in which death is equal for everyone (that includes you, light yagami)

i just finished my most recent reread of the death note manga, and (as per usual) i got to thinking about the narrative decisions ohba and obata made in the final chapters. this is mainly concerning light's final moments: his big monologue and his death scene. 

i think about it a lot compared to how things went down in the anime. there's a lot of things the death note anime did, especially in the latter half, that fundamentally changed and condensed the plot/characters to the point where i really considered it sort of an alternate universe. but when i watched the final episode way back when, i remember that i really enjoyed those final scenes. in them, when light escapes the warehouse and walks along a montage of his life as he’s on the brink of death, i got the sense that it was a great way to emphasize just how much light ruined his own life in his attempts to become kami, god. and it's just so tragic to see him before all of this, to see the person he was, he person he could’ve been, compared to what he became. it can be hard to feel bad for light, considering just how cruel he could be especially near the end of the series. but i do feel sorry for him, at least in these last few moments. i think back to him at the beginning — how he felt true remorse for those men he killed first, how he rewired his brain on the spot to cope with this, how he believed that he could create a new, peaceful world. i mean, he really believed it.

death note is a tragedy above all else, and these few seconds in the final episode really did a good job of portraying that.

the manga, however, had an ending that i thought was a bit more fitting. i've mentioned before that ohba took quite a few narrative risks (the most notable being L's death halfway through the series), and i think chapter 107 is one of those that just really ties together the meaning of the entire series. we see light doing as light does: trying to talk his way out of it. after falling to his knees and delivering the famous cackle we've all heard of, he calls near a petty, selfish man, delivers a hefty speech on why he only did what he had to, why kira was righteous, why the world was rotten and needed saving. he's panicking of course, but he's still saying all the right words, unfaltering in his beliefs. god, he really believed it. even when his motives were less than altruistic, he believed it. that’s what gets me. 

after this, naturally, near tells him the truth: that he's nothing but a crazy mass murderer, and light falls apart right there in front of him.

after his last ditch attempt to kill near, light -- our brilliant, charming, calculating protagonist, who we've watched weave his way in and out of complex, almost impossible situations -- dies writhing on the floor, begging for his life. in a few instants, his complete and utter confidence that he'd win, his belief in his own godhood, is all reduced to nothing within seconds, and he crumples. the fundamental workings of lights universe shatter. he is surrounded by the people he intended to kill, people he deceived for years on end, people he thought beneath him, all watching him lose himself. it's difficult and so, so satisfying to read all at once. i think it really plays into the idea that from the moment he wrote the first name down into the death note, he damned himself, and he knew it. all that other stuff -- becoming kira, his ideals, his desire to rule a new world rid of rotten people -- it was all just an attempt to justify himself, to justify this delusion of a perfect, peaceful world. a  world in which everyone was safe, in where his fathers morals were upheld instead of made a mockery of (he says it himself, to matsuda). from that moment on, his life was over, and he mentally couldn't face it up to the very end. 

in death, it was just as ryuk told him: he became equal to all other humans, to all the people he murdered, his life rendered meaningless. even his last words, devoid of any dignity or grandeur: "damn it." so fcking brilliant, and so very sad. so yeah. death note certainly isn't perfect, but those last scenes... 

perfect as you can get, in my opinion.