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ginnyzero · 4 years

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An Unlikable Protagonist Case Study: Vegeta

Okay, okay, there are going to be people who disagree with me that Vegeta is a protagonist. Surely, he’s an anti-hero or something similar. And we can debate over Vegeta’s place in the Dragon Ball Z, Super and let’s everybody forget GT exists universe. What we can’t argue is that from his introduction in Dragon Ball Z to the end of the Z series and now into Super, Vegeta has become a major character outstripping all of the characters originally introduced in Dragon Ball including his own wife, Bulma. A character with perhaps the most well rounded character arc in Z.

That in my mind makes him a protagonist. And while we’re supposed to like protagonists, not all protagonists have traits that are at first glance likeable. But it is possible to take a person with negative character traits and have the audience like them, even if in Vegeta’s case at first it was for his sheer badassery. “Hello Cui, Good Bye, Cui.” So how did this happen?

Well, they gave Vegeta a character journey while still keeping his essential stubborn, proud, arrogant, cold character traits.

Vegeta was originally written as an antagonist. His goal was to come to Earth, collect the dragon balls and then wish for immortality. And the way he was presented, filler or not, showed him to be a ruthless and evil person. (How ruthless and evil depends on if you feel Arlia is canon.) He declared cold heartedly that he wasn’t going to bring Radditz back from the dead, even though Nappa said that he would do so if he had a wish to use, despite the fact that Radditz had told the others that the saiyan race was mostly dead.

Vegeta wanted immortality. And at this point in the series, we didn’t know why. But those who wanted immortality were generally not considered good guys. So, given the way the confrontation with Radditz ended, the Dragon Warriors weren’t expecting Vegeta and Nappa to ask and say please. They prepared for a fight because they believed that Vegeta would destroy their planet on his quest to get the Dragon Balls.

Granted. They weren’t wrong. Even more so if you feel that Arlia is canon.

It’s clear from the beginning that we aren’t supposed to like this guy. He’s pretty selfish, arrogant and extremely cold. And the fights that follow when he and Nappa come to Earth solidify this as Vegeta pretty much demands the dragon balls, let’s Nappa and the saibamen run roughshod over the dragon warriors killing many of them.

So when Goku arrives and proceeds to break Nappa’s back and tells Vegeta to leave, Vegeta killing Nappa is supposed to solidify in our minds that Vegeta’s an evil bastard. It takes a combination of Goku, Krillin and Gohan and a timely slice from Yajirobe to defeat Vegeta.

Then Goku asks Krillin to let Vegeta leave. Now, depending on when AT was asked about this, Goku’s motivations are twofold. Originally, it was “there but by the grace of Kami, go I.” and then later it became “This guy is so strong! I want to fight him again!” I’ll leave you to decide which is in more character for Goku. (Given the Frieza Saga, I lean towards number 2 myself.)

Vegeta pretty much goes vowing to return and kill Goku.

The plot intervenes as Vegeta had found out that after Nappa killing Piccolo, the Earth Dragon Balls were dead, but Piccolo wasn’t a demon, he was an alien from Namek and now, there might be Dragon Balls on Namek and Vegeta’s owner, Lord Frieza, has gone to Namek to collect them for himself.

So, Vegeta (and some of the Dragon Warriors) goes to Namek with the intent of collecting those Dragon Balls to again wish for immortality. But, we now know that Vegeta is in rebellion against Frieza. For a good portion of this part of the story, Vegeta remains on his own side. He ruthlessly kills the supporting soldiers of Frieza and even kills several villages of Nameks himself when they won’t give him the dragon balls.

He remains arrogant, cold and pretty much insufferable. His emotional armor very rarely cracks. It doesn’t even crack when Dodoria reveals to him that Frieza killed his planet. But, at this point, we know enough about Frieza that the viewer might start feeling a bit more sympathetic towards Vegeta. (And to be honest, he hasn’t been coming off as completely rational since the fight against Goku.)

It takes the arrival of the Ginyu Force, a squad of soldiers much more powerful than all of them for Vegeta to decide that maybe the enemies of my enemies are my friends and join forces with the Dragon Warriors. (And hey, that blue haired chick is pretty hot.) Even with the three warriors working together (though Gohan is like five and can be forgiven here), the Ginyu Force has them outclassed and almost kills them before Goku shows up.

Goku tries to be merciful to them.

Vegeta kills them after Goku breaks their backs. Then scolds Goku about how the one had almost killed Gohan, Goku’s son, just moments ago. In the dragon warrior’s eyes, this makes Vegeta evil! Vegeta is pointing out that mercy is just going to get them killed again. And if they don’t have the spine to kill Recoome and Burter, he will.

Then Captain Ginyu changes bodies with Goku and Vegeta has to go out of his way to get Goku his body back (putting Ginyu into a frog) and while Goku is recovering, they manage to collect most of the dragon balls before Frieza and after wrangling a promise out of Gohan and Krillin not to do anything until he wakes up, Vegeta decides to take a well-deserved nap.

And Krillin and Gohan gather the rest of the dragon balls and make their wishes anyways reviving Piccolo and bringing him to Namek. Thus, betraying Vegeta. (Vegeta puts his trust in someone that claims they’re good people and they betray him. I’d be pissed too.)

Of course, Frieza doesn’t take this well and it throws them into a fight against Frieza that without immortality, despite Vegeta’s significant power boosts, Vegeta’s not ready for it. And though he manages to get Frieza to transform into another form or two and Frieza confesses to killing Vegeta’s father the King, Vegeta still dies.

And then Goku shows up.

And Vegeta finally breaks. He’s been chasing this dream of turning Super Saiyan and defeating Frieza and avenging the saiyan people, but he’s dying and now Goku is going to have to do it. This is significant. Proud Vegeta finally has a second of humility. So, he dies. Goes to Hell for a few minutes. Is brought back to life by the dragon balls, sees that Goku has succeeded in turning into a Super Saiyan and is then wished to Earth where he has to suffer the humiliation that Goku managed all of this and manages to kill Frieza when he couldn’t. (And he doesn't know how Goku didn't. To be fair, I don't think Goku knows how he did it given the way he trains Gohan later.)

Vegeta is the harshest critic of himself.

But on the bright side, despite losing his purpose of “kill Frieza,” the pretty blue haired woman invites him to live with her, as long as he doesn’t touch her. What’s interesting to note is that Vegeta doesn’t kill Bulma. He doesn’t destroy Earth. And when the dragon balls are regenerated and able to use, he doesn’t insist on getting a wish for immortality.

The story skips ahead and depending on if you feel filler is canon, Vegeta does or doesn’t steal a space ship and goes looking for Goku for a year after he finds out that Goku survived the destruction of Namek. Nothing of interest really happens until Frieza arrives with his father King Cold and the mysterious teenager from the future warns them about the androids.

And suddenly Vegeta has a purpose again. Sure, he still wants to defeat Goku and now he has more urgency to become a super saiyan and there are stronger enemies on the horizon to pit his strength and abilities against. He demands Bulma create him a gravity machine that can go up to 300Gs and starts obsessively training.

And somehow enters a relationship with her that results in one baby boy.

Once the time is up and the warriors reconvene (3 years being 3 episodes) he’s still portrayed as an arrogant selfish ass who wants nothing to do with his son; toddler or from the future. Insists that he’ll defeat the androids and then Cell, gets over confident and pretty much guarantees the end of Earth and the death of Goku.

But there are glimpses that underneath this that Vegeta is changing. He grudgingly admits that Trunks is stronger than him and is his son. And when Trunks dies at the hands of Cell, he goes ballistic and tries to kill Cell then and there.

As much as Vegeta doesn’t want to he’s changing.

In fact, after the Cell Saga, the next time we see him, he and Bulma have married and they’re settled as a family. Vegeta seems almost content.

Then he betrays them, allowing Majin Wizard Babidi to take control of his mind and switches sides to take on the returned for a day, Goku. He claims to view his affection for his wife and son and his settling on Earth as a weakness. Fortunately, this doesn’t last long and Vegeta throws off the mind control, admits to Trunks that he is proud of his son, actually hugs him and then tries to kill Buu by suicide basically.

Obviously, this doesn’t work. The fact that Vegeta resorted to sacrificing his own life in order to try and save Earth shows how far he’s come from the man who was going to destroy it the first time he came. His self-sacrifice and openly admitting his feelings is where most viewers agree that Vegeta finally redeemed himself.

He returns for his one day to help Goku and the others to defeat Buu by merging with Goku. (An action he despises.) Evil Majin Buu is destroyed and Vegeta is wished back to life.

The next time we see Vegeta in any chronological timeline is Super. (Because we’re pretending GT doesn’t exist remember.) Dying twice, once at the hands of an enemy and once of his own choice, has seemingly given Vegeta some needed perspective. He still hates mostly everyone but his wife and child. (Seeing no difference between the Bulma of his timeline and the Bulma of Future Trunks’ timeline.) But he’s also willing to go to extreme lengths to protect them. (Taking blows and almost dying again in order to protect Future Trunks from Goku Black.) He’s also more intent on finding his own limits while still one upping Goku instead of desiring to kill Goku.

Maybe rivalry is just a healthy mindset among saiyans. (The lack of world building for saiyans is wincingly bad. It’s not until Super that Vegeta casually mentions that Saiyans like strong willed women in an aside to Goku. Mostly, it seems to get a rise out of the listening Piccolo. “That explains everything.”)

Vegeta still insists on figuring things out on his own. Letting Goku go through the ceremony to become Super Saiyan God to fight Beerus, even though Beerus hurt Bulma. (And Vegeta attacked him screaming about “my Bulma” surpassing Goku for a moment.) He then trains to achieve the Super Saiyan Blue state on his own merits. Causing Goko to admit that Vegeta would always be stronger than him because of Vegeta’s persistence in not taking short cuts.

So, by the Tournament of Power, even if you don’t like Vegeta, even after all this time. You can still root for him to succeed in the tournament and to master his limit break in order to meet the Saiyans of Universe 6.

Because Vegeta has clearly changed.

Vegeta started out as an antagonist, one that killed others and planets without a care and revealed little of his mind and true feelings to others, especially those in power over him. He died and because he had nothing left to lose, he shared the pain he’d lived with to Goku. He showed vulnerability. Then, he was granted a second chance. It took time and for a very long time he was very focused on his own goals and agenda of ‘ascend to super saiyan and kill Goku’ due to his stung pride that he remained an arrogant ass, but at least he was willing to be a helpful arrogant ass. (For the most part, I mean, allowing Cell to become perfect was clearly a bad idea all around. In character for Vegeta, still a bad idea.)

Then Goku dies and he has to calibrate his life and he figures out that having a woman and child isn’t a bad thing even if part of him sees it as weak. And he does give into that part of him, and then later rejects that they're weaknesses and he does love them finally truly redeeming himself. From that point forward, Vegeta is more committed to the defense of Earth and his wife and son than chasing his own goals. He even forsakes training to help Bulma during her second pregnancy because she asks him to.

Writing a good unlikable protagonist is writing their journey and putting glimmers of hope that they can become a good person. (Though Vegeta will always be an untamed badass.) The path shouldn’t be smooth and the path needs a clear ending where they are redeemed. They have to show vulnerability. They have to show “weakness” in order for the viewers/readers to believe they’ve truly changed.

And that’s what happened, intentionally or unintentionally with Vegeta’s story arc through Dragon Ball Z and into Super. He may not be a likeable person. He’s still a protagonist (at least in my eyes.)

By now the rivalry between the fans of Goku and Vegeta is probably as big as the rivalry of the two saiyans in the show itself. So, depending on what team you’re on is really going to depend on if you’re rooting for Vegeta or not.

Personally, just give the guy a win already.

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