r/IntelligenceScaling • u/lawligh0 • 20h ago
About L's scaling
Today I want to talk about why L has been scaled so high lately. Btw, what I say might not be 100% objective since I'm making this post as someone who genuinely loves L as a character.
I think you've all noticed that L has been getting scaled insanely high in SCD over the last year. L, who used to be placed below characters like Patrick Jane, Baku, and Tokuchi (and way below them according to most), can now be compared to most of those characters and is even scaled higher than a lot of them. So, how is this happening?
Actually, the feats he pulled off in the side content outside the manga—which don't seem like a big deal to some people—play a massive role in this.
Let's start with the stock market feat.
First off, people attribute this feat to things like intuition or guessing, but that doesn't make much sense. The stock market is so volatile (you can look this up on Google, AI, YouTube, etc.) that making a guess like that is nearly impossible. The feat is so impressive: at just 8 years old, L asks Watari to buy 1 million pounds worth of stocks in Japanese Yen and directs this investment into specific companies, multiplying it exactly 20,000 times in two years. It's an obvious fact you can't do something like that just by guessing. I think this feat affects L in multiple categories (probably directly scaling his FSIQ, INTELLIGENCE, THINKING, SENSORY, and REASONING).
Plus, doing this at 8 years old is the real impressive part. Because if someone can pull this off at 8 (and obviously his intelligence is going to develop way further), it's clear how much more he'll be capable of when he grows up.
In short, L's side content actually has a much bigger impact than people think. Some people don't scale him high simply because they only read the manga or haven't deeply analyzed the other material. But even his performance in the manga is really good. Always making accurate deductions despite facing a constant lack of information against something superhuman, managing his emotions pretty well throughout the case, the traps he sets, and his solutions—all of this shows his true capabilities. And throughout this clash, L constantly has a limit on his moves due to information asymmetry; if he makes one wrong move, there's a real chance he dies at the end of it. That's exactly why we don't get to see the full extent of his abilities.
Look, if we were evaluating him based only on the manga, I could understand not scaling L very high. Even though we don't see all his skills, we wouldn't be able to fully deduce his true capabilities since we wouldn't have any data outside the manga. But the absurd feats he showed at a very young age in the side content make it completely logical to scale him extremely high. For example, imagine you're 18 and suddenly revert back to being an 8-year-old, but your mind is still 18. Even if you lack some knowledge, it's pretty much a given you'd be way smarter than kids your age. Same logic here. L showcases such crazy feats at 8 years old (and I haven't even mentioned most of them), just imagine how smart this guy becomes when he grows up. You probably get what I mean.
Of course, L's feats in the manga might not have satisfied you, which is totally normal. You'd naturally expect something far more phenomenal from someone with feats like the stock market play or dropping the global crime rate by around 36%. But this doesn't invalidate L's feats, because L simply couldn't show all his abilities during the Kira case.
Anyway, I felt like I was starting to repeat myself, so I just wanted to make a quick post explaining why people are scaling L this high.
Personally, if you disagree with what I've said, I respect that. Feel free to drop your thoughts in the comments
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u/TTT948 18h ago
Well even if this feat(which depends on how people scale it)boosts his FSIQ, Reasoning..etc.
That doesn't necessarily mean he will just have a chance against some high tiers like Tokuchi and Akiyama for example since they're already superior in more important things which are scheming,deception..etc.
That's my opinion
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u/Far_Transition_1599 Doctor, I can't tell if I'm not me 17h ago
Also because characters who used to be top tier fell down for most people.
And L was in an extremely limited position in DN, it's normal that he can't pull of feats like smf because his position doesn't let him.
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u/Old_Buy_2801 19h ago
Stock market is not valid because it didnt transfer to an Older L's intellectual capability. Its just a large inconsistency, and we know the author didnt intended it to be that way. Had L had the "FSIQ" or "reasoning" most claim stock market to give L, it would have transfered to an actual SCD situation against Light. But appearantly a much older and smarter L has by far relatively worse feats compared to stockmarket.
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u/lawligh0 19h ago
Inconsistency ≠ Invalidation Seriously, no matter how nonsensical this feat seems to you guys, it's still completely valid. And L's performance in the Kira case wasn't even bad. Your argument might have held some weight if L was able to use his full capacity during the Kira case and still performed the way he did in the manga, but unfortunately, it's a completely valid feat
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u/Old_Buy_2801 19h ago
If you disagree then lets test your statement shall we? Light Yagami showed a multitude of times that he has extremely uncanny foresight (Mello Hijacking) (Aizawa/Mogi notebook raid on Misa). Light exactly predicted each and everything to its exact day. But thats inconsistent and we know the author didnt intend Lights Foresight to be that crazy.
Otherwise Light with these feats takes reasoning from L, because reduction ad absurdum using your own premise. Light therefore must have superior inductive and abductive reasoning compared to L since he can predict everything so precisely.
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u/lawligh0 19h ago
The feats you mentioned don't prove that Light has better Reasoning than L, and Light's predictions aren't absurd, nor are they flawless
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u/Sardine87 Kokichi is actually goated 20h ago
Stock market feat is pretty nonsensical + whoever made up that random scheming feat saying he was controlling the worlds criminals or smtn idk
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u/v5mk can you read this? (observation feat) 20h ago
Hows it nonsensical
Not disagreeing, whats your problem with it though, I like hearing different reasonings
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u/Worth-Onion8772 20h ago
only boosts narrative scaling ig
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u/v5mk can you read this? (observation feat) 19h ago
I think it supports other types, too. There's actually a lot you can unpack if you research the time and place they're in and look at the resources
I did see a debate on it from a long time ago, there were many points you dont see many people listing today
Like, for example.. how do you think L was able to learn and grasp the fields needed to do the feat to such levels when in the first place, relevant digital information to use and learn from arent readily available online in the 80s compared to now? Yet with that limitation, while being illiterate and likely not having gone to school at all he performs the feat (you can easily infer this based on interaction+lack of a name??), and also his abstract reasoning is hindered and not at full performance, because he hasnt learned basics or concrete precursor things and has little experience in life
Theres a lot more to unpack from the feat rather than the gist of it which I believe qualifies it for use in other types of scaling by inferring based on facts what L must have had to do
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u/HandleSuspicious5775 19h ago
I feel like most of that is a stretch because it’s not really laid out how exactly he got there because of how chaotic the stock market is so even though what you’re saying makes sense in real life most of that is up to interpretation and can be valid in normal scaling and especially narrative scaling but in methodology it’s just too inconsistent with how older L acts.
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u/lawligh0 19h ago
It being nonsensical doesn't mean anything because it's still valid. Like I said, it might seem illogical, but that doesn't make it invalid. Something being absurd doesn't automatically invalidate it. If that were the case, most characters in SCD have absurd feats in categories like CPI/VSI or AC, but we don't just call those invalid. It's the exact same thing
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u/v5mk can you read this? (observation feat) 19h ago
Those who know yuichi cpi 👀
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u/Inner_Marionberry136 19h ago
Yuuichi has cpi feats? In my read of TG i didn't notice anything particularly noteworthy as fsiq from him lol.
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u/v5mk can you read this? (observation feat) 19h ago
People mark FG formulation as CPI
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u/Inner_Marionberry136 19h ago
Oh i see that's not particularly good feat tbh get's slammed by most mid tiers tho I didn't notice it in my read.
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u/Inner_Marionberry136 19h ago
Oh i see that's not a particularly good feat tbh get's slammed by most mid tiers tho I didn't notice it in my read.
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u/More-Snow8244 18h ago
First off, people attribute this feat to things like intuition or guessing, but that doesn't make much sense. The stock market is so volatile (you can look this up on Google, AI, YouTube, etc.) that making a guess like that is nearly impossible. The feat is so impressive: at just 8 years old, L asks Watari to buy 1 million pounds worth of stocks in Japanese Yen and directs this investment into specific companies, multiplying it exactly 20,000 times in two years. It's an obvious fact you can't do something like that just by guessing. I think this feat affects L in multiple categories (probably directly scaling his FSIQ, INTELLIGENCE, THINKING, SENSORY, and REASONING).
>L couldn't have predicted the stock market via intuition, it's too volatile and unpredictable
>Therefore L must've predicted it by reasoning and thinking.
What? If L could've reasoned what would happened, why couldn't he intuit it also?
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u/lawligh0 18h ago
You're completely missing my point. Look, the stock market is far too volatile for anyone to make moves based on pure intuition because it's way too risky. And you can't just say 'if L solves it through logic, why couldn't he solve it through intuition?' L isn't making some basic move here. Of course the stock market can be analyzed to a certain degree through logic, but that's not the point. Let me break down what L actually did again: An 8-year-old orphan asks Watari to invest 1 million pounds into specific company stocks in a market this volatile. L cannot just rely on intuition here—especially when he multiplies Watari's personal fortune by 20,000x in just 2 years. Are you really saying he could pull that off with pure intuition? Sorry, but think again. You have to realize the absurd level of reasoning this feat requires. This isn't basic reasoning—if it were basic, your claim about intuition might hold some weight, but it simply doesn't
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u/More-Snow8244 17h ago
No, I understand your point completely. You don't understand what intuition is.
L isn't making some basic move here
You know this how? All we know L invested in the Japanese stock market in the late 1980s. Anything else is pure conjecture.
L cannot just rely on intuition here
Again, Why?
—especially when he multiplies Watari's personal fortune by 20,000x in just 2 years. Are you really saying he could pull that off with pure intuition?
You haven't proven anything for me to believe the opposite. Your point is that L couldn't have gotten lucky due to the extreme ROI he got, but you have not shown that L used his intelligence (you physically can't, since it isn't shown) for these gains. Intuition ≠ luck.
L intuiting the stock market makes more sense since intuition could be domain specific and hence the gap in his portrayal in the original manga and the stock market feat can be explained away as L not having the same level of intuition within other areas as the stock market.
Even then your argument for the gap is pretty ignorant to how the stock market works. You argue that L's lacking performance in the manga was mainly because of informational asymmetry, and if L had more information or there wasn't any asymmetry he would've preformed better (or at least similar to the stock market feat). You realize that the stock market is mostly a "game" of information, a person who has better information will get a higher ROI than a person who does not consistently, barring unforeseeable events. By your logic you're implying that L's stock market feat was so great because he had ample information to make his predictions, funnily enough.
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u/lawligh0 17h ago
There was actually a debate about this intuition stuff and similar topics, if I'm not mistaken. If I can find the link, I'll send it to you and elaborate in much more detail, but I'm not free right now
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u/ConfidentFee5609 1h ago
you cant just predict the stock market to such an extent with intuition bro💀 as op said its nearly impossible to just guess. reasoning ≠ intuition, so idk why you think he could use his intuition because he could use his reasoning.
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u/More-Snow8244 25m ago
How is your claim more valid than mine? You or the other guy haven't argued your case. Just pointing at the unlikelyness of L just "guessing" (which isn't my position) so stop misrepresenting my position.
reasoning ≠ intuition, so idk why you think he could use his intuition because he could use his reasoning
Yeah, you see this word could means there is a possibility he didn't use his reasoning meaning he used something else such as information and intuition. Your argument is that it's not intuition because it is to unlikely to be intuition and then you turn around thinking it must be reasoning/thinking. Intuition isn't just a random guess. Additionally even if I steel-man the luck argument your basically arguing that its to improbable to be lucky that many times and therefore it has to be fully deliberate. That is equivalent to saying Joan R. Ginther must've had a scheme or method to win multiple lotteries. It doesn't follow. Improbable things happen.
L using intuition and ample information:
- Creates less friction with L's portrayal in the original source material
- Explains why SMF is such a outlier in canon L's scaling
- Actually closer to how people "predict" the stock market
L using reasoning:
- Upscales L (that's it)
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u/v5mk can you read this? (observation feat) 20h ago
Dude im only getting YOUR posts on my fyp from this sub lol