Aloof Big Brother



""He gave me this note for you," Josie took a half-torn binder sheet out of her pocket and handed it over. It read: Too busy with work. Sort it out yourself. You're fine--Trust me. F. "Too busy?" Jim screwed up the note in his hand. "Wonderful!" He shook his head in bitter frustration. "Evavich is going to kill me and my brother doesn't care.""

- Jim Springman and the Realm of Glory

He's smarter, stronger, faster, more talented, and more refined than the Shonen hero, and—just to add insult to injury—he's probably more of a Bishonen, too. His only problem seems to be moving his face out of that expression of bored, dignified disdain. And he just happens to be the elder brother of one of the main cast, which often gives them a raging inferiority complex.

Will most likely double as the Ineffectual Loner and Noble Demon, thereby running the risk of becoming an Ensemble Darkhorse. May or may not be evil, strictly speaking, but is almost guaranteed to fight against the protagonists at one point, and spout off Cryptic Conversation to prove how much better informed they are. May or may not be a Stealth Mentor. Often an integral part of an Evil Organisation, and may be the Enigmatic Minion in that case.

Compare to Always Someone Better, who is also often an older brother, Big Brother Mentor, where the brother is more open as well as a leader, and Big Brother Bully, where the brother is mean towards younger siblings. A subtrope of The Stoic.

Anime and Manga

 * In Angel Sanctuary, Michael's Aloof Big Brother is Lucifer, though most of this is told in the backstory and we only get to see the aftereffects.
 * The ur-example in anime would be Raoh, Kenshiro's older brother from Fist of the North Star. He was even the Big Bad for most of the series, but eventually did a Heel Face Turn.
 * Hyoh, Kenshiro's actual elder brother from the Sequel Series, is a bit of a subversion. While a strong fighter by his own right, he is actually stated to be weaker than both Kenshiro and his former training partner, Kaioh (who just happens to be Raoh's true elder brother).
 * Phoenix Ikki from Saint Seiya is an excellent example of this trope: older brother of Shun and the strongest of all the bronze saints by far. Has elements of an Ineffectual Loner in him to boot.
 * Itachi Uchiha from Naruto. Kishimoto probably read the page and designed him to match it rather perfectly.
 * To a psychotically murderous, headgame-y degree.
 * This has since been subverted all to heck since it turns out  Before he started trying to deal with the upcoming coup, he spent a good deal of time playing with his little brother, and he always loved him more than anything.
 * It is unclear how much his desire to protect Sasuke was a factor in pushing him to commit near-total parricide. Opinions range from Sasuke merely being spared because he was his most important person and Itachi wanted him to kill him, to Danzou having promised to guard Sasuke if Itachi obeyed him and have him assassinated if Itachi rebelled. It will probably go unresolved, since the incident has already been done to death and all players, except possibly Madara, are deceased. Or some truth about the incident will be used to save Sasuke in the end, just as it was earlier used to damn him. Time will tell.
 * Neji Hyuga starts out as an Aloof Older Cousin of Hinata's, but has a Heel Face Turn. Hinata even addresses him as she would an older brother (appending "-nii-san" to his name).
 * Genetically speaking, the children of identical twins are half-siblings, so addressing each other as brother and sister is technically correct in their case.
 * In Asian cultures, one can address any slightly-older male with the 'elder brother' appellation. It implies a certain familiarity (or casualness, i.e. non-formalness) if addressing a total stranger, and it does not mean there is any blood relation.
 * In name only. The manga and the anime don't really show these two interacting at all.
 * Apart from when he beat her half to death. They've had shots indicating a rapprochement since.
 * Ibiki Morino is shown to be one toward his significantly younger brother, Idate Morino, in the Land of Tea filler arc, who, he believes, fails to understand trusting and helping other people enough to be a ninja.
 * A subversion of this appears in Bobobo-Bo Bo-bobo with He initially sided with The Empire before his defeat at Bo-bobo's hands, and he does act very aloof and stoic throughout, even when he pratfalls into the series' regular nonsensical gags. However, he is helpful to the main party,
 * Sesshoumaru from Inuyasha. He seems to be the only one better at fitting this trope than Uchiha Itachi. The only one more daunting than Sesshoumaru in this manga (including Naraku) is...Sesshoumaru's mother.
 * Kuchiki Byakuya from Bleach, because of a certain Pillars of Moral Character situation..
 * In Hunter X Hunter, we have Killua's highly stoic eldest brother, Illumi.
 * Leonard Testarossa from Full Metal Panic!! The Second Raid, though more expressive than most.
 * Touga Kiryuu from Revolutionary Girl Utena.
 * Seto Kaiba from Yu-Gi-Oh!. Ryo Marufuji of Yu-Gi-Oh! GX as well.
 * Aoyagi Seimei from Loveless. His feelings for his brother is...
 * Ralph Werec from Soukou no Strain was also the Big Bad.
 * Tsubasa Ohgami (to Sohma) from Kannazuki no Miko.
 * Aoshi Shinomori (to Makimachi Misao) from Rurouni Kenshin.
 * Thanks to his sister Sayu, Light Yagami can be considered one, since he is too busy killing criminals to help her do her homework.
 * Zechs Marquise (a.k.a. Milliardo Peacecraft) from Gundam Wing is so aloof that he concealed his identity completely from his sister, Relena, even as he maneuvered events to push her into accepting their family's legacy. She eventually learns of their relationship from his love interest, Lt. Noin, rather than from him directly.
 * The original Aloof Big Brother in Gundam is, of course, from Mobile Suit Gundam.
 * Tiger from Monster Rancher is a particularly tragic example as he's one of the primary good guys, a tough, experienced bandit attempting to rescue his kidnapped younger brother, Gray Wolf. Over the course of the series, flashbacks reveal that they had exactly this kind of relationship, and though Tiger's intentions were good (well...he thought his brother was a wimp and tried to beat it out of him), he finds, to his horror, that Gray Wolf has joined the bad guys, pretty much for the sole purpose of being able to beat the shit out of his arrogant, aloof older brother.
 * This is made worse by the fact that Gray Wolf has indeed got stronger, to the point where Tiger is forced to go for a fatal blow in order to win the fight. A grinning Gray Wolf notes that it's "typical of him" before slumping to the ground, leaving Tiger standing over the body of the very reason he joined the fight in the first place. Interestingly, Tiger makes a point of not angsting overly about this, however, considering his brother to have died bravely.
 * And then, in the third season, Tiger's at it again, telling the (Phoenix-resurrected) Gray Wolf that they're not really brothers, only "thrown away in the same box". This turns out to be a ploy to get Gray Wolf mad enough not to hold back in their upcoming tournament match against each other.
 * Kurama from Yu Yu Hakusho to basically everyone on the main team, at first. Hiei from the same show could also be seen as an example, though his sibling is Yukina and he cares a lot about her. He first had his Jagan eye implanted so that he could find Yukina, and even stayed aloof after finding her.
 * Shizuru Kuwabara would qualify as an Aloof Big Sister.
 * Yue from Cardcaptor Sakura, though he's a lot nicer about it. More of a brotherly mentor.
 * Though he's missing the aspects of The Rival, Touya Kinomoto definitely fits the personality type, having gifts the heroine doesn't and continually teasing her (he is a big brother, after all). He does, though, care for her quite a bit, often directing If You Ever Do Anything to Hurt Her... Subtext at her prospective Love Interest.
 * Ryō Kanzato from Persona -Trinity Soul-.
 * Kekkaishi's Masamori is initially more capable than Yoshimori, the main character. He also rarely visits home, and is the leader of the Night Troops. Aside from his Manipulative Bastard Anti-Hero tendencies, he really does care for his family.
 * is 's Aloof Big Brother in My-HiME, although she doesn't know it's him for a good while.
 * Matt/Yamato from Digimon Adventure is an odd example of the trope, as he seems to try to be a more typical case of this, but gets flustered and angry so easily that he may as well kiss the "Aloof" part (which he pulls more from being a loner) goodbye.
 * One could argue it's because of Matt's young age that he's mostly trying to act aloof in order to be seen as cool (many kids/young teens adopt "personas" based off of fictional characters they admire until they themselves figure out who they really are as people), but he genuinely cares about his baby brother too much to follow through with the trope's characteristics of being detached and insensitive to T.K.'s well-being.
 * This trope perfectly describes Neeba of The Tower of Druaga: The Aegis of Uruk, who plays the literal Aloof Big Brother to Idiot Hero Jil.
 * Subverted by Yuki Aiba, the Aloof Little Brother of Infinite Ryvius protagonist Kouji Aiba. Yuki is cooler, stronger, taller, smarter, and more competent than his awkward and dopey older brother. He even has a more active love life too.
 * Pride from the Fullmetal Alchemist manga, the oldest of the Homunculi siblings and always willing to tell his brothers how much they screwed up.
 * He's also willing to eat them as well.
 * Reiji, aka Reggie, from Pokémon inverts this by being a hell of a lot nicer than his ruthless younger brother, local Jerkass Shinji, aka Paul.
 * Lelouch vi Britannia of Code Geass is initially an aversion, being warm and caring towards his little sister Nunnally, but later on, he dons a cold Jerkass Facade for the sake of world peace.
 * For bonus points, Lelouch himself has an even more aloof older brother, Schneizel.
 * And for the grand prize, both Lelouch and Schneizel are the way they are thanks to the machinations of their aloof father.
 * A little off since he IS the main character and very caring of his sister. He may be aloof towards others, but (almost) never towards Nunnally.
 * Cicada from Last Exile, Maestro Delphine's Dragon and Battle Butler, arguably fulfills this in regards to Luciola, the Battle Butler to Delphine's younger brother, Dio. However, they look nothing alike, are only revealed to be brothers in a throwaway line by Delphine, and are only seen onscreen together
 * Although he's shown to be a loving big brother in flashbacks, Folken Fanel from Vision of Escaflowne is a typical Aloof Big Brother by the time the series begin, due to trauma and bitterness..
 * Played with surprisingly well and dramatically (considering the series) in G Gundam. It seems  is a textbook and VERY cruel version of this...but by the end of the series, we see that he never truly was. His original personality was closer to a Big Brother Mentor, but he was forcefully turned into an Aloof Big Brother   He still uses his last bits of strength and sanity.
 * Kurei from Flame of Recca is Recca's EXTREMELY Aloof Big Brother (well, half-brother), which very much stems from the bad past he has gone through and having the wrong person raise him.
 * Subverted to hell and back by Clari Net of Violinist of Hameln. In his introduction, he's set up to be this type of character—bishounen (ridiculously so), glasses, Badass, haughty, serious, et cetera—and it becomes plucky lad Trom Bone's great ambition to earn Clari's respect. However...then we're introduced to Clari's actual little sister. To say that he fawns over her is a gross understatement. The other characters are left gobsmacked and so is the audience.
 * Racer X and Speed Racer.
 * Fruits Basket: Ayame's Backstory shows him treating Yuki like this, as he was ten years older and Yuki was very sick as a child. His current wish to help and support Yuki is, he admits, trying to make up for it.
 * Ray Langren in Gun X Sword, ever since his wife was murdered by the Claw.
 * As of the 2008 Dragon Ball OVA special, can be considered one.
 * Hachimaki in Planetes is one of these to his brother.
 * Tomohiko Yamada from Satou Kashi no Dangan wa Uchinukenai. Despite (or because of) his reclusive tendencies, his family describes him as having: "no need to work, no need to live precariously. You can survive by watching, thinking, and speaking of what you are interested in... it's as though we are secretly rearing a beautiful creature."
 * Though she has yet to actually appear in the series, Luna Inverse absolutely terrifies her little sister, Lina. Yes, that Lina Inverse. Just mentioning her sister in Lina's presence is enough to send her into a panic. As she seems content to stay in her home town working as a waitress, Luna doesn't really fill in the "rival" quota, but due to her nature as the Ceiphied Knight, she is incredibly powerful, rivaling even Xellos, one of the most powerful Mazoku in the world, who even Lina doesn't like the idea of fighting.
 * Game X Rush has Ken, who is Memori's Aloof Big Bro in a somewhat more active sense - repeatedly taunts him, remains completely blank-faced at Memori's protests, but he's really not a bad guy.
 * Keiichi Hiiragi in Onegai My Melody; his younger brother, Jun, always resents that Keiichi is better in every single aspect.
 * Suguru Aizawa of Area no Kishi is often cold and aloof with his younger brother, Kakeru, and quite obviously disapproves of his brother's dream to become a professional football trainer. It is hinted, however, that Suguru may act this way because he knows that Kakeru is only truly happy when playing the sport he loves.
 * Air Gear: Kaito Wanijima.
 * Meta Knight to Kirby in Kirby Right Back At Ya!. Subverted in that Kirby's actually more powerful.
 * Osamu Sugo/Knight Schumacher of Future GPX Cyber Formula, who is Asuka's older brother. He's actually more of a Big Brother Mentor.
 * Takeru of Akuma de Sourou is this to Yuzuru. Takeru is athletic, handsome, and popular, while Yuzuru is mostly mistaken for a girl and physically bullied at school. He studies hard to go to his big brother's school and even  just to get Takeru's attention.
 * Subverted in Eyeshield 21 with Agon and Unsui. It's the younger twin that's perfect and gives the older one a raging inferiority complex. In terms of personality though, Unsui is definitely the aloof one.
 * Surprisingly, in One Piece, it was revealed that Nice Guy Ace was this to Luffy when they were kids. Over time, he developed a Big Brother Instinct and became a Knight Templar Big Brother towards anyone who wants to hurt Luffy.
 * Amusingly, they aren't actually related. Garp pawned off both his son's son and his Worthy Opponent's son, who had come into his care, on the same set of bandits, where they eventually bonded.
 * Gwendal von Voltaire on Kyo Kara Maoh! has this as his default setting, particularly toward his annoying youngest brother, Wolfram, who looks up to him and toward whom he stands in something of a fatherly role. He actually cares a lot, though, it's just that, because of what his mother's like, he's been playing the role of Only Sane Man since he was thirty or so, and over the decades, it's gotten to him. (He currently runs the kingdom for Yuuri, is probably 200 or so, and looks forty-fivish and a lot older than his mother.) His other brother, Conrad, actually gets less support of any kind from him, but they understand each other better and Conrad's a bit of an emotional masochist, so it works out.
 * Conrad has, in turn, wound up doing a very different style of this to Wolfram, who, at the start of the series, resents him heartily and subjects him to racial slurs, though he gets better about that. Interestingly, all the rancor as well as the divide come from Wolfram, who rejected Conrad when they were kids after finding out he was half human. Conrad is revealed to have, at one point, been an obsessively devoted big brother. The man evidently requires somebody to fixate on, meaning both Julia and Yuuri are essentially Wolfram replacements in his life.
 * He would be the world's most creepy boyfriend after all the ones that might actually hurt you.
 * Yuuri's actual big brother, Shori, manages a little of this, despite the fact that he is deeply concerned with all things 'Yuu-chan', while Yuuri (a Wide-Eyed Idealist with a 100% Adoration Rating who eventually becomes The Messiah) finds his family annoying and grouches at Shori most of the time. Shori shares with Gwendal the history of being the Only Sane Man in his family, since their parents' adorable insanity apparently led to a certain amount of neglect sometimes.
 * On the other hand, when plot-things requiring him aren't happening, Shori is usually either out or closeted in his room playing dating sims, making him aloof enough, and he's the freakishly talented one with a work ethic and ambition, putting Yuuri rather in the shade. The fact that all that ambition is channeled into making Yuuri's life easier is another matter altogether.
 * The fact that their parents always loved Yuuri better, either.
 * This entry makes Yuuri look like even more of a Canon Sue than he actually is.
 * Infinite Stratos has Chifuyu Orimura, the big sister of the protagonist Ichika who has won the Mondo Grosso tournament using nothing but the same weapon Ichika's Byakkushiki is using right now.
 * Steel Angel Kurumi: Nakahito's big brother Kamihito is more "mildly-amused" than "aloof," but the results are the same as far as Nakahito can tell.

Comic Books

 * When the tension between them is portrayed from Alex Summers/Havok's point of view, his brother, Scott, aka Cyclops, fits this role to a tee; however, since Cyclops is a much more prominent member of the X-Men, Havok usually comes off looking more like his Annoying Younger Sibling instead.
 * Thor was portrayed this way in the Loki miniseries, in marked contrast to his Silver Age portrayal, wherein he couldn't see all of Loki's flaws through his Big Brother Instinct.
 * Darkdevil to Spider-Girl, his cousin-slash-genetic-half-sister. They have a complicated family tree.

Film

 * Anton in Gattaca
 * Actually, a subversion. Anton was his little brother.
 * The Earl of Moray in Mary Queen of Scots.
 * Brand in The Goonies.
 * Joshua in Little Odessa.
 * The title character of Francis Ford Coppola's Tetro left his little brother behind for Argentina with a note saying he'd explain it later. When he shows up in Argentina, Tetro continues to be aloof to him.

Literature

 * of the Inheritance Cycle fits this. He is the older, much more powerful brother of, who is also on the opposite side of the war. The fandoms tend to treat him as an Ensemble Darkhorse.
 * Matt Castor in the Felix Castor novels tends to this. And then it all goes a bit Break the Haughty.
 * In Stephen King's novella The Body, Gordie LaChance's (now-deceased) older brother is depicted in these terms (although not so in The Film of the Book).
 * Mycroft Holmes, making this trope Older Than Radio. Not only is he Sherlock Holmes's older, richer, and more politically powerful brother, but he's also the only person in the Doyle canon that Sherlock acknowledges as his intellectual superior, and he even Out-SherlockScans Sherlock, though he is too lazy to do detective work like Sherlock does, simply setting him on the right track (sometimes solely with information from the newspaper) as a mental exercise.
 * Galad to Gawyn Trakand in The Wheel of Time. His relationship to his younger half-sister Elayne has elements of this.
 * The Dresden Files: Harry Dresden's big brother is better-looking and stronger than him, and gets laid way more.
 * ...But he's not really all that Aloof. Sure, he often acts like they're not related in public.  But when they interact privately with each other, they're very brotherly.
 * Ponyboy from The Outsiders feels that his oldest brother, Darry, is this. Darry is the unofficial leader of their group, as well as one of the strongest and most mature. Darry's strict criticism leads Ponyboy to believe that Darry doesn't like him and that he is only another mouth to feed. However, he is proven wrong when Ponyboy finally realizes that Darry cares very much for him and is only strict on him because he wants the best for his youngest brother.

Live Action TV

 * Nathan Petrelli in Heroes.
 * Alexis/Alex Meade qualifies as such in Ugly Betty. Before her transition was established to be smarter, better looking, and more successful than her brother, Daniel, making him feel inferior. Also, she actively acted against her father and brother in season one.
 * Monk's brother is smarter, better at spotting small details, and more eccentric.
 * Interestingly, Ambrose seems to think that Adrian is actually stronger and better than him.
 * As with his literary counterpart, Mycroft Holmes of Sherlock is a perfect example of this trope. It drives Sherlock up a wall.
 * It's retroactively revealed in Frasier that the titular character seemed to have been one of these to Niles during Frasier's nine-year run on Cheers: although Niles wasn't actually mentioned until Frasier premiered, a flashback during Frasier's third season to the time gap between the finale of Cheers and the pilot of Frasier implies Niles was vaguely bitter that Frasier ran off to Boston and abandoned him for at least a decade, subjecting Frasier's presence on Cheers to a mild Cerebus Retcon. Admittedly, it's fairly easy to connect the dots and come to the same conclusion without the implicit support of that flashback — given Frasier and Niles' thick-as-thieves sibling relationship (which was not new Character Development; they were like that since toddler age) as opposed to a more typical friendly-but-separated sibling relationship, Frasier being removed enough to not even mention Niles' existence in front of the cameras for nine years seems bizarrely Out of Character in retrospect (on Frasier, Frasier would probably be hard-pressed to stay away from Niles for nine days).

Tabletop Games

 * Lion El'Johnson, primarch of the Dark Angels chapter of Space Marines in Warhammer 40,000, was very stoic and a bit of a paranoid and secretive loner to boot. Indeed, he was the oldest of the primarchs, and was a real no-nonsense guy in contrast to his rival and later best friend, Leman Russ. Many of his character traits were inherited to his chapter, and the Dark Angels tend to work alone to maintain dark secrets spanning all the way to the Horus Heresy. Though this is subverted in that Lion wasn't older than Russ (all the Primarchs were the same age), nor was he as good a fighter as Leman.

Video Games

 * Sho from Battle Arena Toshinden. He was playing the mentor role on his younger brother, but then left suddenly. Now he "Goes where the Wind Blows".
 * Moritsune from Shinobi.
 * Vergil from the Devil May Cry series fits this trope to a tee despite being Dante's twin brother. He is, at least, the older twin.
 * Elzam V. Branstein in Super Robot Wars Original Generation. This is a subversion: Elzam puts on an aloof facade as part of his whole Necessary Evil facade his organization is portraying. After he drops it, he turns out be quite kind and friendly, if a bit Stoic.
 * Also, Folka Albark is like this towards Fernando Albark. And on the other hand, Altis Tarl is the Aloof Big Brother for Folka.
 * With how things goes, it is possible that this trope is now being subverted by Axel Almer towards Lamia Loveless. At one point, he mentioned that she never beat him in any sparring match, and is pretty much an all around more efficient soldier in battle, having been around in the Shadow Mirror way longer than she ever did (thus more experience). Then he saved her from certain death, and as things goes, they're now the only remains from the Shadow Mirror. He may not be her brother, but he pretty much fills in the 'Aloof' part to a tee, thus Axel can be considered Lamia's Aloof Senior Captain.
 * Proto Man/Blues in his original Mega Man incarnation.
 * Despite no longer being brothers, Blues/ProtoMan.EXE and his operator fill this role in the Mega Man Battle Network games, arguably more than the original.
 * Dauragon C. Mikado from The Bouncer.
 * Kratos from Tales of Symphonia fits this trope to a tee in regards to Lloyd, despite not being his older brother -
 * Adelheid Bernstein from The King of Fighters, as a contrast to his sister Rose, who does all the talking for him.
 * Sephiroth, at least in the Final Fantasy VII prequel Crisis Core, is arrogant and aloof, but still capable of being friendly and considerate, which explains why both Zack and Cloud looked up to Sephiroth and considered him a hero and role model. Unfortunately, this makes Sephiroth's Face Heel Turn all the more traumatic for both Zack and Cloud during the infamous Nibelheim Incident.
 * Golbez of Final Fantasy IV is very aloof, mostly due to being Brainwashed and Crazy for most of the game. He's a more conventional example in Final Fantasy Dissidia, in which he's pretty much The Mole and so can't do much more than be a Stealth Mentor without breaking cover.
 * Riku from Kingdom Hearts can be seen as a more expressive example to Sora, though not actually being directly related.
 * Lloyd from Legend of Dragoon.
 * Magus from Chrono Trigger, despite the fact that he is, ironically, a younger brother to an important character of the series.
 * Asch and Van from Tales of the Abyss are both prime examples of this trope; Van is Tear's older brother and Asch is.
 * Lord Uther of Ostia from Fire Emblem 7 is slightly like this towards his Hot-Blooded brother, Hector.
 * From the same game, Karel is definitely like this to Karla, though he mellows out.
 * Also, Innes the Sniper and Tana the Pegasus Knight from Fire Emblem 8, although they have a Crowning Moment of Heartwarming in their A support that resolves it.
 * Jin Uzuki of Xenosaga is like this to Shion, though it turns out that he does care a lot about Shion—he just feels that he has to keep his distance.
 * Mother 3: Claus starts off as the energetic brother (while Lucas, the main character, is the shy and coddled one), but eventually becomes the Aloof Big Brother after.
 * Sadwick, the protagonist in The Whispered World, has a big brother who is this combined with Big Brother Bully. He constantly reminds Sadwick of how much better he is at everything.
 * Yuuya Kizami of Corpse Party has a bad relationship with his older sister, Haruna, particularly when he was a child. A flashback has him insist that if he had a younger sibling, he'd be much better than his sister and brother (who he's implied to not be very fond of, either).

Visual Novels

 * from Fate/stay night. She does not make it very obvious she cares for her younger sister, and will retreat to her "we're just strangers" mask when around her.
 * Sayuri in Kanon was an aloof elder sister to a brother, but meant well; she wanted her brother to grow up like their father, a man of high social standing.

Webcomics

 * Dominic Deegan's older brother, Jacob, is an excellent example.
 * Dominic can be this to his little brother, Gregory, as well.
 * Dave's Bro from Homestuck. So far, he has kicked Dave's ass with a ventriloquist's dummy, flown off on a rocket board, . Oh, and he may or may not be a puppet fetishist.
 * And now in the Alpha universe,

Western Animation

 * Optimatus in Loonatics Unleashed.
 * Norbert of The Angry Beavers started out as one, but as the show progressed, he became less aloof and more self absorbed.
 * Dennis Lee of The Life and Times of Juniper Lee is one of the fantasy role playing and anime fanboy variety.
 * Rigby's muscular, cooler, taller, friendlier, smarter brother, Don, from Regular Show actually subverts this, since Don is actually the younger brother.
 * Ed, Edd 'n' Eddy: Eddy's brother.
 * Avatar: The Last Airbender: post-Heel Face Turn becomes a combination of this and a Big Brother Mentor for Aang.
 * And his little sister kept pulling it on him until then.
 * In ThunderCats (2011), Lion-O's older brother, Tygra, is introduced as this: haughty, distant, and Always Someone Better, even disdainful of Lion-O's Wide-Eyed Idealist and Lost Technology studying ways. When Lost Technology proves real and their kingdom falls to invaders, Tygra's mask slowly falls away to reveal a deeply conflicted, resentful Broken Ace.
 * In ThunderCats (2011), Lion-O's older brother, Tygra, is introduced as this: haughty, distant, and Always Someone Better, even disdainful of Lion-O's Wide-Eyed Idealist and Lost Technology studying ways. When Lost Technology proves real and their kingdom falls to invaders, Tygra's mask slowly falls away to reveal a deeply conflicted, resentful Broken Ace.