straightforwardly (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
straightforwardly) wrote2024-12-21 09:50 am
straightforwardly) wrote2024-12-21 09:50 am
Entry tags:
294 | in which I reread Death Note for the first time since I was a teenager
a song I was listening to: ♫ when does a man become a monster ♫
me, internally: “after he picks up a Death Note, probably”
Which is to say: I’ve had Death Note on my mind recently! So much so that I spent most of November and the beginning of December on rereading the entirety of the manga for the first time since I was a teenager, and I have. Feelings.
This reread is something I’ve vaguely been wanting to do for a long time, namely because while I own the entirety of the manga (I was collecting it as it came out during my teenage years), I haven’t actually read it since I was a teenager myself. Meaning that all my thoughts and opinions on the series were those of my teenaged self. So whenever Death Note came to mind, I’d find myself wondering: would it hold up, if I were to read it now? How would my opinions change/would my analysis of it be any different? Would I see the characters differently? Would I even like it? And so on.
To be honest, I was a little worried about the first point—that it might not hold up at all. That it would turn out to be the kind of thing which only applies to teenaged edgelords, or something. But to my relief, that wasn’t true—Death Note is Good, Actually, and even knowing how everything ends, each volume was still such a gripping read for me.
I see Death Note as a corruption arc and a tragedy, and it does such a good job of it, particularly the former. I have such complicated feelings about Light—neither “dislike” nor “like” are accurate descriptions. I’ve tried so many times in the past weeks to describe my feelings about him—in phone calls to my brother, in my Death Note write-up in my reading/media journal, and in this entry (which I started weeks ago, and have been struggling to write for this very reason). And the end result is still: I don’t know how to describe my feelings!
So let’s break it down. If I were to list my favorite characters in Death Note, Light would be nowhere on the list. But if I were to make a list of disliked characters, he also wouldn’t be on the list. Concepts of liking or disliking have nothing to do with my feelings about Light; he exists nowhere on that spectrum for me. The only list he would land on would be the list of characters I spend the most time thinking about. I also have zero fannish interest in him—the thought of reading a fic focused on him sounds incredibly dull and not what I want from this fandom, though admittedly this isn’t the most fannish kind of canon for me.
I pity him, in some strange way. I think where he ends up is tragic, and it’s absolutely all of his own fault. He’s a terrible person, in many ways—though, lbr, no one in Death Note is truly “good”—they’re all flawed people. But at the same time, I can’t shake the image of the teenager he was at the start of this all. It was his own choices that brought him to his end, and what a perfect ending that was, from a literary standpoint, and yet I can’t help but mourn the person he was? But at the same time, a part of me feels like he was always doomed, even if he’d never come into contact with a Death Note. The inflexibility of his ideals and his own conviction in his intelligence, in his lifelong experience with always being the smartest person in the room… the seeds for his tragedy were always there.
I still feel like the above doesn’t properly encapsulate what I feel about his character. There’s some essential nuance that I can’t seem to put into words. But like I said, I’ve been struggling to write this for weeks now, and it’s closer than anything else I’ve managed so far.
As for the popular stance of “the series should have ended with L died”—I strongly disagree. I do enjoy the first half of the series more, but I feel like the second half is absolutely essential for the story Death Note is trying to tell. Light’s character, his corruption, his tragedy, his end—it needs both the first and the second half of the story to land the way it needs to.
One more minor note: I was fascinated to discover upon this reread that Ryuk straight-up tells Light (and thus, the audience as well) how the story is going to end. He tells him that in the end, he will kill Light by writing his name in the Death Note. And when Light dreams of using the Death Note to create a more “just” world, he tells him that in the end, Light will become worst than the criminals he’s killing.
There’s this bit later on where L and Light talk about Kira, and one of them—I think Light—says it could only be an older teenager, because only someone that young would use the Death Note in that particular fashion, and I think about that a lot. It’s so true, and I think that those interactions with Ryuk also demonstrates something similar. Light hears Ryuk’s words, but he doesn’t internalize them in any way—because he’s confidence in his intelligence and his goodness, and because he still has that very teenaged sense of invincibility.
Anyways. Enough about Light.
I also mentioned about that this isn’t really a fannish sort of canon for me—that’s true. What little fannish interest I have mostly revolves around Misa, who does top that aforementioned favorite characters list. I have a lot of thoughts about her, the way her traumatic experiences pre-canon shape her, and most of what I’m interested in, fic-wise, are alternate ships for her.
But I also struggle with characterization in a lot of the Death Note fics I read—I feel like many of them don’t see the characters at all the way I see them. With Misa in particular, I feel like fic often softens her, or take her feelings for Light as less of an obsession and more of a straightforward kind of love that can then be broken off in a more straightforward kind of way. Which is understandable, in the sense that I like alternate ships for her and making those ships actually work is really different within the framework of the canon—but it’s still something that I struggle with. (Though, if I’m really honest, I feel like the character worst-served by the fic I read is L. Some of my characterization troubles come from a fic taking a character’s words at face-value when I think they were obviously lying in order to achieve x purpose, and so, as a character who is constantly lying, L’s characterization suffers the most.)
Though, at some point after I initially started this entry, I came across various meta talking about shifts in characterization between the manga and anime. As someone who never watched the anime (outside of a friend showing me the ending when I was a teen because she thought it would be funny to see me get mad about the differences), I was actually vaguely under the impression that the two versions were pretty similar, shifts in the ending aside, and so reading through those posts surprised me. Now I wonder if that’s also the cause of part of the disconnect between how I see the characters and what I see in fic.
Finally, a minor note, but I do wonder if the deaths of Misa’s parents is handled differently in the anime, or if people simply misremember it. So many fics (including my absolute favorite Death Note fic) feature her coming home to find their dead bodies, which throws me, because! Canonically! She was there when it happened. She watched her parents get murdered in front of her eyes! That she lived through this horrifically traumatizing thing is such a core and essential part of her character to me, that seeing it being forgotten about in fic that focuses on her is wild to me.
Anyways, tl;dr aside. I’m not saying that Death Note is a perfect series; it has its flaws (the Mikami flashback chapter comes to mind…), but nonetheless I find that it holds up, and I had a great time rereading it, even if I also occasionally feel like I’ve been possessed by the amount of time I spend thinking about it.
me, internally: “after he picks up a Death Note, probably”
Which is to say: I’ve had Death Note on my mind recently! So much so that I spent most of November and the beginning of December on rereading the entirety of the manga for the first time since I was a teenager, and I have. Feelings.
This reread is something I’ve vaguely been wanting to do for a long time, namely because while I own the entirety of the manga (I was collecting it as it came out during my teenage years), I haven’t actually read it since I was a teenager myself. Meaning that all my thoughts and opinions on the series were those of my teenaged self. So whenever Death Note came to mind, I’d find myself wondering: would it hold up, if I were to read it now? How would my opinions change/would my analysis of it be any different? Would I see the characters differently? Would I even like it? And so on.
To be honest, I was a little worried about the first point—that it might not hold up at all. That it would turn out to be the kind of thing which only applies to teenaged edgelords, or something. But to my relief, that wasn’t true—Death Note is Good, Actually, and even knowing how everything ends, each volume was still such a gripping read for me.
I see Death Note as a corruption arc and a tragedy, and it does such a good job of it, particularly the former. I have such complicated feelings about Light—neither “dislike” nor “like” are accurate descriptions. I’ve tried so many times in the past weeks to describe my feelings about him—in phone calls to my brother, in my Death Note write-up in my reading/media journal, and in this entry (which I started weeks ago, and have been struggling to write for this very reason). And the end result is still: I don’t know how to describe my feelings!
So let’s break it down. If I were to list my favorite characters in Death Note, Light would be nowhere on the list. But if I were to make a list of disliked characters, he also wouldn’t be on the list. Concepts of liking or disliking have nothing to do with my feelings about Light; he exists nowhere on that spectrum for me. The only list he would land on would be the list of characters I spend the most time thinking about. I also have zero fannish interest in him—the thought of reading a fic focused on him sounds incredibly dull and not what I want from this fandom, though admittedly this isn’t the most fannish kind of canon for me.
I pity him, in some strange way. I think where he ends up is tragic, and it’s absolutely all of his own fault. He’s a terrible person, in many ways—though, lbr, no one in Death Note is truly “good”—they’re all flawed people. But at the same time, I can’t shake the image of the teenager he was at the start of this all. It was his own choices that brought him to his end, and what a perfect ending that was, from a literary standpoint, and yet I can’t help but mourn the person he was? But at the same time, a part of me feels like he was always doomed, even if he’d never come into contact with a Death Note. The inflexibility of his ideals and his own conviction in his intelligence, in his lifelong experience with always being the smartest person in the room… the seeds for his tragedy were always there.
I still feel like the above doesn’t properly encapsulate what I feel about his character. There’s some essential nuance that I can’t seem to put into words. But like I said, I’ve been struggling to write this for weeks now, and it’s closer than anything else I’ve managed so far.
As for the popular stance of “the series should have ended with L died”—I strongly disagree. I do enjoy the first half of the series more, but I feel like the second half is absolutely essential for the story Death Note is trying to tell. Light’s character, his corruption, his tragedy, his end—it needs both the first and the second half of the story to land the way it needs to.
One more minor note: I was fascinated to discover upon this reread that Ryuk straight-up tells Light (and thus, the audience as well) how the story is going to end. He tells him that in the end, he will kill Light by writing his name in the Death Note. And when Light dreams of using the Death Note to create a more “just” world, he tells him that in the end, Light will become worst than the criminals he’s killing.
There’s this bit later on where L and Light talk about Kira, and one of them—I think Light—says it could only be an older teenager, because only someone that young would use the Death Note in that particular fashion, and I think about that a lot. It’s so true, and I think that those interactions with Ryuk also demonstrates something similar. Light hears Ryuk’s words, but he doesn’t internalize them in any way—because he’s confidence in his intelligence and his goodness, and because he still has that very teenaged sense of invincibility.
Anyways. Enough about Light.
I also mentioned about that this isn’t really a fannish sort of canon for me—that’s true. What little fannish interest I have mostly revolves around Misa, who does top that aforementioned favorite characters list. I have a lot of thoughts about her, the way her traumatic experiences pre-canon shape her, and most of what I’m interested in, fic-wise, are alternate ships for her.
But I also struggle with characterization in a lot of the Death Note fics I read—I feel like many of them don’t see the characters at all the way I see them. With Misa in particular, I feel like fic often softens her, or take her feelings for Light as less of an obsession and more of a straightforward kind of love that can then be broken off in a more straightforward kind of way. Which is understandable, in the sense that I like alternate ships for her and making those ships actually work is really different within the framework of the canon—but it’s still something that I struggle with. (Though, if I’m really honest, I feel like the character worst-served by the fic I read is L. Some of my characterization troubles come from a fic taking a character’s words at face-value when I think they were obviously lying in order to achieve x purpose, and so, as a character who is constantly lying, L’s characterization suffers the most.)
Though, at some point after I initially started this entry, I came across various meta talking about shifts in characterization between the manga and anime. As someone who never watched the anime (outside of a friend showing me the ending when I was a teen because she thought it would be funny to see me get mad about the differences), I was actually vaguely under the impression that the two versions were pretty similar, shifts in the ending aside, and so reading through those posts surprised me. Now I wonder if that’s also the cause of part of the disconnect between how I see the characters and what I see in fic.
Finally, a minor note, but I do wonder if the deaths of Misa’s parents is handled differently in the anime, or if people simply misremember it. So many fics (including my absolute favorite Death Note fic) feature her coming home to find their dead bodies, which throws me, because! Canonically! She was there when it happened. She watched her parents get murdered in front of her eyes! That she lived through this horrifically traumatizing thing is such a core and essential part of her character to me, that seeing it being forgotten about in fic that focuses on her is wild to me.
Anyways, tl;dr aside. I’m not saying that Death Note is a perfect series; it has its flaws (the Mikami flashback chapter comes to mind…), but nonetheless I find that it holds up, and I had a great time rereading it, even if I also occasionally feel like I’ve been possessed by the amount of time I spend thinking about it.
no subject
Death Note was the first fandom I was in back when the anime was airing. I don’t have my copies of the manga anymore but I wish I did! I’m so glad it held up for you, because I worry about the same thing with older fandoms I haven’t revisited for a while. I keep meaning to though 👀
It’s fascinating how you feel about Light. I can’t remember the last time a character made me feel like that!
no subject
Death Note was the first fandom I was in back awwww <3 There's something about a first fandom that can be quite special, isn't there? I was already in fandom when Death Note started being released, and while I don't actually remember anymore why I started reading it, I suspect it could've been the influence of the fandom friend group I was in back then, because I remember a lot of us getting into it around the same time.
I worry about the same thing with older fandoms I haven’t revisited for a while Yeah! I feel like it can be nerve-wracking to revisit something you loved when you were younger. Especially since I have had the experience of something not holding up when I reread it, or at least not hitting in the same way, and it can be quite sad.
no subject
Things not holding up is such a sucky feeling. I guess it means we've grown but it still feels sad.
no subject
no subject
So, I didn't mean that it's impossible for him to have turned out any other way, but rather that his tragedy isn't solely because he encountered the Death Note, and in some ways he was already heading down a road which had the potential to destroy him. In other words, I was thinking about Light in the context of Shakespearean fatal flaws, and how much his arc is shaped by that. Which is in turn what makes it hard for me to shake the sense of doom when I think about him and his future in a world without the Death Note. The seeds of the tragedy are in him, and so a part of me expects to see them sprout. But you're absolutely right in that it's also not certain that things would have turned out that way, and that other events and experiences could have also happened to change his trajectory, including simply getting the chance to grow up a little more before being in a position of power.
I guess, for me, the difference is if I'm looking at him through the lens of a person, or through the lens of a narrative. As a person: absolutely, yes, he could have grown up into a much better person than he turned out to be. There's both good and bad in him, as there is in any person, and so in that sense he could have gone down another road. But if I'm looking at him through the lens of a narrative... the narrative framework I've been given is that of a tragedy, and since the tragedy is not something done to him, but rather born from something within him—it feels impossible for him to escape.
ahhh, hopefully you don't mind getting such a long comment! I don't know how coherent this was (I feel like I said the exact same thing like three times, only phrased slightly differently, lol), but your comment sparked something in me. I had this moment of, "huh, I agree with what they're saying, but what I wrote was something different, and I also agreed with that. So why is that?" And thinking through that helped me be more able to examine my feelings and be able to figure out and articulate my thoughts a bit better than I could before. So thank you for that!
I also want to say, I love how you phrased this: and most of them are not given the rope to hang themselves so surely as Light does. Yes. Yes, absolutely, and I think that also ties into why I feel that sense of pity for him.