While Dragon Ball mythos, that is about where their similarities end. Vegeta is so concerned with his own pride that he is willing to put the world at stake if it means proving he is the strongest, while Trunks is all about proficiency as he kills his villains as quickly as possible. However, despite those differences, the respective deaths of Vegeta and Trunks are actually more similar than fans realize.
Trunks made his first appearance during the start of Dragon Ball’s Android Saga where he immediately proved what kind of warrior he is while also displaying his impressive power level. When Trunks traveled back in time to help the past versions of his family and friends fight the Androids, he first encountered the villainous Frieza who arrived at Earth to enact his vengeance upon Goku. Frieza never got the chance, however, as Trunks killed him within moments of the two meeting each other. This proved that Trunks doesn’t play around when it is time to dispose of an enemy–something Vegeta definitely does not agree with. Fast-forward a few chapters to when Vegeta and Trunks are battling Semi-Perfect Cell. Trunks tries to kill this version of the world-ending villain before he can become too strong to stop, and Vegeta actively undermines Trunks’ efforts. Vegeta literally attacked Trunks to give Cell time to absorb Android 18 and become Perfect Cell, all to prove that he could defeat Cell even at the villain’s strongest–a move that would eventually link Vegeta and Trunks in of suffering eerily identical deaths.
In Dragon Ball chapter 414 by Akira Toriyama, the Z-Fighters are filled with mixed emotions as Cell is believed to be dead, and the Earth is saved, but Goku sacrificed his life in the process. In a previous chapter, Cell gathered all his internal power to blow himself up–an explosion that would have also destroyed the world. Before he detonated, Goku used his Instant Transmission power to teleport himself and Cell to King Kai’s world where Cell immediately blew up, killing Goku and King Kai in the process. Even though Goku was gone, the world was safe and the Z-Fighters could rest easy knowing that they didn’t have to worry about any more world-ending threats–at least, that’s what they thought. Suddenly, a precise and powerful blast shoots into the crowd of heroes, striking Trunks through the chest, killing him in moments. Cell was alive, and before he was ultimately killed by Gohan, he murdered Trunks.
Vegeta was Killed the Same Way as Trunks in More Ways than One
In Dragon Ball chapter 307, Vegeta was killed the exact same way as Trunks was in chapter 414, only the villain who killed Vegeta was Frieza. During Vegeta’s painfully short-lived battle against Frieza on Namek, the vastly superior villain shot a beam of energy through Vegeta's chest, killing him in moments. While this method of death was almost exactly the same as that of Trunks, there is another aspect to their respective demises: Frieza had a hand in both of them. Frieza was directly responsible for Vegeta’s death, that fact is obvious, but he was also ively responsible for Trunks’ death as well.
When Cell was growing inside Dr. Gero’s secret lab, he was being fed the DNA samples of the strongest fighters on Earth–including Frieza. When Frieza was killed by Trunks, Trunks unwittingly left a pile of DNA for Gero’s sample-collecting robot to grab and into Cell. A fraction of Frieza’s essence existed within Cell when the villain killed Trunks, a kill that was remarkably identical to the method used by Frieza against Vegeta–proving that, in more ways than one, Trunks and Vegeta’s deaths are more similar than Dragon Ball fans know.
