It really does. It is his lot in life to always be just close enough to Goku that he can reasonably step up to fight Goku's opponent first, but never close enough to actually win.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.19 was the setup. The punchline was #18.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.I still wish Vegeta killed Freeza in Res F. At least, the first time. The body can survive in vacuum for about 30 seconds, and with ki they can evidently extend that slightly. What with Pan going into space, and Goku, and Bardock maybe unless the Broly movie forgets that part was actually in the manga.
Technically the upper atmosphere I guess, but. The Earth's atmosphere wouldnt just vanish instantly, I think. Not an expert, but.
I just. I love the image of Freeza gloating in the empty space debris, soundless because there's no air, in space noone can hear you scream for five episodes straight, Vegeta killing him by vaporizing him, then turning to look at Bulma in Whis's bubble, locking eyes, tears streaming down/up/off Vegeta's face and instantly freezing, and then he finally dies.
It'd be tragic, cool, visually spectatular in the way that ugly-ass movie wasn't, and sure it'd still be undone by Goku saving the day with Whis's do-over, but still.
Toriyama doesn't seem to be interested in something like that.
I mean, he insists on having Goku not actually win anymore (though it really worked well in the movie version of Battle of Gods), but he still wants everyone else (especially Vegeta) to fall short.
So basically, no one accomplishes anything in Dragonball anymore.
...Well, I'm probably being overly cynical about it, and someone will point out examples of why I'm wrong...which is good, because that's why I come here honestly.
One Strip! One Strip!I mean, honestly, part of it is that I'm really irritated by the implication that Freeza would have walked away from that alive.
Whis's do overs and bullshit to fix the Earth and all the dead people and all that is one thing, but I want Freeza do be dead and lose no matter what.
I want Freeza's quest for revenge for his previous defeat to always end in a miserable failure, with no even possible chance for success.
If Freeza goes after Earth and Goku he always goes back to Hell.
If he could grow up and get over himself he could keep being an evil bastard in, like, not only his entire universe but also like 10 whole other universes (not Universe 11, obviously, fucking Jiren) but because he keeps fixating on his past defeats he can't.
"They say the best revenge is living well" is a saying Freeza doesnt learn.
Freeza having a successful outcome without the do-over just feels wrong to me. Fundamentally. That's bad storytelling and bad writing in my book.
Like. Hell, if you dont want Vegeta to do it, have Beerus scowl at some dust that landed on his ice cream, have him scowl, snap his fingers, and cut to Freeza gloating and then suddenly disintegrating.
Its not just that I want Vegeta to have a win there, its that I want Freeza to always lose there. Even if Vegeta doesn't deserve the win in that moment, Freeza definitely doesn't.
EDIT: It's honestly more jarring in Super, when you see the lengths Beerus goes to in his competition with his brother just to have Earth's food.
There is no chance Beerus would let Freeza walk away from that, do-over or no.
Freeza died again the moment he landed on Earth, he just didn't know it yet. Even Vegeta, prince of all failures, shouldn't be able to fuck up enough to give him that victory.
That's the line in the sand I wanna draw.
Edited by unnoun on Nov 10th 2018 at 1:38:27 PM
@unnoun: Vegeta's tears wouldn't freeze, they'd boil. A regular human can also survive for about a minute or so in a vacuum with minimal long-term effects, if memory serves, so Vegeta could probably go for a hell of a lot longer.
Let the joy of love give you an answer! Check out my book!It's closer to 15 seconds. At that point a person in a vacuum would lose consciousness.
Actually, never mind. Everywhere I look they seem to give a different number for how long you can survive in a vacuum, going from 15 seconds to a minute. I guess there's no hard data because it's never happened to anyone under laboratory conditions.
Edited by WillKeaton on Nov 10th 2018 at 1:21:16 PM
Stupid laws and morals and stuff getting in the way of science!
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I mean, people seem to be able to fight in a vacuum in this series for longer than 15 seconds, unless it's actually Namek time or something.
Maybe ki can let you keep up a small oxygen barrier temporarily or. I dunno. Hold your breath for longer.
With how weak Freeza was when he blew up the planet, and how strong Vegeta still was, I'm not sure it matters is my point. One Garlic Gun or Big Bang or Final Flash to do the job.
That doesn't make sense...19 comes after 18.
Rules of the Internet 45. Rule 45 is a lie. Check out my art if you notice.Yeah. The fact that he still went to hell in Buu shows he never really stopped being evil.
Though in terms of craftiness, I can see how Vegeta changed. Namek Vegeta was smart, pragmatic, and used his head...up until he was backed into a corner and convinced himself he had become a Super Saiyan.
Post Namek Vegeta...well, this is the guy who let Cell become Perfect to give himself a challenge. Can you picture Namek Vegeta doing that? No, but then again, Namek Vegeta knew what he was up against, knew where he stood, and knew what he had to do to fix that.
Cell Saga Vegeta thinks he's at that point he was trying to get to during Namek, and he's legitimately more powerful...but other assholes keep showing up and telling him Ha ha! Even when you win, you still lose!
So he keeps trying to build himself up, and technically succeeds, so the other guy not only breaks him down, but builds themselves up higher.
One Strip! One Strip!It's not about moral alignment, it's about personality and presentation. Cell and Buu arc Vegeta is still extremely evil, yes. But he's also an idiot jobber who flies off the handle at the slightest annoyance. The original Vegeta was calm, collected, cunning, and Faux Affably Evil. He's presented as an outright Physical God the likes of which were never seen in the galaxy (nothing could stop him bar pure luck), who was so powerful and cruel that the most powerful warrior race considered him to be the Anthropomorphic Personification of their planet, and who was born so extremely merciless that it horrified even his fellow Saiyans. The Namek arc somewhat retconned his Saiyan arc self but you could still believe they were the same character put in different situations. The Cell arc, Buu arc, and Super incarnations are just unrecognizable.
Edited by Kamiccolo on Nov 10th 2018 at 2:02:10 AM
You do remember when he flew into a rage at Goku beating him and tried to blow up the entire planet just to win a fight...well ok, he wasn't actually trying to blow up the planet, just creating a situation where Goku had to tank the blast to protect the planet.
He wasn't really that calm and collected. He flipped out as soon as someone showed they were as strong as him.
One Strip! One Strip!He flipped out and then adapted. He's in Dissonant Serenity mode for most of the rest of the fight.
But that's kind of the point in and of itself: Vegeta in the Saiyan arc was very obviously someone who was not used to being challenged. It was literally inconceivable to him that there was anyone approaching his power, the greatest in the universe. He wasn't arrogant for the sake of it, but because there really was no one anywhere near as strong. His later appearances retcon that into him being a Fearless Fool / Dumb Muscle.
Edited by Kamiccolo on Nov 10th 2018 at 2:19:19 AM
That's more a change in circumstances than personality.
Vegeta in the Android arc is also pretty convinced that there's no one out there who can match his power, save for Kakarot. It's where his arrogance stems from. The only real difference is that in the Android arc, he's wrong.
Namek's actually the odd man out in terms of Vegeta's characterization. Frieza is the only adversary who has ever made Vegeta humble before Beerus. Vegeta goes into the Namek conflict knowing full-well that he absolutely cannot win a fight with Frieza. His entire game plan is built around keeping away from Frieza's unparalleled power.
It's only when he's backed into a corner with nowhere to go that Vegeta has to use false bravado to cope with how f*cked he is - and even then, he tries on one occasion to flee the field in terror and at another point has Krillin blow a hole in his chest out of a desperate last-ditch hope of exploiting his Saiyan genes.
With Frieza, Vegeta is crafty, under-handed, and goes out of his way to avoid a fight he can't win rather than blusteringly assuming he just can. Which is remarkably different than how he behaves in any other scenario.
My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.That question about surviving in the vacuum of space got me intrigued so I looked it up. Only three people have ever died in space.

This sums up his whole character, really.
Vegeta's pretty much the reason the humans fell out of the limelight. In any given Dragon Ball conflict, there are two roles needed: Goku and someone to get the shit beaten out of them to set up how cool it will be when Goku wins.
And it's just so much more satisfying to see Vegeta eat dirt than Tenshinhan or Piccolo or Krillin, because we like those guys. Seeing Vegeta get broken down and/or humiliated is satisfying because he's a total asshole, so he pretty much just took up the Worf role full-time.
Edited by TobiasDrake on Nov 10th 2018 at 9:42:00 AM
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