This is why there’s that trope where the bad guy gets killed in the process of, or just after, getting redeemed. So the story can have its cake and not have to deal with any of the icky justice afterwards. How jarring would it be to have the bad guy turn around, save the day, and then the heroes still kill them or drag them off to a trial for their crimes? So justice has to be meted out by fate rather than having to complicate our heroes.
Ah, uncle Iroh, everyone’s favorite barely reformed war criminal.
What is better - to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?
How many planets did Vegeta destroy that we didn’t see? We saw that one that was such a casual fucking thing for him.
Even after he turned good, he was still willing to kill a stadium full of people to get Kakarot to fight him. He acted like he was under control of the Majin spell but only went along with it until they started acting superior to him, then was just like, “nah, I just want to fight Kakarot because I’ve been training very hard and he’s usually dead these days and I miss fighting with my buddy but don’t tell anyone I called him my buddy, and I thought pretending to be under your control would get him to fight me, but I’m not going to bow to you or any of that shit.”
Though I can’t remember if he actually did kill some of them or if he just did an attack he knew Goku would stop, which would affect how evil the ruse was.
He killed those people. I guess you could argue since he knows about the dragon balls that they could wish them back after, but he still straight up killed them to get goku to fight.
Tbh I don’t think vegeta really was a good guy until he fought kid buu. He was pacified sure and maybe even on the path to being good, but that was because his target was gone and to his knowledge was never coming back. That’s why I love his turn to majin so much. It’s a hardcore backslide because his target came back and if it wasn’t for that he never would have realized how much everything on earth actually meant to him.
I don’t consider him good after going for fat buu because he wasn’t being selfless yet. Him + goku could have taken buu on but he felt like HE needed to be the one to finish the job. His sacrifice was hollow since it (despite what he said) was for him. If it really was for everyone he would have let goku join to guarantee a win.
It wasn’t until he fought kid buu that he was actually being selfless. He let himself get wailed on so goku could charge up knowing he both stood no chance and could potentially be permanently erased since he was already dead. The “you are number one” speech is the conclusion to his story and his redemption.
This became a bit of a ramble but I love Vegeta’s story and could probably keep going if I had the time
Yeah, Vegeta is ambiguously good/evil but makes the story better by being in it regardless.
Kinda like Piccolo, who clearly stated at the start of DBZ that he still intended to take over the world once he was powerful enough to defeat Goku and they were only joining forces because neither wanted the saiyans to destroy the planet, but then somewhere along the way he changed his mind, probably because of his bond with Gohan.
I mean if the villain’s redemption is well written then typically the guilt from their past actions is the punishment for said actions, and their current actions are largely focused on atonement and reparation. That sort of thing often makes them even more relatable because while not everyone has killed another person, everyone in the world has hurt someone else at some point, maybe unintentionally, maybe unknowingly, maybe due to extenuating circumstances or their own trauma, or maybe because they were just a worse person at the time. Does that mean they are never allowed to be a better person and must eternally suffer for all the wrongs they’ve committed? Is it not better to encourage their goodness in the present than to forcibly drag them back to when they were bad over and over again for the sake of vindication? Does society really benefit from that sort of thing? And what if they end up saving more lives than they’ve taken? Something to think about.
A good percentage of my novel (WIP, third draft) is about that. It takes place in this space age afterlife where objective and good space angels categorize and separate people by the development of their consciences. And the villains’ activist group is in the self-righteous category, and they don’t believe in the forgiveness and redemption of many kinds of people. The two main antagonists are a husband-and-wife duo, and the husband is bitter from tragedy after being one of the earliest fighters for womens’ votes in the US on Earth. He ends up coming to terms with the harm he’s now caused in the afterlife in the name of revenge against wrongdoers; and then the protagonists convince him that he too has the right to atone by being— and by doing— better.
Admittedly, since in this universe people can be reincarnated indefinitely, the harm that people cause (whether back on Earth or in this afterlife) is softened. As an interesting bonus, though, I will say that the villains did seize the means of reincarnation and start deciding who gets to be reincarnated— until the protagonists win, of course.
Also also, that theme is just like a quarter of what the novel has to offer theme-wise. It’s also largely about healing from childhood trauma, mental health tools, identity discovery, found family, and kinder perspectives. Also the space angels are super cool and have interesting science-fantasy powers; and the science and sci-fi stuff is really cool as well! (Yes, I did just devolve into advertising. You would have too!)
hilarious how this guy became a meme. I hope he earns at least $1 every time someone posts a picture of his trying-so-hard-to-stay-awake face on the internet.
