Dragon Ball Super

[The Troubadour]

Caillou(Pronounced Keye-Yoo) [...]

More like "Ky-Yoo", really. Tem Four Star got the pronunciation right here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pz7q5XiW87o.

[Callos_DeTerran]

Yes so.. so by this statement.. if he dont have a soul.. then all that he is.. is his body and memories. That means that if you bring them back, then you will also bring him back.

Its kinda weird, but for the Dragon all it can do is remake his body. There doesn't seem to be a way to retrieve his memories either by wish (implying memories are tied to the soul perhaps?) or technology (all of 16's bits were very likely annihilated during the fight with Cell) which means it would just be an empty shell that happens to resemble 16.

I really like it myself for the almost unique part about skills decaying if you dont train like mad to preserve them at their peak.

Though i actually also really enjoyed the bit about Gohan growing up, becomming a responsible adult and father. Instead of just figthing for the joy of being strong.

Yes to both of these. And people say Chichi ruined Gohan by giving him a future. XD

[lord_khaine]

Its kinda weird, but for the Dragon all it can do is remake his body. There doesn't seem to be a way to retrieve his memories either by wish (implying memories are tied to the soul perhaps?) or technology (all of 16's bits were very likely annihilated during the fight with Cell) which means it would just be an empty shell that happens to resemble 16.

It just does not make any sense, not even for Dragon Ball. I mean either there is a soul of 16 that the memories were lost resides in. Or else he is purely a computer that should be restorable the same that i recall the dragon has restored most other things. I mean has it not recreated a few cities and a planet at times? Why should a broken computer be any problem?

[Lemmy]

Its kinda weird, but for the Dragon all it can do is remake his body. There doesn't seem to be a way to retrieve his memories either by wish (implying memories are tied to the soul perhaps?) or technology (all of 16's bits were very likely annihilated during the fight with Cell) which means it would just be an empty shell that happens to resemble 16.

Krillin was exploded by Freeza and whatever remained of him exploded again with Namek... And yet, Shen Long had no problem remaking his body and resurrecting him. So there's no reason why he couldn't remake #16's body. And #16 was obviously capable of holding memories, so those could be restored as well.

[Kato]

Oh jolly good, I missed the 9000th power level discussion..

In regards to 16.. I guess one could make the argument in DB lore your soul is the essential part of a living being. Shenlong just needs to make a body that looks close enough to the original and put in the soul and done. 16 has no such thing. Shenlong would a) need to know what his saved memories and personality look like as data and b) be able to recreate them.
Admittedly, this doesn't seem like such a difficult feat either but slightly more complicated.
More likely... He's alive but nobody cares.

[Rater202]

You could make a new 16 body. You could fill it with saved memories from the original 16(Maybe Bulma backed them up when repairing him or something?) but it wouldnt be 16--everything after the backup would be gone.

They'd essentially be different individuals with a point of deviation being "after they were backed up."

[Lord Raziere]

It just does not make any sense, not even for Dragon Ball. I mean either there is a soul of 16 that the memories were lost resides in. Or else he is purely a computer that should be restorable the same that i recall the dragon has restored most other things. I mean has it not recreated a few cities and a planet at times? Why should a broken computer be any problem?

*shrug* I don't know either. Somehow Freeza counts as someone you can resurrect despite machine parts sticking out of him. Somehow Cell, who is arguably just as artificial in his creation, has organic components and thus appears in Hell and therefore has a soul. Somehow the Dragon can bring back an entire planet full of people yet cannot resurrect a single person twice. Somehow Nappa doesn't come back to life even through Vegeta killed him while technically working for Freeza.

There is an entire race of Metalmen according to Super, who are far more machine-like than Android 16, run on LAVA, yet have emotions. No confirmation on souls but one assumes so given that they're presented as some robot-like life form rather than an actual robot.

Somehow there is a robotic god of destruction, one assumes that would require some sort of spiritual component to be a deity and therefore a soul.

Arale is in the same universe, but also a gag character, she might have a soul for the purposes of comedic effect, who knows.

Robotoriyama, is a robot that is more robotic than Android 16 and is confirmed by word of god that he is more powerful than Zeno. Yet I doubt the author would screw his own avatar out of getting resurrected through such a rule.

So either you need organic components to have a soul for some reason and Nappa is a robot, the Metalmen all don't have souls, you don't need a soul to be a god of destruction and Arale is soulless. Or Android 16 does have a soul and for some reason the Dragon randomly lied about not being able to resurrect him for no reason, or there is a cosmic rule of the universe that says "Screw Android 16 in Particular."

Or because of Robotoriyama's existence, the rules of the universe are quite literally whatever Toribot writes in at the moment, and thus all the characters who think this is all serious and consistent are not as enlightened as the gag characters who realize that this whole universe is just a bunch of improvised surreal logic originally made for the purposes of comedy, and thus Arale has a clearer more accurate view of the universe of Dragon Ball and Dr. Slump than we do. But even that is not consistent given Beerus being able to destroy gag characters no problem.

Dragon Ball man, you look too deep into its rules and physics- or perhaps, the lack of them-, and you start wondering weird things. What if the real ultimate martial art of DB is figuring out that the world is an anime/manga and exploiting that to the fullest? Goku seems to run on shonen protagonist logic no matter how bad the situation gets. Maybe he Toriyama-Chim'd at some point and is now doing all this because he knows its a story and that it will all somehow give a good fight while turning out for the best anyways as long as he acts completely idiotic about it.

[Lemmy]

Yeah... I just don't buy the "if it doesn't have a soul, ti can't be restored" argument. If anything, that should make it easier to restore him. And Shen Long can remake entire buildings, cities and even planets! Why wouldn't he be able to recreate #16's body (including its memories) as it was at its last moment (when cell stomped on it).

The fact is that the Z-warriors (including #17 and #18) simply didn't care enough about the big guy.

[Rater202]

Yeah... I just don't buy the "if it doesn't have a soul, ti can't be restored" argument. If anything, that should make it easier to restore him. And Shen Long can remake entire buildings, cities and even planets! Why wouldn't he be able to recreate #16's body (including its memories) as it was at its last moment (when cell stomped on it).

The fact is that the Z-warriors (including #17 and #18) simply didn't care enough about the big guy.

Not having a soul means that it woulnd't be the same individual. It would be a brand new individual with 167's memories.

It's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one.

[Lemmy]

Not having a soul means that it woulnd't be the same individual. It would be a brand new individual with 167's memories.

It's a subtle distinction, but it's an important one.

The pieces would literally be brought back into existence, just like other people's bodies (it's explicitly stated that dead people's bodies are REMADE, not just replaced with a new version). Same goes for inanimate objects that are restored.

Besides, even if you're right... So what? The cells in your body right now aren't the same cells that composed your body 10 years ago. That doesn't mean you're a different person.

[Rater202]

The pieces would literally be brought back into existence, just like other people's bodies (it's explicitly stated that dead people's bodies are REMADE, not just replaced with a new version). Same goes for inanimate objects that are restored.

Besides, even if you're right... So what? The cells in your body right now aren't the same cells that composed your body 10 years ago. That doesn't mean you're a different person.

In Dragon Ball Logic, I'm the same person because I have a soul. No matter what happens, I've still got that same soul. In DB logic, the soul is what makes you who you are.

16 does not have a soul--he's just a body and memories, and once those are destroyed, he's gone for good. Rebuilding his body and restoring his memories doesn't bring back the android 16 the cast knew, it simply makes a new android 16 that is, for all intents and purposes, a new individual.

I've explained this, repeatedly. They didn't bring him back because there's nothing to bring back. The closest they could do is make a new robot that looks and acts like the 16 they knew.

[Lemmy]

I guess we'll have to agree to disagree.

[lord_khaine]

In Dragon Ball Logic, I'm the same person because I have a soul. No matter what happens, I've still got that same soul. In DB logic, the soul is what makes you who you are.

16 does not have a soul--he's just a body and memories, and once those are destroyed, he's gone for good. Rebuilding his body and restoring his memories doesn't bring back the android 16 the cast knew, it simply makes a new android 16 that is, for all intents and purposes, a new individual.

I've explained this, repeatedly. They didn't bring him back because there's nothing to bring back. The closest they could do is make a new robot that looks and acts like the 16 they knew.

But the explanation dont make sense. If we assume 16 dont have a soul, then all he is are his memories and program. That means that when you recreate them you recreate 16.

Its the same as saying ressurected Goku is just a identical Goku who looks and act the same as the dead one.

[Rater202]

But the explanation dont make sense. If we assume 16 dont have a soul, then all he is are his memories and program. That means that when you recreate them you recreate 16.

Its the same as saying ressurected Goku is just a identical Goku who looks and act the same as the dead one.

It makes perfect sense--In DB logic, you are not your body. You are your soul.

Goku has a soul, that soul is the core of Goku's being, so when he's brought back he's just given a new living body for his soul to inhabit, or the original body is fixed and poped back in, it depends on how you died.

16 does not have a soul, there's nothing to bring back, there's no person--just a machine that acts like a person. The closest thing to bringing back 16 that could be done would be to make a new android 16 and then give the new androd the old 16's memeories, but that wouldn't be brining back 16, it would be making a new robot think it's 16.

The "You are your memeories" thing only applies in a world where souls don't exist, and souls do exist in DB.

[Lord Raziere]

But the explanation dont make sense. If we assume 16 dont have a soul, then all he is are his memories and program. That means that when you recreate them you recreate 16.

Its the same as saying ressurected Goku is just a identical Goku who looks and act the same as the dead one.

We're getting into metaphysics. A "soul" in Dragon Ball is defined as this spirit thing that looks exactly like your body but with a halo over your head. The properties we know of:
-primarily dwells in the afterlife, the Spirit World
-has a Halo over their head, whether for good or for evil, to signify their dead status.
-at least one person can take a soul from the Spirit World and allow it walk among the living once again for a single day, however this seems to be a matter of energy- using up more energy shortens the time you have until you return to the afterlife.
-its implied that when your soul is destroyed your gone for good and not even the dragons can bring you back.
-no need to eat or breathe and so on.
-as an alternative to resurrection, a soul can reincarnate.
-afterlives seem to be considered apart of the Universes. Meaning if Zeno destroys the afterlives along with that- there is no coming back for those souls, not even with Dragon Balls. King Kai should be very worried.

Other than that, souls seem to work just like living beings. Theoretically one can just take Baba's method of temporary resurrection and engineer a way to consistently sustain a soul with whatever energy she uses on them to walk the living world once again, but that might be Against The Natural Order of Things or some nonsense like that. But then again the Dragon Balls are constantly used to go against that all the time, so who would care? But you'd lack the cushion of landing in the afterlife if you died again, so you might as well go for full rez.

So its all a question of whether Android 16 has a spirit-thing with a halo over his head. If he doesn't, then tough luck. Because in that case, Shenron might just be making a new body then putting your soul back in.

All I can see what the Dragon Ball wiki says is that he was presumably revived along with the rest of Cell's victims. and to be fair, I don't remember any specific source saying he was never brought back.

I've checked and well....it was actually just never confirmed. There is nothing saying he is alive, but nothing saying he is dead either. It was just left completely ambiguous without even an afterthought. I'd assume alive though, Launch and Android 17 are still alive, they just....don't appear all that much, so Android 16 is probably alive, just not being focused on at all. Toriyama likes him his robots and machines.

[Anteros]

We sure are arguing a lot on this thread lately. Who knew Dragonball was so controversial?

[Callos_DeTerran]

Somehow the Dragon can bring back an entire planet full of people yet cannot resurrect a single person twice. Somehow Nappa doesn't come back to life even through Vegeta killed him while technically working for Freeza.

Some of these have an answer at least..Nappa didn't come back because 'technically' doesn't work for Shen-Long and it isn't even accurate either. The Vegeta and Nappa came to earth to become immortal directly so they could rebel against Freeza, that alone meant they no longer worked for him.

As for the multi-rez thing, it probably has to do with the fact that it goes against the established rule of the dragon. It doesn't matter that bringing back an entire planet full of people is probably more difficult than bringing a person back more than once, it was part of Shenron's (or was it Shenlong that had this rule?) rules on his wishes that he cannot resurrect the same person more than once/twice so he cannot do it. For as much power as the dragons have, they were still bound by the rules imposed on them by their creation and how talented the dragon-maker was (I think that was a thing). Wondering why he can't would be like asking a genie why it can only grant three wishes.

...also, didn't they TRY to bring 16 back and the Dragon told them they couldn't? I would almost swear that I remember that.

[Rater202]

"Shenron" and "Shenlong" are the same dragon--"Shenlong, or She-Lung" comes from Chinese mythology. Dragon spirit controls the wind and rain, five claws making it an imperial dragon, yadda yadda stuff I'm glancing over. Name means either "Spirit Dragon" or "Dragon God"

The Eternal Dragon from DB is named after that figure--but instead of using the Japanese translation, Shinryu, they took the literal name.

However, in both Chinese and Japanese the "L" and "R" sounds are hard to distinguish, so pronounced it becomes "Shenrong"

And when Dragon Ball Z was translated into English, for whatever reason the dragon's name was romanized as "Shenron" instead of "Shenlong."

Kami's Shenron had a rule that it couldn't grant the same wish twice, even as part of another wish. This is why it couldn't bring the same person back twice.Porunga, the namek dragon, and Dende's Shenron do not have that rule, hence why they have multi-rez. Ultimate Shenron from GT and Super Shenron from Super, both being said to grant any wish, presumably do not have the "can't do the same wish twice" rule.

@Callos: Krillin tried to make 17 and 18 human again, and the dragon said that he couldn't do it, so he settled for removing their self-destruct features(Making them good in the first English dub)

[Lemmy]

As for the multi-rez thing, it probably has to do with the fact that it goes against the established rule of the dragon. It doesn't matter that bringing back an entire planet full of people is probably more difficult than bringing a person back more than once, it was part of Shenron's (or was it Shenlong that had this rule?) rules on his wishes that he cannot resurrect the same person more than once/twice so he cannot do it. For as much power as the dragons have, they were still bound by the rules imposed on them by their creation and how talented the dragon-maker was (I think that was a thing). Wondering why he can't would be like asking a genie why it can only grant three wishes.

IIRC, the actual rule is that you can't make the same wish twice... Which means you can't resurrect the same person twice.

[The Troubadour]

And Dende's Shenlong also suffers from that restriction.

[Rater202]

And Dende's Shenlong also suffers from that restriction.

No. They actually make a point of saying that Dende removed that restriction when the topic of bringing everyone back came up, since Goku had been wished back once. IIRC, it was mentioned that being able to bring back multiple people and bring back people more than once is why he was only able to have it grant two wishes despite being asked to make a three wisher when he first made the new dragon as well.

[Callos_DeTerran]

"Shenron" and "Shenlong" are the same dragon--"Shenlong, or She-Lung" comes from Chinese mythology. Dragon spirit controls the wind and rain, five claws making it an imperial dragon, yadda yadda stuff I'm glancing over. Name means either "Spirit Dragon" or "Dragon God"

The Eternal Dragon from DB is named after that figure--but instead of using the Japanese translation, Shinryu, they took the literal name.

However, in both Chinese and Japanese the "L" and "R" sounds are hard to distinguish, so pronounced it becomes "Shenrong"

And when Dragon Ball Z was translated into English, for whatever reason the dragon's name was romanized as "Shenron" instead of "Shenlong."

Kami's Shenron had a rule that it couldn't grant the same wish twice, even as part of another wish. This is why it couldn't bring the same person back twice.Porunga, the namek dragon, and Dende's Shenron do not have that rule, hence why they have multi-rez. Ultimate Shenron from GT and Super Shenron from Super, both being said to grant any wish, presumably do not have the "can't do the same wish twice" rule.

@Callos: Krillin tried to make 17 and 18 human again, and the dragon said that he couldn't do it, so he settled for removing their self-destruct features(Making them good in the first English dub)

Coulda swore that Kami's dragon was named Shenron and Dende's was Shenlong though...ah well, not too important.

[The Troubadour]

No. They actually make a point of saying that Dende removed that restriction when the topic of bringing everyone back came up, since Goku had been wished back once.

This is from right before they go fight Cell at the Cell Games: http://mangafox.me/manga/dragon_ball/v33/c200/10.html
And this is when they try to resurrect Goku after the fight with Cell: http://mangafox.me/manga/dragon_ball/v35/c223/13.html

[Rater202]

This is from right before they go fight Cell at the Cell Games: http://mangafox.me/manga/dragon_ball/v33/c200/10.html
And this is when they try to resurrect Goku after the fight with Cell: http://mangafox.me/manga/dragon_ball/v35/c223/13.html

They say "It's Licensed and unavailable."

[Anteros]

Pretty sure it's a regional thing.

[Lord Raziere]

@Callos: Krillin tried to make 17 and 18 human again, and the dragon said that he couldn't do it, so he settled for removing their self-destruct features(Making them good in the first English dub)

And 16 wasn't even mentioned, or explained. The explanation that he didn't come back because he is pure machine is pure fanon, conjured from the ether because we never got an explanation why we never saw Android 16 ever again. Much like how we didn't see Launch until a single little scene during the Kid Buu fight at the end.

Though it is kind of strange why Shenron can't make someone cyborg into pure human again. There is no explanation for that either, and is kind of weird why that would be true. On a conceptual level, it should be only as complex resurrection itself or healing someone to full. and he can pull either of those off fine. Are the dragons simply unable to interact with tech? No, tech still seems to work even after the planet is blown up and reconstructed. Is there something particular about cyborgs that give off some weird "no backsies" radiation, even the entire rest of the series is full of backsies?

Hm, maybe the Dragon can only do things that are theoretically possible to do without him? Like, what if Shenron is just a shortcut to do things that can already be done? and there is simply no way to remove the cyborg parts from 17 and 18 because they are so interwoven with their being that no person in the universe could possibly remove the nanorobotic (possibly even smaller given how advanced Dragon Ball tech is) involved, so Shenron can't do it either. Shenron can accomplish resurrection, planet rebuilding and so on because well.....these are things that you can theoretically with enough power and creativity, do as well:

-engineer Fortune Teller Baba's ability to bring back someone's soul then use Matter Materialization to conjure a body and put that soul in a body. Boom, you resurrected someone without needing Shenron
-Instant Transmission, no need for teleporting people around with the dragon like in Namek saga
-planetary rebuilding is just a very big and complex usage of matter materialization and is probably how the Kais makes new planets
-Dende's Healing technique, no need for a dragon to heal you
-Bulma can disarm the bombs, therefore Shenron can to
-under this theory it might be possible to obtain immortality without needing the Dragon Balls, though how is unclear, we know that one can at least obtain agelessness through searching for the fountain of youth.

and so on and so forth.

@ Callos: you'd be surprised. once you start thinking about it, Dragon Ball is full of surprising depth. For starters, once one realizes that a lot of the people in Dragon Ball have tons of power way beyond the average person yet are consistently irresponsible about using that power, one starts to get into a lot of discussions about how DB is a world of cardboard, how to best use the Dragon Balls, whats the risk vs. reward of having tons of humans who can go super-saiyan in the year 1000 and how does that affect society, and whether or not the gods are doing their jobs correctly, how so many people in Dragon Ball choose some short-term pleasure over long term gain, and how basically all the major fighters have the power of Superman but not the morality or responsibility of him, and how can you keep together a bunch of colorful characters capable of destroying planets when they start arguing with each other over drama and their issues and keep the proper perspective on that sort of thing. Because when fighters of these levels of power get angry at each other, there is a real risk them coming to blows and the planet being destroyed because of it.

Solving a powerful fighter's mommy issues is pretty much a matter of planetary life or death in DBZ. Because if you don't, and they melt down over it everything you know and love gets destroyed because of it? You will feel incredibly stupid for allowing your planet to blow up because one guy's mommy didn't love him when he was a child.

[Rater202]

My headcanon is that Shenron couldn't grant the wish because 17 and 18 are still fundamentally human--they never really stopped being human, they're just augmented humans.

[The Troubadour]

They say "It's Licensed and unavailable."

Gah. Ok, in the first one, Goku asks why does everybody look worried, and Kuririn tells him that while the dragon can now grant two wishes and resurrect lots of people at once, it can't resurrect someone more than once. In the second one, Shenlong specifically says Goku has already been brought back to life once, so Shenlong can't bring him back again.

[Delicious Taffy]

Nobody is explaining why they can't ask Shenron to fix their computer. He's brought back cities, and I'm going to take a wild guess and say that there were computers in those cities. Unless everyone starts over with a factory-settings machine every time they get genocided, I'm assuming Shenron went ahead and brought the computers back in their pre-exploded state. Why, exactly, is #16 any different? If you ask me, nobody's wording the wish properly, so Shenron might they're trying to resurrect a living being when all he gets is static.

[Lord Raziere]

Nobody is explaining why they can't ask Shenron to fix their computer. He's brought back cities, and I'm going to take a wild guess and say that there were computers in those cities. Unless everyone starts over with a factory-settings machine every time they get genocided, I'm assuming Shenron went ahead and brought the computers back in their pre-exploded state. Why, exactly, is #16 any different? If you ask me, nobody's wording the wish properly, so Shenron might they're trying to resurrect a living being when all he gets is static.

He might not be different? From a living being at least?

Again, there is no actual confirmation that 16 never got brought back to life. Or that he DID get brought back to life either way. It was left completely ambiguous. The idea he never got brought back because he is a machine is pure fanon. He could be back to life and just living outside the story, we don't know.