One thing I think people so often overlook with Krillin is what exactly he is to this series and WHY exactly he may be more timid than his counterparts.
Krillin is the normalcy among these characters. This is a world of superpowers, a world where people see a giant dragon appear in the sky and assume it must just be another Capsule Corp experiment, a world where people hear voices from the sky and think it’s a prank, where entire fully-furnished houses can fit inside your pocket.Nobody really bats an eye at any of this stuff.
You look at the guys with these weird powers and they also take things as they come for the most part, unphased, just figuring “oh boy here comes a thing again” and that’s that.
Except this guy.
This guy was the everyman. This guy was the one to take the reader’s perspective of things and point out just how truly, weirdly insane things could get at times. This guy actually experienced fear, dread, feelings of inadequacy. This guy actually worried about his family when he was out on the battlefield as opposed to being completely swept up in the fight.
But why, pray tell, was he so much more susceptible to these emotions?
Well, a lot of it would have to do with the fact that he was a victim of abuse as a child.
Krillin, as a small boy, was alone. No parents, no family to speak of, he found himself raised at Orin Temple. While there, he was subjected to abuse from the other inhabitants, many of them grown men, who would constantly mock and beat up on him, mocking both his size and strange appearance. It left such a mark on him that he began physically trembling again just upon seeing them. When he spoke in front of them, it was quiet, almost indiscernible.
Now it’s important to realize that, up until this point, that’s the literal opposite of how Krillin had been portrayed. He was cocky, sarcastic. He wasn’t afraid to try to roast people. He seemed very sure of himself most of the time. And then we learn here that it was all a front, that he actually had absolutely no confidence in himself, a trait literally beaten into him over the years.
On top of this, a few years later, while still a boy… he was killed. More specifically, killed by this monster here.
Trying to fight back had been futile. Despite his best effort, Krillin found himself dead at the hands of one of Piccolo’s demon children, and all because he’d opted to go get Goku’s stuff so his only real friend didn’t have to stop celebrating his match. That alone would be traumatic in and of itself, but take into consideration what Kami said later.
The souls of those killed by demons cannot rest, they cannot know peace. They’re doomed to drift in space, suffering the entire time. Krillin was killed by one such demon. This means he didn’t appear at the check-in station, never got to experience the other world. During the time it took to finally defeat Piccolo and restore the Dragon Balls to wish him back, the only thing Krillin experienced was pain and suffering.
Now call me crazy, but… might the above not warrant an aversion to death? If everyone else got to experience what the afterlife was, yet all you’d known was a restless, unending grief and pain, might you be a bit more likely to fear facing that again? Might you be more likely to doubt yourself and your abilities when people would literally beat this idea into your head?
(Side note: This is literally how half the Western fandom treats him. No joke.)
I just think a lot of Krillin’s background is overlooked and not taken into consideration when people try to analyze why he is the way he is.
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