Is Zeno the most useless god ever?

[Polyphase Avatron]

His job supposedly involves 'destroying evildoers', but let's look at his track record.

What he has done

* Destroyed 6 universes (1/3 of existence) because something (implied to be minor and otherwise inconsequential) in them annoyed him.
* Appointed the Hakaishin, who, despite their role supposedly being necessary, have no rules against casual genocide and often threaten to destroy far more than they should.
* Chastised and threatened to replace 2 Hakaishin who took a few days off from their jobs to hold a martial arts tournament.
* Wasted the time of a Kaioshin and a Hakaishin's attendant just to meet and pal around with a guy he met for like 5 minutes, for no particular reason.
* Gave said guy a method to summon him at will, just to play with him.

What he hasn't done

* Anything to stop Freeza from terrorizing the galaxy for at least decades.
* Anything to stop a wizard and his pet monster from nearly killing all of the Kaioshin (and, consequently, the Hakaishin) from universe 7.
* Anything to stop the 7th universe's Hakaishin from slacking off for decades or more at a time (remember, 39 years was supposed to be a short nap for Beerus)
* Anything to stop multiple Hakaishin from nearly destroying one or more universes on multiple occasions
* Anything to stop Black and Zamasu from killing all of the Kaioshin and Hakaishin in all of the universes

At best, his priorities are severely skewed. At worst, he's not qualified to rule a lemonade stand, let alone a multiverse.

[Nejishiki]

I feel like there's plenty assumptions made, in general and not just this thread, about Zeno's role. It hasn't exactly been elaborated with detail. Who's to say his behavior and actions are improper? Why do we think he needs to be responsible for anything when said responsibilities are ambiguous? Yes, I understand why one would question him, but without his complete motives, you may very well be criticizing normal habits. It's difficult to convince others away from that in reality. It's akin to asking unreasonable questions about why characters are acting like their character. The issue is, as the audience, we're still strangers to him. We don't truly know what he's about on a daily basis nor his personal schedule of duties, if he even keeps one. Is there really a case to be made about his "usefulness" or if your personal standards for him are relevant? (I can't think of an alternate synonym to phrase that with, but that last sentence isn't mean-spirited.)

[fadeddreams5]

As far as I can tell, Zeno's primary job is to hire gods of destruction, hire attendants to watch over them, and supervise both them and the kaioshin.

He only ever acted when Beerus and Champa left their post, so it's clear he closely monitors them in particular.

The real question is why he has not stepped up against Black and Zamasu. It makes little sense to me, as they've effectively killed all hakaishin.

[DragonBallFoodie]

We need to see more of Zeno and how he is being used.

But I think "useless" is too strong a word to describe the gods in DB. Let's say "laidback" is more accurate. Akira Toriyama did a story called "Toccio the Angel", where the title character was a god who looked like Buu and who just wanted to laze around without anyone to disturb him (which happened frequently, and so he got upset and had to rush around trying to help people).


The DB gods remind me a lot of the gods in the Discworld series, written by fantasy comedy writer Terry Pratchett. In that series, the gods preoccupy themselves with petty little games (using people as players); this is partly out of boredom because they have nothing better to do, and partly because they are aware the magical world they inhabit runs on very little logic, so why bother conforming?

The only one there who takes his job seriously is the avatar of death, and even he tries out mortal activities like adopt children, appear in a play, and give presents; he actually dislikes his job because of how sad and bleak it is, and one time retired and passed it on to his step-granddaughter, but when she tried to decide who lived and who died things got complicated and out of control, and so he reluctantly reassumed the role.


The gods in DB remind me a lot of these guys. They don't contribute too much to the world, but are content with it the way it is; they don't interfere unless they see it as necessary (the appearance of Majin Buu, and also Zamasu as a villainous example). The gods are reasonable enough when they're not being antagonistic: Beerus only appeared because he wanted to fight a Super Saiyan God, Chanpa started the Universe Tournament because he wanted Universe 7's Earth (and he stopped because Universe 6's Earth was restored), and Zeno (so far) just wants a friend on his level.

[Zillamon51]

He's no more useless than any of the "real" gods that people actually believe in.

And I don't think he's necessarily benevolent. He is presented as a childlike character, and there's nothing more dangerous than an all-powerful child. It's been implied that anyone who annoys him in even a minor way gets sent to the cornfield.

[DBZAOTA482]

At least he didn't cause a whole saga to happen because of his incompetence unlike a certain overseer.

[LightBing]

This thread if full of assumptions, the worst one being that Zeno has any kind of "human" morality.
How can you expect a being who killed a decillion of people or more, to care for what Freeza was doing, for example.

We can't evaluate Zeno because we have no parameters to do it. He's what attendants use to give Hakaishin nightmares and keep them in line, he's a bogeyman.
We could try to evaluate him by his inferior Gods performance, although that doesn't seem fair. Besides it's not confirmed that he nominates them and I'm pretty sure he doesn't train them, so yeah...

[ekrolo2]

This thread if full of assumptions, the worst one being that Zeno has any kind of "human" morality.
How can you expect a being who killed a decillion of people or more, to care for what Freeza was doing, for example.

We can't evaluate Zeno because we have no parameters to do it. He's what attendants use to give Hakaishin nightmares and keep them in line, he's a bogeyman.
We could try to evaluate him by his inferior Gods performance, although that doesn't seem fair. Besides it's not confirmed that he nominates them and I'm pretty sure he doesn't train them, so yeah...

The fact Zeno killed a third of the multiverse and has yet to restore any of it should clue people in about the number of fucks Zeno gives about anyone beneath him.

[Steven Bloodriver]

His job supposedly involves 'destroying evildoers', but let's look at his track record.

What he has done

* Destroyed 6 universes (1/3 of existence) because something (implied to be minor and otherwise inconsequential) in them annoyed him.
* Appointed the Hakaishin, who, despite their role supposedly being necessary, have no rules against casual genocide and often threaten to destroy far more than they should.
* Chastised and threatened to replace 2 Hakaishin who took a few days off from their jobs to hold a martial arts tournament.
* Wasted the time of a Kaioshin and a Hakaishin's attendant just to meet and pal around with a guy he met for like 5 minutes, for no particular reason.
* Gave said guy a method to summon him at will, just to play with him.

What he hasn't done

* Anything to stop Freeza from terrorizing the galaxy for at least decades.
* Anything to stop a wizard and his pet monster from nearly killing all of the Kaioshin (and, consequently, the Hakaishin) from universe 7.
* Anything to stop the 7th universe's Hakaishin from slacking off for decades or more at a time (remember, 39 years was supposed to be a short nap for Beerus)
* Anything to stop multiple Hakaishin from nearly destroying one or more universes on multiple occasions
* Anything to stop Black and Zamasu from killing all of the Kaioshin and Hakaishin in all of the universes

At best, his priorities are severely skewed. At worst, he's not qualified to rule a lemonade stand, let alone a multiverse.

Yes, Zeno should be replaced with the Supreme Kai of Time instead. Before sending the former's crazy ass to be with Garlic Junior inside of the Dead Zone.

[Polyphase Avatron]

This thread if full of assumptions, the worst one being that Zeno has any kind of "human" morality.
How can you expect a being who killed a decillion of people or more, to care for what Freeza was doing, for example.

We can't evaluate Zeno because we have no parameters to do it. He's what attendants use to give Hakaishin nightmares and keep them in line, he's a bogeyman.
We could try to evaluate him by his inferior Gods performance, although that doesn't seem fair. Besides it's not confirmed that he nominates them and I'm pretty sure he doesn't train them, so yeah...

Whis said he was supposed to destroy evil people, though.

[DragonBallFoodie]

Well, he's not considered useless now.

[Lord Beerus]

Well, he's not considered useless now.

Yeah, to make sure Zamasu would never exist, he destroyed an entire timeline.

[phattangent]

Well, he's not considered useless now.

Yeah, to make sure Zamasu would never exist, he destroyed an entire timeline.

Maybe... I translated the short line that Zenō said just before he starting erasing stuff in another thread: viewtopic.php?f=25&t=36253&p=1194510#p1194510

[Lord Frieza]

I think Zamasu summed it up best, the gods just site around and do nothing to actively help the universe.

I respect their view of letting things develop naturally and understanding that the universe needs balance but the all of the higher gods seem to not take an active interest in the goings on in their universes. Our Kaioshin is different as he has seen how that negligence can lead to catastrophe with Buu but most of the other gods just site on their laurels as far as we know. Even Beerus didn't really provide much in the way of help and arrogantly assumed killing Zamasu would solve the problem. Zeno decides to destroy a whole universe rather then fix the problem.

I'm not saying Zamasu's ideals were right but I can understand why he became so frustrated with his fellow deities.

[Polyphase Avatron]

I think this just confirms my point. Zeno didn't even know what was going on until Goku summoned him.

[dragon boss z]

Zeno is basically just a gag character. Also you could say he is the most evil person in dragon ball since he has killed more people than anyone else, and for almost no reason either.

[buutenks]

Zeno is entertaining, means he isn't useless.

[FoolsGil]

* Anything to stop Black and Zamasu from killing all of the Kaioshin and Hakaishin in all of the universes

This is the only one I can agree with. I don't know what Zeno does with his time, but someone whether him or his attendant should have noticed that universes's kais and gods were going dark and investigated, everything else is too small for him to care for. He's the Capital G ending in -od of this series, we shouldn't expect him to do jack.

[apex_pretador]

Well said, Zeno is useless idiot and dumber than goku. He is totally unfit to weild such power which can wipe out universes on a whim.

[ShadowBardock89]

Zeno is basically just a gag character. Also you could say he is the most evil person in dragon ball since he has killed more people than anyone else, and for almost no reason either.

I think this just confirms my point. Zeno didn't even know what was going on until Goku summoned him.

Seriously. How did he NOT notice that the Supreme Kais and Gods of Destruction were dead in his timeline, especially since Beerus and Champa got chewed out for slacking in their jobs by him?