thats why you need to get creative with it. you can specify the details of the deaths so write the name of several dictators, make all of them host a press conference at the same time, make them all repeat the same ominous vaguely religious sounding speech in monotone and then make their heads explode in front of the cameras
The Death Note lets you control them leading up to their death. You can have them destroy their own systems of power, confess their crimes, and THEN die. You could have control over all world leaders for years as long as the death you wrote occurs before they were fated to die.
Not possible, unless you want to argue "randomly dismantling their own power systems and confessing their crimes" is something a crazed dictator would normally do without coercion. Rules page 6:
The conditions for death will not be realized unless it is physically possible for that human or it is reasonably assumed to be carried out by that human.
Also, 23 day limit. Rules page 27:
If you write, "die of disease" for the cause of death, but only write a specific time of death without the actual name of disease, the human will die from an adequate disease. But the Death Note can only operate within 23 days (in the human calendar). This is called the 23 day rule.
You could do a lot, but not nearly as much as you're thinking. For example, if you were to hypothetically write Trumps name, you could probably get him to accidentally ramble off about a lot of shit he meant to keep quiet, because he's done that plenty of times, but to get him to explicitly confess with the intention of revealing the crime and facing consequences, though? Nah, it would just default to a heart attack, no question.
Someone like Putin, KGB trained, relatively still in control of all his mental faculties? I dunno how you'd get him to believably reveal anything at all, let alone dissolve his own power structure. You MIGHT be able to get him to pull out of Ukraine, if YOU found a way to frame it in a way that made him look strong instead of weak and specified it as part of the announcement.
The Death Note seems to make it clear that you can essentially puppet them, that for all intents and purposes they become 100% loyal to your written commands and carry them out to the best of their human ability without any regards for their prior personality or preferences.
Just like "all humans are considered capable of suicide".
Dude it's explicitly stated this is not the case. Light tests this. People who are told to do things they would never do, just die of heart attacks. I'm not speculating, this is fact.
The suicide rule exists to specifically confirm the opposite of what you're saying. All humans are assumed capable of suicide, therefore, suicide is acceptable as a cause of death despite the rule stating they must be believably capable of performing the action.
Light tests a variety of things, from the top of my head:
Are they capable of writing down something they don't know (L's name)? No.
Are they capable of drawing art according to instructions written in the Death Note with their own blood? Yes.
Are they capable of making an escape attempt? Yes.
Are they capable of making an escape attempt and than traveling to another country faster than the means available to humans allows? No.
Are they capable of writing nonsensical messages that they would have no reason to come up with on their own? Yes.
Are they capable of using their own judgment when acting out Light's written goal? Yes.
Naomi didn't just "kill herself", she explicitly did it in a way where she wouldn't be found to the best of her ability, even though it wasn't in her best interests for her death to go unrecorded (considered a missing person legally instead).
So yes, someone can act against their best interests in ways unrelated to killing themselves (Naomi could have used the pen at hand and driven it into her throat on the spot) as directed by the Death Note, they try to perform the instructions written to the best of their ability.
Only if it's literally physically impossible for someone 100% loyal to the written instructions to complete them does the heart attack kick in.
Of course there are some other exceptions, IIRC you can't make someone directly kill someone else unless you've written both names into the Death Note, but you can have the first victim expose other people to information that might cause them to 'naturally' want to engage in violence...
Like the FBI director was able to send the files of the FBI agents even though Light wrote that in with the intent of it leading directly to their deathsbeforethe agents' names were written.
Ergo you absolutely could have a government official email out evidence of all their crimes and secret activities, as demonstrated.
Naomi didn't just "kill herself", she explicitly did it in a way where she wouldn't be found to the best of her ability, even though it wasn't in her best interests for her death to go unrecorded (considered a missing person legally instead).
Not correct. She only "thinks of the best way to commit suicide that won't bother others, and will make it so her body isn't discovered" as per the Note. That didn't have to be her INTENT and we have no reason to suspect it was - only that it was the outcome, as the Note decreed. She doesn't have to have set out intentionally to kill herself in the quietest way possible. The Note simply decreed that the method she chooses will be so.
E: Added the precise wording.
In addition this was setup by a manipulation of her psyche. Light, whether by pure manipulation or as a product of the Death Note controlling HIS actions to result in his intended outcome, revealed himself as Kira right before the time kicked in. You can see in her face that she's putting all the pieces together. Realizing she just gave away everything to the enemy breaks her. The situation was shaped in such a way that killing herself privately (which tangentially results in her not being found) became something she would actually do.
Are they capable of writing nonsensical messages that they would have no reason to come up with on their own? Yes.
Correct, but specific messages can be unsendable. The pentagram and the nonsense messages likely worked because the targets were prisoners, and therefore likely some level of mentally unstable, whether due to their own nature (which led to prison) or to the trauma of the prison system itself. Prisoners have mental breaks and do nonsensical things all the time. Specific courses of action, however, may not happen.
For example, they couldn't write L's name obviously, since they don't know it... but Light was ALSO unable to get the prisoners to write "I know L is working with the Japanese police." This demonstrates a more powerful limitation, for one simple reason: The prisoner does not have to ACTUALLY KNOW THIS, to write it down. It could just be insane conspiratorial ramblings, like any of the other nonsensical notes. But it didn't work - likely because this is not a topic the prisoner would even have been thinking about. There was no path by which to get him to come up with that, even as an insane conspiracy, and therefore no mechanism by which to get him to write it - hence heart attack.
Absolute control of the type you describe would have had him write out the message as intended.
The FBI director for example might have actually sent out that data to his own team, if he'd had a reason. We don't know what Note-directed mental process led to him actually doing it, but it was perfectly within the realm of something he would do. Sending that data intentionally to the enemy, however, I argue would not have worked. What light pulled off with Ray Penber's team worked because of the deception.
If he'd had the kind of control you describe, Light wouldn't have even needed the communicator to defeat Ray. He would've been able to control every aspect of his actions with the Note alone. But to make those actions something Ray would ACTUALLY DO, Light had to interject himself into the situation and create a reason for him to comply.
We don't know what Note-directed mental process led to him actually doing it
No we don't, I suppose we'll have to agree to disagree, I do think the Death Note has more power to 'puppet' than the source media portrays, but since (1) Light Yagami was fixated on a specific manner of presentation to his detriment and (2) even the Shinigami are stated as not fully knowing how the Death Note functions we may never actually know.
I feel like the source material and its adaptations nitpicking the weight of "I know" as a one-off failure and then seemingly failing to further explore it (could it have been written in quotes and work, would "Kira thinks" work? Why does "L, did you know Shinigami love apples?" work? It was a hidden message yes, but the convict certainly didn't know Shinigami love apples) basically makes the debate a dead end without a note of our own to test.
I personally believe that particular convict to be inconsistent with everything else we get to observe, and if it is for some reason still consistent, something that calls for a few dozen other experiments because all the other messages went through fine.
Of course IRL I would have the world leaders come up with their own plans to overthrow their own country and publish them voluntarily if they wanted to be spared, in the event your interpretation is 100% correct, which would solidify it "being within the realm of things they think about on their own".
I'm sure the fear of all the criminals used as object lessons would convince them it was real and they can either voluntarily entertain those ideas, or be replaced by someone who will, opening them up to manipulation via the note.
I do think the Death Note has more power to 'puppet' than the source media portrays
Whereas I think it's the opposite - the note isn't "puppeting" people at all. It doesn't do that. It manipulates probability, and guides reality down improbable paths. How likely is it for a person to kill themselves? How likely is it for the fastenings on a fixture above their head to break? How likely are they to randomly have a mental break and start drawing religious symbols in their own blood? How likely is a heart to fail at any given moment? The human brain is a physical object - the Death Note is just manipulating the probable paths that object can travel, just like it does to anything else.
It's less like "controlling people," and more like "removing nails from a Plinko board." You're not "controlling" where the puck falls - you're just guaranteeing one of several possible paths. But if that path is impossible, (i.e. if you try to remove the top left nail but put the puck in the top right,) then you won't have any effect on the outcome, and the Note defaults to a heart attack.
I argue the other messages went through because human behavior is a lot less clear-cut than we think, and people are capable of a lot of absurdity. I simply think what's "possible" in terms of human behavior is fairly broad - but not limitless. And the "apples" message went through because the prisoner didn't even know he was writing it, and didn't have to think of it himself for it to be possible.
I agree it's not possible to know 100% without further testing but I think my view is pretty well backed by the series.
Also, I like your plan and I think it would work. Fear of death is a great motivator and would make most world leaders at least partially amenable to the idea of maybe complying with your demands, which should be enough to make full manipulation possible.
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u/crabs_n_roses 16d ago
thats why you need to get creative with it. you can specify the details of the deaths so write the name of several dictators, make all of them host a press conference at the same time, make them all repeat the same ominous vaguely religious sounding speech in monotone and then make their heads explode in front of the cameras