Future Gohan's death: how it set up Gohan's Cell victory

Future Gohan is the key to everything in Dragon Ball Z, and he's equally as important as present Gohan. When you examine Dragon Ball with a fine tooth comb, his death in Future Trunks' timeline turns out to be the event that made the Cell saga's final victory possible. As dark as it may sound, I think it needed to happen.

Dragon Ball Z, the anime adaptation of Toriyama's manga, began in 1989. When you really examine things like the Cell saga, there are little intricacies that aren't easy to spot on the surface, and the one I want to discuss here is the way Toriyama juxtaposes Future Gohan with present Gohan.

Toriyama seemed to have big plans for Gohan in Dragon Ball Z

Back in the 80s, when Toriyama was writing the original manga and reached the Dragon Ball Z part, he introduced Gohan. It's unclear whether he had plans for Gohan from the beginning. But one could infer from how Gohan was written that Toriyama did have big plans for him.

Toriyama is known as a discovery writer who makes it up as he goes along. Even so, it seems clear to me that he had some kind of plan for Gohan. That plan came to fruition at the Cell Games, when Gohan ultimately became the hero and took the torch from his father, Goku, albeit for a limited time.

Let's be real: Toriyama's writing isn't the best in history. But when you go back and examine arcs like the Cell saga, you find little intricacies and thought provoking storytelling elements that aren't easy to spot on the surface. When you sit back and think about them, they're almost mind blowing.

Goku dying anyway in the Cell saga is poetic irony

I've seen Dragon Ball Z many times. Like many fans, I've gone through it for years, in different languages, dissecting it up and down. Every time, I find something new and interesting that I dig. The Cell saga itself has tons of intricacies beyond Gohan.

One thing I find very poetic about this arc is that no matter what the future versions of Trunks and Bulma tried to do to prevent Goku from dying, he died anyway. The difference is that Goku chose to sacrifice himself to save the Earth in the present timeline, as opposed to dying of a heart virus in the future timeline. The heart medicine, and Goku training to become stronger, may have prolonged his life, but he wound up dying anyway. To me, that's always been a bit of poetic irony.

Of course, present Goku would come back seven years later and things would be okay again. Future Goku never came back, which to me is one of the many tragedies of Trunks' timeline. And remember, Trunks' timeline was supposed to be the main timeline. Had Trunks not gone back and split the timeline, that was supposed to be the dark fate of our characters.

The History of Trunks began as a 1992 manga bonus chapter

Toriyama gave us the best possible view of that timeline in the August 11, 1992 issue of Weekly Shonen Jump. There he published Trunks the Story: A Lone Warrior, which would later be adapted into the anime as The History of Trunks TV special. Many people love the special, but the story originated in the manga first, as a special bonus chapter all about the future timeline.

The chapter tells the story of the final remaining warriors, Gohan and Trunks, in a post apocalyptic world controlled by Androids 17 and 18, where all the other Z Fighters have been wiped out. One of the story elements Toriyama loves to throw in when it comes to the future timeline versus the present timeline is the absolute lack of Goku.

Why Future Gohan never reached Super Saiyan 2

The reason Gohan never achieved his true potential, at least according to what's mostly theorized, is that Goku wasn't there. That theory can be dissected and probably debunked in some ways, because it's kind of lazy storytelling, but it somewhat makes sense. Future Gohan never achieved Super Saiyan 2. He never reached his max potential like present Gohan did, and because of that he became fodder for the future androids.

To me, it's always been a little weird that Gohan, with all those years of fighting, didn't develop his skills enough to beat them. But that's a dissection for a different day. Either way, the lack of Goku there to guide them affected their ability to win this fight. Gohan became Trunks' trainer by default, because he was the last warrior left.

Gohan's latent potential and the father son Kamehameha

Before the timeline split, Toriyama had always given us glimpses of Gohan's true power. From the very beginning, when he fought Raditz, through the battles on Planet Namek, Gohan showed an extraordinary amount of latent potential. He was already being subconsciously positioned to be either the top fighter or one of the top fighters, possibly even number two behind Goku, in the coming Android and Cell saga.

In the present timeline, he wound up as the ultimate victor by killing Cell. But remember that Gohan was inspired by Goku speaking to him from the other world, giving him the motivation to finally let out his full power and defeat Cell once and for all. So even though it was Gohan who did it, the father son Kamehameha was symbolic of Goku passing his spirit down to Gohan and telling him it was his turn now. To this day, I still find that beautiful storytelling.

That didn't happen in the future timeline. Goku didn't get involved, and to be honest, it's a bit of a plot hole. There was no reason for Goku not to have reached out from the afterlife and at least spoken to Gohan, Trunks and the others, helping them figure out how to unlock higher forms like he did in the present timeline. That never made sense to me. Instead, Future Gohan and Trunks were left on their own to battle these forces.

Was Future Gohan's death a sacrifice?

If you've seen the special or read the manga, you know Gohan doesn't make it. His death would be an extremely important event in the life of Trunks. I wouldn't really call it a sacrifice in the same way Goku's was. Gohan went out to fight the androids by himself and spared Trunks' life.

Still, it's almost implied that he knew he was going to die. If you pay attention, it seems like he knew he might not make it back. So it was a form of sacrifice, but not the same as Goku's. Either way, when you think about it, his death in the future is one of the most impactful, if not the most important, events in that entire arc.

Why Future Gohan's death had to happen

Think about it this way. Had Gohan defeated Androids 17 and 18, there would have been peace, at least for a while, until Goku Black. Trunks would never have had the impetus to go back in time, not only to rescue Goku but to eventually learn from Goku and his own father, Vegeta, and become a more polished fighter and a better warrior.

If those events never happened, the past would have suffered the exact same fate. There would never be a split timeline, just the one timeline. That means Cell would have appeared at some point in the future with no 17 and 18, because Gohan would have killed them, and with no time machine, Cell couldn't go back in time. The Cell timeline would never have happened, and it would have been a very different fate.

There's no way to tell how strong Cell would have been without 17 and 18. He would maybe have absorbed some people, and possibly been able to kill Gohan and Trunks, because he did that in the Cell timeline. He's pretty cunning, and that would have been just another dark fate.

So as dark as it may sound, Future Gohan's death was a necessity. It may have led to Cell going back in time, because it led to the time machine being created, Trunks going back, and Cell stopping him in that timeline. But it also led to Goku recovering from the heart virus and training Gohan to become the best possible version of himself, which led to Gohan saving the world from Perfect Cell.

Gohan made Gohan through Toriyama's use of cause and effect

Gohan needed to die to put these events in motion and eventually save the past, and the person who would save the past would be Gohan. I've always found it interesting that the bottom line of this whole thing is that Gohan made Gohan. Obviously it was all unintentional. He didn't want to die, but that's the way these things happen.

You can nitpick holes in the story, but Toriyama is good at using causality, cause and effect, to tell his stories, and it's a big factor in how Dragon Ball works. Without this event, however tragic, there would be no ultimate final victory and no moment of peace, and Trunks would never have learned to become stronger, returned to the future and liberated it as well. None of those events would ever have happened had Future Gohan not died.