At least for 17 he didn't stretch the rules; if 17 really did blow himself up, there really is no fair way to blame that on Jiren beyond "He was fighting Jiren so if he hadn't been so strong, he wouldn't have done it" which isn't particularly convincing.
The time they thought Goku died wasn't particularly stretched either. Goku's the one who made the attack, Jiren simply repelled it.
edited 12th Feb '18 5:32:00 PM by LSBK
We've never seen them at war true. But there was the Red Ribbon Army, referred to as, and I quote, the most evil army in the world.
...I think. I'm near positive they were called that.
There was also Tao Pai Pai, who was pretty evil (and still is honestly).
But yeah, for the most part, outside of the occasional mugger, Earth is more known for being victimized by evil rather than committing it on any truly grand scale.
Oh wait. I forgot Dr. Gero, and future Android 17 and 18. They were pretty evil.
One Strip! One Strip!Robots Gero who builds many evil artificial humans is an outlier and should not be counted
Forever liveblogging the AvengersFair enough.
Ultimately, humanity is not really all that evil in Dragonball.
You, except for when Toriyama wants them to be, ala those two jerks who created Evil Buu.
One Strip! One Strip!It's the classic problem where a fictional universe is sanitized of real-world vices such as war, bigotry, ect. yet a character's motivation implicitly hinges on the existence of those vices, creating a sort of Informed Flaw applied to the setting as a whole.
edited 12th Feb '18 7:33:15 PM by Anomalocaris20
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!
Like Reality, Unless Noted plays a huge part. Just because something (like war) isn't depicted in the series doesn't mean it never happens.
edited 12th Feb '18 8:24:56 PM by MightyMatilda
De Romanīs, lingua Latina gloriosa non fuī.I'm aware of that, it just creates problems with Show, Don't Tell.
Zamasu is far from the worst case, though. If he had been introduced an arc earlier, and we got to see more of the depravity lurking within the mortals of Universe 10 beyond one planet of barbarian dinosaur dudes, it'd be a pretty good, solid ideological backstory.
edited 12th Feb '18 8:33:24 PM by Anomalocaris20
You cannot firmly grasp the true form of Squidward's technique!Absolutely not. I'd say the only "rules stretching" that happened was Jiren getting almost-disqualified for throwing the Spirit Bomb back at Goku (should it had killed him), but I kind of agree with the logic there. I can also see arguments from the other side too.
Universe 11's biggest problem was incompetence really. No need to be biased for them when they're hindering themselves...
It was made pretty explicit that the Zeno have absolute authority to screw the rules if breaking them was sufficiently cool enough, which I actually really like, since it allows the writers to give themselves limitations for the plot but also break those limitations for Rule of Cool whenever they feel like it.
edited 12th Feb '18 11:52:50 PM by PushoverMediaCritic
I kind of wish they had gone even further with Jiren's backstory, like: "and then Jiren joined the Pride Troopers, a team of superheroes led by Toppo. The Pride Troopers saved many lives throughout the galaxy, until one day they came across that same Evil-Doer... who once again killed all of them. Jiren and Toppo were the only survivors. They built the Pride Troopers back up with new members, such as Kahseral and Dyspo, and Jiren has been searching for the Evil-Doer ever since."
The issue with Jiren's backstory is in the words of one commenter I saw "Sounds like a basic ass Marvel/DC my parents were killed backstory" that is told in a boring-ass way.
Jiren has been hyped up for over 20 episodes, everything about him framed as this epic mystery as we wonder who & what he is. The backstory is way to generic for a guy with this much hype, sure hype backlash is a thing but this origin is just not sufficient. Sure it may have been better with a more exciting execution but the execution was lacking in all sense.
There's no catch, no hook, no gimmick, no....... mojo.
"I am Alpharius. This is a lie."I think Jiren's first group of allies also dying in battle against the same guy is unique enough to qualify as a catch. It's certainly not something I've seen before. The backstory we got feels like "Jiren's life, part 1", we never learned what happened to the Evil-Doer, what Jiren's relationship with the Pride Troopers is (like, did he form them or just join an already existing group?), or specifically what his wish is. I hope we get a "Part 2" flashback that addresses these points.

Anyone think the Grand Priest is biased towards Universe 11? It's the universe competing with the highest average mortal level, and twice he's stretched the rules to keep their ace in.