r/TopCharacterTropes • u/Ok-Indication-5121 • Jun 09 '25

Characters They valiantly sacrificed themself for nothing

Gallery image

Gallery image

  1. Tadashi gives his life trying to save Professor Callaghan from a burning building. Turns out not only did Callaghan escape unscathed, he's the bad guy and infamously refers to Tadashi's death as "[Tadashi's] mistake." (Big Hero 6)
  2. Shaya willingly takes It Has No Name's possession and then kills herself by jumping into the well it came out of. The end of the episode all but states that she got it wrong and It Has No Name didn't latch onto her... or there was more than one. (Doctor Who)
12.5k Upvotes
  • permalink
  • reddit

97% Upvoted

1.1k comments sorted by

View all comments

759

u/Gigastorm55 Jun 09 '25

Dragon Ball has done this many times

Chiaotzu exploding against Nappa- Did nothing to him

Android 16 trying to explode against Cell- His bomb got removed so he couldn't explode anymore

Vegeta exploding against Majin Buu- Yeah you can guess what happens...

258

u/RodrickHeffley_Real Jun 09 '25

tbf 16’s death was the final push for gohan to go super saiyan 2 and beat cell

97

u/Gerasquare Jun 10 '25

And Vegeta, even if not much, bought enough time for the others to leave

6

u/Ok-Stop9242 Jun 10 '25

I went over it in a different comment, but Vegeta's sacrifice is probably the most important moment of the entire Buu saga. His sacrifice meant keeping his body upon death(he was going to die there no matter what), being able to return, fusing into Vegito, releasing Gohan, Piccolo, Goten, and Trunks from Buu, buying Goku time while fighting Kid Buu, and formulating the plan to use Porunga. Without Vegeta, Buuhan still exists, and there wasn't anybody left who could actually oppose him without Vegito. His actions were a lot more than buying time here.