Vegeta's full potential... cut short?

[ending sun]

I was read a story by Kizmet on ff.net where Trunks and Goten wished younger versions of their dads into their timeline so they could have new playmates, and I found this excerpt towards the end interesting.


"Does he improve as quickly as you, Goku?" Roshi asked. He could barely fit his mind around the idea of the sort of power Goku was talking about needing.

"Almost," Goku said. He looked a little embarrassed. He didn't want to sound like he was bragging. "But 'Geta started at a much higher level than I did. Now that I've almost caught up I might not improve as fast anymore." He didn't want to admit that the older Vegeta had said flat out that the reason Goku had always improved so quickly when he encountered a new challenge was because no one he'd encountered before his trip to the future had been able to provide him with the sort of challenge a growing Saiyan needed to truly reach his full potential. 'Geta had suffered from the opposite problem; he'd been pushed too far, too fast until his body simply hadn't been able to tolerate the stress anymore.

In the unperturbed timeline Goku's problem would have eventually righted itself as he went on finding more and more challenging opponents. Vegeta, on the other hand, had irreparable harm done to him by the time he'd reached adulthood, limiting his top potential. In this timeline, created by Trunks and Goten's impulsive wish, Goku had found someone who could provide him with a consistent challenge much sooner and 'Geta had escape Frieza with two decades less accumulative damage to his body and soul.


I know it's not canon or anything but... Do you think it's possible Vegeta burned out early under the phyiscal and emotional stress of living under Frieza's control, and that's why Goku's seemingly trains less strenulously but sees greater gains in power? Or is Goku's potential is just naturally higher?

[Bussani]

I don't think there's anything in the story to suggest it. In fact, I disagree entirely that Vegeta naturally progressed slower than Goku. There are hints that he might have actually surpassed Goku by the time the Androids arrived, for one thing. And he may have ended up weaker than Goku seven years after Cell was defeated, but it doesn't seem to have been a big gap, even before Babidi's power up, and that's probably even more impressive considering the advantages Goku had from training while dead. If all things were equal, I'm not sure if there would be much of a difference between the two, but their methods of getting stronger and their philosophies as fighters differ significantly. This is probably more of a factor than any natural potential they have.

For instance, Goku seems to embrace training with others, while Vegeta would rather be alone, seeming to think that anyone else would only get in his way and slow him down. If you ask me, it seems like Vegeta tries to take the harder road at times and just tries to muscle through it, while Goku is smarter in how he trains. This is probably most evident when they each use the Room of Spirit and Time: Goku goes for efficiency and knowing when to rest, while Vegeta instead aims for power and pushes himself non-stop for as long as possible. Goku may just be better at coming up with new tricks (like Super Saiyan 3), too, but that may be thanks to all the ki manipulation training he got over the years, whereas Vegeta basically taught himself everything he knows.

I think Vegeta really is remarkable in his own way, but I also feel like the manga portrays Goku's philosophy as more pure and noble. Vegeta himself talks about this when Goku's fighting Kid Buu. Personally, I like to believe that Vegeta would actually become a lot stronger after getting over his obsession and finding himself some inner peace.

[Michsi]

Frankly, I think Vegeta had way more advantages than Goku. First and foremost, he was born with a far greater powerlevel than Goku and probably had challenging training conditions.

So no, his full potential wasn't cut short, Goku is just better.

[Herms]

I think Vegeta has enormous natural talent (he's supposed to be a genius fighter and all that jazz) but he's really just god awful at training. Back when Freeza destroyed Planet Vegeta, when Vegeta was still only just 5, he was already strong enough for Freeza to single him out and spare him. And he says he had already surpassed his father as a kid, though that might not have been at the same time the planet was destroyed. But after that he seems to almost stagnate until he comes to Earth. You have to figure that to be the strongest of the Saiyans at the time, King Vegeta would have to have had a battle power of what, 7-10,000 maybe? At when Vegeta came to Earth he was 18,000, so from the time he was a kid until then, a period of 20+ years, his power only doubled, at the most. Whatever kind of training he was doing really couldn't have been all that good, by DB standards anyway. And he apparently wasn't doing much fighting during all this time either. As we see on Earth, him and Nappa's partnership seems to boil down to Nappa doing all the work while he stands around watching. He's actually irritated at the prospect of having to fight anyone himself. Then as soon as he does start to do his own fighting, on Earth and then Namek, his power immediately skyrockets within a short time. So apparently he spent his formative years mostly piddling around.

And it's not like he went to some sort of "Training 101" class after he met Goku and co.; whatever training system he knew then would presumably be what he'd be using for the rest of the series. After becoming about 100 times stronger on Namek thanks to the Saiyan near-death power up thing, his biggest innovation is shacking up with Bulma and getting her dad to build that gravity room. So he finally manages to become a Super Saiyan, but when that does automatically allow him to defeat the androids, his reaction is to "train" by standing around for 3 days. God knows how long he would have kept that up if Goku hadn't come along and told him about the Room of Spirit and Time. Then once inside, according to Trunks he surpasses Super Saiyan in only 2 months (I guess he really is a genius), then spends the rest of the time doing...what exactly? Apparently not much of anything really, since Goku and Gohan are able to so greatly surpass him by spending their whole year inside actually training. It's also notable that he makes so much progress inside when he happens to have Trunks with him. Trunks was taught by Gohan, who was taught by Piccolo and Goku, so probably he knows how to train properly. When Vegeta goes into the room a second time, he goes in alone (despite knowing that it's more effective to train with a partner, according to Trunks), and the result is that he hasn't noticeably improved by the Cell Games.

Then he spends the next 7 years training "more than Goku", he says. However, the only time we see him training, he's working out under x150 gravity as a Super Saiyan. He was supposed to have trained under 300-fold gravity to become Super Saiyan, but now as an actual Super Saiyan he's only using half of that. Trunks is there, but it's clear that Vegeta isn't just keeping the gravity low on his account: he flat-out tells Trunks that x150 G is too much for him and he should leave. Meanwhile, in the afterlife Goku is training in his regular state with 2 ton weights on each arm and leg. That makes 8 tons total, whereas since Vegeta weighs 56 kg, under 150-fold gravity he'd be 8.4 tons. So in other words, Vegeta as a Super Saiyan is training with barely more weight than Goku in his regular form is (when Super Saiyan Goku tries out 40 tons of weights on his body, he says it's easy). You could say that Vegeta must have done harder training than that too, but this is all we're shown of either Vegeta or Goku's training during this period, so we have to draw conclusions from what we're shown. Basically, while Vegeta may have trained more than Goku, he doesn't seem to have done any training remotely as hard as what Goku went through. So it's not that surprising that there would be such a gap between them during the Boo arc.

So essentially, the only reason Vegeta is stronger than the likes of, say, Namu, is because he was born with incredible talent, happened to be a Saiyan who naturally got tremendously stronger whenever he got beat up, had a knack for getting beat up, married a woman whose father could build him fancy training equipment, met a guy who was nice enough to tell him about super-effective mystical training rooms, and had an alternate future son who knew what he was doing.

[Dabooyaka]

Well, you pretty much nailed it Herms. There is nothing more to add.

[dbgtFO]

Well, you pretty much nailed it Herms. There is nothing more to add.

Indeed.
Vegeta should blame his inferiority to Kakarot on his stupidity.

[Kaboom]

I concur; Vegeta isn't too good at coming up with ways to train. Usually Goku is the one to discover how to make big breakthroughs, but then when Vegeta follows suit, he does just as well or even better with them.

[Michsi]

I concur; Vegeta isn't too good at coming up with ways to train. Usually Goku is the one to discover how to make big breakthroughs, but then when Vegeta follows suit, he does just as well or even better with them.

When did he do better? The only time he may have been a little stronger was when he first showed up as a SSJ but it was never proven he was actually stronger.

[Dabooyaka]

When both of them went into the ROST, it was clearly shown who had the better training methods. Vegeta could not do in 2 years what Goku did in 10 months.

[Kaboom]

When did he do better? The only time he may have been a little stronger was when he first showed up as a SSJ but it was never proven he was actually stronger.

I was referring to how whenever Goku makes some sort of big breakthrough and Vegeta's lagging behind, Vegeta always still manages to close the gap, even when Goku continues to get better as well.

Goku left Vegeta in his dust on Namek. But by the time the Androids arrive, Vegeta has not only become a Super Saiyan as well, but also caught up and possibly surpassed him despite Goku training during those three years as well. After Goku showed what amazing gains are possible after mastering Super Saiyan, Vegeta seems to have done the same, also attaining Super Saiyan 2 and more than catching up to him and Gohan during the seven years. Even in GT, once Vegeta learns about Super Saiyan 4, he figures out a way to achieve it soon after Goku does.

[Michsi]

When did he do better? The only time he may have been a little stronger was when he first showed up as a SSJ but it was never proven he was actually stronger.

I was referring to how whenever Goku makes some sort of big breakthrough and Vegeta's lagging behind, Vegeta always still manages to close the gap, even when Goku continues to get better as well.

Goku left Vegeta in his dust on Namek. But by the time the Androids arrive, Vegeta has not only become a Super Saiyan as well, but also caught up and possibly surpassed him despite Goku training during those three years as well. After Goku showed what amazing gains are possible after mastering Super Saiyan, Vegeta seems to have done the same, also attaining Super Saiyan 2 and more than catching up to him and Gohan during the seven years. Even in GT, once Vegeta learns about Super Saiyan 4, he figures out a way to achieve it soon after Goku does.

As I said, the only time he might have done as well as Goku or perhaps better, but that's up for debate, was when he showed up after Goku fell to the disease. After that I don't ever see him catching up to Goku. Not to mention it's hard to tell how much he progressed during the 7 year gap when the only time we see him fighting full force is when he is already under Babidi's spell so I don't even know if he reached SSJ 2 all by himself (do we see if he does in the manga...)

As for GT and attaining SSJ4, wasn't that because of Bulma's machine? Correct me if I'm wrong cecause I haven't seen it yet, but I read that it's because of one of Bulma's inventions that he reaches SSJ4.

[dbgtFO]

so I don't even know if he reached SSJ 2 all by himself (do we see if he does in the manga...)

There shouldn't really be any shed of doubt here, if you ask me, but apparently there still is.

Vegeta could go SSJ 2 before being taken over by Babidi just fine.
It isn't shown because it's likely there as a surprise element that both Goku and Vegeta have reached the same form as Gohan.

Anyways the idea that Vegeta was not SSJ 2 before Babidi's influence can't be justified in any way and we have official confirmation that Vegeta learned it himself from Daizenshuu 7 and SEG: Story Volume.

And usually if you have trouble accessing transformations the characters will point it out to us. Vegeta even pointed out how he was so irritated that he couldn't go SSJ, when explaining how he achieved the form in the Androids Arc, but in the Buu arc the only problem he had was closing the gap between him and Kakarot. Not once is it ever mentioned that Gohan and Kakarot had a transformation he couldn't acces.

[Kaboom]

Okay, let me even further simplify what I'm trying to convey.

Goku starts out at 10, Vegeta at 5.
Goku discovers some sort of new miraculous training method and gets up to 20.
Vegeta follows and does the same training, but even better, and gets up to 25.
But by then, Goku has trained even more and is already at 30.

So, even though Vegeta usually trails behind Goku in strength, he usually does better than Goku at any particular method of training. The only reason Goku stays ahead is because he did it first. THAT'S the trend I'm talking about.

Capiche?

[Michsi]

Okay, let me even further simplify what I'm trying to convey.

Goku starts out at 10, Vegeta at 5.
Goku discovers some sort of new miraculous training method and gets up to 20.
Vegeta follows and does the same training, but even better, and gets up to 25.
But by then, Goku has trained even more and is already at 30.

So, even though Vegeta usually trails behind Goku in strength, he usually does better than Goku at any particular method of training. The only reason Goku stays ahead is because he did it first. THAT'S the trend I'm talking about.

Capiche?

But that's just it, when did he get at 25 before Goku (aside from that one time, but as I said, it's still debatable) He never does better at any particular training method because not once did he clearly surpass Goku at anything after he became SSJ.
Vegeta trains in the ROSAT first and yet Goku still gets better. Vegeta uses the ROSAT again and still can't manage to catch up to Goku and this after already having an idea of what Goku's power is after his ROSAT training.

For me it's simple. Vegeta's just inferior to Goku like everyone else ( to a lesser extent than most bust still inferior.)

so I don't even know if he reached SSJ 2 all by himself (do we see if he does in the manga...)

There shouldn't really be any shed of doubt here, if you ask me, but apparently there still is.

Vegeta could go SSJ 2 before being taken over by Babidi just fine.
It isn't shown because it's likely there as a surprise element that both Goku and Vegeta have reached the same form as Gohan.

Anyways the idea that Vegeta was not SSJ 2 before Babidi's influence can't be justified in any way and we have official confirmation that Vegeta learned it himself from Daizenshuu 7 and SEG: Story Volume.

And usually if you have trouble accessing transformations the characters will point it out to us. Vegeta even pointed out how he was so irritated that he couldn't go SSJ, when explaining how he achieved the form in the Androids Arc, but in the Buu arc the only problem he had was closing the gap between him and Kakarot. Not once is it ever mentioned that Gohan and Kakarot had a transformation he couldn't acces.

You are probably right here, but it's still not a 100% fact. Nevertheless, he still needed Babidi's spell to take on Goku's SSJ2.

[dbgtFO]

[...]but it's still not a 100% fact.

I just have to disagree here.

Nevertheless, he still needed Babidi's spell to take on Goku's SSJ2.

That goes without saying.

[Dabooyaka]

It's debatable if SSJ Vegeta androic arc did surpass Goku.

[Kaboom]

It's debatable if SSJ Vegeta androic arc did surpass Goku.

But he did at least catch up. Which means he gained more power overall in three years than Goku did in the four or so since Namek.

[Dabooyaka]

Well, while Goku was sparring with Gohan and Piccolo, who are weak compared to him, Vegeta was training in 300x gravity.
The only reason Vegeta cought up is because Goku was not training himself 100%, he was sparring with weaker people. Once in the ROST, Goku made Gohan a SSJ, and well, you see the results.

[ending sun]

Great thoughts from everyone, thanks.

As much as I admire Vegeta's extraordinary drive to improve, it does make sense that he actually cuts himself short going about training the wrong way with the wrong mindset.

I think Vegeta really is remarkable in his own way, but I also feel like the manga portrays Goku's philosophy as more pure and noble. Vegeta himself talks about this when Goku's fighting Kid Buu. Personally, I like to believe that Vegeta would actually become a lot stronger after getting over his obsession and finding himself some inner peace.

Yeah, I think post-Buu Vegeta, who's finally gotten over most of his bitterness and realized his family is the best thing in his life, might be able to train more efficiently. Or even post-GT Vegeta who has long since settled into family life and who Goku hands over Earth's protection to, giving him a more selfless purpose to get stronger. That's another reason I would love to see post-GT movie/special centering around Vegeta and the other fighters. It would be interesting to see how far they've progressed and how they respond to a threat without Goku's help. But that another topic entirely...

[In Brightest Day]

Great post by Herms.

It'd be interesting if someone did this for all of the Z-Senshi.