You assume I don't hold them responsible also because I added Trunks to my post. Character wise Vegeta gets the excuse of being a to proud to do anything. Wasn't really sure Piccolo is strong enough.
Why would Goku have to listen to Vegeta. If Vegeta doesn't want to fuse Goku can go get someone that will have no problem fusing to prevent the genocidal monster from blowing up more planets. It would have been a lot easier then making the spirit bomb.
"Shall I use you, or make you mine... I'm not so sure what I'll do." - DorthyI assumed that, because that's what your post implied. If you edited later that's whatever. How is in anyway Vegeta's pride a valid excuse? And Piccolo may or may not have been strong enough, but the point was going "It's Goku's fault for not doing it" is ridiculous in context. Especially since it's entirely at that point he wasn't strong enough to beat Semi-Perfect Cell and Gohan was the only one who could.
Yeah, it would have been easier but they weren't going for easy, they were going for symbolism and shit. Which I don't agree with, but the point is that Goku suggested the idea, was shot down, and then everyone else went with the Spirit Bomb. And, frankly, as soon as Gohan (and Goten and Trunks was revived) it stopped mattering. Spirit Bomb fails? Then, yeah, they'd just go get Gohan or Gotenks. One of the major problems with the final fight with Kid Buu is that by all rights it lost any tension it could have had half-way through, and that tension was largely manufactured to begin with.
edited 27th Jan '18 12:52:50 PM by LSBK
Piccolo isn't smart. He has plenty of moments of stupidity throughout the entire series, his fight against Goku is mostly him doing dumb plans and easily being outsmarted by Goku, he gloats in front of Raditz allowing Nappa and Vegeta to find out of the Dragon Balls, he comes up with a dumb plan against Nappa (Goku actually explains that they tail shouldn't be targeted near the end of that fight, Piccolo does it anyway), he comes up with the horrendously stupid plan to send the pre-fusion Piccolo against Freeza and risk losing their Dragon Balls after getting them, he shows off his regeneration to Cell just to boast, he overestimates himself against the Androids and leads Cell right to him (and doesn't notice because he didn't pay enough attention), he thinks Gohan is dead after one attack without trying to sense his ki, he forgets how the Room of Spirit and Time works... this is all off the top of my head.
He's an idiot. To top it off, he doesn't have moments where he's particularly smart, and him being the 'strategist' is just fanon/EU stuff with no real basis. I don't think it's even that he's MEANT to be smart and Toriyama just fumbled, because Piccolo describes other characters as being geniuses and is used as the guy who says dumb stuff so other characters can correct him.
Hell, even Boo's line about Piccolo is mistranslated/misinterpreted, he absorbs Piccolo because he sees that Piccolo is urging Gotenks not to fuck around and he needs to offset Gotenks' immaturity.
Also yeah, he spends no more time as a mentor than Goku does. And I'd say Goku did a much better job as a mentor, because he taught Gohan how to achieve Super Saiyan Full Power.
I think that moment specifically could have been a real turning point, if they had actually stuck with the "skill beats power" mindset.
That's incorrect, as LSBK pointed out. Goku only talked about 'surpassing' an elite, in response to Vegeta talking about power. Furthermore, the series never had this mindset, going back to the 21st Budokai arc when the series started to become focused on fighting:
This is from Roshi's match with Goku. That wasn't a fight that lacked skill, but the fight was only as even as it was because their strength was so close together.
Ignoring all the Piccolo stuff, "stronger" has different connotations in Japanese than it does in English, and the way it is likely being used then would probably better be translated as "better".
On a slightly different note, Roshi and Goku weren't even close to being even in that fight. Roshi had to waste energy to blow up the moon and he still came out on top.
edited 27th Jan '18 1:40:14 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"No, it wouldn't. That's just reaching given how this series has always worked. Because Roshi goes on to state that aside from that, he has more reach in his legs that gives him an advantage. That's 'better'.
A long time my ass, it took him a day. Also, no-one in the cast has ever said they consider it dishonourable - Ten didn't, Roshi didn't, God didn't, Super Goku didn't. Hell, no-one treated it as dishonorable when God did it in front of them. It's never come up.
As for your examples:
- Raditz - They had a day to prepare (Raditz' grace period), so you're incorrect there. Roshi was present and could not think of a single way to beat Raditz even with this.
- Vegeta/Nappa - They had been told the Saiyans were stronger than Raditz, and had a year to prepare. Overconfidence isn't good enough a reason not to bring something as a backup. Even if they thought they had a shot at winning, defeating one Saiyan and sealing the other is still a better plan if the Mafuba is so infallible.
- Namek - Piccolo should know the technique, and can materialize items at will. Doesn't try it when losing to Freeza.
- Android - Not everyone agreed with this plan to begin with, and several characters wanted to prevent Cell reaching his perfect form.
- Boo - actually, Goku didn't even want Majin Boo released. Vegeta didn't want him released, he just didn't initially care when it happened. Plenty of opportunities to prepare the Mafuba if that would have helped.
The grand summation to that is "they're idiots", which the cast have proven many, many times, and which the Mafuba is only one instance of. There's no reason they couldn't have used the dragonballs to move a star on top of Vegeta and Nappa, no reason they couldn't have used the dragonballs to wish for someone to be weaker or simply for themselves to be made stronger at many, many times in the series, etc.
I don't understand why the Mafuba is such a big deal when at worst it's only another option to toss upon the pile of shit they don't do that constantly puts the earth in danger.
edited 27th Jan '18 1:46:03 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"These things always spiral into multiple directions, often over things we've all already talked about before.
At this point, I feel the need to say that this isn't the general Dragon Ball thread, and any relations to discussing the abridged series was lost awhile ago.
edited 27th Jan '18 1:45:31 PM by LSBK
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Actually we don't know if the Dragon is capable of those things, the second one definitely seems dubious
Toriyama could have written the Dragon Balls better to prevent people coming up with rules lawyering ways to abuse them, or just have the Dragon refuse to go along with such wishes, but that's a lot less natural than the Mafuba apparently being a perfect counter to everything and still not being used.
It's one thing to say 'they could have thought of this kind of silly wish!' and another to say 'they could just use the mafuba ''the way it was originally intended'". That's a huge difference, and something that should have been addressed.
Just calling them stupid doesn't cut it when that doesn't apply to everyone, is an exaggeration and does not fit several points in the series.
Based on what we've seen in series "make the Saiyans weaker" would have definitely been impossible; it would have required Nappa and Vegeta's consent to work, which obviously wouldn't happen. I also imagine "make us stronger than these people" is also something outside of the Dragons' powers.
edited 27th Jan '18 2:01:09 PM by LSBK
It should also be obvious that Toriyama gave the dragon that limitation because he wanted there to be an actual reason the characters can't use the Dragon Balls to solve the plot. If he was content with them just not wanting to use them or being too dumb to, he wouldn't add that clause in when he did.
So he definitely should have come up with a reason to prevent the star example.
x9 considering the conversation is about Goku not much of a reason to mention others really. Not really an excuse it is more that if a character a history of letting his pride get the best of him it would be no shock that he would be to prideful to do anything in that situation. Goku and Trunks don't have any reason to sit back when Gohan decided he wanted to take a pound of flesh from cell rather than finish him off.
How about filling their pods with the strongest acid in the universe? Heck, since they know Goku needs to breathe, they could just say "make their pods disappear" and they'd die of asphyxiation in the middle of space.
No matter how many limiters you put on a wish, so long as it is a wish you are opening pandora's box in terms of the amount of problems it can solve.
edited 27th Jan '18 2:01:47 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"Again, that's clearly not intended on Toriyama's part. He didn't want the characters to be capable of killing them but refusing to, so he should have thought of a better rule to patch that out.
Or just suspend disbelief.
Easiest way would just be for Shenron to be able to use his own discretion 'I don't want to kill people, fuck you if you try and indirectly make me kill someone'.
edited 27th Jan '18 2:04:32 PM by Saiga
Then that just makes Shenron look like a twat since these Saiyans are directly on their way to kill people. One could even argue that by not granting such a wish he's indirectly killing more people than otherwise.
It also doesn't solve, for example, "teleport Earth and the solar system 2 years away from these people". Or something like "Make Earth impossible to find."
edited 27th Jan '18 2:10:28 PM by Sigilbreaker26
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"![]()
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Calling him a twat isn't very fair at all. I wouldn't be surprised if a God dragon created to give people hope doesn't want to be used as a murder machine.
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That's also a good one. It could be a deliberate safeguard put in place to minimize misuse. I had thought of the same thing while having a shower just then, expect it was 'can't adversely affect anyone without their consent'.
edited 27th Jan '18 2:33:36 PM by Saiga

Well, from a Doylist perspective yes, but from a Watsonian perspective we have to hold it against the characters.
"And when the last law was down and the Devil turned round on you, where would you hide, the laws all being flat?"