In rec.arts.anime.misc Frank J. Lhota <FrankLho.NOSPAM@[EMAIL PROTECTED]
> wrote:
> Rector's story show why even a Death Penalty proponent would have
> problems with Light's approach to executions. It seems that the only
> justification Light needs to make a death note entry is a television
> report of a serious crime: no additional details about the case are
> examined, much less taken into consideration. Is there any doubt that if
> Light lived in Arkansas in the early nineties, he would have entered the
> name of the childlike Rector into his book?
This reminds me more of an episode from the TV sci-fi series, Babylon5.
In
the episode, you learn that the death penalty has been done away with, and
instead Earth now uses a procedure that wipes the personality and memories
from the brain. A new personality is then implanted - one that wants to
serve society. The ex-convict is then released and given a menial labor
job - which he happily does - until he dies of natural causes. This
"death of personality" sounds exactly like what happened to Rector. As
you point out, the REAL Rector - the one who committed those crimes - was
killed by the botched suicide attempt.
The crux of the problem here is what is a person? Is it just the
personality rattling around in the brain, or is it the sum of body and
personality? If the latter, then one would argue that even though Rector
had a new personality, his body was still guilty of the crimes it was used
to committ.
Of course, I have to sort of wonder why would the police work to revive
someone from a suicide attempt, only to put him on trial for a crime that
would result in the death penalty? If anything, Rector's suicide was a
final stab at the community he'd hurt since he denied society the closure
of a trial (even if it would mean that society would then kill him
itself.)
> Oddly enough, Light and Misa came very close to meeting Ricky's fate.
> Consider the time period where neither of them had memories of their
> death notes. During this time, Light was fully supportive of his fellow
> investigators, and truly believed in bringing Kira to justice. Would it
> have been right to execute Light during this time period, when he did
> not know of his life as Kira and actively opposed Kira's killings?
> Definitely not, but that would have been the likely outcome if L had
> cracked the case at that time.
Light and Misa aren't quite the same, however.
They simply lost their memories of the deathnote - but were otherwise the
same people. To make a comparison to Rector, it'd be as if he'd forgotten
about shooting those people and cops. However, "he" was still the same
person.
Had L found ample evidence against Light and Misa, they would have still
been convicted of the crimes even though they wouldn't have any memory of
them. We even see (well...hear anyways) Light debating with himself about
the fact that he doesn't just agree with Kira, but that he might even come
to the same conclusions as Kira given the proper set of circumstances.
The way I look at it, if Light hadn't been in such a dour mood when he
found the deathnote, he might not have gone down the path to become Kira -
although I suspect that the temptation would ALWAYS be there.
--
It's not broken. It's...advanced.
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