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This was originally a community post I made on my YouTube channel, but on second thought, I think it could work well as a debunk for SpongeBob to discuss on this website. Also, sorry for the lack of links, I couldn’t really add those on the original YouTube post (but I did explain where I found certain pieces of evidence and what episodes or media they were from within the post). I also want to point out that there are characters within the SpongeBob verse with way more consist and better scaling than SpongeBob himself, so many of his anti-feats and outliers stand out way more. I also think the Multi-Solar System-Galaxy level scaling for most characters should be removed, as most of the characters within the series do not show any feats near that level.
Since a lot of people wanted to know my thoughts on SpongeBob’s scaling, I decided to break down his page on the VSBattles Wiki to either debunk or clarify some of the notes that they made for his scaling. SpongeBob is one of the most inconsistent characters in terms of scaling, as he has some genuinely good feats, but at the same time, he has so many anti-feats that make him really inconsistent (and there are characters in SpongeBob that do have consist scaling, even some of the main cast characters are a bit more consist (although their power is also pretty inconsistent too)). If I miss anything or get anything wrong, please let me know since I would love to hear what you guys have to think. With that out of the way, here is my ultimate debunk of SpongeBob SquarePants and why I think he is so damn inconsistent and should honestly be downgraded:
"SpongeBob can create and destroy dreams and imaginations which have consistently been shown to be real and interactable through Subjective Reality. Said dreams and imaginations can become large enough to house starry skies in the background." - Starting with this piece of evidence, SpongeBob’s imagination and dreams do not really scale anywhere, as while other characters can sometimes see them, they are still depicted as intangible and not actually real. As for the three links that were provided to prove this statement, they don’t really say anything on these imaginations being actually real and tangible, as while the first and second examples do show Squidward being able to see SpongeBob’s imagination, Squidward quickly gets rid of said imagination both times with relative ease (making what SpongeBob imagines at best just an illusion with no actual tangible impact on the plot (which would be more of an ability rather than him actually creating alternate realities within these imaginations or dreams)). The third example literally contradicts the claim of SpongeBob’s imagination being real, as the comic makes it VERY CLEAR that SpongeBob’s imagination is something that has no real impact on the world (as we can see Plankton literally telling SpongeBob that he does not see anything SpongeBob is imagining while he was using his imagination, contradicting the claim that these imaginations are real and tangible). I think they only show SpongeBob’s ability to imagine here to be a visual thing for the reader and not something that is actually happening within the universe. The ONLY exception that I can think of where imagination is shown to be real is the imagination box in the season 14 episode "Squidiot Box," and even then it was likely due to that box actually having some sort of magical power that goes beyond simple imagination (considering that it was revealed to be from a specific box store that sells other magic boxes just like that one, I would say it is more like a method of reality warping connected to imagination). As for the dream thing, similar to Dream Po, SpongeBob’s dreams don’t really scale anywhere since they are 0D and have no real effect on the universe, so his dreams having starry skies in the background scales nowhere (that would be like any character who dreams stuff with a starry sky to scale to this level, which is complete cap).
"SpongeBob physically created Clarinetland by reconstructing the interior of a cabinet using mechanic tools (only audible); Clarinetland is a pocket dimension that is large enough to house a space filled with stars and nebulae in the background." - This one is actually really easy to debunk, as it is revealed at the end of the episode that Clarinetland was not real and was just hallucinated by Squidward (since we clearly see the locker going back to normal after Squidward wakes up from his nightmare, and it is never shown after that point that Clarinetland was even real). I am unsure if these people even watched the damn episode, since it is pretty obvious that Clarinetland was not real and was just hallucinated by Squidward, making this feat scale nowhere. I know people will make the excuse that dreams are real and tangible in the SpongeBob universe, but like I said prior, they scale nowhere due to them being 0D (and characters interacting within dreams is just a form of Dream Manipulation and not something that actually scales anywhere).
"He can destroy his own brain, which contains a pocket dimension inside of it housing a starry sky and a sun in the background." - SpongeBob’s brain is pretty inconsistent (as before the second movie we saw the inside of his brain in the season 7 episode "The Inside Job," where it was basically just a replica of the inside of SpongeBob’s house), but yet again, SpongeBob having a sun in his brain doesn’t really scale anywhere, as that sun would obviously have a lot less potency as the actual sun due to being in a significantly smaller area (if it were as potent as the real sun, Bikini Bottom would have been obliterated), thus making him being able to destroy his brain something that doesn’t really scale anywhere significant.
"He generated this much force from landing while holding the string that unraveled the universe." - There is nothing to suggest SpongeBob falling down that height would create Multi-Solar System level force, as if that was the case, Patrick would have been obliterated instantly. Yet again, something that scales nowhere (as SpongeBob being fine after falling from that height is simply just cartoon logic).
As for the two Galaxy level feats, the first one from the season 6 episode "Truth or Square" could be a bit debatable, but it is never shown or stated if SpongeBob actually created that space and inserted those galaxies into it, as it could very well just have been a space backdrop as a simple visual thing rather than it actually being a literal space. With that said, this feat is somewhat debatable, so I could maybe be wrong about this. The second feat from the season 4 episode "All That Glitters" however scales nowhere, since it was clearly just a visual background thing that had no impact on the episode and was only visible by the audience (similar to the imagination stuff from that one SpongeBob comic, since it had no effect beyond the viewer and SpongeBob seeing it), as we can clearly see the space background immediately fade away once Squidward tells SpongeBob to make his order (showing that it was only a daydream that scales nowhere, and like I said prior, these hallucinations scale nowhere).
As for the infamous string feat from the season 11 episode "The String," unlike the previously mentioned feats, this feat is actually something that can be properly scaled (even if it is still somewhat of an outlier). However, I feel like this feat mainly stems from the string more so than SpongeBob, as all he did was pull on the string and would have likely had no other way of destroying the universe beyond this string (considering that most of his other feats even compare to this one), so it was somewhat more of a Lifting Strength feat rather than a consistent AP feat. Other characters like the Flint Lockwood Vacuum Factory or Kang and Kodos (or even that Antimatter bomb from The Patrick Star Show) had means of completely destroying the universe using their own abilities rather than using external means that weren’t really in their control like what happened here. So in conclusion, this feat counting can be debatable, but it does sort of feel like an outlier in my opinion (especially considering SpongeBob did this completely unintentionally).
I know this wasn’t on VSBattles Wiki, but I got to mention the Dreaming Dreamer feat, since a lot of people use this as proof of SpongeBob being OP. In reality, SpongeBob only had temporary access to this higher dimensional plane (since he was only transported to it by eating that special kind of jelly (which implies that the jelly was the one with those transcending powers and not SpongeBob himself), and he woke up before even waking up the Dreaming Dreamer anyways) and most of the heavy lifting here was with the Dreaming Dreamer and not SpongeBob (since SpongeBob only attempted to wake him up, whereas the Dreaming Dreamer was the one who nearly merged their dimensional planes). Unlike mightyedits, I actually do think this feat scales well with the Dreaming Dreamer, but SpongeBob had no real say here beyond temporary transcendence (which at best was something that could be scaled more to the jelly SpongeBob ate rather than SpongeBob himself). As for the Patchy the Pirate stuff, that is a whole different can of worms I don’t want to discuss at the moment. In conclusion though, it sort of just feels like a bunch of R>F that scales nowhere. Also, SpongeBob has a TON of anti-feats throughout the show that make him really inconsistent overall. I can get behind maybe having one or two outliers, but SpongeBob being consistently shown with these anti-feats makes him overall a very inconsistent character. Also, any fourth wall breaks do not really scale anywhere, so don’t use that as evidence for SpongeBob being broken (trust me, we don’t want another Peter Griffin situation).
Going to speed, some of these calcs are okay, but there are some criticisms I have with what the VSBattles Wiki says. While the string and Doodle Dimension feats check out (and can be good reasons for SpongeBob being Massively FTL), him outrunning most of those other characters does not really scale anywhere, as most of those characters have shown average-athletic running speed most of the time, with those examples usually being exceptions. As for the Atlanteans, they also only really show average speed feats during the scenes we see them in as well. In conclusion, SpongeBob has pretty inconsistent speed, as he does have some FTL feats, but most of the time he simply just has above average speed.
Probably one of the most inconsistent things about SpongeBob is his lifting strength. I actually do think SpongeBob carrying the string that unraveled the universe is a genuinely good lifting strength feat (this was written before that one debunk, sorry), and there was one short in which he lifted up the whole Earth too. However, my main issue is that SpongeBob most of the time is shown to be VERY physically weak on numerous occasions. There is a constant running gag throughout many episodes (mostly in season 1, but it has occurred in other episodes too like in the season 9 episode "Larry’s Gym") where SpongeBob struggles to lift very light objects like teddy bears or marshmallows (he even at one point got his hand completely stuck from being under a simple glass of juice). Considering how constant they make these jokes of SpongeBob having bad lifting strength, I feel like he is far too inconsistent to have a consistent Universal Lifting Strength tbh (at least characters like Patrick, Mr. Krabs, Sandy, and hell even PLANKTON are shown to be genuinely physically capable in most episodes, so SpongeBob being constantly shown as physically weak throughout multiple episodes is even more inconsistent in this context).
Same reasons as AP lol.
I do agree that SpongeBob has some good durability (due to his toon force letting him shrug off damage that would otherwise kill anyone else), but he isn’t completely immortal like what some people think. In the first movie, we clearly see SpongeBob and Patrick being killed by the extreme heat of the lamp, and if it weren’t for their tears short circuiting the sprayers, they would have died right there and then. Additionally, Patrick (who has comparable durability to SpongeBob) has shown to be killed by Galaxy-Universe destroying threats in his spinoff show (like the antimatter bomb in "X Marks the Pot" or the black hole in "Star Cruise"). Additionally, in The Patrick Star Show episode "The Starry Awards," Patrick, Squidina, and Granny Tentacles were all shown being LITERALLY KILLED by the bomb Granny Tentacles attempted to use to bomb the show (which at best was Large Building level), considering that the three of them became ghosts after the bomb exploded (yeah they do come back to life by the next episode, but the fact that they did actually die from this bomb shows that they can be killed). So overall, SpongeBob may have alright durability, but he is not immortal and he can die if put in certain circumstances.
No real issues with these categories, they are honestly pretty decently accurate to be fair and I think what the VSBattles Wiki said was pretty accurate where credit is due.
In conclusion, SpongeBob is a really inconsistent character which while does have some good feats here and there, he is overall constantly overrated despite the amount of anti-feats he has that show him being really weak (likely due to people overrating his toon force). I do not think the SpongeBob verse is completely featless, as there are some genuinely powerful characters who are a lot more consist than SpongeBob himself (like most of the more powerful robots in the series, the black hole from The Patrick Star Show, the antimatter bomb, The Great Wumbozi, Dreaming Dreamer, Bubbles the Dolphin, etc. Even some of the main cast like Patrick (while still being pretty inconsistent) do have some more consist feats overall and are nowhere near as inconsistent as SpongeBob himself), I just think people act like SpongeBob is the most powerful character in all of fiction, when in reality, he is incredibly inconsistent and isn’t even the most powerful character in his own verse lol.
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Since a lot of people wanted to know my thoughts on SpongeBob’s scaling, I decided to break down his page on the VSBattles Wiki to either debunk or clarify some of the notes that they made for his scaling. SpongeBob is one of the most inconsistent characters in terms of scaling, as he has some genuinely good feats, but at the same time, he has so many anti-feats that make him really inconsistent (and there are characters in SpongeBob that do have consist scaling, even some of the main cast characters are a bit more consist (although their power is also pretty inconsistent too)). If I miss anything or get anything wrong, please let me know since I would love to hear what you guys have to think. With that out of the way, here is my ultimate debunk of SpongeBob SquarePants and why I think he is so damn inconsistent and should honestly be downgraded:
Attack Potency:
"SpongeBob can create and destroy dreams and imaginations which have consistently been shown to be real and interactable through Subjective Reality. Said dreams and imaginations can become large enough to house starry skies in the background." - Starting with this piece of evidence, SpongeBob’s imagination and dreams do not really scale anywhere, as while other characters can sometimes see them, they are still depicted as intangible and not actually real. As for the three links that were provided to prove this statement, they don’t really say anything on these imaginations being actually real and tangible, as while the first and second examples do show Squidward being able to see SpongeBob’s imagination, Squidward quickly gets rid of said imagination both times with relative ease (making what SpongeBob imagines at best just an illusion with no actual tangible impact on the plot (which would be more of an ability rather than him actually creating alternate realities within these imaginations or dreams)). The third example literally contradicts the claim of SpongeBob’s imagination being real, as the comic makes it VERY CLEAR that SpongeBob’s imagination is something that has no real impact on the world (as we can see Plankton literally telling SpongeBob that he does not see anything SpongeBob is imagining while he was using his imagination, contradicting the claim that these imaginations are real and tangible). I think they only show SpongeBob’s ability to imagine here to be a visual thing for the reader and not something that is actually happening within the universe. The ONLY exception that I can think of where imagination is shown to be real is the imagination box in the season 14 episode "Squidiot Box," and even then it was likely due to that box actually having some sort of magical power that goes beyond simple imagination (considering that it was revealed to be from a specific box store that sells other magic boxes just like that one, I would say it is more like a method of reality warping connected to imagination). As for the dream thing, similar to Dream Po, SpongeBob’s dreams don’t really scale anywhere since they are 0D and have no real effect on the universe, so his dreams having starry skies in the background scales nowhere (that would be like any character who dreams stuff with a starry sky to scale to this level, which is complete cap).
"SpongeBob physically created Clarinetland by reconstructing the interior of a cabinet using mechanic tools (only audible); Clarinetland is a pocket dimension that is large enough to house a space filled with stars and nebulae in the background." - This one is actually really easy to debunk, as it is revealed at the end of the episode that Clarinetland was not real and was just hallucinated by Squidward (since we clearly see the locker going back to normal after Squidward wakes up from his nightmare, and it is never shown after that point that Clarinetland was even real). I am unsure if these people even watched the damn episode, since it is pretty obvious that Clarinetland was not real and was just hallucinated by Squidward, making this feat scale nowhere. I know people will make the excuse that dreams are real and tangible in the SpongeBob universe, but like I said prior, they scale nowhere due to them being 0D (and characters interacting within dreams is just a form of Dream Manipulation and not something that actually scales anywhere).
"He can destroy his own brain, which contains a pocket dimension inside of it housing a starry sky and a sun in the background." - SpongeBob’s brain is pretty inconsistent (as before the second movie we saw the inside of his brain in the season 7 episode "The Inside Job," where it was basically just a replica of the inside of SpongeBob’s house), but yet again, SpongeBob having a sun in his brain doesn’t really scale anywhere, as that sun would obviously have a lot less potency as the actual sun due to being in a significantly smaller area (if it were as potent as the real sun, Bikini Bottom would have been obliterated), thus making him being able to destroy his brain something that doesn’t really scale anywhere significant.
"He generated this much force from landing while holding the string that unraveled the universe." - There is nothing to suggest SpongeBob falling down that height would create Multi-Solar System level force, as if that was the case, Patrick would have been obliterated instantly. Yet again, something that scales nowhere (as SpongeBob being fine after falling from that height is simply just cartoon logic).
As for the two Galaxy level feats, the first one from the season 6 episode "Truth or Square" could be a bit debatable, but it is never shown or stated if SpongeBob actually created that space and inserted those galaxies into it, as it could very well just have been a space backdrop as a simple visual thing rather than it actually being a literal space. With that said, this feat is somewhat debatable, so I could maybe be wrong about this. The second feat from the season 4 episode "All That Glitters" however scales nowhere, since it was clearly just a visual background thing that had no impact on the episode and was only visible by the audience (similar to the imagination stuff from that one SpongeBob comic, since it had no effect beyond the viewer and SpongeBob seeing it), as we can clearly see the space background immediately fade away once Squidward tells SpongeBob to make his order (showing that it was only a daydream that scales nowhere, and like I said prior, these hallucinations scale nowhere).
As for the infamous string feat from the season 11 episode "The String," unlike the previously mentioned feats, this feat is actually something that can be properly scaled (even if it is still somewhat of an outlier). However, I feel like this feat mainly stems from the string more so than SpongeBob, as all he did was pull on the string and would have likely had no other way of destroying the universe beyond this string (considering that most of his other feats even compare to this one), so it was somewhat more of a Lifting Strength feat rather than a consistent AP feat. Other characters like the Flint Lockwood Vacuum Factory or Kang and Kodos (or even that Antimatter bomb from The Patrick Star Show) had means of completely destroying the universe using their own abilities rather than using external means that weren’t really in their control like what happened here. So in conclusion, this feat counting can be debatable, but it does sort of feel like an outlier in my opinion (especially considering SpongeBob did this completely unintentionally).
I know this wasn’t on VSBattles Wiki, but I got to mention the Dreaming Dreamer feat, since a lot of people use this as proof of SpongeBob being OP. In reality, SpongeBob only had temporary access to this higher dimensional plane (since he was only transported to it by eating that special kind of jelly (which implies that the jelly was the one with those transcending powers and not SpongeBob himself), and he woke up before even waking up the Dreaming Dreamer anyways) and most of the heavy lifting here was with the Dreaming Dreamer and not SpongeBob (since SpongeBob only attempted to wake him up, whereas the Dreaming Dreamer was the one who nearly merged their dimensional planes). Unlike mightyedits, I actually do think this feat scales well with the Dreaming Dreamer, but SpongeBob had no real say here beyond temporary transcendence (which at best was something that could be scaled more to the jelly SpongeBob ate rather than SpongeBob himself). As for the Patchy the Pirate stuff, that is a whole different can of worms I don’t want to discuss at the moment. In conclusion though, it sort of just feels like a bunch of R>F that scales nowhere. Also, SpongeBob has a TON of anti-feats throughout the show that make him really inconsistent overall. I can get behind maybe having one or two outliers, but SpongeBob being consistently shown with these anti-feats makes him overall a very inconsistent character. Also, any fourth wall breaks do not really scale anywhere, so don’t use that as evidence for SpongeBob being broken (trust me, we don’t want another Peter Griffin situation).
Speed:
Going to speed, some of these calcs are okay, but there are some criticisms I have with what the VSBattles Wiki says. While the string and Doodle Dimension feats check out (and can be good reasons for SpongeBob being Massively FTL), him outrunning most of those other characters does not really scale anywhere, as most of those characters have shown average-athletic running speed most of the time, with those examples usually being exceptions. As for the Atlanteans, they also only really show average speed feats during the scenes we see them in as well. In conclusion, SpongeBob has pretty inconsistent speed, as he does have some FTL feats, but most of the time he simply just has above average speed.
Lifting Strength:
Probably one of the most inconsistent things about SpongeBob is his lifting strength. I actually do think SpongeBob carrying the string that unraveled the universe is a genuinely good lifting strength feat (this was written before that one debunk, sorry), and there was one short in which he lifted up the whole Earth too. However, my main issue is that SpongeBob most of the time is shown to be VERY physically weak on numerous occasions. There is a constant running gag throughout many episodes (mostly in season 1, but it has occurred in other episodes too like in the season 9 episode "Larry’s Gym") where SpongeBob struggles to lift very light objects like teddy bears or marshmallows (he even at one point got his hand completely stuck from being under a simple glass of juice). Considering how constant they make these jokes of SpongeBob having bad lifting strength, I feel like he is far too inconsistent to have a consistent Universal Lifting Strength tbh (at least characters like Patrick, Mr. Krabs, Sandy, and hell even PLANKTON are shown to be genuinely physically capable in most episodes, so SpongeBob being constantly shown as physically weak throughout multiple episodes is even more inconsistent in this context).
Striking Strength:
Same reasons as AP lol.
Durability:
I do agree that SpongeBob has some good durability (due to his toon force letting him shrug off damage that would otherwise kill anyone else), but he isn’t completely immortal like what some people think. In the first movie, we clearly see SpongeBob and Patrick being killed by the extreme heat of the lamp, and if it weren’t for their tears short circuiting the sprayers, they would have died right there and then. Additionally, Patrick (who has comparable durability to SpongeBob) has shown to be killed by Galaxy-Universe destroying threats in his spinoff show (like the antimatter bomb in "X Marks the Pot" or the black hole in "Star Cruise"). Additionally, in The Patrick Star Show episode "The Starry Awards," Patrick, Squidina, and Granny Tentacles were all shown being LITERALLY KILLED by the bomb Granny Tentacles attempted to use to bomb the show (which at best was Large Building level), considering that the three of them became ghosts after the bomb exploded (yeah they do come back to life by the next episode, but the fact that they did actually die from this bomb shows that they can be killed). So overall, SpongeBob may have alright durability, but he is not immortal and he can die if put in certain circumstances.
Stamina, Range, and Intelligence:
No real issues with these categories, they are honestly pretty decently accurate to be fair and I think what the VSBattles Wiki said was pretty accurate where credit is due.
Overall thoughts:
In conclusion, SpongeBob is a really inconsistent character which while does have some good feats here and there, he is overall constantly overrated despite the amount of anti-feats he has that show him being really weak (likely due to people overrating his toon force). I do not think the SpongeBob verse is completely featless, as there are some genuinely powerful characters who are a lot more consist than SpongeBob himself (like most of the more powerful robots in the series, the black hole from The Patrick Star Show, the antimatter bomb, The Great Wumbozi, Dreaming Dreamer, Bubbles the Dolphin, etc. Even some of the main cast like Patrick (while still being pretty inconsistent) do have some more consist feats overall and are nowhere near as inconsistent as SpongeBob himself), I just think people act like SpongeBob is the most powerful character in all of fiction, when in reality, he is incredibly inconsistent and isn’t even the most powerful character in his own verse lol.
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