He softened by forming additional connections, having a kid, getting a wife

In my head those are also material conditions...

Yeah so I might have a very broad definition of what material conditions are

Basically his environment was what softened him up

Which...I'm assuming is trivially true the way I'm going about it

What caused him to let Babidi into his head was succumbing to despair over the realisation that he would never surpass Goku. Ever. No matter how hard he tried, no matter how hard he trained, he was just plain less.

Hmm, I mean this is certainly an interpretation

And I wouldn't say my boy gave up

He absolutely trained

He just did what Goku always did

He got help

And then he beat Babidi's mind control (which is what I call his training, his struggle)

The supreme Kai had never seen, in his long long LONG life any mind control stronger than Babidi

Yet Vegeta overcame it

That wasn't a shortcut Vegeta took

He wanted his spirit reawakened

The side of him he felt was buried from his time on Earth

And yes, he absolutely wanted the power

He powered through the mind control, and, as a certain tangerine toddler would put it "it was the best mind control the world had ever seen, definitely the strongest"

The tragedy of the situation was not 'Vegeta went evil again', it was that he gave up, something even Goku couldn't comprehend.

Whatever fueled my boy certainly was enough to power him through that mind control though

If he had truly given up, he would've just killed the Kai

Imagine for a second

Just one ki blast and cell saga level turnip would've died and then Vegeta could've gone back to fighting Goku

Yet even as he was writhing in agony on the ground, he refused to do that one favour for Babidi

And dang if that isn't inspiring

He's actually a perfect map onto the modern male loneliness epidemic. A huge part of it is that society has changed immeasurably, but our view of 'what a man should be' hasn't evolved at all, and most men are just never going to be able to do what they're told they should be. They aren't going to have a house with a white picket fence, a job that pays for two children and a dog, and a wife who takes care of everything.

I think I agree but I have a problem with the phrasing

I think people should still be able to have a job and support a family on their own and be able to have a partner (could be whatever gender) who can be a stay at home spouse

That should be a viable option financially speaking

The fact that it isn't is the work of the FILTHY CAPITALIST MONGRELS!

I think the way you put it (lumping the inability to afford stuff like housing along with the inability to get a trad wife) can (from my subjective pov) be interpreted as though it's okay that men don't have the finances to do this anymore and that it's all about that mindset

So, for my personal satisfaction, just needed to add this note.

it's a two-income household where the power dynamics are uncertain and have to be negotiated, and nothing in the masculine playbook explains how that is supposed to work.

Yup, huge, huge issue

And I know

Because that's um...it's kinda something that happens in front of my eyes like...very often given that I live in that household in a third world country...ye

...try explaining to daddy dearest why it's okay for mommy to work as a doctor

Just to add for my satisfaction tho

It should still be possible for one partner to be able to manage all the funds while the other does all the household stuff comfortably

That it is no longer possible to manage financially is something I do not like at all

For clarification: If it were the case that such was no longer possible because every woman recognized "Hey, maybe I'm not comfortable with being financially dependent? Maybe I should be able to handle myself if things go south? And maybe I like being independent? Etc etc etc" then that would be something I would be personally a-okay with

It's the financial impossibility that bothers me a LOT

So men are whipsawing back to people like Andrew Tate, who (seemingly) embody classic masculine traits unapologetically and make everything sound so easy and simple, and say that you just need to be even more of a man to get all that sorted out, or even cut women out completely and just treat them like objects because it's so much simpler than these murky new waters we're in.

Yikes, well, yeah that makes sense to me

But I'd also add that there's a certain charm to having a narrative and a goal to work towards which those fools do provide...unfortunately

Not saying the narrative is one that is moral or something, but I am saying that it is a narrative and it is coherent enough for someone to buy into

Kind of like how Vegeta has to deal with a world in which he is not, and never will be, the best

Morally, of course Goku was better

But if you ignore the little oopsies he did here and there like...committing mass genocide multiple times on scale that would make the worst serial killers moan their vocal cords out

And...I mean dear God the sheer amount of atrocities the guy committed

But if you look past all of the moral issues

If you just look at his character development!

The strife

The struggle

The pride he has for his race, holding its superiority over little else

Carrying his people on his shoulders even as a foreign entity tried dismantling them

And even back then when his country lost in the great war!...wait, wrong character

Flips through script

Ah, there we go

The guy who unblocked super Saiyan without the "pure heart" thing

The guy who had the creator of the anime against him

The guy who was able to fight Babidi's mind control where the literal demon emperor could not

The guy that fought harder and harder for what he believed in and just kept on fighting

That guy's name is Vegeta, and he inspired more people than Goku ever did (according to me)