Saiyan Family and Friends

[Hulk10]

I know that everyone says that Saiyans aren't supposed to have a concept of family or friends but in the new Broly movie that seemed to not be the case. Also I notice that the translations of Toriyama's statements use 'might' a lot to describe the characters. So I am skeptical about the idea that most Saiyans don't care for friends or family. Not worrying about them is after all not the same thing as not caring.

[ulisa]

I’m aware of the statement that Saiyans don’t really have a concept of family but I’ve never agreed with it. I can certainly see that kind of thinking reflected post Buu and onward but truthfully before the 7 year gap, I don’t see it, either in the manga or the anime.

Goku isn’t going to win parent of the year but there’s a distinct love there for his son, Krillin and to some extent ChiChi that I just plain don’t see directed at others. Granted, the anime expands on this but even in the manga, there’s an affection and connection that just doesn’t feel like “companion” affection.

Honestly, this always felt like an idea Toriyama got later on and tried to retroactively apply.

[Tai Lung]

vegeta or raditz does not seem to care about their family in the least ironically was vegeta the one that had more changes to soon become more affective with his family but that took years living on earth but without leaving his temperament or personality.
Goku was someone whose concept of a marriage is null when he was a child, when he met chichi and knew it was marriage but without understanding the responsibility involved, the affection he had for gohan was quite similar to a real son however given to the years apart I did not know him since they only spent time together with the training but forgot that he did not like to fight in cell games
but he also has an appreciation for krillin and roshi who lived with him for many years and when they died or were close to dying frieza arc and top arc his aspect more human was seen since for goku many of his friends are like his family, so for goku may have no difference but If alien to the love of the romantic type.

[Hulk10]

Toriyama said he sucked at writing romance remember so he never could write much of it in. Tarble and Broly both showed care for friends and family. So I do not agree with the generalization either.

[theherodjl]

As I've said before, pure-blooded Saiyans don't necessarily love others but they do like them. Goku & Vegeta have bonds with their wives & children that are more akin to personal friendship and a general liking of having them around as company, the desire to see them safe & healthy included. However, they are also willing to separate themselves from their families to undergo intense training for the purpose of meeting new & greater challenges, sometimes not seeing their families for months and even years due to being unable to completely suppress their Saiyan desire for battle. Compare that to the half-Saiyans who are always by their loved one's side even if it means losing their strength or edge from not training/fighting.
Goku & Vegeta are on a constant roller coaster of choosing between being family men and being Saiyans, the solution being to detach themselves just a little from total human lives so as not to cut off their Saiyans lives. You can't really blame them since pure-blooded Saiyans are a little animalistic and like some animals, they may not be completely invested in relationships the way that humans are.

[Hulk10]

I've seen instances were they show definite love. So we can't say for certain whether or not Saiyan don't necessarily love others. Also Gohan implied that he didn't train at all. He could easily keep up with his training while still being there for his family. I've said it before, its possible to keep up your training and still be there for your family.

[Tai Lung]

Toriyama said he sucked at writing romance remember so he never could write much of it in. Tarble and Broly both showed care for friends and family. So I do not agree with the generalization either.

but you have many scenes with gohan and videl, vegeta and bulma, Krillin and 18
but as it has been explained, the good saiyans are a minority and the only pure saiyans that formed pairings are vegeta and bulma and bardock and gine and having that concept clear this according to the interview with the author.

[Hulk10]

Toriyama said he sucked at writing romance remember so he never could write much of it in. Tarble and Broly both showed care for friends and family. So I do not agree with the generalization either.

but you have many scenes with gohan and videl, vegeta and bulma, Krillin and 18
but as it has been explained, the good saiyans are a minority and the only pure saiyans that formed pairings are vegeta and bulma and bardock and gine and having that concept clear this according to the interview with the author.

I know that. That doesn't necessarily mean that there weren't others who had similar pairings. Being evil doesn't mean you can't care about your family or friends.

[Yasai9001]

Saiyans of Universe Seven never had a concept of family because of how their society is structured. They are born and either raised on Planet Vegeta as combatants or sent off as infiltration children. The scene of Saiyans in a nursing room shows how disconnected they typically are to their children meanwhile we have black sheep like Gine, who decides to keep her son in the room close to her while he's in an incubator.

Gine even pointed out that it's not like Bardock or any Saiyan to care about their kids, which expresses just how rare it is for Saiyans to do so. While they have the capability to care and love their family, they generally do not because of how individualistic they are. Not to mention, they rather go out and fight than stick around bonding with their kids.

Familiar bonds are stronger within the royal family generally speaking but as far as mid-class Saiyans and under...they aren't raised in the same setting as the royal blood line. They are capable of forming friendships but most decide not to...as it is typically looked upon as a weakness.

Also, just because a few Saiyans care for their friends and family does not mean that all Saiyans typically do. Remember, there are always exceptions to the rule—outliers to be exact. Just because we see a few nice caring Saiyans in Universe 7 doesn't mean they're all soft in one way or another, lol.

[Hulk10]

Saiyans of Universe Seven never had a concept of family because of how their society is structured. They are born and either raised on Planet Vegeta as combatants or sent off as infiltration children. The scene of Saiyans in a nursing room shows how disconnected they typically are to their children meanwhile we have black sheep like Gine, who decides to keep her son in the room close to her while he's in an incubator.

Gine even pointed out that it's not like Bardock or any Saiyan to care about their kids, which expresses just how rare it is for Saiyans to do so. While they have the capability to care and love their family, they generally do not because of how individualistic they are. Not to mention, they rather go out and fight than stick around bonding with their kids.

Familiar bonds are stronger within the royal family generally speaking but as far as mid-class Saiyans and under...they aren't raised in the same setting as the royal blood line. They are capable of forming friendships but most decide not to...as it is typically looked upon as a weakness.

Also, just because a few Saiyans care for their friends and family does not mean that all Saiyans typically do. Remember, there are always exceptions to the rule—outliers to be exact. Just because we see a few nice caring Saiyans in Universe 7 doesn't mean they're all soft in one way or another, lol.

She said that it wasn't like a Saiyan man to worry about his children.

[Polyphase Avatron]

As usual, psychology isn't that clear cut, especially across an entire species. There can be general trends, sure, but there will always be outliers. There were probably even some Saiyans who didn't like to fight (in their culture, they might be considered mentally deranged or even insane).

[Yasai9001]

She said it wasn't like a Saiyan man to worry about his children.

And does that discredit any of the points I've made?

[Bebi Hatchiyack]

Speaking of Saiyan Family and Friends I would love an editable Dragon Ball Genealogy Tree where you can play with it and print or save what you've done on png format.

[Yuli Ban]

Toriyama's original ideas for the Saiyans are much simpler than my own— from what I can ascertain, Saiyans were made to be different from Humans. Or Earthlings specifically.
In Dragon Ball, Earthlings are written be generally good people with empathy and kindness but also dark tendencies that lead to greed, hatred, and war. Basically an idealized version of real life, where humans are indeed generally interested in doing good but are also heavily limited by short-sightedness, selfishness, greed, xenophobia, ignorance, fear, and whatnot.
Humans/Earthlings have warrior societies and people who are very much interested in living the warrior way of life. I mean, whether it's wuxia, Bushido, Western chivalry, the idea behind jihad, and whatnot, we are violent creatures— but our violence tends to come as a result of either two sides wanting something and this leading to conflict or fear of losing something and blaming someone else for that loss. There is an insignificant number of people who are violent for the sake of being violent, and we consider them to be mentally ill. We send warriors out to fight to protect our homelands and our families and our ways of life, so naturally those warriors have to be well-trained and ready to kill & be killed.

Some cultures focus on this more than others. Think of the Mongols, Spartans, and fascist Germany, who basically had militarized societies where the whole point of your existence was centered around military service to better the homeland. The modern USA is also heavily militarized through an obsession with violence, harsh justice, and military worship, but we don't actively expect men and women to enlist and base their entire lives around it.

In Dragon Ball, coming out of a root of martial arts movies where every character that mattered was either a martial artist or a damsel/martial artist, naturally the prominent Earthlings would be dedicated to the warrior lifestyle, but this was for a purpose. Whether it was for sport and competition or for mercenary work or for an actual desire to kill and maim. Still, on Earth, you weren't expected to be a martial warrior, otherwise Son Goku and his friends would have been engaged in combat with literally every person on Earth. What's more, Son Goku learned that Earthlings valued peace. Even Nazi Germany valued peace— they just had an ultraviolent means of going about creating that peace. Humans want nothing more than to be left alone and to thrive. What's more, it's obvious that we aren't really built for war and conflict because such violent events inflict such trauma on us. How many people— not just veterans but anyone who went through any sort of traumatic event— suffer from PTSD? For a "warrior race" as many misanthropes categorize us, that's a pretty damn glaring flaw. We care too much about consequences and stability; we're just not good enough to avoid conflict in the first place, especially since conflict is unavoidable in many cases.


Saiyans, at least as they were understood in the 1980s through the 2000s, were closer to orcs in mindset. They don't just actively seek violence— they thrive in it. They don't want there to be peace. They're not a warrior race— they're a people of war, the embodiment of violence itself. They don't want to spar with friendly rivals— they want to murder their victims. If there is no conflict, they'll create conflict just so they can fight. And that's all Saiyans. Men, women, and children alike. Saiyan men are butchers; Saiyan women are sadists; Saiyan children are killers. And you can switch around any of those descriptions to use for the other. It doesn't matter because the point is SAIYANS. ARE. EVIL. At the time, that's all they ever had to be. They weren't going to see their history expanded upon like the Klingons or Mandalorians. They're the new bad guys for this arc and also happen to be the race from which the protagonist hails, and they're different from Humans because they're all bad people whereas Earthlings only have some bad people but a lot more good people worth saving.

In such a society, close relationships are still possible, but they are going to seem deeply inhuman. That's what I loved about the old Saiyans. Dare I say, I even preferred the anime version of Saiyans more, where they were treated as complete ghoulish monsters. Because that's what Saiyans were supposed to be: monsters. They're completely at odds with an Earthling way of thinking, closer to the utter antihumanism of the fascist ideal or, to keep going back to the example, orcs and generic goblins in Western fantasy (when they aren't actual given actual fleshed out cultures— funnily enough in Dragon Ball, since several main characters were Saiyans, we essentially got the orcs with the generic "evil" orc culture without any of the usual "misunderstood proud warrior people" spiel; no, they were a proud warrior race of genocidal barbarians with absolutely no redeemable traits or misunderstandings about them). Not only do they NOT care about love, romance, and family, but they'll probably kill one of their own just for being that soft. Showing genuine concern for another beyond manly camaraderie is not how a Saiyan does things. They don't care much about the logic of a conflict, as long as they get the thrill of a fight (a fight that they still believe they can win, of course). And it doesn't matter if Saiyans overthrew King Vegeta's regime; they'd still create a violent warrior society on its ashes anyway because that's who they are and what they do. They have so little empathy for each other and care so fucking little about family and friendship that they literally breed babies just to send them out to other planets to either kill everyone on that planet or die trying.

It was an easy, even clever way to show off both why Son Goku was the way he was while also showing how different he was for being raised on Earth. Son Goku was special, legendary even, because he was the "sole" kind Saiyan. He was still violent himself and his loved ones and rivals have often grappled with the fact he is a guy who just wants a good fight and that desire just happens to have been aligned with some basic martial codes of righteousness that makes him pure of heart. It's like finding a friendly, amicable orc in the Lord of the Rings. His righteousness led to him become the legendary Super Saiyan, something no other Saiyan (alive or not) could achieve because of their wicked ways.

It's just so beautifully alien, and it was almost certainly unintentional. So many sci-fi alien races wish they could be as genuinely psychologically alien as old-school Saiyans are. Of course, the big damn problem is that the value of literature and entertainment is rooted in the Human experience, so having alien characters who genuinely behave like aliens can be alienating (no pun intended).

Because let's think about it. Military societies do not value interpersonal relationships. Just read about the daily life of Spartans and Mongols— men and women alike were raised for military service (women, obviously, were not actually expected to be warriors on the field but instead "warriors of the home"). They were highly collectivistic and did not value individuality. Your family wasn't your mother and father, your family was the agoge. There was no friendship; there were brotherhoods. Men were expected to be fierce, sociopathic killing machines. Women were expected to be tough and strong-willed and capable all their own. They were also expected to make babies mostly for the purpose of making more warriors, hence why childbirth itself was cast as a grand struggle. You sacrificed personal luxuries for the greater good, usually for the war effort. The call of duty trumps the love of a family.

Take that, and exaggerate it with a race of creatures who behave this way naturally. So naturally, in fact, that even being raised on Earth by a variety of people for decades only makes them capable of the most basic integration into Human society— Vegeta, to this day, is never going to get along with people and visibly still has to control himself from flying into a violent rage, while Son Goku's passion for fighting can get whole universes into trouble (and save them, admittedly). It's essentially xenofiction, because the logic by which Saiyans operate is simply NOT the same logic by which Humans operate. Being that our lead character is a Saiyan, well...

So you can see where there might be some problems making such characters relateable.

In the 2010s, Toriyama made the effort to show that Saiyans are indeed naturally capable of kindness and compassion and humanity, first with Gine and then with Broly of all characters. Son Goku and Vegeta don't count— Goku needed a head injury and many years of being raised on Earth to "correct" him and it took Vegeta a damn long time to just become tolerable by Earthling standards.
And from what we've seen in the Broly movie, they do indeed have a functional society where there are multiple roles that don't all revolve around pure combat service (a la Beets).
This is, actually, much closer to real life military societies like the Spartans and Mongols. In fiction and pop culture, they're portrayed as being so obsessed with war, but in actuality, they were both very colorful societies with multiple facets of their civilization. Again, ask a modern day Mongolian and they'll tell you that Ol' Temujin wasn't the necrosadistic monster that Western and Sinocentric history books say he was, while Sparta could almost be considered a "warrior-poet" society considering men were expected to be well-versed in the arts just as much as warfare. You know why? Because these societies were filled with Humans. We can't just throw away basic biological and psychological needs & desires because society says we must.

This actually means that there's an explanation for why Saiyans gained their reputation as being such monsters and why Saiyan relationship dynamics might not actually be that much different from Earthlings, barring some level of societal push to reduce them: we've only ever seen the warrior side of things.

It's like if an alien species with many societies that are very diverse and well-rounded coming across an invading fleet from Humans, composed of the US Marine Corps (aka the Devil Dogs). This alien species isn't going to think of Humans having societies just as complex as their own. The US Marines are psychos because that's what they're trained to be: efficient and murderous killing machines. We essentially were introduced to and only ever knew the Saiyan Marines for 25 years.
Of course, Planet Vegeta was also unusual in that it's like the entire planet was ruled by the Devil Dogs, so the basic dynamics of how the Marines work were spread throughout the entirety of society. Still, only an elite few were ever the Devil Dogs themselves. Most were just the grunts and workers who kept the basics of civilization going.

Do Saiyan men really not care about their children? Or is Saiyan society simply set up to prevent them from doing so in order to make them better, more collectivistic warriors? Considering the legacy of Saiyans, then at least right now in 2019, we can say that they're a mix of both— still naturally aggressive (moreso than Earthlings) but forced into having enhanced barbaric and inhumane behaviors by their military society. Universe 6 Saiyans aren't biologically different from U7 Saiyans (barring the lack of a tail), and they mainly fight for justice. In other words, they fight for a humanlike purpose. It's like the difference between the Humans of Germany circa 1939 vs. the Humans of Germany circa 2019. Same creatures, but with wildly different cultures. Thus, it absolutely isn't unreasonable to think that U7 Saiyans might have interpersonal relationships and family dynamics recognizable to Humans.

As I said, I prefer the old version just because I like the idea of an entire race of ultraviolent orcish monkey men who are so terrifically violent that they can't even civilization. My, that came out regrettably.
But, unfortunately my for my tastes, Toriyama's been moving the Saiyans towards the new version. They're no longer an evil race of murderous barbarians but rather Humans with monkey tails, living in a society run by the Marines.


Well actually, they're no longer much of a race at all, but that's another tale.

[Hulk10]

I like the new versions better to be honest.

[Yasai9001]

I believe that how Saiyans are portrayed now truly isn't no different than what they were back then. The Saiyans we have been shown recently (such as Bardock, Gine, Beets, etc) are mere exceptions, ya know. We're mainly being shown a lighter side nowadays in constrast to the darker side that we've been used to seeing in time's past.

For the most part, Saiyans are still a mass race of people who love to fight and care not if they ruin entire worlds and civilizations in exchange for money. Hell, I think they don't even care for earnings, but moreso to fulfill their desire to fight. With Vegeta (before Toriyama's interviews and Minus bonus chapter), we see that Saiyans can still be changed. They are not just inherently born evil (like people thinking back then that a newborn Saiyan baby will just seek out to destroy). Only demons are and as far as I'm concerned, Saiyans aren't related to demons in any way.

As he basically put, it's all because of their society and how they are raised. Add on top of the fact that conflict is just something they inherently love and it makes it that much easy for them to carry out evil notions without any signs of remorse. King Cold took advantage of their only sense of fulfillment (generally speaking), and the Saiyans got on ship, also because they virtually had no choice, lol. Before Cold even recruited them, they were hopping planet to planet and conquering them.

If someone like Vegeta can be changed after living a life of killing and thoughtless combat for approximately 30 years, then any Saiyan has the potential to change.

[Hulk10]

I believe that how Saiyans are portrayed now truly isn't no different than what they were back then. The Saiyans we have been shown recently (such as Bardock, Gine, Beets, etc) are mere exceptions, ya know. We're mainly being shown a lighter side nowadays in constrast to the darker side that we've been used to seeing in time's past.

For the most part, Saiyans are still a mass race of people who love to fight and care not if they ruin entire worlds and civilizations in exchange for money. Hell, I think they don't even care for earnings, but moreso to fulfill their desire to fight. With Vegeta (before Toriyama's interviews and Minus bonus chapter), we see that Saiyans can still be changed. They are not just inherently born evil (like people thinking back then that a newborn Saiyan baby will just seek out to destroy). Only demons are and as far as I'm concerned, Saiyans aren't related to demons in any way.

As he basically put, it's all because of their society and how they are raised. Add on top of the fact that conflict is just something they inherently love and it makes it that much easy for them to carry out evil notions without any signs of remorse. King Cold took advantage of their only sense of fulfillment (generally speaking), and the Saiyans got on ship, also because they virtually had no choice, lol. Before Cold even recruited them, they were hopping planet to planet and conquering them.

If someone like Vegeta can be changed after living a life of killing and thoughtless combat for approximately 30 years, then any Saiyan has the potential to change.

I'd say your probably right.

[DBZAOTA482]

Saiyans not having a concept of family and love was more of an environmental thing than a biological makeup. We see that they are capable of such through Goku and Vegeta due to discovering Earth.

They definitely have a concept of friendship considering how genuinely upset Bardock was over Freeza's betrayal and Nappa suggesting to Vegeta that they revive Raditz with the dragonballs (before the latter shoots the idea down).

[Grimlock]

I wouldn't call what Bardock (any Saiyan, for that matter) had with Freeza a "friendship". But it definitely exists amongst Saiyans. The example being Bardock again. He saves them, greets them and other Saiyans like him.

[Hulk10]

I wouldn't call what Bardock (any Saiyan, for that matter) had with Freeza a "friendship". But it definitely exists amongst Saiyans. The example being Bardock again. He saves them, greets them and other Saiyans like him.

Indeed. I remain unconvinced that Saiyans have no real concept of family. Nothing I have seen in the anime convinces me. I accept that there is evidence to support that but there is also evidence to support the idea to the contrary.

The way I see it is that Saiyans have a culture similar to that of the Ancient Spartans. Spartan mothers believed in tough love. They told their sons that they expected them to come home as part of a victorious army or as a corpse. That doesn't mean that they don't have a concept of family. It just means that their values are different. In Ancient Spartan society, affection was seen as a weakness, so you didn't show it in public. That doesn't necessarily mean its not present. But it means its not obvious. Also in Spartan culture married men were expected to live apart from their wives in the military camps. If they wanted to see their wives, they had to sneak away at night. Saiyan culture, while similar in its emphasis on militarism, is not identical as Saiyan families do live together. Spartans did not.