Light-good or evil

[Wilhelm]

He was trying to reach a good goal, but in a semi-evil way.

[Righteous Judgment]

Originally Posted by loic8855

hes good... creating an utopia free of evil is good (i think)

It wasn't free of evil nor could it ever be realistically speaking however it was as free of evil as humanely possible(with supernatural means)

Imagine it, a world with no war, no fear of war:

-The skirmish of georgia against ossetia that resulted in russia attacking ossetia and countless lives lost would be altogether avoided. In RL that whole situation could potentially turn into WW3

-Darfur? ended with a pen stroke

Giving criminals and dictators, and power hungry officials of "free" countries free reign to have their way with countless human lives. I think the SPK should have been tried killed for crimes against humanity of course anyone with the official power to do that will have benefited with the loss of someone ready, willing and able to judge them.

[Hanukkah Harry]

He was basically good, just crazy.
Very, very, very, very, very crazy.

[Righteous Judgment]

Originally Posted by zshortysmall

He was basically good, just crazy.
Very, very, very, very, very crazy.

I wouln't use the word crazy, I think eccentric fits better

[Tidus1987]

I must say that he was good but also a villan. He tok responsibility for making the world a better place, he hates going down the streets and see people being like they are (criminals). SO he maked a desision too gain the power too kill, but by gaining that power he got changed to be a psyco with a power as a god. HE had control all the time on what he was doing but did it anyway because that was the way too go, too making the world a better place, but in the end the power tok control of him and he did not deny it because he had the mind (Clever as hell) too do it!

[Neji_hyuuga2.]

I think both because he's killing vilians which is good, but then he takes the "God" thing to far and starts to kill innocent people.

[Gregulator]

Good or Evil are such extremes. I think Light was doing the wrong things the wrong way.

Killing is such an easy way out to everyone's problems. Firstly, you can't stop war by killing people who start them. And people aren't going to be "good" if you scare them into it. They're just staying in line for fear of death, it isn't something they have chosen.

Believing you can kill people to make the world a better place is absolute lunacy. In the end all you'll have left are those too scared to step out of line and the "God" that's keeping everyone marching to his tune. Sounds like to me nothing better than absolute tyranny.

The way to making the world a utopia that so many strive for is through diplomacy. You can't have a utopia if everyone isn't in agreement over it. To have people stay in line through fear is in direct contradiction to what a "perfect world" is. And because no one will ever agree completely with each other means that we'll never have a perfect world. And if you want to force that on people then you have to sarcifice free will in order to do so.

There are exceptions to every rule, after all circumstances dictate action. Would you use the Death Note to kill Hitler, Stalin, Lenin? I think you'd be insane not to. However to scare people into making your perfect world and killing people that get in your way, well, isn't that what Hitler himself did?

[sig4]

The whole good or evil, wrong or right argument is a complex one. The concepts are based upon "the human element", that often irrational part of us, that is largely personality, emotions and intuition. Its a fluid ideal, mostly relying on belief which can differ enormously from person to person. I could think about it for weeks and still not understand it sufficiently to make a judgement. So I can't answer in the capacity the op probably intended.

If i had to choose a side though, I would go with the majority of people so far and say Light was good, but not necessarily for the same reasons. The consensus so far has pretty much been
Light killed criminals->criminals are bad->society better without them, thus he was good. Ofcourse the counter argument to that was he also killed people who weren't criminals, and debatably innocent, thus he was evil.

Now, regardless of whether the people he killed where all guilty, lets not forget that from the very beginning, his ultimate goal was to create a society of what he classed to be the worthy humans.
While he started with criminals, if he had had his chance, after they where wiped out he planned to kill useless people through accidents, regardless of their stance towards him or the law. Innocent people, killed because they served no purpose to him or the world he wished to create. So if you think he became evil towards the end, just remember he had those intentions from the very start.

My stance for him being good comes from looking at his effect on humanity as a whole through the cold logic of evolution.

The only time Light was ever really seen acting "insane" was when he was he was trying to be caught by somebody. I have to presume that had nobody tried to catch him, he wouldn't have felt the need to cover his tracks, and would have stayed on the plan of killing criminals.
It wouldn't happen immediately, but with the "weaker" elements of society gone theoretically performance would be boosted, quality of life improved for those remaining, and with everybody working in cohesion the world running much more efficiently. He would have a positive effect, no matter how he did it, and therefor classed as good.

You'd have to hope that by the time the death note is gone, everybody was conditioned into having the same values, or else in the long term the system would probably break down and leave people not adjusted to deal with the problems left behind, which would probably be a negative effect overall.

[Neji_hyuuga2.]

Kira has been saving people like Misa and others, but He's killing information L needs to finish what ever case the person has done and that's not cool. Also, he's been killing inocent people in Tokyo and for the dumbest reasons. I know he's been trying to avoid being caught as Kira (and I have to admit to boy is very intellegent) but he needs to stop killing inocent people and try to kill the bad guys. I mean his plan has gotten so out of hand. Face it the world will NEVER be perfect and besides he's gotten so evil and...what's the word....unknowing? I don't know, but ANYWAY, he needs to stop doing the wrong instead or right. He doesn't know what's right and wrong now...its worrying me, but what can I say? He was going to acheive his main goal. I believe he is EVIL!!!!!

[Raiez]

extremely evil, no doubt about it