sometimes you kinda wanna cheer for a character like vegeta or lex luthor or sasuke -- because they're never gonna surpass the wide-eyed, pure-hearted protagonist, who is destined by the story to always win they aren't just fighting their rival. they're fighting THE WHOLE CONCEPT OF THE STORY
And every once in awhile they actually succeed in beating the hero... Those are some of my favorite villains. Case in Point: Caius Ballard from Final Fantasy XIII-2 (probably one of the only shining lights from this soulless game trilogy)
FF VI Kefka remains my favorite. Dancing Mad surely helps.
Everyone loves One Winged Angel, but Dancing Mad is absolutely peak Uematsu 👌 I get shivers down my spine when I hear that organ fire up
rivals in Pokemon games.
See, this is why I like tales of bersia because they take the Goku, turn them into vegeta and then you spend the rest of the game being a really pissed off female vegeta who is trying to kill her brother in law. also the protag looks like this.
I am so confused, and also I'm just trying to count how many belts she's wearing that serve no purpose whatsoever 😵💫
Bro came straight out of 2002 with his critique.
Bro would choke if they saw the amount of belts on a modern Guilty Gear character
Sobs in Neji
Lex will always lose because him winning would absolutely destroy the message of Superman stories. Sasuke will always lose because he's kinda a directionless idiot, overshadowed by his brother. For Vegeta, it depends on your definition of defeat, but he's definitely doing the best out of the three
generally aggree but lex luthor can get fucked
Excuse me, Vegeta beat Goku in the last movie, okay?
Is it stupid for those characters to try to go against the character with the plot armor? Yep, but it’s extremely respectable for them to even attempt to try to break said armor.
including Vegeta in this be kinda wild tho aside of spars later on(and he won some), the only time he and goku *actually* fought was the first time when he was a villain, and he won by a wide mile, just took enough damage that someone else's sneak attack+teaming up on him got him hurt enough to flee
May shortman syndrome carry us through
Remember when one guy said that when the kendrick lamar vs drake stuff happened
I always wanted Team Rocket to get Pikachu because they put more effort in it than anything Ash ever did
Okay, Sasuke and Vegetate I get. But Lex Luthor? The Guy's A Billionaire(after inflation), he's already Won. I don't think there's a single person who'd cheer for a guy who..........too long a list to make. But if you Know you Know.
It's funny you bring up Dragon Ball because Goku in particular has significantly more major Ls than major dubs.
People forget that Goku died as much as Krillin did ;p
goku may have even died more than krillin
Nah, Goku only died twice, meanwhile Krillin died 3 times, or 4 if you wanna count GT.
damn he should really get better at living
Three times Raditz/Special Beam Cannon Cell Hit
Does it really count as death if you manage to bring yourself back via ki CPR ?
Yeah
Lex is unique because he’s enough of a hater it wraps around into “this guy fucking sucks he’s a joy to watch”
Except that Naruto denies the whole concept of itself at some point...
Naruto's stated concept from the start should result in Rock Lee being the protagonist only to eventually come up with "basically all of history is a cycle of two assholes brothers fighting over who is the best and since most cycles they are unrelated fans want them to smooch instead."
If Rock Lee was the protagonist Naruto would be peak
their whole point is to be a parable for the reader about how it's wrong to be spiteful, antisocial and negative like they are and they're like "nah fuck it, i'll still win" AND THEY WON'T BUT YOU HAVE TO RESPECT IT THIS IS WHY THOSE 2006 LINKIN PARK VEGETA AMVS WENT HARD
i just had a flashback to the my own prison - creed majin vegeta amv jesus christ
I like how in My Hero Academia, since it's a school setting, you get to see the rest of the class (and later, the general public/the folks he interns for) get genuinely put off by Bakugo's asshole behavior.
Only because Bakugo is "loud" - if he would be silent/brooding (and still rude) they'd be swooning
Vegeta became my fave since he grew as a character - no longer denying when Goku was stronger than him, being a better father and husband, yet still training to surpass Goku. This is moreso in super since Goku was hella dumbed down to just "oh boy time to fight!"
discard fucks, acquire bulma
I've been summoned. www.youtube.com/watch?v=SQO_...
Zukopaparoach.mp4
they did let Sasuke win like 9/10 fights with Naruto though. Loved that for him.
Everyone knows the only reason Vegeta lost was because he pointed at himself with his thumb. Once you do that you're cooked
hating despite it all
Vegeta grew and developed, though, and became a much more endearing character, all without losing his edge and being sanitized. Luthor and Uchiha are still whiny fuckboys getting slapped on a daily basis by people with serotonin~
If by “Grew and Developed” you mean he stayed exactly the same but every now and then Bulma gets mad at him and he does something nice
Sasuke did turn face at the end of Naruto tho. He had a child with Sakura (For some reason) and helps out in the future even tho he is technically a criminal.
True (and don't even get me started on that whole chestnut), and really, the only reason he hasn't been Old Yeller'd is because his bestie happens to be ninja president and the kind who can literally forgive wholesale murder~
Did Sasuke actually killed people? I never got very far into Shippuden so i am not sure what happened besides what I got from cultural osmosis
He only killed some samurai guards, he never went full-on mass murder like basically everyone else around him. Before he snapped he actually refused to kill anyone except Itachi or others exceedingly trying to stop him.
It's been a long while so my memory is definitely fuzzy. But didn't he end up killing a bunch of people (innocent people) when he tried destroying the Leaf Village, as well as at the 5 Kage Summit? Please CMIIW; I'm a hater, but I wanna be accurate
He never actually attacked Konoha. The samurai guards at the summit were the only innocents he killed, he warned them to get out of the way, and they were relatively few in number (but yes, murdering them shows how far in the darkness he was at that point).
Vegeta wins, like, all the time against Goku though, and frequently his help is instrumental in defeating opponents. He just sucks at fighting anyone who's not Goku or his pride and ego constantly get in the way while Goku's determination and reckless altruism end up saving the day.
You should read the Super stuff that hasn't been animated yet hint hint wink wink
They are to be admired for their narrative tenacity if nothing else. Like yea, fuck lex luthor. But you gotta admit he's dedicated and ambitious despite being the foil, and destined for failure
Put some respect on my boy, Shadow!!!
They said never going to surpass their counterpart tho
Yeah. I suppose I phrased this poorly. I meant that he fits the Vegeta/Sasuke archetype better than someone like Lex imo. Given the same tools, but unable to catch up. Luthor has intelligence where Superman has strength, but I see where they're coming from too.
In fact, this whole take is garbage bc the protagonist never wins on their own. They are usually always weaker than their counterpart. It's the wide-eyed hero who is the underdog, and that's why they are cheered, and it's that cheering that makes them strong.
It's like you never even watched Naruto.
You should read a practical guide to evil, it executes this concept very well
x2 on PGTE, it is absolutely incredible. I honestly think that EE is the best fantasy writer of all time, Pale Lights is impeccably good.
Best example of this I've heard is Rossiu in Gurren Lagann who is the exact sort of calculating manipulative "for the greater good" character who would thrive in a space opera/real mecha series who gets dunked on because he's in a hot blooded super robot series where heroes reality warp with swag.
I do like that in Dragon Ball Super, Vegeta starts surpassing Son Goku as a father.
And yet they lose, because of plot armour and happy endings. I didn’t want Végéta to sacrifice himself in a noble fashion, dammit! I wanted him to make one last attempt at being the strongest and die by the hands of Goku!!!
shout out to pokemon for doing this trope but driven by positive emotions that could fit a main character (but still losing anyway)
Lumping lex Luther in with the other two, while making sense (the parallels are there) actively makes me hate Vegeta and Sasuke more. Their only saving grace is Sasuke and Vegeta eventually realize they are being complete dick-heads
New movie made we want to spit on lex more than anything...
That's why some of the most memorable stories are those where the villain achieves at least some goals!