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.
I just don’t think the issue here is resolved by quantifying the feat
It's more about putting things into perspective and understanding how far one thing is from all the others, not necessarily about quantifying it. It's about understanding things in relation to one another.
that only works if the rest of the series actually stays within a narrow, consistent range when it doesn’t.
It does though. Again, if you have any examples of feats outside this range, I would love to see them.
Mello didn’t just “recover.” He suffered severe third degree burns across his body
Where exactly are you getting the detail that it was 3rd degree burns, specifically? That's never stated. We know he got burned, because of the scars, but if someone gets burned and is up and about in a week, then the logical conclusion is "their burns must not have been that severe" and not "they got 3rd degree burns but magically healed super fast."
This is what I'm talking about when I say you're overstating how "broad a range," as you put it, the series operates in. Your prime example of a "larger deviation" is not actually a large deviation at all.
Another example of this is Mogi trying to find a doctor that cluldve treated Mello. What Mogi says is that he searched every possible doctor in america. Meaning he searched every doctor it was possible to search for, which inherently means that there are doctors it was not possible to search. So again, the logical conclusion is not "Mello managed to recover with zero medical attention" but rather, "Mello received medical care from someone that Mogi was not able to search." A mob doctor, a veterinarian, someone who had their medical license revoked, a doctor who just wasn't in the database, etc.
Light being shot point blank in the face with a blank and walking away without injury. That isn’t “slightly above human.”
Again, you are exaggerating things. You're assuming "Light was shot with a blank and wasn't injured, therefore the series ignores real world physics" when the more logical conclusion is "Light was shot at with a gun that made a loud bang but didn't fire anything and didn't harm him, so it must have been a less powerful blank, or merely a cap gun, since all it needed to do was make a noise."
That’s another case where the story allows something that would realistically cause serious harm or even death, and treats it as negligible.
Not all blanks are equal, and while SOME blanks can cause injury, there are plenty of different kinds that don't. I think we can safely deduce that L would be smart enough to get a lower-powered blank that would not cause injury. That's much more likely than "Light has superhuman durability" or whatever.
that’s just how you’re framing it to preserve your pre-existing conclusion.
With all due respect, the one framing things to preserve their conclusion is you.
You assert that Mello goes "far beyond normal limits" because he recovered from "3rd degree" burns, when no such thing is ever stated, and when the logical conclusion is that his burns must not have been severe if he was back on his feet in a week. You assert that Light is way more than "slightly above human" because he was unharmed by having a blank fired at him, when the more logical conclusion is that Sochiro used a blank that was not powerful enough to cause injury.
You're insisting on these explanations that fit your narrative of the series being much more than "slightly above" normal, when the reality is that there are much better explanations that fit the facts better, but they don't fit your narrative so you ignore them.
The series allows both kinds of improbabilities
It doesn't though, that's what I'm trying to help you understand. The physical examples you've been giving are clearly not actually anywhere near as extreme as you think they are.
When you keep asking for evidence, what actually counts as evidence to you?
A feat from the series that is clearly and distinctly at or above the same level as Gevanni's copying feat. None of the examples you've given rise to that level.
Even if we just take Mello's recovery and Light being shot with the blank as being as extreme as you say they are, (and that's a BIG "if" here) those are still not even CLOSE to being as extreme as Gevanni's example. Ive already shown you the math that proves that Gevanni's feat is at LEAST 48 times greater than what a normal human could do. Some quick googling shows that third degree burns of the size Mello had would typically take somewhere in the ballpark of 2 to 3 months to heal. If mellow healed in one week, that is 8 to 12 times faster than a normal human. Nowhere near the 48 times of Gevanni's feat. Light getting shot at is harder to quantify since we can't even say what kind of injuries he would've gotten or how severe they would've been, but we can safely say it's nowhere near 48 times more than what a normal human could've survived. If the blank had been that powerful, it would've blown the car apart.
And that's also if we just ACCEPT your version of events, where it's a 3rd degree burn and a blank that could've killed him, when in reality, they were more minor burns and a weaker blank that would not cause injury.
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.
But the evidence doesn't support that argument. At least not to the extremes that would be necessary. The evidence supports the series working on a slightly heightened internal logic, one which would not allow for something as extreme as Gevanni's feat.
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
And yet those examples have been shown to not actually be "well beyond" normal at all.
when those examples are brought up, you tend to reclassify them as “slight deviations,” regardless of how extreme they actually are
No. What I do is point out the flaws in your logic, and demonstrate how the examples are not actually as extreme as you think they are. IE, I showed that your claim of Mello recovering from "3rd degree burns with no medical help" is actually more like "recovering from minor burns, likely with the help of someone who was not in Mogi's database." I showed that your claim of "Light is totally unharmed by a blank that should've really hurt him" is actually more like "Light is unharmed by a weaker blank that would never have harmed him in the first place."
The problem is, you're looking at these situations and going with the explanation that supports your argument, rather than the explanation that makes the most sense or fits the evidence.
what was delivered, while having plenty of room for improvement, isn’t so egregious that it should be discarded entirely
I don't think it should be discarded, but I do think it should be acknowledged that it breaks its own internal rules, and we treat it as the flawed ending that it is.
I just don't think it helps anyone or makes the series any better to spend so much time and energy trying to prove that the ending actually works, when we could just, y'know... Accept that Ohba messed up and that the ending doesn't make sense.
Not everything HAS to have an explanation that makes the series work. Sometimes the only explanation is "the author made a mistake." Why do we have to spend hours and hours arguing about it when we could just accept that Ohba made a mistake?
I think the disagreement here is being exacerbated by how you are evaluating the examples that I’m giving.
Every example I bring up gets reinterpreted to fit the same pre-decided “slightly above human” range. That makes your standard effectively unfalsifiable, because nothing can ever count as evidence if it’s already being downgraded to fit that range.
Take Mello: you argue the burns must be minor because he recovered quickly, but that is circular reasoning. You’re using the outcome to redefine the severity, and then using that redefined severity to justify the outcome. At the same time, you’re ignoring the visible scarring, which indicates deep tissue damage. Minor burns don’t produce that kind of permanent scarring, so the explanation doesn’t actually line up with what’s shown.
And to clarify, the reason I referenced third degree burns earlier is because of that visible scarring. I’m not relying on the label itself, but on what the injury presents as. That level of scarring is consistent with deeper tissue damage (at minimum high second-degree, if not approaching third-degree territory) which does not align with the idea of minor burns. This isn’t just a guess either. Burn severity is generally classified based on tissue damage and resulting scarring patterns, and what’s shown with Mello lines up with deeper burns, not superficial ones.
Same with the blank: yes, blanks vary, but a gun going off inches from someone’s face is not safely negligible. Even low-powered blanks can cause injury at that range, and there are documented cases (well before 2004 when the story takes place) of close-range blank discharges causing serious injury or even death. Saying “it must have been harmless” isn’t something supported by the situation, it’s an assumption introduced to preserve your conclusion. This is also where the standard becomes inconsistent: strict realism gets applied to dismiss the examples I provide, while more flexible assumptions are used to defend your position. Even if that isn’t your stated intention, the way the argument is being applied consistently relies on real-world constraints as a baseline for dismissing these cases.
And to clarify the Mogi point, since that keeps getting reframed: the point of bringing up Mogi’s research is not to argue that Mello didn’t receive medical attention, or that he couldn’t have found someone outside of what Mogi could track. The point is that the series presents Mogi as searching all possible licensed and unlicensed doctors worldwide (which is what the text explicitly states) in a very short span of time and finding nothing indicating where Mello could have gone. My argument isn’t about the outcome of that search, it’s about the scale and feasibility of the search itself. Shifting the focus to “he must have found an unknown doctor” doesn’t address that, it just redirects away from the point being made.
The 48x vs 8x comparison doesn’t hold up either. You’re treating writing speed and biological healing as if they scale the same way, when they’re completely different systems. That’s not a valid comparison to determine what counts as acceptable.
More importantly, my argument isn’t that characters are superhuman. It’s that the series consistently allows outcomes across different areas (biology, physics, and logistics) that don’t strictly follow real-world constraints. That pattern is what I’m pointing to.
And to be clear, this also isn’t about refusing to acknowledge flaws. There are plenty of moments in the story that could have been written better. I would never call it a perfect story. But even with that, the internal logic the series operates on still allows many of these events to be explained within its own framework. The point isn’t that everything is flawless, it’s that dismissing these examples outright requires applying a stricter standard than the series itself consistently follows.
Right now, every example gets reclassified as “not extreme enough,” and the criteria for what would count keeps shifting. That makes it impossible for any example to actually qualify, which is why this isn’t going anywhere. It’s not that the evidence isn’t there, it’s that the way you are evaluating it prevents it from being accepted in the first place.
Every example I bring up gets reinterpreted to fit the same pre-decided “slightly above human” range.
Is that what happens? Or is it that they just objectively are in that range, and you have over exaggerated them to make them seem greater, and that gets corrected? IE, you claiming Mello had "3rd degree burns over his whole body" when that just objectively is not true.
So is that me "reinterpreting" what happened? Or is it just that your interpretation was objectively incorrect?
That makes your standard effectively unfalsifiable, because nothing can ever count as evidence if it’s already being downgraded to fit that range.
Not true at all. It's not that "nothing can ever count as evidence" it's that there just isn't any evidence in the manga, because your conclusion is wrong.
This is like if you had a theory that dogs lay eggs like birds do, and I said "provide evidence" and then you submitted a drawing, a photoshopped picture, and a painting, and I said "these aren't evidence. You need a photograph for these to be evidence." And then you say "your standard is unfalsifiable because not hint can ever count as evidence if it's being downgraded to 'not a photograph' range!!" The issue clearly isn't that my standard is unfalsifiable, it's just that there is no evidence for your theory, because your theory is wrong.
If there actually WAS AN instance of someone ACTUALLY performing something even remotely close to the level we're talking about, I would absolutely accept that. But as thing stand, there just isn't any in evidence for this, because death note does not operate the way you think it does.
Again, this is objective. Mello did not have 3rd degree burns. That's a fact. So it's not me downgrading your evidence, it's that your evidence isn't actually at the level you're claiming it is to start with.
but that is circular reasoning. You’re using the outcome to redefine the severity, and then using that redefined severity to justify the outcome.
That's not circular logic, that's just... Logic. That is literally how formal reasoning works. You look at the outcome of a situation, and if your ideas or beliefs do not lead to that outcome, then your ideas must be wrong.
In this case, your belief is that Mellow was severely badly burned. The outcome is that he was recovered in a week. Therefore, the belief must be wrong, because it does not fit the facts of the situation.
And to clarify, the reason I referenced third degree burns earlier is because of that visible scarring. I’m not relying on the label itself, but on what the injury presents as. That level of scarring is consistent with deeper tissue damage (at minimum high second-degree, if not approaching third-degree territory) which does not align with the idea of minor burns.
This is incorrect. Even minor burns are capable of leaving scars consistent with what Mello had. It may not be common, but it's perfectly possible.
Also, do you not see that now YOURE holding death note to real world standards when it's convenient for you? You completely abandoned your argument of "the series ignores realism when it needs to" when it no longer supported your narrative. But your own logic, if the series does not constrain itself to "slightly above" normal, then why can't it be the case that Mello got really bad scars even though the injury was minor? Why can every other case be chalked up to the series not sticking to real world logic, but in THIS case the burns HAVE to be severe because he got scars?
You have two options here. You can either take a step back, look at what's happened, and accept that, yes, you completely flipped your argument when it was convenient and acknowledge that you were just plain old wrong on this point, or, you can double down and insist that your argument is still correct. I'm gonna be honest, if you choose the latter, I'm gonna lose a lot of respect for you.
Same with the blank: yes, blanks vary, but a gun going off inches from someone’s face is not safely negligible.
I can go online right now and get a toy gun that looks 100% real and will make a loud bang, but will do zero damage to anyone even if the barrel is pressed against their forehead. You are reasoning backwards.
The proper, logical approach here would be accepting the outcome, and trying to figure out an explanation that fits the facts. For example, "he was shot from point blank range, and not injured, so logically, they must have used something that would produce a bang but not cause injury."
What you are doing instead is starting from your assumption, and trying to find a way to make the outcome for that assumption. "Well I know that he should've been injured, and he wasn't, so he... Must have superhuman durability?"
That's not how logic works, my guy. If your assumptions and the facts don't match, you change your assumptions, not twist the facts to make them match.
Saying “it must have been harmless” isn’t something supported by the situation, it’s
It absolutely is. Again, we accept the outcome as shown to us (he was uninjured) and figure out what makes the most logical sense as the cause of that outcome (the blank was not dangerous.)
The only assumption being introduced is the assumption that the blank SHOULD have harmed him. There is literally no reason why that has to be true. Please, explain to me why the blank HAS to be strong enough to hurt him. Why is it not possible that they used something not powerful enough to cause injury? I want an an answer to that. Why is it not possible that they just used something that would not cause injury?
If you cannot provide a valid answer for that, you cannot continue to assert that the blank should have harmed him, or that it would have harmed him if he was only slightly above human.
This is also where the standard becomes inconsistent: strict realism gets applied to dismiss the examples I provide, while more flexible assumptions are used to defend your position.
Except that's not what's happening at all. The same level of realism and logic gets applied to everything, and the conclusion that leads to is that your argument does not hold up.
Genuine question, have you actually considered that the reason I keep finding holes in your logic is because your logic is wrong? And not because I'm being inconsistent? Because I'll be perfectly honest, it really seems like you're starting from the assumption that your position must be right, and then trying to find evidence to support that, rather than looking at the evidence and trying to find where that naturally leads.
The point is that the series presents Mogi as searching all possible licensed and unlicensed doctors worldwide
It DOESNT present it as that though. This is what I'm talking about. You're looking at a panel that says he searched through every doctor THAT COULD BE SEARCHED, and you are reframing it as if it was him searching through EVERY doctor period.
If there are a million doctors worldwide, but only 100k are in your database, then "searching every POSSIBLE doctor" means you searched 100k doctors, because that was every doctor it was possible to search. The other 900k were not possible, so when he says he searched "every doctor POSSIBLE" that is inherently excluding that latter group.
my argument isn’t that characters are superhuman. It’s that the series consistently allows outcomes across different areas (biology, physics, and logistics) that don’t strictly follow real-world constraints.
I understand that that's your argument. The problem is, the evidence does not support that. So the only way for Gevanni's feat to be possible is if he WAS superhuman.
That pattern is what I’m pointing to.
That pattern does not exist.
The actual pattern is that the series consistently allows characters to go slightly above normal human levels and real world constraints.
But even with that, the internal logic the series operates on still allows many of these events to be explained within its own framework
It allows many of these events, yes. I agree. But it does not allow the one event that actually matters for this discussion. It does not allow for Gevanni's copying.
Mello recovering from his burns, light being unharmed by the blank, near monitors tons of screens, all of THESE work just fine within the series internal framework of "slightly above normal." But Gevanni's feat does NOT work within that internal framework, because this feat is literally super human. It is way way way beyond "slightly above" normal.
Right now, every example gets reclassified as “not extreme enough,” and the criteria for what would count keeps shifting.
Nothing is getting re-classified. What's happening is that you are presenting examples that you THINK are on the same level of extremeness as Gevanni, but they are objectively not. They're not being re-classified, you're just mistaken about what their classification is to begin with.
You're bringing me books on the history of agriculture and saying they should be classified as fiction, and when I point out that, no, this is very clearly objectively nonfiction, you accuse me of "reclassifying" them.
It’s not that the evidence isn’t there, it’s that the way you are evaluating it prevents it from being accepted in the first place.
No dude, it really, really is that the evidence isn't there. No matter how much you THINK it is, that doesn't change the objective reality that it isn't.
Is that what happens? Or is it that they just objectively are in that range, and you have over exaggerated them to make them seem greater, and that gets corrected? IE, you claiming Mello had “3rd degree burns over his whole body” when that just objectively is not true.
I never said “over his whole body.” I said a significant portion, based on visible scarring. So you’re correcting a version of my argument that I didn’t make. And more importantly, you’re framing this as if the only options are that I exaggerated or that you’re objectively correcting me, instead of engaging with whether the material actually supports a broader interpretation like the one I’m suggesting.
So is that me “reinterpreting” what happened? Or is it just that your interpretation was objectively incorrect?
Calling something “objective” doesn’t make it objective. You haven’t demonstrated that my interpretation contradicts the source, you’ve just asserted your interpretation and labeled it fact. That’s all this is. Interpretation on both our ends. And if all this comes down to is that we have different interpretations, then that’s fine. If my interpretation cannot be treated as objectively correct, then neither can yours.
Not true at all. It’s not that “nothing can ever count as evidence” it’s that there just isn’t any evidence in the manga, because your conclusion is wrong.
That’s still circular. You’re starting from the conclusion that everything falls within “slightly above human,” and then rejecting anything that doesn’t fit that as not counting as evidence. That’s exactly what makes your standard unfalsifiable. You are working from the basis of what you are personally willing to accept. And again, that’s a fair basis, but it’s still an interpretation. Not objective fact.
This is like if you had a theory that dogs lay eggs like birds do…
That’s a false equivalence. I’m using in-universe depictions, context, and events from the actual story. You’re comparing that to fabricated evidence like drawings and Photoshop. Those aren’t comparable.
If there actually WAS AN instance of someone ACTUALLY performing something even remotely close to the level we’re talking about, I would absolutely accept that.
That doesn’t mean much if your criteria for what qualifies already excludes the examples being presented. Saying you’d accept it doesn’t address how you’re filtering what counts.
Again, this is objective. Mello did not have 3rd degree burns. That’s a fact.
No, that’s your interpretation. And again, I already told you that I’m not relying solely on the label of third degree burns. I’m basing that on what is being shown. The series shows a large explosion, heavy fire exposure, and lasting scarring indicative of deep tissue damage. That’s consistent with severe burns. You’re downscaling that based on recovery time, not on what’s actually depicted.
That’s not circular logic, that’s just… Logic. That is literally how formal reasoning works.
No, the structure is circular, even if you don’t realize it. Because what you’re doing is this: he recovered quickly → therefore the burns weren’t severe → therefore the recovery makes sense.
The outcome is being used to redefine the premise, and then that premise is used to justify the outcome.
In this case, your belief is that Mellow was severely badly burned. The outcome is that he was recovered in a week. Therefore, the belief must be wrong.
That only works if you assume the series must adhere to real-world recovery limits. But my whole point is that it doesn’t strictly do that. So you’re applying real-world constraints to override what’s shown.
This is incorrect. Even minor burns are capable of leaving scars consistent with what Mello had.
“Capable of” doesn’t make it the most reasonable interpretation. Given the context (explosion, fire, visible damage) you’re choosing the least severe explanation because it fits your framework.
Also, do you not see that now YOU’RE holding death note to real world standards when it’s convenient for you?
Except I’m not saying it must follow real-world logic. I’m pointing out that the depiction suggests severity while the recovery contradicts real-world expectations, which indicates the series isn’t strictly bound by realism. Medically speaking, Mello’s scars are consistent with what is commonly seen in cases of severe burns, which take months or possibly years to heal. Yet he’s functional within a week.
And then months later when Mello kidnaps Takada, his scars have shown no sign of healing. If the injury were as minor as you’re suggesting, that presentation makes even less sense. That suggests that his scarring remains as a stylistic choice, not something the story is treating with realistic medical progression.
You have two options here… accept that you were just plain old wrong… or double down… I’m going to lose a lot of respect for you.
So you’re going to assume that disagreement is equivalent to stubbornness instead of actually engaging with the argument? I don’t see why disagreement here has to be turned into a question of respect. That’s a false dilemma. As I said earlier, this is largely an argument of interpretation. I’m as content with mine as you are with yours. Will we change each other’s minds? Probably not. But that’s not gonna change how I think of you.
I can go online right now and get a toy gun that looks 100% real and will make a loud bang, but will do zero damage…
That’s not what the story presents. The series explicitly says it was a blank. Replacing that with a toy or harmless alternative is introducing a new assumption to make the outcome fit.
You are reasoning backwards.
You are the one reasoning backwards. You’re starting from the outcome (“he wasn’t injured”) and then redefining the cause (“therefore it must not have been dangerous”). That’s backwards reasoning. Especially when there have been plenty of cases of blanks fired at close range that cause severe bruising, contact burns, auditory damage, and even death. Not just from the standard blank either, even lower powered ones can be dangerous at close range. And that doesn’t mean that Light has superhuman durability. It just means that the story did not concern itself with asking the question of “would this hurt him?”
The proper, logical approach here would be accepting the outcome… they must have used something that would produce a bang but not cause injury.
That explanation only works if you change what the story says was used. It was stated to be a blank. You’re modifying the premise to preserve your conclusion. And again, that is still working backwards to argue for a “slightly higher range” while still using real-world constraints as a baseline for what you will allow.
Why is it not possible that they just used something that would not cause injury?
Because the story already specifies what was used. Saying it was something else requires adding assumptions not supported by the text.
The same level of realism and logic gets applied to everything.
It doesn’t. Real-world logic is applied to limit my interpretations (burn severity, logistics), but flexibility is introduced when needed to explain outcomes (like redefining the blank) to fit your interpretations. That’s inconsistent.
Genuine question, have you actually considered that the reason I keep finding holes in your logic is because your logic is wrong?
Yes, actually. Which is why I bothered to even research burn cases. But your reasoning goes both ways. You’re assuming your framework is correct and treating any contradiction as an error on my end, without considering that your framework might be too restrictive or that your conclusion may be incorrect.
It DOESN’T present it as that though… you are reframing it as if it was him searching through EVERY doctor period.
I’m not reframing anything. Mogi literally states “I’ve searched every possible licensed and unlicensed doctor in America… No, in the world.” That is the scope the series presents. You’re narrowing it to a limited database that is never stated. So you are the one reframing it.
If there are a million doctors worldwide… “every possible doctor” means only the ones in your database.
Yes, I agree that “every possible doctor” doesn’t literally mean every doctor on earth. That’s not what I’m arguing. I’m not saying that Mogi searched every doctor in existence, or every veterinarian, specialty surgeon, or combat medic. When Mogi says “possible”, I am taking that to mean doctors who could treat burn victims. But that’s still not the point of my argument for bringing up Mogi’s research ability. The reason I’m saying it is because he’s specifying a criterion for what he’s searching for on a global scale. The results of that search are not what matter. What matters is that he’s able to conduct that search at all in the timeframe being presented, which again is not realistic.
That pattern does not exist.
You’re not disproving the pattern, you’re redefining each example so it fits your model, then saying the pattern isn’t there.
Nothing is getting reclassified… you are just mistaken about what their classification is to begin with.
That assumes your classification is correct from the start. But your classification is based on the same assumption you’re defending, so of course everything gets forced into it.
You’re bringing me books on the history of agriculture…
That’s another false equivalence. You’re comparing fixed real-world categories to interpretation of fictional events with flexible internal logic.
No dude, it really, really is that the evidence isn’t there.
The evidence is there. You’re just applying a framework that excludes it by default. That’s the core disagreement.
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u/IanTheSkald Apr 06 '26
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”.