Dragon Ball and Esoterics

[The Arbiter]

I often hear it repeated around these parts that "ignoring esoterics" seems to be a basic expectation for anyone of a specific power level in the Dragon Ball universe.

Like, fighting off unconventional forms of damage or techniques due to overwhelming power is an expectation of the main cast.

I'm not convinced.

The three best examples I hear are Jiren overcoming a time stop on raw strength alone, Goku ignoring Porunga wish magic and Vegeta resisting Babidi mind control.

1: The Jiren thing I am pretty cool with. They literally say he is stronger then time itself. Makes sense seeing as how he can blow away the entire universe. He is a mind bogglingly powerful creature that can demolish all of local reality. Expecting time to stop a universe buster is kind of like expecting a car seat belt to restrain a person capable of throwing the car 100 feet. The seat belt and time are just single aspects of the greater whole thing. Being capable of obliterating the greater whole thing tracks fine with me!

2: Resisting Porunga is a non feat imo. The Dragon Balls CANT affect anyone stronger then the creator of the Balls without consent. It's an explicit limitation. It has very very little to do with resistance and much more to do with the rules the Namekians had to work with.

3: Majin Vegeta mind control resistance. This is just a feat of willpower imo and has nothing to do with his base power. I certainly wouldn't just grant this level of mind control resistance to say, Goku from the same time period just because. Its a Doctor Doom "my will is my own!" thing and doesnt feel like something you can just handwave to any DB character of that strength or beyond.

Ok. Stuff in favor of esoterics being a threat:

Master Roshi in Super straight up tells us / his opponent that he is glad he got the unconventional threats in the ToP because he was worried that their esoterics would be a problem for his more powerful friends.

Poison works just fine on main cast people if they aren't specifically blocking it with energy like against Frost or the Trio De Dangers.

Heart virus isn't something you can overpower with energy.

Environmental dangers like center of the earth and deep space oxygen levels etc are still threats to Goku.

Mafuba works just fine on people MUCH more powerful then Roshi.

The Copy Vegeta managed to, well... copy Vegeta. I don't remember how that played out admittedly.

Vegeto required a defensive field to be raised before he got absorbed. It was an intended thing, being absorbed with defenses up. That was his plan. It wasnt like he just muscled out of the effect as it was happening with no plan.

Ok! So mileage is probably gonna MEGA vary on this one.
I am totally cool hearing counter arguments. I'm the first to admit that my DB knowledge isnt as well rounded as many other posters, so maybe I'm way off on this.

[Nik Hasta]

The best example is the Vegetto Jawbreaker feat. Dude is transmuted into candy and retains most of his power and ability to fight.

[The Arbiter]

The best example is the Vegetto Jawbreaker feat. Dude is transmuted into candy and retains most of his power and ability to fight.

I forgot about the jawbreaker thing. That is a bizarre feat imo. Came out of nowhere and gave like no explanation iirc?

I always assumed that was some fusion nonsense. It still feels off to me. I dunno.

[Tami]

I forgot about the jawbreaker thing. That is a bizarre feat imo. Came out of nowhere and gave like no explanation iirc?

I always assumed that was some fusion nonsense. It still feels off to me. I dunno.

Maybe put it down to a 'Sugar rush'? Sugar packs a lot of energy, and a Jawbreaker is pure sugar. Maybe Veggetto's energy was transformed into something similar to sugar, and he was able to tap into it to do all the flying and fighting.

[Wildling]

I forgot about the jawbreaker thing. That is a bizarre feat imo. Came out of nowhere and gave like no explanation iirc?

I always assumed that was some fusion nonsense. It still feels off to me. I dunno.

Well it's ultimately a one-time, vastly powerful form only achieved at the time via unique, godly gift. Which was supposed to be permanent as well... only to be undone by unexpected, mystical Boo shenanigans (a weaker overall character) when Vegetto allowed himself to be absorbed. So I don't feel candy-fighting should be by default assigned to other characters merely from power level.

But if single characters after that replicated the same merely from being who they are, that sounds finer to me. At least for them. It's just that as you said above, one effect is not necessarily 100% same as another.

Maybe put it down to a 'Sugar rush'? Sugar packs a lot of energy, and a Jawbreaker is pure sugar. Maybe Veggetto's energy was transformed into something similar to sugar, and he was able to tap into it to do all the flying and fighting.

Sounds like a cool take.

[The Drunkard Kid]

The various Dragon Gods being unable to affect Vegeta and Goku against there wills because they stronger than create of the Dragon Balls has never, to my knowledge, been depicted as being a result of a deliberately implemented restriction (like the number of wishes or the number of people those Dragon Balls can ressurect, which have adjusted for the sake of convenience when different Nameks took those Dragons over), only that it simply was not physically able to affect someone stronger than its Creator as an inherent limitation on its powers.

Goku himself also resisted the timestop by powering up enough, and in the Dragon Ball Super manga it was explicitly said (by Whis, I think) that unique powers like time stops only work on people at or below one's own power. Also, I'm not sure what you mean by the whole spiel on Jiren, since Jiren himself has no esoteric abilities himself as far as I recall and explicitly broke out of Hit's powers by powering up.

Edit: Here we go. DragonBallChou1318243.jpg
DragonBallChou1319503.jpg

I'm not sure where Majin Vegeta breaking Babidi's mind control was depicted his resistence to esoterica rather than willpower. The relevant example here is that it is arguably that Babidi was only able to affect him at all was because Vegeta was delivered trying to get Babidi to use the Majin spell on him so he wouldn't have even tried to resist the original enchantment. For what it's worth, Buu straight up seems to ignore Babidi's commands despite Vegeta having to attain himself to break free.

While poisons and heart diseases are in a sense more esoteric than punching people in the mouth, they are not actually anything other than a direct physical effect that relies on your body's biochemistry, so power levels wouldn't really have anything to do with it as long as your biology still had those structural vulnerabilities(for what it's worth, Jaco said that Saiyajin are actually extremely resistent to both of those avenues of attacks). That's why the Solar Flare/Taiyou Ken can still blind them, because their eyes still work within a certain range, and why they can't fight in places where they can't breathe because you can't resist not having oxygen.

As for the Mafuuba, the difference between Roshi and Old Piccolo Daimaou, while massive on the tier that they operated on, was so infintesimal on the scale that the characters operated on by the time that esoteric resistance came into play that they could pretty much be considered to be functionally equal. The only time the Mafuuba was used 1 since the big power ups came into play was Goku vs. Zamasu, and Goku was probably a few million/billion Piccolo Daimaous stronger than Zamasu and only resorted to sealing him because Zamasu's immortality was too annoying to deal with otherwise (especially when combined with his ability to instantly full heal Goku Black), so the power difference was firmly in Goku's favor there.

I've got no idea how the Jawbreaker thing lives up (though my personal canon is that he let it affect himself that much and proceeded to beat Buu, though I have no idea how it was able to perceive and talk while just a ball of candy). As for the aura shield, I just chalk that up to Vegetto actually being a lot more cautious than he was acting, since the only reason he didn't kill Buu straight off was because he was trying to get Buu to absorb him so that he could save Piccolo and his kids, and didn't want to risk screwing that up (especially considering his Vegeta half's track record).

[The Drunkard Kid]

Well it's ultimately a one-time, vastly powerful form only achieved at the time via unique, godly gift. Which was supposed to be permanent as well... only to be undone by unexpected, mystical Boo shenanigans (a weaker overall character) when Vegetto allowed himself to be absorbed. So I don't feel candy-fighting should be by default assigned to other characters merely from power level.

But if single characters after that replicated the same merely from being who they are, that sounds finer to me. At least for them. It's just that as you said above, one effect is not necessarily 100% same as another.



Sounds like a cool take.

For what it's worth, Vegetto's fusion has since been retconned into dissolving because the permanent aspect only comes into play when at least one person involved is a full Kaioushin, otherwise it's only for [EDIT: an hour], and if you start rocking power like Super Saiyajin Blue Vegetto, you can cause the fusion to break earlier.

I'm not sure where to put SSJ3 somehow devouring a person's own time, like how a few minutes in it ate up most of the 24 hours that Goku was allowed back in the world of the living (with it being started that Goku could use it indefinitely in the afterlife because he had unlimited time) or how it reduced Gotenks' normally 30 minute long Fusion down to 5 minutes.

[Cody]

for what it's worth, vegetto's fusion has since been retconned into dissolving because the permanent aspect only comes into play when at least one person involved is a full kaioushin, otherwise it's only for an hour, and if you start rocking power like super saiyajin blue vegetto, you can cause the fusion to break earlier.

I FTFY!

[The Drunkard Kid]

I FTFY!

Right, I got it confused with the regular Fusion Dance's basic time limit. Thanks for the correction.

In retrospect, I'm going to attribute the jawbreaker thing to the entire Buu Saga being super weird. Like, a couple of kids who never got into a serious fight as far as we have ever heard of learn how to go Super Saiyajin (one of whom after primarily being taught by Chi Chi), Goku develops a Super Saiyajin mode that eats his own time, Mr. Satan legitimately becomes the savior of the universe 1.5 times, Vegeta calls Goku by his Earth name and more or less completes his redemption arc. Like, sure, why not have someone be able to talk and act while being a wad of coffee candy? Half the guy who did it is Goku, and no one batted an eye when he revealed that he learned a kung fu dance that lets him fuse with other people (which was, by the way, not involved in him being half of this big ol' candy boy) while he was dead.