Does Light take pleasure in killing? The short answer is yes; the long answer is that he takes pleasure in feeling powerful and clever. I don't think he necessarily takes sadistic pleasure in every name he writes, but he definitely experiences very strong satisfaction when he kills someone who's posed a tricky challenge for him.

Light's undoubtedly more murderous than your average teenager, but I think a large part of the reason he embarked on his 'kill hundreds of criminals' plan is the fact that, to start with, he killed two people to test out the Death Note. When he realised it was real, he had to try to cope with what he'd done, and the way he handled that was by convincing himself that he was doing the right thing. They deserved to die; he was cleaning up the world.

Death Note doesn't focus much on Light coming to terms with using the Death Note itself, because it's more interested in how he tries to avoid being caught, but I do really love the moment it hits him that he's killed people, he freaks out, and then he starts desperately trying to rationalise it.

Here are the relevant pages from the manga. After killing his second victim, Light stumbles away from the scene; he's having trouble staying upright; it's really starting to hit him that he's killed two people. He considers getting rid of the Death Note, but then he starts convincing himself that he needs to use it to change the world.

We catch a glimpse of Light lying awake that night, haunted. When Ryuk arrives, Light mentions offhandedly, 'I admit, it's been giving me bad dreams and I've hardly slept the last five days. I've lost ten pounds.'

Light's doubts are quickly skimmed over, but I think these few pages are really interesting for Light's character. He struggles with having murdered people, but he ends up convincing himself that it was the right thing to do - and therefore that he should carry on - because that's the only way he can deal with his own actions. In Light's mind, it has to be okay to kill these people, because otherwise Light is just a murderer. He can't let himself believe anything else, because that means he won't be able to live with himself.

I love the anime adaptation, but it's a shame that it doesn't really show us Light's early struggles with using the Death Note! It's such a good moment in the manga, and so important for understanding what drives Light.

When he first meets Ryuk, Light claims that 'that notebook has a power that makes anybody want to try using it, at least once'. I don't think this is true; I think Light is making excuses.

I don't think Light is consciously lying here. I think he just doesn't want to believe he's the sort of person who's granted the power to kill and immediately starts killing, so he's convinced himself that his initial decision to use the Death Note wasn't entirely under his own agency.

What drew Light to try out the Death Note was normal human curiosity. It's a powerful force; many people who came into possession of the Death Note might try it out, perhaps even most. But, as supernatural as his murder method might be, there was nothing supernatural about his decision to use it.

The Death Note also doesn't have any supernatural power to corrupt; if it did, Death Note would be a much less interesting story. Gaining the ability to kill just emphasised a side of Light that always had the potential to exist.

The Light we see is proud, overconfident, curious, smart and persuasive, and he has firm opinions on right and wrong. They're not inherently evil traits, but they're traits that combine in dangerous ways once he has the Death Note in his hands:

• Light's curiosity leads him to test out the Death Note, killing two people.
• Once Light has confirmed the Death Note works, he has to face the fact that he caused those deaths.
• Because Light has passionate and black-and-white views about right and wrong, he can't handle the idea that he's killed people and is therefore now what he'd consider a bad person.
• Because Light is smart, articulate and persuasive, he's able to persuade himself that it's okay; the people he killed were bad, so he was doing the right thing.
• Because Light is proud, he decides to carry on. He assumes he's more qualified than anyone else to 'clean up the world', and maybe he'll get the recognition he's always deserved out of it. And, because he's smart and overconfident, he thinks he can get away with it.

I don't think everyone who got their hands on a Death Note would immediately become a mass murderer. I think Light was just a particularly dangerous person to find it, not because he's inherently an evil person, but because having that power brought out a dark potential in him.

I'm sure Light would have gone through life without killing anyone if he'd never found the Death Note. But he found it, and here we are.

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