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Light Yagami

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Anime Light
“ This world is rotten, and those who are making it rot deserve to die. Someone has to do it, so why not me? Even if it means sacrificing my own mind and soul, it's worth it. Because the world... can't go on like this. I wonder... what if someone else had picked up this notebook? Is there anyone out there other than me who'd be willing to eliminate the vermin from the world? If I don't do it, then who will? That's just it: there's no one. But I can do it. In fact, I'm the only one who can. I'll do it. Using the Death Note, I'll change the world. „
~ Light Yagami on why he goes on his mass murder spree.
noicon
“ The way the original Kira acted is disturbingly close to my ideals. „
~ Amnesiac Light's internal monologue about questioning his true identity.
noicon
“ Where are you Misa!?! Where's Takada!?! Someone... What am I to do now? „
~ Light whimpering over his defeat.

Summary

Light Yagami is the villainous protagonist of Death Note. He started out as a well-intentioned teenager who was sick of seeing the world be so ridden of crime that once he found the Death Note (he wanted the world to have justice), he became power-hungry and thirsty for the position of a god known to the public as Kira. Though he killed numerous criminals, he also killed many innocents who were just trying to stop him from killing people. By the end, he lost almost if not every redeeming quality that he once had.

Moral Statistics

Moral Ranking: 4 + to 3 + (Before using the Death Note/Amnesiac), 2 - (Kira, Before Father's Death/Anime ending) | 1 - (Kira, After Father's Death, Manga only)

Origin: Death Note

Classification: Delusional God Wannabe (Kira), Amnesiac Detective (Amnesiac)

  • Sub-Classifications
  • Status: Deceased.[1][2][3]
  • Occupations: Student (graduated), Detective, Serial Killer, Member of the Kira Special Task Force.
  • Hobbies: Playing Tennis, Reading, Studying, Writing people's names in the Death Note, Eating Potato Chips, Taking part in the Kira Special Task Force.

Gender: Male.

Size:

  • Height: 5'10.5"[4]
  • Weight: 136 lbs (Before using the Death Note, said he was 15 pounds more weight before using the Death Note, but the stress of killing criminals made him lose interest in eating for days.[5]), 119 lbs (After using the Death Note)

Age: 17 to 18 in Part I [6] | 23 years old in Part II [7][8]Only reaches to 24 on the English translation of his official stats.

Life Involvement:

  • Lives saved: 8 (At least)
  • Lives taken: 130,000+.

Primary Motive: Casual when he's wasn't Kira, Victory by his will as Amnesiac Light, Ambition As Kira (He has a very big God complex which overrides any of his other normal moral goals.)

Alignment: Lawful Good (Initially and during amnesiac, stands by his father's ideals of bringing justice to criminals.), Lawful Evil (Kira, believes that the only way to make true justice is to take the law into his own hands.)

Allies: Ryuk (formerly), Misa Amane (deceased), Teru Mikami (deceased, formally in the manga and ambiguously formally in the anime), Kiyomi Takada (formerly), Japanese Task Force (formerly), L Lawliet (During amnesiac), Special Provision for Kira.

Enemies: L Lawliet (Archenemy), Near (Archenemy), Mello, the Japanese Task Force, the Special Provision for Kira.

Morality Standard: Frequent Common Hostility (The heinous standard is commonly bad, that it provoked Light to go on a killing spree on the vast majority of criminals in the world, and quickly goes back up when he stops using the Death Note.)

Accomplishments: Astronomically Atrocious (killing Lind L. Taylor out of pride, murdering Raye Penber and the FBI agents[9], forcing Naomi Misora to commit suicide, manipulating Rem into killing herself to falsely save Misa via killing L and Watari,[10] killing hundreds of thousands of people, many who were not criminals, some who may have been framed to be, all for his means to an end. He was plotting a mass murder on the police.[11]He goes his way on murdering Takada by forcing her to commit suicide through burning herself to death[12]. Attempts to take over all of the world's justice systems in order to force his moral ideals onto humanity, inevitably leading to the deaths of millions, succeeding in instituting his reign for 6 years.) Multi-Convenient to Noble as Non-Kira (Was a normal yet exceptional High School student but provided key insights on numerous cases to the police that resulted in the perpetrators being brought to justice, convinced Namikawa, who is considered to be the smartest Yotsuba member to be a mole to capture Kyosuke Higuchi.)

Resourceful Capability: Skilled

Competency: Partially Successful

  • Despite Light's peak human intellect in solving tough situations that could soon end his life, he has huge luck and arguably plot convenience to get his way, such as in supposedly just happening to see and use a Death Note, Naomi arriving at the right place and time for him to manipulate and kill her[18][19], with Aizawa just happened to barely miss contact with them by using his umbrella. His memory erasing was super bold and could have gone horribly wrong, with L potentially not letting him touch the Death Note, so that he wouldn't get his memories back. The Task Force having a lot of doubt that Light is Kira, despite the evidence, Misa willing to do anything for him, and Rem who just so happened to be the second Shinigami willing to sacrifice herself for Misa in favor of Light's success, managed to get a bold move of an opportunity in regaining his memories of the Death Note, when that could have easily have been prevented by L not letting him touch it, not to mention that the whole event had to be under a specific circumstance that even Light didn't know how it would go exactly, despite him saying otherwise, and convinced Rem to kill both Watari and L,[20] was able to keep his suspicion clear for over five years within the task force, still maintained his success in Part II, however during the second half, his luck runs out, and while he managed to kill one of the L's successor, Mello, and nearly murdered Near, he was exposed in the end.
  • Light's biggest flaws is his egotistical arrogance that became a huge factor to his downfall, such as when he killed L Lin Tailor, in thinking he was the real L detective[21][22], made direct traces of him being Kira by killing numerous FBI agents, and flat out told Near on the last second that he is victorious[23].)

Tone Presence: Game Changer (Mostly internal monologues as Kira, many thoughts Light has are devious on how he's going to plot a murder on his next victim.), Pleasant (By his acting, and Before using the Death Note/Amnesiac)

Moral Prevention Severity:

  • Nasty Prevention (Fell from someone with genuinely good intentions to an egotistical god-wannabe who is seeking power, even putting innocents at high risk, and with his Kira memories gone for the time being, he can be quite aggression to L's suggestion on him being the mass murderer.[24])
  • Sadden Initially in the manga, regained at the end of the anime. (Light did not have a well home social life, as his dad was so busy with the large crime rate, that he couldn't be there with his family, which raises Light's concerning of the world's heinous standard and when he was about to mention how his day turned out to his mother, she only asked for his grades to see how good his dedicated success was, making his social connection with his family limited, and in the anime he is less social, having no friends he talks to on the first episode, which is a contrast to the first chapter of the manga. Before Lights outweighs this prevention with his heinousness, Ryuk gives him a false-pretense that he forever can't go to Heaven or Hell after using the Death Note, this makes Light startled and disturbed over Ryuk's statement, leading him to believe that he has nothing else to live for except with what that notebook got him into, and before Ryuk told him, he truly thought that a major reason for using the Death Note as much he could was to make sure the Shinigami didn't take his soul before he was done with his work, going all or none at all with what is left with his limited life, though he soon accepts that the two realms never existed in the first place, with the last image of the manga stating once he's dead, he will never be alive again, though the timing of when he came to this conclusion was too late as the Kira investigation was searching for him, so there was no going back. However in the anime it doesn't give an answer outside of Ryuk's statement on if that's true or not for non-Death Note users, making Light's situation possibly more alone, like when the ending songs portrays this symbolically, where is he is the only human character seen in the songs, with Ryuk looking at him, and Misa strictly briefly being in the background of a screen, and in Ending 2, it's just him, the reason why this alludes to his sympathy, especially with how he is presented on Ending 3, is because of how it's supposed to show that he's willing to take the curse of being Kira upon himself, at the cost of literally everything, though this wouldn't be a strong one, given his willingness to even murder his allies to win, and he does not see his actions as sacrificial remorse either, as he takes some sadistic pleasure in killing his allies.[25][26][27])
  • Total Amoral (Lost his memories as Kira,[28] and shows that he strongly has moral agency issues, due to how his Kira personality is automatic in taking over his good personality when his memories are regained.[29])
  • Positive Prevention Free In the Manga (Became full psychopathic when using the Death Note, and squandered any minor redeeming factors about himself, with his sadistic enjoyment over Takada's death and insult to his father being his corrupting nail in the coffin.)
  • Minor Positive Prevention In the Anime (Because of his death being presented in some tragic light over the loss of the normal life he had lost, it is implied he might have felt some internal conflict over his father's death and remorse for killing L, this remorse was implied over the months he spent with him during the Yotsuba arc, the washing of his feet as a representation of some mutual respect they had for each other, and the last imagination was seeing an image of him at the very end of his life.[30])

Note: Although the manga and anime do have differences with how Light is handled in the continuities, the reason why they are not separate profiles is because their storylines don't diverge from each other, while other adaptations such as the original film franchise, TV Drama and Netflix movie drastically change the narrative.

External Links

References

  1. ↑ Chapter 107
  2. ↑ Episode 37
  3. ↑ Relight 2
  4. ↑ Death Note 13: How to Read
  5. ↑ Chapter 1
  6. ↑ Chapter 1 to Chapter 59
  7. ↑ Chapter 60 to 107
  8. ↑ Manga Timeline
  9. ↑ Chapter 9
  10. ↑ Episode 25
  11. ↑ Relight 2
  12. ↑ Episode 35
  13. ↑ Chapter 19
  14. ↑ Death Note 13: How to Read
  15. ↑ Chapter 20
  16. ↑ Chapter 38
  17. ↑ The C-Kira Story
  18. ↑ Chapter 12
  19. ↑ Chapter 14
  20. ↑ Chapter 58
  21. ↑ Chapter 1
  22. ↑ Episode 2
  23. ↑ Chapter 102 and 103
  24. ↑ Chapter 38
  25. ↑ Ending 1
  26. ↑ Ending 2
  27. ↑ Ending 3
  28. ↑ Chapter 35
  29. ↑ Chapter 53
  30. ↑ Episode 37
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