#lightmeta

He did, and the narrative made sure to point that out via Ryuk's commentary so we noticed it as a possible motive:

Light also mentions to Ryuk in chapter 3 that it is something he might have to do, though. He's taking extreme precautions because it is something he very much wants to avoid, but it also indicates that it's a possibility he isn't necessarily ruling out, either:

When Soichiro volunteers to halve his remaining lifespan it shocks and saddens Light. But he also allows it to happen, and he doesn't offer to take his father's place or anything like that. This is pointed out by Ryuk as well:

I think that his relationship with L is by far the best example in canon of Light showing something like strong feelings for a peer. I genuinely believe they both picked each other as their favourite people in the story, so it's usually the relationship I'm going to be thinking about when answering relationship hypotheticals for either person in the pair.

Hello!

I think shinigami!Light can be an interesting idea for fanfic, but I don't personally think Light became a shinigami. And I don't really like the idea of there being any afterlife or reincarnation for any of the DN characters. I personally go by how things were explained in the manga, when Ryuk tells Light that ALL the humans in the story go to Mu (nothingness/nonexistence) after they die. There aren't actually any special consequences for using the Death Note. Light would have gone to Mu whether or not he used the notebook at all.

For example, this is what he says to Ryuk about Lind L. Tailor appearing on TV to confront him:

Like I'm sorry Light, but there’s no way in hell you “knew” this was going to happen lmfao, I mean this was his initial shocked reaction to the broadcast literal seconds before that:

Haha omg, Light the Shinigami, what a concept!

I think he’d be extremely ambitious and constantly interfering with and manipulating whoever picked up the Death Note to do exactly what he wanted them to do with it. He’s not a hands-off guy at all, and he’s also very good at getting people to do what he wants and working with whatever he has to achieve his goals, even when his hands are tied.

I wonder what he’d think of the human world if he wasn’t human himself? Would he care at all about the course of humanity or how they were treating each other if they were essentially just his prey/food?

I bet he’d be very dissatisfied with the lazy apathy of the Shinigami realm and the aimlessness of his existence, at any rate. He and Ryuk are fairly similar in this regard. Ryuk is one of the most ambitious Shinigami we meet when you think about it, even though he also seems like a laid back goofball a lot of the time. He’s seen as a bit of a strange pariah by the other death gods for how energetically he goes around trying to create entertainment for himself and all the mischief he makes!

Ahhh this is such a good question and I’m taking forever to answer it because I find it really hard to imagine; I always love to think about this scenario, but am not very good at coming up with what might actually happen if Light won at the end!

I doubt he would feel regretful about the casualties at all, even if he had to kill off the entire Task Force and SPK and Mikami and everyone else who confronted him at the end. He was already nonchalantly contemplating doing that long before the warehouse showdown, after all. He would likely see it all as necessary collateral damage, and also good payback for failing or daring to oppose him all those years.

Light would probably try to coax his mother and sister into sympathizing with Kira; the world was already well on the way to supporting and accepting him as law/god by that time anyway, so the climate surrounding his name would make that much easier to do. I am not sure how his family would actually feel considering how much tragedy befell them and the other families of the Task Force because of opposing Kira, though. It would be crazy to see how things would go if the Yagami women definitely knew that Light was Kira and still had to try to have a relationship with him somehow. I also think he’d probably not hesitate to kill them if he had to in order to fully achieve his new world.

I don’t think there were any major organizations opposing Kira outside of the SPK by that point, and Light would probably be good at getting the governments of the world on his side. It would be very much a Totalitarian Dictatorship sort of atmosphere, where people were behaving well out of fear and not trusting their own neighbors rather than because they were simply religiously inspired to be good. Obviously there would be a lot of genuine Kira devotees as well, but Light would have to continue ruling with an iron fist and punishing the criminals the same way he’d always done, I think. Other rebellious organizations might rise up to oppose him again eventually, and I imagine he’d be so powerful that it would be extremely difficult to oppose him unless he had grown too arrogant or disillusioned to be watching his own back properly. I don’t know if he’d still need Misa to help him with her eyes or not. He’d probably try to find someone else to do the same stuff for him and do away with her instead of keep her around for the rest of her life if he didn’t have to be so secretive anymore.

LMAO God-mandated Instagram accounts for everyone!

These are the questions, aren’t they? That’s why I want to see it fleshed out realistically so bad, it could be extremely interesting. There’d probably be mandatory census type things that documented everyone’s identies meticulously; I wonder if there’d even be bans on things that obscure or alter your identities, like plastic surgery and the like?

I think the definition of “criminal” would change drastically under Kira’s rule over time, because Light would become the one creating and enforcing all the laws in the first place. It really would be a very slippery slope when it comes to how he determines who deserves to live and who deserves to die, as we already saw happening when he was working with the Death Note in secret on his own.