Geekdom101 Debunks the Theory That Goku Is Dragon Ball Super's Secret Villain

The theory going around the Dragon Ball fandom that Goku is secretly a villain in Dragon Ball Super, based on choices he supposedly made in the Tournament of Power, does not hold up. That is the myth being busted in this edition of Dragon Ball MythBusters, and the short version is that Goku did not cause the tournament's deadly stakes and did not ask for anyone to be killed.

Misinformation in the fandom is something that gets frustrating to watch spread. As I put it, "it's also sometimes infuriating to read something that somebody wrote without there being any sort of thought put into it." With a show like Dragon Ball, some fans have watched it multiple times the way I have, while others remember it from Toonami, from childhood, from DVDs and Blu-rays, or even with something as recent as Dragon Ball Super, and still misremember key details. The idea that Goku is a secret villain because of what happened in the tournament is the specific myth I wanted to debunk here.

Where the Goku-as-villain theory comes from

People who land on this theory often come across it on Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok, decide it sounds smart, and pass it on to their Dragon Ball friends as some kind of secret insight. I have seen literally hundreds of these theories over eight years of covering the franchise, and most of them fall apart once you actually apply logic and pay attention to what happens on screen.

I want to be clear that Goku is not a perfect person. He has made plenty of selfish decisions throughout Dragon Ball, going back to the original manga, and that is part of what makes him an interesting character rather than a boring, flawless one. Goku is also, as I have explored in a separate series called Dragon Ball X Saiyuki with Jordan the Dragon Lee, a character built as the concept martial artist rooted in Sun Wukong, and understanding that root matters for understanding his choices. Much of the villain theory seems to come from the same corner of the fandom that argues Goku is a bad father, or from more casual fans who have not dug into the material, but it shows up especially often around Dragon Ball Super because of the Tournament of Power.

What actually happens in the Tournament of Power

The Tournament of Power is set up by the Omni-King Zeno, who has the ability to wipe away entire universes with a snap of his fingers and wants a tournament featuring fighters from across the multiverse. Every universe except four forms a team for this battle royale, and any universe whose entire team gets eliminated gets destroyed by Zeno once the tournament ends.

Goku, both in Dragon Ball Super and in the original manga, is the consummate martial artist, someone who always wants to test himself against the strongest opponents he can find. With the multiverse introduced at the end of the Battle of Gods arc, Goku was eager for better competition, and when he approached Zeno he was reminding him of something Zeno had already mentioned at the end of the Universe 6 arc about eventually holding a bigger tournament. Goku never told Zeno to kill the losers. That condition came entirely from the Omni-King's own decision, not from anything Goku said.

Why blaming Goku ignores what Zeno was already planning

Some fans still blame Goku for pushing the idea of the tournament to Zeno in the first place, but that overlooks what we learn by the end of the arc: Zeno himself was already planning to wipe out billions of people across other universes regardless. Goku's willingness to fight and entertain Zeno, even though entertaining Zeno was never his actual motivation, became something both Omni-Kings enjoyed, turning it into a kind of game for them.

It also comes out by the end of the arc that whichever universe won the tournament had to use the Super Dragon Balls, the winning prize, to bring back every universe that had been erased. That detail reframes the entire tournament as a test for the multiverse, checking whether the winners would do the right thing. The selfish move would have been to wish for power or money instead. When Universe 7 won, Android 17 chose to bring back the multiverse, and Zeno accepted that outcome and revealed that testing for good was the point all along.

Mortal levels were about behaviour, not power, and Goku actually saved the multiverse

The universes that fought in the tournament had lower mortal levels than the four that were exempt, and there has been a lot of misinformation from YouTubers who did not understand what that meant at the time. Mortal level was never about how strong a universe's fighters were. It reflected how the people in that universe lived and whether they were good or bad, and Android 17's choice to restore everyone is what spared the universes based on that standard.

There are lines in both the manga and the anime stating that if Goku had not pushed for the tournament, those universes might have been wiped away regardless. Goku gave the multiverse a chance to survive by pushing for the tournament in the first place. Whether that push counts as a selfish decision is fair to debate, but Goku, as the representation of Sun Wukong, does not have a malicious bone in his body even when he is being selfish, and he never wanted anyone to die.

Looking across the whole franchise, Goku does not act like a villain

Going back through Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball Z, GT, Super, and the movies, it is hard to find a point where Goku deliberately does something evil or kills innocent people. There are a couple of moments where a blast might have unfortunately hit a bystander, but that comes from the chaos of a fight rather than any choice Goku made. As an adult in particular, Goku is not evil, and suggesting otherwise does not hold up to scrutiny.

My take is that a lot of these theories come from people who think they have uncovered some secret meaning and end up chasing attention rather than thinking it through. As I said, "I just want people to actually use that lovely brain that mother nature gave us between our ears before saying something stupid like Goku is the secret villain of Dragon Ball super." Every conversation about this series is a chance to learn something new or see a different angle, and that is the approach I wish more people brought to it.

Do you think Goku deserves any of the blame for what happened in the Tournament of Power, or was it entirely on Zeno?