>>56405408the saga reaches its climax point when goku falls to his own saiyan folly. he tries to recreate within gohan what he experienced on namek. goku thinks gohan is the same as him, and that what's best for gohan's maturity and development is to step forward into his saiyan lineage. goku sees the boundless potential within gohan as proof that gohan must be a warrior at heart.
but he is not. this is a mistake. goku has always been kind. but he is not gentle the same way gohan is. gohan actually genuinely hates fighting. and it isn't until goku sees gohan being mercilessly hurt by cell that he realizes this.
what is gohan so afraid of? what stops him from achieving his power? it's been shown that even though gohan hates fighting he's been more than willing to protect earth.
what stops gohan is fear of his own anger. the bottomless potential gohan has as a saiyan warrior is also a bottomless pit of wrath. if this seems like a stretch, it's literally in the lyrics when gohan becomes super saiyan 2.
https://youtu.be/SyMeAo9kgsY?t=132what follows is in many senses the most tragic part of gohan's arc. gohan achieves super saiyan 2 by seeing the destruction of the nature loving android 16, and imagines a bird being killed. this is what pushes gohan to super saiyan 2, when not even goku could achieve it. goku was driven by righteous anger for his friend. but gohan was driven by true righteous anger for the world, for nature itself, and the realization that cell, an abomination tech experiment dna mix, will destroy nature is what ultimately lets him ascend.
this brings the second part of gohan goku fails to predict. when gohan turns super saiyan 2, he turns arrogant and sadistic. he fails to finish of cell quickly as he should, and this endangers the world.
why was gohan, the gentlest of them all, acting almost like vegeta? again, it's because gohan's bottomless power also represents a bottomless pit within gohan. when gohan falls into that pit, he FALLS into it. the tragedy of the cell saga is that he is forced to do so for the safety of earth.
what follows is gohan killing the cell jrs. cell jrs are little shits who do not deserve sympathy, so dont mistake what im saying here. whats important is the imagery of gohan killing them. it's some of the most macabre imagery in the series.
https://youtu.be/cHdFTHaEW88?t=106the saibamen do not die like this. nothing in the series does. gohan simply punches them in half, and they fall apart visibly. visually, it looks like gohan is killing children.
again, gohan is not doing anything wrong. but the calllousedness he needs to adopt is so starkly opposed to his gentle nature that it's a complete tragedy.
gohan does not know how to control his anger because he has never truly been angry. this is the second thing that goku fails to understand about his son.
and that's mostly it. goku realizes his folly and he manages to wrap things up ok, but he does pay for it with his life. no goku is not a bad father by choosing not to be revived. goku is following the proper way of the world.
