Johan Vs Lawliet
Type: Psychology
Hello, and welcome to my first character vs. character! Today's characters will be starring L Lawliet and Johan Liebert, and who'd reign victorious in a battle of wits.
For those lesser informed on these characters (if you're an anime lover and don't know Lawliet who tf are you? Kidding ♡♡) I'll provide an overview that's 95% spoiler free (aside from necessary facts)
》Johan Liebert: Monster-> Naoki Urasawa, a man without a real name, who was saved by Dr. Tenma after Johan had been shot in the head earlier, and grew up wanting Dr. Tenma to be one of the last in the world to witness the end of the world
•He is the main antagonist of the series
•Capable of manipulating loads of people
•Genius intellect, charisma, language fluency
•Idealist, good actor, able to persuade many due to his charm
•Became a "killer" during childhood (around age 10, by causing a revolt in an orphanage)
•Main goal: A "perfect suicide" (until later on, but that would lead to spoilers)
》L Lawliet: Death Note-> Tsugumi Ohba, detective who's goal in his series was to capture Kira, a murderer with a notebook that can kill people through their name and face, and stop his murders, and managed to find Kira rather quickly, despite him not having enough evidence to accuse him
•He is the main antagonist of the series
•Secretive, good at misinformation
•Genius intellect, extremely good deduction
•Idealist, sometimes uses his own means to reach his desired goal
•Main goal: To capture Kira
I am doing this from a majorly unbiased standpoint, as I like practicing it, and in a case like this I should.
Now, in our hypothetical scenario, let's say Johan is an unnamed mass murderer, and L's the detective. Basically an edited version of both stories so they're combined. L is on the hunt searching for Johan in order to prevent any further casualties and keep him from achieving his ultimate goal, while Johan is trying not to be caught.
I'll begin with their seperate strengths, continue to similarities, than their differences, and ending with who would win, and why.
Now for their seperate strengths, Johan's very persuasive, to the point where he can cause people to do his bidding, or if he's trying to eliminate them, to commit suicide. He's even gotten the doctor whom saved him, Mr. Tenma, into loads of trouble and despair. He was able to bring down an orphanage he used to reside in, and have around 50 people battle to the death, while he simply stood at the top and watched it all. Considering he was a kid at the time, this is a rather impressive feat.
L was able to, through simple deduction, locate Kira's near exact location within a short time frame, when Kira could've been nearly anywhere in the world, and most would have an incredibly difficult time searching for him. He learnt many things about the death note quickly, including learning quickly there was a possibility it existed due to how the deaths happened to occur.
For similarities, many of you'd likely say there's not many due to their conflicting personalities, and for the most part you are correct. However, cognitive wise, if you think about it, they both appear to be idealists. Both are willing to do what they can to achieve their own ends, and not much seems to be capable of altering their opinions. Other than that, it's likely if they met, that L would likely not meet Johan's interests, and L wouldn't be concerned about much of Johan other than capturing him, confining him, and putting him to trial.
Differences: L is concerned with following justice, while Johan has an apparent and noticeable lack of concern of the morality of his actions. Despite L being rather calm, it's blatently obvious he appears to have more of a "personality" when talking to others than Johan does, though most of the time he uses his abilities to achieve his own ends by seeming charming.
Now onto some "fair points". L, despite believing Light (Kira) was guilty, managed to be tricked into believing that Light really wanted to be L's friend, which was ultimately one of his downfalls. So, considering overall I'd say Johan was much more charismatic and manipulative than Light, it could easily lead to his fall.
However, Johan's not entirely emotionless, I have reason to believe in fact that most of his "psychopathic behavior" was due to events early in his life. Continuing to my main point, it's possible something could emotionally stimulate Johan into being distracted enough for L to counter.
Now, so they are going man to man so it's fair, that means Johan doesn't have the upper part of having others do his will, which is typically one of the leading factors to his victory. Due to this he has a rather hefty handicap. Technically L does too, as Johan could blend in with the mass and L wouldn't have much to aid him.
Victor: Johan Liebert
After considering all that, here's my final argument: It is likely, though clearly not 100% certain, maybe closer to 65%, that Johan would win. Why? Well, considering neither have support but have their own resources to this psychological battle, regardless that they can't recruit anyone, Johan overall has the upper hand. He's more calm, is able to evade discovery, and is relatively "unknown" except for those he chooses to allow them to know about him. While L likely would catch up on some of them, it's likely that he'd never catch up due to Johan's lack of a known backstory (except for the main characters and watchers/readers of course), and L has a rather good chance of being manipulated. Though, I have to give him credit as he'd likely get far ways among finding and tracking Johan before he would win.
