Slightly disjointed Death Note wonderings
Feb. 3rd, 2010 12:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
splinteredstarOkay. I'm taking a class this semester where one of the books is a book on evil from a Buddhist perspective. One of the things it talks about is contingency - this idea that things are a product of chance - and how being attached to things is a trap - an obstacle in the path to enlightenment. Well, late last night when I was trying to sleep, my brain started connecting a few dots.
Light can't handle contingency. He cannot handle the fact that things are by chance - his first thought is that Ryuk chose him to take the note book, and he's always talking about how luck and destiny are favoring him. He simply cannot understand that he does not have intrinsic worth to the world.
He fails - not because his plan was flawed or because his goals were evil, but because he is too attached to his own life and his own safety. He acts first to preserve his life and second to achieve his goals. He is afraid to die more than anything else. Misa clings just as strongly to her own attachments - to Light and to romance and to god. Mikami does as well - to order and justice and Kira. In the end, their attachments are what kill them.
Compare that to L - a man unattached to anything: not his face, his existence, his home or even his identity. The only thing L becomes attached to is Light - and that attachment is what kills him. Mello is unattached to his life or his morals - it is his attachment to winning that is his death. Matt's attachment to Mello kills him. Of all the human characters in the series, the one with the least attachments is the sole surviving Successor - Near. And even he is not free of them - an attachment to solitude is still an attachment.
This realization helps the whole series make so more sense.
Because Death Note is about - or at least looks like it's about - morality and justice, it's natural to look for the line in the sand. This marker somewhere on the scale of morality where you can say, "Okay, this side is good and this side is evil." And it's always kind of bothered me a bit, because I've never been able to find that line - indeed, the series makes a point of erasing that line, in having noble villains and twisted heroes, and little way to tell the difference.
But now, I think I realize that it's because the series isn't about morality at all - the line isn't there because the line doesn't matter as much as this simple clinging to things that trap you.
This was reconstructed from half a dozen post-it-notes of midnight revelation, so forgive me if it's a little hard to follow.
S
Light can't handle contingency. He cannot handle the fact that things are by chance - his first thought is that Ryuk chose him to take the note book, and he's always talking about how luck and destiny are favoring him. He simply cannot understand that he does not have intrinsic worth to the world.
He fails - not because his plan was flawed or because his goals were evil, but because he is too attached to his own life and his own safety. He acts first to preserve his life and second to achieve his goals. He is afraid to die more than anything else. Misa clings just as strongly to her own attachments - to Light and to romance and to god. Mikami does as well - to order and justice and Kira. In the end, their attachments are what kill them.
Compare that to L - a man unattached to anything: not his face, his existence, his home or even his identity. The only thing L becomes attached to is Light - and that attachment is what kills him. Mello is unattached to his life or his morals - it is his attachment to winning that is his death. Matt's attachment to Mello kills him. Of all the human characters in the series, the one with the least attachments is the sole surviving Successor - Near. And even he is not free of them - an attachment to solitude is still an attachment.
This realization helps the whole series make so more sense.
Because Death Note is about - or at least looks like it's about - morality and justice, it's natural to look for the line in the sand. This marker somewhere on the scale of morality where you can say, "Okay, this side is good and this side is evil." And it's always kind of bothered me a bit, because I've never been able to find that line - indeed, the series makes a point of erasing that line, in having noble villains and twisted heroes, and little way to tell the difference.
But now, I think I realize that it's because the series isn't about morality at all - the line isn't there because the line doesn't matter as much as this simple clinging to things that trap you.
This was reconstructed from half a dozen post-it-notes of midnight revelation, so forgive me if it's a little hard to follow.
S
