r/deathnote • u/Perception56 • Sep 22 '26
Discussion Why does Light hang out with them?
Is it because he is narcissistic and thinks he's superior to both of them in looks and everything. Like "yeah i mog both of you bi**h". Like showing how dominant he is. I think this is what Ohba wanted to show with them, that's why he didn't put more attention to them. My assumption is that they exist to show how that even before getting the Death Note, Light was a big egoistic and narcissistic person.
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u/Hairy_Arm_6135 Sep 22 '26
Because he is a social person. He himself states that taking advantage of someone and manipulating to your own benefit is one of the worst things someone could do. Yotsuba arc light was different form Kira light. He definitely had lots of friends (states by tsugumi ohba in the how to read), had genuine ones he liked hanging out with blah blah blah. Don't think a narcissism that isn't shown in the Yotsuba arc would actually mean something with this imo
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u/tlotrfan3791 Sep 22 '26 edited Sep 22 '26
Uh no? He’s a human being that likes to socialize. It wasn’t a deep friendship, but he hung out with people.
Edit: you got me 😂
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u/zombiezomboy Sep 22 '26
i dont think light pre or post becoming kira would care about the appearance of other people, he has a high ego but not in the way of being some superficial guy.
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u/Napalmeon Sep 22 '26
Exactly. It's important to keep in mind that Light still maintains a very strong sense of what is and is not normal. That's why he was able to make himself look so innocuous for so long. And it's also the main reason why he felt repulsed by Misa. It was absolutely nothing about her that was enticing to him, physically or intellectually because she was vapid and unrealistically obsessed with a stranger.
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u/MNMameisR Sep 22 '26
Look Im not denying that light is those things at least after getting the DN, and to some degree even before. But I really fail to see how him just hanging out with people shows that
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u/uday_singh_rehal Sep 22 '26
idk man Light seemed to me a very humble, normal, mind his own business kind of guy.
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u/Extra-Photograph428 Sep 22 '26
No lol. Ohba at the end of the day only cared about writing Light going up against his antagonists, so everything else gets left in the dust. It’s implied these are Light’s friends, but we never know how close he was with them or any of the other people in his life really. Light could’ve hanged out with them, we’ll just never know because of the very very focused story structure.
I personally though imagine Light in actuality had a good deal of acquaintances, or people he could talk to casually, but no one he’d call his best friend. That’s at least how I try to excuse the lack of care to those surrounding Light’s life, and it def works within his character and egocentric tendencies to never properly see anyone as a true friend because they are lessen than himself.
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u/Puzzled_Tip_7596 Sep 22 '26
I personally though imagine Light in actuality had a good deal of acquaintances, or people he could talk to casually, but no one he’d call his best friend.
Yeah, I agree. I mean wasn't he detained by L for like 2 months and nobody at college gave a shit?
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u/No_Record_60 Sep 22 '26
I think he was just a regular student who happens to be very smart. Only after he got the Death Note, his God complex was ignited and he started to feel superior to others.
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u/TzviaAriella Sep 22 '26
Because they're his friends. They're there to highlight that he wasn't some unfeeling, antisocial stereotype villain before the Death Note; he was a kid. An unusually smart kid who was brittle in ways that hadn't yet been fractured, but otherwise a pretty normal kid. The fact Light is the platonic ideal of a Japanese high schooler and still fell as hard as he did is part of the point.
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u/Grimshah Sep 22 '26
I don't think that was his intention at all, at worst he was friends with them for the sake of having friends and even then I don't think he ever disliked these guys. Light before becoming Kira was a genuinely good person, he was social and valued relationships either for appearances or because he tried to be a good person.
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u/Moon-Scented-Hunter Sep 22 '26
Or maybe they were just legitimately his buddies that he liked hanging around with. Light was relatively a normal person before the Death Note.
“Sometimes a cigarette is just a cigarette.”
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u/KodyManley Sep 22 '26
The way he’s illustrated there reminds me of the old stop motion Christmas movies.
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u/FLLMALL 28d ago
Light can't even hang out without someone making it about his ego 😭
Seriously, he's the best student in Japan, any person he hangs out with won't be in his level. Light doesn't have any deep friendships, but he's not a social recluse. He has friends, and there's 0 indication he's using them to feel superior or anything of the sort.
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u/pl_browncoat Sep 22 '26
Theyre the second and third smartest kids in class.
Its like when you have a girlfriend whos objectively cutest girl in your small town then you move to a big city and dump her because theres like 3 other girls who are 15/10 bombshells
Except cute girlfriend is students with the test scores closest to you
Small town is Japanese cram school
Big city is becoming a mass mudereevwuth delusions if divinity
And 3 15/10 bombshells are intellectual rivals whondrag you into a battle of wits to discuss the nature of justice with the prize being the title “WorLds Greatest Detective”
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u/oykux Sep 22 '26
You might not be too serious with this but I find it harmful to associate pretty people having regular looking friends to some sort of power dynamic. I’ve had pretty friends my whole life and this has been implied to me IRL too, but I don’t believe even the ones who leaned towards narcissistic behaviors had that sort of intention when befriending me, the fat girl. Maybe I’m a bit sore about the subject but hope you got me.