Death Note's core starts with a fairly simple premise: A top high school student named Light comes into possession of a notebook with the power to kill anyone he wants, as long as he knows their name and face. He uses that ability to kill those he deems criminals, choosing most of his targets based on the television news. He is soon opposed by L, a mysterious master detective facing a particularly daunting challenge as Light's supernatural methods are exceedingly difficult to trace back to him and have an initially unknown methodology. This challenge is compounded by the fact that Light is quite willing to kill anyone who gets in his way, a murderousness limited only by his desire to avoid raising suspicion to himself.
This is a rather well known series, which is part of the reason I read it. I worked through books 1-7 (of 13) because Kate was going to donate them to the library and I was curious. The writing does make for an effective cat and mouse thriller, there's a nice ensemble of supporting male police officers, and the character design is quite effective at differentiating the players, which is vital when dealing with a more realistic setting. That said, I was content to skim at points and to stop reading after a logical breakpoint in book seven. See subdee over at Hooded Utilitarian for a trenchant critique that does reveal the ending.
The key excerpt:
There was so much bad faith moralizing in that series. A single sociopath high school student was going to make the world a better place by killing already-apprehended criminals, who were waiting in jail for their sentences to be decided, using a magic notebook. This would deter other criminals from committing crimes, leading to a better, crime-free world. Because it’s the countries that have a transparent, (semi-)functioning justice systems and active, (semi-)free cultures of journalism, that report on crime and imprison criminals according to the rules of law, that are the worst off, am I right?
The thing is, while Death Note did a pretty good job of painting Light, the [megalomaniacal] serial killer high school honors student who lucks into the possession of an instrument of mass murder, in a negative light (because power corrupts and only the corrupt seek power), it didn’t really have many characters who were much better – who were morally upright and competent.
Light's plan was incredibly simple-minded while surrounded by incredibly sophisticated measures to save his own neck. I think the book failed to address, in even the most general way, the second-order effects of such a campaign on criminals and the issue of wrongful accusation. Nonetheless, like subdee I think the series has its points. It does a fairly effective job of being a thought experiment on the dark instinct that 'we just need to kill criminals'. The series answer seems to be "I'll do you one better, let's have one of the smartest guys around implement your clever plan and see how it works out." Turns out wielding that sort of power unchecked makes you a monster even if you stay somewhat sane and that when ideological allies gets involved things get very messy very fast. Similarly, the characters with consciences will line up against that plan and be willing to risk their lives to stop it. I think this may be diluted by later manga - from what I understand of the actual ending it probably could have played out with serious time skips in the back half of book seven - but there's no real point commenting on books I haven't read.
That said, I have largely lost my patience for characters that are extremely clever about manipulating convoluted rules that are specific to the novel or series. The final Harry Potter novel was particularly bad about this when it came to wand rules. Death Note isn't quite as bad; it sets up new rules every chapter with key ones coming in place well before they get used, but I still just stopped caring about the new rules and Light's elaborate explanations of how effectively he exploited them. No doubt he's a terrific rules lawyer, but I only give big points for cleverness when there's a simple set of starting rules or the rules have some metaphorical or literal basis in the real world. To be fair Death Note actually pulls off most of its cleverness without relying on rules of transfer and its use of memory loss led to a great plotline with a sympathetic Light.
In the end, I think Death Note 1-7 delivers on its cat and mouse thriller promises. That said, if you already get that it's wrong as a general rule to go around killing criminals, then I'm not sure there's much to learn from it.
Source: Kate, thanks Kate!
Recent Comments