Rivals!!!!

@theshadow

Usually when I write rivals, they end up falling in love, but I can try to help.

What kind of rivals? Mortal enemies? Very competitive? I insulted you once and you insulted me back and now it’s a thing?

• This reply was modified 3 months, 3 weeks ago by The Ducktator.

Idk if this will help, but since rivals are basically competing to be the best at something, I like to give them some similar traits, but also some strikingly different traits. This way they end up competing in a “similarity” but the reason for competition is a “difference.”

Two superheroes who are Fire and Water personalities, and both believe they came out better than the other.

Two people who have hugely different values of human life, but both play chess really well. They both think they would win in a real-life simulated game.

There are different kinds of rivals. Some pairs aren’t necessarily opposed to each other till the end. During the rivalry, they are blind to how they contrast/compliment each other because they are pitted against each other in something superficial. Then they bond, because they realize they have fundamentally similar values, aka “the stuff that counts.” The superhero example fits in this.

Some rivals never reconcile. They have similar-enough interests to be in the same circle, but those fundamental beliefs which can be applied within the circle are too different. Take the chess example. You can’t run parallel with another player who is willing to kill off his living pieces.

So which of their traits are most fundamentally valuable? Their similarities? Or their differences?

Aaaand that’s it. Hopefully this makes sense. 🙂

@theshadow

You tagged me, but this never came up in my email, so sorry for the late response😕

I’m pretty much on the same vain as Whale. Rivals is a pretty general term, but usually you’ll see some parallels between them.

There can be the kind of rival where they are simply trying to one up each other, simply prove that they are superior in some sense. In this case, it’s usually something they are both skilled at, like how Whale mentioned chess. If they are still friends/collogues who are simply competitive, then something like this would make sense. This doesn’t need to be the case though. If they are friends or collogues, then they might be trying to prove that they are superior in every respect, where every silly little task given, they both charge at it trying to show how much better they are at it. It can be fun if they believe that they are different in every respect, but other characters point out that the are essentially the same.

There can also be a moral imbalance though. In which case it usually plays out as the protagonist and the bully/villain.

There can also be the kind of rival where one is trying to pull the other towards their way of thinking. What comes to my mind is the villain troupe where they tell the hero “where not so different you and I”. This is often kind of cringe when we see this because it’s usually some superficial similarity that doesn’t really speak to their inner character. It plays really well if the similarity comes from some value that the hero and villain share, and the villain is just a little more extreme. It needs to feel like the hero could legitimately could have gone the same path, and for that path to still be visible, making them question themselves. It can also be the case that the hero is trying to turn the villain as well.