I was thinking about it the other day, and I came to the conclusion that L (from Death Note) and Columbo (from Columbo) are super similar in the way they investigate, and most likely both function as the ENTPs in their respective narratives.
Columbo - ENTP
He goes into the crime scene, meets the people involved, and very, very early on just knows who did it by reading the room and making intuitive jumps. Clearly an Extroverted Intuitive. The rest of the show is him building a case for his intuitive leap. He uses lawyer like "gotcha" tricks and dissects everything his chosen suspect says and does to build his case, and if possible, get him to incriminate himself so he doesn't have to work too hard to find physical evidence.
I'm very confident that Columbo is an ENTP.
L - possibly INTP (when you look at how he acts; he looks like stereotypical INTP) but functionally I would almost say ENTP like Columbo
He works very similarly to Columbo. Many want to type him as introverted (because he is, socially, clearly a loner and looks like an INTP stereotype), but when you actually break down his functions, he could also very easily be ENTP, because he, like Columbo, starts by selecting a suspect based an intuitive leap or idea built from external observation, and then spends the rest of his time trying to prove his mental 'claim' with his high precision Introverted Thinking.
You would think, if he were INTP, he would lead with Introverted Thinking (like most INTP detectives) by building up evidence, and make intuitive leaps of faith later on once he's exercised some of his Thinking preference. That would be a safe method of investigation, which brings me to my next point; L is a calculated risk taker - an ENTP calling card. Not so much an INTP thing.
I'm pretty confident L is, at least, functionally an ENTP, but he overall seems to be an unintentional amalgamation of the two types when you factor in his looks, demeanor, social life, ect.
What do you guys think of this analysis? I know I'm going against the grain of common belief in typing L as anything other than INTP, but it's just a theory I had.