Ever since his introduction inDragon Ball Z, Son Gohan has been a character of immense value to the franchise and to the story. His conception by a human and a Saiyan warrior would mean that Gohan would be even further divorced from his Saiyan heritage and abnormal gene pool than his father was; however, despite this, for some reason, Gohan is the one character among the Dragon Fighters who has beenstronger than Goku the most times.
Gohan has had significance to theDragon Ballplot comparable to Goku’s, and at each stage, the nature of the battles Gohan faced as a child was significantly more dire than the trials faced by Goku prior to the reign of King Piccolo. By age 12, Gohan would go on to face his own insurmountable odds against Cell, an opponent even Goku was sure he couldn’t beat. Goku was always confident that Gohan could do it – but how is it even possible for a hybrid to outclass a purebred Saiyan warrior?
RELATED:Dragon Ball: How Goku’s Name Is Connected to Ultra-Instinct
Analysis
A recurring theme was established with Gohan regarding his fighting potential: while having immense dormant power, he lacked the proper attitude – a Saiyan’s mentality – to properly harness it. However, in dire situations, Gohan was known to somehow find immense strength. When he was kidnapped by his uncle, Raditz, who was strong enough to completely outclass Goku and Piccolo for the majority of their fight, Gohan lost his cool at the sight of his father being brutalized and the burst of power coming propelled him into a tackle that damaged Raditz’s Saiyan armour and greatly startled him too. After this battle and Goku’s death, Piccolo kidnaps Gohan and trains him with the intention of one day sic’ing him on Goku, but that later falls through as Piccolo changes. On Namek,when Frieza assumed his second form, it was touted to boost his power level to one million. It was revealed at a time when power levels still had meaning in theDragon Balluniverse, and during this phase in the battle, he used this form to impale Krillin with one of his horns rendering him unconscious; and even tried to prevent Gohan from saving him.
In a fit of rage, Gohan unleashes an all-out assault, throwing a vicious rush attack before finishing with an energy blast rush so powerful it stained the entire scene a shade of red. At an estimated age of around 6 or 7 years old, an enraged Gohan is throwing the kind of attacks capable of injuring the emperor of space himself. The consequence of this is that in that particular instance, Gohan was the only Saiyan in history to have actually inflicted damage upon Frieza; making him one of the strongest Saiyans in history. Gohan hated fighting more than anything else, but when his comrades were put into dangerous situations, he was capable of tapping into power that made him stronger than anyone.
Lysis
Gohan’s most significant moment in theDragon Ballnarrative is by far his defeat ofthe Android Saga’s ultimate antagonist, the bio-Android Cell. “Teen Gohan” is barely even twelve years old when the Androids arrive three years after Future Trunks’s warning, and the events surrounding Gohan’s participation in the Cell Games have become the point of controversy among fans who question Goku’s parenting due to his entrusting of the fate of the entire world to his preteen son. However, in the days leading up to the showdown against Cell, Goku and Gohan trained together in the Room of Spirit and Time (a.k.a. the Hyperbolic Time Chamber) and that’s where Gohan first achieves the Super Saiyan transformation. Goku helps Gohan catalyze this through using his various experiences of being helpless in the face of his allies being slain or beaten by an overwhelming enemy. Goku thoroughly understood his son’s hatred of fighting, but also knew that this aversion could be overridden in the right conditions and tried helping Gohan foster confidencec while also gainingmastery over the drawbacks of being a Super Saiyan.
While he struggles to find his footing in the fight against Cell, the young Saiyan eventually makes his mark on the narrative when he achieves Super Saiyan 2, enhancing the original transformation several times. He achieves this after Cell’s use of the Cell Juniors to torment Gohan’s allies in order to provoke him. The last straw is Cell’s destruction of Android 16, whose last words include begging Gohan to save the planet and the various forms of life that live on it for his sake. Anger pushes Gohan to ascend to a place where no other Saiyan had ever gone – Gohan effectively became the strongest Saiyan in history a second time, and this time it wasn’t for a mere moment. In the climacticKamehameha struggle that ended in Cell’s vaporization, the deceased Goku was fully involved, and even though Gohan was in despair because his arrogance led to his dad’s death and Cell’s achievement of “true” Perfection, the youngster still managed to draw his power from its source and put an end to Cell once and for all.
Heterosis
The reason for young Gohan’s potential lies in a concept that remains contested and has been since the earliest 20th century – hybrid vigour, defined as the improvement of an inherent biological quality in hybrid offspring due to the mixing of parent genetics. These traits are more than just added together, but synergized in such a concept, meaning that the offspring possesses qualities that grant them an edge over their parents and other pure-bred individuals.
The reason for this is that the game of genetics requires a large gene pool. The smaller the gene pool, the higher the incidence of inbreeding, which in turn leads to inbreeding depression, decreasing the species' overall chances for survival, referred to as their “biological fitness”.Gohan is a Saiyan-human hybridwho has exhibited elements of hybrid vigour in his youth and as a result of the mixing of his parents' genes, Gohan is fundamentally an evolved fighter who combines the power, ruthlessness and durability of the Saiyans with the incredibly powerful factor that is human emotion (let’s not talk about Chi-Chi’s temper). Believing that hybrids are inherently superior to pure-bred individuals is a slippery slope; however, as one has to consider what factor they’re basing their observations on before declaring that hybrids are better.
Gohan, while having the potential to be stronger than anyone due to his genetics, also lacks the Saiyan mentality required to fully harness his capabilities, which stems from the watering down of his Saiyan blood with human sentimentality, causing him to be less decisive in battle. Hybrid vigour does not simply grant Gohan a blanket of stat boosts even if it does improve certain aspects. Gohan’s fall after the Cell Saga can also be used to explain why hybrid vigour doesn’t apply to the other Saiyan hybrids introduced in the series, at least not in the same way.
Trunks and Goten are also powerful for their age, but growing up in times of peace and experiencing far less trauma by age 7 than Gohan also means that they have not needed to be stronger than their dads. Either way, Gohan’s own journey with power and danger, as well as his genetics, have led him to achievehis own personal transformation; Son Gohan Beast, which emphasizes his tapping into his Saiyan architecture and temperament more. This melding between human sentiment and the beast-like battle hunger of the Saiyans continues to guide each of them as they conquer their minds and bodies.
