Why Piccolo Should Not Have Killed Frieza Instead of Goku in Dragon Ball Z

A CBR article by Daniel Kurland argues that Piccolo, not Goku, should have been the one to defeat Frieza during the Namek Saga in Dragon Ball Z. I'm breaking this one down point by point because I think it's a genuinely weak take that falls apart no matter which version of the story you grew up with, whether that's the dub, Kai, the manga, the sub, or even Dragon Ball Z Abridged.

Before getting into the specifics, I want to flag something I've said before about these kinds of pieces. Every time I do one of these breakdowns, it's usually from the same handful of outlets, CBR and Screen Rant especially, and I think that's because there's an easy formula to churning them out with a set number of pictures and paragraphs. That's part of why so many of them read like filler and why they so often seem to be written by people who are either not real fans, are very casual viewers, or are just paraphrasing whatever is on the Dragon Ball wiki.

The claim that "Goku has no personal connection to Frieza" doesn't hold up

The subheading of the article states that Piccolo deserved to defeat Frieza based on their confrontation, and the piece argues Goku has no personal connection to Frieza. I don't think that's true, and I don't think Piccolo has a stronger personal connection either. Frieza killed Goku's father and committed genocide against the Saiyan race, so Goku does have a reason to view Frieza as having committed a real crime, even without a direct personal history with him.

As for Piccolo, his connection to the Namekians being slaughtered by Frieza and Vegeta is real, but Piccolo himself didn't even know he was Namekian until Nappa told him. It had never meant anything to him until he actually went to Namek during this arc. Meanwhile, Goku's entire worldview was shattered when Raditz revealed he wasn't an Earthling, from the guilt over Grandpa Gohan's death being his fault to discovering he had family he never knew existed. Early in Z, Goku keeps calling himself "a Saiyan raised from Earth" because he isn't ready to let go of those ties, and it isn't until the Frieza Saga that he fully accepts being a Saiyan and everything that comes with it, including the Super Saiyan legend.

The Namek Saga is not built around "Namekian loss"

The article also claims the arc revolves around Namekian loss. I think that's incorrect, and it reads like something written by someone who hasn't seen the original Dragon Ball. Saying the arc revolves around Namekian loss is comparable to saying the Red Ribbon Army arc revolves around human loss just because innocent humans died in that conflict, or that the Piccolo Daimao arc is about the humans killed in it.

Namek is a new setting for Akira Toriyama to explore, but the arc itself isn't really about the Namekians. They're caught in the middle of the fight between Frieza's forces, Vegeta, and the Earth heroes chasing the Namekian Dragon Balls, and they're casualties of that conflict, but the story could have taken place on any planet Toriyama invented. Namek was chosen because it let him explore Piccolo's past and build out the world, and the Dragon Balls there were created to solve real problems, not to be fought over by villains seeking immortality or domination.

Piccolo fusing with Nail isn't the pivotal transformation the article claims

Kurland's piece also argues Piccolo goes through a pivotal transformation before Goku does. I don't agree with calling it a transformation at all, since what happens is that Piccolo fuses with Nail. That fusion isn't pivotal and isn't especially important to the overall story. It's simply a power boost Toriyama gives Piccolo so it's logical for him to be able to fight Frieza's second form, the same kind of simple, not overly explained boost Toriyama still uses today, as with the fighter clan members merging that we see in Super.

I'll admit this frustrates me because it feels like a basic point about the series. "I have friends of mine who have kids six seven years old who understand this series better than these grown adults that write these articles," and I think that says something about the level of understanding on display here.

Would avoiding the "Super Saiyan obsession" actually have made the story better?

The article suggests that if Piccolo had killed Frieza instead of Goku, it would have prevented the series' later focus on Super Saiyan transformations. I don't buy that reasoning. Even if that specific route had been avoided, the story would likely have found some other escalating power system to lean on, whether tied to Namekians or something else built around Goku, since Piccolo was never going to become the series' main character. Rewriting this arc to make Piccolo the lead changes everything built up to that point. Piccolo already gets his moment to shine in this story, and that's the role he was given.

My overall verdict on the article

Kurland's piece ends by suggesting it's fascinating to imagine how different Dragon Ball Z would be if Goku's big victories, like the Frieza fight, had gone to Piccolo instead. I don't find that especially fascinating. It strikes me as similar to asking whether the story would be more interesting if Goku were a girl. Sure, it would be different, but different doesn't mean better, it would just be the same story with one detail swapped.

Takes like this bother me because they don't require much thought and only need a surface level knowledge of the series, to the point where you don't even have to be a real fan of it to write one. What's frustrating is that pieces like this present themselves as insightful, and I think there's nothing more annoying than a take that's wrong acting like it's clever.

Do you think Piccolo's arc in the Namek Saga needed to end with him defeating Frieza instead of Goku?