How terrible was Vegeta pre-Android Saga

[jjgp1112]

I like that Vegeta was written in such a nuanced way and that we have other characters of the same type to compare how they measure up.

There's a certain scale to "evil". Some evil you do for the greater good, justice, or even just to prevent a greater evil. Like Goku cutting a deathly swath through the Red Ribbon army. The nuance come from things like intent and who does it and who it happens to. All murder is bad, depending on the victim. Pretty sure I'd be hailed a hero for murdering a child milester.

There's some good back and forth discussion going on, and we all agree that those things he did were bad. It's just that we award more evil points to some actions and more to others. Killing a village of elderly and children to get something you want from them is definitely less evil then killing just because. If Vegeta wasn't looking for a dragon ball, he wouldn't have even bothered with them. I'm pretty sure if he walked up and asked for the ball and they gave it to him with no fight back, none of them would have been killed. I'm 87% sure. But then again, the entire village was killed, and you have to wonder if they all died and Vegeta then had to find the ball himself, or did he decide to kill the rest because they caused him so much trouble. Either way, Vegeta is a mine field that once you know him, and understand how he is, you can easy navigate him. Contrast to Freeza, who I'm 100% sure no namekian were going to live through their encounter with him, even if they all handed over the balls with no struggle at all. Because he gets off on all that stuff. The only way to live though Freeza was to go above and beyond to prove to him that you are loyal, obedient, and very useful.

Fair enough!

[Anonymous Friend]

Personally I like to compare the Saiyans to Space Vikings. The Vikings were pretty horrible and cruel too. But that was the culture they were brought up in. If a Viking came to live another way of life would they change too? That is what I felt happened to Vegeta. And Vegeta’s change was slow but I also think that makes sense when he was already an adult when those changes started to occur.

Vikings weren't nothing but a society of genocidal maniacs. Vikings didnt kill all the other people on the planet because they wanted to be the dominant people. When vikings ruined their planet(which they didnt) they didnt go to a new planet and commit complete genocide on them. They didnt work for another genocidal maniac committing genocides for him and selling the new lands for a profit. Heck even vegeta didnt want the freeza force to stop, he just wanted to be the dude running it. Of all of the redemption arcs in dbz this one makes the least sense. Piccolo was following his crazy dad's wishes, until he learned better. Tien was frankly abused as a child and changed when he learned he could. 18, wasn't inherently evil, she was kidnaped and turned into a monster. Buu was chaos incarnate and the grand supreme kai mellowed him out enough to be tamed.

You have a good point about Tien, except for th abused thing. Tien was trained to be ruthless, but I don't think that was really his thing. Sort of like Johnny in Cobra Kai. We see him be a dick in the movie and take some things way to far, but nothing that really indictae that having better influences couldn't help him. And in the show it shows that he does care for some people, and that he can tolerate and even get along with the person he hates the most.

I think the downfall of evil Vegeta was more or less beaten out of him than anything else. Being under Freeza's thumb meant that he was not going to be top dog. Then he lost his first oppertunity to become immortal on Earth. Then, here come this nobody low level saiyan encroathing on his status as a royal elite. He technically does win the fight, but not in any satifying way for him and his pride. The second chance for immortality is lost as well, and Freeza completely dominates him effortly. And that low level trash comes along again, ascends to super saiyan, and defeats Freeza. Later, another super saiyan comes around. Now there's two of them and he's still not there yet. When he finally does reach that level, it's a series of getting to flex for a brief moment, before getting his ass handed to him. 18, then Cell. Then Gohan widens that gap even further. And even though Gohan is technically the strongest at this point, his true rival is Goku. And while he sees Goku as a clown most of the time, in many ways he's very much a saiyan worthy of the title of Vegeta's Rival. But now he's dead. Vegeta's pretty much broken at this point. And this allows him to sort of start to fully change at this point. It's a shame it's all offscreen during a time skip.

[Kinokima]

Personally I like to compare the Saiyans to Space Vikings. The Vikings were pretty horrible and cruel too. But that was the culture they were brought up in. If a Viking came to live another way of life would they change too? That is what I felt happened to Vegeta. And Vegeta’s change was slow but I also think that makes sense when he was already an adult when those changes started to occur.

Vikings weren't nothing but a society of genocidal maniacs. Vikings didnt kill all the other people on the planet because they wanted to be the dominant people. When vikings ruined their planet(which they didnt) they didnt go to a new planet and commit complete genocide on them. They didnt work for another genocidal maniac committing genocides for him and selling the new lands for a profit. Heck even vegeta didnt want the freeza force to stop, he just wanted to be the dude running it. Of all of the redemption arcs in dbz this one makes the least sense. Piccolo was following his crazy dad's wishes, until he learned better. Tien was frankly abused as a child and changed when he learned he could. 18, wasn't inherently evil, she was kidnaped and turned into a monster. Buu was chaos incarnate and the grand supreme kai mellowed him out enough to be tamed.

You have a good point about Tien, except for th abused thing. Tien was trained to be ruthless, but I don't think that was really his thing. Sort of like Johnny in Cobra Kai. We see him be a dick in the movie and take some things way to far, but nothing that really indictae that having better influences couldn't help him. And in the show it shows that he does care for some people, and that he can tolerate and even get along with the person he hates the most.

I think the downfall of evil Vegeta was more or less beaten out of him than anything else. Being under Freeza's thumb meant that he was not going to be top dog. Then he lost his first oppertunity to become immortal on Earth. Then, here come this nobody low level saiyan encroathing on his status as a royal elite. He technically does win the fight, but not in any satifying way for him and his pride. The second chance for immortality is lost as well, and Freeza completely dominates him effortly. And that low level trash comes along again, ascends to super saiyan, and defeats Freeza. Later, another super saiyan comes around. Now there's two of them and he's still not there yet. When he finally does reach that level, it's a series of getting to flex for a brief moment, before getting yeah his ass handed to him. 18, then Cell. Then Gohan widens that gap even further. And even though Gohan is technically the strongest at this point, his true rival is Goku. And while he sees Goku as a clown most of the time, in many ways he's very much a saiyan worthy of the title of Vegeta's Rival. But now he's dead. Vegeta's pretty much broken at this point. And this allows him to sort of start to fully change at this point. It's a shame it's all offscreen during a time skip.

Yeah I don’t think there was one singular moment that made Vegeta turn good. It was a gradual thing that slowly snuck up on him. And that somehow makes it different then say Tien or Piccolo. Tien basically had an epiphany. And while Piccolo’s change didn’t happen instantly it was his relationship with Gohan that really changed him

But for Vegeta it was a series of many different things that changed him. It was having his pride shattered multiple times and being humbled, it was his conflicting feelings for Goku ( jealousy & admiration), it was growing to love his family, and it was just living on Earth and experiencing a different way of life that changed him.

[Polyphase Avatron]

Saying that Vegeta wasn't as bad as Freeza is like saying that Hitler wasn't as bad as Stalin. It might be technically true in terms of body count, but it doesn't do the latter any favors.

[Yuli Ban]

Vikings weren't nothing but a society of genocidal maniacs. Vikings didnt kill all the other people on the planet because they wanted to be the dominant people. When vikings ruined their planet(which they didnt) they didnt go to a new planet and commit complete genocide on them. They didnt work for another genocidal maniac committing genocides for him and selling the new lands for a profit. Heck even vegeta didnt want the freeza force to stop, he just wanted to be the dude running it. Of all of the redemption arcs in dbz this one makes the least sense. Piccolo was following his crazy dad's wishes, until he learned better. Tien was frankly abused as a child and changed when he learned he could. 18, wasn't inherently evil, she was kidnaped and turned into a monster. Buu was chaos incarnate and the grand supreme kai mellowed him out enough to be tamed.

Actually, the history of Vikings is far more nuanced than them being "genocidal maniacs" because most of what we know about Vikings in popular culture is muddied by a lot of 19th and 20th century pop culture depictions of them. The idea of them as berserkers who killed everything in their path fit perfectly in that sort of "war is noble and glorious" mindset of late 19th-century nationalist Europe, hence why that's when we started depicting them heavily as barely-civilized barbarians who wore the flayed skin of their enemy's children. However relating them to Saiyans is a pretty solid gambit; I'd call Vikings a pirate culture more than anything, and it's blatantly clear that's what Saiyans are meant to be: glammy space pirates but with a massive warlust.

As for the topic: Vegeta was absolutely monstrous. But it's fiction; consequences don't matter as much in a series as escapist as Dragon Ball.
Because otherwise it's like asking how terrible was Miguel Treviño Morales. Humans a taste of bloodlust in us that finds such sadistic violence to be humorous as long as there are no consequences in the real world or in our personal lives (because truth be told, we all fantasize of living without consequences at some point since it's the constellation of consequences that defines what real life is supposed to be), so I'm not going to start screaming #CancelVegeta. He served his purpose as a mass-murderous villain; it was a good run, and there was obvious charisma to it. If the series was handled by a more masterful writer or by a loon so far beyond Toriyama he surgically replaced his bronchi with cocaine roots, Vegeta could still be a mass murderer and get away with it. That's just how fiction works.

[MyVisionity]

Comparing Vegeta to Freeza is important when understanding why some characters can be written to switch sides and others can't (or shouldn't). It's not just about body count.

All murder is bad, depending on the victim.

No, because like you said, all murder is bad.

Pretty sure I'd be hailed a hero for murdering a child molester.

By some maybe, but personally I don't find murdering a child molester particularly heroic.

[Aim]

He was probably the least evil of the bunch.

His actions on Namek were terrible, but entertaining. You can't help but still like the guy. That's probably why he's the kind of character you can turn to the other side. Evil, but not too evil. It's also helpful that Vegeta spares Kuririn and Gohan and fights by their side. Those things go a long way in turning him into one of the "good" guys.

I don't think Vegeta joining up with the Z-Senshi and settling down on Earth after the Freeza saga is anything unusual or strange. Yeah, he used to be a murderer, so what? That kind of thing only means but so much in the Dragon World. They're all a bunch of misfits anyhow.

Him being entertaining doesn't make him any less evil. Just charismatic.

Vegeta was a tiger shark trying to take out the great white shark so he could terrorize the ocean instead.

Orcas are actually at the top, not Great Whites.

[Aim]

Pretty sure I'd be hailed a hero for murdering a child molester.

Hope not, that’s dumb as hell. I’d rather a child molester locked away where no sun shines and left to live the worst possible life. Confinement destroys the brain practically.

[TheSaiyanGod]

Seeing all this discussion about Vegeta's actions and seeing how some people put him on the same level as Freeza (if he hadn't changed) and how some don't even think it's easy to justify his transformation during the series, the current arc of "redemption" of him that we are seeing in the manga just keeps growing on me.

Sure, we’ve never seen Vegeta specifically worry about some points brought up in the last two arcs (the Namekians and the Saiyan rampage during Freeza’s reign), but as some have said here, much of the development and change he saw in the original series was off panel (especially in the gap between the Cell and Boo arc). And as others mentioned here as well, his death count throughout his life probably exceeds the count of many villains in the series, which really raises questions about all the harm he must have already done. And we've never seen the series properly address some of those actions or how Vegeta felt about them. I'm sure that a magic dragon telling Vegeta that he was a good person two or three days after he murdered countless innocent people in a tournament is not enough to completely change his view of him.

If there is enough nuance to allow for such different points of view as to whether Vegeta was Irredeemable trash or whether there was the potential for a change as drastic as we saw in him, then I think it is worth touching on the points about regret and atonement.

Sorry if I deviated from the main theme of this thread a little bit, it's just a thought that floated in my mind now

[Majin Buu]

Killing a village of elderly and children to get something you want from them is definitely less evil then killing just because.

Statements like this is where it comes off as splitting hairs to me. It's a distinction without a difference.

At the end of the day, both still result in innocent people being murdered. I'd describe both as instances of people being killed for no justifiable reason.

[MyVisionity]

And as others mentioned here as well, his death count throughout his life probably exceeds the count of many villains in the series, which really raises questions about all the harm he must have already done.

I don't think that having a higher number of kills makes him any worse than any of the other villains. It just means that he led a different kind of life. Wiping out planets full of people takes on a different meaning when it becomes a routine activity and is part of a business.

I'm sure that a magic dragon telling Vegeta that he was a good person two or three days after he murdered countless innocent people in a tournament is not enough to completely change his view of him.

Maybe not completely, but I think it was a step in the right direction. Shenlong gave Vegeta a wake up call and some much needed confidence by letting him know that he wasn't one of the bad guys. It didn't matter how many people he had slaughtered in cold blood, what mattered was Vegeta's heart and soul. And that's really a lesson for the entire series.

[TheSaiyanGod]

Maybe not completely, but I think it was a step in the right direction. Shenlong gave Vegeta a wake up call and some much needed confidence by letting him know that he wasn't one of the bad guys. It didn't matter how many people he had slaughtered in cold blood, what mattered was Vegeta's heart and soul. And that's really a lesson for the entire series.

Sure, what I meant to say is that some people take that as the ending of Vegeta's development during the series. This is a way of looking at things, but I don't think it really prevents the points that we are seeing being brought up in the last two arcs of the manga (about Vegeta regreting and wanting to atone for his sins), it is a point that has not really been touched during the series because we don’t have many moments of Vegeta thinking about the sins he committed in the past.

There is also the fact that he called himself a "villain" in the fight against Moro, which was a controversial line at the time but which now seems appropriate considering that we are seeing him from another perspective (and as I said, I I don’t think a dragon telling Vegeta that he was a good guy now would be enough for Vegeta to change his own perspective, which is why he thinks he’s still going to hell)

[WittyUsername]

What reason is there to assume that Vegeta wouldn’t have killed the Namekians in that village if they did give him the Dragon Ball?

[It_Is_Ayna_You_Flips]

What reason is there to assume that Vegeta wouldn’t have killed the Namekians in that village if they did give him the Dragon Ball?

He spares Gohan later in the same arc. A bit before that he spares Krillin and Bulma too. When he has what he wants Vegeta (or at least pre-Cell Vegeta) does whatever he thinks will be the most amusing in that moment

Now I'm not saying it's likely he'd spare the Namekian villagers but it's definitely a real possibility.

[WittyUsername]

What reason is there to assume that Vegeta wouldn’t have killed the Namekians in that village if they did give him the Dragon Ball?

He spares Gohan later in the same arc. A bit before that he spares Krillin and Bulma too. When he has what he wants Vegeta (or at least pre-Cell Vegeta) does whatever he thinks will be the most amusing in that moment

Now I'm not saying it's likely he'd spare the Namekian villagers but it's definitely a real possibility.

Considering that Vegeta’s whole MO at that point is massacring entire planets, I assume that he would’ve tried enslaving/and or killing the Namekians after gaining immortality.

[precita]

If you don't count planet Arlia since it's filler, then Vegeta barely killed anyone "good" in canon besides the Namek villagers.

There's no evidence in the original manga canon that Vegeta wiped out entire planets, you guys are using anime filler as examples as Toei added that in since they had no idea what direction Toriyama would go with Vegeta in the future.

[jjgp1112]

If you don't count planet Arlia since it's filler, then Vegeta barely killed anyone "good" in canon besides the Namek villagers.

There's no evidence in the original manga canon that Vegeta wiped out entire planets, you guys are using anime filler as examples as Toei added that in since they had no idea what direction Toriyama would go with Vegeta in the future.

We can pretty reasonably infer that Vegeta wiped out entire planets since, y'know, it was his job working for Frieza.

[PurestEvil]

If you don't count planet Arlia since it's filler, then Vegeta barely killed anyone "good" in canon besides the Namek villagers.

There's no evidence in the original manga canon that Vegeta wiped out entire planets, you guys are using anime filler as examples as Toei added that in since they had no idea what direction Toriyama would go with Vegeta in the future.

Raditz himself said that it was the Saiyan's business to subjugate planets and sell them off for profits. Of course Vegeta, one of the most prominent warriors under Freeza, would be involved in these operations.

[MasenkoHA]

There's no evidence in the original manga canon that Vegeta wiped out entire planets, you guys are using anime filler as examples as Toei added that in since they had no idea what direction Toriyama would go with Vegeta in the future.

Raditz explaining how Saiyans wiped out planets lifeforms to sell them was in the manga so um yeah.


I don’t how the Arlia episode being filler is some proof that Vegeta being all about genocide was anime exclusive

[ABED]

He was planning on destroying Earth to sell it. It's safe to say that wasn't the first time and even if it were, that's bad enough.