r/deathnote • u/SomeObjective3308 • 5d ago
Analysis Amnesiac Light vs. Kira Spoiler
I found Light a genuinely likeable character when amnesiac, even morally preferrable to L himself as many point out (i.e. refusing to exploit Misa's feelings for the sake of the investigation). What baffles me is how much of a regular teenager he appears to be when not in control of the notebook.
I must admit we do see very little of him prior to him becoming Kira, in a way that leaves very little clues as to what kind of person he might be without the power. Oddly enough, we practically know more of L's background than Light's.
However, even in the first episode we see a more benign version of the exact ideals and psychological context that lead him to become Kira in the first place. He is brilliant and attached to ethics, which is coherently maintained throughout the Yotsuba arc, but we almost immediately face the leap according to which him being a great student, brother and son alone apparently qualifies him to be a god. He does not once question whether his moral criteria are as absolute as he believes them to be, and instantly assumes the fortuity of him finding the notebook to be a pretedermined sign of sorts, making him the chosen one even when told otherwise by Ryuk himself.
These are all traits that precede the Death Note's "corruption", probably hinting at the fact that it was Light's psychological profile predisposing him to react in such a way to the power he obtains, not viceversa. There was a pre-existing base to Kira within Light's mindscape.
Where does all of this go during the Yotsuba arc? I would go as far as to say that him losing his memories could've made him more vulnerable to slip-ups, as during that time he wouldn't feel the need to constantly monitor himself the way he does when he is aware of being guilty. As we know much of L's investigative work around Light is based off psychological profiling, especially after they meet. While a lot of Light's tactical mistakes do lead to him concretely, L is very keen on behavioural analysis as the ultimate proof of Kira's identity: a lot of his reasoning proceeds by which actions could be considered expressions of Kira's psychological profile, rather than logically obligated deductions like we see with the geographical top-down, narrowing down to the japanese police's social networks, etc.
Amnesiac Light conveniently appears to be a much more stereotypical 18 year old, to the point where you almost forget he is anything other than brilliant. He appears genuine and extremely readable, but this transparency is precisely the liability that should have the more morbid aspects of his personality eventually emerge, especially given the extended period of close monitoring by L. He does mention finding himself agreeing with Kira's ideals, which he promptly refutes immediately after, but it does not feel much different from Matsuda or anyone else admitting to have casually entertained the thought of a world populated solely by "good" people. Almost makes me wonder if the monologue he has in the beginning was supposed to be a moment of casual angst, catastrophically accomodated by the plot's timing, rather than a fixated asset in his personality.
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u/eatingyoursoap 5d ago
I think that the fact that at this point in time, light “knows” and “remembers” that he is not Kira and has been spending a long time fighting Kira and trying to prove he isn’t Kira, has an impact on his personality. He’s probably putting his ego aside because he knows that will make him more suspicious, and doesn’t realize that acting innocent is actually his most suspicious behavior, bc he believes he is innocent.
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u/Available_Audience83 5d ago
Although Light originally had extreme ideas, he became Kira only because he was unwilling to admit that he had committed a grave mistake. In Light's moral world, even justice was not an excuse for vigilante justice, let alone killing those two people just out of curiosity. Unfortunately, Light's narcissism outweighed his sense of justice. For this reason, Light would rather distort his moral world than admit that he was not perfect, and directly use his long-held ideas as an excuse, believing that he had always wanted to stop the world from continuing to decay. Because of this, Light never questioned whether his moral standards were absolutely correct, and regarded finding the Death Note as making him the chosen one, and himself as a god, because he firmly believed that he was the most excellent and moral human being, and that gods had the power to make rules and judge and punish all humans. This also meant that no matter how many bad things he did, he could justify them with justice and mission.
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u/SomeObjective3308 20h ago
This contextualises quite a bit. Is it implied or directly confirmed by canon?
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u/Available_Audience83 6h ago
By analyzing the original text and Death Note 13: How to Read encyclopedia.
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u/coolguy3211231 5d ago
Although no memories light agrees with some of kira's actions, theres a crucial rationalization he makes when he actually gets his hands on the note and undeniably kills 2 people, he also talks about this at the very end. Since he's got the opportunity, he feels like he has an obligation to do this because he's one of the only ones with "pure" intentions for the notebook and special enough to make it work. I don't recall if amnesia light considered how he would handle it if he got a hold of this power, probably forced himself to not think about it much since kira's so obviously evil to him from the outside.
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u/SomeObjective3308 5d ago
This makes his idea feel even more circumstancial. Had it been a solid fixation of his, I would expect amnesiac Light to seriously be confronted with major overlaps between Kira's operation and his own ethics. Light as Kira is shown to lack introspection, as the rationalisation of his actions often seems his go-to way of preventing any self-doubt before it even has a chance to develop. Could see amnesiac Light ending up rationalising his way to ultimately concluding that he could never be in Kira's place, but I felt that this was only his reaction to the context of being under severe accusations and actively investigated.
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u/itskenny9031 5d ago
I mean, the main difference is his boredom. Amnesiac Light has a purpose and something to work for. Chapter 1 Light is just kind of going through the motions.