The Psychopathology Of Light Yagami (Death Note Analysis)

the human race is an interesting subject like all species we've evolved in a number of ways to adapt to our previous environments leading to the state we're in today Humanity however is largely different to other organisms on this planet why is that exactly well humanity is special because we have evolved with a theory of mind the ability to think I think therefore I am Renee Descartes if you want a more biblical explanation for this phenomena I'll refer to you to the famous story of Adam and Eve whereby Adam eats the Apple given to him by Eve hence doing the rest of humanity to have the Godlike power of thinking and self-awareness this is evident in the story as after the Apple was eaten the two immediately covered their genitals suggesting a brand new force is at work whether or not you choose to believe this story is entirely down to your own discretion but it is undeniable that all these different explanations lead to the same direction we as humans know we exist this sense of self-awareness gave us a conscience morality the superego if you're more inclined to Freudian psychology this allows us to make judgments which best align with needs and wants of the rest of our species his biologically programmed that is in our system that if we help others we will feel good and the pleasure hormone slash neurotransmitter dopamine will be secreted into our system the opposite can be the case if we choose to undo to others harm we can feel guilt or even remorse for the actions if we choose to do them at all what if we lack the ability to fill for others emotions entirely what if all we cared about was advancing the Ambitions of number one what if someone was a psychopath [Music] concentrate Interstate my confidence is it true [Music] psychopathy is described as a person suffering from a chronic mental disorder with abnormal or violent social behavior psychopaths are apparently present in one percent of the general population and in the quarter of prison settings meaning that the odds that we'll actually encounter One In Our Lifetime is quite high as of late I've been reading the book The psychopath test by John Ronson and in it the author seeks to understand what makes someone a psychopath from Reading I I immediately recalled some shows I watched and in some cases people I've met wondering if they are psychopaths fortunately not reaching the depths of paranoia like Mr Ronson throughout the book the most recurrent tool of measure is the hair checklist created by Bob hair this list consists of 20 items in which tests Psychopathic Tendencies each item is scored from zero to two zero being does not apply one being somewhat applies and two definitely applies a score of over 30 would indicate that someone is labeled as a psychopath when I mentioned glossing over things I've seen I also thought of anime had seen one clear standout was like Yagami from Death Note the man who killed thousands by writing their names into a book in this video we will investigate and analyze like yagami's character to determine if he is indeed a psychopath and to what extent before I start there are a few problems with light for this investigation first of all we don't know much about his childhood from the story thus certain implications will have to be made second light gets the Death Note in episode one so we don't see much of his character without the death note's influence fortunately there are a few episodes words namely the yotsubarak where light loses his memories of the notebook meaning that we can use this to analyze him without the death note's influence without further ado let's get started yeah hi Mom it's because from what we know of light he's never failed to make an impression on whomever he encounters everything from his hair to the way he dresses is always in check his basic level of hygiene is excellent but is this excessive I would say no simply being well dressed can't be enough to suggest that it's intentional it seems to be more professional after all he works amongst detectives so dressing formally is to be expected regards to charm I would say that it's extremely superficial given the fact that he plays the role of a hard-working High School shoot as he was before the Death Note whilst hiding his true identity he is likable to everyone he meets and spends time with notable examples include matsura and Miss Kiyomi Takara based on this I will score him one I am Justice I protect the innocent and those who fear evil I'm the one who become the god of a new world that everyone desires all those who would oppose that God they are the ones who are truly evil without doubt lie is high on this scale before obtaining the Death Note light already fought very highly of himself saying he was [Music] working but his sense of self and ego skyrocketed once he obtained the Death Note despite like picking up the notebook as a random event he was under the impression that he was destined to receive it ryuk even makes a joke about this saying I didn't choose don't you see this is all just an accident you actually thought you were chosen because you're so smart or something don't be so vain it just happened to fall around here and you just happened to pick it up this false sense of importance from utilizing the Death Note Dead Light to self-proclaim that he would become god of the new world I find it hard to provide evidence to suggest the alternative light's sense of self was astronomically large before this in mind he'll be scored a two because I've been bored too it's common among Psychopaths that they always seek a means to be entertained and traditional sources tend not to be enough for them like the argument fits strongly in this category from as early as the first episode light claims that the news is the same thing on constant repeat as a result he outwardly states that he is Bored despite his potential and bright future ahead it's clear that the high that light gets from using the Death Note is unlike any other there's something about the Death Note itself that makes humans want to try it out at least once and even though he never outrightly said so we can imply from how engrossed he gets with his mission to become god of the new world that it provided him with the appropriate entertainment needed and the adrenaline rush of almost getting caught kept Light from being bored I'll give him a two I want you to come work with us as part of the task force we could use your help lying is the most common and simplest way to deceive deception is a way of concealing the truth in Death Note light takes a new name on known as Kira to give an identity to The Entity responsible for all the mass killing in his personal life light lies in every potential opportunity he lies to the world that he is Kira including Al the task force and his family he lies pretty much constantly to the extent that even his identity becomes a lie the irony of the situation is that light claims that he is still a hard-working honest student despite all the things that he's doing two points on the scale on the surface it will appear that L and the investigation team are working together to try to catch me but in reality L will investigate the police and they will be investigating l I'm not the one who's going to find Elle I can let the police do that for me and when they do that's when I'll eliminate him last ambition is to become god of the New World by eliminating criminals but he doesn't shy in killing those who get in his way slash manipulating people we can use the strongest example I can think of is misamani Misa is infatuated with light and she wants to spend her life with her she is in love with it light does not reciprocate this instead he use it to his Advantage he plays along with her acting as the boyfriend in order to use her for her Shinigami eyes the eyes which allow her users to see a person's name just by looking at which saves like the hassle of having to work out Earl's real name light does the same thing to miss Takara exploiting her worship of Kira to use her Connections in the media to spread the message of Kira only then to kill her off once she served her purpose and became a potential liability two points foreign farewell Ray Pember is described as a deep regret or guilt for wrong committed this is interesting because after light killed his first bunch of people he said who am I to pass judgment on others it's unclear that this is an effect of the Death Note but I'm going to assume that the Death Note brought this out of it I discussed in a previous video where I compared light to ladouche from Death Note on how power can corrupt if responsibility is not taken therefore I will not blame the death note I will blame life despite the obvious influence two points true before all this happened I thought I'd continue living in America with my fiance we planned on getting married in the spring but now he's gone so I'm not sure what to do anymore all right I've come this far I'll see encouragement shallow effect happens when you show or have little water no emotion your response to different emotions such as fear anger sadness Joy disgust trust anticipation surprise to mention a few is very low if you are experiencing shallow effect then you will find yourself not being afraid of anything in many instances where life's true identity is almost revealed he is able to remain unbelievably calm not to mention when his father died he showed no real lasting sadness this is the scene where his father dies wake up up come on dammit don't you die I'll be you idiot draw your own conclusions on whether or not you think this is acting or not regardless the feeling elicited From This Moment does not last light though has shown clear signs of anger and joy albeit in strange circumstances Light Lost is cool majorly when he realized making me messed up the plan leading to lights to Myers clearly he showed strong anticipation at the prospect of killing there and the entire task force highlighted by his smile and his involuntary urge to laugh similar instances of anticipation were prevalent when light perceived killing elwins in the third episode which turned out to be fake so because of that only one point in this area oh also he did completely freak out when I think it's only in the deleted scene where he's in uh he's over elm's grave and he sort of like madly laughings I guess it's the form of joy happy that he killed him but it's pretty freaky still one point if I write heart attack is the cause of death then I should be able to write down all the details including time of death afterwards shouldn't I callousness is defined as an insensitive and cruel disregard for others I think we can refer back to light's grandiose sense of self to answer this one light has zero regard for anyone else because he believes that his ambition trumps the lives of anyone else and that his judgment is absolute the fact that he kills people on mass is enough to illustrate this but we can go even further early in the series light gets tailed by man called Ray Pember so light murders him this indirectly leads to his widow Naomi misera a retired Ace detective to track down his killer light comes into direct contact with her and kills her too via his manipulation to try and get her name he's quite a cunning guy and managed to get a hold of that information in a relatively short space of time despite the woman's life and future being ruined by life he shows absolutely no sense of remorse or empathy and kills her spot because simply she was gonna obstruct his plans two points tell me how are your studies going everything's okay I guess whatever he's at the said that my Big Brother's a genius a parasitic lifestyle is an intentional manipulative selfish and exploitative financial dependence on others as reflected in a lack of motivation low self-discipline and inability to begin or complete responsibilities light has always come across as very confident in his own abilities and self-sufficient to achieve the plans that he sets out all the resources he needs he can get hold of himself and he is not afraid to confront things directly for instance meeting with L one on one directly nothing about light particularly strikes me as parasitic especially financially he's he is extremely intelligent and his ego would probably deem such Behavior to be leeching off others and pretty beneath him in addition he appears to be highly motivated to achieve his aim clearly being quite disciplined throughout the process based on these things I'm scoring him and zero I don't see why he would reveal himself to me directly I can't let him see any signs of distress it's better if I just clear my mind expressions of irritability annoyance impatience threats aggression and verbal abuse and adequate control of anger temper acting hastily these are all signs of quite poor behavioral controls for the most part light is able to act in a cool calming Collective way however via his internal monologue we can see that he does get quite frustrated at some certain instances we can see this when life gets tempted to hit me so this is the first time in my life that I've been provoked to hit a woman due to the fact that he sees her as quite a liability that could ruin his entire plan the only proper expression of anger that we actually see is when light was revealed as carer to the rest of the task force light explodes in anger towards Mickey for ruining the plan and even at matsuda for shooting him saying matsuda you idiot why did you shoot me but considering all the cards run a table at this stage I understand why he behaved in that way it wouldn't necessarily classify that as poor behavioral controls taking all of this into mind I would score like zero for poor behavioral controls since he was able to keep his composure for the vast majority of the series that that's why we should be taking precautions the main two sexual encounters that light encountered was Misa amane and kyomitakala both of which were for a reason which was to help him Advance his goals he slept with them to gain their favor as far as we can tell he did not sleep with them purely for sexual intent and obviously to have sex with them he did sleep with Takara despite the fact that he was in a committed even though it was fake relationship with me samane so this infidelity would lead me to score him at least a one scale not going to give him two because largely there was no real intent he doesn't really sleep with people because he wants to get his rocks off what's up since TV he does it with amine so it ties in with his manipulative Tendencies but he does use it as a tool so I think this one is Justified shouldn't look like anything other than your average high school senior unfortunately as I've stated previously we do not have any flashbacks to light's childhood as a consequence we can only infer how we behave based on his team to adult Age based on the fact that light was on track to become a detective and he said he helped solve some crimes as well when he was younger we can assume that light's mentality was always on the straight and narrow most of light Psychopathic qualities manifested after possession of the Death Note implying that his childhood was fairly normal despite his above average intelligence zero points I will become the god of this new world out of all of them I feel like this one will be the most polarizing one of all I think we can all unanimously agree that light did have a long-term goal which was to become god of the new world what he meant by this was really unclear because of its abstract nature what is God of the new world well based on what he says he wanted to Reign at the top killing criminals constantly until the perfect world was created That's How we'll Define it there are many problems with this goal aside from the moral ones and plenty of reasons why it is unrealistic one thing I will say though is due to the uniqueness of the situation and having a Death Note a book that can literally kill people by writing their names the ceiling of realistic goals will have to be raised just a little bit first of all how long did he think it would be until he got caught or die of old age as powerful as the book was it couldn't prolong his own life but after that there's no clear sign that he would have a successor or express any interest in passing the power down clearly light did not think ahead secondly light was extremely arrogant in which he believed under his plan the world would be far from perfect a world where everyone lives in fear of committing the Slack's crime by some unknown entity it seems far too orwellian to be perfect as we all know the perfect world could never exist this is because no two definitions of perfection are the same or too much evil would have to be committed to achieve it the ends don't always justify the men I mean look at all the histories of of Communism in the past all the people that use Marxism I'm not going to delve into politics here but people that use Marxism and interpret it in their own way you know they have the idea on paper that yeah it's everyone's going to be equal it's all going to work but generally when we've seen of History again you know if you want to believe in these political ideals that's fine but if you look at the past no one's done it right yet Utopia is dystopia if you're interested in this idea I suggest you watch this video by knowledgeham describing Justice I will score like a two have been a lot more interesting if he'd only been a bit smarter in Psychology impulsivity or impulsiveness is a tendency to act on a whip displaying Behavior characterized by little or no 4-4 reflection or consideration for the consequences we know light is smart we can see it from the way he talks his status as one of the brightest students in Japan and from how he manages to get as far as he does in the story like knowing all these things might have actually led to his eventual downfall but did his level of impulse control play role in it well let's look at some examples the first mistake light made was killing Lindell Taylor Lindell Taylor was on TV masquerading as owl the man who claimed to be the one to catch Kira slash light after a large blow to his pride light immediately writes down his name and kills him little did light know that this man was a decoy and this mistake told Elle more about how Kira can kill where he was given that it was only broadcasted in the Kanto region of Japan I would say that light definitely felt the pressure and acted on impulse making himself a lot more exposed this theme is quite reminiscent of the scene in Breaking Bad where water drank with Hank and wanted to Ego Flex without getting caught especially since they were both hiding under false aliases being Heisenberg and Kira respectively Maybe he's still out there regardless I understand light's motivations were mainly fueled by ego leading to a few impulsive decisions because of that I'll score him what because I modified The Notebook funny story I actually mentioned light's responsibility in the previous video where I compared light Lelouch in that video I said light on the other hand seems to lack this sense of self-awareness leading to him becoming completely engulfed and consumed by the power of the death note this is evident via his gradual shift to evil for the sake of his selfish desires without his relationships to ground him in reality light falls into the abyss of darkness and it is as Frederick Niche says if he gaze long into an abyss the abyss will gaze back into you life surrounded himself in darkness with lies murder and ego which led him down a path of Destruction also not the direction he originally intended what I was getting at was due to light's lack of self-awareness which was evident in him killing criminals to go into killing anyone that got in his way he lacked a lot of responsibility because he didn't stick to his initial plan despite light's enormous amount of killings he never took any responsibility and he believes in his own delusion that he is fighting for a just cause Lelouch does the same but he knows he must pay a price at some point light does pay the price in the end but not of his own volition two points this is a setup I don't know this guy light it's too late to deny it you know near has won based on the last segment this one will be quite short due to the End Game of Death Note I already discussed that light conducted his whole plan without making any sacrifices apart from his Humanity which he does stay in the first episode even for all the non-criminals whom he killed that got in his way like now me miss it up he blamed him for getting in the way of God and that anyone even his own sister was Expendable as long as he got what he wanted two points might make no mistake like I'm not on your side or outside the best way to answer this one would be to determine what qualities are involved in a good interpersonal relationship and see if light possesses them and a few of his interpersonal relationships the people who he is in contact with are El Misa his father slash the task force and the Shinigami ryuk the qualities that make strong interpersonal bonds are active listening teamwork responsibility dependability leadership motivation flexibility patience and empathy when working with the task force light did show strong signs of leadership and motivation in his words of kashinkira no matter what when he lost his memories of course dependability in teamwork all of this he had he had all these qualities once he lost memories of the Death Note which was obviously part of his plan he knew that he'd be the sort of person that would join the task force to catch himself or catch the killer at large so he's smart enough to know what he would do his ability to active listen was not really as much of a skill to help others but more so it was actually a skill used to help him prepare for his next move when talking to L but obviously he was talking to L he could sort of not make out what he's going to do do but again it helps listening to him because when she listens to again his enemy know your enemy knowledge is power as a consequence of the undeniable influence of the Death Note lights interpersonal relationships were very poor even though his skills could be quite strong so he has the skills of being someone that's very good in relationships But ultimately because we know all these relationships mean nothing to him they're all poor that means I'm gonna give him two points on the scale I understood that killing people was a crime there was no other way the world had to be fixed the purpose given to me now I think this one goes without saying but light is very guilty of this one too with the Death Note light literally murdered thousands with surf sides heart attacks and other gruesome ways of killing people simple and irrefutable two points again nice and short light has never been on conditional release light has never been to prison although he was imprisoned but that was of his own volition there's a theme Here do I think he would violate his conditional release if he was in prison most definitely but he didn't so I can't give him points in this Criterium so zero points I don't understand human beings in this world there are very few people who actually trust each other apart from murders lie illegally hacked into police files committed arson with the death note and committed various other crimes in the process Austin was committed by making Takara die in a fire to burn the note she wrote as well as her body light also illegally hacked into confidential police files using his father's details on the home network obviously because his father was chief of the NPA lights intelligence enabled him to literally get away with murder his genius helped him to avoid even the world's best detective being out like never killed anyone with his own hand just with the death note and this principle can be applied to all his crimes indirects and Minion number two points laughs finally light is the quintessential example of a character destroyed by power as alluded to earlier in this video the death note's power corrupted a person destined to be to be the perfect societal definition of success he was handsome intelligent charming and most of all a killer more importantly though was he a psychopath so in total light scored 28 points out of 40. 30 points would mean that light is definitely a psychopath so technically he isn't however considering how highly he scored we can say that light does possess a very heavy strong level of psychopathy he was obsessed with an unrealistic aim was willing to manipulate charm and murder anyone that got in his way all he could use his lack of feeling towards his actions and the feelings of others reinforce the idea that the character of Light Yagami is a psychopathic one the only question that remains is did the Death Note bring these traits out of light or was it only a catalyst for achieving his goals on a bigger scale the chicken in the egg scenario quite a classic one if flight never received the death note and he went on to become the chief of the Japanese police who's to say that he would judge law Breakers with the same intense disdain and Prejudice what is truly evil is the power to kill people well so this video took a little while to make but I'm pretty proud of myself and I'm pretty happy with the final result uh leave a comment if you agree or have any suggestions for me for a future video but until then I'll catch you guys in a bit undeniable [Music]

Channel: SirLantz

Views: 219,289

Keywords: death, note, psychology, analysis, psychopath, lelouch, code, geass, essay, video, anime, sirlantz, philosophy, bob, hare, checklist

Id: Dm7Y9UNLpY0

Length: 25min 7sec (1507 seconds)

Published: Mon May 25 2020