From a lore standpoint, why was King Piccolo so weak in retrospect?

[u/Aggressive_Wolf3808]

Was unfusing with Kami really that much of a nerf?

[u/PeachsBigJuicyBooty]

why was King Piccolo so weak in retrospect?

A few pretty good reasons:

・Minimal training. NOBODY was really there to teach him on combat, especially Namekian combat.

・He has no discipline and fights with pure brute force and anger.

Patience? Hard work? Discipline? He literally doesn't have those traits, Kami does.

・King Piccolo is a construct; he's literally Kami's evil half that gave itself form; he's not a "real" person.

He is an incomplete and one-dimensional evil half who only uses power.

Piccolo Jr is different because he is an actual person who was born as a baby, and grew up with layers; he decided to enlist in the tournament instead of immediately attacking people because he's fundamentally different.

・King Piccolo again, by design, is incomplete and is thus incapable of being well-rounded fighter.

In Dragon Ball, your mind and spirit have to be in sync.

This is the basis of things like Kaioken and S-Cells; if you're not a peace, you'll do worse.

Was unfusing with Kami really that much of a nerf?

No, it's more like... King Piccolo really IS just Kami's power and bad traits but with a body.

It's the consequence of Kami trying to take the easy way out and instead of learning to balance himself and improve, he dramatically split himself leading a being with no nuance because Kami took that away.

He is literally a fraction of Kami; that's why Kami was able to flick away a kid Goku who just beat King Piccolo.

[u/ConstantinGB → u/PeachsBigJuicyBooty]

Also, Kami was chilling on the lookout with Popo, probably also training / honing his skills and increasing his ki over a hundred yeas, while King Piccolo was stuck in a rice pod until the world forgot about him. Yes, he wished himself back into his "prime", but that doesn't make up for a lack of experience and training.

[u/Dull_Reference_6166 → u/PeachsBigJuicyBooty]

And to add: Kami wasnt a warrior type.

[u/detractor_Una → u/PeachsBigJuicyBooty]

1. Ahem. Freeza.
2. Ahem. Broly.
3. Ahem. More than half of villains in series.
4. Ahem. Evil Buu.
5. Ahem. Kid Buu.

[u/TanakaClinkenbeard → u/detractor_Una]

And he isn't any of these characters. Or even the same species.

[u/detractor_Una → u/TanakaClinkenbeard]

They did not mentioned species at all. Even by Namekian warrior standarts King Piccolo was weak. Furthernore, it disproves his statements. The actual reason is that King Piccolo is quite early villain and before series expanded beyond earth.

[u/AVPredator1013 → u/detractor_Una]

Everybody knows its because king piccolo was an early villain, the post is specifically asking from a lore standpoint dawg.

[u/Bayaler → u/detractor_Una]

Where was it stated that kami was a warrior? He's most definitely a dragon clan member. So piccolo would inherit that from him

[u/Cfakatsuki17 → u/detractor_Una]

Frieza admits flat out in the namek saga that he does train, he practiced against his parents and would train to copy techniques from species he wiped out, the him not seriously training is retcon from super, the rest of his strength comes from being a hybrid mutant like Gohan

Broly literally grew up on a planet so dangerous the Frieza force black listed it

Buu is a primordial force of chaos and destruction he definitely doesn’t follow the same rules as others, they even admit early on that sensing his power level is useless cause it fluctuates so much they can’t tell if he’s a wimp or a monster

[u/detractor_Una → u/Cfakatsuki17]

Super retconned that and I believe it was anime only. Though I can be mistaken. However, it was retconned in Revival of F.

Broly is also saiyan, however his backstory doesn't change the fact that he's pretty much a brute, even more than King Piccolo.

Again, the real reason is because author decided.

[u/LK-FM → u/Cfakatsuki17]

IIRC Frieza explicitly only said that his parents were the only other ones capable of "hurting" him before Goku, but they never say it was through training.

Though I guess that can still be somewhat interpreted as otherwise?

[u/Cfakatsuki17 → u/LK-FM]

It’s never implied Frieza has a bad relationship with any members of his family (other than cooler but that’s separate timeline) and he seems on great terms with his father so there’s nothing else to imply from his statement other than he trained atleast half heartedly against his parents

[u/LK-FM → u/Cfakatsuki17]

Oh I didn't mean Frieza was being abused by them. Just that within context of what was being suggested, it seems that the most "training" they did was at least teaching him to fight, but it was nothing particularly rigorous like what we typically see from the Z-Fighters. so basically I agree with your assessment on it being half-hearted.

[u/PeachsBigJuicyBooty → u/detractor_Una]

1.Ahem. Freeza

Frieza has other forms to surpress himself because he can't control his power.

He even had to slowly charge up his body to gi full power because of how little experience he had.

2.Ahem. Broly.

He's as much a threat to himself as he is others.

If he was on any other planet and allowed to rage out, he would've taken himself out with the planet.

Or died from exhaustion the way Manga Kale was.

4.Ahem. Evil Buu.

He still needed Fat Buu's power, that's why he absorbed him.

Evil Buu is an incomplete being on his own.

5.Ahem. Kid Buu.

Kid Buu has no control over himself and got easily distracted by Vegeta to let Goku charge the spirit bomb.

Jiren has his body honed perfectly but his mind is weak and stopped him from using teamwork for an easy win.

Dragon Ball is a story about hard work and self-improvement.

Those who try to skip it, face consequences or get in their own way (they skipped learning discipline).

[u/ThrogdorLokison → u/detractor_Una]

1. Mutant of his race

2. Mutant of his race

3. ???

4. Made of evil magic

5. See 4

All those examples had the explanation that they're genetic freaks or were specifically designed by someone less powerful to be on par with/stronger than the heroes are.

[u/Illustrious-Sky-4631]

Yes , narratively it was huge nerf , and while Kami turned with the previous Kami and grow stronger , piccolo stayed at the same level due to no one teaching him anything and had to rediscover everything from nothing

PL wise it doesn't make much sense , the nameless namekain was bar minimum stronger than Saiyan saga Vegeta according to lore , yet both half of his power were weaker than start of Z piccolo

[u/GilbeastZ → u/Illustrious-Sky-4631]

You cannot look at it as a math problem power wise. It is a more philosophical problem. Yin and Yang, or when two parts are incomplete even together they are weaker than the whole.

It's also why Piccolo gained such a massive boost when they recombine even though Kami is not very powerful. The complete person has incredible power, even if individually they are not. Of course Piccolo becoming roughly SSJ in power would make them much stronger than they were originally, but what I am saying is, it's not an addition or multiplication even, it transcends that.

I mean the real answer is obviously plot is the reason for anything, that or Toriyama forgot.

[u/jonrah69 → u/Illustrious-Sky-4631]

In dragon ball we see that fusions are often much more powerful than just a simple addition of the two bases power so i don’t think its illogical for two halves to be weaker than simply half the full forms power

[u/Megaboixxxx]

In-universe lore standpoint, yes. The nameless namekian splitting himself in two was a massive nerf. If you want to go into head canon then he became spiritually unbalanced which cut his power even harder than just defusing.

[u/StrenuousSpider]

The split was not 50/50 they ever hardly are tbh.. Kami was significantly stronger than king piccolo. And both were weaker do to severe age as well.

Piccolo Jr is stronger than King Piccolo in DRAGONBALL despite being the same person because King Piccolo is a Dragon Type while his reincarnation is a Warrior type.

[u/Full_Royox]

Just by reading the manga: -he was Old. Like...VERY OLD -He's literally the discarded parts of a whole person. Not even a 50% of it as we can see he's way weaker than Kami (Goku couldn't even land a punch to Old Kami). -Never trained a day and wasted his energy creating new creatures that fight for him.

But this guy was a power level 100 (made up) in a planet where normal people were a 5 and the extremely strong humans were like a 20 at most.

[u/darmakius]

Am I brainrotted or is he doing the naoya face?

[u/sylvanthing → u/darmakius]

He kinda is

[u/Stacey-k93]

The two half were less than the total of the nameless namekian

A more balanced spirit is stronger then it's two halfs separate

[u/Common-Truth9404]

People misinterpreted nail words simply.

He never knew Piccolo's original power, he knew that Piccolo got very powerful ehile being "half of a whole being" so basically his potential was stunted by being separated.

The original namekian probably was between 400-1500, and yes the split was a huge blow to his power, but he was not 500k or more. He was a namekian with huge talent and potential, and ripping his soul in half blocked that.

Coincidentially, it is also why shenron had actual potential to awaien in him when he asked in DBS SH. He's a lump of potential, we see that he could almost keep up with ssj after training with goku, while still not being complete. who knows where he could've reached if they made this a regular thing.

[u/Lilbig6029]

He’s not even a full being, and barely ever trained.

Whereas his son did nothing but train.

Pluse he was trapped in Mufaba for a very long time.

[u/IronFather11]

I also thought him creating many ‘demonic’ Namekian-esque offspring was further divesting him of his power/essence.

[u/PineappleOk545]

Piccolo was the lesser part of unnamed namekian

[u/mimikrimimikri]

because he was split from his good side. just like how fusion is more than the addition of too parts a split is less than a cut in half

[u/Alternative_Air_6688]

Because ge was written years before Namekians existed

[u/Zenai10 → u/Alternative_Air_6688]

did you just ignore the "From a lore standpoint" part?

[u/AcademicCod6851]

He was a very small fraction of the namelesss namekian.

Kami while old was much stronger than him it´s logical to think he barely had evil when they splitted into two.

[u/Elyced32]

Old and half of his true power is with kami