#db lore

Zulay being the combative wife to this evil man? With a moral spine?? It’s possible but it also sets up such an uncomfy a power dynamic between Moordryd’s parents. Like.... ew. She has a moral compass and marries this coo coo orange war mongering dude?????????  They’ve been together for 10+ years, she knew what she was getting into, maternity makes he suddenly have a moral compass? Ok.

Let women be evil this 2021!! (Also sets up a super fun Paynn family lmao. Evil power couple and their son who’s the only one with something like a moral backbone).

It’s like the writers wanted Zulay to just be Word’s object of affections, rather than an actual individual with her own thoughts/goals/aspirations. That and a uterus/ baby maker to explain Moordryd’s existence, assuming cishet norms lol.

“Surrounded by women”..... just a month after his wife’s death.......... Zulay’s so inconsequential Word replaces her with other women in his grief. Sure, grief manifests in a myriad of ways but I think this is more of the Evil Villain, Corrupt To The Core Word Dick Wanking. Sorry for the crude language but seriously, this man’s made out to be pure evil and powerful, resourceful and influential, He’s the writers’ favourite lol.

AND ZULAY’S DEATH. DOESN’T IMPACT PAYNN INC SALES WHATSOEVER. She’s the leader of the Dragon Eyes, wife of the CEO (if not co-founder, then just by virtue of being his partner would afford some status), AND SHE JUST DIED TESTING GEAR FROM THIS COMPANY. 4th straight year of leading sales hahaha. Ooft.

Her death should’ve made it to the news/press. Hot topic of the year, wife of the ceo to one of the fastest growing and new gear companies just died from gear by said company. She was also a renown racer... so yeah. Her death would’ve definitely caused a huge stir in Dragon City. Moordryd should know a lot about his mom. If Word neglects to tell him about who she was as he personally knew her, Zulay’s reputation/influence in Down City/in the general public should be known at least. Instead it’s brushed away :’D

Some notes on my revised Word/Zulay bg:

Just general thoughts about how to make Zulay’s death... not so inconsequential. Stop fridging women for man pain and man pain alone (Character death done well is great for storytelling!):

Post her death, Paynn Inc suffers a huge PR blow because the co-founder just died from faulty gear testing. Grieving Word and Abyll have to scramble to mend things/keep things going. The Big 3 gear companies, Saurcom, Leviacorp and Reptilico are still the major players in the industry and Paynn Inc faces a lot of pressure from them as competition. So no, Paynn Inc is not the biggest and baddest and most influential company. (Why have your Villain already at the top of the food chain? Doesn’t that make his schemes rather redundant?)

Zulay’s death leads to a leadership vacuum in the Dragon Eye Crew (which was sizing up to be Word and Zulay’s personal army, to be fitted with and funded by Paynn Inc’s battle gear and money, for their Dragon Human War to take over Dragon City.)

Alas, by virtue of crew leadership being handed by family, bereaved (busy with Paynn Inc + injured) Word takes up the mantle. This is to the displeasure of existing DE members, who also view him as Zulay’s killer or accuse him of killing her for personal gain. Cue them leaving the crew in droves and Word losing the manpower he needs to wage war. So no, Word is not popular to a number of crooks in Down City either.

All this stuff + his own grief means he does neglect to spend time with Moordryd, but he does care about this last remaining bit of family he has left. (We can yeet out abusive Word easy peasy)

With this lack of power and people to count on, his and Zulay’s plans to takeover Dragon City is postponed until much, much later. Word has to rely on mind control/wraith gear... which is only developed in the 16 years Moordryd’s growing up.

As Moordryd grows up, Word pressures him (somewhat unconsciously) to fill his mother’s... frankly unfillable shoes. In addition to this, Moordryd has to start up the Dragon Eyes on his own, possibly facing the ire of some other Down City folks who don’t like his father (and there are many). This helps explain Moord’s popularity in the Council of 12.

All this on top of his own concern about war (Moord has some morals, unlike his parents) sets up Moordryd’s redemption arc as we know it in canon nicely! And Word? Yeah, he’ll team up with the Penn’s and ditch his war plans for his son (No, he doesn’t want to kill his own son who’s now the ancient warrior who sides with the Dragon Booster lol). Word’s not... redeemed villain, he’s a villain with a soft spot for his family haha.

-siiigh-

Alright so how long has this series been completed? How long has this fanbase been actively educating people on the lore and rules of this world that we love?

I'll be the first to admit that I haven't actually gone out of my way to view every single video by every single Dragon Ball youtuber but this really feels like something that should belong on Geekdom101's channel as it's something that is very easily open-shut “thems the knowledge, kids” information and yet somehow I have seen this misconception go around so often that I now feel compelled to put it on my own channel.

I'm assuming it hasn't been brought up on any of the other channels because of how little I see of this tidbit of correction being spread around as something that Toei kept messing up from what the manga had established.

Perhaps I'm missing something but in all my re-reads and re-watches I haven't found anything so I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that Toei animations idea of the rules of Other World don't actually line up with the original rules stated by Toriyama in the original manga.

Rest assured that I do have a video that is currently being edited by a very dear and exceptionally talented friend of mine who offered after I made the comment that material would be releasing on my channel much faster had it not been for my crippling imposter-syndrome style perfectionist-procrastination.

So for right now here's a video that I'm writing up at currently 1:25 in the morning the day that I need to be at work to sing at 8:00 in the morning and plan to edit in movie maker as opposed to my usual After Effects style of careful sound-mixing and video editing.

So what do I mean by Toei getting the rules of Other World mixed up when compared to the source manga? Well, it's simple, really.

Villains do not get to keep their body's in Other World.

Getting to keep your body in Other World is a special privilege. I'm quoting Goku from Volume 19, page 134 of Dragon Ball Z when I say “Regular people and bad guys like Cell turn into spirits.” and how “they're going to give [Goku] special treatment [there] 'cuz [he] saved the planet.”

It is not about being a powerful fighter and I don't know why the fanbase believes that that's the rules, unless of course it's just more stuff they've convinced each other of in order to erase the fact that Goku gets to keep his body because he's that good of a guy but that's another pillar of salt for another day.

Granted I'll be the first to admit that originally there were rules about spirits being trapped in limbo when killed by a villain that were sort of forgotten about but that's a very minor mistake in the grand scheme of the story that is very easy to pony-shrug off and say “meh, no story is perfect. Ultra-Divine Water needed more build-up.” Not to say that that isn't a problem but I bring that up because I can already hear the typing of fans trying to argue that because Toriyama forgot that rule we should be allowed to throw out any other rule that was stated on the same topic in the same way as the limbo-rule and no, not really.

See, not only are the rules about who keeps their body or who turns to a spirit largely unaffected by whether or not Toriyama remembered to address that limbo thing, the rules currently on trial right now were backed up later by Piccolo's talk with Vegeta.

Which, for the record, was included in the Anime so even if you're one of the people who chooses to follow the continuity of the Anime as your go-to-source, changes form the manga be damned, this would still be a contradiction to the idea of villains keeping their body.

Lord knows I shant tell this fanbase about Vegeta's development and how beautiful and selfless his sacrifice was but just for my own sanity let me both remind and catch some of you “I only read fanfiction and that's why I love Vegeta even though I've never touched the original source” people up to speed.

See, what makes Vegeta's sacrifice against Buu so powerful is that this is the first time Vegeta has set aside his selfish desires. He's gone through his metamorphosis and fought his inner-demons away. The reason Babidi was able to hypnotize him with his magic is that by that point he was never really good, just tamed and now docile. His sacrifice, however, is where he threw away the very thing that Babidi used to control him in an attempt to kill both Babidi and his creation, Boo.

And so here we are where Vegeta is doing his first real “good-guy” move which just so happens to be the “goodest-guyest” thing you can do, sacrificing one's life for the sake of giving others a chance to live.

Here, Vegeta asks Piccolo – at this point fused with Kami and thus holding Kami's experiences and knowledge as Guardian of the Earth within him - what would become of him in Other World.

Piccolo's response is “You have killed too many innocents. You will lose your body and your soul will be banished to a place quite different from Goku's. There it will be reincarnated into a new form, but only after it is cleansed of memories.”

So if a character who's strength can not be denied and who's last action of sacrifice was not enough to counteract all the pain and suffering he had caused prior will not be keeping his body in Other World (something even brought up in the movie Fusion Reborn and is the reason for the scene that everyone, their mother and myself use in AMVs)