From a writers perspective, the ending to death note was poorly handled.

RE: "1. Instead, Light attempted to write down only Near's name (Nate River) and coerce the others into letting him free through manipulation. This accredits Light with being in character as throughout the series he is confident in his manipulation skills" Typing error. However, my point is that the idea of him doing anything which was so openly obvious is out of character. Not to mention that he himself had pointed out that no one in the room was willing to listen to reason: http://www.onemanga.com... So then why would he think that they would be willing to listen to any word he said after seeing him kill Near with a spare death note page? He is in no position to be making threats as upon seeing Near die, the rest would quickly confiscate Light's watch and take him into custody. Thus at that point, he'd have no power. RE: "Having been caught with undeniable evidence, Light realized that there was no more time for planning and acted accordingly. " You mean he thought there was no time for EXTENSIVE planning. He could have still concocted quick strategies. In fact, that was what he did as he didn't just give up and accept defeat. So rather than come up with the foolish extremely low success rate strategy which he had used in the series, why not come up with a strategy that would involve him subtly writing down names on the Death note. After all, no one but him knew he had a spare page? Clearly, Light did not understand the gravity of the situation or else he would have pursued a course of action that had little chance of actually working. Which leads me to CON's rebuttal to the third section of my argument . . . "RE: The fake death note at this point was already proven to not be "the real deal," Not necessarily proof given that the names having no effect could have been caused by the effect of their names having previously been written in a notebook. "RE: In addition, the only way to determine if the fake death note was real would be to write someone's name in it and see if they died. Near would never have allowed such a thing." My opponent is missing the point. The fact that Near knew that it was a fake death note is exactly what Light would be counting on as Near would have nothing to worry about defeats the purpose of my opponent claiming that Near would not allow anyone to "test the notebook." In addition, when taking the following page (not the bottom left panel) into account: http://www.onemanga.com... We know that Near wanted a flawless victory; he wanted 100% proof. So clearly, Near would've allowed Light to "test out" the fake notebook, knowing full well that this would further establish 100% that Light was Kira. In addition, allowing him to "test out" the book would further show that he (Near) was NOT Kira and that this whole ordeal was simply set up by him (as Light had desperately insinuated earlier). Finally, given how Near had simply allowed Light to escape the facility in the end (keep in mind, it was agreed that using the anime as evidence was allowed), under the idea that "he was no threat", it's safe to say that he would have allowed Light this opportunity under the idea that "he was no threat" (and it's clear that Near was by no means aware that Light had a spare death note page, given his complete shock and lack of preparation for such a possibility). Thus, this should suffice in answering my opponent on her objection that Light would not be allowed the request in the first place. In addition, the fact that Light wasn't just immediately apprehended even upon admitting to being Kira further serves as evidence of this. "RE:Light knew that Mikami . . . his loyalty was first to obey Kira's commands, and second, to do as he felt was right to promote Kira's world." http://www.onemanga.com... Light knew that Mikami understood his thought process and that he understood how Light would act under most conditions. In addition, it is revealed by Mikami that he suspects that Kira HAS NO MEANS of "judging" anyone hence why he would give the position of judging to him: http://www.onemanga.com... Thus, given this information and given that Light was well aware that he had NOT informed Mikami that he still had a means of "carrying out judgment" even while having given him the Deathnote, it is beyond absurdity that Light would not have been able to figure out that Mikami would act accordingly to Light's way of carrying out justice and eliminate Takada as she would have been to the end to Kira immediately. While it's true that Mikami was one to follow Kira's commands before making his own judgments, the Takada situation was a grave exception as this was a situation which would've only ended in there being conclusive evidence against Light/Kira. Allow me to provide an analogy: Lets say a boy respects his parents a great deal and has always shown himself to follow their orders. In particular, the boy's parents tell him not to ever use a gun. Let us say that this same boy is one day accompanying his parents on a nature hike and his parents just happen to be caught off guard by a moutain lion. The mountain lion, looking as if it's about to kill the boy's parents begins to go in for the kill. However, the boy notices the gun his parents had brought with them, lying on the ground and within his reach. The boy knows that the only way out of this situation with his parent's still being alive is to use the gun against the mountain lion. Now, is there honestly anything strange about how the boy would wish to use the gun (even in spite of their past warnings) in order to save his parents whom he loves and respects so much? Of course not. What this Mikami situation comes down to is what Mikami values the most: Kira's orders and Kira's life? Given the obvious answer to that, it is simply a slap in the face to the fans for the author to think that Mikami would not have acted any differently. "Agreed. However, it is not in character for Light to develop back-up plans, which is the current contention. " Straw man fallacy. The current contention is that Light didn't create a plan that was prepared for the possibility that Near created an additional fake deathnote book. We must keep in mind that Light knew L would do this and that he also had sufficient information on Mikami to conclude that he would attempt to "save" Light. That said, if my opponent wishes to argument that Light never deviates from his plans or rather doesn't make changes to his plans, that's clearly false as plan Light had for victory against L/Near at the beginning was far different than the plan he had for victory at the end of his battles. "When enacting his huge plan to kill L, Light did not have a back-up plan." That is because there was no possible evidence to demonstrate that he'd need to make a change in his plan. The scenario with Rem is far different than the one with Mikami as there is no possible evidence that Rem would do such a thing. The same applies for Shidou as there is no way Light could have known about an extra Shinigami. That being said, Light had EVERY SINGLE MEANS of knowing that Mikami would deviate from the plan, however, the author got lazy and decided to just finish the story not caring how low quality it would be to make Light into a complete fool. EXTRA: Light announcing "I win Near" simply because he had no time to gloat previously (anime I believe), yet this is false. It's not that he didn't have any time to gloat but rather that he was surrounded by everyone else on the investigation team. In this case, they would have been dead. With that being established, why didn't he just wait to take note of the other individuals in the room having heart attacks? They would have still heard him while having heart attacks. Heck, L watched Light grin when he died, so it's not like the others having heart attacks would stop Light