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kiyomitakada · 16 days ago

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Hi this sounds really stupid sorry sorry in advance! I was wondering if you could explore the popular analysis of L=Light I see so strongly in the fandom.

I came out of the series not understanding what people saw that led them to believe L and Light are so so soooo similar. I get the surface-level parallels of both being intelligent and good at quick deductions. They definitely think alike (we see multiple times where they can catch what the other is saying without needing it verbalized), they also kinda share the whole 'motivated by boredom' aspect in the first half of the series(<- `I would say L moreso than Light, he is shown to be a bored adolescence in the beginning but he seems to clutch more to the preservation of his character after the initial few events, and then is caught up by the thrill of the game up until L dies. Boredom -> Morality -> Thrill) and perhaps the fact that they're both quick to anger (the fight in the headquarters -> but still L comes across as more level-headed, and the kick back appeared to be more of a requital than motivated by actual anger?) there is a really popular sentence in most meta and fics I've read that (paraphrased) says 'Light saw himself in L/ finally was able to connect to another" that confuses me.

HIIIIIIIIII this is such a fun ask oh my god thank you for the opportunity to talk about this. it does not sound stupid!!!! i think we (general) tend to take L and light parallelisms as granted and also exaggerate them a little because they're the two leads of death note who everyone knows about but the question of What Is Actually There is always a good one to ask!

i think this actually breaks down into two parts which are: 1. are they similar, 2. why are they motivated to think they are similar?

SO. first one first,

you have all the immediately obvious parallels down, they think super alike and they are bored as hell

tangent: i really really love this (short!) analysis on the type of boredom they share. light doesn't want entertainment the same way L does and L is as-far-as-we-know very satisfied in his position in the world before the start of the manga. but! they both like establishing superiority. they both like playing games. the thrill stage. i think L is as caught up in the game as light is — showing up in person just to throw light off despite the risk, inviting light to tennis, the other students talking about how they've spent two days hanging around only each other,

(granted this person clearly does not like them and is probably exaggerating)

near and mello in comparison are playing against each other instead of light, but near specifically tells aizawa that both of their motivation is to catch kira for L's sake. and of course L wants to catch kira too but he views it in a much more tunnel-vision sense. he literally talks to kira in his head

L solves a lot of cases! but this one in particular he has someone intellectually on his level and he has so much more fun that way.

ANYWAY. that's L's part of the thrill of the game you mentioned for light. onto the more fun similarities: this is my personal favorite. after ryuk tells light that he found 64 cameras in his room,

in japanese they even include special emphasis on the either. and light and ryuk haven't been talking about anyone else in their conversation before this.

that guy doesn't know where to stop (just like me).

i think this is the core of what makes them similar leaving intellectual mind games aside. it is the Ruthlessness. light will kill hundreds of thousands of people to prove that he is right, that he is justice (because he wants to be right). L will kill lind l tailor and put 64 cameras into a high school student's room and put misa amane in sensory deprivation torture for 50+ days, to prove that light is kira (because he wants light to be kira).

this isn't unique to the two of them by all means! misa sacrifices her friend and moves to tokyo and kills a bunch of news announcers and celebrities to find light! but light never acknowledges her as similar to him even when misa invokes it deliberately ["to defeat evil there must be sacrifices, right? that's what you've been doing"]. because. well. first of all the misogyny, and second of all because he's not playing against misa, misa is a wild card in what he conceives of as a battle solely between him and L.

and similarly mello says that he'll do whatever it takes to beat near, including killing half his organization to destabilize him and blowing himself up and so on. but light doesn't see any of this as a parallel and the narrative doesn't go out of its way to point it out the way it does for light and L:

(note: naomi says herself the reason she ended up telling light her entire theory is because he reminded her of L.) (this is probably because of the way light validates her [as L did in labb] and fills in the gaps in her logic [as L did in labb] but the point is that the narration has an Agenda)

okay so tied to the ruthlessness is the Justice thing. here is another (short!) meta which argues that L is the god of the old world vs. light as the god of the new world:

When L proclaims to be justice in his pissing contest with Kira, he doesn’t mean “justice is a concept that exists independent from humans and is clearly defined, I adhere to this concept”. He means the same thing Light does: “The definition of justice is man-made and I am the man making it.” The struggle between L and Kira is a power struggle - aside from being a criminal by legal definition, Kira is the first person to truly challenge L's status. It’s not a fight of right and wrong, it’s a fight over who gets to define 'right’.

after his morality crisis at the start light spends most of the first half convincing himself that he is Genuinely Right. so right in fact that he is justified to kill everyone else in his way because they're the evil ones for trying to stop kira, clearly. he kills naomi and raye without a care in the world!

L on the other hand is less readable because we don't spend as much time with him but i usually interpret him as knowing from the start that this isn't about justice at all. at the start he says things like "the good guys always win!" to motivate the task force but once they have a rapport, he acknowledges on multiple occasions that he's taking the morally worse route but it's worth it to him because he'll catch kira that way.

("i believe that your method is most correct" is insaaane coming from l lawliet)

the main difference between them is that L is perfectly aware that he's doing fucked up shit while first-arc light isn't. but second arc! after soichiro (moral center of death note) dies!

light: i think kira understands this—

and now we're back to the other iconic scene of a character staring out a window:

separated across an ocean and five years but there it is! they will do anything to get what they perceive as justice, even though they also know it's evil, including using their own selves/lives and everyone else's as tools for their ambitions.

…but it's also a game. and it's fun, isn't it?

aaaand yeah. i think that's probably the core of it. no other pair hits all of those points at the same time — notably near (as mentioned in that meta i linked before) rejects the entire traditional premise of justice. nobody can tell what is right or wrong, what is righteous or evil. even if there is a god… and i had his teachings before me, i would think it through… and decide if that was right or wrong myself. and this is also why near doesn't kill light, because near is genuine about believing it's not anyone's place to decide that, which is the exact thing that makes light think L is better than near (because L would have killed light 100%)

tangent: it is also very important to me that near beats c-kira by saying "you're nothing but a murderer." and then self-chastises "that wasn't very L-like" but it's what gets c-kira to stop.

why isn't it L-like — because L wouldn't look down at c-kira like that, because kira is L's opponent and they are equally matched and they are playing a game. but near sees the world with clearer eyes. c-kira isn't a rival. they're just another murderer.

okay so as to the second part of your question:

there is a really popular sentence in most meta and fics I've read that (paraphrased) says 'Light saw himself in L/ finally was able to connect to another" that confuses me.

sorry this bit is going to have fewer mangacaps because i can't recall the exact moments as well. BUT.

light is lonely. he spends class gazing out the window. he doesn't consider telling anyone about the death note, ever. he laughs and jokes with his friends and asks for new year's cards and then goes home and immediately sags against the door (and notices that there's something wrong with his doorknob). he doesn't tell anyone about how he kind of wants to kill everyone around him even pre-death note just because god, the world sucks so much. you get my point.

and then L comes along and is the first challenge light has basically ever had and. [gestures at above] the way he falls silent when naomi tells him he reminds her of L and then visibly pushes it aside to say, hey, why not join the task force? we just need your ID! that guy doesn't know where to stop, either (hey look it's pretty much canon that he sees himself in L even if he brushes the thought aside immediately). the way he brightens when L says he's doing well in the cafe:

the way he hesitates to kill L when rem can do it immediately and only smiles after misa sees his name and therefore light can decide when to kill him himself?

and all of this is still true whether or not you think light even likes L as a person! because he enjoys the challenge! which yeah we all knew that already BUT. the point is. he's lonely. L is the first person to provide a reprieve from his boredom. he has all the motivation in the world to want to see himself in L/connect to another, even in a world where they weren't alike at all.

and then L is just here like

thank you L

actually wait yes that's also a thing. the ego thing. they fucking HATE losing because it would damage their sense of pride! this is something that kiyomi also shares (which is why light also recognizes himself in kiyomi) but not any of the other main cast characters to the extent that they do — mello hates losing but it's because of his inferiority complex, it's different from L & light who are already on top of the world but feel threatened; near is overconfident but it's because near underestimates kira, not because of self-overestimation. light doing the entire yotsuba gambit because he's sure that he'll get the notebook back and win <--> L saying there's no way that yotsuba caught kira before he did. you understand

okay. okay. so. tl;dr

they are both seeking justice on their own terms while using methods that they know (L consciously, light subconsciously) are wrong but they think will lead to the Correct results for the world in time

rephrase: they are ruthless bastards

rephrase: they're childish and egotistical and they hate losing :)

as you mentioned: the intelligence, being able to see each other's thoughts, etc (this is also a thing for light and near; i can't remember the post but someone said "all death note geniuses share a brain" and i've never been able to unsee it)

but even in the case where all of that was untrue they'd probably still want to see themselves in each other anyway, light because he's lonely and L because this is the first fun case he has had in forever.

#we are the ones / who don't slow down at all / and there's nobody there / to catch us when we fall #<- should have just screenshotted that that's my entire point #light yagami #l lawliet #death note #asks #anon #okay im going to pin this for a second since i spent like three hours on it in a fugue state

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