Light VS L - Who Was TRULY Smarter? (Death Note)

the light yagami was a hyper intelligent and very bored individual who one day stumbled upon a special notebook where upon reading its contents learned he could kill anybody by simply writing their name down and knowing what they looked like with a justin bieber haircut and the ego of an anime youtuber light was practically chosen by fate itself to be a pretty terrible guy these actions of deciding when others lived or died based on light's own moral code and choices will put him to an intellectual boxing match against the greatest minds on earth whether those minds be the international police the fbi or the greatest detective of all time l lalit and his super human successors niren mello due to like's ego and boredom he was thrown directly into conflict with l in which his goal to change the world through killing was seemingly considered secondary to catch l for opposing him and humiliating him at the beginning of the series but throughout all of death note every clash plan and trick they had the entire cat and mouse scandal who was actually the smartest who outsmarted who the most did light out smart elmore was it vice versa maybe near or mellow ended up catching the most victories in the end or maybe ryuk is the smartest for manipulating the whole show and even tricking the shinigami king was actually stated have immeasurable intelligence anyway i wanted to actually make a pretty objective video on who was smarter now most people just kind of theorize but i actually just wanted to like objectively just count who actually outsmarted the other the most so we will be going through the first half of death note where l and light actually do scuffle and then at the end i'll be giving my own opinion on who i think is smarter so enjoy light receives his death note begins writing down numerous names and killing numerous criminals via heart attacks while the international police speculates on if there is actually murders being committed throughout the world or just a series of coincidences a call out on national tv is made from a man named lindell taylor directed towards kira light's killer identity that the public made light kills this lindell taylor on tv without a second thought and the real l uses this to deduce that kira is real and in japan and eventually ends up cornering light due to this later light admits he made an emotional mistake here and i don't blame him for not expecting someone like l to exist but is still l's victory here as l is also battling something the unknown as well which is the death note which he has no knowledge of and the battle between light now it starts off with a 1-0 and l's favor from here light needs a way to save his ego and a way to attack l back in which he starts this by first allowing l to catch on to the fact that he is a student not only will this allow him to get closer to l but it also starts to make l investigate the police as kira clearly has information only the police should know if everything goes perfectly l will either have to reveal himself or the police will catch l4 kira by making the police and l suspect each other a conflict emerges where nobody trusts l and l is forced to reveal himself to gain their trust back l considers this lights a victory and the score is now one to one el now proceeds to use the fbi to chase after light and while dealing with his pursuers light proceeds to create diversions that actually tricks l he creates a bunch of note cards that have literally zero meaning that l will ponder on while light proceeds to murder every fbi agent in japan and catch on to elle's plan light also ends the fbi support of l while l just sits and stares at cards that don't do anything it is now one and two in light's favor l theorized that the cards were possibly a distraction but didn't fully realize it until after the fact and even then he went back on his words and thought it was real once he realized they had a fake meaning l also sweats in the scene for one of the only times in the whole manga due to light making fun of him basically i actually originally thought he never had a smear mark which is a sweat mark on elle's face throughout the entire manga until i reread this showing just how embarrassed l was for this scene not only did light completely eradicate the fbi supporting l but he made the fbi admit they were spying on the police which helped coroner l even further and then he was forced to reveal himself he also outsmarts ellen foresees that l would check the sending order of the fbi names and faces to their potential killer and makes the order of them being sent random so al can't follow him as well therefore catching on to elle's thought process at this point l admits light in him have closed the distance between them and the game really begins which sort of proves that light actually did outsmart l here quite a few times this introduces us to a scene in which l then probes light's room with cameras and bugs to watch and listen to his daily activities to see if he is kira one of elle's plans is that he'll display a message that says 1500 detectives are coming to japan on tv while light and cyou are watching to see if he can get a reaction out of them however light easily sees through this and just makes fun of l out loud instead even at a stash of lewd magazines just in case something like this happened as well light begins his final step into ending this probing sequence which is the famous potato chip scene now i have my own problems with this scene like what if someone in the house just decided to eat barbecue chips that day even if they never really liked the flavor before maybe puberty is changing sayu's taste buds and she just doesn't mind barbecue chips now how would light ever know regardless it does go his way and he's able to sneak a mini television inside a bag of barbecue chips after ryuk tells him where all the cameras and bugs are inside of his room light maps out perfectly how to watch tv through his barbecue chip bag without ever being spotted now this scene is very very underrated for lights intelligence most people just focus on how goofy it is which it is goofy i don't blame them but the scene is actually extremely impressive now not only does light have to watch tv and write names down through a potato chip bag but he has to do this while keeping in mind over 64 bugs and cameras watching his every move and making sure they can't catch him being weird while also simultaneously acting like nothing is suspicious while riding in the bag very slowly while also practicing for his entrance exams on a level that convinces elle a super human genius that also understands psychology that he isn't acting or doing anything weird on top of this the tv also has no sound so he actually has to look very particularly inside of the bag to see the names on tv and then write them down slowly and remember those as well anyway light gets away with this and that tv in a bag gets trash compacted without anybody ever finding out at least until later when rem makes a slip up and l theorizes that light uses a potato chip egg light is able to steer away alice probes and ellis none the wiser while also convincing the police he is a clean person this makes the score 1-3 as light outsmarted al numerous times in this one little mini arc alone without really doing nothing in return l actually begins to think kira might have the mental of a divine being after this because of light's insane acting ability and performance it's very difficult to say that light did not get him here after this l has to take a new step into catching light as light has made too much progress as it is and l hasn't really made any counters but both l and light agree they will have to meet or get closer to each other to eventually win they can't win anonymously during his endeavor to meet light elle passes an elite college entrance exam while arguably 40 percent deduce deductive ability due to his thinking being at its peak depending on his sitting posture which he wasn't allowed to use during the exams this is also kind of interesting because when light bl and those earlier scuffles and fooled him l wasn't in this prime position meaning he was caught off guard while possibly nerfed by his posture if you want to say that's a possible argument although it could also just be a joke and he could just like sitting like that sometimes instead as some may know l acts a bit differently when he's not surrounded by people or in his own thoughts than he does out loud or in public although the l backstory secret chapters does implied he is still a bit of a weirdo anyway l then corners light and straights up admits he's l to him in public after saying his name was hideki ryuga at the exam a famous japanese pop star and actor this is for one so that if light tries killing l and uses the name hideki ryuga and accidentally thinks of the pop star who he did see on the tv while under sevens with saiyu then he would kill the pop star and l would know light was responsible because only light would think that l's name was hideki it's also good because if this l who might not even be the real one dies then everyone would immediately know light was kira and then the real l in the background could just get light kira admits l got him pretty good here making the score 2-3 preceding this the two then have a friendly tennis match which outlines the idea of how everything should be analyzed and scrutinized in death note when concerning ellen light and determining if every little action has any meaning between the two they have to be hyper cautious and this tennis match is a prime example of that the tennis match ultimately doesn't have any meaning but the two think of their ideas of how to confront each other and both think of pretty much the same exact things while doing it now a funny note for those that are actually familiar with how intelligence or iq works light despite being very very rusty ultimately beats l here who is also rusty which may outline a higher body kinesthetic intelligence since they're both just good at the game of tennis however for this video we are not including those types of intelligence nor do i think anybody really was anticipating body kinesthetic intelligence or athletic intelligence we're more so taking their plans against each other and who can catch the other more than that following the tennis match both of them go to get drinks and during this l gives light a deductive reasoning test in which he tricks him with a card that was fake that light didn't write but he acted like light made it but light also doesn't fall for elle's plan of trying to make light mad by creating fake cards these cards being what light used to trick l before so light does see through l's plan here but it doesn't really mean anything nor would it have mattered if light got mad anyway however this does corner light into working on the task force so that l can monitor more of his movements without surveillance but this works in light's favor as well and light is able to confirm al's identity through his father so no one really won here a new death note then appears a new kira and this is when death note somewhat loses a bit of its flavor for a lot of people and becomes more about power rather than just quick wits and deduction after misa the new kira gets manipulated by l to not try to force l to appear on tv and meets the light in person light basically obtains shinigami eyes which is the ability to see anybody's true name and lifespan just looking at their face and a second death note considering l doesn't even know what the death note was to begin with and still has no idea about many of its rules like gets a huge power up here but not exactly while in theory light has more abilities and tactics he can now employ misa is a bit of a liability she's not the smartest one in the room misa doesn't overthink every little detail to the point she is having a 300 iq breakdown of the meaning of hitting a ball around a chord or saying let's have coffee misa just isn't as strong as light and both light and l know this you can kind of see it like a video game where you play through a bit of it get the feel of how things work and then when you finally start getting some of the more upgrade and getting the hang of the game the game turns into a giant escort mission when you have to protect someone else before they meet misa makes a good meet-up plan by saying they will show notebooks in ioma with a club called note blue existing there ao meaning blue and notebook being the key word light is able to deduce this and l isn't but you could say that this is just because l doesn't know notebook is a keyword regardless misa tricks both light and l after finding out light's identity using shinigami eyes and just giggles and runs away somewhere this will also lead up into the power discussion we'll have later so keep in mind misa just tricked light and l using power even though she's not as intelligent misa eventually messes up a few times not only revealing that shinigami exists to the whole planet on live tv but she is apprehended by elle in the task force as being the second kira for leaving evidence of her guilt behind and not realizing normally this is annoying but not a huge problem for life so long as misa doesn't talk and it doesn't seem like she really will she seems to rather go insane than say anything but rem misa shinigami steps in and tells light that if he doesn't come up with a plan to save her she will kill him this isn't all misa's mess up as it's implied that light somewhat screwed up and didn't account for mises thought process when making the notes or the tapes to send which is a weakness he tends to have in general assuming people will act almost as optimally as he thinks when he commands them or gives them an order so now light has to go out of his way to trick l into releasing misa and convincing them she is innocent while not looking guilty himself but l is out for blood not only did he apprehend the second kira but it's becoming far more detrimental for light than he could ever imagine elle is able to deduce misa's past of having her parents killer killed by kira and her sudden close connection to light that borders obsession he is also able to deduce that light is too prideful to carry say a personal cute cell phone around just for misa as two lovers al prepares to call on light as a prime suspect as kira after a lot of acting from both sides many days of self-imprisonment and a brilliant plan to convince elle that the power of kira is a curse that possesses and transfers to others that the user can't kill basically a bunch of bs light convinces l to let out both light and misa from confinement despite the overwhelming and pretty much objective evidence that misa is the second kira this is a huge win for light especially considering he was forced into this situation by rem it would never do this normally the score is now 2-4 in light's favor near does say later that the task force pressuring l is probably the only reason he would ever let light and misa free but l himself when we actually see him monologue is actually at a loss and doesn't know anything he would have done in this situation and even actually gets depressed later even near later in the series l successor is very surprised by many of these things and probably wouldn't have handled them well either so if light can make l depressed and almost give up through his acting ability and his plan it's definitely a light w while l can't confine light or misa any longer he still assumes that light is kira but without his memories or powers and assumes that light will use this to somehow get an advantage on him which is correct light also while now a good guy can't be guilty of really anything except hiding information he thinks could convict him of being guilty when thinking such as how he has memories of the bus jacking and ray pember still now he begins his path to befriend and get closer to l and chase down the new kira that rem created as per his request something i don't ever see brought up really about this situation is not that light is just a good person but light in this quote-unquote good state also doesn't really have much of an ego especially compared to l or bad light due to this light makes a lot of breakthroughs that l can seemingly not do to the wall of his ego preventing him from such there's a lot of popular videos and discussions about death note online that go over how light could have gotten out of his situation against near at the end and so on and so forth and what a lot of people point out to is that izawa could literally just be kira and everything would fit very well aizua is constantly questioning light the hardest could easily have set him up and seems the most aware of the situation and is the one who tries to convince near that light is suspicious and to go for him the reason i bring this up is because l never even considers that the mpa could be kira he simply says they are too stupid to be questioned and writes them off because he sees kira as someone who should be very smart and challenging fun even but it's not very realistic are you telling me if l was on my case and i was murdering the whole planet if i just play dumb he just figures it can't be me and leaves me alone like i understand the whole childish thing quite well and i understand his reasoning and he's not even necessarily wrong but it's just interesting to point out that good light actually does theorize that an mpa member could just be kira and not light whereas l doesn't even really try to think about it so if aizawa was kira light might have a much better time catching him than l did just a fun thing to think about light also admits in part 2 of death note that his ego and hot-headedness even is what eventually led to his eventual imprisonment by l due to killing lindell taylor when he didn't have to so this is somewhat of a raw light without that weakness that tangent aside l creates a fake execution for light as a last-ditch effort to prove his innocence with light's father soichiro which actually does fool lights and he's a good person now one of the weaknesses of good light tends to be his naivety and he gets tagged for this later by someone in the yotsuba group during this good escapade misa basically actually admits light is kira almost verbatim so things maybe aren't going all perfectly well for bad light who's not present but it's still going okay l begins to get depressed imagining that someone was actually manipulating light into making him believe light was the real puppet master and that he actually wanted light to be kira once again just imagine if isola was kira here l begins to actually give up and light has to convince elle they need to stop kira together they amount some feats that seem very similar to each other in the words of the mpa and people that can see them together all the time and they seem to feel on a similar level as well rem says this as well later something to note here is that light deduces that kira can control people and kill them without heart attacks before l really kind of does despite having to be on the case way shorter this could be due to light's memories of the bus jacking but l didn't even deduce this when light convinced him kira could potentially curse manipulate and change bodies which is a bit weird after more digging the good light finds the yotsubakira before l does directly however you could say l wasn't really trying to find the yosef akira and might have actually just been depressed so it might not have been a feat but if you think l was just acting about his depression then it would be two to five in light's favor good light also reveals he can hack into computers kind of revealing how he could have gotten into his father's police files when he was evil which l notes once again bad light is on a real hard escort mission light then comes up with a plan to delay killings from yosef before l does and l fakes this by saying that light should become his new successor to see if light would latch onto it or the power but light doesn't fall for this and calls ellen out for being apprehensive again to everyone in ella's mind he knows that light is planning to return his memories but doesn't really know how yet here l realizes as well that misa might have gotten her memories back after misa has a slight psychological shift going from risking her life to do anything for light to now preserving it without fighting back under light's orders this is something near and mello don't really show an aptitude for later which is like psychoanalyst from here l gets a pretty decent w against light when he theorizes that higuchi the new rem yotsubakira is talking to a shinigami before light can the score would be a questionable three to five or three to seven depending on what you take as wind light finally gets his memories back after ellen like corner gucci and light basically says he was accurately able to predict everything l would do when he lost his memories however light is also shocked when he realizes that l hypothesized that he simply lost his memories and could regain them there's now another power amp but liability which is rem is now on the forefront helping light but being public to the task force she actually slips up and gives l a few clues which allows l to figure out light scheme with the potato chips which i said earlier but also allows him to clear his name with fake rules temporarily however the super detective calls these fake rules out immediately and challenges them outright to light's detriment this puts rem into a direct position to being forced to kill l for him and die thus removing the pain of both rem and l from light side this is like final and ultimate victory but it's more of a victory over rem than l at the end of the day though light was able to manipulate his way to l side find the means to dispose of him and get away with it it's light to victory at the end of the day and the novels which is l change the world there's a alternate timeline where rem doesn't kill l and after light is put into jail eventually light kills himself with the piece of the death note in his famous watch making it so that l could never actually solve the kira case or prove light was kira and loses this is similar to the plan a character named b another whammy's house successor like niren mello did in the bb murder cases novel where he planned to murder a bunch of people until all gone in his case and then kill himself so that l could never solve the case and defeat him so it's likely that light would have won the battle of pride even without rem potentially but he would have died in the process but regardless a very disappointing end before dying l figures out that light used rem to kill watery as well and passes away the score then ends at around 3ish to 5 to 9ish depending on how strict you are with the wins in terms of deducing each other's actions and countering them before they could get away with them the score would be a solid nine to nine so it's three to five or nine and then nine to nine so dead even in terms of that part so light pretty much wins but is the score really the be-all end-all here the answer is not exactly while it definitely showed that light performed better than l it doesn't include a very important piece of context later in death note we have a new gauge to be made with mellow near l and light in which l begins comparing l successors to l himself while mello is certainly more dangerous and near was far more antagonistic and put more pressure on light light doesn't seem very convinced that either on al's level and at the end of the series that theory actually came true and life's deduction of near's intelligence is actually correct in which light would have killed mir had mikami not screwed up which was one of like's weaknesses i outlined earlier if you recall with most of the feats mellow near god on light being because light was and i quote playing dumb now while i admit that mellow especially is very underrated and has some good arguments for being very op this video is just about light versus l also no nier did not manipulate mika me into messing up like monsters theory at the end suggest where the theory is that near used the death note to make mikami mess up so it's actually a near feet so because you can't manipulate someone that has the shinigami eyes with the death note a pretty basic rule so light was in fact correct about near's ability but during the second half of the death note we hear light mention a very particular word that he didn't really mention the first which is power power also known as the ability to do or act capable of doing or accomplishing something is how light labels shinigami abilities pass down to humans whether it be in the form of death notes shinigami eyes etc if you have two shinigami notebooks you have more power you are stronger than the person who has just one shinigami notebook having shinigami eyes gives you more power as well what i'm getting at here is that light speaks against l could simply be because he is more powerful than l due to the death note and his ability to cause things to happen which light seemingly admits so even if light and l were hypothetically even or dead even in their intelligence which a lot of guidebooks such as the animation guide seem to suggest light simply has more power thus naturally racks up more winds throughout the series light does use this mystery to his advantage many times now while i do think light genuinely did some insanely smart things he would not have been nearly as dominant especially at the beginning of the series if he had no power to manipulate events to his favor i think i'll wrap this video up with two more points that i'd love to hear you guys thoughts on down below in the guidebooks it's heavily implied that near's reasoning and cool-headedness are equal to l's if not slightly higher during being more cool-headed and relaxed but l is still superior with his much higher ability to act surprise and move on his own with rivaling deduction in raw iq in terms of death note power scaling if you call it that it's kind of confusing i mean it's a shonen you get the idea of brain power scaling or something whatever anyway if this is true and l is better than near because he holds a set of attributes greater than near even if he has like one less iq point or something then what's stopping white who basically has an equal level of ability to l in almost both stats not just being greater than l due to his ability to do everything else better whether it be his social ability his acting ability his body kinesthetic ability his lack of reliance on his sitting pose or weird habits he has to follow except for his lame haircut and so forth why would light just not default to being superior in that regard in terms of overall intelligence or power level or whatever but screw my thoughts now while i think this is a good point to consider maybe the author can shed some insight when asked who is the smartest in death no oba himself says that he thinks that l is the smartest because the plot demands it the only problem is that this might be kind of a joke the reason it's a joke is that if you read death note l is kind of more of a title and more than one person and more than one person is technically l throughout the series at one point l is l light is l and near becomes l as well so even that answer is still kind of subjective at least to the reader which is fine but maybe you could say that it proves that l was smarter than light when they first met then after the time skip light was the smartest and now near as the smartest or something regardless i think i outlined everything that can be really said about this and i hope you did enjoy i had to reread all of death note basically just score every conversation as a w or l and i even did it for melo and nier as well which would actually double this video to like an hour long but i figured people just were more interested in l versus kira instead thank you so much for watching if you have any other death note videos you want to see or even death no versus another series just let me know subscribe if you want to see more and maybe hit a like and have a great rest of your day till next time [Music] you

Channel: SethTheProgrammer

Views: 908,236

Rating: 4.9517217 out of 5

Keywords: Light vs L - Who Was TRULY Smarter?, light vs l, l vs light, light vs l death note, death note, kira, light, light yagami, l death note, batman vs kira, kira vs l, kira death note, how smart is light yagami, minoru vs light, was light smarter than l, was l smarter than light, seththeprogrammer, seth the programmer, seth the programmer death note, analysis, breakdown, light vs near, light potato chip, who was the smartest in death note

Id: P7l8vbyAOR0

Length: 28min 4sec (1684 seconds)

Published: Thu Jul 01 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/Like7Clockwork]

Consider the difference in what Light had to work with versus what L had to work with. If you think about it, L proving the existence of Kira alone is an insane feat. Light was plenty intelligent, sure, he had a book with rules that he was understanding and learning the parameters of.

L didn't have that, he didn't know what a Death Note WAS until later, only that Kira was able to kill. He wasn't even certain it was supernatural at first, he just was analyzing patterns. So the fact that he was able to think outside the box to that capacity, and that (at least I think) every single deduction he makes is spot the fuck on, I think L is the more intelligent one.

It would be weird if L and Light were actually equals in intelligence, because then it wouldn't be a fair fight. Smart guy vs Smart guy with a magic book, well come on now. But Smart guy with a magic book vs a REALLY smart guy, now THAT'S interesting.

[u/andreenden]

i heard the L always knew but just didn’t have enough proof so L.

[u/Appropriate_Spend659]

L was, if it wasn’t for misa’s shinigami light woulda been caught.

[u/TrollZorr01]

But in the end only Nate remains.

[u/_iltizo]

the 13th volume says that Light have more “IQ point” that L

[u/Section_Away]

What I never understood is why Light didn’t have Misa write L’s name in her death note after they met for the first time. She could have altered the time of death too and made sure that she was in view of L at the time so he wouldn’t know who killed him, and nobody else would be the wiser either. Misa is the final nail in Light’s coffin.

[u/RainbowMage1]

Misa amane was smarter