New Year's Resolutions from Dragon Ball Universe!

- a Dragon Ball Z Collection -

Resolution Ten: Nappa

Disclaimer: Dragon Ball, the glorious franchise it is, is not in any way a property I control. I can only wish to supplement its mystique with stories such as the one herein. The same is in regards to related characters, symbols, plot elements, etc.

With that said, I hope you enjoy the story!

Note: It should be understood before reading this chapter that I am of the belief, contrary to the perceptions of many fans of the Dragon Ball franchise, that Vegeta did NOT keep his body or his consciousness/sentience/self-awareness after each time he died. I also believe this is true of Broly for the one time that he died. These are important factors to consider in order for Nappa's resolution to fully make sense. An extended explanation of why I have taken my stance on Vegeta's and Broly's afterlife fates is included after the main content of this resolution.

It's been more than 10 years since that traitor Vegeta killed me, but while I've been down here in Hell, I've gotten a lot stronger.

Originally, I decided to train harder than I ever had before so that I could eventually defeat that ungrateful bastard once he joined me down here.

But then, to my great surprise, not long after I entered this awful place, Frieza and King Cold showed up, followed soon by Cooler himself.

By the time those assholes arrived, Raditz and I had already confirmed our suspicions that Planet Vegeta was destroyed by Frieza, thanks to a brief encounter we had with Zarbon and Dodoria.

With the definite knowledge of what Frieza did, I resolved to redirect all the intense and unrelenting anger I had directed toward Vegeta to an even better purpose: becoming strong enough to defeat Frieza in battle and further avenging our Saiyan race.

Now, 10 years later, it's finally time for action.

Raditz and I have purposely been keeping a low profile, staying away from most of the other people we know down here while trying to improve our skills as much as possible.

I enabled Raditz to get strong enough so that his tail would no longer be a problem, and a little bit after that, he and I decided to both get rid of our tails once and for all, just like Kakarot did. We didn't want to be reminded of how we used to be. Instead, we want to cherish what we've become.

When I first achieved the biggest change in my life, I felt a sensation unlike any I'd ever experienced. It was a feeling of tremendous energy, and ironically, even though I had been dead for so long, I felt unstoppable. Raditz laughed his ass off, saying that I looked ridiculous.

In my opinion, though, I rather like my golden mustache.

For Raditz, he ascended about a year or two afterward. I was surprised that Raditz looks so much like Kakarot did during his battle with that pink guy not too long ago, and if I remember correctly, Raditz actually grinned at this.

No one else down here knows what we've achieved.

Soon, however, they will.

My new year's resolution, and Raditz's resolution as well, is to give Frieza the Hell he deserves. And while we're at it, we'll beat the crap out of Cooler and Cold too! Those bastards are just as evil, if not even more so, than Frieza, and beating the crap out of them sounds like it will be fun.

I'll have my revenge on Vegeta one day, but until then, it's time for Hell to fear the true, awesome power of the Saiyan race.

Hell won't know what hit it.

If they thought Kakarot and Vegeta were the ultimate Super Saiyan duo, they should think again.

It's time for me and Raditz to reclaim our glory.

Have a powerful new year,

Nappa

Thanks so much for reading Nappa's New Year's Resolution!

Up next: Frieza

In fun and fanfiction,

American Vigor

Bonus:

An elaborated explanation of why I believe that Vegeta and Broly each did NOT keep his body or his consciousness/sentience/self-awareness after he died:

To truly understand why I have taken this position for Vegeta, it is important to understand, first, why I took this position for Broly.

I believe that Broly at the very least did not get to keep either his body or his consciousness after death because compelling factors throughout the overwhelming majority of his life prevented or extremely restricted him from being able to consciously consider the morality of his actions or be able to plausibly deviate from his destructive behaviors.

In other words, since Broly didn't truly have willful control over the majority of his destructive actions because of Paragus' mind control and because of the overly high aggression due to being born as a Legendary Super Saiyan, he had EXTREMELY limited ability to question whether what he was doing was right or wrong, and to decide if he would want to act differently. Because his free will was as limited as it was, and because his ability to think rationally and logically was as limited as it was, Broly did not have a substantial capacity to consider whether what he was doing was evil or not, and was neither purposely nor intentionally trying to specifically do what he was doing out of a desire to support evilness or amorality.

It seems that King Yemma makes his afterlife sentencing decisions for an individual based on that individual's actions in life, and that in the overwhelming majority of circumstances, an individual only gets to keep his or her body and consciousness/sentience in Otherworld if that person is both 1) far above the power level of an average human, [visibly in canon, Goku's power level right after the defeat of Raditz would qualify] and 2) the person is either extremely evil or extremely good.

Since Broly did not have a substantial capacity to think about the morality of the overwhelming his actions in life, and since his overall mental state, due to his repression, was underdeveloped for logical thinking by the time of his death, it is questionable whether Broly could truly be considered "evil" for his actions. While he was unquestionably malicious, he was malicious almost entirely as a result of predetermined constraints on his mind and actions, and not because of conscious, willful choices made with a mind that could rationally and logically consider the moral merits of actions. As he did not truly make the choice to commit evil acts out of his own free will, and did not have a realistic possibility of even considering an alternative life of peace and goodness, Broly is not truly evil because he never had a reasonable chance to think and act differently. He committed acts merely because of predetermination, and not because of his conscious, free-will decision, to abandon goodness in favor of evil.

Broly obviously would qualify for keeping his body and consciousness/sentience/self-awareness based on the strength test, but he would not qualify for keeping these things based on the intensity of good or evil test.

The idea that a high intensity of good or evil is necessary to keep one's body and consciousness and memories in Otherworld is supported by canonical evidence regarding Vegeta's experiences with death. By the time of the Buu Saga, Vegeta, despite his extremely high power level, is neither intensely good or intensely evil. This is especially the case considering the fact that he both selflessly sacrificed himself to stop Majin Buu and also ruthlessly murdered dozens of innocent people in his Majin form.

It is unmistakable that after Vegeta died, he was not allowed to keep his body, unlike Goku, who was intensely good, or Frieza, who was intensely evil.

In the FUNimation dub of uncut DBZ episode 272, "The Incredible Fighting Candy," King Yemma says to Vegeta during a flashback, which took place right before Vegeta returned to Earth to help Goku fight Super Buu, "Well, I'm sure you've noticed by now that you've gotten your physical body back. This is a rare privilege which is reserved for very special souls, usually, very good souls." [Incidentally, and this is neither here nor there, during this flashback, there is a flashback WITHIN the flashback in which Vegeta remembers his sacrifice against Majin Buu].

It should be remembered that even at the point in the Dragon Ball timeline in which Frieza killed Vegeta, Vegeta could plausibly be considered neither intensely good nor intensely evil, as was the case with Broly at the time of his death. Even with Vegeta's malicious acts, Vegeta told Goku, at the time of his death, in the FUNimation dub of uncut DBZ episode 86, "The End of Vegeta," that he would not have acted evilly had Frieza not brainwashed him from the time in which he had been a child. Goku then acknowledges that he largely agrees with Vegeta's perspective on his actions.

Vegeta says, "[Frieza] killed our home planet! It was him! Your father, and mine, the whole planet, he blew it up …. Listen! You have to hear this! We worked so hard for him. We did everything he asked of us and more. He took me from my father when I was just a little boy! He made me do whatever he wanted and said he would kill my father if I didn't. I did everything he asked but he killed him anyway, along with everyone else! He was scared of us, scared that a Super Saiyan would be born to rise up and overthrow him! Kakarot, please, destroy Frieza, he made me what I am! Don't let him do it to anyone else! Whatever it takes, stop him, please!"

Goku then says, after Vegeta's death, "I think I understand you, now. You weren't grieving over your own death, or because our home planet was destroyed. You were grieving because he turned you into what he wanted you to be. You never had a chance to be anything else. Well, I still respect you. I know you made a lot of mistakes, but now I see that it wasn't all your fault."

It is heavily implied that after Vegeta died on Planet Namek during the Frieza Saga and was brought back to life, he had no memories of his experiences in Otherworld, unlike other characters who were allowed to keep their bodies in Otherworld and who retained their memories of Otherworld when they returned to life. This heavily suggests that Vegeta did not retain his consciousness in Otherworld.

In the FUNimation dub of uncut DBZ episode 101, "The Last Wish," Vegeta, after being revived on Planet Namek by the Earth's Dragon Balls, says aloud, upon seeing the heavily damaged planet, that he wonders if he is actually alive or if he entered Hell.

He specifically says, "Maybe I didn't come back to life. Maybe this is Hell. But my wound is healed? How could that be?"

The fact he said this shows that he was very unfamiliar with the structure of Otherworld and its appearance, and that he was not aware of prior experiences in the afterlife. Had Vegeta died and retained his body, he would have already noticed that his wound would not longer be visible before coming back to life, as the physical forms of bodies in Hell are restored to their natural states, as per Cyborg Frieza regaining his full natural form after death in anime scenes in which Frieza is seen in Hell. Had Vegeta died and not retained his body, and instead retained his consciousness anyway, he would not have asked after his revival how his wound had been healed, as he would have known that the definitely came back to life.

Years later in the DBZ timeline, when Vegeta asks Piccolo in the FUNimation dub of uncut DBZ episode 237, "Final Atonement," if he would "meet that clown Kakarot in the Otherworld," the very fact he is asking this, and demonstrating his unfamiliarity with the conditions of the afterlife, further shows that he has no recollection of what his afterlife experiences had been in his first duration of death, and hence further supporting that he had no sentience/consciousness during that time, as would presumably be the case, given his mixed morality, during his second duration in the afterlife.

With all of this said, it is logically plausible that because of the nature of Vegeta's life and the nature of Broly's life, each of them would have retained neither his body nor his consciousness/sentience after death. As a result of this, Nappa and Raditz would almost certainly not have in any recognizable way encountered Vegeta or Broly in Hell.

It should be mentioned that even with all of this reasoning, another villain with a relatively predetermined path of evil, Cell, appeared in Hell in the anime with his physical body and consciousness/sentience intact. However, this does not result in a discrepancy with the reasoning used to explain why Broly kept neither his body nor his consciousness/sentience in the afterlife, as there is a logical reason for Cell to be an exception to the rule. It is highly possible for King Yemma to have perceived that Cell, based on his numerous demonstrations of extremely capable intellect, would have had the power to make rational decisions out of his own free will as to whether or not to pursue a path of evil or a path of holiness. However, Yemma almost certainly did not account for the fact that Cell was created by Dr. Gero and overwhelmingly brainwashed into becoming the monster he was, despite any perceptions of true free will.

I hope you thought this discussion to be intriguing! Intense philosophical and psychological discussions of this kind occur frequently in my primary fanfiction endeavor, Honor Trip, which incidentally has as its primary focus an alternate reality scenario in which Cell gains the opportunity to overcome his predetermined evil and pursues a path of redemption. If you are interested in experiencing the Dragon Ball universe at a much more meaningful and profound level, I highly recommend that you consider reading Honor Trip, as it will significantly enrich and enhance your overall Dragon Ball experience.

Thanks for reading this expansive explanation,

American Vigor