Forum - View topicBest Hero/Heroine Tournament: Finished!
|
Goto page Previous Next |
| Author | Message | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
|||||||
And yet, Dende's Dragonballs could revive people an indefinite amount of times.
No, spoiler[Goku fused with Vegeta to take on Super Buu, and then fought alongside Vegeta against Kid Buu. Goku could have defeated Majin Buu, and he even states late in the series that he could have - and should have - taken out Majin Buu when he had the chance. But he was too up himself, giving away the near-certain chance of defeating Majin Buu himself just so that Gotenks could have a less-than-50% chance to defeat Super Buu.] Not the smartest thing Goku did, and not the most heroic. The lives of the people of Earth shouldn't be toyed with, Dragonballs or not. NEVER state incorrect facts about Dragonball Z where a DBZ freak can hear you . . . . . . |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
_Earthwyrm_
|
|
|||||||
Okay, fair enough, but I thought that was just a plot inconsistency - given that it wasn't mentioned or evidenced until after both of Goku's death(s)? I'll admit that I've only, so far, seen up until the end of the cell games saga - and I think that what I said was true up until that point. |
||||||||
Mad_Scientist
 SubscriberModerator  Posts: 3013 |
|
|||||||
|
Gewürtztraminer, your post got messed up and only one selection is shown right now. Hopefully you'll read this before the vote deadline so you can fix it.
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
mow123
 Posts: 339 |
|
|||||||
|
Group A-25
Hakuoro, Utawarerumono vs. Kenshin Himura, Ruroni Kenshin franchise Kenshin Not a particularly difficult choice for me. Both characters are admirable, but their motivations are what sets them apart. Kenshin is also defined by his choice to pursue a path to salvation, and I can also see Kenshin as one of the top contenders for this entire tournament. Group A-26 Dr. Kenzou Tenma, Monster vs. Clare, Claymore Clare [Some vague Monster spoilers scattered throughout my reasoning] Very tough choice. Tenma is altruistic and caring, but he fails spoiler[in accomplishing his main objective, killing Johan even when this objective is easily within his grasp at the end of the series. ] While I don't agree entirely that Tenma is trying to "keep his hands clean", there are certain aspects of his personality and character that prevent him from manning up to be a hero of truly epic proportions, such as Simon, Kamina or Kenshin. Tenma is not without his merits; he is deeply compassionate and he values each human life equally, however he ultimately fails to make the best decision in the very end. And I hate to say it, but every time an obstacle comes between him and his end goal, you can tell that Tenma is a little too relieved that he didn't have do a certain something, spoiler[ kill someone ]. Tenma remains conflicted not only on the issue of Johan, but on the issue of is it right to shoot anyone no matter how evil they are or if they happen to threaten your own life. There's a difference between valuing human life, and valuing it to the degree that everything is precious that it compromises common sense. Tenma is burdened by guilt to such a severe degree even when much of that guilt is unnecessarily carried. The result is an aloof hero that lacks the courage and self-confidence that's needed for my idea of an ideal hero. And one more thing, perseverance only counts when it translates into results in the end, and Tenma is perfect example of this gone awry. Clare is no pushover either, her merits have been severely underestimated due to the fact that her motivations are easily misinterpreted. I doubt that she has what it takes to beat Kenshin, but that's a entirely different point in itself. Group A-27 Goku, Dragonball franchise vs. Hikaru Shidou, Magic Knight Rayearth Goku I don't know much about either of these characters, but from the clips and comments Goku seems to have the edge. Group A-28 Shu Maritani, Now and Then, Here and There vs. Usagi Tsukino (aka Sailor Moon), Sailor Moon Shu Not familiar with either contender. From what I have heard, Shu is put in a difficult position and has to put up with a bunch hardships, and that has to count for something. EDIT: Edited to fix some typos and to fix some of the errors pointed out in my criticisms of Dr. Tenma. The only parts edited can still be found in their original form quoted by arachneia. Last edited by mow123 on Sun May 24, 2009 8:52 am; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||
|
||||||||
arachneia
 Posts: 415 Location: On the wings of Bob Lennon |
|
|||||||
I don't really think that's a fair assessment. Say what you will about his indecision regarding Johann, but he does save the Turkish district, the people at library, the people at that illegal clinic, Ruhenheim spoiler[ - as much as he can - ], and many, many people including Dieter, Nina, and Reichwein - and not only through his skill as a doctor, but as a fighter.
I also disagree with this. While Tenma holds on to his ideology with a death-like grip, he doesn't exactly go about showcasing that he's an inexorable pacifist. Even though he's never actually killed anyone, he nonetheless manages to convince a good deal of people that he is capable of murder and extreme violence. I think that, in light of how the show ended, people tend to forget how much of it Tenma spends with a gun pointed at other people (or with a ballpoint pen pointed at their arteries), but he unarguably mans up from a pushover doctor to someone on whose bad side you really don't want to be on, peaceful ideology aside. I mean, the guy walks into a Neo-Nazi bar and comes out unscathed and with all the information he needs - that takes a lot more than simple determination and goodness. I'll also point out that he does shoot Roberto and Christoff, so yes, he's learned his lesson. The thing with Tenma is that he is a hugely dynamic characters, and much of the criticism that one would direct at him is part of his development. He realizes that he is too pacifistic, and he changes; he realizes that he erred in letting his bosses walk all over him and changes; he realizes that the way Eva treated him was inexcusable and changes. As the show progresses, he sheds as much of his imperfections as he is able to without losing his basic humanity, and that, in essence, is why I find him to be such a great character. * I don't mean to obsessively jump at any criticism of Tenma; I just really enjoy dissecting and debating his character 
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
Aylinn
 Posts: 1684 |
|
|||||||
dtm42 already explained it that this show is inconsistent and Goku has 'revolving door' whereas one of the rules Clamp established over the years in their works is the impossibility to bring back the dead, so I believe my opinion that Hikaru's situation demands greater heroism doesn't need to be re-evaluated 
|
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Key
Moderator
 Posts: 18432 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||||||
If you're going to use the "Goku could always be brought back with the Dragonballs = a comparative negative for him" argument, though, then why did he make a very specific effort to try to insure that the Earth would have heroes who could fight the biggest villains when he was no longer around? (This point, BTW, I offer as a further plus in his favor, as it shows him seeking to promote ongoing heroism beyond his own.) If he had the expectation that he could always come back from the dead, why would he have bothered? If he could always be brought back, then how did the dystopian future that the older Trunks came from (i.e. one in which Goku was permanently dead and was partly brought about because he was dead) happen? I'll grant you that the DBZ universe is rather inconsistent on this point, but I cannot remember a case in the series where Goku went into a climactic battle with the assumption that he would be brought back to life if he died. (dtm42 can correct me on this if I'm wrong.) |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Aylinn
Posts: 1684 |
|
|||||||
I didn’t say that he has the expectation of coming back from the dead, what I wanted to say that the fact he could be brought back from the dead makes the situation he is in not as difficult for him to face as it would be if such a possibility was totally out of question. He may not expect that his friends will bring him back from the dead, but he must know that such a possibility exists. He knows (after he died for the first time) that afterlife exists and therefore he doesn’t need to fear that if he dies he cease to exist.
Yes, the fact he takes care that Earth’s future is a plus, but the same goes for Hikaru. She spoiler[has changed the Cephiro’s system] at the end of second series and this ensures that one person would not need to sacrifice personal happiness for other’s sake. (Emeraude spoiler[who was the Pillar of Cephiro had to die in order to be together with the person she loved, Zagato).] Moreover, thanks to that Hikaru spoiler[has transformed the Cephiro’s system;] it makes the people living on Cephiro independent from one person who if changed her or his mind would have destroyed Cephiro. Besides, if for some time there was no Pillar, Cephiro was in a bad condition.
As you said the story is inconsistent on this point. I don’t know why no one used the Earth's Dragon Balls or Namek’s Dragon Balls 
--------------------------------------- On side issue I have just watched the Goku’s clip for a second time and something struck me.
Some people made an argument against Tenma that he is not a great hero because spoiler[he fails to kill Johan.] If so, the same argument should apply to Goku as he allows Vegeta, who would destroy the earth, to live. Why is it heroic for Goku to spare a bad guy’s life, yet the same action is hold against Tenma? |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Key
Moderator
Posts: 18432 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||||||
But do we even know what Hikaru's situation is on her beliefs? Does her series ever make it clear that she thinks nothing comes after, or that it does? Without knowing that for certain, this is a difficult comparison to accurately make.
So, in other words, these two are pretty much a wash on this point.
Because there's one key difference here: Vegeta ultimately reforms. Even though he does regress at one point, he does, on some later occasions, act in genuinely heroic fashion himself and sometimes actually show concern for the well-being of others. Goku saw something in Vegeta that could be saved, while as I understand it Tenma either ultimately chickened out or else decided that his principles were more important than pragmatism. (Not that the latter is necessarily a Bad Thing.) |
||||||||
|
||||||||
sandpuck
 Posts: 22 |
|
|||||||
|
Group A-25
Hakuoro, Utawarerumono vs. Kenshin Himura, Ruroni Kenshin franchise Kenshin. Because of his self-awarness that allows him to be his present self despite his past. Group A-26 Dr. Kenzou Tenma, Monster vs. Clare, Claymore Tenma. I had to stop watching Monster after the second episode but Tenma seems to be great example of what heroism in real life should be like, sticking with his morals even though doing otherwise would only make his life easier. Group A-27 Goku, Dragonball franchise vs. Hikaru Shidou, Magic Knight Rayearth Goku. I’m familiar with neighter Goku or Hikaru. And I don’t really like the hero/character types they represent. And they both chose to protect something they didn't really have to care about. But Goku did it on larger range. Group A-28 Shu Maritani, Now and Then, Here and There vs. Usagi Tsukino (aka Sailor Moon), Sailor Moon Shu. Because Usagi is given everything she needs to be a heroine: magical powers, team of friends, mysterious saviour and even spoiler[the past that explains her current situation and the bright future to look forward]. Shu has only his personal beliefs and principles to keep him going in the hostil and unfamiliar world. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Mad_Scientist
Subscriber Moderator Posts: 3013 |
|
|||||||
Actually, did Goku really see something in Vegeta? The reasons he gave in that clip were things like "let's not lower ourselves to his level" and "I respect his strength." I've never seen DBZ, so I can't say either way, but is it possible that we are just looking back with hindsight and seeing reasons for Goku's actions that didn't actually exist at the time? Is it possible that Goku actually didn't think that there was a chance of Vegeta reforming? If Goku didn't think that Vegeta could be reformed and spared him anyways, then the fact that Vegeta later was reformed doesn't matter: Goku just got lucky. But perhaps I'm wrong about this, and perhaps in other scenes Goku indicated that the possibily of Vegeta changing was also one of the reasons he wanted him left alive. But anyways, regarding Tenma, I feel that Tenma's reluctance to kill Johan has been misrepresented a lot, so I feel the need to add some clarity to this. People have referenced things such as Tenma "repeatibly failing to kill Johan" and his "constant reluctance to do the necessary thing." But this is not the case at all. spoiler[Assuming I'm not horribly misremembering things, Tenma did indeed intend to kill Johan, if need be. While searching for Johan and attempting to learn more about him, Tenma still made efforts to try and convince the authorities of the truth, of course, but as these efforts always failed, Tenma was prepared to deal with Johan himself. This is made perfectly clear at a certain point, when Tenma finally locates Johan. The thing is, before the very end of the series, Tenma only has a single chance to kill Johan. His so-called "constant failure" involves a single, very short, incident. And I don't think you can hold this incident against him very much, for reasons I get into below. You may have seen this moment from one of the past tournament video clips. Tenma ends up confronting Johan in a burning library. Johan is unarmed at the time, and Tenma has a pistol. Johan smiles at Tenma in his creepy way, and points at his foward, indicating where Tenma should shoot, the same way Johan did for his sister so long ago. And Tenma doesn't shoot him. Now, consider Tenma and his character for a moment. He is a man who dedicated his life to saving others, a doctor who has sworn to do no harm. He is a man who, in one situation, finds himself risking his life to save a terrorist. A man who's very being is defined by saving others, who holds the conviction that all human life has value and is worth saving. And he finds himself faced with being an executioner, faced with shooting an unarmed man in cold blood. Sure, Johan was a horrible person, but even so, to kill him in that situation would in some ways be a betrayel of Tenma's deeply held convictions and beliefs. This problem was something Tenma struggled with even as he planned to kill Johan, and faced with the difficulty head on, he found his convictions on the value of human life to perhaps be stronger than he realized before. And so, he doesn't shoot, and the moment where he can kill Johan passes. He never got another chance till the very end of the series, and that time, the choice was taken out of his hands by a certain event. I know some people don't like this part of the end of the series, that in the end Tenma was saved from having to make the dreadful choice and Johan was stopped anyways, but that potential criticism of the series doesn't really relate to Tenma as a character or this argument against him. The fact is, Tenma was only shown to have failed to kill Johan in a single, very brief incident. If people want to use that incident to argue that Tenma is "unheroic", well, you can try I guess. I find it impossible to hold that against Tenma too much, but others might. But people should at least understand it's not some pattern of events that repeated itself over and over again. It was a single moment where Tenma discovered he couldn't bring himself to become an executioner.] |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
dtm42
Posts: 14084 Location: currently stalking my waifu |
|
|||||||
|
Regarding Goku sparing Vegeta, Mad_Scientist is right that Goku's reason was to avoid sinking to that level and to give him a second chance, not because Goku actually saw something special in Vegeta. It was just a general policy of his to try and spare his enemies.
Which of course resulted in many, many deaths and injuries (or the potential for such) along the way, conveniently fixed by the Dragonballs of course: --- spoiler[Raditz was spared even though a half-wit would have seen through his lies. Luckily Piccolo could regenerate - any other person besides Tien would have lost the arm permanently.] --- spoiler[Nappa almost kills Gohan and Krillin when Goku spares him.] --- spoiler[Goku spares Ginyu, who swaps bodies with him. Goku then tells him the secret of his own power, allowing Ginyu to harm him and his friends. Which is really stupid, even for Goku.] --- spoiler[Then there was Frieza, who came back and would have done some serious damage if the plot hadn't decided that he was (finally) dead weight.] --- spoiler[Goku spared Dr. Gero (way back in Dragonball), who then goes on to create the Androids (who were really cyborgs), and of course Cell. Mirai Trunks even chastises Goku for his soft nature. What do Cell and the Androids do? All sorts of nasty things; blowing up a city and absorbing countless thousands of people. When the police let a criminal out on parole and they commit murder there is almost always a huge public outcry. Goku's indirectly responsible for countless deaths, and people forgive him just because he sacrifices his life to take out Cell? That won't bring all those people back from the dead, although the --- spoiler[And then there's Majin Buu and Super Buu. Goku gambles the lives of everyone on Earth in the hope that a new generation of warriors would step up. In the belief that the Earth must earn it's way from now on, nevermind the rights of the innocent people to be defended. As for Super Buu, Vegito could have killed him so easily. But Goku (as well as Vegeta) put the lives of his friends and family over the safety of the planet. And then, when they have the chance again to fuse, they refuse. They state that fighting and honour were more important to them than the fate of two universes. Those were some grave miscalculations, both tactically and morally.] --- As for Dragonball GT, the less said about it the better. So nice going there, Goku. Yes, it may help him to sleep easy at night knowing that he is good and pure and all, but if he wasn't the star of a show his good intentions would have gotten him and billions of others permanently killed long ago. Dragonball Z is a kid's show first and foremost, and expecting the plot - essentially a series of deux ex machinas - to make sense is naive. But still, Goku takes foolishness to a disturbing extreme.
You can argue that Goku had the right intentions and therefore is still a hero. But he simply did not have the best of intentions, and certainly had some pretty screwed up priorities. And the good intentions he did have just caused more suffering, over and over again. I voted against his inclusion into the tournament, and I still stand by that decision. I only voted for him in the past two rounds because I knew how people would view him, and so picked him in the Minigame. Now, I have no idea whom I will vote for. Ultimately though, he's no hero of mine. Last edited by dtm42 on Sun May 24, 2009 9:01 pm; edited 1 time in total |
||||||||
|
||||||||
|
Key
Moderator
Posts: 18432 Location: Indianapolis, IN (formerly Mimiho Valley) |
|
|||||||
Well, if it's any consolation, he won't be progressing past the next round if he wins this one. (But then, neither would Hikaru.) Shu will obliterate whoever survives A-27. The other expected fourth-round match, between Kenshin and Tenma, should be much closer, I think. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
Gewürtztraminer
 Posts: 1028 Location: Texas - Its like whole other country. |
|
|||||||
My votes for this round are in, that post was about an expected vote change (by me) after just finishing Utawarerumono not coming to pass. Dang good series, odd not to have heard much buzz about it. It is now in the rewatch queue. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
ccdx
 Posts: 312 |
|
|||||||
|
It's good to be back and voting again. Lets get to it.
Group A-25 Hakuoro, Utawarerumono vs. Kenshin Himura, Ruroni Kenshin franchise Never seen Utawareumono, but that quick glimpse of the opening episode was enough to impress me. I think Hakuoro shows that he is quite heroic and worthy to make it this far, and perhaps make a run for the finals. Unfortunately he has run into Kenshin. Kenshin proves time and time again that he is one of the great heros in all of Anime saving lives, atoning for past sins, and strongly believing in his rock solid ideals. I can't bring myself to vote against him... yet... Group A-26 Dr. Kenzou Tenma, Monster vs. Clare, Claymore I'm not very big on Clare. I just don't think she shows much heroic traits throughout the series. She certainly grows as a character from the bland personality she is originally presented with, but not enough. Having said that I'm not really the biggest fan with calling Tenma heroic either. He has a great heart and noble intentions, but doesn't quite measure up to some other greats in this tournament, good enough for now though. Group A-27 Goku, Dragonball franchise vs. Hikaru Shidou, Magic Knight Rayearth I'm reluctant as always to do this, but I'm voting for Goku. Both are way too cheesy to be taken truly seriously. But you can't deny the fact that Goku is a Earth saving machine. He gets the job done and done well.... every... single... episode... Group A-28 Shu Maritani, Now and Then, Here and There vs. Usagi Tsukino (aka Sailor Moon), Sailor Moon It's Sailor Moon... Shu nuff said. |
||||||||
|
||||||||
 |
All times are GMT - 5 Hours |
|
|
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group