Was asked to paste this from a chat log.
EarthScorpion said:
Honestly, I think [Vegeta]'s basically the real protagonist of DBZA by this point
Hm, well, the thing is... Dragon Ball's protagonist was undeniably Goku.
But Goku doesn't grow in Dragon Ball Z. He becomes more powerful, but he never
changes. He never needs to. He never learns any real lessons, because he's already perfect, he just needs to unveil more of what he already is. He's basically an enlightened being from start to finish, a Buddha-like divinity whose thought processes are beyond mortal capacity or comprehension. To us, they sometimes resemble stupidity or carelessness, but is he ever
wrong? In the face of Goku's philosophy, Chi-Chi's devotion to the edifice of civilization is revealed as little more than a futile joke. Goku is the only perfect character in the entire cast, the only character who is never truly defeated or forced to change.
The entire cast, villains and all, are merely dancing in the palm of his hand, thinking they're on a journey.
So Goku's the hero, but he's not really the
protagonist. Who is?
Krillin has seniority... but he's the Nyarlathotep to Goku's Azathoth, a jester whose existence lies on the very periphery of actual logic. He has little reason to exist or keep up with the rest of the cast, but he somehow does, dragged along by the inertia of his association with Goku, a herald of the true divinity. He never has to change, either. He never goes on a journey. He simply exists, acting as a Greek chorus who interacts only sparingly with the world itself.
So neither of these characters - both survivors of Dragon Ball - are the protagonist.
Piccolo could very easily lay claim to the title. He goes through a complete character arc, from villain to reluctant hero to self-reflective father figure to conflicted loner to Earth's guardian divinity. He discovers his people, his self, and a life beyond his original destiny as clone of a demonic overlord. He changes, and grows, and eventually becomes a god himself. So surely he's the top candidate? Unfortunately, he doesn't have enough screentime. Piccolo remains aloof from the narrative, possibly held back from it by his deep links to the original Dragon Ball, as a clone of that series' final villain. He's a lingering facet of Goku's own ascension myth, not the hero of his own story.
Trunks is a decoy hero at best, who serves other characters' development (Vegeta, Gohan, Frieza, Cell, etc) without actually undergoing much of his own. He's a tool - one used to wipe away the past and introduce the future, fittingly enough.
With those three brushed aside, the two
real candidates are Vegeta and Gohan. It's no coincidence that they're both Goku's favoured "projects". In-setting, he literally regards both of them as potential prospects for a good fight. He'd know. He is the True God of the Dragon Ball universe, after all - ironically playing the role of Buddha to the entire galaxy's Sun Wukong.
Gohan is the actual intended protagonist. Toriyama intended for Dragon Ball Z to be his story. It's why the series ultimately revolves around him growing up, it's why so much early foreshadowing focuses on his immense and poorly understood power, and so on. Unfortunately, his development is crippled by the presence of his father, on both a meta and in-universe level. The editors would not allow Toriyama to kill off Goku, so Gohan was in turn never allowed to become more than a mini-Goku. His development and rise to heroism are largely unnecessary, because Goku will always save the day. Unable to step out of the living Goku's shadow, his differences from his father were shunned as flaws rather than unique character traits.
There is little need for Jesus if God Himself is walking the Earth.
Toriyama eventually resolved this paradox toward the end of the Cell Saga, by having Goku explicitly, actively focus on turning Gohan into the protagonist,
within the story itself. This decision relaxed the constant tension between "should be" and "is" by admitting to it. It also exposed Goku for the godlike metabeing he is, by stripping away what remained of his previous, humane characterisation in favour of (by mortal standards) a sociopathic devotion to realizing his son's potential.
Despite the forced and often poorly-received nature of Gohan's development, it arguably acts as a microcosm of the series as a whole, for good and ill. Its conclusion during the Buu Saga, with Gohan finally establishing a separate identity - quite literally - for himself, could be read as Toriyama expressing a desire to move on, to different things and different genres, with Gohan's usurpation by the conceit of fusion acting as a metacommentary on the tired, recycled nature of a story that probably should have ended with Frieza, and failing that should certainly have ended with Cell. He is a child of the universe, and bears its sins.
Vegeta, on the other hand, is Gohan's dark mirror on multiple levels. He's presented as Goku's foil, but Goku has no foil. He's perfect, all-encompassing. He has no need for a reflection. Vegeta and Gohan are both are new characters, who develop throughout the series into quite different ones, passing through distinct stages in their lives. Gohan obviously ages, while Vegeta passes from a metaphorical angry teenager to an adult who "kills his father" by fighting Frieza, to a father in his own right, through to a midlife crisis and finally a stable adulthood. Both characters are overshadowed by the impossible peak that is Goku, but rather than developing confidence in his own power and developing into a similar entity - as Gohan was intended to, before outside interference crippled that development - Vegeta has to learn humility and acceptance, becoming at peace with the fact that one man cannot conquer the universe that is Goku.
This is a fairly classic resolution of hubris, or development of enlightenment in a less Western sense.
Rather than the legacy of an existing character, however, Vegeta is a herald of the new, the introduction of a new paradigm and entirely different scope for a series that had previously been a martial arts fantasy (Raditz precedes him, but does not introduce Frieza, does not level cities, and is quickly forgotten). And rather than a designed protagonist whose arc was hobbled by oversensitivity to fan response to its early stages, Vegeta is an emergent protagonist whose arc only existed at all because the fans
responded. Toriyama never intended to leave Vegeta alive for long, much less focus on him, but fan response to the character galvanized his editors into forcing him to add Vegeta to the recurring cast (look how much attention was given to the idea of reviving Nappa and Raditz - exactly).
Unable to simply sideline a character who consistently topped popularity polls and was intimately involved in the backstory of the upcoming Frieza Saga, Toriyama made him into a perfect and genuine anti-hero - that is to say, a hero who fails, on both a practical and moral level. Vegeta became a vehicle for the frustrations of every character used as cannon fodder to show off an enemy's strength, because he was not allowed to be the protagonist, but he wanted it so badly, and we
saw him work for it, but it was never enough and he never understood
why. He was Sisyphus, rolling his boulder uphill arc after arc only to see it crash back down.
Vegeta
cares, so deeply, about so many things - starting with "not seeming to care" - and none of them matter at all. His noble bloodline means nothing. His Saiyan pride means nothing. His hatred of Goku means nothing. His grudge against Frieza means nothing. The universe will never validate his obsessions (self-obsession least of all), and he can only find peace by eventually accepting that. He must let go of his attachments and his ego, release his upādāna, accept that his bullshit is bullshit. That is the ultimate climax of his arc.
Vegeta could never have been allowed to win, or the magic would have vanished. Few people realize this. Take a look at Sasuke, who was an attempt to recapture that same lightning. Kishimoto's failing was validating him. Agreeing with him. Yes, the Uchiha were the most important thing ever. Yes, his brooding was meaningful. Yes, his revenge was vital and necessary. Yes, his rivalry was legendary. Kishimoto's mistake was
liking Sasuke. Toriyama simply didn't care for Vegeta in the same way - he found his popularity baffling - so he was able to spin a perfect, near-mythological story of a prideful man being kicked in the dick by the cosmos until he finally, finally
learned some kind of lesson.
The twin protagonists of Dragon Ball Z are:
- Gohan, a child who was born and raised to become God, but ultimately decides to be a man
- Vegeta, a man who seeks to defeat God, only to acquire divinity by accepting mortality
They get there in different yet similar ways.