Piccolo Jr. truly turned good from evil... but Vegeta?

[warrior72989]

Everything he did was selfish and also evil from the moment he was introduced. He talked so many times about killing the earthlings and Goku even after Goku gave him a senzu bean on Namek. Also the most evil thing I've seen Vegeta do on Namek was destroying an entire Namek Village even after he was going to take the Dragon Ball anyway. I think the moment he decided to do a good deed was when he blew himself up in an attempt to blow up Majin Buu. I'm wondering when Vegeta became a good guy. Also it makes me think Goku is truly pure since he was able to forgive Vegeta for all of this...


Did he ever become good or did he simply stop doing evil things?

[AgitoZ]

Umm shouldn't this thread and some of your other recent ones be in Questions section?

[warrior72989]

Umm shouldn't this thread and some of your other recent ones be in Questions section?

Sorry... Can someone move it then?

[Gaffer Tape]

You could say that Vegeta was never really evil.

You COULD say that, but I'm not sure how you could do so with a straight face. Like you said, this is a guy who gladly and willingly slaughtered an entire village full of children and the elderly. And that's just what we saw. One example in a lifetime of doing the exact same thing.

[Perfect]

I still laugh when I hear him laugh about slaughtering the children on Namek when he returns to Earth...I'm not sure that's a good thing.

[Gaffer Tape]

I have to say that some of your villain worship talk is... ehhh, a little bit on the troubling side sometimes, yeah.

[TheGreatness25]

I don't see why he didn't kill Yamucha, Tenshinhan and others when he was living in Capsule Corp. I understand he was waiting for Goku to return and whatnot, but... not like those guys were going to be of any use to him.

[Gaffer Tape]

Yeah, Vegeta did seem quite content to just hang out on earth for over a year when you'd think he'd make good on his threat to take it over and, well, pretty much do what Mecha Freeza was going to do: let Goku come back to a world that was a complete hell. I have to say the anime version makes a bit more sense with him just going out into space the first chance he got... okay, well, not the first chance. He still waited a third of a year, but still...

[warrior72989]

Oh I forgot... Vegeta blew up an entire plant full of life, before even meeting Goku. Planet Arlia... It was an insignificant part of the story so it's easy to forget, but they were innocent too. I'm pretty sure he did that on purpose, I mean you cant blame Freeza's influence for that one. Vegeta went to Earth without Freeza's permission.

[Gaffer Tape]

Well, that's not canon, though...

[warrior72989]

Well, that's not canon, though...

Oh yeah... it probably wasn't in the Manga... I forgot.

[Coola Yagami]

Yamcha maybe, but Ten and the others were nowhere near Capsule Corp when Vegeta moved in cause they couldn't stand the guy. I think Ten called Yamcha out on somehow being able to live in the same building with the guy.

[Perfect]

Vegeta's a pretty complex guy. I think one of the neat things I find in the series is the simplistic plot with somewhat deep characters. I wonder if Freeza has any diseases from licking Vegeta's blood. You'd think after all the aliens he's eaten, he'd catch something.

[GizmoKSX]

Yeah, Vegeta did seem quite content to just hang out on earth for over a year when you'd think he'd make good on his threat to take it over and, well, pretty much do what Mecha Freeza was going to do: let Goku come back to a world that was a complete hell. I have to say the anime version makes a bit more sense with him just going out into space the first chance he got... okay, well, not the first chance. He still waited a third of a year, but still...

Remember that exchange in Silence of the Lambs, when Hannibal is helping Clarice to understand Buffalo Bill? He asks her what Buffalo Bill does. Clarice responds, “He kills women.” “No,” chides Hannibal, “that is incidental.” Killing others and causing them suffering is incidental to Vegeta. He only thinks about himself, wanting to be the strongest for his own sake. Freeza is different. He wants to subordinate the universe to himself, to make others fear him. Freeza cares quite a bit about his reputation, and about what others think. When Goku defeats him, he wants revenge, for Goku to suffer. Vegeta does kill to amuse himself on a whim or to achieve his goals (freedom from Freeza, immortality), but he doesn’t care about what others think or feel either way. This is evidenced in his first Super Saiyan transformation. He isn’t overwhelmed with a desire for revenge, or loss, or a need to protect anyone. He’s just angry at himself for failing to grow in power. So he doesn’t care about making Goku suffer. He just wants to prove to himself that he's the best, which—incidentally—means surpassing Kakarot.

In addition, Freeza is sure (albeit erroneously) that with his mechanical enhancements and the help of his father, he can defeat Goku once he arrives. Vegeta knows that he's no match for Goku at this point, and pissing Goku off would be a terrible idea. So it's in Vegeta's best interests to get along with Goku's friends for the time being.

[Ahiru77]

Everything he did was selfish and also evil from the moment he was introduced. He talked so many times about killing the earthlings and Goku even after Goku gave him a senzu bean on Namek. Also the most evil thing I've seen Vegeta do on namek was destroying an entire Namek Village even after he was going to take the Dragon Ball anyway. I think the moment he decided to do a good deed was when he blew himself up in an attempt to blow up Majin Buu. I'm wondering when Vegeta became a good guy. Also it makes me think Goku is truely pure since he was able to forgive Vegeta for all of this...


Did he ever become good or did he simply stop doing evil things?

Vegeta turned good. He hasn't killed a single soul since returning to Earth. Yes, Vegeta is the only reason why Goku is supposedly the purest thing alive.

But he's still obsessed. And he did make evilish decisions, but he's Vegeta. He doesn't know any better.

[Piccolo Daimao]

I think Vegeta only ever turned "good" after he sacrificed his life against Majin Boo. I mean, he mellowed out in those 7 years after the Cell arc, but was still a bastard who wanted to settle his rivalry with Goku without a moment's doubt that it would give energy to Boo. But afterwards, he gave up his life to save his family. And then, during SSj3 Goku's battle against Kid Boo, he had that little monologue and finally accepted that Goku was better than him. At the end of Z, I think he was definitely good.

[Godo]

Piccolo Jr. had a goal, in difference to Vegeta.
He wanted world domination, and to make people suffer. It wasn't purely selfish, as he wanted evil and the Demon race to frolic on Earth. He did it for the sake of his kind.
He even felt pain and anger when his own demons were killed (we are considering here that Piccolo Jr. is the pure reincarnation of Piccolo Daimao).
And when he fought Goku, it was due to revenge for Goku killing him/his father previously.

Vegeta on the other hand, did everything for his own sake. He had no kind of compassion, and felt no sorrow when people of his kind died, and even killed Nappa without remorse.
Everything he did was for him to become the strongest.

So that's the reason why it took longer for Vegeta to become good.
I'd say that the exact period when Vegeta became good was when he decided to give his life to defeat Buu (just as Piccolo became good when he selflessly gave his life for Gohan).

[Eire]

In literature and film I don't like this good/villain stuff. Beings who are "destined to be evil"I can accept just in Disney's movies. Cheap methods as making that bad rude and suggesting that as a child he used to tore out flies wings ruin whole thing for me. I've always liked Frieza saga, because all villains from that period run away from that as far as they can. Cool aristocrat Frieza and Vegeta who seems to me to be really tragic.

When Vegeta is introduced we take him as "evil" because we identify with Goku&Co, but if we look closely we see that it isn't that simple. He comes from the race where strength was the only rule- he had never known moral rules that we consider as natural. He had a really hard life as orphaned gamma in frieza's army- threaten by alpha and beta, looking for omegas to vent his rage on them. Knowing this I can really understand his behavior. If after Frieza's Saga he "went good" all of sudden and throw away everything that had been defining his entire life it would be extremely naive. I like the way he "changes" not entirely, not on spot, but just a bit after years.

[LeprikanGT]

Him becoming Majin still shows there was some evil in him but before he blew himself up, the [dub] speech about him doing this to save Bulma and his son and Goku shows that he was more evil than good.

In the end, he was the one that came up with the idea to use the spirirt bomb and have the humans help and all that. So whether it was to save his own ass or save everyone else, I'd say that was good as well.

[Bussani]

When they wished everyone back to life towards the end of the Buu saga, the wish is, "Bring back everyone except for the really evil guys." Vegeta is as surprised as everyone else when this also brings him back, and Goku comments that the dragon must think he's not a bad guy. It's worth noting that they made almost exactly the same wish after Vegeta blew himself up against Buu ("bring back everyone who died today except for the bad guys") and Vegeta wasn't brought back at that point. Either Shenlong and Porunga disagree, "really evil" is different to just "bad guy", or something changed between the two wishes.