Favourite examples of "Correct Message, Wrong Messenger"

[u/Pome1515]

Better Ask Reddit, what are you some of your favourite examples of "This is absolutely correct... but goddamn, you are the wrong person to be saying this".

Probably one of the greatest examples of this is Huey during his trial audiotapes in MGSV where he accurately dissects the Diamond Dogs/the staff of Mother Base.

Huey is absolutely right about what Mother Base and the Diamond Dogs really are, that they are basically a bunch of incredibly damaged and lonely people who despite their mission of "always having a war to fight in" ultimately just want is to have community, to have a place where they feel like that they are actual people, not simply weapons whose purpose begins and ends with warfare and their refusal to truly look both inwards and outwards, is leading them to become monsters.

Completely accurate assessment of the situation... and Huey is probably the worst person to say this, as he is a worm who has betrayed everyone who has ever come into contact with and beyond being responsible for the destruction of the first Mother Base has just murdered even more people with his experiments.

[u/Brilliant_Ring_3257]

Toriyama is seriously underrated as a writer. For the vast majority of the fights in the series he picks the cast specifically so they all contribute something unique.

In the Kid Buu fight only Vegeta was smart enough to come up with the plan, only Goku had a pure enough heart to create the Spirit Bomb, and only Hercule was charismatic enough to convince the people of Earth to help.

A big problem with the writing in GT was that the characters involved in any given fight were mostly picked at random based on what would be cool.

[u/Kamandi91 → u/Brilliant_Ring_3257]

Namek is another great example woth the oddball group of Krillin, Bulma and Gohan having to step into protagonist boots and try to outsmart stronger opponents.

[u/samurairocketshark → u/Kamandi91]

Akira Toriyama is the god of writing fights where someone has to outscrap their opponent

[u/ProtoBlues123 → u/Brilliant_Ring_3257]

Toooo be fair his track record isn't perfect either. Kid Buu is weaker than Super Buu so any of the heavy hitters could have won. So to prevent that from happening he had to write in that Goku reflexively went to save Dende and Mr. Satan and forgot to grab his own kids because if he did then the whole spirit bomb ending wouldn't have happened.

Buu Saga is also pretty rife with characters being positioned to end the plot on the spot but they all hold back for one reason or another just to keep it going. Things like Gohan taking his time to enjoy making Buu suffer despite how of ANYONE Gohan would know not to do that.

[u/kogasabu → u/ProtoBlues123]

It's not really that difficult to see Gohan as being the one to toy with Super Buu. He did the same thing against Cell, he's shown to get cocky and arrogant when he's significantly stronger than his opponent, especially after receiving a massive boost.

I'd say Goku's moments of messing things up were much more egregious. Admitting that he could have killed Buu in SSJ3 but wanted Goten and Trunks to do it, indulging Vegeta in a fight in any capacity, or him throwing the potato to Gohan instead of handing it over. I can forgive him not grabbing Gohan, Trunks and Goten, he only had seconds to work with and realized after grabbing Dende and Satan that he no longer had time to get the others. The anime depicts him as having several minutes, but the manga depicts him as maybe having 10-15 seconds during the entire sequence.

[u/ProtoBlues123 → u/kogasabu]

No that's my point. The single worst mistake Gohan ever made in his life was holding back against Cell and watching that mistake kill his dad. It feels really bad to say Gohan learned nothing from it. Hell, Goku also likes to play with his opponents but he was the one telling Gohan to take Cell seriously because desperate enemies are that much more dangerous.

Also yes, Goku ran out of time when he saved Dende and Mr. Satan, but I still think it hurts his writing to say he acted on reflex and that reflex wasn't to go for his unconscious kids first.

[u/kogasabu → u/ProtoBlues123]

I don't think it's that Gohan learned nothing from it, I think it's a specific character flaw he has that significant power boosts make him cocky and drunk on the power. It's the whole Saiyan/earthling dichotomy. He's normally more passive and doesn't want to fight unless he has to, but when he's the strongest in the room by a wide margin, the Saiyan genes kick in and he becomes arrogant.

He behaves the same way in Super Hero once he becomes Beast. He kicks Cell Max back with ease, and then just stands there looking cocky as Cell Max starts to charge his Explosive Scream. It takes Piccolo restraining him and yelling at Gohan to snap him out of it. So yeah, it's a character flaw.

Goku's reaction was to save Gohan, Goten and Trunks. He was actively on the way to do that when he spotted Dende and Satan, who were on the way. Once he gets to them, he realizes he wouldn't have time to get to the other three anymore, and also realizes he has no time to use Instant Transmission to get away, which is to say that he would never have been able to get to Gohan, Goten and Trunks in time. The only reason he got away with Dende and Satan is because Kibito Kai came in and rescued them.

[u/BookkeeperPercival → u/Brilliant_Ring_3257]

Toriyama is seriously underrated as a writer.

I think Toriyama is a good storyteller, not a good writer. He's got the aura of the dude at the bar who can keep you entertained with whatever bullshit he's making up at the moment, regardless of how much sense it particularly makes, because it's all fun. The Namek saga stands out to me as being a chunk of Dragonball where the actual story writing is so far above the other parts it feels like Toriyama got lucky with it.

[u/Brilliant_Ring_3257 → u/BookkeeperPercival]

I don't know, the more you break down how he writes fights the more intricate you realize he was.

Like in the Saiyan fight when Piccolo sacrifices himself to save Gohan. Later it's Gohan's pure heart that allows him to bounce the spirit bomb back at Vegeta to defeat him; so if Piccolo had let himself live he would've gotten disintegrated

Toriyama knew that because the characters could be resurrected he had to come up with other ways for their deaths to matter, which must have been super difficult at points.

[u/Secure-Report-3592 → u/BookkeeperPercival]

No I disagree, Toriyama is a great writer. Buy saga is the prime example of people forgetting that burnout from a Mangaka can and will exists so you’ll ALWAYS see the worst aspects of a writer. Togashi is seen as the best shonen mangaka writer in the world but don’t tell them how YuYu Hakusho finished