How do you feel about the trope where everyone waits for Goku?

[PhantomSaiyan]

As a writer, you want me to relate to your character, right?
You want to pass on to me the message that your character is successful, strong and that he inspires others to be just like him.
You want to go even further and pass on to me the message that said character's success comes from hard work and determination.

It's not a universal law of writing, it's just more common, but it's not the only way to write a character, far from it

[Kenji]

In Dragon Ball's case, it was very much intended.
"Never let your ego get the best of you, always keep training for there will always be someone stronger. You don't get stronger through magic water, but only through hard work and determination." is something Toriyama liked to hammer down a lot, at least during the earlier arcs.

My point is that his own message is undermined by his treatment of his supporting cast as less than characters and more like measuring sticks who are rarely if ever allowed to reap the benefits of hard work, and how he usually solves massive gaps in strength for Goku, and usually Goku alone, by hand-waving it away with "Because he's an alien or something, and he gets stronger at the plot's convenience, because Saiyan."

That's some terrible writing and deserves to be pointed out and criticized.

[Adamant]

...

As a writer, you want me to relate to your character, right?
You want to pass on to me the message that your character is successful, strong and that he inspires others to be just like him.
You want to go even further and pass on to me the message that said character's success comes from hard work and determination.

You utterly and completely failed on said task the moment you start revealing said character has special biology that allows them to become even stronger even when defeated by merely existing. You failed even harder when you have a supporting cast that supposedly trains just as hard, sometimes even harder than your main character, and they remain pathetic in comparison and hopeless to catch up with them. That doesn't make me relate to Goku, or think his success comes from hard work and determination.

I'm not that dense, Toriyama is just not that good of a writer.

Hey, remember that quote from Torishima about how "there's nothing to learn from Dragonball" that people keep getting upset by? This is literally what he was talking about. Goku is not supposed to be an inspirational role model passing on any sort of messages, he's supposed to be entertaining to read about. This is by design, and a direct contrast to Kenshiro, who Torishima said he found annoyingly preachy.
Maybe Fist of the North Star is more to your taste than Dragonball?

[Kenji]

Hey, remember that quote from Torishima about how "there's nothing to learn from Dragonball" that people keep getting upset by? This is literally what he was talking about. Goku is not supposed to be an inspirational role model passing on any sort of messages, he's supposed to be entertaining to read about. This is by design, and a direct contrast to Kenshiro, who Torishima said he found annoyingly preachy.

No one is saying Dragon Ball should be a life lesson.
The author, however, has explicitly stated Goku was written to be a guy who inspires others to be better through sheer determination.
The writing, however, does a terrible job with its execution.

Maybe Fist of the North Star is more to your taste than Dragonball?

Gatekeeping much?
At any rate, if I wanted to read "dumb shit that's just supposed to be entertaining", My Immortal would be a much better option in that regard.

[Mr Baggins]

You utterly and completely failed on said task the moment you start revealing said character has special biology that allows them to become even stronger even when defeated by merely existing. You failed even harder when you have a supporting cast that supposedly trains just as hard, sometimes even harder than your main character, and they remain pathetic in comparison and hopeless to catch up with them.

Disingenuous argument.

Zenkai didn't exist as a plot point until Namek. Even then, it actively told a story and was used to contrast the characters it applied to: Goku's zenkais came because he literally trained his ass off or suffered hardship in battle, Gohan's came out of a desire to protect his friends, and Vegeta's came from losing or abusing the mechanic, often with unsuccessful results.

In the context of the story, zenkai emphasized the difference in approach between the arc's three major characters at the time it was relevant. The fact that you could remove it without even changing that none of Goku's friends had that constant urge to train and self-conquer that Goku does shows that bringing this up here is a non sequitur. You're (again) just pointing out what it is without analyzing the role it played in the narrative.

Now, back to the Saiyan arc.

Yamcha's sudden death not only increased the stakes, it led to a defining moment for Krillin's character as the latter realized that Yamcha was willing to risk his own life on his behalf. Krillin would then eliminate all but one of the Saibamen in anger specifically because this happened.

Nappa then enters the fray and demonstrates the Saibamen were small fry compared to him, despite Krillin essentially over-exerting himself just to kill them. This establishes tension.

Chaozu then attempts to self-destruct against Nappa the same way the Saibaman did, which is the best shot these characters have to our knowledge, but it doesn't work and Chaozu dies. That leads to a distressed Tenshinhan using Kikoho in another last-ditch effort, but that also doesn't work and he too dies as a result. All of this happens rapidly, and Nappa's not even the strongest of the two Saiyans; now the story has escalated well past just establishing tension, and we as readers start to feel the same dread the characters are feeling.

I could keep going with additional examples about Gohan's progression and Piccolo's sacrifice and growth, but the point has been made. All of these scenes are effective at selling character growth through tragedy and despair, which is why this conflict works. Then Goku arrives, and he makes short work of Nappa to demonstrate that his training was of a higher caliber and under harsher conditions than anyone that fought up to that point. That's what underlines Goku's hard work, i.e. the theme of the arc.

You, meanwhile, have failed to analyze this on any level past "this character needs an arbitrary win", which completely misses the point of said conflict and would immediately undermine the story being told. And trust me, that's hardly Toriyama's fault.

[Kenji]

...

You, meanwhile, have failed to analyze this on any level past "this character needs an arbitrary win", which completely misses the point of said conflict and would immediately undermine the story being told. And trust me, that's hardly Toriyama's fault.

Except, we are not talking about Yamcha's death, or talking about why "this character needs an arbitrary win."
We are talking about this trope's usage franchise-wide.
Again, if Yamcha's death was a self-contained incident, this discussion would not be happening.

However, "use character as measuring stick" is not a self-contained incident, it's what Toriyama always does whenever he wants to raise stakes, tension, or make an opponent look stronger. It's what he's been doing since the very beginning of his manga.

This is repetitive, uninteresting, frustrating to a long-time reader, and only showcases his own limitations as a writer.
I'm happy you are entertained and satisfied that Toriyama can't come up with a better scenario to deliver stakes and tension, I however grew tired of it ever since the 21st Budokai and have read better stories that either don't need to pull this trope or handle it more efficiently.

[MasenkoHA]

...

As a writer, you want me to relate to your character, right?
You want to pass on to me the message that your character is successful, strong and that he inspires others to be just like him.
You want to go even further and pass on to me the message that said character's success comes from hard work and determination.

You utterly and completely failed on said task the moment you start revealing said character has special biology that allows them to become even stronger even when defeated by merely existing. You failed even harder when you have a supporting cast that supposedly trains just as hard, sometimes even harder than your main character, and they remain pathetic in comparison and hopeless to catch up with them. That doesn't make me relate to Goku, or think his success comes from hard work and determination.

I'm not that dense, Toriyama is just not that good of a writer.

At the risk of beating a dead horse:

This whole “Goku has biology that makes himself stronger after evert fight and can unlock immense hidden power by getting angry and screaming like an autistic child so that undermines the message about working hard” has always been a bad faith argument.

The series made it clear as day without any training Goku wouldn’t have been much stronger than your average human. He still had to work for gains.

In real life some people just have an easier time building muscles than others but they can’t just sit on their ass and eat pizza all day and expect to be jacked so they still have to work out and eat at least somewhat decent

A tall person might be more genetically inclined to play basketball but if they never learn to play and practice it’s not going to do them any good.


This always seem to circle back to “Dragon Ball bad because it’s not an ensemble show like I want it to be and I need characters like Tenshinhan and Yamcha to be at Goku’s level”

[Mr Baggins]

We are talking about this trope's usage franchise-wide.
Again, if Yamcha's death for example was a self-contained incident, this discussion would not be happening.

For what it codifies and was meant to achieve for the characters, Yamcha's death is quite literally a self-contained incident at that point in the series. Your counterargument was... uhh, the tournament arcs, where supporting characters are expected to lose and those losses served a totally different purpose.

Media literacy really is a lost art, holy moly.

[Kid Buu]

I like Yamcha but the Saibaman death doesn't really bother me too much.

The cheating on Bulma was more bothersome but I do understand it was done for plot purposes.

If I had to make some changes to Yamcha, two I could see:

1.) Have him face Ran Fan in the first tournament. His character arc was getting over his fear of girls, so facing a female at the tournament would be a good pay off.
2.) Just let him beat The Mummy when he almost did.

Outside of that I'm not too bothered. Plus the anime threw him some bones by letting him beat Recoome and the otherworld fighters.

[JulieYBM]

I think that just letting characters die and not be involved with the story anymore would go a long way to evening things out, too. Yamcha, Chaozu and Tenshinhan electing to stay dead so that the Namekians could be revived would have been a pretty fitting bow to their arcs. One could even tie that into their actions being one that Gokuu could not ever take himself. There's any number of ways to play things up to tie into Gokuu and his arc.

[Kenji]

I think that just letting characters die and not be involved with the story anymore would go a long way to evening things out, too. Yamcha, Chaozu and Tenshinhan electing to stay dead so that the Namekians could be revived would have been a pretty fitting bow to their arcs. One could even tie that into their actions being one that Gokuu could not ever take himself. There's any number of ways to play things up to tie into Gokuu and his arc.

That sounds like a good arc and use for these characters, actually.
Instead of the nothing burger and "everyone is just measuring sticks compared to Goku lol" Toriyama wrote for them.

If only you were writing Dragon Ball instead...

[PhantomSaiyan]

Why would they ever decide to stay dead though? It makes literally no sense when you have a wish granting dragon at your disposal.
Even if they use the current wish for the Namekians, they can just be wished at a later date anyway, there's no reason to just stay dead

Unfortunately, that's the trade Toriyama made when he decided how Dragon Balls worked, there's no way around it, wish them back and there's 0 stakes and consequences, don't wish them back, and the characters involved look like idiots

I suppose it's not impossible to create a situation where the characters do stay dead, whether that would be because of their own decision (very hard to pull off since there's no benefits to forfeiting life especially since even if they die of old age, they will still end up there anyway, so why rush it) or severly limit the dragon's wish granting powers, but that shit has already sailed by that point since we have two sets of Dragon Balls.

And they have two sets because they were smart enough to revive Piccolo first. So if we want them to not have multiple sets of stake breaking Dragon Balls, they would need to be real stupid, and not revive Piccolo first, so the characters would once again look like idiots.

It's just hard to navigate such a plot device

[Kenji]

Why would they ever decide to stay dead though? It makes literally no sense when you have a wish granting dragon at your disposal.
Even if they use the current wish for the Namekians, they can just be wished at a later date anyway, there's no reason to just stay dead

Unfortunately, that's the trade Toriyama made when he decided how Dragon Balls worked, there's no way around it, wish them back and there's 0 stakes and consequences, don't wish them back, and the characters involved look like idiots

There was once a rule that you can't resurrect the same person twice, and you can't resurrect them if they've been dead for over a year.
Namek was supposed to be a one-time thing and Goku didn't have teleportation yet.

I'm sure there's a way to write real consequences and stakes around these limitations, but unfortunately, Toriyama just kept making Goku more ridiculously powerful and the Dragon Balls more easily abusable, so any sense of stake or consequence went out the window then.

[PhantomSaiyan]

There was once a rule that you can't resurrect the same person twice, and you can't resurrect them if they've been dead for over a year.
Namek was supposed to be a one-time thing and Goku didn't have teleportation yet.

I'm sure there's a way to write real consequences and stakes around these limitations, but unfortunately, Toriyama just kept making Goku more ridiculously powerful and the Dragon Balls more easily abusable, so any sense of stake or consequence went out the window then.

Yeah he didn't have teleportation yet, but they did have spaceships, so even in the worst case scenario, resurrecting the humans would still be possible as long as the Namekians were alive and not completely genocided.
As long as they exist, there's a fresh new set of Dragon Balls that didn't revive Yamcha Tien and Chiaotzu yet.

And they don't even need a spaceship since they Namekians stayed on Earth for a bit after Namek was destroyed

I just don't see a scenario where Yamcha Tien and Chiaotzu decide to stay dead, and especially I don't see one where their friends just accept that and don't try to do anything to resurrect them when it's so easy

[Kenji]

There was once a rule that you can't resurrect the same person twice, and you can't resurrect them if they've been dead for over a year.
Namek was supposed to be a one-time thing and Goku didn't have teleportation yet.

I'm sure there's a way to write real consequences and stakes around these limitations, but unfortunately, Toriyama just kept making Goku more ridiculously powerful and the Dragon Balls more easily abusable, so any sense of stake or consequence went out the window then.

Yeah he didn't have teleportation yet, but they did have spaceships, so even in the worst case scenario, resurrecting the humans would still be possible as long as the Namekians were alive and not completely genocided. As long as they exist, there's a fresh new set of Dragon Balls that didn't revive Yamcha Tien and Chiaotzu yet

I just don't see a scenario where Yamcha Tien and Chiaotzu decide to stay dead, and especially I don't see one where their friends just accept that and don't try to do anything to resurrect them

Except nobody knew where New Namek was. The Cell Saga uses that to its advantage, it killed Goku and Piccolo, so no teleportation, no Earth Dragon Balls, and no ability to go to New Namek. Everyone stayed dead for good.

[PhantomSaiyan]

Except nobody knew where New Namek was. The Cell Saga uses that to its advantage, it killed Goku and Piccolo, so no teleportation, no Earth Dragon Balls, and no ability to go to New Namek.

If in this hypothetical situation Yamcha Tien and Chiaotzu are still dead, just either

A. Use the time the Namekians were on Earth, ask for the Dragon Balls, resurrect the humans ,and done, like it happened in the story

B. Ask them for coordinates before they depart, or establish some sort of communication line with them. Or use King Kai, who is a universal telephone

Again, I don't see a scenario where the humans stay dead without both them and their friends coming across as really stupid.
The universe just has too many ways to deal with things, so many of them that even in the story itself the characters already look stupid for not taking advantages of so many possible loopholes

[Koitsukai]

It's a trope that was overused, in my opinion, but used wisely at first.

The Saiyan arc does a good job and is one of the first ones where this trope is obvious and well done: he is dead and there are consequences to his late arrival: 4 dead friends.

The Namek arc kinda pushes the envelope, having people wait twice for him in the same arc. At least, Akira found a logical way for Goku to be out of commission twice: injuries. This is where it became like a stamp of the writer: Goku is always busy doing something else. I suppose the arc could've jumped straight into fighting Freeza as soon as Goku landed and beat the Ginyu Force.
But repeating the trope does not hurt the narrative, it allowed for Freeza to be fleshed out a little more. It might be tiresome because we just had this an arc before, but it still works.

The Cell arc has a more explicit version of this trope, with even Trunks asking to wait for Goku. Although this time, other characters aren't just there to get their shit pushed inwards; they are actively getting close to ending the arc themselves, but their own personality gets in the way. Unlike the previous arcs where the guys were completely out of their league, here they fuck it up themselves.
Cell is also playing into this trope.

The Buu arc moves away from that trope, in a sense, removing Goku altogether and having others try on his shoes and failing due to their own defects: too childish, too stubborn (Geets), too cocky. And even Goku fails and needs the help of others.

So, I think it works great in the first two arcs of Z, then it becomes unnecessary, he could've just lost and retreated, but at least what's waiting for us on the other side is the supporting cast being useful but failing on their own terms.

[Kenji]

What would be the alternative, then? Letting Yamcha, Chiaozu, and Tenshinhan remain in the show, just so they can lament that all their hard work and training in the other world has been completely worthless, they have absolutely no chance of ever catching up with Goku and give up on Martial Arts altogether, remain in the sidelines only so they can be used as measuring sticks, humiliated and repeat the lines "There is nothing we can do, the situation is hopeless." and have Yamcha emasculated and be labeled a dirty cheater for no reason other than Toriyama needing a woman to be available for Vegeta?

Oh, wait a minute...

[PhantomSaiyan]

What would be the alternative, then? Letting Yamcha, Chiaozu, and Tenshinhan remain in the show, just so they can lament that all their hard work and training in the other world has been completely worthless, they have absolutely no chance of ever catching up with Goku, give up on Martial Arts altogether, remain in the sidelines only so they can be used as measuring sticks, humiliated and repeat the lines "There is nothing we can do, the situation is hopeless."

Oh, wait a minute...

Yes, exactly. With the framework that Toriyama set up, this was the only possible solution to their death. Unfortunate, but that's how it is.

As soon as the Namekians were introduced along with a second set of Dragon Balls, they either get genocided so no more Dragon Balls, or they don't, and the Z Fighters get brought back to life, there's not way around it.

Of course he could have kept them more relevant later on, I don't disagree with that, but that's another issue entirely, separate from their resurrection at the end of the Namek arc

and have Yamcha emasculated and be labeled a dirty cheater for no reason other than Toriyama needing a woman to be available for Vegeta?

Didn't he cheat before Vegeta was even introduced?
Toriyama according to recent interviews thought of Vegeta and Bulma as Trunks' parents in the chapter AFTER Trunks was introduced lol just to how how much of an improvisation the whole manga was

[Kenji]

Didn't he cheat before Vegeta was even introduced?

No, he did not.
What did happen was Bulma getting increasingly jealous of other women giving him the slightest bit of attention and accusing him of infidelity, even though she happily kept fawning over other men like Jackie Chun, Blue, and Adult Goku.