Learn to Swim
I haven't seen the raw of the final episode of the Death Note anime, but my f'list is on fire about it and I've been spoiled because I was dying to know. Light dies a "pretty" death in the anime, without the manga Light's thrashing and raving that many fen affectionately refer to as " swimming lessons."
I actually read Death Note utterly unspoiled. I'd say the manga was a few months from ending when I started downloading fanlations. So I was all "OMG, what happens in the next chapter," and everybody could only say, "No idea, it's not out yet/not translated yet."
So second arc was torture to me because it dragged on in almost real time! I had to download every chapter of Light sleazing with Takada and pwning everyone without prior warning that I would hate it and want him to die horribly. Maybe that's why swimming lessons, as over the top and ugly as it was, worked for me. Because I wanted to see that little bitch suffer for the hours of downloading I went through and for all the time I spent hoping in vain that L would return and bring some balance back to the series. Infinity chapters of how Light's so brilliant and Takada thinks he's the most wonderful thing ever and no one can get a bead on him because he pwns all? Pwn this, Light. Learn to swim.
I understand the emotional satisfaction that comes from the idea of Light understanding at the end what he has become. I get that. But the Light as presented in the manga wouldn't have gotten that he'd become so twisted away from his original intentions. He was too far gone, too corrupted by power and his own success, too swollen with ego. L was his balance, his counterweight. Without L, he just went all out, unchallenged. He countered almost everything anyone else sent against him. It was time for the weight redistribution. After L's death and weeks upon weeks of what felt like Light laughing at the readers as he pwns all and then Matt's death and Mello's death I was ready for him to be stripped down to and revealed as what he'd become.
Thus, his end in the manga satisfied me. To me, it was ego and greed stripped bare. Take away the wizard's machinery and grand curtain and there's a whining teenager hiding beneath. "It's not fair! Nobody can outsmart me! I can't be judged as I've judged so many others! It's not fair!" Light is a drama queen, and do you really expect him to die without drama?
Keep in mind that I haven't seen the anime episode for myself. Some fans are saying that it's beautiful and emotionally satisfying, and it may well be. It may touch me when I get to see it myself. But Light's end in the manga, his unveiling and humiliation in front of all the people he'd gleefully fooled, satisfied me too.
I actually read Death Note utterly unspoiled. I'd say the manga was a few months from ending when I started downloading fanlations. So I was all "OMG, what happens in the next chapter," and everybody could only say, "No idea, it's not out yet/not translated yet."
So second arc was torture to me because it dragged on in almost real time! I had to download every chapter of Light sleazing with Takada and pwning everyone without prior warning that I would hate it and want him to die horribly. Maybe that's why swimming lessons, as over the top and ugly as it was, worked for me. Because I wanted to see that little bitch suffer for the hours of downloading I went through and for all the time I spent hoping in vain that L would return and bring some balance back to the series. Infinity chapters of how Light's so brilliant and Takada thinks he's the most wonderful thing ever and no one can get a bead on him because he pwns all? Pwn this, Light. Learn to swim.
I understand the emotional satisfaction that comes from the idea of Light understanding at the end what he has become. I get that. But the Light as presented in the manga wouldn't have gotten that he'd become so twisted away from his original intentions. He was too far gone, too corrupted by power and his own success, too swollen with ego. L was his balance, his counterweight. Without L, he just went all out, unchallenged. He countered almost everything anyone else sent against him. It was time for the weight redistribution. After L's death and weeks upon weeks of what felt like Light laughing at the readers as he pwns all and then Matt's death and Mello's death I was ready for him to be stripped down to and revealed as what he'd become.
Thus, his end in the manga satisfied me. To me, it was ego and greed stripped bare. Take away the wizard's machinery and grand curtain and there's a whining teenager hiding beneath. "It's not fair! Nobody can outsmart me! I can't be judged as I've judged so many others! It's not fair!" Light is a drama queen, and do you really expect him to die without drama?
Keep in mind that I haven't seen the anime episode for myself. Some fans are saying that it's beautiful and emotionally satisfying, and it may well be. It may touch me when I get to see it myself. But Light's end in the manga, his unveiling and humiliation in front of all the people he'd gleefully fooled, satisfied me too.