What was the point of King Cold?

[Darkprince410]

A better question is what was the point of Yamu? Character literally had no reason to ever exist and they could have just had Spobovitch there by himself.

One can easily argue that it falls into the same category as the other "duos", that Toriyama just liked adding new enemies in pairs. Additionally, he seemed to serve as Spopovitch's tamer, to an extent, being the brains of the operation, at least in comparison to Yam.

[s841]

Seems as though he was just supposed to be Frieza's random, came-out-of-nowhere, didn't do anything, father.

[ABED]

Why does every character "need a point?" There are plenty of pointless people. I like that at least we know Freeza has a dad, unlike Tenshinhan, Chaozu, Pu-erh, Oolong, Lunch, Kuririn, and others, who all have a point, but it's almost like they don't have their own story; it's as if they exist solely to be accessories in Goku's story. At least we more or less know Freeza's history instead of just some guy that exists and happens to be the strongest ever.

But all we learn from this is Freeza has a father, that's not having a story. Kuririn has wants, desires, goals. We know who he is. That makes him a character. King Cold is a character that showed up without any indication that he existed to be killed off like he was nothing. You'd think that if he was the father of the head of an evil empire, his name would've come up once, beyond a throwaway comment that his father hit him.

[TheGreatness25]

But all we learn from this is Freeza has a father, that's not having a story. Kuririn has wants, desires, goals. We know who he is. That makes him a character. King Cold is a character that showed up without any indication that he existed to be killed off like he was nothing. You'd think that if he was the father of the head of an evil empire, his name would've come up once, beyond a throwaway comment that his father hit him.

We learn how Freeza's empire works and that King Cold is the force behind the most evil force in the world. It would be stupid to have King Cold be more powerful than Freeza seeing as you're right, Freeza was the known one, not King Cold. Clearly Freeza was more powerful and it would make sense for Trunks to take out King Cold even easier than Freeza. Otherwise it would be a typical convenient thing. "Oh here's the most powerful being in the universe! lol jk it's his dad!"

I find your question of what made King Cold useful comparable to questioning Burdock's or King Vegeta's existence. King Vegeta is the King of all Saiyans and gets killed by Freeza without any trouble at all. Okay, well, King Cold is the king of his army, weaker than Freeza, who gets killed off easily. King Vegeta wanted to rebel against Freeza (apparently); King Cold wanted to avenge Freeza.

Burdock was a self-centered grunt who found out that planet Vegeta was going to be destroyed so he wanted to save himself by trying to rally people to stand up to Freeza. But he also shows up and gets wasted all within a 40 minute time span (I believe). That is roughly two episodes.

King Cold is the head of his army, which has conquered various planets. He is surpassed by Freeza, who he seems to love. He finds Freeza and has him put back together. He then wants to avenge Freeza's loss by helping his son go to Earth and eradicate it. I mean is his story any less deep than King Vegeta's or Burdock's?

And I brought up all the other characters because I was saying that King Cold showed that Freeza had other things going on in his life than floating around being a dick to Namekians and wanting to kill everyone. I liked King Cold's inclusion.

I think people's problems with this is that over the years, they've thought up the potential of this character, overlooking his purpose. His purpose was never to be a big time villain. Kind of like how people used to exaggerate King Vegeta before seeing the episode with him. Or how people continued to exaggerate about Burdock until they gave in and gave him his own special which turned him from a cold-blooded killing machine who was selfish to suddenly being the Goku of 1,000 years (or whatever it is) before that. Oh and after all of that, suddenly it turns out that he was a "special" kind of Saiyan who could love and whoa, look at the coincidence, he found a female Saiyan just like that! Destiny. He really must have loved his son up until the day he was born when he barely acknowledged his existence.

Maybe one day they'll listen to all of the people who saw the potential in King Cold and have a special or a movie about him.

[LuckyCat]

I think the "point" is Freeza's father helps legitimize Freeza's comeback. Freeza was already beaten a chapter earlier, so seeing this nice new big guy at least fools the readers into thinking that even if the heroes might be able to pull something off against Freeza, there's someone perhaps even stronger to contend with.

[DBZAOTA482]

That was the whole point. Freeza returning in his new improved form with his equally strong father, Goku is nowhere to be seen, everybody's scared and this Super Saiyan comes out of nowhere, cuts Freeza in half and destroys all of them like they're nothing. Epic.

...And said Super Saiyan shits his pants over an old man and a fat mime two teenagers.

[ABED]

We already knew how the empire worked. We knew they found inhabitable planets and either sent strong warriors or Saiyan babies to purge them and then sell the land. Making King Cold the guy behind the guy doesn't make much difference.

The difference between Cold and King Vegeta is that by showing Vegeta's reaction to hearing that Freeza killed him, we see the kind of person Vegeta is. At that point, he's unrepentantly evil. He doesn't even have a soft spot for his father. They don't take up several episodes just to introduce him only to kill him 2 or 3 later. I found Freeza's love of his papa kind of endearing, but it's ultimately superfluous.

I mean is his story any less deep than King Vegeta's or Burdock's?

I think so, while Bardock isn't transformed, he was fine working under Freeza's rule until he saw that he would be destroyed. Ironically, his rebellion is the straw that breaks the camel's back and leads to Planet Vegeta's destruction. Bardock also dislikes that his son is so weak, but seeing a vision of Goku standing up to Freeza gives him some satisfaction before his death. What does Cold do? He comes into the story and gets killed. It's not as though he was needed to put Freeza back together. I don't dislike him but his inclusion doesn't do anything for the story or the characters beyond act as cannon fodder.

Truth be told, I always found Freeza still being alive to be too big of a stretch. He took the Genki Dama, then got chopped in half after losing all that power. Then Goku blasted the hell out of him after giving Freeza enough power to get away from the explosion and HE STILL SURVIVES! I would've much rather have King Cold go to Earth alone seeking revenge after Freeza's death.

[RandomGuy96]

As Herms already said:
1. To give Freeza someone to talk to other than a random goon.
2. To prove that Trunks wasn't just some guy with a magic sword.
3. "Wow, Trunks killed Freeza and another guy who was almost as strong as Freeza! The threat he's fleeing from must be REALLY serious!"

There's also the fourth reason: Freeza already mentioned a parent that was pretty strong, so why not just throw him in?

[ABED]

But it doesn't really show that, it just serves to make Freeza look foolish. I understand the logic of having a new character come in and easily destroy the previous big bad, but to me, it just undercuts Freeza, it doesn't show off Trunks. Killing off Freeza's father if he came alone could've done a similar task, plus Trunks is a Super Saiyan, that alone clues you in to how strong he is.

[Fionordequester]

I've said it once, and I'll say it again, I agree with Akira's decision here. but I think it could've been taken even further. All we got now was King Cold, but what if there had been even more?

If it were up to me, we wouldn't have just Freeza and Cold. We'd have Freeza and Cold...and also our grand patriarch, Grandpa Eise, along with his wife, Grandma Kyubu. We'd have Freeza's aunt Hairu, and his two uncles, Frozhien and Gurashia. We'd have his sister, Tundras. And, last but definitely not least, we'd have the dynamic duo. We'd have Freeza's wise older brother, Cooler, and also his sadistic younger brother, Flayke.

Oh, and maybe Freeza's estranged son, Poru, could come to? He's kind of a lardball, and he keeps wandering off on his own to draw bunny girls and stuff, but I dunno. We could still see what he could do.

All these guys come storming to Earth to participate in the greatest murder party they'd ever attended. They'd come under the pretense of "avenging Freeza" when really, it's just one big excuse for them to go on a planet wide killing spree. They'd all be almost as strong as Freeza, and Freeza would still hold 1st prize. But then, just as they're about to go on their rampage, Trunks shows up...And then proceeds to obliterate each and every one of them, just like the show. Except instead of picking them off one by one, we'd see him kill them in packs of twos and threes, just like how Gohan killed the Cell Juniors.

Now wouldn't THAT be awesome? Or...is is scenario just a little too absurd? Either way, I had fun dreaming it up .

[LuckyCat]

I've said it once, and I'll say it again, I agree with Akira's decision here. but I think it could've been taken even further. All we got now was King Cold, but what if there had been even more?

If it were up to me, we wouldn't have just Freeza and Cold. We'd have Freeza and Cold...and also our grand patriarch, Grandpa Eise, along with his wife, Grandma Kyubu. We'd have Freeza's aunt Hairu, and his two uncles, Frozhien and Gurashia. We'd have his sister, Tundras. And, last but definitely not least, we'd have the dynamic duo. We'd have Freeza's wise older brother, Cooler, and also his sadistic younger brother, Flayke. Oh, and maybe Freeza's estranged son, Poru, could come to? He's still kind of the runt of the family, but we'd see what he could do.

All these guys come storming to Earth to participate in the greatest murder party they'd ever attended. They'd come under the pretense of "avenging Freeza" when really, it's just one big excuse for them to go on a planet wide killing spree. They'd all be almost as strong as Freeza, and Freeza would still hold 1st prize. But then, just as they're about to go on their rampage, Trunks shows up...And then proceeds to obliterate each and every one of them, just like the show. Except instead of picking them off one by one, we'd see him kill them in packs of twos and threes, just like how Gohan killed the Cell Juniors.

Now wouldn't THAT be awesome? Or...is is scenario just a little too absurd? Either way, I had fun dreaming it up .

I mean, that's one way Toriyama could've gone. But I think people too often forget that Mech Freeza & friends are supposed to build up the idea of cyborgs and lead to the Android Saga. People also forget that Cell has King Cold's cells. Maybe it would've been better if there had been a Cell line like "As for my deep voice and good looks, that's all King Cold, baby!"

[precita]

I think this all boils down to people wanting to see King Cold actually fight in the series, but he didn't get to do anything. If King Cold fought a bit and lost nobody would be bothered.