Anyone else think Vegeta was too easily forgiven by the end?

[Rocketman]

Also the only person strong enough to punish Vegeta is Goku, and Goku doesn't care.

[Kid Buu]

Also the only person strong enough to punish Vegeta is Goku, and Goku doesn't care.

Gohan?

[Rocketman]

Also the only person strong enough to punish Vegeta is Goku, and Goku doesn't care.

Gohan?

Apparently doesn't care either.

[MediaFanGirl93]

Also the only person strong enough to punish Vegeta is Goku, and Goku doesn't care.

The funny thing is that Vegeta is pissed off at the fact that Goku is stronger than him, and also how Goku is so nonchalant about it.

I still find it funny how Bulma forgave Vegeta for his heinous acts as well.

[RandomGuy96]

Also the only person strong enough to punish Vegeta is Goku, and Goku doesn't care.

Gohan?

Apparently doesn't care either.

Buu?

[sintzu]

It'll be interesting if this is brought up by Frieza in the new movie.

In terms of the question I don't think it would fit for anyone to try to punish him cause :

1- It would cause more harm then good.

2- It's not their job,they only fight when they or their planet is in danger unlike lest say superheroes who go around punishing bad guys.

I was toying with the idea of a fanfic a while back where a galactic tribunal eventually finds Vegeta living on Earth and attempts to bring him to justice for genocide and murder.

That would be both a great movie and a very different one.

[ParkerAL]

From an out-of-universe perspective, I trace Vegeta's relatively smooth path to redemption to Toriyama not being up to delving into a subject as serious as the believable ramifications of genocide. He's a gag writer at heart, and his comedy often bleeds into his drama. As a result, the incidents of mass murder in Dragon Ball never come close to eliciting the immeasurable horror they inspire in the real world.

I need only point to a few of his most recent works to show how lightly he handles the subject. In Jaco: the Galactic Patrolman, the titular protagonist carries around a portable Extinction Bomb, and makes apathetic comments about wiping out the Earth's population on a whim. Meanwhile, Beerus, an extremely comedic villain, destroys planets as part of his cosmic duty, and even Goku of all people still shows him respect. Toriyama also completely glossed over the Saiyan's genocidal antics in Dragon Ball Minus, focusing mostly on Bardock and Gine's loving relationship, while choosing to draw their races' victims as dehumanized monsters:




I'm not saying Toriyama intentionally minimizes genocide in his works, but I definitely think he's writing outside his comfort zone whenever he includes it in his stories. As a writer, he's simply too light-hearted and goofy to lend the topic realistic weight. He came close at certain points throughout the manga's original run, with Guru's despair at the death of his children and the "last words" Vegeta's imparts to Goku about their race's demise at Freeza's hands. Overall, however, he never dives too deep into the full scale of its consequences.

[dbzfan7]

Oh most definitely so much so that I find it ridiculous whenever some one claims Vegeta deserves to get payback on Freeza. For what? Being an asshole to him so he couldn't be a free homicidal maniac? Oh yeah he really deserves payback now. One bad homicidal maniac being a dick to the other homicidal maniac, I'm just choking up here.

[RandomGuy96]

I'm not saying Toriyama intentionally minimizes genocide in his works, but I definitely think he's writing outside his comfort zone whenever he includes it in his stories. As a writer, he's simply too light-hearted and goofy to lend the topic realistic weight. He came close at certain points throughout the manga's original run, with Guru's despair at the death of his children and the "last words" Vegeta's imparts to Goku about their race's demise at Freeza's hands. Overall, however, he never dives too deep into the full scale of its consequences.

That is a good point. However, even when ignoring Vegeta's actual acts of genocide, he's still an utterly evil asshole. He killed seven innocent Nameks for no reason, then gloated about the fact that they'd never come back. He killed an innocent truck driver during the fight with 18 to show off (none of these guys got brought back, btw). He nearly killed his own son and wife and gave zero shits. He helped Cell reach his perfect form by catching 18, guaranteeing that things would get much worse, solely to stroke his own ego. He beat his son when he tried to stop Vegeta from dooming the Earth.

I just find it utterly unbelievable that even the horrible protagonists of Dragon Ball don't recognize how evil he is, and how counterproductive it is to keep him around. Goku sees him two years after he remorselessly butchered several civilians for the lulz, and he's just like "Hey Vegeta! How's it going?". Everyone just sort of accepts him after he directly causes Perfect Cell, rather than killing him. Gohan, during the intervening years, never thinks to give him some payback for the whole "butchered civilians and tried to kill me and my whole family" thing. Heck, even if you forget the whole "violent murderer" shtick, he's still an asshole. I'd expect Mr. Buu to get annoyed with him one day and backhand his head off.

[ParkerAL]

Now that I've actually read the entire thread, I think it's safe to say both sides are pulling their arguments to rather unpleasant extremes. Suggesting that Vegeta should get off Scott-free for all the reprehensible, heinous crimes he's committed is of course nonsense. He doesn't deserve leniency simply because he's a badass.

On the other hand, given the circumstances of his upbringing and the kind of society he inhabited, how else was he supposed to behave? It's like judging the Romans, Huns and Mongols for all the terrible things they did, even though they lived under completely different societal standards than ours, during a time when going around burning down cities and massacring people was the rule rather than the exception. In order to judge whether someone is good or evil, you need to compare their actions to a general standard of morality. Everyone in Vegeta's social circle pre-Namek were murdering bastards.

Any judicial system worth its salt should maintain a balance between punishment and rehabilitation. Which of these does Vegeta need the most, given his current situation (Battle of Gods time frame)?

[sintzu]

I find it ridiculous whenever some one claims Vegeta deserves to get payback on Freeza. For what ?

To keep things interesting.

[Attitudefan]

Vegeta killed billions of people, destroying planets and leveling civilizations and wiping out all living beings on countless planets. For the short time he is on screen, he spent most of his life off screen committing genocide. He is too far gone to be redeemed. What he did on Earth is peanuts (which explains why he may be forgiven for his Earth atrocities) but even on screen he murdered an entire village on Namek, leveled a whole city on Earth causing environmental damage that was never repaired by the Dragon Balls. His introduction was eating the last of the inhabitants of a planet he destroyed. Basically, he's no better than a real life SS officer, A Kahnate Mongol warrior, or Turkish grunt who caused mass genocide in history. He's not a Hitler per se, but he was a follower of a Hitler type.

And people don't forgive followers either seeing the Nuremberg trials as evidence of that. Vegeta would be subjected to such scrutiny. Could he be forgiven? Hell no.

No matter how much good he does, his evil will over shadow his good. Just because his good is spot lighted in the show doesn't make his bad atrocities hold less weight on morality.

Think about Chris Benoit. He donated to charity and people looked up to his tenacity and his family man qualities. Yet, he murdered his family and committed suicide and will only be remembered for that one evil act. Everything he did good became irrelevant because of his one evil act.

If that doesn't work for your tastes, think of Kane in the biblical story of Kane and Able. Kane is considered pure evil.

EDIT in response to Random Guy, I agree. I think if handled more realistically, even if Vegeta is forgiven, I think at the very least the Earthlings would never accept Vegeta, even Gohan. You can see that with filler where other artists wrote and interpret characters themselves. For example, I think how Bulma, Piccolo, Gohan, and the other Nameks react to Vegeta is more realistic than manga canon. Vegeta goats that he killed a village that can't be revived and Gohan just wants to beat the hell out of this guy who murdered innocents and killed his friends. I mean, one day before they were petrified and pissed off at Vegeta, yet all of a sudden they are all buddies? What?!?

Literally, before death, Krillin had no remorse to stab Vegeta and trick him by using the Dragon Balls behind his back and Vegeta was prepared to cast them aside whenever it suited him. Then, it's literally like a single day that passed for Krillin, since he was dead because of Freeza, and lets Vegeta be friends with him. Okay....

Same could be argued for Piccolo, however, we don't know if he killed anything (but he did cause massive explosions on the island) so it's safe to assume he did. The difference is how no one trusts him until he fuses with Nail, essentially changing his soul and overall being. He's not Piccolo anymore and that is hinted at with the reactions with Dende. He's finally accepted, but still not to the same extent as Vegeta since no human other than the Z fighters want Piccolo around. Not only that, but he's not really Piccolo's incarnate anymore after his first fusion. Therefore, he's accepted, but as a different being. Yet, Vegeta is still Vegeta causing death and destruction, and despite all that, is more buddy-buddy with the Earthlings. Huh.

[ABED]

On the other hand, given the circumstances of his upbringing and the kind of society he inhabited, how else was he supposed to behave? It's like judging the Romans, Huns and Mongols for all the terrible things they did, even though they lived under completely different societal standards than ours, during a time when going around burning down cities and massacring people was the rule rather than the exception. In order to judge whether someone is good or evil, you need to compare their actions to a general standard of morality. Everyone in Vegeta's social circle pre-Namek were murdering bastards.

While it's certainly true that most people go along with the pack, they still have free will. Morality isn't something determined by gods or society.

[ABED]

It's like Man of Steel, why do people seem to blame the heroes more than the villains?

It's actually not like Man of Steel. Zod was Superman's equal, so Supes really couldn't do much more than what he did. Goku had the power to end the Majin Buu threat at any time (before Super Buu anyway), but didn't.

Prior the retcons Goku wasn't stronger than Buu nor Vegeta. The Man of Steel example has little do with with his comparative strength and more to do with "he's a good guy so he would never let that happen." I see this happen again and again, if the good guy does something wrong, often they are judged way more harshly than the villain, if not outright blamed completely.

Whoops, sorry for the double post.

This is exactly what I'm talking about. He saves the planet and despite the obvious villains trying to commit genocide, the hero gets flack to the point where he's blamed for the destruction in Metropolis, despite him not being there when the world engine was doing the bulk of the damage. If you don't think it rings true as Not to go off-topic but Superman in Man of Steel was more of a villain than an actual superhero considering he put pretty much everyone at risk, wrecked the fuck out of wherever he battled and it just didn't feel quite right as a real Superman film. Great as an action flick not so much as Superman's.

Superman, watch the damage done in the animated series. To bring it back to DB, this is exactly what I'm talking about, I've seen more posts blaming Goku for Buu than Vegeta or even Babidi. Let's say I'm wrong, and Toriyama had it all thought out. At worst, Goku's a dick, but he's not the one who should take the bulk of the blame. Vegeta should take a big chunk for allowing himself to be taken over, and Babidi should take the largest share seeing as how he's the a-hole who is trying to revive Buu to begin with.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

If it makes you feel any better, he's still going to Hell when he dies.

Goku's friends include the Kami of Earth, the Kaio of the North Galaxy, the Dai Kaio (if you include the anime), two Kaioshin, the Hakaishin (if you include BoG), and even Enma Daio himself. And since Vegeta won't have been doing anything bad by the time he would die, and he will have done good things instead, maybe he can make it with a body in Heaven so that Goku can have someone to fight.

[RandomGuy96]

If it makes you feel any better, he's still going to Hell when he dies.

Goku's friends include the Kami of Earth, the Kaio of the North Galaxy, the Dai Kaio (if you include the anime), two Kaioshin, the Hakaishin (if you include BoG), and even Enma Daio himself. And since Vegeta won't have been doing anything bad by the time he would die, and he will have done good things instead, maybe he can make it with a body in Heaven so that Goku can have someone to fight.

None of those guys matter even a little bit except Emna Daio, who isn't that close to Goku. If Vegeta doesn't go to Hell, the universe is seriously fucked up.

[Cure Dragon 255]

Thank YOU1!!


Seriously I like Vegeta, but his mewing fanboys make me puke.

Not fans, fanboys. As in, not people who do acknowledge that Vegeta SHOULDNT be getting away with all this.

[DBZGTKOSDH]

None of those guys matter even a little bit except Emna Daio

You don't know that. The Kaio, Kaioshin, and Hakaishin are higher gods than him. Sure, these are Enma Daio's matters, and one of the Kaio/Kaioshin/Hakaishin wouldn't have the power to make him change his decision. But when he has at least one Kaio, all of the Kaioshin, and a Hakaishin on his side, these are very big means.

Seriously I like Vegeta, but his mewing fanboys make me puke.

Not fans, fanboys. As in, not people who do acknowledge that Vegeta SHOULDNT be getting away with all this.

Because I'm totally a Vegeta fanboy, and I'm not saying this because it is a very realistic situation in a Shonen manga (look at what happened to Sasuke in the end of Naruto for example, if you are into it), but I'm only saying this because I love Vegeta so much that I can't imagine him going to Hell... Right.

[RandomGuy96]

You don't know that.

I do, because no one except Emna Daio has ever been observed having a significant role in the dealings of the dead. Even if we didn't see that, this is stupid non-logic. "Oh, we don't know literally everything, so there COULD be a giant spaghetti monster where DB's Hell would be".

The Kaio, Kaioshin, and Hakaishin are higher gods than him. Sure, these are Enma Daio's matters, and one of the Kaio/Kaioshin/Hakaishin wouldn't have the power to make him change his decision. But when he has at least one Kaio, all of the Kaioshin, and a Hakaishin on his side, these are very big means.

Again, it doesn't matter. Emna Daio does whatever he wants. Piccolo said that none of this "bros with god" shit mattered, and that he was too evil to go anywhere other than Hell. I also highly doubt that Kaio, Kibitoshin, and Elder Kaioshin would vouch for Vegeta. They all know how horrible he is, and presumably aren't sociopaths like Goku.

Because I'm totally a Vegeta fanboy, and I'm not saying this because it is a very realistic situation in a Shonen manga (look at what happened to Sasuke in the end of Naruto for example, if you are into it), but I'm only saying this because I love Vegeta so much that I can't imagine him going to Hell... Right.

Toriyama is a lot more self-aware about Shonen cliches than many people realize. He subverts them all the time. Especially in regards to Vegeta. For example, when Vegeta got righteous fury and charged Cell with the power of love or whatever, yet still got his shit wrecked anyway because he's weak. Or when Goku had a "I'll put everything I have into this last blow!" moment, and Vegeta just shrugged it off and broke his ribs. Or when Vegeta announced that he was atoning, and Piccolo flatly told him that he was still going to Hell anyway, because the universe didn't forget about how horrible he was for his entire life.

[Cure Dragon 255]

None of those guys matter even a little bit except Emna Daio

You don't know that. The Kaio, Kaioshin, and Hakaishin are higher gods than him. Sure, these are Enma Daio's matters, and one of the Kaio/Kaioshin/Hakaishin wouldn't have the power to make him change his decision. But when he has at least one Kaio, all of the Kaioshin, and a Hakaishin on his side, these are very big means.

Seriously I like Vegeta, but his mewing fanboys make me puke.

Not fans, fanboys. As in, not people who do acknowledge that Vegeta SHOULDNT be getting away with all this.

Because I'm totally a Vegeta fanboy, and I'm not saying this because it is a very realistic situation in a Shonen manga (look at what happened to Sasuke in the end of Naruto for example, if you are into it), but I'm only saying this because I love Vegeta so much that I can't imagine him going to Hell... Right.

God the second half of this post is so weird. It doesnt really say anything at all.

Also, Sasuke's redemption was bullshit. Seriously, its not "Realistic" at all AND if you want realism then Vegeta should have been left to rot in hell.