Muten Roshi, Karin-sama, Bulma, and Chichi fly toward the battle field where the fight with Vegeta is drawing to its conclusion. Using his powers of ki detection, Karin navigates across the skies. Muten Roshi is privately troubled. Five presences he cannot sense... Tenshinhan, Yamcha, Chaozu, Piccolo, and Goku.
Chichi is more concerned about Gohan.
Gohan's tail has regrown, as Goku's did when he was a child. (I wonder if Saiyan children regrow their tails during a time of stress? Given how Goku regrows his during the 21st Tenka-ichi Budokai.) With Vegeta's artificial moon in the sky, he fears the repercussions if Gohan managed to see it and transform into an Oozaru. As such, he resolves to remove his tail, eliminating the problem.
But he didn't count on Yajirobe.
"Not in my house, bitch!"
Well, it was a good try anyway, bro.
But as Vegeta is distracted by Yajirobe, Goku uses telepathy to speak to his fallen son. He urges Gohan to look at the ball of light in the sky, realizing they have but one chance for victory.
Aw, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck.
Kuririn isn't pleased to see another Oozaru, remarking how Goku lost all his reason when he transformed. As Gohan smashes up the mountains surrounding them, it becomes plain that he, too, loses himself to his transformation. Kuririn assumes that it is because they revert back to their Saiyan instincts. Goku telepathically shouts for Gohan, which stuns the beast, and Kuririn pleads for him to go after Vegeta... and miraculously, he does it...!!
"Fuck."
Vegeta is utterly beaten. Still alive, though barely just, he calls for his space pod. Kaio-sama watches the fight ending, remarking how it is good that Vegeta has lost, but that the root cause of the evil still remains. (FORESHADOWING, DUN DUN DUUUUUNNNN.)
"It's called a spoiler alert, you prick!"
As Vegeta crawls, broken, to his space pod, bitterly cursing his defeat at the hands of scum, Kuririn takes up Yajirobe's katana to finish the job...
But before he can, Goku telepathically shouts for him to stop. And he asks Kuririn to let Vegeta go.
"Please... This is the only thing I'll ever ask of myself..."
Kuririn doesn't want to do it. Vegeta isn't Piccolo. He won't have a change of heart. He killed their friends, and he'll return to kill them as soon as he recovers. But Goku understands that fine.
"I ain't able to say this too well... but when I saw him nearly dead there... I thought, "What a waste".
Goku wants to fight Vegeta again. He wants to surpass him, and properly. He thought Kaio-sama had taught him his limits, but Vegeta was far beyond them. His Saiyan blood urges him to go even further. And to do so, he needs Vegeta.
Reluctantly, Kuririn drops Yajirobe's katana.
And Vegeta smirks, taunting Kuririn before he leaves the Planet Earth.
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ReplyDeleteI'm probably going to get a lot of hate for this but the scene where Goku tells Krillin to spare Vegeta because he wants to fight him again, annoys me, as Vegeta had currently shown no noble side at all.
ReplyDeleteEven the Dub's corny and contradictory explanation that "killing is wrong" makes more sense.
If Goku was like this in Dragon Ball, would he have spared Tambourine to fight him again?
Goku isn't doing it to be noble. He says outright that Vegeta deserves to die but Goku had reached what he thought was the pinnacle of strength and Vegeta was overwhelmingly stronger. He wants to fight Vegeta again.
ReplyDeleteYour Tambourine example falls flat because he was never stronger than Goku, except when Goku was already in a weakened state from the tournament.
I knew I'd get hate for this. I'm aware Goku says its a selfish request but think about all the innocent people that could easily die from letting Vegeta go totally free.
ReplyDeleteAnd while you could argue that Goku only lost to Tambourine due to being worn out from the tournament. Lets say that he wasn't, Tambourine beat him at his best, and Goku had to get help from Roshi, Yamcha, and Tenshinan to bring him down. Would he have spared him on the same logic?
Whether you think it's ethical wasn't your point. You said it didn't make sense.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, Tambourine wasn't the big bad of that arc - Piccolo was. Plus, Goku has done this thing before. He did it with Piccolo after he won the tournament, so it's well within his character. Was Piccolo any better than Vegeta to Goku's knowledge?
Finally, Goku's judgment can be trusted. If he says he will do better and beat someone, he will. Goku may not be the most rational person but I don't think he's ever been unrealistic about his chances in a fight. If he says he will train and defeat Vegeta - he will.
I much prefer that than the idea that Goku is letting Vegeta go out of a sense of mercy. Mercy is undo leniency and that's unjust. It's hard to argue that Goku doesn't deserve the benefit of the doubt.
I'd argue that King Piccolo and Ma Jr are different individuals but that'd be going off topic. We'll just leave the subject here.
ReplyDeleteAllow me to offer some details on why the situations are different. For the example of Tambourine: he murdered Kuririn, full-stop. Vegeta didn't kill anyone. Nappa was the one getting his hands dirty and even that's kind of tenuous, because Yamucha was killed by the Saibaiman, Chaozu committed suicide, and Tenshinhan quite literally fought until he died. On top of this, Goku didn't witness any of it, but in Dragon Ball, he was the one who found his best friend's corpse, so of course there's a stronger emotional impetus in one instance.
ReplyDeleteBut really, it makes good sense just for the sheer fact that Goku, his friends, and the narrator have always gone on and on about how all he loves is fighting strong guys. By the time the Saiya-jin come to earth, that has been hammered into the audience, and it works on that paradigm alone if nothing else.
I get *why* the dub changed it, because of the (really stupid) desire to make cartoons into moralizing agents, but no, it doesn't make any more sense, and this is from someone who grew up devouring the dub like an addict.
The problem isn't that cartoons inject morality into it. The morality should be there on an implicit level. The problem is that Goku doesn't make explicit statements about ethics. I also think it's an irrational morality that says mercy is a virtue. I have a bigger problem with Goku trying to let Freeza go than letting Vegeta go, but we'll get to that later.
ReplyDeleteAs for the Piccolo argument. I'm of the same opinion that Ma Jr. and Piccolo Daimao are two separate beings but until the Saiyan arc, no one could say he was any different from his father. There was no indication of his change. His blast that destroyed Papaya Island showed no regard for any lives. It's conjecture whether the civilians got off the island and he wouldn't have cared if they did.
I do agree with Lindsay, there was much stronger impetus to kill Tambourine, and by extension Piccolo for killing his best friend.