What kind of people were the Saiyans, really?

[Ketchup_Revenge]

I don't believe that the Saiyans were inherently evil so to speak. They were like any other oppressed people. They were proud to be who they were and exploited the skills that they had. Their mental conditioning as babies is what seemed to dictate their personalities, and not so much an inherent disposition. Even though this is largely a non-canon reference, Tarble seemed to have no blood lust or ill will toward anyone in Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return. I will also state that Toriyama had a major part in both the Bardock TV Special and Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return, and neither really depicted Saiyans with relentless ruthlessness or blood-lust.

[Rocketman]

The modern era of peace is pretty much only around because of the Atom Bomb.

Seems like the ability to obliterate a whole city in the blink of an eye made everybody play a little nicer.

[Fionordequester]

If you're not squeamish, I might suggest looking up the Nanking Massacre. I doubt anyone here could read about that and then say humans and Saiyans are completely different. We have just as much potential for evil as they have.

Don't forget Unit 731, and all the things they did during World War II. They made people from rival nations into test rats, and essentially chopped up their bodies and rearranged them, and pretty much did everything else you could possibly think of doing to a human being, froze off their arms and legs to experiment on those while doing as little external damage to them as possible, would remove various things like the intestines and all of that just to see how long humans could survive without it, all without anesthesia. To put it in perspective, we actually agreed to pardon almost everyone but the head honchos of that operation in exchange for their knowledge...and what they found out pretty much has made up our knowledge of the human body since even then. Yeah, all those nice diagrams we have of what the various parts of the human body look like? Yeah, most of that were from those experiments.

Seriously, if those experiments aren't a testament to our capacity for evil, I don't know what is. In fact, I would argue it was even worse than the Nanking Massacre.

[Herms]

Even though this is largely a non-canon reference, Tarble seemed to have no blood lust or ill will toward anyone in Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return. I will also state that Toriyama had a major part in both the Bardock TV Special and Yo! Son Goku and his Friends Return, and neither really depicted Saiyans with relentless ruthlessness or blood-lust.

Tarble seems deliberately set up as the opposite of what Saiyans typically are, someone with no talent for or interest in battle, so I don't think we can really use him to judge what the standard Saiyan was like. The Bardock special shows the Saiyans as having strong bonds of comradarie among each other (save for Vegeta, who seems completely uninterested in the destruction of his race), but having no qualms with wiping out entire other races for fun and profit.

(Incidentally, Toriyama's role in the Bardock special was limited to character designs, and didn't extend to the story. Which he considered a good thing, saying in his Daizenshuu 6 interview that the special was his favorite thing from the anime because it was a story he himself could never tell.)

[soulnova]

(Incidentally, Toriyama's role in the Bardock special was limited to character designs, and didn't extend to the story. Which he considered a good thing, saying in his Daizenshuu 6 interview that the special was his favorite thing from the anime because it was a story he himself could never tell.)

Taking that into account, Toriyama did like the way Saiyans were portrayed on the special. They are capable of way more destructive behavior than us because they can. The bar scene really hit a cord because it could be any bar on Earth. Some mercenaries, hanging out in a bar, laughing and enjoying each other's company.

If the King's family produced such "a weakling", who really knows how many other Saiyan kids like Tarble were exiled? At the very least, Paragus seemed very well against the idea of killing his son (until he realized how much of a threat he was).

[sonikku956]

Well, yes, but I don't think humans have killed off entire intelligent species in recent times.

Well yeah, but that's only because there are no other intelligent species.

Because we killed them all (except other primates and dolphins). We weren't the only humans from 500,000 to 10,000 year ago of course.

[sonikku956]

But I do see where you're coming from. I think that Saiyans and Humans have somehow been connected in the DB universe. They are (somewhat) the same species, which expains that Gohan and Videl had Pan.

[DBZAOTA482]

Very wild primates.

[jjgp1112]

Much like other people ITT, I look at Saiyans like Space-Vikings. They're not inherently evil, but they have a destructive lack of self-control that can make them appear evil when exploited. Vegeta on the other hand, is just a dick in general who more than once shocked Nappa with his complete and utter callousness, the last occasion being fatal.

[Usingnero]

Well, yes, but I don't think humans have killed off entire intelligent species in recent times.

Well yeah, but that's only because there are no other intelligent species.

Because we killed them all (except other primates and dolphins). We weren't the only humans from 500,000 to 10,000 year ago of course.

Actually, there's no concrete proof that we killed off the other human species, its just one of several theories surrounding the extinction's, most recent evidence suggests that we had nothing to do with it actually, at least not purposefully anyhow.
The Saiyans however did purposefully kill many numerous other species. One thing we do have against the Saiyans is that, death in DB (by Saiyans or otherwise) is rather quick and simple, we on the other hand have devised some pretty devilish ways of killing throughout history, like gas chambers and the brass bull.

[hulkty]

Dicks.