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Kris and Susie

oh this is such a good question let me see if i can do it justice.

two of my favorite themes in anything are

characters who are performances

what if love was not good

and misa is basically like if you took these two and smashed them together in a way perfectly calculated to obliterate me

like she's so! our first introduction to her is her pretending to be someone else (the first kira) so well that she even fools the audience. our second introduction to her is rem telling her that she is only alive because someone loved her, someone was killed by their love for her, and misa looks down for a second — looks almost sad — and then smiles and immediately starts scheming to kill her too.

who the fuck does that? what is wrong with her?

That’s a very interesting question! …Also a topic I’m very careful with but I do have some thoughts I would like to share nonetheless.

I completely agree that it’s quite obvious that Ohba cares more about the development of his male characters, about making them more unique in their motivations. Large parts of Death Note are about Light manipulating people (not about being accidentally successful and smart because of his ~magical powers~, that’s such an annoying take, honestly). And when you look at how he treats female characters, starting with Yuri, later Naomi, then Misa, Rem and Kiyomi, it becomes pretty clear that both he and Ohba always use the same tactic. Yes, because while writing a sexist character doesn’t make you or your story sexist per se, it’s just the sad truth that Ohba wrote it that way for a reason. (From what I’ve heard about his other works, DN is comparatively mild in the sexism department though)

If you compare that to the much more complex ways Light manipulates male characters, you can see very easily how they’re more developed by default. Not only has Light a much harder time with them, he evades characters like L and Near or even Aizawa, who isn’t a certified genius, by, well, not getting caught until the end.

Actually, I think it’s pretty interesting how characters deal with the fact that Light is Kira. The only female character who figures out his identity on her own is Misa, and she mostly manages that due to her special powers (the Shinigami eyes). Of course Misa is never praised for that and she’s routinely portrayed as dumb, while most of her character is about her obsession with Light… which only poses a problem for a few chapters. 

Very popular fanon but fanon nonetheless: Naomi figuring out Light is Kira. She didn’t; Light told her himself and she’s in fact more than a little shocked by it, and of course, already doomed when she finds out the truth.

Kiyomi is told as well, and she’s a Kira supporter anyway, in love with Light, and relatively easy to manipulate - even though we see her struggling with being ordered to kill people. What’s apparently more of a problem is her questioning Light about Misa, but really, he’s mostly just annoyed and her jealously is something the narrative actively makes fun of (confirmed by Ohba himself).

Yes, I definitely think all of that plays into it as well! Seeing Misa as “pure” (not just as less bad than Light) is still difficult for me to understand, since I don’t really get how you can just… forget (?) that Misa is a serial murderer who always 100% supports Kira even without her DN related memories, but yeah. Oh, I guess the fact that Misa is thankful towards Kira for avenging her parents makes her a bit more sympathetic too.

But I find phenomenons like that pretty interesting, and it’s fun to try and find out what makes fanon interpretations that gloss over important characters traits or key scenes popular.

And completely adopting a character’s point of view/opinion regarding another character seems to be widespread thing in fandom spaces for sure. I think Rem’s mere existence makes it very easy to view Misa a certain way, because her love for Misa is the only thing that makes her relevant.

It’s quite ironic, actually, because Misa never likes or appreciates Rem, she admits that she wants to find out how to kill Rem right at the beginning, the fact that Rem loves her makes her uncomfortable and she’s completely forgotten about after her sacrifice, haha. It must suck to relate to Rem.

But yes, even though I find neither her nor Misa even relatable, I still can kind of understand why other people would.

Well, if you’re asking if Light slept with Kiyomi, I think that’s pretty subtly implied. Not outright “canon” but you could certainly make a case for it (and I think someone did? I’ve read meta about this here on tumblr I vastly agreed with, but I don’t remember who wrote it, sorry) (I just remember that they explained it better than I could, haha).

It’s not just that they indeed spent some nights together:

Light also very clearly tells the task force that he’s going to pretend to be her boyfriend, Ide is impressed about how close they seem and Matsuda says they’re like “a couple of newlyweds”, which makes me believe their relationship is at the very least more intimate behind the scenes than what Ohba shows us.

Also:

After Mikami calls Kiyomi at the hotel, Light has only one hidden wire on him and I honestly can see him discussing with the task force beforehand that he might do something with Kiyomi they won’t get to hear. Or something like that.

Anyway, I don’t think it matters that much if they had sex or not, since this would be cheating either way. The manga even makes light of this:

Well, Soichiro obviously deeply shaped Light’s world views and ideals. We can see on several occasions that his approval means a lot to Light,and his family is definitely a special case when it comes to their opinions on Kira and how he reacts to their disapproval. Normally he’s quick to deem someone evil, quick to justify killing someone simply for defying him.

But even though Soichiro openly says this about Kira:

Light never thinks of him as his foe. Instead, he sees him as just another victim of the rotten world they live in. Even at the warehouse, after Soichiro’s death, he still calls him earnest and just:

Of course he’s trying to manipulate Matsuda here as well, but I don’t think he’s lying. It actually just shows that Light twisted himself and his ideals into something that doesn’t align with his original goals and morals.

I do think Light is a bit more cynical, arrogant and more sneaky than Soichiro even before he found the Death Note, but he’s still learned about right and wrong, good and evil, from his father. He’s used to be the son his parents can be proud of, used to not only meeting all expectations but to exceeding them as well.

It would certainly be interesting to find out how a direct confrontation would have been like. Because if Light is anything, it’s stubborn. I doubt even Soichiro could change his mind on the whole Kira thing (also because what he did is quite extreme and definitely not something you could just leave behind, haha), but I believe it would have been a very emotional scene. Light would most likely direct his anger to the world at large, maybe to Soichiro’s stubbornness, but I have a very hard time imagining Light denouncing his father of all people. Because as I said; he’s who shaped Light’s views of good and bad in the first place. His family is what comes to his mind when he thinks about the people he wants to protect, how he imagines the people of his New World should be.

Open disappointment from his father definitely wouldn’t sit well with him. You know, I don’t think Light wants to be 100% like him and he probably wouldn’t see anything wrong with hiding small and rather unimportant things from him (for example, I think he doesn’t care all that much that his father now thinks that he’s reading porn magazines, lol), but it’s obvious that he always respects him and his opinions.

I’ve seen people portraying Light like a rebel who deliberately goes against Soichiro and people portraying Light like someone who basically would only buy socks his father would approve of. And I disagree with both. I actually think their relationship is one a lot of people can relate to; most people know how difficult it can be to try to make your parents proud while still staying true to yourself. It’s challenging for sure. And disappointment from a parent who sincerely and openly trusted you… hurts a lot.

My main issue with this idea is that I don’t see any solid reason why they would come to like each other.

Yes, they’re aware that they’re both roughly at the same level intellectually, and yes, they worked well together as a team when they cornered Higuchi. But only focusing on that completely disregards context.

Light sees L as an obstacle, sometimes as an entertaining one, but there’s little room for him to be genuinely fond of him. He feels at times humiliated by L and his defeat, in his mind, validates him and the righteousness of his goals. When Light relinquishes his memories, L becomes someone who wrongs him again and again just by suspecting and investigating him. And that’s not even taking into account the methods L uses to investigate him. It’s also obvious that Light has no qualms about orchestrating L’s death.

And as for L... he sees and treats Light as his main suspect almost as soon as he’s on L’s radar. He might not be the most moral character, but I still very much doubt he would want to be friends with someone he thinks of as serial killer. There’s also the fact to consider that L shows little to no interest in either social or emotional relationships of any kind. The closest we got is L saying he “trusts” certain people... in a professional context.

That said, I’m, like many of us, fascinated by Light’s and L’s dynamic and the occasional playfulness of it.