Nope not needed.

You need a HDMI-to-VGA adapter. Your laptop is outputting an HDMI signal which has to be converted to VGA.

Some connectors are physically different, but use identical signaling - in these cases a passive adapter is sufficient. Passive means there's no signal transformation necessary. It's just two different connectors wired together. For example, DVI-A is just repackaged VGA (aka D-Sub) and they can be passively adapted both ways. Similarly HDMI uses the same signaling as DVI-D, so you can convert between them without any electronics - just wires.

HDMI and VGA are completely incompatible, so you need an active adapter which will decode the HDMI signal and produce equivalent VGA signal.

You may be tempted to use a passive HDMI→DVI adapter and then a passive DVI→VGA adapter, but this won't work. HDMI would be converted into DVI-D, and the second adapter needs DVI-A input. DVI-D and DVI-A use physically compatible connectors, but the signal won't go through.

Note that while active adapters are directional (HDMI→VGA is completely different than VGA→HDMI), passive adapters are usually not. As long as passive adapter's plugs physically fit, it will work in both directions. So for example a HDMI→DVI adapter would work for DVI→HDMI too.

VGA is an analog protocol. Its signal degrades with longer cables and poor quality cables result in poor quality (e.g. in ghosting). Having said that a good quality VGA cable will work just fine for normal laptop-> monitor distances. VGA is old tech though. It should have been replaced a decade ago but it was kept around because its successor (DVI) required licensing fees and because there were so many old devices with a VGA/DB15 connector.

Still, if your laptop and your monitor support it, feel free to use it. It works. It is simple. It is cheap. (You just need a VGA to VGA cable)

Now HDMI is different.

HDMI is a digital signal. You can not just connect VGA and HDMI with a cable and expect it to work. You will need a device which actively translates between these two. That will be more expensive than just a simple cable. Signal quality will not improve unless you have really long and/or poor VGA cables which you now replace with a HDMI cable.

tldr; Just use a VGA cable.