Villain Motivations

[ABED]

What do you all think motivates the villains? What do you think makes for a good motivation or bad one?

[thomas1up]

I hear a lot of people say that the villains had no motivation which I don't think is true.

In Saiyan Saga, Vegeta and Nappa wanted to be immortal, presumably to kill Freeza and take over ruler of the universe, obviously they weren't near strong enough to do it with their own power and hearing a chance to get immortality seemed like a perfect chance.

Freeza saga had some motivation, Freeza too wanted to be immortal so he could guarantee that he would never be killed/would stay ruler forever, his fears weren't misguided either since he DID actually end up getting killed, however it could be taken as a not bad, but not great motivation to be honest as there was not really anyone who could even challenge him First Form, hell technically had he never gone to Namek, chances are he wouldn't have been killed!

The Artificial Human's motivations were a bit.... weird... They really had no reason to try and kill Goku other than them being bored really, it seemed kind of weird since they were doing exactly as Dr.Gero wanted, despite their hatred for him.. I'd say this is a bad one to be honest.

Cell's motivation to be perfect actually made sense but I never understand why he went through all that effort to set up a tournament when he could have just fought them all then and there? Makes even less sense when you think about the fact he pretty much said "fuck it" and destroyed the whole thing.

Buu? .... Uhh...... I got nothing...

[mAcChaos]

Cell's motivation to be perfect actually made sense but I never understand why he went through all that effort to set up a tournament when he could have just fought them all then and there? Makes even less sense when you think about the fact he pretty much said "fuck it" and destroyed the whole thing.

He wanted to give them time to train because he was so impressed by the huge gains Vegeta and Trunks made.

[Vijay]

What makes a good motivation is choosing an evil path, abandoning friends just to gain power, thus completing his goal: crushing the guy who once crushed his clan which happens to be his bro & ultimately labelled as stereotypical antihero.

An even better motivation would be going after random dudes to control Hollowfication which happens to be vital in terms of plot & goal: to kick some Arrancar buts who randomly appear with motivations that'll make General Rildo frm GT blush. Some real motivation here.

No offence to any fans of 2 shows above, but have came across fans particularly frm those 2 Shounen anime badmouthing DBZ villains for incredible lack of drive/motivation when cmpared to their shows. Perhaps badmouthing DBZ would mask glaring flaws of their respective shows.

Majin Buu is one villain who deserves more credit than what fans give him. After some serious, badass serious foes as Frieza & Cell, Buu was a refreshing change.

A single-dimensional foe with mindset of Maniac. Add that to subtle smartness to turn the odds against our hero's when stacked with challenges. Death & destruction treated as joke with addictive energy (Kid Buu especially), throughly intimidating villain who more than makes-up for infamous "shallow villain or zero motivation/drive)

[TheBlackPaladin]

Well, from a glance, and going by arcs....

VEGETA: To kill Freeza as revenge for killing his race. Immortality was just--in his opinion, anyway--the most effective way to go about doing that. Kind of like playing an arcade game with a ton of quarters...it may take a while to win, but the fear of a "real" Game Over isn't there. I think that's part of the reason he was so enraged when Goku started beating him on Earth. Yes, the prince being beaten by a "low-class" certainly had a lot to do with it, but I think there was more to it than that. In his mind, Vegeta had built himself up as the strongest saiyan, who was destined to kill Freeza and was just waiting for the right moment to put his plan into action...and being unable to kill Goku was a cold reminder for him that he wasn't ready for Freeza yet, even after all that effort he put in. Couple that with the idea that he made killing Freeza his reason to exist, and I can understand why he'd be pretty enraged. I also think that he wanted to wait longer than he did before confronting Freeza, but once he found out Freeza had learned of the Namekian dragon balls and was now pursuing immortality, he realized it was "now or never" time, and abandoned his position as a soldier of Freeza even though he wasn't ready yet. When he cried towards the end of his fight with Freeza, he seemed to be crying because it became clear to him that he wasn't going to beat Freeza, and that made him wonder why he was even still living if his reason for existing--beating Freeza--was clearly not doable...he clearly lost the will to fight after that. Immortality didn't seem to be his real goal, because he pretty much stopped pursuing it after he was wished back to life on Namek. Freeza was beaten, so there was no need. From there, he just wanted to be stronger than Goku, but by this point he was no longer a villain so much as he was an antihero.

FREEZA: An ego-maniacal quest to rule the universe. Like Vegeta, immortality was a means to an end. He knew the only things that could stop him were the supposed "Legendary Super Saiyan" and....just....death. From natural causes or otherwise. He took care of the saiyan problem by destroying Planet Vegeta, and intended to take care of the death problem with the dragon balls, at which point there would be nothing standing in his way.

CELL: To prove himself to be perfection incarnate. Don't get me wrong, he's a fun villain, but the motivations of the villains seemed to get less complex as time went on. Speaking of which....

BUU: To make Shonen Jump happy, since Toriyama didn't really care anymore.

[ABED]

I don't think villains need complex reasons. Keep it simple stupid, great advice, hurts my feelings every time.

[thatdbzguy]

None of them had good motivations as to why they were evil. They were evil because they felt like it, which is lazy writing.

[JackyBoi99]

I thought Buu was an extremely boring villain. All his forms were just...meh. His personality hardly changed at all.

[ABED]

None of them had good motivations as to why they were evil. They were evil because they felt like it, which is lazy writing.

And your schtick is getting lazy. What do you think are good motivations for evil?

Vegeta: power lust
Freeza: control
Cell: death and destruction for its own sake
Buu: no real motivation, he's a magically created evil being.

[TheGmGoken]

None of them had good motivations as to why they were evil. They were evil because they felt like it, which is lazy writing.

Wow this is getting old. Maybe you're a lazy writer. Your opinion isn't fact

I find all but Boo had great motivation.
Vegeta- lust for power and immortality
Freeza - Great Planet organization, control of universe. Awesome!
Cell - lust for perfection and wants to be the strongest(like Saiyan) being

[thomas1up]

None of them had good motivations as to why they were evil. They were evil because they felt like it, which is lazy writing.

Lazy writing? What... Freeza is literally the DBZ version of Hitler, so does that mean that Hitler is poorly written too?

People usually don't have a reason to be evil, they are because... they're well... evil! Also this is a child's cartoon, I don't think they're gonna go into GREAT detail onto why they're evil.


Also, Vegeta was literally raised in an environment where his job was to MURDER, if that wouldn't fuck someone up I don't know what would, plus the fact Saiyans are naturally violent (though being naturally EVIL, could be debated)

Cell's motivation to be perfect actually made sense but I never understand why he went through all that effort to set up a tournament when he could have just fought them all then and there? Makes even less sense when you think about the fact he pretty much said "fuck it" and destroyed the whole thing.

He wanted to give them time to train because he was so impressed by the huge gains Vegeta and Trunks made.

God I feel dumb for forgetting that, but I still feel that going up and destroying the whole tournament grounds was stupid, especially after how hard he tried to protect it from the army (but that's filler so I guess that doesn't count )

[Super Sonic]

If you want lame motivations, Commander Red. Wanting height and that's why Black killed him. Think Gero would've done the same and we might not have had the Androids saga.

[Kid Buu]

Speaking of bad guy motivations, was it ever explained why Master Shen hated Master Roshi and why Tenshinhan wanted to be an assassin?

[DarkPrince_92]

Speaking of bad guy motivations, was it ever explained why Master Shen hated Master Roshi and why Tenshinhan wanted to be an assassin?

They were once rivals, that wanted different things to put it plainly. Roshi obviously has more morale than Shen. Tenshinhan, well to me, looked like he got off on causing people pain before he met Roshi/Chun. If he liked doing that, being an assassin makes sense.

[Zephyr]

Pilaf:
Motivations:
Don't know much about his backstory (if anyone's even spoken much on it). But he seemed like he came from a royal family of some sort who either wanted nothing to do with him (who would? just look at his personality) or is no longer of this world, and thus he is forced to live up to his family's potential/right. He's truly awful at it, so he resorts to petty tactics to get the job done. This is all just me speculating though.
Why was he evil?
Not even sure I'd call Pilaf "evil".

Red:
Motivations:
The tallness thing is pretty dumb motivation for wanting to gather the Dragon Balls (though it is quite humorous). His motivation for world domination? Not specified, and I can't come up with any explanation for it.

Tao Pai Pai:
Motivations:
Businessman. He does what he does for money. Makes enough sense for me.

Tenshinhan:
Motivations:
Training to be an assassin. He looked up to Tao Pai Pai, that could be a large influencing factor.

Why were they evil?
Like any "evil" humans, the environment in which they were raised surely had a great deal to play in it. Do we need this spelled out for us?

Piccolo:
Motivations:
He's a demon. They do....evil things. Don't think this needs much more explanation. He seems to want to besiege the world and bring it under his demonic rule. Makes enough sense to me. Then you have his son/reincarnation, who not only has the same motives, but also has the added desire for revenge.
Why was he evil?
He's a fucking demon.

Saiyans:
Motivations:
They're fucking space vikings. They revel in battle. Vegeta in particular wants immortality, which would both allow him to have an eternity of battle and take out Freeza, the only thing that would be standing in his way from having an eternity of battle.
Why were they evil?
It's a cultural thing for them. Plus Vegeta was a powerful, privileged, royal twat. That would create such an overwhelming sense of entitlement that it would be difficult for anyone to walk down the path of "good" without some strong tugging from others.

Freeza:
Motivations:
For starters, he comes from an extremely powerful family. The powerful like to exploit the weak. Makes sense that his family would form such an empire. Now his search for the Dragon Balls? Plenty of reason there.
- If he doesn't go after them, someone else could, and use them against him. He's been shown to be paranoid in the past.
- Perhaps he's getting old?
Why was he evil?
The prodigy of an absolutely powerful family. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Etc, etc.

Cell:
Motivations:
He has the DNA of powerful Saiyans who revel in challenge and battle and always want more power, a pair of ruthless galactic tyrants, and the spawn of a demon slug man who wanted to take over the world. Does this somehow not write itself?
Why was he evil?
Years of programming and brainwashing by the hand of a computer programmed by a mad scientist hell bent on revenge.

Buu:
Motivations:
Well he's a demonic bubblegum monster seemingly operating on pure animal instinct. Initially, he was following orders of a man who could seal him up. Afterwards, he was promised a fight with some strong guys.
Why was he evil?
An evil monster-thing, operating on pure evil animal instinct. Given recent interviews, he seems to be something more Lovecraftian in nature.

[RandomGuy96]

Buu's motivation is, in a nutshell, to have fun. There's a little more detail, but that's what it really boils down to. The different forms just have different ways of going about it.

[Scarz]

Freeza's motivation was by far my favorite. He wanted immortality and was willing to commit planet wide genocide to get it.

[SingleFringe&Sparks]

Majin Buu is one villain who deserves more credit than what fans give him. After some serious, badass serious foes as Freeza & Cell, Buu was a refreshing change.

Refreshing? How can oversimplicity be refreshing? Buu literally had no reason to even exist but just to stay as OP as possible. Its not like he was a metaphor for anything the characters learned, he was just a random thing thats killing people, hes no different than Harudigarn and Janemba.

I still give Baby, Vegeta, Gero, Cooler, Garlic Jr, Omega Shenron (in concept alone), Freeza, Cell, Turles, the title for the best motivations in the series. They actually had a purpose and a reasonable notion why they wanted to kill Goku or to destroy things.

Freeza:
Motivations:
For starters, he comes from an extremely powerful family. The powerful like to exploit the weak. Makes sense that his family would form such an empire. Now his search for the Dragon Balls? Plenty of reason there.
- If he doesn't go after them, someone else could, and use them against him. He's been shown to be paranoid in the past.
- Perhaps he's getting old?
Why was he evil?
The prodigy of an absolutely powerful family. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Etc, etc.

Not to mention, he was a very spoiled; corrupted by an entitlement complex, he's also the favourite of the family: who I assume was stronger than Cooler for most of his life before Cooler found his own final form.

[thatdbzguy]

Freeza's motivation was by far my favorite. He wanted immortality and was willing to commit planet wide genocide to get it.

How was that any different from Vegeta's motivation?

[TheGmGoken]

Freeza's motivation was by far my favorite. He wanted immortality and was willing to commit planet wide genocide to get it.

How was that any different from Vegeta's motivation?

Vegeta ran a planet trade over the entire universe? Vegeta wanted immortality for power. Guessing over time. Freeza wanted to whole universe in his hands forever