What makes "Power Levels" worthwhile to you?

[TheMikado]

I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.

Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.

If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.

An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.

This is literally one of the best assessments I have ever read. This is what I felt the moment Raditz utterly owned Piccolo and Goku. I'm my mind the only thing I could think was "They're all dead. They're no way they could win" this makes good drama. I have to be honest that how almost every DBZ fight was structured. In your mind you knew they were going to come through but you got instantly lost in the tension as you thought to yourself this night really be it this time. I remember everytime Frieza did a transformation your only thought oh Crap! They barely scrapped by last time. The amount of tension I felt in from any show has never been more urgent and heartfelt then my first viewing of DBZ. It probably the same reason it's so international loved.

[KorgDTR2000]

Power levels are like a puzzle with no solution. They will never amount to anything concrete but my brain has fun trying.

[DBZ Macky]

Power levels are fun for me in the same way as Sudoku and puzzles. I don't let them take away from my enjoyment of the series at all. In fact, to me they are things that add to my own overall enjoyment.

It's fun for me to analyse the fights and make a mental record of all the power-comparisons. Why? I don't really understand either. Maybe a better person to ask would be the guy who went through the entire Manga and collected all the power-related statements to make the strength checker.

I'm no numbers guy but I am fond of puzzles and Dragon Ball as a whole, I guess that's what makes me a power level enthusiast.

That and the fact that I can entertain 1,000+ people by literally just making slide-shows and sticking some numbers on it. It's fun to interact with other fans and show off one's knowledge on a particular topic and even learn more about the series I love.

[Draconic]

Power levels as a concept were easy to understand and rely where characters stood against each other, however it is for a reason they are abandoned in the same arc they are introduced: It makes everything too linear. If all it takes is for one character's number to be bigger than another's, the whole sense of tension is lost. 2 will always beat 1, but that's not how fights ever really played out. It misses the point of ability, skill, technique and intellect that every fighter possessed. Goku is a genius, Vegeta is cunning, Krillin can improvise, Tenshinhan and Kame-Sennin know dozens of techniques, Freeza was durable, Cell could regenerate etc.
Sure, power played a part, but if it was the only thing that mattered there would be no drama. The uber-powerful villains would just win instantly. Training by itself never amounted to anything:
Goku surppassed Daimao after Karin, but it still took determination to win.
He trained with Kami, but still had to resort on his techniques and kept aces up his sleeves at all points to beat Piccolo Jr, even though he was stronger.
After training with Kaio he lost the battle of power against Vegeta anyway, but won the fight due to his allies.
The list goes on. The only characters focused on power were the bad guys and they lost at every turn, even when having every situation in their favor. Because Dragon Ball is not about being the most powerful, it's about being the best fighter. Power plays a big part of that, but not the only part.

Which brings me to power scaling, or better yet, clarity on where characters stand in relation to one another on their journey of becoming the best fighters. That is important!
There are situations where characters can and do get way over their head. You can't present one as struggling to stay alive one time and the next having him be on top of everyone with no explanation. You can't just have, say Chaotzu defeat Whis. One is shown being fodder for every opponent he faces, one is shown to be the strongest being in the universe. Trough hardships, training and the best of their abillities, characters like Goku and Vegeta still can't do it.

That's the story: Overcoming this new scale. You can't show someone jumping trough all those scales without giving a reason why. It undermines the story. It's a bit more acceptable with antagonists, since those always have some hacks, some catch in order to make them a threat, but with heroes it's not that simple. Getting trough obstacles is what makes heroes interesting, so other characters not working trough those obstacles cheapens the accomplishments of those who do.

However, what breaks or doesn't break the scale is debatable, because again, it's not just about numbers, how many times X is stronger than Y and so on.
Using the Krillin situation, in no way during his fight with Goku (or Gohan for that matter) is it shown he could ever stand up to them. However, he is shown able to get the job done: a ring out. Sure, he will lose if he ends up tangling with someone way over his head, if he tries to go hand to hand with him, but he doesn't have to in order to win the match. It perfectly illustrates that just relying on power won't get you far into this tournament and perfectly illustrates that you can have competent fighters without breaking the scale. Context matters!

Using tactics, special skills, taking advantage of surroundings and stuff unique to every fighter in order to overcome power differences is 101 storytelling.

The scaling gets broken when a better combatant in every way is defeated by someone who's never shown either power, skill or abillity on par with the former's.

Z and GT (to an extent) didn't have as much of a problem with this because it's situations were straight forward. Fights were usually one on one, the ultimate goal was killing the bad guy. If the best fighter there couldn't win, it's normal neither could the worse ones. Of course some were left in the dust. But except the Future Trunks arc, Super isn't really like this. BoG twists those concepts, in RoF Freeza is undermined half-way trough the fight and the tournaments are the furthest from that formula.
My problems with Super's scaling stem from RoF mostly. It's not clear in the least were the bad guys stand, where the heroes stand and it fucks everything after it too, which does keep itself somewhat clear if you ignore it. However, this is deviating from the topic so I'll just leave it at that.

To conclude, power scaling is important. Knowing who can beat who, under what circumstances, is worthwhile, because otherwise it all becomes a mess and the achievements of the characters get lessened otherwise. However, what does or doesn't keep the scale shouldn't just be measured by numbers, but context too.

[PsionicWarrior]

"because then you can tell who will win" just isn't enough

While I agree with your general sentiment and that things can get more subtle than that given narrative circumstances in the end it still comes down to this, I mean it isn't exactly rocket science either lol
Whilst interesting when a weaker opponent can still beat someone stronger with various techniques such as Genki Dama or Mafuba at least that is coherent and has solid background and explanation cheers lol

[ABED]

If all it takes is for one character's number to be bigger than another's, the whole sense of tension is lost.

Whether the number is there or not, the concept still applies. The stronger opponent will usually win. But I agree with the rest of your post.

[ekrolo2]

Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions.

I agree with your entire post but I feel like this warrants attention all on its own. The thing a lot of people seem to assume that, when discussing PLs, people are focusing on their own numbers for whatever post-Namek thing we're talking about and complaining because the show (Super) isn't adhering to them. I'm sure some fans do legitimately dislike the scaling issues of the new material specifically for this reason, but I think the detractors of PLs are themselves overly focusing on the numbers side of things when trying to dismiss complaints about the inconsistent way character strength works.

It's a weird thing that's more specific to Dragon Ball than most other fighting series because Dragon Ball made a pretty big deal about de facto numerical designations in-universe that commanded who could do what to who at any given point in the story.

[jeffbr92]

I've explained before, I'll just paraphrase myself.

Power levels establish tension and drama. People who care about them (well, people who care about them in a narrative) don't care about the big numbers or the fancy explosions. If you have character A who's so much above character B, who's the main character, you're gonna be left wondering how in the hell character B, the character we're supposed to care and root for, is going to escape the situation or overcome the odds. It makes us emotionally invested.

If character B doesn't escape the situation in a believable way that's consistent with previous events, then that emotional investment is gone. It was pointless tension, pointless drama made just to suck in the viewer. It has no critical value whatsoever. The audience is left believing that the author can just create whatever scenarios he wants and what happens to the characters is decided by whatever the author wants to happen, regardless of the events that happened in the story. Which, in fairness, is what happens, but the audience wants to be fooled. The audience wants to know that the world they're following has rules. That the world they're invested in isn't going to bend to external factors that are irrelevant to them.

An author can do whatever he wants with the characters, that's not false. But the author should also have the responsibility to make sure it fits in cohesively with the other events in the narrative he has created.

Can I use your post as a signature?

[Doctor.]

Can I use your post as a signature?

Yeah, sure, go ahead.