I think basically the author play with our morals… in Breaking Bad, we definitely root for Walt, maybe until the point we think “well.. perhaps he have gone too far…” when he confess to Skyler his real reason.

In Death Note at first we might root to Raito, the student who finds the notebook and decide to kill criminals.. but at then I think it depends on where the audience stand about “vigilantes”. If I. Kant would read the comics he would definitely root for “L” since the beginning hahah.?? But yes, personally I’d put Raito for protagonist and L (and police) as antagonist. It looks like the author twists that at some point in the story as if he is making a point regarding making justice with his own hands.

Now thinking about it, I don’t remember that Raito even has a personal reason to use the notebook, (like Batman who had his parents killed, etc…)

Yes, you are right… I was browing past posts and it was brought up (I guess it was the logline about Big Lebowski) that questioned about that a logline from Cohen Brothers if came from a writer without proven record etc etc it might well be discarded.
What I had in mind when I brought up that example is that, if ASOIF did not exist, and a new author came up with this very same saga, and was pitching to a publisher, maybe he/she would have a hard time to craft a logline (or even a 1 page summary) that truly reflect the quality of the work (and the hook).