BrikHaus wrote:You're just jealous that you aren't as awesome as Light. The more evil and badass he is, the more of a great character he is. If he was real, I'd totally worship him as god.

Problem was that he came off more as an ultracocky psychopathic brat than serious evil mastermind to me.


oh well, getting owned by that autistic Near kid was just what he deserved. lol.

Light, Mello, and Kratos are definitely the least sympathetic villains ever.

Something else that I've noticed, why does everyone hate Near?

The feeling of deterioration in the show after L's death seemed intentional to me. The downward spiral into tragedy and Light's increasing cruelty was more dramatic and felt without L around as the only sane man, comic relief and most genuinely sympathetic character in the show. When he died my motivation in watching the show changed from wanting to see L do more awesome stuff to just wanting to see Light get his just desserts, which made Light's constant winning streak up until his bitter end so brilliantly frustrating. And then when he died and we got to see all his emotions during his last moments, I was like "fuck, why do I feel sorry for this asshole now?" So yeah, I actually thought the later half of the show was some of its most ingenious stuff.

Xard wrote:oh well, getting owned by that autistic Near kid was just what he deserved. lol.

That part of the series doesn't exist. It's just a lie.

Born of Lilith wrote:The feeling of deterioration in the show after L's death seemed intentional to me. The downward spiral into tragedy and Light's increasing cruelty was more dramatic and felt without L around as the only sane man, comic relief and most genuinely sympathetic character in the show. When he died my motivation in watching the show changed from wanting to see L do more awesome stuff to just wanting to see Light get his just desserts, which made Light's constant winning streak up until his bitter end so brilliantly frustrating. And then when he died and we got to see all his emotions during his last moments, I was like "fuck, why do I feel sorry for this asshole now?" So yeah, I actually thought the later half of the show was some of its most ingenious stuff.

I agree generally, but the problem I saw was that when L died, it was like a false climax, but a climax nonetheless. And then when Near won, it felt like everything that had been building up from episode 25 to 37 was destroyed too suddenly. It was kinda stupid IMO to see someone other than L win (I think it would've been cool if L sacrificed himself to bring down Light, or if Light won and became a God of Death). The effect of having L's subordinates carry on the battle is kind of like imagining what it would be like if Light died and the people he controlled went on to assume his name. It would be lame.

Basically, L vs. Light was better than Light vs. SPK due to storytelling convention and the fact that Near is annoying.

Born of Lilith wrote:The feeling of deterioration in the show after L's death seemed intentional to me. The downward spiral into tragedy and Light's increasing cruelty was more dramatic and felt without L around as the only sane man, comic relief and most genuinely sympathetic character in the show. When he died my motivation in watching the show changed from wanting to see L do more awesome stuff to just wanting to see Light get his just desserts, which made Light's constant winning streak up until his bitter end so brilliantly frustrating. And then when he died and we got to see all his emotions during his last moments, I was like "fuck, why do I feel sorry for this asshole now?" So yeah, I actually thought the later half of the show was some of its most ingenious stuff.

Not to say this isn't what they aimed for and what partially happened but execution was shit tier in any case. Death Note first started to fall apart at Yotsuba Corp. arc but it didn't lose its marbles before L died.

Writing simply became more shitty. Feeling of deterioration can be induced without shitty writing

TehDonutKing wrote:Light, Mello, and Kratos are definitely the least sympathetic villains ever.

Something else that I've noticed, why does everyone hate Near?

Because he's just L; minus the characterisation or attachment the audience had developed for him. Not to mention that if you're just going to replace L with someone almost identical to L, then why get rid of him? Although the show really had been scraping the barrel badly at that point, so a change was probably necesarry.

At least they didn't go into space.

liquidus118 wrote:Because he's just L; minus the characterisation or attachment the audience had developed for him. Not to mention that if you're just going to replace L with someone almost identical to L, then why get rid of him? Although the show really had been scraping the barrel badly at that point, so a change was probably necesarry.

Near is nothing like L.

This thread is to avoid cluttering "Characters you dislike the most?" with Death Note.

NemZ wrote:Quite a few police officers come to mind. L. That lady who was going to the station to report a tip. The guy he -thought- was L (not really an innocent, but he certainly didn't seem to care). Hell, everyone the dies as a result of Light's handing the death notes around to cover his tracks are indirectly his fault as well, and clearly he doesn't care because he keeps using this tactic.

The police officers, including L and Naomi, cannot be considered innocent, as they were deliberately working against Light and his new world, even though they were by no means supporting criminals. In a war they would be enemy combatants.
Now, the handing around of the Death Notes was indeed dangerous, especially with the Yotsuba creep, though that one was entirely neccesary. By the end of the series, Light was desperate, and made mistakes, both strategic and ethical. I won't deny that.

The greater part of the story is about Light trying to kill someone that by any non-perverted logic he should see as being on the same side as him.

How does he even know who the criminals that he kills are? Because the police have found them, even though the courts may not yet have convicted them (Light seems unconcerned about that side of things, even killing people that the police have not found while merely remarking that people know they are criminals). But L is a super-detective, dedicated to finding the more difficult, and presumably more dangerous, criminals - Light wanting to kill him goes against his supposed principles of justice, because he "ought" to want the opportunity to kill the kind of people that L finds.

Would you want to live in a perfect world ruled (as a God - his word) by such a madman?

Agamemnom is still living his chuuni phase, give him some room guys

Xard wrote:Agamemnom is still living his chuuni phase, give him some room guys

I'm sure this will make me look stupid(er than I already am), but what does "chuuni" mean?

I tried looking it up, and I'm pretty sure you're not saying that Agamemnom is an Indian wedding scarf.

The Killer of Heroes wrote:I'm sure this will make me look stupid(er than I already am), but what does "chuuni" mean?

I tried looking it up, and I'm pretty sure you're not saying that Agamemnom is an Indian wedding scarf.

http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Chuunibyou

Chuuni? Wha?

...anyway, Light may THINK he has some grand purpose that will justify all this, but in truth he's just flailing around to show off, not really thinking about his actions beyond the most immediate problem and thus constantly making more for himself. Killing people just to make a point and lashing out at anyone who dares to question his methods... it's all incredibly childish.

pwhodges wrote: But L is a super-detective, dedicated to finding the more difficult, and presumably more dangerous, criminals - Light wanting to kill him goes against his supposed principles of justice, because he "ought" to want the opportunity to kill the kind of people that L finds.

Would you want to live in a perfect world ruled (as a God - his word) by such a madman?

While I'm not saying that Light was right, it makes sense he would want to kill L, because L is essentially trying to do him in as well, by finding him and giving him to the authorities who would give him the death penalty.

Essentially it's either give up and stop using the deathnot or kill L. Given what Light was trying to do, killing L was the logical choice as was eliminating anyone else who opposed him.

Now that being said I do think what Light was doing was ultimately pointless, because even with a weapon like that, you can't control human bahavior to the point where you can make some ideal utopia and everything that he made would inevitably come crashing down on his head as it did. Now would I want to live in such a world, where a monstrous governing force gobbles up all disadents, I would rather deal with regular criminals then something like that.

Oh, I understand Light's logic - I'm just not going to give him any kind of free pass on account of it.

NemZ wrote:...anyway, Light may THINK he has some grand purpose that will justify all this, but in truth he's just flailing around to show off, not really thinking about his actions beyond the most immediate problem and thus constantly making more for himself. Killing people just to make a point and lashing out at anyone who dares to question his methods... it's all incredibly childish.

I just don't see it that way. Light does have a grand purpose- it's very clearly stated- and the plot is basically L & Successors molesting him and distracting him from it with the constant mind games.
Ironically showing off is precisely the long-term goal of Light's Kiraing.

pwhodges wrote:The greater part of the story is about Light trying to kill someone that by any non-perverted logic he should see as being on the same side as him.

It's not perverted at all. Anyone would try to kill someone trying to kill them. Maybe if L weren't dedicating everything to trying to capture him, he would have used that logic.

pwhodges wrote:Oh, I understand Light's logic - I'm just not going to give him any kind of free pass on account of it.

I've looked back at the earlier posts that this thread has been merged with, and I'm really surprised how much praise there is for the series at the start, though it does tail off later.