I myself debated with The Undying and LoganForkHands73 over the extent to which Moro takes deliberate cues from elsewhere in Dragon Ball
Oh gawd, I've been summoned...
Luckily, I don't have much more to say on that old chestnut
Undying beat me to the punch on reiterating the point that it's ultimately all up to us on how we interpret or criticise a work, though I will add that I don't believe we necessarily need the artist's direct confirmation on their intentions in order to draw our own conclusions. Some more interviews from Toyo would certainly be nice, but it's not the be-all end-all final word. If we all solely went by the artist's declared intent, nobody would have any deeper analyses on
Jaws because Steven Spielberg insists that it's "just about a shark". This isn't directed at anyone specifically, but more a troubling mentality I've seen on the wider forum.
Anyway, to the topic at hand, I was planning on making a post like this a long time ago. There's not much more to elaborate on Moro's overall usage throughout the arc that others haven't already commented on. Yes, he was often bland and uninspired. But, while many are understandably loath to acknowledge it considering the fact that it all came far,
far too late, there were some nuggets of interest sprinkled towards the very end of the arc that gave some new context to Moro's personality, actions and thematic connection to the story.
Ponta has already brilliantly dissected the arc's most pertinent themes, such as 'stealing vs. giving' and so on. I think that Goku and Moro's intimate conversation in Chapter 65 is quite revealing. Mainly more on Goku's side, but Moro gets some tea as well. Here, we get the explicit confirmation that Moro, like Freeza, has never trained a day in his life. Unlike Freeza, he's gained such frightening power purely by stealing from others.
Ever since his design was revealed, there's been a certain expectation for Moro: that he should've been some kind of grand mage with a massive arsenal of unusual magical techniques. Naturally, many were disappointed when his main ability was shown to be energy absorption, a power that isn't exactly new, though is at least implemented in a new way. As we came to discover though, his passive energy drain technique may as well be the
only technique that's natural to Moro. His most famous other technique, raising geysers of molten lava from a planet's crust, is specifically tied to this ingrained draining ability as he can only perform it on a planet he's in the process of draining. Everything else he demonstrates over the course of the arc is stolen --
nicked --
pilfered -- and otherwise dishonestly earned. And yet, amusingly, he has the sheer gall and lack of self-awareness to mock Vegeta's Big Bang Attack for its unoriginality, just as he's about to use it on Vegeta.
But that's Moro's character. He's a sponge, a consumer, a fraud. This 'training to get stronger' spiel is a foreign concept that disgusts him, as he derides it as being for the weak. Although there's not much in the way of personal conflict between our heroes and Moro, there is a clear ideological conflict. On paper, it's not an unfamiliar trope to Dragon Ball at all. Vegetto harshly criticised Majin Buu's hypocrisy when the latter tried to call the former a cheater for fusing, even though Buu had done nothing but absorb other people for the last several chapters. Only after all of Buu's acquisitions are removed does Goku display true respect for him as a martial artist. Baby in
GT was a literal parasitic organism who stole Vegeta's body, while Zamasu stole Goku's body earlier in
Super. In the wuxia-esque 'warrior's honour' system that defines Dragon Ball's setting, theft of someone else's power is like a cardinal sin, and it's a trend for most antagonists who commit this dishonour to turn out to be irredeemable. Think about it. Baby, Zamasu, Moro, Cell, Super Buu... all of them die without any chance of redemption. Meanwhile, Tenshinhan, Piccolo, Vegeta, the Androids, Beerus and even Freeza to an extent, all enemies who fight honourably and gain strength primarily off their own backs, and all of them have been given second chances in one way or another.
Just as how self-improvement is foreign to Moro, the idea of stealing to get ahead in life is equally alien to Goku. So to have a scene where Goku puts a thieving monster like Moro in a completely powerless position, sit down and actually
talk to him in an attempt to understand him... that's almost unheard of, really. We see throughout the whole senzu experiment, from when Moro foolishly throws a punch only to shatter his fucking wrist on Goku's rock-hard abs, that there really is nothing deeper to Moro. He's just a bully who can only grow stronger by bringing others down, and melts when his power is removed. It's like a cruel joke -- yet another ultra strong guy with buckets of potential who squanders it by being a dickhead. Good cannot comprehend evil, indeed. It reminds me of the end of
Fargo by the Coen Brothers...
This leads us to his final kleptomaniac act that leads directly to his downfall, his attempted theft of Ultra Instinct. Failing to understand that it's far more than a simple transformation that can be easily stolen, Moro's body collapses. I love this subversion. Ultra Instinct Moro was never going to work, because Moro isn't remotely interested in putting in the work and mental improvement that define Goku's journey to true strength. It hearkens back to Ginyu's attempted theft of Goku's body, only for him to be pitifully weak due to his inability to use it effectively without the decades of combat experience and ki control that Goku had earned himself. Ginyu was at least somewhat honourable in battle, which maybe serves as the reason why he was the only member of his team to survive beyond the arc.
But yeah, Moro mimicking past villains isn't inherently interesting, and as his own character, he fails to leave much of a lasting impression. However, those last few chapters partially helped to provide some depth worth discussing, for me anyway.
