42590


This is a question that comes to my mind every time I watch _Death Note_ or
talks to someone else about _Death Note_ and it is bothering me.

In the beginning, Light went out of his way to kill that one FBI agent on the
bus and therefore caused L to suspect him and started the whole sequence of
events of eventually discovering the existence of the death note. If Light
hadn't killed that FBI agent and just kept writing names down in the notebook
in his room, _nothing_ would have happened.

Was the killing of the FBI agent something that the creator put in just to
progress the story or is there an actual legit reason why Light had to do
this?

Please, guys, don't give a theoretical answer like "It was because of Light's
personality" or "Light wanted to tell the world to not follow L" or something
like that, if it is because of this then the creator just did it to advance
the plot.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-01T19:18:22.043
42573
2017-10-02T18:10:00.277
2017-10-01T20:31:57.140
2516
35338
question
death-note
Are there any reasons why Light killed the FBI agent?


To deter any other FBI agents from pursuing him in the future.

Besides, Light had always intended to lure L to him at his own pace, so he
could worm his way into the Japanese task force, see L for himself, and
somehow find out enough information about him (he says that he was somehow
going to make L/Ryuga "trust him") that he could learn his name and kill him.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-02T03:15:40.323
42579
2017-10-02T03:15:40.323
35912
42573
answer


It was a move to try and destroy the entire investigation against him as well
as prevent crucial facts from being reported.

At this point, L had used some tactics to determine a few things about Kira.
Among them that Kira lived in a certain region of Japan and that he had access
to police information. Given that, the list of suspects was short. And given
how L deduced that Kira was probably a student, given the timings of killings,
etc. that list was only going to get shorter. Light needed to eliminate L and
the investigation as soon as possible so he could kill freely.

Light, through Ryuk, found out that someone was following him and
investigating him. But he was unaware who it was. He then concocted the bus
scheme to force his follower to reveal his identity, learning that he was an
FBI agent.

Now knowing that the FBI agents were in Japan, Light followed a similar path
in logic to what L took, that they must be investigating those close to the
Japanese police. He also correctly assumed that the police did not know about
the FBI's investigation. He then determined that if the Japanese police became
aware of the FBI and thus L's investigation into them, it would cause distrust
between L and the police. This would then hopefully remove any local help L
would get. In addition, it could also scare off anyone else from the
international community from interfering with Kira. At any rate, reducing the
number of people Light had to contend with increased his chances of coming out
of all this alive.

Also, Light knew he would be under greater suspicion after the FBI agent
revealed himself. Those FBI agents were never supposed to reveal themselves as
FBI agents at all. It would be somewhat suspicious, especially to L, that one
was forced to do so. As such, if L were to find out that the FBI agent had to
reveal himself to Light who was already a suspect, it would further increase
the suspicion of Light as Kira. Light knew this and thus needed to kill the
FBI agent prior to that information being reported.

So by killing the FBI agent Light accomplished a few things. One he put the
police at odds with L. Second he reduced the number of people investigating.
And third he was able to prevent critical information from getting reported.


CC BY-SA 3.0
2017-10-02T18:10:00.277
42590
2017-10-02T18:10:00.277
1778
42573
answer