textfromthelookout

[textfromthelookout]

Hello, it is I; the anon who asked about Freeza that long ass time ago (as well as asked about you about Vegeta (your short king) once, that iconic essay of yours). I re-stumbled upon your blog again, and wondered if you had any sort of character thoughts on a certain saiyan hick we know (cough Goku cough)

Also, it's been an absolute while, you doing okay?

First of all: YOU.

Second: Yeah, I’ve been doing great! Life’s been hectic, what with work, familial responsibility, various events and side projects, a surgery, and preparing to return to school, but good. Yknow, Adult Shit. I haven’t had intense Dragon Ball brain in a while and I’ve been wanting to just chill and decompress in my off time instead of use more energy on the analytics and memery that this blog requires.

Third: Hoo boy. I wasn’t gonna avoid this topic forever, I guess. Since going into depth on all the facets of Goku (especially considering the discourse surrounding his various characterizations) would take a whole lot more time than I have right now, we’ll focus on the one hot button:

Is Goku A Good Father?

Short answer: there is no short answer. Not a cut-and-dry yes/no, at any rate.

Long answer: I cannot overstate the importance of context when you’re trying to answer questions like this. In a vacuum (or at least, in a world that is exactly and precisely like ours), yeah, maybe Goku is a bad father. A neglectful one by some peoples’ measure, at the very least; arguments can be also made for abusive.

Fact is, though, Goku does not exist in a world exactly and precisely like ours, and so judging him by the exact and precise moral metrics of our world… how to word this. It’s not that doing so has no applicability, because Goku is a character in a story, and a story is inevitably written by a human being who presumably has the moral core that most of humanity does—but it’s limited, in a way. I don’t know if it’s pretentious of me to invoke the sociological principle of ethnocentricism and how in general that’s something you want to avoid in anthropological disciplines, but the thing I’m trying to get at here is something adjacent to that.

Consider the following:

1. What is the role of a parent? Obviously you get different answers depending on who you ask, but since you asked me, my answer is that the role of a parent is to raise a child in such a way that they can face the challenges they may run into in adulthood with a reasonable chance of success. I realize that’s a broad and unfaceted answer, but articulating every nuance of it right here right now would be going on a tangent, and we’re kind of already on one. Ideally, the child both does well, and does good.

2. Saiyan children clearly do not one-for-one follow the developmental path that a human child does. Goku lived in the woods alone and unaided from the ages of 5 to 12. Vegeta was going on (successful) missions to exterminate worlds when he was no more than 4. Broly was able to run around and kill creatures many times his size (or a whole galaxy, depending on which Broly you’re looking at) at… what, a month old at most? Point is, there’s a built-in disconnect between what Goku would consider normal for a child and what Chi-chi would consider normal—which is what they clash over the most. The problem with both of their viewpoints is that Gohan is, unavoidably, both human and Saiyan. This is the root of the central conflict surrounding Gohan throughout his arc.

3. Goku has never been a parent before Gohan and when your child is the literal first of his kind, there’s not exactly anybody that can teach you the particular dos and don’ts. Combined with the aforementioned fundamental disconnect… I mean, even without that, the adult figures in his life are of little use so far as role-modeling for parenthood goes. The closest one to normal would be I guess Ox King and we don’t know how much of Goku’s life between OGDB and Z is spent in his company.

All this in mind, I’d say Goku is trying the best he knows how to do, under these sorts of circumstances. The biggest problem is that Goku’s process of learning to be a ‘normal parent’ was irreversibly fucked up by, yknow, dying, and having the world (and by extension his son) come under threat by forces outside his control. Vegeta (Raditz too I guess) turned a lot of things on their ear for Goku, foremost among them being the knowledge that Goku isn’t—or wasn’t—alone in being what he is. He may love Earth, he may love the people that he loves on Earth, but he’s not wholly from Earth, and there’s immutable proof of that standing right in front of him. And he begs Krillin for Vegeta’s life. To fight him again. Why? If it was just about fighting progressively stronger opponents, Namek and the Freeza Force are still next on the list. It has to be something about Vegeta specifically. Something they have in common.

This post ain’t about Vegeta though so to get back to what that last paragraph was driving at before I derailed it—these are now the circumstances that Goku, to his mind, has to prepare Gohan for. Especially because Gohan insists on putting himself in a perilous situation of his own volition. Should he have let Gohan go to Namek? Ultimately irrelevant, because Goku literally could not have stopped him anyway, he was essentially paralyzed in the hospital still by the time they left Earth. Gohan was determined to go to Namek one way or another, and I think Goku knew that. Additionally, Goku knows—as every parent knows—that he’s not going to be there for Gohan forever; he’s already died and left Gohan alone once. Death, as temporary as it was in the moment, is a sobering eventuality for Goku. Someday, Gohan will have to fend for himself.

Ideally, it would be in a peaceful and normal world the way Chi-chi wants, and he wouldn’t have to fight at all. But Goku has, by the time Cell rolls around, been given very little reason to believe that that’s the kind of life that Gohan will be facing. So of course he tries to prepare Gohan for a violent future. He believes it’s necessary. He might have been mistaken about this, but what he puts Gohan through wasn’t done completely devoid of love or empathy, or sheerly for the sake of getting stronger. To me, it was a genuine effort to be a good parent. He doesn’t want his child to die. He’s trying to give him the tools to prevent that.

As far as Goten goes, I feel like the situation isn’t altogether comparable to Gohan’s? I’d need to reread a bunch to organize my thoughts more clearly on it, so let me instead conclude this post by addressing the points that @genuinenoprize brought up: the first Super Saiyan transformation, and the bit in Cell arc.

For the Super Saiyan transformation: first, he never directly threatens to hit Gohan. Second, it’s ‘totally fine every other time he and anyone else goes Super after that’ because every other time he and anyone else goes Super after that, it's after Goku has elected to spend a year on Yardrat to get Super Saiyan under control specifically so he won’t hurt anybody while he’s in that state. As I’ve mentioned previously.

(chapter 124)

Third, this is as sharp as he ever gets with Gohan. So far as the original line goes, the uncut Japanese version of the scene (episode 96) has it as ゴチャゴチャ言うな! オレを困らせたいか?! Loosely that comes out something like ‘Don’t argue! Do you want to inconvenience me?!’ which admittedly, if you really wanted to, you could interpret a threat of violence in that. Consider, however, once again, the context. Consider that Freeza’s standing like, fifteen feet away and insinuated he was going to kill Gohan about a minute ago, after killing Krillin roughly thirty seconds prior to that. I think it’s pretty clear that ‘inconvenience’ here (especially considering it’s in causative form, so literally ‘cause me to be troubled/inconvenienced’) is referring to Gohan being in the way physically and in the sense that he’s a weak spot Freeza can exploit. There’s a point to it being worded so harshly. Is it a very nice thing to say to your son? No, not really. Is it an understandable thing to say in an actual life-and-death situation at previously unexperienced levels of emotional stress to someone who you really don’t want to have die? Yeah, absolutely. Is it also a very clever way for Toriyama to allude to how close Goku is to losing himself in this power-up? Fuck yes it is.

For the bit in Cell arc, I assume you’re talking about the bit around the end of episode 150 where Gohan tries to leave the Lookout after Cell blows a hole in Piccolo? If so that’s weird because Goku doesn’t hit him, he just holds him back. The reason he holds him back is because, again, he doesn’t want his child to fucking die. They both know that if Gohan goes to confront Cell and try to get revenge now, he’s just going to get himself killed. As to why Goku doesn’t intervene while his friends are getting hurt? Well… my guess is that he doesn’t want to tip Cell off to the existence of the Lookout. The Lookout’s still more or less safe ground, unlike the entirety of the world below. I don’t think Cell can sense them up there if they keep their energies dampened because they’re far enough away, but if Goku suddenly Instant Transmissions seemingly into and out of existence then hey, that means he’s stowing away somewhere that Cell hasn’t been looking. So he’ll go looking. And eventually he’ll find it. If the timing’s off—if Vegeta and Trunks don’t get out of the Time Chamber quick enough to engage Cell and distract him—then they’re all fucked. Ultimately Goku is forced to risk that, and I guess he’s just lucky that it paid off.

TLDR I don’t think Goku is a bad parent; I’ve known worse.

How the hell did this get to be 1600 words.

Thanks for the ask(s)!

[textfromthelookout]

the metaphysics

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wait nobody told me ALL the fight choreo was gas wtf

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genderweird supreme kai/nahare is canon let's fucking go

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Fun Fact: As Saiyans go, Raditz isn't just weak; He's a talentless hack. Nappa is much more talented at martial arts, but his skills are undermined by him being a complete fucking moron.

Raditz is our introduction to the particularities of the Planet Trade Organization - or, well, the Saiyans since the PTO didn't quite exist as a concept yet when he showed up.

Toriyama only came up with the PTO later in the arc. It's honestly kind of funny; Vegeta's referred to as the "Strongest in the Universe" a couple times in this arc because the idea for Frieza doesn't exist yet. The original plan was that the Saiyan race are the ones doing planet gentrification on their own initiative, but they were almost all wiped out by a meteor so if we take out Strongest in the Universe Vegeta, we'll put an end to it.

So all this stuff like the spaceship pods and Scouters that was original Saiyan equipment and methodology got retooled into being PTO equipment and methodology.

But I digress. We meet Raditz and he's unlike anyone we've seen before. He immediately starts shit with Piccolo because they're both assholes, and we see how he operates.

He has a little doodad that reads off someone's "Battle Power" into a flat, easily digestible number that even a child could understand. This is the industrialization of martial arts, simplifying it into something that can be replicated and mass-produced.

It's the difference between teaching swordsmanship lessons in your dojo versus handing someone an AK-47 and telling them to go shoot the enemy.

This is the key distinction between the Saiyans and Earthlings, that made Goku - A Saiyan raised on Earth engulfed by their martial arts philosophy - so formidable. The Saiyans and by extension Planet Trade's culture is built on capitalist efficiency. Their warriors are carefully measured, analyzed, and matched with suitable challenges. They aren't trained. In fact, Vegeta scoffs at the idea of it.

They're battle-hardened.

They measure their fighters and quantify their abilities into a number, then select the right target that matches that number. Those warriors become stronger through fire and frenzy, rather than by studying principles of martial technique.

Consequently, upwards mobility doesn't seem to be a thing. Nobody in the PTO got to where they are by working hard and improving themselves. Every single one of them is naturally gifted, coasting by on whatever privileges their birth afforded them. Especially Frieza.

They aren't practitioners of an art. They're cogs in a machine.

Raditz believes these distinctions made Goku weaker.

He has no idea. The limitations of the PTO's methodology is a recurring theme in the Saiyan and Namek arcs.

Raditz is a low-class Saiyan. By virtue of being a Saiyan, he's still unbelievably powerful compared to the terrestrial races of the worlds he's sent to. But power is all he brings to the table; He's an unrefined juggernaut who coasts by entirely on Big Number Go Brrrrr. Philosophically, Goku is unimpressed.

Coming from Goku, that's a pretty sick burn. He's already lost to Raditz once; He knows how Big Number this guy is. But he can't bite his tongue at Raditz's oversimplification of his art.

As a fighter, Raditz delivers what he promised. All he has going for him is Big Number Go Brr... but it's a really big number.

Raditz is impossibly strong, impossibly fast, and his basic-ass ki blasts are impossibly powerful. The gulf between Goku and an adversary has never been so huge before.

And yet, for all his power, he is repeatedly startled and befuddled by Goku and Piccolo's training and technique. These weaklings are breaking out abilities he didn't even know were possible.

Raditz watching Goku power up the most basic ki concentration technique on Earth and exclaiming "WHAT IS THIS SORCERY!?" really tells you everything about the PTO's methodology, doesn't it?

Raditz falls for every trick and every shenanigan that these guys have spent their careers honing, forced to rely solely on tanking attacks with his tremendous Numbers.

This dipshit hasn't even trained the weakness out of his tail.

Goku was fifteen years old when he trained his tail and eliminated this vulnerability.

Raditz is less proficient than Goku was as a child. This isn't even the PTO's flaws manifesting through Raditz, either. Nappa and Vegeta trained their tails.

"LOL What kind of a useless clown doesn't train his tail?" ~Nappa, probably. Oh, wait. No. Actually.

~Vegeta literally.

Raditz is limited by the philosophy of the Planet Trade and he's also on the weaker side of Saiyans, but he also sucks even without taking power levels into account. He brings absolutely nothing to the table. He reads someone's number to tell him in advance if they'll fall down when he punches them, and then he punches them if the number tells him he's clear.

Raditz isn't a fighter. He's a bully with a gun.

For his part, Nappa is a more advanced version of Raditz. His Big Number Go Brr is even bigger than Raditz's and he's familiar with more advanced techniques beyond "Throw this ball of ki at your face".

As a front-line fighter, Nappa is unbelievably tough. Blow after blow and attack after attack, he never gives as much as it feels like he should. No matter what they do to him, he keeps getting back up and coming back, more bloodied and bruised than ever but ready for another round. He is unbelievably resilient.

Fighting Nappa feels like an exercise in futility. You're going to have to kill this man to put him down because he'll accept nothing less. Even when Goku takes the field, he finds himself at a loss with Nappa's absolute unwillingness to take the hint and lose consciousness already.

Nappa is a brick wall. Goku only finally manages to end this by breaking his spine so he can't keep getting up again.

That is what Nappa brings to his table. Though it's worth noting that his Sisyphean endurance is something Vegeta shares as well. It's not unique to Nappa. Fights with Vegeta are every bit as much of an ordeal as this bout with Nappa was.

Saiyans are hard to put down.

Nappa's biggest weakness, however, is simple: Like Raditz, he's coasting on his brute strength. He doesn't pay attention to what's happening around him, and is easily blindsided by sudden attacks from other fighters in this brawl.

Or baited into incredibly poor decision-making.

For all his Saiyan might, the Earthlings would have killed Nappa well in advance of Goku's arrival, if he didn't have Vegeta to watch his back. I'm half-convinced the only reason he trained his tail is because Vegeta told him to.

Nappa is very much a follower. He does what he's told. He's honestly a better Saiyan than Vegeta in the sense that he. Like. Cares about other Saiyans? His kneejerk reaction when Vegeta suggests taking Earth's Dragon Balls is that he wants his friend back.

And he's filled with eugenic fervor for the glory of the Saiyan race when he finds out what mixing Saiyan and Earthling physiology can do.

Fun little side note: "Super Saiyan" was originally the term used to describe Gohan's hybrid abilities before it was recontextualized to mean something else on Namek.

It's honestly interesting to look at their interactions and realize that Vegeta is a cruel, monstrous, selfish bastard even by Saiyan standards. Vegeta is uniquely wicked within this culture of for-profit colonizing murderers.

But Nappa defers to Vegeta every time. Vegeta tells him, "No, you're wrong," and Nappa pivots to supporting whatever Vegeta just said instead. Nappa obeys.

But he doesn't listen. Vegeta and Nappa were following the action while Raditz was fighting Goku and Piccolo. They saw all of the strange anomalies that occurred, that Raditz couldn't comprehend. Vegeta spends this time thinking about what this means for Earth and re-evaluating his assessment of the foes to come.

And he adjusts accordingly. From the moment they arrive at the fight, Vegeta pegs overreliance on the Scouter's readout for the vulnerability that it is.

Like. He says this. He acknowledges that he understands. And not five minutes later:

BUT THE NUMBERS, VEGETA

THE NUMBERS SAID NO

Even then, Nappa flat-out ignores The Numbers if he doesn't like what's printed on them.

Nappa and Vegeta both disregard the printout this time, but in different ways. Vegeta observes that Earthlings suppress their ki, presenting a smaller number than their true ability. So when the Scouter says 5000, that means Goku's true level is likely well beyond that.

Nappa observes that Goku is probably weak so that's stupid and you're wrong.

Nappa just does things. He doesn't think or pay attention to what they're doing. He destroys a city as soon as they arrive, and Vegeta immediately lays into him for what a fucking idiotic thing to do that was.

He's a beast on a chain, barely restrained by his deference to Vegeta. Powerful, seemingly unstoppable, but needing Vegeta to hold his hand and walk him through the higher concepts of combat and martial arts.

An absolute fool. But a Saiyan elite fool.

[textfromthelookout]

i have questions.

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starting daima.

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been up for an hour reading your (exquisitely written, if i may add) analyses, and i'd really love to hear your thoughts about krillin if you wouldn't mind! he's my favorite of the human(? where is his nose) z fighters because of his fears and bond with goku and how grounded he is in civilian live (especially now in super) compared to just about everyone else

Hmm, the thoughts I have about Krillin are pretty scattershot, so pardon if this doesn’t end up reading as cohesive as anything I’ve written for this blog previously.

Krillin initially wants to learn martial arts to attract girls—but also, to become strong enough to defend himself. Orin Temple was not kind to him in the eight years he spent there: so much so that he decides to strike out on his own at a very young age rather than suffer another however-much time being bullied. I ask myself a lot—what was he doing there in the first place? He wasn’t abandoned at the temple as a newborn and raised there, he joined when he was four years old. What happened to his parents?

Whatever his backstory, that time in Orin Temple instills one of his more prominent character traits, especially in early-on Dragon Ball: he scares easy. However. This should not be confused for thinking that he is a coward—Krillin has a lot of fear in his tiny body, but he will act. This is the great gift that being around Goku nurtured in him—to be confident enough in himself to Do It Scared. Krillin borrows a lot of courage from Goku, looks up to him a lot in that regard.

And of course, this has the unfortunate side-effect of leaving him feeling inadequate. The monks at Orin were right all along—he didn’t have any potential, Goku keeps pulling further and further ahead, the threats keep getting bigger and bigger. He’s only human. There’s only so much he can do.

He sometimes forgets that he does it, anyway. Good thing he has people who are all too willing to remind him.

[textfromthelookout]

Calling a mulligan on the previous poll, let's do it better this time.

THE SCENARIO:

Stranded on a deserted island/planet cliche. Food and water is accessible, easier to do so with help. Shelter can be readily built. Weather and terrain are no concern. There is at least one dangerously large predatory animal that isn't choosy about what it snacks on. The island/planet is small enough that contact with either it or another maroonee is unavoidable, but doesn't have to be on a regular basis.

A ship is coming to pick you up in a month. There is no other way offworld.

Things To Consider below the cut:

Vegeta: Willing to form temporary alliances for the sake of a mutual goal; vastly prefers not to. Already used to fending for himself in unfamiliar territory. Interactions with him are akin to playing hot potato with a live grenade--tread carefully.

Freeza: Bound to be an interesting conversationalist. Unlikely to kill you Just Because, but might hunt you for sport if he gets bored.

Imperfect Cell: Reasonable and resourceful. Driven by hunger. Has eaten people before, will eat people again.

Kid Buu: Distractable and bribeable. Volatile. Cannot be reasoned with--he's going to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants. He does sleep a lot.

Z Broly: Most likely will leave you alone. Except when in the throes of psychotic, unpredictable, uncontrollable berserker rage. Super chill when he isn't doing that though.

Beerus: Decent odds that he just sleeps the entire time. Unfortunately, like all cats, he is interested in specifically your food, so decent odds that he'll take issue with it.

Zamasu: Literal actual messiah complex. Wants to obliterate all mortal life. However, if he could be talked into taking on a servant...

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i should've put zamasu in the poll instead of jiren god damn it

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Things to consider below the cut:

Vegeta: Willing to make allies if it's for the sake of a mutual goal. Major attitude problems; you have to tread lightly around him.

Freeza: Bound to be an interesting conversationalist. Might hunt you for sport if he gets bored.

Kid Buu: Easily distracted. Cannot be reasoned with. He's going to do whatever he wants, whenever he wants.

Z Broly: Probably won't bother you that much. Except when in the throes of psychotic, uncontrollable rage.

Imperfect Cell: Resourceful and reasonable. Driven by hunger. Has eaten people before, will eat people again.

Jiren: Not interested in hurting you. Not interested in helping you either, though. He trusts nobody--you're on your own unless you can get through to him.

[textfromthelookout]

This kind of depends on which canon you're looking at? Anime implies that he's already put the pieces on that together a while before the current story. I prefer that look at it, because Vegeta is not an idiot, and it really doesn't seem that hard of a connection to make. Especially if Freeza Force is like any other gathering of sapient beings in close and extended proximity with one another, and engages in the age-old pastime of gossip.

Hi! I absolutely love your brilliant analyses of Vegeta. He has stubbornly remained my favorite character of all time, and it’s wonderful to see his character arc treated with the depth and attention it deserves. ❤️

I would love to hear your thoughts, analysis, headcanons, and anything else you believe regarding the relationship between Vegeta and Freeza. The pieces of their dynamic we get in the manga and anime have always fascinated me.

More specific questions: How much of Vegeta’s personality and worldview at the start of Z do you think was influenced by Freeza, and how much was due to his Saiyan nature/the short few years he spent on Vegetasei? What methods do you think Freeza used to mold Vegeta into his own image?

Thank you so much for your time and for the insightful commentary you bring to this fandom.

Oooh, what fun questions!!

So then… what indeed is the relationship between Freeza and Vegeta? Depending on when you ask, there’s different answers to that question. Let’s start at the start.

For essentially Vegeta’s whole life, Freeza is his purpose for persevering. He shoulders the will and rage of the Saiyans—he is their hope for vengeance. Freeza destroyed everything that meant anything to him—his culture, his home, his people, and his status. Freeza occupies a strange space in Vegeta’s mental hierarchy; simultaneously far, far above him as a monolithic, implacable expression of power, and eventually fated to be crushed beneath his royal heel in retribution. There is nobody Vegeta despises more. There is nobody Vegeta fears more.

To Freeza, Vegeta is a pet. An amusing, deluded little dog with an eminently yankable chain. He is not, in any sense of the word, a threat: Freeza in his base form is literal orders of magnitude stronger than Vegeta, prior to Z, he sees him and the Saiyans as a whole as the frogs in a well that they are. Yes, Vegeta is strong—but he’s not even top 5 strong at the point in the story we meet him. Barely top 10, if you want to include King Cold and Cooler’s group. An asset, certainly, but he has stronger men, and Freeza was willing to sacrifice a whole planet’s worth of similar assets on a cost-benefit analysis. Together, the Saiyans would probably destroy most of the rest of of his forces before he could put them all down: then Freeza has to rebuild from scratch, and that’s a hassle. Better to cut the rot away before it compromises the limb, if you see what I mean. (As an aside: Nobody actually knows what the Super Saiyan is exactly before Goku roids out into one on Namek, so Freeza’s trepidation surrounding it reads—to me—less as fear of a warrior stronger than himself appearing to topple him, and more as a dictator knowing a rebel’s rallying point when he sees one. Zarbon claims to Vegeta that ‘what Master Freeza feared was a union of all the Saiyans. Alone, you are nothing.’)

No, Freeza keeps Vegeta around for the simple fact that futile struggle is his favorite entertainment, and Vegeta is a paragon of futile struggle before most everything else. He knows all about Vegeta’s vendetta, and how he’s pinned his hopes on the legend of the Super Saiyan manifesting in him, and that eventually he’ll try to bite back. So it’s fun to jerk him around and watch him swallow indignity after indignity for the sake of a long game that Freeza knows he’s not going to lose. Oh, you conquered Planet Shikk in three days? Zarbon could have done it in one; so much for the vaunted Saiyan strength. He’s a trophy, unique in the fact that he serves Freeza loyally while not disguising his hatred towards him at all.

Namek is a fabulous arc for a lot of reasons, a prominent one being the whole Vegeta-and-Freeza thing coming to a head; a perfect encapsulation of the dynamic. Everything that Vegeta does to impede Freeza, up to and ultimately including his theft of the Dragon Balls, is treated by Freeza as a minor inconvenience. A small bump on the road to immortality. Vegeta kills Cui? That’s cute, let’s see what he does next. Kills Dodoria and Zarbon? Irritating, but not unsalvageable. Steals the Dragon Balls? Now he’s earned a beating, but the Ginyu Force retrieved them quickly, and no way Vegeta leaves that encounter alive.

And like. He isn’t wrong to look at it that way, is he. Goku has to bail Vegeta out of dying by Recoome’s hand. He gets a lucky break and a rana ex machina against Ginyu himself. Once he actually starts fighting Freeza, the cover comes off the whole thing immediately. Because it’s not a fight to Freeza. He’s not eliminating a threat, he doesn’t view Vegeta as a combatant. He’s pissed and he’s killing two birds with one stone—punishing those responsible for screwing him out of his wish, and blowing off steam by toying with them and watching their spirits break before their slow, inevitable, agonizing deaths.

And boy does it work an absolute treat on Vegeta. For three main reasons, I think. First is that Vegeta grew up under Freeza’s rule. Fearing him is in his bones now, and that’s a tough instinct to shake. Second, Vegeta is just starting to get a handle on how ki-sensing works. He’s not used to being able to feel other peoples’ powers. He is a bonfire among a sea of candles, and he’s suddenly face to face with the sun. He can’t run from it, he can’t deny it, he can’t shut his eyes to it. Imagine how that feels to someone who previously spent his whole life in metaphorical darkness. This only reinforces his fear of Freeza. Third, and perhaps most importantly: the two prior reasons run directly counter to the avenger narrative Vegeta has constructed for himself and lived his whole life by. He can’t get The Way Things Are Supposed To Go and reality to reconcile. As in the post before: he refuses to bend—so he breaks.

In a lot of major Dragon Ball fights (maybe all of them, I’m not gonna go back and check), there’s someone playing the role of the defeatist. The doomsayer. The ‘it’s all over, he’s too strong’ guy. For the group confrontation against Freeza, this is Vegeta. What a role to cast him in. What other role could he be cast in, with the history and mindset he has? He didn’t plan on tangling with Freeza until he was immortal, when his victory was at best overwhelming and at worst a matter of attrition. Past their initial clash—a brief grapple that Vegeta notably leaves winded while Freeza seems more annoyed than anything else—Vegeta doesn’t go head-to-head with Freeza. He’s hesitant to attack him. Scared. Freeza knows that. Freeza largely ignores Vegeta throughout the fight because he isn’t doing anything, which he taunts him about. Oh, I’m gonna kill this little half-Saiyan. Aren’t you gonna come save him, Vegeta? No? I thought not.

As tactically unsound as bringing Piccolo to Namek was—seriously what the hell, you almost defeated the whole purpose of going there in the first place—it makes for an interesting way to twist the knife in Vegeta. Here he is, embodying everything that Vegeta was supposed to—the champion of a slaughtered people, (almost) the last of his kind, fearlessly throwing down with Freeza. After a transformation, and meeting with decent success, furthermore. Piccolo, who has only the most tenuous of connection to his race and his homeworld (same as Goku, interestingly enough). And what is Vegeta doing?

He gets desperate. And when Vegeta gets desperate, he does stupid, crazy, desperate things. Like letting Krillin blow a hole in his chest because if he gets one more brink-of-death power-up then surely he’ll be stronger than Freeza. He just has to be. But he’s not, and all the fight goes out of him. And when the fight goes out of him, Freeza’s interest in him disappears too. Because that was the whole appeal of Vegeta to him—that expectation that he’d fight to the bitter end.

That’s where they stand at the end of Namek, up until Super. Vegeta is a pitiful disappointment to Freeza, Freeza is a memory of failure to Vegeta subsumed into his fixation on defeating Goku. And so, time passes. Vegeta goes through A Lot of development. Freeza seethes in hell, dreaming of revenge.

While Resurrection F is imo a rather poor arc, it’s got some stuff for us in this vein. Freeza comes to Earth for the grudge match against Goku—he barely acknowledges Vegeta at all, except to express surprise that he’s still around, and hanging around with Goku no less. He’s uninterested in him entirely—when Vegeta tries to cut into the fight, all Freeza has for him is a quip about pets and masters and an order to butt out.

And Vegeta just… takes that? Why does he just take that? This has baffled me for the longest time. The closest approximation of a Good Writing explanation I can get is Vegeta deciding that he wants Freeza reduced to about the power level that he was on Namek before he pulls that mean role reversal on him. Hey, did you know I have transformations now? But Vegeta doesn’t get off on crushing ants (anymore) the way Freeza does, so he doesn’t even really seem to revel in kicking Freeza’s teeth in like he’d wanted to for so long. I guess to his mind it’s too little too late. The Saiyans have been avenged for a decade already. He’s had time to heal and grow and rearrange his priorities.

Up through the Super Broly movie, that’s where they’re at. Mutual enmity, mutual acknowledgment of the threat each poses to the other. Everything past that, I’ll save for the Moro/Granolah post (and for once I’m. yknow. current with the manga again.)

As to the other questions—the thing is, I don’t think Freeza tried to mould him into anything, because the whole point of keeping him was [gestures to the above] That. Let me instead pose a different question—how much of Vegeta’s personality and worldview at the start of Z do you think was influenced by Nappa? Nappa, who was old enough to remember life on Vegetasei before King Cold took over. Who would know exactly what was taken from them, and would harbor a deep resentment over it? Whose view of such things was likely colored by his more than probable involvement in the Saiyan-Tuffle war? Personally I think it’s more than anybody realizes.

Thanks for your ask <3 Hope this was satisfactory.

[textfromthelookout]

Hi! I absolutely love your brilliant analyses of Vegeta. He has stubbornly remained my favorite character of all time, and it’s wonderful to see his character arc treated with the depth and attention it deserves. ❤️

I would love to hear your thoughts, analysis, headcanons, and anything else you believe regarding the relationship between Vegeta and Freeza. The pieces of their dynamic we get in the manga and anime have always fascinated me.

More specific questions: How much of Vegeta’s personality and worldview at the start of Z do you think was influenced by Freeza, and how much was due to his Saiyan nature/the short few years he spent on Vegetasei? What methods do you think Freeza used to mold Vegeta into his own image?

Thank you so much for your time and for the insightful commentary you bring to this fandom.

Oooh, what fun questions!!

So then… what indeed is the relationship between Freeza and Vegeta? Depending on when you ask, there’s different answers to that question. Let’s start at the start.

For essentially Vegeta’s whole life, Freeza is his purpose for persevering. He shoulders the will and rage of the Saiyans—he is their hope for vengeance. Freeza destroyed everything that meant anything to him—his culture, his home, his people, and his status. Freeza occupies a strange space in Vegeta’s mental hierarchy; simultaneously far, far above him as a monolithic, implacable expression of power, and eventually fated to be crushed beneath his royal heel in retribution. There is nobody Vegeta despises more. There is nobody Vegeta fears more.

To Freeza, Vegeta is a pet. An amusing, deluded little dog with an eminently yankable chain. He is not, in any sense of the word, a threat: Freeza in his base form is literal orders of magnitude stronger than Vegeta, prior to Z, he sees him and the Saiyans as a whole as the frogs in a well that they are. Yes, Vegeta is strong—but he’s not even top 5 strong at the point in the story we meet him. Barely top 10, if you want to include King Cold and Cooler’s group. An asset, certainly, but he has stronger men, and Freeza was willing to sacrifice a whole planet’s worth of similar assets on a cost-benefit analysis. Together, the Saiyans would probably destroy most of the rest of of his forces before he could put them all down: then Freeza has to rebuild from scratch, and that’s a hassle. Better to cut the rot away before it compromises the limb, if you see what I mean. (As an aside: Nobody actually knows what the Super Saiyan is exactly before Goku roids out into one on Namek, so Freeza’s trepidation surrounding it reads—to me—less as fear of a warrior stronger than himself appearing to topple him, and more as a dictator knowing a rebel’s rallying point when he sees one. Zarbon claims to Vegeta that ‘what Master Freeza feared was a union of all the Saiyans. Alone, you are nothing.’)

No, Freeza keeps Vegeta around for the simple fact that futile struggle is his favorite entertainment, and Vegeta is a paragon of futile struggle before most everything else. He knows all about Vegeta’s vendetta, and how he’s pinned his hopes on the legend of the Super Saiyan manifesting in him, and that eventually he’ll try to bite back. So it’s fun to jerk him around and watch him swallow indignity after indignity for the sake of a long game that Freeza knows he’s not going to lose. Oh, you conquered Planet Shikk in three days? Zarbon could have done it in one; so much for the vaunted Saiyan strength. He’s a trophy, unique in the fact that he serves Freeza loyally while not disguising his hatred towards him at all.

Namek is a fabulous arc for a lot of reasons, a prominent one being the whole Vegeta-and-Freeza thing coming to a head; a perfect encapsulation of the dynamic. Everything that Vegeta does to impede Freeza, up to and ultimately including his theft of the Dragon Balls, is treated by Freeza as a minor inconvenience. A small bump on the road to immortality. Vegeta kills Cui? That’s cute, let’s see what he does next. Kills Dodoria and Zarbon? Irritating, but not unsalvageable. Steals the Dragon Balls? Now he’s earned a beating, but the Ginyu Force retrieved them quickly, and no way Vegeta leaves that encounter alive.

And like. He isn’t wrong to look at it that way, is he. Goku has to bail Vegeta out of dying by Recoome’s hand. He gets a lucky break and a rana ex machina against Ginyu himself. Once he actually starts fighting Freeza, the cover comes off the whole thing immediately. Because it’s not a fight to Freeza. He’s not eliminating a threat, he doesn’t view Vegeta as a combatant. He’s pissed and he’s killing two birds with one stone—punishing those responsible for screwing him out of his wish, and blowing off steam by toying with them and watching their spirits break before their slow, inevitable, agonizing deaths.

And boy does it work an absolute treat on Vegeta. For three main reasons, I think. First is that Vegeta grew up under Freeza’s rule. Fearing him is in his bones now, and that’s a tough instinct to shake. Second, Vegeta is just starting to get a handle on how ki-sensing works. He’s not used to being able to feel other peoples’ powers. He is a bonfire among a sea of candles, and he’s suddenly face to face with the sun. He can’t run from it, he can’t deny it, he can’t shut his eyes to it. Imagine how that feels to someone who previously spent his whole life in metaphorical darkness. This only reinforces his fear of Freeza. Third, and perhaps most importantly: the two prior reasons run directly counter to the avenger narrative Vegeta has constructed for himself and lived his whole life by. He can’t get The Way Things Are Supposed To Go and reality to reconcile. As in the post before: he refuses to bend—so he breaks.

In a lot of major Dragon Ball fights (maybe all of them, I’m not gonna go back and check), there’s someone playing the role of the defeatist. The doomsayer. The ‘it’s all over, he’s too strong’ guy. For the group confrontation against Freeza, this is Vegeta. What a role to cast him in. What other role could he be cast in, with the history and mindset he has? He didn’t plan on tangling with Freeza until he was immortal, when his victory was at best overwhelming and at worst a matter of attrition. Past their initial clash—a brief grapple that Vegeta notably leaves winded while Freeza seems more annoyed than anything else—Vegeta doesn’t go head-to-head with Freeza. He’s hesitant to attack him. Scared. Freeza knows that. Freeza largely ignores Vegeta throughout the fight because he isn’t doing anything, which he taunts him about. Oh, I’m gonna kill this little half-Saiyan. Aren’t you gonna come save him, Vegeta? No? I thought not.

As tactically unsound as bringing Piccolo to Namek was—seriously what the hell, you almost defeated the whole purpose of going there in the first place—it makes for an interesting way to twist the knife in Vegeta. Here he is, embodying everything that Vegeta was supposed to—the champion of a slaughtered people, (almost) the last of his kind, fearlessly throwing down with Freeza. After a transformation, and meeting with decent success, furthermore. Piccolo, who has only the most tenuous of connection to his race and his homeworld (same as Goku, interestingly enough). And what is Vegeta doing?

He gets desperate. And when Vegeta gets desperate, he does stupid, crazy, desperate things. Like letting Krillin blow a hole in his chest because if he gets one more brink-of-death power-up then surely he’ll be stronger than Freeza. He just has to be. But he’s not, and all the fight goes out of him. And when the fight goes out of him, Freeza’s interest in him disappears too. Because that was the whole appeal of Vegeta to him—that expectation that he’d fight to the bitter end.

That’s where they stand at the end of Namek, up until Super. Vegeta is a pitiful disappointment to Freeza, Freeza is a memory of failure to Vegeta subsumed into his fixation on defeating Goku. And so, time passes. Vegeta goes through A Lot of development. Freeza seethes in hell, dreaming of revenge.

While Resurrection F is imo a rather poor arc, it’s got some stuff for us in this vein. Freeza comes to Earth for the grudge match against Goku—he barely acknowledges Vegeta at all, except to express surprise that he’s still around, and hanging around with Goku no less. He’s uninterested in him entirely—when Vegeta tries to cut into the fight, all Freeza has for him is a quip about pets and masters and an order to butt out.

And Vegeta just… takes that? Why does he just take that? This has baffled me for the longest time. The closest approximation of a Good Writing explanation I can get is Vegeta deciding that he wants Freeza reduced to about the power level that he was on Namek before he pulls that mean role reversal on him. Hey, did you know I have transformations now? But Vegeta doesn’t get off on crushing ants (anymore) the way Freeza does, so he doesn’t even really seem to revel in kicking Freeza’s teeth in like he’d wanted to for so long. I guess to his mind it’s too little too late. The Saiyans have been avenged for a decade already. He’s had time to heal and grow and rearrange his priorities.

Up through the Super Broly movie, that’s where they’re at. Mutual enmity, mutual acknowledgment of the threat each poses to the other. Everything past that, I’ll save for the Moro/Granolah post (and for once I’m. yknow. current with the manga again.)

As to the other questions—the thing is, I don’t think Freeza tried to mould him into anything, because the whole point of keeping him was [gestures to the above] That. Let me instead pose a different question—how much of Vegeta’s personality and worldview at the start of Z do you think was influenced by Nappa? Nappa, who was old enough to remember life on Vegetasei before King Cold took over. Who would know exactly what was taken from them, and would harbor a deep resentment over it? Whose view of such things was likely colored by his more than probable involvement in the Saiyan-Tuffle war? Personally I think it’s more than anybody realizes.

Thanks for your ask <3 Hope this was satisfactory.

[textfromthelookout]

i just remembered a while ago someone asked if i had any dragon ball Hot Takes and i didnt have a good answer at the time but heres one: bio-broly was actually kinda fire as a movie

[textfromthelookout]

[textfromthelookout]