Hello everyone! As today is the fifth instalment of
Favourite Character Praise Friday since the conclusion of my hiatus, today is
the first of many LEAST Favourite Character Praise Fridays. For those that are
unfamiliar with me and my content, every ten weeks / five instalments of
Favourite Character Praise Friday, I will diverge from my standard practice,
where I pick apart my favourite characters and the ones I adore more than
anything, so I can challenge myself and explore why the characters I loathe are
also brilliant. You can always learn a lot from the characters you hate because
they tend to be hated for a reason, and just because you don’t like them
doesn’t mean that they’re not somebody else’s favourite character too. Despite
finding it much harder to see the good in characters I hate, it is a lot of fun
to pick a character apart.
Without further ado, let’s get on with the praise! So, who
is the first character I’m analysing for Least Favourite Character Praise
Friday – post-hiatus?
Light Turner from the Netflix Live-Action Adaptation of
Death Note.
So, I guess it is worth mentioning the reason I dislike him
as a character first of all. I will admit that my reasons in this instance are
superficial: I am a huge fan of the original source material, and have been
since I was fifteen years old. Death Note has been one of those series’ that I
can revisit numerous times and always find something new to take out of it –
and is the show I have re-watched the most, with my having watched it seven
times in the seven years I’ve been a fan of it. Whoops?
In essence, the reason I don’t like Light Turner is because
of how different he is from Light Yagami, the main character from the original
source material. This sounds childish, but when it was announced that
characters from the original: ie, Light, L, Ryuk and Misa would be making an
appearance in the Netflix live action I was looking forward to seeing how they
would adapt Light’s status as one of the most popular guys in school to a
western audience. In short, they didn’t, instead deciding to make his
intelligence part of the issue; he’s too smart for his own good. Most of my
negative opinions toward Light Turner derive from the fact I was disappointed
with the adaptation of the source material, hoping to see it as part of the
extended franchise, as opposed to a spin-off adaptation.
However, when conducting analysis, despite how hard it was,
I did do my best to look at Light Turner as a character in a film which happens
to be similar to the story of Death Note. Splitting the film from the source
material made it easier to see why people who watched the film actually did
like Light Turner, some of my friends being some of the fans.
Learning from the Netflix Adaptation of Light Turner wasn’t
as hard as I was expecting, as taking away the overarching feelings I had about
him made it easier to pick him apart without comparing to Light Yagami.
The first thing that I noticed about Light Turner, which
does tend to come up in comparison to Light Yagami is his supposed lack of
intelligence. This was something I knew would probably come up in my analysis
of the film and his character as, at a glance, he seems nowhere near as clever
as- his namesake. This is due to the prolonged nature of the Death Note manga
and its subsequent anime. With the anime spanning 37 episodes, there is plenty
of time to establish how smart and tactical of a person he is. Light Yagami is
known for his analytical prowess and is renowned for immense academic
potential, coming top of his class and grade at different points of the show
with reference to academic performance. In the anime its stated in the college
address that he acquired a perfect score in all his entrance exams. With the
Netflix film only being an hour and half long, it was much harder to put that
much emphasis on his intelligence into the story. Instead of being able to
outshine his classmates like Light Yagami did, Light Turner comes into his own,
by monopolising his intellect by making a business out of doing at least
fifteen different student’s homework for them. This likely made him a
significant income. Admittedly, this is the only instance where his academic intelligence
is demonstrated, and it is easily overshadowed by the subsequent gore and drama
that comes into play throughout the rest of the film. However, he is not
completely inept when it comes to one of the other ways that Light Yagami shone
when it came to cleverness. He, like his predecessor, is quite good at
manipulating other people, even when he’s in a pinch. Light Yagami is best
known for using his charm, good looks and cleverness to win over admirers,
primarily Misa Amane and Takada Kyomi. Once he has them at his disposal, he
does not hesitate to allow these women to act as his pawns, using them to do
his bidding when he is unable. This is more prevalent by how he fakes a
romantic relationship with Misa for six years in order to get her to act on his
behalf as Kira without suspicion. But Light Turner also anticipates to actions
of Mia Sutton, the live action adapted Misa. After finding out that she put his
name in the Death Note with very little information as to how he would die, he
knew exactly how he could outsmart her and stay alive. Knowing exactly what she
had commanded of the death note, he orchestrates a police-chase, the collapse
of a ferris wheel and the pair plunging to their supposed deaths. The fact that
he knew as soon as he’d seen what she’d written, that he could get her to die,
and had no issue does so, was a great demonstration of his cleverness. This
level of manipulation is very interesting and would very fun to implement in
future works of mine. I would love to give it a go someday.
One part of Light Turner’s character, which him appear more
justified was the murder of his mother and the fact that the person who killed
her was acquitted. His emotional wellbeing was evidently compromised, as well
as his mental capacity. Despite appearing fine, he was very clearly in
distress, and once he understands what he has the power to do, he does not
hesitate to be brutal in his murders. He has the man that killed his mother
stab himself in the throat with steak knife. This murder, unlike the murder of
Kenny, his first victim, is premeditated and done, not as a test, like the
decapitation of his classmate, with intentional malice toward him. It is clear
through this that he, unlike his predecessor, is not a murderer due to a
god-complex, but is instead killing for the sake of power, something he felt he
lost when he lost his mother. He is quick to be manipulated by Mia Sutton in
this instance as he longs for companionship, something Yagami Light was not
short of at any point. I feel that his circumstances make him a better
character as the audience initially pities him for his circumstances.
Another interesting and likeable part of Light Turner’s
character, is that he, despite being a mass murderer, had a much more
complicated sense of emotional distress. When Sochiro Yagami is killed due to
Light being Kira, he shows little inward upset, later even calling his
late-father a fool for fighting for justice in the way he did. However, when
James Turner, Light Turner’s father calls Kira out on TV, baiting him to strike
him down, it is Light who refuses to allow Mia to kill him. Where Light Yagami
was cold and strategic, he knew that his father’s death could incriminate him
and thus attempted to avoid scenarios where he would have to kill him, but when
the time came, he had no remorse for his actions leading his father to an early
grave. However Light Turner breaks up with Mia for her immediately declaring
she has to kill him. Her fear of the consequences of her actions leads to Light
being significantly more emotional. He doesn’t want to lose his father and end
up in the foster system at aged seventeen. His ability to feel this way is much
easier to empathise with than the way Light Yagami felt about his family, who
he all ended up regarding as disposable. I found that this makes him a much
more empathetic character and I would very much love to try and write a
character like that someday, as all of the murderers in my original works have
been stone, cold, psychopaths.
Ultimately, I still very much prefer Light Yagami as a
character but cannot fault the way that Light Turner acts considering his own
circumstances, and despite my dislike of the film, his character is not
inherently flawed, it is only if you go into it, as I did initially, with
immense loyalty to the source material, that you will dislike him. He acts
reasonably considering the scenario he is put into and thus is a good
antagonistic character to be the focus of a film such as Netflix’s adaptation
of Death Note.
Please, if you have opinions on Light Turner, feel free to
share them with me! Don’t forget you can check out my previous Character Praise
by looking through the hashtags below.
And remember!
Per Aruda Ad Astra!
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