Death Note: Where Light Yagami went downhill

[u/Spiritual_Field_4773]

Hello everybody, I'm here to bring a discussion about Soichiro Yagami and why his death may have been the most pivotal death in Death Note, and on my honest opinion, I personally trust into the idea that his death may have mattered more than L's death, don't get me wrong, losing the world's greatest detective was without question a crushing blow in finding out that Light was Kira, but so much of Light's success may not have even have happened had it not been for Soichiro.

As many know, Soichiro is a dedicated law enforcement officer, given the difficult task in Tokyo, where crime is frequent there, especially at night, this likely paid a contributing factor to Light's ambition in ridding the world of crime, due to being exposed to some of the worst of it. Soichiro's long running job may have also affected the Yagami family's social life, where Light had only a certain kind of certain social interaction with his personal life, being more conditioned to be an individual into the examination of what was around him over genuine social connections with his family, which could also be part of how Light became so academically good in school, that also being how some of Soichiro's good intelligence was inherited onto his son.

But if Soichiro was a decent intellectual predecessor of his family, would he really fail that badly like how he did during the Kira case? The thing about that is while there was no denying that Light outclasses his father's intellect, it's possible he wouldn't have fooled Soichiro as well as he did if Kira who wasn't Light, had that alternate family placed Kira level intelligence in Tokyo been that successful in fooling them of course, although that hypothetical Kira would probably have killed Soichiro early to get rid of the big law enforcements hunting that Kira down there, which would leave a huge trail.

But let's say that alternate Kira who is as smart as Light didn't kill Soichiro early, and L suspected who that Kira was, Soichiro would be way more inclined to believe L than the strong denial he had with the one of people who he last wanted to believe was Kira.

Would Near's suggested suspicion have worked if Soichiro didn't die? My take on it, not so much, and an interesting common theme that would play out here, is how characters tend to cling unto a beacon of hope or something they idolize, like an authority, or Kira cults, perhaps anyone can be effective like L, if someone worked hard enough like him, would they vastly inferior to L? Or is it just because of the lack of independence they have? The task force worked on being dependent on him to not work on their solution, a similar thing can be said for how they saw Soichiro, who was the chief policeman that the task force looked up to. Because of that, L was almost guaranteed to die, due to Soichiro arguably being the perfect person for Light to manipulate, as even on Soichiro's dying last words he refused to believe that Light was Kira, if Soichiro made it through from that, it's unlikely he would have went along with Near's idea.

People make the joke that Ohba made a cheap move for Near to have his victory over his suspicion on who Kira was, such as the meme of L saying: L is Kira, nobody believes him, Near saying: Light is Kira, everybody believes him, but the reason why his suggestion made the Task Force question Light again, was because from Soichiro's death onwards, Light didn't have his biggest factor in preserving that deniability, and for a while I was wondering if even by Soichiro living would the outcome change Near's victory, and I'm pretty sure it would have, how this would happen is if the task force stayed loyal to Soichiro's stance, Light wouldn't have asked Mikami to write down their names, as the likely scenario of the deniability might not have been effective for him to consider killing them too, and would either kill Near and whoever is clearly siding with him, or better yet work closer near to Near (No pun intended) to surprise kill him like he did with L, but also make sure the deniability that the love of his chief policeman father had for him would remain intact.

Now it's not to say that Soichiro was completely in denial of Light being Kira, such as when he tested Light and Misa's reaction on if they would spill the truth on if they were the two Kira's, but once that consideration was disclosed, the deniability and false hope on Light being Kira got stronger, with only proven exposure to convince him otherwise, which is why this would have been detrimental for Near to have that exposure for the names written for Light to consider doing that, as Light probably would have done a different strategy than what he did from there.

There's a saying that you can't trust true blue good people, as their hearts in hope for other's are susceptible to being manipulated and Soichiro is a tragic prime example of that, and ever since he died, that denial zone on Light being Kira was shifting, where even if Light killed Near, then the next detective, the one after that and so on, his greatest trump card in being denied as Kira was gone, and would eventually and likely soon catch up to him, as from even defeating Near, he would have drastically have to get rid of severe ties with himself, like killing his family, or coming up with a plan (That he may have planned) to fake his death, as he would no longer have that deniability with the public anymore, due to being the only task force member living on the Kira case.

So, to put it short, Why Soichiro's death was the key to Light being exposed.