Consciously or not, is there a bias towards Goku's family?

[Thanos6]

At least, when it's compared to Vegeta's. I have no idea if this was conscious or not, but it seems like the Son family gets more breaks compared to the Briefs family.*

• Let's look at fusion. Unless my brain is decaying even worse than I thought, everytime someone screws up the fusion dance, it's either Trunks (first two tries at Gotenks) or Vegeta (first try at Gogeta).
• Both versions of Trunks get crammed into roughly the same space as Goten gets alone in Daizenshuu 2 and 7 (see also my "Japanese and Trunks" thread).
• With the exception of Saiyan-saga Vegeta, none of the Briefs family get new costumes in BT3, just the same old palette swaps (or, in the case of present Trunks, his hideous orange gi from BT2). Meanwhile, Goku and Gohan at least are getting some new outfits, and Goten still has his sort-of-canon palette swap between the anime and manga colors. Mirai Trunks, meanwhile, is still denied his awesome Movie 9 outfit and his Cell-killing outfit; and present Trunks still has to wear that Godawful orange gi, even though he has a canon alternate costume that could be used instead (the stuff he's wearing training with Vegeta in the gravity room).
• The entire Cell saga from the moment Goku and Gohan step into the Room of Spirit and Time. Seriously now. See also: Movie 9.
• Shin Budokai: Another Road. This is supposed to be Mirai Trunks's story, yet the combined Son family (including a ludicrously resurrected Bardock) ends up saving the day in story mode. Also note that the future Gohan also gets SS2 and Mystic powerups, while poor Mirai Trunks isn't even thrown the bone of SS2, much less Mystic.

I think there's more, but that's all that's coming to me right now. The only exception I can come up with off the top of my head is Trunks beating Goten in the Junior Division.

Thoughts? Am I on target or has my mind concocted a conspiracy theory, as it's wont to do?

*(I'm well aware that "Briefs" may or may not be the actual family name, but dammit, I like it too much to abandon)

[Jerseymilk]

Meh, the Briefs are loaded! They can just buy the stuff they're short-changed on.

[Thanos6]

Meh, the Briefs are loaded! They can just buy the stuff they're short-changed on.

*Bulma steps back from the time machine* "OK boys, it's ready to go, you should be able to warp into that alternate universe now where we're 'just stories' and convince them to show us better."

(Of course, Goten gets the Briefs cash anyway when he marries into the family)

No, but seriously. Am I just overanalyzing things like I often do or is this an actual trend?

[TripleRach]

There's a definite bias towards Gokuu and his family over everyone in the series.

But one thing I have noticed is that, in GT, pretty much everyone not related to Gokuu or Vegeta is relegated to Oolong status.

[Onikage725]

There's a definite bias towards Gokuu and his family over everyone in the series.

But one thing I have noticed is that, in GT, pretty much everyone not related to Gokuu or Vegeta is relegated to Oolong status.

Even some who are related. There's Gohan's general underperformance (I guess the moral is studying will weaken god-like powers granted by the universe's higest deity- dont stay in school, it makes you a pussy). Goten getting replaced by Pan for most of the story (granted she's a relative too), and he and Trunks not once fusing despite the opponents GT produces.

I think the bias in general is because the series is about Goku (and his family by extension). It can get a little ridiculous though. Like you said, the videogames. SB2 could have given him "what-if" upgrades. They gave his mentor the mystic power up after all. Also, since Goku and vegeta get almost every costume under the sun (still waiting on the bad man shirt in a BT game) I dont see why Trunks cant get the ripped jacket.

[Undercooked Sausage]

Well, yeah. Of course there's a bias. Goku's always been more popular, and he's the main character, plus his family typically represents all that is right, decent and pure with the world. I can't see why the story WOULDN'T center around them.

[Thanos6]

There's a difference between the story just centering around them, and everyone else being given the shaft.

[russ869]

It's true that every series has some bias toward the "main character" but I do agree it might have been a little overdone in Dragonball. I always thought it made more since that Vegeta should have become the first Super Saiya-jin mainly because of the ridiculous number of life threatening battles he fought on Namek in the process of killing nearly all of Freeza's henchmen single-handedly. (except of course for the strongest members of the Ginyu Special Corps) Indeed, if seemingly random "fate" (read author's choice) hadn't decided to have the Grand Elder Namekian die at just the wrong moment, Vegeta would obviously be the immortal ruler of the galaxy. As pointed out there are exceptions to the seeming bias towards Goku and the gang. For instance Mirai Trunks killed Freeza, effortlessly doing in a split second what the combined strength of all the other characters couldn't do in an entire 30 episode season.

[omegacwa]

Well, if you take an outside look at the series, and really look at Goku and Vegeta, if you discount Goku's 7 years of training in the afterlife, Vegeta should be much stronger.

Vegeta spent his entire life fighting and conquering planets. It is shown in the Bardock Special that Vegeta Specifically requested difficult planets in order to grow stronger.

Then throughout his battles on Earth and Namek, Vegeta received multiple near death power ups. Not to mention at base he was far superior to Goku. Goku even admits this after their battle.

So explain to me, how a few days training in a space pod, and one near death power up = super saiyan. Especially from a powerlevel that was far less than Vegeta's (Not Counting Kaio Ken).

Plus, Vegeta Spent the three+ years between Freeza and Androids destroying himself with far more intense training then Goku's (On the trip to namek, and during the three years).

Plus Vegeta went into the RoSaT TWICE!.

It just doesn't make much sense for Goku to be so much stronger. Well I guess Majin Vegeta and SSJ2 Goku were even, but still.

I think you guys get my point.

As for the Budokai games, I would like to see some what if transformations, like SSJ2 Trunks, SSJ3 Vegeta, SSJ Bardock. I think those would be cool. Oozaro just doesn't lend it self well to the games.

[Conan the SSJ]

So explain to me, how a few days training in a space pod, and one near death power up = super saiyan. Especially from a powerlevel that was far less than Vegeta's (Not Counting Kaio Ken).

Let's see here with Goku...

1) Had an intense battle with Vegeta, which was icing on the cake to the hell he went through against the Great Ape form. No doubt, Goku had his most physically damaging battle, more a near-death experience than he'd had since...ever!
2) The recovery. Not sure if the manga was as emphasising on this, but his recovery was tough before Yajirobe delivered him a senzu. But Goku nonetheless continued to train, even if in small manners, while trying to heal; even nearly killing himself at one point when going out. This no doubt assisted in the big zenkai that would come from eating the senzu delivered.
3) 5-6 days of intense, nonstop training (aside from sleeping and bathing, with all the food gone on the first day) under increasing levels of gravity that even Vegeta probably never experienced. Once Goku got to the point where 100x Gravity was to be used all the time, he pushed himself so far that he had to regularly take senzus just to heal himself, on two separate occasions if I'm not mistaken. Rather than just rely on power increased from his previous battle and recovery like Vegeta was, he pushed himself past his limits as far as he could.

So explain to me, how a few days training in a space pod, and one near death power up = super saiyan. Especially from a powerlevel that was far less than Vegeta's (Not Counting Kaio Ken).

Where do you get the notion that Goku was weaker than Vegeta on Namek? If you get it from the mistaken translation of his power level being at 300,000, as I just implied, that was a mistaken translation made years ago from the Daizenshuu that was apparently picked up on very quickly (even in Sagas). Goku's actual level (without going Kaioken) against Freeza was something like 300,000,000, if I'm not mistaken. I believe that's considered the minimum required level to be capable of ascending, which while Vegeta was probably close to in his last battle with Freeza (definitely well-over an even million, which was form 2 Freeza's level) , he was clearly weaker than Goku's battle before 50% was reached by Freeza.

[omegacwa]

Well, you quoted the same quote twice which I am assuming was a mistake, but i blame my poor sentence structure, I never said that Goku was Weaker than Vegeta during the Freeza fight, I just meant that he (Vegeta) was stronger during their battle on Earth, by a fairly large margin (Especially at that time).

But I still don't get how Goku's Power Level Shot up so much. Sure, Vegeta's went up a lot too, I mean his did go from like, 28,000 or something to over 500,000 (After getting sensu and sleep after battle with Ginyu Force) Otherwise he wouldn't have even been able to match first form Freeza which he does.

But I really think Mr. Toryiama Wasn't really paying that much attention to power levels after the "Over One Million" power level stated by Freeza, because it really gets out of control after that.

You know what, the power level system makes no sense.

I guess my whole point is that Vegeta worked just as hard as Goku, if not harder, yet never saw results like Goku, which was most likely due to Goku being the lead, enough said.

[Dark Vegeta-Sama]

You know what, the power level system makes no sense.

Of course it doesn't.

Honestly, we're supposed to believe that none of the main cast of characters ever has a power level over 300 or so all throughout the original Dragonball series, while in DBZ everyone's power levels (even the humans) shoot up well into the thousands and beyond?

I also remember reading years ago that Vegeta's level when he first arrives on Namek is around 24,000 and yet he is capable of matching first form Freeza later on, who's power level is supposed to be about 500,000 and over a million when he transforms? How the hell could Vegeta possibly go from 24,000 to 500,000?

And, I won't even try to make sense of how Goku's power level of 9,000 on earth (a maximum of 21,000 with kaioken) shoots up even more dramatically than Vegeta's in a shorter amount of time.

It's pretty fucked up.

[Kaboom]

Yeah, there's a reason Mr. Toriyama stoppped using them...

[Contra Deus]

Yes, the numerical power level system, though fun to speculate on, is incessantly arbitrary and completely impractical. I recall Vegeta's power level after being healed by the senzu Son gave him post-Recoome as being listed at 300,000, which is supposed to explain how he could've gone toe-to-toe with Freeza in his first form.

That just doesn't make any sense; he would've been more powerful than Goku at the time and would've had no need to flee nor would he have had such trouble with Jeice later on.

Bring in the kaiouken, and things just get more confusing.

[russ869]

I never said that Goku was Weaker than Vegeta during the Freeza fight, I just meant that he (Vegeta) was stronger during their battle on Earth, by a fairly large margin (Especially at that time).

Well as we all famously know Goku's power level was "Over 8000!" without the Kaio-ken and Zarbon mentions that Vegeta's previous maximum before Namek was about 1800 so he was over twice as strong as Goku. It's just that since the Kaio-ken allows Goku to double or even triple his power the big difference in their strength isn't as obvious.

I don't how Vegeta managed to convince himself that he was "defeated by Kakarot" considering he totally destroyed Goku. It was more of a fluke that Vegeta was even defeated; he just let the fight go on for to long and took to many huge hits. If he had concentrated more on killing everyone one at a time instead of being distracted by every little attack he wouldn't have been OWNED so badly, but whatever.

[Conan the SSJ]

I don't how Vegeta managed to convince himself that he was "defeated by Kakarot" considering he totally destroyed Goku. It was more of a fluke that Vegeta was even defeated; he just let the fight go on for to long and took to many huge hits. If he had concentrated more on killing everyone one at a time instead of being distracted by every little attack he wouldn't have been OWNED so badly, but whatever.

He considers it a defeat for two big reasons. 1) He was forced to flee while Goku remained breathing with the stronger will to fight and 2) Kuririn could've finished Vegeta, but Goku instead spared him. From Vegeta's point of view, Kakarrot for all intents and purposes is a low-class, third rate disgrace to his race. The very fact Goku could overpower his best attack in the Kamehame-Ha/Galick-Ho struggle, survive his Great Ape form, and still attempt to fight with last-resort Ki blasts and the Genki-dama (with a shattered body no less) gave Vegeta (whom as established, fled rather than fought on) the strong feeling that "that bastard Kakarrot won". Goku may not've defeated Vegeta's body, but he sure as hell defeated his pride.