"Victory" is a term once reserved solely for war, referring specifically to martial combat. The definition has expanded to encompass any form of conflict. There is a winner and a loser. The concept of victory existed in the human mind long before the written word existed and has more than a few agents in different belief systems. However, internal victories are often some of the hardest to achieve. Buddha emphasized that "it is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, by heaven or by hell." This is a sentiment that manages to permeate many different anime characters.

Dragon Ball and Dragon Ball Z These are shows that present battle at their core. As a battle shōnen—and the grandfather of battle shōnen—there are winners and losers as a natural consequence of conflict; victory is essential to making the genre work. This is an important part of the show, and a good rival can truly emphasize the importance of conflict. While Goku has had a few rivals, Vegeta is the one who has left the biggest mark on the franchise as a rival. Many of these rivals have also achieved great victories over Goku—and Vegeta as well, but he would never claim anything as a true victory, especially their first conflict.

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Vegeta and Goku's Saiyan saga conflict set the stage for the series

Vegeta and Goku are the fabric from which modern shōnen rivalries are cut, and it all began with what is considered one of the best fights in the entire series. When Goku and Vegeta first meet, Goku has just returned from the dead to Earth to face the Saiyan threat. Goku arrives shortly after Piccolo's death at the hands of Nappa, breaking his spine in retaliation, making him less useful to Vegeta. It also doesn't help that his actions have rendered the Dragon Balls unusable on Earth. As a result, Vegeta quickly kills him, and Goku sends Gohan and Krillin away to set the stage for the arc's central conflict. Goku comes face to face with the man who, in another life, would have been the monarch he lived under, and here, they are able to fight as equals.

Vegeta enters this fight arrogantly. He's completely convinced that his victory is inevitable, that Goku is an inferior warrior he should be able to crush. Unfortunately, things don't work out that way, with Goku using the Kaioken to keep pace and putting Vegeta at a disadvantage. He ends up using a technique that allows him to transform into a Great Ape, making him much, much more difficult to deal with. This is also a moment for Goku where he realizes that he was the one who killed his grandfather, not some nameless monster. This is truly the moment when Vegeta, in essence, wins the fight. He crushes every bone in Goku's body with his hand and is about to kill him once and for all, if not for Yajirobe's intervention in cutting off his tail.

The only reason the heroes achieve victory is because, unlike most previous conflicts, several team members end up having to step in. Dragon Ball, since these are actually one-on-one fights, but Vegeta was too powerful for that. Vegeta is ultimately defeated by Gohan and Yajirobe, and considers the defeat humiliating. These moments would live rent-free in Vegeta's mind for the rest of the day. Dragon Ball Z, and he considered his humiliation at the hands of Goku, specifically—which doesn't make much sense on the surface. Vegeta and Nappa inflicted extensive damage on the Z Fighters, breaking Goku's body so badly he could barely move, and Vegeta was even able to live to try another method of getting what he wanted with very little to stand in his way. A normal villain would take the small L and move forward with his agenda, but Vegeta didn't. This loss would be devastating to his ego in the future and would become a major turning point in his character arc. A deeper look at Vegeta's approach to victory can give the audience a better understanding of why he might feel this way.

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Vegeta would never claim this as a victory, because it wasn't his.

The problem with victory is that there's also the concept of a Pyrrhic victory. This is a victory in which the victory inflicts an incredible amount of damage on the victor, to the point where it's barely a victory at all. There are many victories like this in the Dragon Ball franchise, and this is a key element in understanding Vegeta's views on what victory should actually look like. The Saiyan race made an organized business of annihilating planets and selling them to the highest bidder, and apparently expended very little effort to do so, despite having destroyed entire advanced civilizations. The Saiyans also relied on a rather intense class and caste system, with power levels at birth indicative of social standing. For a prince like Vegeta, his natural ability would be his most valuable asset. This is likely one of the reasons Frieza kept him alive in the first place.

Vegeta's opinion of Goku would be that he should be easily crushed, that he was nothing more than a paper tiger before a storm. For Goku, defending himself against Vegeta would be a direct attack on his self-image—not just physically, but mentally as well. The entire fight is a very real unraveling of everything Vegeta knows about his own culture and upbringing. Goku's existence and ability to stay in the fight, even with help, would be a blow to Vegeta's understanding of the universe itself. Being nearly killed in such a humiliating way would only add the cherry on top of his ego death. Losing his tail, something that connected him to his culture and the planet, would also be a shock—which is immediately evident when Vegeta is reduced to his base form. Victory wasn't the only thing taken from him; a large portion of his power was also taken from him.

Despite the fact that Vegeta would have completely incapacitated Goku and would have killed him if not for his friends, Vegeta still lost—not just physically, but mentally. He was defeated because he couldn't claim a complete victory. In Vegeta's mind, he suffered more losses than the opposing side. Goku would walk again, but Vegeta wouldn't be able to regain his tail. Goku wasn't the one who actually delivered the final blow to Vegeta, but his mere existence as a low-class Saiyan who spared his life in the long run was the greatest insult of all. Goku was beaten and broken, and he made the decision to let Vegeta live, something that ate at the prince for a long time. A large part of Vegeta's arc was about recognizing Goku as worthy, as one of the best of the Buu Saga. This major defeat would be the catalyst for that, and Vegeta's loss here would be one of the most important events of his life. Claiming it as a victory would undermine that.

Dragon Ball

Dragon Ball tells the story of a young warrior named Son Goku, a peculiar young boy with a tail who embarks on a quest to become stronger and learn about the Dragon Balls, when, once gathered all 7, grant any wish of choice.

Created by

Akira Toriyama

First Film

Dragon Ball: Curse of the Blood Rubies

Last movie

Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero

First TV show

Dragon Ball (1986)

Upcoming TV shows

Dragon Ball DAIMA

First episode air date

April 26, 1989

Cast

Sean Schemmel, Laura Bailey, Brian Drummond, Christopher Sabat, Scott McNeil