And I cried when he died. He was a great character. x)
I voted that he didn't deserve to die but only because (for some reason I cannot even begin to imagine) the OP thinks there can only be two definite opinions on the matter and people can either agree with the first or with the second or not have any opinion at all. Black or White, Grey can go shoot itself. Right or Wrong, the Context can go hang itself on its grandma Result's shorts.
Anyway.
I don't think that the statement 'Light deserves to die' automatically means that 'he was evil' and 'the world is better off without him'. Nor does 'Light doesn't deserve to die' automatically leads to 'the world would have been better with him'.
Also Light =/= Kira. 'Kira' was the position of 'authority' Light occupied and he did only what his mind considered 'right' given the objective Kira had before him. Light deliberately changed himself in order to match his ideal for 'Kira'. What's the difference? Basically, the difference between a criminal and a political leader/king. The criminal would kill, steal and destroy because (for various psychological and sociological reasons) he doesn't care for the moral beliefs of the community. The king/political leader (let's assume this is someone who does not have any other objectives (like being rich, well fed and other egoistical things) than the present or future well-being of his subjects) does the same things for other reasons. Let's take some ordinary guy and put it in the position of power. To this day he had only done things the community accepted as moral. That means he was honest, fair, compassionate, honorable, etc. But suddenly he has to lead thousands of men and soon finds out that doing what is 'moral' does not equivalent to doing what is good for these people. Let's assume our guy faces the following dilemma: some charismatic idiot with some demagogic ideas which can be quite harmful to the society is becoming popular and gathering followers. His ideas are becoming popular, too but they're dangerous (ala Hitler). What's our guy to do? In a better world he could just shot the idiot, become a killer and live happily. But this is not a better world, this is a world with human rights and free speech where people get angry if someone kills someone else because he doesn't like his ideas. So our guy can't just get rid of the idiot the easy way - he is forced to be smart and play politics. Bribes, lies, blackmails, even one or two murders of unimportant people. In the end our guy saves the stability of the state but is not so much better than our criminal.
Light was in similar position. He sees Kira as the messiah, the new god of the world whose mission and duty is to make it a better place. With any means, at any cost.
Was Light a good Kira? No. There were two fatal flaws in the execution of his plan.
1. For a guy who was supposed to be smart, his self-analytical skills were severally lacking. For just a few months L's list of suspects for a crime, committed with supernatural powers, went from 'anyone on the damn Earth (if it's even a human)' to 'Yagami Light, 19, Japan'. Wtf? This shows not how awesome L is, but how awesome Light is at coming up with new and funny ways to completely f*ck things over. The only things which were required for him to kill criminals were 1. pen and 2. information. So whoever was after him could only use information control to catch him. If they were smart, they could make out his nationality pretty fast. But once they had discovered the general area where the suspect was, they were left with the completely impossible task to prove exactly who he was. Impossible, if the suspect was smart and did not play around with the investigators and did not react to every single thing they did. Simple, but Light stupidly did not take his own arrogance in consideration when making a decision.
2. That's the biggest flaw. Light's plan could not possibly work. Ever. In any dimension of the universe in which Kira did not have a way of knowing immediately when someone committed a crime. And some immortality, too. Otherwise he was left dependent on the police and on his health. At some point in the future he was going to kill all the criminals caught by the police (as the time required to catch a criminal is a little bit more than the time required to write a name in a notebook). Then? He was left with no criminals he knows of and a very demoralized police force that may not be very happy to send people to their death. Naturally, there's always a way to re-moralize them ('catch this criminal or your daughter dies' can be very convincing) but the faith the people (and the criminals, as they tend to be people too) have in him would be severally damaged. Of course, you don't need faith when you have control (what's the difference, some may ask) but that only brings the question - what happens when Light doesn't have control anymore? What happens when he dies? Light's plan was very short-termed. He planned nothing for after his death. So it wasn't going to work.
Was Kira right? If Kira was a book and I had to write a review, I would write: 'The idea was good but the construction and the execution were lacking.'
*Did Light the person deserve to die? No. Before Kira, he was such a nice, brilliant, arrogant kid. *Did Kira the ideology deserve to die? No, and it didn't. *Did Kira the messiah deserve to die? Yes. Bad execution of good ideas is a lot more dangerous than good execution of bad ideas. He wasn't doing his job properly. *Did Kira the person deserve to die? Yes, as people are to be judged by the moral values of other people and the society. Usually, not always.
Why did I vote 'no'?
1. I refuse to be associated with any opinion that includes the term 'evil'. There's no such thing as 'evil'.
2. I'm always sure what I think.
3. I like Light. xD Which is absolutely irrelevant but still. |