Piccolo was playing fair. Did he target Goku's friends, no fought Goku evenly on his terms. He didn't have to enter the tournament. If he was smart, he would have attacked Goku after the tournament when he's tired and hungry. Instead, it was a straight match. He didn't nuke the stadium until the end. Why didn't he do that first and not even bother with the tournament. His father sure in heck wouldn't.
All these things show that while evil, Piccolo did have some decency and fought Goku more or less fairly. It's just that if Goku lost, he dies. Tien tried to do the same when they first fought.
Besides, killing someone means you only get the fun once. Keeping that guy alive and watching his face when you force him to give you his best wine, however, is the gift of fun that keeps on giving.
This goes back to the argument about whether Freeza or Cell is more evil, and I think this is what makes Freeza infinitely more evil than Cell - Freeza is actually motivated by sadism, while Cell was designed for the purpose of destroying things so that's what he does.
himitsu keisatsu seifu chokuzoku kokka hoanbu na no da himitsu keisatsu yami ni magireru supai katsudou torishimari![]()
You and I have very different definitions of decency then, because what you are describing is not decency to me, he very clearly didn't care if anyone else died. Saving it towards the end doesn't somehow make him more honorable it means he's gauging himself and only doing things when he feels it's necessary to not waste power. Again, Pragmatic Villainy doesn't make them less of a villain.
And as for why he'd challenge him in a tournament, what better way to get revenge than to crush him at the thing Goku loves most? That he very clearly didn't care about the rules or people in their fight makes it clear that the fairness meant nothing to him. The whole thing was a means to an end.
edited 6th Mar '16 12:08:02 PM by LSBK
So on a positive note, Beerus struggling not to act like a sore loser
◊ was one of the funniest moments so far.
If he was anything like his father he wouldn't care about winning fairly or even humiliating Goku. The second King Piccolo though he was in danger, he took Tien hostage. He also had his children kill martial artists wholesale on the off-chance of one of the knowing the Evil Containment Wave. Yet Piccolo chose to fight Goku on his terms and didn't cheat when he believed he was in danger. If he was truly pragmatic as you claim, he would have killed Goku after the tournament when he was weak or fire at his friends to distract him. There was no pragmatic reason for Piccolo to go through the tournament and fight Goku at his best. It's the opposite.
The argument was that he targeted Goku at the tournament out of sadism, not pragmatism. He was also there to announce his 'return.'
Still, I don't think you can consider Piccolo Jr. nearly as evil as the likes of Vegeta, nor did he even succeed at his crimes. It may be just as bad from a personal moral perspective to fail at killing someone than to do it successfully, but it's a lot harder to atone or receive forgiveness when you actually did murder someone. You can't actually fix that.
Unless you use shiny magical orbs to undo everything but shhh pointing out that the dragon balls should be able to solve just about everything in the story from physical danger to moral absolution would tear the narrative apart.
I just want to remind everyone Goku deserved to get cheated in his fight with Frost as punishment for killing the comparatively innocent carnivore that was Yakon while showing sympathy towards the planetary exterminator who sold his soul for power, Vegeta. That'll learn him!
That's really what that supernova in the backstory of Dragon Ball Online was me thinks. Goku realized he was dying of old age and had to make sure the world he would soon be unable to defend was free of Vegeta once and for all.
Buldogue's lawyerI've been thinking with the reveal...we all assumed Hit was going to be the Token Evil Teammate, and Frost's the Big Good. So what if Frost's evil is part of the twist that reveals Hit is actually the Big Good and Dark Is Not Evil?
Well there's also the whole everyone loses their bodies thing.
Only the dudes who are chosen by the Kais can keep their bodies, and only dudes who aren't evil get to do that.
So no beating up the entire Celestial Bureaucracy and getting into Warrior Heaven, cause if you are the kind of person who would do that, then they'd likely de-body you as quickly as possible.
edited 6th Mar '16 3:53:09 PM by HandsomeRob
One Strip! One Strip!

Also cause he's a lazy sadistic dick.Killing someone to get your quality wine gets old after a while.Might as well have him give it to you.