Always Someone Better / Literature

There's Always Someone Better in Literature.

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• In the 1632 novels, the great artists and composers of the seventeenth century are feeling this towards the artwork brought back from the twentieth century. The twist is that frequently the someones better are themselves from ten to twenty years in the future, leaving them wondering what to do with their careers now that their greatest masterpieces are already done without them having participated in their creation.
• In The Alice Network, Eve feels jealous of Lili when Cameron first describes her as his best spy, but gets over it when she meets Lili. Not only does she like Lili a lot, she also realizes that their roles are different, but both important. (Lili’s job is “to be anyone” — to pretend to be many different people, all insignificant. Eve can’t do this — her stutter is too memorable — so instead her job is “to be no one,” or, in other words, Marguerite.) To top it off, Lili even gives her explicit permission to sleep with Captain Cameron if she gets the opportunity, removing any competition on that front.
• Elfangor from Animorphs, but only from Ax's perspective. In fact, the main reason the Animorphs go to rescue Ax is because they feel an obligation to any Andalite because of Elfangor's kindness. From his own perspective, Elfangor is more of a Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.
• Averted in Lawrence Watt-Evans's The Annals of the Chosen series. The main character is (magically) the greatest swordsman in the world, and this is never contradicted, nor is there ever any suspense over him losing a (sword)fight. He has to worry about everything else.
• Bazil Broketail: Relkin used to think of himself as master at climbing trees and buildings... but that was before he met Lumbee.
• The concept was subverted in Agatha Christie's Hercule Poirot novel The Big Four, when Poirot mentions his older brother Achille as being a better detective than he is; the only visual difference, he claims, is that Achille doesn't have a mustache and has a scarred lip. Near the end, when the villains have captured Hastings and Poirot, Hastings realizes that they captured Achille instead — only to have it revealed that Achille doesn't exist; in order to fool the villains, Hercule shaved off his mustache revealing his own scarred lip. Hastings probably should have realized something was up when Poirot, the biggest egomaniac in literature, started describing someone as better... This idea was likely inspired by Mycroft Holmes; Poirot gives a Shout-Out to him by noting, "Don't all great detectives have a brother better at it than them?"
• Caging Skies: Johannes Betzler is enamoured with Elsa Korr, but she only has eyes for Nathan Chaim Kaplan. Johannes silently curses Nathan and considers him a rival, and is shocked when he finds out that Nathan was gassed to death (alongside the rest of Elsa's family) during the Holocoust.
• In Child Ballads #132 ("The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood"), Robin Hood & Little John meet a pedlar in Sherwood Forest who beats both of them in hand-to-hand combat. He finally reveals his name to be "Gamble Gold" and himself to be an exile from England for murder—at which point it is determined that he is Robin Hood's cousin (specifically, the son of his mother's sister, so that their relationship is in no doubt). This actually seems to make the beatings more acceptable, as all three then finish out the song merrily drinking together at an alehouse.
• Codex Alera spends a lot of time building up Aldrick as the best swordsman in existence, and then has his presumed dead former rival come back and beat the stuffing out of him at the climax of the first book.
• Constance Verity Saves the World: Hiro oozes confidence from every pore with his ninja stealth ability, so you know it's serious when he's certain that he can't sneak up on Akane (who was valedictorian at the same Ninja School he went to). Of course by then Connie had not only sussed out that she was an assassin, she fights and kills her while Hiro tells all of this to Tia, so the trope applies twice over.
• Sol's primary dilemma in Dangerous Spirits, as his place as starter on the baseball team is taken by someone else.
• In Cryptonomicon, another Neal Stephenson book, concerning weirdness instead of baddassness:
  "Your thoughts on numerology are most interesting," Waterhouse says loudly, running Mr. Drkh off the rhetorical road. "I myself studied with Drs. Turing and von Neumann at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Princeton." Father John snaps awake, and Mr. Drkh looks as if he's just taken a fifty-caliber round in the small of his back. Clearly, Mr. Drkh has had a long career of being the weirdest person in any given room, but he's about to go down in flames.
• Simon from Daughter of the Forest feels like this towards his elder brother, who from his perspective is The Ace, and Simon deeply resents him for it. In reality, when Sorcha visits Harrowfield, she seems that everyone (besides the Evil Uncle, anyway) thinks of Simon as very capable, honorable, and admirable despite his young age.
• Dora Wilk has this problem with she-vampires. The one time she dresses to impress and feels absolutely gorgeous, she enters a club where everybody looks better than her. This repeats itself each time she visits the place.
• Played for Laughs in the Light Novel Do You Love Your Mom and Her Two-Hit Multi-Target Attacks?: Masato Ohsuki joins a government project to go to a fantasy RPG-style world. To his chagrin, his overly doting mother comes along with him...and just like the title suggests, she turns out to be a complete badass.
• In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files, nearly every character has their own area of expertise and could pose a threat to Harry Dresden under the right circumstances, but the closest thing to one for Harry is Cowl. Cowl is a Hidden Agenda Villain and yet not afraid to get his hands dirty, and the last time he was seen, he was perfectly capable of beating Harry in his area of expertise: brute magical force. Harry has caught Cowl by surprise and escaped his traps, but never actually beat him in a fight.
• Emma: Emma Woodhouse is talented, beautiful, well-read and accomplished in music and art, but sadly a bit of Brilliant, but Lazy. Jane Fairfax is equally beautiful and equally talented, but ever so hard-working. Jane is especially superior in music, the piano and singing. Emma is markedly better at dancing which secretly pleases her.
• A variant occurs in Emperor: The Field of Swords, based on a historical incident. While conquering Spain, Julius Caesar comes across a statue of Alexander the Great, and temporarily falls into depression upon realising that he has lived almost as long as Alexander but accomplished much less.
• After blowing through military academy in record time and without finding anyone who can match his strategic genius, the titular protagonist of Ender's Game meets a strange old man in Command School, who catches him off guard and beats him up. Turns out the old guy is Mazer Rackham, the hero from the last war against the aliens, whose victory Ender is being groomed to repeat. His introduction is awesome:
  Ender: I've had too many teachers, how was I supposed to know you'd turn out to be a-
  Mazer Rackham: An enemy, Ender Wiggin. I am your enemy, the first one you've ever had that was smarter than you. There is no teacher but the enemy. No-one but the enemy will tell you what the enemy is going to do. No-one but the enemy will ever teach you how to destroy and conquer. Only the enemy shows you where you are weak. Only the enemy tells you where he is strong. And the rules of the game are what you can do to him and what you can stop him from doing to you. I am your enemy from now on. From now on, I am your teacher.
  • Ender himself to every other student in battle school (with the possible exception of Bean), especially Bonzo.
  • Ender also served this function to his older sibling Peter. While Peter was brilliant, he was too violent and wild to be accepted into battle school, while Ender had all the right qualifications. Peter didn't take it well.
  • Bean is confirmed in the Ender's Shadow series to be much smarter than Ender. However, Bean is too small and lacks the qualities Ender has to inspire others. Bean realizes quickly that he's there to be second fiddle to Ender. True, he was specifically brought in to replace Ender if Ender broke down, but Bean explains that no one would follow him, and what good is a brilliant commander with no soldiers? Additionally, Bean was genetically-engineered to be brilliant, to always have the learning ability of a one-year-old (which, ultimately does lead to his death from the Square-Cube Law). When he first meets Ender, he is utterly unimpressed. Unlike Ender, he figures out the truth behind the war by himself, simply by reading a few pages of a random historical book and going off on a tangent.
• Invoked in Fengshen Yanyi: when the heroes are stuck fighting the seemingly-unbeatable Kong Xuan and his Divine Lights, Lu Ya Daoren tells Jiang Ziya to never lose hope: just like one element can win against another element but lose to a different one, so a warrior, no matter how mighty, can be easily defeated by another with the adequate skills.
• In A Frozen Heart, a Tie-In Novel for the Frozen franchise, Hans suffers from this with twelve older brothers, all more popular and considered to be more skilled than he is, particularly in the eyes of their father.
• The Goosebumps book How I Learned to Fly has Wilson, a character who is The Ace and The Rival to the protagonist, and seems to be able to do everything better than him. It ends up screwing him over in the end.
• The Great Greene Heist: In To Catch a Cheat, Megan is repeatedly frustrated when opposing "tech guru" Kayla Hall pulls off complicated computer programming jobs in less time than it would have taken Megan to do the same work.
• Hannibal Lecter, whose intelligence is only matched by his ego, admits that he isn't even on the same plane as Stephen Hawking, as seen in Hannibal.
• Harry Potter:
  • Early drafts of Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire had Hermione dealing with an Insufferable Genius who proved to be a match for her. And Harry must deal with Cedric Diggory, Fleur, and Viktor Krum — the three other Triwizard champions, who are older and better educated — in the very same book.
  • Hermione herself was this for Draco Malfoy. Malfoy was a skilled wizard and near-perfect student able to conjure an entire snake in his second year while most kids his age couldn't turn a rat into a cup, but he ends up being eclipsed by both Hermione's intelligence and Harry's natural talent. Which considering where he comes from are the two worst things that could have happened to him, causing his resentment towards Harry and his friends to grow even deeper as his father chastised him for being outdone by a Mudblood.
  • This builds up throughout the series between Harry and Ron. Harry is more popular with his classmates, cherished by all as The Chosen One, was Gryffndor's star Quidditch player since his first year, and gets along better with Ron's family than Ron himself. He can't help this, but all of it results in Ron having a massive inferiority complex throughout the series.
  • This is partially why Lord Voldemort feared Albus Dumbldedore. While Voldemort prided himself as the most powerful and intelligent wizard in the world, the truth is that they both knew Dumbledore surpassed him, which was proven when the two dueled in the fifth book, where Voldemort seemed incensed and insulted that Dumbledore wasn't going all-out yet was still thoroughly decimating him. Gellert Grindelwald was also similar in regards to Dumbledore, as while he is all but confirmed to be an even more fearsome Dark Lord than Voldemort was, it turned out that Dumbledore was ultimately a "shade more skillful" and defeated him despite him wielding the Elder Wand.
• The novel (later turned into a film) Hating Alison Ashley is based on this.
• In Holes, the main character always says that no matter how tough and scary you are, there is always someone that is tougher and scarier than you.
• Walter Tevis's fictional The Hustler, later made into a movie, focuses on protagonist Eddie Felson's goal to beat Minnesota Fats, the best pool player in America.
• This is part of what fuels the complete psychotic breakdown of Victor Vandergriff in the BattleTech Expanded Universe novel Illusions of Victory. A long-time Solaris gladiator and veteran of the Humongous Mecha Blood Sport popular on the planet, he is shown to slowly unravel over the course of the novel because he is constantly shown up by other pilots, to the point that he helps degenerate the common factional feuds in arena battles to overt Battlemech combat on civilian streets. While he is far from being a poor fighter, a lacking tactician, or even a boring celebrity, he is not the best at any of those categories at either, fueling his sense of inadequacy. Most notably, his decline starts even before Illusions of Victory, as it's shown that the defining moment of his career in his mind was his stunning loss to Kai Allard-Liao, who is unquestionably The Ace on account of his keen tactical mind, peerless skill in combat, and almost universal audience appeal thanks to having achieved the Championship in less than two years. Vandergriff is unable to accept that he was defeated by someone who was simply better than him in every way he cared about, and any reminder of it causes him to become irrationally angry.
• A "Shaggy Dog" Story told in Ted Cohen's Jokes functions this way. A boy has a very shaggy dog, and constantly wins lower-level shaggy dog contests. But when he enters his dog into a world championship, the judges report that the boy's dog wasn't that shaggy, implying that there are even shaggier dogs out there.
• In Larry Niven's Known Space series, Pak protectors are evolved for warfare, literally. Millions of years of constant struggle between themselves has made them the perfect fighting machine. Problem is, humanity evolved from the Pak. When a Pak breeder (which starts out about as smart as a chimpanzee) makes the change to the protector stage, the ensuing being's intelligence is increased by a certain ratio; human breeders, on the other hand, are much smarter than chimpanzees, and when they make the change to protector, their intelligence increases proportionately. In short, its simply impossible for a Pak protector to out-think a human protector, which is why human protectors Brennan and Truesdale run roughshod over every protector they come up against.
  • It also explains how a Protector-stage Luis Wu could think rings around Proserpina and Hanuman (both of whom were non-sentient before their change to protector-stage), but couldn't out-think Tunesmith, who was not only already sentient before his change, but was smarter than Luis was on an individual basis, and thus continued to be smarter after the change.
  • The Born Lucky status of Teela Brown is actually beat by one person, her son’s whose luck is enough to give Teela bad luck in comparison.
• Heavely discussed in The Lazy Lord Masters The Sword. Everyone in this series got to where they are by working hard for extended periods of time. So, when they are confronted with someone who got even father than they are in less time or less work, their ego shatters and they become prey to resentment or an inferiority complex. This is usually a turning point for the character, as their growth going forward will depend on whether they learn from their failure and keep working, or crumble under the realization.
  • Brett falls victim to this after the final evaluation. Watching Airen who only started learning the sword a year ago surpass him made him feel like all his work was pointless, and that he could never reach the level of Ilya or Airen even if he tried all his life. He's snapped out of it when he realizes they are more important things to him than the sword anyway.
  • Ilya's brother Karl completely crumbled after his defeat at Ignet's hands. He was called a genius and was the shining star of swordsmanship, but Ignet crushed him in three hits. He was mocked and shamed for his loss, and never picked himself up. He then vanished without a trace.
  • Airen is confronted with this perpective when swordsmen attempt to kill him to get their hands on the Numbering Sword. Airen cannot understand why they're willing to throw it all away for just a blade, and the swordsmen snap back that getting that blade would mean finally reaching the level of Master Swordsman, something they have been trying to attain all their entire life, and leave the hell of "throwing themselves at a insurmontable wall" for years.
• In the Nero Wolfe novels, Archie Goodwin freely admits that Saul Panzer is a much better all-round private detective than he'll ever be, and the two men get on quite well. However, Archie in turn is specifically much better at being Nero Wolfe's assistant than anyone else, particularly Orrie Cather. Unlike with Saul and Archie, however, Orrie is constantly scheming to try and find some way of getting Archie's job for himself, resulting in tension between the two.
• Grace Makutsi of The No. 1 Ladies' Detective Agency is incredibly proud of her record-setting passing grade in the Botswana Secretarial College examinations (97%). Eventually she hears that a young woman has scored 98% on the same exam. In a subversion, Mma Makutsi is delighted and resolves to help pay for the girl's tuition.
• In Of Fear and Faith, Phenix feels that North is this to him. North is better in fights, conversation, and has a better grasp on his life in general than Phenix does, making the latter's already lacking self-esteem even worse. This is exacerbated in one chapter when, after spending the entirety of the story arc up to that point trying to convince a group of haggard soldiers to follow him to safety, North comes in and delivers a Rousing Speech that makes them all follow him instantly.
• In Poster Girl Sonya Kantor`s older sister Susanna was this to her, being considered smarter, more well behaved and more gifted than her. Actually being ahead of her for once is a big reason why Sonya was so eager at becoming the titular Poster Girl for the regime.
• Wesley in The Princess Bride. He outfights the world's greatest swordsman, beats up the world's strongest man, and fools the world's smartest man.
• In Dave Duncan's The Reluctant Swordsman series, Wallie Smith, transported into the body of the seventh level swordsman Shonshu, is given all of Shonshu's skill and ability with a blade. He's unbeatable except that a god tells him there's "one as good" out there somewhere. The climax of the book comes after Wallie has faced that one and discovers that his protege, Nnanjji, has gone from being a second level to being the youngest seventh in history— and easily bests the "one as good," making him the true destined wielder of the Goddess's Sword.
• This is a recurring trope in Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Zhou Yu is the brilliant strategist for the southern kingdom of Wu. Sima Yi is the equally brilliant strategist for the northern kingdom of Wei. They are both repeatedly outdone by the even more brilliant Zhuge Liang, advising the western kingdom of Shu.
  • The rivalry between Zhou Yu and Zhuge Liang is captured in the famous Chinese quote, “If (Zhou) Yu has already been born, why is (Zhuge) Liang to be born?” (“既生瑜, 何生亮?”)
  • Somewhat subverted with regards to Sima Yi, as he repeatedly survives being outsmarted by Zhuge Liang so that his descendants would eventually take over Wei and reunify China.
• The Shadow Club:
  • The Shadow Club by Neil Shusterman was devoted to this concept, with seven second-best children being driven to incredible lengths to humiliate their better. They start off sympathetic, one girl is even being ignored by her parent and step-parent DURING THEIR WEDDING because of her superior cousin, but they ultimately begin to cause serious harm to their rivals, and nearly kill one of them and an innocent bystander.
  • Then, for extra fun, a sequel is made in which the better arrives who is better than EVERYONE at EVERYTHING. When he too is targeted, the adults suspect the former Shadow Club of being the cause, but they are surprisingly innocent and the main character begins sleuthing to figure out who is trying to frame them.
• Interestingly, the egotistical Sherlock Holmes freely admits that Mycroft is better at his brand of deduction than Sherlock himself is. In turn, both brothers acknowledge that Sherlock is the energetic one, and that he gets results because he is willing to get up and do something (Mycroft is about as sedentary as they come). This largely averts the rivalry aspect of this trope, and neither brother hesitates to call upon the other when he feels a need for his particular skills. But although Mycroft is sedentary, he's far from inactive. Mention is made of his work for the government; which in modern terms most likely means Intelligence (in a modern setting, he'd probably be working for the SIS). So the two brothers do effectively similar work, Sherlock on a personal level, Mycroft on an international, governmental level.
• Hiro Protagonist of Snow Crash actually expresses relief at meeting Raven, who is infinitely more badass than Hiro (or anyone) could ever hope to be. Now that he knows that Raven will always be better than him, he reasons, he'll never again have to bother trying to be badass and can just get on with things.
• In Star Trek: Cold Equations, genius cyberneticist Noonien Soong becomes increasingly furious at Emil Vaslovik, who turns out to have secretly pioneered most of the technologies, techniques and long-term survival strategies that Soong thought were so novel, and a century before him at that. As the final frustration, Vaslovik ends up building a future with Soong's beloved former wife.
• Near the end of Super Powereds: Year 3, Roy (who has become the physically strongest student in his class, even though he's not the best fighter) meets his match in a suped-up terrorist strongman from the Sons of Progress. Just as the latter is preparing to pummel him, the man boasts about being the strongest man in the world, only to receive a Megaton Punch from the guy who really is the strongest man in the world (physically) — Owen Daniels (AKA Titan), Roy's father. Even Roy has to admit, despite hating the man for abandoning him, Hershel, and their mother, that no one is stronger than Titan.
• In Timothy Zahn's The Thrawn Trilogy, (part of Star Wars Legends), we are introduced to Winter Celchu, Leia's aide and a friend from childhood, who had been invaluable during the less certain times of the Rebellion. Leia, when it comes to gracefulness and elegance, thinks of Winter as her better, as she can wake up in the middle of the night, leave her hair unbrushed, wear only a plain robe, and still seem more poised than Leia feels. Then again, Leia was lying in bed pregnant at the time...
  • Another way she might be Leia's better is that due to her responsibilities, Leia had to leave her children with Winter quite often.
  • In Outbound Flight, the domineering Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth has a twenty-two year old Padawan, Lorana Jinzler, who doubts herself and isn't given much encouragement. C'baoth, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and their respective Padawans meet up, and C'baoth approves of the fourteen-year-old Anakin, predicting that he'll be a Jedi Knight before he's twenty. Poor Lorana winces, remembering that her Master hasn't even hinted about her knighthood, and wonders if Anakin is really that much stronger in the Force.
  • According to Obi-Wan, Lorena is hardly a bad Jedi. In fact he admits that save for a lack of self-confidence she is well on her way towards being a good Jedi Knight. The problem is that she chooses to compare herself to Anakin Skywalker.
• In The Wheel of Time the mythic hero Lews Therin Telamon was this in the Age of Legends. Several of the Forsaken turned to the Shadow out of jealous of him. Most notable is Demandred, who was slightly inferior to Lews Therin in almost *every* way — appearance, height, age, power, romantic success, et cetera.
• World of the Five Gods series by Lois McMaster Bujold:
  • In The Curse of Chalion, Caz has a flashback to an epiphany he had during his youth. While Cazaril was considered the best fencer in the castle, he was paired off as a sparring partner to a visiting youth and was thoroughly convinced of his own superiority, only to be soundly trounced by the visitor. The realization that there's always someone better had a profound effect on his development from then on.
  • In Paladin of Souls, Illvin muses that his elder half-brother was always better than him at everything they tried... the one thing Illvin could do that his brother could not was fall in love with Ista. Aww.
• Neal's role in Worst. Person. Ever. is effectively to succeed where Ray fails. Even when it's something like Ray being punished by having to dance the Angry Dance, Neal cannot refrain from upstaging him. Of course, given Ray's original plan of hiring Neal as an assistant he could abuse, it touches upon Laser-Guided Karma.
• Wraith Squadron:
  • Falynn Sandskimmer is second-best in several areas (TIE pilot, security expert, scout), but doesn't see herself as number one at anything. She fails to see how her versatility makes her valuable (she's number two to several different people). Also, she's often compared to Luke Skywalker since they're both pilots from Tatooine, which just fuels her inferiority complex as she's well aware she can never hope to match him. At the end of the novel, she makes a desperate attempt to be "first" at something; she succeeds, but dies in the process.
  • Tyria Sarkin suffers from some self-esteem issues in that though she is the squadron's best scout and is almost always the point man, she is the worst pilot in the squadron. Additionally, she's slightly Force-sensitive, but her control over it is so poor that Luke Skywalker initially rejected her as a Jedi candidate. Fortunately, she develops enough self-confidence over the course of the series to heavily improve her piloting and Force skills, and even becomes a fully-fledged Jedi some years later.

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