@Queenie - Queeeeenieeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
*huggles* So long since I saw your posts
.
I certainly believe shinigami kill out of greed. If they weren't greedy why do they kill for extra life when they're at the end. Survival is still greed isn't it? At the end of your life you have a choice, die or live on to play poker. That doesn't sound too greedy off the bat, but the true choice is Die or live on to play poker by sucking someone else's life out knowing full well that the person doesn't have a hope in hell of protecting themselves from your act of murder. If a shinigami can still choose the latter then they're greedy alright. They might not aggrandize on life span by killing even when they have enough of it, but waiting for it to run out and killing at the end is just as bad because in the end whether you kill 10 humans upfront with a lifespan of 70 years to gain 700 years to your life or whether you kill one human with a lifespan of 70 years for ten seventy year periods, you're still killing enough humans just so you can gain 700 years of life and that sure sounds greedy.
Someone countered that Ryuk is greedy because he meddled in human affairs but I staunchly disagree again. Greed is a given attribute of the shinigami. It's what they live for (pardon the pun
). Ryuk was the ONLY shinigami who did anything with his life that was gained by greed. My quarrel with the shinigami isn't that they're greedy. That's an attribute, a bad one so help them god. My quarrel is that they're the laziest bunch of beings ever to be known in existence. They have infinite power to drain life forever and live on as immortals. Yet with all that everlasting life all they can do is play poker or sleep! If that isn't atrocity I don't know what is. If nature has given these beings enough power to remain immortal then I believe they owe it back to nature to use that power of theirs and do "something" good or bad instead of lying on their lazy backs. Ryuk was the only one who sought to do something rather than just live out a lackadaisical life. In fact I commend Ryuk on meddling into affairs in a pro active way. Lets not kid ourselves here - shinigami have been meddling in human affairs forever. That's their way of life because they kill us to live on. Yet their motivation has been nought but to gain another few years of lazy sleep. Why should we humans give up our active lives to support some lazy death god in an unholy dimention?
The least they can do is use that life of theirs to some end.
If Ryuk meddled in bad way - fine! Instead of shunning him down, I'd expect another shinigami to interfere in a good way. I mean interfere already for crying out loud. Don't just sit there and play poker and drain 50 years off my tab when I've got enough hopes and aspirations to fulfill for the next seventy. If true justice is to be served then every human should have a "lifenote" where they can write shinigami names and suck their lives out. That way the most pro active ones stay alive, and the lackadaisical ones lose out. You snooze you lose and they said that for a reason!
@Kira - I'd like to answer the question on government names and such. I don't think the deathnote works on a government name at all. You could use it on a pigmy in the amazon and it would still work
. Why you ask? It's because the deathnote is based off human cognition. If you're Kira here and _____ in the real world then thinking of your picture and writing Kira in the note won't work... not because your real name isn't Kira, but because YOU don't believe your real name to be Kira. If you truly believed your name to be Kira so much so that you responded only to Kira and not to _______, writing Kira on a deathnote with your face in mind would certainly claim your life. It's not based on what the government calls you, or what your family calls you or what your nextdoor nieghbour feels your real name is. It's about what YOU think your true name is. If I think your true name is the same as what you think it is then I can definitely use a deathnote and pull a shinigami on you.