allinthehands submitted to dragon-ball-meta:
As a gohan fan and someone who hasn’t gotten to DBS yet- i just want to thank you for the meta on everyone and the fandom’s nonsense. And because Gohan’s my fav, i fear the TLDR will be about him lol.
You’re definitely on point about people forgetting how horrific fighting cell was for Gohan- not because of the cruel things Cell did, but what Cell’s cruelty brought brought out in himself. Like a lot of his fans loved watching him beating the crap out of Cell, because he looked cool, not considering that the character itself didn’t actually like it afterwards. I’d go as as far to say that once it was all over, and he’d broken the news to Chichi about Goku not returning, He’d be actually a little/ very ashamed of the whole fiasco. If he’d killed Cell straight out, he could have prevented his dad from dying. He could have prevented Vegeta having to watch Mirai Trunks die. Goten could have grown up with his dad instead of everyone in their family waiting years before ever seeing Goku again.
That to me is one of the reason why he avoided training during the original time skip, besides not really enjoying fighting, training, at least early on during the timeskip, would remind him of the year he spent exclusively with Goku in the HBTC, and he didn’t really need more reasons to feel guilty about causing his dad’s absence. I also think that part of the reason he genuinely enjoyed being saiyaman as a teenager, because it’s in a lot of ways the antithesis of all his experiences in the show. It was his own thing, relatively easy and light hearted and had nothing to do with all the various villains he grew up having to fight. During then, he could be the opposite of what he was during at his lowest (the angry pre-teen that thought he was helping everyone, by being cruel, serious and malicious while playing with Cell who played with everyone else’s life). As Saiyenman, he got to do actual good without any of worry of getting into that same head space where he could get out of bounds. And I don’t just mean the cruelty in Cell arc- I meant his bad habit of getting cocky and playing with his opponents instead of fighting genuinely. It’s cropped up twice whenever he’s juiced in DBZ, and If i remember correctly, it’s also what got him eaten by Buu. Hopefully with Picollo + Krillen’s + Goku’s pointers, he’ll avoid that this time around in DBS. (Or not, lol, multiple character development in story telling is better than singular)
So kudos also on your rants/discussion on Gohan, because Extra-Gohan fans tend to want things from him at the expense of his character + other characters. And while angst and introspection never really fit with the original DB + DBZ storyline, outside of a point to overcome. I’m glad to hear, at least with Krillin in DBS, that we are getting more exploration. Genuine Character development and your thoughts on it have given me reason to re-consider on passing on the show in any case.
Hey there, thanks for the friendly line.
You’re pretty on point with your observations, I’d say. Add to that Gohan really preferring not to hurt anyone and it’s fairly self-evident why he wouldn’t emphasize (or really want much to engage in) training. Even as Saiyaman, he’d typically just bop an enemy real quick and incapacitate or KO them without any sort of extended violence.
As for his cockiness, Piccolo actually did directly address that Episode 88.
So kudos on spotting that as well. :)
And I’m glad to see you’re reconsidering passing on the series. Hopefully you find the time to watch and (hopefully) enjoy.
