Did Goten have more potential than Gohan in DBZ?

[Angelus]

Goten achieved SSJ at such a young age, by training in the woods with his mom.

Gohan was even surprised how "natural" it came for Goten to turn SSJ, or "blonde" in Goten's own words (in the Funimation dub).

Gohan and Goku even commented that if they didn't watch out, those critters would become more powerful than them.

Also, at such a young age, though Android 18 was trying to kill them, Goten and Trunks managed to be at least even with her. Something that SSJ Vegeta and SSJ Future Trunks couldn't do during the Androids saga. Android 18 outclassed both of them even after mobbing her. And note that SSJ Vegeta trained for years before the Android saga.

What are your thoughts?

Additional question, if at End of Z, Goten was unlocked by Old Kai, do you think he would have been more powerful than Buu Saga Mystic Gohan?

[Bussani]

I kind of put all of the halflings in the same ballpark, personally. They're all born with incredible power, dormant or not, and have a great potential for growth when they actually work at it; the problem is that none of them really work at it consistently...

Now, Goten is clearly stronger than Gohan was at his age, but does that mean he has more "potential"? I suppose it depends on what sort of potential you mean. I think if Goten and Gohan were both at the same level of strength and did the same amount of training, they'd probably gain strength rather similarly. However, if you were to ask something like, "Could Goten surpass the power Cell Game Gohan had by the time he reached Cell Game Gohan's age?" my answer would probably be yes, if he really wanted to and worked at it properly. In other words, I think their growth rates are more or less the same, but Goten's had some advantages to let him catch up a bit despite him being a lot younger.

[Kaboom]

"Potential" is a tricky thing. It's a vague element, not some sort of specific quantifiable thing like actual current power. You can't really say that "Goten has a 'potential' of 500 while Gohan only has a 'potential' of 300."

The general way I've seen it is that the half-Saiyans all share more-or-less the same massive "potential." It just manifests itself in different ways. Gohan got his in the form of always having lots of dormant power, Goten and Trunks got theirs in the form of lots of surface power for free, and all of them share the same amazing potential for quick growth.

But any way you slice it, like Bussani said, potential means nothing if you don't do anything with it.

[Hitiro]

I have always thought that potential can grow as a person matures, Gohan had his potential unlocked when he was younger and then again when he had grown up. It could be argued that Guru didn't unlock Gohan's full potential when he was a child, rather, a fraction of his potential as he had so much depth to his power. While Goten did in fact gain SSJ pretty easily and at a younger age than Gohan I've always considered it was because he was conceived after Goku had turned SSJ himself so the gene was passed on to his son already unlocked. It would explain why there wasn't any fit of extreme rage to activate the transformation the first time. I'm sure others will disagree with this theory, I seem to recall that one of the guides for DBZ explains that Goten and Trunks were a different hybrid of Saiyan that were born without tails so that is why they have large powerlevels and the ability to gain SSJ easily. Though I could be wrong about this, either way, I prefer the whole gene being unlocked already theory. To quantify whether Goten has more potential than Gohan or not is really impossible, to be honest there were no events to actually show whether he had hidden potential. All through Gohan's childhood we saw glimpses of Gohan's hidden potential so I would like to think he was a special case that Goten or Trunks couldn't follow in terms of potential.

[Bussani]

Hitiro's post is an example of what I mean when I say this sort of question can be tricky. I think Kaboom and I were answering the question as if "potential" is a vague quantity, like, "He has the potential to become this powerful if he works hard." Hitiro's post seems to use potential as a synonym for hidden/dormant power (which is what the manga calls it), so you get a completely different answer from him. I'm not sure how Angelus was using the word, if I'm honest, so...at least we have our bases covered!

[SylentEcho]

Goten may have been more powerful, but I think Gohan had more potential. The way Gohan's power grew in leaps and bounds was no joke at all. He was the strongest guy in the whole Z gang on multiple occasions unlike Goten.

[dprez]

I'd say their "potential" is about equal, although Goten was born with more power and easier access to that power, in time he could train and become much stronger than Gohan was at his age.

I don't necessarily believe in saiyan limitations, and believe that they all have roughly the same potential for growth (hybrids more so of course). However, since Goten was practically born a super saiyan, he does technically have more potential only because he has more time to train and master his power like Gohan never did. If only Goten had Goku's mindset he'd become Ssj3 in no time, and probably be the first to discover the level beyond Ssj3, if there is such a thing. More over-all power, I don't think so. More potential, yea kind of.