History Main / CainAndAbel

* Alan Willett is an example that also combines with OffingTheOffspring. In 1993, Willet assaulted his 3 children, 17 year old Ruby, 13 year old Eric, 8 year old John, and his intellectually disabled brother, 43 year old Roger under his care with a window weight. Eric and Roger were killed in the attack, while [[BigSisterInstinct Ruby managed to drag John and herself to the safety of a neighbor's house.]] Willett was sentenced to death for the murders of his son and brother, and executed in 1999.

* After Wrestling/SummerSlam 2023, [[Wrestling/TheUsos Jimmy Uso]], having been taken out due to an injury, returned only to betray his brother Jey and help Wrestling/RomanReigns retain the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship, making him the Cain to the younger Uso's Abel.

* Alan Willet is an example that also combines with OffingTheOffspring. In 1993, Willet assaulted his 3 children, 17 year old Ruby, 13 year old Eric, 8 year old John, and his intellectually disabled brother, 43 year old Roger under his care with a window weight. Eric and Roger were killed in the attack, while [[BigSisterInstinct Ruby managed to drag John and herself to the safety of a neighbor's house.]] Willet was sentenced to death for the murders of his son and brother, and executed in 1999.

* Alan Willet is an example that also combines with OffingTheOffspring. In 1993, Willet attacked his 3 children, 17 year old Ruby, 13 year old Eric, 8 year old John, and his intellectually disabled brother, 43 year old Roger under his care with a window weight. Eric and Roger were killed in the assault while [[BigSisterInstinct Ruby managed to drag John and herself to the safety of a neighbor's house.]] Willet was sentenced to death for the murders of his son and brother, and executed in 1999.

* Alan Willet is an example that also combines with OffingTheOffspring. In 1993, Willet attacked his 3 children, 17 year old Ruby, 13 year old Eric, 8 year old John, and his intellectually disabled brother, 43 year old Roger under his care with a window weight. Eric and Roger were killed in the assault while [[BigSisterInstinct Ruby managed to drag John and herself to the safety of a neighbor's house.]] Willet was sentenced to death for the crime, and executed in 1999.

** The most specific example is George, Duke of Clarence. He is largely overlooked, with [[UsefulNotes/RichardIII Richard]] being seen as the treacherous brother of Edward IV. However, Clarence tried rebelling against Edward by claiming they were illegitimate meaning he was the rightful King, then helped a rebellion against Edward by the previous royal family, before switched sides again. Considering this, it isn't surprising Edward didn't trust him. Clarence continued to cause trouble for Edward, apparently thinking he wasn't getting enough influence and was finally executed. Ironically enough, despite the Play "Richard III" having Richard be responsible for George's death, the earliest sources of this event claim one of the reasons Richard may have been opposed to the Woodvilles was because he blamed them for this.

* ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf'': The egg brothers. Jolly is the Cain in a loose sense, as while his "all-knowing prophet" qualities are more than questionable, he's ultimately helping the goats (or at least trying to). Darton, having taken over the Sixth Space and mind-controlling the bees to go against the goats when ''Great War in the Bizarre World'' starts, is the Abel.

* UsefulNotes({{Islam}}: There are dozens of Muslim and Arabic variations and explanations of the Cain and Abel story. Sometimes, they even overlap with Jewish traditions and legends; some renderings and retellings offered by religious scholars are nearly identical. In both religions, many of the more popular renderings state that Cain's motive was marrying his twin. The two religions also overlap on the idea that Cain was taught to murder by the Devil and that Eve is the reason that women are more likely to cry when they are sad then men. Usually in both, Cain is taught to bury the body by a raven or crow sent by god, but other times Cain runs away and the first funeral and burial is carried out by their parents and sisters when they find the body. There is also a version where Cain runs away with the sister who was the cause of the murder after he kills their brother. In another, Cain states his famous line "Am I my brother's keeper?" when their father can't find Abel and asks him if he has seen him; unfortunately, his remorseless response causes Adam to realize what happened. One Jewish retelling of the idea where the conflict is caused over marriage further explains why the men were matched up with each other's sisters and why God wanted Abel to be the one to marry the more desired sister. Beyond the twincest thing, Cain and Abel's twin sister were paired together because they were both more bitter and mean; Abel and his intended bride were both more physically attractive and good-natured than their twin's, so god paired each brother with the sister who was like him. The reason that Cain was not chosen had nothing to do with his sacrifice itself; he was wicked, unfaithful, and ungrateful towards God, and full of lust for his sister because she was beautiful. Abel was picked because of his righteousness and good heart, like always, only, in this version, it's more logical and practical; he would make a very faithful and loving husband and, seeing that the woman assigned to him was the female version of him, was the one who would be the better and more happy match for the contested sister. It is also brought up that, after their father told them how God intended for the siblings to be paired off for marriage, Abel was accepting and grateful, not because he got the more beautiful sister, but because he was willing to accept whatever God said. Abel and his future wife are implied to have grown to have genuine faithfulness and love between them after finding out they were meant to be married because they were both content with the arrangement; therefore, so it's also possible, according to this version, that Abel was picked due to having a proper and grateful reaction to God's decision. Some scholars believe that Cain was conceived when the either Devil or a fallen angel seduced (or raped) Eve and that he was therefore destined to be evil. Another idea among scholars is that, after being kicked out of the garden of Eden, Adam unintentionally and unknowingly raped Eve during a fight; They were still naked at this point and had yet to discover what sex was; Adam "grabbed her and held her body to his so that every part of them was touching", not knowing how babies were made; resulting in her becoming pregnant with Cain. The couple was unaware of the fact that their fight resulted in the creation of their son, however, because they learned about what sex was shortly thereafter when god explained it to them. The implication in this interpretation is that Cain was evil because he was created out anger and violence, but that Abel was the better-natured of the two as a result of being created out of love. Another short legend tells Cain repeatedly attempts to wash his brother's blood off his hands while on the run, but the blood refuses to come off. Eventually, Cain comes to a mountain spring and sits with his hands in the water until he dies, his hands still stained with the blood of his innocent brother and as red as the day of the murder. This one is more or less a moral fable/tale, though; the moral of the story is that you can't hide your sins.

Sometimes SiblingRivalry can get a little… intense. Maybe one who MissedTheCall [[TheRival gets]] overly [[Green-eyedMonster envious]] that the other has become TheChosenOne, maybe grand powers or knighthood run in the family and one just happens to have been tempted to TheDarkSide, maybe one of them [[DeceptiveDisciple betrayed their master or father]] and the other has to stop him, or maybe it's just BecauseDestinySaysSo, dammit. Whatever the case may be, now one's the hero and one's the villain, and they must do battle. Commence the angst.

Sometimes SiblingRivalry can get a little… intense. Maybe one who MissedTheCall [[TheRival gets]] overly [[Green-eyed Monster envious]] that the other has become TheChosenOne, maybe grand powers or knighthood run in the family and one just happens to have been tempted to TheDarkSide, maybe one of them [[DeceptiveDisciple betrayed their master or father]] and the other has to stop him, or maybe it's just BecauseDestinySaysSo, dammit. Whatever the case may be, now one's the hero and one's the villain, and they must do battle. Commence the angst.

Sometimes SiblingRivalry can get a little… intense. Maybe one who MissedTheCall [[TheRival gets]] overly [[GreenEyedMonster jealous]] that the other has become TheChosenOne, maybe grand powers or knighthood run in the family and one just happens to have been tempted to TheDarkSide, maybe one of them [[DeceptiveDisciple betrayed their master or father]] and the other has to stop him, or maybe it's just BecauseDestinySaysSo, dammit. Whatever the case may be, now one's the hero and one's the villain, and they must do battle. Commence the angst.

* Inverted in ''WesternAnimation/Frozen2013'' when [[spoiler: Anna saves her sister Elsa from being killed by Hans. [[ZigZaggingTrope Made particularly interesting]] in that this act involves Anna forgoing a cure for, and thus being killed by, a deadly curse from her sister - a curse that had only been placed [[AccidentalMurder accidentally]]]].

* Mufasa and Scar in ''WesternAnimation/{{The Lion King|1994}}'', with the unfortunate addendum that Mufasa had no idea Scar was plotting against him until it was too late. A rare case where the younger brother is the evil one.

%%* Joey and Richie Cusack in ''Film/AHistoryOfViolence''.

* The two pharaohs in ''Film/NightAtTheMuseumBattleOfTheSmithsonian'': The elder, Kahmunrah, was utterly ruthless while the younger, Ahkmenrah, was kind and intelligent. Their parents gave the throne to Ahkmenrah, and it's implied that Kahmunrah murdered him out of jealousy.
* {{Downplayed|Trope}} in ''Film/NoneShallEscape''. Wilhelm has his brother Karl deported to a Nazi concentration camp.

* The {{Kaiju}} film ''Film/WarOfTheGargantuas'' has Sanda and Gaira, Bigfoot-like creatures grown from remains of a giant Frankenstein's Monster, that battle to the death as a result of Sanda's opposition to Gaira's KillAllHumans attitude.
* The first half of ''Film/TheWindThatShakesTheBarley'' is the O'Donnell brothers (Creator/CillianMurphy and Padraic Delaney) fighting in the Irish Revolution together, and making enormous sacrifices. The second half is them choosing different sides in the Irish Civil War, and making even bigger ones.

** The {{Trope Namer|s}} is in the "Literature/BookOfGenesis", chapter 4. Cain was a farmer, Abel was a shepherd. God wants a sacrifice, so Cain brings the produce of his farm and Abel brings some sheep. God preferred Abel's offering and rebuked Cain for being mad about it whereupon Cain lured Abel into a field and killed him.
*** Creator/RudyardKipling wrote a poem that claims that Abel provoked Cain by wrecking Cain's irrigation project to give the water to his cattle. (He also let them eat Cain's vegetables.) The last two lines of the poem explicitly state that the narrator thinks God's judgment on Cain was unfair.

** Joseph's 10 older brothers [[MadeASlave sell him into slavery]]. In an odd twist, this later saves their lives when he (as second-in-command in Egypt) saves them all from a famine. Joseph's story is so heartwarming because, after Genesis featuring SiblingRivalry as a major recurring theme, this trope finally ends up being subverted and the book ends with a family forgiving each other and coming together.
** Abimelech in the Literature/BookOfJudges murdered all of his brothers, but he missed his youngest brother Jotham. Likewise, Jotham put a curse on him.

*** The Swedish Jonas Gardell made a point about this in his book About God, where he commented upon the fact that God showed a weird favoritism for younger sons, for no particular reason. It may have tied into favoring the humble, though, as the youngest son would inherit the least.
** The four sons of king David: Absalom, Amon, Solomon, and Adonijah. Absalom killed Amon to avenge the rape of their sister Tamar and Solomon sentenced Adonijah to death because the latter had the audacity to ask the hand of their father's widow.
* Cain and Abel also appear in ''Literature/TheQuran'', but the story is even shorter than in the bible and doesn't mention the two brothers' names. In this story, The Prophet was told to tell the early Muslims about 'the two sons of Adam'. After his sacrifice was not accepted, Cain told his brother that he would kill him. Abel replied that God would only accept the offerings of people that listened to Him and that a murderer would go to Hell burdened by his own sins and those of their victim (the victim would be forgiven as a result of his unjust death). This version of Abel also refused to "stretch out my hands to kill you, even if you stretch out yours to kill me", and said that he feared God and would rather his brother burn in the fire for murdering him than sin himself. Cain was prompted by his 'wicked soul' to kill his brother, and instantly became a lost person for that act. Since he had no clue what to do with the body, God sent a raven to dig up the ground and show Cain how to bury his brother. Cain was mortified and guilty because the raven (who had buried another raven) knew what to do, but he couldn't even give his brother a proper burial. Cain lived out the rest of his life tormented by regret and guilt. This story was meant to explain why Muslims shouldn't murder anyone.

** There are dozens of Muslim and Arabic variations and explanations of the Cain and Abel story. Sometimes, they even overlap with Jewish traditions and legends; some renderings and retellings offered by religious scholars are nearly identical. In both religions, many of the more popular renderings state that Cain's motive was marrying his twin. The two religions also overlap on the idea that Cain was taught to murder by the Devil and that Eve is the reason that women are more likely to cry when they are sad then men. Usually in both, Cain is taught to bury the body by a raven or crow sent by god, but other times Cain runs away and the first funeral and burial is carried out by their parents and sisters when they find the body. There is also a version where Cain runs away with the sister who was the cause of the murder after he kills their brother. In another, Cain states his famous line "Am I my brother's keeper?" when their father can't find Abel and asks him if he has seen him; unfortunately, his remorseless response causes Adam to realize what happened. One Jewish retelling of the idea where the conflict is caused over marriage further explains why the men were matched up with each other's sisters and why God wanted Abel to be the one to marry the more desired sister. Beyond the twincest thing, Cain and Abel's twin sister were paired together because they were both more bitter and mean; Abel and his intended bride were both more physically attractive and good-natured than their twin's, so god paired each brother with the sister who was like him. The reason that Cain was not chosen had nothing to do with his sacrifice itself; he was wicked, unfaithful, and ungrateful towards God, and full of lust for his sister because she was beautiful. Abel was picked because of his righteousness and good heart, like always, only, in this version, it's more logical and practical; he would make a very faithful and loving husband and, seeing that the woman assigned to him was the female version of him, was the one who would be the better and more happy match for the contested sister. It is also brought up that, after their father told them how God intended for the siblings to be paired off for marriage, Abel was accepting and grateful, not because he got the more beautiful sister, but because he was willing to accept whatever God said. Abel and his future wife are implied to have grown to have genuine faithfulness and love between them after finding out they were meant to be married because they were both content with the arrangement; therefore, so it's also possible, according to this version, that Abel was picked due to having a proper and grateful reaction to God's decision. Some scholars believe that Cain was conceived when the either Devil or a fallen angel seduced (or raped) Eve and that he was therefore destined to be evil. Another idea among scholars is that, after being kicked out of the garden of Eden, Adam unintentionally and unknowingly raped Eve during a fight; They were still naked at this point and had yet to discover what sex was; Adam "grabbed her and held her body to his so that every part of them was touching", not knowing how babies were made; resulting in her becoming pregnant with Cain. The couple was unaware of the fact that their fight resulted in the creation of their son, however, because they learned about what sex was shortly thereafter when god explained it to them. The implication in this interpretation is that Cain was evil because he was created out anger and violence, but that Abel was the better-natured of the two as a result of being created out of love. Another short legend tells Cain repeatedly attempts to wash his brother's blood off his hands while on the run, but the blood refuses to come off. Eventually, Cain comes to a mountain spring and sits with his hands in the water until he dies, his hands still stained with the blood of his innocent brother and as red as the day of the murder. This one is more or less a moral fable/tale, though; the moral of the story is that you can't hide your sins.

* The egg brothers from ''Animation/PleasantGoatAndBigBigWolf''. Jolly is the Cain in a loose sense, as while his "all-knowing prophet" qualities are more than questionable, he's ultimately helping the goats (or at least trying to). Darton, having taken over the Sixth Space and mind-controlling the bees to go against the goats when ''Great War in the Bizarre World'' starts, is the Abel.

* ''Film/TransformersFilmSeries'': At the climax of ''Film/{{Transformers}}'', [[spoiler:Optimus calls Megatron "brother". Peter Cullen, who voices Optimus, publicly referenced the story of Cain and Abel when describing the revelation]]. How that works with giant robots was unexplained, at first. It turns out that Optimus Prime and Megatron were both raised by their adopted father Sentinel Prime. More explicitly in ''Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen'', [[spoiler:the Fallen is revealed to be one of the Prime family, the original leaders of the Transformers. Optimus is either his brother or his nephew]].

* The ''Franchise/{{Subspecies}}'' series had its BigBad Radu and his noble [[{{Dhampyr}} half-vampire]] brother Stefan. In the first movie had [[spoiler: Stefan killing Radu in a swordfight to protect his love interest, but in the following movie, Radu is revived by his minions and, in return, kills his brother in his sleep]].
* ''Film/{{Transformers}}'': [[spoiler: At the climax of the 2007 film, Optimus calls Megatron "brother". Peter Cullen, who voices Optimus, publicly referenced the story of Cain and Abel when describing the revelation]].
** How that works with giant robots was unexplained, at first. It turns out both Optimus Prime and Megatron were both raised by their adopted father Sentinel Prime.
** More explicitly in [[Film/TransformersRevengeOfTheFallen the sequel]], [[spoiler: the Fallen is revealed to be one of the Prime family, the original leaders of the Transformers. Optimus is either his brother or his nephew]].

** Going into the flashbacks, we also have the cousins [=MacBeth=] and Duncan, although their ethics are the reverse of the Shakepeareian play and more in line with actual Scottish history. [=MacBeth=] only killed Duncan and took the throne due to Duncan being a paranoid tyrant whose troops attacked [=MacBeth's=] lands first.

** [[WesternAnimation/TeenageMutantNinjaTurtles2012 The 2012 cartoon versions]] of Hamato Yoshi and Oroku Saki were raised as brothers and rivals before becoming Splinter and Shredder, which would be further complicated by their shared love of Tang Shen and Saki's discovery of his birth family having died to the Hamato clan. After Tang Shen dies in a final battle between the adopted brothers and Yoshi goes missing, Saki adopted Shen and Yoshi's daughter Miwa and raised him to be this show's version of Karai as revenge for having Tang Shen taken from him. When he finds out that Yoshi is still alive and in New York as Splinter, Saki reignited their rivalry as the Shredder.

** The relationship between Goliath and his brother Coldstone, although Stonecold was resurrected by the villains Demona and Xanatos and manipulated into hating Goliath.

** Going into the flashbacks, we also have the cousins {{MacBeth}} and Duncan, although their ethics are the reverse of the Shakepeareian play and more in line with actual Scottish history. MacBeth only killed Duncan and took the throne due to Duncan being a paranoid tyrant whose troops attacked MacBeth's lands first.

** Going into the flashbacks, we also have the cousins MacBeth and Duncan, although their ethics are the reverse of the Shakepeareian play and more in line with actual Scottish history. MacBeth only killed Duncan and took the throne due to Duncan being a paranoid tyrant whose troops attacked MacBeth's lands first.

* The relationship between Goliath and his brother Stonecold in ''WesternAnimation/{{Gargoyles}}'', although Stonecold was resurrected by the villains Demona and Xanatos and manipulated into hating Goliath.

** Gorseclaw with his siblings Ripplestar and Spottedpelt, though it's a case where neither sibling is really evil; Ripplestar, with Spottedpelt's help, is attacking all the other Clans, even going as far so as doing so at a gathering, but only because he wants the territory they refused to give willingly to shelter SkyClan, and Gorseclaw betrays him because he thinks the bloodshed and attacking a gathering is going too far rather than not caring about SkyClan.
** Hollyleaf and Jayfeather's relationship devolves into this as well, as Hollyleaf increasingly breaks down emotionally and becomes concerned with enacting justice and proving herself as a hero by punishing wrongdoers, leading to her coming into conflict with and eventually trying to kill Jayfeather for his defiance of StarClan.