Characters / Dragon Ball Frieza Tropes I To Y

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Antagonists
Original Series Villains (Red Ribbon Army [Cell]) | DBZ Villains (Frieza's Empire [Freeza/Frieza [A to H, I to Y], Cooler/Coola], Majin Buu) | DBZ Movie Villains (Broly) | GT Villains | DBS Villains (Goku Black, Zamasu/Zamas [Fused Zamasu/Zamas])

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I-N

• I Am Not Left-Handed: You could make a drinking game of the number of times he shows the heroes his "true power".
• I Control My Minions Through...: Frieza is a big fan of controlling his flunkies through fear and power. He's orders of magnitude more powerful than the rest of his subordinates put together and a sadist that has no problem killing them for trivial reasons. So they have little choice but to obey him.
• I Take Offense to That Last One: In Resurrection ‘F’, he cheerfully refers to himself as an "Absolutely Evil Villain", and is so at peace with that fact he only takes offense to the latter part of Bulma's insult. (Note: "Kusotare" DOES refer to that part of the human anatomy, so yeah, Bulma has a pretty foul mouth.)
  Bulma: Goku! Vegeta! Get your asses back here right now! That evil, rotten, fucking asshole Frieza has come back to life and come to Earth!
  Frieza: (Quivering eyebrows) ..."fucking asshole", eh?
  • The dub version.
    Bulma: Vegeta and Goku are there, right? Well, Tell them to come home now! Because, I don't want to hear any crap about training, it's an emergency! That evil scumbag Frieza has come back to life, and the Earth's in danger!
    Frieza: (shocked and then annoyed) "Scumbag" am I?
• Iconic Sequel Character: He did not appear in the series until the second Story Arc of Z. Still, Freeza is not only the series' most popular villain (after Vegeta, who reforms) but one of the most celebrated villains in shōnen history.
• I Meant to Do That: Speculated by Goku and then outright confirmed in supplemental material that Frieza's attempt to blow up Namek was genuinely messed up by Frieza's fear of dying via being caught in the planet's explosion. The result is the planet holding together for some time, and causes Frieza to proclaim the planet's destruction in "five minutes", a lie so that he doesn't seem incompetent in hindsight.
• Immortality Seeker: Like most Dragon Ball villains, he wants the Dragon Balls for immortality. After his defeat, he's more concerned with getting revenge on Goku, and he gives up the idea by Super: Broly upon realising what would happen if he were paralyzed or otherwise incapacitated afterwards.
• Incompletely Trained: In Resurrection ‘F’, he trains for four months in preparation for his attack on Earth, unlocking a new Golden Super Mode that actually makes him stronger than Goku and Vegeta's Super Saiyan God SS forms. However, Frieza was so eager to get his revenge on Goku that he took off for Earth as soon as he unlocked the form and never bothered to master it, turning said form into a Clipped-Wing Angel. Subverted come the Universal Survival Arc, as he's managed to get past this flaw.
• Inexplicably Awesome: For decades, no one knew why Frieza and his family were so powerful. His power was so unrivaled that it takes a legend to defeat him and every villain afterwards are either demonic in nature or created to be the strongest in the universe. It's not until a 2014 interview with Toriyama that we learn that Frieza's family are mutants among their race and Frieza himself is a prodigy even among them.
• Invincible Villain: Frieza is so far beyond any other characters when he is introduced that it's considered insane to even stand up to him. Going by power levels, Goku at the beginning of the series before he fights Raditz has roughly 2% of Vegeta's initial power level, with Vegeta’s initial power level being a mere 0.015% of Frieza's at 100% full power. Even when Goku first arrives on Namek after all his training, his power level is still only 0.05% of Frieza's at 100% full power. He kills Krillin with barely a thought after shrugging off a fully powered Spirit Bomb. The only reason he didn't outright kill Goku or the other surviving heroes is because he enjoyed toying with them too much, which eventually leads Frieza to push Goku to his Rage Breaking Point and make him ascend to Super Saiyan. No future villain enjoys such an enormous power advantage over the heroes, except for Beerus and his twin Champa.
• Ironic Hell: When shown in Hell in Resurrection ‘F’, Frieza is wrapped in a cocoon and unable to do anything but watch as the Angels of Hell, as well as animated toys, sing and dance happily. For a raging Sadist like Frieza who goes above and beyond to make people suffer, it's quite fitting.
• It's All About Me: The only thing Frieza cares about is Frieza. The universe can be obliterated for all he cares so long as he gets what he wants. He seems to instantly hit it off with Frost...who's pretty much an alternate version of himself, and even then he turns on Frost without a second thought as soon as he feels like it.
• Jerkass Has a Point:
  • When Goku calls out Frieza on his wanton cruelty and puts him off for killing the Saiyans plus Namekians, Frieza points out that the Saiyan race was no better than he was, which is unfortunately true: The Saiyans were savage space pirates, and even if they were in Frieza's employ they still loved their jobs and took great pride in it.
  • Frieza repeatedly tells Goku that he is too merciful and that he has become overconfident, dropping his guard too soon. While undeniably a hypocritical sentiment as far as overconfidence goes, he isn't wrong: Goku's inclination towards mercy has nearly gotten him killed on several occasions, and he has dropped his guard around Frieza several times, nearly dying for it twice.
  • When the Universe 9 assassins come to kill him, Frieza naturally starts dropping them like flies. When Goku tells him not to do it, Frieza responds that it doesn't really matter if they die by his hand now or when their universe will be erased after the tournament. Goku (who has come to recruit him to participate, will make happen by winning, whether he wants to or not, which indeed happens exactly as Frieza predicted in the Tournament of Power) also doesn't have any arguments to refute Frieza's claim.
• Jerk with a Heart of Jerk: At the end of the Universe Survival Arc, Frieza became the co-savior of the universe... however, much like Vegeta in Z, all his motivations for saving the universe are purely pragmatic and selfish.
• Joker Immunity: The reason he keeps coming back from death after the original manga ended. The guy is just way too damn popular. Counting anime and movie exclusive material as well as Expies with the exact same personality, voice actor, and designs, (Frost and Chilled) he has come back nine times.^note As a cyborg in the Android arc; causing trouble in Hell in the Otherworld Tournament Filler Arc; escaping Hell after Janemba warps reality in Fusion Reborn; breaking out of Hell a third time along with Cell in the Super 17 arc of GT; cameoing in Episode of Bardock and being "fought" as a proxy through his very similar ancestor Chilled; being revived in the Resurrection F movie and subsequent anime arc of Super; being fought by proxy again through Frost in the manga and anime Super Champa arc, with Frost explicitly identified as an alternate universe version of Freeza; participating in the anime and manga Super Tournament of Power arc from the Afterlife in an Enemy Mine situation (also featuring the return of Frost); and finally, being brought back after the Tournament of Power arc and returning to his role as a villain in the movie Dragon Ball Super: Broly, and a cameo character in Galactic Patrol Saga. This isn't even counting all the times he gets original stories in video games.
• Just Toying with Them: He pretty much lives this trope. After going through many fights against the heroes and reaching his final form, he reveals to Goku he's only been using a fraction of his total power (1% in the dub) and proceeds to start using one third. This is more than enough to beat Goku silly, and at one point he briefly decides to give Goku a fighting chance by not using his hands. Once Goku goes Super Saiyan, however, Frieza stops playing around and convinces Goku to allow him to fight at 100% full power. Unfortunately for him, his chance at victory has already flown out the window. Goku even points out to Frieza why he's going to end up losing: having done nothing but toy with weaker opponents for nearly his entire life, when he actually goes all-out to fight Super Saiyan Goku, he's got little-to-no practice fighting an equal or superior opponent, and has such terrible endurance (especially by this point) that after only a short time at 100% full power, he starts getting rapidly weaker
• Karma Houdini: Played oh-so-straight at the end of Super after a roller-coaster of Frieza paying for his crimes and then returning later. As a reward from Beerus, Frieza is permitted to return to life, despite sarcastically chuckling "I just might go back to my old evil ways." The last we see of him in that arc is greeting his old followers, boasting that the emperor of the universe has returned.
• Karma Houdini Warranty: Because Father of Goku and Dragon Ball Minus are prequels to Dragon Ball, Frieza gets away with killing almost all the Saiyans and laughs happily as Planet Vegeta explodes. Bardock's final vision in the TV Special, however, is one of Goku fighting Frieza on Namek. So despite everything, Bardock dies knowing that his son will avenge him. Even in Minus, we see a panel of Goku and Frieza facing each other as the final shot. Of course, this later leads to Karma Houdini above.
• Karmic Butt-Monkey: For all his power and ruthlessness, Frieza is a punching bag throughout Resurrection ‘F’. When we first see him, he's in an Ironic Hell where he's trapped in a pod hanging from a tree in a world that can only be described as Candy Land. He is revived in pieces, falls apart when he tries to put himself back together, plus his pieces are gathered and dumped into a container to be thrown in a healing tank. Even after he gets stronger he gets heaps of humiliation piled onto him. Goku did not take him that seriously even after he became Golden Frieza, seeing their fight more like a sparring match with high stakes, and him blowing up the Earth gets negated by Whis. After he dies, he's sent right back to his Ironic Hell. Then, after being temporarily revived by Goku to fight in the Tournament of Power, he gets brutally beaten up by both Toppo and Jiren in quick succession, and is only saved by Goku. Dragon Ball Super: Broly features a spectacularly painful instance of this as well; to buy time to perform a fusion, Goku and Vegeta bait the raging Saiyan into his path, resulting in Broly beating Frieza senseless for an hour.
• Kick the Dog: Frieza really likes doing unnecessary and horribly cruel things to people just because he can and to prove what an asshole he is. He never stops.
  • Killing Namekians For the Evulz is a big one, even after he got the Dragon Ball.
  • When he brutally rips Nail's arm off and wasting time by beating him to near death.
  • When he sadistically and painfully tortures Krillin, and then Gohan, Vegeta and Goku.
  • Mortally wounds Piccolo with a Death Beam, murdering Krillin in front of Goku's eyes and then threatening to do the same to his son. This last one came back to haunt him.
  • In Resurrection ‘F’ after Goku is mortally shot by Sorbet, Frieza viciously kicks him, stomps on his heart wound, and gives a cruel "The Reason You Suck" Speech, before trying to get Vegeta to kill Goku.
  • Earlier in the same movie, he blew up an entire city. It is his way of saying hello.
  • In Super, he uses Tagoma as a torture dummy for several months as punishment for him speaking out against his revenge.
  • Also from Super, he offers his men a planet if they kill Krillin, knowing the pain it will cause Goku. He also tortures Gohan for reminding him of the mercy Goku gave him and laughs after he murders Piccolo. He then tells Gohan how he will murder his entire family.
  • In the Super Broly movie, him murdering Paragus, and unlike the example with Krillin he deliberately did it so he can get the fight that he wanted with Broly because he knew killing the person that a Saiyan cared for the most would trigger them to become a berserking Super Saiyan.
• Kick Them While They Are Down:
  • During his fight with Vegeta on Namek. Even after savagely beating Vegeta to the point where he couldn't move, Frieza picks him up by the throat with his tail and gleefully continues to beat him up, before finishing him off with a Death Beam through the heart. Goku chews Frieza out for killing Vegeta when he was helpless and couldn't defend himself, to which Frieza retorts he should have shut up about the Super Saiyan legend.
  • Brutally kicks Goku several times after Sorbet shoots him in the heart.
• Kill the Cutie: Poor Dende. Once Freeza learns that he can heal the heroes, he had to go.
  • He also killed Dende's brother, Cargo, in the manga.
  • Though he also could have done the same to Kid Trunks in Dragon Ball Super when recognizing his identity, similar to what actually was the first one who truly killed him (though he actually came from another timeline), he didn't even attempt to try attacking him even as he got angry over seeing him appear. Instead, he tries to get Tagoma to kill him, just before he got his body stolen by Ginyu.
• Knight of Cerebus: He's a Hero Killer extraordinaire, has one of the highest body counts in the series, is the leader of a powerful organization that depopulates planets, is not anyone's pawn (unlike Raditz, Nappa and Vegeta), and his actions are the key cause of everything that gave the Namek Arc its reputation as one of the darkest moments of the franchise. It's safe to say that Frieza could scare more than one child of the 90s. Likewise, in the Namek Arc, the fight with him is easily one of the most graphic in the franchise, consisting of torturous beatdown after beatdown since it's an extremely one-sided fight till Goku turns Super Saiyan.
  • He also could be considered this for the Super adaption. While the first saga is whimsical and light-hearted with the closest thing to an antagonist being Beerus who's comedic and ends up befriending Goku and the others in the end. Frieza brings a more menacing air even compared to the movie version since he personally attacks Goku's friends (especially Krillin) just to hurt Goku, brutally tortures Gohan, kills Piccolo and reveals that once he's done killing Goku and blowing up the Earth that he will go to Namek and blow it up again as well so that the Dragon Balls will be destroyed too. He is also responsible for Tagoma's darker personality.
• Know When to Fold 'Em:
  • Defied in the case of his defeat at Goku's hands; even after losing an arm and the lower half of his body, Frieza refused to accept his defeat. He also refuses to leave peacefully after Goku spares his life again. In fact, when it comes to his revenge, Frieza just can't seem to know when to fold them.
  • As revealed in Resurrection ‘F’, for all of his arrogance and smugness, even he knew better than to cross Beerus and Majin Buu. Discovering that Goku had slain Buu was what fuelled his decision to train for the first time of his life, and even after his training and unlocking his Golden Super Mode, he still dreads Beerus to the point of shamelessly kneeling and groveling before him. That said, his revival in the Universe Survival Arc shows that he's not above attempting to manipulate and even backstab Beerus if the opportunity presents itself.
  • Played straight at the end of the Universe Survival arc. After being granted life once more, he doesn't try to get revenge on Goku, but instead goes back to rebuilding his empire without deliberately antagonizing Goku. They may fight again, but he won't rush into it as he would have.
  • By the time of Super: Broly, his humiliations in the Tournament of Power at the hands of the second-tiers (Kale or Toppo, depending on the version), much less Jiren, apparently stuck with him as he now outright admits that he can't take on Goku in a straight fight and doesn't even want to try. So he recruits Broly as a proxy, and when that doesn't work out, he decides to leave Earth.
• Kubrick Stare: This tends to be Frieza's default expression.
• Lack of Empathy: Only cares about causing as much pain and suffering as he can. Best exemplified in Super, when Tagoma coldly shoots through Shisami to hit Gohan; while Sorbet is taken aback at Tagoma's ruthlessness, Frieza is impressed by it.
• Large Ham: He nearly rivals Vegeta in this area, especially as Goku begins to slowly surpass him throughout their fight, which causes him to steadily lose his composure, until by the end, it's gone completely. Simply put, the more outclassed he becomes, the more hammy he gets, although even before that, he had his moments.
• Laser-Guided Karma:
  • Frieza's fall from grace and eventual death is all his roosters coming home to roost. First, his genocide of the Saiyans is what causes Goku to be sent to Earth and his cruel murder of Krillin is what set Goku off to become a Super Saiyan. Second, his final attack against Goku is a modified version of Krillin's Destructo Disc. The same attack that cut him to pieces, indirectly allowing Krillin to avenge his own death. Third, he is nearly killed by a planet exploding on him, the same planet he destroyed himself. Finally, he is killed by the son of one of the survivors of the Saiyan genocide.
  • Frieza uses his power to push his victims into despair by brutally torturing and killing them in the slowest manner possible. He then lets them die knowing that they never stood a chance against him. This is the fate Goku subjects him to. He mercilessly beats Frieza into despair and lets him know without a shred out doubt that he never stood a chance against him even at maximum power.
  • In Super, Frieza is overwhelmed and beating to the point of despair and tears by Vegeta, just like he did to him during their final battle on Namek.
  • Frieza gets it again in Super via Toppo/Kale (depending on the version) and Jiren. Both of them on separate occasions hand him an absolutely brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown.
  • In Dragon Ball Super: Broly, Frieza kills Paragus in order to trigger Broly's transformation into a Super Saiyan. Goku and Vegeta wind up leading the enraged Saiyan right towards Frieza before escaping to practice the Fusion Dance, resulting in Frieza enduring Broly pummeling the absolute stuffing out of him for over an hour.
• Last-Second Villain Recovery: In the final leg of the fight between Frieza and Super Saiyan Goku, Goku determines Frieza is losing too much energy to be a threat and decides the fight is over. Warning the Omnicidal Maniac to remember this beatdown the next time he tries to do evil, Goku leaves. Frieza is having none of this, and forces himself to power up again, launching two killer disks at Goku... only for Goku to dodge both of them, causing them to boomerang back across the battlefield and slice Frieza in half.
• Last Villain Stand: After losing all of his minions, failed to obtain immortality, being proven as not the strongest in the universe, and survived his own attack because he begged Goku to save him, but that doesn't stop him from trying to kill Goku one last time.
• Laughably Evil: Frieza is one of the most vile and despicable characters in the series, but that doesn't stop him from having some hilarious moments at times. For example, in the Universe Survival Arc, he utilizes Black Comedy at times.
  Frieza: [after defeating Cabba] Spending excess stamina on trash... is a waste, after all.
  • He is very much like this in the original Funi dub.
    Frieza: [after ripping off Nail's arm and throwing it in front of him] Here! You might want to keep it as a backscratcher!
• Laughing Mad:
  • His laughter when destroying Planet Vegeta pretty much shows just how much sanity he has, or rather lacks. Also gives one off when he is thinking about killing Goku's friends one by one before destroying Earth as revenge to Goku for besting him, to the point where his speech was barely comprehensible.
  • Also when he tried to destroy Namek before Goku's Spirit Bomb hit him... and then when he actually fires a blast into Namek's core.
• Lazy Bum: He rarely dirties his own hands, to the extent that he didn't bother to fight the Z-Fighters himself until after they killed his entire army. In Resurrection ‘F’, he explicitly tells Goku that he'll make him suffer for actually making him work to get more power for a change.
• Light Is Not Good: His body is colored white, but his heart is pitch black.
• Locked Out of the Loop:
  • Frieza never really realizes that the Trunks that killed him actually comes from another timeline where Goku defeats him and his father. Not only that, but when reminding him in Resurrection ‘F’ that Trunks was the one who killed him for being arrogant enough to attempt an attack on Earth out of revenge, Goku only mentions Trunks by name, nothing more. While the same occurs in Dragon Ball Super, the young present timeline counterpart of that Trunks shows up with a young Goten as Gotenks before defusing. Frieza recognizes who he is, and yet doesn't realize this Trunks was a different one from his true executioner.
  • He also had no idea that Vegeta had become a Super Saiyan, been one for years, and was almost Goku's perfect equal having become a SSGSS himself. This comes back to bite Frieza in the ass as he realizes he actually had to fight two guys of the same power after he wore himself out beating only one by fighting dirty.
• Loophole Abuse:
  • Because he begrudgingly had to follow the Tournament of Power's "No Kill" rule, he settles on torturing them instead.
  • Granola and subsequently Gas wished on the Cerealan Dragon Balls to become the strongest in the universe. Despite this, Frieza in his "Black Frieza" form was not only able to kill Gas, but defeat Goku and Vegeta in their most powerful forms in a single blow. Frieza explains that because he trained in a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, he wasn't in the universe when the wishes were made, and thus was capable of surpassing Gas.
• Lost in Translation: In the original Ocean and Funimation dubs, Freeza was portrayed as a short tempered Smug Super who had Ho Yay undertones, a brutish way of speaking and a feminine voice. While the Remastered DVD collection helped fix some of this, it was not until the change of voice that came with Dragon Ball Z Kai that American fans were fully introduced to the sophisticated, well-mannered tyrant he was originally intended to be.
• Loves the Sound of Screaming:
  • Going hand-in-hand with Cold-Blooded Torture above, he's practically ecstatic at the sound of Krillin's pained screams when he impales him on one of his horns. In Resurrection ‘F’, while he's beating on Goku after Sorbet shoots the former, he wakes Goku up after he passes out just so he can hear him scream.
  • In Super, after torturing Gohan to a cripple, he tauntingly tells Gohan to cry and scream for his life.
• Made of Iron: The amount of punishment Frieza takes throughout each of his significant battles is so extreme that it has to be a racial property. Besides what's labeled below on top of tanking a fully-charged Spirit Bomb to the face into the side of Planet Namek, he goes through grueling battles in Resurrection of F and the Tournament of Power, to the point of enduring a beatdown from a God of Destruction candidate and their Hakai, and a direct fight with Jiren. And then the Broly movie comes around, where he was beat down by a berserking Broly nonstop for at least an hour straight and still ultimately managed to walk away harshly bruised and badly beaten rather than ending up as a smear across the ice.
• Make an Example of Them: He's anything but pleased to discover that Zarbon not only went after Vegeta without his orders, but also beat him up and left him for dead in a lake without making sure, largely because he had deduced Vegeta had found and hid at least one Dragon Ball and Zarbon's actions may have cost them their chances at finding it. In the same conversation, Orlen enters and reveals he came across the village Vegeta decimated and stole the Dragon Ball from... only to stupidly reveal that he killed the Sole Survivor of the attack without asking him where Vegeta went. Frieza immediately kills him with his Eye Beams for his stupidity, telling Zarbon that unless he finds Vegeta and brings him back alive, that's what will happen to him.
• Make Sure He's Dead: Since Frieza survived a beatdown from Super Saiyan Goku, being sliced in half by his own energy disc, and being caught in the explosion of Namek, Future Trunks ensures he stays dead by slicing him vertically in half with his sword, slicing the halves into chunks of meat, and then atomizing those chunks with a point-blank Ki Blast.
• Manipulative Bastard: He convinced the Saiyans to work for him and become space pirates. Not only that, but he tries to convince Goku to revive him after the Tournament of Power out of Goku's curiosity for his evolution. Goku didn't fall for it, this time.
  Frieza: After 24 hours, will I have to return here?
  Goku: What do you expect? Don't be picky.
  Frieza: Then these are my terms. If we win that Tournament, and this universe remains, use the Dragon Balls to resurrect me.
  Goku: Do… you really think you are in a position to bargain?
  Frieza: Are you sure? I can still get much stronger. (Transforms into Golden Frieza) I was hoping of fighting you again. You're hopelessly curious about my evolution. Isn't that right?
  Beat
  Goku: You really are the most evil guy in the universe. You're taking advantage of my weak spot.
  • He surprisingly did this to the protagonists' benefit, since he really had no intention of forming an alliance with Frost. Frost is not amused when he found out and tries to attack him when his back is turn, only for Zen'o to erase him.
• Mask of Sanity: While Frieza is able to hide it beneath a polite and suave act and function well enough to run a business, beneath it all, he's a brutally sadistic, Ax-Crazy psychopath who will kill anyone, even his own minions, For the Evulz. The mask falls off completely when Super Saiyan Goku comes along. He tries to maintain it throughout Resurrection ‘F’ and Dragon Ball Super, but the mask is considerably more transparent.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: Happens twice on Namek as part of his Break the Haughty and Humiliation Conga:
  • After calling the Ginyu Force, he successfully gathers all seven Dragon Balls, only to find out that he can't use them since he didn't know the password. And to add further insult, he killed just about everyone who could have told him.
  • He successfully makes his wish to the Namekian dragon, beating out Dende who hesitated. The dragon completely ignores him since a wish much be spoken in Namekian. Goku is right there to rub this fact in his face.
  • In Dragon Ball Super, his one real victory was killing Piccolo, pushing Gohan into a Heroic BSoD. As soon as he's killed, Piccolo is revived off-screen and enjoying dinner at Bulma's party. Also, this event motivates Gohan into training to become strong again.
• Mind over Matter:
  • He has extremely powerful telekinesis. Some memorable uses of it include parting an ocean and throwing a mountain.
  • Controlling organic matter requires him to either encase the person in energy (as he did to Goku) or actually shoot a bit of his own power into the object or person to control (as he did to Tagoma to toss him into the vacuum of space) or detonate (like when he exploded Krillin from the inside).
  • He showed off his telekinesis during the Tournament of Power a few times, particularly during the last moments of the tournament against Universe 11. Against Dyspo after he threw Frieza into a giant rock and crushed it on impact, the debris levitated off of him while Frieza casually dusted himself off before resuming the fight. Against Toppo after he ascends into a God of Destruction, Frieza was able to temporarily paralyze him in a red energy sphere before levitating rocks at him to bury him in.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: In a desperate bid to defeat Frieza, Goku tries to blast him with a 20x Kaio-Ken powered Kamehameha... Which only succeeded in burning Frieza's hand. Angered that someone could actually hurt him like this, Frieza flips out and mercilessly beats Goku.
• Misplaced Retribution: After his debut arc in Z, Frieza is almost universally defined in all subsequent storylines by his hatred for Goku. Although Goku did humiliate Frieza in their famous battle and blasted him to chunks, Goku never actually killed him — Future Trunks did. But since Frieza is so singlemindedly obsessed with taking revenge on Goku, he rarely acknowledges Trunks' major role in his downfall, mainly due to the fact that Trunks was such an Outside-Context Problem that he never got the chance to know. Frieza's grudge against Trunks is finally referenced in the Dragon Ball Super adaptation of Resurrection F as he mistakes Present Trunks (who was not included in the movie version of the story) for his murderer and demands his execution.
• Missing Mom: If he has a mother she's never been revealed. This, combined with the fact that no members of his race seem female, has led some fans to believe that he's a One-Gender Race.
• Mode Lock: Is almost never out of his final form after he goes into it while fighting Goku on Namek. In Z it's explained due to the mecha parts of him no longer allowing him to transform anymore (which is understandable). However, in Resurrection ‘F’ and Super we see his first form.
• Monster Progenitor: If later video games are any indication, he eventually becomes one for an entire clan.
• Mood-Swinger: Frieza after his resurrection. Since he isn't really sane anymore, although he was never exactly sane to begin with, he's more prone to violence and Disproportionate Retributions like shooting Tagoma's limbs and torturing him for four months for suggesting that he should leave the Saiyans alone, and torturing Gohan for reminding him of Goku's mercy towards him on Namek. Despite this, he still tries to act polite and calm.
• Moral Myopia: He hates Goku for humiliating and maiming him and wants nothing more than revenge, but Frieza himself is an Ax-Crazy psychopath who views himself as better than everyone else and has coldly murdered people in the low billions at the very least.
• Motive Decay: After his defeat, he goes from wanting the Dragon Balls for immortality to just wanting revenge on Goku, he then goes back to wanting the Dragon Balls... to make himself taller, and still wants revenge on Goku.
• Mutants: According to Toriyama, his family are this trope, with the rest of their species being nowhere near as strong.
• Mysterious Past: Despite being one of the major villains who most directly impacted the universe and the lives of several main characters, there is little known about him before he annexed the Saiyans and his relationship with them isn't clearly defined. We don't even know the name of his species. From the little supplemental materials, we learn that Frieza is a type of hybrid and his family are mutants who are born ungodly strong among their race and are unnaturally cruel.
• Mythology Gag: Before getting defeated by Goku on Namek, the Ginyu Force's next target was a planet full of Yardrats. In the Tournament of Power, Frieza outright tortures one and viciously knocks one out.
• Narcissist: Views himself as perfect and reacts violently to criticisms that suggest otherwise. His narcissism and pride all but destroyed him since he couldn't accept that there was someone stronger than him. It says a lot that he instantly hits it off with Frost, who is basically an alternate version of himself.
• The Napoleon: In his first and ultimate form. He's very small in height even in comparison with Vegeta. Dragon Ball Super: Broly has him seeking the Dragon Balls to wish for an increased height of five centimeters because people used to make fun of him for being short (this being Frieza, he killed them all).
• Near-Villain Victory: Not on Namek where he never got close to his goal and had two meaningless victories. In Resurrection ‘F’, however, he successfully destroys the Earth despite being humiliated and outmatched against Goku and Vegeta. He would've had the last laugh, if Whis didn't rewind time on him, negating the entire victory.
• Never My Fault: He blames Goku for ending up in Hell. Goku responds that Frieza chose to come to Earth looking for revenge, and that Trunks was the one who actually killed him in any case, never mind it was his own evil deeds that got him sent to Hell in the first place. In Super, Frieza also blames Goku for everything that happened on Namek, like him failing to gain immortality. This is ignoring the fact that he failed to get his wish because he didn't know the password for the Dragon Balls, he couldn't speak Namekian, and he killed almost everyone who could have told him these things. Even without Goku, Frieza would have never gotten his wish. There is also the underlying fact that Vegeta did overall more damage to Frieza since he's the one who killed all his men.
• Nice Job Fixing It, Villain:
  • Killing Krillin and threatening to kill Gohan sent Goku completely over the edge.
  • His genocide of the Saiyans. They weren't pure, kind people like Goku; they were mass murdering space pirates, even before they met Freeza. If they somehow became powerful enough to overthrow him, the galaxy would've been in serious trouble. Not to mention he is the very reason why Goku was sent to Earth. His parents did it to save him from Frieza.
  • In Episode of Bardock, his murder of Bardock sends him into the past and results in the defeat of his ancestor Chilled, who warns his family of the "golden haired menace", meaning that he inadvertently caused the phenomenon that led to his demise.
  • Assuming that was the entirety of Frieza's army in Resurrection ‘F’ and its Super retelling, which it probably was since Frieza states that Vegeta would be the only member after Sorbet, him killing all his soldiers means that there are no more lackeys alive to resurrect him again. In other words, he single-handedly destroys what is left of his empire, freeing the universe from its grasp forever and saving thousands if not millions of lives that would have been lost in planetary uprisings. Until Whis revives him for his service in the Tournament of Power, that is.
  • In Super, him murdering Piccolo and pushing Gohan towards the Despair Event Horizon encourages Gohan to train again so he can protect his family from beings like Frieza.
  • In Broly, him spurring Paragus and then Broly enables the latter to awaken not only Super Saiyan but also its Legendary state, promptly resulting in Frieza being beaten to near-pulp and Goku gaining another powerful ally against him in the long-term.
• Nigh-Invulnerability:
  • At the time he was introduced, Frieza's ability to survive punishment was downright unreal. Later villains had the excuse of regeneration. Frieza was just ungodly tough. He walked off a Spirit Bomb large enough to qualify as a Colony Drop (only losing some of his tail), survived being bisected at the waist and the loss of even more of his tail and his left forearm, survived an attack that Goku (by all appearances) intended to be fatal, losing his right eye and the surrounding bits of his head, and survived the destruction of the entire planet within minutes of that without any further harm, and was noted to be capable of surviving the vacuum of space, which allowed him to stay conscious long enough for King Cold to track him down and have his men repair his body with cybernetics. Certainly he would have died without treatment, but that he lived at all is impressive. Trunks had to outright vaporize him to assure viewers he was gone.
  • Taken to extremes in Resurrection ‘F’. When he was revived, he was still in pieces from Future Trunks slicing him up, but he lived and tried to scramble to reassemble himself where anyone else revived in such a state would have keeled over.
  • In Dragon Ball Super: Broly, this is probably why he's capable of surviving for an hour against a furious Broly where SSB Goku and Vegeta lasted only a few minutes.
• Noble Demon: Becomes one in the Universal Survival Arc. Despite being the Token Evil Teammate, he upholds his end of the bargain and successfully defends Universe 7 from impending doom. For his efforts, Beerus allows him to return back to life.
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: His reasoning for not wishing for immortality or invulnerability on the Dragon Balls, as he feels being completely invincible would mean there'd be no challenge in conquering his enemies.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown:
  • He often engages in this in order to display how much suffering and helplessness he can inflict onto his enemies, like when he literally beats Vegeta to despair and is pummeling him while he has no way to fight back. He nearly kills Goku this way prior his Super Saiyan form.
  • He's also on the brunt of this, as when he pisses off Goku to the point of going Super Saiyan as well as facing off against Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta, Frieza gets badly beaten both occasions.
• Nominal Hero: He becomes this during the Universe Survival Arc, being forced to fight for the survival of Universe 7 in a case of Evil Versus Oblivion, despite being the Token Evil Teammate who is still rotten to the core.
• No Name Given: The name of his race. In Xenoverse they're just referred to as "Frieza Race" or "Frieza Clan", while Cell calls them the "Frost Demons".
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: He is one when he is being methodical, or when he is pushed to his limits. Dragon Ball Minus reveals that he gathered all the Saiyans in Planet Vegeta to exterminate them all with his planet.
  • During the fight on Namek, the very first thing he does upon transforming is kill Dende, having seen him healing Vegeta earlier.
  • Once Goku arrives back on Earth to fight him, Frieza makes it clear in no uncertain terms he's not playing around like on Namek and immediately jumps from Form 1 to his final and true form for battle. Subverted in that he could have just immediately gone Golden and finished Goku then and there, Super Saiyan Blue be damned, but instead does not go Golden until he needs to and from that moment on once more starts playing around with Goku, deleting his own stamina instead of finishing Goku off because he wants to see Goku suffer that much. Naturally, it blows up in his face, again.
• Nonhuman Humanoid Hybrid: In an interview, Toriyama has revealed that Freeza is a "hybrid" of sorts.
• Non-Humans Lack Attributes: His true form and golden form are completely naked, but lack any naughty bits.
• Non-Indicative Name: No, he's not An Ice Person. The closest he comes is being rather cold-hearted.
• Not Quite Dead: Thought to have died when Namek exploded. He came back as a cyborg and is promptly cut to pieces and blasted into atoms by Trunks to make sure he's really dead.
• Not So Above It All: Despite being an sophisticated Evil Overlord and gave no indication that he was concerned with physical appearances, Dragon Ball Super: Broly has him seeking out the Dragon Balls not for the immortality that he wanted in the past, but he was seeking them out because he wanted to become taller by five centimeters, just to make it look like he was still growing.
• Not-So-Well-Intentioned Extremist: He tries to invoke this trope, viewing the Saiyans as Always Chaotic Evil and telling Goku that he did the universe a favor wiping them out. Of course, it falls flat considering the fact that Frieza is the one who uplifted the Saiyans and turned them into the genocidal Space Pirates they were to begin with, and his killing them all was out of fear that they would rise up and destroy him rather than any sense of altruism.
  Frieza: You do realize how hypocritical this is? Your outrage over the loss of innocent lives? The Saiyan race isn't exactly known for its mercy. Compared to you brutes, I'm a saint!
• Not Worth Killing:
  • Goku subjects him to this during their fight on Namek. He fights until Freeza is no longer a challenge, then throws that fact in his face, believing that living with the shame of being defeated by a superior fighter was a far worse punishment than simply killing him, made worse by the fact that said superior fighter was "just a monkey." Freeza, however, isn't about to give up so easily.
  • The primary reason why Goku tries to spare Frieza in Dragon Ball Super. He doesn't see Frieza worth killing since he failed to master his Golden Super Mode and burnt himself out.

O-S

• Obviously Evil: In his first form, he has a malevolent purple color, is bald with devilish horns, battle armor, and a long lizard-like tail while he sits on his hover vehicle.
• Odd Friendship:
  • Well, not so much an actual friendship as it is simply a team up, but he and Android 17 start working together as a pair towards the final moments of the Tournament of Power, first against Toppo and then against Jiren. 17 even tells Frieza that he trusts him to be able to take on Jiren if something happens to him.
  • Rather ironically he seems to have developed something of a strange friendship with Goku after coming back from the dead. Despite wanting revenge against him for defeating him on Namek he also acknowledges him as a Worthy Opponent for pushing him so far making Goku one of the few people he respects. When he is brought back for the Tournament of Power he and Goku share a number of friendly jokey scenes together and the two trust one another enough to work together in the final round of the Tournament to defeat Jiren.
• Offhand Backhand: Does this to Nail just to show off.
• Offing the Annoyance: After brutalizing Vegeta, Frieza finally finishes him off when he gets sick of Vegeta going on about the Super Saiyan legend.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • While he has a way of inspiring them, he's had a few himself. Most notably when Super Saiyans are involved.
  • Most notable when Trunks goes Super Saiyan in front of him, the look he gives his father means "This Is Gonna Suck, dad!"
  • In Resurrection F, after hammily swearing that he won't stop until Goku is in far too many pieces to count, Frieza turns to see Beerus and Whis on Planet Earth, causing the normally arrogant and composed Frieza to have a massive Freak Out, even addressing him as Lord Beerus and asking if he planned to interfere with his vengeance, only calming down when Beerus tells him he won't interfere. Keep in mind that this happens after he unlocks his Golden Super Mode.
  • His reaction after Goku nonchalantly no sells a punch in the face after his power begins to drop. He has another one after Vegeta reveals that he too can become a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan like Goku and this is his final reaction when he sees Goku firing a Kamehameha at him.
  • Notably averted during the Tournament of Power, where he observes several dramatic events unfold during the battle between Goku and Jiren, including Goku getting a new transformation and isn't really fazed at all.
  • In the final moments of the Tournament of Power, he predictably has another one when Toppo ascends to a God of Destruction. This one was almost a mirror of his Oh Crap moment on Namek, including him trying to blow up the whole stage in a Rage Quit moment. Unfortunately, Toppo showed just how comically easy it is for a God of Destruction to stop Frieza.
  • He gets a pretty big one in Broly, when Goku and Vegeta lure a very pissed off Broly towards Frieza and leave him to play the role of punching bag.
    Goku: Have fun, Frieza!
    Frieza: What are you doing?! I am the mighty Lord Frieza!
• Older Than They Look: Dragon Ball Wiki has calculated his age to be a bare minimum of 70, and considering that he did not visibly age in the 25 years between the genocide of the Saiyans and the events on Namek, he may very well be much older than that. Subverted in Broly, where Frieza is instead depicted as looking visibly younger at the time of taking control of the Saiyans.
• Omnicidal Maniac: Played with, as although he could (and did) destroy planets, Freeza wasn't actively out to destroy them as Cell and Buu were nor did he always exterminate all life on them as Zamasu and Moro did; he's first and foremost a businessman, usually settling for wiping out all life then selling it to the highest bidder but does on occasion let the strongest fighters live to serve him. However, if he felt threatened in even the slightest he would blow up a planet without a second thought.
• Ominous Japanese Chanting: A number of his Leitmotifs include this (i.e. Only a Chilling Elegy, A Tyrant Revived and the Golden Frieza Transformation theme, etc).
• One-Winged Angel:
  • A Trope Codifier for its modern definition. Prior to him, anime and western villains alike would only transform into a monster, dragon, giant, etc. in the final battle and the multiple battle forms would appear in very little known series. His display of forms is what led to both heroes and villains alike transforming into beautiful or hideous forms in order to fight their enemies.
  • True Golden Frieza. Thanks to his mental training in Hell Frieza can finally control his golden form to the point that it no longer leaks energy and he also becomes much stronger. So Golden Frieza really is an ultimate transformation.
• The Only One Allowed to Defeat You: Very much his attitude towards Goku. He is hell-bent on being the one to kill Goku and refuses to give anyone else that honor.
  • When Goku shows mercy to Frieza, giving him some of his energy so he can leave the doomed Planet Namek, Frieza chooses to use said energy to attack Goku while shouting "You Will Die By My Hand!" In essence, Frieza values killing Goku over his own survival.
  • Frieza later gains this attitude towards Toppo and Jiren. He is absolutely furious at being humiliated by the Pride Trooper Physical Gods. Once Jiren beats down Goku, Vegeta, and 17, Frieza charges in furious and declares he must be the one to kill Jiren, opting to ignore the 'no killing' rule if it means ending Jiren.
• O.O.C. Is Serious Business: Frieza is very arrogant and would rather blow up the planet he's standing on than admit when someone's stronger than him... so when he grovels in front of a reawakened Beerus and openly admits he doesn't want to mess with Jiren and calls him a "monster," you know it is serious.
• Orcus on His Throne: Despite being (by a huge margin) the most powerful villain in the series at the time of his introduction, Frieza just stays in his hover pod while his mooks do everything, and calls in Elite Mooks when they fail. It isn't until every last soldier in his army dies that Frieza can be bothered to personally confront the Z-Fighters.
  • He remains this way into Resurrection F/ Dragon Ball Super, where he could have dealt with the Z fighters by himself, but only leaves his hoverchair once, to one-shot Gohan, who was the strongest Z fighter on Earth, while in his first form.
• Out-of-Character Alert: During the Tournament of Power, it appears as though Frieza has turned on Universe 7 when he helps Frost attack Gohan. However, Gohan, who has fought Frieza in life-and-death battles in the past, immediately realizes that Frieza isn't being serious in his attacks, which is very strange given Frieza's level of hatred for the heroes; if he really was fighting to kill, he'd be going all out. It turns out to be a charade to get Frost to lower his guard, as he believes Frieza has turned to his side... only for Frieza to immediately knock Frost off the ring without even a fight, and then leaves Gohan alone.
• Outside-Context Problem: Because of the huge power difference he has over any character introduced, he firmly belongs here. The difference is so great that it's akin to helpless mortals opposing a god. To give context, Captain Ginyu has a power level of 120,000, base form Goku when he first fights Frieza has a power level of 3 million, and Frieza's final form has a maximum power level of 120 million. Even Super Saiyan Goku only barely edged him out with a power level of 150 million. When Dragon Ball finally introduced another antagonist with such a tier difference 23 years after Frieza's debut, it required the advent of canon Physical Gods.
• Overlord Jr.: To King Cold, although he's the more important story-wise by far. Cold's only role is to set up both their deaths at the hands of Trunks.
• Painful Transformation: Transforming seems to hurt him. When we see him transform, he screams and writhes as if in pain.
• Paint It Black: Frieza trains for ten years in a Hyperbolic Time Chamber he found on one of his worlds and he gains a new transformation, Black Frieza. He one-shots Goku and Vegeta in their strongest forms to show them that they're at his mercy now. He doesn't kill them, however, leaving his motivations in question.
• Perpetual Frowner: His first form's head is designed in such a way that it looks like he's always scowling.
• Perpetual Smiler: His third form, on the other hand, looks like it's always smiling.
• Pet the Dog:
  • As a mentor in Dragon Ball Xenoverse, Frieza is pretty casual with you. Of course, this isn't saying much, considering he still sees you as his subordinate.
  • Thanks to him, his brother Cooler was revived in Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2 in the Resurrection F arc. Keep in mind he wouldn't even do this for his father!
  • He compliments Sorbet's marksmanship when the latter shoots Goku under his signal.
  • In the Tournament of Power, after betraying Frost and knocking him out of the ring, Freeza turns to Gohan and asks him to join him and the other fighters in victory. It's a small moment that shows how Freeza, despite being the most evil son of a bitch in his universe, is starting to feel something resembling fondness for his team, even if it's only for the time being.
  • Likewise, anytime he shows respect to Goku, it's genuine. When literally everyone else of Universe 7 thought Goku was killed by the Spirit Bomb during his battle with Jiren and was overjoyed when he seemed to be alive, Frieza was completely unfazed and merely smirked that he expected nothing less from Goku.
  • For that matter, Frieza contributing energy to said Spirit Bomb despite having nothing but bad memories of the attack, while Vegeta doesn't. He even seems amused by it.
  • After Goku's first fight with Jiren, Frieza finds him completely powerless, but rather than taking the opportunity to exact his revenge, he instead gives Goku some of his energy, stating that all debts have been paid. Which is unusual coming from Frieza of all people. It was partly out of Pragmatic Villainy since Goku was his best bet to defeat Jiren, but the fact Frieza even felt the need to settle his debt is quite notable. Granted, however, he did feel the need to ham it up enough that Goku legitimately thought Frieza was about to kill him. This was almost certainly intentional on his part.
  • A minor one, but he doesn't kill Lemo and Cheelai after they defect from his organization to help Broly. Considering he has stated he has killed some minions for far less, this is indeed this trope for him.
  • A bigger one is in chapter 87 where Frieza not only spared the life of Goku, Vegeta, Oil, and Macki but also offered the latter both a job on his ship with a spine-chilling nice smile.
• Physical God: For his time, Frieza was considered the closest thing to a physical god to the point that Vegeta didn't want to even consider fighting him until he gained immortality. His telekinesis rivaled those of the Kais and he has extreme survivability that allows him to live in space and survive with most of his body missing. What makes Frieza really scary, however, is that he was born powerful. When he did set his mind to becoming stronger he obtained his Golden form which was powerful enough to be on par with Super Saiyan Blue, Frieza in Super has to be the second strongest villain in the series at the time, and that's if you count Beerus as a villain. If Frieza had Goku's work ethic, he would have been truly invincible on Namek.
• Pint-Sized Powerhouse: In his true form, he's only slightly above Goku's waist. And his first form looks even shorter! Hilariously, his wish for Shenron in Dragon Ball Super: Broly is to grow 5cm taller.
• Pitiful Worms: Befitting his massive ego, he often makes comments to his opponents as such. His Leitmotif in Kai also has lyrics to this effect, comparing his enemies to worms and bugs before him.
  Frieza: Did you really think that three little ants could defeat a dinosaur?
• Politically Incorrect Villain: Towards the "Saiyan monkeys." Though it turned out the motivation was more fear than hatred (which is still a form of racism).
• Polite Villains, Rude Heroes: Frieza is very polite and speaks in a formal manner. This is compared to Vegeta and Goku who are more blunt, and rude in Vegeta's case. Underneath his polite facade, however, he's anything but a good person.
• Power Incontinence:
  • Goku notes that when he tries to use 100% of his full power, he can't fully control it, causing his energy to diminish at a rapid rate, eventually declaring that he's not worth fighting. His fighting style at 100% full power somewhat reflects this. In his "base" form (50% power) he loved to use all sorts of flashy techniques and precise finger beams; these moves were implied to be controlled and effective, as 50% Freeza was able to give Goku a bloody lip with his Death Beam while his normal punches and Beam Spam did absolutely nothing. When he bulks up, his ki attacks are much more broad and wasteful: big wide blasts, shockwaves, giant energy spheres, and, in one case, sheathing himself in a huge ball of ki and ramming into Goku (the one exception being the Kienzan he uses towards the end).
  • Golden Frieza has a similar problem and Goku once again declares that Frieza isn't worth fighting. He learns from this, and has learned to regulate his power by the time of the Tournament of Power.
• Power Limiter: Unlike every transforming character in the series, Frieza's transformations were built to restrain his enormous power since he has little control of himself when he goes all out and (originally) his body couldn't handle his full power for long. His slim white form is his true form. His "100% full power" form however is technically a transformation (he nearly doubles in mass), even if he never calls it that. As shown during Resurrection F and Super, he doesn't necessarily have to activate each form in order to draw out his full power and can just immediately go from Form 1 to Form 4, though it's unclear if he could always do that or it was just something he learned after mastering his power.
• The Power of Hate: How he learned to control his Golden form, staying at 100% full power by concentrating in Hell not on repenting, but how to get revenge and kill Goku in the most brutal ways possible.
• The Power of Trust: Frieza doesn't believe in it, telling Frost to "never trust anyone" before demonstrating this by knocking him off stage. In his earlier days as "strongest in the universe" he was also fearful of someone surpassing/matching his might since that means, by default, that they were gunning to take him out. Part of Frieza's Character Development is learning that yes, he can trust others. At the very least, Frieza can bring himself to trust Goku, whom Frieza despises as a paragon of virtue who would actually hold to his promises.
• Pragmatic Villainy:
  • During the Namek Saga, he furiously lambasts Zarbon for going after Vegeta without orders and beating him senseless without bothering to confirm his death. Not because Frieza cares if Vegeta lives or dies, mind you, but because he had correctly surmised that Vegeta has found and hidden at least one Dragon Ball and Zarbon's actions may very well have cost them their chances at finding it. In the very same scene, when Orlen confirms his suspicions after coming across the Sole Survivor of the village Vegeta attacked for the Dragon Ball, Frieza promptly kills him for killing said survivor; again, not out of any real moral grounds, but because Orlen didn't bother to ask the Namekian if he knew where Vegeta might have hidden the ball before killing him.
    Frieza: You imbecile. You disposed of the only witness.
  • He's definitely this during the Tournament of Power. Best shown in Episodes 110 and 111 where he learns about Ultra Instinct thanks to overhearing Beerus and the other gods talking about it. After Goku is beaten at the end of Episode 110, Frieza pays Goku a little visit and instead of killing Goku then and there (no one could see them because they were behind the central pillar), he decides to give Goku some of his energy instead in a mirror of their clash back on Namek. Frieza also tells Goku about Ultra Instinct after doing so. While Frieza is saying that this is just to repay a debt he owes Goku, it's also to show that Frieza knows that the only one who can take down Jiren is Goku. In 116, he even notes that he needs Goku to keep fighting on his behalf. Interestingly, this is in direct contrast to his behavior prior to that arc, as his sadism tended to be more trouble than it was worth, to the point of pushing him into Stupid Evil territory. Could be considered Character Development.
  • Due to the Frieza Force being on a recovery path from complete eradication, Frieza is cautious in dealing with his minions (unlike brutally murdering them for the slightest reasons), only punishing them when the minions become Too Dumb to Live with regards to him, as noted by Lemo and Cheelai. It's probably the only reason he doesn't kill Lemo and Cheelai, other than them being allies to Broly: a warrior whom Frieza has kept tabs on to one day ultimately defeat Goku.
• Precision F-Strike: During the last stages of his battle with Goku on Namek he refers to the Saiyan as a "simian bastard" when he can't lay a hit on him. It helps show how far his sanity has fallen as well as show his more brutish side compared to the sophisticated side he showed earlier in the fight.
• Prehensile Tail: And he is more than happy to strangle people with it.
• Pretender Diss: Gives an epic one to Frost, calling him a weak amateur.
• Pride: His main flaw. Freeza is so convinced of his own superiority and unmatchable strength that the idea that anyone let alone a "monkey" could match his strength let alone defeat him is inconceivable to him. He would rather die trying to kill Goku then take the opportunity to escape and live with his defeat.
• Prisons Are Gymnasiums: Got stronger after being in Hell due to Image Training, imagining thousands of simulations where he slaughtered the protagonists.
• Psychological Projection:
  • When you think about it, this is at least partially what his obsession with fear is all about. Frieza enjoys taking the time to install fear and horror in others, but when we see his actions, such as blowing up Planet Vegeta to make sure no one opposes him, he shows that deep inside, Frieza is nothing but a coward utterly terrified of the possibility someone would grow strong enough to face him on even terms, and in his fight with Super Saiyan Goku, where he blows up Namek in desperation to kill Goku, combined with his frantic attempts to kill him and shamelessly begging for his life when he’s bifurcated by his own attack, it’s all the more obvious.
  • During the ending of the Universe Survival saga, he wholeheartedly expects the rest of Universe 7 to dump him back in hell knowing he served no more use to them now that they've won, because it's exactly something he would do.
• Psychopathic Manchild: He often behaves like a Spoiled Brat. Best shown in Resurrection ‘F’, where he whines and throws a temper tantrum that involves punching small craters into the ground when Vegeta beats him out of his Golden Super Mode.
• Psycho Pink: He's a heartless sadist, and much of his skin in his first three forms (including his face in the color pages of the comics) is pink, as are many of his energy attacks.
• Purple Is Powerful: All of his forms, as well as every member of his family, have some form of purple and there's no questioning his power. In his Golden Super Mode, the only other significant color that remains is purple.
• Put the "Laughter" in "Slaughter": Laughs like a loon when he's blowing up a planet filled with many potential fighters that could destroy him, including his own men who are begging him to not get them caught in the crossfire.
• Rage Breaking Point: Don't attempt to spare anyone in his view area. Poor Gohan...
• Rage Quit:
  • When he attempts to blow up Namek when he figures he can't beat Goku.
  • He does it again in Resurrection ‘F’ to much greater success. He is only foiled by Whis who rewinds time on him.
• Rasputinian Death:
  • One of his species' defining traits is the ability to survive horrific wounds. Frieza is hit with an energy ball the size of a small moon, beaten severely, cut in half by his own attack, hit with an energy blast to the face, nuked by the planet he was on exploding, and finally cut into numerous pieces with a sword. Yet still floating in place. Then hit with an energy blast. Again. It literally takes being atomized in order to kill him.
  • It's even worse in Resurrection ‘F’. He gets beaten to a bloody pulp, hit by his own Kamehameha-propelled Death Ball which explodes in his face, then by another Kamehameha, is beaten so severely by Vegeta that he loses his new Super Mode, and is finally hit by a fully-powered Kamehameha which disintegrates him to nothing but atoms. Again.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech:
  • He loves to give these out, taking every opportunity to remind his enemies how worthless they are:
    • After proving beyond a shadow of a doubt that Vegeta never stood a chance against him despite his sudden and major power-up, Frieza gives Vegeta one of these as he beats the life out of him.
      Frieza: Come now, I can't have you giving up on me after such a glancing blow. No, I'm afraid your torment is only just beginning. There are so many horrors I have yet to show you. (Punches Vegeta in the spine.) How's that? Are you beginning to regret your foolish attempt to defy me? Or shall I continue to remind you of your place, you worthless Saiyan monkey?! I thought you were different, that you might actually prove to be useful. I took you under my wing, gave you special treatment, and this is how you repay me?! If only you'd remained loyal, you'd lived your life without ever knowing this misery.
    • After Goku reluctantly gives Frieza a portion of his energy to help him escape Planet Namek's destruction, Frieza takes his time to mock Goku for his act of mercy.
      Frieza: (chuckles) Even in the throes of unfathomable rage, you're a chump for a hard luck story. How admirable. And where, I can't help but wonder, will you be at the moment of truth? The vacuum of space, I think, will hardly be kind to creatures such as yourself, wouldn't you agree? (laughs) If only there was time to scurry back to your little spaceship before the grand finale. Alas, if Vegeta hadn't wrecked it, I'd offer you mine. So near and yet so far. (laughs) The curtain closes on the Saiyan scourge! It would appear that you, my friend, get to suffer the same fate as the planet I destroyed. Oh, the irony. He triumphs, then loses everything. The vanquished escapes. I hate to gloat, but there's a lesson here on the virtue of mercy: Its only value is to your foe.
      Frieza [spanish dub] : This planet is about to explode. WHERE you think you're going? Whatever happens, you'll never manage to survive in space. Only thing going for you is death! This planet won't take long to explode. You won't get to your spaceship in time either. And to top it all off, your friend Vegeta completely destroyed mine, what a pity. There is no doubt that Saiyans really are stupid! You can't escape anywhere! You'll die together with this planet! What an irony. The winner of this fight is going to die, and I will survive!
      Frieza [original Funi dub]: Well, aren't ya gonna keep running, monkey? Aren't ya? Heh heh heh! Like a little circus chimp! Come one! Come all! See the spectacular chimp in a maze! Where will he run today? You don't have enough time to get back to your spaceship and Vegeta destroyed mine. Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh. A plea, just for my sake, don't stop running. It's far too entertaining! Aha ha ha ha ha ha ha! It's ironic. After all your heroic efforts, you're still going to die! And I will live on! So much for the awesome power of the legendary Super Saiyan! Can't even beat a dead planet!
    • After Frieza has Goku at his mercy in Resurrection 'F' and is kicking him around, he mocks Goku for once again showing him mercy and dropping his guard.
      Frieza: Your obsession with showing me leniency borders on the pathological! You're too strong for your own good, it's made you overconfident! A Fearless Fool who insists on second chances and habitually lowers his guard! 'Here lies one of the strongest mortals in the cosmos, felled by a common ray gun!' How pitiful does that feel? Ha ha ha! Now you're the one on the ground facing defeat. You won the battle, but you lost the war. And the dream I clung to in that damn cocoon is finally at hand! He ha ha! Now to take the fruit of my labor, the fruit called revenge!
    • From the same movie, despite knowing he has no chance against Vegeta after witnessing him becoming a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan and no selling all his attacks, Frieza still had to get one last dig in.
      Frieza: [mock laughter] Your threats are as empty as your title. All hail Vegeta, prince of no one.
    • And again in the Universe Survival arc when Frost is outraged at Frieza's backstabbing on him.
      Frieza: You honestly think that I would join forces with a second-rate dilettante like you?
  • He ends up on the receiving end from Goku after his stamina begins to fall and when he is cut down by his own energy disc:
    Goku: It's done. Your power is decreasing with every blow, in fact, you're not even a challenge to me anymore. It wouldn't be fair for me to keep fighting you. I'm satisfied now, your pride has been torn to shreds. You challenged and lost to a fighter who is superior to you and to make it worse, he was just a monkey, right? It would be meaningless to fight you now, you're too scared and ashamed. Live with the shock, keep it bottled up inside you, silently.
    Goku: Although you brought this all on yourself, it's a shame that your life has to end in such a miserable way. I wanted to save you, Frieza, but you wouldn't let me. Now share the fate of the Planet Namek, which you yourself destroyed.
  • Kai version:
    Goku: You've been coming at me with everything you got, but it's finally caught up with you and your power's fading fast. The fact is, I don't see the point in fighting you any more. Your pride is already shot, and in the end I guess that's good enough for me. You were so sure of your own power that you never imagined anyone in the universe could bring you down... especially a Saiyan. Heh. Now you know what failure feels like. See, I don't need to keep fighting you because I've already won. So go crawl off someplace and hide; I don't really care.
  • Goku gives Frieza a short, but sweat response after Frieza mocks him for showing him mercy and how the legendary Super Saiyan "can't even beat a dead planet":
    Goku: Maybe not. But it was enough to beat you, Frieza.
• Redemption Earns Life: Downplayed. Beerus has Whis resurrect him as a thank you for his rather key role in saving the universe, but Frieza sarcastically quips "I just might go back to my old evil ways, you know" before setting out to rebuild his empire.
• Redemption Rejection: At the end of the Universal Survival arc, he makes it clear that he intends to go right back to his wicked ways after being resurrected by Whis, and makes good on this promise come Broly.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: He and his family have red eyes.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: He is the Red to his brother Cooler's Blue. As Frieza is more Ax-Crazy, and also very sadistic as he shown to take pleasure in torturing his enemies before killing them also he turns into a Psychopathic Manchild when things don't go his way. Cooler on the other hand is basically the Only Sane Man in his family as he shows rarely any emotion thus making him The Stoic. Also he isn't a psycho like his younger brother because when he fights he prefers to finish it rather than torturing his foes his only time when he shows emotion is when he threw a Supernova to kill Goku.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Downplayed in his appearance. Though it's not clear just what his species is, Frieza and his family are consistently ruthless, and their snake-like tails, gecko-like feet, and apparent nudeness do not make them any less alien.
• Remember When You Blew Up a Sun?: He often brags about how he can destroy planets effortlessly and how easy it was to wipe out the Saiyans without going past his first transformation. Which makes his humiliation and defeat at the hands of Goku sting all the more. Super Saiyan Goku even delivers this stinger immediately after standing still and taking one of Frieza's death beams to the face.
  "You can destroy whole planets, but you can't destroy one man."
• Repressive, but Efficient: Yes, Frieza is a ruthless, power-hungry, tyrannical Galactic Conqueror, but his method of ruling through fear and intimidation was what held his empire together and kept things running smoothly across the universe for decades. In fact, this is the entire reason Sorbet opted to resurrect Frieza during Resurrection 'F', because the whole thing was on the brink of collapse without him.
• Resurrected for a Job: In the Universe Survival Saga, this is the entire reason the Z-Fighters brought him back for a day. They're not happy about it, but Majin Buu has been sidelined, and they need Frieza to serve as their tenth member in the Tournament of Power.
• Resurrected Murderer: Frieza, a sadistic mass murderer on a universal scale, is brought back to life twice, first toward the beginning of the Resurrection 'F' saga via Earth's Dragon Balls, and at the end of the Universal Survival Saga of Dragon Ball Super. Each time, he became stronger, to the point that it is difficult to determine if Goku or Vegeta can put him down for good after he displayed his latest transformation at the end of the Granolah the Survivor Arc.
• Retcon:
  • Originally, he was unquestionably the strongest being in the universe to the point absolutely no one in the series up to that point came remotely close to his power and had never been defeated or even having to use anything past his second form in battle. Later story arcs added Majin Buu (which his father told to never face) and the Grand and Supreme Kais having been far stronger then him, but inactive in the mortal plane. Battle of Gods retconned Beerus into having been around, with Frieza actually being afraid of him. You can still say he is the strongest mortal character in the series at the time, more so with his Golden Super Mode.
  • While left vague in the original Japanese, in the dub of Battle of Gods, it's suggested that Frieza's extermination of the Saiyans was actually done on Beerus' orders because Beerus couldn't be bothered to do it himself. In either case, Beerus approved of Frieza doing so.
• Returning Big Bad: Takes this role twice after his initial defeat on Namek. First in Ressurection F and then serving as part of the Big Bad Duumvirate in Broly.
• Revenge:
  • When he came back as a cyborg, this was his primary focus against Goku.
  • Also the reason he returns in ''Resurrection ‘F’'. He's also much more prepared this time.
• Revenge Before Reason: After losing to Goku, his entire existence is devoted to getting revenge on him. He even states in Resurrection ‘F’ that he can't stand to live in the same universe as Goku and can't even sleep at night as long as he's still alive.
  • He could have chosen to escape Namek, but he spends his remaining energy trying to kill Goku, which backfires spectacularly. This also crosses into Fantastic Racism; Frieza is so shocked that he was defeated by a Saiyan, whom he disregarded as "mere monkeys," that he can't accept defeat even though he's missing an arm and the lower half of his body.
  • Immediately after becoming Mecha-Frieza, he wasn't even off the operating table before ordering his father and their men to set course for Earth, wanting revenge on Goku so badly that he overrides his father's plan to just blow up the planet from orbit and lands so he could personally kill all of Goku's loved ones and friends... and gets sliced into cuts of beef by Future Trunks for the trouble.
  • In GT, during the Super 17 Saga, instead of escaping Hell with the other villains, he and Cell stay behind to double-team Goku after Gero and Myuu trap him in Hell with them, only for Goku to effortlessly beat them both without even going Super Saiyan.
  • This is the basis for his entire plan after being resurrected in Resurrection ‘F’. He could have simply rebuilt his empire in space with the Z Fighters none the wiser, but he instead goes through Training from Hell to unlock a new Super Mode before launching a full-scale invasion of Earth, all to get revenge on Goku for his previous defeat. It's to the extent that when Tagoma begs him to just leave Goku alone and focus on rebuilding his empire, Frieza kills him on the spot.
  • In the Tournament of Power, after getting thoroughly humiliated by Toppo, he attempts to take-out his fury on Jiren, risking erasure for breaking the rules just to kill his opponent. Fortunately (or unfortunately) for him, he's so thoroughly outclassed that his efforts are completely in vain.
• Revenge by Proxy: He's a fan of this trope. If any individual offends him, he's likely to wipe them out along with their loved ones and even entire planet out of sadistic spite. During his fight with Goku, he swore to track down and kill Gohan, Piccolo, and the rest of Goku friend's before blowing up the Earth for their meddling no matter how far they escaped, and nearly did so when he returned for revenge in the Android Saga if not for Trunks.
• Reversible Roboticizing: Even after being sent to Hell upon his first death, Frieza retains all of his cybernetic implants. He loses them when he gets revived as dismembered pieces, but is able to get his full flesh and blood body back thanks to the Regeneration Chamber.
• Roaring Rampage of Revenge: As soon as he's resurrected, the first thing on his mental to-do list is to murder Goku. And just like last time he came back for revenge, he gets disintegrated for it.
• Royal Brat: Despite possibly being 70 years old or more, he acts like a brat most of the time when he does not get his way. His brattiness gets worse after Goku beats him and he becomes obsessed with revenge and reclaiming his title as the Strongest in the Universe.
• Royals Who Actually Do Something: He is consider the prince of his empire and is the most active of his clan making him the official face of the trade empire. Even if he is an Orcus on His Throne most of time, he isn't afraid to get his hands dirty, especially when pissed.
• Running Gag: It seems that Frieza is destined to never have a climactic end unlike every other major villain in the series.
• Sanity Has Advantages: While he was always mentally unstable even on his best days, Frieza originally had enough lucidity to be something resembling a pragmatist and a No-Nonsense Nemesis to his opponents, as seen when he kills Dende. After Goku hands him his ass on a platter after going Super Saiyan, he steadily becomes so Ax-Crazy in his appearances that while he does have a couple moments of lucidity in battle, he's now so bonkers that the only arguable thoughts he has anymore are revolving around murdering people sadistically, especially when it comes to Goku. It takes heavy meditation while trapped in a cocoon in Hell to finally render him somewhat lucid again, which he manages to accomplish through focusing those murderous thoughts.
• Sadist: Rather than simply killing his opponents, Frieza prefers putting them through Cold-Blooded Torture and ensuring that they die in pain and despair, knowing they never stood a chance at defeating him. Such highlights include ripping Nail's arm off with his bare hands, impaling Krillin on his horns, crushing Gohan's skull literally underfoot, hitting Piccolo with a Beam Spam, and beating Vegeta to the point where he can't move and is crying in pain and humiliation. When he is almost killed by the Spirit Bomb, he slowly picks off Goku's friends in front of him to rub in how helpless he is. This, however, backfires.
• Sanity Slippage: The more Frieza reaches into his true power, the less sane he becomes, though this seems to be directly tied into his anger at his enemies just refusing to die and stop getting in his way despite him drawing on more power. By the end of his fight with Goku, he is closed to foaming at the mouth.
  • His sanity actually becomes worse in Super and deceases more throughout the saga. Like in the film, he tries his best to hide it under his usual sophistication and class, but it's painfully clear his time in Hell had a detrimental effect on his sanity. When Tagoma speaks out against his revenge plan, rather than killing him like in the film, he instead shoots him in the limbs, then has him assigned as his sparring partner during his four-month training regiment, where he would beat Tagoma within an inch of his life every single day just to find the best ways to keep Goku on the brink of death. Best shown by his reaction to Gohan showing the Ginyu-possessed Tagoma mercy. It triggers his PTSD and memories of Goku showing him mercy, causing him to order Tagoma to stand down so he can fight him himself. He then proceeds to torture Gohan by shooting him until he can't move, all the while taunting him to beg for mercy. Made even more disturbing when he calls Gohan Goku.
• Sanity Strengthening: Come the Universe Survival Saga, Frieza is considerably calmer and more stable than he was before. He was able to completely master his Golden form in Hell through intense meditation, and is far more pragmatic and patient, to the extent that he voluntarily heals Goku to get him back into the fight with Jiren. Also, when Whis revives him as a reward for his help in the tournament, unlike last time, Frieza doesn't throw it all away for the sake of revenge on Goku, and decides to just go back to space and focus on rebuilding his empire.
• Self-Fulfilling Prophecy:
  • He went out of his way to try and stop a Super Saiyan from surfacing and challenging him only to create one himself when he hit Goku's Berserk Button one too many times.
  • In Dragon Ball Minus, the only reason why Goku was sent to Earth to begin with was because Bardock and Gine sent him there after they suspected Frieza was up to something when he recalled all the Saiyans to their home planet. If he had not, Goku would had most likely grown up to be a lower class warrior or a failed soldier like his mother.
  • Hell, the "Episode of Bardock" special reveals that after his defeat by Frieza, Bardock was sent back in time and became the Legendary Super Saiyan — meaning that Frieza is the one who created the legend, essentially engineering his own demise.
• Shadow Archetype: After character development, to Vegeta. He's everything Vegeta would have become if he succeeded in taking his place as ruler of the universe instead of settling down on Earth.
• She's a Man in Japan:
  • The Greek dub of the anime turns Frieza into a female and gives her a female voice actress. No, really.
  • Also the Hungarian dub initially made Frieza a female, until they realized he's actually a boy, so they switched his name and pronouns to be male.
• Shoot the Dangerous Minion: His motive for wiping out the Saiyans; having heard of the Super Saiyan, Frieza decided to preemptively wipe them all out, fearing a Super Saiyan would come forth and bring about his undoing. As it turns out, this was a legitimate concern, and despite (or perhaps because of) his extreme measures, it eventually happens.
  Frieza: These barbarians pretend to be submissive, but they're dangerous. They could bear their fangs at us at any time. They are, after all, a species completely comprised of warriors. It's always best to put a sleeping beast down, before it can be awakened.
• Shoot the Medic First: The minute he realizes that Dende has been healing everyone, the first thing he does upon reaching his final form is shoot him dead.
• Sickeningly Sweet: Invoked as Frieza's punishment in Hell. He is trapped in a cocoon surrounded by fairies, stuffed-toys, and flowers who hold parades and play cheerful music for the rest of eternity, or at least until his soul is purified and he's allowed to be reborn, in which he will lose all his memories. It's lightly touched upon during Universe 2's Transformation Sequence. His remark? "What a disgusting feeling."
• Sissy Villain: Painstakingly polite, prominent lips, always in some coloration of pink, purple, and white. No wonder many U.S. fans (and even the Greek/Hungarian dubbers) initially thought he was female. It doesn't help that a few of his voice actors have been women.
• Single-Stroke Battle: His "fights" with Bardock, King Vegeta, and Krillin.
• Sins of Our Fathers: In "Resurrection: F", after Gohan spares Tagoma, Frieza is reminded of his own experience with Goku sparing him, and then decides to brutally torture Gohan, even calling him Goku in absolute fury.
• So Last Season:
  • Played With: When Frieza was first introduced his power was unrivaled and even the gods feared him. By the end of the Buu Saga, a being of Frieza's power was considered kid's fodder. After coming back to life and realizing how outclassed he was compared to Goku, he goes through Training from Hell to bridge the gap. He returns stronger than ever, but his true form, which was previously slightly below a Super Saiyan, is now not even a match for Goku in his normal form. In the Super retelling, they are more even, but it's still Goku who has an edge.
  • As a villain, Frieza isn't as effective as Cell and Buu (specifically Super and Kid Buu), since those two were much more clever (or in the case of Kid Buu, so crazed he would pop a planet for fun right off the bat) when dealing with the heroes and Cell actually matched them in terms of skill and not just raw power. Frieza still can't sense energies, needs transformations to suppress and control his power, never learned to control his full strength, and cannot think on his feet when things go wrong outside of rage quitting. Frieza failed in Resurrection ‘F’ primarily because he didn't evolve past what he was during the Namek/Frieza Saga.
  • Zigzagged in the Universe Survival arc. Frieza finally figured out how to pace himself and control his energy output while meditating in Hell. His strength may not have increased as much as it could have through true training, but his golden form was already stronger than SSB Goku back in the Resurrection 'F' Saga (afflicted with severe stamina issues) and now he and Goku are on the same level (though Goku still has his trump card in the Kaioken). Due to that very thing (and his disappointment at discovering he is merely on par with his Arch-Enemy), Frieza may have lost his chance to kill Goku in a straight fight.
• The Sociopath: Frieza carries all the traits of a classic, narcissistic psychopath/sociopath. He is utterly incapable of empathy or remorse, manipulates others with a smile, impulsive and tends to do things without thinking, incredibly sadistic and violent, and is driven by staggering arrogance, and never takes responsibility for his actions nor does he learn from his mistakes. In the Universe Survival Arc, he teams up with the Z-Fighters and continues to be just as ruthless and sociopathic as ever, but more pragmatic and calculating. Truth in Television: Highly functional sociopaths are able to be pragmatic and support causes for selfish reasons. It took a lot of Humiliation Congas over the years to even become remotely respectful towards the Z-Fighters at the end of the Universe Survival Arc. Frieza would likely be classified as an "adaptive sociopath" because he's better at assessing risk which the typical sociopath is poor at. Most adaptive sociopaths end up as senior VPs and division heads in large companies. In that capacity, they can crush hundreds of souls daily, and never be punished for it. Though being unquestionably the strongest mortal in the universe means he's free to indulge in some random slaughter when the mood takes him.
• Sociopathic Hero: In the Universe Survival Arc. He's only working with the Universe 7 team, because Goku promised Frieza another chance at life. Frieza's first question when asked for this was "Can I kill them?" and when he was denied that (due to Tournament rules), he settled for Cold-Blooded Torture.
• Softspoken Sadist: In all Japanese and post-Kai English material (the original English dubs are far less subtle). However, all versions see him become a Large Ham as he starts to lose to Goku.
• Son of an Ape: His favorite way to insult the Saiyans. "Ape", "monkey", "simian", etc.
• Sore Loser: Probably one of the worst of all the villains:
  • When it seemed like Goku was going to beat him, he tried to blow up Namek, but held back since he didn't want to kill himself. Then, after Goku said he would let him live with the shame of his defeat because he was far too weak to challenge him anymore, he throws an energy disc at Goku's back. Even then, after Goku gives him some energy to escape the exploding Namek, he turns around and shoots Goku in the back, only for Goku to finally get sick of giving him chances and blow him away.
  • He's just as bad in Resurrection ‘F’. When Goku proves to be his better again, instead of taking the offer to leave peacefully and try again once he mastered his ultimate transformation, he has his minion Sorbet shoot Goku in the back. When Vegeta beats the crud out of him, he once again decides to destroy the planet instead of losing.
  • Once again, when he realizes that Toppo as a God of Destruction completely outclassed him, Frieza decides to rage quit a third time by blowing up the arena and ringing him out (somehow forgetting that unlike the last two times, he would be ringed out too and likely erased along with Toppo). Toppo, hilariously, nullifies Frieza's entire attack by literally flicking a ball of destruction the size of a marble at it, which caused Frieza's attack to instantly fizzle.
• Spell My Name With An S: "Freeza" is used by Bandai, the manga and the subtitled version of the anime, but Funimation uses "Frieza" for their dub, and in some countries he's called "Freezer" (which is where his name actually comes from.)
• Sphere of Destruction: His infamous Death Ball, which he's killed entire planets with.
• Smug Snake: Despite having several savvy moments and being very smart and cunning, he firmly falls into this thanks to his arrogance. He relies on his raw power so much that he has nothing to fall back on once that proves to be ineffective outside of destroying the planet he's standing on since he can survive in space. He is also lazy, using his men to do all the work for him and literally doing nothing until they were all dead. On top of all of that, his genocide of the Saiyans largely backfired because he didn't kill the few survivors and toyed with Goku instead of killing him outright. In ''Resurrection ‘F’', he's reduced even further into this territory once Goku and Vegeta beat him. He throws a tantrum and whines about how he couldn't lose again.
• Smug Super: One of the well-known contenders for the anime poster boy of this trope. Having spent who knows how many years unchallenged in his might and authority has made him Drunk with Power. As such, the very idea of someone actually being stronger than him is absolutely inconceivable for him to imagine and at the same time, it's what deep down, he fears the most.
• Sparing the Aces: Despite being paranoid about someone being stronger than him, he had a soft spot for exceptionally strong fighters as a way of asserting his dominance. He spared Vegeta and gave him a high rank among his men after killing most of the Saiyans because he admired his talent and did show some regret about having to kill Vegeta for his treachery. He offered Goku to come into his service stating that it would be a waste to destroy such talent and was visibly upset when Goku refused. He also lamented on what a shame it was to kill Nail when he saw how powerful he was. He also gave Vegeta a second chance to join him and beat Goku together, but Vegeta remembering how it went the last time, rejects it and promptly fights him instead.
• Spoiled Brat: He hides it much better than most, but it is there. He practically had a temper tantrum when he learns that he couldn't use the Dragon Balls without a help of a Namekian, who he had all but killed at this point, and when Vegeta tricked him earlier and stole his Dragon Balls, he was close to stomping his feet and threw random energy waves across the planet. His spoiled nature really comes to light when he's outmatched against Super Saiyan Goku, where he name calls, spouts words of hatred, demeans, and even begs for his life after his own foolishness cost him an arm and both of his legs. Throughout his entire life, Frieza thought he was the strongest and everyone should do what he wanted. When he finally met someone stronger than him, he was revealed as the spoiled child that he was. In Cooler's Revenge, his brother Cooler even outright describes him as a "little brat" who King Cold "spoiled rotten."
• Story-Breaker Power: Frieza's ultimate transformation, Golden Frieza. He went from being beaten by Goku's base form to overwhelming Goku when he transformed into a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan. The major drawback of this transformation is that it burns through energy quickly and even that could have been avoided if Frieza took the time to master it instead of rushing to Earth, which is seen when he returns in the Universal Survival Saga. There is also his species' ability to survive in a vacuum. He kills Vegeta, despite being tired and overwhelmed, by destroying the Earth since Vegeta, even as a god, still needs to breath.
• Strange Minds Think Alike: In Broly, Frieza stole the Dragon Balls from Bulma to wish to be 5 centimeters taller, because any higher would seem unnatural. Bulma was collecting the Dragon Balls to be 5 years younger for the same reason. He and General Red also had the exact same hilariously petty secret plan of using the Dragon Balls to deal with their Height Angst.
• Strong and Skilled: Even in his introduction, he already had a copiously large arsenal of different attacks and techniques, but after Character Development kicks in (read: dying twice and learning from the experience), Frieza is not only one of the four strongest mortals in Universe 7, but also has a reasonable amount of secondary skills (analytical skills, energy control and stamina, energy sensing, and an amount of mental discipline) backing his power.
• Stupid Evil: He simply cannot resist an opportunity to Kick the Dog or toy with his enemies no matter what, which contributes to his downfall. In Dragon Ball Super, to show off how powerful he has become through his months of training, when he transforms into his true form, he kills off all his remaining men except Sorbet, and Sorbet was only lucky. This is really stupid since that's literally the last of his army, meaning that even if he does beat Goku, he has to rebuild his entire empire from the ground up. Killing all his men also means that there is no one left to wish him back after he's killed again. On top of that stupidity, throughout the first part of his fight with Goku he keeps trying to attack Goku's friends and encourages his men earlier to kill Krillin, knowing it will cause Goku the most amount of grief. Given what happened the last time Frieza picked off Goku's friends and enraged him, you would think he wouldn't actively try to press his buttons again. Fortunately for Frieza, he fails at getting Goku to his Rage Breaking Point despite his murder of Piccolo. Perhaps his most idiotic moment is when he murders Paragus in order to make Broly angry enough to defeat Goku in Dragon Ball Super: Broly. It goes about as well as you'd expect.
• Summon to Hand: Sometimes uses telekinesis to pull the Dragon Balls towards him.
• Super Mode:
  • Inverted. Frieza appears to have three transformations. However, his "final" form is really his true form, and he needs his others to reduce his power so he can control it.
  • Played straight in Resurrection ‘F’; his new golden form is his answer to the Super Saiyan.
  • Played straight again in at the end of the Granolah arc; his new form, dubbed Black Frieza, was obtained after training for 10 years on a planet that simulations a Hyperbolic Time Chamber, allows him to easily one-shot an admittedly weakened True Ultra Instinct Goku and Ultra Ego Vegeta.
• Super Wheelchair: In his first form, he often moves around in a hoverchair to the point he almost never leaves it, blowing things with his mere finger being enough for it (Like the destruction of Planet Vegeta and killing a few Namekians). In the Dragon Ball Xenoverse games, you can only talk to him as a mentor while he is in his wheelchair.
• Superpower Lottery: He was born the most powerful mortal there is of Universe 7. The monster we saw on Namek was a mutant who never had to train to obtain his power unlike the main characters up to that point. When he does finally train in Resurrection ‘F’, he's able to match Goku, whose powers are almost on par with Beerus in just four months in-universe. He also has extreme survivability and can go around in the vacuum of space without the need to breathe even if he's sliced into pieces. If his brother is anything to go by, he can survive with only being a head.
• Super-Senses: In Super, Frieza is shown to have incredible hearing, enough to pick up on the conversations in the stands from the tournament floor during the Tournament of Power.
• Super-Toughness: Perhaps Frieza's most defining trait (next to being The Ace), is that he is able to endure an ungodly amount of injuries and still stand up and fight. To the point that the reason he finally decides to stop goofing off and get serious in his first battle with Goku is because his hands got a little singed after diverting a Kamehameha from Goku at his (non-SSJ) peak. A Spirit Bomb the size of a city merely blows a small chunk of his tail off and he survives being bisected and getting caught up in an Earth-Shattering Kaboom when Namek explodes. Cell was stated to inherit Frieza's invulnerability which meant he could survive from any injury so long as part of him remained, while repairing said damage through his regeneration. However Frieza is in a league of his own when it comes to surviving the unsurvivable.
  • By the end of the Universe Survival arc, Frieza has learned to weaponize his toughness, relying on Android 17 to provide cover fire as he tanks Jiren's blows. When Jiren gets his second wind and is about to toss 17 out of the arena, Frieza tells Goku to throw him at Jiren, knowing that his sheer durability and momentum will be enough to knock him away from 17.

T-Y

• Take That!: Toriyama based Freeza's personality on real estate speculators during the 1986-1991 Japanese economic bubble, who he sees as "the worst kind of people." This in addition to designing Freeza's physical appearance after his own nightmares.
• Taking You with Me:
  • Subverted — after he blasts Namek's core, Goku accuses him of trying this. Freeza retorts that he can survive in vacuum, so it was "just" a Rage Quit.
  • He attempts and succeeds with taking out Jiren in the Tournament of Power as he orders Goku to throw him when Jiren attempts to take Android 17 out.
• Talented, but Trained: As revealed in Resurrection 'F', he was born as powerful as he is, and never had to train a day in his life to become the most powerful being in the universe. Upon his resurrection and the discovery that Goku has become strong enough to defeat Majin Buu, Frieza opts to train for the first time in his life, and in a mere four months, he unlocks his Golden Super Mode and obtains near-godlike power, the likes of which have taken Goku and Vegeta decades to obtain. Afterwards, leading into the Tournament of Power, Frieza spent his time in Hell meditating, which enabled him to completely master his Golden form. By the time of the Granolah the Survivor Saga, he managed to find a Hyperbolic Time Chamber and spent ten years inside training, gaining a new Black form and truly becoming trained.
• Talent vs. Training: Before he crossed paths with Goku, Frieza was considered the most powerful mortal in the universe. By his own admission in Dragon Ball Super, the training he did to achieve his Golden Super Mode was the first time he actually had to put in any effort when it came to developing his fighting skills.
• Taught by Experience: Effectively the only way Frieza has learned anything. As mentioned before, it took him dying once to realize he had to do more than just sit back and let his minions do all the work and then dying again before he knew he had to actually put the work in if he really wanted his Red Baron title of "The Strongest in the Universe" to be more than just cheap words. The Universe Survival arc brings him much needed Character Development as he is finally catching up to the rest of the cast as far as esoteric abilities go (he can finally sense energy, though it tends to only work on opponents in his line of sight) and he's putting his combat pragmatism to effective use (like stealing a kill from Vegeta and manipulating Frost into letting his guard down). He's even learned a bit of teamwork — as he did when he feigned beating Gohan — though it's still tinged with the idea that he'll stab you in the back if you aren't up to snuff.
  • Indeed, it takes nearly dying a fourth time to finally humble Frieza when he pokes a hornet's nest in the shape of Broly. He's able to tangle with him briefly before getting overwhelmed and nearly getting vaporized before Goku and Vegeta bail him out. After his life is spared yet again, he almost loses his temper... before telling the pair that he'll return. There is no heat in his words, though, and he seems to finally put his grudge against the remaining Saiyans to rest.
• Technical Pacifist: Enforced during the Tournament of Power. While the rules forbid killing, Frieza is still as sadistic and brutal as possible to his opponents; he just avoids killing them.
  Frieza: What? Kill him? Do you honestly believe I could make such a foolish mistake? I avoided anything that's immediately vital. Though of course, I cannot be held accountable for what happens once he's outside of the ring!
• Teeth-Clenched Teamwork: Him with pretty much everyone else in the Tournament of Power aside Tenshinhan, 17 and 18^*and even then FighterZ implies she's just good at keeping professional, and Roshi. Everyone else has a personal grudge against him.
• Theme Naming:
  • Going along with the theme of vegetables introduced by the Saiyans under his control, he's named after a freezer, and his minions have names based after things found in a refrigerator, including fruits, dairy, and yes, vegetables. (Toriyama related that it was kind of a mistake to name him after a freezer instead of a fridge.) This also extends to his relatives: His father is King Cold, his brother is Cooler, his ancestor is Chilled, and his Universe 6 counterpart is Frost.
  • The Funimation dub contains a reference to the Saiyans forming an alliance with a race called the Arcosians. Since the name sounds similar to "arctic", many fans wondered if this was Funi attempting to come up with their own name for the race. For what it's worth, Frieza's ancestor (and his henchmen) wear similar cloaks in Episode of Bardock.
  • Frieza's Golden and Black transformations are based on the levels of credit cards, as revealed by Toyotaro. It works two-fold as Freeza was also famously based on real-estate speculators when Toriyama first created him.
• Third-Person Person: The way Frieza speaks about his evolution of "Golden Frieza" is remarkable as he speaks about it in third person, including many dubs, for what is basically a transformation.
  Frieza: Delicacy that wouldn't even stir water... together with the ultimate intensity... is the "True Golden Frieza". That is who I am.
• This Cannot Be!:
  • Frieza has this moment during his fight with Goku after he becomes a Super Saiyan and utterly hands him his ass.
    Frieza: How humiliating! To think I could be outclassed by some filthy, half-evolved Saiyan! I am the mighty Frieza, the most powerful force in the universe! This is a nightmare! Yes, that's the only logical explanation! Why else would this be happening?!
  • Frieza has another moment of this in Resurrection F after Goku gains the upper hand in their fight due to his dwindling stamina and nearly defeats him with Kamehameha. When Goku offers him the chance to leave and train some more for a rematch, Frieza screams in impotent rage.
    Frieza: Damn YOU! Why?! WHY?! This shouldn't be happening! I am LORD FRIEZA!
  • And again when Vegeta causes him to lose his golden form, he proceeds to hit the ground with rage and seems to be on the verge of actually crying.
    Frieza: No... This can't be real... This is not the way this ends! NO! NO!
  • Frieza faces U11's Toppo, who is fighting with God Ki and throwing around Destruction Energy. Frieza's already dealt with this thanks to the antics of Universe 9's God of Destruction, and smugly declares he'll stop the attack with one hand. It doesn't last long.
    Frieza: Such a thing is meaningless to me! (Sphere starts to envelop his hand, Frieza starts using his other hand as well)
    Frieza: I said, such a thing is meaningless to me! (Sphere continues to engulf his body.)
    Frieza: ...Such a thing...! Such a thing...!! (Frieza screams in pain as he is completely surrounded by Energy of Destruction)
• This Is Gonna Suck: In Super Episode 130, it's just him and Android 17 against Jiren with Goku having suffered Power Incontinence. Both 17 and Frieza pull a Captain Obvious moment over how little their chances are, the tone in Frieza's voice easily suggests this.
• Time to Unlock More True Potential: Frieza, after being resurrected by his henchmen, decides to undergo Training from Hell for four months to get revenge on Goku. He notes that he never even trained before in his life and wonders how strong he can become.
  • After getting beaten to a pulp by Broly, Frieza decides to seriously train for a few years for a final fight against the Saiyans.
• Token Evil Teammate: Joins the Universe 7 team for the Tournament of Power after Majin Buu falls through, all with the condition of being brought back to life with the Dragon Balls.
• Too Dumb to Live:
  • Where to start. First, Frieza keeps pushing Goku's Berserk Buttons despite Goku becoming more powerful the angrier he gets. A standout example is when he mockingly tells Goku that he's going to blow him up just like the bald-headed human — after that action helped trigger Goku's Super Saiyan transformation — and his final attack is a modified version of Krillin's Destructo Disc. Then, after he's cut to pieces by his own attack and begs Goku for help, he mocks Goku for his mercy. Finally, he has the nerve to try to shoot Goku in the back instead of trying to escape a planet that is about to explode. By this point, Goku has lost all patience with him and blows him away, outright calling him a fool.
  • After barely surviving his encounter with Goku and being rebuilt as a cyborg, Frieza heads to Earth to get even with Goku. He's somewhat savvy about this since he does bring his father as backup, but he's still a moron for not just going back to his empire and counting his blessings. This results in him and his father both being killed by Future Trunks.
  • In Resurrection ‘F’, Goku offers Frieza mercy again. Goku even says that he will fight him again once he masters his golden form. Instead of taking the offer and leaving in peace, Frieza has one of his minions disable Goku with a sneak attack. While this works for awhile, he ends up facing the far less merciful Vegeta and is eventually killed by Goku. If he just left and tried again another day, he would have been far better off.
  • In the Super version he's even worse in this regard. He tries to arrange the death of Krillin and even takes potshots at Goku's family and friends for the sole purpose of pissing him off again, completely aware that his sadistic idiocy resulted in Goku beating him up and nearly killing him the last time they crossed paths. And he doesn't even care, because his desire to murder Goku by that point is all-consuming, and he's all but blinded by it. Like the film, the only things he receives from it is another humiliating defeat and dying for good at Goku's hands.
  • Frieza's gambit to trigger Broly's Super Saiyan transformation was moronic beyond all imagination, as he somehow thought that despite murdering his father Broly would somehow shrug such a horrendous act off and continue fighting Goku. All he ends up doing is driving Broly insane with grief and murderous rage and putting himself in his crosshairs. It’s only Gogeta’s intervention that prevents Broly from beating Frieza to death.
• Took a Level in Badass: Frieza manages to rival the Saiyans in the levels of badass in the short time after his revival:
  • Frieza in his first form has the power to kill Super Saiyan Gohan. He also murders Piccolo with one well placed Death Beam, who is many times stronger than his original maximum form. In his true form, he can more or less keep up with Goku, even if Goku has an edge, at a point in time where Goku's base form (partially channeling Super Saiyan God) makes Super Saiyan 3 look like a complete joke.
  • Golden Frieza, Frieza's new ultimate form. In this form, he surpasses any known form of Super Saiyan, including a Super Saiyan Blue. It is even more powerful compared to its movie counterpart since he is able to easily beat Goku into the ground with it rather than just being even with him. The biggest drawback of this form is that Frieza's power drops drastically and he only maintains his full power for less than a minute.
  • When he returns in the Universal Survival Saga, he has mastered his golden form in Hell using mental training so he no longer has the stamina drain issue. He's also stronger to the point of matching Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku who has also gotten much stronger.
    • On mental level, now he's become more pragmatic and patient, for example - willing to heal Goku if it allows Frieza to achieve his goals.
  • In Broly, Frieza has increased in power since the Tournament, and after transforming into Golden Frieza actually manages to stagger and push back Broly as a Super Saiyan for a bit. He then endures a fight with the Saiyan for a full hour. Even factoring in Made of Iron properties, this is a guy that overwhelmed Super Saiyan Blue Goku and Vegeta in minutes, so that's no mean feat.
  • Then in the Super manga, Frieza managed to find a Hyperbolic Time Chamber room and spent the equivalent to ten years training of it, achieving a new Black Frieza form and one shotting Gas.
• Took a Level in Jerkass: Amazingly enough, Frieza is even more of an ass in the English dub of Resurrection ‘F’. He regularly calls the Saiyans monkeys, going as far to call a Super Saiyan a Super Simian at one point. He refers to Vegeta as a pet and calls Krillin pathetic when he learns that the Dragon Balls revived him. Probably the worst burn comes when he mockingly calls Vegeta the prince of no one.
• Took a Level in Kindness: As shocking as it sounds, Frieza of all people actually took a level of this during the Universal Survival Arc, albeit a very small one. Not only was he willing to work with the heroes during the arc, but Frieza has actually proven himself to be a decent team player and capable of complementing his allies and showing respect to his enemies.
• Torso with a View: Still survived despite being cut in half and half his face blown off.
• Tranquil Fury:
  • Particularly in the Kai dub. Whenever Frieza experiences an overwhelming amount of shock and anger, he'll lapse into this. But it's only brief as he'll quickly go back to shouting furiously at his opponent.
  • This is his default state of mind throughout Resurrection F. He acts like his usual, Faux Affably Evil self, but underneath that cheery sociopathic demeanor is a boiling cauldron of psychotic fury and hatred towards Goku for humiliating him. And when he decides to go all out in his battle with Goku, this Mask of Sanity simply slips away, revealing it all.
• Transformation Is a Free Action: Zigzagged when he reaches his final form. The Transformation Sequence is so long that the heroes have enough time to heal Piccolo and Vegeta.
• Trauma Button: In Super, due to his defeat at Goku's hands and his experience in Hell, any kind of mercy, cruel or otherwise, will trigger an attack of PTSD. When he sees Gohan choose to spare Captain Ginyu-in-Tagoma's body after defeating him, Frieza is immediately reminded of Goku's Cruel Mercy towards him back on Namek and has a massive Freak Out, personally stepping into battle and torturing Gohan with Beam Spam until he's left crippled on the ground.
• Troll: And an insanely childish one to boot. Frieza taunts an utterly pissed Super Saiyan Goku over Krillin's death as well as threats to his son's life on multiple occasions throughout the fight just to be a dick, and in Super actually tries to order a hit out on Krillin and take potshots at Goku's family and friends for pretty much the same reason. Considering that Saiyans get stronger the angrier they become, it's a suicidally stupid decision. Which Frieza knows and doesn't give a rat's ass about.
• Underestimating Badassery:
  • Ironically, despite the Smug Super trope listed, and the habits of his men, he tried his very best not to do this: Frieza is utterly motivated by the fear of someone approaching him in power, and since he had never encountered someone outside of his family coming close to his full strength, his response would be to utterly overwhelm his opponents with sheer force. His usage of all his One-Winged Angel forms in response to (in that order): Vegeta, Piccolo and Gohan; and the I Am Not Left-Handed trope primarily to Goku, was to completely stomp them into the ground. However, his bad habits of toying with his opponents when he believes they can't fight back is what undermines this, and leaves the door open for Heroic Second Winds, and even the One-Winged Angel trope being used against him.
  • Played with in Resurrection ‘F’. When he hears that Goku has defeated Majin Buu, he knows without a doubt that he cannot defeat Goku in his present state. This is what motivates him to buckle down and actually train for once, unlocking a terrifying amount of power in the process. When he comes to Earth, he is clearly appreciative of the fact that Goku will be a tough opponent to take down, and he goes so far as to have a contingency plan up his sleeve just in case he loses again. When he meets Goku, he doesn't play around and immediately goes into his true form and uses his full power. Despite this, he is still surprised that Goku didn't need to go Super Saiyan to utterly destroy his true form, nor does he realize that he should have mastered his new transformation and not rely on raw power alone. He also plays this straight in regards to Vegeta. The thought apparently never crossed his mind that Vegeta might have become nearly as powerful as Goku. He seemingly didn't even believe Vegeta could become a regular Super Saiyan.
  • Played with when Frieza returns in the Universal Survival Saga. He and Goku have a brief sparring match, and he thinks he can kill Goku, assuming Goku underestimates him since he has gotten stronger since the Resurrection 'F' Saga. He's shocked to learn that he's only even with Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan Goku when he was once superior. And he doesn't know Goku can stack the Kaioken on his god form.
  • After Toppo makes up his mind and become a God of Destruction Frieza is at first unimpressed by him even after his ray beam attack got easely erased by Toppo's newfound energy of destruction. So when Toppo send a big ball of destruction at him Frieza, who had managed to counter another attack with destruction energy from one of Universe 9 assassins, thinks that he can easely foil it too and doesn't even try to dodge it, nevermind that the ball that Toppo throws at him is far larger that the one he was attacked with previously and that the hitman was far less powerful than Toppo. Evidently the attack proves too much to handle for Frieza who is grievously injured by it, and his attempts at revenge against Toppo who foils Frieza's attempts at revenge with comical ease and proceeds to give him a particularly vicious beatdown.
  • Ironically, he's also sometimes a victim of this trope despite his title of strongest in the universe. Both King Vegeta and his son, when they rebel against him, learn the hard way (two times for Prince Vegeta) that his title of "Strongest Being in the Universe" is not just to show off. Similarly, Piccolo thinks that he can take Frieza after training with King Kai and didn't really want to fuse with Nail, believing that he didn't need his power. Even fused, Piccolo finds out that he isn't even a speck of dust compared to Frieza's 100% full power. Goku also believes that Frieza is bluffing when he claims that 50% of his power is more than enough to crush him. Within minutes, Goku finds out that he isn't bluffing. Similarly, Sidra's assassins also dismiss him as an ordinary fighter before Frieza personally makes them his guinea pigs to demonstrate his Mastered Golden Form.
• Underwear of Power: In his first three forms, after he destroyed his armor, he's only left with his glorious black slip.
• Undignified Death:
  • He is cut to pieces by Trunks and then vaporized. Even worse, he was conscious throughout the entire dicing.
  • His second death isn't much better. He is reduced to ashes by Goku's Kamehameha and can only scream Goku's name in damnation as he dies.
• Ungrateful Bastard:
  • After being on the verge of death by his own attack, he pleads for Goku to help him. Goku reluctantly loans him some of his ki under the condition that he leaves and never kills again. Frieza responds first by mocking Goku for his mercy and then tries to blast him while his back is turned.
  • You would think he would be more grateful to his men for reviving him and saving him from further torment in Hell. Instead, upon being put back together, he kills several of his soldiers just to test his power. Not even Hell itself could mellow this guy.
  • There's also the fact that he dismisses the idea of reviving his father (who is presumably also in Earth's Hell). This is despite the fact that if not for his father rescuing him after his fight with Goku, he wouldn't have even survived the first fight with Goku.
  • In Super, anything that reminds him of Goku's mercy sends him over the edge. He really should be grateful to Goku for showing him a bit of pity, especially since he was the one who begged for it.
  • Downplayed by his second resurrection from Whis following the end of the Tournament of Power, where he says he'll go back to his evil ways, but in a surprisingly respectful manner of keeping his promise of helping the Universe 7 team.
  • In the manga, when Frieza goes up against Berserker/Legendary Super Saiyan Kale, he starts to have trouble and is brought very close to getting rung out. When Goku comes in and saves him, Frieza responds by kicking him in the side and telling him to get out of the way.
• Uniqueness Decay: The idea of him being the most powerful being in the universe. For a time, the series found ways to Hand Wave the increasingly powerful foes Goku had to face after him. The Androids and Cell didn't exist yet when Frieza was alive. The warriors Goku faced in the afterlife a) were dead and thus not counted against Frieza's claim of strongest in the Universe, and b) had been training for thousands of years. Dabura also didn’t count against Frieza’s claim since he came from the demon realm, which is located outside the universe and Majin Buu had been sealed for so long that it's likely Frieza was simply unaware of him. Though with the introduction of Beerus this claim get a bit shakier, as while he was merely thought of to be a myth by people like Jaco, Vegeta is very aware of his power to the point of being utterly terrified when he met Beerus again later on in his life, despite having power that eclipses Frieza by leagues by that point. Resurrection 'F' addresses this by having Freeza privately admit that he was warned to absolutely never try to fight either Buu or Beerus by his father, so his claim of being the "strongest in the universe" was likely propaganda from the beginning.
  • That being said, he's still unique among the other characters by virtue of his unmatched Super-Toughness — outside of anyone gifted with a Healing Factor — which is purely biological and not ki-based. He's also a Born Winner, capable of gaining strength at an astronomical pace if he's focused enough for it. Not even Goku can get stronger even remotely as quickly as Frieza can, with his underlying potential being almost nightmarish to contemplate.
• Unskilled, but Strong:
  • At first, he is never shown to train. It shows in his fighting technique when he overpowers, but is outclassed in skill by less powerful foes such as Vegeta and Piccolo, and hence results in him being matched or even beaten by more skilled fighters, with him often resorting to just unleashing more of his true strength in order to surpass the skill gap. However, the strain on his body is too great to remain at full strength for long, and he can't even sense power levels, which by the Namek saga pretty much everyone outside his army could do — but before Goku became a Super Saiyan, he still outclassed just about everyone in the universe in sheer power. This is rammed home in the final showdown between Super Saiyan Goku and 100% Full Power Frieza; at this point, Frieza is strong enough to at least land meaningful hits on Goku, but not only is it clear the power advantage is still in Goku's favor, Frieza's inferior fighting skill means he can't close the gap and takes way more hits than he can afford, on top of his stamina flagging much faster than Goku's too. This ends up with Frieza not so much being beaten by Goku's hits as burning himself out to the point Goku can just smack him around, forcing Frieza to resort to cheap shots and backstabs to grab at victory that only literally blow up in his face.
  • In Dragon Ball Z: Resurrection 'F' after being revived, he decides to train for the first time in his entire life to make up for this. Even with his training, however, he still manages to be this trope because he rushes to Earth as soon as he achieves his new ultimate form, Golden Frieza, which ended being a Clipped-Wing Angel much like his original 100% full power form because of it. So, while his raw power greatly increases, he still gets curb stomped by Goku and Vegeta, who have both the power and the training to use their Super Forms properly. After a second trip through hell, he controls his anger and gets higher power control skills because of it. See Strong and Skilled.
  • Super shows him slowly growing out of it. During the Resurrection ‘F’ Saga, he actually can sense power levels, unlike the movie, and when he returns in the Universe Survival Saga, he has fully mastered his golden form, by meditating in Hell, having aquired excellent energy controlling skills in the process. Over the course of the tournament, Frieza displays noticeable fighting insight and cunning, making him more Strong and Skilled.
• Useless Useful Spell: Even after mastering his full power, he can still opt to bulk up into his "100% full power" form to increase his raw might at the cost of stamina. Normally this would be an acceptable trade-off and come in handy in some situations (Frieza himself advises Frost to use it at the start of a battle), but for Frieza it's literally pointless since he has a Golden form that initially had the same properties to a much greater extent, and later on did not even have any form of drawback. Frieza still uses this form to trick Frost into transforming in it, making him an easy victim to ring out.
• Unstoppable Rage: Frieza in the heat of battle as he gets truly angry and uses all of his pent up anger and frustration about losing his pride and his life Frieza will often go into a Villainous Breakdown and hand out either a Beam Spam or a No-Holds-Barred Beatdown when being pushed to his limits. His final move always ends up with him trying destroy a planet which if it ever succeeded with either a draw or him winning.
• Viler New Villain: Fills this role in the Namek Saga to Vegeta, along with being a bigger threat. While Vegeta's a Token Evil Teammate, he has a warrior's sense of pride and isn't nearly as sadistic as Frieza. Frieza on the other hand is far more of a Hate Sink than Vegeta at his worst, and a coward at heart to boot.
• Villain Ball:
  • He picks it up after surviving the Spirit Bomb. Instead of just killing the weakened and exhausted Goku right then and there, he decides to torment him by first shooting Piccolo, blowing Krillin to smithereens, and then threatening Gohan, all right in front of him. In doing so, Frieza gets Goku to hit his Rage Breaking Point and go Super Saiyan, leading right to his downfall. In the anime at least, he does try to shoot Goku first, but Piccolo took the bullet for him, after which Frieza let his sadistic nature get the better of him.
  • Frieza picks it up again after becoming Mecha-Frieza and going to Earth with his father, King Cold. While Cold originally planned for them to just blow up the planet from space and be done with it, Frieza insists on landing and personally killing everyone to make Goku suffer. Within minutes of landing, they're met with Future Trunks, who slaughters them both effortlessly.
  • He picks it up a third time in Resurrection ‘F’, after Sorbet shoots Goku In the Back. Instead of just killing Goku, Frieza decided to brutally torture him, and then, in order to twist the knife even further, offers Vegeta a high-ranking position in his empire if he kills Goku instead. Vegeta refuses, saves Goku, and beats Frieza senseless.
  • Dragon Ball Super: Broly zigzags this. Frieza and Goku are at a stalemate, and anyone else who could stop him is unwilling. So instead of training Frieza decides to rely on Broly and Paragus. When Broly can't hack he kills Paragus, which blows up in his face leaving him to be beaten up for at least an hour. And to prove the sheer denseness that is Frieza, he still wants to recruit Broly in order to fight Goku. However, he is no longer a Bad Boss and he has finally learned when to fold 'em, to the point he plans on years of training to make sure recruiting Broly at his right hand is a safe exercise.
• Villain Cred: While Frieza is mostly after Goku for revenge, he does take a moment to point out in Resurrection ‘F’ that he can't be taken seriously if he is afraid to fight some filthy monkey on a backwater planet.
• Villain Forgot to Level Grind:
  • Played Straight, at first. Freeza was naturally so powerful that he never needed to train… so he didn't. This did come back to bite him in the ass, as Goku eventually overcame him and the strain of actually using 100% of his full power was too much. Had he bothered to train while at full strength, his battle with Goku would have turned out very differently.
  • Later on, this was averted. Getting turned into a cyborg did make him stronger, just not strong enough to take on Goku, so he also brought his almost-as-strong dad to even the odds against Goku. Future Trunks gets around this by totally demolishing him before he could even power up. It's demonstrated later that, even if Trunks hadn't done that, Goku would have been damn near unbeatable, since he had improved far more than Frieza had. Trunks was slightly stronger than he was on Namek and Goku deflected every single one of Trunks' blows with one finger.
  • Then there's the movies, original Z anime content, and GT, where he appears from the dead several times, got to keep his body in Hell and train and even made some improvements (unlike the manga's continuity, where the evil dead don't get that favor)… yet did not increase his strength NEARLY enough to keep up with the others, who'd progressed to threats that made him look like a joke. Gohan kills him with one punch in Fusion Reborn, Pikkon one-shots him and his dad in the Otherworld Tournament Filler Arc, and Goku humiliates him in GT without even bothering to use Super Saiyan.
  • Finally averted in Resurrection ‘F’, where upon being told that Goku defeated Majin Buu (the Djinn being one of the two beings his father warned him to avoid at all costs), he decides to train for the first time in his life. A mere four months of training brings his strength from weaker than the weakest Supreme Kai to near-Beerus level. However, this is ultimately subverted when he attains a new transformation, he underestimates his opponent AGAIN and immediately goes off to seek his revenge without mastering the form first. He succeeds in overpowering Goku for the first part of the battle, but quickly loses steam and gets stomped.
  • Also averted in the Universe Survival Saga, where he is revealed to have improved in Hell, completely mastering his golden form.
  • Probably the most extreme aversion of this happens in the end of the Granolah arc. After Goku, Vegeta, and Granolah's grueling battle with Gas, Frieza drops in, kills Gas in one hit, then knocks Mastered Ultra Instinct Goku and Ultra Ego Vegeta out with a gut punch each. He did this by finding a dimension similar to the hyperbolic time chamber and training there for ten years. During that time, he acquired a new Super Form and mastered it. Frieza didn't just level grind, he overleveled.
• Villainous Breakdown:
  • Gradually happens throughout his fight with Goku on Planet Namek. Even after powering up to 100% of his full power in his final form, it still wasn't enough to stop Goku as a Super Saiyan. By the end of the fight, Frieza could barely form sentences or think straight, because he was so angry and afraid.
  • Happens again as he fights with Trunks. In the anime, it gets so bad that he tries to nuke the entire planet.
  • He has several in Resurrection ‘F’ and with each one he loses more of his sanity. His first one is when Goku outmatched his true form without going Super Saiyan. He has another one after Goku beats his ultimate transformation because he was leaking power. He has yet another one when Vegeta reveals that not only can he go Super Saiyan, but he has the same type of transformation as Goku. And again when he loses his golden form, screaming and punching the ground in anger, almost as he was going to cry. Finally, Frieza screams in horror as he's welcomed back to his tree in Hell.
    Frieza: [to Goku] Damn you! Why?! Why?! This shouldn't be happening! I am Lord Frieza!
  • Compared to the movie, he takes losing to Vegeta very badly in Dragon Ball Super. The very idea that Vegeta could beat him was worse for him to take than Goku defeating him.
  • Throughout the Tournament of Power, Frieza ends up being quite calm and collected, even knowing that beings such as Ultra Instinct Goku and Jiren exist. And then Toppo, who he'd dismissed as trash, becomes a God of Destruction and utterly wrecks him. Frieza's composure flies out the window and he tries to vaporize the entire stage. After Vegeta rings out Toppo, Frieza is still livid over his humiliation and tries to take it out on Jiren…with as much success.
• Villainous Friendship:
  • A straightforward example (if by margin) is his and Captain Ginyu's mutual respect for each other, given that Ginyu is the only henchman who seems truly loyal to Frieza and that he's the only henchman Frieza doesn't abuse, which given Ginyu's childishness, that's saying something.
  • Forms one with Frost when they meet before the Tournament of Power. The only person an evil tyrant likes is another evil tyrant, it appears. Well, not quite, given that Frieza betrays Frost in the Tournament.
  • Forms one with Cell in the non-canon material based on their mutual hatred of Goku.
• Villain Respect:
  • He gives subtle ones to Goku after he's brought back to life. When Sorbet tells him that Goku has gotten much stronger, Frieza isn't surprised and expects it to be the case. When told the extent of Goku's growth, he's both surprised and impressed. When Frieza realises what a Super Saiyan God Super Saiyan is and what it implies for Goku, he takes a sincere bow in respect to Goku for having achieved godhood. Of course, he follows it up with an insult about how the God of Saiyans is still a Saiyan, but the sentiment was genuine.
  • Back on Namek, Frieza was so sure of his superiority that he barely remembered King Vegeta. That said, it really says a lot that, as opposed to forgetting about the king, he vividly remembers Bardock's last stand.
    • Indeed on Namek Frieza appears genuinely impressed by Goku, finding him to be different from the other Saiyans and "fantastic" even though he's barely using 1% of his full power at the time, to the point he appears honestly disappointed that Goku won't join him regardless of his fear of the Super Saiyan legend.
  • After his resurrection 17 years later, Frieza consistently refers to Goku with the polite-respectful prefix of "Anata" (which is the rough equivalent of "My Good Sir") even when he is enraged or thinking to himself. This contrasts the instances when he roared "omae" ("You~!" when addressing equals or social inferiors) or "Kisama" ("SCUM") after his Villainous Breakdown on Namek, and his uncontrollable contempt for Goku after being resurrected.
  • He also seems to be pretty much the only member of Team Universe 7 who acknowledges Gohan's intelligence, wordlessly making plans under the assumption that he would catch onto them in order to let their enemies down and working together to defeat Dyspo.
  • After the events of Dragon Ball Super: Broly, he expresses outright admiration for Broly, specifically intending to eventually make him his right-hand man. This is after he spent over an hour being beaten down by the enraged Super Saiyan.
• Villainous Legacy:
  • Even after his demise, his influence is still felt. The Super Saiyans exist directly because of him, he lives on in a sense in the next major villain Cell (who takes on most of his personality traits, as well as his ability to breathe in vacuum), he is the reason why the Namekian Dragon Balls can now revive several people at once (used to be one per wish), and his defeat leads Beerus to Earth seeking a Super Saiyan God, and his second defeat leading to Gohan training again.
  • On top of all that, the Final Boss of GT, Syn Shenron, was created from the wish to bring back everyone killed by Frieza and his men. Syn Shenron is the most evil dragon out of all seven.
• Villainous Rescue: Frieza of all people pulls several of these in the Tournament of Power to save Goku.
  • At risk of being blasted out of the ring by Anilaza, Frieza shows up and kicks Goku back in, then teams up with the rest of Universe 7 to fight the rampaging monster.
  • When Jiren very nearly rings out Goku, Frieza appears yet again to blast Goku back into the ring, saving him from elimination the second time.
    • In Super Dragon Ball Heroes, him and Cooler pull one off as Goku and Vegeta are being over-powered by the Crimson Masked Saiyan (actually an alternate timeline version of Goku Black), attacking the latter just after he knocks Vegeta to the ground and is winning the battle.
• Villainous Valor: Deconstructed. As noted above, Frieza's will to live and overall determination are admirable, but his defeats are always the results of his complete refusal to give up and fight another day.
• Villain Respect: In the Universe Survival Arc, Goku and Frieza team up against Jiren in the final episode. While he is still evil, he appeared to show genuine respect for Goku, going so far as to say he was actually grateful for his naive nature.
• Villains Never Lie: He ultimately kept his word in the Tournament of Power, and made no attempt to hide the fact he was evil, even reminding the heroes of this several times and asking if they were sure they should trust him.
• Villain on Leave: After Frieza is killed for the first time by Future Trunks, he stays dead for the rest of the original series, only reappearing in filler as a Harmless Villain. He reappears in GT, but only for a single episode to the same effect. Then comes Super, in which Frieza returns as a Big Bad and later comes back again as a supporting character.
• Villain Song: Apart from "F" by Maximum the Hormone, there's also Only A Chilling Elegy, his theme song in Kai, which describes him and his ambition to claim eternal life.
• "The Villain Sucks" Song: "F" by Maximum the Hormone, which is about how terrifyingly evil he is. It actually inspired Toriyama to create the Resurrection ‘F’ movie, and was featured in it as an insert song.
• Villains Want Mercy: After being cut in half by his own attack, he begs Goku for help. Goku gives him some energy, but not before calling Frieza out on never having shown mercy towards any of the countless people he's killed. As Goku's flying away, Frieza tries to use that same energy to blast Goku, but Goku just turns around and blows him away, outright calling Frieza a fool for not just walking away when he had the chance.
• Virtue Is Weakness: He has nothing but disgust and contempt for Goku for showing mercy to him, and even goes so far as to mock him for it point-blank. In Resurrection ‘F’, he says that Gohan choosing not to kill any of his mooks actually makes him sick.
• Voice of the Legion: He talks like this when he is in his Xenomorph form in the Funimation dub. This is gone, however, in the Remastered Dragon Ball boxset. He now speaks in the same voice as his second form.
• Wants a Prize for Basic Decency: During his brutal beatdown of Vegeta, he lectures him on being an Ungrateful Bastard and betraying him despite showing him "favoritism." Freeza's form of favortism is making Vegeta one of three Saiyans he didn't eradicate.
• The Warlord: Frieza is the leader of the Planet Trade Organization, better known as the Frieza Force — a massive army that has conquered much of the known universe and operates by wiping out all life on planets of interest and selling them to the highest bidder. Frieza himself doesn't seem to have much of a bureaucracy beyond ruling his conquered territories through fear, and revels in conquest and genocide — even blowing up loyal planets to amuse himself.
• Warrior Prince: Is referred to as a prince by one of King Cold's soldiers and can destroy a planet with a finger poke.
• Weak Point: Arguably, his tail. It got sliced up in his second form, and did not heal in his third form (some official art of his third form even depicts him with a sliced tail because he was never seen in that form in canon with it intact). When he assumed his final form by shedding his outer third form, his smaller tail was fully intact, but Goku ended up biting it, and then only the tail got damaged again by a series of attacks on him meant to finish him off. Finally, even more of his tail got cut off when Frieza accidentally hit himself with his own attack and got bisected.
  • This comes full circle in the Universe Survival arc, when Dyspo of the Pride Troopers uses Frieza's tendency to use his tail in hand-to-hand combat against him by grabbing onto it and dragging Frieza behind him at super speed. Later on, Jiren stomps his tail to anchor him in place after Frieza presses his Berserk Button and begins pummeling his face in. When he and Goku make their last stand against Jiren, his tail gets blown off again in the ensuing explosion.
• We Can Rebuild Him: Frieza's father notes the parts of his body he lost can be rebuilt. The original dub even quotes the line. In fact, the sequence where Frieza is rebuilt into a cyborg pays strong homage to the sequence from The Six Million Dollar Man itself.
• We Can Rule Together: Before Frieza unleashed 50% of his maximum power he offered Goku a place at his side as his new right-hand man, saying it would be a waste to destroy such a talented warrior. He was very upset when Goku turned him down cold, not only beating Goku viciously but continuing to bring up that he could have joined him.
• We Have Reserves: He has absolutely no concern for the lives of his men, to the point that he takes virtually any excuse he can to kill them himself with impunity. A big part of the Namek Saga consists of him sending wave after wave of his mooks after the Z-Fighters until there's literally no one left.
• Welcome Back, Traitor: Despite Vegeta's treachery on Namek, Frieza is more than willing to forgive and forget if Vegeta kills Goku. He even offers him the position of Supreme Commander. Why Frieza expects Vegeta to join him after he killed his people, humiliated and demeaned him, and tortured him to death is beyond explanation.
• We Will Meet Again:
  • At the end of the Universal Survival arc, he is resurrected by Whis and sarcastically quips that he might just go back to his evil ways, clearly planning to do battle with Goku again either way.
  • At the end of Broly, he swears he'll return to destroy Earth one day and will leave Broly alone for now but intends to try and recruit him again after a few more years of training.
• What the Hell Are You?: He asks this to Super Saiyan Goku, as it's at this point where he realizes just what's he dealing with.
• While Rome Burns: Frieza is a big fan of this, though he usually is the one causing the disaster. When he initially destroyed Planet Vegeta, Namek, and Earth, he laughs each and every time. This is especially noticeable after he succeeds in driving Broly insane and having him unleash his full power. He just stands back and chuckles as energy blasts explode all around him.
• Who Needs Their Whole Body?:
  • During the climax of his battle with Goku, Frieza gets in the way of his own attack and loses the lower half of his body and an arm. He survives this, and after Goku gives in and donates some of his energy to him, he's able to get right back up and hardly seems bothered by the fact that most of his body is gone.
  • When Frieza is revived for the second time, he is revived in the same pieces Trunks cut him in before atomizing him, and expresses minor annoyance regarding this.
• Who Wants to Live Forever?: By Super: Broly, he realizes what would happen if he were ever rendered immobile while immortal, and gives up that dream in favour of a few more centimeters to his height.
• Wicked Pretentious: He is a businessman who drinks A Glass of Chianti and acts sophisticated and aristocratic. However, beneath that elegant personality lies a Moodswinging Psychopathic Manchild with anger issues.
• Wild Card: In the Universal Survival saga, he's theoretically on Universe 7's team. While there are several moments that bring his loyalty to the team into question, he ultimately upholds his end of the bargain to the end and gets resurrected as a result.
• Willfully Weak: Frieza limits his vast power with his transformations because he never trained his body to handle his full strength and he suffers from notable Sanity Slippage the more he reaches into his reserves (though this is more or less him losing his composure as he ends up on the losing side of a fight). Unfortunately, when he does finally go all-out against Super Saiyan Goku, it's too late, since his stamina didn't last throughout their fight.
• With Great Power Comes Great Insanity: It is heavily implied that he transforms to decrease his overall power because he is almost incapable of controlling himself in later forms. Especially the 2nd and 3rd.
• The Worf Effect: On both the giving and receiving end of this:
  • The first sign of how tough Super Saiyan Goku is? He easily slaps 50% Frieza around and No Sells a Death Beam to the face. When forced to power up to his 100% maximum he's able to give a better fight, though still in Goku's favor, but that quickly changes as his stamina gives out and Goku just starts toying with him.
  • It takes Trunks seconds to cut him to pieces and vaporize the remains.
  • In Resurrection ‘F’, after training, he shows off his power by nearly killing Gohan, who had just taken down most of Frieza's mooks himself, with one punch. In his first form.
  • Also from Resurrection ‘F’, after transforming into his true form at max power, he can't even touch Goku who was fighting in his base form, and though he's able to turn it around once they both pull out their Super Modes, he quickly starts falling behind just like last time once his stamina starts to tank.
  • In the Universe Survival Arc, Golden Frieza is on the receiving end of a savage No-Holds-Barred Beatdown from Toppo after the latter becomes a God of Destruction. Unlike all the above examples, there is absolutely no Worf Had the Flu in play whatsoever: Frieza didn't underestimate his foe long enough to get blindsided, he didn't toy with them long enough to run out of stamina, and he wasn't worn out from any prior encounters; Toppo was just straight-up way above Frieza's level.
• World's Best Warrior: When he was introduced in the strongest he was the greatest warrior in the universe, as he was able to destroy a planet and kill King Vegeta with a single punch in his first form, no one was able to defeat him, that is until Goku became a Super Saiyan and defeated him. In Super he came back even stronger and was able to fight on par with Goku and Vegeta, both of whom have reached divine levels of power.
• World's Strongest Man: At the time of his introduction, he was the undisputed strongest being in the universe, with no one in the series coming anywhere close to his level. His status is a Retcon of Vegeta, who was stated to be the strongest in the universe in the arc before his. Frieza himself is later retconed with the introduction of the Supreme Kais, Majin Buu, Dabura, Whis, and Beerus, all of whom have been around for eons and are far stronger than Frieza. This is justified since Frieza, at the very least, was the strongest active mortal in the universe. However in Super, after coming back from the dead and buckling down to do some actual training with some extra mental training in Hell on the side, he managed to quickly rise the ranks once more, and while still weaker than the likes of Goku and Vegeta could very likely comfortably sit at "third-strongest" mortal. In Broly, he actually lasts longer against the titular character than either Goku or Vegeta, and could be inferred as being the second most powerful mortal in terms of reliable power. In Granolah the Survivor Saga, it is implied that he is the one whom the Oracle Fish predicted would be the one to awaken as the strongest in the universe. Since after spending a decade of training in a Hyperbolic Time Chamber and technically not being in the universe when Granolah and the Heeters made their wish, he is able to attain a new form called "Black Frieza" and uses it to easily kill Gas and knock out both True Ultra Instinct Goku and Ultra Ego Vegeta with one punch, certainly making him the strongest mortal in Universe 7, if not the entire Multiverse.
• Worthy Opponent:
  • At least in Dragon Ball Super. Frieza views Goku as this in his own way. He isn't surprised when he hears that Goku has become a lot stronger and is actually impressed to hear that he surpassed Majin Buu. He comes up with a backup plan in case he loses again, fully acknowledging that he can be defeated by Goku despite being confident he can win with his new ultimate transformation. He also shows real respect towards Goku for achieving godhood.
  • Interestingly enough this respect is only aimed at Goku however. When he lost to Goku again he was very upset, but his anger was quite mild. When he lost to Vegeta on the other hand he has a major Villainous Breakdown and screams that he can't lose to Vegeta of all people. Justified given that Frieza has been stronger than Vegeta his entire life, so the idea of Vegeta becoming stronger then him is something he refuses to even consider, especially given how Goku was able to somewhat match him in their first ever fight.
• Would Hurt a Child: Shows no hesitation towards fighting Gohan or blasting Dende. He personally kills Dende's brother, Cargo, in the manga.
• Would You Like to Hear How They Died?: After incapacitating Goku, Frieza lies to Gohan, claiming that Goku died begging for mercy and crying like a baby.
• Xenomorph Xerox: His third form looks a lot like the eponymous creature from the Alien series.
• Yellow/Purple Contrast: As said in the Golden Super Mode trope above, his Golden Frieza form is this: majority of his entire body becomes gold-colored but his hands, feet, and the area around his mouth turn purple instead.
• You Are a Credit to Your Race: After he comes back during the Universal Survival Saga, he seems to have grown much more respectful of Goku despite hating his guts, his speech noticeably lacking the racist undertones he possessed previously towards him.
• You Have Failed Me: He kills one of his men after the latter forgot to ask one of the Namekian survivors of Vegeta's attack where Vegeta is before killing the survivor, and implies that he'll kill Zarbon the exact same way if he doesn't find Vegeta and deliver him to him. Also, he kills one of his father's men by impaling his chest from behind when the latter started to show signs of fear.
• You Fool!: Goku shouts this when Frieza uses the energy that he gave him to escape the exploding Namek to kill him one last time.
• You Said You Would Let Them Go: Frieza, after he forced King Vegeta to give him custody of his son, Prince Vegeta, also stated that if Vegeta didn't do as he commanded him, he will murder his father. Vegeta did everything Frieza commanded for him to do, but Frieza still murdered King Vegeta anyways, as well as destroying Planet Vegeta. Slightly justified in the case of killing King Vegeta, however, as King Vegeta was attacking Freeza when he killed him, although he nonetheless planned on eradicating the Saiyans from the start and had just obtained the approval of "orders" from Beerus to do so.