Death Note

Posted this on another app but wanted to say it again. This was my review for ep 14 Hot take: I don’t care what the creators say, the show would make a lot more sense if L really meant what he said when he saw light as a friend. It boils down to two things. 1. L knows that if light was Kira, he would see right through this act, so there is no reason to say this. And 2, this would make the theme of death note stand out more. For my first reason, L and light are both extremely intelligent and know each other very well since they have been working together for about 4 months now. L manipulates people a lot to find out information, but he never does it without knowing that it would work on the other person. For example, in later episode he manipulates Misa to helping him because he knows that her undying love for light will allow him to successfully get information out of her. So knowing light, he would know that light would see right through it. This means he has no reason to use this tactic unless to get under lights skin (which it doesn’t). For the second reason, the theme of death note is that power corrupts even then best of us. Imagining this scenario in the work of death note you get this summary. Two men, both extremely intelligent but alienated from other people because of their abilities. They are both extremely lonely with no one really matching their intellect. When they meet with each other they feel like they are finally being entertained by another person. Their relationship (whether you believe is platonic or not) is the only chance these two people get to where they are finally being challenged in a way that has never happened. If light never picked up that death note, him and L would have spent the rest of their lives solving cases together because they are the only people that understand each other. However light does pick up that death note, his god complex and power greedy strengthens and he changes in to a different person all together. He hates L to the point he tries to kill him. The power that controlled light prevented him from engaging in a lifelong relationship with the only person who every could’ve understood him. Think of the way amnesia light and L work together, think of L’s line of “it will be lonely won’t it, you and I will be parting ways soon”, think of literally all of episode 25. Though you could argue that near and mello entertained light in the same why L did, that’s just not true. Even for near, he found light really annoying so no ever true entertainment could be in either one of these people with each other. Though I have said that i believe L did not say this line as a way of manipulating light, I do have a reason for why he says this. He says this because he is so sick of the way the case is going, with light being more suspicious, ukita dying, and the second Kira being so stupid. I believe that after light detainment, when L says he is depressed, I don’t think that was the only time L felt like that. I belief that during episode 11 and onward, L feels depressed because of the reasons I said earlier. Like in episode 25, L says “Tell me, Light, from the moment you were born, has there ever been a point when you've actually told the truth?” L says this line because he has snapped at himself and light for constantly deceiving each other so that when he finally gets to the end of his life, he says this line. I believe that he has a similar outlook on life and his battle between Kira and him to where he snaps in a similar way he does in episode 25 and says this. Though this line does not come from a place of anger, it comes from a place of realizing that him and light could have had this relationship I talked about before. So this makes him say that line out of not caring about the battles outcome. I would just like to say, though I know that whether light and L’s potential romantic relationship is mentioned in this and I am a personal believer in that, you can still see this theory as plausible even if you don’t share this belief with me. I would love to see other people’s takes on this and I’m not saying that any other take is wrong or not valued. I love this show so any reply as long as it’s not insulting me or this show is welcome :) also Ty for anyone who took the time to read all of this.