Goku Character Analysis Part 2 - DBZ Era

[Nejishiki]

In the anime, his only response to Vegeta finding out he has Super Saiyan 3 is, "I'm sorry. The time I can transform into Super Saiyan 3 is limited." and the manga has him state the same and add, "I had to save it for later, just in case...". Further into the story, Goku asks Vegeta if he's sure he wants see Super Saiyan 3, otherwise, he might not get a chance to fight. That's consistent in both. Finally, Vegeta thinks that Goku is lying about his stamina issue with Boo. He assumed Goku held back to spare his pride. In reality, Goku was having genuine trouble. This makes Vegeta dumbfounded because he thought Goku was keeping him from fighting Boo for his sake, as he gathered alone he had no chance to succeed. Aside from the detail that Goku and Vegeta acknowledge the latter has to fight again (He had an anime-exclusive battle in the previous episode), the conversation there is the same, as well. The ultimate message being that Goku didn't particularly state he wanted to give Vegeta a fighting chance against him in their first battle and later on in the anime, Goku thinks on his own he wants to fight again, before Vegeta corrects him and assumes he's holding back in both versions of the tale.

[hectorgf]

Goku wanted Gohan to kill Cell because of how dangerous he is. Goku does show remorse as shown when he spared Jeice, Burter and Recoome and even said they should get medical attention.
It's likely that's because after realising that the feeling of using Potara wasn't so bad

How is Semi-Perfect Cell dangerous exactly? At that level, pretty much everyone from Gohan to Piccolo can murder stomp him. He's no more of a threat to the world at that point than a half-dead Freeza was to Goku on Namek. Yet, Goku decides that Cell must die no matter what and that's that. It's literally the only time he's shown any actual pragmatism in defeating an adversary and it comes off as weird. If he was acting this way towards Boo after realizing his retarded Saiyan logic makes things worse as the end of the Cell arc blatantly says he did, then I'd get it. But for Cell? Doesn't make any sense.

The whole thing with Goku's sudden pragmatism is just another example of how much of a plot device he becomes instead of a character. Most of the time, Toriyama will write him as a selfish shit head except when he needs him to NOT be one for absolutely no good in-character reason for it. Goku's "mature" in the Boo arc until he isn't anymore. Goku's "pragmatic" until it doesn't suit the plot anymore. He's not a character anymore, he's a walking, talking plot device.

Goku also never had any problems with the potara to begin with. The only thing that weirded him out was potentially being fused with his own son forever but that didn't stop him at all when it came to actually using the earrings. Vegeta's the only guy who has a problem with fusion here.

So... This post was revived because of that recent post about Goku as a character, and I hope it's not too late to write a comment here.
Well, Goku choosing to not spare Cell is just a learning that he got from Freeza's battle. He saw a little bit of hope in Freeza, but immediately he saw that Freeza wasn't a changeable person.
This time he noticed the same thing with Cell, that the villain was just getting crazier and crazier along the battle with Gohan.

In Boo's situation, it was really different. Boo really helped everyone and Mr. Satan explained that he wasn't a bad guy, he was just being manipulated by bad people, and that's a thing that Goku had already noticed since it was because of Goku's advice that Boo got free. See the pink and fat guy fighting on his side, knowing that he is really naive and just looks for fun, and even Mr. Satan told that he was a good person, it was more than enough for relying on him as a new ally.

[sintzu]

Original Goku will always be one of if not the best character in all of Shonen and topics like this show exactly why.

Why does no one seem to aknowledge that Toriyama created a massive inconsistency when he created Super Saiyan 3 ?

Because he didn't, everything about Ssj3 is written around what Goku told Vegeta and we even see it happen later against Kid Buu.

Goku's personality changed to me from DBZ to Super, he seems more childish in Super.

That's probably because the writers want him to be closer to Luffy, never mind the fact that he's what inspied Luffy in the first place.

[ABED]

Because he didn't, everything about Ssj3 is written around what Goku told Vegeta and we even see it happen later against Kid Buu.

What are you referring to? It is absolutely true that he didn't think of SS3 before he had Goku fight Vegeta. To hold back against Vegeta would've been out of character for Goku.

[ekrolo2]

Because he didn't, everything about Ssj3 is written around what Goku told Vegeta and we even see it happen later against Kid Buu.

What are you referring to? It is absolutely true that he didn't think of SS3 before he had Goku fight Vegeta. To hold back against Vegeta would've been out of character for Goku.

That AND the fact Goku flat out tells Vegeta he wants to end the fight quickly by using his maximum power, a statement that makes no sense if Goku doesn't just use SS3 immediately to smash Vegeta.

3 factually didn't exist when this fight was written.

So... This post was revived because of that recent post about Goku as a character, and I hope it's not too late to write a comment here.
Well, Goku choosing to not spare Cell is just a learning that he got from Freeza's battle. He saw a little bit of hope in Freeza, but immediately he saw that Freeza wasn't a changeable person.
This time he noticed the same thing with Cell, that the villain was just getting crazier and crazier along the battle with Gohan.

In Boo's situation, it was really different. Boo really helped everyone and Mr. Satan explained that he wasn't a bad guy, he was just being manipulated by bad people, and that's a thing that Goku had already noticed since it was because of Goku's advice that Boo got free. See the pink and fat guy fighting on his side, knowing that he is really naive and just looks for fun, and even Mr. Satan told that he was a good person, it was more than enough for relying on him as a new ally.

What hope for Freeza? The first time he lets him go is so Freeza can go insane from the fact he can't ever beat Goku and if they ever meet again, Goku WILL kill. He doesn't care if Freeza lashes out on other people as a consequence of Goku letting him go like this: as long as Freeza doesn't pester him ever again, Goku has 0 issues with letting Freeza vent his frustrations on the rest of the universe.

Also, Goku has no idea Cell can blow himself up and take the whole planet with him, as far as he knows, Cell throwing a bitch fit is just the last gasps of life he's gonna have before someone snuffs him out permanently.

The Boo situation I'm referring to is him not killing Fat Boo. So, he's okay with murdering Cell, he's okay with using his maximum power (at the time, SS2) to smash Vegeta and end their fight quickly to prevent Boo from hatching period but then he's randomly, thanks to shitty retcons, gonna hold back from killing Fat Boo because blah blah blah Toriyama's writing is really going downhill at this stage in the game. Boo didn't help anyone or anything at this point: all Goku knows about him is that he killed Gohan, Vegeta and entire city's worth of people, he has NO reason to think he has any redeeming qualities.

[sintzu]

To hold back against Vegeta would've been out of character for Goku.

He always held back against people weaker than him. He didn't use a kioken ×4 to kill Nappa, or a ×20 to kill the Ginyu force.

[ekrolo2]

To hold back against Vegeta would've been out of character for Goku.

He always held back against people weaker than him. He didn't use a kioken ×4 to kill Nappa, or a ×20 to kill the Ginyu force.

And yet, with Vegeta he flat out says he'll use his maximum power to end the fight quickly.

[ABED]

To hold back against Vegeta would've been out of character for Goku.

He always held back against people weaker than him. He didn't use a kioken ×4 to kill Nappa, or a ×20 to kill the Ginyu force.

He didn't hold back to spare their feelings. He held back to not kill them, but he still used enough force to stop them. Goku had more than enough control to not kill Vegeta as Super Saiyan 3. Besides, that's not even the issue. Goku likes fights that challenge him. Why fight Vegeta if he's not a challenge?

[hectorgf]

That AND the fact Goku flat out tells Vegeta he wants to end the fight quickly by using his maximum power, a statement that makes no sense if Goku doesn't just use SS3 immediately to smash Vegeta.

3 factually didn't exist when this fight was written.

I agree 100%. The super saiyajin 3 is probably the worst chapter of the original Dragon Ball. Clearly, Goku didn't have this form. Goku took his fight with Vegeta personally, not because of fun, and even threw out his fair fight conscience, because he didn't want to help to Boo's awakening, and he even got surprised about the fact that Vegeta had an SSJ2 form, in other words, he really wanted to beat Vegeta without any restriction or fair sense. I just ignore the super saiyajin 3 fact, that really is a flaw in Goku's personality.

What hope for Freeza? The first time he lets him go is so Freeza can go insane from the fact he can't ever beat Goku and if they ever meet again, Goku WILL kill. He doesn't care if Freeza lashes out on other people as a consequence of Goku letting him go like this: as long as Freeza doesn't pester him ever again, Goku has 0 issues with letting Freeza vent his frustrations on the rest of the universe.
Also, Goku has no idea Cell can blow himself up and take the whole planet with him, as far as he knows, Cell throwing a bitch fit is just the last gasps of life he's gonna have before someone snuffs him out permanently.

It wasn't like that, the first time, when he stopped the fight, he told that Freeza was already in ruins, and told him to not keep destroying everything. When Freeza's gotten insane, and he was cut in half and ask for help, Goku really stops to think if he should do that or not, as a naive person, he trusted on Freeza, and then, realized that Freeza wasn't a changeable person, just a scum. With this event, he learned that there are some people that simply aren't changeable, he even thanks to Trunks and says "Yeah, I should've killed him when I could". Then he applied this knowledge with Cell. He saw Cell getting insane along the battle, trying to explode the planet using a Kamehameha, getting furious and using the muscle form that he was aware it wasn't too benefit, everything was being conducted to a bad result.

The Boo situation I'm referring to is him not killing Fat Boo. So, he's okay with murdering Cell, he's okay with using his maximum power (at the time, SS2) to smash Vegeta and end their fight quickly to prevent Boo from hatching period but then he's randomly, thanks to shitty retcons, gonna hold back from killing Fat Boo because blah blah blah Toriyama's writing is really going downhill at this stage in the game. Boo didn't help anyone or anything at this point: all Goku knows about him is that he killed Gohan, Vegeta and entire city's worth of people, he has NO reason to think he has any redeeming qualities.

He was prepared to avoid Boo's awakening, because, according to Kaioshin, he was a terrible being. And at the end of the battle, everything simply proves the opposite. That he truly had a bad side, but he was just a powerful child at the end (and Goku had realized it when he tried to manipulate Boo to get free from Babidi), and he was a good person at the end, even Mr. Satan told him that he was a bad guy.

I totally agree with you about the super saiyajin 3 issue, but these ones I think it's different.