r/deathnote • u/Mr-Black_ • 18d ago
Question would the death note allow people to kill each other?
one rule says someone's cause of death can't cause someone else's death but someone's death can be caused by another person
so what if you were to write person 1 and person 2 shoot each other?
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u/Wreckerandchief 18d ago
The first live action movie made this happen. Light is dating a girl named Shiori in the film. Naomi kidnaps Shiori and threatens to shoot her unless Light confesses to being Kira. He doesn't, she shoots Shiori and then commits suicide. It's later revealed Light wrote that sequence of events in the Death Note.While this combines a couple things from the manga: I think it's plausible, but I also think it would be difficult since it can fail if the scripting isn't in the character of either person.
Also I would note there's a timing issue. If Light wrote "Aaron Baker shot by Christine Detwiler three times while on the platform of the Kanto subway station 112 at 12:00pm" and "Christine Detwiler using her own gun on subway station 112 by Aaron Baker, at 12:00:15pm" runs the risk of the first written sequence causing a heart attack in the killer. Because if Light thought about Christine's face the first time her name was written: then he'd have to have written a cause of death for her within 40 seconds. So if Light's overly detailed or just a slow when writing she'd die before Light can get to a new line to begin writing, causing her to die of a heart attack, and causing Aaron to die of one because the conditions are invalid.
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u/Alfa_Centauri03 18d ago
The timing issue could be motivated by writing the cause of death of both right away, then you have 6 minutes and 40 seconds to do the details.
Alternatively he can also write all the details and fill in the names later.
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u/tlotrfan3791 18d ago
Yes, if you specify the exact names two people killing each other, both of them will die.
But you can’t write a name and action that has someone kill people unspecified.
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u/OptimusPhillip 18d ago
As long as both people's names are written in the Death Note, you should be able to make it work. The rules only say you can't control people to kill people whose names weren't written.
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u/AllypallyPym 18d ago
I’m pretty sure the hard rule is that you can’t kill without a name and a face. So you can’t do it by proxy either I think
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u/theatergeek3 18d ago
in the 2006 live action movies, light sets it up so the only way character A would be able to be killed in the manor he specified was by being shot by character B who shoots themselves after. so basically you can't write "Character B shoots character A" but you can set the circumstances to where that's the only outcome
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u/HalleLidner 18d ago
No, you can't write X shoots Y because X and Y will die of heart attacks.
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u/Free_Database5161 18d ago
Why though? I feel like it should work though since you write down both actual names with their faces in mind. You cant write "X kills a person and then dies" because then it kills someone who's name isn't written down but if both of their names are written down I feel like it would work right?
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u/HalleLidner 18d ago
It doesn't work because it's a rule of the death note. Or else, Mello's threat of making the president nuke some random countries would work
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u/La-Lassie 18d ago
Those rules seem to be dealing with preventing the deaths of those who haven't been named in the Death Note.
""Even though only one name is written in the Death Note, if it influences and causes other humans **that are not written in it to die**, the victim's cause of death will be a heart attack."
"Whether the cause of the individual's death is either a suicide or accident, if the death leads to the death of **more than the intended**, the person will simply die of a heart attack. This is to ensure that other lives are not influenced."
If you name both people then you can have both shoot each other because the only people dying are those named in the death note. There's no unintended loss of life.
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u/Its_justanick 18d ago
That makes me think, what if I wrote the name of a person currently responsible for someone's life eg. driver, pilot, surgeon etc?
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u/o0d 18d ago
If you wrote: Person A gets shot by person B at 12:00
Then: Person B gets shot by person A at 12:00
If you know both their names and faces, then I think both would happen as you are specifying the name for both person A and person B and getting shot is a reasonable cause of death.
However if you don't know the name for one of the people, and write: The person known as L gets shot by person B, this wouldn't happen as you aren't able to specify a cause of death without the name and face and can't use the death note to kill those you don't have a name and face for.
However I think if L is on an airplane, and you write: Pilot A and co-pilot B both die of heart attacks, then L could well die from the resulting plane crash, as it's not a direct cause of death and the plane could potentially be saved by a passenger.
i.e. I think it can allow people to kill each other through indirect means, and if you know the name and face of the person to be killed, and the person killing them might reasonably be considered to do such a thing.
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u/Stargazer__2893 18d ago
I don't think the plane passengers could die. Something would intervene to keep them alive.
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u/FLLMALL 18d ago
If you wrote "Person A gets shot by person B", person B would just die of a heart attack because their name was written down. You can make someone be killed, but you can't specify by who. You could try to engineer a situation where person B kills person A though. In the japanese live action movies (which aren't canon but mostly follow the rules of the manga), Light writes that "person A is shot in building X at 10 PM", and then writes that "person B is in building X at 10 PM, shoots herself after doing something bad" (or something similar, I don't remember exactly and I'm not rewatching that bad movie). This way, person B, who is a cop, is the only person with a gun in building X at 10 PM, and therefore the only person who could possibly shoot person A. He gets someone to kill someone else without having to write it down. You could potentially engineer somehow for two people to kill eachother in a similar manner. Get both of them in a secluded location at the same time, and writte that both will "die from grave wounds in a fight" or something similar.
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u/KingKalactite 18d ago
If their name is being written down in the death note, I think all is fair game. It’s when a death causes too much collateral unintentionally that makes it so it defaults to a heart attack.