What Light Illuminates: the Hidden Moral Theme of *Death Note*.

The second greatest mystery of *Death Note* is why anyone opposed the central character at first, whereas the greatest mystery of *Death Note* is why anyone opposed him by the end.

 

This mystery persists into the so-called “real world” of the Internet, wherein protagonist Light Yagami enjoys the privilege of sharing the “Pure Evil” label on the Fandom wiki with King Richard and with Adolf Hitler. What the rationale behind this placement is eludes me, since it seems to follow “wiki logic” and so reinforces the established understanding that a wiki is not knowledge but, at best, a means of reaching knowledge, and it’s only so if it is implemented well. The Crowd does not decide what’s right or wrong, as members of the Crowd are only righteous if their thoughts accord with fact and Reason, at which point they cease to be mere members of the Crowd. It is the Crowd that is responsible for most of the atrocities of history, with leaders such as Hitler acting merely as a figurehead, devoid of Reason and divorced from fact.

 

Regarding Light, he clearly does not qualify according to the rules as listed on the Category Page, though, like most rules invented purely to develop a taxonomy, these rules are arbitrary and unsatisfying either to the Reason or the Heart. One such example is that characters defined this way are “taken seriously, causing fear, revulsion, […] hatred,” and so forth, though clearly this alone does not explain if such a fear, revulsion, hatred or so on is *justified* or not. Perhaps the most barbaric and nonsensical of all these rules is that they “must have […] personality and motives,” indicating that destruction for its own sake is not “purely” evil, but destruction with a purpose is, regardless of the purpose and its righteousness or wrongfulness. Again, however, Reason indicates that this is not the case at all, as something which is *purely* evil cannot serve a higher purpose, for that higher purpose is, by definition, Good, whereas a *purely* evil character, as quoted at the top of that same Category Page, can “have no end in mind that justifies [the] means.” Such contradictions, though, must be expected on a wiki managed by the Crowd and not by self-responsible adults.

Another page (which I’ve misplaced) insists that it’s enough for such a character to be opposed by all around him and to have no qualities which could be deemed “redeeming”. Yet the former clause is utterly barbaric, since again it seeks to let the Crowd decide and not the instrument of Reason. Thankfully, in Light’s case it does not apply, again, since those who do oppose him represent a minuscule minority who qualify, if anything, to be regarded as “pure evil” more than Light does, as, according to the Category Page, these characters “possess the cognitive ability” to know what’s right from what is wrong, “yet choose to do wrong anyway.” That Light possesses this ability we can’t deny, but never does he “choose to do wrong anyway”, whereas the people who oppose him know that he is right but struggle to confess it in the company of one another, so that they forget it altogether by the end. (Here, Matsuda remains the best example, as he knows that Kira’s justified but chooses to suppress this knowledge in the company of Soichiro, who, just as codependently, puts up the selfsame front for Matsuda.)

 

One must conclude, therefore, that those who still oppose Light Yagami outside of fiction either fall into the category of “Pure Evil” or they don’t possess true “Moral Agency” as it has been defined upon the aforementioned Category Page. The latter serves as no excuse, however, since the inability to know what’s right from what is wrong is of no use in doing what is right and in preventing what is wrong, as Reason must decide the matter, and it also stands to Reason that an individual who knows how to discern effectively would always choose what Good requires in the service of one’s Reason. If Light is the smarter of the two opponents in his game with L, then he is also, as a consequence, more moral.

 

Here the second clause comes into play: “redeeming qualities”. Light Yagami is utterly redeemed not only by commitment to the purest form of justice but by the success of his entire enterprise. To get at these statistics one must do some digging, yet suffice to say he saves the World, reducing crime substantially and ending war. What’s more: he does this all without becoming Machiavellian. The ends don’t justify the means, as if to say that “all means go” regardless of intrinsic moral weight. All that Light does is calculated with precise ideals and rules in mind, and only some of them are optimal for the consolidation of his power; many of the rules which Light adopts are not utilitarian but rather represent his moral worldview, one wherein (as in reality) the World is *not* a mass of “equals”, all possessing “equal rights”, who can do bad things or do good ones based on rules but still retain entitlements according to those rules, but rather it’s divided neatly into good and evil people (as the Fandom wiki demonstrates by its existence, though it fails to meet this burden) whose effectiveness in pushing for the Greater Good determines whether they are worth protecting or expending. Light does not do evil; he pursues the Good to that extent which truly evil people fear.

 

Not only does he know his right from wrong; he also knows *who’s* right or wrong and whose existence can be justified accordingly, and he is not afraid to carry out his knowledge. While in dialogue we must prioritize what’s right instead of seeking *who* is right, as Thomas Huxley stated, in the realm of practice it’s imperative to know the wicked from the innocent, and thankfully it is not hard to fathom in the moment, as the anime establishes when Light employs the Death Note to protect a girl from rapists. Following the rules is not enough to be a moral person if the rules allow for those who follow them to suffer at the hands of those who don’t. The rules, at best, define who’s innocent and so provide a means to weed out who is guilty. Yet the means of weeding can’t be bound by rules, as the behaviour of the weeds does not conform to such ideals and neither must, therefore, the methods of the farmer. Nonetheless, Light Yagami is noble in developing new rules by which humanity may live, and those who dare oppose him do so even though they know these rules; they know what Light defines as right and wrong, but they choose to do wrong, despite the evidence that it is his and not their definition which is best and most effective and consistent.

 

All of this, of course, would be expected by a true philosopher of ethics. We should know from reading MacIntyre that the concept of a “basic human right” is phony, only possible within bureaucracies which specialize in inefficiency, while *true* morality depends not on the rules invented by the bureaucrats but rather on the common goods pursued by people. What is more: who’s right is an extension of what’s right, as we are seldom “equals” who perform mistakes according to subjective biases, but rather we’re defined as *either* virtuous *or* vicious by objective moral standards for behaviour. Even one who finds the arrogance to question MacIntyre’s virtue and authority in this regard must testify that all of this is true, since simply living in absurd and Kafkaesque bureaucracies, incessantly barraged by propaganda with regards to the entitlements of criminals, would be enough to make one either snap or seek a Greater Good in place of common evil.

 

“Snapping” would be evil, as it means to give up Reason and to join the self-destructive Crowd. The Greater Good is that which Light elects instead. He is one of the few true heroes of modernity; his tragedy is that we do not see it, even when his thoughts have been laid out to us in full. Yet that is no excuse, for even by the modern standards of conformity to rules he has succeeded, as a Light who’s wiped his memory of being Kira can’t deny that Kira shares his innermost ideals. We all wish we could do as he does, though we fail, and out of shame we tell each other that the innermost ideals of our hearts are lies. Such is the nihilistic trend which Kierkegaard addresses in *The Present Age*: that out of passionless complacency there would emerge an inability to tell the good apart from what is evil, and this inability would be the greatest evil of them all.

 

Yet, once again, this fact is no excuse, and if we know it then we must behave accordingly, as per the aforementioned “Moral Agency” which comes with knowledge. This is made explicit in the anime, as it’s the Bitten Apple that is seated on the Death Note at the start of half the episodes, and we should know what such a blatantly religious symbol represents within a story saturated with such Christian sounds and images: we can’t subsist in Eden, for we now possess and are possessed by Knowledge and Discernment. (Even those few fools who would deny this meaning, claiming it is just a reference to Shinigami in this cinematic universe, would do well to remember that the Shinigami are derived from Western myths of the Grim Reaper from the Middle Ages, that the Shinigami Realm is introduced within the prologue just as Heaven is in seminal religious fiction, with a “Kyrie” to underscore the scene, and that the character of Ryuk is a mirror for Light Yagami, explaining why few other characters can see him.)

What, then, can we learn by Light’s example? What does Light illuminate? Quite simply, he destroys the Kantian assumption that a “can” defines a “should”. This arrogant delusion, at the heart of modern apathy, insists that your abilities define and circumscribe your moral obligations; you cannot be morally compelled to do that which, in your case, is impossible to do. This blatant narcissism would imply that, irrespective of the damsels in distress, the women and the children and the noble men who cry in agony, it’s only *my* ability and lack thereof that can determine what *I* have to do to save them. If I have the means to save the girl and yet I choose to give those means away, then *I* am not responsible for what these *others* choose to do with her. No sooner, though, is this atrocious line of “reasoning” expressed than it’s exposed, for letting a young girl be raped is tantamount to rape.

 

One always has to use the Death Note. If one has no Death Note, one must live forever with the shame of one’s inadequate abilities. Such is humility, and it is for this reason that Light Yagami remains the humblest of characters within this drama, as he never makes excuses of this kind and only takes each opportunity he has to make himself more powerful, that he may save that girl, repeatedly, wherever she appears, worldwide.

 

Modernity insists that he ought not to have that power. Yet it fails to save her, and, as such, it never must restrict him. Only those who won’t renounce that power but employ it can be fit to judge. The Death Note is no Ring of Power forged in Doom; it is a Godsend from the Heavens, an essential part of Life, and those who use it properly ascend to Godhood. If you fear them, that is well. A sinner ought to. Yet you have no right, in Heaven nor on Earth, to vilify them just because your heart hangs on the Scales.

**[({R.G.)}]**