Well, Tobias convinced me somewhat, but I'm still more convinced that these kind of things being in character for Vegeta is a coincidence rather than a deliberate thing on Toriyama's part.
Once again, I acknowledge that I may be selling him short, but for a guy who tosses characters under the bus once he believes they've served their narrative purpose, it's hard to believe he planned that out for Vegeta.
One Strip! One Strip!It makes sense.
Getting out from under Frieza's thumb was Vegeta's driving motivation. He wanted immortality so that he could be the most awesome badass in the universe forever and not have to fear that Frieza's going to step in and murder him with his left thumb. His entire rebellion was dedicated not to avenging his race, but to surpassing Frieza.
Then Goku defeated Frieza and that was that. Everyone assumed Frieza died in space - well, until Frieza arrived on the planet, but he was killed shortly after. This is a very complicated time for Vegeta. He never really had any plans for what he would do once Frieza was no longer a guillotine blade hanging over his head other than "Be the most awesome guy in the universe forever." He's free of Frieza's control, but he never actually surpassed Frieza. Worse, Goku did. Vegeta's still not the biggest, most awesome guy in the universe. Goku is.
So Goku became Vegeta's new Frieza. Lacking anything else to do with his life, Goku became his new objective to overcome. The new target to hit, the new foe to surpass, the new life goal.
The funny thing is, he kind of imitates the person he's trying to beat. When he was against Frieza, he was all, "Imma blow up this Namekian village too. Frieza doesn't have a monopoly on genocide! I can slaughter Namekians too!" and when he was on Earth, he was all, "Imma start a family with humans and produce half-Saiyan sons too. Kakarot doesn't have a monopoly on half-breed families!"
edited 10th Nov '15 11:00:42 AM by TobiasDrake
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.Him and the rest of the Uchiha really. It's almost eerie how much the Uchiha really just feel like a whitewashed Saiyan race.
Basically every wrongdoing Uchiha in Naruto is a Karma Houdini, which is a far cry from how the Saiyans were depicted.
Vegeta is a good character because the narrative knows he's a douchebag and uses this fact to its advantage for everything from fight scene tension to family drama to comedy. And I think this is what Sasuke and other sub-par imitators don't get: they want to have both a Vegeta and a character you can root for and empathize with, failing to understand that those two things together result in a character that's just a chore to watch/read about.
Something can be popular without actually being good.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!That's might be due to his part one incarnation, who was arguably more sympathetic (even if he was still kinda a douche).
You know, when he was actually slowly but surely moving away from revenge, before his jackass brother returned and screwed all that up.
One Strip! One Strip!And then said brother was retconned into being Good All Along.
Sorry for being off-topic but the point here is there's a good way to use a character like Vegeta, and Sasuke wasn't one of them.
...you know that's a good point. I assumed there are other things in Naruto to like that aren't Uchiha related, but by the end of the manga everything relevant or likable was Uchiha related.
So, I guess the real answer here is Sasuke and the Uchiha were just written in a way that cause a Broken Base.
It's mostly off-topic anyway so I'll drop it.
I only cared about the difference, or lack thereof, between Sasuke and Vegeta. I mean, yeah, I like Vegeta more than Sasuke, but I'm not convinced they're treated all that differently.
edited 10th Nov '15 12:03:52 PM by Soble
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WAHN PAWNCH!
Sorry, I wanted to.
Both characters got their asses handed to them quite a bit. Sasuke's treatment by his former friends/allies isn't that far from how Gohan/Goku/Bulma respond to Vegeta.
edited 10th Nov '15 10:45:45 AM by Soble
I'M MR. MEESEEKS, LOOK AT ME!