LogFAQs > #942553380

MariaTaylor posted...

I understand feeling this way, I just totally disagree. I think Gohan's character is pretty whack honestly. like the entire point of the Saiyan and the Freiza saga -- the entire point of the introduction of Power Levels -- was to display the narrative foil between Goku and the Freiza empire. how Saiyans had their power levels measured at birth, and their worth to society was pre-determined.

Goku, this saiyan who was discarded, due to his lack of potential, was able to rise up and become the legendary Super Saiyan that Freiza always feared... because Freiza just didn't "get" it. he thought that your innate power, how you were born, meant EVERYTHING, and like Vegeta and all of the Saiyans, and everyone else in this empire, they had a blind spot toward how a "weak" planet like earth could produce such powerful fighters despite their lack of innate power from birth. the fact that Goku was raised on such a planet was a blessing in disguise because he learned many things that you could never learn as part of Freiza's empire.

oh, but Gohan? yeah, he was born with this immense power deep inside of him that was always going to make him powerful. it just spits in the face of the entire two arcs that came before it. it says that Gohan's worth WAS pre-determined. just because it was foreshadowed doesn't mean that I have to be satisfied with it. foreshadowing is not the only aspect by which we gauge the quality of writing.

lastly, while Gohan reaching super saiyan in the hyperbolic time chamber might not seem as bad as some of the later examples, it's still a case of someone reaching that status with no real impetus. he just trained really hard in isolation and reached an emotionally volatile state which Goku could only achieve by watching his best friend murdered before his eyes. Gohan was the gatekeeper, and he opened the door for all of the bullshit discount super saiyan transformations that came after him. I just cannot be happy with this, personally.

I have 2 points I disagree with:

First, I don't really think Gohan was predestined to reach this power. Goku was able to nurture it and allow it to grow, and before that happened it's not like Gohan's power was some sort of instawin card. We see him help beat raditz and then...do nothing to Nappa, fail to really hurt stage 2 frieza, almost get killed by stage 3 frieza, at-best stall final form frieza, and then finally reach his potential against cell. And if there's any doubt to this claim, I'd personally point to Future Gohan, who we see reach SSJ but ultimately fall to the androids and thus amount to nothing because he never reached his potential. Did he have more innate talent that Goku (who despite his hard work, imo still had plenty of latent ability himself)? Sure. But that doesn't mean he was ever going to be a shoo-in to surpass Goku without the same sort of proper training that Goku was given. He still had to work for it. He may not have had the exact same amount of life-threatening injuries and battles that Goku went through, but he was no slouch himself.

I also disagree that Gohan had no real impetus, if you listen to his short monologue right when he turns SSJ, it's clear that his failings as a warrior in previous arcs have weighed heavily on him, it's just that the saga in general doesn't focus on Gohan until the cell games, so it's not given as much focus as Goku's rise to SSJ. Goku may have watched his best friend get murdered, but Gohan's trigger was arguably just as effective as not only was he envisioning the same happening to him, but he's still a child so such events would be affecting him even more than they would a grown man like Goku. Add on top of that the pressure he felt to live up to his dad's expectations (another common issue many people in real life struggle with) again exacerbated by his young age, and I think his impetus--while not as actually terrible as goku losing krillin--was probably just as bad if not worse to him specifically because of the reasons I laid out.
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I'm a greener egg than the eggs from dr. seuss