The Android Saga's Infamous "Lets do nothing to stop the upcoming threat" scene

[AliTheZombie13]

The "they're not superheroes" thing probably keeps getting brough up because fans get upset when the character don’t act altruistic.

There is a difference between wanting the character to act altruistic and wanting them to be consistent with their ideology. When you have the power to stop murderous robots from killing people, and you intentionally refuse to use that power, and then proceed to complain that the murderous robots are now killing people, that makes you look hypocritical and unworthy of sympathy.

"But they aren't superheroes!" Then don't have them complain about the world going to shit when they refused to save it.

[miguelnuva1]

The "they're not superheroes" thing probably keeps getting brough up because fans get upset when the character don’t act altruistic.

There is a difference between wanting the character to act altruistic and wanting them to be consistent with their ideology. When you have the power to stop murderous robots from killing people, and you intentionally refuse to use that power, and then proceed to complain that the murderous robots are now killing people, that makes you look hypocritical and unworthy of sympathy.

"But they aren't superheroes!" Then don't have them complain about the world going to shit when they refused to save it.

Goku decided to train to get stronger and then others agreed to a problem that was specifically targeting Goku.

19 and 20 were handled and 16, 17 and 18 didn't want to destroy the Earth they wanted to kill Goku.

Trunks for all the good he did created the biggest problem by giving Cell a reason to get to the past.

Looking for the Dragonballs also ran the risk of dis Gero has an Androids complete at that point?

[AliTheZombie13]

Goku decided to train to get stronger and then others agreed to a problem that was specifically targeting Goku.

19 and 20 were handled and 16, 17 and 18 didn't want to destroy the Earth they wanted to kill Goku.

Trunks went back to the past because #17 and #18 destroyed the future.

Trunks for all the good he did created the biggest problem by giving Cell a reason to get to the past.
Looking for the Dragonballs also ran the risk of dis Gero has an Androids complete at that point?

The first was completely unintentional on his and Bulma's part. I can forgive genuine conflict that doesn't rely on character stupidity.
Honestly, I see this thread is just going to keep going at this point, I've already made my points and I admittedly am rambling a lot and moving goalposts.

Ultimately, the problem at least for me in this scene isn't that the heroes are acting out-of-character, or acting non-altruistic, or merely following Toriyama's roadmap for them, but boils down to three things:

1) Their final decision killed my motivation to root for them, so I stopped caring about the story. They don't care if they die, why should I?
2) Every subsequent display of anger that things turned out against them sparked a "Oh, now you care" feeling inside of me. That the story never once includes not even a small moment of self-awareness, or even a small "This is all our fault" line of dialogue for them is jarring.
3) This scene in isolation wouldn't be too bad, but it's coupled with several others in the same arc where the characters allow the villains to succeed in their plans by plot-induced stupidity. Call it in-character all you want, I don't care. Character stupidity isn't pleasant for me to watch. (Examples: Bulma letting Gero escape by interfering with the fight, #17 and #18 standing around doing nothing while Cell fights everybody else who's screaming at them to run away, Goku and Tenshinhan not using abilities that could've stalled Cell sooner, Trunks not using his full power against Vegeta to stop Cell as to not hurt his ego)

In general, the Cell Saga is shoddy as hell. This scene is just another to the pile of frustrating moments it produced in my eyes.

[MasenkoHA]

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Anyway, as I said, my issue here isn’t even necessarily that the characters choose to let Gero build the artificial humans. It’s that they conveniently forget about how much they wanted to fight the artificial humans once they learn about 17 and 18. You can give it any rationalization you want, but I think it’s a simple case of inconsistent writing. I don’t think Toriyama was trying to convey the idea that the Dragon Team learned from their mistake. He just realized that the characters not being proactive would make for a boring story.

I agree with this. Obviously it's a byproduct of Toriyama changing plans from 19 and 20 being the real Androids. Similar to Bulma going from "We should try to find where this Gero guy is" to "Gero? Not only do I know who he is and what he looks like I also know where his SECRET lab is"


As far as the superhero thing, my issue is there's a difference between "a character does something stupid just cuz" and "character does something stupid but in character" more often than not it's the latter but people treat it like the former. Goku refusing outside help when fighting Ma Junior or Vegeta allowing Cell to absorb 18 are both stupid but in a way that'a consistent with their characters.