Death Note/Headscratchers/Characters' Actions: Difference between revisions

 

== Why don't you just run? ==

** You think Near would actually fall for that? A gushing fountain of blood barely worked.

 

 

** Matsuda was completely on the fence about Kira and sort of leaning a bit more toward being against him, only showing slight shades of sympathy and saying that Kira's not completely evil. Light likely didn't reveal this to Matsuda out of fear that the sudden revelation would push Matsuda over the fence and have him, I don't know, ''shoot him?''

** He does try to take advantage... by having Matsuda {{spoiler|get the shinigami eyes to attack Mello's hideout. It nearly worked, too, except for his father's strong personal sense of justice}}.

 

 

*** Every member of the task force has been killed besides Light. I'm sure that's going to go down well with the suspicions of anyone not in the taskforce.

*** {{spoiler|That was his plan at the end of the series though...}} He could fake his death or something and start over under a new name.

*** The legal system in Japan pretty much amounts to "if you're accused, you're guilty." And he's in Japan.

** It is explicity say in the manga that L showing his face to Light was basically his Life insurance. Why? Because only the task force, Watari and now Light, you know, L's main suspect, know that he is L. So if L happens to accidentally die within the weeks of investigation, wouldn't that look bad for Light? Why would anyone, other than Kira that is, kill him anyway? Nobady else know he is L and he is a secluded individual that only goes out to closely watch his main suspect, and I'm sure he doesn't go out without taking safety precautions. Yes, of course, accidents can happen but it would be suspicious at least. In fact, there is even a part when L is checking out the second Kira videos when L tells Soichiro that if he dies on the next days, Light is Kira.

** Naomi Misora retired; Light was not the only person Penber followed and as Naomi disappeared, Penber was not himself a 100% solid lead, just a likely one; Light is too much a sociopath for a [[Honey Trap]]; and as L didn't get anything definite on Light during the surveillance, he figured getting closer was the way to go.

** Light was quite careful; he made the instructions on the sheet of paper Penber wrote on kill the FBI members after they got the packet with the names and faces, so it's unclear who leaked the information. He also disposed of Naomi by forcing her to kill herself without anyone noticing, preventing anyone from realizing what she knew about him. This reduced the likelihood of him being suspected.

 

 

* In the manga, how come L is the only character that uses honorifics?

** Are you sure no one else does? Well many of the characters are very close to each other so there would be no need for honorifics. But I think at least Light calls his father "otou-san" or doesn't he?

 

 

*** Well B {{spoiler|obviously knew L well enough to be able to copy his appearance and mannerisms.}}

*** Near figures out everything else without being physically present, doesn't he? Getting L's face right might have been a lucky guess, just like with everything else. Seriously, though, he probably saw a photo at the orphanage, before L had them all destroyed.

*** Wait, L's hair is green? What?

*** Its black, it just has some green tints to itsometimes.

*** Looks black to me, although to be fair Gimp's colorpicker shows a little tiny bit of green in some of the lighter areas. Old monitors sometimes overdrive the green. Check your monitor.

*** Is L even white? I thought the writer of the anime said he was, like, one quarter Japnese, one quarter Russian, one quarter English and one quarter something else. So not white.

** Or maybe none of his friends or family know English, so he could just make a b.s. explanation about what the words on the cover say.

** Well, at this point it wouldn't have really mattered. He would have just claimed that the rules inside are a joke, maybe that the note was a silly present from a friend and he used it for keeping track of the criminals because he considered it fitting. Sure, it would seem creepy and all, but at this point, with his father not told by L that Light was a suspect, it would have just been passed off as a joke. Also, it was highly unlikely that someone found the notebook if he didn't look for it. We know that Light had means to check if someone had entered his room - and if this would happen all the time (because his mother is cleaning it or whatever), he would've already stopped doing it - because it would be pretty pointless if you ''know'' that someone enters.

 

 

* Misa told Light that she had a friend handle the Kira tapes she sent to Sakura TV and that the friend didn't know what was really on the tapes, so its safe to assume her friend's fingerprints would be on the tapes so why isn't her friend ever a suspect.

** 1) They didn't know who those fingerprints belonged to. 2) If they found out, they investigated her off-screen and realized she didn't fit the profile.

 

 

* What the hell did Ryuga Hideki do to piss L off? Considering that L's plan when he meets Light is to give that name, so that if Light tries to write it then Hideki will die and the case is resolved. But why him? I understand the fame and that everyone will know him, but it still seems a little distasteful.

** That was a fake name. There is no Ryuga Hideki.

** I'd suggest the possibility of Ryuga having been involved in some not-so-great stuff (more so than your average idol), but considering L's personality, it's entirely possible his name was chosen at random. [[Not So Different]], you know - he ''is'' callous enough.

** It was a ''pseudonym'', so Ryuga Hideki was actually named something else and was in no danger.

** The bells have a dual meaning: his impending death, and Wammy's House. That's why the bells and stained-glass windows made a second appearance in episode 30 - just sort of a wordless ''we're on the same side''.

** I understand what the bells themselves symbolized. If I didn't at first, I did in the episode after next, when you see Mello and Near. What I'm curious about is L's behavior during that segment.

*** L is letting Light know that he knows Light is Kira, that he's 100% certain, that he's so much more brilliant than Light that he's already deduced the next step of Light's plan, that it is unavoidable, but that ultimately Light's defeat at the hands of L will still come about.

** L realises he has lost and that it is up to his successors to stop Kira. He decides to use his last hours on earth to mess with Light's head and maybe just make him reconsider. It fails.

** He saw Light's apprentice grab it during the abduction. He let himself be followed when he wrote down the names of the very people Light killed.

** Expanding on the above, Mikami rushed off to write Takada's name in the Death Note to keep her from talking. In doing so he broke his rigid schedule. Curious, Near searched his deposit box and found the Death Note.

*** It Just Bugs Me that I've seen at least three people put this idea forward. It should go without saying that Near couldn't use the Death Note that he stole from Mikami to get Mikami to reveal the location of the Death Note so Near could steal it. Unless the SPK was intentionally trying to fool the ''audience'', Near never had contact with the Death Note before it was switched. Matsuda himself doesn't reference this idea, either; he puts forward an explanation for why someone as careful as Mikami wouldn't test the Death Note before coming to the warehouse, coupled with the fact of Mikami's death.

*** But that's not the theory. The theory is that Near used the Death Note ''after'' he made the switch, to keep Mikami from testing the fake one on his way to the warehouse at the end. It's probably false in the anime, in which Mikami kills himself. In the manga, it's very likely.

** How does Near even pick out Mikami from the thousands of other psychopathic kira supporters anyway? His actions don't make him any more obvious than they would be. Are we looking at a case of deus ex machina just to finish the series? It just made Near seem less belivable (and likable) than L.

*** The manga explains this a lot better - Mikami appeared on two of Takada's shows, giving him enough time to get to know her, Mikami's insistence on people contributing to society to their fullest on one of the shows echoes Takada's "use your skills or DIIIIIEEE!" message, and, most importantly, after the emergence of X-Kira, Mikami made a speech that Near recognized as subtly asking Kira for instructions on what to do next.

*** Honestly... Even in the manga, it's really a stretch. Certainly not as egregious as the anime version of the scene, but still not all that believable.

**** How so? Mikami is meant to be someone Near would conclude as being the second-Kira, that was his entire role. Both Light and Near had the exact same amount of information regarding him, and Near would be looking at the qualities Kira would want in an accomplice; Mikami publically stated he thought Kira was God in a survey, he has a high devotion to justice, and most importantly of all he publically stated that people should live their lives to their fulliest potentia, which lined up with X-Kira's MO. The more you looked at the guy the more you saw that he was fanatically devoted to Kira and his ideals. Plus again, he also pretty much asked Kira to tell him what to do on public TV .

** Anime only, it's "[[Rule of Cool]]"

** If it were live action they could probably pull off a similar red eye effect like you get with camera flashes, it's a little odd to hold a cartoon to a higher standard of realism

 

 

** He probably was doing this offscreen; however, the story was about the battle between Light and L, not fictional dictators being killed off.

** In the last few episodes, Light states that one of Kira's accomplishments is not just an end to crime, but to war. So it's implied that he has indeed killed off various governing officials.

 

 

* How does Light actually put the TV, pen and Death Note inside the packet of potato chips with the cameras watching him - the manga doesn't show this, and even worse, the anime implies that the TV is already in there when he first opens the packet!

** He's only being watched ''in the house''. He bought the TV and chips while out about town. No doubt he carefully opened the bag, removed some chips, put in the TV, and used a device to reseal the bag. Such devices do actually exist, and since the Japanese are notoriously manic about fresh food they're probably not hard to find.

** In doing that, though, wasn't he risking a member of his family opening it and finding the TV?

** Nope. In fact, Light even stated that he was the only one in the family who liked that particular flavor.

** Not quite. In volume four, he wonders if he could get the second Kira off as leniently as possible for turning the original Kira. That showed that he would be willing to make a deal like that.

** But just how short ''is'' Misa's lifespan after all the screwing around given that she's had it halved twice but then ''also'' had the lifespans of two Shinigami added to it?

*** Well, considering that she was supposed to die when that one shinigami saved her, her lifespan equals (1/8 Jealous' lifespan)+ (1/2 Rem's lifespan). At the time Rem could make that prospective deal, it would be 1/8 whatshisname's lifespan. Of course, without knowing a shinigami's lifespan, that could be any length of time.

*** I don't think it's ever explicitly stated that you can't extend your own lifeline by killing someone with the Death Note-otherwise, it'd be totally idiotic to take the Shinigami eyes because no matter what badassitude you pull off with the Death Note, you'll always die in half the time. Events will conspire such that you will die in a shorter period of time, but a Death Note can augment these events again.

*** You don't need to know the Shinigamis' lifespans to know how long Misa would have lived - you only need her date of birth, the dates she traded eyes, and the date she died. I figured out that if she had never met Rem, she would have died on July 14th of 2030, give or take a few days. (assuming that her name is not written in a death note and there are no other ways to prolong or hurry death other than trading eyes.)

*** Okay, you're going to have to explains this to me. Mia was originally going to die the day Jealous saved her. Her own lifespan is not even a day. So what does her date of birth have to do with anything?

*** Then again, the [[Word of God]] says that Misa probably committed suicide just after the story ended, so I guess she didn't have the much time left after all.

* "How to Use: XLII (from Volume 8):<br />1. The use of the Death Note in the human world sometimes affects other human’s lives or shortens their original life-span, even though their names are not actually written in the Death Note itself. In these cases, no matter the cause, the god of death sees only the original life-span and not the shortened life-span. "

** Light breaks down because he is a sociopath who has just been exposed for all to see; his falling apart represents the mask torn off from hiding his madness. There are no more strings to pull and he knows it; there's no way he could be sentenced in an offical trial (he wrote damn names into a notebook!), so most likely he would have faced just a quick field execution.

** Given that most of the world now seems to take Kira's existence for granted, pinning the deaths ''to'' someone shouldn't be that far out there. The only question is whether or not the Death Note itself would be admissible as evidence. Considering that nobody else who learned what the Note was seemed to have a problem with it, that, too, ought to be at least possible, if not an easy trick. Just off the top of my head, if they didn't want to risk the trouble of getting the Death Note officially recognized, they could have pulled a Lind L. Tailor on him - arrested, tried, sentenced and most probably executed in secret by those "in the know."

*** Remember that Near wasn't a good guy by any stretch and had long since demonstrated a willingness to engage in criminal activities to catch Light. There was no reason to expect any outcome but a quick murder.

** There's a famous saying that applies here. "Absolute power corrupts absolutely". It's clear the Death Note is as near as absolute power as one can get in the series (or in the real world for that matter) without being a Shikigami. Imagine the possibilities of being able to just kill by writing a name in a book, especially when you're in a world where magic is not meant to exist. Who wouldn't be tempted with that power? Unfortunately, the allure of that power just changed Light for the worst. As we saw, at the beginning he was only planning on killing criminals to make the world a better place. Then that extended to killing people who were trying to stop him, because in his mind, they were just as bad as criminals. Then it went further as to Light making himself to be the new God of this world. With such power and an extremely high opinion of himself (that was being fed with every win he had, especially after defeating L) when reality finally crashed down on him, it hit him real hard. Doesn't help him that he was practically unstable because of the power feed all of his success seem to be giving him, all it needed was for something to fall apart for him to snap.

*** A more accurate reading would be "weren't you paying ''any'' attention?" I suppose the salient point is that Light is not on the defensive until he absolutely has to be - that hardly makes him stupid, though. L has the same mindset in their little tennis match: witness his decision to bring Light into the task force.

** Don't forget both L and Light get perfect marks on their university entrance exams. Now compare, Light having been going to school and to an academy in order to prepare for this exam, and L just doing it in order to catch Kira.

*** The thing about perfect marks is, there's no way to know who would have done better. Maybe, if the test had been harder, Light would have won; maybe L would have won. That's part of the beauty of them both scoring PERFECT, instead of just both getting, say, 98%.

** Its worth noting that the only reason Light becomes L's prime suspect is because of a series of events set into motion by Naomi Misora's death. Naomi Misora's presence was something Light could not possibly anticipate, and until that point he had remained almost entirely in control of the situation, without ever doing anything which could point directly to him. Misora entering the equation was something he had to deal with immediately, otherwise he could be directly implicated, and his ability to effectively improvise with that shows great intelligence. He also could not anticipate that her disappearance would send L along the train of logic that would lead him to suspect Light. Everything only starts going wrong for Light when an entirely unpredictable variable becomes part of the system.

*** Your suspicions are incorrect. Light made it explicitly clear that Mikami was the ONLY one he would keep alive after his master plan because he was so useful.

** If Takada were discovered with pages of the Death Note on her, Near might have figured out that she was doing the killing for Mikami and guessed about the fake notebook.

 

== Kira's Notebooks II ==

*** It's unlikely that that would do much to stop the world governments and media. As an above troper mentioned, even reporters would censor names from their reports for fear of legal ramifications (in some countries you can sue for just about anything).

** During the timeskip, Light, as the second L, orders that the media stop broadcasting the faces of criminals, and in response, people post information about criminals on the internet.

*** Or to put it more simply, Light's turned "trial by media" into all-out "execution by media".

*** Yes. Because Light is a sociopath with a god complex, who has appointed himself Judge, Jury, and Executioner. This is just one of the many examples why he is the [[Villain Protagonist]] and not [[The Hero]].

* Why didn't anyone try to {{spoiler|revive L?}} I mean, come on?! He's the freakin' leader of the Kira investigation! But has anyone attempted to revive a victim of a Death Note?

** Personally, I always thought heart disease sufferers walked round with "Please Resuscitate" necklaces in this universe. But as for your original question, they did in the manga. They probably avoided it in the anime for time, and so that there was no break in the staggering dramatic irony.

*** Yeah, the anime just cut that part out for the sake of pacing.

 

== Why does Light kill the FBI investigators? ==

* Why does Light expend so much effort on killing Raye Penber and the other FBI investigators? The only real benefit I can see from the killings is that they scared off the FBI for a while, and that would happen anyway if their investigation turned up nothing. The convoluted method Light uses to kill the FBI investigators makes it easy for L to narrow the search down to Raye's marks. Additionally, it brought Naomi Misora into the mix, a disaster Light only averted by chance; if anyone else came into possession of the knowledge Misora had and made similar deductions, he was done. OTOH, if he ''doesn't'' kill Raye, the FBI investigation turns up nothing. Light gets more time to establish plans of action; the FBI is discredited; the mistrust between L and the police builds as the mole isn't found; and everything generally goes more smoothly for Light. What, apart from Light's juvenile impatience and massive overconfidence, justifies his actions here?

*** It's less that he lacks proper planning skills, and more that he has a huge underestimation complex. After all, that's how {{spoiler|he dies}}.

** If I recall, what he thought was that if the FBI turned up nothing the first time, they would investigate everyone again, but more in-depth, and he'd be more likely to be caught. So it was a pre-emptive strike, basically.

** When you come to mental sanity, Misa is a poor excuse for a human being. From the very start she is completely nuts and self-centered. Even her blind love for Light is completely egotistical, to the point that she can't notice that he is not in love even when he doesn't care to act it up. Recovery? Recovery ''of what?''

** Point taken.

** I'm more bugged by memory-wiped Light being so willing to forgive L after not only imprisoned him for 50 days, but {{spoiler|convinced his father to threaten to murder him for a crime he (in his mind) didn't do}}. Even though he wasn't Kira at this point, Light is still an exceptionally prideful guy. Even I'd take a long, LONG time to warm up to L (and everyone else involved) again after that. But Light forgets all about it ''on the very same page''.

** Memory-wiped Light still remembers that it was ''him'' who asked L to keep him locked up and under observation, even if he can't remember the reason so he is all like "what was I thinking?!" for those days. So he probably won't be too mad at L for something he realizes was his own damn fault. I dunno about the spoilered bit, though.

** In the first place, Machiavelli never said that a Prince mus rule by fear (actually, quite the opposite, only attacking when strictly necessary). Plus, no, it's not good enough, as God does not rule by fear, and seeing how many [[God Is Evil]] story are, I think that take out a God whose lifespan is 100 years at best is not a big deal. Also, Light {{spoiler|DID kill a God of Death (Rem)}}, why can't all the humanity can?

*** He believes that he's not only dealing with criminals, but also dealing with the conditions that cause them, thinking that criminal acts cause the victims to believe that unscrupulous means are the only way to get by. He thinks that if no one commits crimes, everyone will be free to live virtuously, and the vicious cycle will be eliminated. Whether they will continue to do so without the fear of death by Kira is another matter, though.

** Once he is done killing his genius rivals, he can start looking for and grooming a successor so the world will always be ruled by Kira. Hell, maybe he would finally consummate his marriage with Misa and produce the next God of the new world himself!

 

== Why can't Misa remember an odd name like L Lawliet? ==

* When Misa gets her memories of the Death Note back, she says she doesn't remember L's real name because she only saw it once, months ago, and since she didn't know he was L at the time she had no reason to remember his name out of the hundreds of others she was seeing. Initially this makes perfect sense. But then you read the databook and find out that L's real name is L Lawliet. Just seeing a guy with the first name L should have at least gotten her attention. When that guy is hanging around with Light (and Misa ''did'' know that Light was in contact with L somehow, otherwise the "have Rem kill L" plan couldn't work) and going by an assumed name, it should probably have ocurred to Misa that this guy might be L. Her getting arrested by L immediately after meeting him should have turned that suspicion into almost a dead certainty. Some ditzy moments aside, Misa isn't actually dumb, just not a super genius like Light or L; she can still put some obvious clues together.

 

 

** Criminals live very stressful lives.

** [[Chuck Norris]]

 

 

* [[Foe Yay]] aside, Does Light like or respect L at all? I mean sometimes he talks like L is a pathetic worm beneath his feet, other times he looks back on him almost fondly, like with Near. Has there ever been [[Word of God]] on this? Or is there something I'm missing?

** Personally, I think Light gains a greater appreciation for L {{spoiler|[[Antagonist in Mourning|after he’s dead.]]}}

** Remember when Rem tells Misa when she wipes her memories that even though she won't remember being a Kira "those feelings will remain." Even when Light is Kira and hates L for getting in the way of his New World [[Worthy Opponent|he also admires him and enjoys playing against him]]-he's having fun pretending to be L's friend. So when Light wipes his memories he no longer has a reason to hate L and only knows that he admires L [[Becoming the Mask|and enjoys having him as a friend.]]

 

*** Who doesn't?

** And last but by ''NO'' means least, there the fact that, in the dub I saw anyway, Light made a MASSIVE mistake during his communcation with Penber - one thaty cannot be attributed to misspeaking or error and should have painted the words "I AM BLUFFING" in hundred foot tall, blazing, green letters - which Penber spectaculaely fails to notice. At one point Light says, and I quote:

** The only problem? Naomi ''isn't'' Penber's girlfriend, she's his ''fiancee'' and the intonation was not ironic, he genuinely meant it as his girlfriend. (For that matter, Light assuming that a female loved one automatically means a girlfriend is kinda dumb in and of itself, when it could be a wife, sister, mother, daughter, etc). This should have been a MASSIVE clue that Light didn't really know about her or their relationship, but Penber ignores it like a champ! I mean, I'd hardly expect the guy to be infallible, considering he was assigned to such an important and dangerous case, I'd hope for a bit of competence!

*** Light looked Penber up in the FBI database. Presumably he found out all he could about his family and concluded that a girlfriend was the most likely candidate, which isn't that unreasonable. We know Penber has no wife and we can reasonably assume he doesn't have a daughter, and a grown man is more likely to be close to, and protective of, a girlfriend than a sister or mother. Besides which, a fiancee ''is'' a girlfriend, and will be until they either get married or break up. If Light had been talking about a girlfriend and they were ''already'' married, it would be a different story.

 

 

*** Yeah, especially in the second arc where {{spoiler|as L;}} Light suggests the media stop broadcasting the names and faces of criminals but he continues to judge by reading "concerned citizens" [[Strongly Worded Letter|strongly worded letters]].

*** ...Then how the heck is he supposed to be accurately 'judging' anyone? All he's got are the biased opinions of unknown people who would see an obvious temptation to have Kira get rid of the people they don't like. The more you think about it, the less intelligent Light seems.

 

 

** Its hinted that even pre-series he wasn't interested in girls. That the girls keep asking him out and he keeps making up excuses not to go on dates. There's Yuri's (the spaceland girl's) line: "I thought you said you weren't going out until exams were over!" Also during the Yotsuba arc Ryuk's [[Slasher Smile|grinning face]] was nowhere to be seen. Sure he was chained to L which presents the same voyeur problem but even so Light shows absolutely no interest in Misa. When Misa is right out asking him for sex his response: "Whatever" *[[Ho Yay|talks excitedly with L.]]*

** Light had to ''buy porn'' [[Infraction Distraction|for his cover]] strongly implying he didn't have any already and he browses through it with such a ''bored'' look on his face...

** Also with Light's [[Narcissist|narcissistic]] tendencies he might be more interested in [[Screw Yourself|kissing his own reflection.]]

 

== Why didn't Light use Sidoh to kill Mello? ==

* After the task force got the notebook back from the mafia, why didn't Light ask Sidoh to kill Mello with the notebook in exchange for them returning it? He was even discussing a plan like this with Ryuk before the attack on Mello's HQ but dropped it because he thought he could use Matsuda to kill Mello instead. But when Mello was still alive after Soichiro's death, he didn't even try to use Sidoh. Mello deliberately kept Sidoh from getting his notebook back and Sidoh needed to write a name, so I really can't see him saying no to a request to kill him. Sure, he would be asking in front of the other members of the task force but he had already asked Soichiro to do it so being so upset about his father's death that he was insistent on Mello dying wouldn't seem strange. Even if it did, it was a direct way of killing Mello. A few odd looks for being so bloodthirsty about avenging his father are nothing compared to eliminating such a threat. He wasn't just caught up in the emotions brought on from losing his father either-the very next chapter, he's going over how he wasn't able to kill Mello through other means but doesn't bring up Sidoh at all. In other words, it appears that the author just didn't think of it and Light looks dumber as a result.

** Also, notice {{spoiler|his father just died}} and he's [[Mangst|Mangsting]] about it so his [[Gambit Roulette|Xanatosing]] skills are not up to par in that scene.

 

== L's name; or, WTF was he thinking? ==

* If "L" is, in fact, L's actual first name, why would he, the world's greatest detective, use it as an alias when there's even a remote chance of it being used against him?

** Because the best hideout is the one that is on plain sight.

 

== He took a potato chip...AND ATE IT!!! ==

* Is there a reason Light is so dramatic about eating a chip, or is he just thinking that line as he does it to say "See how much of a normal student I am"?

 

== How'd Light see the TV, and how did L MISS it? ==

** [[A Wizard Did It|Obviously they're magic potato chips.]]

 

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[[Category:Headscratchers]]

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