- Joined
- Nov 11, 2023
- Messages
- 1,761
If they are given military orders from birth that they need to follow, isn't that some sort of brainwashing going on? Was it ever talked about in how that would work?
Are Saiyans really bad?
- Thread starter Power Level Guy
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2014
- Messages
- 66,933
- Age
- 28
They definitely have a savage nature. Goku was said to be uncontrollable before he hit his head. But that could still be an evolutionary effect from being forced into this type of slavery for so long. So it's hard to say if they are inherently evil or if they have been forced to evolve this way.
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2023
- Messages
- 1,761
How do the forced orders work? Hypnosis?
- Joined
- Apr 2, 2017
- Messages
- 11,396
- Age
- 7
Saiyan's deserved extinction. Death to all Saiyans
- Joined
- Oct 12, 2014
- Messages
- 66,933
- Age
- 28
It might not be forced actually. It seems like they send their young away and count on them to destroy the world as soon as they see a full moon.
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2023
- Messages
- 1,761
How do the retain their orders though? And yeah, Raditz implies that a natural conflict will occur for Saiyans transforming on a planet they are inhabiting no doubt.
But these orders and how bumping your head wipes the memory clean is interesting.
- Joined
- May 30, 2015
- Messages
- 1,331
- Age
- 28
Definitely a cultural thing... after overthrowing the Tuffles, the Saiyans realized they had great potential for invading planets and that's how Freeza discovered them.
It's their nature, the same way it's in lion's nature to eat zebras and you can't call a lion evil for that. Goku is an exception because he hit his head.
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2023
- Messages
- 1,761
The lion isn’t given orders to conquer and kill. How do we know it’s not the programming?
Gohan, Goten, and Trunks are not like this. Perhaps it’s the programming.
- Joined
- Nov 2, 2024
- Messages
- 152
Its Genetic
They are genetically born as a warrior and savage race.
They are genetically born as a warrior and savage race.
Not full Saiyans.
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2015
- Messages
- 11,563
- Age
- 31
They undoubtedly enjoy causing suffering. Nappa and Vegeta made that clear with how they enjoyed making the Earthlings, Cui and Dodoria suffer.
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2023
- Messages
- 1,761
Full Saiyans are more barbaric? If the hybrids had programming, how would they be?
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2023
- Messages
- 1,761
How much is the programming and lifestyle. There are many humans who enjoy making people suffer
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2023
- Messages
- 746
- Age
- 125
Because Toriyama retconned Gokuu's family to be good in Minus. Burdack was an asshole who killed people with no hesitation in the TV special and Toriyama included a scene from it in the original manga, so it was canon. Then, Minus retconned Burdack to be a family man and DBS's manga took it a step further by having him save Granola.
Saiyans were a race of mostly savages in the original manga. And this is still true in DBS; Gine was just an outlier and Burdack was retconned to be one as well.
Last edited:
- Joined
- Jun 4, 2015
- Messages
- 11,563
- Age
- 31
Is consciously enjoying the suffering of others, including innocent people, not morally bad? It's immoral action and thought, regardless of origin. The person is not bad naturally or fundamentally bad, but it is still bad. Cruelty that comes from societal conditioning or from others being cruel to you is still bad.
I was trying to juxtapose them with lions. Lions do not know the depth of suffering they cause. They know fear, but not the full depth of human emotion. They also don't try to maximise fear or take pleasure in causing the suffering. Saiyans often do know the depth of emotion to a large degree and do try to maximise the fear at times and take pleasure in it. Vegeta took pleasure in his betrayal of Nappa.
As for whether it's nurture or nature, it's hard to know with such a small sample and poor knowledge of saiyan history to know how the violent and cruel culture arose, but it's probably both, just as behaviour is for humans (along with human thought), primates and other mammals. If it's true for other mammals, it's likely true for saiyans. Plus Vegeta and Goku had a huge deviation from the saiyan norms when their environment changed, so environment, parenting and cultural conditioning has to play a part. Now when comparing them to humans, are they genetically predisposed to being crueler? Just as some humans are more predisposed to mental "illnesses" than others (diathesis-stress model), all saiyans could be more predisposed to lower empathy (I mean affective empathy), which is often the basis of compassion (or maybe always is?). This could mean that saiyans more easily become low in empathy in response to environmental stimuli, compared to humans. It could also mean they require more empathy-promoting stimuli in order to have compassion for others, compared to humans. This genetic predisposition could have been generated by the saiyan history of war. The saiyans who were more likely to reproduce were those who easily became less empathetic, as this allowed them to kill the enemy more ruthlessly and without doubts, and without resultant distress caused by feelings of immorality. There are also could have been epigenetic changes in the mother or hormonal disruption in the womb, due to the war environment, causing changes to in utero brain development. Maybe this could include predisposition to less emotion, less affective empathy (since this empathy is a type of emotion) and predisposition to a fight response, which itself hinders empathy in the moment (though I'd expect to sometimes see regret afterwards, as it's a temporary hindrance. Though, the hindrance could be enough and so frequent that they never notice the pain being caused, as they've never paid attention and if they've never felt the pain themselves they might not imagine it as a possibility for others). But I don't know how we can know. I think it's likely to have occurred, since there are those evolutionary pressures from generations of war and it's started to be believed that traumatic stress or mental illness can sometimes be passed on, due to epigenetic changes (just as famine-caused adaptations have been shown to be passed on to at minimum the children of those who were in the womb during the famine, in the case of the 1960 famine of China).
I was trying to juxtapose them with lions. Lions do not know the depth of suffering they cause. They know fear, but not the full depth of human emotion. They also don't try to maximise fear or take pleasure in causing the suffering. Saiyans often do know the depth of emotion to a large degree and do try to maximise the fear at times and take pleasure in it. Vegeta took pleasure in his betrayal of Nappa.
As for whether it's nurture or nature, it's hard to know with such a small sample and poor knowledge of saiyan history to know how the violent and cruel culture arose, but it's probably both, just as behaviour is for humans (along with human thought), primates and other mammals. If it's true for other mammals, it's likely true for saiyans. Plus Vegeta and Goku had a huge deviation from the saiyan norms when their environment changed, so environment, parenting and cultural conditioning has to play a part. Now when comparing them to humans, are they genetically predisposed to being crueler? Just as some humans are more predisposed to mental "illnesses" than others (diathesis-stress model), all saiyans could be more predisposed to lower empathy (I mean affective empathy), which is often the basis of compassion (or maybe always is?). This could mean that saiyans more easily become low in empathy in response to environmental stimuli, compared to humans. It could also mean they require more empathy-promoting stimuli in order to have compassion for others, compared to humans. This genetic predisposition could have been generated by the saiyan history of war. The saiyans who were more likely to reproduce were those who easily became less empathetic, as this allowed them to kill the enemy more ruthlessly and without doubts, and without resultant distress caused by feelings of immorality. There are also could have been epigenetic changes in the mother or hormonal disruption in the womb, due to the war environment, causing changes to in utero brain development. Maybe this could include predisposition to less emotion, less affective empathy (since this empathy is a type of emotion) and predisposition to a fight response, which itself hinders empathy in the moment (though I'd expect to sometimes see regret afterwards, as it's a temporary hindrance. Though, the hindrance could be enough and so frequent that they never notice the pain being caused, as they've never paid attention and if they've never felt the pain themselves they might not imagine it as a possibility for others). But I don't know how we can know. I think it's likely to have occurred, since there are those evolutionary pressures from generations of war and it's started to be believed that traumatic stress or mental illness can sometimes be passed on, due to epigenetic changes (just as famine-caused adaptations have been shown to be passed on to at minimum the children of those who were in the womb during the famine, in the case of the 1960 famine of China).
- Joined
- May 30, 2015
- Messages
- 1,331
- Age
- 28
Bardock wasn't a good guy either. He had no qualms joining along in the Saiyan missions, but he didn't seem to enjoy them like the other Saiyans so he wasn't evil either. Basically it was just a job to him.
- Joined
- May 30, 2015
- Messages
- 1,331
- Age
- 28
The Saiyan pod was literally sending him messages to destroy Earth, hinting this type of lifestyle is instilled into them during a very young age.
This points to Saiyans being evil due to their culture and environment, rather than by nature.
- Joined
- Mar 26, 2017
- Messages
- 15,316
- Age
- 22
In the Granolah Saga Bardock went out of his way to save Granolah and his mom after slaughtering their whole race. He didn’t just avoid killing them but almost got himself killed for them.
Free Ukraine 