L Lawliet

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## Magnificent Baddie

* Anime
* Film series

### Alias

L
Ryuzaki
Hideki Ryuga

### Allies

Watari
Wammy House
Mello
Near
Naomi Misora
Soichiro Yagami
Touta Matsuda
Shuichi Aizawa
Kanzo Mogi
Light Yagami (temporarily)
Misa Amane (temporarily)

### Powers/Skills

Genius-Level Intelligence
Advanced detective skills
Incredible analysis skills
Capoeira fighting style skills
Street fighting skills
High metabolism
Helicopter piloting

### Goals

Stop World War III (succeeded).
Catch BB (succeeded).
Catch Kira (succeeded via Near).

### Crimes

Stalking
Theft
Torture
Manslaughter (indirectly)

### Type of MB

Anti-Heroic Detective

**L. Lawliet** is the main antagonist of the anime/manga series *Death Note* as well as its multiple adaptations.

L. Lawliet is a young detective whose past is ambiguous. He worked with the Japanese police at the time that the Death Note was being discovered and used by Light Yagami (Kira). He attempted to stop Kira at all costs from committing more murders, so he used his tricks constantly to find ways to get him caught and arrested for his crimes. He ends up speculating that Kira is actually Light Yagami to where he attempts to enter Light Yagami's life for a closer look on his prime suspect.

## What makes him Magnificent?

### All versions

#### Past

* He has a tragic backstory as he lost both of his parents at an early age, forcing him to live in an orphanage.
* He learned how to fly a helicopter proficiently at a very young age.
* He stopped World War III at the age of Nine.
* He worked with multiple police agencies from all around the world to catch and imprison many notorious criminals before Kira.
	+ Most notably, he worked with Naomi Misora to stop and capture his evil clone, Beyond Birthday.
* He learned and mastered the Brazilian Martial Art of Capoeira at a young age, which served as useful for him in physical confrontations when needed.

#### Present

* He correctly deduced that Kira was in the Kanto Region of Japan just by tricking Kira into thinking that he killed the real L when it was a fake news channel that only streamed in the Kanto Region of Japan.
* He correctly deduced that Kira was a teenager and a child of one of the police chiefs because of how he accessed information about criminals that nobody outside of the police knew about.
* L was able to deduce that Raye Penber (and the other FBI agents) were killed by Kira. He also knew that Penber was with Kira at the time of his death.
* L is always certain that Light Yagami is in fact Kira.
* When he first meets Light Yagami, he reveals himself as L because if Light decided to kill L. Lawliet, it would confirm that Light is Kira, which is one of many moments of L outsmarting Kira.
* He was able to deduce the existence of Misa Amane as another Kira.
* To take the previous few points further, he imprisons Light and Misa to confirm whether they are Kira or not.
* He handcuffs Light to him and keeps a strict watch on Misa to ensure that they are not Kira.
* He tests Light to whether he was Kira or not by asking Light if he would overtake L or not incase he died.
* He tells Soichiro Yagami to not rush at Yotsuba and arrest all it's members. This is to ensure that the new Kira/Kyosuke Higuchi does not escape their grasp.
* He managed to learn about the existence of the Death Note after arresting Higuchi.
* He deduced that the Death Note possibly had fake rules (The 13 Day Rule) to fool anyone who finds it.
* His secrecy allowed him to evade Kira until Kira manipulated Rem into killing him.
* Overall, L. Lawliet was always calm under pressure, even when he died by Kira's hands.

#### Legacy

* His work and his influence helped Near and Mellow to finally catch Kira to confirm that Light Yagami is in fact Kira to make him face the music.

### Exclusive to the Film Adaptation

* Having deduced that the Thirteenth Rule was a fake to erase the trail to the original Kira, L writes his own name in the notebook and schedule his death to die peacefully 23 days later to test the Notebook's effects and immunize himself from Kira's attacks.
* Fakes his own death so that he can bait Light into exposing himself out of Kira in a fit of pride. Due to this, L is able to see his intellectual rival die pleading for his life.
* Upon learning his partner K is the leader of an ecoterrorist organization out to decimate humanity, L refuses to let himself die before they can be stopped.
* He sees through K's facade and prepares an escape plan using a crepe truck, using his FBI guardian as a decoy to throw Blue Ship off.
* Has an antidote created and enwraps K on a Xanatos Gambit that will see no matter the outcome the virus being destroyed and humanity being saved.
* Has set up various orphans such as Near and his later successor up to succeed in life.

## What makes him a baddie?

* He may be doing what he does for justice, but his goal is also to win, which makes him an anti-hero, deciding to solve only the cases that pique his curiosity.
* He is not above using highly questionable (and sometimes unethical) methods to catch criminals:
	+ Examples of this being when he used a fake L (Lind L. Taylor) to bait Light Yagami into revealing his location to the true L, even if it meant that he got killed by Kira as a gambit, even after Soichiro scolds him for his unethical choice that led to Lind L. Taylor's death (although he was a death-row prisoner and was scheduled to death the same day, and that he used it to later warn the world to not share names).
	+ He imprisoned Light Yagami and Misa Amane for weeks for information, with the two of them not having any memories of their crimes (which L didn't know). In Misa's case, he had her blindfolded and all her moviments restrained, putting her in a very uncomfortable position to the point that she asked to be killed, although he would save her life from suicide.

## External links

* L Lawliet at the Heroes wiki
* L Lawliet at the Guile Heroes wiki
* L Lawliet at the Inconsistently Admirable wiki
* L Lawliet at the *Death Note* wiki