Tropes and Cliches

Sibling Tropes : Sibling Rivalry

This is possibly one of the oldest tropes when it comes to siblings. I get the fact that siblings will try to out do each other, but man...

They compete for toys, love, food, resources, time, attention... in short, pretty much everything. Usually, this is a healthy thing...usually. It builds character, help you define you place in the world, problem solving skills are developed, etc. What happens when it gets ugly?Like really, really ugly. Because who can know you better? And who would have more of a 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. This is especially true of they're close in age. Then you get Cain and Abel, which is another sibling trope. Now there are many examples of sibling rivalry, but again, these are my favorites for a reason. And then there's a problem when royalty comes into play, like we already know the expectations, but what happens when one of your kids don't meet said expectation? 

In Avatar: The Last Airbender ,it's Zuko and Azula, though their relationship is more so toeing  the level of Cain and Abel. Despite being two years apart( and the oldest), Zuko was held to the standards of Azula. And when he didn't meet said standards, he was ultimately punished. 

In the sequel series, Legend of Korra, Aang's own kids,Tenzin and his older siblings Bumi and Kya, have a bit of a complicated rivalry. You see. Tenzin and Kya are Aang and Katara's only bender children while Bumi was a nonbender for like...two? seasons, I think. And then add Tenzin being the only airbender child of Aang and Katara. Things were...tense. Bumi often felt like the odd one as he was never a bender until he was much older due to Harmonic Convergence. And the Kya and Bumi both felt left out due to the fact they weren't airbenders. So there was a lot of bullying only siblings could do.

Sasuke and Itachi is probably my favorite as Itachi was the "example child" in their rivalry. What do I mean? Graduated from the academy and joined the ANBU at a young age. Sasuke had a lot of expectations to live up to. But then it turned into Cain and Abel after Itachi killed their clan to avoid a civil war. 

So what makes a good sibling rivalry and how does one subvert it? Well, subverting sibling rivalry can be hard, because it happens.  So why not try to shed light as to why it's happening. Tenzin, Kya, and Bumi sort shed some light as to why their relationship was the way it was. Each of them had their problems.  Even better, make it one sided. Why? Well why not? The older sibling is often just living their life and doing whatever while the sibling with the rivalry is like " You're just so perfect, why" and the older sibling is like "Dude...chill.I'm not perfect, you're just trying to be me when you should be yourself. You suck at drawing but you're better than me at math and science. I went through seven tutors in the past two week." 

A lot of rivalries are often onesided because of either uneven playing field or the other sibling don't know or care about the rivalry. Siblings would compare themselves to their siblings without their parent's help. Or the parents accidentally start it. Like with Bobby and his younger brother in the X-men movies. Bobby doesn't know he's in a rivalry because he has his own problems to deal with as a mutant. His younger brother on the other hand is somehow jealous of him because he gets to go to this cool private school where he learns how to control his powers. Like dude, your brother has a target on his back due to him being a mutant and the school is one of a few safe havens for mutants. It's not as fun as it sounds. 

All in all sibling rivalry is a trope that can help explore relationships of characters as they can show unspoked aspects of someone's life. Siblings are often someone's first friend or a built in friendship that not many people get to expereince.