Do you think Dragon Ball would have worked better if Goku died on Namek?

[Koitsukai]

And to be honest, the fact that Goku didn't know that Gohan was becoming a pacifist is somewhat on Gohan for never talking with his father during all of that time about this stuff.

That's actually pretty cool, and probably unintencional from Toriyama. Kids that age, and even older, have a hard time opening up to their parents, specially when the kid wants to deviate from their father's line of work. They go with the flow until they cannot do that anymore.

[Dr. Casey]

I never get the appeal of Goku dying on Namek?

I've never really found it that poignant or moving either. Julie's idea about Goku undergoing a permanent change after the first SSJ transformation is honestly a lot more interesting.

As for the Buu arc, nah, best to revive him there as well. I like the idea of Goku, Chi-chi, and Goten getting to spend ten years together (Gohan as well for at least the first two) way too much to get rid of that.

[Rafa Fast]

if bringing Goku back made the series to still be a hit, then no, and I'm not a fan of Gohan as the main character neither, I like when he gets his own stories like the Saiyajin Saga fillers, Garlic Jr. Saga, Z Movie 9 and Super Hero, but replace Goku? double no.

[SuperSaiyaManZ94]

I mean, Toriyama did try to essentially retire Goku as the main character of the story after the Cell arc when he made the command decision to remain in the Next World after Cell's defeat but then at some point soon after he realized that Gohan just didn't work in the protagonist role partway into the Buu arc and then undid the "Goku stays dead" thing by extension. So yeah, aside from that i don't think the Freeza arc ending with Goku's death would've worked as a send off for him either.

[ABED]

My preferred ending for Goku's arc is to become a martial arts master. He can't do that if he dies on Namek, because it's in the Cell and Boo arcs that we see him begin training others. So, I don't think Dragon Ball would have worked better if he died on Namek.

This is why I think the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai and the Boo arc make for the best endings. In the former Goku is finally Tenkaichi, and will continue to train to become even stronger. In the latter he's taken his own pupil under his wing and will pass on everything he learned from Grandpa Gohan, Kame Sennin, Karin, Kami, and Kaio.

The Freeza and Cell arc are terrible endings, for both Goku and the story itself

It's always come across to me that he also was projecting his own interests onto Gohan, who just spent four years training with him, the most recent one being only with him.

And to be honest, the fact that Goku didn't know that Gohan was becoming a pacifist is somewhat on Gohan for never talking with his father during all of that time about this stuff.

Goku is totally that sports dad who doesn't get that his naturally athletic son would rather just play Xbox

But Goku does know that Gohan wants to be a scholar. he explicitly tells him that if he wants to do that, he first has to beat Cell. I'm not sure why people keep forgetting this.

Anyway, I wouldn't mind Goku being forced to learn, but we learn to overcome something, like a mistake, but when has Goku been in that sort of situation? He's never had to learn to not let bad guys get away because it's always been put right by the Dragon Balls.

I'm not inherently against heroes dying in the end but I don't think it works for something like Dragon Ball.

I agree with MasenkoHa about the best endings.

[super michael]

I am happy that Goku survived his battle against Freeza on Namek, otherwise we wouldn't have seen Goku train and teach Gohan like a master. We wouldn't see Goku train Goten and Trunks to do fusion and wouldn't have seen him get Oob as a student.

In the Buu Saga Goku was looking at a different way to defend the earth by having new powerful fighters, rather than using up all his time to kill Boo. I mean Goku was fight, since there was more enemies that appeared in DBS.
Although Goku didn't know he could get revived along with Vegeta and Gohan.

[MasenkoHA]

I mean, Toriyama did try to essentially retire Goku as the main character of the story after the Cell arc when he made the command decision to remain in the Next World after Cell's defeat but then at some point soon after he realized that Gohan just didn't work in the protagonist role partway into the Buu arc and then undid the "Goku stays dead" thing by extension. So yeah, aside from that i don't think the Freeza arc ending with Goku's death would've worked as a send off for him either.

And even then it was less "natural conclusion to Goku's character arc" and more "Toriyama had nowhere else for Goku to go but wanted the money train to keep on chugging so he tried to make Gohan the new lead"

[TheGreatness25]

I honestly don't get some of the arguments here. Gokundoesn't learn? All of the things that Goku did were written. He's not a real person. Hebisbwritten to be a certain way and if he wasn't around, someone else would be written that way. Because Goku's actions where he "didn't learn from his mistakes" were intentional to build tension.

[Grimlock]

But "build tension" to whom, exactly? To the characters? To the audience? Perhaps both? If it's the middle, then you must realize the possibility of "building tension" may have cheap results. You often see the senzu bean situation being brought up as an example and there's something to be said about that.

No one complains about Goku throwing a senzu to Cell, although I'm sure everyone on this Earth agrees that that was a stupid move (I hope...), the problem is if and when that happens again, and it does, Goku throws a senzu bean to Moro, fully aware of the implications, perils and the very likely unsatisfying results that action may cause. You have to ask yourself why would Goku give the opponent the chance for them to succeed in their plans. In Cell's case, he was completely confident that Gohan would stop the enemy, but we clearly see him regretting the decision of giving Cell the damned bean once things get out of control (you can make a point that Goku regrets having taken other decisions, and that'd be fine, but the point would still stand, as giving the bean to Cell would be one of them anyway).

Once the characters themselves show signs of regret, any sane person would logically assume Goku learned his lesson at that point and that he would never do that again. But he does not, he does the exact same thing years later. Now, the questions you should ask yourself are: why is Goku doing this again? Is "tension" really "building up" or is this situation happening again just as a cheap callback to a past action? If someone is approaching this solely with an out--of-universe view, it's very unlikely that they are feeling any "tension building up", because that's an action that shouldn't be happening in the first place at that point in time. They may have other feelings instead, maybe annoyed to see Goku repeating a past mistake.

It is possible that Goku giving off senzu beans to his opponents left and right may not bother you in the slightest, that it is completely "within his character" to do these things and that's okay, but you do need, at the very least, to understand why this may bother someone else. A mistake done once is fine, a costly mistake done twice (or more) may not sit well. So this is not about "perfect characters that make no mistake", it's more about characters learning... growing... being "humans" (lack of better a word, we are, after all, talking about aliens!).

[Majin Buu]

No one complains about Goku throwing a senzu to Cell, although I'm sure everyone on this Earth agrees that that was a stupid move (I hope...), the problem is if and when that happens again, and it does, Goku throws a senzu bean to Moro, fully aware of the implications, perils and the very likely unsatisfying results that action may cause. You have to ask yourself why would Goku give the opponent the chance for them to succeed in their plans. In Cell's case, he was completely confident that Gohan would stop the enemy, but we clearly see him regretting the decision of giving Cell the damned bean once things get out of control (you can make a point that Goku regrets having taken other decisions, and that'd be fine, but the point would still stand, as giving the bean to Cell would be one of them anyway).

Once the characters themselves show signs of regret, any sane person would logically assume Goku learned his lesson at that point and that he would never do that again.

I think the lesson with Cell there was more like "I shouldn't assume my son is just like me"; not so much "I shouldn't give senzus to my enemies". Reducing it to the latter overlooks what Goku's actual mistake was.

[Grimlock]

Maybe, although I'm not sure if Goku knew about that at that point. And when Gohan tells Cell about it, no one was listening (well, other than Piccolo). Be that as it may, as I already said, the point still stands.

[Jack Bz]

Dragon Ball should have ended after the Raditz fight. Goku is finally dead, his only son kidnapped by a demon and raised to be evil, and 2 aliens are going to destroy the earth in a year. The bad ending.

[Koitsukai]

There's a difference in senzuing on someone else's fight and let them get the bill, and doing it on your own fight where you have everything under control, as seen immediately afterwards.
The circumstances and outcome of these events differ so much that I'm baffled people still pair them together as if they were the same stone.

[Majin Buu]

Maybe, although I'm not sure if Goku knew about that at that point. And when Gohan tells Cell about it, no one was listening (well, other than Piccolo).

Of course Goku wasn't aware of that, that's why Piccolo has to spell it out for him. And as for no one else being able to hear Gohan tell Cell this: So? What matters is that Piccolo did.

Be that as it may, as I already said, the point still stands.

Goku giving Cell the senzu didn't actually matter to anything though. When you break down the chain of events, it had no effect on outcome as Cell gained no advantage from it, so what's the "lesson" Goku was supposed to take away from that?

Again, you're making this out to be the critical error in that situation when it was just a symptom of the actual error- Goku assuming Gohan would want to fight Cell at his best like Goku himself would.

I'm on this because your point hinges on the senzu thing being a grave error Goku should have learned a lesson from and not repeated with Moro, but to make this point you're looking at that act in a vaccum, which overlooks that the act itself was just symptom of the actual mistake Goku made there; in addition to the act having no actual consequences on the battle.

[MasenkoHA]

Dragon Ball should have ended after the Raditz fight. Goku is finally dead, his only son kidnapped by a demon and raised to be evil, and 2 aliens are going to destroy the earth in a year. The bad ending.

Joking aside, I wouldn't be surprised if there was at least one fanfic that runs with the idea of Piccolo raising Gohan to be a "Demon Prince"

[Vhanos]

The idea is very played out. And no, to answer the question.