Exit Light, Enter Night
First, in various news, I went to the public library with my host mom today after we ate breakfast at a pan-ya with free coffee and got books in English, including Yoshizawa Eiji's rather well-known historical novel Musashi in translation (you get five guesses as to what it's about). So far the Zen monk Takuan (the historical figure whom the daikon pickles are named after) kicks ass and is by far the most interesting character. After that, I went to see the third live-action Death Note movie, which is all about L, called "L--Change the World" and tried very very hard not to laugh at Matsuyama Kenichi's (who plays L) not so unaccented English. It was a noble effort, though, and he was very cute as he suffered through English pronunciation in the parts where he had to speak it. As far as Japanese actors go with English, he's actually not bad, just not as good as I think the character is probably supposed to be.
Afterwards lady_tigerfish and I hung out and got to talking about fic. Thus, in the time-honored progression of the minds of fanfic writers everywhere, my mind went from "Death Note movie was fun" to "there was that Death Note fic I was working on" to "I've been having trouble with the characterization" to "figuring some of that out would be good" to "hey, maybe someone else would be interesting in reading this shit" to "what the heck, I'll just post it on LJ." So now any interested parties can read my thoughts on Death Note characterization. FEEL HONORED, OKAY?
For those of you who probably don't care, the aforementioned WIP Death Note fic is an AU based on the idea of Light (I figure this is what the author wanted us to use as his name, so I'm using this romanization) actually losing his memory up to say, a year before, in a near-fatal accident (yes, total accident) somewhere in the middle of volume seven of the manga, shortly before BIG SUPER SPOILER OF DOOM THAT I'M SHOCKED IF YOU DON'T KNOW ALREADY and L finding the Death Note in among Light's possessions, because he's a smart guy and pulled strings to get to go through them before the police or even his family did and thus totally reversing the positions the characters find themselves in at that point in the manga, power and knowledge wise. It's a really soap opera-y sounding premise, I know, but I've been having fun with it, especially the mind-games as L, who has decided that Light is definitely Kira, tries to figure out whether a) he's faking it and b)if he isn't and genuinely has lost his memory, should he identify him as Kira or not. I'm not sure if L would really hesitate over that particular ethical dilemma or not as he's portrayed in canon, but I hope I portray the reasons behind his hesitation well enough in the fic that it's believable at least (and no, said hesitation has nothing to do with teh gay, yaoi fangirls). So, basically I have a soul-searching, game-playing L, a genuinely confused Light who's playing right back because that's what he does when people try to play him even if he isn't certain what the game is, a concerned Yagami family who don't have a clue how concerned they should be, and a Misa who's determined to be on Light's side (even though he doesn't know what that side is anymore) even if he doesn't have anything to say about it. Oh, and Matsuda, because Matsuda is awesome and kicks ass and thus must be included. Also, I'm going to need someone in the damn thing who isn't interested in playing head games (because even Misa is, really, and she's a lot smarter than most people give her credit for, and Ryuk practically is a head game in and of himself).
Now that that summary got way longer than I wanted it to and probably convinced all of you that this fic is not only weird shit but not worth the time because what the hell, me (it looks really unconvincing and badfic-tastic when I try to describe it like that), I'm going to move into my thoughts on character. I'm fairly certain of my ability to write from Light's perspective, comparatively, since my high school experience was similar enough to his arrogant so-much-smarter-than-everyone-else-around-me ness that I feel confident in my ability to draw on that in order to get in his head. The ironic thing is that I've set up the fic so that I'll be spending most of the time in the head of the character I'm least certain of my ability to pull off convincingly--that would be L. Good job, me. Why do I always do this to myself? (Probably shouldn't try to answer that question, actually, now that I think about it.) It's hard to write geniuses in the first place, but at least Light has a fairly normal everyday Japanese sort of background, giving him a a standard frame of reference as far as his character foundations go. L--well, doesn't have that. Not at all. I mean, he practically redefines eccentric genius, and his background sure as hell didn't provide him with a normal frame of reference for the world, any sort of world. Also, it's harder to quantify his genius than it is Light's, because it's just so weird. Light's is a combination of traits you tend to see in those students who graduate in the top five percent of everything without even trying along with an ability to think quickly on his feet and way more charisma than is good for any one person, along with an ability to reflect back at people what they want to see, which is something that I think a lot of really charismatic people do without really thinking about it too much, if at all (though Light obviously switches it on and off). L I'm not so sure about. I can tell he has super-analytical skills, obviously, because his brain seems to approach the world as one gigantic logic puzzle, but I can't figure out the rest of it. Is he more mathematically inclined? Not so much? I can't tell. He's often very precise, but he seems to think in a way that is extremely abstract. Or is that just because he's so far ahead of everyone else that it simply seems abstract to them? Because he seems to view most of the things he says as simple and unequivocal concrete statements of fact. In other words, his intelligence is of a sort that's very difficult to pin down.
The rambling treatise on L above notwithstanding, I'm a weirdo, at least in my friends group, for finding Light a more intriguing character than L, not in a "OMG RAITO-SAMA IS SOOOO HAWT!!!1!!!!!!!!ELEVENTY-ONE!1!" sort of way, but because I find his arc as a tragic hero both fascinating and well, sort of terrifying, in a way, like watching the train wreck of something that used to be a good person, someone I might very well have hung out with if I happened to know him. It's the very normality of his situation that makes it so fascinating to me--I, too, was bored out of my freaking skull during high school and itching to do something with myself, and so I can follow the emotional ramifications of the path that led him to use the Death Note. (I've thought about it, and decided that the main obstacle that would stop me from using it should such a thing fall into my possession would be my fundamental sense of laziness--why would I bother writing someone's name in to see if it would work? What if it did? That would be so much trouble. Sometimes I remind myself of Naruto's Shikamaru so much it's scary :P. Maybe that's because I've never been pushed to achieve in the way that Japanese high school students are, so I never felt as if I had to if I didn't want to.) I also find his character very fundamentally sad, in a way that's hard to define. I think because he comes across to me as being very empty when he's first introduced, searching for something that could fulfill him in a way that a lot of people his age are, especially ones as smart and unfulfilled as he is. He is engaged in being what his family wants because he doesn't know what he wants, and he's too good at everything so nothing presents any sort of challenge, and he really wants to mean something in the world, because he's sensitive enough and intelligent and yet still young enough to not only see how much the world sucks but to actually want to do something about it. If circumstances had been different he would have made an absolutely amazing detective, assuming he managed to defeat his ennui and actually care about fighting normal crime long enough to rise up in the ranks and get through the training. And he cares about justice, how idealistic is that? He's a perfect example of someone whose best character traits end up making him a villain--a tragic hero in a very Aristotlian sense of the term. I think Light fell into the classic trap of intelligent, charismatic children whose parents expect too much of them, which is to present exactly what everyone wants without even really trying, or even really analyzing it, because knowing what people want from them is so instinctive, so that by the time they get to be seventeen or so they're either bored and searching for meaning or having some kind of mental breakdown (and one could certainly argue that mass murder is a form of mental breakdown). In other words, I think he was always a manipulative little bastard, but for most of his life everyone around him was quite happy to be manipulated, and there's nothing to say because manipulative isn't bad until you start killing folks. You definitely see more and more emotion from Light throughout the series, as if becoming "Kira" tapped into the part of him, the real, honest, emotional part, that he doesn't feel able to show his family or school acquaintances. And how screwed up and twisted is that? Maybe that's why L/Light yaoi is so popular--Light, through Kira, honestly is showing L more of his real feelings and self than he ever has anyone else, except probably Ryuk, and when he's working with him after giving up the Death Note. And how weird is that?
As for L, he continues the Death Note thematic trend by being another character who genuinely cares about justice, which I think is actually quite rare in fiction, since justice itself is such an impossible dream and one of the harshest ideals to both pin down and to live up to, I think. I mean, most of us end up saying that exact justice is impossible on earth and leave it up to some higher power, maybe because we just aren't willing to try to figure out what actual justice might mean on this plane. But I think L actually cares, and enough to try to make it happen, which is one reason why I think he's so determined to catch Kira. L is himself a vigilante in a lot of ways, mostly because he's just too good for the system, but still. Doing what Kira is doing is no doubt something he's had to face before in his career, and it was probably a temptation for him, too, but he definitely seems to have rejected it in order to stay mostly within the law and the bounds of commonly accepted morality. So in a lot of ways Kira is the antithesis of everything he's chosen for himself. For another thing, without a belief in justice L wouldn't be able to do his job at all. Which brings me to another thing about L that he shares with Light--extreme self-confidence, though his seems to be much more focused than Light's. Light is just sort of amazingly, frighteningly self-confident (which is why it's so interesting to see him when he's shaken or vulnerable or thrown for a loop) in all things, one reason why he's so successful a lot of the time, I think, while L seems to be ferociously self-confident when it comes to his line of work and just to let everything else fall by the wayside without much concern. But when it comes to actually interacting with people--well, let's just say that it's pretty obvious that L knows where his strengths are and where they're not. And I think that touch of insecurity is one of the reasons why so many people love L over Light--Light's kind of arrogant self-assurance is hard to empathize with, while not knowing how to talk to people while at the same time awing them utterly with one's intelligence is something that a lot of people can feel both sympathy and envy for. Ironically enough, because I think that emotionally Light is a lot more normal and approachable than L is, not having had the kind of genius-secluded-not interacting with the rest of the world upbringing that L had. In fact, I think that one of the traits that is most striking about L is his focus, despite all his eccentricities and apparent randomness. He is an extremely focused person--I mean, what does he do all day? What does his room have in it? What does he wear, every single day? Yeah. The regularity of his habits is one trait that reinforces that sense of focus (as well as his eccentricity). Also, it's possible that he needs the routine to steady him, in a way. I think a lot of people who are that amazingly intelligent need steadying factors in their lives because their minds are going so much faster than everyone else's all the time that they don't have that sense of equality with their peers that most people fall back on as a steadying influence--i.e., normality. It's fun to be different, but I don't think I'd like to be as different as L, you know? It would be hard not to have any peers--it's pretty hard to be friends with someone who's not your peer, which is bourne out itself in the series when L says that Light is his first friend. One reason why I think Kira/Light intrigues him so much. Whatever else, Kira is definitely a peer. And despite the distance of L's emotions from the reader/viewer, you get the sense that they are definitely there, further adding to his interest as a character. There's a sense of innocence to him that is attractive, and I honestly think he's braver than Light is, which probably comes with maturity, since he's also older and also has a lot more experience with the harsh realities of life and crime, one might say. He's had a hard life in a lot of ways, Watari or no Watari--orphaned, probably lonely, with an almost palpable difference from everyone around him--while Light probably doesn't even realize how good he has it. Which is something else that makes L an admirable character, that sort of determination to do the right thing for a society he doesn't even participate in. Talk about selfless. Strength of purpose in anyone is attractive, and even more so when that purpose is admirable. Another interesting trait both L and Light share is the ruthlessness they need to accomplish their goals. While you get the feeling L at least regrets the sacrifices he has to make, he knows very well that he has to make them (I honestly wonder how repressed he really is, emotionally, or if he even really knows--Light at least knows what emotions he's repressing, I think, but I'm not sure about L, it's really hard to get a feel for his emotional life). Of course, if he didn't he wouldn't get anywhere at all against Light, but it's still an interesting character trait, and makes me wonder if he was willing to make those sacrifices when he first started out.
Yeah, so, there you go, a look into what's going on in the mind of Sakura most of the time, since when I'm not hanging out or explicitly doing something else, my mind is this morass of information and analysis and fiction and character and various threads of Japanese and English going on all the time. The above was all pretty much stream of consciousness--I typed it as it came into my head, basically, reconstructing what I was thinking about on the train/bus--so now you all know how weird I really am when it comes to fandom.
And now, time for sleeping. For srsly.
Afterwards lady_tigerfish and I hung out and got to talking about fic. Thus, in the time-honored progression of the minds of fanfic writers everywhere, my mind went from "Death Note movie was fun" to "there was that Death Note fic I was working on" to "I've been having trouble with the characterization" to "figuring some of that out would be good" to "hey, maybe someone else would be interesting in reading this shit" to "what the heck, I'll just post it on LJ." So now any interested parties can read my thoughts on Death Note characterization. FEEL HONORED, OKAY?
For those of you who probably don't care, the aforementioned WIP Death Note fic is an AU based on the idea of Light (I figure this is what the author wanted us to use as his name, so I'm using this romanization) actually losing his memory up to say, a year before, in a near-fatal accident (yes, total accident) somewhere in the middle of volume seven of the manga, shortly before BIG SUPER SPOILER OF DOOM THAT I'M SHOCKED IF YOU DON'T KNOW ALREADY and L finding the Death Note in among Light's possessions, because he's a smart guy and pulled strings to get to go through them before the police or even his family did and thus totally reversing the positions the characters find themselves in at that point in the manga, power and knowledge wise. It's a really soap opera-y sounding premise, I know, but I've been having fun with it, especially the mind-games as L, who has decided that Light is definitely Kira, tries to figure out whether a) he's faking it and b)if he isn't and genuinely has lost his memory, should he identify him as Kira or not. I'm not sure if L would really hesitate over that particular ethical dilemma or not as he's portrayed in canon, but I hope I portray the reasons behind his hesitation well enough in the fic that it's believable at least (and no, said hesitation has nothing to do with teh gay, yaoi fangirls). So, basically I have a soul-searching, game-playing L, a genuinely confused Light who's playing right back because that's what he does when people try to play him even if he isn't certain what the game is, a concerned Yagami family who don't have a clue how concerned they should be, and a Misa who's determined to be on Light's side (even though he doesn't know what that side is anymore) even if he doesn't have anything to say about it. Oh, and Matsuda, because Matsuda is awesome and kicks ass and thus must be included. Also, I'm going to need someone in the damn thing who isn't interested in playing head games (because even Misa is, really, and she's a lot smarter than most people give her credit for, and Ryuk practically is a head game in and of himself).
Now that that summary got way longer than I wanted it to and probably convinced all of you that this fic is not only weird shit but not worth the time because what the hell, me (it looks really unconvincing and badfic-tastic when I try to describe it like that), I'm going to move into my thoughts on character. I'm fairly certain of my ability to write from Light's perspective, comparatively, since my high school experience was similar enough to his arrogant so-much-smarter-than-everyone-else-around-me ness that I feel confident in my ability to draw on that in order to get in his head. The ironic thing is that I've set up the fic so that I'll be spending most of the time in the head of the character I'm least certain of my ability to pull off convincingly--that would be L. Good job, me. Why do I always do this to myself? (Probably shouldn't try to answer that question, actually, now that I think about it.) It's hard to write geniuses in the first place, but at least Light has a fairly normal everyday Japanese sort of background, giving him a a standard frame of reference as far as his character foundations go. L--well, doesn't have that. Not at all. I mean, he practically redefines eccentric genius, and his background sure as hell didn't provide him with a normal frame of reference for the world, any sort of world. Also, it's harder to quantify his genius than it is Light's, because it's just so weird. Light's is a combination of traits you tend to see in those students who graduate in the top five percent of everything without even trying along with an ability to think quickly on his feet and way more charisma than is good for any one person, along with an ability to reflect back at people what they want to see, which is something that I think a lot of really charismatic people do without really thinking about it too much, if at all (though Light obviously switches it on and off). L I'm not so sure about. I can tell he has super-analytical skills, obviously, because his brain seems to approach the world as one gigantic logic puzzle, but I can't figure out the rest of it. Is he more mathematically inclined? Not so much? I can't tell. He's often very precise, but he seems to think in a way that is extremely abstract. Or is that just because he's so far ahead of everyone else that it simply seems abstract to them? Because he seems to view most of the things he says as simple and unequivocal concrete statements of fact. In other words, his intelligence is of a sort that's very difficult to pin down.
The rambling treatise on L above notwithstanding, I'm a weirdo, at least in my friends group, for finding Light a more intriguing character than L, not in a "OMG RAITO-SAMA IS SOOOO HAWT!!!1!!!!!!!!ELEVENTY-ONE!1!" sort of way, but because I find his arc as a tragic hero both fascinating and well, sort of terrifying, in a way, like watching the train wreck of something that used to be a good person, someone I might very well have hung out with if I happened to know him. It's the very normality of his situation that makes it so fascinating to me--I, too, was bored out of my freaking skull during high school and itching to do something with myself, and so I can follow the emotional ramifications of the path that led him to use the Death Note. (I've thought about it, and decided that the main obstacle that would stop me from using it should such a thing fall into my possession would be my fundamental sense of laziness--why would I bother writing someone's name in to see if it would work? What if it did? That would be so much trouble. Sometimes I remind myself of Naruto's Shikamaru so much it's scary :P. Maybe that's because I've never been pushed to achieve in the way that Japanese high school students are, so I never felt as if I had to if I didn't want to.) I also find his character very fundamentally sad, in a way that's hard to define. I think because he comes across to me as being very empty when he's first introduced, searching for something that could fulfill him in a way that a lot of people his age are, especially ones as smart and unfulfilled as he is. He is engaged in being what his family wants because he doesn't know what he wants, and he's too good at everything so nothing presents any sort of challenge, and he really wants to mean something in the world, because he's sensitive enough and intelligent and yet still young enough to not only see how much the world sucks but to actually want to do something about it. If circumstances had been different he would have made an absolutely amazing detective, assuming he managed to defeat his ennui and actually care about fighting normal crime long enough to rise up in the ranks and get through the training. And he cares about justice, how idealistic is that? He's a perfect example of someone whose best character traits end up making him a villain--a tragic hero in a very Aristotlian sense of the term. I think Light fell into the classic trap of intelligent, charismatic children whose parents expect too much of them, which is to present exactly what everyone wants without even really trying, or even really analyzing it, because knowing what people want from them is so instinctive, so that by the time they get to be seventeen or so they're either bored and searching for meaning or having some kind of mental breakdown (and one could certainly argue that mass murder is a form of mental breakdown). In other words, I think he was always a manipulative little bastard, but for most of his life everyone around him was quite happy to be manipulated, and there's nothing to say because manipulative isn't bad until you start killing folks. You definitely see more and more emotion from Light throughout the series, as if becoming "Kira" tapped into the part of him, the real, honest, emotional part, that he doesn't feel able to show his family or school acquaintances. And how screwed up and twisted is that? Maybe that's why L/Light yaoi is so popular--Light, through Kira, honestly is showing L more of his real feelings and self than he ever has anyone else, except probably Ryuk, and when he's working with him after giving up the Death Note. And how weird is that?
As for L, he continues the Death Note thematic trend by being another character who genuinely cares about justice, which I think is actually quite rare in fiction, since justice itself is such an impossible dream and one of the harshest ideals to both pin down and to live up to, I think. I mean, most of us end up saying that exact justice is impossible on earth and leave it up to some higher power, maybe because we just aren't willing to try to figure out what actual justice might mean on this plane. But I think L actually cares, and enough to try to make it happen, which is one reason why I think he's so determined to catch Kira. L is himself a vigilante in a lot of ways, mostly because he's just too good for the system, but still. Doing what Kira is doing is no doubt something he's had to face before in his career, and it was probably a temptation for him, too, but he definitely seems to have rejected it in order to stay mostly within the law and the bounds of commonly accepted morality. So in a lot of ways Kira is the antithesis of everything he's chosen for himself. For another thing, without a belief in justice L wouldn't be able to do his job at all. Which brings me to another thing about L that he shares with Light--extreme self-confidence, though his seems to be much more focused than Light's. Light is just sort of amazingly, frighteningly self-confident (which is why it's so interesting to see him when he's shaken or vulnerable or thrown for a loop) in all things, one reason why he's so successful a lot of the time, I think, while L seems to be ferociously self-confident when it comes to his line of work and just to let everything else fall by the wayside without much concern. But when it comes to actually interacting with people--well, let's just say that it's pretty obvious that L knows where his strengths are and where they're not. And I think that touch of insecurity is one of the reasons why so many people love L over Light--Light's kind of arrogant self-assurance is hard to empathize with, while not knowing how to talk to people while at the same time awing them utterly with one's intelligence is something that a lot of people can feel both sympathy and envy for. Ironically enough, because I think that emotionally Light is a lot more normal and approachable than L is, not having had the kind of genius-secluded-not interacting with the rest of the world upbringing that L had. In fact, I think that one of the traits that is most striking about L is his focus, despite all his eccentricities and apparent randomness. He is an extremely focused person--I mean, what does he do all day? What does his room have in it? What does he wear, every single day? Yeah. The regularity of his habits is one trait that reinforces that sense of focus (as well as his eccentricity). Also, it's possible that he needs the routine to steady him, in a way. I think a lot of people who are that amazingly intelligent need steadying factors in their lives because their minds are going so much faster than everyone else's all the time that they don't have that sense of equality with their peers that most people fall back on as a steadying influence--i.e., normality. It's fun to be different, but I don't think I'd like to be as different as L, you know? It would be hard not to have any peers--it's pretty hard to be friends with someone who's not your peer, which is bourne out itself in the series when L says that Light is his first friend. One reason why I think Kira/Light intrigues him so much. Whatever else, Kira is definitely a peer. And despite the distance of L's emotions from the reader/viewer, you get the sense that they are definitely there, further adding to his interest as a character. There's a sense of innocence to him that is attractive, and I honestly think he's braver than Light is, which probably comes with maturity, since he's also older and also has a lot more experience with the harsh realities of life and crime, one might say. He's had a hard life in a lot of ways, Watari or no Watari--orphaned, probably lonely, with an almost palpable difference from everyone around him--while Light probably doesn't even realize how good he has it. Which is something else that makes L an admirable character, that sort of determination to do the right thing for a society he doesn't even participate in. Talk about selfless. Strength of purpose in anyone is attractive, and even more so when that purpose is admirable. Another interesting trait both L and Light share is the ruthlessness they need to accomplish their goals. While you get the feeling L at least regrets the sacrifices he has to make, he knows very well that he has to make them (I honestly wonder how repressed he really is, emotionally, or if he even really knows--Light at least knows what emotions he's repressing, I think, but I'm not sure about L, it's really hard to get a feel for his emotional life). Of course, if he didn't he wouldn't get anywhere at all against Light, but it's still an interesting character trait, and makes me wonder if he was willing to make those sacrifices when he first started out.
Yeah, so, there you go, a look into what's going on in the mind of Sakura most of the time, since when I'm not hanging out or explicitly doing something else, my mind is this morass of information and analysis and fiction and character and various threads of Japanese and English going on all the time. The above was all pretty much stream of consciousness--I typed it as it came into my head, basically, reconstructing what I was thinking about on the train/bus--so now you all know how weird I really am when it comes to fandom.
And now, time for sleeping. For srsly.