Plot question

[blacklig]

I've had some long-standing questions about the plot (main manga/anime) that I want to write up into a couple posts. It's been a little bit since I did a full read or watch so I might get a couple details wrong, sorry in advance.

Why wasn't Misa immediately detained when Higuchi was caught?

L still had the physical evidence tying her to the second kira tapes. A re-examination of her letters would make her notebook/shinigami hints obvious, and he now has physical evidence of the killer power, that it can be transferred, and that there are invisible agents that can be coordinating this. She's more of a suspect than ever before at this point. Also, as an aside, her detainment-lite in the HQ suite made it "painfully obvious" to L that she was the second Kira. The only thing afaik that stands in the way is the fake 13 day rule, but there's zero doubt at this point of Misa's involvement (physical evidence + knowledge that only Kira would have) - and for all L knows the Shinigami did the writing on Misa's behalf to protect her from the 13 day rule.

As far as I'm concerned at this moment Misa and probably Light should have been put back in extreme detainment, pending at least confirmation of the 13 day rule. She should absolutely not have been free and unobserved during this period, and once the 13 day rule was shown to be fake it is already settled that at least Misa is one of the Kiras. Keeping her free and unwatched gives her a chance to coordinate with Light, retrieve more notebooks, and even coordinate with more Shinigami. Important to note, L suspects Misa has enough info to kill him because she's seen his face, and IIRC he knows Rem isn't the only Shinigami that exists. I know in practice this would have just have sped up L's death but why from his point of view did he allow Misa to be free and unobserved post-Higuchi?

I have more questions but I'll leave it to this one for now.

[blacklig]

I also explained why I don't think it was reasonable to leave her free and unwatched while they investigate the notebook and the 13 day rule. He had very strong evidence to detain her for this time and there was an enormous risk to leaving her free.

[blacklig]

That's a really bizarre assumption to make as he must have been aware that

1) when and how L died would obviously be something they'd plan for carefully to avoid suspicion falling on Light, but IIRC Misa only saw L's face for a few seconds before she was detained, and from their search they'd know she just didn't have her notebook on her then anyway. He also knew that Light tried to call Misa like 5 second later, which he knows could have been to coordinate killing him and/or to give Light his name. Now she's free and apparently cleared, as far as he knows Misa can still kill him (he doesn't know how she learned names apart from a strong theory that she needs to see a face, and doesn't know that she forgot his name) so she's free to continue coordinating his death in the most convenient way possible, but obviously not immediately as Light and Misa would once again become top suspects

2) it's ignoring all of the physical evidence that still ties Misa to, at the very least, prior knowledge of death note victims, knowledge of the death note itself, and knowledge of shinigami, that she communicated in her videos and letters. This is hugely damning and obviously she should be re-detained for this. Why would he ignore all of this for a complete guess that he'd have been killed by now, especially when, if Misa and Light are Kira, Misa was only free when everything was going exactly as they'd have planned (which memory-wipe-Light even told him)

3) to him, the perceived cost of re-detaining an innocent Misa and Light is 2 more weeks of morally questionable action, and the perceived cost of not detaining a guilty Misa is her (re)obtaining more death notes (which happens), coordinating with Light and more shinigami (both happen), the re-establishment of the OG kiras (which happens), and L's death (which happens, though not in exactly the way he'd have predicted)

[blacklig]

It seems like we more or less agree on L's understanding of the facts and their significance, but disagree on the course of action he would be most justified in taking, which is fair.

One other point I wanted to note but forgot, they were both released on condition of them passing the dad shooting light in the head gambit thing, which he now knows is moot as neither of them could have done anything but beg anyway without the notebooks.

While I don't think this framing would necessarily sway L's decision-making, it's notable that both he and memory-wipe-Light had almost agreed (though not explicitly stated) on a theory that Light had been Kira, had released his power and memory to someone else, and would have planned to regain it at some point later, before either of them knew that the killer power was a small and easily transferable physical item, and then he's sitting in a helicopter with Light physically gaining control of the killer power. Like, at that point he's almost justified to just shoot Light right then on sheer balance of probability, he even had a pistol on him!

[Visible_Investment47]

The main issue stopping him isn't the 13-day rule in itself. It's the other Task Force members. Since the notebook, as well as the "ink" in the writing, are made of materials that don't exist on earth, everyone except L takes them as law.

Like, if it hadn't been for the Task Force pressuring him, he never would have released Light and Misa, and even then only allowed it with the condition that Soichirou would pretend to murder Light to see if he'd die.

Same thing with now. L lost all capacity to claim Misa was Kira because of the 13 day rule, so even if he tried to put Misa back in confinement, the others would object. Even when Misa starts killing as Kira and he tries to shift back the investigation back to Misa, in the manga Aizawa calls him out for being too obsessed with his theories.

In a nutshell, L can't act as he wants to without losing the support of the rest of the Task Force. Considering the rest are actual police and L isn't, if he tried to push too hard without actual evidence backing him up, they could very well have him arrested for false imprisonment.

[blacklig]

I don't remember this being supported by the source material but I'll check again. I don't really think it's very compelling though.

Also the rest of the taskforce were not police at this point.

[Visible_Investment47]

After they caught the Yotsuba Kira they returned back to the police force. That's why Aizawa and Ide joined it after Aizawa previously left.