what makes you think that mello doesn't want near dead? i think so too but I'm not entirely sure
Great question!! I have a lot of explanations for this.
There are two main practical reasons why Near dying would be catastrophic for Mello. Firstly, Mello and Near are designed such that they are stronger together, and functionally cannot succeed without the other. People generally understand that Near couldn't have caught Kira without Mello, but I think a lot of people miss the fact that actually neither of them could've done really anything without each other. Mello used a spy in the SPK to establish that Kira's weapon of choice was a notebook, which kicked off his plan to hunt the book down. Near used Mello's information after the explosion to determine that there was a Shinigami attached to the notebook, and that the 13-day rule was fake. Mello used Near to investigate Mogi, and subsequently, when that fell through, used Lidner to access Near's information about everything except the exact identity of X-Kira. Then, of course, Near needed Mello to kidnap Takada and subsequently reveal the true location of the Death Note. It's very much a back-and-forth, and even if Mello doesn't necessarily accept the idea that they can achieve more when working together, he definitely seems to understand that he needs Near to get ahead in some capacity. Dead Near = no information.
Secondly, there's the fact that Mello's entire motivation is to catch Kira before Near. I could talk about this extensively but I think, at its core, this is pretty straightforward. Mello wants a satisfying victory, and it doesn't really work if there's no one left alive for him to beat. There's a possibility that he could catch Kira on his own, but what would be the point of that if no one else he deems a worthy competitor is even trying to? He doesn't want handouts. He doesn't want a win by default. He wants to win fair and square, against a rival who is alive and well and in his right mind. Dead Near = no competition.
Then on a more emotional note - and this might be slightly more speculative but - it really doesn't seem to me like Mello actually hates Near??? When he talks to or about Near, it's either focused largely on himself/his personal desire to prove himself ("I'm always number two... no matter how hard I try..."; "I'll be number one") or actually pretty positive stuff about Near being better than him ("Near will calmly and unemotionally solve the puzzle"; "I know you're good at that stuff"). This is not to say that he likes Near either, but rather that he recognises that Near is very skilled in his own right, and what drives him is specifically proving that he himself is just as, if not more, skilled than Near. This makes more sense to me than him having a genuine vendetta against Near as a person and wanting him to suffer. He flies off the handle and aims a gun at Near when he feels like Near is treating him as a pawn, but by the end of that scene, he's smirking and talking about "waiting for [Near]" at the finish line, which seems like a weird thing to say to someone you a) were genuinely trying to kill a moment ago, and b) still actively want dead. I think this was a knee-jerk reaction to a phrase that struck a nerve and made him feel disrespected, rather than a legitimate assassination attempt.
I feel like to really understand Mello's feelings towards Near, you have to understand where they come from in the first place, and it's not because he feels Near has done wrong by him. It's not because he finds Near generally annoying or unpleasant to be around. It's because he was raised as a potential successor to L, and he hinges his self-worth on the notion of becoming L. While L was alive, his metric for success was to be personally chosen by him, but since L died without ever choosing, Mello set a new objective that would determine who is most worthy. Try to solve the one case that L couldn't, and whoever could do that first would win. So I think his goal actually has a lot less to do with Near as a person and a lot more to do with Near as a symbol, for all he represents and the ways in which his existence shapes Mello's own self-perception. With all this in mind, there's actually no explicit reason for him to want Near dead. For L and Light, the rules of their game were such that the winner would be the survivor. For Mello and Near, their game relies on both of them being alive.
My final note about all of this is that Near is pretty insistent that Mello doesn't want him dead ("If you want to shoot me, shoot"; "Mello wouldn't try to kill me"). Near demonstrates a very deep and accurate understanding of the intricacies of Mello's motivations, so I feel like that counts for something, too.
titsay
tangentwithtanner
gummygunk
areudirty
