OKAYOKAY THE ORIGINAL PLAN WAS I WAS GONNA DO EACH OF THE CHARACTERS I COULD APPLY IT TO, BUT THEN I CHANGED THAT TO THE MAIN CHARACTERS I COULD APPLY IT TOO, BUT NOW IT'S JUST L AND LIGHT FOR NOW BECAUSE I ENDED UP SPENDING AN HOUR WRITING JUST L'S AND THERE IS NO WAY I CAN DO THAT FOR FIVE CHARACTERS.
I'LL PROBABLY ADD ONTO THIS LATER ONE DAY BUT HERE'S MY ANALYSES FOR LIGHT AND L HFKFJF:
L is the biggest one on this list. that man is nowhere near normal. he's a reclusive genius billionaire who eats nothing but sweets and looks like a rat crawled out a sewer. it's impressive that he even manages to qualify as a man or really a human at all with how absolutely absurd his mere existence is. but ironically, all of those traits are what make him so much more human.
he's been exploited and molded into becoming a machine since the very start of his life. he has people that have their lives dedicated to replacing him when he's gone. his name isn't even a name anymore, it's a title. it's surprising that he's just-- okay with it.. or at least he thinks he is.
see now it's time for me to essentially describe how completely autistic L is.
firstly, his observational skills. he is insanely skilled at simply observing people, finding patterns in them, and getting into their head simply by watching their actions. but that's only because he's never been able to create those kind of genuine interactions with others himself. everything that makes him appear godly is what hinders him from ever touching humanity. observing the people around him is essentially the closest he will ever get to being human. i wouldn't say he exactly yearns to be human, but he's definitely not happy with being perceived as this higher power. and i feel like the want to be perceived as real and human is inherently a human thing. the desire to have real connection and to be treated like a person is human nature. even a man who's been groomed into destroying his humanity for the sake of excellence still inevitably retains those human desires, even if he doesn't realize it. and something about that feels weirdly beautiful. because no matter how completely disconnected you become from the world, that disconnection is exactly what keeps a small part of you still worldly.
and adding onto that, i feel like his disconnect is what makes him learn to care for people? because he essentially spends his entire life analyzing people and putting himself into their shoes. he solves crime not through picking out insane clues and threads like sherlock holmes, but by connecting and relating to them personally. that's how he figures out how to pull kira out from hiding in the first place. he recognizes that like him, kira is childish and has a lust for winning. he uses his ability to relate to kira as an advantage over him. he knows and calls out light for never telling the truth because he recognizes and understands his secrecy. and not only do his detective skills show how he relates and cares about people, but he legitimately just outright shows his appreciation sometimes???? especially in scenes with aizawa. aizawa's very strong-headed and calls L out on a lot of things, but each time he lashes out at the guy, L always convinces aizawa to take a step back and think about what he's doing. he doesn't have to do this, but he does, because he values aizawa as a person and genuinely cares for him. even though they're not close and even though aizawa tells L multiple times that he sincerely hates his methods and personality, L continues to care anyways. he's genuinely a sweet person despite not even being raised as one and damnit he deserved better.
i love analyzing light's humanity because i feel like it's the exact opposite of L. unlike L, light was raised to be the perfect human. he was raised to be academic, athletic, sociable, likable, handsome, literally the perfect boy. his whole life he has been pushed into being as perfectly normal as possible, which is a stark contrast to L's life. however, the part where they connect is in their desire to leave these confines. as L is grasping to retain his humanity, light is doing everything he can to leave humanity behind and become a god. he is human for all the reasons L is not.
i like to compare light to odysseus in my mind (note that i only read the odyssey for my 9th grade english class so i could be very off about that but i'm hoping i can use it as an analogy anyways). he's viewed as a hero by everyone around him but that dude can be a huge dick let's be fuckin fr here man. he's grown sick and bored of the following the same repeating motions of life over and over again. he has a lust to do more-- to make something out of his life but to make something that he wants-- to be seen and to be seen on his own terms.
now it's time to talk about light's evil autism oh nauuurrrrrr.
light has been masking for like. his whole life. he has insane observational skills not because he's disconnected from humanity, but because he's been forced into it. it's why he's so cynical about the world. he sees the worst in people and is forced to just take it as a part of life. it makes sense that'd he go insane over the death note, because to him, this is him finally getting the chance to not only cleanse the world and become a god, but also his way of getting back at the world. i honestly can't blame him for that. if for your whole life you were forced to care about and be perfect for people that you could only see the worst in, it makes sense that his hatred would fester into something like this. and hatred is one of the most human traits out there. it's just another form of passion. it's light's passion that drives him to despise humanity, but ironically is also what keeps him from becoming the god he desperately wants to be.
other than that i don't really have much else to say for light. i feel like that kinda encompasses everything i think about him in regards to humanity.
tldr; light and L are the yin and yang of humanity. humanity views light as this glorified perfect boy, when he actually represents the trenches inside of people. meanwhile L is the complete opposite. he was groomed to be a machine and humanity views him as a weapon, yet he holds the softest parts of humanity inside himself
thank you for coming to my ted talk i hope it satisfies you. thank u for yelling at me yippeepeieeeee. :3
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