Dragon Ball: Is Zeno a Bad Guy?

Highlights

• Zeno, the Omni-King, is the most powerful being in the Dragon Ball multiverse, feared by even the Destroyer Gods.
• Fans question Zeno’s motives due to his willingness to erase universes without batting an eye, hinting at a potential dark side.
• While Zeno’s actions may seem cruel, as the supreme ruler his duty is to maintain balance by destroying stagnant universes for the greater good.

The Divine Hierarchy of the Dragon Ball multiverse is what seems to keep the order of the cosmos. Mirroring the hierarchy of the individual universes, there seems to be an incredibly powerful Angel attendant and a Destroyer God with the ability to erase all reality if he so chooses. This fearsome power of the strongest being in the multiverse has called into question his motives from many fans.

Zeno is called the ‘Omni-King’ of Dragon Ball because he is the supreme ruler of the entire multiverse and his power is greater than anything ever shown before in this franchise. However, due to this immense and unchecked power, many believe that Zeno may eventually turn out to be the big bad that the heroes have to face at the end of the series, so let’s take a look at whether this theory holds any merit.

Who Is Zeno?

Debuting back in the closing moments of the Universe 6 Tournament Arc, Grand Zeno was introduced as a figure who Beerus and Champa, their respective universe’s most powerful beings with incredible destructive powers, were terrified of. Eventually, his true identity as the supreme deity of the multiverse was revealed, showing that this was a character with an insurmountable level of power.

Eventually, he became friends with Goku, with whom he promised to make a multiversal tournament that pitted the strongest warriors across the multiverse against each other, for his own reasons that were revealed later. Goku also summoned an alternate version of the Omni King after their defeat at the hands of Infinite Zamasu, who proceeded to erase an entire timeline.

In the Tournament of Power Arc, it was revealed that the universes with the lowest mortal levels were the ones that were chosen to fight each other. In fact, Grand Zeno was secretly planning to erase these weak universes, only not doing so after realizing that Goku’s idea for a grand tournament between them would be a better way to sift them out.

Why Zeno Could Be Evil

Grand Zeno is a very mysterious character in Dragon Ball. The crux of the theory of him potentially being a bad guy comes in a statement made by Whis, where he reveals that there used to be a total of 18 universes instead of the 12 that fans have seen throughout Dragon Ball Super. Since the remaining 6 universes were stated to have a far lower mortal level, they were erased.

The true threat of this comes from the indifference that Zeno has to the death of potentially trillions of lives. Though it could be understood how a small mortal level could stand in the way of a universe progressing to a certain level to make the lives of its denizens easier, Zeno not batting an eye to kill so many people certainly throws his morality into question.

Anyone stronger than the God of Destruction does not exist!

This is made even worse when the character seems to be naive like a child, making him even more unpredictable and dangerous. This is something that can potentially bring him to odds with Goku and the rest of the Z-Fighters, but unlike any of the villains that they have faced before, there is nothing they could do against someone at this level of power.

In the past, Moro and Buu were the villains who had the highest number of casualties as a result of their evil actions. Still, though, the amount of death that they have caused simply does not even come close to what Zeno has done in the past, making him the most dangerous being in the multiverse. His turn into a villain could be because he views it as the duty of every universe to obey the parameters that he has set.

How likely is Zeno to be a villain?

While what Zeno has done to the denizens of all the eliminated universes is undoubtedly cruel, it should be known that when a mortal level of a universe is not met, the universe itself is on a track of self-destruction anyway, as the progress and growth of its inhabitants is halted. This is where the duties of a God of Destruction come in, as they prevent this stagnation.

Before creation comes destruction. Get it?

Whenever they come across something that will undoubtedly halt the development and progress of their universe, they are required to destroy it, so that room for that growth can be created for other life forms to thrive. This is why Destroyer Gods cannot be deemed evil in the traditional sense because although they do evil deeds, it’s only for the greater good. Zeno falls under this category too but on a multiversal scale, so his needing to destroy so much is only a part of his job so that the remaining universes don’t suffer.

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