Death Note/Headscratchers/Death Notes in Other Fiction

Death Notes in other fiction

 * What would happen if you wrote "Dick Cheney"? He wouldn't be able to die of a heart attack (as his blood flow will literally never stop unintentionally due to him having a non-stop pump, not a heart), but that's the default. This also applys to other human beings with that kind of artifical blood flow, as well as people with fully robotic bodies in Ghost in the Shell.
 * If you're out to kill Motoko Kusanagi, you're in for a tough one before you even take in account the android body, because it's not her birth name and there's no guaranty shinigami's eyes would work on her robot face. Now, with Dick, you can go around the limitation of him not having a biological heart by killing through any number of way that don't involve cardiac arrest. As for what exactly would the Death note do without a specified way of death...
 * Then Ann and Nancy Wilson will beat him to death.
 * Quite simply, what would happen if someone with Shinigami Eyes looked at Buffy Summers in Season 1, 5, and after 6? At the end of Season 1, she dies, but is saved via CPR (but for all magical intents and purposes, she died). In Season 5, she dies again, this time for months. After that, she's brought back from the dead. Would they see her final death date from the start? Would it change each time she comes back? Would it stay the same until Season 5? What about someone looking at Dawn? Would they even see a human being, or would they see The Key? Also, at what point would Light go from seeing Dawn, to seeing The Key?
 * Also regarding Dawnie, if someone wrote "Dawn Summers", would it work, or would it have to be "The Key"? She's legally Dawn Summers, but, mystically, she's The Key, and people only see her as Dawn Summers (unless they're crazy, at which point, they see her true form).
 * Regarding Buffy, the Shinigami Eyes don't factor in changes to lifespan caused by Death Notes, I imagine that being resurrected by magic would also be ignored, as for the CPR, as death in Death Note is perament (barring the use of magic i.e. the Death Eraser) I suspect her first death wouldn't count as far a the Shinigami Eyes are concerned.
 * Regarding, Dawn does she even count as human for the purposes of magic? if not she probably wouldn't display a name or lifespan at all. If she does count as human I suspect her name would be "Dawn Summers" as "The Key" isn't so much a name as it is a description.
 * This is going to sound like the premise to a Fan Fiction, but it really does bug me. What the limitations of the Death Note be ended up in another series? Could if trump Voldemort's horcruxes? Or Hidan's immortality? Would it work on Inuyasha or Naraku since they're part human?
 * I'm guessing the Death Note would work on Voldemort if one included the destruction of the horcruxes in the details of the death.
 * It would only take ". Commits suicide in a way which will result in permanent death".
 * If you mention Voldemort and his horcruxes, it would simply result in all of them dieing of heart attacks. Most of his horcruxes can't actually get heart attacks, so it would probably kill them in another manner. What would be a horcruxes face?
 * Assuming that horcruxes are valid targets, you'd probably need enough information about their appearance to identify them.
 * Maybe you'd have to kill him as many times as many Horcruxes he has? Of course, you can always write " destroys all his Horcruxes and dies".
 * But " destroys all his Horcruxes and dies" doesn't work: the Death Node can't force a prisoner to draw L's face, because the prisoner doesn't know what L looks like. So it can't force Voldemort to destroy all his Horcruxes, because Book 7 . So he simply gets an heart attack. But...
 * ... can a wizard with Horcruxes die by heart attack? Or he simply gets better? Probably you must completely destroy his body, e.g. force him to scream "Incendio" near a propane tank. BUT...
 * ... if you destroy Voldemort's body but not his Horcruxes, he dies, but he can come back... exactly 205 times.
 * What would happen if used someone's common name in the Death Note in Eragon? Would the true name be needed? If so, what if it changed?
 * If Paolini can't be bothered to keep a consistent magic system, the hypothetical crossover writer certainly need not feel constrained. The common name is the way to go. (Eh, on second thought, at least they ARE consistent about the truenaming thing. Sure - you need to write the true name, and if the true name changes between the writing and the time of death, you'll need to find it out all over again. Also, elves all have the Shinigami Eyes.)
 * What would happen if a Death Note was used on Ichigo Kurosaki?
 * Good question, especially since Death Note shinigami are more like Hollows than Bleach shinigami. I believe it would have no effect as Ichigo is technically already dead.
 * Would the Death Note consider Klingons humans since they're part of the same species? What about the other animals that were in the genus: homo?
 * Also, is it ever established that the Death Note only works on humans (e.g. showing an animal's face though shingami eyes, but not its name)
 * Then, what's an animal's real name? I mean, except for the one you can give to your pet?
 * Animals, like humans, aren't born with a name tag. Nothing has a name until it is given one.
 * Apparently, some animals do name their young. Those names would probably be the animals' true names. But since they can't write, there is no "official" way to write those names, so the Death Note still doesn't work on them.
 * Would a shape-shifting human in a nonhuman form be vulnerable to the Death Note? What about a nonhuman in human form?
 * Can a Death Note be used to control a Human-Controller?
 * To partially answer my own question if the user didn't intend to kill the Yeerk and it wouldn't be able to leave its host prior to death the details of death would be deemed invalid in accordance with How to Use: X
 * Similarly, could the geass be used to cancel a Death Note's control over someone. If so could the geass be used to prevent the death of someone who's cause of death was written as suicide?
 * I think it could, but depending on the strength of vaguely-alluded-to fate element of the whole thing, the one with the geass just might never cross paths with the victim.
 * Alternatively, it could stop the victim from committing suicide, but they'd die of a heart attack due to the suicide becoming impossible.
 * Given that the Death Note is a tool of the shinigami (and thus a tool of a god) and geass works on God, the geass would probally trump the Death Note.
 * Okay, let's remember: A rule of the Death Note says that if it manipulates a persons actions prior to death, it must be possible for the person to perform those actions, eithier physically or mentally. Now let's look at a case by case basis.
 * Voldemort's Hocruxes would probably suffer critical exsistence failure due to the Death Note.
 * Hidan is unknown, as we aren't sure how exactly he got to be immortal in the first place. If its some sort of justu, then we can guess the Death Note can cancel it.
 * Inuyasha and Naraku are only half-human, so they probably can't be affected.
 * Might like to add that Naraku isn't the name he was "born" with. He gave it to himself. You could probably write "Onigumo" to kill his human half, but that leaves the thousands upon thousands of demons that made up his demon half, and since those are actually full demons...and they can't be killed by the Death Note. Also, I'd have to agree that the Death Note wouldn't be able to kill Half Human Hybrids since in the rules it only emphasises death of humans. Also, Inuyasha is a couple centuries years old so he's way over the age limit (I think it was 124?) to be immune.
 * Angels probably can block the Shinigami eyes with an AT-Field.
 * Haruhi Suzumiya: It is no leap of logic to believe that not only is she immune to Death Note's, but she can cancel a Death Note in effect. Or change it. In fact, she could probably change the very writing on the paper.
 * And finally, certain characters are so badass that they are immune to Death Notes.
 * What happens if I write "Duncan MacLeod of the Clan MacLeod"? Or Jack Harkness's real name?
 * Given the nature of both characters' immortality, the Note would still take effect; they'd just revive afterwards.
 * Also, after roughly 1950-1960 (for Harkness, I'm not too familiar with Highlander), the note would be ineffective, as one of the rules is that the note can't kill anyone over 124. Or, somewhat related to the question below, is he technically negative 3000?
 * Since Jack is outside his native time period the Death Note would only be able to render him unconscious.
 * "Duncan MacLeod. Falls on railroad tracks while a train is approaching".
 * What would happen if the Universe of the Four Gods was copied into a Death Note, for example...
 * If the owner was pulled into the book would the shinigami be able to follow her?
 * Would being inside the book count as touching the Death Note?
 * If the owner had a page from the Death Note on her when she was pulled in would it also be pulled in?
 * Could the shinigami itself fulfill the role of priestess up until the point where the priestess is required to couple with the god?
 * Would names written by people in the book be treated as though they were written in the Death Note?
 * Would Death Note induced amnesia remove all memories about events happening within the book?
 * When Light forfeits ownership he remembers things like meeting Naomi and the bus jacking but not that he was the cause of those deaths.
 * If the Death Note was rendered inactive would it also temporarily nullify the power of the Universe of the Four Gods?
 * If a copy was made of the Death Note/Universe of the Four Gods would the copy have the powers of the Death Note?
 * Related to this, does the Death Note consider e.g Tamahome's name to be "Tamahome" or "Sou Kishuku"?
 * If the Death Note where used on the Discworld could Death stop the effect (he has been known extend peoples lives on occasion and the Little Match Girl in Hogfather not to mention that such an object would be infrenging on his turf)?
 * There are not Shinigami on the Discworld and the "work" is done by Death, so it is possible that the Death Note does not work here; the life books of the persons are all in the library of Death (and they are self-writing).
 * Canonically, Death has helpers. Couldn't they be Shinigami?
 * However, since magic in Discworld is a wild thing there is also the possibility that a Death Note is still working, but more by magic than by death.
 * Finally, Auditors can evaluate the Shinigami to be the laziest and most messy Death Gods they had never met and to fire them all. Cmp. "Reaper man", where Death was fired for simple interest in human beings.
 * Ok, how about this: The Shinigami are not the personifications of death. They are trans-dimensional parasites, much like the elves. Their parasite universe attatches itself to other worlds allowing the Shinigami to steal human lifespans. Now, when someone writes a name in a Death Note on the Discworld, it results in sand disappearing from Death's Hourglass. It's possible that can fix it, but he probably either thinks it's against the rules or it's a lot of effort, even for him.
 * Can a person killed with a Death Note become a zombie?
 * Related question- considering (crossing over with WMG) Death Note owners may already be in the early stages of converting into Shinigami... then might they have an immunity to zombie-ism and other forms of The Virus?
 * Can the Death Note be used to kill zombies? Heart attacks probably wouldn't work if the heart wasn't beating. Maybe if you write something like "Zombie Bob, Head explodes resulting in permanent brain death." Maybe it depends on the type of zombie? T-virus zombies versus supernaturally walking dead?
 * What about using Death Notes in other narrative universe in generals? In DC Comics with Death of the Endless? Or in "The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy"?
 * I'd imagine she'd do much the same as Light, but with more creative methods. And likely a wider criteria.
 * Of course, the Death Note can work like a Windows Application in a Mac environment, i. e. "eventually".
 * What happens when you combine Shinigami eyes with the ability of Pushing Daisies' main character? The people he touches have a second lifespan of less than a minute.
 * If I remember correctly, Word of God says that people he touches are immortal, until he touches them again, so the Shinigami eyes would probably see their original lifespan, and Death Notes would probably be unable to affect them.
 * They're not immortal, or at least he himself seems pretty firmly convinced that it's possible for them to die in a more mundane fashion after he's brought them back. Maybe not old age, but something like getting shot would still kill them.
 * If someone already has an eye-based super power (for example geass, or heat vision) and makes the trade for shinigami eyes will that person lose the power he/she had before? If so, will he/she regain it upon losing the shinigami eyes?
 * If someone with shinigami eyes dies and is brought back to life before someone else gains ownership of his/her Death Note will he/she still have the Shinigami eyes?
 * We know from Riven that D'ni ages are written on paper made from pulped trees with some special ingredients. Would anything happen if you pulped a Death Note, incorporated it into a blank D'ni book, and wrote an Age on it?
 * Probably nothing. Death Notes only work on humans, not universes, and it's not clear if D'ni are human. If the text of the Age mentioned any human names, though, they'd die.
 * If somebody possessed a death note and had their memories of it erased by a geass, would that count as ownership being relinquished? Also, could the true memories be restored simply by touching the same death note?
 * On a related note, suppose somebody who owned a death note was brought before to have their memories erased, but relinquished ownership of the death note right before losing their memory. If they later touched the same death note, what would happen?
 * They would regain the memories related to the Death Note, but not any unrelated memories.
 * Can you kill Claire Bennet with a Death Note?
 * Possibly, though she'd get over it, as her body's healed itself countless times post-mortem. Out of curiosity, would her real name be Claire Gordon, as she was a few years old before the Bennetts got hold of her, and Nathan had nothing whatsoever to do with her until she was a teenager?
 * Good question. It might still be Bennet on the grounds that that has been her name for almost her entire life and was probably the first name she ever had.
 * She wouldn't be able to die of a heart attack normally, but it's heavily implied that she can be killed. Considering that normal people have some healing factor and often survive normal heart attack but always die from the Death Note, she'd probably die of a heart attack and not heal.
 * On that note could you write "Gabriel Grey dies in such a way that ensures his permanent death" before Joker Immunity sets in?
 * Well, no. They have to do something within their power, i.e. someone who doesn't know L's name unable to write his name.
 * What would happen if the name of a Time Lord was put down in a Death Note? Would it kill them entirely, or simply force a regeneration?
 * It would simply force a regeneration, which according to Wild Mass Guessing would cause their age to be reset for the purpose of Death Note rules involving the victim's age.
 * But would he die of a heart attack? Time Lords do have two hearts, after all...
 * They have two hearts, so they would probably both seize up and force a regeneration.
 * Time Lords aren't human. Thus, no effect.
 * Captain Jack Harkness. If someone made the eye trade and looked at him, what would they see for his lifespan?
 * Let's not forget he was born in the 51st century, as well...
 * It would probably display how much time he has before his next death.
 * Could the Death Note be used to kill a Weeping Angel?
 * Assuming the power of the Death Note extends to non-human sentient creatures, and assuming that each Angel has a unique name, and assuming that the writer found out its name, and assuming that nobody was looking at the Angel at the expected time of death, then I would say Yes.
 * Assuming all of the above to be in effect, the writer of the name would have to look at the Angel in order to know the face of the Angel, and then you'd be looking at them. Then you have to write the name, and wait for them to die, except that time doesn't exist for them as long as something is looking at them. Thus, you would have to turn your back to it for FORTY SECONDS. Then you'd be screwed. Just trick them into looking at each other. Much easier, and guaranteed to be effective.
 * How about using the Death Note against the humanoid Cylons-the ones which are for all intents and purposes ARE human-and against Cylon resurrection technology.
 * So, if someone were expected to kill The Midnighter and Apollo of The Authority, would 'Midnighter' and 'Apollo' work? Or would someone need their given names, before their names were erased from history when they officially became 'Midnighter' and 'Apollo.'
 * If someone with a Geass commands somebody else to write in a death note, does it count as the geass user "using" the other person as a "tool" to write the name? In other words, is it the writer who is affected by the death note, or the will of the person who has the writing carried out? It would be easy to get around the incorrect name spelling rule with a suggestion to spell the name wrong.
 * Since many of the Note's abilities are based on touch, I'd say the person actually writing in the book is the one the Note considers for its effects.
 * Are Shinigami affected by Geass? If the Love Geass was used on a Shinigami (and assuming it works) would it actually work, or does the Shinigami's will affect it?
 * Geass has been shown to work on God, and Shinigami are gods, so yes it would work. However, if the shinigami had a strong enough will he/she would probally be able to resist the geass long enough to kill its user.
 * What about Shinichi Kudo and Shiho Miyano? Would the person in question trying to kill them with a Death Note have to know that they now look like little kids?
 * And, on that note (no pun intended), if Shiho Miyano thinks of herself as Ai Haibara, would that change anything?
 * What about if someone was always in disguise, but never changed the way they truly looked underneath, (like an actor, as opposed to someone getting plastic surgery,) would knowing how they always looked with the disguise on be enough?
 * What if they did get plastic surgery, and changed the basic way they looked?
 * One Chuck Norris fact states that Chuck Norris will never have a heart attack because his heart is not nearly foolish enough to attack him. What, then, would be Chuck Norris' default death if his name were written in the Death Note? Would he even be affected by a Death Note?
 * The Death Note itself isn't foolish enough to attack him.
 * Anyone attempting to kill Chuck Norris with the Death Note will die of a roundhouse kick to the face.
 * We're talking about Chuck Norris' heart. It'd probably just roundhouse kick the heart attack right back at the Death Note user. (Don't ask how a human organ can kick something with no corporal form, I just know whatever Chuck Norris thinks is logical becomes logic itself, so don't question it!) In that cause, the Death Note user would die both from the rebounding heart attack AND roundhouse kick to the face.
 * If you wrote Chuck Norris' name into the Death Note, he'd die of a heart attack because he's a normal human being and Chuck Norris facts are just very old attempts at being funny.
 * What would happen if you tried to use a Death Note to kill Nurse Joy or Officer Jenny?
 * Unless you're personally able to tell them apart from each other the Death note would fail.
 * Well the Nurse Joy on the Orange Islands (I think it was the Orange Islands) was a bit more tanned and bulked than the other Nurse Joys, so you could kill her.
 * In the case of Nurse Joys, the anime's Sinnoh saga has established "Joy" as a surname. Thus, killing one specific Nurse Joy would be possible if one were to know their given name. In the case of Officer Jennies, nothing has been explicitly stated, but given that an "Officer Jenny trainee" has a name other than Jenny (Marble), it is either the same case as Joy, or "Jenny" is simply a title given to these specific groups of police officers. (As we can see from other Pokemon canons, there are police officers other than the Jenny class; most evident in the game canon where all officers are male, save for the Jenny cameo in Yellow version.) Given this, Joys and Jennies would make for dangerously successful Kiras.
 * What would happen if an Anti-Magic person touched a Death Note? For example what if Touma's Imagine Breaker or Asuna's magic canceling was used? Would it have no affect, destroy the Death Note, undo the Death Note or immediately end all unissued commands?
 * Anything written in the Death Note beforehand would still take affect, but the Death Note itself would be turned into a regular notebook. Furthermore, events normally triggered by loss of Death Note ownership would not trigger. In order to cancel anything written beforehand it would be neccesary to use the anti-magic ability on the target.
 * What if someone tried to write Touma or Asuna's name in it? I'd assume they just be immune to it.
 * Anything with time travel, since it doesn't appear to exist in the Death Note universe. Or ships that move at relativistic speeds. Or black holes. If the person whose name is written in a death note goes back in time, that would presumably extend the time, from their point of view, before the death note gets them (unless, and this is a distinct possibility as this troper remembers something on the subject of whether people still die after the death note in which their name is written is destroyed, whether the death note kills them or they had a sort of "death token" or their soul was told to die at the specified time) but not any details). If the "death token" possibility is accurate, does it go by universal time, or personal time (say, a person in 2004 is written to die in 2005. They go to 2001. Do they die in 2005 or 2002?) If the death note goes back in time, do dates written in the future still apply, or dies the 23-day rule move with the death note? (for example, on March 1, 2005, their name is written for March 21, 2005. If the writer goes back to February 10, 2005, are they no longer within the 23-day time limit?) If a person and a death note are moving at different near-light speeds (name drops definitely unintended), do they die based on the death note's time, universal time, or their own time? (A person in 3008 is written to die three days later universal time. Three days later, universal time, the person has only experienced two days, and the death note has only experienced one hour. Does he die then, does he die one of his days later, or does he die 71 of the death note's hours later? It gets even more complicated if they are moving at those speeds when the name is written. And does the lifespan/time of death thing above the person's head change to reflect this, or is it built in, or does it show the lifespan [if it is lifespan and not time of death] based on the perception of the person viewing it? Do shinigami even succumb to relativistic speeds, or do they always view time at the same rate?) A black hole is just the stuff that goes with the relativity issues, but with the added detail that the death note will exist slower and slower until it is destroyed, or just keep existing more and more slowly forever.
 * Death Notes are based on extra-dimensional magic. For the sake of sanity I'll say that the time scale of the Shinigami home dimension is used as a basis for time calculations.
 * Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny: BATMAN VS LIGHT? Who would win?
 * Assuming that Batman's birth name is what's needed to kill him (even though he's more Batman than he is Bruce Wayne), Batman would win. He's very good at keeping his identity secret.
 * What about Light Vs DOCTOR DOOM?
 * Dr. Doom doesn't keep his identity secret, so technically Light would win. I say "technically" because Death Is Too Damn Cheap in the MU.
 * In The Prestige Angier uses a machine Tesla invented in order to Would both of the  If so, would writing Angier's name in the Death Note kill  Or would it kill
 * Writing the name would only cause the original to die, because the clone would still be protected by the 780 day rule. Furthermore, if you waited until after 780 days had passed various environmental factors would cause the faces to be different enough that the Death Note could only affect one of them.
 * I disagree with the above troper. After 780 days, writing the name should kill both of them. The whole reason the face is requiered is to prevent people with the same name from being affected, so in this case that safeguard fails and both are killed. Same would apply to identical twins who happened to have the same name. Enviromental factors probably don't matter much; even after he got his scar, Mello went through the trouble of hunting down a picture that was taken when he was still a child. The Mafia people were also killed by pictures which were presumably not recent, since they had all gone into hiding.
 * I've always interpeted the face rule as meaning you have to know the target's face well enough to distinish between the target and anyone else who has the same name, thus Mello's scar would only matter, if someone else had the same name and face minus the scar.
 * The intent of the rule is that provided you know enough about the person (seen their face or a true photo of them, and got the right name) you will kill the person you intend to or not at all. If the writer doesn't know about the clone, then it will only get the original. If the writer knows about and has seen the clone, and intends to kill the clone, AND it's after 780 days, the clone will die instead. If the writer intends both to die after 780 days have passed, it will happen.
 * According to the first rule the human whose name is written in this notebook shall die. Could it possibly be used to kill humanoid fantasy races, such as vampires, hobbits Human Aliens or trolls? Does it depend on just how human-like they are or do they just need to be mortal and have names?
 * Since the Death Note rules are big on literalism, I'd say it only works on humans. That also fits with most fantasy worlds' logic, since creatures like goblins and elves usually have their own seperate gods and afterlives. As for a vampire, that'd be interesting: my guess is that any undead target would be treated by the note as having already dead, and the writer would get penalized for it. It'd be funny if the death note could target them without finishing them off due to their immortality: "Dracula died from a 50-ton meteor suddenly squashing him like a bug" might not really kill him, but it'd be hilarious if the owner just keeps writing stuff like that over and over again. But seriously, I think the note would just count the name as invalid since, from a Shinigami point of view, he's already dead.
 * I thought you only got four attempts on one name?
 * Four attempts at spelling it. I guess a name can be used more than once if you think of two different people each time.
 * Doctor Who's definition of human is quite stretched. Do hybrids and mongrels count? What about humans as data, mentioned in "Utopia" and seen in "Forest of the Dead"?
 * If one were to kill Rorschach with a Death Note, how would do it? Given that he sees his superhero persona as his real self, would one enter Walter Kovacs in the notebook, or Rorschach? Also, he considers his mask his face. If one only new the superhero name and only saw the mask, would that count as both a name and a face?
 * No, I am pretty sure you need his birth name and his flesh and blood face. Walter Kovacs was not always Rorschach; he spent several years past the age he could be killed before he began considering himself such. Presumably, during this time the name needed to kill him is Walter Kovacs. I doubt the name you need to kill a person can change mid-way through their life, even if they take up another name which they consider to be their true name for some reason (superheroes like Rorschach and Batman who think of themselves as their alter-egos, people who have amnesia and take up a new identity, or transexuals who pick a name from the opposite gender, for instance). As somebody said above "one body, one name. Write that down and they die no matter what wires are crossed in their brain." That name can't be Rorschach, because he was not always Rorschach; therefore it must be Walter Kovacs. As for the face, well, if you can't change your name, what hope do you have of sticking something in front of your birth face and making it count?
 * If a Bleach shinigami was in a gigai or someone else's body, and made the eye deal with a shinigami, would they still be able to use the shinigami eyes as a spirit?
 * That depends; if they're able to transfer their other spiritual powers into different forms, presumably they could also transfer the eyes.
 * If shinigami eyes were used on a clan leader in Warrior Cats, would it show how long until they next died, or how long until they died for good?
 * What would happen if a death note was used on Eric Draven?
 * This may have been answered in a different way already, but what would happen to a Cybus Cyberman under the 40-second heart attack rule when they don't have hearts?
 * Would Chameleon Arched humans count? And do they fall under the 780-day rule, due to their "newbirth"? Or would the age count from the original Time Lord's birth/regeneration? Would the shinigami's eyes number count towards their conversion back to a Time Lord?
 * What if a human's mind was psychografted into another human? Obviously their host can't be killed unless specified, but if the brain of the person through the psychograft expired and their "essence" floats inside another person's head, do they already count as dead?
 * And what about data ghosts automatically uploaded to CAL? Or regular alive humans stored in her teleport?
 * How would a Death Note affect a Halfa?