Ryuk's brilliance as a character is that he isn't really one. He's a shinigami who dropped a notebook on Earth for entertainment and then leaned against a wall to see who'd pick it up. He doesn't cheer Light's wins, he doesn't mourn his losses. None of this was ever a fight to him — it was a show.
Character traits
The design carries half the work: corpse-grey skin, permanent grin, the apple obsession that grounds an otherwise abstract god of death in something almost cartoonish. The apple is his small taste of the human world — funny on its surface, and a quiet reminder underneath that even a god can be hooked on something.
His moral position is barely a position at all: he doesn't take sides. He'll give Light information, but never help. He won't lie, but he won't volunteer the truth either. Promise him something and he'll keep his end without bending; break the deal and that's your problem, not his.
Role in the story
When Death Note's logic gets airless, Ryuk shoulders in, takes a bite of fruit, lands one line, and lets the audience exhale. Then the noose gets tighter. That structural role lifts him above 'comic relief' — Ryuk is the release valve on the show's dramatic pressure.
The final scene works not because of what he says but because of where he's standing. Light trusted him. Ryuk was never on Light's side — he was on the viewer's. That's Death Note's clearest argument: the tool is never the user's ally.
Tracking Death Note on Episodo
Ryuk is in nearly every episode at Light's shoulder — useful if you want to rewatch the show for him alone. Once Death Note is on your watchlist, the Episodo extension keeps your progress in sync across Crunchyroll, Netflix and 20+ other sites.
