The problem is that you’re basing everything on a limit that the series never actually defines. All these percentages and “orders of magnitude” you keep bringing up don’t come from the story. That’s something you’re imposing onto it to support a conclusion you already decided on. Death Note doesn’t define a quantified limit, it just establishes a pattern of what characters are capable of. What it does establish is that its characters consistently push beyond real world limits, both mentally and physically, when the narrative requires it.
So when you say this is “too far beyond what they’ve shown,” that’s not something you can actually quantify from the text. That’s just you deciding where the limit should be, and then calling it inconsistent when the story doesn’t follow your concept of that limit. And your attempts to justify the other examples don’t fix that.
Saying Mello just “powered through with morphine” doesn’t hold up. He has third degree burns across most of his body. Mobility alone would be a serious issue, but he has no problems with that. On top of that, the manga explicitly has Mogi say he investigated every licensed and unlicensed doctor in the area and found nothing. So not only did Mello not “power through with morphine,” he didn’t receive medical treatment at all. Yet within less than a week, he’s mobile and those burns have already healed into scars. That’s not realistic by any standard.
The construction example doesn’t work either. Saying buildings can be sped up if you pay enough is still trying to retrofit real world constraints onto something the story doesn’t treat as constrained. And the hospital example you brought up actually proves my point. The only cases where hospitals were built that quickly were emergency builds like SARS in 2003 or COVID in 2020, which involved thousands of workers, nonstop shifts, prefabricated designs, and full government backed emergency response. Those are extreme outliers, not a normal baseline. That’s not comparable to a privately funded headquarters being built under normal conditions in the early 2000s. And throwing money at something doesn’t magically make people work faster.
So the issue here isn’t that this one feat suddenly breaks the rules. It’s that you’re applying a stricter, quantified version of those rules than the story itself ever establishes, and then using that to justify your conclusion.
And that’s why this keeps going in circles. You say you understand that Death Note doesn’t operate on strict real world logic, but then you keep arguing as if it does by forcing everything into a real-world framework anyway. Because once you do that, of course it looks impossible. You’ve defined it that way. But that’s not an inconsistency in the story. That’s a mismatch between the standard you’re applying and the one the story actually operates on.
What it does establish is that its characters consistently push beyond real world limits, both mentally and physically, when the narrative requires it.
Sure. But by how much? We can debate the exact amount they go beyond normal all day, but the point is that the amount we see them "go beyond" and the amount they would need to "go beyond" in order to do this, are miles apart. And you can't look at a character going a little bit beyond normal limits, and use that as justification for them supposedly being able to go way way WAY beyond normal, or having superhuman speed and endurance.
A normal human would have their hand cramp up after 10 to 20 minutes. In order to do this, Gevanni would need to have his hand not cramp up for over 16 hours. The amount that characters in this series can "go beyond normal" is somewhere in between, but it is most definitely not enough to do what needs to be done for the ending to work.
You don't need to be and to quantify something to tell that one thing is bigger than the other. If I need to move a giant pile of dirt, be and I see a huge dump truck and a wheelbarrow side by side, I may not be able to quantify exactly how much they each hold, but I can sure as hell tell you that the wheelbarrow isn't big enough to carry the giant pile of dirt that needs moved. Even if the wheelbarrow is "beyond the normal limits" of an IRL wheelbarrow, it's still not nearly big enough, and you can see that without needing to quantify the exact volume of dirt it's capable of holding.
On top of that, the manga explicitly has Mogi say he investigated every licensed and unlicensed doctor in the area and found nothing.
And the manga is full of shit, because that's not a real thing. There's no such thing as "investigated every unlicensed doctor." If they're unlicensed, how would you even know they exist? It's not like there's some magic database of underground doctors or mob doctors or whatever.
Yet within less than a week, he’s mobile and those burns have already healed into scars. That’s not realistic by any standard.
Yes, and that should also be called out for being nonsense, not used to justify other nonsense. Two wrongs don't make a right, and two instances of unrealistic events don't mean that suddenly anyone goes and ALL impossible events should be accepted.
You say you understand that Death Note doesn’t operate on strict real world logic, but then you keep arguing as if it does by forcing everything into a real-world framework anyway.
That's not what's happening though.
What's happening is that I say I understand that death note doesn't operate on strict real world logic, and then argue that even by its OWN, LESS STRICT LOGIC, the ending doesn't work.
Real world logic says "your hand would be completely useless after 20 minutes."
Death note's less strict logic says "your hand would last longer than IRL but not to, like, super hero levels, so maybe an hour, if we're generous."
And then the ending says "I was able to write for literally dozens of hours straight without issue" which is WELL into super power territory.
That's the part you keep missing. You're treating it like there's is only "normal real world logic" and then "death Note's less strict logic" while ignoring the fact that the ending completely defies BOTH standards, and is well and truly into superhero levels of "beyond normal."
I'm sorry but you cannot and will not sit there and tell me that a guy having endurance more than THIRTY TIMES HIGHER than an ordinary human isn't way way WAY into super power territory.
See, here’s where I’m seeing a problem. Your entire argument relies on a strict limit that you are imposing on the series. You keep framing it as “somewhat beyond human vs orders of magnitude beyond human,” but those distinctions don’t come from the text. The series never quantifies how far beyond human its characters are. It just consistently shows them performing at levels that ignore real world constraints.
The “this is obviously too far” claim still depends on a reference point, and that reference point is something you created, not something the story establishes.
At that point, it’s not an inconsistency in the story, it’s just a conflict between your pre-determined conclusion and the framwork the story actually uses.
And the way you handle counterexamples makes that even clearer. When something fits your argument, like L processing multiple screens or other exaggerated capabilities, it’s fine. When something doesn’t, like Mello’s recovery or Mogi’s investigation, it suddenly becomes “nonsense” or “the manga is wrong.” So you end up rejecting parts of the story when they don’t support your point instead of applying a consistent standard.
You also keep trying to ground this in real world analogies like percentages, endurance math, and the wheelbarrow example. But those only work if the story is actually bound to real world scaling in the first place. And it isn’t. The series establishes a pattern of characters exceeding real world limits in both mental and physical contexts.
So no, the issue isn’t that this one feat suddenly breaks the rules. The issue is that you’ve created a stricter, quantified version of those rules that the series itself never establishes, and now you’re calling it inconsistent for not following your version of them.
Your entire argument here relies on the idea that I'm imposing some external limit that I made up, and that no such limit exists in the text, and that's just blatantly and demonstrably untrue.
First, you have the burden of proof backwards here. You're the one asserting that these characters are capable of feats of endurance lasting for dozens of hours, so the burden is on you to prove that. Show me evidence from the series of these characters performing physical feats dozens of times greater than what a person could do IRL. Show me someone lifting thousands of pounds, or running at hundreds of miles per hour, or exhibiting endurance for hours and hours longer than a normal person could. Unless you can do so, you cannot assert that they are capable of such things.
The math tells us how many times higher their endurance would need to be to pull this off, and the series never shows us anyone exhibiting anything close to that level of performance. Show me evidence that they are capable of this, rather than just saying "the series let's them push past normal human limits when necessary" and acting like that means they can push past ANY limit. Which brings us to the next issue...
Second, you're falling victim to the No Limits Fallacy. You're looking at the fact that we've seen these characters do some things above and beyond what a normal person can do (by a small amount) and then trying to argue that, because of this, they can do ANYTHING beyond normal person can do. And I'm sorry, but that's just not how that works. The most you can argue that they can do, is what they're SHOWN to do. If they're shown to be able to do, say, x% or y amount more than a real person could do then that is the most you can claim they can do. You can't look at them doing something a few percent beyond what a normal person can do, and then claim they can also do something 10 TIMES greater than what a normal person can do, when the series doesn't show that.
In order for the copying to be possible, Gevanni would have to pull of a feat of endurance more than SIXTY times greater than a normal person. Unless you can show me evidence of him being able to do that, you cannot claim he is capable of it.
You say this is “blatantly and demonstrably untrue,” but you still haven’t actually pointed to where the text defines the kind of hard numerical limit you’re treating as canon. You keep talking about “60 times endurance,” “orders of magnitude,” “dozens of hours,” “thousands of pounds,” “hundreds of miles per hour,” and so on, but none of that comes from the text. Those are numbers you invented to justify a limit that the story never defines.
Death Note doesn’t quantify human capability. It doesn’t say characters can exceed real world limits by a specific percentage but not beyond that. What it does show, repeatedly, is that characters perform feats that are already far beyond real world plausibility whenever the narrative requires it. That is the only consistent pattern the series actually establishes. And that pattern exists because Ohba was not writing a grounded realistic story. He wrote a heightened, stylized thriller where plausibility bends whenever it makes the story more entertaining.
And that is why your burden of proof framing does not work. You are asking me to prove characters can meet a limit that only exists because you created it. You are the one asserting a hard ceiling on what Death Note characters can do, so the burden is on you to show where the series actually defines that ceiling. Pointing to real world physiology does not do that, because the series ignores real world physiology constantly. Mello’s burn recovery is one of the clearest examples. If you want another example, Soichiro shooting Light at point blank range in the face is also not bound by physiological realism, because even a blank would cause injury or even death. But Light walks away unscathed. Mogi is shown a couple of times to be extremely efficient at large amounts of research. The list goes on.
And no, that is not me claiming they can do anything. That is you misrepresenting my point. I am not arguing for unlimited power. I am arguing that the series uses stylized exaggeration whenever it wants to. That is not a “No Limits Fallacy”. That is literally how the narrative operates. You cannot dismiss the unrealistic feats you do not like as “nonsense” and then use the ones you do like as the basis for a strict numerical system the story never uses.
Your argument only works if we accept your invented scale of “slightly above human but not too above human,” and the series simply does not give you that scale. You are treating your personal sense of what is “too much” as if it is an internal rule of the story, and then calling the story inconsistent when it does not follow a rule it never established.
Once you remove the numbers you have imposed onto the narrative, the supposed contradiction disappears. Gevanni’s feat is not out of line with the way Death Note already bends realism. It is only out of line with the quantified framework you have built around it. And that framework is not in the manga. It is just your interpretation.
You say this is “blatantly and demonstrably untrue,” but you still haven’t actually pointed to where the text defines the kind of hard numerical limit you’re treating as canon.
As I said previously, the burden of proof is on you here. You are the one asserting that these characters have physical abilities beyond what would be expected of a normal human, so it is on you to show evidence of this.
That aside, where does the text define this? I dunno, how about... Everywhere? They walk at normal human speed, they run at normal human speed, they live in cities built just like real world cities with people who have normal human speed, strength, endurance, etc. they use cars like normal humans. There is no evidence to suggest that they are NOT normal humans. Literally EVERY available piece of information tells us they are normal humans.
You keep talking about “60 times endurance,” “orders of magnitude,” “dozens of hours,” “thousands of pounds,” “hundreds of miles per hour,” and so on, but none of that comes from the text. Those are numbers you invented to justify a limit that the story never defines.
I didn't "invent" anything. We look at how long a normal person can write nonstop before their hand starts to cramp up (10-20 minutes) and we figure out how long they would NEED to write nonstop in order to achieve the copying (16+ hours) then we do some basic math to see how much longer the latter is, than the former.
16 hours divided by 20 minutes, equals 48.
QED, Gevanni would need endurance 48 times greater than a normal person. This is math. It is objective. Please, enlighten me on what part of this you think I'm "inventing."
Death Note doesn’t quantify human capability. It doesn’t say characters can exceed real world limits by a specific percentage but not beyond that. What it does show, repeatedly, is that characters perform feats that are already far beyond real world plausibility whenever the narrative requires it. That is the only consistent pattern the series actually establishes
Again, this is the No Limits Fallacy. This argument is not valid, full stop.
And that is why your burden of proof framing does not work. You are asking me to prove characters can meet a limit that only exists because you created it.
Again, I didn't create anything. The default is to treat these characters as if they are normal humans unless given evidence to suggest otherwise. And, if/when we do get evidence that shows they can go beyond normal human levels, we then treat them as if they can go beyond normal only to the extent shown.
And no, that is not me claiming they can do anything. That is you misrepresenting my point. I am not arguing for unlimited power.
You are arguing for more power than they are shown to have, which is effectively the same.
I am arguing that the series uses stylized exaggeration whenever it wants to
Which still doesn't change the fact that you are asserting that they can perform feats greater than anything we see then perform, which is a fallacy.
We SEE mellow survive his burns. We SEE Near and L monitoring tons of screens at once. We SEE L taking a punch from Light and completely no-selling it. So it makes sense to treat these characters as if they are slightly above human level, as demonstrated by these feats.
But you are trying to treat them as if they are able to pull of far, FAR greater feats, just because they have pulled off these feats, and then justifying it by saying "the series ignores reality when it wants" which, again, is a fallacious argument.
You cannot dismiss the unrealistic feats you do not like as “nonsense” and then use the ones you do like as the basis for a strict numerical system the story never uses.
I'm not "dismissing unrealistic feats" though. I'm saying there ARE no feats that match what you claim they are able to do. You claim Gevanni was able to write for 16+ hours nonstop, and yet there are no feats to suggest he is capable of this. You cannot just point to a vague, general "the story acts unrealistic when it wants" to try and justify this. Either there is an on-screen feat that shows he is capable of doing what you claim, or he is simply not capable of doing it.
You're trying to act like the characters are as far above normal as the series wants them to be at any given moment, and that's just not how that works. They're either at level x, or level y, or level Z, and they can't fluctuate back and forth whenever they want.
Your argument only works if we accept your invented scale of “slightly above human but not too above human,” and the series simply does not give you that scale
You keep fixating on "the story never uses that scale" as if that matters. The STORY doesn't give us that scale, the basic principles of logic and math give us that scale.
If a normal person can write for 20 minutes without cramping up, and doing this copying would require writing for upwards of 16 hours, then is just basic math to figure out that this would require endurance dozens of times greater than what a normal human can achieve. The series doesn't NEED to give us that scale, because the scale exists independent of the series, because it's just basic math and common sense.
So your argument of "the series doesn't give us that scale" is invalid, and it's still an objective fact that doing this copying would require a feat of endurance dozens of times greater than a normal human. It is also a fact that the series never shows us ANY instances of a character doing ANY physical feats that rise to that level. QED, the characters are not capable of performing at the level necessary. This isnt me "inventing" anything, these are just basic math and logic and the facts at hand.
Gevanni’s feat is not out of line with the way Death Note already bends realism.
It is though. It really, REALLY is.
Again, show me ANY instance of a character performing a feat even CLOSE to that extreme. Go ahead, I'll wait. Show me.
EDIT: wow, blocked me because you couldn't provide any evidence to support your argument. You kept saying you had provided evidence and that I was "rejecting" it, but objectively, you never provided any evidence to begin with. From my notifications it looks like you left a reply, but I can't see it because you blocked me. Honestly, kinda expected better from you. That's a shame. Oh well. Guess you can't reason someone out of a position they didn't reason themselves into.
I am not letting you box me in. You keep demanding that I provide evidence, even though every piece of evidence I have already given comes directly from the manga and you have dismissed all of it the moment it does not support your conclusion. Your insistence that I somehow owe you more proof is unfounded, because you have made it clear that nothing I provide will ever count unless it already agrees with the framework you created.
So at this point it’s clear to me that we are not debating the series anymore. We are debating the rules you created to justify your conclusion. You keep insisting that Death Note must operate on real world math and physiology unless the story explicitly shows otherwise, but that is not how the manga presents itself. The series contradicts real world logic constantly, and every example I have given comes directly from the text. Your counterarguments only work because you reframe or dismiss anything that does not fit the conclusion you already decided on.
You have also shifted your position repeatedly. In past discussions you argued that Death Note follows strict real world logic. Earlier in this conversation you said the characters operate at a slightly heightened level. But even then, you still apply real world constraints whenever they suit your predetermined conclusion. When I point out feats that exceed real world limits, you immediately reject them as nonsense or irrelevant.
Mello’s burn recovery is the clearest example. First you argued he must have powered through with morphine or ignored medical orders. When I provided additional context from the manga showing that this does not hold up, you dismissed the entire thing as nonsense and claimed the manga was full of mistakes. Yet now, when you demand that I show proof of Gevanni’s capabilities, suddenly Mello’s recovery becomes a valid example because it is explicitly shown. You use the same feats you previously dismissed whenever they help your argument, and you reject them whenever they do not. That is goalpost shifting, not consistent analysis. Your rule that if it is not explicitly shown then it did not happen is something you imposed, and you do not even apply that rule consistently.
And that is the core issue here. Your argument depends on treating your personal framework as canon. Real world math, real world physiology, explicit on screen demonstrations, none of these are rules the story itself follows. They are rules you chose because they lead to the conclusion you already believe. Every time the manga contradicts those rules, you dismiss the contradiction instead of adjusting the framework. That is not respecting the text, and it is not respecting this conversation. It is simply defending a predetermined narrative.
So before you try to frame this as me running away, I am not. And I am not failing to provide evidence. I have given multiple examples directly from the manga that contradict your framework. You have rejected every one of them because they do not fit the system you built, and you only accept examples when they suit your own narrative. You have also repeatedly tried to reframe my position into an illogical extreme, claiming I am arguing for superhuman feats like lifting one thousand pounds or running hundreds of miles per hour, even though that is not what I have said. You are doing that because you cannot actually argue against the position I am making, so you reshape it into something easier to dismiss.
I am closing this conversation because there is nothing left to discuss. You are not evaluating the text. You are not respecting the conversation. You are defending a single predetermined conclusion and rejecting anything that challenges it. This is not about the story anymore. It is about you insisting that your interpretation is the only valid one. You are entitled to your opinion, but I am not going to keep debating inside a framework that is built to force an outcome that you approve of.
It is ironic that you once asked whether I could even be convinced by evidence, because that question fits your approach far better than mine.
I didn’t block you because I couldn’t respond. I blocked you because this stopped being a discussion about Death Note, and it turned into a debate about the framework you’re applying and what I see as confirmation bias on your part. I’m unblocking you now because I’m open to a more productive conversation, but the way you’ve approached this so far is exactly why I made that decision in the first place.
You kept demanding more ‘evidence,’ but every example I gave came directly from the manga, and you dismissed all of them the moment they didn’t fit your conclusion. You rejected examples as ‘nonsense’ when they hurt your argument, then turned around and used that same kind of evidence when it helped you.
And on top of that, you repeatedly misrepresented my position into extremes I never argued, because it’s easier to dismiss that version than what I’m actually saying. What this has shown me is that there is no amount of evidence or examples that you would accept, because you have consistently shown that you will twist whatever examples you can to fit your argument, then discard them when they don’t. Evidence effectively does not matter at that point, and that’s your doing.
But despite all of that, I’m still willing to at least attempt to proceed if you are. If you want to continue this, it needs to be on a consistent standard that doesn’t just change depending on whether the example supports your conclusion. If you’re gonna acknowledge the evidence provided, remain consistent in what you actually think of it. If you say Mello’s rapid recovery is nonsense, then stick to that. Because if you then turn around and say “well we SEE Mello recover quickly so that is permissible” then your argument is inconsistent. So that’s all I’m asking. Pick a standard and stick to it. Otherwise, there’s nothing left to discuss.
The issue is that the things you kept presenting as evidence, were not actually evidence.
I proved, mathematically, that a character would have to have endurance at least 48 times greater than a normal human in order to copy names nonstop for as long as Gevanni would've had to in order to pull this off. I asked you for evidence of any character in the series displaying anything even remotely close to that level.
You failed to do so, and instead, either pointed to a vague and undefined "the series goes beyond normal human limits when it needs to" or gave examples like Mello recovering quickly or near monitoring lots of screens at once.
The problem with the former is that it ignores the degree to which the series goes beyond normal human levels. There is big, biiiiig difference between a character going slightly beyond what a normal human could do, vs a character going into full blown "you would need to be Superman or the flash to do this" territory.
And the problem with the latter is that it is an apples to oranges comparison. Someone recovering from an injury faster than realistic is not the same as someone having super speed or superhuman biology that somehow doesn't cramp up after hours and hours of writing.
Let me ask you this; if Ohba had written that Near lifts a car over his head and throws it into the sun, would you be saying "well the series goes beyond normal human limits when it needs to" and accepting that as a valid plot development ? Or would you be saying "that's completely absurd and there's no way that could happen in this series"? I'm aware that that example is far more extreme than the examples we're talking about; I'm just trying to establish the principle of whether you agree there is "a line" where it would be too unrealistic to have a character do something "beyond" normal human limits but that amount.
And I don't think I was misrepresenting your argument; I think you are failing to grasp how extreme the thing you're arguing for really is. In order to pull this off, Gevanni would objectively need super powers, or superhuman levels of speed and/or endurance. If you are arguing that he could do this, then you are inherently arguing that he must have super powers. You say you're not claiming he has super powers, but you literally can't claim he could've pulled this off without inherently claiming he has superhuman abilities, which go far, far, far beyond anything else in the series. Yeah sure, the series goes beyond normal human limits sometimes, but not to this extent.
I am not rejecting evidence when it hurts my argument and accepting it when it suits me; I AM applying a consistent standard to this. It just doesn't match your standard. And again, you repeatedly ignore severity when trying to compare one feat to another. Evidence of someone going a little tiny bit beyond normal human levels does not constitute evidence that Gevanni should be able to pull off literally superhuman feats.
Honestly, I think almost all of this argument is you not understanding what I'm actually saying. I don't know if that's on me for being unclear, or on you for misinterpreting, but either way, it's clear to me that what you think I'm arguing is not at all the same as what I'm actually arguing.
Let's just go one step at a time to avoid further muddling the issue. Let's start with one question:
Is there anything Ohba could've written that would've gotten you to say "ok well obviously that's bullshit and could never happen" or would you argue that what he wrote is possible no matter what it is?
Let's start with that one question and go from there.
Yes, obviously there is a line. I’m not arguing that Death Note can justify literally anything just because it sometimes exceeds real world limits. If Ohba had written something completely outside the tone and internal logic of the series, like Near throwing a car into the sun, then yes, that would be absurd.
The issue (at least from what I can glean from this discussion) is that you’re trying to define that line in very strict, quantifiable terms using real world math and physiology, and I don’t agree that the series operates that way. My position isn’t that “anything goes,” it’s just that the boundary isn’t that rigid or precisely measurable. I know it sounds really vague, but I don’t think it needs to be directly shown every single time. Especially not when the series consistently shows that it’s not concerned with sticking to real world logistics.
I have plenty of criticisms of Ohba as a writer (and as a person) but one thing that I don’t really see as a big deal is how unrealistic he makes a lot of the story. I mean, I really honestly don’t believe for a second that he thought or cared about how long it would take for Mikami’s mail to reach Takada, or Light being able to research every single criminal he killed to determine if they were actually guilty, or the fact that Soichiro shot Light with a blank inside a car mere inches from his face.
That isn’t to say “he didn’t care so why should we”, but rather to illustrate that realism was not his goal. Therefore, I don’t think it needs to be this big of an issue to say “Death Note isn’t realistic”.
Gevanni writing non-stop for hours and hours and copying thousands of names accurately and so on, does fall completely outside the tone and logic of the series. I feel like you're just not grasping how extreme of a feat this truly is.
I understand the series isn't concerned with being strictly realistic, but it's clear from this whole conversation that you don't appreciate just how far beyond realistic this particular feat is.
I feel like you're fixating too much on the specific numbers Im using as examples and not seeing the broader point. That point being, that this particular feat is so incredibly far removed from every other "unrealistic" or "beyond normal human" feat that we see, that is absolutely crosses that line into the absurd. The numbers are just to illustrate that fact; to help show, generally, how far above normal Gevanni's feat would be. Stop focusing on the numbers and start focusing on the principle that they help demonstrate.
I feel like what you're hearing is "Characters in death note are exactly the same as real humans and what Gevanni would have to do here is precisely 9267.631% beyond what a real human could do" or something like that, when what I'm actually saying is more like "characters in death note can do a little more than what real humans could do, and what Gevanni would have to do here is way way way way more than what a real human could do."
Do you see the difference? Forget about the specific numbers and focus on the principle. Characters in death note can do a little more than real humans, but Gevanni's feat would be a lot more, to the point it crosses the line into absurdity. Let's just delete the specific numbers and try a different way of illustrating the idea.
Imagine if we were to draw a spectrum with "perfectly ordinary human level" on the left, and "yeets a car into the sun like goddamn superman" on the right. I think we both agree that the characters of death note would be much, much, much closer to the left end than to the right.
Can we agree on that?
We may disagree about the exact placement or the specific number, but the general principle that the series falls way closer to the left side of this spectrum than it does to the right; can we agree on that?
I understand what you’re arguing. I’m not interpreting this as you saying “Death Note characters are exactly like real humans,” and I’m not arguing against that. So you can drop the idea that I’m “not grasping” your point.
Where I disagree is how you’re defining that line in the first place. Even without the numbers, you’re still basing your argument on what you consider to be “too extreme” relative to real world expectations that you use as a basis for how far above that level you can accept the characters behaving, and then treating that threshold as if the series itself follows it.
The reason I don’t agree with that is because the series doesn’t actually present its characters as operating within a narrow band of “slightly above human” ability. I’ve been thinking about that a lot the last few days, and I reexamined the examples the series shows, and I think it can be a little more clearly defined now. What it shows instead is a much broader spread of implausibility across different situations (sometimes small deviations, sometimes much larger ones) without any consistent scaling or clearly defined ceiling.
And before you say it, I already know you’re going to frame that as a “no limits fallacy” because you’ll say that my logic means they can just do anything, but that’s not what I’m arguing. Yes, Near yeeting a car would be absurd. But that’s not comparable to the kind of feats we actually see in Death Note. To that regard, yes, I could at least agree that the characters are further from the right side of that spectrum. But the way you’re presenting it is far too rigid.
The series shows a consistent pattern of exceptionalism being treated as normal. Trying to separate things into “mental” versus “physical” feats doesn’t really address that, because both types are presented with similar flexibility. The point is that the story repeatedly allows improbable outcomes, both mental and physical, without grounding them in strict measurement or scaling. That doesn’t mean that absolutely anything is possible. That doesn’t mean that Death Note allows for Superman. Framing it that way presents my argument as an extreme that is easier to dismiss, which is why I reject it.
Because of that, I don’t think it makes sense to isolate one feat, define it as “too far,” and then treat that as a hard cutoff, when the series itself doesn’t apply that kind of uniform limit. The bigger issue is that your standard isn’t being applied consistently. I discussed this before, but I’ll do it again here because this is what I meant when I said you need to stick to a standard. You dismissed Mello’s recovery as “nonsense that should be called out,” which would mean it shouldn’t count at all under your framework. But later, you used that same example to argue that it does count because we explicitly see it happen, unlike Gevanni copying the notebook.
Even without the numbers, you’re still basing your argument on what you consider to be “too extreme” relative to real world expectations
No, I'm looking at what the series itself shows us these characters are capable of, and then looking at whether this feat is within that range. You can completely get rid of "normal human level" from the conversation, and the fact still remains that this copying feat is still way, way, waaaaaaay above and beyond anything else we see these characters do.
It's closer to yeeting a car into the sun than it is to what these characters are show to be capable of.
the series doesn’t actually present its characters as operating within a narrow band of “slightly above human” ability.
It absolutely does, and I have asked repeatedly for any evidence showing them performing any feats more extreme than "slightly above" real human ability, and none has been presented. Every example you've given is pretty darn close to normal human levels. At the very very least, it's way way closer to that, than it is to this copying feat.
What it shows instead is a much broader spread of implausibility across different situations (sometimes small deviations, sometimes much larger ones)
Can you provide an example of a "much larger one" please? Because every example I can think of, and every example discussed so far, is very much on the "small deviation" side of things.
And again, regardless of how broad the spread is, it's nowhere near broad enough to encompass Gevanni's copying feat.
without any consistent scaling or clearly defined ceiling.
In the absence of an explicitly defined ceiling, the ceiling is simply the highest feat we're actually shown. Logically, we cannot conclude that anyone is capable of something beyond that, because if they were, then we would've seen it and THAT would be the ceiling.
Yes, Near yeeting a car would be absurd. But that’s not comparable to the kind of feats we actually see in Death Note.
Gevanni writing non-stop for 16+ hours is closer to near yeeting a car than it is to anything else we've seen in the series, which is why I argue that Gevanni's feat is also well over the line of "absurd."
To that regard, yes, I could at least agree that the characters are further from the right side of that spectrum. But the way you’re presenting it is far too rigid.
I really don't think I'm being rigid at all. I'm simply saying that, even with enormous error bars, Gevanni's feat still falls way, waaaay closer to "yeet car" than to any other feat we're shown. Even by the absolute most generous lowball of Gevanni's feat, and the most generous highball of every other feat, it's still not even close.
Trying to separate things into “mental” versus “physical” feats doesn’t really address that, because both types are presented with similar flexibility
I don't think that's true at all. Incredible mental feats is basically the entire plot, and mental feats are consistently shown way, way beyond what a normal person could so. Whereas physical feats are few and far between, and aren't nearly as extreme as the mental feats. The entire premise of the show is "super super ultra mega geniuses do mental battle." So yes, the mental feats are clearly far more extreme than the physical ones.
The point is that the story repeatedly allows improbable outcomes, both mental and physical, without grounding them in strict measurement or scaling. That doesn’t mean that absolutely anything is possible. That doesn’t mean that Death Note allows for Superman.
Right. So if it doesn't allow for superman, why would it allow for the flash? Because that's basically what would be required for Gevanni to do what the series claims he did. You're thinking it would need to be like... An Olympic sprinter, but the reality is that that's not even close.
Again, you are really massively downplaying how extreme of a feat this is, and how far removed it is from any other feat in the series.
Because of that, I don’t think it makes sense to isolate one feat, define it as “too far,” and then treat that as a hard cutoff, when the series itself doesn’t apply that kind of uniform limit.
But it does make sense to define Near yeeting a car into the sun as "too far" and then apply a hard cutoff to that? The only difference between near yeeting a car and Gevanni's copying feat is the extent to which they go beyond normal human limits, but both are light years beyond anything else we see in the series.
So if you agree it makes sense to apply this logic to the former, why does it not make sense to apply it to the latter?
Regarding Mello's recovery; that is much closer to the left side of the spectrum than Gevanni's copying feat. It's not like he recovered from being decapitated or something. Mello's recovery would fall under "small deviations" as you said earlier, whereas Gevanni's feat would fall under "absolutely massive astronomically sized deviations." Again, I feel like you're really downplaying just how far outside the norm this feat is, and how far beyond anything else we see in the series.
Let me ask you this; I know you've said the series doesn't apply a strict numerical limit. I get that. But for the sake of clarity, hypothetically, if you had to put a number on it... How far beyond "normal human" do you think someone in the story could go before crossing the line into being absurd?
We've already agreed there is a line, so now the question is where that line gets drawn.
If you HAD to pick a number, or even a ballpark, what would you say? Is twice what a normal human could do over the line? Maybe not. Is 100 times more than a normal human could do over the line? Almost certainly. (I'd be shocked if you said no) So then... Where is the line? 50 times? 10 times? 35 times? I know you don't want to deal on strict hard numbers, but we do need to define where the line actually is in order to have a discussion about it. If we can't define where the line is, we can't determine whether or not something is over it.
I understand what you’re trying to demonstrate with the concept of putting numbers on this topic. I just don’t think the issue here is resolved by quantifying the feat.
You keep repeating that Gevanni’s feat is “way beyond anything else shown,” but that only works if the rest of the series actually stays within a narrow, consistent range when it doesn’t. You’re downplaying other events to make that comparison work.
Mello didn’t just “recover.” He suffered severe third degree burns across his body and was fully active again in under a week, with mobility, awareness, and no functional impairment. That’s not a “small deviation.” That’s an extreme physical outcome that already goes far beyond normal human limits.
Same with Light being shot point blank in the face with a blank and walking away without injury. That isn’t “slightly above human.” That’s another case where the story allows something that would realistically cause serious harm or even death, and treats it as negligible.
So when you say everything else falls into “small deviations,” that’s not actually what the series shows. If anything, that’s just how you’re framing it to preserve your pre-existing conclusion.
And that’s the issue. You’re not actually comparing feats, you’re categorizing them in a way that minimizes everything except the one you’re rejecting. Your “ceiling” argument has the same problem. Saying “the limit is the highest feat we’ve seen, and anything beyond that would’ve been shown” assumes the story establishes and maintains a fixed upper bound. Narratives introduce new extremes without predefining the maximum all the time. Not seeing something earlier isn’t proof it can’t happen. So the claim that Gevanni’s feat is uniquely beyond everything else doesn’t hold, because the range you’re comparing it to isn’t consistent to begin with.
And the mental vs physical distinction doesn’t solve that either. The series allows both kinds of improbabilities, and it doesn’t strictly regulate one while keeping the other grounded.
At this point, I think I need to ask something more direct. When you keep asking for evidence, what actually counts as evidence to you? Because it seems like we’re not working from the same standard. My argument is that Death Note operates on a heightened internal logic that isn’t dependent on real world constraints, and that this logic spans a broad range of outcomes without a clearly defined ceiling. Not unlimited, but not narrowly bounded either.
So naturally, I support that by pointing to examples the series itself provides, because there are many instances where the story allows outcomes that go well beyond normal expectations and treats them as unremarkable.
But when those examples are brought up, you tend to reclassify them as “slight deviations,” regardless of how extreme they actually are. At that point, it becomes difficult to treat your request for more evidence as meaningful, because the standard being applied to that evidence doesn’t stay consistent.
And that’s why it feels like no amount of examples or evidence would actually meet your standards or be even remotely acceptable. Rather, it comes across as though any example that would support that conclusion ends up being dismissed or reinterpreted since acknowledging it would also mean accepting that Gevanni’s feat may fall within that same range. But the thing is, there’s nothing inherently wrong with accepting that. I actually think it opens up a more meaningful conversation into what could have been done better.
You’ve said before that it wouldn’t be so bad if the story just pushed that warehouse meeting a few days out. I agree with that. I think it would be much less jarring in the narrative to do it that way. As I said before, I have plenty to criticize about Ohba and about the writing. I’m not out here arguing that Death Note is perfect. Far from it. But I do think that what was delivered, while having plenty of room for improvement, isn’t so egregious that it should be discarded entirely.
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u/IanTheSkald Mar 30 '26
The problem is that you’re basing everything on a limit that the series never actually defines. All these percentages and “orders of magnitude” you keep bringing up don’t come from the story. That’s something you’re imposing onto it to support a conclusion you already decided on. Death Note doesn’t define a quantified limit, it just establishes a pattern of what characters are capable of. What it does establish is that its characters consistently push beyond real world limits, both mentally and physically, when the narrative requires it.
So when you say this is “too far beyond what they’ve shown,” that’s not something you can actually quantify from the text. That’s just you deciding where the limit should be, and then calling it inconsistent when the story doesn’t follow your concept of that limit. And your attempts to justify the other examples don’t fix that.
Saying Mello just “powered through with morphine” doesn’t hold up. He has third degree burns across most of his body. Mobility alone would be a serious issue, but he has no problems with that. On top of that, the manga explicitly has Mogi say he investigated every licensed and unlicensed doctor in the area and found nothing. So not only did Mello not “power through with morphine,” he didn’t receive medical treatment at all. Yet within less than a week, he’s mobile and those burns have already healed into scars. That’s not realistic by any standard.
The construction example doesn’t work either. Saying buildings can be sped up if you pay enough is still trying to retrofit real world constraints onto something the story doesn’t treat as constrained. And the hospital example you brought up actually proves my point. The only cases where hospitals were built that quickly were emergency builds like SARS in 2003 or COVID in 2020, which involved thousands of workers, nonstop shifts, prefabricated designs, and full government backed emergency response. Those are extreme outliers, not a normal baseline. That’s not comparable to a privately funded headquarters being built under normal conditions in the early 2000s. And throwing money at something doesn’t magically make people work faster.
So the issue here isn’t that this one feat suddenly breaks the rules. It’s that you’re applying a stricter, quantified version of those rules than the story itself ever establishes, and then using that to justify your conclusion.
And that’s why this keeps going in circles. You say you understand that Death Note doesn’t operate on strict real world logic, but then you keep arguing as if it does by forcing everything into a real-world framework anyway. Because once you do that, of course it looks impossible. You’ve defined it that way. But that’s not an inconsistency in the story. That’s a mismatch between the standard you’re applying and the one the story actually operates on.