The rival.
Especially the douchebag Machiavellian type rivals that the main character ends up friends or teaming up with after the main character ‘proves their worth’ to them by being stronger. No character growth outside of now they work with the protagonist.
I really want this trope to be subverted one day, like the douchey rival shows up and everyone is just like “Wow what a dickhead” and just relentlessly bullies him until he goes away.
i think that’s a genuine cultural misalignment, rivalry in like kids sports or whatever isn’t designed to be hateful like they are in the US and i assume most of the commonwealth has similar brainworms.
you’re supposed to push eachother to do better, not throw eggs or drop a toilet off at the highschool across town.
Yeah but so often the rival in these stories is an outright horrible person.
Like Vegeta for example, he was an outright fascist. He never stopped being an outright fash.
Like he would straight up abuse his kid ‘to make him stronger’.
My whole generation grew up thinking “wow, he’s so cool!”
not defending being the seat of power in a fascist warrior society, but uh, he was raised in a tank without parenting on a fascist warrior planet, did you expect him to be a good dad?
No, but I also don’t expect him to be welcomed by the heroes with open arms and be treated with kid gloves for the rest of the series.
it’s been a minute but i don’t think vegeta really fits the rivals thing in the first arc at least, he’s just straight up enemy until… i forget how they get from that first fight into the android saga. i know they kinda let him off the hook later but that could just be liberalism.
i always thought he kinda sucked, i think at my school we liked piccolo and gotenks.
vegeta was forced to team up with goku and the bois to fight frieza on namek and after he died and was wished back along with all the nemekians, then he just kind of moves in with bulma I think??