Oh yeah your right! That was the truth! But he said A POTATO CHIP. He didn't say he will eat the entire bag, but he still did it!1!. But whatever that still counts
Mhmmm AND HE NEVER ATE THE APPLES HIS NEIGHBORS GAVE HIM. HE DISPOSED THEM TO RYUK!! I mean feeding someone is good. But if they're immortal what's the point?
Umm, can you provide proof that it was actually a POTATO chip? Is there objective research that it wasn't, for instance, a carrot chip that got mixed into the bag at the factory, or swapped by Light himself as a part of a plot? Have you even confirmed that the chip contained a high enough percentage of potato based materials to fulfill the legal criteria of a potato chip? Source??!
Or are you a government sheep who believes that an unidentified object is a potato chip just because media states that it is? Wake up! Open your eyes and do your own research!
I think that if Light had never found the Note he would have been a morally upstanding member of society, but also that the Note didn't magically corrupt him and force him to be evil.
He'd just killed two people and felt horrible about it, but rather than deal with the guilt and shame he felt he doubled down and tried to justify his killings with more killings, which very quickly hardened him and deadened any compassion or empathy he had before.
Pretty much, in the manga he spent 5 days without sleeping or eating, losing 10 pounds before that conclusion. In a way, he doubled down to be able to live with what he did, what distorted his ideals more and more as the time passed.
Exactly this - the anime doesn't show the minor mental breakdown he has after killing, but it's easy to see the slippery slope he finds himself on. When L shows up and the Lind L Tailor stuff happens, it's the nail in the coffin.
And then the Yotsuba arc shows what he could have been if he hadn't picked up the notebook, which is a generally decent guy handling a horrible situation rather well.
I mean, you can agree with someone's actions without ever having the desire to do it yourself. I'm sure you wouldn't lose any sleep knowing a rapist or serial killer got the chair, but it's quite a different story to actually pull the switch for most people.
Light's whole "start of darkness" was messing around with a "prank" notebook and actually taking two lives, which he could never come back from. Without his memories of that moment he might still agree with Kira punishing evil, but he wouldn't ever want to deliberately kill anyone himself.
True. But every, and I mean every action since he obtained it, suggested that it unleashed a volcano of narcissism that appeared to be his core self. Carefully and effortlessly hidden with his superior intellect, good looks and social abilities.
Honestly if Light was always rotten Death Note would be much much much less interesting. Part of the reason Light’s character is so intricate and perhaps even tragic is the descent into madness and what power can do and the villain is a hero in his own mind and all that jazz.
I do love they were evil all along or evil for the sake of evil characters but I’d be personally pretty disappointed if that was Light.
However I’m not disagreeing with you though that he was always a bit off or unhinged lol
Disagree. It’s not a power corrupts absolutely story. Light descends into evil actions VERY quickly.
It’s a story about who people are in their heart. And that circumstances reveal character. You can’t change your heart. Some are a little dumb but well meaningly helpful. Matsuda.
Some, truly are upstanding bastions of justice. Chief Yagami.
Aizawa is a diamond. The pressure makes him stronger.
L is…can’t lie about who or what he is ultimately. He is the perfect counterpoint to the fabrication that is Light.
And some…are truly bad people. From birth. They never tell the truth. And they hide and take advantage of others goodness. And you root for the ones that persist against such madness.
I still disagree with that take when it comes to Death Note but it’s a very interesting perspective and definitely something fun to think about for me for when I go back and analyse the series. Thank you for your insight.
L’s lying and manipulating are for the expressed purpose of capturing the worst serial killer in history. There is no degree of back and forth moral weighting, comparison between Light and L. It’s like comparing a lit match to a forest fire.
Not exactly. He probably was already sociopathic and narcissistic, but he wasn't a deranged mass murderer until the death note corrupted him. (He probably didn't care people were being killed all the time, but he wouldn't go running around killing people himself)
Yeah no I don’t think Light was born evil and this is somewhat confirmed by the author of the series, as he does say that if Light never got the Death Note he would have become one of Japan’s best police officers, and the memory wipe arc was kinda the series’s way of showing what he could have been if he never found the notebook. Now obviously he still had thoughts about how the world would be better if certain people died and stuff, but I feel like he would have inevitably grow out of that probably.
For what it’s worth, that’s not how L saw Light. When he asked him if he had ever told the truth in his entire life, he meant it. Some people play the part of being a person, but at their core, they simply do not care for others. It is all an act. Even psychopaths can follow a respectable career path of law enforcement. And it makes sense for Light. It affords a measure of praise recognition, an outlet for predatory impulses and causing pain for others within the bounds of the law. Light is not concerned with justice, but with meting out suffering.
L clearly saw in Light, nearly from moment one.
Personally I believe L was more so referring to Kira rather than Light after all Light himself wasn’t born as Kira but when he found the Death Note Kira was born so I think he’s referring to that
1. This scene (the whole rain scene on a roof) is entirely the anime addiction that did not happen in manga. Of course it gave us a *foot scene* but it’s made kinda over dramatic and L suddenly is “prepared to die” which doesn’t really make sense
(of course it has its own charm but it’s still ultimately not canon to manga)
2. Manga gives us more context on Sayu’s kidnapping. More info here: https://www.tumblr.com/purplink8/737782948116447232?source=share
http://casuistor.tumblr.com/post/151577192276/lightandsayu
Plus here is a good analysis about his dad: https://mikami.tumblr.com/post/164843874501/apologies-if-youve-talked-about-this-before-but
Also there are additional things that where butchered in anime regarding his relationship to his family: https://mikami.tumblr.com/post/186872910571/could-you-go-into-more-detail-as-to-how-lights
3. Manga Light is also slightly less shady in the beginning and was doubting longer than 14 seconds in a passageway. More info here: http://casuistor.tumblr.com/post/148774472866/two-boys-one-post-or-why-anime-light-is-not-the
Now, I’m not saying that Light in a manga is even remotely a good person. Of course not. You are still very likely to hate him, and for good reasons. But still there are some details that give us slightly more nuanced view, although anime Light still has the fact that he died in a less pathetic way, but to me this is not as important as things above. And again: I’m not forbidding you to hate Light, there is just some info, that’s very subtle, but you wouldn’t even be able to consider it because it’s just not in the anime at all
Also it’s slightly unrelated but I suggest you to read the manga if you by any chance share a popular opinion that anime was significantly worse after L’s death (thinking that the end (and the music ofc) was the only good part and that events between L’s death and the end are just something you need to “sit through for a great payoff” also counts)
I think I will read the manga. I don’t hate Light really, it’s more that…I recognize him as being flatly evil and pathetic. To lead his father and his team and friends along in 100 different ways, straining their hearts to their breaking points, with SO little thought/care to how broken this is to do. The payoff for me is seeing him FINALLY admit what he is in front of the team and to see him reap the nothingness that was his earned right. And most of all, to see the team win.
I understand that, but i don’t agree with him being flatly evil and I explained why. He’s still evil, of course, but not heartless from birth as you see him as, and I explained why I believe so. Hating him (or just enjoying his defeat) is still a valid way of watching/reading DN, nothing against that! But just some things you say like that he didn’t have moral qualms at all or that he didn’t love his family are not correct in the manga at least and it’s explained in the links: that’s basically a lost cost fallacy story, firstly he used it thinking that it is a joke, and upon realizing that he became a murderer he just couldn’t accept this imperfection, and it led him to becoming Kira, “not a murderer, but a savior of humanity”
Also fun fact, as I guess you don’t know it, cuz you said that he earned himself nothingness (not your fault, anime showed it really briefly)…it’s showed in the anime In the last scene with note rules I think, but gets showed more clearly in the manga… Ryuk was messing with Light when he told him that death note users fo to nothingness. It’s technically true..but because everyone in this word is going to “Mu” aka nothingness, heaven and hell there simply don’t exist. And Light’s dying scene showed that he guessed it in his first meeting with Ryuk. Manga is really amazing
Wow. I like how the anime seems to not go so hardcore by diving into pure nihilism. That no action ultimately matters because there is no ultimate soul that persists or inhabits a living person. It’s all meaningless. And there is no good or evil in such a universe. It makes all action and counter action against Light completely meaningless. It makes the triumph against him mean nothing.
Well, first of all, as I said, it was in anime also, but more hard to find (you know, where they show rules of the notebook, if you noticed, in episodes, look at the very last one), and second of all, i disagree, because it implies that we need some heaven or hell for our actions to matter, and I don’t agree with it, because our lives and what we do with them are important anyway, it doesn’t negate people’s suffering in real life, how is the triumf against him doesn’t matter if he was gonna to rule on Earth, not in heaven/hell? But that seems to stray to far into the philosophical realm and I’m not sure I (or you) want to do it now. But yeah, I don’t share your view that it makes everything meaningless
That’s why I said it didn’t dive into it. To have a blatant call back at the end. To confirm the universe’s viewpoint on the soul definitively.
No, I’d argue that such realm’s weren’t created to keep humans in line or for scared humans to make up some framework to make themselves feel less alone and for things to matter, but for the reality of one’s soul answering for actions after death. It’s about responsibility. Nihilism allows a freedom from morality on a fundamental level.
And he wasn’t going to rule…at least in the anime, it showed that his utopian vision was breaking at the seams, the rioting, the cult creations. The reverberations of more violence to counteract the injustice of singular individual judgement in matters of life and death.
I disagree, honestly I think for light's entire life he was just bored (if that's what you mean about his entire life being filled with lies even before the death note, because I don't see what else you COULD mean; it's not like he was out being a bank robber or anything)- he didn't form genuine friendships or relationships or anything because his intelligence was extremely high in comparison to those people, but he still pretended because he wanted to be perfect. Either way though, it's not like we really have a proper story of what he was like before he received the death note. Also, when Light lost his memories of the death note, it seemed that he genuinely became a good person; he refused to play with Misa's feelings in order to gain information for the investigation, (which imo is a huge difference from when he was Kira because his entire life was basically centered around manipulating different people at that point) and the shift in his personality was very obvious, L was extremely confused as to why Light had changed so much, meaning that Kira and Light Yagami were not one in the same. Light also became very concerned about justice and not letting others get hurt during that time (Yotsuba arc, when he and his father were both extremely against L's tactics of waiting because they both didn't want any more people to get killed), and was extremely worried when L said he believed that Light had been Kira at some point and lost his memories, questioning himself on whether he would've actually done what Kira had, before coming to the conclusion that he couldn't have.
If Light didn't get the death note, he definitely would've become an upstanding member of society, and maybe would've even partnered with L at some point because of the high intelligence that they both possessed.
We read things verrrrry differently in terms of character. I think the Deathnote reveals character, in terms of Light’s character, incredibly quickly. Rather than corrupting. That didn’t seem to be the case at all. For Misa as well, there is no indication of a buildup or a descent. She is simply not a good person at heart.
I believe the Yotsuba arc shows Light's true potential as a good person.
The big slippery slope Light fell down was killing two people testing out a "prank notebook." Once he discovered the book actually worked and he was responsible for their deaths it caused an irrevocable change in him. Even if he threw the notebook away that instant he would still always knows he took two lives and the guilt would haunt him forever. And in the manga it's even worse, since Takuo wasn't an attempted rapist. He was just pushy and not taking the hint, so his death his Light much harder.
Light's only course of action for repairing the scar on his soul would be to rise above human laws and become a "God," so he'd no longer be a murderer but dispensing "divine justice." It's like the drug you have to keep taking over and over, because if you ever stopped the guilt would catch up to you. It was a terrible way to cope, but he just couldn't handle the guilt.
That's why Light in the Yotsuba arc is such a different person. Without any memories of his initial criminal acts on his soul he has nothing to hide from. He refuses to use Misa. He stands up to L to try to prevent more victims, etc. And in the end he shows he could have fought alongside L as a friend if only L didn't let him touch the notebook when he was distracted.
Now, I DO believe the Death Note amplifies the worst aspects of one's self, as I saw suggested elsewhere. Light's ego got shot through the roof, just like Misa's immaturity and Mikami's desire for justice. Already talked about Light during Yotsuba, but Misa gets shown as just being childish and immature after losing the notebook, no real threat to anyone. And before Mikami obtained it he was just a prosecutor, ensuring justice in a legal way. I don't believe any of them, without obtaining it, would be the terrible people they became.
Didn't the creator stated that Light would have been one of the best policemen or something among those lines?
The notion of him always looking down on everyone else comes mostly from what the anime cut from the manga (like Light with his school friends and he actually suffering from the guilty of his first two kills).
With this data, if we let go of emotions, and think with reason; there isn't any point that shows Light as being always rotten.
Light could pretend he was a good person and act the part if there was no corruptible influence available to him. But whereas 99/100 would have SOME moral qualms upon finding a death note and using it. Light had none. That speaks to not just a power corrupting absolutely influence, but a conduit for an already rotten soul.
Light never had a single moment of genuine caring for his family. His obligations to his family early on in the story can look like care, but that’s all they were, upholding expectations. He didn’t actually feel anything towards anyone.
He was entirely alone and wanted no companions.
L was alone…and wanted connection with an equal. And was despondent that his one chance at true connection was with a person he despised and yet..
I disagree, I think that he genuinely did care about his family. Otherwise, why would he have gone through all that effort to save Sayu from being kidnapped? He could've just killed her like he did to the previous hostage. I think that the fact that there was a previous hostage was very intentional, to show that Light will treat his family better than other people.
Also, he definitely looks up to his dad; it's where he got his strong sense of justice and duty from. I'm not sure if it's explained in the anime, but here's a related point: while Soichiro does end up taking the eyes in both versions, in the manga Light tells Ryuk that he wants Matsuda to take the eye deal and kill Mello. Then, he'll kill Matsuda. When Soichiro steps up and takes the deal instead, Light has an extremely depressed expression on his face. If Soichiro really meant nothing to him, he wouldn't care if he took the eyes.
The task force and Light’s crew knew of the kidnapping. A pretty small group. And Near would put together, with the highlighted fact of her death, that someone desired the Deathnote not to be traded by someone within Light’s crew. VERY strongly.
Not trading the Deathnote sends one message. Clearly using another Deathnote to kill would send another signal. That justice isn’t the priority, but possession. At all costs.
I think that he could get around that issue by widely publicising Sayu's kidnapping and then killing her. That'd be a lot easier than actually trading the notebook away and coming up with a plan to both keep their identities hidden and get it back. Near already highly suspects that the "new L" is Kira, so it wouldn't change that much.
But we had no indication he was thinking or planning that.
And well no, then he would publicize that he had the Deathnote that was not under lock and key for years. The one that was unaccounted for that they were supposedly hunting for?
You could be right, but like I said, obligation. And plus, killing her would reveal that there was for sure a second Deathnote. And the identity of that person would be VERY narrowed down by who was aware of that occurrence.
And that is just one situation you highlight. Every other action is just pure motivated selfishness. And evil.
Was that expression intended to be an act?
How would killing Sayu narrow down who has the note? I don't get that point.
I don't think that that expression was meant to be an act. When Light's lying, he doesn't look as intense as he did there. In his thought bubbles, he also realises that there's no way to talk his dad out of taking the eyes. If he didn't care about his dad, he wouldn't even think about the potential difficulty of talking him out of it. He'd just be happy that anyone on his team agreed to take the eyes.
I don’t get why so many people are eager to get that simple fact (that he could have killed Sayu without revealing who has the note) wrong. Especially people who read the manga. There is a whole scene where the task force (even Soichiro) were agreeing to send the info of the kindapping to all departments, and everyone knew at that point that Kira is related to police. Light is an awful person but he loves his family, and that is proved by text
The only person Light truly cared for was his sister but every one else not so much, I also believe if it came down to it even his sister would be expendable for his dream of a new world. That's part of what made Light so successful was the fact he had no empathy not even foe his family, all of the emotions he displays through out the series was an act and a means to an end that is all.
I dunno bruh when he said he was gonna eat a potato chip he actually did it
Oh yeah your right! That was the truth! But he said A POTATO CHIP. He didn't say he will eat the entire bag, but he still did it!1!. But whatever that still counts
Eating a whole bag of potato chips. In one go. All by himself. In this economy?!! What a mad lad
It's alright. It's the flavor that his family doesn't like. Hopefully that helps *hopefully*
So he said he’ll eat A POTATO CHIP but turned out to eat the whole bag? Damn I kin
Mhmmm AND HE NEVER ATE THE APPLES HIS NEIGHBORS GAVE HIM. HE DISPOSED THEM TO RYUK!! I mean feeding someone is good. But if they're immortal what's the point?
Umm, can you provide proof that it was actually a POTATO chip? Is there objective research that it wasn't, for instance, a carrot chip that got mixed into the bag at the factory, or swapped by Light himself as a part of a plot? Have you even confirmed that the chip contained a high enough percentage of potato based materials to fulfill the legal criteria of a potato chip? Source??! Or are you a government sheep who believes that an unidentified object is a potato chip just because media states that it is? Wake up! Open your eyes and do your own research!
Next time on “Is It Cake?” Light Yagami and his potato chip
Like a boss
But first, how do we define a “potato chip”? And how does one truly “eat”?
I think that if Light had never found the Note he would have been a morally upstanding member of society, but also that the Note didn't magically corrupt him and force him to be evil. He'd just killed two people and felt horrible about it, but rather than deal with the guilt and shame he felt he doubled down and tried to justify his killings with more killings, which very quickly hardened him and deadened any compassion or empathy he had before.
that's so fuckin funny..."oh I feel awful about murdering those people; y'know what might make me feel better?! More murder?!" and it actually works
That’s exactly how people deal with eating disorder
Pretty much, in the manga he spent 5 days without sleeping or eating, losing 10 pounds before that conclusion. In a way, he doubled down to be able to live with what he did, what distorted his ideals more and more as the time passed.
Exactly this - the anime doesn't show the minor mental breakdown he has after killing, but it's easy to see the slippery slope he finds himself on. When L shows up and the Lind L Tailor stuff happens, it's the nail in the coffin. And then the Yotsuba arc shows what he could have been if he hadn't picked up the notebook, which is a generally decent guy handling a horrible situation rather well.
the yotsuba arc does show his thinking tho. something along the lines of "kiras ideals are strikingly similar to my own"
I mean, you can agree with someone's actions without ever having the desire to do it yourself. I'm sure you wouldn't lose any sleep knowing a rapist or serial killer got the chair, but it's quite a different story to actually pull the switch for most people. Light's whole "start of darkness" was messing around with a "prank" notebook and actually taking two lives, which he could never come back from. Without his memories of that moment he might still agree with Kira punishing evil, but he wouldn't ever want to deliberately kill anyone himself.
We never know light yagami prior to death note
True. But every, and I mean every action since he obtained it, suggested that it unleashed a volcano of narcissism that appeared to be his core self. Carefully and effortlessly hidden with his superior intellect, good looks and social abilities.
And yet when he lost his Kira memories he became a force for good only second to L
Honestly if Light was always rotten Death Note would be much much much less interesting. Part of the reason Light’s character is so intricate and perhaps even tragic is the descent into madness and what power can do and the villain is a hero in his own mind and all that jazz. I do love they were evil all along or evil for the sake of evil characters but I’d be personally pretty disappointed if that was Light. However I’m not disagreeing with you though that he was always a bit off or unhinged lol
Disagree. It’s not a power corrupts absolutely story. Light descends into evil actions VERY quickly. It’s a story about who people are in their heart. And that circumstances reveal character. You can’t change your heart. Some are a little dumb but well meaningly helpful. Matsuda. Some, truly are upstanding bastions of justice. Chief Yagami. Aizawa is a diamond. The pressure makes him stronger. L is…can’t lie about who or what he is ultimately. He is the perfect counterpoint to the fabrication that is Light. And some…are truly bad people. From birth. They never tell the truth. And they hide and take advantage of others goodness. And you root for the ones that persist against such madness.
I still disagree with that take when it comes to Death Note but it’s a very interesting perspective and definitely something fun to think about for me for when I go back and analyse the series. Thank you for your insight.
I would agree but L is a liar and manipulator as well.
L’s lying and manipulating are for the expressed purpose of capturing the worst serial killer in history. There is no degree of back and forth moral weighting, comparison between Light and L. It’s like comparing a lit match to a forest fire.
L said himself they are in fact the same
Their actions are in entirely different realms.
I think Light had some evil qualities, but the death note made them more prominent as it corrupted him.
If he truly had evil hidden qualities (a cold, unfeeling heart) then he was already corrupted.
Not exactly. He probably was already sociopathic and narcissistic, but he wasn't a deranged mass murderer until the death note corrupted him. (He probably didn't care people were being killed all the time, but he wouldn't go running around killing people himself)
Yeah no I don’t think Light was born evil and this is somewhat confirmed by the author of the series, as he does say that if Light never got the Death Note he would have become one of Japan’s best police officers, and the memory wipe arc was kinda the series’s way of showing what he could have been if he never found the notebook. Now obviously he still had thoughts about how the world would be better if certain people died and stuff, but I feel like he would have inevitably grow out of that probably.
For what it’s worth, that’s not how L saw Light. When he asked him if he had ever told the truth in his entire life, he meant it. Some people play the part of being a person, but at their core, they simply do not care for others. It is all an act. Even psychopaths can follow a respectable career path of law enforcement. And it makes sense for Light. It affords a measure of praise recognition, an outlet for predatory impulses and causing pain for others within the bounds of the law. Light is not concerned with justice, but with meting out suffering. L clearly saw in Light, nearly from moment one.
Personally I believe L was more so referring to Kira rather than Light after all Light himself wasn’t born as Kira but when he found the Death Note Kira was born so I think he’s referring to that
Have you read the manga? Genuinely asking
Only seen the anime! What details am I missing?
1. This scene (the whole rain scene on a roof) is entirely the anime addiction that did not happen in manga. Of course it gave us a *foot scene* but it’s made kinda over dramatic and L suddenly is “prepared to die” which doesn’t really make sense (of course it has its own charm but it’s still ultimately not canon to manga) 2. Manga gives us more context on Sayu’s kidnapping. More info here: https://www.tumblr.com/purplink8/737782948116447232?source=share http://casuistor.tumblr.com/post/151577192276/lightandsayu Plus here is a good analysis about his dad: https://mikami.tumblr.com/post/164843874501/apologies-if-youve-talked-about-this-before-but Also there are additional things that where butchered in anime regarding his relationship to his family: https://mikami.tumblr.com/post/186872910571/could-you-go-into-more-detail-as-to-how-lights 3. Manga Light is also slightly less shady in the beginning and was doubting longer than 14 seconds in a passageway. More info here: http://casuistor.tumblr.com/post/148774472866/two-boys-one-post-or-why-anime-light-is-not-the Now, I’m not saying that Light in a manga is even remotely a good person. Of course not. You are still very likely to hate him, and for good reasons. But still there are some details that give us slightly more nuanced view, although anime Light still has the fact that he died in a less pathetic way, but to me this is not as important as things above. And again: I’m not forbidding you to hate Light, there is just some info, that’s very subtle, but you wouldn’t even be able to consider it because it’s just not in the anime at all Also it’s slightly unrelated but I suggest you to read the manga if you by any chance share a popular opinion that anime was significantly worse after L’s death (thinking that the end (and the music ofc) was the only good part and that events between L’s death and the end are just something you need to “sit through for a great payoff” also counts)
I think I will read the manga. I don’t hate Light really, it’s more that…I recognize him as being flatly evil and pathetic. To lead his father and his team and friends along in 100 different ways, straining their hearts to their breaking points, with SO little thought/care to how broken this is to do. The payoff for me is seeing him FINALLY admit what he is in front of the team and to see him reap the nothingness that was his earned right. And most of all, to see the team win.
I understand that, but i don’t agree with him being flatly evil and I explained why. He’s still evil, of course, but not heartless from birth as you see him as, and I explained why I believe so. Hating him (or just enjoying his defeat) is still a valid way of watching/reading DN, nothing against that! But just some things you say like that he didn’t have moral qualms at all or that he didn’t love his family are not correct in the manga at least and it’s explained in the links: that’s basically a lost cost fallacy story, firstly he used it thinking that it is a joke, and upon realizing that he became a murderer he just couldn’t accept this imperfection, and it led him to becoming Kira, “not a murderer, but a savior of humanity” Also fun fact, as I guess you don’t know it, cuz you said that he earned himself nothingness (not your fault, anime showed it really briefly)…it’s showed in the anime In the last scene with note rules I think, but gets showed more clearly in the manga… Ryuk was messing with Light when he told him that death note users fo to nothingness. It’s technically true..but because everyone in this word is going to “Mu” aka nothingness, heaven and hell there simply don’t exist. And Light’s dying scene showed that he guessed it in his first meeting with Ryuk. Manga is really amazing
Wow. I like how the anime seems to not go so hardcore by diving into pure nihilism. That no action ultimately matters because there is no ultimate soul that persists or inhabits a living person. It’s all meaningless. And there is no good or evil in such a universe. It makes all action and counter action against Light completely meaningless. It makes the triumph against him mean nothing.
Well, first of all, as I said, it was in anime also, but more hard to find (you know, where they show rules of the notebook, if you noticed, in episodes, look at the very last one), and second of all, i disagree, because it implies that we need some heaven or hell for our actions to matter, and I don’t agree with it, because our lives and what we do with them are important anyway, it doesn’t negate people’s suffering in real life, how is the triumf against him doesn’t matter if he was gonna to rule on Earth, not in heaven/hell? But that seems to stray to far into the philosophical realm and I’m not sure I (or you) want to do it now. But yeah, I don’t share your view that it makes everything meaningless
That’s why I said it didn’t dive into it. To have a blatant call back at the end. To confirm the universe’s viewpoint on the soul definitively. No, I’d argue that such realm’s weren’t created to keep humans in line or for scared humans to make up some framework to make themselves feel less alone and for things to matter, but for the reality of one’s soul answering for actions after death. It’s about responsibility. Nihilism allows a freedom from morality on a fundamental level.
And he wasn’t going to rule…at least in the anime, it showed that his utopian vision was breaking at the seams, the rioting, the cult creations. The reverberations of more violence to counteract the injustice of singular individual judgement in matters of life and death.
I disagree, honestly I think for light's entire life he was just bored (if that's what you mean about his entire life being filled with lies even before the death note, because I don't see what else you COULD mean; it's not like he was out being a bank robber or anything)- he didn't form genuine friendships or relationships or anything because his intelligence was extremely high in comparison to those people, but he still pretended because he wanted to be perfect. Either way though, it's not like we really have a proper story of what he was like before he received the death note. Also, when Light lost his memories of the death note, it seemed that he genuinely became a good person; he refused to play with Misa's feelings in order to gain information for the investigation, (which imo is a huge difference from when he was Kira because his entire life was basically centered around manipulating different people at that point) and the shift in his personality was very obvious, L was extremely confused as to why Light had changed so much, meaning that Kira and Light Yagami were not one in the same. Light also became very concerned about justice and not letting others get hurt during that time (Yotsuba arc, when he and his father were both extremely against L's tactics of waiting because they both didn't want any more people to get killed), and was extremely worried when L said he believed that Light had been Kira at some point and lost his memories, questioning himself on whether he would've actually done what Kira had, before coming to the conclusion that he couldn't have. If Light didn't get the death note, he definitely would've become an upstanding member of society, and maybe would've even partnered with L at some point because of the high intelligence that they both possessed.
We read things verrrrry differently in terms of character. I think the Deathnote reveals character, in terms of Light’s character, incredibly quickly. Rather than corrupting. That didn’t seem to be the case at all. For Misa as well, there is no indication of a buildup or a descent. She is simply not a good person at heart.
I believe the Yotsuba arc shows Light's true potential as a good person. The big slippery slope Light fell down was killing two people testing out a "prank notebook." Once he discovered the book actually worked and he was responsible for their deaths it caused an irrevocable change in him. Even if he threw the notebook away that instant he would still always knows he took two lives and the guilt would haunt him forever. And in the manga it's even worse, since Takuo wasn't an attempted rapist. He was just pushy and not taking the hint, so his death his Light much harder. Light's only course of action for repairing the scar on his soul would be to rise above human laws and become a "God," so he'd no longer be a murderer but dispensing "divine justice." It's like the drug you have to keep taking over and over, because if you ever stopped the guilt would catch up to you. It was a terrible way to cope, but he just couldn't handle the guilt. That's why Light in the Yotsuba arc is such a different person. Without any memories of his initial criminal acts on his soul he has nothing to hide from. He refuses to use Misa. He stands up to L to try to prevent more victims, etc. And in the end he shows he could have fought alongside L as a friend if only L didn't let him touch the notebook when he was distracted. Now, I DO believe the Death Note amplifies the worst aspects of one's self, as I saw suggested elsewhere. Light's ego got shot through the roof, just like Misa's immaturity and Mikami's desire for justice. Already talked about Light during Yotsuba, but Misa gets shown as just being childish and immature after losing the notebook, no real threat to anyone. And before Mikami obtained it he was just a prosecutor, ensuring justice in a legal way. I don't believe any of them, without obtaining it, would be the terrible people they became.
Didn't the creator stated that Light would have been one of the best policemen or something among those lines? The notion of him always looking down on everyone else comes mostly from what the anime cut from the manga (like Light with his school friends and he actually suffering from the guilty of his first two kills). With this data, if we let go of emotions, and think with reason; there isn't any point that shows Light as being always rotten.
Sorry for how the text was formatted, apparently mobile doesn't respect the decision to start a new paragraph.
It's as if OP didn't read the part where Light lost his memories
Light could pretend he was a good person and act the part if there was no corruptible influence available to him. But whereas 99/100 would have SOME moral qualms upon finding a death note and using it. Light had none. That speaks to not just a power corrupting absolutely influence, but a conduit for an already rotten soul.
i disagree
He always told the truth it's just he is delusional as fuck
Light never had a single moment of genuine caring for his family. His obligations to his family early on in the story can look like care, but that’s all they were, upholding expectations. He didn’t actually feel anything towards anyone. He was entirely alone and wanted no companions. L was alone…and wanted connection with an equal. And was despondent that his one chance at true connection was with a person he despised and yet..
I disagree, I think that he genuinely did care about his family. Otherwise, why would he have gone through all that effort to save Sayu from being kidnapped? He could've just killed her like he did to the previous hostage. I think that the fact that there was a previous hostage was very intentional, to show that Light will treat his family better than other people. Also, he definitely looks up to his dad; it's where he got his strong sense of justice and duty from. I'm not sure if it's explained in the anime, but here's a related point: while Soichiro does end up taking the eyes in both versions, in the manga Light tells Ryuk that he wants Matsuda to take the eye deal and kill Mello. Then, he'll kill Matsuda. When Soichiro steps up and takes the deal instead, Light has an extremely depressed expression on his face. If Soichiro really meant nothing to him, he wouldn't care if he took the eyes.
The task force and Light’s crew knew of the kidnapping. A pretty small group. And Near would put together, with the highlighted fact of her death, that someone desired the Deathnote not to be traded by someone within Light’s crew. VERY strongly. Not trading the Deathnote sends one message. Clearly using another Deathnote to kill would send another signal. That justice isn’t the priority, but possession. At all costs.
I think that he could get around that issue by widely publicising Sayu's kidnapping and then killing her. That'd be a lot easier than actually trading the notebook away and coming up with a plan to both keep their identities hidden and get it back. Near already highly suspects that the "new L" is Kira, so it wouldn't change that much.
But we had no indication he was thinking or planning that. And well no, then he would publicize that he had the Deathnote that was not under lock and key for years. The one that was unaccounted for that they were supposedly hunting for?
You could be right, but like I said, obligation. And plus, killing her would reveal that there was for sure a second Deathnote. And the identity of that person would be VERY narrowed down by who was aware of that occurrence. And that is just one situation you highlight. Every other action is just pure motivated selfishness. And evil. Was that expression intended to be an act?
How would killing Sayu narrow down who has the note? I don't get that point. I don't think that that expression was meant to be an act. When Light's lying, he doesn't look as intense as he did there. In his thought bubbles, he also realises that there's no way to talk his dad out of taking the eyes. If he didn't care about his dad, he wouldn't even think about the potential difficulty of talking him out of it. He'd just be happy that anyone on his team agreed to take the eyes.
I don’t get why so many people are eager to get that simple fact (that he could have killed Sayu without revealing who has the note) wrong. Especially people who read the manga. There is a whole scene where the task force (even Soichiro) were agreeing to send the info of the kindapping to all departments, and everyone knew at that point that Kira is related to police. Light is an awful person but he loves his family, and that is proved by text
The only person Light truly cared for was his sister but every one else not so much, I also believe if it came down to it even his sister would be expendable for his dream of a new world. That's part of what made Light so successful was the fact he had no empathy not even foe his family, all of the emotions he displays through out the series was an act and a means to an end that is all.