Piccolo's intelligence

[RandomGuy96]

I've noticed that Piccolo, more than any other good guy, is commonly labeled as the smart one. This idea of him being more intelligent than the rest, or even one of the series' smartest characters overall, seems pretty well entrenched in the fandom, and reinforced in fan works such as DBZA. I used to think he was as well, until I actually reviewed his actions, and found that he does a lot of stupid shit. In many ways, he's similar to Vegeta; he can occasionally come up with good ideas, but his smart moments are outnumbered by the amount of times he gets overly emotional and arrogant, and does something stupid as a result, usually underestimating his enemies or charging into fights he has no chance of winning.

23rd Budokai
He seems to be mostly played for a fool here, so Goku can look cool:

Positives:

• Came up with a counter to the Mafuba, and swallowed Kami.

Negatives:

• Was tricked by Goku into nailing himself with his own attack
• Wasted all of his energy on an ineffective and pointless attack, leaving him easy pickings.
• Turned into a giant, which just made him a huge target and let Goku free Kami and humiliate Piccolo.

Maybes/Mixed:

• He blasted Goku while he was off guard, but it's left ambiguous whether he intentionally did this by playing dead, or if that's just when he happened to get up.

Saiyan arc
He's matured, but he's still anything but a genius:

Positives:

• He came up with the SBC, and the battle plan against Raditz (though, notably, Goku was the one who came up with the full nelson plan, after Piccolo's distraction plan failed).
• He warned Goku not to trust Raditz.

Negatives:

• Attacked Raditz directly after talking shit to him, despite being much weaker. He's extremely lucky Raditz got distracted and deemed him not worth killing.
• Took a blast for Gohan, rather than throwing or tackling him out of the way.
• Demanded that Vegeta not waste time with the Saibamen- and even killed his own Saibaman super fast as a demonstration- even though the whole reason they're there is to buy time.

Maybes/Mixed:

• His battle plan against Nappa. On the one hand, it may have worked; on the other, he didn't expect a five year old he repeatedly beat and traumatized to pussy out, and focused the plan on him. He later admits it was stupid rather than smart later. I guess it was both. Smupid.
• Going for Nappa's tail. On the one hand, this is technically the smart thing to do. On the other, this isn't really smart so much as "not ridiculously stupid", considering what a crippling weakness it is, and he took a long time to come up with it.
• Blabbed to Raditz about the Dragon Balls. Not smart, but not exactly dumb either, since he didn't know Raditz could record and send back their conversation (probably). However, what makes this moment notable is that he apparently learns nothing from it, going by this Cell arc behavior.

Freeza arc
A prime example of Piccolo's arrogance and overconfidence:

Positives:

• Distracting Freeza for the Genki Dama.

Negatives:

• Demanded he be brought to Namek to fight Freeza, even though the whole reason they were there was to bring him back, and his death would fuck everything up.
• Thought that one week of the same training that didn't even let Goku surpass Vegeta would let him beat the most powerful being in the universe.
• His whole master battle plan during his battle with 3rd form Freeza was to run away, leaving the others open for attack.
• He thought that Freeza's transformation wouldn't increase his speed, why?
• Held back against 2nd form Freeza by keeping his weights on, resulting in him taking unnecessary damage and giving Freeza more of a chance.

Cell arc

Positives:

• Duped Cell into giving him his back story by feigning weakness.

Negatives:

• Demanded that they let the androids be created, because he wanted to fight them. This is despite Trunks stating that they would be massacred, and that he, Gohan, and Goku (as he was) stood absolutely no chance.
• Came up with an... interesting... plan to rescue Goku from 19, involving selling a hit from 20 that was really harmless to him, then lying on the ground and letting 19 drain the life out of him, ostensibly to catch them off guard. Except he already had them off guard, with a clean shot at 19, and 20 wasn't a real threat to him at that point. He probably could have just one-shotted him.
• Referred to Vegeta as a "genius" while Vegeta was acting like a moron.
• Demanded to fight Android 20, even though Vegeta could end him with one attack, and proceeded to toy with him, and spend more time bragging than fighting, even though Gero is still dangerous in many ways by this point. It gets to the point that Vegeta of all people actually yells at him to finish Gero off.
• Turns his back to Gero for a prolonged period of time to talk to the others. This, along with his toying earlier, lets Gero escape.
• Immediately fucks up his own plan (which he credits to Kami) to brag, and in the process teaches Cell about regeneration and lets him escape.
• Fights 17, even though:
  A. That will draw Cell right to them
  B. Best case scenario, he takes out one of them and dies pointlessly against the other two, leaving Cell to do whatever he wants (he doesn't need to be complete to crush everyone else).
• Cell Games behavior. Somehow "knows" Gohan doesn't want to fight, despite Gohan explicitly stating that he did, yells at Goku for throwing him into the fight even though no one else can so much as lay a finger on Cell or even follow his movements, briefly thinks Gohan died even though in actuality his ki didn't drop a bit, and tried to rush in against Cell even though all that would accomplish is getting himself pointlessly killed.

Maybes/Mixed:

• Was able to notice that both Goku and Vegeta were in bad shape and losing steam against their respective androids. This is sometimes brought up as an example of his intelligence, but it doesn't really seem like a smart thing so much as a "I have eyes" thing, as their states were blindingly obvious. If anything, it just makes others look dumb for thinking, for example, that Vegeta was fighting evenly with 18, when he was huffing and puffing and struggling to land a punch, while 18 was countering every strike while clearly not exerting any effort, with a bored look on her face.

Buu arc

Positives:

• Had the ROSAT back-up plan in case Buu beat Gotenks. It didn't work, but he couldn't have known that Buu could rip dimensions open.
• Was able to briefly distract Buu by walking him around and stalling, giving the boys a bit more time in the ROSAT.
• Advised Gotenks to not screw around against Buu, and go for the kill.
• Suspected that Buu was up to something, while Goten/Trunks didn't and Gohan had no problem with them fusing to take him on. However, something of a mixed moment, as he still fell for it and still got absorbed despite supposedly possessing super hearing.

Negatives:

• Thought that base Gotenks could defeat Super Buu. He couldn't.
• Wanted to fight Fat Buu. Krillin had to tell him that it would be pointless and he'd just get himself killed.
• Praised Vegeta's plan for defeating Pure Buu, even though it was an extremely dumb and pointless plan, as they could have just brought Gohan or Gotenks in to one-shot this Buu.
• Was fooled by Buu into thinking he had killed himself, despite seeing him regenerate from worse. Gohan had to point out that Buu was just hiding.

Maybes/Mixed:

• Begged Buu to waste time by killing the remaining Earthlings. It didn't work.
• Was apparently absorbed by Buu for his "brains". I don't really count this as an intelligence feat because he didn't do anything, wasn't actually complimented specifically for being smart (Buu talks about this is in the context of absorbing Gotenks, doesn't even know who Piccolo is other than that guy who yells at Gotenks not to screw around, and talks about how Piccolo will cancel out Gotenks' immaturity, and Gohan only comments that Piccolo had a "sober" effect), and doesn't seem to actually make Buu smarter besides making him speak in a more refined fashion (Buu in many ways behaves like the opposite of Piccolo).

In light of all of this, why is he still thought of as the smartest of the main cast? I fail to see how he's any smarter than someone like Krillin, for example. Also, Vegeta typically gets a lot of shit for the stupid things he does, but not Piccolo. Granted, he's smarter than usual in the Buu arc, due to a combination of his fusion with Kami, mellowing out for seven years, and the fact that he's never trusted with fighting, but I still wouldn't class him as smarter than Namek arc Vegeta, or Super Buu, or his father, or several other characters.

[Retan]

I agree, but also think Toriyama really wanted Piccolo to be the smart one especially with all the saiyans around.

[Marco Polo]

He is supposed to be smart, but he sometimes acts stupid due to poor writing.

[RandomGuy96]

He is supposed to be smart, but he sometimes acts stupid due to poor writing.

It's not "sometimes" though. He very consistently acts dumb or average.

[dbgtFO]

Buu arc

Maybes/Mixed:

• Was apparently absorbed by Buu for his "brains". I don't really count this as an intelligence feat because he didn't do anything, wasn't actually complimented specifically for being smart (Buu talks about this is in the context of absorbing Gotenks, doesn't even know who Piccolo is other than that guy who yells at Gotenks not to screw around, and talks about how Piccolo will cancel out Gotenks' immaturity, and Gohan only comments that Piccolo had a "sober" effect), and doesn't seem to actually make Buu smarter besides making him speak in a more refined fashion (Buu in many ways behaves like the opposite of Piccolo).

I think Buu might have based it on the brilliant plan to seal him inside the Room of Spirit and Time.

[RandomGuy96]

I disagree, because that's not "brilliant", just fairly clever, and both Buu's comments on Piccolo's attributes balancing out Gotenks' and Gohan's comment on Buu making a "sober" decision imply to me he's just absorbing him so he won't be contaminated by Gotenks' immaturity, rather than any appreciation of Piccolo's knowledge or planning abilities.

[Saiga]

I'm not sure if Toriyama even intended for Piccolo to be smart, because there's not a whole lot in the story telling us that he is. The only example I can think of is Boo's comments on absorbing him, but I don't think anything in the original says he's absorbing Piccolo for his smarts. I too believe the entire reason is to offset Gotenks' potential bad influence, the dialogue makes a lot more sense when you look at it that way instead of him being motivated by Gotenks' power + Piccolo's intelligence.

There are 2- 3 more examples of dumb behaviour you might want to consider, RandomGuy. In the Boo arc, he also completely forgets how the RoSaT works and Gohan has to correct him. A maybe is when he assumes Boo self-destructed to try and kill them but Gohan sees through it, saying he's still out there. He also praises Vegeta for the Super Spirit Bomb plan, despite that also being a suicidally dangerous, and totally unnecessary, plan. 2/3 times that Piccolo wanks Vegeta it's for something dumb.

[RandomGuy96]

I'm not sure if Toriyama even intended for Piccolo to be smart, because there's not a whole lot in the story telling us that he is. The only example I can think of is Boo's comments on absorbing him, but I don't think anything in the original says he's absorbing Piccolo for his smarts. I too believe the entire reason is to offset Gotenks' potential bad influence, the dialogue makes a lot more sense when you look at it that way instead of him being motivated by Gotenks' power + Piccolo's intelligence.

There are 2- 3 more examples of dumb behaviour you might want to consider, RandomGuy. In the Boo arc, he also completely forgets how the RoSaT works and Gohan has to correct him. A maybe is when he assumes Boo self-destructed to try and kill them but Gohan sees through it, saying he's still out there. He also praises Vegeta for the Super Spirit Bomb plan, despite that also being a suicidally dangerous, and totally unnecessary, plan. 2/3 times that Piccolo wanks Vegeta it's for something dumb.

Ah, right. That seems odd though; what gave him reason to believe that Buu was done for good rather than just hiding? He'd seen Buu regenerate from much worse than that by that point.

I'd consider his praising of Vegeta's plan to be dumb (you got a quote or page number for that, by the way?). His ignorance of how the ROSAT works... eh, I'll cut him some slack there, since he hasn't used it in seven years.

[Kid Buu]

I think he is considered smart for three reasons:

• Team Four Star Wank
• He's a "serious" character
• Buu absorbing him for his brains

I do agree that Piccolo has done his fair share of smart and dumb things, much like every other good guy in the series. Either he's average intelligence, or he's intelligent but the writing his is bad.

[Attitudefan]

Referred to Vegeta as a "genius" while Vegeta was acting like a moron.

HA!


Honestly, he isn't too smart but has some clever ideas which fail most of the time. He's brash, young, and temperamental when compared to Daimao and I think that was the point originally; Goku was shown to have grown up and mature, whereas Piccolo has been reborn younger, faster, meaner, angrier, more violent, and brash compared to his old man. H never really changed until the Buu arc (and that is where your more positive points come from) where he gets the reputation for being intelligent. Compare how Piccolo trained Gohan to how he handled Goten and Trunks. I think a natural character progression of his personality maturing and settling down.

Remember, he still is the demon king incarnate built to fight and take out Son Goku!

P.S. I think his reputation may come from a group of people who have not watched or read the original Dragonball portion of the series or it is overshadowed by the Z portion.

But who is the smartest? Gohan might be the most intelligent in terms of his studies and education, but who has battle smarts or street smarts? I would give Tenshinhan or Krillin the benefit of the doubt and claim they are the smartest (since they seem to understand the situations they have been in better than the other characters, whom the rest act arrogant or ignorant). Ten, for example, realizes he must take on Daimao since Goku relying on Goku is not for certain, he might not return; plus, Ten has seen the sacrifices of those who were unprepared going against Daimao, and learns techniques just by looking at them once! He even saved an overconfident Goku from Daimao's death blast that levelled the city. He recognized that Jr was Piccolo incarnate or at the very least, a child of Piccolo. Smart dude, and very observant.

Krillin realizes his smarts later, such as sneaking around Namek making sure to hide their ki, or coming up with a plan to take out Oozaru Vegeta. He's not one to charge into battle right away, and even summons Shenlong without Vegeta! Though he has one of the dumbest moments in the series: saving Cyborg 18!! I'm sure there are other examples, but those are off the top of my head!

Oh, and please don't call Yamcha an idiot based on his death against the Saibaiman. He was stalling, fighting in a tournament style, to keep fights going on longer than they would normally, just waiting for Goku to arrive. Plus, he took Krillin's place since he knew if he died, it was worth the sacrifice since he could be wished back, where Krillin could not.

[Kid Buu]

Yamcha does have a few smart ideas early on, such as coming up with the idea of Goku's using the Kamehameha to break Pilaf's castle wall and Puar/Oolong can escape. Krillin is pretty smart. Tenshinhan? Hmmm, I dunno, most of his moves are exploitable. Perhaps blowing up the ring to win seemed smart, but like I said, Goku even countered that. Chaozu's for sure an idiot. I'll give Goten and Trunks a pass since they are kids.

Battle Smart it's Goku and Book Smart it's Bulma. I like how #18 and Yamcha "abuse" their super-strength to obtain money though. Always wondered why the others didn't do that.

[Zephyr]

Good read. I'd say that he's looked at as smart relative to the other main fighters, mostly the Saiyans. To really see for sure we'd need this sort of analysis for them as well though. Got any plans to do this for other characters?

[Attitudefan]

Yamcha does have a few smart ideas early on, such as coming up with the idea of Goku's using the Kamehameha to break Pilaf's castle wall and Puar/Oolong can escape. Krillin is pretty smart. Tenshinhan? Hmmm, I dunno, most of his moves are exploitable. Perhaps blowing up the ring to win seemed smart, but like I said, Goku even countered that. Chaozu's for sure an idiot. I'll give Goten and Trunks a pass since they are kids.

Battle Smart it's Goku and Book Smart it's Bulma. I like how #18 and Yamcha "abuse" their super-strength to obtain money though. Always wondered why the others didn't do that.

I forgot that Krillin came up with a way to combat Baba's noisy voice to mask invisible man further by getting Roshi to spurt blood!

Also, in that same fight, Yamcha realizes to use his other senses to fight someone he can't see (that trope doesn't come up again until the 23rd Tenkaichi Budokai, where Kami taught Goku to do something similar).

[RandomGuy96]

Good read. I'd say that he's looked at as smart relative to the other main fighters, mostly the Saiyans. To really see for sure we'd need this sort of analysis for them as well though. Got any plans to do this for other characters?

Thank you. I thought about doing the same thing for Vegeta and maybe some of the other villains (i.e. Freeza/Cell/Buu).

[Gokuden]

There are two types of intelligence; emotional; and complex.

His emotional intelligence is questionable, as he has acquired knowledge via a relay, his emotions were also inherited.

His complex intelligence relies on his actions, and how much of a strategist, or tactician he is.

It's strange how people equate silence with intelligence, being silent does not mean you are intelligent.

Take this scenario, in class you can't answer a question because you lack the knowledge, you stay silent.

You are annoyed by somethings, therefore you stay silent.

You have nothing good to say, you stay silent.

I'd say Kami is more intelligent because he was capable of watching over Earth for 400 years, and that takes more than emotional intelligence, but vigilance, and tactics.

There's nothing to prove Piccolo is smarter than Chaozu.

[Kid Buu]

I'm not anti-Chaozu or anything, but I've never ever seen him do anything smart, where as I have seen Piccolo do that. So I'd say Piccolo is smarter than him.

[TheGmGoken]

There's nothing to prove Piccolo is smarter than Chaozu.

Piccolo can count on both fingers and know math. Chazou lost cause of it.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

He is supposed to be smart, but he sometimes acts stupid due to poor writing.

Hes far more smarter than Vegeta ever was in the entire series and he was credited to be the "strategist" yet Piccolo is the one light-years more perceptive than he is in battle. I give credit to Piccolo for being the most adapatable to situations without Goku and able to read his opponents a lot faster than most characters, second to Goku.
His only bad choices came from points where he was out of options most of the time but to gamble on a hypathetical solution as opposed to just pointlessly getting mad or giving up instantly like Vegeta and Gohan do.

I think he is considered smart for three reasons:

• Team Four Star Wank
• He's a "serious" character

I feel TFS does this a lot more with Vegeta, making him seem a lot smarter than he actually was. Hes only slightly smarter than Adult Gohan. TFS also made Goku exceptionally even slower than he actually is. They make Goku Cosmo stupid at times which gives people the misimpression of Goku's personality. Screwattack sure made that obvious.

But who is the smartest? Gohan might be the most intelligent in terms of his studies and education, but who has battle smarts or street smarts? I would give Tenshinhan or Krillin the benefit of the doubt and claim they are the smartest (since they seem to understand the situations they have been in better than the other characters, whom the rest act arrogant or ignorant). Ten, for example, realizes he must take on Daimao since Goku relying on Goku is not for certain, he might not return; plus, Ten has seen the sacrifices of those who were unprepared going against Daimao, and learns techniques just by looking at them once! He even saved an overconfident Goku from Daimao's death blast that levelled the city. He recognized that Jr was Piccolo incarnate or at the very least, a child of Piccolo. Smart dude, and very observant.
Krillin realizes his smarts later, such as sneaking around Namek making sure to hide their ki, or coming up with a plan to take out Oozaru Vegeta. He's not one to charge into battle right away, and even summons Shenlong without Vegeta! Though he has one of the dumbest moments in the series: saving Cyborg 18!! I'm sure there are other examples, but those are off the top of my head!

I dont think Yamcha is an idiot, he just gets more naive and a bit excited more so than the other Z-warriors. He seems to only react on what he sees rather than reading into if it makes sense or not. Thats the second step Goku takes, like when he blew off his head. Yamcha instantly thought Cell must have been dead even while the other Z-warriors were concerned sensing Cell's ki still stable. Then Goku realized he was still alive somehow and Krillin filled in the pieces. Arguably I'd say Krillin is a lot smarter than Yamcha in terms of perception and comprehension of situations put in. When hes not terrified or cocky Krillin is actually a pretty good with basic enemy analysis. Yamcha isnt at all. His mind is always shown never to be really focused on meditative thought that would allow him to read his enemies. His obessive priorities in life blind him to it.

Krillin is also very smart in terms of maturity and adaptive decision making, he always thinks in the greater good of a situation, especially around Kid Gohan where he was like the big brother to him on Namek. He was always the calmest before the fights and would either suggest to stay quiet, escape, wait for Goku, or etc. Hes reliable in the sense.

Gohan isnt intelligent at all, not at all. He's even worse than Vegeta most of the time; and I mean in his adulthood. He has no concept of proper battle sense, he cant read his enemies, he panics quicky and leaves himself open a lot, he also gets so arrogant he allows his enemies to make comebacks way too often (Super Buu). He was just a useless teammate. When his dat asked him to do things he'd always question it repeatedly showing his incompetence and too overly emotional. I get it that he has vast self-esteem issues around his father and Vegeta but, it cripples him so often that he comes off as irrational and gullible. He also overestimates himself so much especially in the Babidi saga with Kibito.

Future Gohan on the other hand is much better of a rounded character. Hes basically Goku and Piccolo in one. He has Goku's selflessness and calmness-confidence in battle with Piccolo's wisdom and adamant nature against threats.

[thatdbzguy]

I never understood why people saw him as the "smart guy" either.

Honestly, all of DB's characters are dumb. They might be smart in a particular subject, but in general, they're some of the most moronic cast of characters ever.

[Insertclevername]

I think remarkable intelligence is an overrated character trait. Dragon Ball is interesting because it's populated with stupid, lovable assholes. If they were smart, then they would have avoided both the Artificial Human and the Boo arcs before they even properly kicked off.