Can we get choices that really matter and have a effect?

[KalinOrthos]

Okay, I said I was bowing out, but I can't get over this.

OP, you keep referring to Light Yagami as some sort of good guy. To which I must say, "Have you even seen or read Death Note?" Light is unquestionably a villain. By the end of the series he holds the world in his palm through fear under his guise of Kira. He acts as judge, jury, and executioner for any he deems unfit for his new world, even murdering cops whose only crime is trying to find him. Even before he received the Death Note, he was a pretentious narcissist who thought he knew best. He is, without a doubt, the villain of the story.

He is also the protagonist. He's the central character of the events of the series, and we experience most of the events through him. Ohba did an excellent job in making Light both compelling and charismatic, the sort of character you love to hate.

Here's the thing: Protagonist =/= good guy. Death Note is only one example of the villain being the protagonist. Spoiler, but Braid is another example, and even Lupin the Third falls into that subgenre. It's a heavily subversive form of storytelling that could easily mess up, yet Death Note toes that line masterfully, so much so that it's actually deluded you into thinking that Light is the good guy.

Just because we can understand someone's motivations doesn't mean they get a free pass to commit atrocities. Many of us, MOST of us know or at least sympathize with the feeling Emet Selch feels about the loss of his own world; no sane person would say that gives him carte blanche to exterminate entire civilizations, entire worlds, to get it back.

And with that, for real this time, I'm out. Get help, or grow up.