[spoilers] What do you think is the narrative reason for Beerus being kept ahead of Goku?

[Zamasu55]

Dragon Ball writers have two major flaws:

1) They don't plan ahead
2) They love over-exaggeration

To illustrate this, let's look at the Namek arc.

Goku went from fighting a strong Saiyan, to fighting even stronger Saiyans, to fighting the RULER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. Notice a little jump there?
From a storytelling perspective, that's insanity. If you expect your story to go on after the current arc, why on earth would you have your protagonist fight the ruler of the universe (and win)? You're just writing yourself into a corner. You don't give yourself any room to grow.

But they can't help themselves. They are addicted to those cheap OMG! moments, where the audience goes "Wooooow" and the characters are standing there with their mouths open.

So what do they do after the Namek arc? They just pull a bigger threat out of their butts, which of course makes no sense, because they had to exaggerate in the previous arc.
Now, apparently, a random scientist from earth can create androids strong enough to rule the universe. Suuuure, why not.

If the Dragon Ball writers actually planned ahead, maybe the order of foes would have looked something like this:
- Android 17/18
- Cell
- Raditz
- Vegeta
- Buu
- Frieza
Of course you would have to adjust the strength of the characters, but from storytelling alone this would make much more sense.


So now... Beerus.
With Beerus they did the same thing they did with Frieza. They needed a new enemy, but they just can't pace themselves. So they went straight to the GOD OF DESTRUCTION.
But hey, this time they actually did plan a tiny bit ahead and had Goku lose. But that just leads to other problems.

Now they can a have somewhat plausible threats for the following arcs, but Beerus becomes this moving goalpost. Goku gets power-up after power-up and is still below Beerus, to the point where logically he used <1% of his power in their battle.

When Goku finally surpassed Beerus with UI, it's the same problem as in the beginning of the Adroid arc. And of course, here comes Broly:

Spoiler:

A random dude, who has been living on an abandoned planet and never fought anyone substantial, is now stronger than the God of Destruction. Because prophecy, whatever.
It's Android 17/18 and over again.

So all in all: The reason is bad writing.
Watching Dragon Ball always reminds me of Michael Scott pulling out a gun in improv class.

Great post. This is exactly what i have always said aswell. That said, i would argue that Beerus is still far stronger than Broly. Broly may have been said to be “perhaps” stronger than Beerus, but so was SSJ Blue Vegito in the manga. It means nothing. Both Jiren and Broly are below Beerus until proven otherwise. AT wants Beerus on top for various reasons. So no matter how powerful a new enemy gets and no matter how much they say he’s the strongest, Beerus will simply be retconned again to stay on top.

Beerus>>>>>>>Broly>>Jiren.

They were both stated to be stronger than him. End of.

[GodVegetto91]

Dragon Ball writers have two major flaws:

1) They don't plan ahead
2) They love over-exaggeration

To illustrate this, let's look at the Namek arc.

Goku went from fighting a strong Saiyan, to fighting even stronger Saiyans, to fighting the RULER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. Notice a little jump there?
From a storytelling perspective, that's insanity. If you expect your story to go on after the current arc, why on earth would you have your protagonist fight the ruler of the universe (and win)? You're just writing yourself into a corner. You don't give yourself any room to grow.

But they can't help themselves. They are addicted to those cheap OMG! moments, where the audience goes "Wooooow" and the characters are standing there with their mouths open.

So what do they do after the Namek arc? They just pull a bigger threat out of their butts, which of course makes no sense, because they had to exaggerate in the previous arc.
Now, apparently, a random scientist from earth can create androids strong enough to rule the universe. Suuuure, why not.

If the Dragon Ball writers actually planned ahead, maybe the order of foes would have looked something like this:
- Android 17/18
- Cell
- Raditz
- Vegeta
- Buu
- Frieza
Of course you would have to adjust the strength of the characters, but from storytelling alone this would make much more sense.


So now... Beerus.
With Beerus they did the same thing they did with Frieza. They needed a new enemy, but they just can't pace themselves. So they went straight to the GOD OF DESTRUCTION.
But hey, this time they actually did plan a tiny bit ahead and had Goku lose. But that just leads to other problems.

Now they can a have somewhat plausible threats for the following arcs, but Beerus becomes this moving goalpost. Goku gets power-up after power-up and is still below Beerus, to the point where logically he used <1% of his power in their battle.

When Goku finally surpassed Beerus with UI, it's the same problem as in the beginning of the Adroid arc. And of course, here comes Broly:

Spoiler:

A random dude, who has been living on an abandoned planet and never fought anyone substantial, is now stronger than the God of Destruction. Because prophecy, whatever.
It's Android 17/18 and over again.

So all in all: The reason is bad writing.
Watching Dragon Ball always reminds me of Michael Scott pulling out a gun in improv class.

Great post. This is exactly what i have always said aswell. That said, i would argue that Beerus is still far stronger than Broly. Broly may have been said to be “perhaps” stronger than Beerus, but so was SSJ Blue Vegito in the manga. It means nothing. Both Jiren and Broly are below Beerus until proven otherwise. AT wants Beerus on top for various reasons. So no matter how powerful a new enemy gets and no matter how much they say he’s the strongest, Beerus will simply be retconned again to stay on top.

Beerus>>>>>>>Broly>>Jiren.

They were both stated to be stronger than him. End of.

“End of”??! Mind your language. You’re on Kanzenshuu here. That said, no they were not. They were stated to “probably” be stronger than Beerus, by sources with no high level of credibility. In Vegito Blue’s case, it turned out to be false.

[Raphael_Z]

Dragon Ball writers have two major flaws:

1) They don't plan ahead
2) They love over-exaggeration

To illustrate this, let's look at the Namek arc.

Goku went from fighting a strong Saiyan, to fighting even stronger Saiyans, to fighting the RULER OF THE KNOWN UNIVERSE. Notice a little jump there?
From a storytelling perspective, that's insanity. If you expect your story to go on after the current arc, why on earth would you have your protagonist fight the ruler of the universe (and win)? You're just writing yourself into a corner. You don't give yourself any room to grow.

But they can't help themselves. They are addicted to those cheap OMG! moments, where the audience goes "Wooooow" and the characters are standing there with their mouths open.

So what do they do after the Namek arc? They just pull a bigger threat out of their butts, which of course makes no sense, because they had to exaggerate in the previous arc.
Now, apparently, a random scientist from earth can create androids strong enough to rule the universe. Suuuure, why not.

If the Dragon Ball writers actually planned ahead, maybe the order of foes would have looked something like this:
- Android 17/18
- Cell
- Raditz
- Vegeta
- Buu
- Frieza
Of course you would have to adjust the strength of the characters, but from storytelling alone this would make much more sense.


So now... Beerus.
With Beerus they did the same thing they did with Frieza. They needed a new enemy, but they just can't pace themselves. So they went straight to the GOD OF DESTRUCTION.
But hey, this time they actually did plan a tiny bit ahead and had Goku lose. But that just leads to other problems.

Now they can a have somewhat plausible threats for the following arcs, but Beerus becomes this moving goalpost. Goku gets power-up after power-up and is still below Beerus, to the point where logically he used <1% of his power in their battle.

When Goku finally surpassed Beerus with UI, it's the same problem as in the beginning of the Adroid arc. And of course, here comes Broly:

Spoiler:

A random dude, who has been living on an abandoned planet and never fought anyone substantial, is now stronger than the God of Destruction. Because prophecy, whatever.
It's Android 17/18 and over again.

So all in all: The reason is bad writing.
Watching Dragon Ball always reminds me of Michael Scott pulling out a gun in improv class.

Great post. This is exactly what i have always said aswell. That said, i would argue that Beerus is still far stronger than Broly. Broly may have been said to be “perhaps” stronger than Beerus, but so was SSJ Blue Vegito in the manga. It means nothing. Both Jiren and Broly are below Beerus until proven otherwise. AT wants Beerus on top for various reasons. So no matter how powerful a new enemy gets and no matter how much they say he’s the strongest, Beerus will simply be retconned again to stay on top.

Beerus>>>>>>>Broly>>Jiren.

They were both stated to be stronger than him. End of.

WE.HAVE.NEVER.SEEN.BEERUS.AT.FULL.POWER. End of.

Goku and everyone not called Whis or Beerus can only speculate about Beerus full power but none of them has seen it. And on a deathly fight against, let's say, UI Goku, Beerus would most likely gain a power up (in the same way that both Jiren and Broly got a power up).

Until Beerus is actually defeated on-screen nothing can be said about where he stands when compared to Jiren or Broly (PS. Max Power Broly is definitely below Max Power Jiren no ifs no buts).

[Zamasu55]

Great post. This is exactly what i have always said aswell. That said, i would argue that Beerus is still far stronger than Broly. Broly may have been said to be “perhaps” stronger than Beerus, but so was SSJ Blue Vegito in the manga. It means nothing. Both Jiren and Broly are below Beerus until proven otherwise. AT wants Beerus on top for various reasons. So no matter how powerful a new enemy gets and no matter how much they say he’s the strongest, Beerus will simply be retconned again to stay on top.

Beerus>>>>>>>Broly>>Jiren.

They were both stated to be stronger than him. End of.

“End of”??! Mind your language. You’re on Kanzenshuu here. That said, no they were not. They were stated to “probably” be stronger than Beerus, by sources with no high level of credibility. In Vegito Blue’s case, it turned out to be false.

Both the manga and the anime imply that Jiren's the mortal who cannot be defeated by his God of destruction. So, since all gods are pretty much equal, Jiren is stronger than Beerus.

[Zamasu55]

Great post. This is exactly what i have always said aswell. That said, i would argue that Beerus is still far stronger than Broly. Broly may have been said to be “perhaps” stronger than Beerus, but so was SSJ Blue Vegito in the manga. It means nothing. Both Jiren and Broly are below Beerus until proven otherwise. AT wants Beerus on top for various reasons. So no matter how powerful a new enemy gets and no matter how much they say he’s the strongest, Beerus will simply be retconned again to stay on top.

Beerus>>>>>>>Broly>>Jiren.

They were both stated to be stronger than him. End of.

WE.HAVE.NEVER.SEEN.BEERUS.AT.FULL.POWER. End of.

Goku and everyone not called Whis or Beerus can only speculate about Beerus full power but none of them has seen it. And on a deathly fight against, let's say, UI Goku, Beerus would most likely gain a power up (in the same way that both Jiren and Broly got a power up).

Until Beerus is actually defeated on-screen nothing can be said about where he stands when compared to Jiren or Broly (PS. Max Power Broly is definitely below Max Power Jiren no ifs no buts).

Whis has. And he said that Jiren surpassed the Gods. And in the manga, Toppo has seen Belmod's maximum power and he said Jiren is stronger than him.

[Raphael_Z]

They were both stated to be stronger than him. End of.

WE.HAVE.NEVER.SEEN.BEERUS.AT.FULL.POWER. End of.

Goku and everyone not called Whis or Beerus can only speculate about Beerus full power but none of them has seen it. And on a deathly fight against, let's say, UI Goku, Beerus would most likely gain a power up (in the same way that both Jiren and Broly got a power up).

Until Beerus is actually defeated on-screen nothing can be said about where he stands when compared to Jiren or Broly (PS. Max Power Broly is definitely below Max Power Jiren no ifs no buts).

Whis has. And he said that Jiren surpassed the Gods. And in the manga, Toppo has seen Belmod's maximum power and he said Jiren is stronger than him.

1) Whis never explicitely said Jiren surpassed Beerus.

2) Comparing Belmond's power to Beerus is like comparing Shin's power to Zamasu or to Gowasu. Just because they share a title doesn't mean they're all absolute equals.

We have NEVER seen Beerus go all out. For all we know, he could master UI mid-battle in the same way that Goku did.

[Zamasu55]

WE.HAVE.NEVER.SEEN.BEERUS.AT.FULL.POWER. End of.

Goku and everyone not called Whis or Beerus can only speculate about Beerus full power but none of them has seen it. And on a deathly fight against, let's say, UI Goku, Beerus would most likely gain a power up (in the same way that both Jiren and Broly got a power up).

Until Beerus is actually defeated on-screen nothing can be said about where he stands when compared to Jiren or Broly (PS. Max Power Broly is definitely below Max Power Jiren no ifs no buts).

Whis has. And he said that Jiren surpassed the Gods. And in the manga, Toppo has seen Belmod's maximum power and he said Jiren is stronger than him.

1) Whis never explicitely said Jiren surpassed Beerus.

2) Comparing Belmond's power to Beerus is like comparing Shin's power to Zamasu or to Gowasu. Just because they share a title doesn't mean they're all absolute equals.

We have NEVER seen Beerus go all out. For all we know, he could master UI mid-battle in the same way that Goku did.

Sorry, but you're deluded. Whis said that Jiren is the mortal that even his God of Destruction cannot defeat, and bear in mind that Jiren was highly suppressed.

And the Hakaishins are all pretty much even in power, we saw this in the manga, plus Belmod didn't even have a scratch while Beerus was all beat up.

And of course, Beerus could master UI, but that doesn't mean anything, as his power now is behind that of Jiren, Ultra Instinct Goku, SsjB Evolution Vegeta (who beat up a God of Destruction himself), Broly and SsjB Gogeta.