Poll of the Day > Never understood folks who say they dont like Light (Death Note) or Walt (Br Ba)

(+) Yeah! (+)

I was cheering for them the entire time, marveled at their feats, and didn't particularly feel good when they died
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Don't know about the latter, but I despised Light the entire time and was rooting for his downfall and disappointed that he got a semi-sympathetic end instead of (apparently; didn't read it) the original manga version

In just the 2nd episode, he attempts to kill a police detective for the high crime of...insulting him. How noble! A few more episodes in, and he's murdering a ton of totally-not-evil-actually-the-good-guys FBI agents and other cops because they're investigating him, and caps it off by killing one of the victim's widows after discovering she had nearly pieced the clues together.
Never once is any option explored to deal with lawful authorities who despite being against him are not evil other than "yeah, I'll murder them."
The entire time he's an insufferable narcissist about how brilliant he is....which I'd actually find entertaining if it were at all true. He is smart, but he's also such a huge dumbass that it more than counter-balances his ability to scheme. Nearly every problem of danger spot he finds himself in throughout the anime is of his own making, such as the (again) brilliant idea to kill off the investigator specifically assigned to him rather than...say...acting like a normal teen around him until he figures there's nothing to the case and leaves, like he was ABOUT TO.
He can't even defeat his rival with his own intellect, instead he's defeated there at every turn despite having so many advantages in the match-up with his supernatural nigh-untraceable powers. Instead, he has to resort to pressuring a Shinigami to take out L for him, as he was about to be defeated and was desperate.

There is nothing at all redeeming or endearing about Light. I watched Death Note after seeing incessant comparisons of his character and personality to Lelouch from Code Geass and after getting through the entire anime (if I hadn't cheated and skipped ahead to the last episode to make sure that prick actually got some karma finally, and had that to look forward to I don't think I could've even made it through the last plot arc) I feel genuinely insulted and angry that so many people would dare impugn Lelouch, who while no saint at least DOES have plenty of redeeming qualities and fights a blatantly evil empire instead of well-meaning cops, by equating him to this scumbag.

Light's a highly entertaining character and I like him in that respect, but as a person, he's a psychopathic murderer and deserved his death
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You're meant to like Walt at first, but if you really like him by the end, you have a problem. He transformed into an evil, manipulative asshole
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Walt was a greedy meth cook and and his family was a bunch a of entitled jerks who deserved nothing. As for the other Death Note is just stupid.

^For a moment I thought you were describing Light in the first sentence..

Now I'm imagining how Light would handle being a meth dealer.
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keyblader1985 posted...

^For a moment I thought you were describing Light in the first sentence..

Now I'm imagining how Light would handle being a meth dealer.

I'll take this meth... and smoke it!
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Light never had Misa's welfare in mind, she was just another means to an end, he was kinda an evil dude even before he got the book.

I can kind of see an argument for Walt but Light was clearly a fucking psychopath from the word go.
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spooky96 posted...

Never understood folks who say they dont like Light (Death Note)

I was cheering for them the entire time, marveled at their feats, and didn't particularly feel good when they died

Some of us weren't emo teens the first time we saw the show.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

spooky96 posted...

Never understood folks who say they dont like Light (Death Note)

I was cheering for them the entire time, marveled at their feats, and didn't particularly feel good when they died

Some of us weren't emo teens the first time we saw the show.

You could say that about Death Note, not Br Ba.

Jeez, pretentious fuck.
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Light was a hero.
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TheCyborgNinja posted...

Light was a hero.

Only in his own mind
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PMarth2002 posted...

Light's a highly entertaining character and I like him in that respect, but as a person, he's a psychopathic murderer and deserved his death

this
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Larmefaux posted...

Walt was a greedy meth cook and and his family was a bunch a of entitled jerks who deserved nothing. As for the other Death Note is just stupid.

How the fuck was Walt's family entitled?
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While Light is sympathetic solely for being the main character and having a moderately likeable personality, he's a complete sociopath who just gets worse as the series progresses. Plus his hysterical overreactions get annoying. He's neither a tragic hero nor a noble villain, he's merely a petulant child with a bit of power. At least with Lelouch, we could somewhat sympathize with his motives. The only people who might sympathize with Light are the deepest red conservatives and horseshoe utilitarian liberals who see no reason to keep alive lawbreakers.

Granted, for Death Note, *most* of the characters were completely unlikable so Light doesn't seem as awful by comparison. The lead detectives were all high-functioning sociopaths who are portrayed as having various mental disorders (either inherent or due to their fucked-up upbringing)

spooky96 posted...

I was cheering for them the entire time, marveled at their feats, and didn't particularly feel good when they died

The problem with those accomplishments is how contrived they are for the most part. One of Light's biggest schemes half-relied on luck although, I suppose, had things gone wrong there were a few scenarios where he simply would have gotten away with his previous crimes even if he couldn't commit new ones.
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spooky96 posted...

You could say that about Death Note, not Br Ba.

That's probably why I only said it about Death Note, then.

Reading comprehension is your friend.

Well, maybe not your friend. But you should totally make his acquaintance, he's pretty cool once you get to know him.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

spooky96 posted...

You could say that about Death Note, not Br Ba.

That's probably why I only said it about Death Note, then.

Reading comprehension is your friend.

Well, maybe not your friend. But you should totally make his acquaintance, he's pretty cool once you get to know him.

Look everyone how cool and witty this guy is, I wish I could suck your dick.
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There's a difference between liking the character because the character is interesting and liking a character in terms of "if they were a real person I would respect and appreciate their company". I think a lot of people get confused by that distinction when you say I like <insert ridiculously evil character here>.

Eh didnt like his little tirades but a good character overall. Shame he started wanting to try and act like a god and such but i support the starting cause at any rate.
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spooky96 posted...

Look everyone how cool and witty this guy is, I wish I could suck your dick.

You at least have to buy me dinner first.


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ParanoidObsessive posted...

spooky96 posted...

Look everyone how cool and witty this guy is, I wish I could suck your dick.

You at least have to buy me dinner first.

Now that's actually a pretty cool response, haha.EightySeven posted...

There's a difference between liking the character because the character is interesting and liking a character in terms of "if they were a real person I would respect and appreciate their company". I think a lot of people get confused by that distinction when you say I like <insert ridiculously evil character here>.

Yeah I think this is what happens when you try to bring up characters like Light or Walt. I think I should rather say they're well-made/portrayed characters - in similar sense to how I'd say Michael McKean/Chuck is the best character in Better Call Saul.
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Light started pretty good, I mean in the very beggining his motives are decent but he turned into a psycopath real fast. Also his plan relied more on luck than intelect itself.

Still I liked his character as an evil one
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PMarth2002 posted...

keyblader1985 posted...

^For a moment I thought you were describing Light in the first sentence..

Now I'm imagining how Light would handle being a meth dealer.

I'll take this meth... and smoke it!

Hah
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Walt's not so bad, he did what he had to do, his family where kinda unappreciative dicks tho, he got screwed over more than anything. Except Jesse, he got screwed over worse than anyone, wound up with nothing after all that shit
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ninjabay posted...

Also his plan relied more on luck than intelect itself.

that is very true, like in the business men ark, he may never got the notebook back, it was lucky he managed to touch it. Or even Rem finding someone that would use the notebook for what Rem asked for him to do. So many other examples through out the series
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ninjabay posted...

Also his plan relied more on luck than intelect itself.

And that's just it. That's why even on a basic level of "do you like him as a character?" my answer is no. He's presented as such a genius and certainly thinks highly of himself, but he constantly wins or survives solely due to sheer dumb luck. He's also such a hypocrite and karma Houdini, and I've always hated those sorts of characters.
Until the last episode, but even then I think he got a far better send-off than he deserved

streamofthesky posted...

send

completely agreed with you

Maybe i am a simple mark but was so mad when L died
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Personally, I liked walt. things just spun out of control. Walt only made one mistake, that was killing jesse's girlfriend. Should have just let jesse and her leave. Yeah shit may have come back but his business with Guss was the best ever. I feel more for Guss then walt though. Dude had a great empire going, killed only when it was necessary and gave people chances. Did a lot for the community as well. Sure his money came form meth dealing but he didn't use it for complete evil. I honestly feel he was trying to make the world better. Dude was legit cool. Walt dug his own grave forcing jesse in.
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Light was a villain from the very first chapter. He was a very entertaining character, but I wasn't saddened by the way things turned out.

Walt started out as a sympathetic character and got more and more villainous toward the end. There was a LITTLE bit of sympathy for him near the end, when he seemed like he was trying his best to set things right for everyone he screwed over, and outright admitted he was doing it for himself the whole time, though.

streamofthesky posted...

Until the last episode, but even then I think he got a far better send-off than he deserved

Another reason the manga's ending was better.
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