Ranting about the Death Note amnesia trope below, if you like the No-Memories ending scroll past because this is just me expanding on why I don't like it
I think that the reason I tend to despise the Memory Loss ending is because it's framed as a happy one. I can understand it when it's written as a sad or bittersweet end, but not when it's written as a hopeful or wholly happy one.
Not just because I don't think it's happy, but also because it just seems disingenuous, especially when framed as a loving ending.
I don't know, it just—it takes away a lot of what I like about Lawlight as a ship. Enemies to Lovers at its core is about seeing the darkest parts of someone, having someone know every nasty, cruel bit of your soul, and falling in love with them anyway. Not even in spite of it—with Lawlight specifically, I see them as people that fall in love with each other BECAUSE of those parts of themselves. The parts that they hide away from the world, the parts that no one else accepts.
The memory loss trope just,,,wipes all of that away. It takes away the struggle of getting better. It's cutting out the parts of your lover that you don't like or that don't fit your narrative to "fix" them.
I think, at its core, what bothers me most is that it takes away the choice.
Without his memories, Light is stripped of his choice to decide whether or not he wants to better himself. Personally, I don't see L as someone who can redeem him (that's also another reason I dislike this trope), so for L to yoink Light's memories of being Kira and say "All fixed!" is like someone sticking a bandaid over a gaping wound. Because he's not someone who can stitch it closed, who can help it heal, because he is an intrinsic part of Kira's story. As an antagonist. An equal.
It rubs me viscerally the wrong way, especially when it's framed as the only way for them to be happy together. L isn't a good person. Light isn't a good person. If they were I wouldn't be nearly so invested in their relationship.
Don't get me wrong, I also hate it when L just,,,,magically gains a moral compass. If he wants to be a good man I need him to work for it, I don't want him OR Light to have an easy way out, to have a magic Get-Rid-Of-The-Difficult-Things-About-My-Lover-Free button.
But also, just. Let them be fucked up. They're toxic and awful and perfect for each other and I want them at each other's throats hand in hand for the rest of their lives.
I think that's my bottom line—I don't like the memory loss ending because it makes them both out to be something they're not.
L is not a good man with pure intentions. If he wants Light to give up his memories I take it to mean he wants the easy route. He wants to be with a Light that doesn't remember that he hated him or why, that doesn't remember all the bad things he's done, that's still an innocent child in a lot of ways—because it's easy. It's fast. He doesn't have to work for it. He doesn't have to work for forgiveness or try to give it because the man that he needs to forgive and be forgiven by doesn't exist anymore.
Light isn't an innocent little boy that's been corrupted by an evil entity. He's a man who's made mistakes, who's arrogant and closed-minded and stubborn and in denial, who calls himself evil but refuses to believe it, who smiled while he killed a grieving woman, who smiled while he killed a friend and held them close, who was so terribly lonely that his first friend was a monster.
And, if you're going to go that route, acknowledge that it's toxic too. Acknowledge that Light is going to struggle and he won't remember why. Acknowledge that underneath everything he's still Kira, because Kira was just a set of decisions that Light made, not a malevolent entity that possessed him. Acknowledge that Light giving up his memories is him giving up attempting to redeem himself, or attempting to exist in certain capacities completely.
An add-on—personally, I don't see L as someone who would want Light to give up his memories. Because L doesn't usually take the easy way out. It's a game between them, and he's playing to win and win completely. While he DOES play dirty, he still wants his opponent to acknowledge that he won, and he wants them to remember it. Light losing his memories would be a loss for L too, in a way, because then he's lost his playmate. He's lost his equal. He's lost the person that's going to fight him on everything that matters and yet agree with him on everything that doesn't. He's lost the person that can appreciate every move he makes.
Plus... there's something to be said for evil husbands that are on opposite sides, isn't there? ;3
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