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jaded-scorpio · 2 days

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No really.... WHAT

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Someone please ask Nappa, old man deserves recognition for raising a gremlin that's too big and another gremlin that's too small

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jaded-scorpio · 2 days

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I do like the interpretation that Raditz was basically toxic masculinity The Character. Even moreso than Vegeta, since the prince honestly seems like he was just born broken and had to be pieced together very slowly. Goku getting amnesia and becoming a sweetheart does seem to suggest that the tabula rasa for the sons of Bardock is to be decent people, and it's the culture of the Saiyan species that turns them into what they are.

Raditz was a low class warrior, and the son of a low class warrior. His species was wiped out and his planet blown up. And the only Saiyans left in all of existence were two Elites, who constantly looked down on him for being garbage who was barely as strong as literal vegetables (the saibamen). They probably only barely tolerated him because he was also a Saiyan, but especially considering this is Vegeta we're talking about here that tolerance probably didn't extend very far. Raditz might have felt the urge to prove himself to his superiors, to show himself worthy among these Elites, by overcompensating and amping up how ruthless and brutal he could be so that he could earn their respect.

And then one day they find themselves having difficulty conquering a planet. Even these two Elites would be challenged by it! But then Raditz remembers, he has a baby brother. Another low class cast off just like him! Surely Kakarot will be enough to tip the scales in their favor, and if he does maybe these Elite's will see them differently. They'll see that they have value as Saiyans despite how low class they are, he and his baby brother will finally earn the respect of his (male, violence obsessed) peers.

So when he finally meets his little brother Kakarot again and finds out what became of him, you could read quite a lot into his reaction and what must be going through Radtiz's head. Based on the way Raditz talks to Goku, it's clear that Raditz EXPECTS Goku to remember him on a personal level. They MUST have interacted before Kakarot was sent off to earth to at least some capacity, otherwise dialog like this doesn't really make sense.

Raditz and Kakarot KNEW each other before the calamity that befell their planet. They've been separated for decades and a lot happened during that time, but Raditz still expects Kakarot to remember him. He seemed genuinely shocked that Goku had suffered from amnesia, and his demeanor was pretty flapped. His only family left in the entire galaxy, his fellow low class Saiyan and kin the only person in the entire galaxy who is on his level. And those memories of their childhood as brothers was erased. Read this panel with that in mind.

Raditz WANTS his brother back. But he has also had 20 years of living with Vegeta to sculpt him as a person, and this is where the Toxic Masculinity creeps in. The desperation and confusion he let drive his interactions with his little brother thus far is put under control, and Raditz starts playing the aloof and bemused monster. He puts on the mask of being the ideal saiyan warrior. Someone who laughs off the destruction of their home planet

Someone who relishes in the thrill of carnage and bloodshed. It's the very reason they became the most powerful race in the galaxy. It's the very reason they are both still alive.

He's TRYING to wake Kakarot back up. He's TRYING to get his brother back. He's overcompensating, he's playing it up, he's EMULATING VEGETA because he thinks this will rile up the Saiyan inside of Goku that has laid dormant.

When Goku rejects him it must be crushing, but he hides it under a confident veneer. Because he's still confident that he can make this work when he notices Gohan. If Goku won't be motivated by the promise of battle and wrecking death, MAYBE Goku will be motivated by the paternal instinct to protect his son?

Think about this given what we know: Saiyans aren't supposed to CARE about their children. At least that's what we've been told. And yet Raditz is trying to wake up Goku's Saiyan instincts by threatening his son. It's almost a Catch-22, Saiyans are supposed to only care about strength and fighting and killing over everything else, and yet Raditz is hoping to stoke those flames by tugging on Goku's love and protective instincts for his child. It's like Raditz is blending what he knows about his own family with what is expected of Saiyans - if Goku was a "real" Saiyan then he shouldn't care about Gohan especially considering he's such a weak child, but Raditz is COUNTING on Goku caring enough about his son that he'd be willing to slaughter a hundred earthlings.

He hopes that if he's FORCED to kill for the sake of his son, that experience will bring Kakarot back out and he'll remember what being a Saiyan who lives to fight and kill is like again. And the only reason he'd think that plan would work is if he assumed, BASED ON NO OBSERVABLE INTERACTION HE'D HAVE WITNESSED SINCE ARRIVING ON THE ISLAND, that Goku cares about his son. THAT'S the true Raditz, the Raditz who assumes based on nothing that his brother would love and value his son more than one hundred random strangers. It's the toxic masculinity of living around Nappa and Vegeta his whole life that makes Raditz think that "a real man Saiyan" SHOULD only care about battle that makes him think that engaging in senseless slaughter will wake Kakarot back up.

He's trying to impart this onto Goku because he wants Goku to join him. He's trying to turn Goku into a monster because that's what Raditz thinks he is, thinks that they both should be, so that they can fit in and be seen as worthy by the only two other Saiyans left in existence. He wants more than anything for Goku to join him so they can both go back to Vegeta and show those Elite's what they're worth. And Goku is rejecting him, rejecting his very nature as a Saiyan, CHOPPED OFF HIS OWN TAIL just so he could fit in with these weak earthlings?

Rejecting his family, his species, his heritage, and for what? So he can be a weakling who isn't worthy of standing next to the Elites?

So that he can leave Raditz alone with those two Elites who he can't possibly measure up against? Again?

He HAS to try and convince Goku to become a monster. That's the only solution, truly. Surely, once he sees how fun it is to commit genocide, he'll come around and be his brother again, right? After all that's what Saiyans are all about. He's a Saiyan, just like me, and we Saiyans HAVE to be this way otherwise we're not worthy, that's what those Elites have always said and they should know because they're the creme de la creme of Saiyan society! I have to be ruthless, I have to be obsessed with strength and power and nothing else, I have to be willing to kill my own brother and nephew otherwise I'm not a real man. And maybe, just maybe, if I show my poor brain damaged little brother that that's what we Saiyans are all about, maybe he'll Wake Up and come back to me and we can be a family again. A family of monsters.

The poison drips through.

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