Gaffer Tape wrote:Exactly what Mischi is saying. I am not feeling any moral outrage, yet you seem to keep thinking I am. It has nothing to do with that. But, no, I think it's silly to say that it's ridiculous to compare fiction to reality. Fiction is written to mimic to a certain degree reality. It has to, both because it's the only frame of reference authors have, and it's the only frame of reference that readers/viewers have in order to emotionally connect. If it cannot engage you in ways that mirror the real world, there's really no point in it because no emotional attachment will form, nothing will be relatable. And one of the key tenets of storytelling is "show, don't tell." We see characters perform actions, and it is through those actions that we get a feel for what kind of person they are. If there's a scene where a character helps an old lady across the street, that's something we can relate to. It's something that immediately triggers our brain to tell us that this character is good, benevolent, selfless. Likewise, if there's a scene where a character kills another human being in cold blood with no remorse, it sets off those flags in our brains that tell us that he's villainous, evil, cruel, merciless.
That's a visual shorthand for quickly getting information across to the reader. And, yes, Toriyama employs this to quickly tell us what kind of character Vegeta is. One of his earliest defining moments is when he kills Nappa for losing to Goku. That scene doesn't exist just to be flashy or to show how strong Vegeta is. It scares our heroes, and it clues us in to the extent of how terribly ruthless this character is. Evil to the core. Violent. Untrustworthy. Disloyal. Those are all adjective to describe Vegeta. And as a villain, it makes him a very compelling character.
As I've said before, what annoys me is that, after the Freeza arc, Vegeta is still displaying all those same exact character traits, yet instead of the story backing that up, he starts being treated like a hero, or at least some anti-social curmudgeon. It's a disconnect that completely throws everything off. On the one hand, you have a character behaving in a very clearly defined way. Yet on the other hand, you have the story trying to push your opinion in the opposite direction. Again, with "show, don't tell." You're being shown Vegeta still being villainous, violent, untrustworthy, disloyal, more dangerous than the enemies he's fighting, and completely stupid. But on the other hand, you're being told by other characters that he's just prideful, he's super-useful, and that he's a genius. You may call that "taking things at face value." I call it sloppy writing. I call it Toriyama simply not knowing how to continue to incorporate Vegeta into the story. His defining features were what made him popular, and rightfully so. But those features only worked for a villain, and Toriyama needed him to be allied with the heroes. So what do you do? Completely alter the character so that he no longer behaves like the character everybody loves to read about? Well, no, you can't do that. But if you keep him like he is, there's really no justification for him being there. So in the end, you see Vegeta just flip-flopping back and forth into whatever role he needs to be at that moment. So suddenly, with no provocation, he's hanging out in a pink shirt having barbecues with Bulma and Yamucha (which is completely out-of-character), but the next minute he's killing innocent people (which is completely in-character but not compatible with an attempt at a "domesticated" Vegeta). It's just too contradictory to make any sense. And that's what bothers me, not some sense of "moral outrage." Not some terrible bias against Vegeta. It's just not very good writing in that regard, and that bothers me.
Considering you said earlier Vegeta deserves to be shot into the sun and abandoned by his family for what he's done, it's not hard for me to make the assumption you
do have some moral outrage and grudge against Vegeta. I guess given this post, that was a mistaken assumption, but all you've talked about up until this point is how much of a rotten fuck he is and how he doesn't change. You never said anything about the writing, or the use of the character.
As for him having a barbecue with Yamcha and Bulma, that particular bit was filler. Furthermore, Vegeta can't really accurately be described as disloyal, or even stupid. The reason he seems stupid is because he allows his monstrous ego and pride to cloud his judgement so often. If he was really stupid, he'd stab Goku in the back at random, or pass up an opportunity to train, or make heavy use of the Ultra Super Saiyan form. For that matter, he's not really disloyal either; he'll do things on his own when others move too slowly for his liking or underestimate and take on an opponent, but he's not about to all-out betray the Z-fighters in the Androids saga, because he
can't afford to. He's smart enough to know he needs them. When he screws things up, he doesn't do it
knowing it'll hurt them; if they go down, he goes down too!
And in the Buu saga, Vegeta underestimates and fucks up yet again, but he still has a legitimate reason; everything he's seen and done up until then has led him to believe that Buu won't be a real threat; he and Goku plowed through Babidi's champions with ease, and the East Kaioshin is stunned at their power. If Pui Pui, Yakon, and Dabra are the best Babidi has to offer, how dangerous could this Buu possibly be? His thinking when becoming a Majin probably went something like this; "I'll beat the crap out of Kakarrot with this power, and if Majin Buu really is released due to the energy, I'll just kill him!" He didn't think, "I'll help Majin Buu destroy the world!" His belief that he could defeat Majin Buu turned out to be false, but there was no way for him to know that, and he had some evidence to support that belief. His actions in the Androids saga have no excuse; but if Kuririn had used the remote to destroy Android 18, his overconfidence (which was justified, given how easily he trounced Semi-Perfect Cell) would have posed no threat. The two are equally responsible.
Vegeta lacks the abiity to plan ahead, but so does most everyone else. You can single him out for that only because he's forced to face the consequences.
