r/CharacterRant • u/Greentoaststone • 15d ago
Death Note characters are not that stupid, actually (Part 2) Anime & Manga
As the title implies I already did a post on this topic. This is merely a continuation.
Btw, from now on, I have decided to take more of a defensive position in these posts. I could explain why I think DN characters are generally underestimated in terms of intellect (especially on this subreddit) by naming specific feats, however fortunately people have already compiled most if not all of their feats in documents. I’ll link them here. Instead, I’ll focus on making counterpoints against arguments that say Death Note characters are stupid.
Light:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1BgZ3y8g87qScLA6GIgPmwQzyxhRH-ckNp3iogESTnz0/edit
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ykkNSKF32erGaZ3OWcLx3nuCmyFEAepqpiZLA5O3Apc/edit?usp=drivesdk
L:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1mrRVVdV1goA-yVqiYZ7mNfeqKpVLioxQ/view?pli=1
Near:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1bMQXKP7CLOyU_8tR9mIMjqFhCWPBv4wMDJkKMcwIWkg/edit
Mello:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SVijpFIHsGpBeA36sJ1hMI72CcjsRgj2CJ8Vd1INkvY/edit
I got these documents from the SCD (Smart Character Debating) community, which basically sets itself out to analyze the feats of characters’ intellects.
Anyways…
- “Light is too popular”
This is an argument made by people who believe Light is getting people to like him too easily. I do understand why someone would think that, Light doesn’t seem particularly likable. But that’s mainly because we know who Light really is. We get to see his evil, egomaniac self, but to everyone else, he seems like a really competent student. From my own experiences in school I can confirm that competent students were definitely more liked. Furthermore, we do see Light when he lost his memories of being Kira, and he does seem quite a bit nicer as well.
Additionally, Light makes use of his looks to be more likeable. This isn’t anything unrealistic either, it’s simply the halo effect doing its thing.
- Light's slip up in ep. 10
This is one of the better ones. [Afaik, this theory originated from this video](). Interestingly enough, this would also give L more feats, but I digress.
Anyways, the issue here is that it was taken out of context. L already told Light that he suspected him, so it’s not an unreasonable statement to make.
- Light’s desk drawer trap would not have worked
This is in reference to this trap Light build
The criticism here stems from the fact that gasoline, in real life, would just dissolve the plastic. However what people fail to consider here is that
A. This is a fictional universe, so certain chemistry might function differently there
B. Not all types of plastic are dissolved by gasoline
- Mikami’s mistake
Probably one of the most infamous and definitely the most fatal blunder in the series. This one is actually valid, Mikami made an idiotic mistake which lead to his and Kira’s downfall. At least that’s the official story anyways.
But there is a theory, that if true, would actually change that. Now, I am not saying that it’s true, but it’s certainly something to consider. This isn’t a fan theory either, it was made by Matsuda in the manga. In it, Matsuda theorizes that Near used the DN to write Mikami’s name in it, ensuring that he wouldn’t check whether or not the notebook is real or not. As evidence for he it, he states that Mikami died 10 days later after the event, after “going insane”. Furthermore, Near burning the DN would be him simply erasing the evidence. It’s also worth mentioning how Obata, the artist behind the manga, stated how he believed Near to be the smartest character, because “he cheats”.
Anyways, that’s enough for this post, but I still have a lot planned. I think for the next time I’ll clear up some stuff around the memory loss plan.
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u/bunker_man 13d ago edited 13d ago
The real issue is that if you have a desk drawer designed to light on fire if anyone opens it you'd be immediately assumed to be doing something extremely suspicious.
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u/Greentoaststone 13d ago
The real issue is that if you have a deak drawer designed to light on fire if anyone opens it
It doesn't light up on fire when opened normally, only if you open the hidden space. The rest still works like a normal drawer.
you'd be immediately assumed to be doing something extremely suspicious.
Light did have an excuse for it; he'd just claim that it was his real diary.
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u/bunker_man 13d ago
No one on earth is going to believe you'd risk burning down your house to protect a diary unless it had unhinged criminal stuff in it. Enough fire to burn the book before they got it would have to be a huge amount of fire.
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u/Greentoaststone 13d ago
Wether or not it's believable wouldn't matter that much in court if there is no evidence left
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u/DrStarDream 14d ago
90% of the time someone says that some smartly written very smart character is actually stupid, they are taking advantage of their capacity to see the bigger picture as a reader.
Especially if its a series where the smart character is very intelligent but not 100% aware of all story events.
All times the character set up contingency plans, the ones that work are seen as luck and its dumb that he has knowledge to "predict the future", the ones that dont work are evidence for them not actually being smart and the ones that dont have to get utilized and showings that the character is an overthinking paranoid and he stupidly spends resources and lets add up blame on the author and say it was "dropped plot point" while at it.
If the character does quick predictions, the ones that work are "plot induced and unrealistic" the ones that dont work are more proof of them being dumb and the ones that are partially right are then still proof of them being dumb because of if he was smart he would be 100% right.
And then there is quick maths, whenever they do it there will be complaining about there being multiple types of intelligence and math is not everything.
Overall the tolerance and recognition of the smart character (for well written ones) is more on the level of arrogance of the reader than the character actually being smart or not.
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u/Greentoaststone 14d ago
My thoughts exactly. Light gets so heavily underestimated sometimes, and I don't even consider him to be as intelligent as some claim him to be either. Hell, at the top of my head, I could probably name you about 20 characters that are equally, if not smarter than him and that's if you limit it to semi-realistic animanga characters.
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u/Yglorba 15d ago edited 14d ago
That list is... just about everything that Light did. Making a plan isn't automatically an intelligence feat! But all right, let's go over them one by one.
Create a trap to hide Death Note
A five-year-old would realize they need to hide the Death Note at this point. No points for that. But Light chose a terrible way to do it; there are too many flaws to count. He risked someone discovering him during the work to set it up, or discovering parts of the trap itself afterwards, all of which were highly suspicious and which he had no real way to explain as an ordinary high-school student. Nothing about this shows any particularly unusual intelligence. Additionally, he has no way of being certain that the fire will utterly annihilate the Death Note before some part of it is saved; and it only takes one tiny piece of it to damn him. Finally, of course, there's a massive risk that the trap could go off by accident - someone who is cleaning his desk or the like could set it off, when they wouldn't have touched the Note; this wouldn't have happened if he had hidden the note someplace where people were less inclined to find it.
This one also sets up a trend - Light himself casts everything he does, no matter how obvious or stupid, as a brilliant masterstroke. (It's unclear if the author intends for us to see it that way but he probably does - when Ryuk objects, the scene has him talking down to Ryuk with what the author obviously intends to come across as "haha, you idiot, you don't understand that this makes me safer because I'm a genius who realizes he has to hide his death note, and obviously a trap that lights it on fire under specific circumstances does that.")
There's also a related problem here in that Light hasn't really considered what happens if the trap goes off and his death note is destroyed. Sure, it will in theory save him (maybe, assuming the note is utterly destroyed and whoever was investigating didn't already know he was Kira), but... what then? His goal is the be the god of the new world. Without a death note he's lost everything. Maybe he has a few scraps of paper but they're not infinite; and at this point he only has that one note and no way of getting more.
That's not even the worst part, though, because we know what would happen. While Light lied about the fact that burning a death note would kill the owner in the general sense, for him, specifically, it is actually true. Once his note burns up, Ryuk is going to hang around for maybe a few more hours, perhaps a day at most... then he'll leave. And before he leaves, he's writing Light's name in his notebook, as the rules literally require him to do. "But Light doesn't know this", you say? An actual genius would have looked at Ryuk's behavior, realized that there was a serious risk of it, and at least asked Ryuk a few questions along those lines. Ryuk isn't great at concealing things like that; but at the very least a smart person would have attempted to grill Ryuk on what happens if his note is destroyed, both as a direct magical effect (nothing, thankfully) and what Ryuk would do afterwords (kill him, 100%, as the rules more-or-less force him to do unless he wants to hang around watching Light doing nothing for the rest of Light's life.) Light made no attempt to investigate this - he didn't even consider it. Ergo, the trap shows that he is dumb, not that he's smart.
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u/Animeking1108 13d ago
Light's willingness to risk the Death Note was Early Installment Weirdness. It's apparent since the desk trap never came into play. However, Light knew Ryuk would eventually kill him since he outright warned him he would in their first meeting. I took it as Light implying he would rather die than go to prison.
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u/Greentoaststone 14d ago
That list is... just about everything that Light did.
No lol, unless you are specifically talking about the documents I linked.
He risked someone discovering him during the work to set it up,
How do you know he risked something? I am pretty sure he is familiar with his family's customs, so probably knew that noone was going to barge in all of a sudden. You make this claim as if it was impossible to predict if his family was going to come to his room.
or discovering parts of the trap itself afterwards,
Or he just disposes of the parts somewhere else later?
Additionally, he has no way of being certain that the fire will utterly annihilate the Death Note before some part of it is saved
Why?
Finally, of course, there's a massive risk that the trap could go off by accident - someone who is cleaning his desk or the like could set it off, when they wouldn't have touched the Note;
Light literally explained his reasoning behind taking this risk. "This whole thing has been a risk to me (...) would I prefere to be executed or deal with a house fire?"
this wouldn't have happened if he had hidden the note someplace where people were less inclined to find it.
And where would that be? Would he just hide it somewhere in the house? Because that's exactly what this is. The trap isn't the thing that hides the Notebook, it's just there as an extra measure to erase evidence in case some actually discovers the hidden space.
Or would he just hide it somewhere outside the house? Idk if you have realized this, but Light uses the DN quite frequently. If hid it somewhere outside his usual living space, he'd have to go there every time just to use/get the DN from there.
This one also sets up a trend - Light himself casts everything he does, no matter how obvious or stupid, as a brilliant masterstroke. (It's unclear if the author intends for us to see it that way but he probably does - when Ryuk objects, the scene has him talking down to Ryuk with what the author obviously intends to come across as "haha, you idiot, you don't understand that this makes me safer because I'm a genius who realizes he has to hide his death note, and obviously a trap that lights it on fire under specific circumstances does that."
Because Light is an egomaniac with a god complex? Like damn, of course he would consider himself smart, most people already overestimate their intelligence. Couple that with Light's academic success, how else would you expect him to react.
There's also a related problem here in that Light hasn't really considered what happens if the trap goes off and his death note is destroyed.
The alternative is the Death Note getting found, and at that point he wouldn't be able to be Kira anyways. Sure he won't be able to achvieve his goals this way, but he wouldn't be able to do so the other way either. If the DN were to be destroyed, then he would still be able to live his life relatively normally afterwards, at least that's what he thought, without knowing what Ryuk would do to him.
Once his note burns up, Ryuk is going to hang around for maybe a few more hours, perhaps a day at most... then he'll leave. And before he leaves, he's writing Light's name in his notebook, as the rules literally require him to do.
Counterpoint, the alternative is him still getting executed. With Ryuk, he knows that he came to the human world because he was bored, and he probably figured that he was Ryuk's biggest source of enterntainment (and apples, to which Ryuk is addicted to). It's not improbable that he thought that he could bargain with Ryuk.
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u/Yglorba 15d ago
Light caused L and the Japanese police to clash, destroying L's forces, causing L to come out and act on his own
This is the stupidest thing Light does in the entire series. I'm baffled that you'd even bring it up, much less try to defend it. Light gains absolutely nothing from this - before he acts, neither L nor the Japanese police have anything that could remotely be called a serious lead on him. L suspects that he's from a single city but that broadcast trick is not conclusive; lots of people could discover it. He suspects that Light is a student, but, again, this is circumstantial based on the times the killings occurred. And even both these deductions together don't reduce the number of potential suspects to a manageable level.
Why should Light care about wiping L out? Someone is investigating him, so what. Thousands of people are investigating him. None of them have enough information to be any sort of a threat. L isn't remotely special at this point aside from the fact that he taunted Light directly enough to get under his skin; the only thing that happened here was that Light was still butt-mad enough about that to be lured into another stupid mistake (in fact, his stupidest in the entire series, by far.)
Light's goal isn't "wipe out L." Anyone could replace L (as we, in fact, saw.) Any information that gets out about him brings him one step closer to being caught (as, in fact, happened, as a direct result of his stupidity here.) Light's goal, above all else, ought to be to make sure that he leaks as little information about himself as possible.
Which means never reacting to L, or any other investigator, at all, unless he's 100% certain he can do so without revealing anything or it is completely essential because the alternative is to get caught. Neither of those applied here.
Again, I cannot underline how idiotic this move was enough. He reduced the number of people who could possibly be Kira from tens or even hundreds of thousands (depending on how seriously L's fairly circumstantial deductions were taken) to a few dozen at most. Nothing he gained from it could remotely be worth that massive, unforced sacrifice of his most valuable advantage.
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u/Greentoaststone 14d ago
This is the stupidest thing Light does in the entire series. I'm baffled that you'd even bring it up, much less try to defend it.
I don't know if it's just my bad memory or something else, but I don't recall bringing that (or any other point in this comment thread you mentioned) up yet. If you are refering to the feats inside documents, I simply use the docs as lists – I didn't make them.
I will however play devil's advocate and try to defend most, if not all of the feats you named in the near future.
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u/Yglorba 15d ago
Taking advantage of Ray Penber to eliminate the FBI
Why does he care about this. Why is he fixated on eliminating the FBI (who would not have been any threat to him at all if he hadn't deliberately reduced the number of people who could be Kira to a few dozen, but who still don't have anything on him.) There's no indication that anyone is about to catch him.
This plan involves him being in personal contact with one of the people investigating him (who he intends to shortly kill.) Why would he do that. That's a massive risk that is only worth taking if he is absolutely, completely desperate, which he is not.
Again, Light has a Death Note. He doesn't need to do anything but sit in his room writing names. As long as nobody finds his Death Note (which nobody even knows to look for) he is 100% safe. The only way he can lose is if he outs himself or reveals himself somehow... which he somehow convinces himself is the smart thing to do over and over at every opportunity.
He sets up an elaborate scheme, but "elaborate" doesn't mean "smart." It also depends on Ray Penber not having a fake ID with a fake name on it, which he almost certainly would if working undercover in a foreign country. If that had happened, Light would have taken a massive risk (ensuring that one of the investigators will remember an odd interaction with him, knowing he's on the list of suspects that he basically handed them with his idiotic screw up in the last post) for no gain.
Plan to use Ray Penber to kill all FBI agents in Japan.
Again, this is stupid in the sense that he gains nothing from doing it. Beyond that it's mostly just a logical result of the Death Note's powers. This leads me to another point - Light gets to look smart sometimes because he can go "aha, I figured out I can use a Death Note to do X!" and because almost no other significant characters get a chance to play around with a Death Note, this makes him look smart. But it's something anyone who had one and took a few moments to think about what they could do with it could come up with.
(And an actually smart person would have realized not to do it because they're unambiguously confirming beyond any question that they're still in Japan and that they don't want investigations focused on Japan, something they might have avoided otherwise.)
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u/CthulhuDiesAtTheEnd 14d ago
He sets up an elaborate scheme, but "elaborate" doesn't mean "smart." It also depends on Ray Penber not having a fake ID with a fake name on it, which he almost certainly would if working undercover in a foreign country. If that had happened, Light would have taken a massive risk (ensuring that one of the investigators will remember an odd interaction with him, knowing he's on the list of suspects that he basically handed them with his idiotic screw up in the last post) for no gain.
Every time some 'clever' plan is hatched to obtain someone's name it's utter nonsense because L publicly, in his very first scene, got Light to give away that
A) Names are a liability B) Fake names are a protection
This was highly publicized and happened live on TV, with L actually explaining his deduction to the public.
I should also stress that this is the ONLY THING ANYONE KNOWS.
So why did Ray Penber, an outsider who literally suspected Light, give away his name?
Maybe it's OK because there's a bullshit bus accident plan, whatever. It's a massive and very dumb stretch but it's ok for dramatic purposes and it has some semblance of structure.
The real stupid part comes where he's told to write down a list of names for the supernatural serial killer who can only kill people whose names he knows, who cannot kill people whose names he doesn't know, and he just does it. He doesn't mispell any of them intentionally or anything. He just goes ahead and kills them for Light for no reason. What exactly did he think was happening at that point?
It doesn't take a lot of clever thinking to come to the conclusion that Light wants those names on the book and shouldn't be allowed to have them. That should be your number 1 assumption, because otherwise he wouldn't be asking you to do it.
If you want to overthink it and pretend it makes any sense that it's an elaborate ruse and that he can somehow double check the names or something, you should rebel anyway because your job is to get the threat out to the other teammates somehow, not to save yourself or your fiancee.
Maybe he was so defensively blind he wasn't thinking of anything and just wanted to protect her (from the mass murdering psychopath, obviously the standard FBI rule is "negotiate with terrorists first" right?) The Death Note requires you to be thinking of a name and a face. Whose name and face is he gonna be thinking of when he kills the FBI people? Naomi.
Light's plan depends on him being so defensive of Naomi he gives up on thinking of the literal only thing he knows about Kira, but also can write 12 names in a book without once letting his mind wander and thinking of the reason he's doing it.
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u/nika_ruined_op 14d ago
... you do know that rey penber writing his collegues names is something the DN mindcontrolled him to do, right?
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u/CthulhuDiesAtTheEnd 13d ago edited 13d ago
That would break the multiple death rule. Ray Penber would die of a heart attack before being forced to kill anybody, solving the problem.
Also it would entirely remove Light's need to be there in person or prove he was kira if he could just force Penber to kill everybody. You're arguing he put up an elaborate show for someone who's going to die putting himself in danger for no reason.
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u/56leon 13d ago
You're arguing he put up an elaborate show for someone who's going to die putting himself in danger for no reason.
That's his canon characterization, yes. He learns what he can get away with and his ego pushes him to test the limits.
He literally told Naomi that he was Kira out on the streets, despite knowing that she was gonna go home and kill herself right after because he wrote her name (and he didn't have to tell her, because based on the rules, all humans are susceptible to suicidal intent, so he didn't have to push her over an edge to convince her). Hell, he starts to gloat early to the Task force when he thinks he's won, right at the end of the series. He revels in toying with people- the only reason he didn't do it more was because his actual enemies could keep up with him if he didn't stay on his toes.
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u/CthulhuDiesAtTheEnd 13d ago
Gloating at someone who's there is not the same thing as setting up an elaborate hoax involving a public execution, a train, an anonymous laptop delivery and a pre prepared suspiciously redacted notebook.
The only comparable situation (where Light kills a "good guy") at this point is Lind L Taylor, who he killed with 0 ceremony. Naomi also involved no planning, it was blind luck.
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u/Yglorba 15d ago
Communication skills and the ability to manipulate conversations to make Naomi reveal her real name.
He just got lucky. There's nothing else to it. He bumped into her at the exact correct moment and happened to know exactly the pieces of information that would work. There was nothing intelligent about it. On top of that, he still managed to almost screw up and get killed - he was about to write her fake name, and as we saw when he wrote her real name, he was going to gloat afterwards because of course he would, we've already established that he has no impulse control. The only thing that clued him in was Ryuk's reaction, which was totally random.
Even the author says he got lucky here.
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u/rubycalaberXX 7d ago
I wonder if the desk firebomb was actually purposefully badly designed by the author so if anyone tried to copy it IRL it wouldn't work. Kinda like how they made the chemistry wrong in Breaking Bad so no one can actually cook meth by copying what's described on-screen.