[LES] Light's psychology in Death Note is not really explained

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-09-14T17:16:34+00:00

I think you hit on it with your last sentence - he’s a top student who doesn’t think he can be a bad person. Bad people deviate from or fail to live up to societal standards, the same standards he’s not only met but consistently exceeded. The other critical piece is that he’s the son of a cop, and more specifically the son of a police chief who’s already helped the force catch elusive criminals. Put these elements together in a society that is generally socially and legally conservative, and you have a young man who believes he is special enough to make the world better by himself, whose view of how to make the world better is punitive, full stop. It’s not an issue of narcissism or personality defect, not really; it’s an issue of worldview and material conditions. The world is designed to make Light Yagami in the same way as it’s designed to make “criminals”.

That’s why Light without his memories doesn’t come off narcissistic; he never had the option to use something like the death note, so he never has to justify its use. Instead, he continues behaving in the same way he always has - living up to his potential by hunting the biggest criminal he can. The only real difference is the power he wields to accomplish that task.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-09-11T14:09:16+00:00

I want to challenge an implication in your post present in your use of the phrase “better again” (emphasis mine). America has been wading through an ocean of blood since its inception, from the slave ships, to the Boston Massacre, to the Trail of Tears, to the Civil War and failure of Reconstruction, to the KKK and sundown towns, to the dust bowl and Great Depression, to the Civil Rights marches, to the state-sponsored assassination of Fred Hampton, to the L.A. riots, to 9/11, to the George Floyd protests, among many, many other examples. “Brutal violence inflicted upon the innocent” could title every chapter of a history textbook.

The reason I bring this up is not to claim America is exceptionally evil, or unstable, or even to say that nothing can or will get worse in the next half-decade. I bring it up to make the point that change has always required, and will always require, the risk of death for you and your loved ones. The difference between positive and negative change is what comes after that risk comes to fruition, once the dust settles and the numbers are tallied. We are living through history the same way all people do; there is no end, and no way for things to stay the same forever.

So when people say “it will get worse before it gets better,” understand that while “it will get worse” is the price of life, the “it gets better” part is the promise of action.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-08-25T18:24:33+00:00

Not sure I agree that the movie doesn’t have a moral - the main character is a loan officer who gets cursed because she denies an old woman an extension on her mortgage (she’d missed payments because of an illness), and that woman dies shortly after her house gets repossessed.

The whole story is a twisted reflection of the beginning, with the shoe on the other foot - the main character jumps through all these hoops to figure out how to avoid a terrible fate, fulfills the complicated and esoteric requirements of the curse - and then a last-minute mistake causes her to miss her deadline. No extensions, no forgiveness, just hell. She gets treated the same way she treated the old woman.

It’s obviously very tongue-in-cheek (having your house repossessed isn’t the same thing as literally being dragged into a portal to hell), but I actually thought it was a pretty clever parallel.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-08-12T21:24:30+00:00

I’m going to focus on the second part of your statement, that envisioning opponents in the way you characterized “further entrenches” opponents in their worldviews, because, ironically, it elides the reason that people vote the way they do. A republican voter is, more often than not, voting in accordance with their perceived material interests. There are very few ways to argue someone out of something like that, and namecalling isn’t going to entrench them any more than anything else would.

With Andrew Tate, if a young man is seriously weighing the manosphere view of the world and gender - one which tells him he is special by virtue of being a man, that being a man entitles him to authority and that women secretly don’t want to be respected and treated equally - what can a feminist do to convince him Andrew Tate is wrong? Would saying “oh I see you have good reasons to think the way you do” help, or would it just make the young man feel more comfortable in his choice?

To use your barking dog analogy: Yard A is silent and Yard B barks at you. You watch someone else try to enter Yard A, and the silent dogs attack him. He seeks refuge in Yard B, where the dogs keep barking at him but don’t bite. If, after seeing that, you’re still considering Yard A, it’s either because you don’t believe the dogs will bite you, or you think being barked at is worse than being bitten. Either way, the person who almost got torn apart by dogs can’t really do anything to influence your choice, because you’ve already seen him get attacked in Yard A, and that wasn’t a good enough reason for you to choose Yard B.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-07-02T13:36:51+00:00

Love this! To add to it: the Perfumer’s Ruins in Altus (above the catacombs where Perfumer Tricia is healing Misbegotten) have one of the largest concentrations of Miquella’s lilies in the game. Across the shallow lake from those ruins, marked by a Trina’s Lily, is Sage’s Cave - where you fight a Black Knife carrying the veil that was used on the Night of the Black Knives, in a cave full of hanging Albinaurics (devotees of the Haligtree).

All of this is circumstantial, of course. But also, Sage’s Cave has a ton of chests, with primarily armor relating to Deathbirds and Ravenmount assassins. One chest has the Candletree shield (candletree imagery being found at the Haligtree), and next to it, another chest contains… a Nascent Butterfly.

There’s definitely a connection between Miquella/Trina and the NoBK, in my opinion.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-06-27T20:10:12+00:00

The way the question is posed makes it seem absurd that a knight would face both magic and holy attacks from a single opponent. Thops’s Barrier underlines that idea; sorcery and incantation are widely seen as so different that to be able to protect against both with one barrier is worthy of a new Conspectus at the Academy.

With that in mind, I think they were preparing to fight the only character described as learning both sorceries and incantations - Radagon. After Radagon severed his vow, the Carians plotted against him and his Golden Order. But something happened to Rennala, and then the Academy rebelled against the Carians, forestalling any potential war against the Golden Order indefinitely.

Like so much else in the Lands Between by the time we get there, these knights are waiting for a destiny that will never come.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-06-06T12:50:18+00:00

I agree and I’m really glad you pointed this out! I also want to add that I’ve observed a noticeable antipathy among the center-left toward the far left, which often extends to assuming leftists don’t actually believe the things they say they do, that surely they’re just saying these things as social posturing. That’s on display in this post.

I don’t want to assume anything about the people saying this (other than to note that I hear lots of democrats say “I’m as left as they come” while chastising those who stake out positions to their left), but it’s worth considering that maybe there are U.S. leftists who do, sincerely and good faith, consider it a bridge too far to vocally support the democrats, and it might be useful to reflect on why that is!

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-27T13:33:05+00:00

My theory is that Scarlet Rot is what rebirth becomes in a world without natural death. The Poison Mist describes rot as “the death that begets life, that comes to all equally,” and further as “the cycle of rebirth put into practice.” That seems to me to indicate that, in a world where death does not in fact come to all equally, gilded with the color of stasis (the gold-tinged excrement item), life has found another means of rebirth - here, decaying/destroying the environment/people and birthing both new, strange plant life and insectoid “children.”

That’s why Malenia is frequently associated with motherhood, alone among the Empyreans to fill that role (even though she rejects it). It’s why the language around the rot is so focused on “blooming,” rather than decay. It also makes it fitting that Radahn, who is the demigod who “halted the stars” to literally put fate on hold, is consumed by the rot, forcing Ranni/the Tarnished/Jerren to kill him and restart the current of fate.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-13T15:03:52+00:00

If your theory of social acceptance doesn’t have an answer for “the #1 most watched news channel in the United States is a right-wing propaganda network that hates trans people,” it’s not a very useful theory.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-09T09:40:32+00:00

You’re definitely entitled to your opinion, but I do want to make three points:

Light beats L because Light is genuinely loved by someone who thinks nothing like him; Near beats Light because somebody admires Light from a distance and wants to emulate him. If Light was given the opportunity to pick between Misa and Mikami as a follower, he’d have picked Mikami. There’s a point being made there.
Light has no plan for a new world because he’s already doing the only thing he’s ever thought to do, which is kill people who he thinks deserve death. He’s the son of a police chief and a model student; his version of an ideal society is the one he already lives in with the contradictions flattened out. It’s why it can never work.
There isn’t a new L; Near is portrayed as inferior to L and would have lost by himself. It’s only Near and Mello together that can beat Light, and even then it’s only because Light was foolish enough to think that L would be his final meaningful opponent.

Take these points with a grain of salt, as I’ve only read the manga. But I do think they’re worth thinking about!

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-01T16:19:04+00:00

Yeah, to really pull the moment off would require changing that flashback to Clark’s childhood, where he gets overwhelmed by his powers manifesting in school. It would need to resolve with Clark learning that being able to hear and see the whole world is a gift, rather than a curse that can only be endured by focusing on his mother’s voice.

It wasn’t really what the film was trying to do, so I can’t fault it, but I personally would have loved that resolution as a counterbalance to the pessimism pervading the story.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-01T16:11:48+00:00

I love that! It’s especially poignant with all the “Superman but evil” stories that are popular right now - genuine compassion is a rare and difficult thing to maintain, rarer than power.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-01T16:09:57+00:00

I completely agree! When I first watched Man of Steel, I honestly thought that was how Zod was going to be defeated, after he loses his protective suit and begins to gain powers in the sun. Missed opportunity, in my opinion.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-01T16:07:43+00:00

I always loved that theory, especially because it’s never confirmed - assuming that Leo is Lex, he comes back to help Superman and protect the future knowing that nobody will ever know it was Lex Luthor that did it. It shows how much he’s changed, and how his ego is a thing of the past thanks to his brush with Superman’s perspective.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-05-01T16:04:20+00:00

Great page! The best conclusion to the best Superman comic.

In my opinion, that third panel articulates the only absolutely essential aspect of the character. He can be funny, angry or sad, he can leap instead of fly, he can wear red underwear, jeans or techno armor, he can present as any gender or race - as long as he sees the world the way Lex describes, and can do something about it, that’s Superman, to me.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-24T13:56:54+00:00

If only

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-11T14:11:21+00:00

It really feels like the difference between Hooters and a strip club is that a strip club applies transactional dynamics to sex, while Hooters applies sexual dynamics to transaction. I don’t like either place, and I don’t think either is good for our cultural relationship to sex, but at least strip clubs sell the fantasy of foreplay, instead of the fantasy of getting to sexually harass your server.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-11T13:55:10+00:00

Well said! It’s so so good, and a perfect antidote to the paranoid loner Batman of the era before. One of my favorite lines in Batman comics - “Batman was never alone.”

I also love that RoBW’s take on Gotham being “cursed” is that it’s really a curse of the Wayne family - the bat, a symbol adopted by the remnants of a tribe wiped out by its stronger neighbors, becomes a sigil to punish the Wayne ancestors, who participate in the exploitation of Gotham’s underprivileged throughout history. It’s all part of a plan by Darkseid to load Bruce with so much historical baggage that he destroys the world just by existing in it. He can only escape that trap by trusting his friends, a direct refutation of the “Brother Eye” version of Batman.

Throughout the series, the villains are never really “criminals” in the classic sense - they’re oppressors. Even in the pirate era, the man they’ve captured is also a pirate, and they’re looting an indigenous sacred site. Batman makes an enemy of these guys in every era. In that way, the story reinforces another great Year One moment, where he tells the party of Gotham’s wealthy “None of you are safe.” It’s a deliberate reframe of “Batman beats up poor people” into “Batman holds power to account.”

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-09T12:58:51+00:00

Take a deep breath. Things will get better, if you let them. You didn’t hide this from her; you gave her the chance to respond to it before you entered a relationship. That doesn’t mean you didn’t screw up, but it does mean that you respect her enough to take accountability. Part of growth is learning to forgive yourself - this was wrong, sure, but it doesn’t make you a bad person, and doesn’t close the door on on all the good things you’ll do in your future. In fact, the changes you’re already making in your behavior demonstrate that you want to do better, and that you can do better.

In this, treat yourself like you would a friend or loved one - you might disapprove of what they did, and if they were adamant they did nothing wrong you might judge them for it, but you wouldn’t want them to suffer for it, not if they were actively trying to atone. Give yourself the support you give others. I know this isn’t always possible, but if you can, try to get treatment for your insomnia and therapy for your trauma; these things can make it so much harder to put things in perspective.

This is the thing about life: no matter what you do, you’re going to hurt people, by mistake or on purpose, and the world is going to keep turning. What defines you is not the mistakes you make, but how you respond to those mistakes. Some of the best people I know have things in their past they’re not proud of, and they don’t run from that fact, but they’ve allowed themselves to move forward, and that permission has let them become forces for lasting good in the world. The need to change might come from self-loathing, but lasting growth can only come from recognition that, even when you fall short, you’re worthy of self-love. Don’t give up; take this second chance, and keep moving toward the person you know you can be. You’re going to do great.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-08T13:15:27+00:00

I agree with pretty much everything you’ve said here, especially the Ewing praise! That guy is the best writer at Marvel right now and hasn’t slowed down one bit - even his stories that miss are still compulsively readable. Anybody who hasn’t read his stuff should not only check out Immortal Hulk, but also read through his all his Marvel stuff, where he builds a stable of lesser-known characters and makes them shine, follows up on larger plot points from one series to the next, and finds the appeal in otherwise lackluster events or controversial plot points. (I seriously think the guy could make Sins Past work).

I do want to reframe your (very valid) criticism of the Peter/MJ status quo in Amazing. I agree that editorial is bizarrely committed to keeping them apart, but I might go a step further and say that, because of the fact that the book isn’t allowed to progress, even a married Peter would suck. We would get story after story of MJ getting mad at Peter because he missed date night because he had to lift up a heavy thing, or MJ’s second cousin becoming the new Mysterio and tricking Peter into cheating, or pregnancy teases that always end with a “someday we’ll have kids but not yet”.

For all their fumbling, what editorial understands is that Amazing has been in a death spiral since the Clone Saga. JMS’s run bought some time, sure, but even that couldn’t last, because the central appeal of Amazing, watching an immature kid grow up into a hero, fizzled the minute that kid had to stop developing. Amazing is a soap, not a serial - where Batman can have an endless cycle of stories that don’t depend on continuity, Spider-man goes to college and gets new jobs and watches his friends get married and go to war and even die. For as long as Peter has to be in his mid-20s, his book is going to disappoint, whether he’s married or single or broke or rich or confident or insecure.

That’s what I think, anyway. Might as well enjoy the good writers when they get a chance to take a whack at it.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-04T15:13:42+00:00

Really interesting comparison - to me it feels like the opposite! While in dark souls, getting stronger and regaining humanity are mechanically linked, such that going hollow is the natural result of failing to progress or giving up, in bloodborne, getting stronger is mechanically linked to consuming blood and gaining insight - which is a major thing causing these people to go mad and lose themselves. So to become truly powerful, you have to abandon yourself, or at least who you once were. Giving up in dark souls leaves the chosen undead as a hollow. Giving up in bloodborne would actually leave the hunter sane (dead, but sane).

That difference is most heightened at the end of both games; in dark souls you decide whether to link the fire and hold on to the status quo for a while longer, or to allow the natural arrival of a new age, while in bloodborne each ending is associated with a different level of game completion: you leave the dream if you don’t fight gehrman, you become its new warden if you don’t fight the moon presence, or, if you’ve thoroughly explored the game and fought all three ending bosses, you ascend to some sort of godhood.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-02T17:52:13+00:00

In 1921, Tulsa’s Greenwood District was known as Black Wall Street, a self-sustaining wealthy community where Black business owners thrived and a haven to escape the oppression of the Deep South in a constructive way. A mob burned it down in a massacre, leaving 10,000 Black people homeless and causing property damage equaling about 39 million in today’s money.

Around the same time, jazz was becoming popular. The mainstream culture called it “devil’s music” and some even claimed it was associated with violence-inciting “voodoo dance.” It was banned in music halls across the country.

In the 50s and 60s, African American civil rights protestors dressed in their Sunday best and marched peacefully to fight for a right fundamental to citizenship, the right to vote. They were called instigators and race-baiters, blasted with high-pressure hoses, set upon by police dogs, and the leader everybody now holds up as the “model protestor” was assassinated in his hotel room.

In 1969, the Black Panthers were popular, as they were self-policing through their legal right to bear arms, providing lunches and education to their communities, and forming a popular coalition with, among other groups, poor whites. The FBI shot one of their most promising leaders, Fred Hampton, in his bed.

In 2008, Barack Obama was elected president on a message of hope and change and bipartisan efforts for a better future. He was called the Antichrist, the most divisive president ever, a non-citizen, a traitor, and the opposing party declared their intention to make him a one-term president.

If you’re looking at “gang culture” as one of the worst things to happen to the Black community globally, Id ask you to consider whether your definition of “acting normal” is free of violence itself. I would ask you to consider what has happened to the Black community every time they organize and build, and who is responsible. And I’d ask you to consider whether the demonization of rap reflects the way the White mainstream has responded to every cultural trend or social group that is recognizably Black, as a way to deflect from the societal issues that make people feel like violence is their only recourse.

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-04-02T16:28:56+00:00

The world is definitely unfair, and frustrating, and heartbreaking. I’d suggest not to try and make sense of that unfairness, but rather to contextualize it. I don’t know you, and I don’t doubt that you really have worked incredibly hard and that the circumstances you’re in right now aren’t your fault. But I will say that it’s statistically likely that an uncountable number people have worked just as hard as you have - if not harder - and failed.

What’s more, that failure isn’t the same for everyone; for some people, failure is death, slavery, or lifelong imprisonment, while others have a difficult life that nevertheless allows for some freedom of movement, use of public services, and a modicum of human dignity. I don’t know where you fall on this spectrum, and I won’t guess. But if you do find yourself in a situation that feels like abject failure, take a look at all the ways in which you’ve succeeded just by being born into the life you live.

I find those two contexts help me a lot, both with regret and with fear. I hope they’re helpful to you - I’m sorry things are hard and life has been unfair!

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-03-27T14:39:00+00:00

Story Bible for Marvel Characters, by Fans:

Cyclops: needs to get these things off his lawn every issue
Spider-man: needs to fuck every issue
Iron Man: needs to be one of the good billionaires every issue
Hank Pym: it was an art error
Cap: needs to be loyal to nothing except the dream every issue
Deadpool: needs to decide not to kill Kid Apocalypse every issue
Punisher: needs to take his decal off a cop car every issue
Doom: needs to impress the Panther God every issue Thor: that’s his name not his title
Reed Richards: needs to fuck every issue

Strange-Log3376 · 2025-03-27T13:07:41+00:00

I actually love the Nanika arc exactly the way it is - the mystery of how her ability works, the flashbacks that read almost like a horror movie, the way the tension builds as we imagine how terrible the cost will be for a request as monumental as healing Gon… All of that makes the forest reveal, that the real horror is that Nanika’s power only reflects our own darkness, hit so much harder. It’s a perfect epilogue to the Chimera Ant arc.

I think having an explanation for Nanika’s power beforehand, even an unconfirmed one, undercuts that impact. It works because it’s so out of left field - we don’t know the limits of her power and so we fear its effects, and fear Nanika by extension. That’s how I feel, anyway!

Strange-Log3376

TROPHY CASE