Death Note

I actually don't get it. Lawful Evil must mean something a lot different than what I thought, because I thought that L was after Kira for the greater good buy also because L is a detective and Light was killing hundreds of people illegally all the time. He's even thought of as a "criminal mastermind" pretty often. Am I missing something?

See, the key word there is "negotiation". And like I said, not a lawyer, but I'm pretty sure there's a difference between the established laws of war and a president acting while a gun is held to his head. See: Treaties of Velasco.

Light is Lawful Evil of the "impose my own order" variety.

edited 7th Jul '16 8:20:40 PM by TheAirman

"Lawful" does not mean "good," or even "on the side of the law." It means ordered. Now, we can argue whether Light truly counts as ordered due to his emotional fits and lack of any personal code besides "I will become God," but being a criminal does not automatically mean you cannot be lawful. For example, many crime lords are Lawful Evil, because they keep their little criminal empire smooth and ordered.

Light isn't Lawful Evil, not anymore than a mad king like Joffrey or Aerys is Lawful Evil. His rules are arbitrary and subject to change based on his mood and level of frustration, and while he has a definite god complex, there's no particular religious tenants he's trying to force on people.

Light doesn't operate according to any sort of code. "I don't kill people who've served their time...unless I decide it wasn't enough." "I don't kill petty criminals...unless I need someone for an experiment." "I don't kill innocent people...unless they're in my way or I need to make a point." "I don't kill those who support me...unless they get out of line." "I don't kill civilians...but I will in the future if I decide they're lazy." Etc, etc. Every apparent rule has a possible exception, with the end result that his behaviour is totally unpredictable and everyone is in effect in danger.

A draconian legal system in which All Crimes Are Equal can be Lawful Evil, but that's still a legal system in which there are established rules that can be understood. A murderous vigilante can be Lawful Evil, provided s/he has an easily understandable code. A dictator can be Lawful Evil, provided the laws are out there and can be understood by all (that doesn't mean there has to be a single redeeming feature within said laws, mind you). But Light? No one who isn't inside of Light's head could possibly hope to comprehend how he operates, particularly once you factor in that, so far as the general public are concerned, he, Misa, and Higuchi are all the same person. I'll note by the way that ordering Rem to give the notebook to somebody like Higuchi is a real strike against Light being Lawful Evil—if he really was Lawful Evil (with a dedication to stopping those he views as criminals) than he wouldn't violate that personal code in order to arm a criminal like Higuchi.

Light's Neutral Evil. His first love is himself and nobody else and all his actions are meant to ultimately benefit himself.

edited 8th Jul '16 8:57:57 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Personally, I've always considered "everybody has to follow these rules... except for me, obiviously" one of the typical attitudes of Lawful Evil. But in the end, the Lawful/Chaotic axis can mean so many different things that it's basically impossible to give absolute statements about it.

Well, I do agree that he's 100% Evil and barely over the line between Lawful and Neutral, though.

edited 8th Jul '16 12:15:34 AM by Cozzer

I dunno, I think Lawful/Chaotic is sensible enough. Chaotic has a bit more variety to it because not all CE people are The Joker. Chaotic just meas you not only disregard laws or restrictions, you actively oppose them. Freedom is the name of the game. It's why I regard Zevran as CE, if anyone here has played Dragon Age. CE people can be perfectly sane.

I don't know, during my tabletop RPG career I've had several characters for whom I could have made a compelling argument both for them being Chaotic and them being Lawful. :P I think it's one of these things where the GM needs to take a moment before the campaign begins and say "Ok, for me being Lawful means this and being Chaotic means that".

I could probably say I'm Lawful Neutral because of all the stupid rules I give myself.

I agree with that, but Light goes beyond that in the sense that his rules are arbitrary even as applied to other people. It's based entirely on his personal whims and that's where I'd say he crosses the line between Lawful Evil and Neutral Evil.

A Lawful Evil society or character can be incredibly biased in favour of one group or another but that unfairness should still be reflected in the rules (historically laws that legalize slavery, or Jim Crow laws would be good examples of this). In Light's case, however, the groups he is against ultimately boil down to "people I don't like" and that's an arbitrary category.

A Lawful Evil dictator kills you because you violated the rules, insane as they might be. A Neutral Evil dictator kills you because he felt like it. A Chaotic Evil dictator runs his society into the ground with amazing speed and you just happen to be a casualty.

edited 8th Jul '16 9:21:03 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

I can get behind Light as Neutral Evil, but at least Mikami works as Lawful Evil I think. He's extremely consistent and follow's his "god's" orders and directives to the best of his ability.

I'd put everyone on the task force as Neutral Good, except Soichiro who's Lawful Good. L and Near as good-leaning True Neutral. Misa, Mello, and Higuchi as three very different kinds of Chaotic Evil.

@ Ambar

I would take issue with likening Light to Joffrey. Light might be capricious but he was actually competent. Even if he wasn't as smart as he thought he was, he was still galaxies ahead of someone like Joffrey and he successfully "reigned" for several years. Joff lasted, what, a few months? I'm no good with time in ASOIAF. Tyrion got appointed as Hand precisely because Tywin knew that, between Joff and Cersei, the Lannisters o fKing's Landing would run the Seven Kingdoms into the ground in no time. (he was remarkably prescient about that. See Book 4)

Also, on Higuchi, is Light handing him the Death Note really hypocritical? I'm honestly asking here. Is there any proof the Yotsuba Group had committed any crime before they acquired the Death Note? If not, then giving Higuchi the note book wouldn't be "wrong" because Higuchi wasn't a criminal at this time.

edited 8th Jul '16 2:16:11 PM by Nikkolas

Hardly. Misa's as devoted to Light as Mikami is. She follows his directives to the letter so long as she can understand them. You could argue that if left independent she'd trend Chaotic but she isn't independent for more than a few days at the start.

Higuchi isn't Chaotic either. He's not out to tear down society or flout the rules. He's out to advance within his corporation, and advance the corporations own stock holdings while he's at it. His goals are selfish and have no association with Law or Chaos. He's Neutral Evil, same as Light.

Mello's the only one you could really make a Chaotic Evil case for since he's operating outside the system to bring down a tyrant. Even then it gets iffy since Light is not the head of state, and Mello's actions are a lot more controlled than those of your average Chaotic Evil revolutionary.

Sidenote, but Light's lucky that Mello is the worst person to ever come after him. Watching him try to deal with a genuine terrorist organization or revolutionary movement would have been pretty funny since there's not a lot he can do to them.

@Nikkolas

Your comments on the Joffrey/Light comparison I made are meaningless because I wasn't arguing competency. Please quote to me where I, at any point in the prior post, mentioned competency. You won't be able to because I never mentioned competency. I said neither Light nor Joffrey is consistent enough in their actions to be Lawful Evil, which has nothing whatsoever to do with the subject of competency. So where on Earth did that come from?

Seriously man, do you finish reading other people's posts before you respond, or do you just start writing halfway through? I don't say this to be mean, but this is not the first time where someone has compared two characters on the basis of a specific trait they have in common, and you have proceeded to denounce the comparison on the basis of an entirely different set of traits. It gets very hard to argue or have any sort of meaningful discussion when you respond to things that weren't said. I will never be upset about having to defend my arguments, but I really mind having to respond to arguments against things I never said.

Light explicitly told Rem to find someone who was both evil and stupid and give the DN to him.

edited 8th Jul '16 2:33:03 PM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Can't someone remove Movie L's hoodie seems like a flimsy disguise.

Speaking of D&D alignments, a character categorization system I enjoy even more is Magic: The Gathering's "color pie."

Light was recently brought up here in such a discussion.

edited 9th Jul '16 1:03:34 AM by StateOfBedlam

@Ambar

True enough about only comparing a particular aspect of those characters. I just don't know why you chose Joffrey instead of the actual Mad King of ASOIAF. Given as you clearly dislike Light, I figured you were also comparing Light with a universally reviled punk like Joffrey for that reason as well.

That's interesting. I know very little about Magic. What would L be?

Because comparing him to Aerys would be so complimentary? Aerys is more insane, more unbalanced, less competent, and responsible for more death and destruction than Joffrey. If my comparing Light to Joffrey offends you—and makes you invent things to argue about that I never said—I'm not sure why comparing him to Aerys wouldn't.

Moreover I did compare him to Aerys. I said, and I quote:

So seeing as your initial response didn't take into account what I wrote, and this response didn't take into account what I wrote, I ask again—do you actually read what I write before you reply? Or did you just read long enough to spot Joffrey's name and then start responding without bothering to see the context?

Again, comparing him to Aerys (which I did) wouldn't be any more complimentary. Secondly, and I'm sorry to have to say this, you are not a mind reader. You don't get to decide what I "really meant" or what I "was also doing" and then respond to it. You can respond to what I actually said in the text of my replies, or you can avoid responding at all. I never mentioned the subject of competency in the comparison, and you don't get to determine, apropos of exactly nothing, that I was "really talking about competency" and start an argument about it.

I mean I could say right now that the reason you're "really upset" is because you're a diehard Light fanboy and you don't like him being compared to other overtly villainous characters. But that would be a freaking stupid thing for me to say, because whatever might be going on in your head, that's not something you've actually said and it's therefore something I should not assume. It's a shame you don't seem willing to pay me the same courtesy.

edited 9th Jul '16 9:03:35 AM by AmbarSonofDeshar

Mono-Blue or Blue/White, I think. He's most interested in plying his deductive intellect to solve problems he personally finds interesting (seems like a Blue trait), but he also announced that he's "righteous" or "justice" (depending on the translation) at the beginning of the series (which strikes me as a White mindset).

So here's a discussion topic I'm slightly curious about: If Light had won, how long would it have taken for him to kill Mikami?

If Light had won he would not kill Mikami... because Ryuk would get bored and kill Light first.

The day Mikami stops worshiping Light.

The same way Ryuk got bored and killed Light in the five years between L's death and the emergence of Mello and Near?

I don't remember exactly what Light said back then, but didn't he tell Ryuk that L's death was just the begining and that things would get even more fun? Well, it took five years but Near and Mello appeared eventually. I very much doubt the same thing would happen again if Light had won, since there can't be that many decent opponents left, and Ryuk was likely getting bored watching Light kill random people for five whole years. In fact, it's possible that had Near and Mello not appeared Ryuk would have gotten bored and killed Light even sooner than he did in the end... but that's just me guessing.

Ryuk is rather stupid and evil (but not Stupid Evil) so that means he can be dangerously impulsive that it also means he's easy to manipulate. I don't think Light could have held him off forever but it would have taken a while for Ryuk to finally just abandon his little game.

As for Mikami, recall that Light never even killed Misa, in spite of Misa's constant screw-ups and general annoying-ness. I don't think Light would kill Mikami unless Mikami really, REALLY screwed up.

From Chapter 100: Light's thoughts: "I was planning on getting rid of Takada after settling everything on the 28th anyway. Such a slight alteration won't negatively affect my plans."

So it's established that he was planning to kill Kiyomi Takada after killing Near, the task force, and the SPK. Presumably this is because she had some knowledge of the killing method, and Light agreed with Near that Kira's win condition is "kill everyone with knowledge of the notebooks." Otherwise, she was mostly performing her duties to Light's satisfaction.

He wanted to kill Misa, but she had Rem protecting her. By the time Rem was out of the way, she was more useful to him alive because he understood how to utilize her eyes and have her do the killings while he was being "L". When she was no longer useful in this way, she was useful in giving the Task Force (specifically Mogi and Aizawa) busy work watching her for suspicious activity while Light moved his plans against Near forward.

So after Light wins, we know he kills Takada. Other than that, Mikami and Misa are alive. Presumably Light would kill one or the other around this time too (in Misa's case, she has no memory of the notebooks, but she's still a loose end if Light no longer wants to use her). Both of them if he no longer cares about using the shinigami eyes.

Maybe the obvious one to keep is Mikami: the competent one. Except I find it difficult to imagine Light shouldering his "godly" duties with someone almost as smart as he is without being under pressure by someone like Near, but it's intriguing to imagine what it might entail if he did.

So I was curious if people thought he would kill Mikami right away or continue some kind of partnership with him first. Either way, I think it's inevitable that Light kills everyone who helps him.

edited 24th Jul '16 2:58:38 AM by StateOfBedlam

So do you guys think DN as a whole, and Light specifically, were intended to be a Deconstruction of typical shounen?

I've heard it said a few times here and there but a topic elsewhere really made me think on it. It was asking about ways to subvert Defeat Equals Friendship and possible examples of such and that brought Death Note to mind. When Light defeated someone, they invariably ended up as a corpse. Not a lot of room for shounen team-building there.

edited 4th Aug '16 7:47:10 AM by Nikkolas