2HeartsBeatAs1 wrote:
Oh and Gintoki, just plain stupid.

And thats my opinion!

AsahinaInu wrote:

I didn't mean anything about his archetype or personality being bad. I think he is horribly written is what I'm referring to. I honestly blame the author more than I blame the character. I don't have a problem with Light being evil heartless bastard at all, I have a problem because the author tries to portray him as being very intelligent but only successfully portrays him as being marginally smarter than your average idiot that fate needs to provide him at exactly the right time to make something stupid work.


I think its fine that Light himself thinks he is a genius because he's a narcissistic egomaniac, and the fact that hes in an EXTREMELY advantageous position I can see him getting full of himself over his own superiority because he doesn't realize that his successes are mostly due to being in that situation and stupidly lucky. What I have a problem with is every time he gets backed into a corner by characters whom the author does a better job of portraying as intelligent, deus ex machina, roulette gambits, or ridiculous luck swoops in to save the day and the author has the gall to portray it as Lights intelligence as what lets him escape.

I sometimes get the feeling that Misa(with a Deathnote) was put in the story just to have a complete idiot to put next to Light in order to obfuscate the fact that the Deathnote and all the advantages that it brings combined with inhuman luck were about 120% of the most important factors in Lights success and not his intelligence.

Basically Light is my most hated character, not because he is a character I love to hate because he is so compelling a villain, rather because not am I only just disappointed in his quality as a character but also that the author has such a hard on for him that I can feel villainous author wish fulfillment oozing out of the author's mind rather than focusing on telling a good story.

I understand others may like Light and I don't have anything against those who do, but I rate him as my all time least favorite anime character hands down, at least if we are talking about characters I consider poor characters.

I suppose I should point out that there are characters that I love to hate as well which are a completely different story Characters I hate because I would feel like shanking them to death if they were real because the author did a good job of making you hate them for who they are. Characters like the aforementioned Makoto from schooldays for instance. I hate that mofo but I appreciate the way he was written. Maybe that's what this thread is about though and if so I would retract Light from this kind of poll, as I don't have that same type of hate for him, as I hold disdain for the characters existence rather than a passionate hate of a character that is derived from good storytelling.

papagolfwhiskey wrote:
I've never bothered watching deathnote (cue the torches and pitchforks) but your description of him and opinion of him largely parallels my opinion of Lelouch of the rebellion (Code Geas) His saving grace is that sometimes he really has out-thought his opponent but usually it was an BS case of "I had pre-placed someone with a geas against exactly this possibility" Riiiiight. and often as not it was pure 'luck' His saving grace is that he wasn't trying to be a villainous jerk but was actually more of an attempt at a Byronic hero, a tragic figure. I still don't understand all the love people have for him or the hate they express for Suzaku (Cue more Torchs and pitchforks)

DragonHaiku wrote:

No one mentioned Shinji? Shinji from Neon Genesis Evangelion. What a whiney little bitch.

AsahinaInu wrote:

Yeah I've only watched the first couple of episodes of Code Geas, so I can't really judge the quality of Lelouch as a character. To be frank I've avoided watching it just because of all of the comparisons to Light/Deathnote that I've seen. I probably wouldn't hate Lelouch nearly as much as Light though as I hear Lelouch does have a sort of moral dichotomy that I might be able to focus on as a defining purpose while turning a blind eye to the "genius" part. Any sense of moral ambiguity with Light, on the other hand, disappears faster than you can blink and the only thing left for him as a character would be his supposed intelligence which just doesn't hold up.

papagolfwhiskey wrote:
However, he has, or had, way too many fans who absolutely hated his 'best friend' for being a sometimes antagonist. Anything Lelouch did was forgivable because of his great goal. His friend however was never given a break by the same fans. it got... irritating.

AsahinaInu wrote:

The overzealous fan problem can occur with any character though, good or bad. The best characters can draw obnoxious fans just as easily as the worst. I try not to hold that against the character.

papagolfwhiskey wrote: As I said in my first post I think my issues with Lelouch parallel the ones you have with light. In a nutshell: He's not smart. He's SCRIPTED.

magicuser360 wrote:


- 95% of Shoujo male leads. They are almost always abusive, controlling, domineering, cold on the outside, have a stupid sob story that 'softens' their actions towards the lead girl, are egotistical, mean...etc.etc.

magicuser360 wrote:



Marry me please.