38 KiB
[FF] [WIP] [RT] The Optimised Wish Project Chapter 9: Snakeway to Heaven, a dragon ball fanfic
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Author: u/SimoneNonvelodico Dai-Gurren Brigade*
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URL: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12863641/9/The-Optimised-Wish-Project
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Score: 50
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Created: 2018-06-17T17:14:59
Post:
Comments:
u/NotACauldronAgent [+13] Probably (2 hours later)
If Bulma manages to piss off King Piccolo, she'll be 3/3 for pissing off gods. Neat.
Also, somehow Bulma is more productive while dead than anyone other than possibly Goku. Amazing, those three years between DB and Z will be spent much more productively.
u/None [+8] (3 hours later)
King Kai was pretty productive while dead, to be fair.
Also goku was still training after the piccolo fight; that was, in fact, his specific motivation for allowing piccolo to go, and he became significantly stronger during that timespan. I dont forsee this being more efficient, except insofar as goku is already more efficient than his canon counterpart (which also isnt as much as you’d think, because canon goku is a really good example of what it means to actually, seriously try at something).
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+7] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
My idea here is that OWP Goku is effectively slightly weaker at the moment than canon Goku, despite being able to gain a slight edge against opponents like the Ox King due to his faster thought processes. But canon Goku after all is very smart too - only when it comes to fighting.
u/None [+6] (6 hours later)
That makes sense, actually. Normally I would expect a smarter character to do better, but Goku is smart at fighting in canon, and he's hella dedicated. he spends years at a time training, without breaks, and deliberately seeks out the strongest challenges to improve himself against.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (16 hours later)
Pretty much. OWP Goku is better at lateral thinking, or strategy in general, but his tendency to overthink might effectively bog him down in battle if he lets it take over. Good for him, he also has his "instinct mode", a tendency to regress to a simple animal-like fighting attitude left over from his Saiyan personality, but as seen with Boss Rabbit, that also comes with its own share of problems, like utter disregard for the opponent's life.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+7] Dai-Gurren Brigade (3 hours later)
Bulma is more productive while dead than anyone other than possibly Goku
Well, she would be if she wasn't now blacklisted forever by King Enma.
u/Kimundi [+2] (a day later)
Sorry for being dense, but who was the third god?
u/NotACauldronAgent [+2] Probably (a day later)
I was counting Shenron and King Yemna. Shenron, as I understand it, literally means god dragon.
u/Kimundi [+2] (a day later)
Ah, I didn't count the omnipotent Dragon, my mistake. :)
u/None [+10] (5 hours later)
[deleted]
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+11] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
Well, I'd say it's two different issues. At an absolute level, sure, Enma may be worse (though it's unclear how Hell works in Dragon Ball: it seems to be inspired by Buddhism and there's occasional references to purification and reincarnation, so it may not be permanent; however, erasure of one's memory and personality do not seem a much better fate). But Frieza, or any other mortal, does not know about how and what the afterlife looks like, so if you factor in that ignorance, indiscriminate killing is still potentially as bad as what Enma does, from their point of view. I'd argue that how "evil" one is depends also on what they think the consequences of their actions are. If one did something horrifying in perfect good faith, thinking they're doing the good of those they're hurting, they may be dangerous, but they're not necessarily evil.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+9] Dai-Gurren Brigade (55 seconds later)
New chapter, end of arc, and last chapter for a while (one month or so, probably). This one drops some serious bombs, so I look forward to discussing it in the comments!
u/Saffrin-chan [+9] (2 hours later)
Mahogany desk is just canon now. everyone uses it
so their true master is , interesting starting that plot this early.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+16] Dai-Gurren Brigade (2 hours later)
Mahogany...
u/None [+7] (6 hours later)
Anyway, just to comment for myself: really loving this story so far. I'm a huge dragon ball fan, but I'm a fan despite its flaws, not because of them. It's great to see the setting I love in a way I can love even more; this is definitely one of my top 3 dragonball fanfics. Keep up the good work (Please)>
u/xamueljones [+2] My arch-enemy is entropy (a day later)
my top 3 dragonball fanfics
May I know the other ones? I really like well-written dragon ball fanfics. But they are hard to find.
u/None [+6] (a day later)
https://forums.sufficientvelocity.com/threads/dragon-ball-after-the-end.30940/ is really good; I thought i would hate the idea and avoided it for a while but it just really blew me away with how good it was.
Which story is in the third slot tends to cycle depending on my mood, but soemtimess I would rate one of them about equal to this and sometimes solidly below, I dunno.
https://forums.spacebattles.com/threads/gohan-piccolo-save-the-future.621202/
u/Argenteus_CG [+6] (3 hours later)
I know nothing about Dragonball, haven't seen it and have little desire to, but I'm surprisingly enjoying this fic. I wonder if someone is going to wish to get rid of hell? It IS a rational fic, after all, and since Bulma has gone to hell (and knows she will again if she dies), it'd make sense. Don't know if Goku or Bulma would feel the same way I do about infinite torture, though, and some might see it as something of a rational fic cliche (if it is, it's a cliche I don't mind, but some people might not see it that way).
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+12] Dai-Gurren Brigade (3 hours later)
I can tell you, and read on only if you are okay with knowing something that any Dragon Ball viewer would:
per Dragon Ball canon (or at least, the parts of it I've decided to cherry pick as still valid in my story), existences like Hell and the higher gods are all FAR above the power of Shenlong and the Dragon Balls. Basically the Dragon Balls are magical items, very powerful ones, but still limited. The gods go in hierarchies up to a literal omnipotent multiversal creator (who's also a demented child). In fact, the latest show, Dragon Ball Super, would basically be Lovecraftian eldritch horror about the futility of mortal life in front of the whims of the gods if it wasn't so light-hearted in tone and faced its own subject matter with more of a straight face.
u/None [+4] (5 hours later)
There's certainly a sense in canon that the dragon balls are weaker, particularly at moments like when piccolo just flat up kills him, but this isn't universal. Elder Kai, for instance, has to sacrifice his own life to revive one person, while Shenron casually does it to entire planets; similarly, shin is limited to transporting a handful of beings at a time with his kaikai, but the wish dragons can move entire planetary populations.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+7] Dai-Gurren Brigade (6 hours later)
Yes, it's a whole other inconsistency that's really hard to settle. In fact the Kais seem just woefully weak, especially in light of the fact that they're supposed to be the Gods of Creation who balance out the God of Destruction; where Beerus destroys, Shin should create, so it's weird that they can't give life to a single person; they should be able to create entire planets. I still haven't decided what exactly to do with them, it's complex stuff because the canon really doesn't make much sense there. There's also the fact that Kami is supposed to be the first step on that cosmic hierarchy... except his powers come from him being a Namekian, and the Sanctuary is unique to Earth. Which in itself makes no sense either, if every galaxy has a Kai, why shouldn't every planet have a Kami? It's another situation in which Toriyama IMHO completely made shit up on the fly, he originally created Kami and Piccolo as basically God and Satan, supernatural entities, equals and opposites, then he decided they were Namekians and that whole thing flew out of the window.
u/None [+5] (6 hours later)
"if every galaxy has a Kai, why shouldn't every planet have a Kami?"
Don't they? I've always thought that impression was an artifact of how few planets we've seen.
Earth: Has Kami->Dende
Vegeta: Never seen directly, but King Kai mentions them having one.
Namek: Has none, but has recently undergone a massive catastrophe with only one survivor; presumably, the kami died with the rest of the populace.
King Kai's World / World of the Kais / Beerus' world / etc: Obvious reason.
Unless I'm missing something, there doesn't really seem to be a contradiction there.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (15 hours later)
It's never been clarified, really. I don't remember King Kai mentioning a Kami for planet Vegeta, who would that have been anyway? Kamis seem to be picked from the populace. If it was said, I can guarantee at least that was some kind of anime-original line, or a translation artefact - I've read the manga enough times to remember very clearly these details, and it was never mentioned. What I remember King Kai telling, in the anime, was the story of how the Saiyans overtook their planet from the previous dominant race, the Tuffles. Now in Super it's also been made canon that the Saiyans weren't even original of Vegeta, but they were from Sadala.
As for Namek, you could argue that Guru was its Kami, or at least had a similar role, but really, he was more of a planetary leader (in a fragmented tribal society anyway). The main point though is, creating the Dragon Balls isn't a special Kami power: it's a Namekian power. So whatever power is infused into them is simply the magic possessed by the original Namekian who made them. But while they can heal, Namekians can't resurrect people, teleport them, or recreate planets. So really, the power of the Dragon Balls does not seem to emanate from their creators; rather, they seem to be using their magic to harvest and control power that already exists independently of them.
u/cae_jones [+3] (a day later)
The reference to Vegeta's Kami is anime only, as it's repeating the lie about the planet being destroyed by a meteor. Unless you want to assume that Freeza counts as a Kami, which, considering that a Kami's role is said to be guiding their people toward happiness, kinda makes sense for the Saiyans.
Also, regarding Kami and Piccolo: the idea of Kami with linked good/evil aspects apparently comes from Shinto. Super invokes this again by linking the Kaioshin to Birus, but there's also the Makai. It's also pretty apparent that Kami and Daimao are a god / demon, respectively. This is apparently a spiritual thing, independent of species (presumably there's a minimum required intelligence, but you seem to have taken that into account with the afterlife scenes in this chapter). The Dragonballs are apparently still a Namekian thing, but Kami comments on Raditz and Goku going to the afterlife, when Daimao's victims did not, as a sign that Piccolo is no longer considered a demon for spiritual purposes.
I haven't kept up enough with Super and the accompanying supplementary material to know if an answer has been given regarding King Kai's planet / life. Kami did apparently restore Earth's Moon, and I would have expected the other characters to comment if this had been done with the Dragonballs,
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+5] Dai-Gurren Brigade (a day later)
Yes, but see, there's pretty much no question that Toriyama often wrote Dragon Ball by the seat of his pants. An egregious example is the Android saga - there's an interview where he explains how his original idea for the villains was #19 and #20; then the editor said they looked ridiculous, so he introduced #17 and #18; then the editor said they looked too wimpy so he introduced Cell; and again, he had him transform to answer the complaints of his editor about his design - but I think this also applies to the big "now we have ALIENS!" reveal that opens DBZ and that sets the tone for everything that follows. Dragon Ball started as a comedic/kung-fu themed reinterpretation of Journey to the West, but by the time DBZ rolled around, Toriyama had to completely revolutionise the setting to keep it interesting. In that sense, a lot of the stuff that happens before is contradicted by what happens later.
What I mean is, all those things were said mostly before DBZ; and I think the main explanation for them is that Toriyama retconned them, or straight out forgot about them. He does that a lot.
u/None [+4] (a day later)
To clarify; that wasn't actually his current editor. That was his then former editor / freind? complaining about how he didn't like the villain design, and toriyama taking his advice, not an actually forced retcon.
Also, we knew about aliens since the martial arts tournament; you could have it as "kami and piccolo speaking in a divine tongue," but it seemed to me pretty clear that that wasn't the intent.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (a day later)
Or a very old dead one: they were born hundreds of years before the current time, after all. But yeah, it's possible at that point Toriyama was already planning the alien twist. I don't think that was the case when he started with Piccolo though (given for example how he spawns random monsters from his eggs, not just other Namekians).
As for the editor, yeah, I knew, it's not like Toriyama even has an editor now, I think? Since the DB Super manga is made by Toyotaro. I don't remember his name but the editor was his friend and I read an interview where he told this and other stories from his point of view too.
u/cae_jones [+2] (a day later)
IIRC, there's an interview where Toriyama said that he came up with the alien retcon around the introduction of Kami, which leads me to believe the way it played out with Kami and Piccolo, at least, was intentional. I mean, Daimao is a title, more than a name. You see this title thing in Buddhism with figures like Mara. We also have Akuman being officially a native of Hell, and later we have Dabura, and even here we have Gyu-mao (Ox demon king). While Toriyama definitely flew by the seat of his pants, forgot things, and let his desire to minimize work influence things like tails and the SSJ transformation, it seems more likely that he knew what he was doing when it comes to the gods, up until the almost-certainly-unplanned expansion post-Cell.
Also, while it's a movie, I think it is relevant that Slug and his minions are referred to as Mazoku, long after the Namekian revelations. There's just this really strong implication that divinity and diabolism are attainable by mortals, with the Kaioshin being the only exception. After all, Kami offerred the job to Goku before Z.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (a day later)
That Kami is a job, not a nature, is established - Kami himself split up in two in order to be worthy of it and receive it from his predecessor. My issue was not with that, but with the fact that his ability to create the Dragon Balls was his prerogative as Namekian, not as Kami. Perks of being Kami may or may not include the ability to peer at the world from the Observatory, for example.
That said, this whole issue is left muddy, though I agree with your idea that it would be in line with Buddhist thought to consider divinity attainable by mortals. The process however has only been formalised in DB Super, with Goku literally obtaining "divine ki", which does indeed have an existence separate from ordinary one. I don't think there's enough to work with to figure out a consistent rule. Let's say that if you become evil enough you become a "demon" - then why would Piccolo have been, but not Frieza, or Vegeta? "Demon king" as you mentioned is just a title, something people will call you if you become infamous enough. Akuman is a one-off joke character with ridiculous game-breaking powers and who was probably just put in there as a reference to Devilman anyway (all enemies in that battle besides Son Gohan are references to monsters after all: Dracula, the Invisible Man, the Mummy; while Baba is a witch and her servant a ghost). Dabura has been said to be from "the Demon Realm", so not quite from Hell; rather, I always had the impression he was from some kind of parallel dimension.
Let's just say that my personal approach in this fanfiction will be: mortals gaining "divine" jobs isn't impossible. Mortals gaining the essence of divinity is possible too but far more rare and with long reaching consequences (e.g.: Super Saiyan God). The position of Kami is unique to Earth (insofar as it has not been seen explicitly on other planets, even when, as on Namek, it would have made sense for the heroes to look for anyone occupying it, and would also have been very easy thanks to energy perception), and not necessarily part of the same grander divine hierarchy that includes the Kais and Beerus. The current Kami is not a God, nor is Piccolo a Demon; they are so by name only. Also, for any position that carries with itself meaningful powers or responsibilities (such as that of Supreme Kai, tied to the God of Destruction, and including that of Kami of Earth), there must be some sort of ritual that sharply marks the moment one assumes or leaves the role, so that they may be invested by the required powers. Otherwise, there could be an item, a place etc. that allow them to use those powers (for example, it could be Kami's sceptre that gives him those powers - not saying that's what I'll go with, just as an idea).
u/Chuck_Norris_Jokebot [+1] (2 days later)
You mentioned the word 'joke'. Here is one about Chuck Norris:
When Chuck Norris falls in water, Chuck Norris doesn't get wet. Water gets Chuck Norris.
u/cae_jones [+1] (2 days later)
That's a good point about Freeza and the like having no apparent demons among them. I assume Piccolo got the Mazoku effect partly by being split from Kami, since otherwise there would be loads of demons among the Saiyans. (Broli refers to himself as the devil, but between it being a movie and Broli being particularly insane, I wouldn't count that.) My headcanon has been that Buu should count as a demon, or at least after the splitting and purging and such. But then Piccolo had to ruin it with that comment about disappearing halos (when there was no afterlife filler with Pure/Kid/Chibi Buu's victims).
The Dragonballs being a Namekian thing with nothing to do with divinity is kinda bizarre, yeah. The best I've got is that the average Dragon Clan Namekian wouldn't be able to make a dragon as powerful as Shenron or Porunga without being deified, but now I'm just pulling things from nowhere. The history of Namek compared to what we actually observe is perplexing (a space-faring civilization with no ancient ruins, even in filler?).
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+1] Dai-Gurren Brigade (2 days later)
I'll have to do some work there. But at some point Supreme Kai (the old one) said that the Namekians were the only ones allowed to use the Dragon Balls because they were the wisest race in the Universe or something. The way I see it, it's a magical ability, but the ability is just that of creating the means of summoning the dragons; and the dragons themselves are divine (while Piccolo does destroy Shen Long, that doesn't tell us much; we know a lot of divine beings who are relatively weak. King Kai is weaker than Saiyan Saga Vegeta, and Shin is stronger than Frieza but weaker than Cell). Perhaps the power of the creator of the Balls influences how much power the dragon itself can tap into. If this was HunterXHunter and Nen, you'd have an additional boost due to the limitations (seven Balls to gather, one wish a year, etc.) but frankly, those are still pretty weak for such a broken item XD.
u/None [+1] (4 days later)
WRT Namek: Even if there are Kamis for every world, Krillin had no reason to know that. Unlike Goku, he wasn't trained to potentially take Kami's place; he and the gang have a very intense "beat the saiyans" training course. Furthermore, on earth the lookout isn't sensible from the planet under normal circumstances; up until buu, no one managed to enter the lookout without permission. Even if he did think that Namek has one and decided to go there (but its not like kami ever had the dragonballs up there, nor would kami have been useful against the freeza force), he had no reason to think he would be able to find it, or to enter it if he did. As for why it doesn't have one IC. Guru is literally the only survivor of the catastrophe, and we know that the guardians of a planet are explicitly mortal. We have every reason to think that if it had had a guardian, the guardian would have died then and there wouldn't be one on namek in the modern day.
As far as god in name only goes this does seem to be the case, but it is worth noting that Kamiccollo was able to sense something out of shin's divine energy, while none of the other Z fighters could sense divine KI. Kami also shows some abilities not available to ordinary namekians, like traveling to otherworld, matter creation (which is an explicit ability of the Kaio, interestingly), and possession.
I think there's definitely room for an interpretation where kami is just a title for some earthlings, but I don't think its overly supported or true in canon.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (4 days later)
With Piccolo and Shin, I always imagined it was more because of his experience than some special power. That he knew more stuff about the divine hierarchies, and thus caught onto something the others missed. As for the special powers, true enough ("CLOTHES BEAM!"), but then again, Baba the sybil can travel to the afterlife too. Go figure. I don't think there's a single consistent rule. In general, I hope you won't mind if in trying to craft a more coherent rule set for my fanfiction I follow mostly my headcanon :).
u/None [+2] (4 days later)
I don't have any problem with headcanon, they can add a lot to the world :). For instance, in my headcanon SSjRage is to SSjBlue what SSj is to FPSSj, because it's got the same sort of power, the blue coloring on top of the normal super Saiyan abilities, and notably after reaching it trunks is able to sense divine ki. I doubt it'll ever come up in canon, but it's just something that makes sense to me.
My sole problem is that too often, it seems, people seem to think that using headcanons for something is their only option; I find that better results are obtained when people break from canon when they have a reason, rather than because they think they have no choice. I'm glad to see that isn't really necessary on my part here, since you seem to have that part down nicely.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (4 days later)
Ah, thanks. Well, part of the fun of fanwriting is anyway to play a bit with the material, and tackling any franchise from a "rational" angle probably will always require a bit of tweaking. For me perhaps in this case the one where I feel the need to do that most is the villains, to build them up with understandable ideologies and motivations, even almost sympathetic ones for that matter. You can already start seeing from this chapter how that has led to me radically overhauling the Piccolo arc. I love the original character, but he's, by definition, well, just evil for its own sake. He's literally presented as a pure evil, demonic presence.
In general, I can't deny that I also do it because I don't want the experience to be too dull, both to the readers and to me first and foremost. I've recently read the first arcs of a long fanfiction focused around the idea of Raditz surviving his first fight with Goku and ultimately joining the heroes (if you're interested, it was Break through the limit ), but I ended up not liking it very much because I felt like it was too pedantic; beyond the initial change, it deviated as little as possible from the canon timeline. This feels both unrealistic to me (any amount of butterfly effect should guarantee a far greater reach for such momentous changes as important characters living or dying), and also just sort of boring, because in the end, it's just the same story we already know re-told with marginal changes.
So yeah, I don't think there's a problem with changing stuff a bit - though I can't stress this enough, I really do it from a place of respect for the source material anyway. I love Dragon Ball as a story a lot (and it means a lot to me in general since it was my gateway into anime/manga, it got me into writing fanfictions and helped me shape my writing as a whole, it was the push and the basis on which I learned to draw after years of assuming I just was bad at it... plus it's just a huge piece of teen nostalgia), so I don't feel like I'm improving it or anything, just weaving a different tale off the same fibre.
u/None [+2] (a day later)
Yeah, that was an anime only line. In the manga though, it still isn't a contradiction: we just plain don't know. We never really get to see planet Vegeta, and especially not in the detail that would be required to find out about a kami (remember that most of earth doesn't know the lookout exists). To clarify, I wasn't saying that guru was its kami. I was saying that the kami of Namek presumably died, the same as every other namekian did; as such, I think it would be a reasonable exception to the rule of 1 planet:1 kami.
It may well be the case that toriyama changed it, but I don't think we have any real evidence one way or another (since we just don't see many planets), so it seems unsubstantiated.
u/Argenteus_CG [+3] (4 hours later)
Ah, I see. So getting rid of hell is probably a much longer term goal, if it's possible at all. Thanks for responding. Would a smaller scale wish like for no sentient being from earth to go to hell work? Or is anything to do with hell or afterlives just completely outside of the limits of what they're capable of?
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+5] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
The show never explored these topics as Hell is treated mostly as a joke; in the latest movie, it was shown that for Frieza (the planet killing villain I mention in the chapter, who's one of the major villains of the entire story), Hell is being dangled in a cocoon surrounded by cheerful and colourful creatures who sing and dance. To him, that's the worst torment imaginable, apparently. Other portrayals of Hell have varied - there's one whole non-canon movie that takes place in it, and it's perhaps the one that hints the most at the worst aspects of it, as one of the protagonists is currently residing there and his plea is taken more seriously than the villains'. But as I said, non canon. In the manga in fact I think Hell never appears even once; all its portrayals are anime original material. It's just said to exist.
So yeah, it's unclear. But it's said that the Dragon is only as powerful as the creator of the Dragon Balls; and said creator is shown in one scene to fear King Enma; so I'd say, probably impossible. This aspect however is confusing also because said creator is not able to resurrect people by himself, while the Dragon Balls can; so what does it mean that they're just as powerful as him is kind of unclear (my guess is that it was a last-minute patch by the writer to fix the obvious loophole that the heroes try to exploit: just asking the Dragon to defeat their enemies for them).
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (3 hours later)
Ha! Wishing to abolish the hells! Nono Sir/M'am! Goku, in true DB manner, will train until he can defeat the highest of the gods!
(this doesnt happen in canon, obviously. But still the only logical conclusion).
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+7] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
(this doesnt happen in canon, obviously. But still the only logical conclusion).
Well, it's pretty much what's happening in Super and beyond. Though his motivation isn't some higher ethical humanistic imperative, he just gets a kick out of it.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (5 hours later)
I'm looking forward to your work then.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+3] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
If I'll ever get that far in the story :D.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+1] Mouse Army (6 hours later)
Not if you take month-long breaks in between! hint hint
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+4] Dai-Gurren Brigade (6 hours later)
Heh :D. Frankly what worries me the most there is actually working out a plot that makes sense. I've got a very clear plan up to Piccolo, and a decent working draft up to Majin Boo. I'm not sure what to do with the Super material though yet.
u/SvalbardCaretaker [+2] Mouse Army (6 hours later)
O_O Given that Majin Boo was the end of the original manga - everything else is kinda uninteresting to me. Also, thats insanely far already. What the hell. Super impressive.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+5] Dai-Gurren Brigade (6 hours later)
With Majin Boo I'm integrating and recycling ideas from another fanfiction I had planned and never wrote down - one about the original war fought against him and Bibidi, one million years ago. So that's why I have more than zero. It's still crude though :D.
u/None [+1] (4 hours later)
Well, from an reader perspective hell seems suboptimal but neccesary; if hell doesnt exist, then the likes of freiza will be up their in normal otherworld, and that would be a serious disaster all around, not to mention unfair to all the people whos QoAL would greatly decrease as a result of him walking around up there. I think its important to keep in mind that in canon, the list of people in U7 who can beat freeza and are currently active consists of Dabura and Shin, but when he’s in hell he has no way to escape; that kind of thing is insanely useful. That being said, as this chapter shows the metric for who goes where could probabky use some work.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+4] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
You need to consider that people aren't corporeal any more when they get to the afterlife. This isn't expounded much in Dragon Ball, but the general impression is that the only ones who get to keep their body are those whose merits earned them that privilege (and who might be useful to get to train so that they will defend the Universe in the future): so Goku & friends, basically, because the whole place runs on recommendations anyway. If Frieza ends up in Hell, it means he ends up in front of King Enma and gets kicked down, and that wouldn't be possible if he were at full strength (we know Enma trained with King Kai, and we know he's probably somewhere below Saiyan Saga Goku in strength). So the whole idea of Hell as a prison is inconsequential: Frieza, once dead, is inoffensive.
The only material that really contradicts this view is non-canon: some parts of the Afterlife Tournament filler arc, when Goku and Pikkon go settle a riot in Hell, and various parts of Dragon Ball GT, like Cell and Frieza fighting Goku in Hell, Dr. Gero and Dr. Mu managing to build an android inside it and escape (lol) or Piccolo purposefully fucking up Heaven so he gets sent to Hell to open a portal and let Goku escape (double lol). But honestly, if you ask me, Dragon Ball GT does not exist. I'll stick with the idea of souls being incorporeal, or there's too many inconsistencies anyway.
u/None [+1] (6 hours later)
Didn't freiza manage to train while in hell, at least with his energy control? i suppose that part might just come from the soul, but in that case, I would assume that techniques like the Genki Dama would also work in hell.
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (15 hours later)
That's been said in Super, yes. But it's not like Super doesn't have plenty of plot holes... Frieza also managed to train from Super Saiyan level to Super Saiyan God level in five months, whereas Goku needed a couple decades and a magical ritual involving every surviving member of his race to do the same. It's impossible to reconcile everything, so whenever such a contradiction exists, I'll just go with the solution that seems more reasonable to me. Case in point: I'll assume souls are incorporeal. There's no way the likes of Frieza or Cell could be confined to the afterlife otherwise. We know for sure that Cell is stronger than Shin (Dabura was said to be of equal strength to Cell, and Shin feared him greatly), and so, basically, no one in the afterlife outside of Beerus (and possibly a few fighters in heaven like Pikkon) would be able to really keep him in check, since Beerus doesn't give a damn. That's not consistent with Cell, y'know, staying in Hell. It's not even a matter of not there being an escape route: in Dragon Ball it's basically canon that you can brute-force your way out of anything. Not only Goku himself manages to escape from Hell - twice, if we count GT - but Buu manages to escape from the RoSaT pocket dimension simply by screaming. If barriers between worlds can be torn down with enough sheer power, there's no reason why Hell should be such a safe prison for monsters strong enough to threaten the Universe.
u/Argenteus_CG [+3] (4 hours later)
Even if we take that into consideration (bearing in mind, again, that I have no knowledge of dragonball), there's no reason for those who go there to suffer. At worst, those who would be dangerous enough that it wouldn't be safe for them to be in a normal afterlife (insofar as such a thing even makes sense, since if you have the power to stop people from escaping an afterlife you should also have the power to stop them from harming each other) could be designated a personal afterlife of pure pleasure with simulated, non-sentient companionship who they can torture without harming anyone and/or a suppressed desire and need for socialization. Or if that's not possible, then depending on the severity of the torture, simple oblivion might be preferable.
u/Silver_Swift [+3] (16 hours later)
In addition to the whole incorporeal thing, you can keep the magical prison aspect of hell and just leave out the eternal torture parts.
u/hoja_nasredin [+3] Dai-Gurren Brigade (19 hours later)
So is this fanfic good? Any wants to try pitch selling it?
u/Silver_Swift [+3] (a day later)
It's good, if a bit silly at times.
The sales pitch from the author themselves is:
A "rational" Dragon Ball fanfiction. When Goku was a child, falling and hitting his head erased his memory and completely changed his life. What would have happened if instead of making him forget, that incident had made him much smarter than he was? Meet a new Goku - who's much more clever, has a taste for philosophy, and a bit of a dark side...
It's mostly just taking the hot mess that is DB (and in the future hopefully DBZ/DBS) lore and characters and constructing some semblance of internal consistency around it while sticking as close as possible to canon. Having never watched DB, I can't vouch for how well it succeeds at this last part, but it's been a very fun read so far.
u/SkyTroupe [+2] (a day later)
Excellent! Easily my favorite chapter so far! I love how you've set up future arcs and the implication that people can become stronger than the gods. Really looking forward to the next arc.
u/DaystarEld [+2] Pokémon Professor (3 days later)
Really enjoyed it! Looking forward to the next book, whenever it comes out.
u/MaddoScientisto [+1] (5 hours later)
The chapter is great but I'm sad it's Frieza and not Freezer
u/SimoneNonvelodico [+2] Dai-Gurren Brigade (5 hours later)
Sorry there :D. I wanted to go for the more unfamiliar reading, also because as you will have noticed I tried to avoid DBZ's flippant "everybody in the Universe speaks the same language" nonsense, so I had to worm that name in while making it realistically non-English.
u/MaddoScientisto [+2] (5 hours later)
At least it does make sense.
I expect jokes on the duality of the pronunciation of course