#open dns | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

oloreandil · 11 days ago

Text

Months and months ago I saw this post with these tags by nateriverswife (whose blogs no longer exists): "#I wonder why he corrected himself #was it to keep an emotional distance from them or something". I had a look at the surrounding chapters and thought “Wow, it’s interesting that Near uses two different types of building blocks for his castles :)”. And now here I am. Let’s talk about how Near’s use of toys parallels his state of mind and investigative methods as he solves the Kira case !

I’m tagging @neallo and @applestorms since they asked to know when this would be up ! (it's been 84 years… hello……). My deepest thanks to @peace-and-a-place-of-your-own for reading this over !

Puzzle (vol. 7 – ch. 59 + 61)

No toys during vol. 8 – ch. 65

Near first appears in the manga completely isolated and refusing contact : he doesn’t want to play with the other children at the orphanage, instead, he’s completing the same puzzle on a loop, entirely white with an L in the corner (started from the middle because it’s harder but he knows it by heart anyway. And also to flex, I assume). Roger calls him to his office with Mello to tell them that L is dead right before he can complete the letter, to really lay it thick with the symbolism.

On top of that, to highlight the dichotomy of Near as withdrawn and Mello as animated, Mello is first shown playing football outside. He says to Roger : “Unlike me, Near will calmly and unemotionally solve the puzzle”. To him, this ability to plan and not throw himself into action is Near’s best quality and something essential to being L. In French, Mello talks about self control rather than calmness, which I actually think is more accurate both to what we see and what he envies about Near. In turn, Mello’s capacity for action and his adaptability are what Near envies about Mello, but he isn’t able to argue his case and Mello refused the title of L anyway.

After the ellipsis, we see Near again when he talks to the president of the USA and the SPK members. Now that he’s no longer in a place catered to child geniuses, and especially if he’s not playing with any toys (like in ch. 65), he looks really uncomfortable : fidgeting, playing with his hair, or sitting away from the “real adults” planning the investigation. Though he’s led the Kira case since L’s death, the past 5 years have been uneventful and Near had no occasion to legitimise his claim to the succession.

House of cards (vol. 7 – ch. 61)

Matchstick towers (vol. 8 – ch 62)

Darts (vol. 8 – ch. 63 + 64)

Dice tower (vol. 8 – ch. 66)

And then… Mello kidnaps several people and shoots the Death Note into a rocket, kicking the second half of the plot into action very unexpectedly and forcing everyone to react to his plans, instead of forming their own.

Near builds increasingly elaborate towers as his counter-measures have to get more and more complex : first out of playing cards, then out of matchsticks (glued together), and finally out of dice. He starts out unsure of how to deal with the sudden public-facing role of calling the Task Force, then most of his plans go up in flames as Mello successfully steals the notebook. During the first few calls with Light, Near is trying to get a feel for what tactics to use against him and doesn’t succeed either (all of the dart he throws end up on the floor). Finally, the rest of his plans come crashing down along with his dice as the SPK members shoot themselves under the influence of Mello’s notebook. The sound of the dice falling bleeds into the sound of gunshots, which is a very neat way of integrating Near’s prop in the flow of the story and serve as a visual parallel to the bodies falling on the floor.

For the first time, Near is physically confronted to the reality that he and his team can die, and he can’t always prevent it, and it will be his fault. Mello didn’t even make them die of a heart attack, he purposefully made them take their own lives, to show Near’s who’s really in control. It’s harrowing, no matter how hard he tries to hide it – this is the most sincere emotion he’s shown so far, and the most shaken he ever looks in the manga. While he opposes the rhetoric of Kira (that you have rights over other people’s life) from the start, I think that’s when Near starts properly formulating the takedown he delivers in the warehouse.

In a really ironic turn of events, Light is the one to tell Near what he has to change : “It’s meaningless to be at each other’s throats like this… I’m not asking you to work under me, […] we should just share our information…”. Yes, this is in part an emotional decision, I don’t think Near (or most Death Note characters) enjoy seeing people die needlessly and he made an effort to accommodate the people he worked with. But this is mostly pragmatic : if collaborating gives you the best chances at adapting to the circumstances and winning, and you don’t have an ego to put first or secret goals to conceal, then that’s what you do !

Toy robots and planes (vol. 8 – ch. 67, vol. 9 – ch. 77)

Hand-carved dart, shaped like a bird (vol. 9 – ch 71)

Lego brick castle (ch. 75)

Train tracks (vol. 9 – ch. 76)

In his newfound quest for adaptability, Near is now building toys capable of movement ! He’s not quite there yet (the robot’s arm falls down when he talks to Light), but he already has a better understanding of everyone’s flaws and how they articulate in the case : Mello’s need to prove himself, Light’s ego, and his own unwillingness to take risks. Even when he builds another wall to hide behind, he quickly destroys it and keeps theorising about Light being Kira (with the hilarious reveal of the skull inside the robocop toy).

Near also starts to carefully detail each step of his plans to the SPK, using more and more representational toys. It starts very rough (like the dart he carves), like he hasn’t found the best way to translate what he is thinking into words – or words they will understand easily, and he is still separated from them by train tracks and facing the other way (until the confrontation with Mello in ch. 77). Meanwhile, Light has been spiralling since Soichiro’s death. The more he feels cornered by Near, the more secretive he becomes, even when sharing information wouldn’t threaten to reveal him. Not following his own advice makes it very, very easy for Near to contrast their behaviours and put the past 5 years of inaction into perspective for the Task Force.

Side note : the title of ch. 75 is “Reconnaissance” in French, which holds both meanings of “reconnaissance mission” and “gratefulness”. Looking out for a better path, and being grateful that you survived long enough to be able to do that !

Tarot cards (vol 9 – ch. 78)

As Near finds his footing in the investigation and develops ways of expressing himself clearly, he starts using more and more custom toys : pre-made strategies only work when you’re facing stupid or preprogrammed opponents, and in turn mass market props can only supplement his explanations for so long. He can’t leave anything to chance or fate, he has to win over both the circumstances and the players, which is really ironic since the first entirely custom prop he uses is a tarot set. Each card is Death except one for Kira which is the Devil, but Light doesn’t actually see them : the cards are visual tools entirely for the benefit of the SPK (and the reader), as opposed to provocation for Kira (in direct opposition to L’s tactics at the beginning, when he didn’t mind playing with Lind L. Tailor’s life).

Spatial base (vol 9 – ch. 79 and vol. 10 – ch. 81)

Mogi (vol. 10 – ch. 81)

Dice with skulls (vol. 10 – ch. 81 + 82 + 83)

When he and Mello team up to kidnap Mogi and interrogate him, Near is sitting in the middle of a massive spatial base launching toy spacecrafts into the air. Even though it ends with Near having to flee in a helicopter while dropping wads of cash on an angry mob, this is one of the most crucial moments for his victory. Not only does he get confirmation that Kira is the second L and plant that idea in the heads of the Task Force during his meeting with Aizawa, but he also manages to show Mello that collaborating leads to the best outcomes.

Controversially perhaps, I’m gonna add Mogi to the list of props, since faking Mogi’s death right after their escape is what coaxes Aizawa into meeting with the SPK. That’s one of the most manipulative tricks that Near pulls on the other investigators, but compared to the torture contraption that L puts Misa into or Light making people write charades before they die, Mogi bound on a chair with duct tape over his mouth feels almost cartoonish. While I am arguing here that Near is the person in power who holds the most respect for the people he is working with (or even fighting against), he still does that in ways that have the narrative weight of vicious little kids trying by all means to get their ways. That false equivalency, along with his evil frog smirks and his myriad of toys, gives a visual balance to Light making sinister faces at the camera, but the tactics are fundamentally different.

It was a gamble to trust Aizawa and Mogi with seeing his face (right as Near opens mystery dice boxes, some of which have skulls on them), but trust keeps paying off and he gets the information he wanted while still respecting their boundaries in terms of what they feel comfortable revealing : confirmation that Light is Kira. He immediately shares that information with Mello… apart from Light’s name, just to see how fast Mello figures it out. That’s about as far as Near actually engages with the idea that he and Mello are competing to catch Kira before the other, since that never seemed to be the most viable plan to him in the first place.

Motorised rubber ducks (vol. 10 – ch. 86 + 88)

Paper Tokyo tower (vol. 11 – ch. 89)

With a secure network of allies and the net closing in on Light, Near moves his headquarters to Japan, first sending Rester, Linder and Gevanni (while playing with motorised rubber ducks in a pool), before he goes there himself (announcing it while building a papercraft Tokyo Sky Tree). Even the SPK didn’t expect this move from him, which I think is the reason why he uses the NHN to tell Mello (and Light, by the same occasion). This is also the first time that SPK agents are going on extended missions outside the headquarters, with great risk since their faces will be out in the open, something Near worries about out loud several times and tries to mitigate.

Lego Kira (vol. 11 – ch. 90 + 92 + 93 + 94)

Then, Near reveals that he wants to confront Kira in person as he unboxes what is, according to HTR13, the official “NHN shooting game set (With block dolls)”. Rester comments he had to wait “hours” in line to get them, but I’m truly doubtful that in a pro-Kira world, a company would mass produce a shooting game featuring Kira’s chosen TV network, with two notebooks included and also the SPK… I'm assuming this is a retcon from HTR13, since it was written after the fact. They simply act as Near’s placeholder props while he finishes the finger puppets (they first showed up during ch. 85 and reappear in ch. 94).

In any case, the fake gun included in the set is immediately used by Near to dismiss the idea of killing Kira and his associates before the case is solved, and after that, only as a last resort. Mello, Light and Near play the same game with vastly different rules : the mafia and the Kira team have licence to kill, but Near and his allies (the SPK and the Task Force) do not. Near outright refuses to kill Light and prove his guilt after the fact, both because it would fail to morally oppose Kira, even if it were more convenient, and they have the added goal of preventing someone else from continuing Kira’s mission.

I love that Near presents this as the same reasoning L had, when the closest we get is… Light himself, during the Yotsuba arc. Poring over insane amounts of data to set up your plans, bending the rules as much as possible while never breaking them, and stopping at hard moral boundaries regardless of how much it complicates your work, that’s a far cry from L’s style. He never really considered it an investigation against Kira in all potential incarnations, as opposed to a one-on-one entertaining fight against Light.

Christmas tree decorated with various toys (vol. 11 – ch. 92)

Marbles maze (vol. 11 – ch. 95)

Ultraman figurines (vol. 11 – ch. 97)

After the interim Lego are no longer needed, the only props Near uses to talk about the case are his finger puppets. Most if not all of the other toys are just that : toys. He used them as an investigative tool, a way to talk through his plans out loud for himself and the other people that needed to follow along (and there is an arrogance in thinking they wouldn’t be able to understand him otherwise !), but ultimately, Near just likes to play. He looks and is the youngest of the cast, an even bigger reminder that most of the main characters had their childhoods stolen by expectations placed on their intellect. The many toy robots shown in Near’s last panel (ch. 108), or the insane displays in the one-shots, only highlight that he clings to that comfort in an otherwise pretty desolate life.

Handmade puppets (vol. 10 – ch. 85, vol. 11 – ch. 94 + 96 + 98, vol. 12 – ch. 100 + 101 + 103 + 104 + 105 + 106)

Mask (vol. 12 – ch. 101 + 103 + 104 + 105 + 106)

No toys during vol. 12 – ch. 107

Official puppet time ! The buglies ! One of my favourite parts of Death Note !

The first finger puppets we see are L, Kira and the second Kira while Near is looking into the real identity of the second L. The SPK puppets appear in the background of ch. 85, along with a few tools (moulds, paint…), so we know Near is hand-making puppets for everyone in the investigation. Even though Near’s own face remains protected until the final confrontation, when he knows he’s won, putting a face on every person he uses in his plans prevents them from feeling like interchangeable pawns.

L’s finger puppet is shockingly accurate, despite Near never seeing him or finding any pictures. He has, at most, descriptions from the university students who briefly saw him 6 years ago. It’s made from the same cast as Near’s puppet, but in this scene he is distancing himself once again from both the first and second L – Kira.

On the one hand, Kira is the morally corrupt enemy that managed to stall the Task Force’s investigation by infiltrating them and making them run circles around him while he carried out his plans. On the other hand, the first L was reckless and lacked foresight, showing his face to Light early in the investigation out of overconfidence. Risky moves are flashy if they pay off, but this one didn’t, erasing L and his work and setting the case back 5 years in the process. We have an echo of Near’s words in the Wammy flashback : “If you can’t beat the game […] you’re nothing more than a loser”. In comparison, Near tries to be as methodic as he can in his takedown of Kira. I also love that Near reacts very differently to Mello’s recklessness, but that’s a rabbit hole for another day.

In contrast to the others, end even though Near knows his face, Light has the only puppet which isn’t life-like. Instead, it looks like a generic (if mischievous) boy scout with a mask scribbled on. The girl scout puppet is not Misa but the concept of the second Kira – someone who kills on Light’s behalf, and therefore a counterpart to Light’s figure. According to Obata in the HTR13 interviews, it’s like Near made them look like he could have bought the puppets elsewhere, and the level of care and realism he puts into each figure directly correlates to how much he esteems the person represented (Mello’s being the most detailed). That means he deliberately chose not to afford Kira the humanity of a face, even as Misa, Takada and Mikami get realistic (-ish…) puppets. Since Near is very concerned with preventing the passing down of the notebook and motives to kill, Light, as a person, doesn’t matter in the face of his ideology. I think that’s one of the only indulgences Near allows himself in the investigation : never hiding his disgust for Kira, be it through an ugly finger puppet or mocking Light during their calls.

Near reverts back to the puppets from the customised Lego until ch. 94, only keeping the Lego notebooks (that he adds a Death Note cover to, after seeing Mikami’s notebook).

The Task Force and SPK puppets often show up when Near is talking about how to prevent Kira from killing them all or manipulating them with the Death Note : talking Aizawa out of trying to catch Kira himself, making sure Mikami doesn’t write Gevanni’s name in the notebook and win the warehouse confrontation, or kidnapping Misa so Light can’t use her as the second Kira. He has to avoid a scenario where he is the last one fighting against Kira at all costs, especially after the planned confrontation in the warehouse where he would be unable to physically protect himself.

Misa is unpredictable and dangerous in unknown proportions, so she gets a realistic but crude figure. The Task Force is well-meaning but useless and easily fooled, if Aizawa and Mogi get perfectly fine depictions, Matsuda and Ide have barely-resembling puppets (especially since Near thinks way less of them). The SPK figures, meanwhile, are very life-like and pretty flattering compared to others. Near also doesn’t use them much, but they often appear around his puppet during explanations – since they are essential parts of his plans and he is in active communication with all of them, they work as extensions of him in the outside world.

After that, we see Mikami and Takada’s puppets, now full-time actors as the second Kira. Takada’s puppet is low effort compared to most, and I should point out: Misa and her being sidelined as stupid or irrelevant pawns, even through the eyes of other characters, is one of the many sexists narratives of Death Note. Mikami’s puppet however is grotesquely detailed, with claw-like fingers and just… the most wonderful hair and grin. Could it be that in spite of Near’s utter contempt for his beliefs, he admires Mikami’s perfectly calibrated routine ? That’s certainly a lifestyle he could follow…

Quick note on the puppets : a large number of them don’t have discernable eyeballs, but those that do all have them pointed up, except Near and L who are looking straight ahead (quite vacantly). We see them mainly from Near’s level – meaning, the floor – but if you were a member of the SPK standing next to him, they would be looking up at you, with only Near's puppet avoiding your gaze, like the real one does. What a lovely and creepy detail !

For the end of vol. 11, we wait for the warehouse confrontation with barely any puppet action. That’s when we see Near play with the robots and marbles, even though we sometimes see the rest of the puppets in the background. He doesn’t have much to explain since all his plans are in place, the latency period was only necessary to make sure Gevanni doesn’t die 23 days after touching the notebook, as per the fake rule. Mello is once again the one to shake things up by kidnapping Takada and allowing Near to realise the notebook he tampered with was fake. In a single day, the puzzle pieces have to fall into place : either Gevanni manages to replace the real notebook, or Kira wins and kills them all.

Near takes all of the finger puppets to the warehouse apart from Misa : the SPK members, the Task Force, Kira (along with Takada and Mikami), and all iterations of L (himself, Mello, and L). He also wears an L mask, which Light is really upset about for completely normal nemesis-related reasons. This is the first time Light, Ryuk, Ide and Matsuda see Near and the visual aids for his explanations, and it doesn’t inspire them much trust. He looks so creepy (and in a scene where optics really matter !), surrounded by the dolls and telling them to wait for Mikami to write their names in the notebook, that even Mogi and Aizawa start to suspect Near has trapped them or is Kira himself – though they still decide to momentarily trust his judgement.

This is the final time Near has anything to demonstrate, but Light is wrong when he thinks of it as a one-on-one battle – Near isn’t solely focused on Light like L was, and monitoring Mikami so closely is actually one of the keys for his victory. But what he highlights, and what Light seems most shocked by, is that he communicated with the SPK, the Task Force, and even Mello to some extent, and that their coordination and cooperation is what allows them to win. With the L, Mello and Near dolls on his fingers, Near taunts him as he wholly demolishes whatever was left of Kira’s chances to rule the world.

After the first page of ch. 105, when Light says “That’s right. I am Kira”, there is nothing left to prove and the mask and puppets are only part of the background… except the Kira puppet, which Near crushes between his fingers after Light finally admits the truth. They don’t appear at all during ch. 107, in which Light dies, always hidden by the framing or other characters. Near basically ceases to be a character after that. We don’t see his thoughts anymore, and he speaks twice : once to reassure the others that Ryuk will not help Light by killing them, and then once more in ch. 108 to ask Aizawa for help with a drug busting operation in Japan, a year after the case.

When I first read Death Note, I was surprised how much Near fades into the background at the exact moment of Light’s downfall, but not only is his narrative role over, so is his implication in the case. Near does not have a personal attachment to Light, or to proving Light (and no one else) is Kira, no reason to gloat endlessly or question whether that case will come back to haunt him… In the two subsequent one-shots, Near deals with the new killers not as apparitions of a former enemy, but as new notebook owners, none of them even close to having Kira’s ambitions. You could say he looks depressed the same way L did during the Yotsuba arc, or the way Light did after he killed L, but I would interpret it as intense boredom and loneliness rather than sulking or obsessive sadness.

I still don't feel like I've said it all – what do I make of the two indiscernible puppets Near sets up on L’s mask, the giant L towers made of playing cards and the Ryuk head from the one-shots, I haven't even talked about precisely how Near sits on the floor while he plays – but I have to stop somewhere in my thesis and that shall be it. I would be more than delighted to hear your opinion if you’ve read this far, I hope I've demonstrated that I love talking about this !

Edit: I forgot to link this excellent post on Near by @/empressofthewind that gave me the last push to finish this !!! Required further reading, I might say !!

(dis)honourable unrelated mentions :

Mello is introduced barefoot (apparently playing football with bare grippers…) and there’s a panel of his toes clenched in fury at L’s passing. Immediately after he decides to leave L’s role to Near, he’s wearing leather boots, and this is NOT a coincidence ← average theory in a 20 year-old fandom

The French translation is immaculate. 100/10 no notes. I had so many good laughs, everyone say thank you Shinya Seto, Myloo Anhmet and Guillaume Abadie for their amazing work ! This has cemented in my mind that Ohba should switch gears to comedy, where he will undoubtedly excel

During their raid on Mello’s mafia hideout (vol. 9 – ch. 73), Light calls his father “Deputy director” until he finally corners Mello, at which point he loses all professionalism and yells “Dad, his face ? Did you see his face ?”. It’s so interesting how Kira is consistently the most childish, naive and impulsive side of Light. The worst of it comes off during the warehouse confrontation, where Light has to physically refrain himself from smirking or cackling before he’s sure he’s won, and doesn’t even manage to wait the full 40 seconds to confirm the others are dying before gloating (which he managed for L’s death…)

Mello points out that Soichiro’s hesitation to finish writing his name in the notebook is due to the fact that, in the entirety of his policeman career, he has never killed anyone. Harrowing that he dies relieved his son isn’t a murderer, because until the end, Soichiro believed that even state-sanctioned killing on the line of duty doesn’t absolve you of that crime !

Near has imo the most correct view of Kira supporters in the entire manga. When a mob swarms the SPK HQ in Kira’s name, he outlines 3 groups : genuine Kira supporters, those who got swept up by their frenzy, and people using Kira to justify acts of violence they would commit anyway. I think that parallels Kira’s journey, the inevitable end it brings Light to : sincerely held ideals of justice and a profound disgust for the way violence goes unchecked, increasingly worse justifications for his spiral of violence, and self-serving behaviour as he grapples to remain in power

Reading the interviews at the end of HTR13 is a trip. What do you mean Obata would have tried to convince Ohba to let Mello live at the end because he finds him so cool and loyal. What do you mean Obata paid special attention to apple drawings only for Ohba to tell him he didn’t think about any apple symbolism, sorry to disappoint. What do you mean they barely spoke or saw each other and Obata makes heart-eyes at Ohba so he can visit his “enchanting office, decorated western-style”. In fucking tears

To contradict my finger puppet analysis in a very funny way, O&O said in HTR13 that Near manipulating the events of the investigation, to the extent of playing with the other characters as puppets, was meant to show his “negative” and “dark” side (his dark and twisted mind, if you will). I genuinely love reading their interviews because it never fails to prove that the story you want to tell, the story that comes out of the printing press, and the story each individual reader will understand are wholly different concepts and should be treated as such

#death note #near death note #nate river #death note meta #olorea talks #dn #meta #WHEW i'm done !!! there's actually so much i left out so if anyone has questions or wants to add / expand on something #literally anything !!! i am ears WIDE open. please and thank you <333 i am so normal and can be trusted in death note conversation <33333 #<- has gone slightly insane about this meta #i will in the near-to-middling future post this on ao3 but for now i am laying down. oh and i'm very open to comments to better the ID #txt #img

15 notes · View notes