Death Note: Should Light Yagami be considered a villain?

With the arrival of the villainous July nominations, I began thinking about Light Yagami as a possible choice. But with it comes controversy. In the end, it all boils down to what you think is true justice.

I'm leaning more towards villain since his methods of achieving a perfect world were malicious, but I want to hear what you guys think.

I wish I could make this a poll.

 

He's a villain protagonist. The deciding factor in between this and anti-hero is whether you can agree with his final intent. And his final intent is bad. So it's a Villain protagonist growth story. Of how the monster came to be.
Batman is never under any other intent than good. He just does things differently. Light believes he is a god at the end. Even though his initial intent was good, it's a motive that leads to being completely unrelatable.

 

I agree with Shogun. Ultimately for me, he is portrayed as a scheming villain in the anime. But, whether his views are right or wrong is open to interpretation. I don't agree with the death penalty, but who am I to say whether it is right or wrong?

 

His actions are congruent with certain philosophies.
Fun fact: In the manga and the live action movie, he reads Nietzsche, and he is a Nietzschean supermensch.

 

It would all depend on how you view his actions. There are different sides to this story... Light's, Misa, L's, Kira's followers, and the victims. Anyone targeted by Kira would believe he is a murderer/Villain... Misa and Kira's followers would support his actions and call him a saviour but people like L and his team would clearly oppose him and also believe he is a villain. Ok, put the anime character view points aside, I believe Kira has good intentions in regards to cleansing the world of evil and trying to make the world purer and a better place... However, the world does not work that way. It needs that balance of good and evil. Anyway, Light got too drunk with power and all he saw was the pathway of becoming god... which started to drag the people around him down with him. Therefore, He became a Villain and his own enemy as his sense of righteous became clouded in his dark desires.

In a nut shell, Light is a villain from the start... despite his intentions at the beginning.

 

I wouldn't say he became a villain until he

Spoiler

Killed L

Before hand he was simply a vigilante. Once he did that, he showed he was malevolent and capable of harming innocents.

So in short, yes, he was a villain, entirely depending on what part of the story you look at.

 

If you don't want to learn of spoilers stop reading this now!

Well lets break this down. For starters you can view Light in one of two ways. A tyrant or the noble antihero. For me I view him as a tyrant, although my viewpoint didn't change till certain events unrolled. By now I assume we all know Light's the bad guy in this equation. He kills people, hundreds of people, and he does it on a daily schedule without remorse like most of us would take out the trash. And from his own outlook that's exactly how he sees it. Even if the story is being told from his perspective, Light is totally rotten.

Now regardless of whether you think Light's plan is good or evil, he definitely gets results. Touching on the reason why you may feel he is good I feel personally leans towards his ambition, conviction, and zealous tenacity to succeed. His actions caused homicide and assault rates to plummet once Japan's violent criminals start dropping dead and the media quickly swarms around the controversy that "Kira" has brought about. Twisted as that may be it makes sense. When violent crime has immediate consequences, people are more hesitant to commit such crimes. The courts may acquit you or let you go free on bail, but as soon as you've even been arrested in a high-profile enough case, you'll just get an automatic death sentence from Kira. Light just views his actions as serving out justice at first only starting with the deaths of the most notorious repeat offenders, but then slowly works his way to more minor cases to fill a consistent quota of names. Things would be great if there were a better method to reform such people, yet Light's actions appear to just quicken what our justice system would already achieve. The only difference is Light is dissuading latent offenders.

Now here is the first thing that changed my viewpoint of Light. It was when he killed Raye Penber. Raye was a FBI agent sent to tail Light under suspicion of having ties to Kira. Not even being Kira, just having anything to do with the man, group, or supernatural force responsible for a staggering body count. To me Raye is mighty courageous to take this mission. He left his home in America, had a new wife to look after, and he even gets caught up in a bus-jacking where he's forced to expose his identity, but he keeps working to help Japan track down the most prolific serial killer in history. He wasn't guilty of any crime under any of Kira's standards, but Light wanted him dead ASAP, along with every other FBI agent tailing other persons of interest in the Kira case. That's a handful of innocent people, and it isn't even out of self-defense.

Don't simply go saying this isn't about him getting caught. Light is killing people with a supernatural notebook. He could've continued his killing spree under the guise of doing his homework while Raye watched him from the street below, and it would only give him a more concrete alibi. No one suspected the supernatural yet, and how would they even prove it in court without the Death Note? Light had already created a method to destroy the Death Note instantly if his room was searched in his absence, so that takes care of that concern. All he has to do is continue his normal-looking routine until Raye stops tailing him. But vigilantism isn't about justice. Vigilantism is about control.

Light decides to kill Raye only a day or two after he starts tailing him, because Light resents the loss of control that Raye represents. Allowing his room to be searched and the notebook's potential destruction would also rip control away from him. If Light was interested in supporting or improving a "flawed" judicial system, he would put the lives of twelve innocent people over the survival of the Death Note, but Light only cares about his personal control over the justice system. He sees himself as the only person fit to judge and execute convicts, and killing 12 FBI agents in total makes that statement: It's been proving throughout time. Countless individuals like Kira have been killing people like Raye to prove or make their point for centuries. People like that are tyrants. So like any other tyrant to me it's very evident that Light's willing to kill innocent people to fulfill his own selfish ambitions. He just grew more condeluded and sinister with every passing moment.

This is just my viewpoint and take on Light. Still concerning this topic it all boils down to a person's beliefs, ideals, and own interpretation.
Now it's all up to you to be the judge on if you still view Light as a villain or not.
​

 

@Enigma

Spoiler

He kills fake L episode two, so was he always a bad guy then?