Like most people of my generation, I grew up with one of the most legendary animes of all time: Dragon Ball Z. Through the fighting, the laughs, and the yelling of the characters who faced all odds and always came up on top, I, like most people, used to picture Goku as the hero. And he is, to an extent, and my favorite as a child. I waited, on edge, as the foes beat up and mocked his friends until the moment he arrived and everything was okay. Yet, now that I'm older, I notice a lot of things I missed before, and the main one is: Prince Vegeta.
Goku had a gift, ever since he was a child he could see something and immediately copy it. He was a battle genius, a prodigy, and it all came natural to him. As Vegeta said, despite his pride, Goku was the embodiment of the Saiyan race. But, looking at him now, he is not something to aspire to. He was naturally gifted, he worked and always ascended, always successful, always getting what he wanted. Now that I'm older, I know that life isn't like that. Life is not so forgiving as it was to Goku, and there is one character who transcended beyond all the others.
From the beginning, Vegeta was never good enough. He was a prince of a planet of elite warriors, and was taken away from his father as a child by a tyrant who not only killed his entire planet, but imprisoned him in an embarrassing way: a slave. A slave to the man that not only killed his family, but his entire people and planet alongside it. And Vegeta was never strong enough to do anything about it but bite the bullet.
He had one hope, his entire life he had a single dream to become the legendary Super Saiyan he heard about time and time again as a child: the one thing he could do as one of the last saiyans, the one thing that could defeat Freeza, to avenge his family and his people like a true prince should. He even calls himself a prince, rather than a king which is his true title, either to honor his father or because he felt he didn't honor his race enough, its never told why. But he never achieved that life-long dream, and someone else took it from him.
Vegeta watched all of his dreams, hopes, aspirations awakened in Goku, right in front of him. He was always one step behind, and he never understood why. Being raised by the cruel dictator Freeza, who killed his men just for the impulse of it who served him loyally their whole lives, Vegeta became vicious and confused. He never understood why Goku and his pure heart were better than him because those emotions were not in his mind. They were no words in his vocabulary for it.
So he trained, he worked hard. No matter what happened, no matter how many times he failed, Vegeta was always the one who got right back up to keep fighting, to keep trying. Even when his body quit, he wouldn't stop, causing Bulma to have to take care of him when no one had ever cared about him before.
Yes, Goku is stronger than Vegeta, but he was stronger physically. Character wise, Vegeta has made the most leaps and bounds, even surrendering his pride on Namek to Goku to convince him to not give up, not give in. Even though Vegeta was still a borderline villain at this point, he didn't care because he wanted to have his race live on. The saiyans and the safety of the universe mattered more to him. In actuality, Vegeta is the hero of the series, as without him Goku would have surrendered to Freeza:
Through the Andriod and Cell Saga, Vegeta's constant training were mocked even more when his son, Trunks, came from the future and he was a Super Saiyan as a teenager. He runs away into space, and its the moment where he faces imminent death that he lets go: lets go of his fears and jealousy, and finally turns Super Saiyan. His hard work has finally paid off. At least until Goku shows himself again and becomes stronger.
Vegeta admits at one point that he had a son and wife/baby-momma because he thought that was Goku's secret to his power: a family. As ascended saiyan became a new addition to the archive of power-ups, Vegeta was not only behind Goku but now his future-version son, Trunks. In the fight with Cell, however, when Trunks is almost fatally shot by Cell, Vegeta snaps for the first time and becomes stronger than all the others.
Vegeta's emotional bursts whenever one of his loved ones are hurt, Trunks being shot or even Bulma being slapped, goes beyond what even Goku could ever do in strength. Not only did he work harder than anyone else, when he feels love, which is Goku's core, he surpasses Goku. Even if its for brief moments at a time.
To further that point, Vegeta becomes more selfless than Goku. In the Battle of the Gods movie, Vegeta, who is famous for being no-nonsense, serious, and prideful, makes a fool of himself to distract Lord Beerus to protect everyone.
When Beerus hits Bulma for drunkenly telling him to act his age, Vegeta turns Super Saiyan and beats him, a God of Death who kept his father, King Vegeta, under his foot, all for hurting his wife. Proving that Vegeta's family means more to him than anything else. Not the same can be said for Goku, who's worst enemy at the time(Piccolo) raised his son. (Poor Chi-chi).
Not everyone is born with the privilege or skill to make life easy. As a poor college student who was paying for school on my own and between deployments and active duty orders where I didn't keep a cent of my blood, sweat, and tears, it was hard to be in college for more than academia. Almost everyone there had grand inheritances, mansions to go home to, parents who paid for everything and had play money credit cards their parents loaded. I lived semester to semester, randomly going homeless for a total of 6 months and not knowing if I could come back semester after semester. Even in the military, everyone bragged of their cars or going to do honeymoon trips to Greece with their boyfriends then two week long trips to Disneyworld once they went stateside, and then marrying someone they dated for 5 months. I returned to an apartment with no heating and a full time job in retail while I was full time in school alone. Not a lot spoke to me, but anytime things get hard, I remember Vegeta. He was born to have more, and it was all ripped away from him. He crawled to get better, he never stopped trying, he never gave up. And even though things got hard, grew impossible, he became not only stronger but a better person purely from hard work. And that is a message I live by, and would be nothing without.
Work hard. Wake up, and don't ever give up.
And in the end, you can kick gods in the face
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