Fantastische Hure said:
Actually IIRC (maybe I'm remembering wrong), you used to say that Cell saga Gohan's personality seemed to make a 360 compared to before (I don't think so), because he was shown that he'd protect if need be but then you seem to critizise Future Gohan for doing exactly where you thought Cell-Games Gohan could have been.
I criticise Cell Game Gohan because his insistence on not fighting Cell stands in contrast to how he was in previous fights where he'd do what was necessary to protect what he values, making his change in character nothing short of a regression. Future Gohan does have that desire to fight for what he wishes to protect, but that mitigates the other character traits that make Gohan contrast with Goku as key qualities such as Gohan's resourcefulness in areas outside of battle (eg. his present self being smart enough to inform Trunks his views on time travel were wrong or bluffing his way out of Vegeta discovering his Dragon Radar on Namek) are lost due to his screentime in both the manga and TV Special being limited to scenes of fighting, training and eating as well as how blatant the cast are in pointing out how similar he's become to Goku.
Also unlike Goku he's self-less. I wonder how Goku'd have been under those circumstances with all of his friends dead, considering how he seemed angry at just one of his friends dying when Kuririn died for the first time. How'd he be in a situation where they all died and he was the only one left from the Z-Team.
It would also be a big disservice to Goku to say he isn't selfless. He can be selfish on some occasions such as his reasons for letting Vegeta live, but I'd say his selfless acts in the original manga outweigh his selfish acts. Aside from his reactions to both of Kuririn's deaths, he doesn't really do anything that could be classed as wholly selfish, and even those are more irrational than selfish due to being fuelled by emotion and were for the sake of another. Compare that to the list of his selfless acts:
- Helping out Umigame despite Bulma's complaints and expecting nothing in return.
- Accepting all the responsibility of saving Suno's village when not expecting the Dragon Ball to be there, forgoing his own desire to find the Four Star Ball. Even more so than that, later abandoning his quest in order to revive Bora (yes, he did get the Four Star Ball, but the chances of him catching it in time weren't 100% or something he seemed to plan).
- Sparing Piccolo so that Kami would live.
- Allowing Chichi to raise Gohan to study rather than have him tutored in martial arts at the start of the series, despite his desire for it.
- Not accepting Raditz's offer of 100 dead humans for Gohan, despite the latter being personally more important to him.
Goku has become incredibly angry at the loss of his friends several times, that's true, yet he also showed a more level-headed approach to such situations as time went on. Despite his rage against Nappa or Freeza he didn't kill them when they were helpless and later, he even held Gohan down when he was going to fly off to attempt to save Piccolo against Cell as he knew it was pointless.
We came close to seeing how a post-Namek Goku would react to something close to that scenario against Pure Boo. Only Vegeta, Dende and Satan survived and his reaction was to remain calm and assess the situation.
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