Marlowe89 wrote:
1. That doesn't logically follow. Power specifications aren't always so specific that they allow for a direct comparison between every character, which was my point in the previous post.
2. A slight difference doesn't mean Toshio doubted his own scaling; if anything, the consistency of that closeness could well indicate a specification of some kind. "Equal to or a little greater than" is a thing in the franchise, including Super where it was actually demonstrated with other characters.
Except we don't know how extensive Toriyama's discussions with the staff were nor what kind of footnotes the outline might have included. There easily could have been several things that the staff might not have deemed significant enough to include in the show, especially if it had no story relevance. We have lines of dialogue attributed to characters in magazine articles that never show up in the actual episode, so it's not like scripting refinements never occur.
That changes nothing. You're still assuming there was authorial intention behind his ranking when there could be none at all. Neither of us knows what was in the origial script, but the major difference between our arguments is that I at least base mine off something, you base yours off.. nothing. A writer's opinion may hold more weight than some random fan's, but it's not going to hold more weight than the show itself that he doesn't own that is written by multiple different writers. His
personal opinion isn't fact, it can be objectively argued. They had plenty of chance to subtly portray Gohan as being somewhat stronger than 17, however insignificant it may be. But they didn't. For someone who was supposed to be equal to or weaker than Gohan, they sure wrote 17 in such a way that he came off as the stronger of the two with much more impressive feats, and they didn't care. You'd think they'd be more careful about giving fans the wrong impression if Toriyama really did say something along the lines of "17 is about as strong as Gohan,
but not stronger". He wouldn't have said the underlined part if it wasn't going to be important.
You're not bringing up any "evidence" that isn't predicated entirely on speculation and mountains of baseless assumptions. You're just continuously extrapolating what you think went down during production (again, without evidence of any kind) from unrelated things you saw in the show, which is completely absurd. I'll say it once more -- your interpretation is based on nothing something.
Corrected. Something is still better than nothing at all. Next.
It doesn't go back to your original point, and that wasn't even your point. You claimed that official license-holding material "knows" as much as the average fan, which is objectively untrue.
It's the same implication nonetheless.
I'm not quite sure what you're playing at by suddenly switching to the "official is right" stance when it suits your argument, but funnily enough, it's not even working here. Speed subs are prone to error, and the official subtitles have already been incorrect on occasion. This is definitely no secret. You doubting Herms' competency with the language just comes across as a bit of a desperate move, honestly.
You misunderstood. I said the official translation is the right one because it's
the right one, not because it's official. I won't claim to be more competent than Herms in Japanese, but nothing Goku said was too complicated and he definitely didn't say anything along the lines of "I will try not to kill you". It's not like I had to translate from scratch, it's a simple matter of recognizing the right translation between two
very different ones. Not to mention that Herms' version sounds totally weird and OOC for Goku, that line fits someone like Vegeta much better. I respect Herms and appreciate his contributions, but I don't worship him and I acknowledge that even he can make mistakes.
It's not "more than likely", "somewhat likely" or even "slightly likely". It's just more unfounded speculation on your part. There's no contradiction, and Goku already confirmed he was holding back to some unspecified degree in the episode.
Great, Goku held back. So did 17. I wonder why they even bothered saying that 17 was holding back even more power if their intention was for Goku to test the lower limits of his power against 17's upper limits, it's almost like they were trying to convey that the 2 were somewhat on par. Yeah, authorial intention.
There's a contradiction on Toshio's part, and I favor the one that is actually written in the show with little to no unnecessary outside influence. Why do you think Toshio provided such an unnecessary information when the context is obvious for the most in the show? Because fans demanded an explanation. Not to mention that going blue against 17 to "motivate" him is pretty nonsensical, considering that he knew nothing about it unlike the others so it meant nothing to him.
I'm noticing a pattern here with you baselessly attributing motives to writers that were never implied by anything at any point. If Toshio himself claimed that that was the context he was working with in writing the scene, then that was the context. Period. This isn't open to interpretation.
It is, when there's a contradiction. Aside from the one about Goku not intending to go blue, all dialogues in that episode implied 17 to be really strong and that Goku wasn't just sandbagging or trying to "motivate" 17. You don't see Krillin getting hyped to the same level for example, and Goku went blue against him too.
Dende: It would be terrifying if he was still an enemy.
Goku: Dende was right, I'm glad you're not an enemy.
What do you think the writers were trying to accomplish with such dialogues? You don't get to pick authorial intentions that only suit your narrative, it doesn't work that way man.
So yeah, authorial intention. You're not accomplishing anything by arguing with the writers themselves. Like I said before, that's just an uphill battle and you're not going to win. I'd suggest you abandon the exercise in futility while you're ahead.
And I'd suggest you take your own advice too while you're at it.
