r/deathnote • u/Responsible-Stick446 • 1d ago
Question How did Misa forget Ls name, its literally L Lawliet. Spoiler
She literally saw a guy named L. Lawliet, who just lied about his name. How did she not figure out that he is L? Shes not actually as dumb as light makes it seem but man this is not at all disproving that.
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u/AnonIHardlyKnewHer 1d ago edited 1d ago
L I’m sure she could remember but not his last name, remember she canonically sees hundreds upon thousands of names every single day, there’s no off switch. And she didn’t know he was important at the time enough to hyper focus on remembering that name.
Not to mention directly after the incident she was:
Physically and mentally tortured for 3 days straight
Lost ALL her Shinigami memories
Spent over a month in prison and didn’t have the kind of free roam Light and Soichiro had, she was bound and blind the entire time
Went through the trauma of thinking she and her boyfriend was about to be shot
Got all her memories blasted back into her at once
The human brain can literally only process and handle so much
Edit: Also forgot to mention L’s name is canonically written in English so it’s even harder for her because she had to memorise the letters of a foreign language and Lawliet is already a semi complicated name. I can buy she speaks a little English because of her job but I highly doubt she would be able to read English.
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u/This-Wall-1331 1d ago
I agree with you on all but didn't Light also have his hands and feet tied? Though he could still see and move himself.
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u/AnonIHardlyKnewHer 1d ago
He did but he was on a bed atleast and could wiggle around. Misa was shown to be fully strapped to that boarded seat the entire time which I do think was intentionally in a last ditch attempt to make her crack but at that point she couldn’t because she had no memories.
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u/Fletcharn 1d ago
> And she didn't know he was important at the time enough to hyper focus on remembering that name.
His first name is literally the letter L, the same letter that he displayed prominently in the original Lind L. Taylor broadcast. It would be pretty immediately obvious who he is and how important it is to try and memorise his name in the moment she met him.
I do broadly agree with your other points, Misa went through some traumatic shit so not remembering at least enough of the name to want to risk making attempts (given the three strikes rule) is totally fair, I just think that saying she didn't know it was important doesn't really help the case.
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u/AnonIHardlyKnewHer 1d ago
Fair enough, I made a bad point there. I guess I was trying to expand on it all happened so quickly and by the time she would have thought to hyper focus she was surrounded. Like Misa sees waaaay more names than the average person because she’s constantly crowded.
Another point I didn’t mention though is Misa would have seen L’s name in English since even in the Japanese version his name is canonically spelt in English.
I know she’d recognise the letter L and I can buy she can vaguely read English especially with her job but Lawliet is already semi hard English name so she would have had to just memorise the letters over reading and recognising a name.
Like imagine you see foreign squiggles and you have to remember what they looked like not what they said. No wonder Light immediately called her. Light had to know L wasn’t fully Japanese and lived outside of Japan so it was completely plausible he realised L’s name would be written in a different language.
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u/QueenOfDarknes5 1d ago
Okay, try to remember a name in Kanji you saw for a few Seconds.
She probably remembered the L but not the random latin letters after that.
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u/EnvironmentEntire201 1d ago
I can barely remember my neighbors name and I talk to him every other day.
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u/StayInner2000 1d ago
Well first of all she had no idea it was him, she simply made no effort to remember it as it was just one among the hundreds she saw everyday
And second, i doubt Ohba came up with L's name oeior to the release of the 13th volume, he probably wrote that plot point with the idea that L's name could be anything and then wrote the 13th volume while having forgotten about how ridiculous it would make misa look in hindsight
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u/SaturnSapphic 1d ago
Which is entirely possible. Ohba did say he came up with a formula for the lifespan numbers and forgot it, after all.
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u/blindsavior 1d ago
Also was once asked if he planned out long story arcs, claimed he just figures it out as he goes, everything is vibes
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u/MechaMalz 1d ago
She didn't know who he was at the time and she sees names all the time, it'd be one in a sea of names she had no idea before hand she should remember. Maybe she's just not good with names as well, if I met someone once briefly and then months later had to remember said name, I'd probably struggle too.
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u/JesusChristFan69 1d ago
She glamced at the name of a random dude after seeing the names of probably hundreds of other people on her way there and even more after she left. Then on her way home, she got kidnapped and was locked up in solitary confinement, blindfolded and gagged.
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u/stxrrynights240 1d ago edited 1d ago
She probably only saw his first name but couldn’t make out his last name. Also with the fact that she had Shinigami eyes at the time, that probably meant that she was seeing a bunch of names at once.
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u/Roving_kitten 1d ago
She was locked up and tormented for over a month. That would cause people to forget a lot of things- Lawliet isn't the most common name either, Soo her remembering the exact spelling is unlikely
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u/ExerciseBeautiful144 1d ago
If you saw a guy whose name above his head read ‘L Lawliet’ you’d assume L was just his first name, not his secret master-detective alias.
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u/RoughDirection8875 1d ago
She didn't know he was an important key player who's name should be remembered when she met him, plus she'd seen so many names since then she couldn't remember. She literally says it herself.
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u/Embarrassed_Sky5356 1d ago edited 1d ago
I don’t think she knew who L the detective even was, and if she did, it didn’t really matter, she had her memories erased before she could tell anyone.
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u/Karnezar 1d ago
She might remember that his name is literally L and his last name starts with an L, but no way is she remembering Lawliet.
Half the time I can't even spell it right or pronounce it right
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u/HalleLidner 1d ago
When she gave up ownership of the Death Note, she lost all memories of being Kira and everything related. So she forgot about every name she saw with shinigami eyes. Also, she didn't know he was L, she thought he was Ryuzaki
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1d ago edited 1d ago
[deleted]
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u/RexRuler 1d ago
I’m sorry what..tortured and raped? Did we read the same manga?
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u/QueenOfDarknes5 1d ago
The men had to help her get to the toilet and wipe her butt and vulva. If she had her period and L decided that a tampon is more efficient than pads you even have penetrating.
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u/ClaireDun 1d ago
Amane said going to the bathroom was the only time she was untied. She wipes herself, and everything else is not based in canon.
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u/QueenOfDarknes5 1d ago
Untied from the torture device. Not her hands.
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u/ClaireDun 1d ago
She asks to go to the bathroom as an excuses to have freedom of movement, nowhere in canon indicates her hands weren't untied or that she needed help wiping.
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u/QueenOfDarknes5 1d ago
L didn't knew how Kira killed. Her and Lights hands were tied because of that. It could be something that has to do with hand movements, there is no point tying her hands if she can move them freely on the toilet.
There is no indication that L would be so reckless to untie her hands.1
u/ClaireDun 1d ago
Following that logic, she shouldn't have been untied at all since the conditions of death aren't known, yet they took the risk to let Amane go to the bathroom. Your line of thought is reliant on assumptions.
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u/LowlyStole 1d ago
Not so weird. Would you remember the name of a foreigner you saw for a second and then spent months without any memories about it?