TKA wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:31 amNah, you're making stuff up. His power wasn't anything remarkable before.
Elec says different - Granolah has become "
crazy strong", and it's not
inconceivable he could challenge present-day Gas before long. How strong is that? Great question. But apparently very remarkable, or it wouldn't be
specifically mentioned as something remarkable - Gas naturally has the capacity to be stronger than Freeza, according to Elec, and he doesn't rule out the idea that Gas might've beaten a Granolah who's definitively stronger than Freeza...and Elec actually
knows Freeza quite well, even down to the fact that he's now much stronger than he used to be (so the referential context shifts accordingly - we're not talking Saiyan grunts and powerless nobodies as Elec's frame of reference, here). This is simply what the story told us. They're both meant to be a pretty big deal in the scheme of things. Bardock is not.
TKA wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:31 amWhat's granolah's actual lifespan? Also will never be told to us.
We were told what we needed to know by the story - the answer is that the natural Cerealian lifespan is approximately 200 years. Granolah is around 50 years old, and he uses up his whole lifespan except for 3 years. That is clearly what the story intends us to understand as the answer, given that it troubles to put the figures in dialogue.
Now, I'll grant that Granolah could
conceivably have a heart attack and die at 60, or something, but unless one is deliberately employing some seriously hostile reading to obfuscate matters, it seems clear that this isn't what the story's intent is. We're obviously meant to understand that Granolah has given up around 150 years of his life to condense all that hypothetical future power within his actual present self. That's the plain, common-sense reading of Chapter 70.
TKA wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:31 amThe Saiyans seem to live pretty long,
From what we know, they don't, particularly. Toriyama has told us that their theoretical lifespan is
somewhat longer than the natural Human lifespan -
but not much, as they stay in their physical prime longer, but deteriorate quickly in old age. So, their natural lifespans are not even nearly as long as Cerealians. Or, indeed, the Heeters, since Gas is still a child 40ish years on, and the others have also barely aged. So, it's clear from authorial statements that Bardock simply doesn't have anything like Granolah's natural lifespan to play with in making such a wish.
So, on the one hand you have a guy who's "crazy strong" to a guy who knows people like present-day Freeza and Gas, with a natural lifespan of around 200 years to use up. To his wish, Toronbo says "
no, unless you use up almost all your lifespan". On the other, you have a guy who's not known to be remarkable even when compared with members of his own species, with a much shorter natural lifespan. How is the Dragon going to say anything other than just "
nope" to the same wish? This is simply the obvious conclusion to draw from what we've been explicitly told both in and out of the story. So far as I can see, one doesn't have to "make stuff up" to get there.
TKA wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:31 amso you're telling me the dragon can't make Bardock at least stronger than a guy this close to him in power already?
With respect, you specified "
make Bardock the strongest in the universe" as the wish in question. Not "
make Bardock stronger than Gas". Those are not at all the same, and I addressed the question you actually posed, rather than anything else.
But even so (and here
is some conjecture, because we lack sufficient data at this time to say with confidence), it's entirely conceivable that it would still not have been possible for Toronbo to grant even that lesser wish, given the limits Bardock had at the beginning of the fight, compared to how he was at the end - he changed, and his limits changed (and Toronbo has already specified that he cannot otherwise bring out power beyond the subject's latent potential). It is at no point clear that Bardock and Gas are at all close in power prior to Bardock's 'instinct' coming into play - in fact, everything that is said points in the opposite direction: Gas is never really affected by anything Bardock does prior to that; he's simply increasingly annoyed that Bardock is continuing to waste his time by continuing his apparently futile resistance. Given that we've seen the power of 'instinct' do seriously crazy stuff like catapult Roshi into contention with Jiren, the gap between Gas and Bardock could conceivably have been unbridgeable by means of a wish made at the time that it was there to be made.
TKA wrote: ↑Thu Apr 21, 2022 6:31 amThat doesn't work for me, brother.
That's fine; I've no problem with that at all, old chap.
But, respectfully, whether it "works" for you and whether I'm "making stuff up" are two clean different things. There's no need to postulate intellectual dishonesty in my response to your question when as far as I can tell, it seems simply to be a matter of something that you personally consider a shortcoming of the story.