I'd also like to point out that Goku tried his damndest to defeat Cell before sending Gohan in. Hell, he would have defeated Cell with that Instant Kamehameha if Cell didn't have all the hax enabled.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!Goku tried an awful lot harder when he was fighting Frieza. And he never gave Frieza a Senzu.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Eh, I I think I'm done with this. If anyone else wants to talk about it I'll still find it interesting, but I'm a bit tired of having basically the same lecture as a response.
No he didn't, when the Spirit Bomb failed he knew had lost until he went Super Saiyan. Goku knows and admits when he's beaten/can't win. Seeing as no one defends the Senzu bit, I don't know why you brought it up. Aaaaaaand, now I'm done for real.
edited 1st Sep '16 7:45:18 AM by LSBK
There was barely any time for Goku to do anything after the Genki-Dama failed. Piccolo was ganked in a surprise attack, then Krillin was killed, and then Goku was a Super Saiyan.
However, earlier in the fight, Goku realized he wasn't going to be able to throw the Genki-Dama because Frieza was no longer letting him stall but had instead started wailing on him. This is right before Piccolo intervenes and buys Goku time. Faced with no hope but to fail and die, Goku throws one last defiant punch at Frieza that he knows can't possibly do anything, but he does it anyway because that's who Goku is.
When the chips are down and hope is lost, Goku would rather die on his feet than on his back.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.That's not the same thing as him not knowing when he's beaten. He admitted Vegeta beat him. After Frieza survived the Spirit Bomb, he told the others to leave, but had no delusions he was joining them later. When Beerus won he was just like "Well, I guess the Earth is going to be destroyed now, sorry." He's not one of those, "If everything I have right now isn't enough, I'll just make myself magically stronger" types.
He went to meet Cell and felt he was stronger. He had Corin/Karin confirm that Cell is stronger. He fought Cell for awhile and got extra super confirmation that, yes, Cell is stronger. He was going all out against Cell but knew that Cell wasn't doing the same.
For the record, I'm done with the child soldier talk, but I'm considering this separate from that.
edited 1st Sep '16 8:09:46 AM by LSBK
What do you mean, he had "no delusions of joining them" when he told everyone to leave? He was a Super Saiyan at that point. Are you suggesting Goku transformed into a Super Saiyan and then gave up and accepted that Frieza could never be stopped?
Goku told them to leave because he didn't want them in harm's way while he's beating Frieza into meat-pulp. He did the exact same thing when he fought Vegeta - that time just backfired on him because he didn't plan for the Oozaru, on account of not knowing that's a thing. And even then he was broken and bleeding and helpless on the ground yet still fighting, using Krillin and Gohan as proxies.
And before anyone asks, I'm not criticizing Goku for his use of Gohan here because they came back on their own volition, he gave the Genki-Dama to Krillin instead of Gohan, and the only thing he deliberately had Gohan do was rebound the Genki-Dama that was already flying at him and then turn into a giant nigh-invulnerable killer monkey.
Until the Cell Games, Goku has always let Gohan be present for his fights, but never expected him to actually carry the fight. Because he's a child.
Cell is different because Goku went into it fully expecting Gohan to fight him and only even tried to fight Cell himself because he wanted Gohan to get a confidence boost from seeing how much slower and weaker Goku and Cell are than him before being tossed into the ring. Goku only tried against Cell in the sense that he put on a demo fight for Gohan's benefit. He never had any intentions of actually killing Cell; that was his preteen child's job.
edited 1st Sep '16 8:35:50 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.No, I meant before he went Super Saiyan. He told Krillin Gohan to get Piccolo and Bulma and leave, and don't wait for him because he wouldn't be coming back. He had no delusions of actually beating Frieza at that point, but he was going to try and stall him. Or was that only the anime?
Either way, the point stands, Goku doesn't keep fighting when he's exhausted all his options. He's not the type of guy to say "I'll win even though I've done everything I can and it still wasn't enough."
And acting as if Gohan should be treated as if he's a normal, non-superpowered child, is on you.
edited 1st Sep '16 8:39:41 AM by LSBK
No, you're right, that did happen. But Goku wasn't giving up and deciding to stop fighting. He wasn't telling them to leave in the assumption that Frieza would stand here and let them go. He was planning to do the "Get away while I buy you time to escape" thing.
He was still going to die fighting. Frieza just beat him to the punch by blowing up Krillin before they could get anywhere.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.So...your point is that Goku didn't try his hardest against Cell, because he didn't keep fighting a fight he knew he couldn't win until he died, for no reason? He had a reason to keep fighting against Frieza, he had to buy time for the others to get away. There was no such situation against Cell, or Vegeta, or Beerus.
edited 1st Sep '16 8:46:12 AM by LSBK
I'd actually forgotten that. It kinda makes Gohan's anger at him a little misguided when you think about it.
One Strip! One Strip!My point is that the scene would work better for everyone involved if Goku hadn't gone into it expecting his 12-year-old son to fight a genocidal monster in a battle to the death. As it stands, Goku's enthusiasm and eagerness to get his son horribly killed reflects terribly on him, the fact that it works carries a load of Unfortunate Implications, and Gohan himself gets screwed out of any possible agency he could have because he didn't want to fight and ultimately only wins because Goku is guiding him telepathically and telling him what to do.
Every choice Gohan makes of his own free will is the wrong one, in the scene that's supposed to communicate that Gohan has risen beyond Goku and is now the hero in his own right. Gohan is only successful when he behaves like a weapon for Goku to point and shoot.
Putting the narrative impetus on Gohan fighting because he chose to despite everyone else trying to protect him rather than Goku making him fight and then being the only reason he succeeds would do a world of good for everyone involved.
edited 1st Sep '16 9:00:09 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.It reflects horribly distorted the way you frame it but that's not actually how things were.
He wasn't totally sure Gohan was going to fight and only brought it up when it was absolutely necessary, asked him after explaining things, and had the upmost confidence he'd be fine.
And your attempts to make things "better" don't really make sense and require Goku to make even stupider decisions/mistakes like insisting on fighting to death or not noticing his son's awesome power while spending a year training with him.
edited 1st Sep '16 9:02:12 AM by LSBK
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... that's a pretty valid point. He didn't try his hardest because he had complete faith in Gohan. Goku is a Determinator who usually fights until the bitter end. Which is usually the time when he fights his best. That he didn't is just rather odd.
For that matter, he probably didn't train his hardest, either.
edited 1st Sep '16 8:59:54 AM by Larkmarn
Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.You keep complaining about going in circles yet keep bringing up criticisms that have already been answered and not refuted.
Goku didn't notice his son's awesome power because he didn't know Super Saiyan 2 was a thing. With this form waiting in the wings for Gohan to unleash it on Cell, there was no narrative need for Goku to even think Gohan could take him. To put this simply:
The reason Goku sent Gohan out to fight Cell is because Goku is a 10, Vegeta is an 8, and Gohan is a 12. But Goku didn't know that Gohan is actually a 24 because he doubled his power with Super Saiyan 2 right before he actually got serious against Cell.
If Goku was a 10, Vegeta was an 8, and Gohan was a 7, then Goku could believe he was the best hope, lose to Cell, and then Gohan could turn it up to 14 with Super Saiyan 2 and beat Cell. All without romanticizing Child Soldiers, and putting the agency for Gohan's awesomeness in Gohan's hands rather than keeping it all on Goku.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Seems we have different definitions of the word "refuted". Goku doesn't have to know about Super Saiyan 2 to know that Gohan can beat Cell. It seems like you're just underestimating the strength gap between all of them. Gohan looked at Goku going all out and was decidedly unimpressed. I think that's a greater difference than between a 10 and 12.
Like, at this point it seems your argument relies on just straight up ignoring what was stated and implied in the story itself to feed your own narrative.
edited 1st Sep '16 9:15:11 AM by LSBK
You're factually wrong, Tobias. Goku went all out against Cell and only managed to put up a better fight than anyone before him had. Gohan watching on the sidelines didn't even realize that Goku had done his best because to him it looked like Goku and Cell were just playing around. Gohan was far stronger than Goku at that point and SS2 just made the gap even bigger.
I'd only be factually wrong if I was saying that Goku being stronger than Gohan is what happened, rather than what should have happened. Rather than find a way to rephrase the point that nobody read, I'm just going to put this here again.
If Goku was a 10, Vegeta was an 8, and Gohan was a 7, then Goku could believe he was the best hope, lose to Cell, and then Gohan could turn it up to 14 with Super Saiyan 2 and beat Cell. All without romanticizing Child Soldiers, and putting the agency for Gohan's awesomeness in Gohan's hands rather than keeping it all on Goku.
Gohan being stronger than Goku before transforming into Super Saiyan 2 is completely unnecessary and causes only harm to the narrative.
edited 1st Sep '16 9:19:29 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Your personal narrative, but not the story's.
Edit: Gohan not being impressed by Goku and Cell's fight and Goku giving Cell the Senzu bean, and Goku's absolute confidence Gohan would win, is to really hammer in the fact that if Gohan actually got serious, he'd be in no danger at all against Cell.
Going Super Saiyan 2 actually made things worse, because instead of just finishing him off, he played with him, which lead to things like Cell deciding to self-destruct, coming back "super-perfect", killing Trunks, and crippling Gohan to the point that things actually became a struggle.
Ignoring all this only serves to ham up the "child soldier" analogy that I said I was done directly discussing, but apparently that can't happen.
edited 1st Sep '16 9:32:18 AM by LSBK
Sure.
So, we done here?
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Yes, there is. It's called Super Saiyan 2, and it's something Goku didn't even know Gohan had in him. He was expecting Gohan to turn Super Saiyan and wreck Cell, and he got a gift with purchase when Gohan pulled brand new transformation out of his ass and wrecked Cell harder than Goku could ever have imagined.
Scale down Gohan's power to being under Goku's and having a brand new transformation that doubles his Super Saiyan power can still make him powerful enough to overcome Cell. Without Goku ever going, "Wow, Gohan sure is powerful, I'm going to make him kill my enemies for me."
Which, again, puts the agency on Gohan being awesome rather than Goku weaponizing him and sending him into battle against his volition.
edited 1st Sep '16 7:38:42 AM by TobiasDrake
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