When he’s being evil, Vegeta can have some pretty horrible moments. He’ll use dirty tricks to win fights, kill his enemies without mercy, and even blow up planets that annoy him. It’s more than likely that he was doing all of this well before his debut in Dragon Ball Z. However, there are some particularly brutal on-screen instances of his cruelty.
One of Vegeta’s worst moments in Dragon Ball was slaughtering a village of Namekians. Another moment that might be even worse was when he fired into a crowd of people at the 25th World Martial Arts Tournament stadium. Twice. These two moments are undoubtedly where Vegeta’s evil nature was at its most vile, but one can’t help but think about which situation was worse. Determining this will require a look at the context of each case, whether the issue was rectified, and what Vegeta did to make up for it.
First of all, here’s a look at what happened on Namek. In his personal quest to find the planet’s Dragon Balls, Vegeta located a small village of Namekians. When coercing them to give up their Dragon Ball didn’t work, he started slaughtering each and every one of them. It’s important to remember that this was back when Vegeta was still an outright antagonist; all of this was done with Vegeta laughing and smiling.
As bad as Namek was, Earth might have been even worse. After letting Babidi bring out his inner evil, which had been dormant for years at the time, Vegeta did whatever it would take to get his long-awaited rematch out of Goku. First, he fired an energy blast directly at his old foe; when Goku was unable to block it, the blast flew past him into a crowd of people. It then destroyed several buildings and everything else in its path before exploding, most likely killing even more civilians along the way. And then Vegeta fired another energy blast directly into the crowd with no chance for Goku to block it. Besides all of the wanton destruction, this was a total, deliberate relapse of all of Vegeta’s progress as a character up to this point.
To determine which is worse, one must consider what was done to fix the issue. Unfortunately, Vegeta’s murder of the Namekian village was never undone. A wish was made to bring back all of Frieza’s victims, but Vegeta’s victims remained dead. Worse still, the planet they were on blew up, so even if they were brought back, they’d just ide again in the vacuum of space. Thus, Vegeta’s sin against the Namekian race remains a permanent stain on his honor.
The deaths on Earth are arguably not as bad since they were all undone. In this instance, a wish was made to bring everyone who died that day back to life (except for the really, really bad ones). This not only covered Vegeta’s victims but several other people unrelated to the incident like Kibito. While killing all of those people was downright awful, it’s not necessarily something Vegeta has to live with anymore.
Whether the Saiyan Prince has to live with these deaths or not, he has put in efforts to atone for them. In the Dragon Ball Super manga, he showed remorse for killing the Namekian villagers and made it his personal goal to stop Moro from inflicting the same terror on them. He wasn’t personally successful on this front, but he was integral to beating him in the end.
He made up for the suffering he caused on Earth by helping to save them from Majin Buu. He even blew himself up knowing he wouldn’t be given any special treatment in the afterlife. This atonement was really more of a way to protect his friends and family, but it was an atonement nonetheless.
Between the two acts, Vegeta killing on Earth might be worse than him killing on Namek. While Vegeta was on Namek, he still hadn’t had any character growth; the cold-blooded warrior life was all he’d ever known. On Earth, however, he actually had something to lose; even after living on the planet for years and starting a family, he still felt the need to revert to his malicious impulses and inflict them on those who never did anything to him.
This is to say nothing for what Vegeta had to gain from killing in either scenario. With the Namekians, it was their Dragon Ball. With the Earthlings, it was to goad Goku. Neither of these reasons justify murder, but one is definitely worse than the other.
To this day, these two transgressions remain Vegeta’s lowest moments on-screen. They both involve him taking the lives of innocent people with a sadistic smile on his face. Each of them has been made up for in one way or another, but they should never be forgotten.
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