Death Note is a story whose plot centers around an intense battle between two intellectual
behemoths, the teenager Light Yagami, who becomes a serial killer hellbent on making
the world free from crime, and L, the greatest detective in the world.
Naturally, with their entire battle being an intense mental chess game between two geniuses,
a very debated topic is centered around determining who out of these two is the truly intellectually
superior one.
Many people tend to take the side of L, because Light apparently needed supernatural help
plus L didn't make mistakes (both of which I thoroughly disagree with, the former of
which I'll address later in the video), but in this video I'll be taking into account
different psychologists' theories on what intelligence is while looking at how these
two behave throughout the series to come to a conclusive answer.
Before actually tackling all that, let me briefly discuss the battle between L and Light,
was it fair?
Way too many people stand by the notion that the game was unfair and rigged against L,
who doesn't have knowledge of the Death Note and Shinigami, Light's main powers,
meaning it'd be difficult for him to properly counter Light's moves, and that Light apparently
had the help of two Shinigami and someone with the Shinigami Eyes.
I don't find this claim to be particularly valid; Ryuk wouldn't have been a help for
Light, considering he is simply a spectator, if Light wasn't clever enough to have Ryuk
help him on occasion.
Misa having the Shinigami Eyes is also something I'd like to point out as completely fair,
because Misa was a potential asset for either Light or L. By the time L introduced himself
to Light and invited him to join the Task Force, they were at a complete stalemate;
Light and L were equally close to each other, Light knew L's face but needed to learn
his name, while L learned Light was Kira but needed to prove it; they were both halfway
to defeating the other.
Misa was the new and necessary force in order to put an end to that stalemate.
Once she came into the picture, it was essentially a race between Light and L to gain this new
and powerful resource; L would gain lots of clues about Kira, and Light would gain the
Shinigami Eyes.
Of course, in the end, Light played his cards right and managed to gain Misa as an asset
before L did.
But, unfortunately for Light, Misa ended up being a double-edged sword for him, akin to
that of the Task Force with L. Misa is an extreme asset for Light because of her Shinigami
Eyes, which grant her the ability to instantly kill L, but at the same time she's as much
of a danger because she's extremely reckless and her love is selfish, so she doesn't
obey Light as much, such as when she met him way too early against his orders simply because
she felt like it, which led to L learning about her existence, which led to her being
arrested for being the Second Kira, which forced Light to enact the plan taking place
throughout the Yotsuba arc.
The similarities between her and the Task Force are even more clear when you consider
that L tried to defeat Light through Misa, similar to how Light tried to defeat L through
the Task Force.
Now, one may say the race to get Misa was unfair against Light, since Light won the
race but ended up getting a double-edged sword while L would have gained a massive advantage
with no downsides, except the race was kind of rigged for Light from the start since Misa,
the goal, was trying to actually have Light find her first; you could even say the concept
of Light and L having a race was a red herring of sorts.
Finally, I never got how Rem assisting Light actually degrades Light's capabilities.
In fact, I actually think it further testifies them.
Rem was a huge threat to Light, with her constant looming threats to kill him.
If she wasn't constantly threatening him, Light would not only have much less pressure,
but the main reason as to why Light was forced to enact his plan spanning throughout the
Yotsuba arc was because of Rem threatening to kill him.
After all, Light would have simply killed Misa (through suicide) and cleared his name
when L would call him in for questioning, considering L had no real evidence against
Light.
Rem is not an asset to Light as much as she is some deadly third party breathing down
his neck and causing severe trouble for him; the fact that he managed to even identify
what aspect of her caused trouble for him and brilliantly used that against L was extremely
impressive on its own.
In other words, Light excels in resourcefulness; he had a neutral spectator work for him, he
managed to gain control over someone who was reckless and didn't obey him, and most impressively,
he had taken advantage of a variable in the game working against him and used it to severely
work in his favour.
All Light really had was simply the Death Note, which was just one limited killing power.
Meanwhile, L had billions of dollars, an extremely intelligent and versatile subordinate who's
able to do anything, he can easily contact extremely powerful organizations like the
FBI, he can control the police at will, he has easy access to surveillance cameras and
wiretaps, he has control over the media, and just so much more.
He is able to review any surveillance from just about anywhere because of his information
network, putting Light at a disadvantage because he has to go out of his way to be careful
about things like this while in public.
Now one could say that while L's resources are crazily powerful and they certainly vastly
outnumber Light's, they're still grounded in reality so it is easy for Light to counter
them, unlike Light's supernatural resources, where L is forced to infer his way out of
Light's powers.
So, Light has a weak offense with his limited resources but a strong defense knowing how
to counter L's resources, while L has a strong offense with all his resources but
a weak defense not having full knowledge of Light's resources.
Now, this seems fair, right?
Well…
I think it's unfair in L's favour.
Firstly, Light has to deal with Rem, a totally separate threat, in addition to L. Secondly,
Light's win condition, finding L's name, is literally impossible, unlike L's win
condition.
Of course, in the end, Light managed to one-up L because he is much more resourceful than
L, utilizing the few resources he has to his fullest and even using L's resources, like
the Task Force, to his own advantage.
With that said, does the end result of their game actually represent Light's intellectual
superiority over L?
We'll see.
The first theory of intelligence we have is that there are two kinds of intelligence,
crystallized intelligence and fluid intelligence; crystallized intelligence is how well one
applies experience and knowledge in order to solve problems, while fluid intelligence
is how well one solves problems independent of preexisting knowledge or experience.
For the former, crystallized intelligence, I'd say Light excels in that.
L has way too much experience in regards to analyzing and reading people; according to
Death Note Another Note, he has been in 3500 cases and sent 10,500 criminals to prison,
and that is solely according to the public record.
Hell, that isn't even mentioning how he works with many people during his cases, such
as police officers, Aiber, Wedy, and Naomi Misora.
With an absolute bare minimum of experience with 10,500 people, anyone with even an average
amount of intelligence would be able to excellently intuitively analyze and read people, and we
see this when L managed to identify Light as Kira.
However, we don't see this when L failed to immediately recognize Higuchi as the third
Kira.
With the crazily large amount of experience L has with people in general, especially criminals,
he should have been able to recognize subtle mannerisms which would make Higuchi stand
out, but he didn't even have suspicions to begin with.
Meanwhile, Light has FAR less experience than L does; the most he has is him studying to
be a detective, while preoccupied with other studies, and when he simply aided the police
during two cases, which does not hold a candle to L being a detective solving thousands of
difficult cases full-time.
However, he managed to be on par with L in terms of deductive prowess; this was noted
by Rem, by Aizawa, and it was directly stated in Death Note 13 How To Read.
(Many people claim this is the part where it said Light and L would have become friends
had Light not become Kira, but that was actually a mistranslation and what it really said was
that they would have worked on eye level with one another, and I'll link my source, which
is a post which discusses this and the fact that it wouldn't make sense for L and Light
to work together.)
So, with Light having much less experience than L does and being on par with him, plus
L failing to use his experience properly during the Yotsuba case, I'd say Light is better
at applying experience, and this is even more commendable because crystallized intelligence
increases with age and Light is younger than L. As for fluid intelligence, I'd say L
takes the cake here; during the Yotsuba arc, when L was piloting a helicopter for the first
time, he was able to learn how to do it immediately, and we even know Light would not be able to
do this judging from his shocked reaction.
So, we know L is better at solving problems independent of past experience from the fact
that he was able to learn how to pilot a helicopter his first try, which is really quite fantastic,
and it's even more commendable when you consider fluid intelligence worsens with age
and L is older.
So, if we believe in this theory of what intelligence is, then Light and L are equally matched as
they both excel in an even amount of areas.
The next theory of intelligence is Sternberg's triarchic theory of intelligence, that there
are three types of intelligence, analytical intelligence, creative intelligence, and practical
intelligence.
Analytical intelligence is how well one solves problems and analyzes them, so in terms of
Death Note this can be roughly measured by one's reasoning skills.
Like I said before, it's been noted they are both equal in that regard, but L has way
more experience than Light does, and since I want to be fair and not treat these other
factors as mere explanations, Light wins here, as he has less experience and is still on
par with L, not to mention he is younger.
Now practical intelligence is how well one selects, shapes, and adapts to their environment;
considering Light is much more resourceful than L for reasons I've discussed, and resourcefulness
testifies one's adaptability, Light is more adaptable than L. And we see this throughout
the series too; Light becomes Kira, so he works that into his schedule which still involves
studying and sleeping, L installs surveillance cameras, so he finds ways to temporarily change
things so as to accommodate for that, Rem is bugging the hell out of him, so he uses
her as an asset to help him.
I mean, sure, you could say this is because we don't get to see L's full potential
in this regard because he is more proactive rather than reactive, except we see during
the Yotsuba arc that L has severe trouble adapting and is really rigid, it being a noteworthy
aspect of his character, with him sulking for months and making no progress in the Kira
case and not accepting Light isn't Kira, which proves how stubborn he is, not to mention
the fact that L's a static character while Light develops throughout the story.
Finally, creative intelligence is, very unsurprisingly, how creative one is; this has a pretty simple
answer, and it's Light yet again, because resourcefulness also testifies one's creative
ability.
So, assuming we are following Sternberg's theory on intelligence, Light is more intelligent
as he excels in more areas than L does, and that's, well, all of them.
The next one is the theory that there are 9 types of intelligence, linguistic, logical-mathematical,
spatial, musical, kinesthetic, interpersonal, intrapersonal, existential, and naturalistic.
We can remove linguistic, musical, existential, and naturalistic easily as we don't see
them applying these skills, so we have logical-mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal, and intrapersonal
intelligence.
Logical-mathematical intelligence is how good one is at reasoning, kinesthetic intelligence
is how good one is with their body, spatial intelligence is how well one visualizes something,
interpersonal is how well one interacts with, reads, or empathizes with other people, and
intrapersonal is how well one analyzes themself.
For logical-mathematical intelligence, Light is superior to L, for reasons I've stated
twice now.
Now in regards to who's better kinesthetically, we'll have to take a look at the tennis
game between Light and L. Sure, it's easier to say Light won so he's better, except
look at this panel, where Light and L are both facing each other.
Have a look at Light, who's sweating like crazy during this intense tennis match, while
there isn't a single sweat drop visible on L's face; so, this means that L isn't
really trying all that much, and he probably wants to lose intentionally, probably in order
to see how Kira would react to such a victory.
So, since L was holding back during the game, I'd say he is better than Light; I mean,
just look at his capoeira skills.
In terms of spatial intelligence, I'd say Light is better, because he is clearly better
at constructing stuff, see his false drawer trap and the way he altered his watch.
Meanwhile, L leaves all the construction and building up to his versatile butler, Watari.
Now, as for intrapersonal intelligence, this very easily goes to L, who is much more self-aware,
he knows he is childish and hates losing and he knows his motivations aren't really all
that great.
Now take a look at Light, who fabricates self-narrative after self-narrative to convince himself he's
right with many layers of him lying to himself, this being a key difference between their
characters.
So, with both of them being better than the other in two areas, what is the tiebreaker?
And we are left with interpersonal intelligence.
I'd have to easily give this one to Light; L is not socially skilled at all, plus he
doesn't care about nor empathize with just about anyone, really, unlike Light, who's
not only extremely sociable, but also cares about his family and believes in the redemption
of criminals.
So, Light is interpersonally intelligent more than L is.
And with this, Light is more intelligent than L if we take into account this theory of intelligence.
And the final theory I'll be tackling is the very first theory on intelligence, and
is probably the most common one, and that is the concept of general intelligence, which
is that intelligence is just one cerebral ability and there are not many other nuanced
aspects to it; it's basically what most IQ tests assess.
General intelligence is how well one adapts, reasons, thinks abstractly, how good one's
memory is, and how well one learns from experience.
We can't really measure how good their respective memories are nor how much they think abstractly,
but for reasons I've stated, Light is better at adapting, reasoning, and learning from
experience, so, Light is more intelligent than L if we apply this theory.
So, that's three theories where Light is smarter than L and one theory where they are
intellectually on par with one another, but personally I'd say Light is smarter than
L not only because Sternberg's theory is my favourite theory, but also because the
theory which has them be on par with each other isn't really all that relevant to
the series.
In case you didn't notice, I didn't even bother mentioning the Death Note 13 stats,
which gives Light 9/10 intelligence and L 8/10, because the stats are absurd.
They give Light and L 10/10 creativity, Light 10/10 social skills, Wedy 10/10 sex appeal,
and Naomi 1/10 luck; it throws around these extreme numbers far too nonchalantly, which
is ridiculous, not to mention IQ gets enough hate as is, but to measure intelligence on
a 1 to 10 scale is a whole new realm of absurdity.
Now, what's the important thing to take away from this?
Well… nothing.
Death Note simply isn't a series about who has the superior intellect; it just doesn't
matter.
It's true Light's my favourite character, but that did not affect my analysis to see
who's more intelligent; I ultimately didn't care who ended up being the more intelligent
one, because this isn't relevant to the series, and you can enjoy a character while
simultaneously viewing them as less capable than other characters.
I hope you enjoyed and subscribe for similar content.
For more infomation >> 令人震惊的新闻！ 诉讼失败了。 赵薇在法律面前被起诉，濒临破产的危险！ 什么是真相？ ......数百万粉丝感到震惊！ - Duration: 18:55. 
For more infomation >> M. O Vampiro de Düsseldorf | 1931 - Duration: 1:49:24. 
For more infomation >> Digital Poem - Duration: 2:01. 
For more infomation >> Fighting Israel's Far-Right Militarism - Duration: 16:07. 
For more infomation >> NYPD: Brooklyn Synagogue Vandalized In Possible Hate Crime - Duration: 1:05. 
For more infomation >> Топ музыка в машину 2019🚔Музыка в машину 2019🚔Клубная Музыка Бас 2019 - Duration: 1:03:36. 
For more infomation >> Car Music Mix 2019🚔Топ музыка в машину 2019🚔Музыка в машину 2019 - Duration: 54:22. 
For more infomation >> F*@K What Everyone Else is Doing (W.E.E.D) - Duration: 5:31. 
For more infomation >> Anne Kobayashi - Love Isn't Selfish (Acoustic) - Duration: 3:52. 
No comments:
Post a Comment