It’s kind of genius in a metatextual way, because that’s exactly what would make an artifact like the Death Note so tempting in the first place. During the stint where Light loses his memory for a bit, you get the impression that he would just be a regular person if he never had the notebook in the first place. He could have grown up to be a cop like his dad. But one day he finds himself with the power to kill instantly and anonymously, and who wouldn’t at least think about using that in a world where injustice happens every day?

I think it’s a near universal human experience to see a horrific crime on the news and think “that person should hang”. It’s a form of temporary tribalism that affects even the most hardened opponents of capital punishment. But most of us are never given a means of acting on that dark thought, so it just remains a thought and we move on. I think what makes Death Note such a great concept is that Tsugumi Ohba tapped into this experience and really examined it.

God, I love this series. Can you tell?

On average, most people given a Death Note would probably list at least one high-profile idiot that would have caused way more deaths through their reign of terror than a Death Note ever could. In that respect, I would say no amount of evil wreaked by writing names would outweigh the good from that one name, and it’s arguably a net good.

Honestly, some of the worst idiots would have to slow down the kill people with a Death Note, so giving them one might be considered a net good as well.

I mean it says ‘nobody should be trusted with it’ but then it gives it to someone most people would agree would be absolutely horrible to receive it and it goes about as well as everyone expects.

If they wanted to prove in it’s absolute corrupting influence then give it to someone like Mr. Rogers and then show how it corrupts even the best of us. There are dozens of better media showing the downfall of a good person with good intentions being corrupted by power. Death Note is a show about giving an artifact that could be an incredible force for good but is instead mishandled horribly and stupidly by basically everyone involved.

Honestly I think a good 40-60% of the population would do a better job than Light did with the power. For one, most people would immediately use it to kill the vast majority of the world’s most evil people before they actually started using it for dumb shit. The show overly focused on small time criminals rather than corrupt politicians and the rich in an effort to avoid shifting the tone into something more political (or simply because politics was less insane back then, I’m not sure). Either way it hasn’t aged well given our current global environment.

Light was a self-righteous authoritarian megalomaniac to begin with though, so it’s easy to imagine someone else being more ethical about it. To me it seemed like the point was that it’s really tricky to stay anonymous with a maxed out threat model.

There’s definitely a lot you could say about Light’s middle class privileges showing in his choice of victims, especially with his cop dad and Japan’s 99.9% conviction rate thanks to their legal presumption of guilt, but I think you also have to acknowledge he is deliberately that type of arrogant, privileged kid.

I think you also have to acknowledge that despite in theory having freedom of expression Japan’s press has been ranked the worst in press freedom for a century, and the role that should play in his ignoring ruling class corruption.

I think it’s deliberate, anyways, in any event the author is a pacifist and he’s very clear that Light isn’t supposed to be a role model.

I wouldn’t have much fun with it per se, but I’d still use it. Pretty sure you could change the course of this bullshit within 12 names, if you pick them right and link their outcomes together.

Example:

“At [precise time], [target], opens their veins with the nearest sharp object and writes [portion of the message] in their own blood upon the nearest surface, while screaming ‘We were wrong, and judgement comes!’, before dying from a brain aneurysm.”

Run it in batches of 3 over a Friday to Monday, when the US markets are closed.

The precise time corresponding to part of an IP address.

The message: [Stop being evil controlling cunts for/your own gain and selfish desires/Or die alongside all your works/I know who is really in charge amongst you].

Batch 1: The three most visually and vocally problematic governmental figureheads.

Batch 2: The three most visually and vocally problematic billionaires

Batch 3: The three most embedded of aides that facilitated the first two groups

Batch 4: A random selection of Billionaires who have been way too quiet recently even as their money flows to make everything shittier.

They’ll figure out the IP address pretty quick.

Then they’ll hit the page with the instructions:

• Make an international trust foundation with a legitimately open, controllable, and auditable operations by the people, with the charter to improve the lives of all Humanity

• The instruction to ironclad formalize mechanisms so that the foundation ends up controlling no less than 99.9% of all their assets, by midnight Monday, and the promise that there will not be individual billionaires allowed to exist after that time.

Bam. The grand majority of the hurdles for a better world out of the way.

Then we can get to the real and important work: Deciding which specific leftist ideology is most correct and which form of Anarchism proves it wrong, as God intended.

Wait, I fixed it all, why is Ryuk still laughing?

Isn’t the whole arc of the story that the power corrupts and perverts it’s wielder?

IRL, the person with the Death Note is just Donald Trump. And Ryuk is Israel.

How many billionaires and their descendents do I have to name for the money to go back to the people?

Does it work if you feed the pages into a printer? I’d get cramp writing out the entire list of Congress and billionaires.