History NiceJobBreakingItHero / Dragonball

** Buu was even ''worse'', and would never have gotten as far as he did without the heroes. Shin allowed Gohan to be drained of his energy, vastly underestimated how much of the necessary energy would be extracted, and explicitly forbade the Z-Fighters from interfering. The battle between Vegeta and Goku produced so much power it accelerated Buu's awakening even more. Piccolo's attempt to buy more time for Goten and Trunks prompted Buu to [[KillEmAll kill every person on Earth except for the main cast with one attack]]. Gotenks [[InvokedTrope acts like]] he's completely outmatched and that he's going to be defeated as a [[MyNameIsInigoMontoya setup]] for his [[SuperMode Super Saiyan 3 transformation]], but Piccolo takes him seriously and destroys the door to the [[YearInsideHourOutside Hyperbolic Time Chamber]], leaving them trapped forever after Buu escapes anyway. And finally, when Goku and Vegeta successfully rescue their sons and Piccolo from within Super Buu, Vegeta gets the bright idea to also yank out Fat Buu, causing the monster to revert into Kid Buu, who was much weaker than Super Buu but [[AxeCrazy even]] ''[[KidsAreCruel more]]'' [[TheUnfettered monstrous]].

*** And finally, the ''entire'' Z-gang for deciding not to, despite [[WhatAnIdiot even though they had been given three years' warning]]:

* In the Buu Arc, when Vegeta and Goku are in Buu's body, Goku deliberately shouts out that he and Vegeta can't fuse together anymore, [[WhatAnIdiot in front of Buu.]]

* In ''Anime/DragonBallZResurrectionF'', after gaining the upper hand against Frieza's new [[GoldenSuperMode Golden form]], Goku gives Frieza the opportunity to walk away ''again''. Frieza quickly exploits this by having his minion Sorbet near-fatally shoot Goku InTheBack, and then proceeds to [[KickThemWhileTheyAreDown torture Goku while he's wounded and helpless]], all while [[LampshadeHanging rubbing in Goku's face how stupid he was to show him mercy a second time]]. Then, when Vegeta takes his turn and pummels Frieza into submission, Frieza [[spoiler: blows up the Earth out of spite, killing everyone except for those close to Whis; all Goku can do is hang his head in shame and lament that he didn't kill Frieza when he had the chance. Fortunately, Whis [[ResetButton rewinds time by three minutes]], allowing Goku to rectify his mistake]].

** Goku's actions in the next story arc make him a serious contender for the worst user of this trope in the history of fiction: Bored and spoiling for a fight, he remembers Zen-Oh's talk about an all-universe martial arts tournament and wants to ask about it. Beerus tells Goku in no uncertain terms '''''NOT''''' to do it, even threatening to destroy him at one point. Goku goes anyway and speaks to Zen-Oh, who had forgotten about the tournament and thinks it sounds like fun. And then he announces the rules, including that [[spoiler:any Universe that's eliminated in the tournament will be completely destroyed. Meaning that unless he somehow changes his mind, about 92% of reality is doomed.]] Way. To. Go. To Goku's credit, he does offer to try and talk Zen-Oh out of this, but Whis tells him not to bother since it won't do any good and at worst he might piss off Zen-Oh and get destroyed.
*** However, a subsequent episode patches things up a bit by revealing that [[spoiler:Zen-Oh already felt that there were too many weak universes and was going to destroy them anyway, the tournament just gives him a way of determining which ones are the weakest. Additionally, the four strongest universes are exempt, which means that only about half of creation is at risk (assuming there's no last-minute "That was so much fun I decided to spare everyone!" decision, [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JUqsLmOwI2Q which there isn't]]).]] Not only does this take most of the onus off of Goku, it suggests that he may have given them a fighting chance. Doesn't stop [[spoiler:Bergamo from turning the participating universes against Goku, however]].
*** Turns out the tournament [[spoiler: was also a SecretTestOfCharacter for everyone participating as the winner gets a wish from the Super Dragon Balls. Many of the participants wanted petty or selfish wishes that were a waste of their power such as 17 wanting a boat for his family to go on a cruise (Something he would be able to get with the regular Dragon Balls), Jiren wanting to revive his master to have his approval, Goku wishing for someone strong to fight. Zen-Oh had a premonition that 17 the winner would wish for the revival of all the universes that were erased, and simply made the tournament to see if the multiverse deserved to be spared as if the winner had wished for something selfish, he would have destroyed all the universes.]]

** It also could be stated that had Piccolo simply ignored Raditz and simply ''shut up'' about the Dragon Balls, a large portion of the conflict would have been avoided in ''DBZ''. In that case, his eventual demise was a form of KarmicDeath.

*** Krillin, for [[LoveMakesYouDumb failing to deactivate Android 18 when he had the chance because of his infatuation]],
*** Bulma, for removing 16's internal bomb, though Cell notes that since he's so overwhelmingly strong at this point; the blast would either blasted him into easily regenerative pieces or not affected him at all.

*** Wish Goku to be immune to the heart virus that killed him it Trunk's timeline. They had medicine, but Goku forgot to take it.

*** and finally, the ''entire'' Z-gang for deciding not to, despite [[WhatAnIdiot even though they had been given three years' warning]]:

*** Wish Goku to be immortal, making him immune to the heart virus that killed him it Trunk's timeline. They had medicine, but Goku forgot to take it.

*** Turns out the tournament [[spoiler: was also a SecretTestOfCharacter for everyone participating as the winner gets a wish from the Super Dragon Balls. Many of the participants wanted petty or selfish wishes that were a waste of their power such as 17 wanting a boat for his family to go on a cruise (Something he would be able to get with the regular Dragon Balls), Jiren wanting to revive his master to have his approval, Goku wishing for someone strong to fight. Zen-Oh had a premonition that 17 the winner would wish for the revival of all the universes that were erased, and simply made the tournament to see if the multiverse deserved to be spared as if the winner had wished for something selfish, he would have destroyed all the universe.]]

* In ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'', the heroes decides to use the Evil Containment Wave in order to seal the immortal Future Zamasu with the pot and talisman among the most important components for the seal, unfortunately it turns out that not only Roshi has forgotten the talisman required for it but the others also didn't remind him to bring the seal with them. This caused Future Zamasu to escape and subsequently decides to fuse with Black when he realized that they could actually defeat him.

** The entire premise of the Shadow Dragon Saga in ''GT''. The threat is their own fault for using the Dragon Balls too much throughout the history of the show. Then again, GT has a serious CanonDiscontinuity problem, so this might have to go on that page.

** How about ''[[Anime/DragonBallGT GT]]''? The Shadow Dragon Saga is a direct result of the heroes using the Dragon Balls '''way''' too much; they were meant to "rest" for many years between wishes so the negative energy that built up after a wish was made to dissipate naturally. The Z-Fighters' overuse allowed so much energy to accumulate that it "overloaded" the Dragon Balls and gave birth to evil, powerful dragons bent on destroying humanity.
** It gets worse when the Goku and Vegeta's fusion, Gogeta, starts playing around with the final boss Omega Shenron and loses his chance to finish him off. Goku realizes he became extremely cocky as Gogeta and spends an entire episode trying to fuse again since the duo can't defeat Omega without being combined.

** Goku admits he might possibly have been able to kill the fat Majin Buu at Super Saiyan 3, but deliberately chose not to, partly because he wanted to give Trunks and Goten a chance to do so, and partly because since he was already dead and didn't want the next generation to think that they could just depend on him all the time. Goku's inaction kicks off a series of events that lead to Super Buu being born.

*** The arcs with Buu and Babidi are only shown to occur in the main timeline where Future Trunks did a lot of unnecessary time traveling (stopping Mecha-Frieza and King Cold being the first). That in itself plays the trope straight, but again, the events of Future Trunks' timeline (and most of DBZ) would not have happened if Piccolo didn't tell Raditz about the Dragon Balls. Nappa, Vegeta, Mecha-Frieza, and King Cold would have never come to Earth for revenge and Goten and Trunks would have never been born. Piccolo would have never merged with Nail or Kami and Dr. Gero wouldn't have the data to make the Androids as strong as they were. And without everybody needing to get so ridiculously strong to survive the previous arcs, Babidi would've presumably had to look to some other planet to get enough energy to take a shot at reviving Buu. Or there might not even have ''been'' such a planet (not even Frieza and King Cold, the two strongest mortal beings in the universe at the time, would've been strong enough, since a significantly stronger Gohan wasn't), and thus Babidi might never have attempted to revive Buu at all. ''Anime/DragonBallSuper'' actually explains this - [[spoiler:Babidi did actually try in Trunks' timeline, however Trunks and Supreme Kai were able to stop him before he was able to revive Buu. Though the fight [[HeroicSacrifice did cost Supreme Kai his life]].]]

** Buu was even ''worse'', and would never have gotten as far as he did without the heroes. The Supreme Kai allowed Gohan to be drained of his energy, vastly underestimated how much of the necessary energy would be extracted, and explicitly forbade the Z-Fighters from interfering. The battle between Vegeta and Goku produced so much power it accelerated Buu's awakening even more. Piccolo's attempt to buy more time for Goten and Trunks prompted Buu to [[KillEmAll kill every person on Earth except for the main cast with one attack]]. Gotenks [[InvokedTrope acts like]] he's completely outmatched and that he's going to be defeated as a [[MyNameIsInigoMontoya setup]] for his [[SuperMode Super Saiyan 3 transformation]], but Piccolo takes him seriously and destroys the door to the [[YearInsideHourOutside Hyperbolic Time Chamber]], leaving them trapped forever after Buu escapes anyway. And finally, when Goku and Vegeta successfully rescue their sons and Piccolo from within Super Buu, Vegeta gets the bright idea to also yank out Fat Buu, causing the monster to revert into Kid Buu, who was much weaker than Super Buu but [[AxeCrazy even]] ''[[KidsAreCruel more]]'' [[TheUnfettered monstrous]].

** The Supreme Kai's plan for stopping Babidi from gathering enough energy to resurrect Buu involves... bringing individuals with a lot of energy right to him, as well as straight up allowing him to acquire Gohan's energy without a fight. Though Babidi's plan has a few hitches, it succeeds without sacrificing [[BadBoss anything Babidi cares about]]. Babidi takes great pleasure in rubbing it in to his near-dead enemy how Supreme Kai pretty much handed him victory on a silver platter.
* Ultimately, with the sheer regularity of both this trope and Goku's displays of mercy to fallen foes, it's a wonder how often things work out to where the Z Fighters keep gaining allies in the end…

*** The androids themselves might have been weaker too, since they were designed to kill Goku, and Dr. Gero would not have had access to data or DNA from the other Saiyans or Freeza and King Cold. Nor would he have ever been exposed to Super Saiyans. Of course, none of this would have prevented Babidi from coming, and then everyone would have truly been screwed. (He possibly might not have gathered enough energy to resurrect Buu, but he still had Dabura...)

*** Wish Goku to be immune to the heart virus that killed him it Trunk's timeline. They had medicine, but Goku forgot to take it.