Cell Saga Vegeta

[ekrolo2]

Kind of yeah but at least it gives him a better reason to hate Goku and want him gone than vague revenge because vague not totally explained reasons dictate it must be so.

But then you're being asked to care about Gero's son who we don't meet. I can easily buy Gero's revenge. It's not vague. We know what Goku did. Goku destroyed the RRA and their plans for domination. Gero was a believer, and Goku ruined it all.

Believer in what? The RRA has no real philosophy for why their method of ruling is better than whatever government already exists in the DB world. All we know is they want world domination and given the fact we know how they feel about failure (with execution, even to soldiers who're usually pretty successful otherwise). By making Gero's son a victim of Goku's dismantling of the RRA, he's got a personal reason for wanting him dead, one any person can understand easily. Besides, you grow to like 16 and Gero apparently modeled him a lot after his son so you're getting to see what the guy was like anyway even if its a copy of him which may or may not have Gero unintentionally over emphasizing his sons positive traits while keeping the bad ones off the table.

[ABED]

Kind of yeah but at least it gives him a better reason to hate Goku and want him gone than vague revenge because vague not totally explained reasons dictate it must be so.

But then you're being asked to care about Gero's son who we don't meet. I can easily buy Gero's revenge. It's not vague. We know what Goku did. Goku destroyed the RRA and their plans for domination. Gero was a believer, and Goku ruined it all.

Believer in what? The RRA has no real philosophy for why their method of ruling is better than whatever government already exists in the DB world. All we know is they want world domination and given the fact we know how they feel about failure (with execution, even to soldiers who're usually pretty successful otherwise). By making Gero's son a victim of Goku's dismantling of the RRA, he's got a personal reason for wanting him dead, one any person can understand easily. Besides, you grow to like 16 and Gero apparently modeled him a lot after his son so you're getting to see what the guy was like anyway even if its a copy of him which may or may not have Gero unintentionally over emphasizing his sons positive traits while keeping the bad ones off the table.

Toriyama never went that deep, and ultimately Red's plan for the DBs was to grow a few inches.. But I still buy that a lot more than "you killed my son, so screw those innocent people". It doesn't track for me that he'd want to target innocents because of a personal grudge against one man.

Even if 16 was modeled after his son, he's considered a failure and there's little indication that there's any emotional connection to that bot on his part, and even evil people have kids.

[ekrolo2]

But then you're being asked to care about Gero's son who we don't meet. I can easily buy Gero's revenge. It's not vague. We know what Goku did. Goku destroyed the RRA and their plans for domination. Gero was a believer, and Goku ruined it all.

Believer in what? The RRA has no real philosophy for why their method of ruling is better than whatever government already exists in the DB world. All we know is they want world domination and given the fact we know how they feel about failure (with execution, even to soldiers who're usually pretty successful otherwise). By making Gero's son a victim of Goku's dismantling of the RRA, he's got a personal reason for wanting him dead, one any person can understand easily. Besides, you grow to like 16 and Gero apparently modeled him a lot after his son so you're getting to see what the guy was like anyway even if its a copy of him which may or may not have Gero unintentionally over emphasizing his sons positive traits while keeping the bad ones off the table.

Toriyama never went that deep, and ultimately Red's plan for the DBs was to grow a few inches.. But I still buy that a lot more than "you killed my son, so screw those innocent people". It doesn't track for me that he'd want to target innocents because of a personal grudge against one man.

Even if 16 was modeled after his son, he's considered a failure and there's little indication that there's any emotional connection to that bot on his part, and even evil people have kids.

He knows targeting innocent people and generally causing havoc across the planet is the best way to get Goku's attention. Besides, in the 17 years he spent tinkering with the Android process is solitude and anger at his sons death would be more than enough to explain away why he'd grow to value life so little in comparison for his own need for revenge. Its a believable and far more personnel road for him to go down rather then some weird loyalty to a rogue army's "philosophy" that's basically the plan of every generic Saturday cartoon villain.

[ABED]

I get that. What I'm saying is that I don't buy that his personal vendetta is enough for him to care so little about innocents. He would have to not care in the first place. Simply the death of a son isn't enough.

17 years he spent tinkering with the Android process is solitude and anger would be more than enough to explain away why he'd grow to value life so little in comparison for his own need for revenge

How?

Its a believable and far more personnel road for him to go down rather then some weird loyalty to a rogue army's "philosophy" that's basically the plan of every generic Saturday cartoon villain.

As opposed to the motivation that a hack writer gives in order to make a villain more "3 dimensional"?

Wanting to dominate the world and building a robot to further that goal is an easier buy than "I was a good man working reluctantly for an evil army, but you killed my son, so screw everything!"

It would take Toriyama going a bit deeper but I could easily see Dr. Gero in a similar light as the Burn Notice villain Anson Fullerton. Michael destroyed the organization that Anson helped build for years, so he wants to hurt Michael.

[ekrolo2]

I get that. What I'm saying is that I don't buy that his personal vendetta is enough for him to care so little about innocents. He would have to not care in the first place. Simply the death of a son isn't enough.

17 years he spent tinkering with the Android process is solitude and anger would be more than enough to explain away why he'd grow to value life so little in comparison for his own need for revenge

How?

Because 17 years spent creating several failure androids in isolation, growing old and feeble and furious that the RRA and his son are gone leaving him with only revenge is more than plausible enough circumstances for him to just become completely warped and consumed by his revenge.

He doesn't have to be a noble guy from the start who becomes completely evil because the RRA went down and his son died, you can make him a bastard who's loyalty to those two things is whats keeping his slivers of humanity in-tact. By having Goku destroy them both, he goes completely over the edge and it can gets worse as time goes on.

This would of course require extensive flashbacks to Gero's background in this hypothetical version of the Cell Arc to work and some retconning to flesh out the RRAs actual philosophy but given the fact Trunks and Krillin go into his lab, its not implausible for them to find audio or visual logs of him detailing his android work and what's caused him to go to such an extreme.

Its a believable and far more personnel road for him to go down rather then some weird loyalty to a rogue army's "philosophy" that's basically the plan of every generic Saturday cartoon villain.

As opposed to the motivation that a hack writer gives in order to make a villain more "3 dimensional"?

Wanting to dominate the world and building a robot to further that goal is an easier buy than "I was a good man working reluctantly for an evil army, but you killed my son, so screw everything!"[/quote]

Any guy who's trying to make his villain actually three dimensional gets more credit in my book than the actual hack who thinks him being angry over the fall of an army who's non existent philology he believed in is in any way a plausible explanation for his later actions AKA Toriyama. The gag with their leader is funny sure, but no else is in on it. That's what made it morbidly funny, all these people have died believing in whatever the fuck the RRAs cause is just so their boss can stop being short. The problem is, if you're gonna have a villain from that same faction come back and make him a spurned believer of that faction, its philosophy needs to be explored better than just "wurld d0mino-nationz lulz!"

That would mean actually putting some effort into properly fleshing out a new villains motivations that extend past "supar evilz!" and well, Toriyama clearly didn't feel like having any of that after Freeza.

[ABED]

But the first one is a hack. Making something "personal" doesn't automatically make something three dimensional. It's a matter of execution because it is not believeable that anyone would want to kill innocents JUST because their child was killed. A hack is still a hack, it's a matter of execution, and just lazily adding "he killed his son" is meaningless and adds nothing, especially when Cell enters the picture. At least by simply having Gero's backstory be that he worked for an evil organization we've already seen, there's an established connection to the audience. You don't have to lay much pipe. It's not a huge stretch that taking down an organization he worked for and believed in would piss him off to go after the person responsible and hopefully continue their goals. This is a kids show we're talking about here. This isn't some deeply philosophical piece of literature where we deeply delve into the inner workings of the villains mind. Toriyama's great at what he does - light fiction.

if you're gonna have a villain from that same faction come back and make him a spurned believer of that faction, its philosophy needs to be explored better than just "wurld d0mino-nationz lulz!"

I never said it didn't, but as a motivation for committing mass murder, the death of a child isn't enough. But even so, if you question Dr. Gero's motivation, you'd have to question the RRA's motivation.

Freeza's reasons for doing what he did weren't explored in any depth, they didn't need to be. You can easily buy that there are emperors who care nothing about murdering people by the boat load.

[ekrolo2]

But the first one is a hack. Making something "personal" doesn't automatically make something three dimensional. It's a matter of execution because it is not believeable that anyone would want to kill innocents JUST because their child was killed. A hack is still a hack, it's a matter of execution, and just lazily adding "he killed his son" is meaningless and adds nothing, especially when Cell enters the picture.

if you're gonna have a villain from that same faction come back and make him a spurned believer of that faction, its philosophy needs to be explored better than just "wurld d0mino-nationz lulz!"

I never said it didn't, but as a motivation for committing mass murder, the death of a child isn't enough. But even so, if you question Dr. Gero's motivation, you'd have to question the RRA's motivation.

Freeza's reasons for doing what he did weren't explored in any depth, they didn't need to be. You can easily buy that there are emperors who care nothing about murdering people by the boat load.

Freeza's actually has some minor depth. Gero's make no sense and aren't believable at all. Freeza is an ego maniacal bastard, that's true and him annihilating the Saiyan's because he was afraid of an old legend makes sense for his character. That's what all guys like him try to do and it usually bites them in the ass. Gero's canon motivation is based on him being loyal to the non existing idea of some army that's portrayed as overwhelmingly evil for no apparent reason other than the fact they are.

As I said above, Toriyama adding more depth to the message behind the RRA to where you can see why Gero was such a believer in them would be a good enough reason alone to show why he hates Goku's guts and why he doesn't value other peoples lives. Making Goku his sons killer would just be icing on the cake. Toriyama even had a good opportunity to at least do the former by having Trunks and Krillin find video logs of his time in the RRA upon finding Cell's laboratory and would've explained this problem away.

As it stands now and probably forever, he's pissed at Goku for annihilating an army consisting of evil, murderous bastards and mercenaries who have no defined underlying philosophy for existing or acting the way they do and Gero is apparently super loyal to this non existent ideology. Do they consider people not beholden to them as sub human therefore their lives don't matter? We won't know cause Toriyama never bothered to retroactively explore the idea behind an arc while he's writing the sequel to that very same arc. Hell, even in canon him valuing life so little makes even less sense than what I propose.

With my idea you could at least explain away him becoming cynical and dead inside to anything not his revenge against Goku after almost two decades spent in isolation kidnapping children, mutilating their bodies for his own ends and eventually resorting to doing the same to himself. In canon he's just evil and angry at Goku because Goku had the audacity to annihilate his friends at the evil army. Nothing personnel or with any depth, just an evil prick annoyed that his prick friends all got what was coming to them.

[TheUltimateVegito]

But the first one is a hack. Making something "personal" doesn't automatically make something three dimensional. It's a matter of execution because it is not believeable that anyone would want to kill innocents JUST because their child was killed. A hack is still a hack, it's a matter of execution, and just lazily adding "he killed his son" is meaningless and adds nothing, especially when Cell enters the picture.

if you're gonna have a villain from that same faction come back and make him a spurned believer of that faction, its philosophy needs to be explored better than just "wurld d0mino-nationz lulz!"

I never said it didn't, but as a motivation for committing mass murder, the death of a child isn't enough. But even so, if you question Dr. Gero's motivation, you'd have to question the RRA's motivation.

Freeza's reasons for doing what he did weren't explored in any depth, they didn't need to be. You can easily buy that there are emperors who care nothing about murdering people by the boat load.

Freeza's actually has some minor depth. Gero's make no sense and aren't believable at all. Freeza is an ego maniacal bastard, that's true and him annihilating the Saiyan's because he was afraid of an old legend makes sense for his character. That's what all guys like him try to do and it usually bites them in the ass. Gero's canon motivation is based on him being loyal to the non existing idea of some army that's portrayed as overwhelmingly evil for no apparent reason other than the fact they are.

As I said above, Toriyama adding more depth to the message behind the RRA to where you can see why Gero was such a believer in them would be a good enough reason alone to show why he hates Goku's guts and why he doesn't value other peoples lives. Making Goku his sons killer would just be icing on the cake. Toriyama even had a good opportunity to at least do the former by having Trunks and Krillin find video logs of his time in the RRA upon finding Cell's laboratory and would've explained this problem away.

As it stands now and probably forever, he's pissed at Goku for annihilating an army consisting of evil, murderous bastards and mercenaries who have no defined underlying philosophy for existing or acting the way they do and Gero is apparently super loyal to this non existent ideology. Do they consider people not beholden to them as sub human therefore their lives don't matter? We won't know cause Toriyama never bothered to retroactively explore the idea behind an arc while he's writing the sequel to that very same arc. Hell, even in canon him valuing life so little makes even less sense than what I propose.

With my idea you could at least explain away him becoming cynical and dead inside to anything not his revenge against Goku after almost two decades spent in isolation kidnapping children, mutilating their bodies for his own ends and eventually resorting to doing the same to himself. In canon he's just evil and angry at Goku because Goku had the audacity to annihilate his friends at the evil army. Nothing personnel or with any depth, just an evil prick annoyed that his prick friends all got what was coming to them.

I disagree. Last thing I want is dragged on flashbacks. Gero doesn't need to be another tragic figure character. I'd much rather have it be so that Dr. Gero loved working for the RRA like it originally was because it emphasises the duality between Goku and Dr. Gero, since both of them loved their work.

Firstly, what's all this talk about philosophy? Since when did Gero need some uber philosophical speeches to love the army? Gero was a highly praised scientist, it's not that hard to see why although the RRA was evil they'd treat Gero so well and with such respect to the point that he'd love them deeply for it. The whole Gero and son angle was a nice way to further explain why Gero was so adamant to stop 18 from releasing 16 but it being any more than that is unnecessary and would do little for the story as a whole. Also, Gero building the androids did make Goku evaluate the consequences of his actions, hence why he actually thought he was better off dead. which, funny enough, Goku's own son contributed to. He also evaluated the consequences during the RRA arc as well.

But I digress.

Both Gero and Goku's love stems from where they came from. They both loved their main place of work because of how well it treated them. Goku loves and wants to represent earth and Dr. Gero loves and wants to represent the RRA. It's even reflected on the clothes they wore. This is what made Gero a great villain. Not some tragedy behind his existence, but his duality with Goku.

Adding backstory to Dr. Gero is unnecessary, the only reason I'd say a backstory would work is if it explains Dr. Gero's place of birth was a place he hated, similar to how Goku hated the Saiyans.

This post I made gives more insight on the duality between Goku and Gero and why I think it's much better than what you suggested. http://dbzf.co.uk/topic/8546232/1/

[ABED]

Toriyama adding more depth to the message behind the RRA to where you can see why Gero was such a believer in them would be a good enough reason alone to show why he hates Goku's guts and why he doesn't value other peoples lives.

Yes, I would prefer that to "he killed my kid!"

Your idea doesn't explain anything.

With my idea you could at least explain away him becoming cynical and dead inside to anything not his revenge against Goku after almost two decades spent in isolation kidnapping children, mutilating their bodies for his own ends and eventually resorting to doing the same to himself.

You still run into the problem of why would Goku killing his son justify in Gero's mind the kidnapping and experimenting on innocent kids. I buy him experimenting on himself.

The biggest problem is that there's nothing narratively gained beyond trivia if his son was killed. Dr. Gero is a very minor antagonist in the Cell arc.

[TheUltimateVegito]

You still run into the problem of why would Goku killing his son justify in Gero's mind the kidnapping and experimenting on innocent kids.

Now you've got me wondering the age gap between Krillin and 18.

[ABED]

You still run into the problem of why would Goku killing his son justify in Gero's mind the kidnapping and experimenting on innocent kids.

Now you've got me wondering the age gap between Krillin and 18.

Don't worry, she's 18.

[ekrolo2]

I disagree. Last thing I want is dragged on flashbacks. Gero doesn't need to be another tragic figure character. I'd much rather have it be so that Dr. Gero loved working for the RRA like it originally was because it emphasises the duality between Goku and Dr. Gero, since both of them loved their work.

Firstly, what's all this talk about philosophy? Since when did Gero need some uber philosophical speeches to love the army? Gero was a highly praised scientist, it's not that hard to see why although the RRA was evil they'd treat Gero so well and with such respect to the point that he'd love them deeply for it. The whole Gero and son angle was a nice way to further explain why Gero was so adamant to stop 18 from releasing 16 but it being any more than that is unnecessary and would do little for the story as a whole. Also, Gero building the androids did make Goku evaluate the consequences of his actions, hence why he actually thought he was better off dead. which, funny enough, Goku's own son contributed to. He also evaluated the consequences during the RRA arc as well.

But I digress.

Both Gero and Goku's love stems from where they came from. They both loved their main place of work because of how well it treated them. Goku loves and wants to represent earth and Dr. Gero loves and wants to represent the RRA. It's even reflected on the clothes they wore. This is what made Gero a great villain. Not some tragedy behind his existence, but his duality with Goku.

Adding backstory to Dr. Gero is unnecessary, the only reason I'd say a backstory would work is if it explains Dr. Gero's place of birth was a place he hated, similar to how Goku hated the Saiyans.

This post I made gives more insight on the duality between Goku and Gero and why I think it's much better than what you suggested. http://dbzf.co.uk/topic/8546232/1/

The problem, that neither you nor @ABED seem to realize despite my continued insistence is that there's nothing in Gero's backstory or the RRA itself to justify why he does what he does in the series. What did appeal to this guy besides the fact he apparently got respected that he would be so hurt by its destruction that'd he'd vow bloody vengeance on Goku? Fucking GT does a better job of explaining his motivations somewhat by having him reveal he always intended to turn all of humanity into Androids, okay, good, where is this in Z?

Gero is the catalyst of the entire Android arc and was the original villain of it before Toriyama got editorial mandates forcing him to constantly shuffle through villains and Cell forms. His motivation being "I was loyal to this evil army because reasons and hate Goku because more reasons" is not enough to justify him spending almost 20 years in secrecy, abducting kids and turning them into Androids along with God knows what else he did with his other failed projects.

As I said before, Gero doesn't need to be a tragic character. He can always be a bastard who wanted to replace flesh with metal but his son represented the tinge of humanity that kept him from going full mad scientist. Him dying and the organization he believed in (which needs to be properly fleshed out for this to work) would be more than enough to send a man who was already on the edge for a long time to go completely over it.

You're trying to sell me on some duality between Goku and Gero, if you REALLY want this duality present in any meaningful way, show Gero's side of things. We got to see Goku's, if the purpose of Gero is to be some screwed up version of Goku then show me WHY he's the way he is. Why does he want to replace humanity with androids? Why did he love his time in the RRA so much? Was it whatever it stood for? Was it the power? Did he have friends there who parallel say Goku's friendship with Bulma? What is his reasoning? I want to know instead of "he loved working for the RRA, Goku destroyed it ergo he must swear revenge!".

All of this actually being addressed might not be "Dragon Ball" whatever that means, but if you're gonna seriously try to execute a sequel to a previous arc who's faction was generic bad guys, you need to explore different facets of that faction to give a plausible reason for why Gero would do this that goes beyond "dur evilz!".

Besides, out of all the pointless things in the series that just exist to add more transformations, power-ups or ass pulls for Toriyama to nicely work his way out of later, adding some depth to the RRA and Gero would have actually contributed to the story.

But whatever, you're gonna say your piece, I'm gonna have to be a broken record for the 10th time in a row for this discussion in response and we'll keep running in circles until the mods finally say "fuck this" and lock the thread. I'm done.

[ABED]

The problem, that neither you nor @ABED seem to realize despite my continued insistence is that there's nothing in Gero's backstory or the RRA itself to justify why he does what he does in the series.

His dead kid doesn't explain anything either. He could just as easily have reached the conclusion that his dead child was his fault.

his son represented the tinge of humanity that kept him from going full mad scientist.

The son adds nothing. It gilds the lily. Goku killed his son? We don't see it, and it narratively has zero impact. You could just as easily explain what the RRA's goals were, doing that wouldn't require making up some never shown or mentioned kid who will have zero impact on the story going forward.

And Freeza's motivations weren't deep.

"I was loyal to this evil army because reasons and hate Goku because more reasons" is not enough to justify him spending almost 20 years in secrecy, abducting kids and turning them into Androids along with God knows what else he did with his other failed projects.

It does if you were loyal to the goals of the army.

[TheUltimateVegito]

I disagree. Last thing I want is dragged on flashbacks. Gero doesn't need to be another tragic figure character. I'd much rather have it be so that Dr. Gero loved working for the RRA like it originally was because it emphasises the duality between Goku and Dr. Gero, since both of them loved their work.

Firstly, what's all this talk about philosophy? Since when did Gero need some uber philosophical speeches to love the army? Gero was a highly praised scientist, it's not that hard to see why although the RRA was evil they'd treat Gero so well and with such respect to the point that he'd love them deeply for it. The whole Gero and son angle was a nice way to further explain why Gero was so adamant to stop 18 from releasing 16 but it being any more than that is unnecessary and would do little for the story as a whole. Also, Gero building the androids did make Goku evaluate the consequences of his actions, hence why he actually thought he was better off dead. which, funny enough, Goku's own son contributed to. He also evaluated the consequences during the RRA arc as well.

But I digress.

Both Gero and Goku's love stems from where they came from. They both loved their main place of work because of how well it treated them. Goku loves and wants to represent earth and Dr. Gero loves and wants to represent the RRA. It's even reflected on the clothes they wore. This is what made Gero a great villain. Not some tragedy behind his existence, but his duality with Goku.

Adding backstory to Dr. Gero is unnecessary, the only reason I'd say a backstory would work is if it explains Dr. Gero's place of birth was a place he hated, similar to how Goku hated the Saiyans.

This post I made gives more insight on the duality between Goku and Gero and why I think it's much better than what you suggested. http://dbzf.co.uk/topic/8546232/1/

The problem, that neither you nor @ABED seem to realize despite my continued insistence is that there's nothing in Gero's backstory or the RRA itself to justify why he does what he does in the series. What did appeal to this guy besides the fact he apparently got respected that he would be so hurt by its destruction that'd he'd vow bloody vengeance on Goku? Fucking GT does a better job of explaining his motivations somewhat by having him reveal he always intended to turn all of humanity into Androids, okay, good, where is this in Z?

Gero is the catalyst of the entire Android arc and was the original villain of it before Toriyama got editorial mandates forcing him to constantly shuffle through villains and Cell forms. His motivation being "I was loyal to this evil army because reasons and hate Goku because more reasons" is not enough to justify him spending almost 20 years in secrecy, abducting kids and turning them into Androids along with God knows what else he did with his other failed projects.

As I said before, Gero doesn't need to be a tragic character. He can always be a bastard who wanted to replace flesh with metal but his son represented the tinge of humanity that kept him from going full mad scientist. Him dying and the organization he believed in (which needs to be properly fleshed out for this to work) would be more than enough to send a man who was already on the edge for a long time to go completely over it.

You're trying to sell me on some duality between Goku and Gero, if you REALLY want this duality present in any meaningful way, show Gero's side of things. We got to see Goku's, if the purpose of Gero is to be some screwed up version of Goku then show me WHY he's the way he is. Why does he want to replace humanity with androids? Why did he love his time in the RRA so much? Was it whatever it stood for? Was it the power? Did he have friends there who parallel say Goku's friendship with Bulma? What is his reasoning? I want to know instead of "he loved working for the RRA, Goku destroyed it ergo he must swear revenge!".

All of this actually being addressed might not be "Dragon Ball" whatever that means, but if you're gonna seriously try to execute a sequel to a previous arc who's faction was generic bad guys, you need to explore different facets of that faction to give a plausible reason for why Gero would do this that goes beyond "dur evilz!".

Besides, out of all the pointless things in the series that just exist to add more transformations, power-ups or ass pulls for Toriyama to nicely work his way out of later, adding some depth to the RRA and Gero would have actually contributed to the story.

But whatever, you're gonna say your piece, I'm gonna have to be a broken record for the 10th time in a row for this discussion in response and we'll keep running in circles until the mods finally say "fuck this" and lock the thread. I'm done.

That's like me being all like "Why does Gero want all of humanity to be androids? Not justifiable!" Gero loves the RRA mainly because his experience there and how it allowed him to improve his skills and create new androids and whatnot to his hearts content, similar to how Goku grew to love earth because he was able to improve his skills and become stronger there. In other words, like I said, their main place of work is where their love stems from. Their workplaces and the people there moulded them into what they are, if Goku didn't grew up, become stronger and become influenced by people who embraced him via his adventures on earth, then he wouldn't be the man he is and if Gero didn't work with the RRA and create androids there which obviously meant the people there embraced him as well, then he wouldn't be the man he is.

Giving Gero a backstory is unnecessary because his presence already tells that story. We don't need to know about the people who influenced Gero because their not part of the main story like Goku's friends are. Why I said a backstory would only work is because of duality is because, like Goku, it would show that Gero accepted his heritage despite his hatred for it.

[Fionordequester]

Personally, the way I look at Gero in regards to everything discussed here can be summed up by a couple of choice Bible quotes...

Mathew 5:46: If you love only those who love you, what reward is there for that? Even corrupt tax collectors do that much. [tax collectors were considered to be the most vile people to ever exist in Ancient Israel back then]

Mathew 7:9-11: You parents—if your children ask for a loaf of bread, do you give them a stone instead? Or if they ask for a fish, do you give them a snake? Of course not! So if you sinful people know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.

So basically, even evil people are capable of loving others, especially when said others love them back. Assuming Dr. Gero is that kind of guy, that would make him kind of like Tucco or Gus from Breaking Bad. He's probably a sociopath, and probably always has been. And yet, there ARE people he legitimately cares for. And since he IS such an abominable person, he WILL go to any lengths necessary to avenge their deaths, no matter how many moral barriers he has to violate to do so.

And personally, it makes more sense to me that he'd spend the rest of his life toiling away to avenge his sons. Otherwise, what's the big deal? If there truly wasn't anyone he loved, why did he pursue revenge so obsessively? Why deal with all that headache? Why go to such lengths? It seems to me that someone like him would be more likely to just become some misanthropic hermit or something.

So to sum it up, I think Dr. Gero acted the way he did because...

1) He was already a horrible person to begin with.

2) The death of his son provided him that extra bit of incentive he needed.

So there you go. I don't have a problem with the "Dr. Gero wanted to avenge his son" explanation because that's precisely the kind of thing that your typical mobster would do. Is there any problem with that interpretation ABED?

[rereboy]

The point isn't how Gero exactly was, but rather how he could be.

Goku and the gang had zero information regarding him except that he worked with the RR army and that in a few years time some androids of his would wreck the planet. There's no doubt that Gero was evil for anyone that already knows the entire story, but at that moment in time, when Trunks reveals this info to Goku, can they reach that conclusion? No. Working for the RR army doesn't mean he was evil because there's plenty of explanations for that that don't require him to be evil or agreeing with the RR army and, as for his androids, they couldn't even be sure that the androids were doing exactly what he had planned them to do, that they weren't just malfunctioning, or that Gero had already started his plans to build them.

That is the point, that at that moment those were just assumptions. Only when, later in the story, we actually meet Gero and his androids the fact that he is evil becomes more than just an assumption but even then, regarding his time in RR and his motivations, all we still have are just assumptions.

(Also, we don't need bible quotes to know that bad people are people too.)

[ABED]

Is there any problem with that interpretation ABED?

Yes, it's trite, and he's not in the story long enough nor important enough to it for the bit of trivia to have any meaning.

So basically, even evil people are capable of loving others, especially when said others love them back. Assuming Dr. Gero is that kind of guy, that would make him kind of like Tucco or Gus from Breaking Bad. He's probably a sociopath, and probably always has been. And yet, there ARE people he legitimately cares for. And since he IS such an abominable person, he WILL go to any lengths necessary to avenge their deaths, no matter how many moral barriers he has to violate to do so.

Except Gus was the central antagonist for seasons 3 and 4. Dr. Gero is a secondary character who comes and goes in the story.

why did he pursue revenge so obsessively?

If your passion in life and the thing you cared for the most, for instance, your life's work, was destroyed, you would be pissed. I fail to see how the death of a son and the destruction of one's life's work aren't comparable. I fail to see how those Bible quotes apply.

Working for the RR army doesn't mean he was evil because there's plenty of explanations for that that don't require him to be evil or agreeing with the RR army and, as for his androids, they couldn't even be sure that the androids were doing exactly what he had planned them to do, that they weren't just malfunctioning, or that Gero had already started his plans to build them.

His creations were used for evil, he spends years creating cyborgs who again turn out to be evil. That's a HUGE coincidence. Why toil for years in secret building something so insanely powerful if your goals are benevolent?

[rereboy]

His creations were used for evil, he spends years creating cyborgs who again turn out to be evil. That's a HUGE coincidence.

No, that's just assumptions without detailed information, like I pointed out. Looking at one of the influences for the android saga, namely the Terminator movies, without the proper information you could also claim that it was a huge coincidence that Skynet was used for evil and thus, its creators were evil, or, like I already pointed out, that it was a huge coincidence that the inventions of a scientist working in nazy germany were used for evil and, thus, the scientist was evil. Just assumptions.

Why toil for years in secret building something so insanely powerful if your goals are benevolent?

Something as powerful as the android could have been used for achieving world peace and a vast other worthwhile goals. That was the idea behind Skynet, actually.

[ABED]

His creations were used for evil, he spends years creating cyborgs who again turn out to be evil. That's a HUGE coincidence.

No, that's just assumptions without detailed information, like I pointed out. Looking at one of the influences for the android saga, namely the Terminator movies, without the proper information you could also claim that it was a huge coincidence that Skynet was used for evil and thus, its creators were evil, or, like I already pointed out, that it was a huge coincidence that the inventions of a scientist working in nazy germany were used for evil and, thus, the scientist was evil. Just assumptions.

Skynet wasn't used for evil. It was created and was sentient, IT chose to destroy humanity, not its creators. The creators were simply creating a defense system created to remove human error and increase response time. The intentions behind it were fine.

Something as powerful as the android could have been used for achieving world peace and a vast other worthwhile goals.

But why not create it out in the open? Why work in complete secrecy if your intentions are above board?

That was the idea behind Skynet, actually.

Which contradicts your point.

[rereboy]

Skynet wasn't used for evil. It was created and was sentient, IT chose to destroy humanity, not its creators. The creators were simply creating a defense system.

You only say that because you know that to be the case. You have that information and you know it to be accurate. Trunks and the gang don't really have that information when Trunks talks to Goku. Trunks had never met Gero, just his androids, and his info regarding Gero or his possible motivations are very limited. All he knew on the subject came from the androids themselves since he never even knew his lab and, if they aren't doing what they are supposed to, there's no way to tell if whatever they say or do is completely accurate and consistent with what Gero wanted.

What do you think a human from Skynet's future would think if all he knew was skynet and the few scraps of info he had regarding skynet lead him to believe that skynet had been built as a doomsday weapon to kill off humanity? He would probably assume that to be true but he would be wrong.