Toriyama didn't write himself into a corner. They aren't superheroes out to save the day. It has always been well within their character to let the bad guy gather themselves so the heroes can get a good fight. This isn't an issue of plot dictating character. If they are unsympathetic, well, I don't think Toriyama would've disagreed with you. The lack of understanding of the characters and even the genre (easy to miss if you aren't from Asia) is the root of this issue.AliTheZombie13 wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2024 1:36 pmMind you, this was after Vegeta threatened to kill her, she asked Goku for help, and Goku refused. After Goku refused, she asked for help from everyone else, and everyone else also decided "Nah, let it play out." And then, she decided she had no option but to follow them, since... You know... She was under a death threat.MasenkoHA wrote: Tue Jun 04, 2024 11:14 amHis argument to Bulma was also "He [Gero] hasn't done anything wrong yet"AliTheZombie13 wrote: Mon Jun 03, 2024 6:45 am , but rather, that he was an irresponsible battle-crazed Saiyan who chose to stake the fate of the world over his desire to fight the Cyborgs at the beginning of the Cell Saga.
We could point out that by being a scientist for the Red Ribbon Army he has indeed done wrong and is complicit in the murder of who knows how many people but that becomes a question of ethics I suppose.
At the end of the day "We should stop Gero from even creating the Artificial Humans." "Nah let it play out" is Toriyama just realizing the obvious solution to the conflict he introduced (they have a magic wish granting dragon that could prevent this future from even happening) and giving a handwave so the story could actually happen. So I don't see a point in getting too bothered by Goku and the other characters actions. It's not like Bulma couldn't have gone rogue and found the dragon balls herself and made the wish to drop Gero in a lava pit or something. So she either ultimately agreed with Goku's argument or respected his real wishes as a martial artist.
And yes, I know the real-life reason why it played out like that is because Toriyama wrote himself into a wall. If it were me, I'd just have the characters try to search for Gero, then realize Gero had already fleed since he was spying on them using micro-robots, and then have them reluctantly decide to prepare themselves instead. Either way, that scene made every single character unsympathetic as fuck in my book, and I found myself not caring about them or the story afterwards.
If you present to me a story that's basically, "We must get out of jail, how do we do that?" And the story repeatedly hands the heroes free-get-out-of-jail cards, and the heroes proceed to destroy each one of them with their bare hands because "Nah, that's not fair." Only for them to go back into wondering "How do we get out?" 3 seconds later, you can find that story either funny or frustrating. In my case, I found it extremely, beyond-help frustrating, but that's just me.
Exactly. He has Vegeta at his mercy and he agrees to let him go because Goku asks him to. Goku explicitly says he wants to fight Vegeta down the road.Krillin has already shown he has enough respect for Goku to go with his wishes regardless of his own trepidations.
