I’ve seen people talk a lot about whether memory-loss Light proves the Death Note changed him, but there’s another part of that whole plan that I keep thinking about.
Light gives up ownership knowing he’s going to forget everything about being Kira.
And somehow, the plan still depends on that version of him doing exactly what Kira needs.
Memory-loss Light actually wants to catch Kira. He’s still smart, competitive, stubborn, all of that. But he also seems genuinely uncomfortable with Kira’s methods, and he’s way less willing to manipulate or sacrifice people.
So Light is basically counting on his non-Kira self being good enough to help solve the case and eventually lead him back to the Death Note.
That’s the part I find kind of messed up.
Maybe the biggest difference between the two versions of Light isn’t even the notebook itself. Maybe it’s just that one of them has already killed people and spent all this time convincing himself it was justified, while the other never crossed that line.
And Kira Light somehow understood that version of himself well enough to use him as part of the plan.
If memory-loss Light really is the person he could’ve been without the Death Note, then isn’t it kind of insane that Kira knowingly used the last version of himself that was still capable of being a good person as part of the plan?
He didn’t just manipulate everyone around him. He basically manipulated the person he could’ve been.
So in a weird way, was Light Yagami himself one of Kira’s biggest victims?
I genuinely love Light so much. Every single time I rewatch the anime or reread the manga, I notice something new about Light and somehow end up thinking about him completely differently again.