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| Smochi vs Copy_Ninja; Shenron vs Porunga | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jan 14 2013, 03:27 AM (1,026 Views) | |
| Copy_Ninja | Jan 14 2013, 03:27 AM Post #1 |
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As with every topic, only the two debaters can post in here. Our topic will be Which dragon is more useful overall if you could only have one?" Smochi will be arguing for Shenron, I'll argue for Porunga. As a side note, we decided to use the Dragons from the Namek Saga, so the limitations that existed for both Dragons at that time apply. I'll be making an edit to the OP with my opening argument, but I just wanted to get the topic made first. |
We'll never be those kids again
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| Krystal | Jan 14 2013, 03:49 AM Post #2 |
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Cooking Mama
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Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Good Luck! |
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| Copy_Ninja | Jan 14 2013, 04:15 AM Post #3 |
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Posting here instead so the thread gets bumped and Smochi can see it: So then, let's start with the basic advantages Porunga has over Shenron. 1. No limit on revival Now, as we all know, Shenron may only revive a single person once in their life and that's it, if you die again then you're staying dead. However, Porunga has no such limitation. As was said in the series, he can revive someone as many times as is necessary, and he demonstrated this by reviving both Krillin and Chiatzou, both of whom had previously been revived by Shenron. Now, in a universe with so many high powered beings and on a planet that tends to have many "fate of the world" battles, this seems to be a rather big limitation. If the heroes cannot be brought back again, and with every relevant hero dying at least once in the series, it would surely only be inevitable that they'd be whittled down until there's no one left to protect the planet. 2. The case of the Namekian Year As shown on this page in Ch 329, the Namekian Year is only 130 days ![]() The argument I'm making here is rather straightforward then: Porunga can be summoned more often than Shenron can. Once Shenron has made a wish, he's unavailable for an entire year, meaning that if another crisis were to happen, it's a long time before he can help. This issue is less so for Porunga. 3. Porunga grants 3 wishes at a time Another simple argument is that Porunga can grant three wishes at a time, as opposed to Shenron who can grant only the one. So, in a situation where you are required to make more than one wish, Shenron is going to force you to wait a year, while Porunga can give you three at once. 4. Porunga requires the Namekian Language Now, I know this may seem like a bad thing, that Porunga requires a Namekian to, at the very least, give a password to release him. After all, it put the guys in a bind on Namek. However, I see this as an advantage. Shenron can be summoned by anyone and twice in the series he's been successfully summoned by villains (Pilaf and Piccolo Damaio). This makes him liable to be abused and used for the wrong reasons, such as to further a villains goals. Porunga however, doesn't have as big of a problem. Because, in the event that a villain does manage to gather the Dragon Balls, they're worthless without the password and the ability to speak Namekian. This means that you have to have a Namekian on your side to help you which, given the attitude of the Namekians we saw in the series save Piccolo, is going to be very unlikely if you are a villain. This means that, in terms of usefulness, Porunga is more useful because he also has more security to save him falling in to the wrong hands than Shenron. That's what I have to start with, I'll wait for Smochi's response. |
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| Krystal | Jan 14 2013, 07:05 AM Post #4 |
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Cooking Mama
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That's a really hard opening argument to top. RESPONSE: 1. Even though there is no limit on how many times a single person can be revived, the fact of the matter is that at most, three people can be revived every 130 days. In a situation where a villian has killed all but one Z fighter ( or goodness forbid all of them) a person who found the dragon balls can only wish back three fighters. Now, Porunga is wonderful at a time of leisure. You could have the entire team back in just over one Earth year. But what happens in a case where we don't have leisure, and NEED all of the Z fighters if we want the world back at ALL? Shenron can bring all of the people killed by one person back to life in that one wish, and as a united front, our strongest warriors can overpower the threat. After defeating a threat, the Z fighters can focus on training and creating ways to better ensure they don't die a second unnatural death, but the possibility will still unfortunately be there. That's why it's important to train the kids like Gohan and Trunks, and create a new generation of powerful fighters! However, it is a much better chance than what we would have with Porunga. If a villian killed the majority of the Z fighters in a way where only three or four would be left AFTER he use of the Dragon balls, 130 days is ample time to kill them and then slaughter the powerless masses. tldr; The unlimited revivals, Namekian Year, and 3 wishes mean nuthin' if there isn't a living soul left to do the wishing. 2. You have mentioned that many people can see the use of the Namekian language as a bad thing, so I'm going to have to run with that. Do you have ANY idea how close the Z fighters were to not getting Piccolo and Goku back? Dende was practically the only Namekian left besides Guru. Had Dende died, Frieza would have defeated the fighters we had left quite easily. It would have eventually just been him and Guru. So, the Namekian Dragonballs may have very well been used by a villian anyway, or, would have died along with Guru when he refused and had no elder left to appoint. Either way, without the luck of Dende living, the language barrier could really prevent the balls from being too lasting. While that didn't happen last time, we can't be sure that it would NEVER happen. Even though the language barrier can protect then from being used for evil purposes, you gotta admit it also can prevent them from being used for good, so maybe the pros and cons cancel each other out. So right now, all I see is this; even though it's nice that Porunga can grant unlimited revivals for one person in theory, the reality is that in a situation where we don't have over a year to wish all of our strongest fighters back, we're doomed. |
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| Copy_Ninja | Jan 14 2013, 07:54 AM Post #5 |
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Novacane for the pain
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Frankly, 3 is enough when taking in to account the logic of the series. There's has always been a gap between the warriors, with the Saiyans and Piccolo at one end and then the humans as near enough irrelevant towards the bottom. Only the strongest three would have any chance of being of assistance anyway, if the others joined the battle they'd only be likely to get in the way or die again. Strength in numbers very rarely applies, reliance is almost always placed on the power of Goku/Gohan/insert relevant hero for arc. Also, if we're just looking at this generally, if a villain defeats ALL of the strongest hero's, when taking in to account the fact that a bunch of weaker people can't beat a much stronger person, then reviving them would only leave them to get killed again anyway (you don't get a powerup for being dead). This also doesn't negate the fact that, in numerous other scenario's, Porunga's shorter summoning time and extra wishes comes in to play. Also, this scenario can easily be flipped around to Shenron. What happens, after this villain is defeated, another one comes along (which is common for this series) and does the same thing again? Shenron is useless now because he can't bring anyone else back.
I have acknowledged that it can cause problems, but again you're sticking to a specialised circumstance rather than looking at the bigger picture. This weakness only applies in the extremely unlikely event that all save a few Namekians are slaughtered, in more ordinary circumstances where Porunga's assistance is required, there would at least be Namekians alive to summon him. Furthermore, in your example with Frieza, if Shenron had been the dragon, Frieza would have been able to summon him and been granted his wish of immortality and made the Dragon Balls useless regardless. AND the reason Dende helped the Z fighters and not Frieza is because they were obvious allies and Frieza was evil, again showing just how useful that little feature is (basically, while in some special circumstances it makes them harder to use for the heroes, it makes villain use close to impossible). Also, in the course of writing this, I've thought of another weakness of Shenron's. Piccolo and Kami With both sets of Dragon Balls, the balls become stone when the creator dies. For Porunga that's Guru and for Shenron it's Kami. However, Shenron will also disappear if Piccolo dies, meaning that there's more of a chance of the DB's turning to stone. What's worse is that Piccolo tends to fight on the front lines, putting himself in more danger. In contrast, Guru stays out of the way and has a powerful warrior in Nail protecting him at all times. The chances of Shenron being unusable are far greater than Porunga. |
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| Krystal | Jan 14 2013, 08:39 AM Post #6 |
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Cooking Mama
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If we want to go by DBZ logic, we may as well just say everyone would be screwed without BOTH dragons. XD Which in the end, is probably true. In many times, 3 weren't enough though, even if a select few got the final blows and glory. Without Piccolo, Krillin and Gohan would have been killed by Nappa. Without Gohan, Goku's attack couldn't bounce back to Vegeta. Without Yajirobe, Vegeta may have killed everyone. Android 16 awoke the rage in Giohan, Tien held off Cell, Mr. Satan tamed Buu... the whole series, while having Goku as a main character, is actually not about how strong he is and how he doesn't need anyone. It's about this amazing fighter, who, through the goodness of his heart and faith in mankind, can make even the most unlikely people decide to do good in the name of something bigger than themselves. I could never get into it, but I bet if we could look at every saga, we would see one tiny action, by one tiny character, that made all the difference. That's why it's important to have more than three fighters. Not just for their brute strength, but for their tenacity and minds. Also, Shenron cannot bring old Z fighters back, but I bet there are a few pure-hearted humans who are deserving of having powers bestowed upon them by Shenron! If Goku and company knew that their time on earth was limited to only one more death, they would find a way to make sure the world is cared for when they go, perhaps by choosing people to be powered up artificially. And yes, while even my argument has it's problems too, it does show how easy it is for the Dragonballs to be rendered useless through the need for Namekian. I think that it's not really a pro OR a con, just a technicality that is good or bad, depending on who is using them. If you and I were namekians, this would be easy, but the universe is so, so vast in the Dragon Ball franchise, so I'm trying to think of the good for everyone, since this is a general debate. Since the debate is strictly about the namek saga dragons, would it be fair to bring up in the namek saga, Guru was on his death bed and Nail was gone battling Frieza (so technically Nail is at the front lines too) who whipped him? Even Nail, who had a power level of 42,000, was astonished at Piccolo's power. We don't see everything going on at Namek; Nail COULD be as reckless as Piccolo when it comes to going to battle. What we do know is that Piccolo is probably stronger, so he has his own defenses. |
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| Copy_Ninja | Jan 14 2013, 08:55 AM Post #7 |
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Most of your argument is getting bogged down in specific scenario's though, namely an unlikely situation where there needs to be a mass revival of the heroes so everyone can gang up to rush and fight a villain (which never happened in the series), which yes Shenron would be more suitable for (although I will still maintain that, in the majority of situations like that, 4 would be enough). However, in more general usage he's very limited. What about a situation where they need multiple wishes (say they need to resurrect people and create a new planet for a big population)? What if the strongest warrior has already been resurrected once before? What if the villains get to the Dragon Balls first? Also, about the earlier point. It wasn't so much about relative power levels, but the fact that, with an extra person whose death could see the end of the Dragon Balls, they are left more vulnerable to turning to stone. |
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| Krystal | Jan 14 2013, 09:02 AM Post #8 |
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Cooking Mama
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Well we're asking which was more useful if we only had one, and we're using namek saga dragons. Are we assuming that this will be a made up world with more, less or the same danger? To be honest, I really think the world wouldn't exist right now in Toriyamaland without the both of them, since on their own, they both have HUGE flaws. So by useful, I'm seeing this as arguing which dragon would help earth hold out the longest before it ultimately fizzled? Because after the Namek saga, we really do need them both. |
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| Copy_Ninja | Jan 14 2013, 09:11 AM Post #9 |
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That's all true, I'm just pointing out that, in Toriyama's world, there's multiple reasons the Dragon Balls need to be used and the Dragon that can adapt better to the needs of the world is the more useful Dragon. I'm arguing that, while Shenron is slightly more useful in that one scenario, Porunga is more versatile and is more useful in multiple others that I mentioned and more useful over all. |
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| Krystal | Jan 14 2013, 07:39 PM Post #10 |
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Cooking Mama
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But, would Porunga allow the world to last long enough for those multiple scenarios to come to fruition? |
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| Copy_Ninja | Jan 15 2013, 04:29 AM Post #11 |
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Why wouldn't he? Unless you're assuming that your scenario is bound to happen before there's a chance for the other ones to. Besides, you have to wonder how useful reviving them would be anyway if this villain was able to kill all of them the first time around anyway, especially when regarding the usual One strong person>> multiple weaker persons rule DB lives off. At the end of the day, what we've established is Shenron's Advantages Multiple Revivals in one wish Porunga's Advantages Multiple Wishes at once No limit on number of revivals Shorter span between wishes Has only one person whose death turns DB's to stone rather than two Namekian Language prevents improper usage (I'm willing to accept this could be cancelled about by a downside though). Anyway, we seem to be going in circles here now, I think we've probably both exhausted our arguments at this point. Unless you have anything else to add, do you want to just call it here? |
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| + Kyouks | Jan 16 2013, 10:58 PM Post #12 |
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Seeing as how it's been 2 days, we might as well close this. Great debate you two. |
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