Out of Character Moments in the series

[Kamiccolo9]

Actually that's pretty damn good reasoning. Is there any hints of that in the manga as to that being the reason. I could totally accept that reason.

Direct statements or hints? Probably not. I actually arrived at that conclusion after reading a somewhat similar situation in Marvel's Chaos War event, and realized it applied extremely well to Gohan in the Cell Games. But personally, I think it fits perfectly well with Gohan's character. He wants to be the hero, like his dad, but he doesn't know how to handle the responsibility. And honestly, it's a pretty standard reaction to extreme stress to freeze up and panic.

[dbzfan7]

Actually that's pretty damn good reasoning. Is there any hints of that in the manga as to that being the reason. I could totally accept that reason.

Direct statements or hints? Probably not. I actually arrived at that conclusion after reading a somewhat similar situation in Marvel's Chaos War event, and realized it applied extremely well to Gohan in the Cell Games. But personally, I think it fits perfectly well with Gohan's character. He wants to be the hero, like his dad, but he doesn't know how to handle the responsibility.

Well I still think it's a good way of rationalizing things. And I do agree. Goku even as a kid never had a problem with taking a life or fighting to solve everything. Gohan doesn't want to fight to solve everything, he'd rather just make friends. If he played the hero he'd do it like how he has as Great Saiyaman. Just stop the bad guys without killling anyone. If he finds a super powered being like Freeza or Cell again, then really there isn't much of a choice. He's not willing to do everything it takes but harming the innocent like Goku is.

[DragonBalllKaiHD]

I'm not complaining. I'm asking a legitimate question, seeing that I'm also a part of this forum as everybody else. When something happened, you want to figure out why a certain scenario happened.

EX has already said that the matter is not to be discussed anymore, and it's off-topic for this thread anyway. If you have questions, I would ask that you bring it up with him instead of derailing this topic.
http://www.kanzenshuu.com/forum/viewtop ... &start=100
As it stands, we've arrived at a certain degree of civility in this thread, and it has begun to be productive again, and I'd rather not risk it getting locked due to an off-topic sub discussion going on in it.

*sigh* I don't understand VegettoEX. They were being genuine about it and he abruptly locked the thread.

I guess that's something I'm going to bring up at some point in the future in the appropriate section.

You guys can move on with the topic now.

[RandomGuy96]

Actually that's pretty damn good reasoning. Is there any hints of that in the manga as to that being the reason. I could totally accept that reason.

Direct statements or hints? Probably not. I actually arrived at that conclusion after reading a somewhat similar situation in Marvel's Chaos War event, and realized it applied extremely well to Gohan in the Cell Games. But personally, I think it fits perfectly well with Gohan's character. He wants to be the hero, like his dad, but he doesn't know how to handle the responsibility.

Well I still think it's a good way of rationalizing things. And I do agree. Goku even as a kid never had a problem with taking a life or fighting to solve everything. Gohan doesn't want to fight to solve everything, he'd rather just make friends. If he played the hero he'd do it like how he has as Great Saiyaman. Just stop the bad guys without killling anyone. If he finds a super powered being like Freeza or Cell again, then really there isn't much of a choice. He's not willing to do everything it takes but harming the innocent like Goku is.

Again, where does this idea of Gohan being hesitant to kill come from? He had no problem with it in the Namek arc.

[thatdbzguy]

Actually that's pretty damn good reasoning. Is there any hints of that in the manga as to that being the reason. I could totally accept that reason.

Direct statements or hints? Probably not. I actually arrived at that conclusion after reading a somewhat similar situation in Marvel's Chaos War event, and realized it applied extremely well to Gohan in the Cell Games. But personally, I think it fits perfectly well with Gohan's character. He wants to be the hero, like his dad, but he doesn't know how to handle the responsibility.

Well I still think it's a good way of rationalizing things. And I do agree. Goku even as a kid never had a problem with taking a life or fighting to solve everything. Gohan doesn't want to fight to solve everything, he'd rather just make friends. If he played the hero he'd do it like how he has as Great Saiyaman. Just stop the bad guys without killling anyone. If he finds a super powered being like Freeza or Cell again, then really there isn't much of a choice. He's not willing to do everything it takes but harming the innocent like Goku is.

He never had a problem with killing before.

[Flame Dragon]

Gohan doesn't like fightning, he has no problems killing, however if he can stop pointless bloodshed he will. Even if he has to talk down someone like Cell, he will still try.
He only likes to fight under rageboost. Against the Namek Soldiers, they destroyed their ship, which was their only hope of escaping the planet, so Gohan was pissed. Against everyone else, he went berserk to protect his friends. Except he did it without thinking, so when he tried to force his emotions and get a forced rageboost, he froze up.
Also, he was afraid of helping his friends against the Cell JRs. because he couldn't save everyone. Only SSJ2 gave him enough speed to do that.

Now i'm getting tired of these threads, we had 5 or 6 threads about the same freaking thing masked to be something else. And these threads are always the same.

Thatdbzguy: Gohan was out of character.
No, he doesn't like fightning.
Thatdbzuy: But he never had a problem at fightning before.
Because he was under rageboost.
Thatdbzguy: Why didn't he snap against the Cell JRs too?
Because he wasn't able to control his rageboosts at will and he did not have any faith in himself being as good as his father.
Thatdbzguy: That was never mentioned once. So your argument is invalid. Gohan is out of character!
RINSE AND REPEAT FOR TEN OTHER THREAD PAGES

Honestly these threads are pointless and it's like talking to a brick wall. No offense, but it has gotten really boring.
*beats the dead horse*

[dbgtFO]

How could you possibly know this?

If he was smart enough to not do that before, than there is absolutely zero reason why he wouldn't be here.

But in all previous cases he was being guided by a higher authority or was losing control of himself. Against Cell he was all on his own asked to bring peace to the world without someone standing beside him instructing him what to do or having been told previously how to deal with this fight.

Gohan was unaware of his strength back then.

Piccolo flat-out told him.

Piccolo told Gohan that he had amazing hidden power, but he never once let Gohan believe, he was stronger than Goku. Before the Cell Games, Gohan had never been in the situation, where he was expected to outdo even his father.

I always saw Gohan's talking to Cell as more of him just not wanting to kill. He never really wanted to do that to anyone unless he was really pissed. A lot of kids will try complaining or talking things out even if they think it won't work. I've done that with my dad plenty of times. I know Cell is an extreme case, but I can see Gohan at least trying to talk to Cell and maybe scare him about his hidden power. My only problem is that he just stood there while his friends were being killed. I think we should have seen him constantly try to fight Cell off to save his friends. After numerous attempts, then he'd contemplate why he can't access his hidden power. The answer being that the older and more wiser he got, the harder it is for him to get that angry.

Well Gohan tried to attack Cell, before Cell gave birth to the Cell Juniors, but Cell easily swatted him away. At the time the Cell Juniors were beating up on Goku & co. it seems established Gohan in his current condition couldn't do anything to get past Cell and needed to unlock his hidden power through rage to save his friends and family. This was easier said than done and he tried to do it, but couldn't get himself in the right frame of mind until #16's words and his eventual destruction cleared his mind.

It's not like he was capable of this at all times before either. In the Freeza Arc after trying to fight Freeza whilst angry at Dende's murder, he was completely paralyzed, when Freeza was beating Vegeta and witnessing Piccolo getting shot in the chest and Krillin blown up didn't make him angry and willing to fight again.

Gohan is all over the place. He sometimes likes to fight, and sometimes he hates fighting. I normally just attribute the hate of fighting to killing your enemies.

Sounds about right to me.

I'd think he'd enjoy a sparring session with Piccolo and Goku, and if either of them asked him to train he'd probably say sure. However he'd never go out of his way to train as it's more of a minor hobby at best. So would this make Saiyaman the stopper of average crime, and if some super being shows up Saiyaman would wuss out?

He did try to escape from Buu, when it became obvious Buu was far out of his league.

[dbzfan7]

Again, where does this idea of Gohan being hesitant to kill come from? He had no problem with it in the Namek arc.

Well he seemed to be always rage moment whenever he actively tried to kill someone...though he may have killed that grunt on Namek, so maybe not. I'm just desperate to fix the holes. Gohan is like I said, all over the fucking place. Sometimes he wants to fight and sometimes he doesn't. Sometimes he enjoys fighting to a degree, and sometimes he hates it entirely (mainly as a young kid).

Well Gohan tried to attack Cell, before Cell gave birth to the Cell Juniors, but Cell easily swatted him away. At the time the Cell Juniors were beating up on Goku & co. it seems established Gohan in his current condition couldn't do anything to get past Cell and needed to unlock his hidden power through rage to save his friends and family. This was easier said than done and he tried to do it, but couldn't get himself in the right frame of mind until #16's words and his eventual destruction cleared his mind

It's not like he was capable of this at all times before either. In the Freeza Arc after trying to fight Freeza whilst angry at Dende's murder, he was completely paralyzed, when Freeza was beating Vegeta and witnessing Piccolo getting shot in the chest and Krillin blown up didn't make him angry and willing to fight again.

Well he only tried once...and then gave up. Also while I do like Kamiccolo's theory, they never really state that the reason he held back was because he couldn't save everyone. Unless you take Gohan saying "Everyone but Trunks can't be wished back" to mean he can't save everyone. Though seeing as how Gohan getting angry could make Cell stop having his Cell Jr's kill Gohan's friends, which it immediately does as they stop fighting them.

At that point he had little to no power left in him, Gohan and Krillin demonstrate that as they fly to Goku and Piccolo. The same could probably be said for Goku too.

He did try to escape from Buu, when it became obvious Buu was far out of his league.

Well that was the smart thing to do. He couldn't win anyways, so he might as well try to save himself and Kaioshin. I meant if he wants to take the Great Saiyaman role seriously, he should be preparing incase a REAL threat arrives. Maybe his super hero card says "Only does small crime"

[DBZGTKOSDH]

Again, where does this idea of Gohan being hesitant to kill come from?

Didn't he say that he didn't want to hurt Cell?

He had no problem with it in the Namek arc.

That was when he was 5 years-old. Now he was 11.

[DBZAOTA482]

Again, where does this idea of Gohan being hesitant to kill come from? He had no problem with it in the Namek arc.

But he never "wanted" to kill. I mean, did Gohan ever want to cause prolonged harm to an enemy who hasn't personally offended him?

[MediaFanGirl93]

Again, where does this idea of Gohan being hesitant to kill come from? He had no problem with it in the Namek arc.

But he never "wanted" to kill. I mean, did Gohan ever want to cause prolonged harm to an enemy who hasn't personally offended him?

Agreed. Gohan saying that he wanted Cell to suffer was, in my opinion, out of anger for all the things Cell did. It also helps that Gohan was in SSJ2 form, and when Saiyans reach a higher level of power, they have the tendency to act OOC.

[Kaboom]

Yeah, that part of Gohan's behavior during the Cell Games was definitely not a matter of "out of character." The excited state turning into blood-lust is something that happens with Super Saiyan transformations.

[dbzfan7]

Yeah, that part of Gohan's behavior during the Cell Games was definitely not a matter of "out of character." The excited state turning into blood-lust is something that happens with Super Saiyan transformations.

Agreed. You can say in a way it's out of character, but there is a big reason for it that is explained as SSJ Transformations mess with emotions.

[Mr.Judge]

Goku Absorbing attacks in the new Movie BoG.

Vegeta surviving a punch to his face from Beerus whereas Buutenks or Buuhan would have punched a hole directly into BOG Vegeta's face/skull.

[thatdbzguy]

Again, where does this idea of Gohan being hesitant to kill come from? He had no problem with it in the Namek arc.

But he never "wanted" to kill. I mean, did Gohan ever want to cause prolonged harm to an enemy who hasn't personally offended him?

Agreed. Gohan saying that he wanted Cell to suffer was, in my opinion, out of anger for all the things Cell did. It also helps that Gohan was in SSJ2 form, and when Saiyans reach a higher level of power, they have the tendency to act OOC.

Nobody's complaining about Gohan's OOC-ness while he was SSJ2, as there was a valid reason as to why he was acting like he was. The problem is BEFORE he went SSJ2.

[Kamiccolo9]

Goku Absorbing attacks in the new Movie BoG.

Vegeta surviving a punch to his face from Beerus whereas Buutenks or Buuhan would have punched a hole directly into BOG Vegeta's face/skull.

Those are physical traits, not character ones.

[Kamiccolo9]

Goku Absorbing attacks in the new Movie BoG.

Vegeta surviving a punch to his face from Beerus whereas Buutenks or Buuhan would have punched a hole directly into BOG Vegeta's face/skull.

Those are physical traits, not character ones.

[ABED]

OOC is the wrong term for how Gohan was acting after he turned Super Saiyan.

[mAcChaos]

OOC is the wrong term for how Gohan was acting after he turned Super Saiyan.

Yeah. It's called character development. That is the same thing that applies to him before he went SSJ2.

[Mr.Judge]

This particular thread garnered special interest since the discussion of whether Gohan was Out-of-Character against Cell caused quite a stir on this particular thread with member(s) being handed ban(s).


So here is my take on characterization of Gohan in that particular Arc and How Plot in DBZ also plays an equally important factor in turning-out(unfolding) of events in a particular order.


Gohan is a character who has mostly Fought out of necessity. those fights all came under desperate conditions.

Rage- An ingrained character trait in Gohan which is like a double-edged sword for him.
Rage is termed mostly as blind rage.
Why blind?
-The more intense your anger, the more it overpowers your brain. Raged people only feel their own anger and they only see the target of their wrath. Raged people often experience emotional amnesia after they calm down. Ironically,they are often shocked by the harm(potential to kill unintentionally in Gohan's case) they cause, and they are genuinely remorseful. Gohan's problem here is since he is blinded during this predicament( dangerous emotion of rage), he has difficulty benefiting from such an intense emotional outburst .

So Gohan's tries his best to effectively manage his rage burst.

For the first time we have a character who can regenerate completely from a single cell.
Cell is not a character who could be knocked out or permanently rendered useless. The only way to deal with Cell was
1) Ring out.
2) fully annihilating him since Ring out is not an option anymore.

Gohan for the first time in his life, since the arrival of Raditz is not an underdog and knows what he is capable of against Cell,an opponent equal to him in his current state(witnessing Goku fight Cell first hand) .He knows if he gives in to emotion he would end up easily kill Cell. Since Ring out is thrown of the window by Akira Toriyama.

Gohan chooses not to fight(to kill?) against Cell . Hence Cell starts making the situation as desperate as possible for Gohan. Cell tries every trick in the book to get Gohan to fight him , it is not until he kills 16 that Gohan is sent into a state of fury and wants to kill Cell.
Two things that could have snapped Gohan at that point was
1. Cell causing someone's death in his close proximity .
2. Cell Targeting Earth with a full powered kamehameha (this would go against PLOT build up .Explained further in point [A] below).

The only Out-of-Character would be Gohan being Sadist .He preferred hurting Cell [or maybe its a draw back of transforming into SSJ2 for the first time under a desperate situation.Definitely NOT LIKELY see [A])

I would like to further elaborate on why sadist nature is Out-of-Character and why it doesn't fit with nature of Rage boost.

[A]Gohan gives in to his blind rage after Rage boost ,the moment he turns into SSJ2, Gohan would launch an Full-Powered Kamehameha straight towards Cell and killing Cell instantly then itself. Cell Saga over and everyone goes to their respective homes as if nothing ever happened.

This would result in to most useless build up for a very powerful villain to die instantly . A very anti-climactic ending I'd assume.

SO,
Sadist Nature of Gohan was a necessity of the PLOT .May be Akira Toriyama had thought of Super Perfect Cell until then(may be) but most importantly generate more interest among the readers/viewers by adding a twist.