RealTalkAJ

I’ll be answering why Light has two personalities.

The main character of Death Note that stars in one of the most famous cat/mouse animes in storytelling existence.

One moment he’s an innocent high schooler with a seemingly bright future and the next he’s an international death God essentially.

Why does light have two personalities

Because of the Death Note. He was a good kid but eventually became the evil he wanted to eliminate. At it’s core he had a personality disorder. I believe that these errors led to a lot of sad moments for his life in the series. After he earned the title of Kira his fate was sealed. It led to him meeting and ultimately destroying the lives of other characters we (the audience) grew to love, Misa and L.

why did light turn evil

Light wanted to become a God that killed every criminal he saw as evil with the use of the Death Note.

It may be due to the effects of actually using the notebook though.

At common ground we can agree that he was at least insane, and all the Death Note did was grant him power that allowed the world to judge he himself as evil.

With this increase in power and reputation for being the smartest kid in his region he thought he could never be outsmarted (a big ego flaw).

It led to some very sad moments in his life if you look closely.

Light got to the point where he saw other people as disposable things that he could get rid of easily.

We see it with Misa and L.

His view of morality got really skewed as a result of being able to get away with killing so many people.

It’s a tough call to make seeing as how the anime’s set up in a way to where you could also empathize with Light and his portrayal as the bad guy in the show.

light’s personality disorder

What Light has (personality wise) could best be summed up as malignant narcissism. I

t’s a form of psychopathy in which you mix the results of 2 different personality disorders.

There’s fans that think it may be antisocial personality and narcissistic personality disorder.

I personally don’t think he was antisocial because he was involved in so many programs at his school and clearly had girls who thought highly of him as well (which we all know takes some form of being social).

Maybe that’s a reach but there’s some truth to it.

It took more than one persona that he had to put on in order to deceive so many people on the way to the top.

The reason I like how everything is left to interpretation is because you watch his character develop as his power grew.

He had to make decisions that he ended up knowing was wrong compared to what his sense of justice was.

The power consumed him to the point where he liked the idea of becoming a God so much that he didn’t care who he ended up killing.

Imagine how crazy you could end up turning out to be with having a cult-like following all for killing people.

Even when he’s defeated by Near (L’s successor) he drops in defeat and it’s not because of what Near or anybody else in the task force did in the moment.

He was devastated at the fact that it all came to an end, and I think he never saw himself losing, ever.

Ultimately you can say he cares pretty deeply about what others thought of him, especially what they end up saying to his face.

Kira was his mask to make a completely different name for himself aside to the clean one that he made for himself as a student.

Whether you call him a psychopath or sociopath, one thing’s for sure, his detachment from reality.

His want to eliminate any threat became a challenge and it was grown to new levels when L was introduced, someone as smart and successful as him.

Final Thoughts

That Death Note played a big role in the change of personality with Light.

Some may say it turned him evil.

There’s also the people who believe that he had a legitimate mental disorder which made his power worse.

Personally I think it was a good kid that just went mad with power and it backfired in the end.

Personality disorders can develop through trauma and other situations, all of which Light went through:

• Discovering you can choose life or death for someone
• Earn clout off an anonymous name for something you could get in trouble for

All in all, his pride and ego led to his downfall.

That’s just how I feel.