Is Zamasu Dragon Ball's first "tragic villain"?

[DBZAOTA482]

A tragic villain is well... a villain with a traumatic bakstory that's the driving force beyond their motives and ultimately leads to their downfall. Dragon Ball has had morally-gray villains before but all the anti-villains (Piccolo, the androids, Fat Boo) have reformed while all the outright villains (with the exception of Vegeta) with sympathetic backstories have commit actions and been killed off regardless of their backstory.

Zamasu is a hard case to figure out because he's doesn't exactly have a traumatic backstory. He doesn't even have no personal history with mortals... in fact, he pretty much just comes off as a pissed-off pretentious dickhead. The heroes don't really sympathize with him at all nor do they feel bad for killing him.

What do you guys think?

 

[Papasmurf]

I don't know about tragic. Morally gray, sure. For him to have been tragic there should've been more insight on his past when he was a Kaio and more signs that he could've taken a better path (and not done like the bullshit backstories in Naruto where everyone talknojutsu'd just gets forgiven).

He believes he's doing this all for the greater good and literally thinks of merging with a mortal's body as embracing the sins of humans so in his twisted mind he's some selfless character, which is something....

 

[Fantastische Hure]

Not really. He might have thought he was right, but he still saw mortals as inferior to Gods and thought only they should have Godly powers.

He even said Vegetto was imitating the Gods, when he literally stole Goku's body. Hypocrisy much?

 

[Papasmurf]

Yeah the only one who finds him tragic was Gowasu himself. That's not to say he was a bad villain, he was on point as far as DB antagonists go in terms of character motivation and his VA kicks ass which puts him above most other villains in the series imo, but he was ultimately a fucked up and deluded evildoer

 

[Jerk Store]

YuYu Hakusho did the whole tragic villain thing best imo with Toguro and Sensui.

 

[Boo Brand Milk]

The Zamasu-tragic villain thing is done to death in anime, strangely this was really a first in DB where villains are usually . Sadly the arc ended five episodes too soon, at least.

 

[Let's Go Fearless!]

No

 

[Boo Brand Milk]

No

Kid Buu dying was tragic, he should have gave him a chance to change his ways.

 

[ekrolo2]

I don't see what makes him tragic really, both Black and Zamasu are pretty much-deluded psychopaths. Though I really like Black, he's completely undermined by how close Future Zamasu is to him in personality. Black being the brutal one who relishes in destruction works since he's in Goku's body and there are some natural inclinations towards violence genetically ingrained there that are kept at bay mostly by Goku being an idiot and very naive about things.

But this doesn't work because Future Zamasu is just as much of an evil prick as Black is, he's just as likely to cackle and torment someone as Black is and that's pretty boring. Future Zamasu would've counted as a tragic villain if in his version of history he tried more peaceful means of helping mortals which blew up in his face then reluctantly decides to join Black, seeing their destruction as the only way to preserve something good in the universe.

As it stands? Both versions of him are just evil pricks.