Watching Dragon Ball would, usually, never trigger in you any deep political thinking. The villains are, for the most part, simple in their motivations, usually relying more in sheer power or that “cool” factor to keep themselves interesting.
The Zamasu arc in Dragon Ball Super attempted, stumbling here and there, to tell a deeper story. A tale of a corrupted god who turned to genocide as his answer to the flaws of humankind. And, rather than making Zamasu into a one-dimensional villain, the show takes us for a trip into his psyche, allowing us a glimpse into his spiral.
However, what with it still being Dragon Ball and all, it didn’t even occur to me to realize how deep some of the earlier parts of the arc — way before the reveal of the truth behind Black and Zamasu — go.
It was the English dub, particularly this part, that unlocked a hidden layer of how the arc approaches the conditions behind Zamasu’s descent into murderous madness.
One thing the show focuses a lot on earlier episodes of this saga is the day-to-day life and relationship between Zamasu and Gowasu. Gowasu is Universe 10’s Supreme Kai, a god tasked with creation and nurturing of life, with Zamasu being his apprentice and a prodigy in combat.
The origins of his issues stem from their views on “good”, “evil” and “justice”. Zamasu sees, from atop his lofty place among the gods, a broad view of mortalkind and sees all the strife, injustices, and crimes commited daily by them. He is confronted with the tough reality that society is never truly at peace, and that chaos lives within order as much as order lives within chaos.
A contradictory conundrum worthy of history’s greatest philosophers, historians and academics, with very little in the way of concrete, one-stop solutions. Yet, Zamasu’s obssession with solving such contradictions in nature are a source of anguish — to him, humans, mortals, they lie, steal, cheat, kill, pillage… so they must be dealt with, purged so that only the good ones remain.
Now, I shouldn’t have to explain why that sort of thinking is dangerous. History has shown, time and time again, how some of the most vile human beings have used their skewed notions of “good vs. evil” to justify bloodshed, from sanguinary dictators with delusions of a “perfect society of superior beings” all the way to school shooters and their manifestos about how society is beyond salvation and, thus, everyone needs to die. More often than not, it results in failed endeavors and the deaths of innocent people far removed from whatever it is that they originally saw as “a sin”.
However, consider for a moment the story of Anakin Skywalker in the first three Star Wars movies by chronological order. The boy wonder whose potential was supposedly the galaxy’s hope to bring balance to all things, suddenly falling into evil after being exposed to a lifetime of tragedy, torture and pain.
In that story, whoever believes Anakin to be the hero or a misunderstood savior is just wrong, period. However, it’s undeniable that his spiral was not entirely of his own doing — blame must be appropriately assigned, and the movies make a point of showing us exactly what part each entity plays in that tragedy.
You have Palpatine as the enchanting, charismatic ghoul who preys on Anakin’s insecurities and radicalizes him towards galactical fascism, but you also have the Jedi, a failing slog of an institution far too caught up in its own processes and with an aversion to action who fail, time and again, to soothe the young Anakin’s insecurities. To show him, and anyone else in the same position, why it is that he is wrong. No, instead, they choose to simply demand his undying trust on their processes or risk expulsion.
And now, back to Zamasu and Gowasu, and how all of these sidebars relate to it.
Gowasu fails, time after time, to properly address Zamasu’s concerns. The young apprentice wonders what is the point of godhood if all a Supreme Kai does is observe, drinking tea, as bad things happen under their watch; Gowasu’s answer is to take him back to the past, to a planet called Babari, where they watch a handful of Babarians fight each other and oppress other races. Then, they move into another point in Babari’s future, and while their race is still very much violent and savage, they seem to have a semblance of culture and social life.
This, of course, satisfies Gowasu. They might have been a dangerous people in the past, but 1000 years later, they’re still dangerous and oppressive, but at least now they can build a house or stop fights occasionally.
However, Zamasu’s point of view was that such a race should be extermined, since they “would never reach civility” (citation needed on that one, Zamasu), and Gowasu’s solution does nothing to address that argument; worse, they get attacked by a wild Babarian, and Zamasu kills for the first time in his life, demonstrably reveling into a sort of daze afterwards. With this, Gowasu has managed to push Zamasu further into his spiral, and also, gave him a taste of killing.
In the scene linked in the first paragraphs, while talking about good, evil and justice, Zamasu states that evil is an obstacle, and justice, the sword with which good cuts down said obstacle. In response, Gowasu states:
“Justice is not a sword erradicating evil, but a scale, keeping good and evil in balance”.
To further corroborate his argument, he says justice makes it possible to understand evil and allow it to learn from their mistakes; his is a justice forged in understanding, rather than the assertion of power. He says “evil informs good”, implying that one does not know true justice if one does not understand evil and why evil not only exists, but is allowed to exist.
His words ring true, in a way. Society is complicated, and justice must be restorative, not punitive. In the words of Carolyn Boyes-Watson:
“Rather than privileging the law, professionals and the state, restorative resolutions engage those who are harmed, wrongdoers and their affected communities in search of solutions that promote repair, reconciliation and the rebuilding of relationships. Restorative justice seeks to build partnerships to reestablish mutual responsibility for constructive responses to wrongdoing within our communities. Restorative approaches seek a balanced approach to the needs of the victim, wrongdoer and community through processes that preserve the safety and dignity of all.”
— Boyes-Watson, C. (2014). Suffolk University, College of Arts & Sciences, Center for Restorative Justice
However, Gowasu’s actions — or lack thereof — betray his lofty words. For example, when visited by Beerus, Whis and Goku, Gowasu’s idea is to have Zamasu spar with Goku, believing that this sort of exchange with a mortal would open Zamasu’s eyes as to the brimming potential of humankind. The result, however, is Goku besting Zamasu and driving the young apprentice mad — he, of course, believes gods to be above mortals in every way, be it morally or in terms of power, and this loss humilliates him instead of humbling him. With this, Gowasu makes Zamasu become even more obssessed with his twisted ideals and to also develop an obssession with Goku’s power, essentially leading to the creation of Goku Black.
It is no surprise, then, that when Goku Black travels from his timeline to meet Zamasu, Gowasu’s blood on his hands, he introduces himself as “I’m the ‘you’ you’ve always wanted to be”; and Zamasu understands immediately, because these are his thoughts.
The fact of the matter is — Gowasu is in a position of power as a god. And, with the duty of overseeing his universe’s affairs, he has a responsibility to keep a semblance of order. Is Zamasu correct in subjugating mortalkind and responding to their errors with murder? Absolutely not. However, Gowasu does nothing with the powers he has to actively fix the issues with his universe, being content to simply watch and believe it’ll all balance itself naturally.
Much like the Jedi, Gowasu represents the failure of liberal, centrist institutions — who fail the people they swear to protect, and fail to stop the ones who seek to destroy them. By simply asking Zamasu to “be patient”, Gowasu does nothing but paint himself as part of the problem while also keeping himself distant from any mortal affairs.
Compare him to Shin, Universe 7’s Supreme Kai — ours, in Dragon Ball lore. When he learned that Majin Buu, a galactic menace created solely for the purpose of destruction, was to be awakened on Earth, he and his bodyguard immediately bolted to Earth to stop his resurrection. Of course, being inexperienced and naïve, Shin’s plan backfired — however, it stands that he chose to intervene and use his power to prevent universal massacre rather than sit on his hands, waiting for the “scales of justice” to tip back to his favor.
To me, the ideal of justice in Zamasu’s arc stays with Trunks. And, to a lesser level, to Goku, Vegeta, and the Z-Fighters who participate in it. These are people with questionable pasts and deeds, but who never shy away from a fight when words aren’t enough. Trunks, even moreso — he learns, in this arc, that time traveling without being a god is heresy and he “ought to be punished for it”, but instead of seeking forgiveness, he embraces the fact that he did so to protect his world from a genocidal god’s delusions of justice.
His quote:
“You say my choices make me evil.. Then that’s what I’ll be!”
Trunks actively rejects Zamasu and Black’s idea of justice, because he sees through it. He fights for survival, and for a better future. They claim to enact justice, but use their power for senseless bloodshed, regardless of whether or not any other mortal dying by their hands is guilty by their standards.
Karl Marx famously stated that “the weapon of criticism cannot, of course, replace criticism by weapons; material force must be overthrown by material force”. This is not a rejection of open dialogue and constructive criticism, of course, but the defense of an idea that, sometimes, a material — read, a “concrete” threat, such as a threat to the existence of a race — must be met with material force strong enough to overcome it. That is what the Z-Fighters do; by besting Zamasu in combat, with Trunks splitting the merged form of Zamasu and Black in half, the threat of the Zero Mortal Plan is stopped.
… well, not really, since the show makes Zamasu fuse with the universe and has Zen-Oh erase Trunks’ entire timeline. But unfortunately, there’s still no leftist theory on how to solve bad plotlines yet.
For all intents and purposes, though, Dragon Ball Super shows what was needed to stop Zamasu at that point in time, when he was already armed with the power to wipe out all mortals: defensive force. Gowasu’s pretty words would not do a thing. But what’s also implied in earlier chapters is that Gowasu had many a chance to intervene before Zamasu could spiral, before it all came to blows. He could not be so nonchalant about his station in the system, for example. He could learn to set better examples. He could learn not to use faith in “the process” as an answer to the youth’s anxieties about the world, which is why it’s so easy for nazis and supremacists to recruit disenfranchised, lonely teenagers to their ranks. They seek action, and are told by their elders to “shut up and watch”.
In truth, it is also a failure of pacifism.
Dragon Ball Z Abridged introduced in its writing a fine critique of pacifism, since the latter episodes of the Cell Saga came out during Donald Trump’s far-right rule in the United States. First, Cell himself pokes fun at Gohan’s unwillingness to fight him at full power.
Then, Android #16, who appeals more to Gohan’s heart and kindness in the original show, is rewritten to tear into the young teen’s hypocrisy and arrogance, while also exposing the flaws in refusing to fight injustice out of principle.
Liberal complacency is very much a piece of the puzzle behind most extremist tragedies. It falls to us as a collective to learn the importance of action, to not hide behind pacifism and lofty, surreal ideals of cheap moralism to excuse inaction, and to address societal and systemic ills more effectively if we want less Zamasus and Anakins out there.
