BWri wrote: ↑Mon Apr 08, 2019 11:31 am
Essentially, yes. If he can avoid a senseless conflict by using his words, I think he would. Vegeta has shown that he has enough wisdom these days to do this.
That would be very OOC for Vegeta. Especially if it's against someone who he doesn't have any previous beef with and just attack with no justification. I mean, as empathetic as Vegeta has become, if the situation prevents a good fight for him, he will make the make the most of it.
Again, he had the upper hand for a nice stretch of the fight. He didn't use his words even before the start of the fight. He was extremely passive, really, until blows were thrown.
Again, what could Vegeta say? He knows nothing about Broly. For all Goku and Vegeta, they were Freeza's new lackeys. Broly was conditioned to fight and take orders from his father.
All of that is fine. Perfect even. I have a problem with the fact that out of all these people, Vegeta didn't try a damn thing to mollify the situation. I would think, that at this point, Vegeta would have a softer touch than Goku (metaphorically speaking) when it comes to surviving Saiyans or at least some semblance of mercy.
Vegeta has soft spot for good people. That's why he gives his life to save his family. And why, despite his distastes for fusion techniques, he swallows his pride to fuse with Goku (three times). And why he dances and acts like a showman to appease Beerus in Battle Of Gods. Vegeta's knows what at stakes and how the lives of the people that mean a lot to him could be lost.
Vegeta won't give preferential treatment unless it's justified. He cares for the general people of Earth, his family and close allies because he grown close to them and come appreciate life a hell of a lot more. Cabba, and his exposition of the Universe 6, gave a justification for Vegeta go out on a limb for them because through Cabba he sees potential for growth as well as a demeanor that's more grounded and relatable to the person that Vegeta has developed into.
That's very similar to what I said, almost the exact same really. I would say that Goku giving Piccolo a sensu is mercy. What I meant by Goku's selfishness is his desire to fight strong guys.
Point taken.
I've never seen this aspect of Vegeta's character. I don't think it was expressed in the show that he gives a shit about people who present themselves properly, whatever that means. The genuinely good-hearted part could be true ... maybe, then again even if the U6 Saiyans weren't particularly good hearted, whose to say he wouldn't have possessed the same desire to revive them? That angle is so vague and poorly written that I have no idea why he wants to revive these guys. Your earlier explanation of Cabba expressing he'd revive U7 no matter what, makes the most sense to me, because I could see Vegeta wanting to return the favor and respect of his "pupil", but otherwise I have no idea why Vegeta cares so much for these guys in particular.
I'm just saying that Vegeta won't give fuck about a person who acts outwardly like a shithead. Broly act like a shithead and charged at Vegeta when he was told to. And movie already tells us that Broly is the kind of person who listens to his father, whether he's morally right or not. Broly knew deep down that senslessly attacking Vegeta wasn't the right thing to do, but he did it anyway.
True. It's why I think he would so some mercy. I think seeing another Saiyan being exploited by Frieza like he himself was would make something snap in Vegeta. Or at the very least, it would elicit sympathy. The easiest, most natural experience of sympathy is seeing a situation you have an intimate experience with happen to someone else. It's why a former alchoholic or drug addict might be moved to help others they see dealing with alcoholism or drug addiction. That same person may not have cultivated sympathy for other issues such as LGBTQ, treatment of Veterans, etc. because they've never dealt with it before or had anyone they knew dealing with it because it takes a few extra mental/emotional steps for that kind of sympathy. The situation with Broly and Paragus, would seemingly create the much more natural form of sympathy for Vegeta. They are fellow Saiyans displaced in the universe thanks to Frieza, working for him under the guise of a lie (not knowing he blew up Vegeta), are cutthroats (Vegeta assumes) because its all they've ever known, and the last remaining members of their lost race in U7. All of this applied to Vegeta too at some point. Why wouldn't he have the most natural form of sympathy for these two in this case, especially Broly?
Just remember, I'm not asking for the situation to turn out all sunshine and rainbows, I acknowledge everything you said about Broly and Paragus, I just wanted Vegeta to show he gave a sh**, maybe even some pity. He flaps his gums about Saiyan this, Saiyan that, but really he should just say my genetics this and my genetics that because he doesn't give a damn about Saiyans.
Here's the thing: Neither Broly wasn't being exploited explicitly by Freeza. He was being controlled by by his father. Yes, Freeza acted later as a catalyst for Broly to attain a higher power through manufacturing emotional stress for Broly to become a SSJ. But ensuring that Broly was completely subservient to certain commands? That was 100% Paragus. And that's what kick-starts the final 1/3 of the narrative for the movie. The most Freeza did was give Paragus a platform to exact revenge, something that was already established as what Paragus wanted.
I understand what angle you're coming from. But the onus is more on Broly to give Vegeta come context as why he has to fight him considering it's Broly that initiates the confrontation and not the other way around. Context needs to be given. Vegeta can't just latch onto something if he's given no incentive to do so. Broly charged at Vegeta for no reason, and from Vegeta's point of view, Broly was looking for a fight. And Vegeta gave it to him.
That's an interesting way to look at it, I must admit. But even so, I think the surviving members of his own race, with ties to his father, and in a similar subservient situation with the tyrant that murdered their entire race would initiate the utmost sentimental value, second only to his family. At the very least, he would do something to preserve that. I can't buy that he'd be this disengaged and uninterested.
Vegeta is
WAY past giving a shit about his family and the archaic race of the his era. He burned that bridge back on Namek. Unless, there is a damn good reason given to him, which so far there hasn't been, there's no reason why he should starting care for a race of shitheads in his universe, and when he given more attention to a race of genuinely good people in another.
To a degree, I think he would, simply by the virtue of being an ultra rare survivor of Vegeta's extinct race. I'm not even saying it would give a lot of stock in Vegeta's eyes, but you'd think at least enough to try to explain the truth of things to him, why he doesn't need to be working for Frieza, why they should be working together instead, etc.
Being a ultra rare survivor of near extinct race is one thing, and being and uncontrollable, feral bastard is another. Broly is indeed a unique specimen. But the movie makes it very clear that when he starts throwing fisticuffs, he's an immense wildcard, who's mentally unstable and has a seemingly bottomless amount of Ki that he feels the needs to exert on anything that moves. He was too dangerous to kept alive (at that point) to be kept alive.
I agree, but my problem isn't with Broly. It's with the guy with the power and knowledge to change the situation if he was so inclined. He didn't even try.
The problem
does lie with Broly.
Broly starts the fight.
Broly has the wherewithal to know that always following his fathers orders is the right thing to do.
Broly continues to fight even though Goku restrains him and tries to reason with him. Hell, if there was ever a moment Broly could explained himself, it was there. But he doesn't.
I'm just here a bit earlier than you. I can see the writing on the wall. To me, his treatment of surviving U7 Saiyans shows me he hasn't grown much as a character (in-universe). This discussion has helped me see that he still views non-family Saiyans through the lens of trash vs. useful to him, just as he did when he casually tossed Nappa in the air and blew him to smithereens. Otherwise, its just inconsistent--and even worse--shallow writing.
The main issue with the remaining U7 Saiyans is that they present themselves as shitheads, making it quite difficult for them to receive sympathy in the first place. Paragus is portrayed as ruthless, while still willing to risk the well being of his only son the last of his kind in desperate attempt at revenge, even if it's proxy.
And Broly is basically Tarzan, but with far more strength to throw around and somehow more feral, making him an unpredictable element in combat. That's not even taking into consideration once he starts fighting, he never stops, even if it's in scenario where people try to reel him in and calm him down.
There isn't much sympathy you can throw to those guys, at least from an in-universe perspective, from their demeanor in crucial parts of the story.
Plenty. He can see that Broly and Paragus are serving Frieza or at the very least, allied with him. He could start by asking why they would serve the guy who blew up all their people and home planet. Broly would probably say nothing, but Paragus might say that he doesn't care either way because of his grudge, he explains to Vegeta that he has to die because of the crimes of his father. Knowing Vegeta, he'd likely say something like "I don't give a damn about my father, he is dead like the rest." He'd probably make a comment on how foolish it is for Saiyans to serve someone like Frieza. Paragus wouldn't care and would sick Broly on Vegeta anyway. They'd start the fight, Broly powers up after fighting a bit and makes Vegeta go SSJ. At this point in the movie, Vegeta had the upper-hand for a bit, but I feel here he would explain that this is what Frieza feared and why he killed everyone. If Paragus knows of the legend, there's probably a 50-50 shot this shocks him into caring about Frieza's heinous crimes and believing that Vegeta is at least telling the truth about that. From there Vegeta can just explain that he is not his father and that he would not have been so petty and jealous to exile someone as talented as Broly. As a matter of fact, he marvels that a Saiyan other than himself could get this strong, which coming from a legendary SSJ like Vegeta, might give Paragus some pride. He could even strike the nail into the coffin by saying that what Frieza really feared was the existence of a Saiyan like Broly and if Broly remained on Vegeta, he would have been wiped out before he could reach the potential that he has today and beyond.
My problem, is that Vegeta tried none of those simple, base level methods of explaining himself. He just didn't care. I really don't want to put this on him as a character. I honestly don't think they thought too hard about his own complex motivations when writing this movie.
Paragus stopped caring about the rest of the Saiyans after the stunt King Vegeta pulled with his son. He makes that very early in the movie where flat out states that he doesn't believe in the idea of a trustworthy Saiyan and doesn't skip a beat when it comes to murdering his own people to survive. If the truth had been made clear to him that Freeza murdered his race out of fear for their potential, he wouldn't have cared. He was very singled minded on revenge against King Vegeta.
I mean, if Paragus swore revenge against King Vegeta, he was practically waging war against the entire Saiyan race, considering King Vegeta ruled over them all.
I don't necessarily think so. Let's say you and me are in a similar situation with a tiny little kid who thinks we ... I guess, took his goldfish. We are the last of the, IDK, lizard people, and this tiny kid wants to kill us and he has a rock. The problem for him is we are 250 pounds of all muscle and we are well versed in self defense. We see that the kid wants to kill us, but the thing is we can see ourselves in the kid, his rage, his bloodlust, but we know he can be a great warrior in his own right if he is shown a better way. We didn't take his goldfish btw, so Do we, A.) Fight him wordlessly, simply amusing ourselves in the process. B.) Kill him right away, because damn, he has a rock. C.) Try to explain ourselves to him while avoiding his attacks, because as we see it, he's not really a threat to us as long as we aren't 100% defenseless.
I thought of a few more branches of this scenario and I'm sure you will too, but that just proves that out of all the possible choices, Vegeta chose the laziest one. At the start of the fight, Broly was nothing more than a child to Vegeta, and physically so was Paragus. They weren't a credible enough threat for Vegeta to take seriously. He had the time and opportunity to try to explain things to him to stop the pointless fight.
There are a few issues with your analogy:
1. Broly is not portrayed as a child in combat. Like... at all. When Vegeta fights Broly, their evenly matched, and with every time Vegeta get's stronger, Broly matches him. Hell, Vegeta even comments that Broly was learning while he fights.
2. The story makes it very clear the one seeking revenge is solely focused on that.
3. The instrument used for revenge is very capable of expression, but chooses not to when offered the opportunity in combat.
You make some fine points, but the crux of the issue is that the film makes it very clear that Broly knows the decisions he making and is fully committed to them. He has man-child like tendencies, but know he's being used, it's pointed to him how his father is a jerk, but Broly respects and loves his Paragus too much to defy him. Broly goes through with whatever his father says even though it's heavily implied Broly doesn't even like to fight. Broly never once asked his father why he had to fight King Vegeta's son, and that is something very important to taking into consideration. Broly doesn't care about his well-being, so as long as he satisfies his father. It's quite tragic when you think about it.
The moment that Paragus was informed that King Vegeta was dead and his son was alive, that could have been the moment that Paragus could have dropped the bad blood and moved on. But he didn't. Making Paragus' thirst for revenge all the more petty. The does this deliberately to make Paragus less sympathetic.
Fights that happen with no pretense, does develop into into soft spoken conversion about why the instigator is engaging in fisticuffs. It ends (usually) with punches being thrown until one person in one the floor. I appreciate you optimism, but in this case you can't expect Vegeta to react to a mad dog being let off his leash running towards with him teeth showing and the intent to do harm, and expect the reaction from Vegeta to be for him try and pet the dog. That never happen in Dragon Ball or real life.
You throw a punch at someone for no reason, expect them to take you down.
Yes, I agree. Even if Vegeta tried to explain himself, there's a good chance it might fail, but it doesn't change the fact that he didn't try.
And that doesn't change the fact that Vegeta had no incentive to try in the place.
It's a remote planet not involved in the planet trade or any other planet politically. It's existence has very little bearing on what happens with the politics of the universe, well, when Frieza isn't going out of his way to try to kill Goku anyway. If Goku hadn't come to Earth, basically no one in the universe would care about it. Even King Cold and Jaco refer to it as a dump.
Babidi cared about Earth.
He should've yelled "Wait!" really loudly and asked for an opportunity to tie his shoe
. Sometimes people give you that time. In all seriousness, I'll give you that. Mostly because I don't feel like looking for that scene to see how accurate that is. But ultimately, just because a fight starts doesn't mean it can't be stopped before it intensifies.
I won't lie, if that happened, I would have laughed.
Yeah it can. I think Vegeta had all the tools of truth to at least make Paragus doubt his crusade. I'm with you when you say it still might not have worked, but I think he had a good shot at convincing him why they shouldn't be enemies.
It really can't. That's half a lifetime to consider continuing revenge and Paragus still jumped at the opportunity when it presented itself. That's pure dedication.
It was also revenge against a whole other person. As long as Vegeta can convince him that he has no connection to his father or his decisions, that might be enough. You never know. The amount of time means little, because Broly and Paragus lived with the suffering of King Vegeta's decision every day of their lives. Just living day to day was a reminder of what that bastard did to them, but again, it wasn't Vegeta who did any of that and he has a decent shot at convincing him of this. He didn't try.
That's really the whole point of Paragus characterization: his anger, bitterness and hostility run so deep he's willing to take it on people that are related the person he's after, even if they have no idea what happened. Paragus is beyond the point of reasoning. He must interested in heads rolling.
I don't think this factors into the discussion we're having. This is more a circumstance of the situation they were in and his love for his son. Realistically, there probably weren't enough resources for the 3 of them to survive if Beet remained alive. To me it shows he has ruthless pragmatism, but quite a lot of care for his son's survival.
That moment is important to take into consideration for how you view Paragus as a person. Given Beet stuck his neck out to help Paragus, and Paragus murders him in cold blood to save supplies... only for Broly and Paragus to survive on that planet for decades.
I have to look into this more. I'm not sure why, but I have a mixed sense of this. Is there a discrepency between the anime portrayal of Vegeta and the manga portrayal? I believe what you're saying is correct, but I also believe there's been instances of him expressing sadness or regret as to the destruction of planet Vegeta.
No. Vegeta never express sadness or regress at the destruction of Planet Vegeta. His regret is the fact that HE couldn't kill Freeza. And HE wasn't the legendary Super Saiyan. Andit out of nothing but pride just wanted Goku to do it.
You mean, did, right? I think the anime may have added some lines here, but I do remember Vegeta crying about how Frieza wiped out their entire race. It's a bit ambiguous. I can't remember the lines from the manga, but I remember it being a little less emotional.
Vegeta crying was because he realised, while fighting Final Form Freeza, that he simply didn't have the strength to match him, despite what he had gone through to get stronger. Vegeta earnestly believed it was him that would become a Super Saiyan. And when his delusions of grandeur were destroyed by Freeza's overwhelming power, he lost the will the fight (the narration in the anime and manga literally say that), and just broke down in tears.
This does, but there's also character development, so I thought he grew to care more about his people the closer we got to his death on Namek. I assumed all that stuff with killing Nappa was Saiyan battle culture that Vegeta had outgrew, but I suppose that was a bad assumption since Nappa had no idea it was coming.
Part of Vegeta's character development was him realising he genuinely cared for the people who gave a shit about him (Trunks and Bulma). Vegeta's empathy only grows beyond that, but it doesn't extend to those with proper reason. It's difficult for Vegeta to give a shit about Broly when his first impression of Broly is attacking him.
Yeah I can't complain too much. I wouldn't have even cared as much if the form didn't look so tacky and thrown-together, or maybe if he didn't get that pride powerup just before.
What can you do? Young Japanese boy eat this shit for breakfast
.