Why do people 'cap out' the humans? A long rant/essay

[TobyS]

Okay I totally accept that the humans and Piccollo are not as strong as super saiyans.

But what I don't get is that people saying they never got stronger in and of themselves.

Never once does Toriyama make a statement that they cannot get stronger or reached their limit. He does imply Chaozu is lagging so far behind/lacks as much awesome power as the otherse that it's not worth bringing him along.

In fact with other characters he goes out of his way for them to surpass their supposed limits.
Gohan reached his limits with the Elder Kai's ritual.
Super Saiyan 3 draws out a saiyans power to it's very limits.
And 'Majin Vegeta' had his power drawn out beyond his own limits as a SSJ2

We see the stronger characters reach their limits before the humans do because of their transformations and accelerated hax training.

One thing I think he does to imply they are still very strong is by simply having them show up. Some people on here have said that they think the humans never got stronger than first form Freeza or worse captain Ginyu! If this was the case why would they show up to a fight like the androids where they knew they were facing a foe >Trunks>>>Freeza>>>>1st form Freeza? (sorry for the 'formula'). Why would they show up to the CELL GAMES if they were STILL weaker than 1st form Freeza!

You could argue, "they heard they will die in the future so they might as well fight even though they are totally totally irrelevent" but then why not bring Chaozu? Heck why not bring Yajirobe and Chi-chi and Roshi through the kitchen sink at them if desperation is the only reason.

Way back before battle powers it was pretty much established that at each tournament everyone had gotten stronger than they were before, what you always looked for was where this placed them in relation to each other. This was what always happened. The humans clearly became irrelavent because of the power gap between them and the foes not because their own powers had stopped increasing in the way it always had done up to now.

One point I think a lot of you missed about the old "secondary characters getting beaten by the new villian to establish their strength" thing is that it only works BECAUSE the secondary character is also strong.

To look at Gero punching a hole through Yamcha and reacting with "Hah Yamcha is weak" or the same when Cell breaks Kuririns neck in one hit is IMO totally not the reaction the author was going for. This only works to establish the villians strength if their victim was strong to begin with! "He one-shotted a guy as powerfull as one of Son Goku's friends?! Damn he must be tough!" is more intended I believe. This comes right after the robots saying that Yamcha is so strong they thought he was Son Goku!

This is used even in the Buu saga. And acknowledged in universe to psych Son Gohan out. When Bootenks kicks Tenshinhan he makes a point of saying to Gohan "A legendary martial artist and he was felled in a single blow!" Gohan looks psyched out, he doesn't say "silly Buu the humans stopped getting stronger at all ages ago for no reason and he never surpassed Ginyu so your threat means nothing!"

The only time someone is TOLD to leave the field of battle, rather than just suggested, is IIRC when Goku says Kuririn should leave after feeling Dabras ki. That is to say he considered Kuririn helpfull or equally (relativley) able to help someone who could one-shot old freeza UNTILL realising there was someone who was Perfect Cell tier present. Worthy of note is how he does not tell Piccolo to leave even though some people start arbitarly applying a cap to Piccolo after the cell saga like they did with the humans earlier.

One other thing worth mentioning is that the Humans were always one training method behind Son. They went to Kami-samas after him and got phenominal gains, because they went in stronger then kid Goku, so the basics were already covered. They got to Kaio's quicker than Goku did, because they were stronger than he was going in. People argue that they were not taught Kaio-ken or the spirit bomb, but we are never told they were not, I also believe Toriyama wrote the Kaioken out because it would be confusing mixed in with super-saiyan and it's multipliers and he was just done with it generally.

Finally one excuse/Justifacation they use for putting down the humans is 'training methods' used. Rocketman likes to joke about "MOUNTAIN TRAINING" and stuff.

Some people seem to think that there is a "Wall" you reach that you have to use gravity training to overcome, a wall you have to use the ROSAT to overcome and a wall you have to use Heavnly training to overcome.

IMO I don't think this was the point of those places. I think these extreme training methods were used to get somewhere more quickly but I don't think you need them to be able to still reach your maximum limit in your lifetime.\

Goku used gravity training because he had only a short time to join the Namek mission with enough power to help, Vegeta used gravity training because Goku did and he wanted to surpass him, and because he is an unoriginal obsessive masochist stalker guy. And impatient too.

If gravity training was better then regular training in every context why wouldn't everyone other than Vegeta request time in, or their own gravity room when training for the androids. It would seem stupid of them otherwise wouldn't it? To me it is therefore implied that they had time to get as strong as they would be able to get in the 3 years and therefore they didn't need it.

In fact this may even imply training too fast (outisde of an emergency is detrimental) and for this I need to draw in an obscure an analogy that I hope you get.

On MMO's your character can level up AND increase their individual skills (I'm thinking of EQ but i'm sure others are the same). There is something you can do called being 'powerlevelled' where a higher level person helps you level up very quickly. What often happens in this situation is that your skills and abilities (as well as experience at learning the game) are left behind, they are not skilling up as fast as their caps are increasing. A more relateable example is rare candy from Pokemon perhaps.

If anything I think the humans and Piccolo are the only adults with room left to grow at the end of series, although I'm sure they would cap out at most slightly below Goku's base level.

I think a lot of the reason people insist on caps for characters they are not interested in is they are trying to make their favourites stronger or more special by contrast.

Anyone got any thoughts on this?

[Saiga]

It's simple. The humans got outclassed early on, never got the benefits of near death power ups, transformations, extreme gravity training or RoSaT training. There isn't much reason to say that they'd surpass Captain Ginyu when they don't have the feats to back that up.

Why assume that the humans could make tremendous gains from their regular training? It's simpler to accept that they just couldn't keep up.

[Piccolo Daimao]

The Earthlings don't do shit past the Saiyan arc anyway, so there's no real basis for their strengths and how much they improved without the benefit of ~PLOT DEVICE~.

[TobyS]

Because both the humans and the saiyans and the Nameks had been making tremendous gains with regular training throughout the series.

I agree all those things you mention would mean they would not catch up within the series timeframe.

But saying they will not catch up and they can't improve themselves at a steady rate are not the same thing.

Also as for "no feats to show surpassing Ginyu" they didn't have to oppurtunity to do so.

My pretty much only thing I don't like about Dragonball, and conversly what I do like about Bleach is that smaller characters should get opponents to fight as well. Toriyama never did this though. I wish Babidi had sent his regular troops to attack earth while people were in his ship and you got to see 18 and Yamcha etc cutting them up but alas.

Personally I think the fact they showed up ready to fight Freeza/Androids/Cell meant they had improved themselves loads, otherwise why bother.

I know my op was a bit tl;dr but you didn't address much of what I said, you pretty much parroted the "Vegeta did lots of gravity training and the humans didn't so they can't get stronger at all" sort of thing everyone says.

[TobyS]

The Earthlings don't do shit past the Saiyan arc anyway, so there's no real basis for their strengths and how much they improved without the benefit of ~PLOT DEVICE~.

Exactly, but to say they didn't improve is as unfounded as to say they did lots is my point.

[Piccolo Daimao]

The Earthlings don't do shit past the Saiyan arc anyway, so there's no real basis for their strengths and how much they improved without the benefit of ~PLOT DEVICE~.

Exactly, but to say they didn't improve is as unfounded as to say they did lots is my point.

Admittedly, I didn't read most of your post, since I couldn't be arsed and guessed what it'd be about anyway.

Anyone that says that they didn't improve are retarded. They probably did improve, but nowhere near as much as Piccolo and the Saiyans, for obvious reasons. They'd just be going through the motions, making gains little by little.

[Saiga]

Regular training giving considerable results? Early on in the story, yes. But the more the series went on the more intense the training had to be to remain effective.

And I really didn't want to address the whole thing because I'd end up repeating myself. It's true though - they really don't show any noticeable improvement and they didn't keep up with the better training methods.

It's logical to assume that training has diminishing returns, which is why the characters are always moving on to better ways of training. When the humans stopped doing that the increases they get would become smaller and smaller because the same level of training becomes less effective the stronger they get.

[TobyS]

Regular training giving considerable results? Early on in the story, yes. But the more the series went on the more intense the training had to be to remain effective.

And I really didn't want to address the whole thing because I'd end up repeating myself. It's true though - they really don't show any noticeable improvement and they didn't keep up with the better training methods.

It's logical to assume that training has diminishing returns, which is why the characters are always moving on to better ways of training. When the humans stopped doing that the increases they get would become smaller and smaller because the same level of training becomes less effective the stronger they get.

So if you advocate the "training methods" thing, how do you explain Goku, Piccolo and Gohan not using gravity to train for the androids?
Or other characters asking for one for their regular training.

[Saiga]

So if you advocate the "training methods" thing, how do you explain Goku, Piccolo and Gohan not using gravity to train for the androids?
Or other characters asking for one for their regular training.

Well we don't know how strong Goku and Gohan got from that training, but it was obviously an inferior method to the RoSaT method where they made huge gains in 1/3 of the time.

I can't even begin to try and explain Piccolo's massive gain during those 3 years. I just chalk it up to plot power and call it a day, one of the few times where I won't even try and explain it in-universe.

[VegettoEX]

Some of them had already maxed out what benefits gravity training could get them? Goku and Piccolo had recent transformations/fusions to still max out and take advantage of that had not yet been fully exploited? Gohan... well... training with way stronger people will bring out the best in him?

I guess I don't see the issue here. "Diminishing returns" combined with the lack of magical/external freebies for the regular humans sums it up pretty well, especially at the end of the series, doesn't it?

[Piccolo Daimao]

I can't even begin to try and explain Piccolo's massive gain during those 3 years. I just chalk it up to plot power and call it a day, one of the few times where I won't even try and explain it in-universe.

I can. I think it was because of Nail pushing his potential for power development.

[Saiga]

I can't even begin to try and explain Piccolo's massive gain during those 3 years. I just chalk it up to plot power and call it a day, one of the few times where I won't even try and explain it in-universe.

I can. I think it was because of Nail pushing his potential for power development.

Even with that, it's still like a x100 increase in 3 years. Quite hard to swallow to be honest.

Also it was really unnecessary when he was just going to fuse with God soon after anyway.

[Piccolo Daimao]

I can't even begin to try and explain Piccolo's massive gain during those 3 years. I just chalk it up to plot power and call it a day, one of the few times where I won't even try and explain it in-universe.

I can. I think it was because of Nail pushing his potential for power development.

Even with that, it's still like a x100 increase in 3 years. Quite hard to swallow to be honest.

Also it was really unnecessary when he was just going to fuse with God soon after anyway.

Best plausible in-universe explanation I can think of. It's no worse than Goku surpassing Tao Pai Pai in one day of trying to catch a bell from Karin.

And not really unnecessary. Who's to say Toriyama knew that he'd make Piccolo merge with God? And he needed to have #20 be outclassed.

[Saiga]

Best plausible in-universe explanation I can think of. It's no worse than Goku surpassing Tao Pai Pai in one day of trying to catch a bell from Karin.

It sure as hell IS worse. There was a much smaller gap between Tao Pai Pai and Goku, and simpler training was far more effective back then. Wasn't it more like 3 days of total training anyway? Piccolo's increase comes out of nowhere without any explanation.

And not really unnecessary. Who's to say Toriyama knew that he'd make Piccolo merge with God? And he needed to have #20 be outclassed.

Well he foreshadowed it in the Namek saga, so I think he would have known he was going to merge them. And Trunks could have outclassed #20 in Piccolo's place.

[Piccolo Daimao]

Best plausible in-universe explanation I can think of. It's no worse than Goku surpassing Tao Pai Pai in one day of trying to catch a bell from Karin.

It sure as hell IS worse. There was a much smaller gap between Tao Pai Pai and Goku, and simpler training was far more effective back then. Wasn't it more like 3 days of total training anyway? Piccolo's increase comes out of nowhere without any explanation.

Well...*shrugs*

And not really unnecessary. Who's to say Toriyama knew that he'd make Piccolo merge with God? And he needed to have #20 be outclassed.

Well he foreshadowed it in the Namek saga, so I think he would have known he was going to merge them. And Trunks could have outclassed #20 in Piccolo's place.

Trunks didn't come until late. Although I guess you could say Toriyama could've just made sure he got there earlier. But then, if Piccolo was weaker, wouldn't merging with God make that power gain even bigger and less implausible?

[Bussani]

I'll start by saying that I don't believe in hard limits in Dragon Ball at all. I think the humans always could get stronger, and probably always did. It's a question of how much. If you ask me, Dragon Ball's story is always about moving forward and finding the next master to learn from or training to master, and I don't agree that the humans made consistent progress with so-called "normal training". I mean, just look at what they go through: they train under Kame-sennin (some of them, anyway); they train under Karin; they train under God; they train under Kaio or get their dormant power magically awakened. They all did some training by themselves in between some of those, but for the most part, these were the big, significant improvements.

You question why they'd even show up to the Cell Game if they were weaker than Freeza--and to be fair, I'm not one of the people who says they must have been--but does it really make any difference in the long run? At best they were probably able to keep up with the Saiyans in their regular forms, but basically everything in the Cell arc requires at least Super Saiyan to be a match for. They're so outclassed by even the weakest of enemies at that point that I don't even think it matters if they're stronger than Freeza or not. Heck, even Tenshinhan himself turns down training in the Room of Spirit and Time and admits that Cell is "absolutely not an opponent [he] could fight"--yet he still shows up at the Cell Game! Why's he there? My best guess would be that he wants to see the fight with his own eyes and, if necessary, go out in a blaze of (arguably pointless) heroism.

Like I said, I'm not one of the people who thinks it's impossible for them to have caught up with Goku's regular form by the time the Androids show up, but that really is as generous as I can be. And even then I'd be attributing it mostly to Kaio's training and the Namekian Elder's voodoo!

[DBZGTKOSDH]

It's no worse than Goku surpassing Tao Pai Pai in one day of trying to catch a bell from Karin.

It was 3 days, and he was trying to catch the Super Holy Water.

[Piccolo Daimao]

It's no worse than Goku surpassing Tao Pai Pai in one day of trying to catch a bell from Karin.

It was 3 days, and he was trying to catch the Super Holy Water.

OK then, three days. Still ridiculous, though. Maybe not as ridiculous as Piccolo's gain, but ridiculous nonetheless. "But it's Gokuu!" Toriyama cries out at me.

[Blackstripe]

It's no worse than Goku surpassing Tao Pai Pai in one day of trying to catch a bell from Karin.

It was 3 days, and he was trying to catch the Super Holy Water.

I think he confused DB with Naruto there.

Anyway, if the humans pretty much did nothing but train all of their lives like Gokuu and Vegeta did, then I suppose they might have eventually made it to Freeza levels of power. I think Tienshenhan eventually did by the Majin Buu saga, but by then that was such an insignificant level of power that it hardly even mattered.

[Saiga]

I don't see how they could even keep up with the base Saiyans. They got left behind really early on, and this was before they started getting the insane boosts from recovering from near death. Goku went from 90,000 to 3,000,000 in one boost, and the humans have nothing like that available to them. Sure, it's not impossible, but it seems very unlikely.

@Daimao

I think it would have worked better if he was weaker before hand, actually. It was foreshadowed back in the Freeza saga, and I think should have been a bigger boost than 3 years of mountain training. He gets around a 100x increase from those 3 years of ordinary training and yet his hyped up merge with Kami only doubles his power (depending on personal estimations)? Seems like it would work better if it was the other way around.