Sibling Rivalry

"Mommy...! They're at it again!"
Image by J.C. Leyendecker.

Azula: I'm sorry it has to end this way, brother!
Zuko: No, you're not.

— Avatar: The Last Airbender, "Sozin's Comet: Part 3 - Into the Inferno"

When two siblings end up being rivals.

Let's face it, life is a competition. And more often than not, your first and most consistent competitor can be found sleeping in the next bed.

Siblings compete. They compete for toys, love, food, resources, time, attention... in short, pretty much everything. Usually, this is a healthy thing — usually — as a little healthy competition can build character, help define one's place within the world, and they can learn some good skills while navigating whatever conflict they have with each other... like who gets to use the only bathroom first. Besides, as anyone who actually has a brother or sister knows, sometimes you just have to tease them. Otherwise, what's the point?

Sometimes though, things will get ugly. Really, really ugly. Because who can know you better — and perhaps have more reason to hate you — than your own sister or brother? When the battle is between siblings, you can trust them to know (if not always do) the things that are going to hurt you the most.

Naturally, the closer the siblings are in age, and if the siblings are of the same gender, the more intense the rivalry is likely to be, and the more likely one of the siblings will feel Always Second Best. Extreme cases may result in Can't Catch Up, especially if an Aloof Big Brother is involved. If the parents take sides one of the rivals is bound to become The Unfavorite. If the strife is due to the siblings only sharing one common parent, it may lead to Blended Family Drama, Half-Sibling Angst, or Bastard Angst. When it spills over into romantic affairs with two siblings pursuing the same Love Interest, it can become a Sibling Triangle.

For a Sibling Rivalry turned into good vs evil, see Cain and Abel. If the rivalry goes too far, could lead to Sibling Murder. In case the siblings in question were friends with each other prior to their falling out, it probably triggers We Used to Be Friends. Compare to the often-times similar Clashing Cousins (parents having a rivalry can also lead to their children inheriting their rivalry as well).

For that splendid variant of sibling rivalry that's exclusively reserved for Girls, see The Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry. If the siblings are princes and they fight for the throne with Shakespearean undertones, see Princeling Rivalry.

Truth in Television, of course.

---

Examples:

Anime & Manga

• Ace of the Diamond: The Kominato brothers, Ryousuke and Haruichi, despite being teammates for the Seidou High baseball team. Ryousuke makes it clear he's not gonna give up his position to his little brother, while Haruichi works hard to surpass and be acknowledged by his older brother.
• In Arabian Nights: Adventures of Sinbad, Satajit and Balba argue as much as they work together.
• In Corsair, Canale and Jean-Hughes take this to extremes, with Jean-Hughes having tried several times to murder his brother since the age of eight. When Aura is captured by Jean-Hughes the rivalry rears its ugly head again. Aura and Leti in comparison are a healthy version of this, and Ayace, though not blood-related, has a similar sibling-like rivalry with Aura.
• Dragon Ball Z: Cooler's Revenge: Frieza is hinted to have this with his Stronger Sibling, Cooler. Cooler freely admits to finding Frieza nothing but a Spoiled Brat and a pest, and states outright that had Goku not killed Frieza, he gladly would have done the job for him; in fact, the only reason Cooler even bothers to go after Goku and avenge him is because he believes that Frieza has sullied their Family Honor by letting Goku defeat him.
  • Later on, in Dragon Ball Super, Beerus has this with his brother Champa. However, as they're both Gods of Destruction, they aren't allowed to fight each other personally since that would destroy both of their universes (a small spat between the two disintegrated the room they were in before Whis and Vados put a stop to it). Thus, they have to compete in other ways, like seeing who can get the best food, or hosting a tournament for mortals from their respective universes to fight for them.
• Fullmetal Alchemist has Alex and Olivier Armstrong, though it's mostly one-sided on Olivier's end. She sees Alex as a weak-willed, overemotional coward due to his Heroic BSoD during the Ishval Civil War, and she would rather leave the family's estate to Colonel Roy Mustang (for whom she has no love either) than to Alex. He still looks up to his Four-Star Badass big sister, even though he understands the lack of respect she has for him. It's only when they fight together during the siege on Central that he starts to regain some of that respect from her (even if she still can't stand his emotionalism).
• In Eleanor & Park, Park feels as if his father favors his younger brother Josh over him.
• Haikyuu!! has the twins Atsumu and Osamu Miya who fight on a regular basis, often in a very physical way. The two are each other's biggest rivals and push each other to improve due to their dislike for losing.
• In Hetalia: Axis Powers, Belgium wonders if her success when she was younger was what drove Netherlands to be the shrewd businessman that he is.
• The sickest version of this trope occurs in Ichi the Killer (no surprise there) when two psychotic brothers have a sick rivalry going that ends in torture and mutilation for whoever makes one feel inferior to the other. For instance, they each had sex with two women, then the older brother asked one of the girls who was better. When she said that the younger brother was just a little bit better, he furiously pulled all of her hair out. Then he turned the question to the other girl. Terrified, she said that he was the better one. And then the younger brother cut her nipples off. Later on, they had a fierce contest to see who was better at torturing a captive.
  • Even more disturbing, the brothers used to be triplets. Their extreme rivalry is the reason they're twins.
• Inuyasha and Sesshomaru from Inuyasha Sesshomaru is the Aloof Big Brother to whom Inuyasha Can't Catch Up. Despite this, it's actually Sesshoumaru who feels like his father felt he was Always Second Best to Inuyasha. Much of his journey through the manga involves him developing from a Big Brother Bully to an Aloof Big Brother through finally understanding that his father viewed him as a Big Brother Mentor rather than The Unfavorite.
• Isabelle of Paris: In episode one, Isabelle asks her maid, Jeanne, who is fairer, her or her older sister Geneviève. She takes Jeanne's pause as a sign it's Geneviève, but Jeanne assures her this isn't the case.
• March Comes in Like a Lion uses this for dramatic backstory. Due to their shogi-dedicated upbringing, Rei, the foster child, and the two Kouda children were rivals in shogi to see who was the best in the family that deserved to continue on toward being a professional. However, what they (or at least, the latter two) were really competing for was affection from their father, since the best received the most attention from him. Rei was unlucky enough to be the best out of the three without much effort.
• The Mazinger Z franchise has a quite tragic example. Tetsuya Tsurugi was Kenzo Kabuto's adoptive son. When Kenzo got reunited with his biological son, Kouji Kabuto, Tetsuya — who had a TON of abandonment and self-confidence issues hidden under his badass persona — thought his father would forget about him now his son by blood was back. (Something that is already serious for a Western orphan, but due to Values Dissonance is even worse for a Japanese one). He got very jealous and argued and fought with Kouji about anything and everything, determined to prove to Kenzo that he was better than Kouji. Unfortunately, his jealousy and his bickering caused Kenzo's death. Tetsuya suffered a Freak Out because of it... in one continuity, it drives him to basically commit suicide to wipe out the enemy.
• Played for Laughs and taken to literal extremes in Midori Days, with Seiji being at odds with his big sister, Rin, who makes his life hell for her own amusement^note she's also the one who taught Seiji how to fight. The thing is, Seiji normally Wouldn't Hit a Girl. But, in Rin's case, he gladly makes an exception.
• Misty from Pokémon: The Series set out on her training journey in order to prove her worth to her three older sisters.
• Zigzagged and played with in The Quintessential Quintuplets. The titular sisters usually get along pretty well with each other, despite their heavily different personalities and interests by the time the story starts. However, the flashbacks reveal that one of them (Yotsuba) developed a competitive streak that led her to try and be the best to stand out from the others. And of course, there's the fact that they begin to compete amongst each other for the affection of Fuutarou once they start developing feelings for him.
  • This trope is played largely straight between Miku and Nino.
• Ranma ½:
  • The Tendō Sisters are a fairly gentle example of the "constant teasing" variant, with Nabiki as the prime instigator.
  • Tatewaki and Kodachi Kunō, meanwhile, exemplify a much darker (and funnier) version of the trope. Luckily, using brothers as weapons is completely legal in Rhythmic Gymnastics martial arts.
• Revolutionary Girl Utena: Twins Miki and Kozue have a...complicated relationship. Years ago they were close, but after an incident involving a botched piano recital and later due to her "immoral" behavior (which she embellishes to annoy him), they had a major falling out while also dealing with potential incestous feelings towards each other. They spend almost their entire screentime together either fighting with, insulting, or trying to annoy each other.
  • In the movie, they share a single scene in which Kozue holds a razor blade to Miki's throat and threatens to slit it. It is that kind of a relationship.
• Sailor Moon: Usagi and Shingo Tsukino regularly take potshots at one another. Usagi is bigger than Shingo and is thus able to bully him physically, but Shingo is smarter than her so he's better at not getting caught when he pulls pranks. It's also made explicit that both of them care deeply for one another and their fighting is just old-fashioned sibling bickering.
• Sekainohate de Aimashou: Prince Emilio has several brothers. Each rules a fiefdom in his own right and all of them are either jockeying for the imperial throne or trying to protect themselves from the others who are jockeying for the throne. It's essentially sibling rivalry raised to the level of a cold war.
• Slayers: Lina and Luna Inverse, even though Luna never appears. Lina seems to admire Luna (she once admitted Luna was "really cool" to a little girl who also had big sister issues in the manga) even as she's terrified of her — or perhaps more accurately terrified of making her angry. It seems there may be a wee bit of Can't Catch Up motivating Lina.
• In Zipman!!, Kaname and Koshiro ended up in one after they meet Cheena over who could make her smile. To Kaname's chagrin, Koshiro came out on top every time, and Kaname was never good at bringing smiles to anyone's faces. After discovering that Koshiro's mind is in inside the Jackman suit, Kaname grows irritated at Koshiro's constant attempts to get him to go away, so he starts doing pull-ups on one of Koshiro's inventions. He goes on to say that the fourth version of his pull-up bar is better than this robot arm, infuriating Koshiro.
  Kaname: [doing pull ups on a robot arm] Ha ha ha! This ain't too bad! But it's nothing compared to my version 4 pull-up bar!
  Koshiro: No way! The arm I invented could never be inferior to something of yours!

Comic Books

• Afterlife with Archie presents Betty's relationship with Polly as a one-sided version of this. Polly is aggressive toward Betty, who is the younger sibling. Polly thinks her family considers her a disappointment and an embarrassment while Betty is the "good girl".
• Batman:
  • Dick Grayson (the first Robin) and Jason Todd (Robin II), although it's almost entirely on Jason's side. Jason has inadequacy issues because he had to live up to Dick's example.
  • Jason also has a rivalry with Tim Drake (Robin III), who he sees as his replacement. The New 52 moved them on from this, with both bonding over being outsiders and not being able to live up to Bruce's standards for them after Dick's tenure.
  • Damian Wayne (Robin V) has a notable rivalry with Tim Drake, who he sees as his rival in not only being Robin, but in being Bruce Wayne's son (the two can't be in the same room without Damian whipping out the "you're adopted" insult), and essentially usurped Drake as Robin.
  • Damian has issues with Jason as well, though more because of Jason's black sheep status and that both are similar in personalities.
• Snow White and Rose Red in Fables. They're mostly past it now, but flashes of their backstories reveal that Rose was once so jealous of Snow she behaved in ways that could fairly be characterized as evil.
• In The Flash, there's Don and Dawn Allen (the Tornado Twins), the twin children of Barry Allen (The Flash II) and Wally West (Kid Flash/The Flash III). The twins themselves get along fine, but they have a very tense relationship with Wally, who they think Barry will always see as his true son (technically, Wally is Barry's nephew). In their defense, Barry does call Wally 'son' quite often, and the two agree that their relationship is a father-son relationship, so it's hard to blame them for the jealousy.
• In FoxTrot, most of Jason Fox's screentime is spent harassing his sister Paige with pranks, squirt guns, his pet iguana, or numerous creative projects like comics or cartoons dedicated to insulting her^note The prime example being his long-running comic "Slug Man", whose arch-nemesis is Paige-O-Tron, an evil robot with lethal body odor and exploding pimple bullets; this relates more to Jason's extreme Girls Have Cooties attitude than out of any actual jealousy. Paige usually responds with violence, but she does occasionally prank him back; on top of this, both of them have a more subdued rivalry with their older brother Peter.
• Legends of Baldur's Gate: As children, Delina's brother Deniak criticized her for not putting much effort into her magical studies, but when this angered her enough to manifest her wild magic, he changed his tune and became jealous of her instead. When he's found, he has gone completely over the edge and wants to steal Delina's power with a ritual.
• The Legend of Korra: Ruins of the Empire: The comic trilogy shows that Kuvira developed one with Opal after she was adopted into the Beifong family which adds another layer as to why Opal is such a harsh critic of Kuvira. Opal felt that Suyin was often too lenient on Kuvira whenever she acted out and it's implied that Kuvira was aggressive to her because of her own insecurities in being Su's adoptive daughter.
• Wonder Woman
  • Wonder Woman: Black and Gold: Diana and Nubia are incredibly and constantly competitive with each other in "A Common Motivator", until they put their rivalry aside to best Artemis in a competition between the Themysciran and Bana Amazon tribes.
  • Wonder Woman Historia: The Amazons: Artemis and Apollo, visually depicted as the youngest-looking Olympians, are quick to get into a tussle with one another in the opening scene on Olympus.

Fan Works

• Uplifted: Hanala and Rael Jarva. While initially amicable, Hanala and Rael quickly come to resent each other once Hanala returns to the fleet completely changed by her experiences on Earth. Instead of the sweet girl he remembers, he is faced with a competitive, antagonistic and violent sister with a fundamental difference of opinion regarding the future of their people.
• Lucky Star: After Story has the Yoshida sisters, Tomoyo and Hiroko. Tomoyo is the older sibling at age 22 when she was introduced. Hiroko is the younger sibling at age 18 when she was introduced.
• Empath: The Luckiest Smurf has Hefty and Handy as dueling twin brothers. Note that it is a friendly rivalry, as they both simply want to be recognized as being more important than the other. Tapper likens their relationship to be "like Esau and Jacob", with Hefty being Esau and Handy being Jacob.
• Meg's Family Series: Played with, as Maddie and Stewie do occasionally act antagonistic towards each other, they're actually niece and uncle that are very close in age. Played straight when her parents take in her half-brother Cody (though she later gets over it).
• More Family, More Happiness, Right?: after being adopted by Massimo, Alberto develops a very strong rivalry with his adoptive sister Giulia, to the point that they, at the beginning of the story, got in a very violent physical fight with each other.
• In Pokémon Strangled Red, Steven and Mike are both rivals and brothers.
• In Rise of the Tau, it turns out that the true reason the Eldar look down on humanity is because we are their younger sister species, the Children of Vaul to their Children of Isha.
• Tales of the Undiscovered Swords: Izuminokami feels this way towards his older brother Sasanoyuki thanks to their oldest brother Kasen's blatant favoritism towards the latter, made even worse by Sasanoyuki's being practically robotic in personality and terrifyingly cold and ruthless. They are on surprisingly good terms after Sasanoyuki's kiwame, up until he beats Izuminokami at iai anyway.
  • Ichinodō Shichido (his "right" side at least), openly voices his disgust for his brother Sengo Muramasa for what he perceives as a lack of remorse for his ugly past as a Muramasa sword.
• The aptly titled My Little Pony fanfic Sibling Rivalry has one forming between Rarity and Sweetie Belle after they both fall for Spike, who makes the mistake of thinking he could just see both of them and it would work out.
• Us and Them: Given that Aeris and Sephiroth eventually have a brood of seven, it should be no surprise that their kids have the occasional fight, sometimes teasing, sometimes physical. Given that some of them inherited their father's strength can pose a bit of a problem when he's not home and Aeris has to break up altercations by herself. She tends to use a water hose to separate them.
• The Bridge: The "Children of the Old King", Godzilla III (a.k.a. "Junior"), Biollante, and Xenilla. The latter two are the biological offspring of the second Godzilla via a genetics experience and accidental cloning, with the former being adopted. The two brothers Junior and Xenilla war with one another, with Biollante being the moderating neutral force as their elder sister. Their conflict spilling into Equestria is one of the main reasons Celestia and Luna split the kaiju up to keep the fighting to a minimum. Them making amends and moving past this is a major story arc.
• Vow of Nudity: The backstory for the two titans in the story "Skies of the Damned". Their father intended for them to fight for control of the mountain range upon coming of age, but the older brother surrendered his claim as the duel was about to start thanks to a vow of pacifism. The younger one took this as an insult and relegated him to serve the harpy colony as a messenger ever since.

Films — Animation

• Marie and Berlioz are like this with each other in Disney's The Aristocats from 1970.
• BIONICLE: Mask of Light: Due to Fire/Water Juxtaposition, Tahu and Gali keep snarking at each other. The Turaga feel it's a bad sign.
• Gutierrez reveals that La Muerte from The Book of Life and her sister, La Noche, are rivals in everything.
• How to Train Your Dragon: Ruffnut and Tuffnut can work together as a team with a lot of effort... but they still spend more time beating the hell out of each other than they do fighting anything else.
• Violet and Dash in The Incredibles are shown to argue in most of the film. The scene where they fight at dinner implies that such fights are normal between them. The added stress of having to stifle themselves due to living under the Super Registration Act causes them to have an even more tense environment. However, despite their bickering, they really do love each other dearly and are very protective of each other to the point of nearly dying for each other. By the sequel, they have a much better relationship.
• In Turning Red, this is Downplayed, but Lily boasts often about her daughter Vivian (Mei's unseen cousin).

Films — Live-Action

• Played for laughs in The Adventure of Sherlock Holmes' Smarter Brother. When Sigerson Holmes is asked by Ormond Sacker whether he has a brother named Sherlock, Sigerson snaps that his brother's actual name is "Sheer luck."
• Twin gunfighters Kid Shelleen (good) and Strawn (evil) in Cat Ballou. Subverted in that no one knew Strawn was Shalleen's brother (due to his facial disfigurement) until after Shalleen shot him. Both were played by Lee Marvin.
• Deewaar: When Ravi becomes a police officer and Vijay a high-ranking criminal, they end up opposing each other even though they'd both rather not.
• Tracy and Caroline Lord in High Society, with Caroline feeling herself the inferior sibling. She even (jokingly?) wishes she could marry Tracy's ex-husband Dexter, if Tracy and he aren't going to get back together... When he sings her a love song, she "considers herself engaged", and then feels terribly guilty for "betraying her sister".
• Nick and Carly from House of Wax (2005), along with a bucket of incestous subtext.
• Happens between Stanley and Roy in In This Our Life. Stanley steals Roy's husband without a bit of remorse.
• The bulk of the plot of Jupiter Ascending involves a feud between the three Abrasax siblings — Balem, Kalique and Titus — over ownership of the Earth. By the end of the movie, Jupiter, who is the recurrence of the Abrasax Sovereign and the mother of all three, claims ownership of the planet, and possibly also a share of what Balem had left when he died.
• Mean Girls 2. Mandi and Tyler, though oddly the dislike comes entirely from his side and Mandi, despite being a bitch to everyone else, seems to have some sisterly feeling for him, even declaring him off limits to Chastity and calling his father (her stepfather) "our Dad". He's also the only character she's never directly mean to.
• Thor: Thor and Loki, but it's much more bitter from Loki's point of view than Thor's until Loki's Face–Heel Turn. Odin seemed to inadvertently encourage this since he said that either one of them could be king. Taken to greater extremes in Ragnarok when their older sister Hela appears and turns out to be even more vindictive and fratricidal than Loki. As Odin's oldest child, she has no problem removing both little brothers from the line of succession if it benefits her.
• Patchi and Scowler in the Walking with Dinosaurs movie. Things only intensified when they get older (mostly Scowler attacking Patchi for "stealing" his herd on the frozen lake), but this ends up averted after Patchi saves him from the Gorgosaurus attack.
• Implied in X2: X-Men United, since Bobby Drake's brother Ronnie calls the cops claiming that Iceman and the others are holding his family hostage soon after finding out he is a mutant.

Literature

• Most of the siblings in The Anderssons normally get along with each other, even if they are notably different. The one big exception is Cecilia and Hannes in "Spränga gränser". Cecilia feels that she almost has to feel ashamed of her good grades in school, because of her brother's dyxlexia. Hannes is very bitter about his sister's success, and he wrongly thinks that he must be The Unfavorite with their parents. But actually, Cecilia feels a bit of jealousy towards Hannes too: He has gotten a job already and makes his own money, which she only can do during the summer breaks from school. Their mother has decided that Cecilia has to get a High School diploma ^note this was in the 1950s, when it was still not certain that a working class kid in Sweden would be able to achieve that, while nobody will put any such pressure on Hannes. And also, Hannes is two years older than her and a boy, so he can go wherever he wants, while Cecilia is forbidden by their mother to even think of doing those things Hannes does. And to make the point even clearer, the two siblings are also divided in their different tastes in music: Cecilia likes up-tempo rock'n'roll and Hannes prefers moody jazz. Fortunately though, things become a bit better between them over the course of the book: Cecilia decides to help Hannes with writing down his poems and having them published, and it seems like they have started to get a new understanding for each other's problems.
• Common trope in the works of V.C. Andrews:
  • My Sweet Audrina has Audrina and Vera, as well as a rather disturbing example with Audrina's mother and aunt
  • Dawn and Clara Sue in the Cutler series. Later Lillian and Emily as well.
  • Heaven and Fanny in the Casteel series.
• The Bible especially Genesis has this as a recurring theme to the point that it named two tropes Cain and Abel and Jacob and Esau. A major turning point in Genesis is Joseph's story where he subverts this trope and forgives and reunites with his brothers.
• In Bridge of Clay Rory and Henry Dunbar (the second and the third of five sons) always fight over everything. And since they are forced to share a bedroom for several years, many of these arguments and fights are over one brother's stuff left lying on the other brother's side of the room.
• Bury Him Among Kings is a World War I novel by Elleston Trevor about an intense version of this between an Aloof Big Brother and a younger brother who feels Always Second Best. At the climax the elder brother's patrol gets trapped in no-mans' land and the younger brother has to choose between leaving him to die and risking his own life to save him.
• Much of the plot of The Chathrand Voyages is ultimately revealed to have been set in motion by sibling rivalry by way of Evil Sorcerers. Arunis and Macadra are brother and sister, approx. three thousand years old, on-and-off conspirators and perpetual rivals who are each determined to become the most powerful magic-user in history, whatever it takes. Arunis intends to unleash the Swarm of Night to destroy the world, so that the Night Gods will be impressed enough to make him one of them; Macadra is less omnicidal, having subverted the empire of Bali Adro to use as her tool to Take Over the World. Both their plans hinge on the Nilstone — which from the end of the first book on, the protagonists happen to have, leaving them caught between the two.
• Roger Zelazny's The Chronicles of Amber is centered on the convoluted rivalry and shifting alliances among seven siblings jockeying for their father's throne. (Not all of them want it, but they all have preferences as to who should get it, and perhaps more importantly strong opinions about whom they don't want to have it.) Corwin and Eric in particular take it to Cain and Abel levels, though in later books it becomes less clear which one is which.
• The Chronicles of Magravandias: There is an eleven-way rivalry between the Malagash princes, but particularly bad are Gastern, Almorante, and Bayard. They are the strongest three, the others tend to latch onto whichever brother they like best or fear most. Their sister Varencienne refuses to have anything to do with it.
• The Chronicles of Narnia:
  • The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe: Edmund and Lucy have this tendency, due to the fact that Edmund enjoys tormenting her. Peter calls him out at least twice.
  • Prince Caspian has this with Susan and Lucy. Susan is angered that Aslan seems to favor Lucy, while Lucy is bitterly upset when Peter takes Susan's side because she's older and (usually) wiser. It doesn't help that Susan is very stressed due to how they're in a Narnia very different from the one they knew, so she's unable to see things that Lucy actually can due to her unshakeable faith. When she finally manages to do so, Susan apologizes to Lucy and confesses that she did want to believe her, but her inner fears held her back.
• Dark Shores: Hacken and Killian Calorian, the oldest and the youngest brother respectively. Hacken is a consummate politician, destined to be the next High Lord, while Killian is a warrior, just like their father — and even though Hacken is the oldest, he still envies Killian their father's attention. And then he goes on to make Killian's life really miserable, while all the time claiming he is doing it for the good of their country.
• Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Frank despises both of his brothers, disliking Gary for being lazy and disliking Joe for accidentally stoking Manny's fears of the toilet and resetting all of his potty training.
• The Dinner:
  • The tension between main character Paul and his brother Serge is mainly a result between one brother feeling inferior to the other, and thus attempting to one up him. That said, Paul's sociopathic tendencies, particularly the time he physically assaulted Serge when they were younger, also no doubt played a part in their antipathy towards each other.
  • It's possible that Beau's decision to blackmail his adoptive brother Rick (and his cousin Michel) also stems from a feeling of inferiority; it's implied that Beau was adopted by Serge and Babette in order to bolster Serge's chances at winning the prime minister's seat while Rick is their biological child. There's doubtless little love lost between the two because of this.
• Discworld: Reaper Man reveals that Mustrum Ridcully, Archchancellor of Unseen University, has a brother named Hughnon who's High Priest of Blind Io and de facto leader of Ankh-Morpork's population of priests. They get along well enough, but can't resist the urge to make fun of each other's vocations.
  Mustrum: How's things in the godbothering business?
  Hughnon: Not bad. How's the tinkering with things men was not meant to understand?
  Mustrum: Pretty fair, pretty fair.
• In Eye of a Fly, Ernest's brother Warren hates his sister Tiffany, for reasons Ernest can't discern. Once he threw a TV at her.
• A Frozen Heart: Deconstructed. Prince Hans and his 12 older brothers don't get along with each other, with references of his oldest brother Caleb getting into violent brawls, some of Hans's brothers playing mean pranks against him, and some of the sons developing a Middle Child Syndrome. Hans ends up becoming the family's Black Sheep for his ineptitude in conforming to siblings who are considered high-achievers by their parents. The hands-off approach taken by their parents compounds the problem even more, leading to fierce competition for their approval and a sense of inferiority when they don't. This is a major reason why the entire Southern Isles royal family has become so miserable over time, with Caleb becoming too emotionally dependent on the king, Hans being sent back home in disgrace for his illegal takeover of Arendelle, and most of the 13 sons becoming immature manchildren.
• In Galaxy of Fear, for the most part Tash and Zak get along very well. They're a year apart and both are traumatized by losing their family and have to cooperate in their struggles to survive with a Resentful Guardian who takes them from one dangerous place to another. As they adjust more fully, their guardian comes to like them more, and they acquire skills that help them with the danger, they don't need each other as much and develop more individually. While they never stop looking out for or loving each other, and they tend to have different enough interests that much competition is averted, elements of this creep into the later books of the series. Particularly The Hunger, in which Zak starts feeling like The Un-Favorite.
• This is common in the Weasley family in Harry Potter, with all the six brothers trying to outshine the others at something. Percy decides to be different from the rest and become an ambitious conformist, only to become the Black Sheep of the family for almost three years. Fred and George may look like they've opted out of the competition, but their goofball antics earn them a big heap of attention. Ginny is both the youngest and the only girl, which puts her on a level where none of the brothers can compete with her. And as for Ron, his problem is that he feels overshadowed by them all. And being the best mate of The Boy Who Lived hardly helps either, especially during those moments when Harry is treated like he has become his foster brother. Ron finally succeeds in overcoming this personal demon, and that is a major turning point in the last book.
• Hons and Rebels by Jessica Mitford: Mitford became a Communist in the 1930s, her sisters Unity and Diana became Fascists.
  Sometimes we even talked of what would happen in a revolutionary situation. We both agreed we’d simply have to be prepared to fight on opposite sides, and even tried to picture what it would be like if one day one of us had to give the order for the other’s execution.
• How the Marquis Got His Coat Back has Peregrine and the Marquis. It's outright stated that the Marquis became the Marquis out of an urge to compete with Peregrine.
• Jo and Amy in Little Women have a minor one. They care for each other but often clash due to their very different personalities and viewpoints, and then Laurie falls in love with Amy, after loving Jo — who only liked him as a friend, rejected his affections twice and then got together with her beta reader. At some point Amy even asks if he still loves Jo, and he assures her that he only loves Jo as a sister now.
• In The Mermaid Summer, the mermaid's motivation for wanting to take Anna's comb is to have more beautiful things than her sisters so they'll be jealous of her.
• In Nano Machine, children of Demonic Cult Lord would never get along with each other due to the succession war they must go through once they enter Demonic Academy.
• Nory Ryans Song: Nory and Celia do not get along, mainly because of Nory's tomboyish, headstrong nature and the more feminine Celia's bossiness, especially at the beginning when they fight over their mother's hair comb and end up breaking it in half. Needless to say, the hardship of the famine that hits makes them both mature out of their bickering. In the end, before leaving with their grandfather, Celia gives Nory her half of the broken comb as a sign that they will be together as a family one day in Brooklyn.
• The Plant That Ate Dirty Socks: Michael and Norman have a constant rivalry going on... but will put it aside when they have a common goal, such as trying to keep their plants.
• Robin Hood in all of its many versions: the underlying plot driver is the sibling rivalry between King Richard and Prince John and in some versions Will Scarlet is Robin's illegitimate half brother.
• Septimus Heap: Septimus and Simon, about the ExtraOrdinary Apprenticeship.
• The Shattered Kingdoms: In Blood's Pride, this is a serious problem for the family of the governor of the Shadar. He had four children. One was abandoned as a child because of a physical "deformity". The other three have decidedly rocky relationships. Eofar, the only son, doesn't actually like the power-and-glory focus of his culture very much, and clashes with his sister Frea, who likes those things just fine and considers Eofar to be weak. The youngest daughter, Isa, (initially) wants to a proper Norlander, which gives her a measure of conflict with both (since Eofar tries to dissuade her and Frea is the person her culture says she has to beat to prove herself worthy). The situation is not helped by the secrets they keep from each other — Eofar knows that Frea's dreams of a glorious homecoming are impossible but doesn't say so; Frea inadvertently caused the death of their mother in order to prevent the rescue of the abandoned daughter, then blamed the death on Isa; and Isa was accidentally the cause of the abandonment (and also knows Frea's secret but has been pretending not to). And then the abandoned daughter, Lahlil, turns out to be a) not dead; and b) rather dangerous.
• Siren Novels: Vanessa's late sister Justine was a popular, outgoing risk-taker. Vanessa always thought that was just her personality, but after Justine's death, she learns that Justine was jealous of all the attention Vanessa got without even trying because of her siren ancestry, and felt like she had to go to great lengths to get anyone to notice her.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, House Frey take this to extremes. Lord Frey is on his eighth wife and has children by all of the previous seven, as well as several illegitimate children and plenty of grand- and great-grandchildren. There is so little love lost between them all that news of a family death elicits more calculation of the effect on the line of succession than grief. It is especially bad between Edwyn and "Black" Walder Frey, two great-grandsons of Walder Frey who hate each other and each aspire to be Lord of the Crossing.
  • Also the Baratheon brothers, who are not very close to each other. When Robert dies, Stannis and Renly take it to the max — fighting for the Iron Throne with each other and with their supposed nephews. However Stannis is more justified, as Robert's eldest brother his claim to the throne is better then Renly, who is a vain greedy jerk who decides to usurp the Iron Throne basically on Appeal to Force and intends to kill Stannis, but is killed by a shadow assassin conjured by Stannis' sorceress before he can do so. It is left unclear if Stannis is aware of his role in his brother's death. However Stannis does reveal to his loyal Knight Davos Seaworth that he did love his brothers and wished for their appreciation, he is saddened at their death.
  • The Dance of the Dragons, a civil war between two branches of the Targaryen dynasty, came about due to the enmity between Princess Rhaenyra, King Viserys I's only surviving child by his first wife Aemma Arryn, and Viserys' children by his second wife Alicent Hightower. Rhaenyra's three eldest sons had a massive enmity with Alicent's three sons, Prince Lucerys Velaryon being slashing out Prince Aemond Targaryen's eye in a fight. When Viserys died Rhaenyra and her eldest half-brother Aegon II fought over the throne, in the process wiping out nearly all the Targaryens and dragons.
  • There was also this between the children of Aegon IV "The Unworthy", who sired numerous bastards but only one legitimate son Daeron. Their father was partially responsible for this, Aegon hating Daeron and trying to make one of his bastards heir, even legitimizing them all on his deathbed. This led to his eldest illegitimate son Daemon Blackfyre eventually rebelling against Daeron. There was also the enmity between Aegor Rivers "Bittersteel" and Brynden Rivers "Bloodraven", who were sired on mothers from one of the biggest cases of Feuding Families in Westeros, and supported different sides in the Blackfyre rebellions, Aegor spending much of his life trying to put a Blackfyre in the Iron Throne, and Brynden taking extreme measures to prevent this.
• In Star Cursed, the sibling rivalry between Cate and Maura becomes worse when there's debate on who is the chosen one of the prophecy. Maura is sure she is it, Cate isn't sure she wants to be it, but thinks Maura is too impulsive to shoulder the responsibility. Turns out, younger sister Tess is it. Cate doesn't tell Maura, because she doesn't know how Maura will react.
• The Sunne in Splendour:
  • George, Duke of Clarence is viciously envious of his older brother Edward IV and covets his crown as well as being jealous of his younger brother Richard, Duke of Gloucester's closeness with and usefulness to Edward.
  • Early in the book Edmund, the Earl of Rutland, feels a rivalry with Edward as well, albeit a softer one. The introspective Edmund feels like he has to keep up with his charismatic and reckless older brother.
  • Later in the book, when Richard is grown and has become the successful Lord of the North, Edward bristles as just how beloved his brother has become, fearing he has a rival.
  • Isabel Neville briefly feels this when her younger sister Anne marries the Prince of Wales. Isabel had been raised to think she would be the one someday wearing a crown and it bristles. However, after some friction and when Anne is made a penniless widow, Isabel disapproves of her husband George's (see above) abuse of Anne.
• Tales of the Branion Realm: Occurs among the royal family of the titular country.
  • In Book 1, the heir's mother believes him to be soft and unworthy — his younger sister, however, is ruthless, tough, and viewed as a better potential ruler. Cue sibling rivalry.
  • In Book 3, the royals are all bastards, following opposing religions. The first and third lead La Résistance against their father, while the second does his best to thwart them.
• Miles and Mark Vorkosigan from the Vorkosigan Saga. Given their respective capabilities it's a good thing they prefer to "score" by pulling each other's chips out of the fire.
• War of the Spider Queen has this in the backstory, between Pharaun's siblings Greyanna and Sabal. Pharaun got involved in the rivalry, supporting Sabal. Greyanna killed Sabal, but Pharaun killed Greyanna.
• In the Warrior Cats arc Omen of the Stars, there's Dovewing and Ivypool: Dovewing is The Chosen One and has special powers, and wishes she could be normal like every other cat; her sister Ivypool is normal but is jealous of all the attention her sister gets. There is plenty of friction between the two as a result.
• The Witchlands has Merik and Vivia Nihar, whose rivalry is based aroud their methods of dealing with their country's problems and the question of who's going to inherit the throne, as each of them believes the other to be an Evil Prince.

Live-Action TV

• Shawn and Danny Farrell from The 4400. Exacerbated by Shawn getting superpowers and Danny's girlfriend.
• Arrested Development: Michael and Gob Bluth constantly work against one another to get their father's approval (as well as for other reasons). He actively encourages this, well into their adulthood.
• In Better Call Saul, The Reveal of the first season is that Jimmy's brother secretly resented him for his charisma and unscrupulous past, and had been sabotaging his attempts to become a legitimate lawyer while Jimmy idolized him and did everything in his power to help him through his illness. Ironically, had his brother actually believed in him and tried to help him instead of going through so much to block him, he may have turned out more like him instead of turning into Saul Goodman.
• Suggested but ultimately averted in a episode of Bones, when Booth's son Parker met his newborn baby sister Christine. At one point, Parker was seen taking a pair of scissors to some family photos, indicating that he was jealous of his new baby sister. At the end of the episode, it was revealed that he adored Christine and was cutting the photos to create a mobile to hang over her crib.
• The Borgias: The two eldest Borgia siblings, Cesare and Juan, despise one another. The cunning, intelligent Cesare bitterly resents the fact that his father practically forced him to become a Cardinal while his Too Dumb to Live, Spoiled Brat little brother becomes heir to the family estate and gets the military position he himself always wanted. And Juan, fully aware that everyone thinks he's an Inadequate Inheritor, becomes wildly insecure about his position of power (and over-compensates for it by being an arrogant idiot).
• Mary and Buddy from Cake Boss, although they're not so much "rivals" as "she's determined to drive her brother insane on camera For the Evulz" by losing cakes, seemingly erasing a recording that Buddy was going to use as a special effect, coercing a client into painting the baking room a hideous Pepto-Bismol pink, selling a pre-sold batch of crumb cake and then demanding an amazing birthday cake. Naturally, Momma has to make sure they don't kill each other. Additionally, Buddy has three other sisters but they don't drive him anywhere near as crazy as Mary does.
• The Company You Keep: Connor Maguire is not happy at all to learn Daphne is his half-sister, as she's also their father's lieutenant in the US while he expects to run everything. Later on Charlie suggests that she's his actual lieutenant. Connor is motivated to go against Daphne after this, in spite of her maintaining they can work together.
• In 2015 The Daily Show did a segment about how CNN gets a lot of comedic mileage from having then New Day host Chris Cuomo interview his older brother, Governor Andrew Cuomo (D-NY). Governor Cuomo never hesitates to get a shot in on his little brother, even in very serious situations. One of example of their (affectionate) rivalry is that Governor Cuomo used a bit where he was supposed to be talking about an escaped murderer to volunteer Chris to go undercover in a prison for a year to find out why the guy was able to escape. He also got the mayor of New York City involved to clown on a hat he was wearing for outside interviews in the winter. Now that the younger Cuomo is on primetime, the rivalry hasn't stopped. During the 2019/2020 Corona Virus Pandemic, they went viral for arguing about, at various points: who was their mom's favorite son (they have three sisters), who was better at basketball, and why she only taught Chris how to make her famous spaghetti sauce.
• Robbie and Charlene Sinclair from Dinosaurs are constantly at each others' throats and have a tendency to engage into petty arguments and taunt each other.
• Elementary's version of the Holmes brothers have a similarly contentious dynamic. Mycroft, after surviving cancer, is quite keen on repairing their contentious relationship.
• Ray and Robert Barone in Everybody Loves Raymond. The show's title references Robert's resentment towards Raymond for being their parents' favorite.
• Elinor and Oliver Atwood in First Kill are twins who are constantly butting heads. Elinor got Oliver excommunicated from the family by ratting him out for killing various innocent creatures and humans in his youth, but in the finale Oliver claims that Elinor manipulated him into performing those acts and, once he left, proceeded to turn her attention to the rest of the family. The ambiguous nature of who's telling the truth prevents them from solidly falling under Cain and Abel, as there's no clear answer who, if either, are good.
• Frasier:
  • The Crane brothers fairly run on this trope. Even when they're not actively feuding or competing, they bicker constantly and aspire to out-snark, out-class, and out-psychoanalyze each other on a daily basis, often without even realizing what they're doing. When they wound up in couples therapy with a renowned marriage counselor, he told them that they would never stop fighting as long as they lived, unless they never spoke to each other again. Of course they reject this as a solution because they acknowledge that ultimately they love each other too much (and because the therapist got his degree in Aruba).
  • In one episode, after yet more rivalry-fuelled chaos and humiliation, when the two gather to lick wounds and bemoan their competitiveness Frasier has a realization and points out that, contrary to the usual purely-negative implications of the trope, their rivalry has actually had some positive effects in their lives, as it's also spurred them on to greater success and happiness.
  • On a more episodic scale, Daphne becomes extremely jealous of Frasier's new girlfriend, Claire, because she and Martin take a huge shine to each other and begin acting like father and daughter (and Martin starts enthusiastically shipping Claire with Frasier). Daphne has always been as close to an adopted daughter to Martin as it is possible to be, and responds to this new competition by furiously vying with Claire for Martin's attention.
    Martin (about Claire): Don't you love her laugh? It's like music.
    Daphne (anxiously): You-you used to think my accent sounded musical. Didn't you?....Marty?
    Martin: Oh yeah, but now I'm used to it.
• Friends: Played for Laughs with Ross and Monica. They clearly love each other and will defend one another when the chips are down, but they have a pretty typical sibling rivalry. They squabble, bicker, argue, fight, and don't always get along — and compete with each other on a lot of crap, especially when it comes to their parents' approval. Ross is the golden boy to their parents while Monica... isn't.
  (Ross and Monica tattle-tale on each other to their parents in one long Truth-Telling Session)
  Monica: Mom! Dad! Ross smoked pot in college!
  Mr. and Mrs. Geller: What?!
  Ross: You are such a tattletale! Mom, Dad, you remember that— that time you walked in my room and smelled marijuana?
  Mr. and Mrs. Geller: Yes.
  Ross: Well I told you it was Chandler who was smoking the pot but it was me. I'm sorry.
  Mrs. Geller: It was you?
  Monica: And Dad, you know that mailman that you got fired? He didn't steal your Playboys! Ross did!
  Ross: Yeah, well, Hurricane Gloria didn't break the porch swing, Monica did!
  Monica: Ross hasn't worked at the museum for a year!
  Ross: Monica and Chandler are living together!
  Monica: Ross married Rachel in Vegas! And got divorced! ... Again!
  Phoebe: I love Jacques Cousteau!
  Rachel: I wasn't supposed to put beef in the trifle!
  Joey: I wanna gooooooo!
  Mrs. Geller: That's a lot of information to get in thirty seconds...
• Game of Thrones:
  • Cersei displays an open animosity towards Tyrion, becoming incensed when their father entrusts him with power. She has wished the death of Tyrion since the day he was born. Tyrion doesn't reciprocate beyond the occasional quip because intellectually and humanely, he's way above her level. She also harbors some resentment over Tywin favouring Jaime.
  • The Baratheon brothers have a strained relationship with each other, though it gets especially bad between Stannis and Renly in Season 2 after they both declare themselves king, and Stannis promises to smash Renly's army when he refuses to surrender. He shrugs off Renly's death (which he himself caused) callously at first, though months later and after realizing it gained him nothing he showed a twinge of remorse.
• The Good Place: Tahani had this towards her sister, feeling she was always second best. Her desire to prove herself came up again when she learned she was second to last ranked in the Good Place neighborhood.
• While Jackson and Miley compete a fair amount, since Jackson is the Butt-Monkey Miley usually ends up on top on Hannah Montana.
• The Hardy Boys/Nancy Drew Mysteries: Of the good-natured, teasing variety between Frank & Joe Hardy, though all bets tended to be off when both brothers were interested in the same female...and Frank wasn't above shoving all the heavy physical work off on Joe, either. And don't get Joe started when Nancy Drew and Frank were anywhere in the same room together...
• Harry & Meghan: Not only does William and Harry's rivalry play out through the media, but it is revealed that Meghan's older sister Samantha was running multiple troll accounts on twitter attacking her sister and doing so in concert with "royal experts" that worked for the British tabloids.
• Kirby Buckets with his older sister Dawn, as she's always been The Unfavorite in their parents' eyes. It's taken to a point where Dawn is knocked into a coma by Kirby and the only way to wake her up is for Kirby to shout mean things to her.
• Donald and Douglas Davenport from Lab Rats began as a full Cain and Abel example, but gradually toned down after Douglas turned good in Season 3. Of the teenage characters, Adam and Chase have quite a bit of a rivalry, with the former often picking on the latter.
• Subverted in Malcolm in the Middle. While Malcolm and Reese jockey constantly for dominance over trivial things (due largely to their close ages), persistent jealousy, competition, or resentment over big issues, either from Reese over Malcolm's intelligence, or from Malcolm over Reese's happiness, is conspicuously absent from their relationship.
• On the singing competition Nashville Star, Angela Hacker and her young brother, Zac Hacker, were respectively the winner and runner-up of Season 5.
• The point of the series Nicky, Ricky, Dicky, and Dawn. The four ten-year-old quadruplets have nothing in common.
• The Other Two: The show's premise is based on this trope as two older siblings watch their 13-year-old brother become a superstar. Brooke and Carey love their little brother Chase, but his success makes them feel insecure.
• Paper Girls: Erin and her little sister Missy become estranged in the future due to their mom's illness. It turns out Erin cared for their mom, resenting Missy for not helping. Missy though believes Erin took over in their mom's last days and kept her away, resenting her in turn for this.
• The Ranch : Colt and Rooster's relationship runs on this.
  Rooster: I had to shovel shit while you abandoned your family so you could travel the world, for fifteen years.
• Desire in The Sandman (2022) absolutely loathes her brother Dream for no real reason beyond her personal dislike of him. While Death and even Dream himself seem to view it as simple sibling rivalry and word-sparring, Desire has made centuries-spanning plans to outright destroy Dream. When Dream finds out her schemes, he is surprised, furious and hurt that his own sister was genuinely trying to kill him.
• Schitt's Creek: David and Alexis generally lived separate lives, but when it comes to their mother's affections, Alexis always feels inferior.
• Sherlock Holmes and his brother Mycroft in the 2010 BBC series.
  Mycroft: He's always been so resentful. You can imagine the Christmas dinners.
  John: Yeah... no. God, no.
• Smallville: Oooooooh boy. The Earth-2 trio of Lex, Tess, and Clark have this pretty severely. All three of them are technically evil due to being raised by E-2 Lionel, it does frequently devolve into Cain and Abel, but most of the tension between the three is focused in their desires to just not be the one Lionel stops caring about. Lex lost before the Earth-2 universe was on the show, but a twisted version of this was still clearly present to a degree between Clark and Tess.
• The Sopranos: Tony and Janice were constantly finding new ways to get under each other's skin. In fact, their combatativeness was so ingrained that at one point Tony's inability to restrain himself from insulting his sister caused her husband to physically attack Tony. Meanwhile, their other sister, Barbara, dealt with this by putting as much distance between herself and the family as possible.
• Star Trek: Strange New Worlds George "Sam" Kirk and his younger brother James Tiberius Kirk have this, with the older going his own way in his career and becoming a xenobiologist while Jim is rising in the Starfleet ranks and already outdoing their ambitious father's achievements. This causes friction between the two.
• Succession:
  • Logan and Ewan are estranged and haven't spoken to each other in years at the start of the show. The exact nature of their feud is not yet revealed, but the fact that Logan is a billionaire and Ewan lives in rural Canada might be a factor.
  • The Roy siblings always seem to be at each other's throats. They compete for their father's affections and jockey for hierarchy in the family power dynamic.
• Supernatural:
  • Sam and Dean Winchester love each other and are Heterosexual Life-Partners, but they have tons of rivalry ranging from the good-natured to the deadly. The tension results from Sam being the one who rebelled against their father and wanted a normal life, while Dean obeyed their father and embraced the monster-hunting life. It eventually goes full-blown Cain and Abel thanks to Sam being an anti-christ and their father warning Dean that he will have to kill Sam if he goes to the darkside, but the brothers' love for each other eventually pulls Sam from the darkside.
• Phoebe and Max on The Thundermans had a pretty hostile relationship at the beginning of the show, when Max was in his aspiring supervillain phase. It got better as the series went on, though, after Max's Heel–Face Turn.
• Stefan and Damon Salvatore from The Vampire Diaries. Stefan and Damon were best friends before Katherine Pierce came between them, changing the relationship between the Salvatore brothers forever. The rivalry only got more intense when both brothers end up competing over Elena Gilbert, Katherine's doppelganger.
• While not actual siblings (though they are Platonic Life-Partners) CJ and Toby from The West Wing are a lot like this trope, constantly sniping at and being passive-aggressive to each other while vying for Jed or Leo's attention and approval the way siblings do for their parents.
• Justin and Alex from Wizards of Waverly Place often pick on each other.
• Jaye and Sharon in Wonderfalls. Despite reconciling in the very first episode, they snip and fight over the course of the series. Possibly at its best when Jaye takes an entirely unprovoked shot at Sharon in an article that her family doesn't even know Jaye wrote:
  "...a place where a mother's love, a father's compassion, a brother's protection, and a sister, thirty-five...
• Yellowstone: Jamie and Beth detest each other, dating back many years. While Jamie just looks down on Beth's self-destructive and misanthropic behavior, Beth hates Jamie, believing that his weakness and selfishness are a threat to the family, so she actively seeks his destruction.

Music

• "Sibling Rivalry", a duet performed by Bart and Lisa Simpson from The Simpsons Sing the Blues.
• "My Sister" by Juliana Hatfield Three
  "I hate my sister/she's such a bitch"
• Kids Praise: Melody and Harmony, two of Psalty's triplets, argue a bit in the third album about whose musical part is more difficult.
• Hypnosis Mic: Jiro Yamada and Saburo Yamada argue and try to outsmart each other a lot, mostly to compete for their eldest brother's recognition. They do get along well at times and their rivals outright admit that their teamwork makes them quite of a formidable foe.
• This is a theme in many songs featuring Vocaloid twins/mirror images Rin and Len. One example is Childish War, in which two rich siblings are fighting over the inheritance, only for the competition to be deemed a tie because both of them are too immature (they start throwing cutlery at each other). Another example is Remote Controller, where Rin and Len wish they were more like their sibling as they use a remote controller to mess around with each other.

Pro Wrestling

• Faby and Mary Apache's rivalry dates back to at least their ARSION days and at one point got intense enough for Fabi, who usually came out on the losing end, to take Mari's hair in an AAA wager match. Their record as a team is ultimately better than against each other though.
• Dennis Rivera and Savio Vega in IWA Puerto Rico and the World Wrestling League, both generally being baby faces/tecnicos but Vega being corporate minded, cool and aloof while Rivera is hotheaded, rebellious and confrontational.

Roleplay

• Remy Kim and Josee Trembley of Survival of the Fittest v4, who both see themselves as The Unfavorite to their mother, and have been known to attempt to "regain" her love from the other twin.

Tabletop Games

• Warhammer 40,000: The triplets who lead the Corsairs of the Sunblitz Brotherhood bicker incessantly, especially over which foe to focus on — one hates the Imperium most, one the Orks and the third the Necrons — although they tolerate no insults to each other from outsiders.

Theater

• The Lion in Winter has this trope in spades as Prince Richard, Prince Geoffrey and Prince John all angle to become the heir to their father's throne.
• Mrs. Hawking: Although it is mostly good-natured, Nathaniel and his older brother Justin are constantly trying to get each other's goat. Justin boasts of his carefree, fun-filled life full of travel and romance, while Nathaniel is the golden boy who always has the approval of everyone else in the family.
• The Taming of the Shrew: Katherine has deep seeded jealousy of her younger sister, Bianca. Bianca's the most popular, the most vyed after, and their father's favorite. Also, all of these things are just putting more and more pressure on Katherine to get married (which she does NOT want to do).
• Twice Charmed: Anastasia and Drizella compete over who will win the Prince.

Video Games

• In Armello, Fang and Thane Greymane are both sons of the Wolf Clan Alpha. As the firstborn, Fang was supposed to be next in the line of succession but was exiled; thus leaving Thane the sole heir to their father. However, Fang eventually returns to join the fight for the throne, even if it means going up against his younger brother.
• This is the essence of the entire plot of Baldur's Gate, starting with Charname fighting against his half-brother Sarevok in the first installement and culminating in a war between Charname and the other 5 strongest children of Bhaal.
• BlazBlue has two of the main characters, Ragna the Bloodedge and his brother, Jin Kisaragi. Even after both characters are working on the same side in the third game, they still can't stand each other.
• Card City Nights 2 discusses PsyCard characters in their Flavor Text:
  Ur: As the King of Psy Card he has many rivals, including his jealous sister Hedvig. He tends to cause electrical damage at tournaments.
  Hedvig: Invades peoples' minds to steal their powers. Hopes to one day surpass her brother.
• Clive Barker's Undying: The twins Aaron and Bethany, who were bitter rivals. Bethany won.
• Cube Colossus: Rua and Millie, twin sisters. As it says in the latter sibling's diary, also the third log:
  Yes... I'm better than you, and I know that... so why?! Why can't I surpass you?!
• In Defense of the Ancients, at first the Slayer Lina Inverse and Crystal Maiden Rylai Crestfall have no business each other, but in Dota 2, they were retconned into sisters (losing their surnames) and their rivalry was said to be 'the stuff of legends' beyond their opposing elements. Rylai is a little more naive and friendly, but Lina is said to have more advantage for being smarter and guile. They're both by default on the Radiants, but this won't stop them from being pitted for a Cat Fight.
• Devil May Cry: Dante and his twin brother Vergil have competed to see who is the best since childhood, their rivalry giving way to enmity after their mother died and the two found themselves going down different moral paths. In Devil May Cry 5, Dante even says he doesn't have any memories from their childhood that didn't involve the two fighting.
• Main character Hawke and younger brother Carver in Dragon Age II are naturally predisposed to this. Carver has a lot of inferiority issues that don't really get better as the game progresses, though he and Hawke still love and care for each other as siblings. It doesn't help that the only way Carver will survive is if Hawke is a mage; chances are good that Carver will join the Templars, the very people who police/oppress mages.
  • If Bethany survives instead, party banter will also make references to this being Carver's relationship to her. Apparently he didn't take it well when his twin turned out to be the only magical child while he was normal, which was aggravated further by being an inferior warrior to their elder brother/sister. It's also possible to set up a sibling rivalry between Hawke and Bethany, but the player really has to work for it.
• Dual Blades: In the sequel Slashers: The Power Battle, the Ozawa sisters are now established to be in a intra-family feud. Kanae is a swordswoman who is one of the last surviving members of her family who were killed by a clan of Ninjas which she seeks to destroy. Her sister, Mirei, was abducted by those very same ninjas and raised to believe that the Ozawas had supposedly committed an evil for which their extermination was justified. While Kanae does not wish to kill her sister, she doesn't hesitate to fight and incapacitate her if need be.
• In Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Brucie (who appeared in GTA IV) and Mori Kibbutz are major rivals. Mori was part of the Isreali military, had a 4.0 in Ivy League schools, and is in better shape than his brother (they're both obsessed with working out). Try as he might, Brucie can't seem to compare to him. To add to this, Mori's a Jerkass to Brucie. After watching Brucie getting tormented for several missions he finally gets fed up and decks Mori, breaking his nose. During the credits it shows them facing off in the LC Fight Club.
• In Heroes of Might and Magic II, the rivalry between Roland and Archibald Ironfist for their late father's throne drags all of Enroth into war (the older Archibald being the more evil of the two). Despite this, the brothers still care about each enough to keep their rivalry from reaching Cain and Abel levels. Neither brother is willing to actually kill the other in their ending. Canonically, Roland wins, and he has Archibald Taken for Granite (which in this setting isn't too bad). In a later Might and Magic game, the brothers ultimately settle their differences when Archibald helps save Roland from the Kreegans and Roland convinces his wife Catherine (who is less inclined to be merciful to Archibald) to exile Archibald instead of executing him.
• League of Legends has a few of these.
  • Kayle and Morganna have this in the Order vs. Chaos variety. Both come from a race of creatures that are essentially angels who upheld order throughout the universe, with Morganna being the Fallen Angel who saw their form of order as tyranny against individuality, and Kayle being the stoic general who must now bring her sister to justice.
  • Nasus and Renekton are brothers who were once protectors of a place called the Great Library. Renekton protected it from evil, but over time he became more and more unstable as he fought more evildoers. Eventually it undid his sanity, and he turned on his brother. Before the two could settle their score, they were pulled through to Runeterra by the league's summoners. While Nasus offers his knowledge to the summoners, Renekton wants nothing more than to see his brother dead.
  • There are other siblings who aren't hostile to each other in the lore, but that doesn't stop them from being pitted against one another in League matches. This can include Garen vs. Lux, Katarina vs. Cassiopea, and Darius vs. Draven.
• The Fertility God Pokémon brothers Tornadus and Thundurus are said to be fierce rivals that attack each other on sight, with their fights usually being resolved by their big brother Landorus.
• GLaDOS in Portal 2 does this deliberately to the co-op robots Atlas and P-body. Though it's hard to ascribe a term like 'siblings' to a pair of one-eyed, genderless androids, they are evenly-matched partners, built at the same time, who GLaDOS will occasionally try to pit against each other. (For Science!, and also her own amusement.)
  GLaDOS: "Excellent work, Blue. Blue is awarded one hundred science collaboration points. Orange... Keep up the mediocrity."
• Usually Mario and Luigi from Super Mario Bros. are on good terms but their relationship occasionally has shades of this. One example of this is Mario lightly grinding Luigi's foot if he wins against him in Mario Power Tennis.
• Team Fortress 2: The reason why RED and BLU are fighting is because of a historic feud between brothers Redmond and Blutarch Mann.
  • Note that this rivalry started as soon as the two were born and had a chance to look at each other, and not even death stopped it, as they just got back up as ghosts and tried to get their mercs to send the other sibling to hell first.
• Tekken has the beautiful Nina and Anna Williams. That's 20+ years in the making.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney: Unfortunately common, especially when positions of power are involved, and it can get nasty.
  • Misty and Morgan Fey were both born as heirs to the spirit-channeling Fey clan, and while Morgan was born first, Misty got to be the Master because she had greater spiritual power. Morgan's never really gotten over it, to the point where after Misty disappeared, she's tried to get Maya (Misty's daughter and heir) killed/imprisoned so Morgan's daughter Pearl can become Master.
  • Miles Edgeworth and Franziska von Karma aren't actual siblings, but they were raised together and Franziska considers Miles her little brother (yes, Miles is 7 years older than her, but she figures that she was a von Karma first and therefore she's the big sister). They were encouraged to compete from a young age and Franziska's motive for prosecuting against Phoenix is that she wishes to do the one thing Edgeworth couldn't by beating him in court.
  • Defied by Mia Fey. She was the older of two sisters and could have become Master of the Fey Clan, but she saw what her mother and aunt's rivalry did to the family and abdicated in favor of her younger sister Maya, instead moving to the city and becoming a lawyer.
  • Amara and Ga'ran Sigatar Khura'in had possibly the most toxic sibling relationship in the series, and that's saying something. Much like Misty and Morgan before them, Amara had spiritual powers while Ga'ran did not, which meant that she was made Queen over Ga'ran. Ga'ran then usurped rule of Khura'in by trying to assassinate Amara and eventually forcing her to hide as a servant and impersonate Ga'ran whenever she was supposed to channel by threatening Amara's daughter Rayfa.
• In Double Homework Johanna and Tamara compete throughout much of the story for the protagonist’s affections. When they finally talk over the situation, the only solution they can find is to share him.
• Shizune and her younger brother Hideaki have one in the beta version of Katawa Shoujo. It's mostly one-sided. Hideaki strives to be better than Shizune as he is the heir to their family business (because their father finds Shizune unsuitable due to being deaf) but feels his father is choosing him simply because Shizune's disability, rather than his own merits.
  Hideaki: I have to be better than her. More driven and more competitive. Better. Faster. Stronger.
  Hideaki: Every morning I wake up, and brainstorm ways in which I can put myself above Shizune, or lower Shizune's power. When I eat breakfast, I think 'I am going to eat this so I can gain sustenance from it and stay alive so I can surpass Shizune.
• Umineko: When They Cry has this as a major part of the basic premise, with the adults squabbling over Kinzo's inheritance.

Web Animation

• A Day With Bowser Jr: Ludwig and Bowser Jr, even though it is mostly one-sided on Ludwig's part.
• FreezeFlame: Some characters have a sibling rivalry with one another.
  • Carl and Logan from Carl used to have this dynamic, although this was toned down in later episodes.
  • Larry and Ludwig from Bowser's Koopalings. They're usually seen arguing with one another and Ludwig would say something harsh or rude towards Larry, following with Larry calling him a "jerkhole". However, they can be seen getting along occasionally, though.
• Homestar Runner: In the Strong Bad Email "hiding" Strong Bad's robot alter-egos, Back-Sassing Animatronic Strong Bad and the Grape-Nuts Robot, get into an argument like this during an Easter egg scene
  BSASB: Dad loves me more!
  Grape-Nuts Robot: You're. Adopted.
• Lifty and Shifty the thieving raccoon twins from Happy Tree Friends get along fine most of the time, but tend to turn on each other when their greed gets the better of them. Shifty has even been known to kill Lifty on occasion.
• RWBY: When Jacques strips Weiss of her SDC inheritance in favour of Whitley, Weiss concludes that Whitley has deliberately crafted the image of the perfect son to be regarded as the only suitable inheritor once Jacques loses all patience with his rebellious daughters. Weiss accuses Whitley of not liking his older sisters because he's jealous of abilities they possess that he does not. Whitley claims the only way to handle their father is to become what their father wants them to be and dismisses her accusations of sibling jealousy by claiming that he doesn't even approve of the concept of huntsmen, let alone want to be one.

Webcomics

• In Ask White Pearl and Steven (almost!) anything, Amethyst grows to resent Steven for being Rose's "golden boy" and being forced to share her room with him. Just as she concocts a plan to frame him for a corrupted gem being released, she overhears him talk to Connie about how he feels like she is justified in being jealous and quickly changes her mind.
• David and Dick Richard of Atomic Laundromat, at least as far as Angela is concerned.
• Half Identical Twins Elliot and Ellen Dunkel from El Goonish Shive. Ellen just lives to tease Elliot, but God help anyone who actually hurts his feelings.
  • Token muggle Sarah Brown appears to have a (possibly one-sided) rivalry going with her elder sister, Intrepid Reporter Carole.
• Experience Boost: Orhan and Lysandra are brother and sister, and their relationship is, in polite terms, strained. Lysandra herself admits that she only interacts with her brother the bare minimum amount to keep her parents off her back, and apparently reminds him every time they see each other what a lackluster human being he is.
• One of Godslave's hiatus strips suggests that this is the source of conflict between Heru and Anpu.
• Five Nights At Freddy's: Lost Souls: Bonnie and Foxy really like getting on each other's nerves and even threaten to beat the other up a few times.
• It's Walky!:
  • Beef, Walky, and Sal, ultimately with tragic consequences.
  • Elsewhere in the Walkyverse, Robin and Roz DeSanto's Glorious War Of Sisterly Rivalry.
  • In Dumbing of Age it's just Sal & Walky, Sal not having been Switched at Birth with Beef in this continuity. She's still The Unfavorite, though.
• Maerril and Aeliss of Juathuur, as shown here.
• Muted:
  • Athalie absolutely loathes the fact that her twin Abrielle was chosen as Matriarch. She claims that this is out of a sense of duty to the clan, but the fact that she was practically giddy when Camille's powers were revealed because she could now ruin Abrielle's posthumous reputation lays bare a much darker jealousy. And it turns out her jealousy was so strong that she set up Abrielle's murder, to begin with.
  • This seems to run in the Severin family, and possibly even be encouraged. Sophia sucks up to Athalie's every whim and joins in the verbal taunting of Avaline specifically to get one over on her more caring twin, Silvia. When Avaline's finally had enough, she flatly informs Sophia that no matter how much kissing up she does, Silvia will be a better and stronger person/witch than she is.
• Charlotte and Angela Olsen from The Overture are consistently fighting and bickering among each other for there mother's affection. It gets so out of hand that the two physically fight while there mother begins labor.
• Twins Aaron and Sharon in Pixie Trix Comix aren’t actually competing for much, but still exist in a state of permanent mutual hostility. The problem is that Aaron is an annoying geek while Sharon is sociopathically selfish, so they really don’t have much basis for a good relationship.
• In Seasons, the birth of Fletcher's younger brother was the beginning of his downward spiral, as Fletcher hadn't been told about his parents' desire for another baby. He assumed it was because he wasn't enough for them, and ended up letting himself slip into a life of hedonism.
• From Slice of Life:
  • Pound and Pumpkin get into this periodically on a good-natured basis.
  Pumpkin: "Is Pound in trouble?"
  Mrs. Cake: "No, he's not in trouble."
  Pumpkin: "Can he be?"
  • Mr. Cake is implied to have one with his brother Gateau, who is more handsome and muscular than he is.
• Cassie and Patrick in Times Like This. Their nicknames for each other are "Cass-hole" and "Pat-prick"... though they're more used in loving jest these days.
  • In this strip, present-day Cassie has to deal with the Patrick of 10 years ago.
  • There's now a Fanfic that explores the implications of Patrick finding out about Cassie's time traveling.
• Khun Edahn from Tower of God has so many children and the tension in his family can get that large that he made it simple: at age ten, all Khun's children must fight one of their siblings in a one-on-one match. Losers leave the family.
• In True Villains, Sebastian is on the side of evil and his sister, Alyssa, is on the side of good. It leads to fights. To the death.

Web Original

• Hero House has Solid and Liquid Snake, who seem to have taken their rivalry across the multiverse itself.
• Lioden: In the "Brotherhood of Zeal" event, Vash and his little brother V'Kai are always arguing (or on occasion, physically fighting); Vash sees his brother as lazy and embarrassingly immature, while V'Kai resents how Vash pushes him to train and instead prefers to party with his friends. Your goal is to help them get along better, and by the end of the event they do become closer thanks to your help.
• Played a little more seriously in Pay Me, Bug!, where Velis Enge is the leader of a black ops team that's blackmailing her brother, Grif Vindh, into a very dangerous mission.

Western Animation

• Amphibia: 10-year-old Sprig and 5-year-old Polly have quite a rivalry. Their personalities are nearly opposites, with Sprig being easygoing and hyperactive, while Polly is aggressive yet more responsible. It comes to head in "Civil Wart", when the entire town takes the side of one sibling or the other in a Ship-to-Ship Combat. They resolve to support each other from then on, but the rivalry doesn't disappear.
• Avatar: The Last Airbender: One thing that causes these rivalries is the less than stellar parenting of their parents that leads to their children to end up antagonizing the other, sometimes to Cain and Abel levels:
  • Zuko and Azula share a case of this that crescendos into tragedy as they end up becoming Cain and Abel. Ozai and Iroh had this going on in their youth too, and later materials establish that the Fire Nation Royal Family had this going on since at least Sozin's generation. Ironically enough, by the time of Smoke and Shadow Zuko and Azula actually come off as the most mutually caring compared to prior generations, which says a lot about how messed up the family is.
  • The Legend of Korra:
    • Tenzin and his older siblings Bumi and Kya. Tenzin was the favorite of their father Aang, being the only airbender of the three children, and as a little boy his older siblings beat up and bullied him frequently. Given their age differences, Bumi and Kya might have bullied a child Tenzin while they were teens. As adults, their relationship is still rather prickly. And even then, even Bumi and Kya are at odds as well. Fortunately, they get better.
    • In Book 3, Lin and Suyin Beifong are shown to have spent much of their early life competing for their mother Toph's attention in different ways that neither of them are happy from deep inside. This rivalry turned ugly when Su badly scarred Lin when the latter tried arresting the former for participating in a robbery, really putting their mother into a tight situation, and they did not speak with one another for thirty years afterwards. Fortunately, they get better as well.
• Biker Mice from Mars: "Mad Scientist Wanted" features a pair of alien executives who were brother and sister named Eon and Era. They both argued with each other and tried to prove that their choice was the better one to their father and boss Mr. Century.
• Cars on the Road: Mater and Mato have a fierce rivalry, to the point where Mato forgets about her own wedding while challenging Mater.
• Daria: Helen had this with her older sister, Rita, over perceived Parental Favoritism. The youngest sister, Amy, likes to think of herself as the detached outsider but turns out to be Not So Above It All. Witnessing all this between their mother and aunts prompts Daria and Quinn to start improving their relationship to avoid a Generation Xerox.
• Dexter's Laboratory: Dexter and Dee have fights and arguments that almost always result in mishap and mayhem.
• Family Guy: Stewie and his half-brother Bertram (who was born to a lesbian couple using sperm Peter had donated to a clinic). Since both of them have the same genius and both want to Take Over the World, their rivalry ends up escalating until it almost destroys the universe by causing a time paradox. Bertram is Killed Off for Real during the climax of this story, ending their feud. In earlier episodes, there were also their older siblings Chris And Meg, who had a rivalry about the same level as Bart and Lisa. This was mostly dropped post-revival, as more recent episodes focuses more on the Griffins general dysfunction.
• Futurama: Fry had a rivalry with his brother Yancy in the Backstory, with a recurring theme of Yancy stealing Fry's ideas and stuff. To the point where it seemed like he'd stolen Fry's name after his disappearance! It turns out Yancy named his son in memory of the disappeared Fry, who went on to accomplish everything he dreamed of.
• Hilda: Episode 9 resolves around the sibling contacting the ghost of Craigie Williams, whom they suspect took Frida's favorite book (it once belonged to him). Turns out Craigie didn’t take his old book back from Frida; his sister Engilbjort did. When her ghost is also summoned, she and Craigie get into a heated argument.
• It happens a lot between Tuck and Brad in My Life as a Teenage Robot.
• My Little Pony 'n Friends: In "The Golden Horseshoes, Part 2", the three goblin brothers are constantly fighting, arguing, insulting each other and competing for their mother's attention, much to her grief. As it turns out, this is because the magic horseshoe they stole allows them to hear each other's thoughts, which is what keeps setting off their fights.
• The Owl House: Eda and Lilith are on the outs, trading barbs and getting into magic duels at any opportunity. This is mostly because Eda is a wanted criminal who's on the run because she refused to join a coven and limit her magic, while Lilith is head of the Emperor's Coven, an elite force dedicated to enforcing this law. And she specifically has orders to capture Eda. Despite everything, it's clear that do love each other and don't want to see the other actually hurt; Eda doesn't hesitate to save Lilith from a trap, and when they're fighting, Lilith immediately backs off when Eda says her curse has weakened her significantly... which Eda takes advantage of so she can run off without being arrested. Hell, the main reason Lilith wants to capture her is to force her to join the Emperor's Coven so Emperor Belos can cure her—but Eda refuses since Belos is a tyrant, and the cycle of fighting continues. This all gets even worse when you find out Lilith cursed Eda out of envy for her magical talents when they were children, and deeply regrets it as an adult.
• Being sisters, The Powerpuff Girls are bound to go through this now and again, especially between Blossom and Buttercup. "Octi Evil" and "Three Girls and a Monster" are prime examples.
• Ready Jet Go!: Face 9000 has a rivalry with his younger brother, Face 9001, as shown in "A Kid's Guide to Mars". They're constantly fighting about who is smarter, to the point where their mom (who is heard offscreen) has to intervene.
• Rocket Power had two cases of this. Most notably Twister and his older brother Lars when their respective crews compete against each other in a hockey match or some other contest. Also, one episode took Otto and Reggie's rivalry on the snowboard gets worse with a major Downer Ending.
• Rugrats: Drew and Stu Pickles have been arguing and fighting since they were babies, as seen in a flashback episode.
• In The Simpsons, Bart and Lisa often compete for their parents' attention or just plain clash due to their very different personalities. Bart resents Lisa's intelligence and the ease of which she consistently outshines his best efforts, while Lisa has an almost pathological need for approval and resents Bart's status as firstborn, the son of the family, and how even his minor accomplishments are given more attention than anything she does, because as a Child Prodigy, she's expected to excel at everything. Naturally, when they do get along they're a force to be reckoned with.
• South Park: Stan Marsh is constantly abused by his older sister Shelley, both mentally and physically to the point where some of it couldn't even make the air. She frequently refers to him as "turd", along with many other fourth graders like him. Shelley was actually modeled after co-creator Trey Parker's own sister, who abused him similarly as a child.
• Summer Memories: Jason and Tim's antagonistic relationship is a major part of the series, on part due to both suffering massive insecurities they tend to vent out on each other. While the show initially presents Jason as the "good" sibling and Tim as the "bad" one, the Unreliable Narrator element core to the series eventually makes it clear this is only how Jason remembers it, and we see in "That Ain't The Way I See It" that Tim perceives it oppositely from Jason. By the creator's own admission however, neither are the good or bad sibling.
• ThunderCats (2011): Tygra is Lion-O's adoptive brother. They have a pretty good rivalry going on, with Tygra always seeming to come out on top in "everything except the crown". Still, they're close enough that Tygra helps bail Lion-O out of a fight with an angry mob, saying he's always got his brother's back.
• Tuca & Bertie: Tuca's siblings, Timbourine and Tamarind, are political opponents whose debates always devolve into petty squabbles. Unfortunately, their mayoral campaign ends in a perfect tie and they both have to be the mayor — which means nothing ever gets done.
• Uncle Grandpa and his brother Santa Claus have a tenuous relationship stemming from a 1983 talent competition that went awry. Though they do eventually manage to bury the hatchet.
• Yogi's Gang: Downplayed with the Envy Brothers. During their episode, they never oppose each other for anything and work together without any disagreements towards the goal of becoming owners of the circus where they work as trapezists. When they're discovered and fired, however, they set a new goal for themselves by wanting to become astronauts and argue over who'll become the pilot and who'll become co-pilot.

Real Life

• Michael Schumacher and Ralf Schumacher. Downplayed though, their rivalry was never played up as much as Michael's rivalry with other drivers.
• Eli and Peyton Manning. Of course, pretty much every football fan in America would JIZZ IN HIS PANTS were they to face one another in the Super Bowl — but with Peyton retiring after the 2015 season, it won't happen now; the closest approach was the 2007 season (Peyton's Colts were upset by the Chargers in the Divisional Round; Eli's Giants won the Super Bowl over the hitherto undefeated Patriots). In their regular season matchups, Peyton proved himself to be the better Manning, defeating Eli all three times. They have played the trope for humor in a TV commercial that showed them playing juvenile pranks on each other while visiting the NFL Hall of Fame with their parents.^note Ironically, when they were children, the Manning sibling rivalry wasn't between Peyton and Eli at all; it was Peyton and Cooper (the older brother of Peyton and Eli) who were constantly battling, while Eli was so much younger than the other two that he mostly avoided being a part of it.
  • The Harbaugh brothers, who were both NFL coaches in the early 2010s (Jim is now back coaching in college at his alma mater of Michigan), are another American football example. They have coached against each other twice, on Thanksgiving Day in 2011 and in Super Bowl XLVII in February 2013 (nicknamed the "Harbaugh Bowl" or "HarBowl" for obvious reasons). John's Baltimore Ravens defeated Jim's San Francisco 49ers both times.
  • While a "Manning Bowl" never happened, Super Bowl LVII finally gave fans a matchup with brothers playing for opposing teams, namely Philadelphia Eagles center Jason Kelce and Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, leading to their mother becoming a bit of a media celebrity (as well as famously attending the big game in a custom outfit that was split between the two teams). Travis' Chiefs ultimately defeated Jason's Eagles in a close game. Thanks to the close relationship between the brothers, however, the whole thing ended up being more of a fountain of heartwarming moments than anything remotely volatile (while it was initially reported that Jason said “fuck you, congratulations” to Travis after the game, both brothers have denied that any such comment was made — and even if that actually is what he said, the body language makes it clear that whatever he said was said with the utmost affection).
• Averted by Venus & Serena Williams who subjected the world to several lackluster tennis finals since they couldn't seem to go all-out against each other.
• Liam and Noel Gallagher, formerly of Oasis. There's a bootleg single titled "Wibbling Rivalry" which is just 15 minutes of the brothers hurling abuse at each other during an interview (impressively, it managed to chart in the UK, peaking at #52). In fact, they once co-headlined the aptly named "Tour of Brotherly Love," with fellow sibling rival band...
• The Black Crowes were lead by brothers Chris and Rich Robinson. Stories about of band rehearsals degenerating into physical brawls between the two, only to stop suddenly when they feel they've figured out the music. They did make a point of never letting their animosity spill over into their live act (unlike Oasis), as they felt it was disrespectful to the fans.
• Cruelty is common in the animal kingdom, but some species of sharks still stand out as radical (no surprise, really) when it comes to their reproduction process. They are live-bearing and usually have up to fifteen embryos, but only one or two of them actually emerge. Where do the rest of them go? Take a guess.
• Ed and David Milliband, respectively Energy and Climate Change Secretary and Foreign Secretary under Gordon Brown, were the two front runners for the Labour Party leadership (and thus the Leadership of the Opposition) after the 2010 elections that put David Cameron's Tory-Lib Dem coalition in power. Ed ran as a more lefty Brownite, David as a centrist Blairite; Ed won.
  • Although we say they were the front-runners, we should say that David was the odds-on favourite, and Ed was seen as something of a dark-horse candidate.
  • After the lacklustre 2015 general election and Ed's resignation as party leader, David was commendably restrained in his comments about his brother's leadership.
• Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks. Their onstage brawls were so bad that it led to a five-year ban from American venues.
• Basketball players Pau and Marc Gasol have a rivalry of necessity; they play for different teams (the San Antonio Spurs and the Memphis Grizzlies, respectively). That said, when they go up against each other they don't hold back. Pau, the older brother, is probably "winning", being on much more successful teams (he had spent most of his pre-Spurs career with the Los Angeles Lakers) and dwarfing Marc in nearly every positive stat category. On the other hand, they play together on the Spanish national team, and they lead it. "Gasol to Gasol...and it's in" is pretty common whenever Spain is playing.
  • Stephen and Seth Curry brought an interesting rivals as their respective teams, the Golden State Warriors and Portland Trail Blazers, made it in the Western Conference finals in 2019.
• English princes (and Later Kings) Richard, Geoffrey and John, as depicted in both The Lion in Winter and most versions of Robin Hood
• Candace Bergen has stated that as a young child she felt an intense "sibling rivalry" with an inanimate object: her ventriloquist father Edgar's famous dummy Charley McCarthy.
• Seventies/Eighties singing family The Nolan Sisters appear to have split into two separate rival factions who are mutually not at home to each other. Let us call these the Provisional and Official wings of the Nolan family, as it does appear to have got this bloody and this Irish. Relations were soured when the oldest sister made abuse allegations against her (now deceased) father that were hotly denied by the horrified rest of her family. It was pointed out that the oldest sister is bankrupt and in desperate need of the money only a shock/horror autobiography could bring in. Offered a lucrative reunion tour and recording deal, the rest of the sisterhood retaliated by cutting the oldest out of the contact. On top of this, a sixth sister who left the band just as they became famous was miffed to discover the sisters were reforming, and she had not been invited. Lawyers have been brandished and opening shots fired. Offical family history has been airbrushed to make it look as if there were only ever four Nolan Sisters (Maureen, Linda, Bernadette and Colleen). Anne and Denise Nolan are said to be just a wee fecken' bit offended that they no longer exist and are seeking to prove their corporeal integrity, to the satisfaction of Church, State and Courts. (If nothing else, they are credited on the first few LP's and an awful lot of TV work the girls did....) Watch this space.
• In a poisonous business rivalry, German brothers Rudolf "Rudi" and Adolf "Adi" Dassler, formerly partners in the family's shoe business, split in 1947. Each founded a new sporting goods company—Rudi founded Ruda, which soon became Puma, and Adi founded Adidas. Both companies were (and still are) based in the small town of Herzogenaurach, which soon picked up the nickname "the town of bent necks" because townspeople constantly looked down at strangers' feet to see what shoes they wore. The town's two football clubs were split, with one sponsored by Adidas and the other by Puma. Workmen who were called to Rudi's home began wearing Adidas shoes; when Rudi saw their footwear, he invariably told the workers to go into the basement and pick out a free pair of Pumas. The corporate rivalry cooled down after both brothers died in the 1970s; now neither company is controlled by either branch of the Dassler family. (And it eventually led to a Dark Horse Victory as Nike surpassed both.) And in a symbolic geature of goodwill, employees from both companies faced off in a friendly football match in 2009, further diffusing a rivalry Adi and Rudi carried to their graves.
• Also from Germany, Theo and Karl Albrecht founded the discount supermarket chain Aldi. In 1960, the two brothers had a dispute over whether they should stock and sell cigarettes; Theo wanted to sell them, but Karl felt that it would encourage shoplifting. Their solution was to divide their company in two; Theo would take control of all of their stores north of the Ruhr, and Karl the same for the south. The two resulting companies, Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd, have been legally and financially separate ever since; while they do co-operate in some areas such as product sourcing, they are noteworthy for fully respecting each other's business territories; outside of Germany, each country only gets one Aldi chain.
• Speaking of football, there have been a couple of examples of this in recent years:
  • In both 2010 and 2014, half-brothers^note in this case, same father, different mothers Jérôme and Kevin-Prince Boateng played on different national teams in The World Cup, respectively Germany and Ghana. In fact, both countries were drawn into the same group on both occasions. It should be noted, however, that by most reports, the two aren't all that close.
  • Then, in UEFA Euro 2016, we had full brothers Taulant and Granit Xhaka^note pronounced JAH-kah respectively playing for Albania and Switzerland. As in the case of the Boatengs, the Xhaka brothers ended up playing against each other in the group stage. Unlike the Boatengs, however, the two are reported to be very close, and often banter with each other on their public Facebook pages.
• Animals and birds that have litters, especially predators. A kill will be fought over by the siblings, and weaker ones do not always survive. Some bird species will even push weaker siblings from the nest. Or fake siblings, in the case of cuckoos and cowbirds.
• Chris Hemsworth and Liam Hemsworth apparently clashed hard during their youth. Knives were involved on several occasions. The only people who were able to rein them in were their parents, so when they decided to go to Europe the brothers had to be physically restrained and eventually sent to opposite ends of the continent to not kill each other. This carried over to their adult lives as Liam was also a finalist to play Thor before Chris got the part, partially because the people at Marvel thought Liam was too young (he celebrated his 20th birthday during the audition process).
• The famous Three Kingdoms warlords Yuan Shao and Yuan Shu were half-brothers, and clashed in battle several times.
• Another Band of Relatives affected by this was The Andrews Sisters. Maxene and Patty were constantly at each other's throats, leaving eldest sister LaVerne as the peacemaker. After their mother died in 1948, tensions began affecting their music career. Patty decided to launch a solo career, but didn't bother to tell the other two (they learned about it by reading the newspaper), so they angrily split up in 1953, with Patty singing solo and LaVerne and Maxene continuing as a duo. The trio reunited after a few years, but LaVerne's death in 1967 helped drive a permanent wedge between Patty and Maxene. After finishing a successful Broadway run in the musical Over Here! in 1974, they didn't perform together in public for the remainder of their lives.
• Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine, the only siblings to have both won lead acting Oscars, had a rivalry that was the stuff of Hollywood legend, basically stemming from Infant Sibling Jealousy on the part of the older Olivia, resentment over being considered The Un-Favourite on the part of Joan, plus Successful Sibling Syndrome from both of them. There were cases where one sister would drop out of contention for a role when she learned the other sister was also being considered. Fontaine defeating de Havilland for Best Actress in 1941 didn't help matters. Various estrangements and reconciliations happened over the years, but they became alienated for good in 1975 in a fight over cancer treatments for their mother, which, since Fontaine died in 2013 (at age 96) and de Havilland survived all the way to 2020 (dying at age 104), proved to quite a marathon of a grudge for both of them.
• Throughout his memoir Spare, Prince Harry revealed that contrary to close-knit relationship frequently promoted by the media for decades, his relationship with his brother William was far more akin to this, possibly to the point of Big Brother Bully, even explicitly saying so during his 60 Minutes interview to promote the book, at one point describing him as "my beloved brother, my archnemesis". Harry resented being relentlessly treated as The Unfavorite simply because he was born second while William resented (a) that Harry got to serve on the front lines in Afghanistan (as heir, he wasn't allowed to place himself in such danger), (b) Harry's founding of the Invictus Games, to the point of trying to interfere with it—Harry outright describes William's jealousy over this as this trope, and (c) that Harry got to wear his beard for his wedding,^note  soldiers are forbidden to wear a beard while in uniform, but Harry had asked his grandmother for permission to keep his to the point of pettily demanding that Harry shave it, even threatening to forcibly do it, all because he hadn't been allowed to keep his, and even hit him during an argument. Despite all this, it's still clear that as stated, Harry loves his brother deeply—something else he explicitly said during that very same interview—with the two of them even exchanging an Anguished Declaration of Love in the midst of yet another argument, perfectly demonstrating the dual nature of their relationship.

---