Big Brother Instinct / Real Life

• Robert "Bobby" Kennedy had a raging overprotective little brother instinct towards his big brother John. Apparently, his fury could scare the shit out of anybody if they tangled with John. Especially if it was LBJ (Lyndon B. Johnson).
  • LBJ was no slouch, either. He was a master at cajoling Congress into doing whatever he wanted because, damn it, he was LBJ. The fact that Bobby could match him and actually make him back down is pretty amazing.
• Similarly, Homer Collins rushed to the rescue of his older brother, Floyd Collins, when the latter was trapped by a cave collapse, one of four men (the others being Intrepid Reporter "Skeets" Miller, firefighter Robert Burdon, and childhood best friend Johnnie Gerald) who actively engaged in rescue efforts during the first five days of the 17 day rescue effort. Even after Floyd died from exposure while trapped, and the rescuers opted to leave his body in the caves, Homer went on a vaudeville circuit solely to raise funds to recover his brother's body for a proper burial.
• In 2014, Solange beat up her brother-in-law Jay-Z in an elevator at the Met Gala for (allegedly) cheating on her sister, Beyoncé.
• Especially during their early years together, actor Dean Martin was very protective of his partner Jerry Lewis, who was barely out of his teens, had a troubled upbringing marked by neglect, and had dropped out of high school at the start of his junior year due to anti-Semitism. One night in an Atlantic City bar, some mobster's mook demanded to know of Martin why he had teamed up with "that fucking kike"^note "kike" is a rather ugly anti-Semitic slur; Martin's answer was to grab hold of the mook and slam him across the bar straight into a shelf of glasses.
• James McNeil, age 17, saw his autistic ten-year-old brother climbing to the top of a 120-foot electrical tower. Though fearful of heights he climbed after him and held him in place until a rescue crew arrived. The story is described in the November 1997 Reader's Digest.
• Nine-year-old Malik Medford rescued his brothers from a car thief.
• Another inversion, an 8-year-old boy was killed after wounding a burglar who was attempting to rape his older sister.
• In 2002 Christopher Vince, aged 12, died after pushing his 16-year-old brother Ben out of the way of a falling tree.
• In an example of big sister instinct, a nine-year-old girl risked her life to push her five-year-old sister out of the way of an oncoming truck.
• Members of a fraternity are supposed to develop this, as the house is set up for a big brother to look after a little brother (pledge).
• A 12-year-old Florida boy saved his four siblings from a fire.
• On an unreleased Chappelle's Show, "Charlie Murphy True Hollywood Story," the older brother of comedian Eddie Murphy tells how he had to be let go as head of security for Eddie's entourage because he got carried away with beating up anybody within earshot who would talk smack about his little brother. He went so far as to physically threaten a man paralyzed below the neck who wouldn't stop loudly cussing out Eddie in a restaurant!
• A rather heartwarming example on the British clip show You've Been Framed (heartwarming for the show anyway). A little girl of about seven is decorating a Christmas tree with her toddler brother. The tree starts to fall over, and realizing that it's going to land smack on top of her brother, the girl pulls it towards her so that it lands on her instead, with her brother only getting hit by the mostly harmless branches.
  • The show also has an example of Little Sister Instinct. Two kids walk up a driveway on Halloween, and a plastic skeleton pops out of a fake grave. The elder brother cries and runs from it, terrified. His little sister looks between him and the fake skeleton before walking up to it and repeatedly punching it until it breaks.
• True story of a young man, upon being released from prison and returning home, heard about his little sister being harassed in high school by a jock whom she'd turned down for a date. Ex-con immediately goes to a place where he heard said jock liked to hang out and beats him bloody in front of all his friends. Bones are broken. Ex-con walks away from a jock who is sprawled face down on the pavement, making one final comment over his shoulder. "Don't mess with my baby sister. I don't give a fuck about going back to jail."
• MMA Example: The students of Cesar Gracie, namely Nick and Nathan Diaz, Gilbert Melendez, and Jake Shields, are very protective of each other. To sum up:
  • Nick threw in the towel after Nate took a vicious head kick against Josh Thompson, to try and get the referee to stop Thompson from inflicting punishment.
  • Nate threatened to quit the UFC after Gilbert Melendez was in a contract dispute, out of solidarity.
  • The Diaz brothers and Melendez fighting with Jason Mayhem Miller after he interrupted Jake Shields. Notable because Melendez and Nate Diaz are two full divisions lower than Mayhem, and Nate wasn't even a Strikeforce fighter and could have been kicked out of the UFC for it.
• Colin Farrell has a Little Brother Instinct towards his older, gay brother.
• In the few chronicles that survive from the period, William Adelin, the only son and heir of King Henry I of England, is described as having died during the White Ship disaster because he was trying to save his illegitimate half-sister Maud from drowning. He apparently rushed out of the dinghy he and his friends were lowering out of the wreck, trying to find her. He never did.
• A tragic example: After The Voice contestant Christina Grimmie was shot and killed at a concert, her brother charged the shooter and brought him down. Many left in the venue hailed him for saving their lives.
• Kanye West learned this when he dissed Taylor Swift by claiming he made her famous when he rudely interrupted her accepting her award, regardless of her talent. Taylor's younger brother Austin posted a video on his Instagram of him whistling the theme to The Bridge on the River Kwai while throwing out the Kanye brand shoes from his closet.
• When Gavin Free first started living in the United States after being hired into Rooster Teeth, he ended up living with Rooster Teeth and Achievement Hunter co-creator Geoff Ramsay, where he essentially became part of the family, especially being a surrogate big brother to Geoff's daughter Millie. When Gavin found out that Millie's former dentist had been arrested for pedophilia^note Millie was not involved in it at all - her mother Griffin was present at all times when she saw the dentist, Gavin's first question was "Is he dead yet?"
• A sister saves her younger brother from an attempted abduction. See here.
• In probably the youngest and most recently recorded example, 6-year-old Bridger Walker from Wyoming held off an attacking German Shepherd mix to protect his 4-year-old sister. After driving the dog away, he proceeded to lead his sister to a safe place, despite injuries that would later require 90 stitches to treat. Starting with Mark Ruffalo to ending with RDJ, many celebrities contacted the family to praise him directly.
  • It should not be understated just how brave he was. According to his parents post-attack, when asked why he did it, he said, "If someone had to die, I felt it should be me."
• British triathlete Alistair Brownlee towards his younger brother and fellow triathlete Jonathan Brownlee, during the final race of the 2016 World Triathlon Series in Cozumel, Mexico. Jonathan, who was in the lead, began suffering from the effects of heat exhaustion and was close to collapsing. Alistair, who was behind him, saw this and promptly abandoned his chances of winning the race in order to help him. He half-helped/half-pulled his brother through the final part of the race and pushed him over the finish line before him, ensuring that he would finish in second place while Alistair finished in third.
• The older brother and older sister of John Wayne Gacy's last victim Robert Piest were very active during the investigations into his disappearance. On the night of his murder, Piest's siblings spent the entire night patrolling the streets of Chicago for him. According to one of the lead detectives on the case, the older siblings trailed police officers together to ensure that they were actually searching for their brother. They even reportedly followed the officers to Gacy's house without them knowing, and spied on them while they were questioning him. Piest's sister also tracked down Gacy's address with their father (who was also a Papa Wolf in his own right), and almost walked on his doorsteps before deciding to let the investigators "do their jobs."
• The House of I had an inversion in the seventeenth century. The Chinese emperor ordered the king of Joseon to send two of his sons to China as Political Hostages. The chosen princes were Crown Prince Sohyeon and his younger brother Grand Prince Bongrim (the future King Hyojong). During their stay in China Bongrim was terrified that something would happen to Sohyeon, especially when the Chinese emperor ordered Sohyeon to join the army and command troops on the battlefield. Sohyeon had no military experience, so Bongrim — who was probably only about seventeen at the time — volunteered to fight in his brother's place. Sadly, Bongrim couldn't protect Sohyeon from everything: in 1645 Sohyeon was allowed to return to Joseon while Bongrim stayed in China. Sohyeon had a violent argument with their father King Injo which ended with him being murdered. By his own father.
• A young boy (dressed up as Batman) helping his younger sister (dressed up as Disney's Snow White) get candy for Halloween.
• When princess Huyền Trân is forced to die following the custom of her foreign husband's death, her older brother King Trần Anh Tông ordered his general to rescue her. Due to this event, the successor king of Champa walked back on the peace treaty between the two countries, so the King invaded Champa, dethrone the newly crowned king and crowned his younger brother, but this also strained the relation between the two countries significantly. That's right, the king fought a war to protect his sister.

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