You know they say, pride comes before the fall.
But that doesn't mean it has to be that way.
Wouldn't it be better to humble yourself
than have the world humble you instead?
Honestly, regardless of which you choose,
being prideful can only get you so far in life.
And that's why today we're looking at a character
who arguably has one of the best character development
in present anime.
And if you haven't guessed already,
then yes, I'm talking about
the crown prince of sans, Vegeta.
Hey, what's going on guys?
My name is Nate and you're listening
to the Otaku Liberation,
a show where we help you break free from the chains
that are holding you back in your life
by connecting some biblical principles
with themes from your favorite anime.
And without further ado, let's get into it.
So Vegeta, the crown prince of sans,
or he so likes to remind all of us, right?
Vegeta is an interesting character for me, right?
And when I was preparing for this episode,
and of course I just did Barra's episode not too long ago,
and they are very similar,
but they have different aspects on them
that make them unique.
And Vegeta, and to really understand Vegeta,
you gotta understand the background of the sans in general.
And so let me kind of walk you through that.
So again, the sans are an alien race of warriors
who all they do is conquer and pillage
and just take over worlds
and for whoever is over the sans at the time, right?
And in this case it's Frieza,
who's one of the main villains of the Dragon Ball universe.
And the sans are a very proud race inherently,
but even more so the royal family,
because they have a monarchy.
And Vegeta is actually, I believe, the sixth, fifth or sixth,
I can't exactly remember,
but Vegeta is the family name more or less.
Every king is named Vegeta.
And during the time that,
around the time when Frieza eradicated all the sans,
Vegeta was just a prince, he was just a child at that point.
But again, his mind, he has already been growing up
and raised as he's the prince, he's the best of the best.
And unless you're royalty, you're just beneath him, right?
You just, you literally mean nothing to him
like some of the feces you may find in the street.
And I mean, that's just Vegeta, he's very cocky, arrogant.
So, you know, self-assured and all these things,
which again, in and of itself isn't really a bad thing.
But when you take it to such extreme level,
then it becomes something completely different.
So again, so that's how he was raised.
He's the prince, he already boasts a higher power level
than majority of people that he comes in contact with.
So that already, that filled up his inflated ego even more.
And again, kind of this whole thing,
you say, again, pride comes before the fall, right?
So it's the same form, the pride, fall,
and then the redemption.
And Vegeta's pride, again, is dealing with the fact
that he's a prince and that he believes,
and the fact that he is a prince,
that he has a natural talent,
that he's already more powerful
than some of the other characters he's on screen with.
And he just sees others as being beneath him.
And on top of that, he's extremely cruel,
arrogant, and vengeful.
And there's a couple of times where his own subordinates,
he treats them with the same disdain
that he does his adversaries.
Like the people he's going against,
he's treating his subordinates sometimes worse than them.
Case point, Nappa, after Nappa lost to Goku
and proves that his usefulness was no longer needed,
Vegeta killed Nappa himself,
just because he thought that little of the man
that if he can beat this quote unquote insect,
talking about Goku,
then he didn't deserve to be in his presence anyway.
And I want you to keep that in mind,
because when we go further along,
Vegeta's story is interesting to see
that whole mindset shift.
And again, it just kind of really made me think,
how many times have we all been there before
where even if we're not a prideful person,
intentionally, like we're,
if it's just not our personality all the time,
I can argue that we've all had these type of moments
at some point in our life.
And it typically happens more when we're younger,
like when we're kids and we're still learning,
how not to be that way.
But I would say, how many times have you found yourself
being a little more cocky than you should have been?
Your ego's a little more boosted than normally
as you're feeling yourself,
and it's coming across as being arrogant.
When you get a compliment,
do you just feel like you're on top of the world?
And by you being on top of the world,
no one else really matters anymore?
Do you start putting other people down
so you feel on top of the world?
Honestly, ask yourself that.
Is it something that you,
that you get enjoyment out of
to be able to put other people down
so you feel the need to be superior?
Because in all honesty, that isn't really confidence,
it's actually insecurity.
I know, it's a big shock, right?
And the reason it's insecure is it's insecurity,
is because most insecure people,
they A, I was to put other people down
so that way you're too busy looking at
whoever they just put down and not looking at them
and what they have going on
and what they're trying to hide and mask.
And they want other people to feel like how they're feeling
and because they have that kind of power over somebody else
to make them feel less than
and that empowers them in a kind of twisted way.
And again, I'm not saying that they're bad people
because we've all had those moments before.
Again, intentionally or not, sometimes it just happens.
We're all human, we all make mistakes,
we all let our emotions get the best of us at times.
But the important thing is to not stay there,
to not be like that all the time
because again, you'll just wake up one day
and find yourself all alone.
And I really, really don't want that
to be the case for anybody, if they can help in all honesty,
because it doesn't need to go there, right?
It doesn't need to go there.
And, but the saving grace is you will be humbled, right?
Regardless if you decide to do it yourself,
you take stock of yourself and really reflect
or if the world slash God,
if he decides to humble you, then you'll know it.
And again, it's kind of going back to that point.
So when you do have your fall, how do you handle it?
How do you take it?
Do you take it in stride and just say,
okay, maybe I need to change these things
in order to kind of better myself?
Or do you get kind of down in the dumps about it
and then your whole visage of yourself is just shattered
and you don't even know how to go on anymore?
Or the third option, you get angry.
It seems like had everybody else around,
everyone else's fault that you've failed from grace,
that you've been dethroned as the best of the best
or things like that, but in reality,
you're more angry at yourself.
So seriously, think about it.
Take some time, you know,
it could be now or later after you're done,
done listening to the episode,
but take some time and reflect
and see how do you handle, you know, humility?
Do you humble yourself?
Do you take yourself down a peg
or do you let the world do it for you?
And when it happens, how do you handle it?
Be honest with yourself.
You don't have to tell me,
you don't have to tell anybody else,
but really sit and think about it
and think about it, because honestly,
when you take the time to sit
and kind of reflect with yourself and your own thoughts,
you really start learning more and more and more
about your own mind and how you act
and how you react to things.
And I think that's a good, valuable thing
for anybody to learn.
But unfortunately for Vegeta,
he did not learn that right away
and kind of go into now his fall from grace, you know,
in being disgraced and defeated.
So, again, if you know the story, you know,
eventually Goku and Ko eventually beat Vegeta
in the end, the Prince of all Sands,
who's said to be the best of the best Sands,
of the, what, five of them that were still alive
at that point, he was the strongest until Goku showed up.
And Vegeta just couldn't wrap his mind around
how Goku, who was this low class warrior,
this peasant to him, not only was at his level,
he actually surpassed him.
That's the key thing.
That's really the biggest thing that irked Vegeta
for so many years, and the majority of the story
is that Goku wasn't just at his level.
Goku was better than him.
And it stayed that way up until, like, even recently,
I think, honestly, in the last year, year and a half,
they're finally kind of equaling each other
in terms where Vegeta's not just getting slapped around
every time, it actually is competitive.
But his initial loss to Goku was the turning point,
was the beginning of his obsession with beating Goku.
Like, when I say obsessed, Vegeta was obsessed by this
because that was the, it wasn't so much the fact
that it was the first time, it's that it kept happening
over and over and over again, mainly because he never
learned his lesson the first time, right?
I mean, because again, it doesn't matter
how much talent you have if someone else is willing
to do the work.
Now, I will say that it's not that Vegeta wasn't willing
to do the work, it was just,
Goku's better than him, right?
I mean, I think that's something we all have to accept
that there are people out there who are better than us
at some things.
We're better than other people at certain things,
and some people are better at us in other things.
That's just how it is, because none of us are the same.
We all have different stages of our journey in life.
We're all, first of all, we're all made differently, right?
We all have different skills, talents, and abilities
that we were blessed with, and even the people,
two people who are blessed with similar abilities,
how they develop them can be vastly different,
and it can just look different.
Sometimes it's not just somebody being better than you,
sometimes they're just using that gift
that's a little bit differently than you
in a way that you never thought of before.
And it let our pride and ego get in the way,
and it's so easily hurt or just cracked or whatever,
however you want to put it.
Then, yeah, you're gonna feel some type of way.
You're gonna feel some type of way,
and honestly, no one's to blame, not even yourself.
It's just how it is.
The only thing you can do is just take it and strive
and develop yourself.
I'll say, okay, how can I push my own limits?
How can I go to that next level, right?
But until you get there, then, hey,
just keep doing what you're doing.
And in Vegeta's case, his obsession led him to,
essentially, what will happen to all of us
if we start obsessing over anything too long
is that you start losing your sense of self,
and you start losing what makes you you.
And what I mean by that is, Vegeta's a perfect example.
So fast forward after Vegeta and Goku's initial fight
to the Buu Saga.
So Vegeta's been living on Earth, he has a family now,
and things like that, and Goku just came back to life.
Yes, Goku does that.
He came back to life briefly for this tournament.
And Vegeta hasn't had the opportunity to fight Goku
for seven years, I believe, at this point,
and he was just itching to get back in the ring
and to basically test his mettle against Goku.
And in order to do that, Vegeta felt like he had
to revert back to his old wicked self.
Because by this time, again, like I said,
Vegeta's had a family, he is the wife and the kid,
and whether he admits it or not,
he's been kind of domesticated compared
to how he originally was when he first came to Earth.
So, I mean, he still has a mouth on him,
still pretty cruel and mean,
he's not exactly a loving person,
but he was not just pure evil like he was before either.
And he believed that that evilness
is what gave him strength, right?
He believed that that wicked aspect of his personality
is what his strength was derived from.
So during this tournament, he allowed himself
to suddenly become a Majin,
which in terms of the story,
this wizard gave him an evil power boost
because all the people who he gave the power boost to
when they fought, they released this energy
to help waken up the main boss of the story.
Just a little bit of background there
for those who haven't seen the series.
But in doing that, Vegeta allowed himself
to be essentially possessed, I say in quotes,
because he was still conscious of what he was doing,
but he allowed somebody to make him something
that he wasn't anymore.
And what I want you guys to really understand about that
is that you don't have to A, revert back to old habits
or who you think you need to be in order to do something.
You don't have to change who you are at the core
in order to achieve your goals.
Now, do I believe in constantly getting better
and improving yourself?
Absolutely, because none of us are perfect.
None of us are perfect.
We can always try to get better in some form or fashion
each and every day, but that doesn't mean
you have to do a whole 180 and change your whole personality
and what makes you unique either, right?
You can improve without being transformed, right?
You can improve without having to put on a mask
and somebody else, because just like the comparison episode
with Isagi and during the Blue Vox season,
he was trying to use Nagi's gift
in the same way that Nagi used it.
He couldn't imagine himself scoring a goal
because that gift wasn't for you.
He's not Nagi, he's Isagi.
And the same thing applies here.
You're not somebody else.
You don't have to try to use somebody else's gifts
just to get to that next level.
Stick to what you know, what you have.
Learn along the way and learn how you can improve yourself
without losing yourself.
And that's the key thing, because in this moment,
Vegeta was just so, again, back to being obsessed.
He was obsessed with beating Goku.
He was willing to try to win it by any means necessary,
even if that meant becoming somebody that he wasn't.
And at that point, is it really a true victory?
Do you really accomplish your goal
when you sacrifice who you are to get there?
I don't think so.
I don't think so, because at the end of the day,
it's not even you who's achieving that goal anymore, right?
Because you've become this whole totally different person
for this one thing, and now that you have it,
you don't feel satisfied anymore because you didn't earn it.
You became something else entirely
that you honestly probably don't even like yourself.
So why bother?
Why go on through all that?
And later on, later on in the story,
Vegeta does realize that once Majin Buu,
the main villain at the time, was unleashed,
and he started killing all these people
and things like that, Vegeta realized the mistake
he had made in his pursuit of power at all costs.
And it was in that moment that Vegeta really started
to turn around and started going through his redemption,
because he sacrificed himself to save his child
in an attempt to take down Buu
and to save the world in the process.
And unfortunately, it didn't pan out that way,
but that was a, it's a glimpse into the man
he was starting to become later on.
And the biggest thing that happened
the biggest thing that really helped drive
that change in him is his relationship with Bulma, his wife.
Because back when he first met Bulma,
obviously he was the antagonist.
He was there to kill everybody, right?
So needless to say, they didn't have the warm
and fuzzies when they first met.
But in the time after Goku beat Frieza on Namek
and they all came back to Earth,
Bulma let Vegeta stay with her for,
I think it was like a year,
I think it was a year before Goku came back.
And you know, come to find out they have a kid together,
right?
So it was a shock to everybody, including the audience.
But that wasn't enough to really change his heart
to really obviously make him open up.
So they were still, they were still cold
and kind of cold and distant from each other.
But throughout the years, throughout the time,
they became closer and closer as a couple and as a family.
I mean, up until the point where he,
you know, recently he just, he screamed, you know,
that's my Bulma when she was attacked.
And if you know Vegeta, he doesn't do affection.
He doesn't do affection at all.
Like he doesn't even hug his own son half the time.
But you just see, have him cry out his wife's name
when she was assaulted to him showing up to kill everybody.
It's just a huge, huge difference there, right?
And that really speaks volumes to me
because it shows that no matter how bad you think you are,
no matter what you've done, no matter, you know,
the type of thing you feel like you can never come back from,
you can, you honestly can.
And it starts from within.
Like you have to, A, forgive yourself, right?
Whatever it is that you feel like you need,
you feel so bad that you need to prove yourself
to X amount of people or whatever it is,
just let it go and just allow yourself to be vulnerable,
to be humble, to be, you know, to be bad at something, right?
Dare to be bad at something because you really learn more
about yourself when you're bad at something
versus when you're just good all the time.
And once you accept that and you learn to move past it
and use it to push you forward, oh man, you have no idea.
You have no idea the type of, the type of just blessing
you're gonna have on the other side of that.
And in Fiji's case, it was his relationship with Balma.
He has a family now.
I mean, he has a son and a daughter
and he cared about, you know, more than anything.
And it was through that, first of all,
understanding the loss from Boo and Boo
actually killed his family.
He killed his son, killed his wife initially.
And it was at that moment he really understood
the type of loss he was inflicting on other people
throughout all the years prior.
So that was really what solidified in him.
It was like, I'm not gonna do this anymore.
I'm going to move forward
and not be the same type of person that I have been.
Now, needless to say, you get it, it's still pretty cocky.
He used to be cocky and arrogant when he gets into a fight,
especially when he thinks he can win.
But it's a different spin on it, right?
It's not to the detriment of other people
or those around them.
It's just honestly just confident in himself.
Sometimes a little too confident,
but hey, again, we've all been there, right?
But if you look at how he is now,
the fair to wear he was in the beginning of the series,
it's almost like he's not even the same character anymore.
In the last, because a little tidbit
I want to say about his redemption and what he went through
and what significantly changed from Mozilla
where before his whole reasoning for training
and getting better was for his obsession with beating Goku.
He had just one guy that he had to beat at all costs
to really testing his own limits, right?
It went from having somebody who he just had to beat to say,
okay, I'm just going to beat myself.
I'm going to be better than I was before.
I'm going to train to test my own limits
rather than to surpass Goku,
to surpass this person who's better than me in this field.
But X name here, you know who it is for you.
But in the end, it's just a simple mindset shift
because you can still have the same work ethic,
you can still have the same things
that you do each and every day to get better,
but the goal is different.
It's more intrinsic than extrinsic.
It's more internal for you.
I'm just going to want to be better
because I want to be better.
I mean, just plain and simple way.
I don't need to have this grandiose reason
and if you do, then that's perfectly fine.
Whatever it is that pushes you,
but it needs to start from within.
It needs to start there because otherwise it's going to,
A, you're probably never going to make it
because you're going to burn out and give up
or just be frustrated, be on relief.
And you're just going to be, you know,
you're not even going to be wanting to be around yourself.
But if it's internally, if it's based on the sense of self
that, okay, I want to get better for me.
I want to get better because I want to get better.
And when I do get better at this skill, at this job,
at whatever it is, then I'm going to go to this level.
And then once I'm here, finally learn some more,
improve and then go to the next level.
So once you're there, you learn some more, you improve
and then not just improve on the good things,
but also try to eliminate some of the bad too,
whatever it is that's holding you back.
And I mean, that's pretty much it.
That's all we want to do, right?
We all try to get better in life.
None of us want to go backwards.
And very few of us typically want to stay the same
each and every day.
So, I mean, I really encourage you guys to really,
to test yourself, push your own limits each and every day,
do something outside of your comfort zone so you can grow.
It can be something small, you know,
it can be like if you're not a morning person,
you know, trying to get up five minutes earlier, you know,
something simple like that.
But for me, I don't like taking cold showers.
So I make myself take cold showers and they're terrible.
Like they suck so much, but it's that repair the process.
You're training your mind to get used to being uncomfortable
so you can go to that next level.
So you can, you know, push through whatever this wall
that you're going through, because you will,
we all go through it.
And being comfortable is honestly the enemy of progress
is because it's honestly where genius and innovation happens
when you're uncomfortable and you,
and something has to change so you make it happen, right?
And if you take the small things each and every day
to help get used to it, then when the big things happen,
you're like, you know, this is easy, I got this.
And the verse that I was studying
when I was doing this episode
is actually Proverbs chapter 22, verse four.
It says, humility, the fear of the Lord results in wealth
honor and life.
And the key part in that is humility, right?
In our case, it's humility being the fear of the Lord.
And kind of the term about fear
I would have translated to respect, right?
You respect the Lord.
And then with that, it's gonna come
the wealth, honor and life for you.
And wealth can be anything.
It can be little treasures or whatnot.
It can be just having good people around you
and your family and friends.
Cause in Magida's case, that's what his wealth is.
His wealth is his family.
And it'd be gradually his friends
and whether he calls them that, his friends or not.
And his wealth, his life, like his actual literal life,
he's alive because of sacrifice and, you know,
in the story of Dragon Ball,
no one's ever really dead dead.
And it's kind of a running joke,
but he has his life and his honor.
And his honor, so he's no longer this dishonored Prince
who was essentially a slave to a Frieza.
And now he has a new goal in life, right?
He's not, he has things that he actually cares about
and cares about enough to protect.
And that's honestly makes him even more dangerous
than he was before.
So yeah, that's pretty much it.
So again, thank you guys for tuning into today's episode.
And I pray that you got what you needed out of it
and that you learned something new about yourself.
I mean, I know I did kind of going back through this
and reliving some moments in my life
where I might've gotten too big for my britches
and needed to sit down somewhere,
but hey, again, we're all human.
And then guys, feel free to leave a comment and subscribe.
Cause again, I want to improve this each and every day,
each and every episode.
So if you guys have any suggestions or anything like that,
please feel free to leave them down below.
And yeah, that's pretty much it.
So guys, I just want you always to remember,
you are the main character of your story
and that story doesn't end until he says so.
All right, be blessed.
And I'll see you guys next time.