Yes, he was actually evil all along. That’s what makes him such a great character.
Summary:
- Light Yagami’s idea of killing criminals was flawed from the start.
- He was not above killing innocent people.
- The difference between Light and other evil protagonists is that Light was evil all along.
Light Yagami of Death Note is a very polarizing character. On the one hand, you can’t really deny that he’s incredibly smart and charismatic. He was very interesting to follow, even though you weren’t really supposed to root for him: he was clearly evil.
However, some fans feel that out of all anime protagonists, he might actually be the most evil one — and they have some good points.
Light wasn’t a good person
No, Light isn’t supposed to be a good guy in his own series. The whole point of Death Note is that Light’s view of the utopian world is highly flawed, and his god complex makes him spiral down into becoming an egocentric maniac. It’s fine to like him, but he’s definitely not on the right side.
Light’s entire idea from the start was to execute people for severe crimes like murder to create a crime-free society. While it seems like a good idea on paper, he never took into account any factors that might have driven people to commit those crimes — while also becoming the worst of them.
He clearly didn’t care about killing innocents
First of all, not all criminals are actually immoral at the core — many were driven to their actions by circumstances. Prisons also serve as rehabilitation facilities — the modern world isn’t the medieval times with its justice system anymore.
Furthermore, statistically speaking, many people Light killed should have been innocent. Our ways of determining criminals aren’t perfect. That said, Light probably never cared about not killing innocent people, as he showed with agents who tried to catch him.
He wanted to be a God of the New World, and sacrificing and manipulating others was something he could easily do.
He was evil from the start
How does Light compare to some of the protagonists of revenge stories, though? Keyaru of Redo of Healer (Kaifuku Jutsushi no Yarinaoshi) is often brought up as one of the worst human beings in anime, protagonist or not. But it’s not that simple.
Keyaru has definitely done much worse things than Light — Redo of Healer is controversial for a reason. That said, he only became that way after going through a lot of trauma.
What makes Light so terrifyingly evil is that he was a completely normal person with no particular issues at the start — he just had the monster inside all along. Yes, when he temporarily lost his memory, he acted like a normal person.
Perhaps the series tries to show what may happen when people acquire too much power.