Characters / Dragon Ball: Vegeta – Tropes E-N

Dragon Ball Main Character Index
Major Characters
Son Goku (A-C | D-H | I-O | P-Z) | Bulma | Krillin/Kuririn | Piccolo | Son Gohan | Vegeta (A-D | E-N | O-Z) | Future Trunks | Allies | Families & Friends (Chi-Chi | Androids 17 and 18 | Trunks and Son Goten | Mr. Satan/Hercule) | Fusions

E-I

• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • The manga that Dragon Ball Z is based on was mostly done in black and white. When Vegeta was first introduced in the anime, he had yet to appear◊ in a color chapter, so Toei made up a color scheme◊ and changed it later. This was corrected in Dragon Ball Z Kai.
  • During his first appearances in the first tv anime, Vegeta is shown to know Telepathy and communicates with Nappa through it. This detail was completely scrapped in further appearances since it contradicts quite a lot of Vegeta's background.
  • His first anime appearances also has him obliterating a planet and its moon with a small energy beam. His fight with Goku properly establishes his actual power level with him showing that he has to power up his Galick Gun in order to destroy the Earth.
• Easily Forgiven: Goku and Bulma forgive him a lot easier than the other fighters for the murderous things he did in the past. Subverted with Tien, Krillin and Piccolo, all of which who takes until the Buu Saga before they really forgive Vegeta, and even then they are the less trusting of Vegeta. But even then, everyone seemingly looks past the fact Vegeta betrayed everyone and killed civilians for his own gain.
• Embarrassing Rescue: He hates being rescued due to his pride. During the Buu Saga, Vegeta outright states that one of the main reasons he hates Goku so much is because Goku saved his life in the past.
• Enemy Mine: His role in the second half of the Frieza Saga. He's still evil due to ruthless killings if he needs to take something, but forced to team up with Gohan and Krillin out of necessity once the Ginyu Force shows up. Arguably in the Cell Saga times as well, since he doesn't really consider the Z-Fighters his allies, but nonetheless helps against bigger threats because he doesn't want anybody destroying the planet he's living on (or killing Goku before they have their rematch).
• Energy Ring Attack: Majin Vegeta creates five energy rings to restrain Goku during their battle. Two restrain Goku's arms, two others restrain his legs and the fifth one is placed on his neck.
• Enraged by Idiocy: Especially when involving Goku. When Goku says or does something stupid, Vegeta typically blows his stack and calls him an idiot or clown. He's also quick to snark and blow up at anything idiotic the other Z Fighters do, sometimes even functioning as the Only Sane by Comparison of the group. Ironically, it's his pride that allows the Android/Cell situation to escalate to a point where Cell manages to kill Goku and Trunks. He is also responsible for enabling Frieza to transform and prolong the conflict, as well as Majin Buu being revived, which leads to the deaths of everyone on Earth, including himself, except for Goku, Mr. Satan, Dende, and Bee.
• Entitled Bastard: Zigzagged:
  • During the fight against Frieza, Vegeta gets himself critically injured by Krillin as part of a plan to get a Zenkai boost by having Dende heal him, and is genuinely shocked when Dende refuses to do so, since Vegeta was just as villainous as Frieza and had killed numerous Namekians himself. Dende ends up doing so anyway after Piccolo, Gohan, and Krillin point out that they need Vegeta to stand a chance, and for bonus points, the very first thing Vegeta does after being healed is punch Dende in the gut for taking so long. At the same time, he gets confused when someone wants to help him, or even cares for his well-being.
  • This is Vegeta's major flaw, along with his pride, before the final fight with Majin Buu. He feels he should be the strongest because he's the Saiyan Prince and was born the most gifted among his race, whereas Goku was born at the absolute bottom of the Saiyan pecking order. His entire rivalry with Goku is built on entitlement.
• Establishing Character Moment: In his first appearance he's shown sitting among a pile of aliens he'd slaughtered, feasting on one of them as he chews on an arm's innards, deducing the information from Earth he'd just received and using it as an excuse, if not a need to commit further genocide (eliminating any possibility of hybrids stronger than them being born in any real numbers...), showing authority over a larger, more intimidating Saiyan and displaying no remorse over the loss of a comrade. Right away we're shown that Vegeta is exactly what Goku could have turned into had he not sustained a head injury, being intelligent, cruel and driven to conquer.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Although he tries to hide it, he is somewhat disturbed when Frieza slowly crushes Gohan's head under his foot.
  • He mocks Cell for nearly killing Krillin who was no threat to him even before he became perfect, despite the fact Vegeta's done something similar in his past.
  • In the dub, Vegeta is quite disgusted with Android 19 for beating on a sick Goku and sucking his energy. He goes as far as to call the android out on it as he was beating him. Also in Kai, Vegeta makes it a point to say that he will kill Goku, as soon as he's well, instead of humoring killing him when he's sick.
  • Crosses over with Hypocrite, Vegeta tells Piccolo to stop pulling tricks on Dr. Gero and finish him off before he pulls another trick or gets away again.
  • Vegeta is disgusted with Goku when he fails to save their children from the exploding Earth in the Buu saga. He is also upset with himself after letting Trunks get killed by Cell.
  • Just like all, the other Z fighters, he was also shown to be very shocked when Goku was willing to put Gohan in a fight with Cell, and let him get brutally beaten.
  • Vegeta appears to have had standards with Gohan from the start. In the anime, he was shown to save Gohan from getting blasted, and although he had headbutted and then brutally beaten him up in an anime filler fight, he never went as far as killing him and felt remorse afterwards.
  • When Vegeta finds out that Frost cheated in his fight with Goku and Piccolo, he is livid at the cheating and requests Piccolo forfeit so he can beat Frost. He ends up beating Frost by waiving the disqualification clause for hidden weapons and even murder so Frost is free to deploy his tactics uninhibited.
• Evil Cannot Comprehend Good: Showed two examples of this during the Android Saga: Following the near-fatal capsule explosion, Vegeta couldn't fathom why Bulma had chosen to stay by his side while he was recovering. Later, just before his battle with #18, he scoffed at the thought of the other Z Fighters coming to his aid, even asking why they'd want to help him.
• Evil Counterpart:
  • To Goku, initially. They are both Saiyans who love to fight and challenge themselves. The difference is that Goku values life and fights to protect those he loves, while Vegeta could have almost never cared less about anyone but himself. In fact he is supposed to represent what Goku would have become if he was raised as a Saiyan, minus the power differential. The contrast lessens over time as the two slowly influence each other through the course of the series: Goku comes to take pride in his Saiyan heritage and embrace it as part of him along with his Earth upbringing, while Vegeta eventually learns to value others and to accept and return love, things that were once near-completely alien to him.
  • Also to Gohan. Both were kidnapped by men who murdered their fathers in some way to be used as minions for conquest. The difference being, Gohan's kindly nature made Piccolo a better person, while Vegeta was only ever seen as a useful brute. When both had the opportunity to kill Cell, they got cocky and let him live long enough to become stronger and kill a family member. Both also have violent tempers, except while Gohan's rage amplifies his power, Vegeta's seems to waste his energy, at least until Battle of Gods.
• Evil Is Easy: Part of his arc in the Buu Saga. Having gotten nowhere training his ass off to surpass Goku, and viewing his newfound love for his family and the Earth as a weakness holding him back from doing so, Vegeta voluntarily sells his soul to Babidi, both to recapture the feeling of glee he felt when he was evil and to finally bridge the gap between them. Ultimately, however, the strong ties he formed on Earth prove to be stronger than any joy he felt being evil again, and he gives his life to stop Buu and make amends for all the evil he has done; on top of it all, it turns out Goku had unlocked Super Saiyan 3 and was holding back against Majin Vegeta the whole time, meaning he sold the world out to Babidi and Majin Buu for nothing. Ultimately subverted, as by the end of the Buu Saga, he's embraced such virtues as love and friendship, and by doing so, he's gotten much closer to Goku's level.
• Eviler than Thou:
  • When Vegeta was first introduced with the Saiyan survivors, he was much eviler than Piccolo and his father, who only wanted to rule the Earth rather than destroy all its inhabitants. King Piccolo was also a Father to His Men despite being made of and acting on pure evil, while Vegeta mercilessly murdered his injured comrades, something that shocks Piccolo.
  • He gets this himself once Frieza shows up, with Krillin even contemplating giving Vegeta immortality since he was the Lesser of Two Evils compared to the tyrant. Vegeta himself invokes this, basically telling the Earthlings that him being an immortal can't possibly be worst than being murdered by Frieza.
• Evil Feels Good: He fully believes this during his Evil Prince days. He laughs gleefully as he slaughters a Namekian village and enjoys putting his opponents in pain before killing them. Part of the reason why he sells his soul to Babidi is to recapture that feeling of glee he felt when he was evil. However, the strong ties he formed on Earth proves to be stronger than any joy he felt being evil again, which is why he gives his life to stop Buu and make amends for all the evil he has done.
• Evil Is Petty: During his Evil Prince days. Case in point: his response to Goku giving him a bloody lip during their fight was to absolutely Freak Out and try to blow up the Earth out of spite.
• Evil Laugh: Does this constantly during the Saiyan Saga, and sometimes afterward.
• Evil Tastes Good: When Vegeta kills Nappa, he can be seen licking his lips.
• Evil Versus Evil:
  • The Namek Saga almost has him in the role of a Villain Protagonist. He was the Big Bad of the previous arc (barely a month before) and his methods of obtaining the Dragon Balls (massacring the village they're kept in) are exactly the same ones that Frieza's men employ. But, with Goku in space/healing and Piccolo dead, he is the best chance of holding off or defeating Frieza for most of the saga.
  • Then during the Cell Saga, Vegeta, now an Anti-Hero, fights Semi-Perfect Cell. When Tien notices Piccolo doesn't look pleased he asks if they were winning, and gets this response.
    Piccolo: It's Vegeta who's winning Tien, not us.
• Ex-Big Bad: In Dragon Ball Z, Vegeta was the Big Bad of Saiyan Arc, bent on seeking Immortality via the Dragon Balls. After he is defeated, he begrudgingly and gradually joins the Z fighters against other forces more evil and becomes an invaluable ally despite being The Friend Nobody Likes. Though he eventually legitimately reforms and settles down with Bulma.
• Extreme Doormat: To his daughter, Bulla in GT to a lesser extent.
• Extremity Extremist: While he does use punches occasionally, Vegeta tends to use kicks and knee strikes far more often than other characters in the manga and anime, and usually reserves his hands for energy attacks.
• Explaining Your Power to the Enemy: Vegeta goes into lengthy detail about how Saiyans can become Great Apes at the sight of a full moon and how certain elite Saiyans like himself have been trained to create artificial moons if the natural one is missing. In Vegeta's case, he assumes Goku knows most of this information since he's a Saiyan himself.
• Eye Scream: Goku blinds him in one eye as a Great Ape, causing him to lose its function for the rest of the fight.
• Face Death with Dignity: Twice:
  • After Piccolo tells him he'll go to Hell if he dies, Vegeta goes through with it anyway for the sake of Bulma, Trunks, and Goku, and self-destructs to try to kill Majin Buu.
  • In Super and Battle of Gods, after his attempts to appease and face Beerus fails, Vegeta calmly accepts his fate, remarking that he'll take pride in the fact that it took a God of Destruction to kill him. That goes out the window after Beerus slaps Bulma.
• Face of a Thug: Naturally, as he started out as a villain whose default expressions are either a smug smirk or an angry snarl. Oddly, it get's Lampshaded only once, in Super, where some humans who didn't know him mentioned that he had a more evil face than the villain. Justified in a sense, as his developing sense of compassion tends to manifest as Anger Born of Worry.
• Face Realization: He was a murderous, egotistical, power hungry bastard, but after settling down on Earth, getting married, and raising a family, he found it hard to go back to his more villainous (and in his opinion more powerful) self. He had to cut a deal with an evil wizard to make himself evil again, and even then, he was still too good. It finally sinks in that he is no longer the villain he used to be when, after asking the Namek Dragon to restore every person on Earth who was killed by Majin Buu except for the evil ones, he is brought back to life along with them. Goku hangs a major lampshade on this, declaring that Vegeta is now a good guy. Vegeta is equally shocked by this.
• Fantastic Racism: Much like most Saiyans, Vegeta, notably more in some dub moments had an extremely low opinion of anyone that wasn't a Saiyan. Unlike Raditz and Nappa, this sentiment also extended to a form of an elitism and Social Darwinist to his fellow Saiyans. He dismissed Raditz as a weakling for getting killed and refused to even consider wishing him back. He also coldly murdered Nappa for being a disgrace for losing. He hated Goku for not only betraying the Saiyans, but for being a low class scumbag who dared to challenge the Saiyan Prince. He does get better as the series progresses, but he still holds his race at the highest regard, known to scoff at humans for being sentimental.
• Faster Than They Look: As a Great Ape. He's as big as a skyscraper, but his speed is unaffected; Goku himself is shocked at how fast Great Ape Vegeta can move despite his size.
• Fatal Flaw:
  • His pride, which directly results in most of the conflicts throughout the series, and which Cell is able to use to his advantage.
  • His wrath. When he gets angry enough, he becomes extremely reckless and makes stupid mistakes. This leads to him losing pathetically against Android 18 and Cell.
  • Whis also says he has another one: taking too long to react to sudden changes in fights. It means he doesn't have time to react in Resurrection ‘F’ when Frieza goes to blow up the Earth. Whis also says he and Goku share the flaw of being unwilling to work together even when they should.
• Faux Affably Evil: As long as he feels he's got the advantage, Vegeta acts in a condescendingly polite manner as a way of psyching his opponents out. Once he realizes he's been outclassed, he openly expresses his hatred and rage.
• Fearless Fool: Vegeta's the type to charge into battles with opponents who are much stronger than him. This may be due to his arrogance because he doesn't believe they are stronger than him.
• Feeling Oppressed by Their Existence: His attitude towards Goku for most of the series; the fact that he, the Saiyan Prince, is constantly Always Second Best to a low-class Saiyan drives him crazy, which eventually leads him to make a Deal with the Devil by selling his soul to Babidi in exchange for power. During their subsequent fight, Majin Vegeta goes on a rant while beating Goku up, declaring that that Goku's very existence is an insult to him and a stain on his honor.
  Vegeta: Every breath you take is an assault to my honor! But no more, Kakarot! By my hands, you will be cut down inch by inch, the way you have cut down my pride!
• The Fighting Narcissist: Despite his love of fighting, he's so furious that Goku managed to draw blood from him that he tries to blow up the Earth. Afterwards, when Goku shoots him in the eye with a Ki Blast, Vegeta was so furious that he tortured Goku by slowly breaking every bone in his body.
• Final First Hug: When he hugged his son Trunks for the first time expecting it to also be the last time, as he was about to sacrifice himself in an attempt to kill Buu.
• Foil:
  • To his eternal rival, Goku. Both are thrill-seeking Saiyan warriors always looking to test, expand, and overcome their limits. While Goku is a cheerful man who cherishes others, greatly values his Earthly upbringing, and was born weak among commoner parents, Vegeta is a rough, arrogant prince who initially cares only for himself, and was born very powerful and heir to the throne of his planet. Through a series of trials and hardships, they gradually influence each other as their rivalry matures from resentment to respect. Goku comes to understand Saiyan pride and Vegeta learns compassion for loved ones. This is also reflected in their divine abilities. Goku's Ultra Instinct works by the body reacting without the mind, allowing you to avoid any attack and strike back with great power. Vegeta's Ultra Ego focuses on the person's indulgence and sense of self, requiring them to take damage head on to greatly raise their power.
  • After character development, he becomes this to Frieza. Unlike his former boss, Vegeta learns to properly care about others and being able to set his pride aside for the benefit of others and his own sanity. By letting go of the past, Vegeta becomes a happier person. Frieza, on the other hand, never learns from his experiences and remains an uncaring fiend even after he is given a second chance at life. He allows his hatred and anger towards Goku to drive him insane, and it's his inability to let go of his pride and the past that drives him to his death, twice.
• Forced to Watch: After learning that Goku has been revived and will join the fight, Vegeta orders a three hour cease-fire. When Nappa asks why, Vegeta explains that as a traitor to the Saiyans Goku has to be made to suffer and the first part of his punishment is to watch his friends and family be killed before his eyes. Then, they will take their time with him. However, the moment he realizes that Goku is much stronger than he thought, he orders Nappa to kill the surviving Z-Fighters since they couldn't afford to have them join Goku.
• Forehead of Doom: Could be said to be a general trait of Toriyama's art style, but Vegeta's is especially egregious, to the point of being a meme in Japan.
• Four Is Death: The number of (pureblood)Saiyans still alive, according to Raditz.
• Flaw Exploitation: He pulls this off at the climax of his fight with Perfect Cell. After being beaten around, Vegeta exploits Cell's ego and Blood Knight tendencies while charging up the Final Flash, outright daring Cell to test his Perfect form by not dodging the blast. Cell only survives the blast by dodging at the last second, and he still loses his right arm and a sizable chunk of his torso to it.
  Vegeta: CELL!!!! You have mocked me for the last time! You truly believe your power is far superior to mine?! HERE! If you have the guts to put it to the test, LET'S SEE IF YOU'RE PERFECT ENOUGH TO WITHSTAND THIS!!!
• Freudian Excuse:
  • The dub adds in that one of the reasons he served Frieza was essentially by blackmail, as Frieza demanded that he submit to Frieza or else daddy will die by his hand. Of course, Frieza ended up killing daddy anyways, along with most of his race. This is implied somewhat in the original, but with nowhere near the level of importance the dub suggests to Vegeta's motives.
  • His fear of Beerus comes from meeting him as a child... while Beerus was utterly humiliating his father, terrifying Vegeta. Super takes it up a notch by having Vegeta try to help his father and get stopped by the god.
• The Friend Nobody Likes:
  • In the late Frieza Saga and the Cell Saga, to everyone but Goku, Bulma and to a lesser degree Trunks — even if Trunks spends about as much time berating him as he did seeking his approval. It's so bad that whenever Vegeta gets hurt no one is in any hurry to heal him, even when he's demanding it, and it would be in their best interest to help him. When he first went Super Saiyan, the entire main cast all but groaned. After Vegeta was beaten unconscious by Cell, Krillin says point-blank that he didn't really care if he dies and is only helping him because Trunks believes in him.
  • Even in Dragon Ball Minus, his own fellow Saiyans didn't seem to like him too much. Bardock calls him a pain in the neck partner when he learns Raditz is paired up with him.
  • He's so bad about pissing everyone off that it wasn't until Super (almost twenty years after he first came to Earth in-universe) that all of the Z Fighters began to form anything resembling friendship with him, and even then only Goku, Gohan, their family, and Vegeta's family are completely open with liking having Vegeta around. Everyone else has a mutual Tsundere act going with him.
• Friendly Rivalry: It took a long time, but by the end of the Buu Saga, Goku and Vegeta's rivalry evolves into this. They even have petty rivalries like who can eat the most or cut grass the fastest, but now when the chips fall down it's clear they have each other's backs.
• From Nobody to Nightmare: A rare inversion when it comes to his allies even though he’s become infinitely more powerful, but when it comes to Frieza’s Empire this is played fully straight! He started out as part of an army that looked down on him and his entire race in terms of class and power. He wasn’t considered a threat or even worth killing when he betrayed them and everyone scoffed at him when he came to Namek thinking the weakest of their ranks could still deal with him with extreme ease. Come the Frieza saga, Cui, Dodoria, Zarbon, Guldo, Recoome, Burter, Jiece, and just about every other warrior who came with Frieza to Namek find themselves eating those words with most of them cowering and begging him for mercy before dying by his hands. By the ‘Resurection of F’ arc in ‘Super’ even Frieza gets a taste of this when Vegeta wipes the floor with him.
• Fury-Fueled Foolishness: Vegeta's Fatal Flaw, alongside his pride, is his wrath. When he gets angry enough, he gets extremely reckless, leading to humiliating defeats and exacerbating the problem.
  • When Cell kills Future Trunks, Vegeta goes Papa Wolf on him and attacks him with everything he has... only for Cell to No-Sell it and beat him into the ground. The only reason Vegeta lives to tell the tale is because Gohan took the bullet, which disabled his arm and severely bottlenecked his power, thus giving Cell the advantage.
  • This leads to a significant chunk of the Buu Saga happening; Vegeta was so furious that he was still second-best to Goku even after the latter had been dead for seven years that he doesn't hesitate to sell his soul to Babidi for a power boost, not caring that in doing so, he'd unleash Majin Buu.
• Genius Bruiser: When he completely swallows his pride and uses his head, he becomes this. He outsmarts Frieza's entire army on Namek and steals their Dragon Balls right from under their nose. It is also his plan that finally kills Majin Buu by using the Spirit Bomb and gathering energy from everyone on Earth. In Super, he finds a way around Magetta's seemly invincible defense by destroying a large chuck of the ring after dazing him with a Final Flash.
• Genocide Survivor: He's only of the few Saiyans left in the universe after Frieza destroyed their home planet.
• Genre Blindness: Despite his moments of intelligence, he has a few of these:
  • Because of his arrogance, he let Cell become complete and then muses about how Cell's final form isn't impressive and is smaller than before. Given that he is one of the smallest characters in the series and also a powerhouse, he should know better.
  • He does it again with Kid Buu, saying that his puny-looking size makes him looks much easier to handle. Although Kid Buu isn't as powerful as Super Buu at his strongest with Gohan or Gotenks absorbed in terms of raw power, he should know not to trust appearances.
  • Especially considering that he's experienced first-hand the power of Frieza in his final form, which was also smaller and slimmer than his second and third forms. Cell's perfect form is also not quit e as tall as the last two were. Nevermind how he, not being the tallest around, told the much taller Nappa what to do and started annihilating Frieza's men. He really should have known better, but it's likely just a product of his immense ego.
• Genre Savvy: Played for Laughs. In Super, when he and Goku face off against Arale from Dr. Slump, he says that Shōnen characters like himself are no match for gag characters like her. To his credit, he tries to adapt by fighting like a gag character, but it doesn't work out for him.
• The Glasses Come Off: Though it was not really glasses but a monocle-like scouter. Doing this, however, showed the audience exactly how dangerous he really was. And he only became even more dangerous when he stopped needing it at all.
• Golden Super Mode: His Super Saiyans transformation that were introduced in the original manga / Z anime.
• Godhood Seeker: Deconstructed. He spends much of the Frieza saga believing he's the destined "Legendary Super Saiyan." When that doesn't pan out, he starts thinking it's Goku. When he meets (pre-canon) Broly, the actual Legendary Super Saiyan, Vegeta temporarily loses the will to fight as he initially fears the power he coveted too much to try and stand against it.
• Godzilla Threshold:
  • After Vegeta is overpowered by Goku's Kaio-Ken X4 and Kamehameha combination, he decides to becomes a Great Ape to beat Goku. He doesn't like it since he sees the Great Ape transformation as a planet destroyer and he shouldn't need it to crush a lower class warrior.
  • When Vegeta hears that the Ginyu Force was heading for Namek, he immediately teams up with Krillin and Gohan to fight them. He even asks Krillin when Goku was coming since they needed the manpower.
  • As Frieza is transforming into his final form, Vegeta orders Krillin to mortally wound him so he can have Dende to heal him, which would greatly power him up and allow him to become a Super Saiyan.
  • Vegeta listening to Goku's pleas and fusing with him using the Potara Earrings, which is permanent, so they can beat Super Buu who absorbed his son and killed the rest of his family.
  • He put his pride aside to keep Beerus happy, going as far as to dance and sing.
  • In Super's Future Trunks Saga, he agrees to use the Potaras to fuse with Goku again to fight the Fusion Zamasu; he states he isn't happy with it, but he acknowledges they're out of options.
  • In the final saga of GT, upon ascending to Super Saiyan 4, he, not Goku, is the one to suggest performing the Fusion Dance to defeat Omega Shenron. Vegeta himself lampshades this, acknowledging that he wouldn't suggest doing so unless it was their very last hope.
• Good Colors, Evil Colors: When he was first introduced, Vegeta' Battle Aura was purple, which is the color usually used for evil characters in the series. After he becomes an ally to the Z-Fighters, his aura is changed to blue, which is the color of most of the heroes.
• Good Is Not Nice: Even after his Heel–Face Turn, he's still a grouch who snaps with rudeness at others pretty easily.
• Gone Horribly Right: He deliberately let Cell reach his perfect form for the sake of having a challenging fight. Cell proceeds to beat him senseless.
• Going Native: By Super, he has basically become completely accustomed to life on Earth. He ends up even having a much more normal marriage with Bulma than Goku does with Chichi.
• Good Costume Switch: Vegeta starts off wearing a full suit of Saiyan armor. As the series continues, and Vegeta gradually undergoes a Heel–Face Turn, he stops wearing some pieces of it, and by the time of the Buu arc he's just wearing the gloves and boots over the blue bodysuit. And at the very end of the series, once Vegeta has fully become a good guy and accepted the Earth as his home, he starts wearing Earthling clothes instead. He goes back to wearing the Cell Saga armor in Super, but he's also more frequently seen in casual clothing.
• Good Counterpart:
  • Frieza is an eviler version of Vegeta. Both of them are princes of their respective empires, born extremely powerful, commands the respect and fear of those around them, have lofty ambitions of ruling the universe for all eternity, are ruled by their pride of being the strongest, and are selfish, spoiled brats who will Rage Quit and cause highly dangerous destruction if things don't go their way. Vegeta gets better through character development and living on Earth. Through a series of trials, Vegeta eventually learns to put aside his pride for the sake of others and be thoughtful of those besides himself. Frieza, meanwhile, remained an unrepentant asshole-type (who, like Vegeta and other antagonists, talk more stereotypical villain trash in the FUNimation dub) who allowed his pride to utterly destroy him, three times. Frieza also serves as Vegeta's Shadow Archetype.
  • Cell, much like Frieza, is an eviler counterpart to Vegeta. Both love to fight and challenge themselves in battle. They are also both extremely arrogant and believe that there's nothing stronger than them and will throw a fit if that belief is proven incorrect. Their pride and arrogance becomes their undoing, first with Vegeta for letting Cell reach his perfect form for the sake of the challenge and Cell pushing Gohan over the edge so he could become powerful enough to challenge him. The difference, Vegeta eventually learns the value of life, family, and does becomes a good person. Cell remained a Jerkass personality to the bitter end.
  • Goku Black is another evil counterpart of Vegeta. Black's actions parallel the Saiyan prince's in his younger days, such as committing genocide and reveling in his ability to get stronger with each recovery. He also claims to take great pride in his race, but in practice disregards his kin. While Vegeta never got a chance to use the Dragon Balls, Black succeeded and became a greater threat than Majin Buu. The fact that his first victim happened to be Future Bulma really hammers the point across.
• Gratuitous English: In the Japanese version, he is the only major character to have English signature moves, namely the Big Bang Attack and Final Flash. Everyone else has Japanese-named techniques. According to Toriyama, this was done to make the alien Vegeta more exotic, or as he said in an interview, "to portray his foreign personality".
• Green-Eyed Monster: Towards Goku regarding his strength. This even got him to sell his soul to Babidi due to getting tired of being second best to Goku.
• Growing Muscles Sequence: Got a couple. The first time he ate a senzu bean and the first time he attempted to go beyond Super Saiyan against Cell. He didn't go USS so it wasn't as dramatic as Future Trunks'.
• Hairstyle Inertia: Much like Goku, Vegeta has the same hairstyle since he was a child. It remains in place even when wet. This is a racial trait of pure-blooded Saiyans. Their hair never changes. In GT, he's cropped his hair◊, but eventually goes back to a shorter version of his familiar hairstyle◊.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: He was always temperamental, but being bested or knowing Goku's better is usually what gets him the most mad. He almost blew up the planet over his blood being drawn by Goku. He is so bad tempered that whenever he he gets frustrated or upset at something or someone he becomes extremely irrational and will become very ruthless and more aggressive when he fights back.
• Happily Married: At first, he had "no interest in" Bulma or their son after he was born. But seeing Future Trunks die at the hands of Cell deeply disturbs him, and he tries to show more concern for his family afterwards. After the battle against Buu, he finally settles down with Bulma for real, and they have a daughter. When Goku talks about the deal he made with the Old Kai, Vegeta tells him 'let him kiss your wife, not mine!', indicating that they married after the Cell Games.
• Hard Work Hardly Works: A Deconstruction. Vegeta starts out wholeheartedly believing this trope, then is shown in spectacular fashion that he is wrong. He reacts to this by fully applying the work he once dismissed, only for the trope to to still play out as true for him relative to his personal goal... because he's been overdoing it to the point of obsession, consumed by said goal.
  • When Vegeta is first introduced, he fully believes that one's birth determines one's power. Since he is the Saiyan Prince he is, naturally, meant to be the strongest. He scoffs at Goku when he claims that a lower class soldier like him can surpass an elite through hard work. However, Goku, through the Kaioken multiplier, is still able to do significant damage to him, and a high-gravity training regimen in space after recovering from the damage of their fight tips Goku well ahead of Vegeta in strength. After seeing Goku be the one to ascend to the legendary heights of the Super Saiyan, Vegeta trains more frantically and harder than Goku and becomes a Super Saiyan himself, only to find that he still can't catch up to him. This is something that drives him crazy for most of his adult life. ^note In the Cell Saga, Goku and Gohan emerge from the Room of Spirit and Time (not even having the spent whole requisite year there) having once again surpassed Vegeta in power, who had spent the full year there previously. Vegeta goes back inside, spends another full year there training, and is still inferior to Goku, Gohan and Perfect Cell. In fact he gained what might look like so little power for all his efforts that later during the battle with the Cell Juniors, even a single Cell Junior is more powerful than him, and treats his (uncharged, and therefore much-weakened) ultimate attack like it's nothing. In Resurrection ‘F’, it's suggested by Whis that he trains too hard and doesn't allow himself to relax, keeping himself from reaching his full power. This is Truth in Television: overtraining, and stress, can hurt athletic performance. The other issue is whereas Goku gets good sparring partners and seeks out trainers, Vegeta largely trained by himself until this was pointed out, as he was just too proud to train with anybody. The only time he ever took on a training partner, and all the beneficial results thereof, prior to this was his own future son in the Time Chamber, and even that was begrudgingly.
• Hates Being Touched: Vegeta's ill-accustomed to physical affection. When he tried hugging Trunks, the gesture looked quite awkward and not the least bit loving despite his otherwise intentions. Later after beating Zamasu Bulma rushed in and hugged Vegeta, to which he shoved her away in alarm. When he saw Bulma was crying, he softened up and hugged her back in a more chaste manner.
• Hate Sink: In his earlier appearances, Vegeta was a despicable and sadistic douchbag who lacked empathy, had no morals, took glee in destroying up to entire planets full of innocents (including children) and was quick to kill and backstab his own comrades when they outlived their usefulness to him. As the series progresses, he grows out of it and changes for the better.
• Hated by All: For most of the franchise, nobody liked Vegeta, and given his arrogant, selfish personality, it's not hard to understand why. He was ostracized and insulted by Frieza's empire for being a Saiyan, and the Z-Fighters could barely tolerate him and somtimes mustered insulting him to his face, with Krillin coming right out and staying he wouldn't care one bit if Vegeta died; even Future Trunks, his own son, spent as much time berating Vegeta as he did seeking his approval. As revealed in Minus, not even his fellow Saiyans really liked him, with Bardock outright describing him as a pain in the neck. This has leveled off come Super after Vegeta got a healthy dose of Character Development, but even then, Goku, Gohan, and Vegeta's family are the only ones who are completely open with liking having him around.
• Haughty "Hmph": His arrogance and supreme confidence in his own skills are expressed through these, especially at the beginning of battles.
• Heavyworlder: Vegeta was born on Planet Vegeta, a world that had ten times the gravity of Earth, which partly explains why the Saiyans were so powerful. Both Nappa and he note how weak the gravity of Earth is and how they can move more freely. During the Buu Saga, Babidi tries to give his minion Pui Pui an advantage over Vegeta by sending them to Pui Pui's homeworld of Zoon, which also had ten times Earth's gravity... but it backfired because not only was Vegeta from a planet with similar gravity, he's also trained under 450 times Earth's gravity.
  Vegeta: Maybe... if your planet had five hundred times Earth's gravity, you'd have an advantage, but ten? I don't even feel it!
• Heel: During his fight with Cabba, he sets himself up as one. In order to push Cabba to his Rage Breaking Point, Vegeta draws upon his old space pirate self and verbally threatens to destroy Cabba's entire planet and kill his family once he kills him. This pushes Cabba over the edges and he ascends to Super Saiyan.
• Heel–Face Revolving Door: To sum up his alignment changes in DBZ: he's bad, he's starting to turn good (sort of), he's bad again (for a cup of coffee), he's generally good (for real).
• Heel–Face Turn: It took almost entire Dragon Ball Z to gradually become a somewhat pure good guy.
• Heel Realization:
  • He has a minor one after Future Trunks is killed. He realizes what an utter Jerkass he's been to his son, through a very angry reaction.
  • During the Buu Saga. The realization that his selfish desire to beat Goku allowed Buu to be revived and led to the apparent death of Gohan is quite the wake-up call.
• Hereditary Hairstyle: Same hair as his father, King Vegeta.
• Heroes' Frontier Step: Vegeta starts the series as a villain, becomes a Nominal Hero on Namek who only helps so he can become the Emperor of the Universe by killing Frieza, reluctantly helps Gohan finish Cell to avenge his son (also apologizing to Gohan when the roller coaster of danger very much was careening out of control there), then becomes evil again during the Buu saga out of resentment at his turn to good. In the end, he opts to pay for his mistakes and firmly becomes a heroic character after he sacrificed himself to kill Majin Buu, knowing full well that he was going to Hell for his past deeds; Piccolo himself notes that it's the first genuinely selfless thing Vegeta has ever done. He took it a step further when he swallowed his pride to fuse with Goku to stop Super Buu and admit that Goku was his better after so many years of denial. By the time all the good people are revived from Buu's massacre, Vegeta is shocked to find that he's among them.
• Heroic Build: When he started out as a villain, while he still was muscular, he had an overall skinnier build. As Character Development kicked in, he started getting more and more jacked. The more heroic he became, the more muscle-mass was added to his frame and by the time he fully reformed, his physique was comparable to Goku's. This is sometimes pointed out by fans.
• Heroic Sacrifice: He willingly kills himself trying to take Majin Buu down with him, all for the purpose of saving his son's life, knowing he would go to Hell afterwards where he'll effectively cease to exist upon reincarnating for all of the terrible things he had done in his life.
• Heroic Willpower: If Vegeta sets his mind on something, he's not going to let a little thing like someone else having control of every fiber in his body stop him. In the words of Babidi:
  Babidi: B-but this has never happened to me before! Since when can the possessed say "no" to the possessor?!
• Hidden Depths:
  • Despite looking like all he does is train all day and nothing else, Toriyama has said that his "bargain sale" line possibly came from something he saw on television. Likewise, Toyotaro drew him dancing his bingo dance from a workout video on television. So yeah, the prince of all Saiyans has some curiosity for Earthling's television, folks.
  • As the Battle of Gods arc of Super shows, he's skilled at making Takoyaki.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: He eventually develops one over the course of the series, despite his attempts to deny it. He takes Trunks to the park after he manages to hit him and is upset when Gohan is seemingly killed by Majin Buu. He also completely loses it when Beerus hits Bulma, going into a blind rage that boosted his power past Goku's. He's willing to utterly humiliate himself in order to protect Trunks and even grows to care for Goku as a friend, but hides it behind their rivalry. An episode of Super has him musing to himself whether it's alright for Bulma to be moving so much at that stage of her pregnancy. Another example is when Roshi is so exhausted that he's about to collapse, during the Tournament of Power. Vegeta tells him to leave the ring and get a Senzu Bean, but not in a condescending way, rather with actual concern. He then tells Roshi to leave the rest to him.
• Hoist by His Own Petard: During his fight with Goku on Earth, Vegeta created an artificial full moon necessary to transform himself into a Great Ape after the original was destroyed by Piccolo earlier in the year. That very same moon ends up being used by Gohan to transform into his own ape form needed to provide the crushing blow necessary to finish Vegeta off.
• Holding Your Shoulder Means Injury: While numerous fighters tend to do this in Dragon Ball after a brutal battle, Vegeta in particular tends to do this a lot, to the point of at least once per saga, as part of the trend of having Vegeta display more realistic injuries and usually to show that he has received one hell of an ass-kicking.
• Honor Before Reason: Much like Goku, though with a distinctly Saiyan-centric cultural influence to it. While Goku will allow his opponents to power-up or transform to their maximum power before fighting them, Vegeta will take it a step further and let his opponents eat another person to reach their full power, as he has done with Cell and Android 18. With that said, he is also more willing than Goku to be pragmatic, usually when his ego isn't out of control.
• Hope Bringer: To a lesser extent, he become this after becoming much more good, especially after training with Whis and becoming a Super Saiyan Blue. The heroes become quite distressed when he goes down in battle.
• Hope Spot: Vegeta loves providing these moments for his opponents by holding back ever so slightly and then when it looks like they're starting to turn the fight around, he crushes their hopes and then crushes them.
• Horrifying the Horror:
  • On both ends of this. On the one hand, Nappa, who had tanked everything the Z-Fighters had thrown at him before and caused the deaths of both Tien and Chiaotzu, is easily cowed by Vegeta merely raising his voice at him for questioning his orders. On the other hand, Vegeta himself made it a point to avoid direct confrontation with Frieza as much as possible, and was visibly horrified and shaking when Frieza finally caught up to him.
  • He manages it again during the Android Saga. Android 19 starts out completely confident since he and Dr. Gero had spent all their time analyzing the Z-Fighters' power and techniques, Vegeta included, and they can take anything they can dish out. By the end of his fight with Vegeta, during which he loses both arms, 19 is left trembling in fear before outright trying to flee from him in absolute terror, which Vegeta lampshades.
    Vegeta: I guess it's true after all. Androids do experience fear.
  • At least for a time, he inflicted this on Kid Buu. Buu had just beat the living crap out of Vegeta and blasted him into a crater, leaving him to gloat with laughter... until the badly-wounded Vegeta climbs out of the crater anyway, stating it'll take a lot more than that to kill him; Buu is shaking a little as he stares at Vegeta with shock, awe, and a bit of horror.
• Hot-Blooded: Even if it does lead to a lot of trouble for the protagonists, he still looks cool talking about the hurt he's going to deliver. He is almost nothing but pure anger, pride and bloodlust, at least until the end of Z. This trait seems to be the main attribute of the Saiyan race in general.
• How the Mighty Have Fallen: Vegeta's death to Frieza has elements of this. He's the Saiyan Prince and the strongest his race has to offer, reduced to tears before Frieza's power. After surviving a brutal beating, he is given an anticlimactic end by being shot in the heart and is reduced to begging a lower class warrior to beat Frieza.
• How Much More Can He Take?: Vegeta's endurance can prove absolutely unreal. Even (or rather, especially) when he's severely outmatched, Vegeta often takes some of the worst beatings out of anyone in the entire series, but it never slows him down until he's literally on death's door.
• Human Alien: Like most Saiyans. They look perfectly human other than their tails and can produce offspring with humans, though they do have extraordinary abilities (most notably, they can turn into a giant ape). Saiyans also age slower than humans. They have long childhoods, staying small and cute looking so they will be underestimated before quickly growing to their full adult height, and they stay in their prime until at least eighty.
• Humans Through Alien Eyes: When Android 17 kills Dr. Gero by stepping on his detached head, everyone, save Vegeta, is shocked. Krillin talks about how unbelievable it is that the android killed their own creator. Vegeta scoffs at them, saying that humans are the strange ones since "one should" kill anyone one doesn't like - its said to be not unusual to what he's seen, known to extend past his Saiyan kind.
• Humanity Is Infectious: His love for Bulma and Trunks really helped mellow him out, which caused him great angst in the Buu Saga, since he saw this trope as part of his in-universe Badass Decay.
• Humanizing Tears: Finding out that he's completely outclassed by Freeza knocks the wind out of Vegeta so hard that he burts into tears. At this point, anyone who was savoring his defeat found themselves sympathizing with him.
• Humble Pie: After suffering heavy Aesop Amnesia most of the series, and a Break the Haughty at least Once a Season, Vegeta receives one of these during the final battle with Kid Buu, acknowledging that Goku is better than him and always will be and making peace with that decision. Come Dragon Ball Super, he's still trying to surpass Goku, but his attitude towards it is much healthier and he manages to get much closer.
• Humiliation Conga: Happens at least Once a Season in Z.
  • He gets the crap beat out of him by Goku after he activates his Kaio-ken and deflects Vegeta's Galick Gun. Then when he regains his advantage by turning into a Great Ape, he gets his tail cut off and nearly killed by a Spirit Bomb. Just when he's sure he can kill everyone, Gohan turns into a Great Ape and lands on him just as he cuts off Gohan's tail. He's then left at Krillin's mercy and is only spared because Goku begs for his life.
  • When he reaches Namek, he easily kills Cui and Dodoria and steals one of the Dragon Balls. He then gets his butt handed to him by Zarbon. Although he eventually defeats Zarbon and steals Frieza and Krillin's Dragon Balls, Gohan steals the Dragon Ball he hid right from under his nose. Once the Ginyu Force arrives, he gets manhandled by Recoome. After all of that, he finally gains access to all seven Dragon Balls, but can't use them because he doesn't know the password and has his chance at immortality denied because the Namekian dragon dies before the wish can be granted. Frieza then arrives and beats and humiliates Vegeta before killing him in cold-blood. When he comes back to life, he learns that Goku became a Super Saiyan. He's really not happy about that last part.
  • In the Android/Cell Saga, Vegeta finally becomes a Super Saiyan and beats one of the androids without any problems. He then gets curb stomped by Android 18 and learns that there is an even more powerful android running around. After training in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber for a year, he becomes so strong that Semi-Perfect Cell can't even harm him, which goes to his head and he lets Cell absorb 18 to have a better challenge. Once Cell becomes perfect, he beats Vegeta effortlessly. Vegeta even trains for another whole year in the Hyberbolic Time Chamber and he is still inferior to Cell, Goku and Gohan, and is humiliated by one of Cell's inferior children during the Z-Fighters' battle with them. Vegeta never harms Cell again, even after he murders Trunks.
  • After seven years of training, Vegeta is stronger than Gohan, who has been slacking off. He then learns that Goku is still stronger, so he gives his soul to Babidi to bridge the gap and fight Goku one last time. Their battle awakens Buu, who seemingly murders Gohan, causing Vegeta to realize that he's made a terrible mistake. To make amends, he fights Buu, but can't do any lasting damage and is almost killed. He chooses to sacrifice himself to stop Buu, knowing that he will go to Hell because of his past deeds. His efforts utterly fail and he dies for nothing. He is semi-revived to fight Buu and has to fuse with Goku to even have a chance, something he hates. His actions also lead to Buu's pure evil form returning and Buu destroying the Earth along with his son. And to add salt to the wound, he performs even worse against Kid Buu then he did against Fat Buu, nearly being beaten to death, even when he's still dead. This final Humiliation Conga finally makes Vegeta a much more humble person.
• Hunk: Despite his short stature, he is ruggedly handsome and is ripped to the core, granting him a number of fan-girls.
• Hypocrite:
  • He's also Enraged by Idiocy and always badmouths Goku for saying or doing something stupid, and yet Vegeta's pride and arrogance, which borders on Lethally Stupid at its worst, constantly results in him making incredibly rash and idiotic decisions that always put the Earth in danger.
  • He berates Goku for fighting and going Super Saiyan when he's clearly ill. He makes a very good point and Goku was indeed foolish, but Vegeta is the last person who should be giving this lecture since he is known for going into battle when he's far from prime condition, like trying to fight Android 18 with a shattered arm.
  • He's left utterly stunned by how Mr. Satan doesn't realize his limits after being flung from the ring by Cell. He calls Mr. Satan's stupidity beyond belief. He is right about Mr. Satan overestimating himself and should realize how outmatched he is, but it's funny that this commentary is coming from a character who is infamously known for overestimating himself.
  • Vegeta is a Social Darwinist who firmly believes in the survival of the fittest, the stronger rule and survive over the weaker, and anyone who is killed deserves it for being weaker. Part of the reason why he is the Saiyan Prince is because he is the strongest their race has to offer. This mindset is never applied to himself when he isn't the strongest. When Frieza proves to be his superior, instead of accepting the outcome as natural selection, Vegeta has a mental breakdown before breaking down in tears. He also demeans and badmouths Goku, despite the fact that by his own standards Goku is his superior since he is the strongest Saiyan. He does get better and eventually drops the Social Darwinist mindset.
• I Am X, Son of Y: A variation: "I am Vegeta, Prince of the Saiyan warrior race!"
• Iconic Outfit: His typical ensemble is Saiyan armor over blue spandex, with white gloves and shoes, which he wears in the Android, Cell, and the majority of the Super sagas. When he's not wearing it, it's just some variation; In the Saiyan saga he was wearing Blue Spandex, but wore the traditional Frieza Force armor (with elaborate shoulderpads), and in the Frieza saga he wore a smaller, torso-only version of said armour, but over a black spandex. He only went with a blue muscle shirt and pants with the gloves and shoes but without his armor in the Buu Saga and the EOZ, likely due to the rules of the tournament restricting protective wear. In Resurrection ‘F’, both the movie and Super retelling, and the Champa Saga, he wears grey undergarments instead of blue.
• Iconic Sequel Character: He isn't introduced until the very first saga of Z, but he ends up becoming the second most recognizable character in the series aside from Goku.
• Icy Blue Eyes: Vegeta once he becomes a Super Saiyan. It isn't a real big change for him, unlike Goku and Gohan, outside of the change of eye color since Vegeta just becomes more of a cocky jerk when he transforms.
• Idiot Ball:
  • He drops a fairly big one during the Frieza Saga; when Krillin goes to Guru's to gain the password needed to activate the Namekian Dragon Balls, Vegeta decides to take a nap, not only disregarding the fact that Frieza could return at any moment, but also trusting Gohan to come and wake him up when Krillin returns. Although, it is somewhat justifiable since he was close to passing out because he's been awake for several days guarding his Dragon Balls from Frieza and the Earthlings.
  • In Chapter 13 of the Super manga, Vegeta lost 90% of his power when fighting Hit since he transformed too many times into Super Saiyan Blue, which severely sap his stamina. What makes Vegeta make an idiot of himself is that the transformation only saps stamina when transforming, meaning that Vegeta would've kept his power if just stayed transformed after showing off to Cabba. Since Vegeta trained Super Saiyan Blue for over four years, he should have known better. To be fair to him though, Frost was introduced as the emperor of the universe and the best hand-to-hand fighter in U6, despite being a comparative weakling who Vegeta wrecked easily when Frost was at full power and Vegeta was stuck to Super Saiyan 1. Frost's lower forms, Cabba, and Botamo were substantially weaker than even that. So he probably just thought that 10% of SSB would be more than enough to handle Hit, not knowing that Hit is the real World's Strongest Man of his universe. He had no way of knowing how ridiculously stronger Hit was compared to everyone else in his universe.
• I Gave My Word: Vegeta only gives his word to those he holds dear to his heart, hence giving his word is the closest he will ever get to openly admitting love for another being, as his immeasurable pride makes his word his absolute bond. Heaven help you if you hurt someone he promised to protect.
• I Just Want to Be Special: While already one of the most powerful fighters in the series, he has repeatedly fallen on this, from wanting to become a Super Saiyan to accepting a Deal with the Devil to surpass Goku. And in true Dramatic Irony, he gives up and accepts that Goku is better than him.
• Immortality Seeker: He was this until Frieza was defeated on Namek, then he lost all known desire to live forever.
• Immune to Mind Control: It's Implied that Vegeta's pride and Heroic Willpower renders him impossible to mind control; the implication comes from the only canon example of mind control being used against him in the Buu Saga, where he willingly let himself be subjected to Babidi's Mind Control sorcery to gain the power-up benefit that came with it as a sideeffect. His mind, however, was never under Babidi's control, and the moment he was given a command contrary to his own desires he successfully fought off the Mind Control part of the spell, keeping the power boost despite it.
• Impossibly Graceful Giant: In his Great Ape form, he is far more agile than his size would suggest (and not just because he retains his ability to fly). When Goku dodges one of his punches, Great Ape Vegeta spins his entire body around in the blink of an eye, nailing Goku with a kick. Goku even lampshades this in the Kai dub:
  Goku: Big as he is, he moves like a rabbit!
• Implacable Man: From the very beginning, Vegeta was an absolutely relentless foe. Goku had to multiply his Kaio-ken up to x4 just to be able to fight Vegeta evenly, and even after being hit point-blank by a Spirit Bomb, Vegeta's able to get back up and keep fighting. It's only through the sheer dumb luck of being crushed by Great Ape Gohan that he's finally forced to retreat, and even then, he vows to return.
• Inferiority Superiority Complex: To an absurd degree, he simply cannot accept people being more powerful than him. It all starts with him growing up under the crushing heel of Frieza. Then he goes to Earth and finds out there's a Saiyan stronger than him, even though he, being the Saiyan Prince, should be stronger. Then he goes to Namek and that same Saiyan comes in and shows he's even more powerful, then he dies at Frieza's hands. Vegeta wishes to become stronger, but because of his insecurities he doesn't seek out training partners that could help him advance the way Goku does. The result is that Goku remains one step ahead and this further fuels Vegeta's insecurities. He gets better by the time of Super.
• Inner Monologue: Despite not being the main protagonist of the series, it is Vegeta whose thoughts we are most often made privy to via his internal monologues. His monologues usually highlight the insecurities and chronic self-doubt that his pride would never allow to be spoken aloud.
• Insistent Terminology: Vegeta makes a point of always calling Goku by his Saiyan name Kakarot, because he believes that Goku should take pride in his Saiyan heritage. In fact, in GT, when Vegeta is possessed by Baby, Goku is able to tell right away that Vegeta is Not Himself because Baby-Vegeta calls him "Goku" rather than "Kakarot".
• Insufferable Genius: He is a brilliant fighter and tactician when he is calm. He also knows very well that he is very good and will remind everyone so they do not forget. Almost everyone, save for Goku and Bulma, finds him unbearable, but tolerates him since he really is as good as he claims most of the time.
• Interspecies Romance: With Bulma. She is a human while he is a full-blooded Saiyan.
• Irony: A pretty good source of it.
  • At the end of the Kid Buu Saga, it is Vegeta who comes up with the way to defeat Kid Buu by using the Spirit Bomb, the technique Goku originally learned to try and kill him.
  • Nappa suggested to have Human-Saiyan children to repopulate the Saiyan race. Vegeta disagreed on the grounds that they would beget children stronger than them. Later, Vegeta is the one to have children with a human.
    • Adding to the irony, Vegeta's offspring actually saved humanity when Vegeta himself only came to Earth to kill everyone, made clear for the above reasoning.
  • When first introduced, he scoffed at the idea that even a lower class soldier could surpass an "elite" through hard work. When proven wrong, he spends the entire series working trying to surpass Goku.
  • After his initial loss on Earth, he swears to return and exact his revenge by exterminating the planet. By this time he does, he has no interest in revenge or genocide. His new goal was to become a Super Saiyan, and he sought out Goku in space to learn how to do it.
  • After finally accepting that Goku was Always Someone Better, Beerus comes and becomes Goku's Always Someone Better. Twisting the irony knife Vegeta did better fighting Beerus then Goku did.
  • In the post Z stories, Vegeta finally gets within striking distance of Goku. He does this in both the movies and GT by swallowing his pride and accepting help from others. Things Goku himself had to do to gain those powers.
  • Despite being Always Second Best, Vegeta has never actually lost a fight against Goku. Partly because Goku would never bother fighting someone weaker than himself and partly because of extenuating circumstances.
  • Vegeta, the proud Saiyan who in the Buu saga boasted that his pride was the essence of his being and before that kept going on and on that concepts like mercy and love made you soft. He overcomes his limits (twice) and becomes a nightmarish force of nature in the Tournament of Power through The Power of Love.
• It Can Think: In his Great Ape form; unlike Goku and Gohan, who become rampaging, mindless berserkers, he retains his intelligence and higher reasoning as a Great Ape, and can even speak.
• It's All About Me:
  • He's easily one of the most self-centered beings in the universe; specifically around the Androids/Cell events, where he's so confident that he's invincible and could easily beat Cell no matter how strong he gets that he lets Cell absorb Android 18 and become perfect purely to stroke his own ego... only to lose pathetically against Perfect Cell, who even mocks him for his arrogance and self-centeredness. He returns to it again in the Buu Saga, where he forsakes his wife and son and allows Babidi to turn him into a Majin just so he could have the power to beat Goku; in this case, Vegeta was fully aware that doing so would unleash Majin Buu upon the world, but he was so fixated on being better than Goku that he didn't care. Needless to say, in both cases, he learns to regret it when Trunks is killed by Cell and when Buu is assumed to have killed Gohan.
  • Greatly subverted by the time Battle of Gods rolls around. He may still be fairly self-centered, but Vegeta will do almost anything to guarantee Bulma and Trunks' safety at least. Just don't tell him to dance again.
• It's Personal:
  • Vegeta's deep hatred for Frieza is almost unparalleled in a series full of personal conflicts. And that's BEFORE he finds out Frieza was the one who blew up Planet Vegeta and wiped out most of the Saiyan race.
  • He really hates Goku Black for Future Bulma's murder and targeting his future son. He has every right to be pissed.
• I Was Beaten by a Girl: Implied by Piccolo in the original Japanese text and the Kai dub. After losing to Android 18, Vegeta leaves in a fit of rage. Trunks wants to follow him, but Piccolo said not to bother since his pride has been crushed. Not only did he badly lose after achieving the fabled Super Saiyan form, he lost to a woman, adding extra salt to the wound.
• I Work Alone:
  • Vegeta absolutely despises getting help and will always insist on doing everything himself, fighting or otherwise. Vegeta will also always be the last character to offer assistance to anyone. He's the only character in the series that takes this beyond just having a fair fight, and will readily accept suicidal odds like fighting more than one person that is strong enough to be a threat to him, or trying to attack a fused opponent on his own. It's only when things get "the world will end" bad that he gives in, but he'll still complain about it non-stop. His stubbornness nearly wastes all the effort everyone put in to get him and Goku back to the world of the living to stop Buu.
  • It's actually so ingrained in his psyche that even when he decides to work together, he subconsciously cannot grasp synchonized motions in combat, especially with Goku. It's even to the point where Frieza, who wants to betray and murder them all when the ToP is all over, and Android 17, who had just met everyone sans 18 and Krillin the day before the tournament have FAR better teamwork with each other, even though he's been training and fighting alongside the Z Fighters for the last 10 years. The result was that Goku, Frieza and 17 pull off a nearly perfect strategy on the fly to beat a weakened Jiren in the anime's final episode, something Vegeta finds utterly shocking and wouldn't have been able to do.

J-N

• Jerkass Has a Point: There's no doubt about it, Vegeta has stood far enough in asshole territory. But more often than not, he provides more than a few good points or reasons:
  • His killing Burter and Recoome in cold blood after Goku defeated them. Goku states that Vegeta was being cruel, but Vegeta then retorts - in expansions past the manga - that their deaths were deserved, especially since Gohan and Krillin were on the verge of death, and that they had killed countless people under Frieza's orders. This is further emphasized later on when Goku spares their even more sadistic leader Frieza's life at least twice — which only prompts Frieza to try to stab Goku in the back both times.
  • After saving the heart virus-stricken Goku from being killed by Android 19, Vegeta proceeds to chew him out for it, reminding Goku that he was warned about the heart virus and should have known that fighting in his condition, let alone going Super Saiyan, would have only made it worse.
  • When Cell announces the Cell Games, Piccolo wants to train first in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber after Goku and Gohan leaves. Vegeta calls this a waste since the fight with Cell will be beyond any level outside the Saiyans, but mockingly allows Piccolo to go first. Piccolo's year-long training didn't amount to nearly as much as the gain received by Goku/Gohan/Vegeta. For a long time, no non-Saiyan Z-Fighter approached Cell's level of power. Even then, the Saiyans still have the overall highest potential to get stronger.
  • Although Vegeta was too harsh with Gohan about him getting weaker in the Buu saga and how his fight with Dabura was a "disgrace," he made a good point: Gohan was struggling against a foe that, seven years ago, he wouldn't have had such a problem with, and it was in their interest to beat these foes as quickly and efficiently as possible.
  • Vegeta gets another one in the climax of the Buu Arc when he calls out Goku for leaving his children to die while Kid Buu blows up the Earth, and choosing to rescue Mr. Satan and Dende instead. During the entire exchange, Goku has nothing to say in his own defense. Of course, Dende, Mr. Satan, and the dog proved instrumental to Buu's defeat but no one could have known that at the time.
  • Vegeta once again has a point that finishing off the unconscious Fat Buu was the safest bet despite Hercule insisting he was good. Seeing what happened because Bee and Hercule were shot, there's no telling what could happen in the future when they run the risk of repeating the same incident again.
  • During the Resurrection F arc of Super, Goku tells Vegeta how killing Ginyu was too extreme. Vegeta tells him he simply killed somebody who was too dangerous to leave alone. He likely would have tried to take either of their bodies, so it was definitely the right choice to end his life.
  • Vegeta becomes angry when Goku, as usual, played around with Goku Black instead of instantly killing him when he had the chance. This gave Black the opportunity to study Goku's fighting style and destroy the time machine, giving him the chance to become more powerful to the point where he could challenge Goku and Vegeta in their blue forms.
  • When Future Trunks, having seen the strength of Super Saiyan Blue, is prepared to just kick back and let Goku and Vegeta handle Goku Black, Vegeta lifts him up by the collar and furiously chews him out on his complacency, remarking that Black most likely won't be the only threat to his time that comes his way and he should always train to surpass his limits no matter the situation. Gohan and Bulma call him out on his harsh attitude but he insists it's "how Saiyans work" and Trunks himself takes his words to heart.
  • Come Super: Broly, Goku naively believes that since Frieza helped them during the Tournament of Power, this means that he'll no longer be evil and is now their friend. Vegeta calls him out on that and openly calls him an idiot, telling Goku point-blank that Frieza will never change Frieza, will never change and will always try to kill them. And he's proven right when he comes to Earth and sics Broly on them. While Goku and Vegeta are able to handle Frieza just fine in the movie itself, Vegeta's expressed fears that Frieza could surpass them both become fully realized in the Grandolah Arc of the manga when Frieza shows up with a new powerup as "Black Frieza" and dispatches the two with zero effort when both Saiyans were at the strongest they've ever been, having achieved both Ultra Instinct and Ultra Ego.
• Jerkass Realization:
  • When Future Trunks gets mortally wounded by Cell, Vegeta realizes how harsh he was towards him and wanted to avenge his death.
  • He has another one when he realizes just how powerful Buu was after he seemingly murdered Gohan. He even says outright he would never forgive himself and fought Buu partly to avenge him, stating this out loud.
• Jerkass to One: Pre-Character Development, he was a Crueler to One example. While Vegeta was enough of a bitter, cynical asshole who looked down on everyone in general and then slowly ebbed away from that, he was much ruder and nastier to Goku than he was to everyone else, unable to tolerate being Always Second Best to him since he's the Saiyan Prince while Goku is a low-class Saiyan born at the bottom of the pecking order. By the end of Z, he's gotten over it, and in Super, they're friendly rivals and Vitriolic Best Buds.
• Jerk with a Heart of Gold: In the Saiyan — Cell Saga, Vegeta is more of a definite and straight-up Jerkass. He's crossed the sadistic asshole line by finding fun in killing people weaker than him, bullying others to get his way, and he was a Bad Boss who would fatally explode his minions for failing. He also has a high rate of running his mouth on those who annoy him, with a dirtier mouth. The Funimation dub makes him even worse on a consistent basis across the series despite some watering down from them of how he became what he was. However, Vegeta starts becoming this trope in the Time Skip following the Cell Games of Dragon Ball Z, where he becomes a loving, if not distant, father to main timeline Trunks, and he's become more attached to Bulma. He also performs a selfless Heroic Sacrifice on Majin Buu later onward, and fights with Goku on friendly terms for the first time against Kid Buu, also fighting for the Earth for the first time. By the end of the saga, he finally got over most of his Jerkass tendencies and is a stark contrast to the callous, self-absorbed villain that came to destroy Earth years ago. This is best shown in Dragon Ball Z: Battle of Gods and Dragon Ball Super, where he swallows his pride and tries to please Beerus, and absolutely loses it when the Destroyer God slaps Bulma.
• Joker Immunity: Originally just intended as an Arc Villain, Vegeta's popularity caused him to survive his intended death and return to act as a supporting villain for the next major saga, surviving multiple brushes with death before he's killed by Frieza. And then he's brought back to life when a wish is made to revive all of Freeza's victims, and joins the main cast as the Token Evil Teammate for the series, with all the Plot Armor to be expected if he were one of the good guys. After a Face Realization in the final arc, Vegeta makes a Heroic Sacrifice that was once again intended to have him Killed Off for Real, but once again his popularity has him brought Back from the Dead again, but by this point he's made a full Heel–Face Turn so the trope no longer applies.
• Just Toying with Them:
  • During his fight with Goku in the Saiyan Saga, he enjoys toying with him at first, thinking Goku's just good enough to give him a decent challenge. But once Goku breaks out the x3 Kaio-ken and beats him around, Vegeta's done playing around.
  • In the Cell Saga, he toys with Semi-Perfect Cell at first, to the point he soon gets bored and stupidly allows him to become Perfect so he can get a better challenge. Once Cell reaches his Perfect form, he wastes no time returning the favor.
• Kamehame Hadoken: His Galick Gun and Final Flash.
• Karma Houdini: Zigzagged. In terms of the overall story narrative, he comes off as a massive one, getting a spot on the team and marrying Bulma despite having spent most of his life as a genocidal, remorseless maniac and even committing plenty of outright murderous and Jerkass deeds even after he became a nominal ally to Goku and the Z Fighters. On the other hand, when he gets ready to blow himself up to kill Buu, he asks Piccolo if he'll see Goku in the afterlife, to which Piccolo replies that he's certainly going to hell for his past actions. He would have, if they hadn't decided to revive him because he was too useful to waste. Also, he doesn't entirely fit this category in the purest sense because he usually does tend to pay very dearly not long after he's done something either murderous, stupid, or douchey, getting beaten to an inch of his life (or occasionally getting outright killed) by characters like Zarbon, Recoome, Frieza, Android 18, Cell, and Majin Buu usually after he's done something like massacring innocent people or just something outright stupid like allowing the enemy to reach his full potential.
• Kick the Dog: He does this so often throughout Z that he might as well have had puppies tied to his shoes.
  • His speech to Gohan in the Frieza Saga about Goku's supposed death on Namek.
  • He has one much earlier with him kneeing Goku while he was down, right in front of Gohan when they were having a tender moment.
  • After Yamcha was killed by a Saibamen, Vegeta tells Krillin to clear the trash from the battle. Cues Krillin's berserk reaction.
  • He knees Gohan in the stomach on Namek for little reason but to be a dick, he even says he normally would've killed him if he wasn't in a good mood.
  • Punches Dende in the gut immediately after being healed by him for nearly letting him bleed out despite the fact Dende had every right to have reservations.
  • After Shenron revives all of the Namekians who were killed by Frieza and his men, the ones Vegeta killed are not revived as Vegeta was no longer one of Frieza's men; Vegeta outright laughs over this.
  • When Dr. Gero/Android #20 escaped making an energy wave attacking Bulma and Present Trunks, Vegeta didn't even bother trying to rescue them. When Future Trunks called him out on it, he responded he doesn't care about them.
  • Earlier, after saving Goku from Android 19, he finishes chewing Goku out for fighting with the heart virus and making it worse by literally kicking Goku over to Piccolo.
  • He punches Future Trunks in the gut for attempting to warn him about the dangers of 17 and 18, being vocally dismissive of anything Trunks has to say on top of that.
  • He later insults and strikes Future Trunks for attempting to prevent Cell from becoming perfect, not long after boasting about his son's strength to Semi-Perfect Cell, showing the comment was about his ego.
  • Again with Future Trunks, Vegeta gives Trunks a hard elbow to the gut for the crime of asking to help his father when he struggles against Bojack.
  • Also in the episode "Vegeta's Pride" when he effectively nukes numerous spectators in the World Martial Arts Tournament's stands just to get Goku to fight him.
• Kick The Son Of A Bitch:
  • His killing of Nappa is a mix of both this and Kick the Dog. Nappa had to have been at hand in the slaughter of countless effective innocents, got most of the 'Z-Fighters' killed, and nearly foot-smashed Gohan while laughing about it. But on the other hand, Nappa had been nothing but loyal to Vegeta and clearly believed that they had some sort of Villainous Friendship, his shock and fear right before his death causes even Goku to be outraged.
  • Given that Dodoria ruthlessly murdered several Namekians, personally killed Dende's brother, Cargo, and is just as sadistic as Frieza, not a tear was shed when Vegeta killed him
  • Given that 19 had previously participated in the destruction of an entire city full of innocents it's hard not to cheer for Vegeta when he rips his arms off.
• Kick Them While They Are Down: Vegeta loved doing this, especially during his days as a villain:
  • Vegeta brutally murders Nappa after he gets his back broken by Goku and is asking Vegeta for his help.
  • While Goku and Gohan are having a tender moment with Goku trying to encourage Gohan to fight Vegeta, he flies down and knees Goku in the stomach before rapidly kicking his head. Keep in mind, Goku is crippled since he had all his bones broken and is defenseless. In the dub, Vegeta even brags that the key of being a good villain is to find the right moment to do this.
  • Goku defeats two members of the Ginyu Force very easily, leaving them lying on the ground unconscious or in serious pain but still alive, not killing them even though they came very close to murdering his son and best friend (and also Vegeta). As he and his friends discuss the events on Namek, Vegeta suddenly murders both weakened fighters. Goku chews him out for this, saying they were no threat and couldn't even defend themselves but Vegeta (unsurprisingly) doesn't care.
• Knight of Cerebus: While King Piccolo's arc was dark, his defeat was a fairly simple matter of a 1v1 kung-fu fight and the damage he did was all undone by the end of the arc. He also had Laughably Evil and Pet the Dog moments in regards to his children. The arrival of Vegeta and his minions altered the tone significantly from the 23rd Budokai arc, a trend that stayed for a long time. The Saiyan arc remains to date the most serious arc in the franchise, with a brutal and hopeless tone and next to no comedic elements at all (even the Cell arc had Mr. Satan).
  • Previous villains usually had world conquest on their minds. Vegeta is introduced having already "exterminated" what could be countless planets worth of people. Unlike the people killed on Earth by the Red Ribbon Army and Piccolo, the vast majority of Vegeta's victims remain dead. Vegeta also brutally kills his own minions and due to his Social Darwinist philosophy, which visibly shocks the heroes, even Goku, who is no stranger to brutal villains at that point. He doesn't even share the other Saiyans' perverse sense of camaraderie.
  • Vegeta's the first villain that the latest plot power-up doesn't work on. When they do come up, Vegeta (or sometimes his minion) just beats the shit out of them and keeps going, with a single-minded desire to murder his opposition. The main hero admits defeat and is utterly unable to beat him. He spends most of the fight crumpled on the ground with Vegeta occasionally walking over to kick him in the ribs. Every hero who isn't already dead ends up beaten to shit by the time Vegeta is forced to leave. It's only by the pure luck of Oozaru Gohan falling on him that they finally manage to repel him, and even then, it's a Pyrrhic Victory that ends with most of the cast and roughly a city's worth of Earthlings dead.
• Knight in Sour Armor: He was more willing to fight with the good guys once the Android and Cell Arc began but was still very bitter, angry and hostile towards the protagonists, especially Goku. And his elitist view on how a Saiyan should be never changed even if it went against his own son's wishes and even if it created more problems than solutions as far as the plot went.
• Lack of Empathy: Prior to his Heel–Face Turn. Up to that point, the sheer extent of his cruelty disturbed even brutal Saiyan warriors like Nappa and Raditz. He coldly murdered his partner Nappa who asked him for help and refused to consider bringing Raditz back because he was unneeded for getting himself killed. He also laughed when the Namekians he killed weren't wished back because of how the wish was worded. Even when he wasn't technically evil anymore, he still doesn't give a clear damn about anyone but himself, including his own son from the future until said son was mortally wounded for him to really lose it. It wasn't until the Buu Saga that he would allow himself to show any empathy towards people and it's mostly because he became begrudgingly fond of them, which he saw as a weakness and was why he gave himself to Babidi. By the end of the series, he ''finally'' learned to truly care about someone other than himself.
• Lame Comeback: In Funimation's dub, to Android 18. "Sad for you!"
• The Lancer: After the Frieza arc, acting as a foil to the other protagonists.
• Large Ham: His ham level is OVER 9000!!!
• Laser-Guided Karma: Happens at least once per season of Z:
  • He creates a fake moon to turn into a Great Ape and nearly crush the life out of Goku. He is done in by Gohan turning into a Great Ape and nearly crushing him to death.
  • Vegeta loves to terrorize the people he fights by overwhelming them with his power and bring them to despair before they die. This is exactly what Frieza does to him before coldly murdering him.
  • He ignores Trunks' warnings about 17 and 18's strength, as well insulting and dismissing all the Z fighters during the appearance of the androids and being drunk on his newfound Super Saiyan power. He's immediately curb-stomped by Android 18.
  • He helps Cell to become perfect so he can have a better fight. He is promptly and mercilessly beaten up. Cell even toys with him, the exact same way Vegeta did to him earlier. In fact, the Funimation dub of the episode where he gets his ass kicked by Perfect Cell is actually titled "Vegeta Must Pay", which works as a double meaning: Vegeta pays for betraying his allies and Cell gets his revenge.
  • And probably the most vicious dose of karma of all, Vegeta sold his soul and killed thousands of people to get Goku to fight him. Not only is he not enough of a match for Buu, who he helped awaken, but Goku is still much stronger than him. Meaning he literally sold out his family, friends, and his own convictions for nothing. Even worse, when he is semi-revived, he is of no use to Goku power-wise outside of being fusion fodder and a distraction since he stands no chance against any form of Majin Buu. It's little wonder why Vegeta became more humble.
• Last of His Kind: After Goku's death during the Cell Saga, Vegeta became the last pure-blooded Saiyan in the universe (if you don't count Tarble, Broly, and Paragus).
• Leeroy Jenkins: When not using his head, he rushes into everything. Best displayed during the climax of the Cell Saga; after Cell regenerates From a Single Cell, returns to Earth, and kills Trunks, Vegeta goes full Papa Wolf on him, unleashing a vicious attack on him without warning. Cell promptly retaliates, beating Vegeta senseless, and Gohan has to save him from being killed, suffering a broken arm in the process.
• Leitmotif: Appropriately named "Hell's Bells".
• Lethal Chef: In Super, Vegeta, Prince of All Saiyans, cannot cook to save his life. He can't even break eggs without the stupid things shattering in his hands. The only thing he can cook is instant ramen noodles. Bulma even lampshades this trope though Vegeta quickly points on how she has no grounds to stand on this:

Bulma: (after seeing Vegeta fail to crack one egg into the bowl) Give it up Vegeta! We both know you never cooked a rice omelette in your life!
Vegeta: (Slightly enraged) You got some nerve criticizing my cooking skills Miss Microwave Dinner!

• Lethally Stupid: His overwhelming pride always manages to cause trouble for the universe. In this order, he goaded Frieza into transforming, let Cell absorb 18 and reach his Perfect form for the sake of a better challenge, and deliberately became one of Babidi's Majins to fight Goku despite full knowledge that it would resurrect Majin Buu. In all three cases, a planet ends up exploding^note first Namek, then King Kai's world, then the Earth itself, and in the case of Frieza and Buu, Vegeta got himself killed.
• A Lighter Shade of Black: Serves as this to Frieza during the Namek Saga. Both are truly evil forces with plans on conquering the galaxy, with Dende even remarking Vegeta is hardly any better Frieza, but Vegeta nonetheless has a warrior's sense of pride, Villainous Valor, and is willing to work with the Z-Fighters against a common threat, while Frieza at his best is far more sadistic and cutthroat than Vegeta at his worst, and a Dirty Coward to boot. In fact, this is the entire reason Krillin agrees to make Vegeta immortal using the Dragon Balls, because while Vegeta is undoubtedly a monster, Frieza is just that much worse.
• Lightning Bruiser: Vegeta in his Great Ape form. He's as tall as a skyscraper and his power increases ten times over, yet he maintains his speed, making him both big and fast. He's also insanely fast when he decides to pull out any Super Saiyan form against an opponent.
• Little Bit Beastly: Like all Saiyans, Vegeta had a monkey tail when he was introduced, which he wrapped around his waist like a belt. He lost it after Yajirobe cuts it off.
• The Load:
  • Zigzagged. While he does do some useful things and is a highly competent fighter, his arrogance, stubborness and insecurity causes a LOT more problems than he fixes. He's actually responsible for every major story arc in the series. He was the Big Bad of the Saiyan saga, indirectly tipped Frieza off about the Dragon Balls, let Cell absorb Android #18 so he could fight his perfect form, and agreed to Babidi's mind control to fight evenly with Goku, resulting in Buu being released. He usually makes up for it afterward by helping out against the Big Bad but oftentimes, it's his mistakes that made the confrontation necessary in the first place. He finally gets out of this habit in Super, only for his disaster-causing trait to get passed on to Goku.
  • The movies manage to avert this: While he does act unhelpful and uncooperative at times, he still contributes to every fight and manages to actually do good in some cases.
• Lord Country: Exaggerated. Vegeta was the prince of the planet Vegeta which his father, King Vegeta, ruled over.
• Love Is a Weakness: Part of the reason he let Babidi turn him into a Majin during the Buu Saga: he believed his love for his wife and son was hindering his goal of surpassing Goku. He later realizes he had it backward; it was his goal of surpassing Goku that hindered his love for his wife and son. Ironically, this realization and subsequent lifestyle change ends up getting him closer to Goku's strength than ever before in Super.
• Lunacy: The Oozaru transformation. He's at his strongest under a full moon. In the absence of one Vegeta can transform by creating a "false moon" but doing so drains his might so he really does not get the full power boost.(ideally, another elite warrior would make a false moon and let his fellow soldiers do the fighting, but as Zarbon emphasized, that strategy is no longer valid thanks to Frieza)
• Made of Iron:
  • While he may not win all of his fights, Vegeta is notably the biggest tank in the series. It takes nothing less than a punctured heart or him blowing himself up to kill him... and occasionally, not even those may be enough!
  • A great example comes during his first fateful showdown with Goku, specifically the end result of their Beam-O-War. Vegeta takes the brunt of what was up to that point the most powerful attack in the whole series (Goku's Kaioken x4 Kamehameha), which overwhelmed his own self-proclaimed Earth-destroying Galick Gun and sent him flying into the sky, and he not only survives but is more pissed off than anything else with only moderate injury. Compare this to another character who took multiple Earth-destroying attacks over the course of his arc (Perfect Cell against Super Vegeta's Final Flash, Super Saiyan Goku's Instant Kamehameha, and Super Saiyan 2 Gohan's Kamehameha to counter his own planet-destroying Kamehameha), and he lost entire body parts that he needed to regenerate.
• Magic Pants: Unlike Goku and Gohan, his clothing remains intact when he transforms into an Oozaru. Presumable, Saiyan clothing is made to grow with its wearer when they transform.
• Mana Drain: During the Galactic Patrol arc in the Super manga, Vegeta trains with the people of Yardrat to learn an ability that he can use to defeat Moro. This ability is called Forced Spirit Fission, and allows him to forcibly remove the stolen energy Moro took from people by essentially punching it out of him and promptly gets it back to those from whom he stole it. Being able to disrupt Moro's power is instrumental to defeating Moro, as otherwise Goku wouldn't have had the chance to destroy his weakness. It turns out it works in reverse, allowing him to channel Ki into Goku so he can get a second wind to land the killing blow.
• Manipulative Bastard:
  • He's quite cunning when he's not letting his arrogance or rage get out of control. Particularly in the Namek Saga; he bordered on magnificence there. When he returns late in the Buu saga, he acts more intelligent and useful despite being much weaker than Buu, Goku, or Gohan.
  • Note that he went into that conflict knowing beforehand that he was hopelessly outclassed on several levels in terms of battle strength (in other words he came in with a humble perspective from the get-go), and his second most cunning moment (at the end of the Buu Saga) came just after he finally admitted to himself that Goku was the better warrior. In short, the cunning gets turned on when the arrogance gets turned off. The Cell Saga and early parts of the Buu saga, on the other hand, is a case study of Vegeta letting his arrogance get the best of him. It gets so bad it verges on Too Dumb to Live territory.
  • He has another rather clever moment in the Super manga, during the fight against Fused Zamasu though he's hardly the later part of the trope here. He intentionally hits every single Berserk Button Zamasu has (talking about how he's a false god who no one will bow to) in order to provoke the mentally-unstable powerhouse to come after him. Then he begs Zamasu to kill him after he predictably gets curb-stomped. As it turns out, this was part of his plan to buy time. Exactly as he predicted, Zamasu denies the request and instead in his rage says he's going to torture Vegeta to death slowly, which he proceeds to get started on, giving Trunks more than enough time to grab Goku and apply his Healing Hands.
• Manly Tears: When he's telling Goku how Frieza used the Saiyans and killed them off despite their blind servitude. In the first dub this included enslaving Vegeta via threatening to murder his father if he didn't work for him... and doing it anyway.
• Master-Apprentice Chain: Amazingly, he has one since he trained Future Trunks after training under Whis for almost two years: Whis > Vegeta > Future Trunks
• Master Race: He feels that the Saiyans are the greatest, most powerful race in the universe and that they have the right to take Frieza's place as rulers of the universe. He isn't too far off since Saiyans have powers and abilities that gives them the edge over many species, which includes their transformations and their inborn fighting potential. By the end of the Kid Buu fight, he gains a better opinion of other species, though he still sees the Saiyans as the strongest race.
• Meaningless Villain Victory: During the Namek Saga, he successfully forces Dende to make a wish to Porunga to make Vegeta himself immortal, but right before Dende finishes making the wish, Guru, the creator of Porunga, dies of grief at the death of his people, taking Porunga and the Namekian Dragon Balls with him; thus, Vegeta doesn't get his wish.
• Medium Awareness: In episode 69 of Dragon Ball Super, Vegeta quickly realizes to his horror that Arale is from a Gag Manga series, and therefore the standard combat tactics of a Shounen Battle Manga series is useless against her.
• Meteor Move: A frequent user (Ginyu, 19, Cell, Fat Buu, Hop) and victim (Zarbon, Cell).
• A Million Is a Statistic: While the rest of the Z-Fighters might dislike him for how he tried to kill them all, and other actions like letting Cell absorb 18 or joining up with Babidi, it's remarkable how seldom anyone ever brings up the literally billions of people he'd have murdered for a couple decades, roughly, while he was working for Frieza in Saiyan extermination raids. This is mostly because it's Offscreen Villainy that they may or may not even be directly aware of. They're rather more serious about the mass murders that they do know about - namely, his massacre of a Namekian village and the time he blew a large hole in the Budokai Tenkaichi stands. The latter victims were revived, and the former weren't - initially.
• The Millstone:
  • His desire for a good fight often makes things harder on the others. Cell wouldn't have been a threat at all if Vegeta had simply stepped in and helped Goku kill Androids 19 and 20 before the heart virus became an issue. Failing that, he still had the chance to rush Gero before he could release 17 and 18. Then he helps Cell absorb 18 in order to become Perfect Cell purely for the sake of a good challenge.
  • In the Buu Saga, it is his fault that Buu was revived since he had to fight Goku no matter what. They were close to putting Babidi away and needed only to beat Dabura who even a rusty Gohan could have eventually beaten.
• The Mind Is a Plaything of the Body: Subverted. He is the only Saiyan shown to have complete control over his Great Ape form, while Goku and Gohan lose themselves to its primal wild traits. In supplemental material, it's stated that elite Saiyans train to control their transformations. As a Super Saiyan, Vegeta's personality is left mostly intact, although it furthers his arrogance Jerkass.
• Minor Injury Overreaction: During the Saiyan Saga, when he discovers that Goku gave him a bloody lip, he absolutely flips out and tries to blow up the Earth.
• Mirror Character:
  • Vegeta and Goku, eternal rivals. Both are thrill-seeking Saiyan warriors always looking to test, expand, and overcome their limits. While Goku is a cheerful man who cherishes others, greatly values his Earthly upbringing, and was born weak among commoner parents, Vegeta is a rough, arrogant prince who initially cares only for himself, and was born very powerful and heir to the throne of his planet. However, under Goku's influence, even Vegeta comes to proudly defend Earth and their friends.
  • To Frieza during the Saiyan and Namek Sagas. As much as he hates Frieza, Vegeta is quite similar to him in many ways, particularly in his sadism; he refused to even consider reviving Raditz for being a weakling, killed Nappa in cold blood for losing to Goku even as Nappa begged him for help, did the same to a Saibamen for losing to Tien, and slaughtered an entire Namekian village, children included, with a Psychotic Smirk on his face when he would nto have had it hard snatching the ball and leaving. Dende even initially refuses to heal him for this reason, openly stating that Vegeta is no better than Frieza.
• Missing Mom: Like most other Saiyans, his mother is never shown nor mentioned.
• Moral Myopia: He despises Frieza for destroying his planet and driving the Saiyan race to the brink of extinction. This is despite Vegeta being a Space Pirate who destroyed a number of species to sell planets and for some fun, as well as the fact that Vegeta not only killed his longtime partner Nappa for losing to Goku, but blatantly refused to even consider using the Dragon Balls to resurrect Raditz because Raditz was an apparent weakling. Dende even states outright that Vegeta is much like Frieza.
• Motivational Lie: He tells Cabba that he will destroy Sadal after hunting down his family and killing them one-by-one to motivate him into becoming a Super Saiyan. Naturally he was lying, but Cabba was so sure Vegeta was going to do it that he went Super Saiyan out of sheer anger.
• Motive Decay: When Vegeta was first introduced he wanted to use the Dragon Balls to wish for immortality and rule the universe after he killed Frieza for years of enslavement. Although he was upset with Goku for 'beating' him on Earth, fighting him wasn't his primary goal, seeing Goku as more as an annoyance or a pawn to his end goals. After Namek, Vegeta lost all desire to rule the universe and live forever. Instead, he becomes completely obsessed with surpassing Goku. Some of this could be motivated by the fact that it was Goku who beat and humiliated Frieza and became the super saiyan Vegeta had been so desperately trying to be, while he, the Saiyan Prince, was given a dog's death and reduced to begging a lower class warrior to avenge him.
• Mr. Fanservice: His well toned body is sometimes the focus in the anime, with some scenes showing him shirtless or naked - and unlike Goku, whose shirtlessness is frequently dependent on him being on the receiving end of a beatdown, Vegeta is often shown without any kind of damage or bruises, such as after taking a shower.
• Mugging the Monster: On the receiving end of this, essentially. When Vegeta is at the tournament waiting for his match, a guy walks up to him and constantly berates him. Vegeta then knocks the guy out towards a wall with an Offhand Backhand.
• Must Make Amends:
  • This is his primary reason for choosing to fight Majin Buu alone, partly because he was responsible for Majin Buu being revived in the first place and Gohan apparently being killed by the monster, and partly because he wants to make amends for Goku dying during the Cell Games since, in letting Cell absorb 18 and become Perfect because of his own Pride, it was his fault the entire mess with Cell got so bad.
  • His reason for being so active in stopping Moro in the Galatic Patrol arc of the Super manga is because he wants to atone for all the Namekians he killed years ago when he first went to the planet. Vegeta almost name drops this trope when Moro questions why he would do so.
• My Dad Can Beat Up Your Dad: Inverted. After Trunks wins a match to Goten, Vegeta rubs this in Goku's face.
• My God, What Have I Done?:
  • After letting Cell absorb #18, he has this reaction when he realizes just how powerful Perfect Cell really is.
  • Similarly when he realizes that Buu (who was only released through Vegeta's actions) has killed Gohan (or so Vegeta thought) and that Vegeta is no match for Buu either.
• Narcissist: Big time. He has a hard time believing that anyone could be stronger than him, despite all the times he gets his butt handed to him. It's literally not until the end of the series that he admits that Goku is his better. He still keeps this trait afterward, but he's much less of an ass about it and can readily acknowledge when someone has him legitimately outclassed. But even then it only serves as motivation for him to become even more powerful and believes that with more work he will become the best.
• The Napoleon: Short and perpetually filled with rage is Vegeta in a nutshell. The only adult male in the main cast of Dragonball who is shorter than Vegeta is Krillin who is notably small and stands at just above half the height of most of the other adults. If one doesn't count Vegeta's ridiculously spiked hair, he's less than half a head shorter than his wife Bulma when she's wearing heels - though the opposite can be true, for that depends on the drawing.
• Necessary Drawback: The Final Flash is powerful enough to present a serious threat to Perfect Cell, despite Cell being so much stronger than Vegeta at that point it was borderline ridiculous. Given the size of the beam and the amount of damage a glancing blow did, it likely would've vaporized Cell and ended the arc prematurely had it hit cleanly. But it also took most of an episode to charge up, time Vegeta was able to get by appealing to Cell's Blood Knight tendencies and daring him to try and No-Sell the attack. Cell realized at the last second that it was an actual threat and tried to dodge, but still lost an arm and a good chunk of his chest. Later against a Cell Jr., Vegeta tries skipping the long charge-up sequence but this makes the attack much weaker and thus ineffective.
• Never Gets Fat: Like Goku, Vegeta is a Big Eater, but he still keeps his muscular physique every time he's on screen or page.
• New Powers as the Plot Demands: The innate ability to sense energy is meant to be quite rare in the series, hence why Frieza's entire army (and even Frieza himself) utilize scouter devices. Vegeta relied on a scouter when we first meet him — although he knew not to trust them entirely — yet by the Namek Saga he randomly gains the ability to sense energy all on his own. However, he isn't as good at it compare to the Earthlings. In Battle Of Gods he gains a power boost through anger, something no saiyan other than Gohan had done before besides their initial super saiyan transformations. In Super, he learns Super Saiyan Blue off-screen by training with Whis and, unlike Goku, he gained god energy without the ritual.
• Nigh-Invulnerability: The only heroic character that rivals or even surpasses Goku in durability without a healing factor. The difference between them is how their damage is usually portrayed. Sometimes, Goku takes a lot of punishment with no visible effect on him outside of minor annoyances or pain. Vegeta's battle damage is shown more realistically with him bleeding, limping, coughing up blood, and limbs broken. None of that stops him from getting back up and fighting. His endurance frightened Kid Buu, who showed no fear of anything outside of the Super Spirit Bomb, and he also takes several hits from Beerus when even Goku went down in two hits. Just how invulnerable Vegeta really is was demonstrated in episode 128 as Jiren literally beat the ki out of him, and he kept getting back up. No matter how injured, or close to death, not once did Vegeta stay down.
• '90s Anti-Hero: A classic example. Started off as just another psychotic villain, but evolves into this trope during the Frieza and Cell sagas. Even after becoming a fuller-on good guy in the fight against Buu, he still retains a shred of his former badassery, such as punching out his opponent for mouthing off to him at the World Martial Art Tournament.
• Nice Job Breaking It, Hero:
  • A significant chunk of the problems in Z can be traced back to Vegeta:
    • The entire reason Frieza transformed in the first place during the battle on Namek is because Vegeta was stupid enough to goad him into doing so, thinking he wouldn't get that much stronger. He's proven wrong in the worst possible way.
  • Vegeta's actions in Cell Saga led directly to the Cell Games, and ultimately Goku’s second death. During the Cell Saga, he deliberately let Cell absorb 18 people and become perfect for the sake of a good and challenging fight. While beating him up, Cell even rubs in Vegeta's face how stupid he was to help him.
  • After Trunks was murdered by Cell, Vegeta goes on a Roaring Rampage of Revenge. His efforts not only did nothing to Cell, but nearly got him killed. He only survived because Gohan shielded him from a fatal blast that disabled his left arm and reduced his power by half.
    • The entire reason Majin Buu was awakened in the first place is because Vegeta deliberately let Babidi turn him into a Majin so he could have the power to fight Goku, and the subsequent fight provided the energy Buu needed to revive.
    • By pulling down the pod that held Fat Buu, Vegeta caused the deaths of Gohan, Goten, Trunks, Piccolo, Tien, and Chiaotzu and the destruction of Earth by transforming Buu into his pure evil form.
  • A smaller example happens in Super, where before the Tournament of Destroyers, Vegeta insists upon a written test so it can prove all the fighters aren't just idiots. Majin Buu was disqualified from the Tournament of Destroyers because he fell asleep and misspelled his own name, and Goku barely managed to pass the requirement.
• No Badass to His Valet: Vegeta is a hardcore warrior who even when tamed often has a bad, jerkish attitude. He is also a Physical God second only to Goku. To Bulma, Vegeta is her pigheaded husband and will yell at him to get him to do what she wants (which is an exact reason why she gets away with it; Saiyans like strong-willed women).
• No Challenge Equals No Satisfaction: As an unrepentant Blood Knight, he loves a good fight and fighting people that can push his limits. Unlike Goku, however, who enjoys fighting people who can beat him, Vegeta only wants his opponents to be strong enough to give him a reasonable challenge before he decides to stomp them into the ground (before his Character Development, at any rate). This can be seen when he fights Goku on Earth. At first, he enjoys toying with Goku since he assumes that he's only strong enough to give him a decent battle, but as soon as Goku begins to overpower him, he completely loses it. Also, when he fights Semi-Perfect Cell, he quickly becomes bored after knocking Cell around for a few minutes and complains about how Cell is so unworthy that he can't fully test his new power. Cell takes advantage of this and tells Vegeta that if he becomes complete that he will easily beat him. Vegeta allows Cell to absorb Android 18, assuming Cell will only become strong enough to give him a good fight, not that he can actually beat him.
• Nobody Calls Me "Chicken"!: Calling him a coward is a major Berserk Button. In Broly: The Legendary Super Saiyan, Piccolo doing or implying so is enough to snap him out of his shock and attack Broly.
• Noble Demon: Became this by the end of the Frieza arc. Whilst he still wasn't a remotely nice person but by the slighter implications, he wasn't anywhere near as evil as he used to be.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: He experiences this at least once per season.
• No Hugging, No Kissing: Implied to be subverted in Super. When Future Trunks bites a Senzu and gives them to Future Mai via kiss, Goku was surprised that Senzu could be shared that way. Vegeta's responds, "But you're married!".
• "No More Holding Back" Speech: During the final battle with Kid Buu, Vegeta has a long internal monologue in which he comes to terms with Goku being better than him. After spending most of the series resenting Goku for this and trying to surpass him by any means, Vegeta finally lets go of his grudge. The best part, by him letting go he gains the ability to almost bridge the gap between them:
  Vegeta: Amazing. How do you do it, Kakarot? You've always been like this, ever since the day I first met you; always ready to meet the next challenge, even if it's bigger than you are. It was the same on Namek, you had improved so much that it made Recoome like he was standing still. Your power had increased so dramatically since our battle on Earth that I thought you had done it, I thought that you had become a Super Saiyan! It tore me apart! How could a low-class soldier accomplish so easily what I... I had to struggle my whole life to achieve!? After three millennia, it has finally happened; a new Super Saiyan has emerged, and, somehow, I have become this pauper's witness. Then at last, it happened. I too transformed. After living every moment of every day for the singular purpose of surpassing you, I finally became a Super Saiyan myself, the Prince had reclaimed his throne and fulfilled his destiny. But no matter how strong I became, your power still exceeded mine. At first, I though it was your loved ones; that it was your instinct to protect them that spurred you on and pushed you beyond your limits. But then I found myself with a family of my own, and my power... didn't increase at all. I used to fight for the sheer pleasure of it; for the thrill of the hunt, oh I had the strength unmeasurable... I spared no one. And yet, you showed mercy to everyone, even your fiercest enemies, even me! Yet, you never fought to kill, or for revenge. Only to test your limits and to push yourself beyond them, to become the strongest you could possibly be. How can a Saiyan fight like that and at the same time be so gentle that he wouldn't hurt a fly? It makes me angry just thinking about it! But, perhaps it is my anger that has made me blind to the truth for so long. I see it now, this day has made it all too clear. You're better than me Kakarot. You are the best.
• No-Nonsense Nemesis: When he's not letting his pride get the best of him, he becomes this. He unhesitatingly and successfully kills the Ginyu Force members after Goku disabled them, and in Resurrection ‘F’, right before laying the smackdown on Frieza, he flat-out states that he's nowhere near as merciful as Goku and won't give Frieza the chance to walk away alive. When fighting against Goku Black, he pulls out all the stops and immediately hits him with his full power, driven by his desire for vengeance after all the things Black has done to his future family.
• No Social Skills: Vegeta doesn't seem to know how to not be extremely rude, threatening, or by the end, how to stop hurling insults at people who bother him. By the time Dragon Ball Super happens the Z Fighters know not to take his constant rage personally and that he's either just being honest or doesn't want to admit he enjoys the company. Other than Goku, who has even less social skills and bothers Vegeta constantly, everyone else knows to give him some space and let him interact with others at his own pace.
• No Sympathy:
  • One of Vegeta's main character traits. When Yamcha dies from a suicide attack from a Saibamen, he orders Krillin to pick the trash from the battlefield. Even after he slowly become somewhat good, he laughs about the Namekians he killed not being wished back because he wasn't one of Frieza's men and regularly demeans the cast for being less powerful than himself and likely to be useless. It is not until near the end of the Cell Games that begins to show any empathy towards others.
  • Goes hand in hand with being The Friend Nobody Likes, especially during the Android/Cell Saga. Outside of Trunks, Gohan, and a lesser extent Bulma, none of the Z-Fighters cared when he's injured or in danger. Even when he's asking for Senzu, they are in no hurry to give it to him and Krillin admits that he doesn't care if Vegeta's dies. After the seven year timeskip, they do become more fond of Vegeta and mourn him when he dies to defeat Buu.
• Nominal Hero: Goes through this phase as part of his slow but eventual Heel–Face Turn, starting in the Namek arc as a Villain Protagonist seeking to overthrow his former master, and in the Cell and Buu arcs, defending Earth, but only for his own selfish reasons. After his death and subsequent pseudo-revival in terms of coming back to Earth for one day, he fights for the Earth for the sake of defending it for the first time and officially moved to Good Is Not Nice by the end of Z.
• Not Brainwashed: He let Babidi turn him into Majin Vegeta for the power-up that comes with being turned into a Majin. He hoped that it would allow him to recapture the feeling of his days as the Evil Prince and finally have a chance to defeat Son Goku.
• No Brows: Finally achieves a form with this look during his fight with Granolah, achieving a counterpart to Ultra Instinct he refers to as Ultra Ego.
• Not Quite Dead: He got hit point-blank by Goku's Spirit Bomb and was sent flying into the air before he landed back down to Earth. Everyone thought he was dead. He wasn't. Yajirobe also thinks he killed Vegeta when he cut the the man's armor and collapsed, once again, he wasn't.
• No-Respect Guy: While in Frieza's army, Vegeta by all accounts was very competent and completing the assignments given to him by Frieza, yet no one respects him or takes him seriously in the Frieza Force, talking to him as if he was a second class citizen. In fact, everyone's first instinct is to insult him even after he defects rather than take him seriously as a threat.