The source:
Daizenshuu 7 wrote:Goku taught Fusion to Goten and Trunks as a last resort, and thus Gotenks was born. After several failures, they finally succeeded in merging together. The two entered the Room of Spirit and Time, and hurriedly trained as Gotenks. As a result, Gotenks leveled up so much that his strength surpassed Vegeta and the others
I’m just going to assume that most people are well-acquainted with what Goku said about Gotenks before he was formed. In a nutshell, “he’ll be stronger than me and he’ll easily defeat Majin Boo”. Many will say that Goku doesn’t have to be right because he hasn’t seen Gotenks; I can accept that as a premise, but Gotenks’s power is shown later on and is specifically measured by Piccolo. Piccolo’s estimation is that Gotenks has incredible power and insane speed. True, he never specifically says that it’s greater than Majin Boo, or that’s it greater than Goku, or even Vegeta, but that raises the question: what does Piccolo mean? What is his criteria for insane power and speed? The context should make it pretty clear; someone with insane power and speed isn’t useful unless that power and speed is something that’s a match for Majin Boo. if Gotenks is indeed weaker than Vegeta, why does Piccolo seem so complacent? The only possible reason is that for some reason, despite all the evidence “contradicting” Goku, that he sees right in front of him, he ignores what his senses tell him, and has faith that what Goku said was true. Piccolo does not ever display this kind of blind faith in Goku, perhaps Krillin does, which I’ll get to later, but not Piccolo. Piccolo is always the first one to challenge Goku when events don’t play out the way he says they should. The Cell Games give us a perfect example of this; Goku may be convinced that Gohan can defeat Cell, but course of the battle disagrees with that, which Piccolo can see; he, and he alone puts aside his faith in Goku, forcing Goku to truly see what’s happening before his eyes. When something catastrophic occurs, when Piccolo is presented with a challenge, he acts. He realizes that Goku can’t hold out against Freeza and steps in, he realizes when Goku isn’t fighting the way he should be (heart virus), he understands the threat that the Androids pose, putting aside his pride with no hesitation, he challenges Goku giving up on defeating Boo and he is the only one who sees through Super Boo’s scheme during his fight with Gohan, even if he’s too late to stop it. Why does all that change so drastically in this one instance? Why does he allow such a weak fighter to challenge their greatest enemy, merely based on reassuring words from Goku?
Before Super Boo appears, what kind of situation is the team in? They’ve got a monstrous killing machine destroying the Earth, all of their best fighters are dead, and their only hope is a fighter with power that’s less than a fighter who gave literally all his power and life to defeat Majin Boo, but still failed. What do reasonable people do in this situation? They do exactly what Piccolo did when Super Boo was born. Get those kids into training as soon as possible if the universe wants to have a chance of not being wiped out. What do the Z-Fighters do? Allow Goten and Trunks to take a nap. Outside. Where Boo is. Where time passes a normal rate. Are these the actions of someone completely desperate or someone completely confident? Going back to the Android Arc, when Piccolo met enemies with power none of them could hope to match, he responded near-instantly, taking whatever measures he can to increase his group’s chances against their most powerful foes, even if it means using his last resort powerup. The situation now is exponentially more desperate, and
this is what he does? What about Super Boo makes Piccolo so afraid? You can argue that he makes himself a greater threat almost initially, but even before he demonstrates the ability to sense ki and his ability to wipe out humanity, Piccolo is already crapping his slacks. Piccolo, even after seeing Mr. Satan change Boo, never once discounted Boo as a threat, even if Dende was more optimistic, so why does his tune change so quickly? “Fusion can’t win now”, “wake up Goten and Trunks and have them train”, “winning will take a miracle”, etc. Surely, if Piccolo truly has complete blind faith in Goku, he’d be kind of like Krillin and assume that fusion was still the strongest. He doesn’t do that, he becomes (if he wasn’t already) the Piccolo that we know, using his wits and senses to assess the situation and maneuver into a favorable outcome, Goku’s promises be damned. So I’ll say again. Why now? Gotenks was irrelevant before, Piccolo should know that more anyone, having seen Boo’s and Gotenks’s power firsthand, and he’s still irrelevant now, so what causes this drastic 180 degree change in attitude? Well, it’s pretty clear:
Chapter: 487 (DBZ 293), P13.5
Context: as Piccolo plans on having Goten and Trunks train in the Room of Spirit and Time
Piccolo: “Can’t you tell…?! As they are now, even if they perform Fusion they can’t win, no doubt about it…! Tell them that if they don’t want to die while they’re still just little brats, then they should train as much as they can…!”
It’s because they can’t win. That was the criteria for forcing them to train. They’re going to train because they can’t win. Could they have won before?
I don’t mean to be rude to anyone, but to those who believe that Gotenks is weaker than Majin Vegeta, you are playing the role of Krillin here. You’re ignoring every shred of evidence that’s presented to you, you’re ignoring your own eyes and trusting in the word of a perceived authority. Be more like Piccolo.
I mean, it obviously makes no real difference, but reasonable skepticism is never a bad thing.
TL;DR
For this to be true:
-Piccolo is crazy out of character
-Piccolo forgot Boo’s power/can’t measure Gotenks’s power
-Cause and effect doesn’t exist
-Everyone is delusional
-Everyone has blind faith in Goku
-It would be fine if Piccolo, Goku, and Vegeta went and took a nap after losing to #17 and #18
The difference between Piccolo and Krillin (this is the same exchange from the strength checker quote above, but I wanted the visual and Krillin's line)
