Here is at least one house for gifted children, assumed to be orphans, who are raised in an unfriendly and competitive environment for no other reason other than Quillsh Wammy thought this was an important thing to do. Those children are taught their skills should be directed to a very specific goal: becoming L. L is a detective so the point of collecting those children is to groom them into becoming detectives. More than that, they are trained to be confident in their own reasoning, their own methods of doing what they enjoy.

If the children are taught to find a hobby and to find their own way of achieving the goals of said hobby, can we talk about indoctrination in Wammy’s House? Considering John White’s definition that indoctrination takes place if the intention of the teacher is to make it so that “(t)he child should believe that ‘p’ is true, in a such way that nothing will shake this belief” (White 1972a, 119 and 1973, 179), it could be said the point behind Wammy’s is to make sure the children believe their goal is worth everything.

If they want to solve a case, anything they do to accomplish that (be it breaking the law or putting themselves at risk or indirectly getting people killed or cheating) is worth it. Their conclusion is absolute to the point their actions are justified as if they are justice.

Mello joins the Mafia, K joins a bio-terrorist group, B becomes a serial killer, L himself admits to being a criminal by current laws and is willing to use torture against Misa. Letting them do as they pleased, confident on their own skills and conclusions, seemed to be a pretty chaotic project.

As it is, Watari died before his experiment was complete and we only have bits and pieces of it to try and make sense of his project. But why was it important to Watari to create a group of people with that level of confidence in their own reasoning? Why was it important to let them loose in the world with no guidance or direction?

Article by Lua Cruz

Little is known about Quillsh Wammy the man, nor what he truly intended for the children in his care. Though intriguing clues litter the canon sources with enough material to keep the fan-fiction writers going for an age.  Often, if you can't see the thing itself, then observing the ripple effect provides a proxy view enough to hazard a guess at what lies beyond.

What remains mysterious about the benefactor of that strange chain of orphanages established in Death Note manga, anime, novels, movies, TV drama and games, might just show in the Fate of orphans raised within their alpha home - The Wammy House for Gifted and Talented Orphans.

We cannot reconstruct the whole canon alphabet of Death Note letters, even via our current ploy below of amalgamating disparate versions as if they were one cohesive and extant source.  However, it's not bad how few Wammy letters exist without a known correspondence or link in any canon Death Note universe.

There's just a handful assigned without furnishing the fandom with clues pertaining to the person here represented. Even then they may be discussed in general terms, applicable across the board.  Not least the assumption might be made that someone raised or based at Wammy's House in Winchester was, is or will be in possession of the code required to utilize all that this letter represents.

Not anonymity in public communication - no matter how much it's used for that, such usage is just a bonus - but access to The Wammy Foundation, its administration, resources and infrastructure.

Doors don't open because someone sat in GIMP messing around with Cloister fonts and single letters centred in Old English.  If they did then I'd be L by now.  Government offices allow access to restricted lines; military manoeuvres are initiated by request;  Interpol meetings are infiltrated; and intelligence agencies are directed or else willing to share classified information, because that Wammy letter alphabet gets used set within a certain context.

Further codewords or numbers may allow verification of its user's authenticity.

A call from a Death Note Letter to Wammy Headquarters (i.e. the Winchester orphanage in which they were raised) could summon the word spoken into an ear, heavies, intel or finance to oil passage into a myriad of locations, ways, clubs or meetings, as necessary to solve the mystery at hand.

It could rescue that clever detective from dangerous places, or let him/her secure whatever was uncovered that now needs safeguarding.  Sensitivity in no questions asked, efficient fixing; unlimited funds able to be wired wherever a masked voice asks for such to be.  Plus so much more besides.

It's not each iconic initial that's key in those calls.  It's the apparently boundless support and open doors that such icons represent.

Wammy's Foundation has an incredible reach throughout the planet and into the hidden powerhouses unknown to most. Where global movers and shakers meet with their identities gleaned incrementally on a need to know basis.  Where influence is strong and disagreements could potentially cause or avert World War III.  Yet none more able to direct the flow of world affairs than Quillsh Wammy himself.

Then if all else fails, those clever and dangerous Wammy Letters - living so far beyond any laws to proscribe their actions - probably know where to find and press the requisite levers to get blockages removed.

No doubt such reminders prompt the machinery of co-operation into instant, unfettered movement by any given government and their agencies, accompanied by renewed guarantees that this status quo will remain so indefinitely.  Uttered upon expensive, elite lips belonging to those who know they can keep their promises.

Just as Mello did in the Death Note manga, compelling an American President into acting in accordance with that Mafioso Wammy's will.  Threatening to use a Death Note to gain US compliance anyway, with  its President's actions subject to unstoppable remote control, until his inevitable death a few days on. 

That wasn't the Mafia man talking, however close the sentiment might seem.  It was the Wammy speaking as Mello this time.  Another day it could have been L or Near, as also happened in canon, outlined as dialogue in the novel L: Change the World.  And THAT has to be how they were raised for President Hoope seemed to expect it.  Evidently he's dealt with Mr Wammy and his alumni many times before.

Which makes you wonder what else we can see in the stories of the rest; to illuminate the inner workings of Quillsh Wammy's mind and the processes underpinning the ways in which his Winchester institution is run.

A great man, as Matsuda once said, or the monstrous child-thief - as he's intimated to be by L, Mello, B and Near's testimonies?  Hinted in separate instances, dotted about various canon sources - Watari brainwashing proto-detectives, from kids raised in his care, to enter into deadly games of rivalry and puzzle-solving, all for fun.

More of those children's stories might provide some insight into the manner of this man, whom even Tsugumi Ohba his creator called 'terrible'.

When Quillsh Wammy determined that he needed to 'copy' or 'back up' L, he chose a live child to mould into aping his prototype model.

Imagine that for just a moment - someone, anyone, being taken into strange premises and told that all you are and were no longer matters.  You have no name, or purpose beyond becoming somebody else.  Not in the military we-will-make-you-action-man sense, nor in any manner of self-improvement, like going off to university, or training to run a marathon. This isn't even the refining of a Swiss finishing school.

This is taking a presumably orphan child and stripping him of all form of self-identity.  Not a name to call himself, just a letter.  No personality traits that can't also be found in L.  No lesser intelligence than what that incredibly once-in-a-lifetime type genius mind than attain.  Telling a boy that everything about  himself is so worthless that nothing will do but to reject it all and become the clone of another boy deemed more valuable.

And they wonder why he committed suicide.

After attempting to imprint L's whole being cookie cutter style upon poor A's flayed psyche, Quillsh Wammy then turned his attention onto a second child for experimentation.  He was seeking the same result.  He got it.

By which is meant that Watari's zest to 'copy' L drove another orphan in his care to conclude that the only way out was suicide.

Only Beyond Birthday didn't attempt his own end with the supposed quiet lack of drama that beset the tragedy of A.  (At least Mello didn't deem it worth gossiping about the fine detail later.)  B opted for self-slaughter in perhaps the most dramatic, loud and all encompassing manner he could stage manage. Downright theatrical in fact, in that he performed it in costume, caked in thick make-up, complete with props. Assuming a role in scenes orchestrated and arranged by himself.

The part that Wammy had always wanted him to play.  Indivisible from L; a carbon copy.  Albeit with a few heart-breaking, pointed and rather grisly differences in the reality that played out.  Not least that Beyond knew that L could count on the support of Wammy's House, and he could not.

Although nothing is known about this individual at the present time, it doesn't necessarily follow that we do not know them.   Some characters associated with Wammy's House never had their call code letters made public.   This covers Matt, Linda and Ryūzaki from the forthcoming movie too.

E is another Wammy letter assignation known only from L's mailing group in L: Change the World.  (See above)

Wammy letter F is known to us entirely from the movie L: Change the World.  He doesn't even turn up in the book of the same name.  In the movie, he is portrayed by actor Kakuzi Namioka.  Wammy F's character name in the credits is displayed as エフ Romanised as Efu.

We first see F peering through the slats into a rural home in Bangnum Village, Thailand.  He is observing a whole population stricken by some unknown pathogen, all dying horribly and in agony with sores, blisters and frothing mouths.  It appears to have been quite a sudden onset with a 100% mortality rate, and the scientists have just turned up to investigate. 

They are exempt in theory from contagion, clad from head to foot in bright yellow protective clothing.  They speak with American accents and seem unsympathetic to the suffering of victims all around them.  Moreover, brutal in their dehumanising pronouns - 'deal with that', one says, indicating a man nearby.  Another pushes a mother surrounded by four dead children roughly away from him. 

F flees.  There is no explanation as to why he was there. Nor why he's so certain of his immunity from contracting the unspecified pathogen, that he's willing to risk exposure to it.

The only clues come from a future scene, wherein we're told he was working undercover for the Watari Foundation near Bangnum Village, and that the biometers aren't responding. Though whether that fact pertains to F's presence isn't clear from the context.  He was certainly there 'in the line of duty'.

However, he's presumably on some kind of Wammy House directed rescue mission, as the child waiting at the location F flees to - in the ruins of ancient architecture just beyond the village - is Near.  Though evidently Thai, Near does not appear native to Bangum.  "This village is over for us."  F tells the child, interrupting him mid-mathematical flow, with formulae chalked all over the mossy stone walls.

They have perhaps gained sanctuary there with Near seemingly unperturbed by events.  Abandoning his calculus without fear nor apparent regard for the destruction down below, in order to join F in flight via the older Wammy's Land Rover.

The instructions F gives to the boy focus upon how to contact Watari.  This transpires into a moment of sheer delight and wonder for Team Wammy Death Note fans everywhere - F gives us the Watari phone number:  0105928147218.  Whereupon we are directed to tell them F1225 told us to ring it.

So, has anyone done so yet?  To whom does it connect?  Are they very sick of random people calling from all over the world, demanding to speak with Watari?

"Watari will protect you," F informs his young charge, wearing an ethereal kind of smile as he says so.  The future Near, it has to be said, surveys him right back with the world's most dubious expression over a long, drawn out stare.  Already too clever for his own good, that one.

But a look which surely seems like presentiment when, in the next instant, an American military helicopter arises from the bushland track behind them and starts shooting holes from the road in front.

F steps on the accelerator of the Land Rover he has weaving all over this Thai dustroad-turned-Formula-1-racetrack.  Yet a close look at him reveals the sudden appearance of lesions on the side of this face.  Not so immune to disease after all, though Near is in the clear and remains so.  F knows that he's personally not going to survive this flight through the bushes, thus in a poignant moment takes the necklace bearing his Watari letter F from around his neck and places it around Near's instead.

Back behind the wheel, with an expression of sheer determination, F hurtles along the road in his Land Rover, leading the military away from the spot where he abandoned Near.  But he knows he can't out-drive them.  He has to have known he was due to die as soon as he couldn't shake them off before. 

This race away from Near is deliberate though. Himself less important than the child left behind, despite F's presumably high intelligence and top class education rendering him a supposed benefit to the whole world as a Wammy letter.  Surely more so in that horrible choice between himself and an untutored youngster with much potential.  Because whatever Near is, or may become, right now the boy is an unknown quantity.

Yet somebody somewhere within the Watari Foundation judged it worth risking F's life to send him into that dangerous situation in order to extract the kid.  By his actions, F certainly concurs.

The helicopter descends before the Land Rover, blocking all egress.  F stops the vehicle and surveys in horror what waits ahead.  There's momentary horror and fright for F. Not ready to die.  Then he is, eyes closing and a tiny smile touching the corner of his lips.  Like this is acceptable. 

We watch the Watari prodigy F die by proxy - a close up on the missile emerging from the helicopter's launcher, then a long shot of Near witnessing the blast from around the corner, expressionless and wearing F's letter necklace.   Another Wammy kid dead.  Another left knowing from the onset what the far future has in store for him, though also still lost in the immediate sense.

What's interesting about F's reaction to all of this is that undying faith in Wammy and the Watari Foundation.  Adamant to the end that Watari protects his wards, a sentiment spoken even as the patently unprotected F remains trapped in an environment rife with pestilence and bombs.

He's not going to survive this, yet surely it was Watari - or a representative thereof - who sent him there.  Nevertheless, F will ensure another child follows in his footsteps and smiles as he dies. Some inner conviction sated in the certainty that his premature demise was worth it.

Perhaps the ethos wherein this genius Wammy House orphan was raised.  One we'll return to time and again in the biographies of Wammy kids.  Dulce et decorum est pro Watari mori...

The Wammy letter G is another whose canon existence consists solely of an entry on L's email list in the movie L: Change the World.  (See D.)

We see more of what Roger's position at The Wammy's House - Wammy Headquarters - constitutes in this same scene.  Following immediately on from the death of F, Roger calls Wammy to inform him of their ward's death.  Though cut off, his text communication is curt, emotionless and to the point.

This isn't a telegram, yet it seems like Roger goes out of his way to conserve characters in his abrasive wording.  F's death is afforded equal precedence to HQ's report about  the biometers being out of commission.  His main concern seems to be who to send out there next.  No waxing lyrical in commiseration and regard for a young man killed, whom both must have known intimately, as a boy raised by themselves and for whom responsibility did not stop in adulthood, as he remained one of their lettered agents.

It's a similar pattern of feeling - or lack thereof - as seen in the manga, whereby Roger's first act upon hearing the news of L and Wammy's demise is to call in Mello and Near, thus to settle the succession.  No question that such a continuation must occur.

Nor apparently did he race after Mello, when the boy announced his attention to leave home and work alone in catching Kira.  This is a fourteen year old stepping out into a frigid December night, in a barely adequate jacket, yet his guardian did not shift in his recall.

Back to F and the news of his death.  It's never clarified who alerted Roger to that particular tragedy, though we do get to see Wammy and L react to the same.  Wammy's look of sadness and shock tips off L, who gently enquires if it is bad news?  His guardian answers in hushed tones that F was killed in Thailand.  There follows a pensive moment, wherein the old man sadly states, 'It was in the line of duty, so it couldn't be helped but...'

But what?  The sentiment is never answered verbally, nor addressed by the creator of this system at all.  The contemplative silence draws out for both with the sentence never actually finished.  Left lingering in the air as simply that - something which couldn't be helped - while H's missive remains on the screen focused upon who to send in next.

The answer to F's death comes in reality from L's actions.  This is the final piece of information to push the detective into writing his own name into Misa's Death Note, thus effectively committing suicide.  Why?   'To take control over my own Fate is the only way to outwit Death.'

A reaction echoed in part by Mello's own reaction to the compulsion to take L's place jointly with Near, as Roger's major consideration upon the loss of L.  No doubt feeling similar pressure to surrender all say in his future to those willing to sacrifice it, Mello - like L - had the knee-jerk reaction of yanking control of his own destiny back from Wammy HQ.

"I'll do it my own way!"  He bellowed in retort, a fourteen year old leaving the sanctuary of his childhood home in the dead of winter.

The only facet not being questioned by anyone was why two boys (Near not even a teenager) suddenly had the burden of stopping a global killer.  Children asked to assume such responsibility as duty, in lieu of, say, any of the world's governments, military, secret services, not to mention their  associated law enforcement or intelligence agencies.

Neither did L feel able to just walk away.  At least in the minds of themselves, as nurtured in Wammy's home by Watari and Ruvie, this was their inevitable duty.  As unfortunate as any death might be in the line of such duty, it couldn't be helped.   An ethos surely carried by the warden, as Roger swapped his letter H (Wammy Headquarters) for a W (Watari in his turn).

Though again there are candidates, as Matt and Linda remain unassigned letters in canon too.  Ditto Ryūzaki, who will appear in Death Note: Light Up the New World in October 2016, and has already been named an alumni of Wammy's House.

However help is at hand in the shape of a communication device and L at the other end.  The detective will advise on solving puzzles to open the doors, as long as he's adequately provided with sweets, cakes and other confectionery.   You will eventually traverse all of those dangerous rooms in order to encounter the baddies. 

Enter J.  Apparently another Wammy kid turned murderous in pursuit of L.  Now ready to engage you in a boss fight.

As the game was only issued in Japanese, with no English transcript to be found on-line, it's difficult to analyse the dialogue for further clues to J's identity, motivation or the influence upon him from his supposed Wammy House education.  Beyond what might be surmised by the fact that he's attempting to blow L up.

Though he is wearing a lab coat, hence probably falls within the science spectrum of Wammy alumni specialities.

All that can be said additionally (until our Japanese translators turn up and, of course, assuming any of them have actually played this game) is that our last glimpse of J seems to be aboard a stricken cruise ship, which L has just caused to explode extensively right across its middle section.  Presumably then J is now lost, presumed drowned or else caught in the ensuing inferno. 

About par for the course for a Wammy kid.

Her story forms the central backdrop of L: Change the World - movie and book both - with L spending his last twenty days on Earth in a bid to halt her crazy antics in a laboratory.

The premature release of her deadly virus upon test subjects in Thailand had already led directly to the demise of another Wammy letter - F.  She would have taken out Near too, before he even made it to Wammy's House, had the wonder-boy's natural immunity not kept him safe from contagion.

It transpires that K's role within the Wammy Foundation had been to '(mobilize) the law enforcement agencies of the world'.  During an operation, she had successfully rescued a child held hostage by terrorists, only to discover that had been her adversary's plan all along.  The kid was a suicide bomber, who detonated the charges as soon as they were in the other camp.

After witnessing the 'many casualties', K ran from the scene never to return.  It wasn't the failure of the operation per se that was the problem, but the notion that she had betrayed Watari's trust in her capabilities as a Wammy letter.

Nothing to do with the power and influence that comes with that designation either.  It was the personal censure invested within Wammy the man that she most feared evoking.  He'd brought her out of herself and believed in her abilities following the death of her parents. He'd been kind and caring, with a warm smile and sage advice, making K feel like she counted, even amongst all the rest of the clever, little Wammys around her. 

She couldn't stand to see his face again, knowing that she'd let him down.  That he'd be disappointed in her.  It was that personal for the Wammy kids raised to become Letters within the Wammy Foundation.  Away from Wammy's House and the man at its helm, K's 'soul had grown darker than the world around it'.

A darkness that she couldn't hope to assuage without the total destruction of humankind, wiped from the Earth in order to save the planet.

Not that K had any cause to worry.  As L informed the dangerous Dr Kujo - once he'd located her at the centre of the pathogen outbreak - blowing up her team wasn't any deterrent for her beloved Mr Wammy.   He'd assigned his letter K to her anyway, coded with the last message he'd conveyed to Kimiko Kujo before her flight from the Wammy fold - Keep Your Way.

Astute words in retrospect, though perhaps Watari should have clarified a 'way' amongst the sane options open to her.

Moreover, L continued - breaking her heart in knowing this only now - "Even after you left Wammy's, Watari refused to give that designation to anyone else."  Awwww!  If only she'd grasped that Wammy still loved her, K wouldn't have had to turn Thailand into the vast killing fields of her unleashing viral mass murder.

As it was, L promised that she could resume her place at Wammy's House, letter intact, even now, after whole populations lay dead.  What was a little genocidal slaughter amongst Watari's kids?  When they stood to ensure justice would prevail and the world could be changed.  K vowed to do so, returning to Winchester just as soon as her life sentence was done in prison.

No doubt Watari - whomever that was likely to be forthwith - would soon intervene and get that time served down to, say, a week.  After all, foiled architect of humanity's extinction aside, Kimiko remains a Wammy kid, in receipt of the letter K.

Death Note 13: How to Read gives us an insight into the character of Quillsh Wammy, at least insofar as his author saw him.

The older man scores highly for versatility, talent, initiative/willingness to act, motivation and emotional strength.  Not far behind are his only slightly lesser scores for creativity, social skills and intelligence.  That he doesn't reach the topmost figure for creativity is a little surprising, given that Wammy made his fortune as an inventor.  The ultimate creator, one might think, this side of actual divinity.

We do get a hint of the kind of things that Wammy invented, when he turns up in the Death Note manga with belts containing panic buttons.  Not exactly Bond's Q, but in the ballpark.

As befits a man whose wealth and life has become devoted to raising children, his pet hate is 'dirty rooms'.  Presumably plenty of those at Wammy's House. I can't quite see the like of Beyond Birthday, Mello and Near running around with a duster.

This is an attribute taken to extreme levels in the Death Note TV drama, wherein guests are sprayed with disinfection at the door.  The interior of L's headquarters is kept pristine in its cleanliness, with Watari hurrying in to exchange L's shirt should a mere splash of food stain hit upon it.  In most tellings of the Death Note story, it's also inferred that Wammy is a fabulous cook.  At least there doesn't seem to be any travelling caterer providing all that confectionery for L that his handler regularly delivers.

Though it's nowhere stated that Wammy is an Englishman, it's implied in the location of his main orphanage for the training of gifted and talented orphans - Winchester, in England.  A further clue is given in his most favourite thing in the world - Earl Grey tea.

It's never truly explained how Watari managed to become such a crack marksman either.  His sharp-shooting is such that, in the Death Note manga and anime alike, he's able to fire a bullet which blasts a gun from the hand of Yotsuba's Kyosuke Higuchi, far below him on the ground. Wammy himself hovering over the scene in a helicopter at the time.

Nor do we learn where Quillsh Wammy acquired such skill in espionage, though he puts that to good use in Death Note, infiltrating various organizations to gain or deliver information.  Not least a gathering of Interpol.

Nevertheless he passed on all this knowledge, and the thinking/morality behind it, to the children in his care.   Maybe more clues to Watari's character reside in those he raised - how they turned out and what became of them.

Genius children taken from wherever they lived around the world and installed in Wammy's House, Winchester.  Here their 'special talents' were cultivated with a top class education, whereupon they were sent back out into the world to put those skills into practice.  All of these individuals were nurtured by Wammy - or at least had their upbringing and training overseen remotely by him, as warden Roger Ruvie took orders from above.

Each skilled Wammy kid set loose on the world was assigned a letter by Watari.   In L: Change the World, it's stated that this only occurs with the greatest, most intelligent of the Wammy's House outcrop.  Kujo is according stunned to belatedly realise that she was afforded the letter K.

Dotted across various adaptations of canon, we've practically got the entire alphabet in Wammy Letters.  With Watari himself indicated by the Letter W, only H, I, O, S and U are missing.  However, some known Wammy alumni never divulge their letters.  We don't, for example, know which Matt was assigned, despite him being third in the Wammy House rankings.  Nor yet do we know which letter Ryūzaki will take in the forthcoming movie Death Note 2016, assuming that he takes one at all.

Meanwhile, by the end of the manga/anime Death Note stories, Near interchangeably uses both N and L.  The latter earned post-Kira.  Thus giving an insight into the fact that letters can be taken from their peers by successful rivals/successors from the same Institution.  This is a system that Wammy himself must have set up.

Along with a code of ethics that apparently accounts for serial killers, abductors, biomedical scientists bent on mass destruction and the propensity of Wammy graduates to think it proper to die - or be killed - for want of a puzzle's solution. 

Just a reminder about a Death Note event on Tumblr, which began yesterday and continues over the Christmas period to finish on December 26th 2015.

Death Note Ladies Appreciation Weeks looks to redress the balance in focus given to Death Note's women and girl characters.  Let's face it, the fandom really does relish its male personae over the female cohort.  Yet there are some extremely kick-ass and/or fascinating ladies in this universe.  Explore their stories in canon pics; elaborate upon them in fan-fiction and fan-art; discover that they even exist, if you blinked and missed their cameo.

This is the second year running for the Tumblr event for Death Note fans.  Anyone can join in. You just tag your update with #dn ladies appreciation and post away, preferably on the day scheduled for your yuri pairing and/or each individual female Death Note character's bespoke date:

For more details, check out our original head's up about the event; where you'll also find a slightly easier collage of Death Note women to test your knowledge of characters in the Death Note universe.  For answers to the much more difficult one posted at the top here, see below:

And if you're looking for inspiration and/or something to post on each day, then our sidebar has all of these ladies listed under Death Note News Categories - archives full of things about them!  Feel free to post links to what you will.