Wednesday, December 27, 2006

Me - "First they make L die. I'm sad. Then they resurrect him, so I'm happy. Then they kill him off again. I'm very sad."

Jo-Ann - "Who cares about L. They killed my bishie Light!"
Me - "L is cool. Light's a demented freak. L is too, but at least, you know, he's cute demented. Light's just demented demented."

Ok, my internet is screwed up. So I'm typing this out...in my dear OpenOffice Writer, a lovely tool, without which I would probably have to resort to drugs to destress. The wonders of typing out a short essay ( somewhat contradictory, short and essay ), or making someone die a gruesome death. Languages are beautiful things.

I know I promised a pseudo-discursive essay on the killings of Kira / Raito / Light Yagami. So here it is, a good...I hope 20 minutes of typing before lunch comes. At 12.40 and tuition with da thing at 1. Such joy.

Well firstly, Raito/Light Yagami is driven by a sense of justice. Once he obtains the Death Note from his Shimigami Ryuk, he starts to execute criminals. I suppose that his train of thought is that his killings are somewhat sanctimonious, somewhat justified by the fact that these people ought to die for the crimes they've commited.

Then again, these criminals could repent. By killing them outright ( ala Death Note ), you basically condemn them as stone-cold criminals that have no chance to repent. By no chance, I mean it both figuratively and literally. No chance to repent because they're cold-hearted, or if they want to repent, they die.

On the other hand, we can see that these criminals are pretty hardcore ones. For example, take the killer of Misa's family,Yoichi. He got away scot-free, and was quite smug about it.

So really, while I'm not pro-Kira, I'm not anti-Kira too. I mean, if you really look at it, he killed criminals, mostly. The crime rate dropped by a supposed 70%. Furthermore, the police force had not been able to stop them.

Raito's father, Soichiro did say something along the lines of “The Law isn't perfect, and neither are the people who made it. But it was made with the endless desire to bring justice.”

Which brings to my mind this question: Does the end justify the means?

To me, it does. I prefer results. And though I won't resort to underhanded means conventionally, I have no problem “playing dirty” if the need arises.

Though Raito did not follow conventional laws, instead executing the criminals himself, the crime rate did fall. Isn't that what the Law wanted, criminals brought to justice? I mean, I feel that even though the police are honor-and-duty-bound to stop Kira, they can indeed see the benefits of Kira.

As for why I take a neutral stand on the issue of Kira's killings, it's because of the 2^nd and 3^rd Kiras. Amane Misa, and since I'm using the movie because more of you are acquainted with that, Kiyomi Takada.

When Misa originally obtains her Death Note, she is already worshipping Kira, because Kira killed the robber that murdered her family years ago. Because of that, she uses the media ( fairly easy for her, she should know the media system quite well, being a star and all ) to spread the good-doings of Kira.

(Got my internet back. Oh yeah. Tuition in about...5 mins though. Oh crap.)

[After Tuition]

Digression:
Tuesdays with Morrie is a fantastic book. About a quarter way through it. Now, back to discursive.

So, Misa meets up with Kira ( after casually murdering several policemen, Mr Mogi amongst them ). Now, while the original Kira, Raito, only murdered criminals ( with the exception of Naomi and Raye ), Misa murders whoever she thinks is interfering with Light. Kiyomi further extends this example, with her reckless killings of people such as Saeko, a rival in the newstation.

Which means that I take a neutral stand on using the Death Note to kill criminals, it only extends to criminal killing. Light, Misa and Kiyomi imminently got drunk with power ( Misa was cutely drunk though ) and started killing indiscriminately ( not so much in the case of Light, but he was still insane. )

Not that it's hard to lose control, considering you can kill people quite easily, moreso in the case of Misa, who chose to quarter her life by trading for the Shinigami Eyes twice. Then again, she did have Jealous' and Rem/Remu's life span added to hers. So now...I don't know how long she had to live. Although she killed herself after Light died anyway. Haha. Near and Higuchi should die. Maybe they did, I didn't read -that- far / didn't pay attention.