Vegeta VS Vegeta - the dumb moments that we love him for

[Kuro]

ITT : Which moment was more Vegeta?

Vegeta letting Cell absorb Android 18 in order to reach his perfect form

VS

Vegeta knocking Goku out and trying to fight Buu alone

[Miburo]

ITT : Which moment was more Vegeta?

Vegeta letting Cell absorb Android 18 in order to reach his perfect form

VS

Vegeta knocking Goku out and trying to fight Buu alone

Cell. Classic Vegeta. If there was DBZ 101, this would be the prime case to establish the kind of person Vegeta was for the majority of DBZ. It's pure and untainted in it's ego and hubris.

Vegeta was having some mental issues during the whole start of Buu arc. He was basically despising himself for being a nice--Well, nicer?-- guy, and although he wanted to fight Buu for his own ego, he gave up his life while making peace with himself being a less "I M SAYIAN ELITE NO WIFE ONLY BATTLE" guy and giving his life for everyone he cared about, including Goku. You could also argue he felt responsible for the Buu thing since he helped speed things up.

Even his final attempt to kill Buu was atleast a solid try, and it owes more to Buu being able to regen from scraps that he survived, more than Vegeta just completely fucking up and being unable to try and adjust.

Buu was basically a sideshow to the mental issues Vegeta was having, practically an after thought. "Some magic guy will make me more ruthless and I can fight Goku. I guess I'll fight the Taffy thing he wants to summon and kill it later. Whatever.'

Buu was also mostly an unknown factor. It was a **** up, but you can say there were mitigating factors, kinda.

Cell? Cell was pure Vegeta, pure megalomania, unable to fathom the idea of someone possibly gaining power that can surpass what he has. Vegeta was in his right mind, had no mental issues, and was arguably as sharp as we've seen him until that point. Cell basically said that he wasn't man enough to let him eat some robots cause he knew Perfect Cell would smoke him.

That bait was overwhelmingly obvious, and there was absolutely no reason to do this, other than to get a good fight---But more importantly to Vegeta, it wasn't even about the fight, it was about shitting on Cell. Goku would atleast **** up cause he wanted the smoke, Vegeta wanted to just dick the guy down, and it didn't work out that way.

Cell had been kicking everyones ass and having the entire team scrambling to keep up with him from start to finish, and Vegeta knew the guy had DRASTIC power jumps, and was getting bodied by Androids who were considerably weaker than him (Hey, 18, I see you girl.) Vegeta was as informed as any member of the cast could possibly be who wasn't, like, Gero on how dangerous Cell has proven to be, and he still said **** it.

PEAK VEGETA.

[K7P5V]

Gotta go with the majority, Cell's Vegeta takes the cake. But from a dramatic/theatrical standpoint, Buu's Vegeta has no equal:

[Nik Hasta]

Very much in agreement that Cell was perhaps the maximum hubris threshold Vegeta ever reached. Just firing ego out of every possible orifice.

[big_adventure]

I'm gonna pile on the Prince here: Cell was the worst of the worst of the worst sir.

[The Chou Lives]

Cell. Because if he did not could had just killed him, but nope. Had to moron it out.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Cell? Cell was pure Vegeta, pure megalomania, unable to fathom the idea of someone possibly gaining power that can surpass what he has. Vegeta was in his right mind, had no mental issues, and was arguably as sharp as we've seen him until that point. Cell basically said that he wasn't man enough to let him eat some robots cause he knew Perfect Cell would smoke him.

So I'd counter the bolded with the following.



To say that he was in a good place mentally when he allowed Cell to absorb an Android and transform would be, in my opinion, a bit of a stretch. He'd just come off the back of being made to look like a fool by someone he had thought (until it was revealed she was toying with him) he had greatly surpassed. After he had for the moment surpassed Goku.

And knowing Vegeta? That **** festered while he was in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

EDIT: I don't disagree with the assessment mind you. Cell Saga Vegeta was peak Vegeta. Just that he was sane at the time.

[Dark Soul # 7]

Yeah, Vegeta's **** up in the Cell Saga is the most classic case of Vegeta screwing things up because of his immense ego. He's so arrogant and prideful that he actually believes he can't be topped even when he's seen how overpowering transformations can be. He could've won the fight and basked in the praise he'd be showered with. Instead he made things worse, thinking that they wouldn't be so bad that he couldn't clean up the mess.

In the Buu saga it's still all about his pride. But instead of the crux being his overinflated ego, it's that his ego is wounded because of how strong Goku is and he's enveloped in this self-centered desperation because he can't catch up. That's sad and dumb, but it's not as dumb as the Cell debacle.

[Kuro]

In defense of the Buu saga, it was Vegeta’s ego that inevitably led the Buu literally blowing up the planet.

(Though, Goku allegedly holding back may have had a hand in it, too)

[Len Ikari145]

Yeah, Vegeta's **** up in the Cell Saga is the most classic case of Vegeta screwing things up because of his immense ego. He's so arrogant and prideful that he actually believes he can't be topped even when he's seen how overpowering transformations can be. He could've won the fight and basked in the praise he'd be showered with. Instead he made things worse, thinking that they wouldn't be so bad that he couldn't clean up the mess.

In the Buu saga it's still all about his pride. But instead of the crux being his overinflated ego, it's that his ego is wounded because of how strong Goku is and he's enveloped in this self-centered desperation because he can't catch up. That's sad and dumb, but it's not as dumb as the Cell debacle.

It also didn't help that when given an opportunity to easily remedy the situation (i.e. fusion) Vegeta STILL make things difficult over his petulant ego because "You hurt my pride by holding back on me, so I don't wanna!", which later becomes "I don't wanna do a prissy dance! It's embarrassing and I don't want your Kaka-cooties". The whole Kid Buu affair would have been avoided if he just agreed to become Gogeta and vaporize Super Buu.

[Jackalope89]

Well, Cell Saga Vegeta was still an ******* turning into an ally. It took Future Trunks' death for him to cross the good guy line.

Vegeta in Buu Saga, well, it was his atonement. His final point from evil to good in his very long character arc.

[Miburo]

So I'd counter the bolded with the following.



To say that he was in a good place mentally when he allowed Cell to absorb an Android and transform would be, in my opinion, a bit of a stretch. He'd just come off the back of being made to look like a fool by someone he had thought (until it was revealed she was toying with him) he had greatly surpassed. After he had for the moment surpassed Goku.

And knowing Vegeta? That **** festered while he was in the Hyperbolic Time Chamber.

EDIT: I don't disagree with the assessment mind you. Cell Saga Vegeta was peak Vegeta. Just that he was sane at the time.

You have a valid point. It's maybe not correct to say sane, more like it's within the normal baseline of the type of person he is. Some bitch he's fighting is more powerful than him, as opposed to some dick he's fighting being more powerful than him. He's not a rookie, and even though he hates being surpassed and humiliated, he's usually outplayed by being entirely wrong about how strong the enemy is.

In this case, Cell basically made an argument, and Vegeta thought that it was a hypothesis worth testing, because clearly now he is the Legendary Super Saiyan. This is all pretty standard for Vegeta, and while I'm sure the defeat(s) caused him to stew, almost everything puts him in a bad mood. Weaker than him? Waste of time. Stronger than him? Unacceptable. On par? Even worse. Utterly crush him? He hates you forever.

Vegeta having some issue about someone being (Insert term here) isn't an outlier, and to make things worse, if Vegeta was emotionally compromised at the time, it had time to--Maybe not cool, but atleast it shouldn't have compromised his abilities as a warrior. Vegeta's error was one of ego, IIRC, as opposed him just losing his **** and charging like he did when Trunks got killed, or anything along those lines.

So I feel it was more or less in the baseline of what we'd expect for Vegeta, so I guess that's the more accurate term. Keep in mind, even while he was training and moody, he was still in the right frame of mind to determine that USSJ was a waste of time, etc, so he's capable of being relatively rational about things.

Cell didn't outwit him, he made an argument, and Vegeta thought it was a hypothesis worth testing, because his ego had been restored and he could not fathom anyone surpassing the legendary Super Saiyan yet again. And so he went as close as one can to actively helping Cell power up. I feel that even if 18 had gotten eaten first, and Cell wanted 17 (Someone Vegeta had less baggage with) he would still have made the same call.

Even if he was compromised on some level by the saga, I don't think it was by a massive amount, and I think that even had events played out slightly different, he would have made the same choice. He can't help it. The only way I could see him electing not to do it, is if he *knew* Cell was about to power up so massively.

[Cthulhu_of_R'lyeh]

Even if he was compromised on some level by the saga, I don't think it was by a massive amount, and I think that even had events played out slightly different, he would have made the same choice. He can't help it. The only way I could see him electing not to do it, is if he *knew* Cell was about to power up so massively.

I think, had he not been more bothered by the fact that 18 beat the **** out of him; he would've been less likely to let Cell eat one of them. This was his chance to prove that he was still top dog, even after letting his opponent get stronger, and in his mind he needed it to fix the fact that he'd been utterly trounced by 18.

[Miburo]

It also didn't help that when given an opportunity to easily remedy the situation (i.e. fusion) Vegeta STILL make things difficult over his petulant ego because "You hurt my pride by holding back on me, so I don't wanna!", which later becomes "I don't wanna do a prissy dance! It's embarrassing and I don't want your Kaka-cooties". The whole Kid Buu affair would have been avoided if he just agreed to become Gogeta and vaporize Super Buu.

No, to be fair, I totally get this one.

Keep in mind the entire Majin Vegeta thing was about how Vegeta was starting to loathe himself, and couldn't catch up with Goku and would basically do everything to return to Old School Vegeta and that mindset, and to surpass Goku, to the point he made a quasi deal with the bootleg devil to do so.

He does all this, gives this whole exposition about his feelings and how he felt about being second fiddle to Goku, about settling down and disgracing his ancestors by doing so, and tries to have a battle befitting of two Saiyan warriors, finally made equal and ready to engage in a death match.

Just to find out that the guy giving you the inferority complex, the guy whose back you've been chasing, to the point you needed a foreign power boost to finally stand face to face with.....

Well, he was basically humoring you, or playing with a handicap to enjoy a fight. He basically stooped down to a level where Vegeta would present an actual challenge, thus making your entire sacrifice meaningless, and even worse, he was basically just humoring you. You can't win this fight unless he allows you to do so, and he knows it. "Yes, Vegeta. You're amazing, you are truly my equal and it is impressive you've finally gotten the power to face blah blah blah."

And then, basically like a *day* after you blow yourself up to try and undo the *massive* fuckup you caused, the guy is like "CHECK OUT MY REAL POWER BRO" to some taffy guy he doesn't even care about.

There was no way normal Vegeta wouldn't be pissed, let alone Existential Crisis Vegeta. It was all he could probably do not to try and kill the guy, let alone fuse with him. The level of humiliation he endured inadvertently from Goku is pretty immense.

Goku just wanted to have a good fight, as per usual, and to Vegeta this was his entire self concept in that fight, and I can totally see how he felt mocked on a cellular level. He's had Goku on the mind of like, decades.

[Miburo]

Like, you know that meme where there's a crying guy

Vegeta:KAKAROT! YOU CAN'T BE STRONGER THAN ME I'M ELITE PRINCE AND YOU'RE LOW CLASS WARRIOR! I'M GETTING RID OF FAMILY AND FOCUSING ON EVIL TO SURPASS YOU!"

and that absolute Chadiot who barely cares?

Goku: Hahah. Other guy wants to have punch fight cause fights fun.

That basically sums up that whole Majin Vegeta contest. Vegeta is over here writing emo poetry and **** and wanting to battle to the death and rejecting the concepts he's kinda learned to embrace like love and family and Goku's like "....****. That's tough buddy. Wanna do some light sparring?"

I mean, we could argue that SSJ3 Goku would have driven Majin Vegeta mad during the battle, but I feel he'd be less miserable than learning that it's a thing five minutes after his ashes blew away.

I half think that that if Vegeta and Goku fused before Vegeta got over himself, Vegito would have just killed himself. This was premium salt at the time.