Are villains heroes? A Death Note story breakdown
Updated: Aug 10, 2022
Many screenwriters refer to their protagonist as the hero and the antagonist as the villain. However, in Death Note, the story is different and thinking differently is what expands our creativity. Yes, it is helpful to separate characters into villain and hero, but does the villain always have to be the bad guy? Do you even need to have a hero and a villain in the first instance?
I will be going over why the answer is no and how a new mindset can change how you write your webcomic. It will help you craft more realistic and dynamic characters with a ratio of positive and negative traits and their own moral compass.
I will be breaking down the anime/manga Death Note. In particular, I’ll go over Light Yagami and L.
As I will be going over Death Note in detail there will be spoilers.
The Protagonist
The protagonist is the main character of a story. Readers follow the story from the protagonist’s perspective. Even stories that periodically switch perspectives still have a central character. However, some stories follow multiple characters, in which case there are multiple protagonists. A great example of this is Durarara and Baccano.
What is a Hero ?
The YouTuber Runesmith defines a hero as “someone with strong ideals and believes in all the good the world has to offer.”
A hero is admired for their courageous actions and achievements. In the world of storytelling, hero is synonymous with the term protagonist.’ But a hero and a protagonist are different as not all protagonists are heroes.
The Antagonist
The antagonist is the character who directly opposes the protagonist. This is the character who creates the most hardship for the main character. In a story, there is one main antagonist and other lesser antagonists. For example, the main antagonist in Death Note is L (for a while) and the lesser antagonists are the detectives and FBI agents.
After defeating the main antagonist some anime introduce a new character as a replacement. An example of this is One Piece. Many antagonists are introduced throughout the anime, as Luffy gets closer to his goal. However, he doesn’t face them all at once. Another example is Death Note which introduced new investigators to replace L.
What is a Villain
“A villain is the opposite of a hero. In contrast to the hero, a villain is usually compelled by a desire to commit acts of cruelty and immorality.”
- Masterclass
In other words, villains are evil. They harm others for their personal gain or entertainment.
Like the hero, villain is synonymous with the term antagonist. If the good guy is the main character, then the enemy of the good guy must be the bad guy, right? For most webcomics, this isn’t true. Understanding why will help webcomic creators craft interesting and believable antagonists and protagonists.
In the anime/manga Death Note, there are no heroes, just two characters trying to outwit each other.
Light Yagami (a.k.a Kira)
To not mix up Light and L, I will refer to Light as Yagami.
Yagami is the protagonist in Death Note, however, he is far from the definition of a hero. Based on definitions, he is a villain. At the start of Death Note Yagami is a seemingly kind, intelligent straight-A student. He is good-looking, popular, and has a strong sense of justice.
Finding the Death Note
After he finds the death note, Yagami begins killing criminals through a heart attack to cleanse the world of evil. He does so in a way that makes a statement. He wants to show the world that someone is passing judgment on criminals so that crime will decrease as a result.
The death note changes him. Tsugumi Oba is one of the creators of Death Note. He explained that if Yagami had not found the death note, he would have become a world-class police officer working with L.
Manipulation
Throughout the anime, Yagami shows narcissistic traits. He uses everyone to accomplish his goals, even resorting to murder. When killing a character, he doesn’t bat an eye. He is uncaring and overconfident. More than anything, he hates losing which drives his battle against L.
Yagami is an example of a protagonist who is not a hero. This is the reason why in my blogs, I don’t use the word hero to describe a main character.
Raye Penber
Later on in Death Note, FBI agents are sent to Japan to investigate Kira (Yagami). At this stage, the FBI doesn’t know who Kira is so they investigate the key suspects. Raye Penber is assigned as the agent investigating Yagami.
Yagami reacts by instigating a bus hijack to get Raye’s name. He then lures Raye onto a train and has him write the names of the other FBI agents on the death note.
Ryuk's warning
Ryuk, a death god, explained to Yagami that those who use the death note will not be going to heaven or hell. Knowing this, Yagami still used Raye to write names in the notebook, condemning him to an afterlife probably worse than hell. Raye dies of a heart attack after exiting the train, of course, his death was part of Yagami’s plan.
Naomi Misora
What Yagami hadn’t planned for was Raye’s fiance, Naomi Misora, who was an ex-FBI agent. Raye’s death spurs Naomi to help find Kira.
This of course alarms Yagami. His response as usual is to cunningly get her name and cold-heartedly kill her. He felt no guilt as he spoke normally to her, like a neighbor would, despite having recently killed her fiancé. Yagami even lied to her and gave her false hope so to kill her off. Just after he wrote down her name, he revealed his identity as Kira. But it was too late for Naomi, Yagami had won.
Yagami’s tendency to reveal his identity only when he is about to win exposes more of his dark personality. He enjoys the shock on his victim’s faces as they realize, they have lost.
Misa Amane
Misa is a celebrity and also the second holder of a death note. After Misa’s parents were murdered, the murderers were then killed by Kira. This leads to Misa becoming obsessed with Kira, and when she discovers Yagami is Kira, she falls in love with him.
The Second Kira
Misa even became the second Kira to help Yagami punish criminals. Yet, from Yagami’s perspective, she is getting in his way. Although she is quite smart, she isn’t as intelligent as L and Yagami and ends up getting caught.
Yagami is forced by Rem, Misa's shishigami, to save her. In the end, however, Yagami concocts a plan to get rid of Rem, Misa, and L.
The decent thing to do
While Misa chose to be manipulated by Yagami, the average person would take her devotion with goodwill. Yagami’s intentions however were to use her and then kill her. The only thing that was stopping Yagami from killing her was Rem. As usual, Yagami manipulates the situation to his benefit, not caring who he hurts in the process.
L
L’s real name is Lowliet, but I will continue addressing him as L. He is a private investigator who only accepts the toughest cases which shows that L likes challenges This explains why he was interested in the Kira case. L grew up in an orphanage. He had no friends or family except his butler Watari.
Similarities
L believed Yagami was Kira almost from the start and pursued him relentlessly. I’ve noticed that L shares similar personality traits to Yagami. He is highly confident in himself and doesn’t like to be wrong. Because of this, he used underhanded and manipulative tactics to reveal Kira’s identity.
Motives
Tsugumi Ohba mentioned in an interview that L does not trust humans. From this and other comments from the creator, it is clear that L’s actions are not for the good of humanity. His methods are as questionable as Yagami’s. L is not a hero, but not a villain either. He is simply the antagonist, acting for his own reasons in his own way.
L puts his ambitions before others, even risking the lives of other characters. He cares little for the criminals being killed. He also kidnapped and tortured other characters to prove he is correct.
L shows that the antagonist of a story does not have to be the opposite of the protagonist. The antagonist can be similar as long as their goals make them clash with the main character.
Quick tip –
There are examples of antagonists with the same goal as the main character and a different personality. These are One Piece’s recent antagonists and the Remarried Empress’ antagonist.
Counterargument
Some would say that Yagami is clearly a villain, everything he does is malicious and selfish. But from his perspective, his actions are saving the world. From the world’s perspective, he is their savior. As crime rates go down, Yagami is even being worshiped by some groups.
Heroes and villains depend largely on the perspective of the character, it is a grey area. Even in an Anime like My Hero Academy, heroes aren’t seen as good by every character. For some characters, heroes are the villains, this includes Midoriya.
Villains in Death Note
In Death Note, there are no heroes. There are no villains either when you look at things from all perspectives. L is trying to take down the one person saving people from danger. Meanwhile, Yagami is killing based on his morals. He hasn’t only killed criminals, but normal people trying to do their jobs because they got in his way. Yagami has also toyed with the emotions of others. Meanwhile, L has toyed with the mental health of other characters.
Villain or Hero?
These two characters are antagonist and protagonist doing everything they can to achieve their goal. At the end that is what a hero and villain are when you ignore the morality of their methods. In a story, all that is needed are goal-orientated characters who clash (a protagonist and an antagonist).
Although Yagami and L are equally immoral, they are both fighting for their sense of justice. They are both heroes in their own right but villains in the eyes of others.
When creating your character, don’t think too much about if they are good or evil. Instead, think about how liked you want them to be and how they get what they want. This is what makes a character a villain or a hero.
"I did not put much deep thought into subjects like 'life and death' or 'justice and evil'. I wrote the story hoping that it would be good entertainment."
- Tsugumi Ohba - Writer of Death Note
Who would you say is the villain in Death Note?
Light Yagami
L
Ryuk
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