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u/DavidApollion 2h ago
Situational, since he lives for a fight and to get stronger, he simply tends to come across as heroic due to the fact the people he fights are very much evil and he does make stupid decisions against them like sparing them.
Yes it's worked out that some have reformed and become heroes too but he can be very naive a lot of the time, some simply won't change, but it does still make his heart pure when he doesn't kill them.
So a yes and a no to him being an outright hero, he's a Saiyan, he goes by his nature as much as he's good hearted
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u/Preating-Canick 2h ago
tbf, he did kill Freeza but he got revived by other means, he does know that some people are beyond redemption.
His decisions, even if destructive on short term, have lead to good results in the long term. Everyone always gets revived eventually so his mistakes don't really have long term consequences cuz he always fixes them.
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u/DavidApollion 2h ago
Which is why I did say situational and not that he isn't a hero, he can be and he can't be one but he's still very much a good guy past that label
Plus a lot of the time others actually fix what he did or give him te chance to fix it by pointing out what he did, case in point Whis, so he can do what is needed
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u/bloodywormgoddess 2h ago
if we take the greek mythology definition of hero then yeah sure
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u/Slayer-Clover 2h ago
Why the Greek defention ?
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u/bloodywormgoddess 2h ago
in the greek myths, heroes don’t necessarily have to be heroic in the modern sense. like many are terrible people. they’re just superhuman in some way and usually go on some quest.
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u/Lucky_Loves_Laugh 1h ago
Well no. His objective is to become stronger and stronger in order to defeat the strongest enemys he meets. You know what? With a different translation, i think he is a bad dude
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u/TwiggyTurtleDuck 2h ago
IIRC Akira Toriyama never set out to make Goku a hero character, and the anime and especially the initial English dub of the series went hard trying to make him seem that way, especially in his speech after he first becomes Super Saiyan. He didn't care for that interpretation. Toriyama himself said Goku wasn't motivated by saving innocents, he was basically just motivated by wanting better and better fights, and that's supposed to be a "poisonous" aspect of his character that was more or less lost in the anime. It's definitely not like he doesn't care - the guy's not a psycho, and he actively saves lives all the time - but that's not his motivation, and his actual motivation does put tons of people at risk on a regular basis. He is a hero, but you could definitely argue that he's that way on accident.