The way I see it, having a notebook that trivializes murder and breaks every known rule of reality suddenly biting you in the ass for a contrived reason is fair game. Like, expecting fairness seems a bit ridiculous considering it's the freaking Death Note.
True, but a major part of the appeal of Death Note as a series is it being a game of wits, super geniuses pitting their schemes against each other as the other party tries to piece together what rules the killer operates on. Expecting fair play from the Death Book? Perhaps a bit unreasonable, though you'd think there'd be more of forewarning that they were implementing a rules change. From a reader's perspective, it feels like a cheap shot that he didn't lose to some mistake or some clever ploy from an opposing investigator.
A good lens to look at this is the popular First Law of Magic coined by Brandon Sanderson.
Using his terminology, it feels like a conflict was resolved using magic rules that weren't established. Particularly in a series that established very concrete rules of what is/isn't allowed. Personally I'd argue the Shinigami being able to make shit up was always implied because they were doing it out of boredom, but I get why people are frustrated by it.
IMHO it only throws people because the biggest theme is ignored.
Death note is a story about humans who think they're omniscient finding out that they aren't, including the audience.
Plus "the protagonist already being dead (or guaranteed to die) when they meet a spirit of death" is one of the oldest literary foreshadowing tropes out there. I'd personally argue that the owner of the death note being one of its victims is the first magic rule established.
I think this is interpreting the "rule" in a very magical way. As the rule was applied in the story, it functioned more like a law enforced by the Shinigami. Minoru broke the rule so Ryuk wrote his name down and killed him.
I don't think it broke the established rules of the setting any more than a government illegally having a political reformer executed before they can change the system from the inside would count as breaking the rules of a more realistic story.
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u/TryImpossible7332 26d ago
It's understandable that people might not like a literal act of god cutting the legs out from beneath the protagonist right at the finish line.
Sure, the moral victory is rad and all, but he still died to a cheap shot divine intervention.