Light Yagami: Villain, Hero, or Victim?
Is Death Note’s Light Yagami really a villain? Is he a true hero? Is he just simply a victim of his own mind?
This article contains spoilers for the Death Note manga series. This article is based on the manga series, not the anime show.
Ever since it was published in 2003, Death Note has become one of the most popular manga series ever. The idea of having the power to kill just by writing their name down in a notebook intrigued many people, myself included. It brought up several moral questions for me as well. What would you do if you had the power? Would you try it out? Would you turn it in? Would you turn in Light Yagami?
The manga opens with Light in school. He is brilliant, handsome, and at the top of his game. He is the young man that every male wants to be and the boy every girl wants to date. He is cool and confident. He is good a everything he does. His peers and family worship him. We see this time and time again. Whenever something goes wrong, everyone turns to Light, because he usually has the answer they need. We see this with his younger sister when she needs help with math homework. Even the Japanese police have turned to him when they need to solve a difficult case. Even before the events in Death Note, he is given this god-like status and everyone bows to him. Having a god-like status allows him to be put above everyone around him. In his mind, this makes him untouchable. He can do no wrong.
On top of having everything going for him, Light is bored. Life is great for him, but it’s not enough. When we first met Light, we see him spend hours in his room studying for entrance exams. While people his age are interested in him, he doesn’t seem to have any desire to join them. This self-isolation and being bored, in this day and age, would be a red flag. However, people know that this is who Light is and don’t question it. When he does start to venture out into society, no one questions it either. I believe that the idea of Light can do no wrong stops people from wondering if something could be going on with him.
It is because of this boredom that Light is first taken down his dark and twisted path. Light is coming out of school when he stumbles upon a notebook, which happens to be a Shinigami’s Death Note. Light, being a curious teenage boy, picks up the notebook. As soon as he picks up the Death Note, he becomes its owner. He opens it and reads the rules. At first, Light doesn’t come across as interested in using the notebook. He doesn’t believe that the Death Note’s powers are real. The world doesn’t work the way the notebook says it does. You cannot kill someone by writing their name down in a notebook. He takes it home but still doesn’t believe that it is possible. However, the more he thinks about it, the more he starts to wonder if it is real.
He decides to experiment. Now he doesn’t experiment because he wants to see if the notebook’s powers are real or not, he does so because he believes that he is the only one who can bear its power. This makes Light come across as arrogant and all-knowing, which stems from everyone treating him like a god. It is here that he meets Ryuk, the Shinigami who dropped the notebook. Ryuk tells Light that he has dropped the notebook into the human world and that when Light dies, he will be the one to write Light’s name in the Death Note. This may not seem like a big deal as Light does brush it off, but this shows us the brilliance of Death Note. This little line is foreshadowing what is to come.
Light decides that he will use the Death Note as a way to rid the world of evil. Again, this goes back to the god-like way that people had been treating him all along. It also stems from his idea of justice. He has a strong sense of right and wrong. He wants to do what is right and does want to make the world a better place. He believes that he can do so by just killing criminals. He believes that by ridding the world of them, he is making it a better place for all. He repeatedly calls the world “rotten” and claims that he is the “God of a new world.” He is driven by his goals. He doesn’t do anything out of rashness. Yes, he knows what is he doing is murder, but believes that is necessary. After all, he is making the world a better and safer place. Crime rates are down. Everything is going just as he planned.
It also doesn’t help that there are people out there who openly support what he is doing. They even call Kira, his new name, a god, which, again, fits into the worship that he has always had. He is their hero and saviour. He doesn’t stop there though. His quest for justice becomes so twisted and skewed by this that he starts to turn into a monster. He moves away from solely killing criminals to murdering those who get in his way. At this point, the Japanese police, FBI, and L are involved in finding and arresting Kira. Light views them as people who are in his way. They are stopping him from building his perfect world and this is a problem. He starts to write innocent peoples’ names in the Death Note, manipulates them to get what he wants, and when his followers are of no use to him, he drops them. Still, he maintains the belief that he is doing all of this to save the world. He believes that by taking on the burden of writing names in the Death Note he is sacrificing himself to make the world a kind and safer place. Those who get in his way don’t understand what he is attempting to do. Since they don’t understand, then they are villains and, therefore, must be ended.
Though Light does believe that what is doing is for the best, we start to see his character change. He still maintains his belief that he is a god and that he is the only one who can carry out the deed. We see him start to become cold and ruthless. For example, Misa, who worships the ground Light walks on, becomes one of the first victims of this change. Now, Light has not treated her very kindly at all. She has her Death Note, which Light finds out about. He takes advantage of her love for him. He puts in her danger and doesn’t value her. At times, he comes across as abusive. Still, she stays with him because she views him with, once again, a god-like status. Misa isn’t the only victim of Light’s coldness and ruthlessness. We also see it when his sister, Sayu, is kidnapped and held for ransom. Light stops his father from saving her. Why? Well, it will most likely reveal that he is Kira.
Light does not show any kind of remorse for his actions. Again, he has that mindset that he is doing the world a favour. All of this hints that Light is truly not evil. We can sort of see this when he loses the Death Note. We see Light’s intelligence put to good use. Now, of course, it’s for his gain, but we can see the good in him. The only reason he gave up the Death Note was to get the suspicion off of himself. When he loses the Death Note, he loses all memories of it. We see him as compassionate, not wanting to use others for personal gain, and having a strong distaste for killing. He becomes the opposite of what we have seen so far. This shows us what kind of a person Light could have been. He uses what he knows to help others. He maintains this sense of doing what is right and bettering the world. He wants to do what is right and bring justice to the world. Of course, this all changes once he regains the Death Note and his memories. He goes right back to the way he was before, stopping at nothing to keep his god-like status.
What starts as good intentions ends up destroying Light. He starts to unravel and enters an almost manic state. The deeper he gets with the Death Note, the further away from morality and responsibility he gets. It is almost like he is now cursed. Most of his good intentions are gone as his goal shifts from bettering the world to making sure that no one finds out who Kira is. As with manipulating people, this repeatedly happens. An example can be found with the FBI agent, Raye Penbar, who happens to be in Japan to investigate Kira. Light knows that he is being followed and decides to do something about it. He doesn’t hesitate and kills him. We also see something similar with L. L and Light does have a lot in common and could have had a close friendship. However, since L is getting close to figuring out who Kira is, Light decides that he is a problem and kills him. After that, it is just a matter of convenience. Someone has to be the next L and chief investigator. Who is better than Light?
Now, Light is fully in control of the Kira investigation. He, once again, uses this to his advantage. Because he has played up his strong dislike for Kira and what is happening, no one seems to notice how he is using them. When things start to get too close to Kira, no one questions when Light changes the investigation’s course. After all, Light does know best. This only lasts until Near comes into the picture. Light knows that Near is onto him and, once again, will stop at nothing to keep his secret. We see him come up with elaborate plan after plan to get Near off his back. Light’s ego gets in the way. He believes that this will take time, but in the end, he will come out on top. He doesn’t even stop and consider the fact that someone may outsmart him and that he will lose. After all, he’s won everything else.
This quest to always be on top ends up costing Light more than he bargained for. By the time, we reach the final chapters, he is not the young man from the start of the story. He is not confident and collected; he is the exact opposite. He is both mentally and physically incapacitated. Still, he does not give up. He will not admit that it is over and that he has lost. He will not admit that Near has won, even after Near has given him a step-by-step play of everything that has gone down. He starts to break down. He keeps saying that he doesn’t want to be arrested and go to prison. We see him yell at Mikami to write more names in the Death Note, even though he knows that the notebook is fake. This shows us that Light has completely become undone by the Death Note. Mikami watches all of this. He realises that Light is not a god, but a mere human and refuses to help anyone. Light, then, starts to yell for Misa, who isn’t present. He begs for Takada, only to be told that she is dead. This doesn’t stop him. He is distraught but still will not admit that he has lost.
To see Light go through this is truly heartbreaking. The manga captures his fall through facial expressions and artwork. The panels show us how this young man had who had everything going for him before falling from grace. He has lost all of his sanity and can only focus on winning-if you can even call it that. He is completely out of touch with what is going on. He is now officially at his lowest point and there is probably going to be no coming back from it.
However, he is still present enough to realize that he does have another option. It is here that we see how something that could have been read as a throwaway line comes into play. He turns to Ryuk and begs him to write everyone‘s name in the Death Note. Ryuk reminds Light that he is not on either side. Now, had Light still been mentally present, he would have paused and thought about what Ryuk was saying. Light used to be that kind of character. However, he doesn’t. Ryuk does right a name in the Death Note. It is Light’s.
Once Light realizes that he is going to die, he lets his fear show. He keeps saying that he doesn’t want to die. The pain and fear in his eyes are heartbreaking and make you feel for him. It reminds him that he is human and not a god. However, he does not show any remorse for what he has done nor does he wish that he could undo it. He keeps attempting to reach his allies, thinking that despite the way he has treated them that they will still be there for him. They are not. This once great person who had it all ends up dying a rather painful death alone. No one outside of the room knows whom Kira is, making Light’s work all seem for nothing.
The manga ends with us seeing the world after Kira. Even though Kira is believed to be gone, we still see people who worship him as a god. This is rather ironic since Kira did die as a human. However, these people don’t know that. They don’t know that Kira was the result of a bored young man with a rather twisted sense of justice. They don’t know that the one running the investigation was the one behind it all. While Light may be gone, Kira manages to live on.
So, was Light Yamgai a hero, villain, or victim? It all depends on how you want to approach the situation. He was a hero in the sense that he lowered crime rates and wanted to make the world a better place. He was a villain in the fact that he was a mass murderer. He was a victim in the matter of the way people viewed him as a god and worshipped him. No matter how you want to look at it, one thing is clear: Light’s story is one of the most heartbreaking ones to ever grace the pages of a story.
