Originally posted by stickman618
Light's biggest failing was his pride.
Well, that and his willingness to kill large amounts of people.
Another thing to think about: He largely went after criminals convicted of serious crimes. I.e. he mostly got people the police already had or likely would soon get anyway.
Originally posted by Nephthys
True, but I always thought Light was more interested in preventing violent crime through fear. And eventually iirc he did stamp it out because no-one wanted to risk it anymore.
And honestly? That doesn't make sense. It's only ones who the police know the names of that he can even try of, and one of the things about major criminals is the punishment is already so heavy that they work on the mindset that they won't get caught.
Worse punishments past a certain level are not shown to be effective, and Light isn't actually better at finding out who did it.
Plus, Light was mostly operating in Japan, and on the global level even his kill-rate is fairly insignificant.
And iirc there was only a moderate decrease (one character even noted that if you count the Kira killings, the total rate was up), which made some sense, since it was something new and unusual... but it'd be a temporary thing, once criminals accepted it as the way things were. Once there's no shock value, I would seriously expect it to have next to no impact on crime.
Originally posted by Q99
And honestly? That doesn't make sense. It's only ones who the police know the names of that he can even try of, and one of the things about major criminals is the punishment is already so heavy that they work on the mindset that they won't get caught.Worse punishments past a certain level are not shown to be effective, and Light isn't actually better at finding out who did it.
Plus, Light was mostly operating in Japan, and on the global level even his kill-rate is fairly insignificant.
And iirc there was only a moderate decrease (one character even noted that if you count the Kira killings, the total rate was up), which made some sense, since it was something new and unusual... but it'd be a temporary thing, once criminals accepted it as the way things were. Once there's no shock value, I would seriously expect it to have next to no impact on crime.
There are records of tons of criminals who you wouldn't call major.
No but that is the point of what Near says at the end. Light is just so confident in his own judgement that he doesn't care/realize this.
...you're going to have to elaborate how a guy who could kill so easily has an insignificant kill rate. In the grand scheme of things with our millions of people sure he's only getting a small percentage. It is still the most ever killed by a handful of people by a large margin.
Down 70% according to Light himself at the height of his power and no one disagrees with him. But yeah it was temporary according to the epilogue.
Originally posted by Q99
And honestly? That doesn't make sense. It's only ones who the police know the names of that he can even try of, and one of the things about major criminals is the punishment is already so heavy that they work on the mindset that they won't get caught.Worse punishments past a certain level are not shown to be effective, and Light isn't actually better at finding out who did it.
Plus, Light was mostly operating in Japan, and on the global level even his kill-rate is fairly insignificant.
And iirc there was only a moderate decrease (one character even noted that if you count the Kira killings, the total rate was up), which made some sense, since it was something new and unusual... but it'd be a temporary thing, once criminals accepted it as the way things were. Once there's no shock value, I would seriously expect it to have next to no impact on crime.
Um, yeah it does. Nobody actually knows that he only knows the ones the police do. Hardly anyone has any info on Kira since L was so tight-lipped about his investigation. Plus thats not even true since he got Misa to get the death god eyes, so really he only needs to have an image of them. And theres a hell of a lot of difference between thinking the police won't catch you, and chancing some quasi-deity finding out and give you an inescapable heart-attack. Plus theres the fact that Light frequently targets criminals who wouldn't actually get the death penalty. Even if you just get life in prison, he will just kill you and no lawyer in the world can help you. There is no fighting Kira and barely anyone knows how to evade him.
The series disagrees, since Matsuda and others explicitly says that crime is indeed drastically down and that life has generally improved under Kira.
Pfft, what? The President of the USA was cowed before Kira. The entire world was under his yoke at that point. As I recall, Light had even taken to killing tyrants and had brought about world peace by the second half of the series.
Neph
Um, yeah it does. Nobody actually knows that he only knows the ones the police do. Hardly anyone has any info on Kira since L was so tight-lipped about his investigation. Plus thats not even true since he got Misa to get the death god eyes, so really he only needs to have an image of them.
I'm pretty sure at one point he publicly demanding the police continue to let out names.
It is going to be noticed he's doing publicly known murders- and Misa needs not just a photo, but a photo and knowledge that they're a murderer.
Even if you just get life in prison, he will just kill you and no lawyer in the world can help you.
And any crime worthy of life in prison is very much a 'the person assumes they won't be caught,' one. No-one says 'life in prison isn't that bad.' They either don't think of consequences at all, or assume it'll happen to someone else.
And we're still talking largely people-in-prison here.
The series takes a rather... optimistic view as to it's effects.
Originally posted by Q99
I'm pretty sure at one point he publicly demanding the police continue to let out names.It is going to be noticed he's doing publicly known murders- and Misa needs not just a photo, but a photo and knowledge that they're a murderer.
And any crime worthy of life in prison is very much a 'the person assumes they won't be caught,' one. No-one says 'life in prison isn't that bad.' They either don't think of consequences at all, or assume it'll happen to someone else.
And we're still talking largely people-in-prison here.
The series takes a rather... optimistic view as to it's effects.
No. L just assumed he would do something like that. Whether he would or not is left to the imagination(but he would). Misa as the fake Kira probably said something like that and maybe Light when he was posing himself as Kira for the police force.
It was. And the knowledge is simply assumed. It is part of the reason Light is a horrid person.
Incarceration by a government funded institution is a far cry away from possible death from a god. Crimes still happened and the mafioso were still around but the status quo would undoubtedly be changed to make crime a far riskier prospect.
Now is the series completely realistic with the effects? Nah, probably not. Honestly people would be in panic because the Kira murders are without a doubt confirmation that the supernatural exists (a fact the series sorta brushes off) more than they would be worried about a crime. We're dealing in the hypothetical.
Originally posted by Q99
Well, that and his willingness to kill large amounts of people.Another thing to think about: He largely went after criminals convicted of serious crimes. I.e. he mostly got people the police already had or likely would soon get anyway.
He only started killing innocents when L insulted him by calling him evil. Lind L. Taylor wasn't innocent but for all Light knew, he was just some detective. If Light didn't get insulted and never changed his methods, he would've never got caught. There's no way L could've narrowed his search down to a certain region in Japan without Taylor's death.
Uggh...
People always say that the second half is infinitely inferior to the first but in my honest opinion, while L vs Light is indeed the best, the Yotsuba stuff is just such a snoozefest on rereads. Aside from seeing Light and Misa behaving differently and the tension of waiting to see Kira again it is just so boring. Some of the adventures are fun and stuff but the council are not exactly the most memorable cast around.
At least the Near and Mello stuff let us see how the world evolved a bit.
Originally posted by stickman618
He only started killing innocents when L insulted him by calling him evil. Lind L. Taylor wasn't innocent but for all Light knew, he was just some detective. If Light didn't get insulted and never changed his methods, he would've never got caught. There's no way L could've narrowed his search down to a certain region in Japan without Taylor's death.
He only knowingly started innocents then. He was still relying on police investigation which is not 100%.