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In the anime Death Note, Light possesses a 'Death Note' -- a book capable of killing anyone whose name is written in it. Furthermore, Light can specify the way in which they die.

I've been wondering then, once Light knows L is trying to take him down, why wouldn't Light frame L for murder? Or in fact, make L murder someone by making their death be at his hands (i.e write: "Bob is killed by L")?

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    "Bob killed by L" almost certainly wouldn't work, since he doesn't know L's name. Presumably, though, any technique that doesn't rely on L's name would fit within the rules of the Note. – RedArrogantKnight Apr 3 '12 at 20:20
  • @RedArrogantKnight That just plain wouldn't work at all, it's against the rules. See Xantec's answer. – Izkata Apr 3 '12 at 23:57
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The Death Note only allows the user to specify actions for the person being killed. Thus, Light would be unable to write "Bob is killed by L" and have it happen (Bob would have a heart attack). Also, the actions written in the book have to be possible for the person to do (or they die of a heart attack). So Light could not write "Bob appears on the moon and suffocates", unless Bob had a means to get to the moon before the indicated time of death.

Finally, if there were some way to pull off having someone else murder L then Light would have to know L's real name. Of course, if he had L's name then he could just write him into the Death Note directly and not deal with a middle-man murderer.

Light could try to frame L by having someone write that they were killed by L before dying. But as it is known that Light/Kira can control people's actions, and they it didn't use L's real name, law enforcement likely wouldn't give this type of evidence too much credence.

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    From my memory of the anime, I think you're spot on but do you know if there was an example in it where Light attempted to force someone to die at the hand of someone else through the death note and failed? Or do we both just have the same assumption? – dlanod Apr 3 '12 at 20:32
  • I'd need to re-watch an episode or two, but I believe Light tried something like that in the beginning when he was still experimenting with prisoners in the jails. – Xantec Apr 3 '12 at 20:33
  • If they can write 'L killed me' can they not jump in front of his car? It's not quite the same, but it would, done enough, mess with L's mind. Possibly breaking him? – AncientSwordRage♦ Apr 4 '12 at 0:15
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    @Pureferret Again, there is the issue of not having L's actual name. – Xantec Apr 4 '12 at 1:09
  • @Xantec Ah, I wasn't aware the rule worked that way. I thought it was just the one being killed whose named had to be known. – AncientSwordRage♦ Apr 4 '12 at 9:05

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