Basic Trope: Character's older brother is very strong and treats his siblings coldly.
- Straight: Alice's older brother Bob is cold and distant towards her.
- Exaggerated:
- Bob is social, friendly, and helpful to friends, family, and even total strangers but considers Alice a Butt-Monkey.
- Alice's older brother Bob always does mean things to Alice.
- Downplayed: Bob is very busy and will sometimes be too distracted to socialize with Alice but they are on good terms with each other.
- Justified:
- Alice and Bob are very different people and have never really seen eye-to-eye.
- Bob was jealous of Alice for having the most attention and decided to start ignoring her existence.
- Bob finds it hard to relate to Alice since they're from Practically Different Generations.
- Bob was told by his parents to ignore his Annoying Younger Sibling Alice.
- Inverted:
- Big Brother Mentor.
- Alice is cold and distant towards her older brother Bob.
- Big Brother Instinct
- Knight Templar Big Brother
- Annoying Younger Sibling
- Cool Big Sis
- Gender Inverted: Dan's older sister, Colleen, does everything in her power not to have to talk to him.
- Subverted: Bob appears to be cold but that's only because he's The Stoic. He actually adores Alice and he'd do anything to make her happy.
- Double Subverted: ...But that's only to keep up appearances; he really couldn't care less about her.
- Parodied: Bob freezes the instant Alice comes within twenty feet of him. Whenever she steps outside that radius, he begins once again to act perfectly normally.
- Zig-Zagged: Bob constantly ignores Alice, but when he hears she's in trouble, he sweeps in to save her, but then he'll abandon her for some time with his friends.
- Averted:
- Bob endeavors assiduously to be kind and include her in his life so he'll be a cool big brother.
- There are no sibling relationships.
- Enforced: The executives establish a mandate stating that Bob is always cold, distant and neglectful towards his younger sister Alice. Writers are expected to follow the mandate when writing Bob's character. Any draft that involves Bob getting positive Character Development will be thrown into the trash.
- Lampshaded: "You know Bob and I have never been very close. I don't think he really likes me."
- Invoked: Bob deliberately ignores Alice to make her unhappy.
- Exploited:
- Bob ignores Alice so she gets some form of Character Development.
- Carl dates Alice, knowing that Bob won't suddenly swoop in and say My Sister Is Off-Limits.
- Defied: Even if they have nothing in common, Bob refuses to let him and Alice become estranged from each other.
- Discussed: Alice asks her adult relatives if they had an older brother who treated them the way Bob treats her.
- Conversed: "Let me guess. The older brother Bob will treat the main character coldly so that the show will be more relatable to children?"
- Implied: The audience never sees Alice and Bob talking with each other and it seems Bob almost actively ignores Alice.
- Deconstructed:
- Alice and Bob are distant from each other. Ever time Alice tries to spend some time or become closer to Bob, he considers her annoying and shoots her down. This greatly depresses Alice that she can't become close to someone in her own family no matter how hard she tries, and it ends up affecting many of her other relationships as a result.
- When Bob tries to reach out to Alice, Alice cannot tell if he is being genuine due to years of him being cold and distant.
- Bob's cold disposition towards his younger sister Alice is the product of a society that puts competitiveness, Tough Love, and Social Darwinism above all else. Bob did not start out cold towards Alice. In fact, both siblings were close until Bob is discouraged from showing any sort of brotherly affection to Alice, or in simpler terms, "babying" Alice.
- Reconstructed: Bob sees how much his aloofness is hurting Alice and make an effort to be nicer to her bringing them closer together.
- Played For Laughs: Bob reveals he avoids Alice because of she Cannot Tell a Joke.
Back to Aloof Big Brother.
