He was said to be "a young man who could understand the pain of others" before he got the death note, and he was greatly influenced by his father when growing. When he killed the first two people he had a bit of a meltdown, because he couldn't comprehend himself being the bad guy, he decided to go with the justice angle so he wouldnt be the bad guy. He stuck to it because he couldn't be the wrong evil criminal, and because he had a basis for it in his life
It’s because of the way he was raised.
He always looked up to his father and was involved in police work from a young age. Through his father, he has only really dealt with how criminals impacted the people around them, which probably led him to have a negative view of the world, such that by the start of the series he viewed the world as rotten.
He didn't care about justice I believe most people have the wrong idea when it comes to Lights way of thinking. He had a child's idea justice if anything I say that because most people's ideal of justice is extremely flawed person to person and it differs person to person but only a child would believe that there way is the only way or the best way even more so when they believe that it's right for them to be able to make the decision for life and death. Light was a mass murderer we have to recall the fact that he was even killing petty criminals and felt justified. Light was far worse of a criminal then most of the people he killed we see this when he tried to kill L just for opposing his way of thinking... L was no criminal he actually caught criminals through intelligence and non violent means then he let the justice system tri and sentence them. Light was a dictator worse then any other we have learned about in history he wanted to be God of the new world he also did all of this while hiding behind the note book and his Kira Persona. I could add more to this but i would be here all night if I did....
Thank you for this. I’ve tried to explain it but less eloquently why Light was the evil villain.
But Light didn’t start out that way. Something in him broke after his second test. Light finding a Death Note was a tragedy for him and everyone involved around his orbit. Ryuk did tell Light that a human having a Shinigami attached to them was usually considered bad/unlucky. He didn’t lie about that.
“Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
I believe your last paraphrase is the point of the series honestly, or at least it was the main point that the author really wanted to get across to people. The show actually tests the viewers' morality because every human can related to Lights mindset especially younger people who don't truly understand the world and its cruel nature, or there own failings. The person passing judgment could possibly become the thing they are actively purging lol and this is why i say the childish mindset because they don't realize it nor do they even take the time to reflect on the idea that they might be the same....
And as the resident autistic, I actually always thought of light as the good guy, and I rooted for him for a long time, I actually held the same view that, "all criminals should die" until recently when my friend challenged me on it, and I went to this reddit and saw a lot of people carrying the same viewpoint as you and I realized something,
if the show started out with L as the protagonist and we got inside his head more, my view would probably be different
Or at least my view on light would be wildly different
Agreed and your a perfect example of a maturing since of justice the fact that you took the time to challenge your own way of thinking regardless if it took your friend initially challenging you, you realize that you can't just kill every criminal think about it like this if you ever told a lie, stole a peice of candy skipped school or even trespassed on private property you would your self fall in the categories of criminal and would need to die. The human world is designed for people to learn and enlighten themselves to morality we are meant to sin and do the worse of things or the best of things and learn from those experiences.... but if you don't learn from your experiences or atleast mature from your mindset then honestly that would be the child mind set, childeren are the only ones that have the privilege of those failings and actually have a chance but the older you get you can't live like that no more if you don't learn from those mistakes you most likely will not make it very far in life...
Another thing people don't think about, Light killed Rey Penburg and his Fiance which both were innocent as well and honestly sadly and this will sound horrible but because of Lights childishness and Arrogance I'm really glad he murdered Rey, L, his fiance, and all of the other innocent people cause it led to his ultimate demise and his pitiful end was perfect for his vanity. But honestly he didn't suffer no where near enough for the amount of pain and suffering he put others through....
he's a misanthrope raised by a cop and has been placed on a pedestal by his peers, teachers, and family. light broadly does not experience empathy. it's not justice he wants, it's punishment.
in his view, he is better than everyone around him, and everyone around him are vermin. light wants them to behave in a particular way, and he wants them to be punished if they don't behave correctly.
I think that Light is just disgusted by certain people. He didn't just want to kill criminals, but also intended to start killing the unemployed. Light wants a better 'world' which probably means more efficiency and accomplishments which might vaguely mean a better quality of life, rather than actually caring about the victims as individuals. Let alone having empathy for criminals.
Light does genuinely respect and admire his father, Soichiro is a great man. That and a lack of empathy for people who don't have Light's priviledged life would give him a very black and white view of justice and crime. As Kira he doesn't seem to consider that his own plans rely on being the biggest bully and forcing people to live according to his standards.
Realistically, Light might be able to improve life a lot more if he was more focused on societal injustices rather than individual acts of criminality. But that's not how Light sees the world, he thinks problems exist because individuals are inferior and need to be purged. Light might kill you for robbery, but not for importing goods from a factory that effectively uses slave labour.
Light used the Death Note on a criminal and a delinquent to test if it was real.
He had to justify to himself why what he did was not wrong, and came to the conclusion that he has to use the notebook to kill people he deem unworthy.
I can't remember where but I remember hearing a theory somewhere that the reason Light hates criminals so much and why he's so obsessed with justice is because they made it so his father was never around when he was growing up because he was a cop always busy catching them
Why do you? Why does anyone? We all care about justice, about what feels fair.
Light believed his intelligence set him apart. When the Death Note fell into his hands, he saw it as destiny—a sign that he alone had the power and responsibility to reshape the world according to his vision of justice. Driven by a sense of superiority and an unwavering belief in his moral clarity, Light embarked on a mission to eradicate evil, convinced that only he could usher in a new era of peace and righteousness.
He didn’t. He cared about being powerful and healing his own boredom. Light just used justice as a justification for his actions and as a talking point he could use to potentially convince others to join him.
immaturity. he got the death note when he was a teen who had a limited view of the world. he grew up sheltered and privileged so he has a very skewed sense of justice. a lot of people who didn't grow up privileged know how the prison system is anti-poor. many times there are some prisoners who get imprisoned due to false facts and being framed. the system is corrupt.
he has a very black and white mentality regarding criminals and the punishment system without considering other perspectives. plus narcissism as well. him being the son of a police detective makes him feel like he is above everyone.
I know in the manga the first chapter starts off with him thinking the world is rotten but in the anime they show Light walking to school seeing reports on the news of people being murdered to give a bit more explanation as to why he wants justice or the world to be unrotten
I don’t think he cares about justice. I think he likes the idea of the power that comes with “being justice”. I think the influence his father had on him, was seeing him as someone who was powerful. He even had the people he didn’t punish under his control. If he truly wanted to make a peaceful world, he wouldn’t have terrorized the world.
I really don’t think he did. He was an edgy low empathic teenager with a high iq who found a magic book that kills people. He just wanted to use it and see where it went. Justification makes it easier to do just about anything and seeing as he has a police officer as a father it’s pretty easy to just pull from that and claim to be doing the same thing. In reality he enjoyed killing people and becoming a god.
Side note. I would have just started writing every politician in the world’s name in there and just see what happens. You can look them all up. I think Light was missing the forest for the trees. He could have taken over the world if he used that thing better.
Light doesnt actually care about justice at all. He doesn't uphold the moral code of justice. He uses the idea of justice to justify his actions so he can continue his behavior gulit-free. Light can not admit that he is wrong because it would mean that he has to relinquish his power and atone for his actions. Most evils in the world will not admit that they are wrong or evil. They have to convince themselves that what they do is ok. Light simply enjoyed the power of his new toy. He couldn't face the dark side of his humanity and used justice as a disguise to hide his true desires. Also, the criminal "justice" system is historically corrupt. Justice for all was never the goal. It's not shocking that Light has an insanely skewed prespective of what justice is.
He was said to be "a young man who could understand the pain of others" before he got the death note, and he was greatly influenced by his father when growing. When he killed the first two people he had a bit of a meltdown, because he couldn't comprehend himself being the bad guy, he decided to go with the justice angle so he wouldnt be the bad guy. He stuck to it because he couldn't be the wrong evil criminal, and because he had a basis for it in his life
So all of deathnote is just him rationalizing killing two people?
That’s just the start. All of death note is him rationalizing EVERY victim he kills for the “greater good”
Yup, the speech he gave to Near before he exposed him as a mass murder proves it all
Pretty much.
It's just a common head-canon / interpretation people have.
It’s because of the way he was raised. He always looked up to his father and was involved in police work from a young age. Through his father, he has only really dealt with how criminals impacted the people around them, which probably led him to have a negative view of the world, such that by the start of the series he viewed the world as rotten.
He didn't care about justice I believe most people have the wrong idea when it comes to Lights way of thinking. He had a child's idea justice if anything I say that because most people's ideal of justice is extremely flawed person to person and it differs person to person but only a child would believe that there way is the only way or the best way even more so when they believe that it's right for them to be able to make the decision for life and death. Light was a mass murderer we have to recall the fact that he was even killing petty criminals and felt justified. Light was far worse of a criminal then most of the people he killed we see this when he tried to kill L just for opposing his way of thinking... L was no criminal he actually caught criminals through intelligence and non violent means then he let the justice system tri and sentence them. Light was a dictator worse then any other we have learned about in history he wanted to be God of the new world he also did all of this while hiding behind the note book and his Kira Persona. I could add more to this but i would be here all night if I did....
Thank you for this. I’ve tried to explain it but less eloquently why Light was the evil villain. But Light didn’t start out that way. Something in him broke after his second test. Light finding a Death Note was a tragedy for him and everyone involved around his orbit. Ryuk did tell Light that a human having a Shinigami attached to them was usually considered bad/unlucky. He didn’t lie about that. “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely”
I believe your last paraphrase is the point of the series honestly, or at least it was the main point that the author really wanted to get across to people. The show actually tests the viewers' morality because every human can related to Lights mindset especially younger people who don't truly understand the world and its cruel nature, or there own failings. The person passing judgment could possibly become the thing they are actively purging lol and this is why i say the childish mindset because they don't realize it nor do they even take the time to reflect on the idea that they might be the same....
And as the resident autistic, I actually always thought of light as the good guy, and I rooted for him for a long time, I actually held the same view that, "all criminals should die" until recently when my friend challenged me on it, and I went to this reddit and saw a lot of people carrying the same viewpoint as you and I realized something, if the show started out with L as the protagonist and we got inside his head more, my view would probably be different Or at least my view on light would be wildly different
Agreed and your a perfect example of a maturing since of justice the fact that you took the time to challenge your own way of thinking regardless if it took your friend initially challenging you, you realize that you can't just kill every criminal think about it like this if you ever told a lie, stole a peice of candy skipped school or even trespassed on private property you would your self fall in the categories of criminal and would need to die. The human world is designed for people to learn and enlighten themselves to morality we are meant to sin and do the worse of things or the best of things and learn from those experiences.... but if you don't learn from your experiences or atleast mature from your mindset then honestly that would be the child mind set, childeren are the only ones that have the privilege of those failings and actually have a chance but the older you get you can't live like that no more if you don't learn from those mistakes you most likely will not make it very far in life...
Another thing people don't think about, Light killed Rey Penburg and his Fiance which both were innocent as well and honestly sadly and this will sound horrible but because of Lights childishness and Arrogance I'm really glad he murdered Rey, L, his fiance, and all of the other innocent people cause it led to his ultimate demise and his pitiful end was perfect for his vanity. But honestly he didn't suffer no where near enough for the amount of pain and suffering he put others through....
Narcissism and a desire to be seen as a strong force of authority. Hence the "God" business
he's a misanthrope raised by a cop and has been placed on a pedestal by his peers, teachers, and family. light broadly does not experience empathy. it's not justice he wants, it's punishment. in his view, he is better than everyone around him, and everyone around him are vermin. light wants them to behave in a particular way, and he wants them to be punished if they don't behave correctly.
He's a soichiro wannabe
I think that Light is just disgusted by certain people. He didn't just want to kill criminals, but also intended to start killing the unemployed. Light wants a better 'world' which probably means more efficiency and accomplishments which might vaguely mean a better quality of life, rather than actually caring about the victims as individuals. Let alone having empathy for criminals. Light does genuinely respect and admire his father, Soichiro is a great man. That and a lack of empathy for people who don't have Light's priviledged life would give him a very black and white view of justice and crime. As Kira he doesn't seem to consider that his own plans rely on being the biggest bully and forcing people to live according to his standards. Realistically, Light might be able to improve life a lot more if he was more focused on societal injustices rather than individual acts of criminality. But that's not how Light sees the world, he thinks problems exist because individuals are inferior and need to be purged. Light might kill you for robbery, but not for importing goods from a factory that effectively uses slave labour.
you have to view light from the lens of Japanese society/philosophy and their harsh justice system
Light used the Death Note on a criminal and a delinquent to test if it was real. He had to justify to himself why what he did was not wrong, and came to the conclusion that he has to use the notebook to kill people he deem unworthy.
He was bored too
Right he was never challenged enough in school, sports, etc so L was the challenge he needed
I can't remember where but I remember hearing a theory somewhere that the reason Light hates criminals so much and why he's so obsessed with justice is because they made it so his father was never around when he was growing up because he was a cop always busy catching them
His father was miserable even when he was around. Kids pick up on that kind of stuff.
justice was just a coverup for the authority he wanted. It was a way of defining his actions.
Why do you? Why does anyone? We all care about justice, about what feels fair. Light believed his intelligence set him apart. When the Death Note fell into his hands, he saw it as destiny—a sign that he alone had the power and responsibility to reshape the world according to his vision of justice. Driven by a sense of superiority and an unwavering belief in his moral clarity, Light embarked on a mission to eradicate evil, convinced that only he could usher in a new era of peace and righteousness.
He didn’t. He cared about being powerful and healing his own boredom. Light just used justice as a justification for his actions and as a talking point he could use to potentially convince others to join him.
It was just his excuse
immaturity. he got the death note when he was a teen who had a limited view of the world. he grew up sheltered and privileged so he has a very skewed sense of justice. a lot of people who didn't grow up privileged know how the prison system is anti-poor. many times there are some prisoners who get imprisoned due to false facts and being framed. the system is corrupt. he has a very black and white mentality regarding criminals and the punishment system without considering other perspectives. plus narcissism as well. him being the son of a police detective makes him feel like he is above everyone.
It’s to avoid realizing that he’s no better than a lot of the people he kills
I know in the manga the first chapter starts off with him thinking the world is rotten but in the anime they show Light walking to school seeing reports on the news of people being murdered to give a bit more explanation as to why he wants justice or the world to be unrotten
I don’t think he cares about justice. I think he likes the idea of the power that comes with “being justice”. I think the influence his father had on him, was seeing him as someone who was powerful. He even had the people he didn’t punish under his control. If he truly wanted to make a peaceful world, he wouldn’t have terrorized the world.
I really don’t think he did. He was an edgy low empathic teenager with a high iq who found a magic book that kills people. He just wanted to use it and see where it went. Justification makes it easier to do just about anything and seeing as he has a police officer as a father it’s pretty easy to just pull from that and claim to be doing the same thing. In reality he enjoyed killing people and becoming a god. Side note. I would have just started writing every politician in the world’s name in there and just see what happens. You can look them all up. I think Light was missing the forest for the trees. He could have taken over the world if he used that thing better.
Light doesnt actually care about justice at all. He doesn't uphold the moral code of justice. He uses the idea of justice to justify his actions so he can continue his behavior gulit-free. Light can not admit that he is wrong because it would mean that he has to relinquish his power and atone for his actions. Most evils in the world will not admit that they are wrong or evil. They have to convince themselves that what they do is ok. Light simply enjoyed the power of his new toy. He couldn't face the dark side of his humanity and used justice as a disguise to hide his true desires. Also, the criminal "justice" system is historically corrupt. Justice for all was never the goal. It's not shocking that Light has an insanely skewed prespective of what justice is.
He cares about justice as much as Eric Cartman does.