god of the world.

As soon as he got power hungry, all of his credibility died.

I understood his original motivations and I was rooting for him...but the second he started to lose his humanity, I started to cheer for L. Because Kira went from a necessary evil to evil itself.

He needed to be stopped. By any means possible.

 

[J4RD]

Personally, I think Light was more morally correct. Yes, he did develop a bit of a god-complex, and yes, his justice was a bit binary, but it improved the world as a whole. I think what he was doing was a necessary evil. Also, L's type of "justice" just seems like the wrong type to me. Light was committing murder, sure, but it seemed that L was trying to catch him solely based on the fact that he's breaking the law, without looking at the morality of his actions.

Light may not have been able to create the utopia he was aiming for, nor was he a "good guy", but I think that the world would have been better off had he succeeded.

 

[TheIronRuler]

So...Deathnote. If you have seen it, who do think was in the right/who were you "rooting" for? If you havent, go see it if you like mystery and drama stuff (and anime, of course) Also for those who havent seen it, here is the gist for the beginning. A highschool student named Light Yagami comes across this powerful note book. Any name he is to write in it (while thinking of the matching face so only that person will be affected) will die. After discovering that it is no joke, he immidiatly starts killing people. but here is the catch, he is using it to kill criminals who are at large or have gotten away. For example, if Osama bin Laden was still alive, he would have used it to kill him from across the world. A famous detective known only as "L" then starts to track him down, because killing is killing.

So, who is it going to be? note that the choice "L" includes everyone working with him to take down this mysterious killer known as "Kira"

Also, would you use the death note?

I'll go for L.
By the way, they have a habbit of making the "L" and "R" sound alike, but it's supposed to be Kila, from the English word "Killer". It was at first slang, but it then became his name.
Even though the logic for L is flawed, criminals get away from justice sometimes, a ruthless dictator that preforms justice isn't something good, mainly because he preform the justice he seems fit.
HE decides what is good and wrong, not our society which is represented by the Judges and sometimes Jury in a courtroom (We have no Jury system in Israel). There are no appeals, no forgiveness, only the love and hatred of an omnnipotent all knowing being.
I know that you want someone to love you and punish accordingly, it's the Froyd way of thought. You had god punish you and reward you accordingly instead of your mothers.

Spoiler: offensive

That's why you made him up in the first place,
so that you'll always have someone to go back to, someone that'll embrace you or punish you.

Now do you need a new Deity in this new age of secularism?
We need to govern ourselves, to decide what is just, what is wrong, and what is punnishable by death.

 

[TheIronRuler]

Light was in the right up until he started seeing himself as the god of the world.

As soon as he got power hungry, all of his credibility died.

I understood his original motivations and I was rooting for him...but the second he started to lose his humanity, I started to cheer for L. Because Kira went from a necessary evil to evil itself.

He needed to be stopped. By any means possible.

But it happened at the end of the first episode...

 

[yohlazy]

This is kind of a question of do you agree with death penity...
Light states he will not jugde people like a woman who killed her abusive husband or someone who stole food to aviod staving and helping other homeless so by all right he only killed those after personal gain but at the same time If you don't agree with death penilty you you never agree with what light did/does

 

[Telekinesis]

Technically L was 'right' by our world's standard for justice.
I was also "rooting" for him over Light because Light became this annoying evil genius God complex shmuck, which was kinda lame.

I do side with Light's original goal though, you know, the whole God thing aside; if I acquired a Death Note I'd use it the same way.

 

[Veylon]

It was one of those ethical dilemma's, like Watchmen. Light/Kira was willing to arrogate to himself the power to decide life and death for everyone on the basis that such power would impose stability, order, and thus a measure of peace on the world. We are left to assume that Light/Kira is always morally correct in such judgements.

L's rationale was that justice was purely a personal matter and that no societal change can abrogate individual rights. To him, Kira is no more and no less a killer for murdering criminals than another inmate with a shiv.

Ultimately, I have side with L. Light promises a world in which he is always right, a world in which he hold sole moral authority, a world in which he is a God. But he is not a God. Any world he builds is maintained through him alone and falls with his inevitable demise. We are not shown the chaos that results when the order he dreams of can no longer be forced upon humanity. We are asked, no demanded, to trust too much of one man.

 

[Akytalusia]

i support light's ideology, and i supported his actions up until he killed lind l. tailor. that was the point when his actions and ideology went thier seperate ways and i had no choice but to root for L. light's intentions were fine, but the way he went about it was completely idiotic. he was nothing but an immature powerfiend, and he needed to be taken down.

 

[neoptolemus]

Death Note never had any moral ambiguity and Light was clearly never right. Right from the second episode he showed that his motivations weren't noble and that he was immature and prepared to kill non-criminals who got in his way (unlike, for instance, Dexter, who has a strict code and keeps to it). I think the show is quite clear on it's standpoint that killing criminals is bad and does not make the world a better place. Light is frequently portrayed as psychotic with little regard for human life. He uses people to do his dirty work and gets them killed and never shows a shred of remorse after the first episode. Unlike Dexter you're never encouraged to relate to Light, he's just portrayed as a cold, evil killer.

 

[Drakmeire]

Light was in the right until he started killing people who were after him as well as killing prisoners just to test his powers. After that L was in the right.

 

[Dense_Electric]

Light was in the right in wanting to make the world a better place, and while I don't disagree with his methods he lost his credibility once his God-complex really flared up. Regardless, I feel that would be one of those cases where the ends do in fact justify the means.

I can understand L as well though, in wanting a more democratic system of justice, even if I don't agree with him.

 

[VanTesla]

When Light started killing off good people, he lost any support from me.

If I had the Death Note I would kill all of the most vile people and only them. If people like L find me, then I will surrender. I would never kill a person that has done no wrong, even if it means that I will die. Light is a child with a God complex, that deserves no support and should be hated by all. I would not want people to worship or idolize me for I would do it as a necessary evil, that may bring a better tomorrow for humanity.

 

[VanTesla]

i support light's ideology, and i supported his actions up until he killed lind l. tailor. that was the point when his actions and ideology went thier seperate ways and i had no choice but to root for L. light's intentions were fine, but the way he went about it was completely idiotic. he was nothing but an immature powerfiend, and he needed to be taken down.

The fact how he went about killing Raye Penbar and Naomi Misora, shows how truly a monster he has become. They will never have peace in death for Raye can't go to heaven for writing in the Death Note page, and Naomi Misora commiting suicide because of Light...

 

[Radoh]

Well, if we are going off of Kira vs. L, then that was back when Kira was actually still holding to his convictions of ridding the world of only really bad criminals, so I say Kira. However, he loses the right to be right once he culls his way down to purse snatchers and the like.

 

[Aethren]

That notebook would've ran out of paper eventually, wonder what would've happened then.

 

[Zenron]

L was in the right in my opinion. Kira was cutting people down left and right, but what really gives him the right to judge these people. What gives him the right to mess with life and death, without any sort of trial. He is no God, whatever he may believes. He is flawed, so sometimes he makes bad decisions. It wouldn't be as bad but he doesn't end up killing only the criminals, he also ends up killing anybody who tries to stop him. They are innocent people who are only trying to stop a mass murderer. They don't deserve death.

All in all, he doesn't really want to make the world a better place. He really does just want to become a god. He is just being immature. I guess I just dislike the way he uses it. He uses it as a method to strike fear in any who may commit crime. Sure, it's a good way to deter crime, but it's also being a tyrant. What's the point of decreasing crime if people are going to end up being scared to do anything at all. He's one step away from being Big Brother with another name.

I wonder what would have happened if Light had gone legitimate with the Death Note so the police could use it to catch criminals that they can find.

Anyway, so L is my choice in this poll.