KaiserNeko wrote:We spoiled the top three picks?
I had a whole detailed thing about this, but nevermind, #2 wasn't what people thought it'd be (it was what I thought it'd be though):
http://teamfourstar.com/video/dbcember- ... pecials-2/
TonyTheTiger wrote:I agree. Minus just straight up turned Bardock into Jor-El. My interpretation is that the Saiyans are perfectly capable of love and compassion as we understand them but their culture is such that such things are treated as relatively insignificant or even shameful. They're essentially space Spartans. Goku isn't great because he's a Saiyan but in spite of it. He demonstrates that the Saiyans squandered their potential by operating like they did. Vegeta might even be a better example because he really didn't achieve much until he started to shed his Saiyan-isms. The problem comes in that every time we revisit the Saiyans the writers seem to insist on painting them more and more as tragic heroes, essentially bestowing upon them all the character development that took Vegeta years to work through.
This isn't new, though. One thing about the Bardock special that bugs me is that he's so especially strong. And aside from the rest of the stupidity, that's one of my biggest beefs with Episode of Bardock, too. Whenever we revisit these people, whoever the protagonists are become uniquely powerful among the population. It seems like Goku's parents become increasingly special outliers every time we see them, which makes Goku look like he was born with a silver spoon or something and just didn't know it.
I don't remember Jor-El genociding people...because that's what Dragon Ball Minus opens with, Bardock doing the same thing all Saiyan Warriors do, clearing out a planet by killing it's inhabitants. A murderer can still love their family you know. Rationalizing things will take you far down that route.
Goku's parents don't change who he was and who he is though. He was still trying to assault Grandpa Gohan, only to be stopped due to his training, his nature still changed after his head injury. Raditz is still a terrible person despite his parents (if anything, he takes after his father, but ups the terribleness by a few notches by not even having the familial love). Nature won out over nurture (as it seems Gine didn't pass on that gentle side genetically).
There's a tragic element to Goku's parents being comparatively decent people (emphasis on comparatively) who did at least one relatively noble deed (well, as noble as the instinct to keep your bloodline going is) of saving their child to be completely forgotten under the savagery of their race, and seen as no better than the rest in probably the only time Goku ever put a moment of thought into them (mostly deserved on Bardock's end).
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