@pyromonki:
This is one thing that has been bothering me after I started rereading the manga. Where does the idea that "Goku is stupid" come from? It's a common thing to hear, "Goku's stupid but a fighting genius"
From what I've seen, he's ANYTHING BUT. He's pretty ignorant when the series first starts, but he's pretty quick to learn things (not just techniques, he's seen driving Chichi around, pilots the ginyu ship back to Earth, figures out that Kami is lying when no one else does)
Most of it comes from his childhood. Him not being able to tell men from women, being completely socially inept, knowing nothing of the world, generally being easily tricked by a villain lying. and just in general not knowing that he shouldn't singlehandedly destroy an army. Sure he was capable of it, it doesn't mean he should have attempted it. Its childlike innocence up to a point, but after he grows up he constantly goes for fair even fight, and basically always giving the villains a second chance… which is the sign of a good sportsman, but in some cases where he say, forgives Frieza three times or gives Cell a senzu, or horrifically counting on the next generation to take care of problems he could have handled himself, (Trunks with Frieza, Gohan with Cell, Gotenks with Buu) it stretches past forgiving goodguy hero and into... why the hell would you do that? (Up to a point its commendable. And it worked out with Piccollo and Vegeta, and even reincarnated Uub. But...)
Also, most translations, manga and anime, completely drop the fact that he and Chichi talk like simple country hicks... and only enforce it onto Chichi when she first reappears as an adult for about 7 seconds at the budokai so that Oolong's comment about recognizing her accent makes sense.
(Also, in the japanese he keeps his innocent childhood voice even into adulthood, so there is that.)
@Ordinary:
Damn, Vegeta looks short in this pic. But then again Piccolo is supposed to be over 2 meters tall.
Vegeta was always shor, like five feet tall. He's way smaller than Goku. (The hair hides it some) That aspect sort of slid a little when he turned into a regular character and everyone got super muscley later. Same reason EVERYONE ended up wearing the same outfits… it was just easier to draw that way.
It also helps Vegeta's case that he was for the most part, up against childhood Gohan and short Krillin, so he was bigger than them. But he's always been super short, a full head less than Goku, and Goku is shorter than Piccollo, so...