Death Note: A Character’s Hunger for Power

The book I am writing about is called Death Note. It is a manga series with 12 books in total. The series is about a boy named Light Yagami who finds a notebook on the ground. But this is not just any random notebook. This notebook is called a death note, and it is used to kill people. By writing the name of a certain person's name and the cause of death in the notebook, the owner of the note has the power to kill whoever and however they want. Light plans to use this power to kill all of the criminals in the world and plans to become the “god of the new world”.

In the Death Note series, the theme is power. Power is what Light wants. He doesn't know it at the beginning, but as he starts killing more and more people with his death note, he becomes a bit psycho and starts hungering for more power. He wants to become ¨the god of the new world¨. He wants to have the power of making the world “good” by abolishing all of the “bad” people.  He wishes for this power so badly that he is willing to kill his loved ones if they interfere with his plan. He even fakes feelings for a girl so that he can use her to make his plan work. 

In the book when his dad was trapped in a room with the antagonist, Mello, he had written a fake rule in the notebook, stating that if you didn’t write a person's name within 13 days, the owner of the notebook would die. Light says that if his dad writes Mello´s name in the notebook, then Light will kill his dad using his notebook so that the fake 13-day rule can be kept. He is willing to kill his own father if he intervenes with his plan. As portrayed in the series, hunger for power is something that affects the world around us today. As you can see, Light is corrupted by his insane play for power and world domination. There are people who will do anything to get what they want, and not just power, but for things like money and wealth as well. 

Another example in the book is when Light fakes his feelings for a girl. In the book series, there are multiple death notes. To attain a death note, a shinigami, which is a god of death, must drop a death note on Earth. Besides Light, another girl, named Misa, attains this death note. Eventually, she finds out that Light is Kira and falls in love with him. Light is ready to dismiss her, but he learns that she has one important thing that is very useful for him: shinigami eyes. These eyes can help you see peoples names and the date of their death. Light then pretends that he loves Misa and uses her to his advantage by killing people using her shinigami eyes. This is another example of Light faking feelings to attain godly power. 

I highly recommend that people should read the Death Note series. The book has a storyline that is very different from other books and has many plot twists that make you want to read the next book. People can also learn how hunger for power can corrupt people, as we can see happens to Light. Other characters in the book also get corrupted by not just power, but money as well. You should definitely read this series, since the storyline is super intriguing and there is a lesson that you can get out it. 

- Alina