did L want kira to stop because he just wanted to keep his job? i can't see L not supporting kira's ideas because of his morality... he tortures people for solving cases lmao
L mostly takes on cases because they're interesting and challenging to him imo, as is explained in the manga when he is first introduced. And yes, I think his position as the ultimate criminal catcher was being threatened by Kira's existence in a way too. I'm sure he didn't think what Light was doing with the notebook was great either, but I'd say for the most that part he is more concerned with being right and being entertained and winning than he is actually doing anything out of a sense of duty or heroism or due to possessing a strong moral code
hi, i love your posts. i've thought a lot about the wammy children, and i'd love to hear your thoughts on this: L, knowing there's successors and that he's working a super dangerous case, makes no provisions to send his findings to roger for the successors, so near and mello have to start more or less from scratch (by picking up pieces of what L had discovered already). And L was supposed to pick a successor but never actually met the two kids? (i prefer the fanon found family trope :D) (1)
Hi thank you! I haven't re-read this part of the series in years now, and I'm still not there in my re-read, but I think if my memory serves correctly I should be able to answer this anyway.
My theory about why L deleted all the information from the Kira investigation:
Because he didn't want Light or anybody else to get their hands on the information. And I think this was a smart thing for him to do, considering that Light immediately took on the L role. He anticipated that Light would be volunteered by the others to take over as L, and he also thought he was the only one who could actually pull it off.
I am pretty sure this scene plays out slightly differently between the manga and the anime. I think that in the anime it shows Light reading over all of L's personal case information after his death, and then deleting it himself. But in the manga it shows that Light was only really able to recreate L's synthetic voice, and to continue using the same programs they were using together during the Yotsuba arc.
My theory for why Ohba didn't set it up so that L just sent all his case files to his successors for them to use:
Because it makes Mello and Near seem more impressive and hardworking and sympathetic to the audience if they are able to lay a lot of the case groundwork on their own instead of just riding L's coattails to victory. I could see fans dismissing them as lazy or not so smart pretty easily if that was the case instead.
L was supposed to pick a successor, but never actually met the kids?
Yep, it seems as though he probably never met them, if you are going by the later one-shot where Near mentions that they only ever interacted with him over a video call once. In that one-shot it said he liked the sinister look in the eyes of Mello and Near the best, so he was just kinda basing it on their vibes? Hahaha. The series is always ambiguous about the true extent of L's involvement at Wammy's, or his actual feelings toward the whole successor program. But my headcanon is that he wasn't super involved with the successors in any personal way. And possibly he just didn't want to make a choice between them, because he didn't want to consider his own mortality and the thought of being replaced already at such a young age.
Do I think L knew he was going to die, and also planned for it?
I think he definitely knew it was a possibility and that he made a lot of arrangements surrounding that possibility, but that he never actually believed he was going to lose in any way. He's extremely confident in himself, and he'd never been proven wrong or stumped by a case before.
My theory about L's final words:
He got to realize that he was definitely right before he died, which is at least a little bit of closure for a character who was so 1000% obsessed with proving himself right about his suspicion toward Light all along. I think the behind the scenes book said Ohba was imagining that L was thinking some "I lost the battle, but the war isn't over" type things here? So maybe his thoughts were partially drifting toward the successors, and hoping that they'd be able to carry on in his stead.
i am fascinated by L. like you, i agree that he shows compassion or at the very least tries to be human. his 'please be careful', his 'well, we don't want any one of us to die,' the fact that he has money aside for his coworkers AND their families, the fact that when he disagrees with soichiro on his yotsuba methods he doesn't kick them out, he lets them use freely the headquarters that he built for all of them. my question is... coming in another ask because it's long, lol
Yes, I think he's definitely not wishing harm on anyone helpful involved in this case. And though he maybe keeps an emotional distance from most of the people involved, and sometimes struggles to relate to them or to not get overly bossy and sour with them, I think he really does care about their safety and appreciate their help. I really like those moments where he's a bit gentler and worried and thoughtful toward others like that too, I think it adds some interesting nuance and character depth.
-I think the fact that Light was often outpacing L and managing to get things done under his name while still keeping things pretty morally sound was both impressive and disturbing to L in many ways. I've never been extremely interested in trying to determine "which character is the most intelligent one of all" in this cast, because I feel like intelligence is such a multi-faceted thing that is pretty difficult to measure in an objective kind of way. So I don't often spend much time contemplating which of the two of them is definitely the "smarter" one, I suppose? I think that L and Light were set up to seem pretty equal in terms of their wits and skills, but that L was definitely struggling with his confidence and his energy levels in this arc. He was also at odds with a team that wasn't always happy with his extreme methods or his leadership, and plagued with confusion about Light's entire personality suddenly going through what seemed to be a massive change. Light was definitely hyper-motivated to catch Kira, and to therefore prove himself useful and innocent all at once. He was also younger and more idealistic and optimistic in general, so possibly just had a bit of extra vim and vigour which occasionally gave him a bit of an advantage over L. This was no doubt a pretty stressful and confusing period in L's life as well as Light's.
-I've made a post about L calling Misa a friend already that I'll reblog, but I think that in that scene he was making an ironic throwback reference to his "first ever friend" joke with Light.
Yeah, I think he actually often does his best to be pretty straight-forward with everybody about himself, while simultaneously giving as little as possible about himself away. It's not even "manipulative" of him to do that so much as just cautious and wise most of the time, I would say. And it's not like it's automatically unkind to want to be picky about who you hang out with, or to keep a distinct separation between your personal and professional life with your coworkers. I think that most of the task force still appreciated L for his boldness and his cautionary measures and his investigative talents at the end of the day, though I'm sure he wasn't always super easy to work with or to befriend or understand.
I know that you already got so many of these, but can you do a list of mangacaps that show the daily life at Wammy's House? Because I think that it was maybe too performance-oriented and mismanaged, but overall portrayed as a pretty decent environment for children to grow up in (at least in the manga from what I remember... and I know that Another Note's interpretation of Wammy's House always really bugged me, so that'd be super helpful!!)
Interesting question! I agree that Another Note made it sound darker and more abusive than it originally looked in the manga, so let’s take a look:
THE ORIGINAL MANGA VERSION OF WAMMY’S:
It was founded by Watari with his own money, and was one of many orphanages he opened around the world:
This is how Aizawa and Matsuda describe it after going to see it for themselves:
1. it’s “more of an institution than an orphanage,” and kids are definitely being purposely raised to be the next L. It doesn’t specifically say where these brilliant children come from or how they are selected, but Wammy’s is definitely not a charitable organization
2. the kids go by aliases with everyone, and are given normal schoolwork and also “very advanced” work to do (but it doesn’t sound quite as forceful and dehumanizing as the process did in the novel, where A and B were treated more like weird science experiments and “expected to fail’)
3. Roger seemed straight-forward about everything with the detectives, like he didn’t seem to think he had anything too shady to hide about the goings-on at Wammy’s
4. Roger wanted Near and Mello to work together to be the next L. Doesn’t sound too forceful about it, but again, these are kids and they’re in an institution that’s grooming them specifically to take on this role, and children are very impressionable and vulnerable people by default
5. both Mello and Near chose to leave Wammy’s on their own as orphan minors (ages 12 and 14 or something?), and apparently nobody stopped them. Pretty neglectful-sounding (if you’re looking at it from a serious/realistic perspective). Near carried on doing what the institution was raising him to do all along, and Mello ended up in the US involved in organized crime, so make of that what you will, I suppose
6. Another student Linda “excelled in art” and became a famous artist. Sounds like she was allowed to pursue creative passions and a career outside of the stuff that would directly help her become L, so that’s a plus in Wammy’s favour
Now let’s look at Wammy’s House as it appears in the manga:
7. It looks like a giant re-purposed cathedral with a gated entrance
8. the students look mostly unsupervised and also free to express themselves and do leisure activities as they please. Not rigidly controlled, nor disciplined, nor coddled much. Everyone appears to be doing fine in this scene, except maybe the kid Mello’s bullying
9. there are photographs of the children and Watari in Roger’s office, and everything looks pretty nice and well-kept inside the building
10. There’s at least one other adult there helping out, and the students seem to like her a lot
11. There’s a lot of running in the halls and rowdy horseplay going on
12. Mello’s bullying of the bowl-cut kid is stopped, but not reprimanded
13. there seems to be a certain casual familiarity between Roger and these two, like they either interact a lot or things are fairly informally run there
14. Roger is very blunt and honest about everything. He doesn’t sugarcoat the sad news for the kids at all, nor patronize them, but it seems a bit insensitive too
15. Roger seems like a very weak authority figure in general, and like he’s just carrying out orders or trying to keep the peace more than anything else
16. Mello clearly idolizes L and is very upset by the news of L’s death
17. Roger will not make L’s decision about his heir for him, and asks Near and Mello to work together. Clearly there is a ranking system in place if Near is said to be always above Mello in the scores, but apparently it’s also not set in stone and open to being fiddled with if necessary
18. This flexibility and offering of a joint title seems like too little too late in that the ranking culture appears to have already seriously messed Mello up, though; it’s hard to say how much of his competitiveness is just his own personality and how much is because of the pressure and inferiority he felt in that system, but whatever the case, it was extremely formative for him to be put into this running for L’s throne as an impressionable and powerless child
19. the other kids don’t seem too bothered about the competitive aspect of things at Wammy’s, but that might be because they were not as passionate nor close to actually winning the title as Mello was
20. Mello threatens to run away at age 14, and Roger barely does anything to stop him
21. Mello ACTUALLY runs away at age 14, and as far as we know nobody tries to stop him. Next time we see him he’s in the mafia and has done things such as decapitate people to get ahead in his career
Near apparently also leaves the orphanage at this age by choice and starts going after Kira on his own, though we don’t know much of anything about what he did during those years or how much he was helped, but we can assume he probably had a less dramatic and more stable adolescence than Mello did
SO IN CONCLUSION:
I’d say it’s still strange and neglectful and exploitive by any serious/realistic standards for healthy rearing of children, but that it doesn’t seem as horrific and rigid an environment and program in the manga as the later novel made it sound
AS A WEIRD BONUS TIDBIT:
Apparently Watari had a family who didn’t know that he was Watari at all? Lmao
This might be stupid, but I always thought it was interesting how LABB, besides meaning Los Angeles Beyond Birthday, could also separate out into L A BB. All the first gen Wammy's kids we know of.
Hey very true!
It’s funny sometimes to remember that the whole Another Note novel was based on just these few panels in the manga:
It seems like such a small throwaway bit of information, but Nisio Isin really took it and ran with it. He actually created a ton of the Wammy’s lore that is widely accepted now which wasn’t in the manga originally at all, if you think about it.
It’s also kind of funny that L barely remembers Naomi and B even after going through all of that stuff in the book. I know that’s mostly because the manga came first, but it’s especially funny as a cruel joke on B; imagine how mad Beyond would be to hear that L hardly recalled the revenge plan he literally tried to take his own life to complete.
This is kind of a weird question but... do we ever actually get to see L's ears? I've been drawing him with visible ears this entire time, but I distantly remember that his hair always stays stupidly in place, even during action...who knows if he even has 'em...? (☉_☉)
HE DID IN FACT HAVE EARS AND WE DID IN FACT SEE THEM SOMETIMESSome Manga Evidence:
Some Anime Evidence:
You’re right though, mostly they are hidden underneath that shaggy ol’ mop of hair! I loooveee art that makes his ears poke out, I think it’s so cute
I'm rereading the manga and my absolutely favorite thing is when the focus is on some other characters and L is just barely visible at the bottom of the panel because he is a crouchy boi, giving us the same round-eyed non-reaction to whatever's going on. Like, they didn't *have* to include him but they did and I love it :3
omg yes, I know what you mean…
I legit laughed out loud reading the manga so many times when I revisited it, especially because of L and his froggy face or just his extremely blunt reactions and manipulative maneuvers. I think he’s definitely at his funniest in the manga (the manga is just very funny in general a lot of the time)! Ahhh I want to read it again lmao
I've been wondering this forever: Why do you think L was like "I'm a... PeRvErT‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽‽😵" When Misa called him a pervert? I always thought that was such a weird reaction, and just chocked it up to him basically saying "Whaaat??? Why is she acting so confused all of the sudden?" ... Or it was just Ohba being Ohba because basically anything involving L+sex is utterly hilarious to him. 🤷
Hmmm, I suppose it could definitely have something to do with L being confused that Misa suddenly changed her tune during the confinement, but I think it’s mostly meant to be funny as in: “clearly this situation seems very perverted, and yet L is totally oblivious to the fact that it’s pervy”:
I’m glad that it’s that way though because I feel like this already very uncomfortable scene would be so much worse if L was actually being horny about it, don’t you?
BASICALLY I see this part as Ohba and Obata putting Misa into a horny bondage gear contraption that has overtly sexual vibes as a sly fan-servicey thing, so they’re adding to the “joke” by being like “LOL what do you mean it’s perverted, it’s just your run-of-the-mill murder suspect confinement, obviously”…. yeeaahhh it’s certainly not my favourite part of the manga, to say the least. Misa got off pretty easy here compared to some of the poor girls in Platinum End though, so I guess we can be glad that this manga was rated Teen. There are a lot of instances of female characters being put into degrading and violent situations in Ohba and Obata’s work in a context that is clearly meant to be erotic and/or amusing for the audience, bluh.
