Death Note Vs Harry Potter
Jan. 16th, 2009 01:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sayuri2023Tom Marvolo Riddle and Light Yagami
I agree with a famous sentence by Lord Voldemort, "There's no good or evil in this world, there's only power."
After watching the Death Note episodes for the nth time, I just couldn't help noticing the similarities between our main hero/villian Light Yagami, and Harry Potter's Tom Marvolo Riddle. Both are amazingly handsome, possess an amazing amount of intelligence and can manipulate anyone to acheive their wants. They both wore a mask on their faces, their real thoughts being invisible to al except a few.
Now, according to wikipedia, Tom Marvolo Riddle is described as "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering".[40] He feels no desire or need for human companionship or friendship, and is unable to comprehend the idea of love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third-person as "Lord Voldemort." Rowling alluded to this saying that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really".[41] Rowling has also stated that if Voldemort looked into the Mirror of Erised, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
This is what we have, an impression of Tom Marvolo Riddle. Moving on to Light Yagami, he's described as "coldly manipulative," "egomaniacal," and "an unrepentant serial killer, a butcher on an enormous scale" who is not "a Freddy Krueger, a monster who represents pure evil, or a Patrick Bateman, a demonic symbol of his age." Wolk describes Light as "the good guy, more or less" who genuinely believes that he holds "the moral high ground."
One of the reasons why I think Light is loved by the masses unlike Tom Riddle, was because the authors did justice to Light, by showing his ascent from a academically bored genius to a savior, and ultimately, from a savior to a murderer. Everything was shown so vividly that one could understand his emotions, his paranoia, his urge to do something good and how, ultimately, everything spiralled out of his control. It was his pride that lead to his downfall, same as Tom Riddle.
As far as Tom Riddle's life goes, not much is known about him, except from shattered glimpses. I suppose Ms Rowling gave a hugely biased view of his life, both his life at the orphanage and school. True, what we know does more or less give an impression, but is that all there is to it? I am not one of those people who were 'awed' by what happened in the end of Book Seven. It felt like it was hurried a lot, just to wrap things up. Tom was, as in today's world, racist, despite being a half-blood himself. But, why was he racist? Why did he think his 'blood' to be superior amongst the rest? Was it because he thought 'muggles' were 'evil', and by killing them all, he was doing the world some 'good'? Tom was someone, who was at the orphanage as long as he could remember. I somehow refuse to believe he had the 'mass genocide' and 'homicidal' tendencies ever since he was four or five. What had happened between this period, to ultimately make him shred the last bit of humanity he ever had. And why did Albus Dumbledore choose to be a spectator(unlike L), instead of actually doing something about it, when he still could??
Light was someone, who wanted to do the world 'good' by killing of all the 'evil' people, aka the criminals. In the process and several bouts of paranoia he killed off numerous people, police officers, and ultimately, the world's greatest detective (L); which ultimately lead to his downfall. He worked on a simple mathematical equation, if you want to keep only the good things in the world, all you've to do, is to finish off the bad people. And, he Light yagami, wanted to be the God of the New World. A world free of crime, rape, murder. The power however rapidly spun out of his control; and he was ultimately beaten by one of his opponent's 14 yr old succesor. Even though he killed countless peole; one couldn't help but sympathize with him at the end. That was missing in case of Tom Riddle. That is one of the reason, when I say, the author's hugely biased.
At the end, it was arrogance what led to their ultimate downfall. The creatute-like thingy that Tom became, is so similar to a Shinigami, after all.
After watching the Death Note episodes for the nth time, I just couldn't help noticing the similarities between our main hero/villian Light Yagami, and Harry Potter's Tom Marvolo Riddle. Both are amazingly handsome, possess an amazing amount of intelligence and can manipulate anyone to acheive their wants. They both wore a mask on their faces, their real thoughts being invisible to al except a few.
Now, according to wikipedia, Tom Marvolo Riddle is described as "raging psychopath, devoid of the normal human responses to other people's suffering".[40] He feels no desire or need for human companionship or friendship, and is unable to comprehend the idea of love or affection for another. He believes he is superior to everyone around him, to the point that he frequently refers to himself in the third-person as "Lord Voldemort." Rowling alluded to this saying that Voldemort is "incredibly power hungry. Racist, really".[41] Rowling has also stated that if Voldemort looked into the Mirror of Erised, he would see "Himself, all-powerful and eternal. That's what he wants."
This is what we have, an impression of Tom Marvolo Riddle. Moving on to Light Yagami, he's described as "coldly manipulative," "egomaniacal," and "an unrepentant serial killer, a butcher on an enormous scale" who is not "a Freddy Krueger, a monster who represents pure evil, or a Patrick Bateman, a demonic symbol of his age." Wolk describes Light as "the good guy, more or less" who genuinely believes that he holds "the moral high ground."
One of the reasons why I think Light is loved by the masses unlike Tom Riddle, was because the authors did justice to Light, by showing his ascent from a academically bored genius to a savior, and ultimately, from a savior to a murderer. Everything was shown so vividly that one could understand his emotions, his paranoia, his urge to do something good and how, ultimately, everything spiralled out of his control. It was his pride that lead to his downfall, same as Tom Riddle.
As far as Tom Riddle's life goes, not much is known about him, except from shattered glimpses. I suppose Ms Rowling gave a hugely biased view of his life, both his life at the orphanage and school. True, what we know does more or less give an impression, but is that all there is to it? I am not one of those people who were 'awed' by what happened in the end of Book Seven. It felt like it was hurried a lot, just to wrap things up. Tom was, as in today's world, racist, despite being a half-blood himself. But, why was he racist? Why did he think his 'blood' to be superior amongst the rest? Was it because he thought 'muggles' were 'evil', and by killing them all, he was doing the world some 'good'? Tom was someone, who was at the orphanage as long as he could remember. I somehow refuse to believe he had the 'mass genocide' and 'homicidal' tendencies ever since he was four or five. What had happened between this period, to ultimately make him shred the last bit of humanity he ever had. And why did Albus Dumbledore choose to be a spectator(unlike L), instead of actually doing something about it, when he still could??
Light was someone, who wanted to do the world 'good' by killing of all the 'evil' people, aka the criminals. In the process and several bouts of paranoia he killed off numerous people, police officers, and ultimately, the world's greatest detective (L); which ultimately lead to his downfall. He worked on a simple mathematical equation, if you want to keep only the good things in the world, all you've to do, is to finish off the bad people. And, he Light yagami, wanted to be the God of the New World. A world free of crime, rape, murder. The power however rapidly spun out of his control; and he was ultimately beaten by one of his opponent's 14 yr old succesor. Even though he killed countless peole; one couldn't help but sympathize with him at the end. That was missing in case of Tom Riddle. That is one of the reason, when I say, the author's hugely biased.
At the end, it was arrogance what led to their ultimate downfall. The creatute-like thingy that Tom became, is so similar to a Shinigami, after all.
