#She does not tolerate bullshit. She is not Chichi. She does not need him. She's already been through that shit with Yamcha she's TIRED.

[shannonsketches]

Thinking about how Toriyama wrote an Entire Plot centering around how Vegeta has spent the last seven years learning how to be happy and comfortable with his family on Earth and how he loves his wife so much that being Gently Reminded that he loves his wife was enough to pull him out of a violent midlife crisis and made him such a powerful guardian of Earth that Heaven broke its own rules just to put him back in that position

and Toei was like 'okay but in the sequel to that plot their marriage is terrible and he's never home'

[dballzposting]

Videl is so funny

She has such a prominent sense of ethics and virtue and she sticks to it strictly by condition of her character

And she holds her ground and asserts herself no matter what

And (especially in the dub) I keep seeing her yell at people. She just yells at people. She yelled at her own father that one time in Super (reposted again below becasue it always makes me crack up)

^ Like she TRIES to be civil first. She definitely considers herself a Good Person and she actively puts forth an effort to be a Good Person. She does not want to spread discord senselessly. She wants to minimize pain. She tries to be nice first on principle.

But she's also such a forthright and confident person that sometimes she can't help but to be authentic and cut through all the bullshit. She doesn't want to HURT people she just wants to SET THINGS STRAIGHT. She knows she's right and as a natural born leader she's going to assert herself and move on. She just yells at people

The thing is though I think that if she was just one generation older then she would see it fit to slap kids. Like she would think that that's just what needs to be done. She'd be cold and stern about it. She has the capability to be so warm but I feel like her as a parent who is older she'd have the potential to just decide, as if it's a wisdom that she's matured into, that sometimes kids just need to be decisively slapped once in a while. NOT BEAT. Don't belabor the point.

But she was born in the generation that she was so she doesn't believe in hitting kids, and she can't ever grow into that behavior becasue she married Gohan. First of all she's heard the stories about Gohan's mother and since she's hearing it while she's still young she thinks it's sooooooo awful and horrible and bad and she commits to her value system (which is the backbone of her character remember) to not do that. Second of all Gohan would not tolerate being slapped or having his children be slapped. He would take the child and leave. He would somehow find the inner reserve of strength to leave. He would feel so lost and small inside becasue he would have really bonded with his wife by this point and really felt built-up by her so if he had to leave he would feel soooo broken. You would just see a broken man enter your diner at 10 pm carrying a child in one arm and a traveling bag in another and he'd order the waffles and he'd look so broken that you wouldn't have the heart to tell him that you don't serve waffles past 12 pm and you're kind of slow tonight so the chef allows it just this once.

But I mean I've SEEN GT, Videl is so cool and collected and steady and STRICT. Pan's whole thing is that she feels suffocated by her parents' will. Here Videl is the type of mother who sets up a schedule for her child to follow and forces her to stay in line, and she is too COOL and COLLECTED to yell. We've seen Videl yell but by GT she doesn't anymore. But she does seem like she would slap her child if the situation called for it.

But obviously she already settled that she Would Not slap her child. It's just not what she believes in and is not how she would conduct herself. But I do feel like she would come to regret ever making that vow. When she was young she thought that mothers slapped their children because they were unstable, erratic, and selfish individuals. Now that she's a mother she feels like it's a valid form of discipline. She would not enjoy slapping her child - she is not the unstable mother who would reap some stability out of it - but she does feel like her child may benefit from it. This isn't about her, it's about the child. At first she took satisfaction from not being the type of parent who slaps her kids but now that Pan is 9 and rowdy she's really thinking differently about some things.

If she slapped her child it would still be totally different from how Chichi would whip out the skillet, but she and Gohan have already decided that it's unacceptable. And Videl stops being the sort of person who yells evidently. But she and Gohan, though they know to not slap their kid, do not yet understand that discipline in general is hurtful to a child's spirit. Goku grew up without recourse and he turned out absolutely healthy and genuine and so well-connected and perfect. I like to think that Videl would come to understand that in her worldy pursuits but on-screen we see an individual who, without the resources or conviction, ends up repeating the treatment that she received by her culture. She's forgotten, like most people, the way that she was hurt by it, and she now believes that it's a fine way to parent. And I feel like Gohan is intermittently an emotionally absent or fake parent so he's not present enough to recognize (or be able to tolerate) Pan's feelings and misery as she ages.

So Videl & Gohan are very strict parents and they dont believe in hitting their kids or yelling so the "wooden spoon" so to speak must be something more inarticulate, like iciness, like the threat of detachment if the child doesn't comply. They were just so strict and cold on GT and I don't remember the details becasue I saw it a while ago but yeah...

I'm really interested in Videl and her potential. We've seen her skeptical and stubbornly inquiring nature, we've seen her need for justice, we've seen her goofy side, we've seen her as a mother in Super just wanting her baby to have options and to be free, and then we've seen in GT the way that she's so controlling without even thinking of herself as. I think it probably has so much more to do with the time and place that the series is produced rather than any writer's understanding of Videl, but still. Worth thinking about