aka marblucifer

Light: I'll tell Misa I will love her once she kills L, because surely, that's what love is? An exchange. A prize. A reward one can receive for accomplishing what another asks of them. If another person desires to be loved back, that love can be reciprocated if that person deserves it, if they worked for it, if they did something to earn it. I am a normal human being and everyone thinks this way. I have good grades

[ID: A Softer World x Death Note three-panel comic. A pillar in darkness: "I have a two part question." / The same shot a bit to the right, showing a staircase lit from a window: "1. What would you do if you were going to die?" / Light lies on the staircase, limp and bloody. "And 2. How did you ever convince yourself you weren't?"]

one of my strongest anime opinions is that light should have had to kill L with his own two hands. make him confront the reality of what he’s been doing all along. make L’s death more narratively satisfying and less convoluted. i’ve heard there was debate between the author and publisher on if light should get to “win” and i think not being able to kill L with the death note (the thing that makes him a god) and having to get his hands dirty in this very human and intimate way would have been a really interesting compromise

it's also imo an error to think of stories like death note as being a battle of wits in the sense that you should expect the characters to make optimal decisions. that's a flawed approach to any text, but death note in particular i think tricks people into thinking it's about a highly optimised game of chess specifically because the characters are highly intellectual and their game is likewise very thoughtfully planned and stepped out. however that's a misdirect. it's almost never about a battle of wits, it's always a battle of personality. the question "who's smarter, L or light" has almost nothing to do with who could reasonably be expected to win their fight. L is smarter. L can't win, not because of his intellect but because of his character. L can't win because light is his opponent and they are so well-matched in personality that neither can resist making a tactically poor move because it would be the "right" move in their game and they need to see if the other is going to match them. it's not chess, it's poker. it's a tango. it's a game of tennis where the goal isn't to score a point but to rally as long as possible. it's almost a team game. near doesn't beat light because he's smarter than light or L, he beats light because light steps up to do a choreographed dance and near just shoots him with a gun. the reason near wins while L can't is that L and light are playing each other's game to play, but near isn't playing, he's just trying to win