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Always Someone Better: Difference between revisions
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{{quote|Taskmaster: Truth is, you're that good. You've ''always'' been that good. Which won't even get you a cup of coffee until you can figure out how to be a ''professional...''}}
▲== Fan Fiction ==
* In ''[[Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality]]'', Harry realizes Hermione's ability to rapidly assimilate information and do academic work better, as well as having unwavering morality is superior to him. Hermione, in contrast, recognizes that Harry is a [[Chessmaster]] that she frankly cannot outplot no matter what she tries, and that he's far less naive than her. Both of them are jealous of the other's better points.
* ''[[Calvin and Hobbes:
== Film ==
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* Lancey Howard in ''[[The Cincinnati Kid]]''.
* Minnesota Fats from ''[[The Hustler (film)|The Hustler]]''.
* Woody and Buzz in the first ''[[Toy Story (franchise)|Toy Story]]'' movie, Buzz appears to be better at Woody in everything when he first arrives.
* Helen is this to Annie in ''[[Bridesmaids]]''. {{spoiler|It turns out that she's not-so-perfect after all, and far from what Annie thinks was upstaging her mainly out of thoughtless over-eagerness and a desire to fit in rather than maliciousness or competitiveness.}}
== Literature ==
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** In ''[[Outbound Flight]]'', the domineering Jedi Master Jorus C'baoth has a twenty-two year old Padawan, Lorana Jinzler, who doubts herself and isn't given much encouragement. C'baoth, Obi-Wan Kenobi, and their respective Padawans meet up, and C'baoth approves of the fourteen-year-old Anakin, predicting that he'll be a Jedi Knight before he's twenty. Poor Lorana winces, remembering that her Master hasn't even hinted about ''her'' knighthood, and wonders if Anakin is really that much stronger in the Force.
*** According to Obi-Wan Lorena is hardly a bad Jedi. In fact he admits that save for a lack of self-confidence she was well on her way towards being a good Jedi Knight. The problem is that she choose to compare herself to a Skywalker.
* Walter Tevis's
* [[What Could Have Been|Early drafts]] of ''[[Harry Potter and The Goblet of Fire]]'' had Hermione dealing with an [[Insufferable Genius]] who proved to be a match for her. See [https://web.archive.org/web/20120208051719/http://www.jkrowling.com/textonly/en/extrastuff_view.cfm?id=3 here] for more details.
** And Harry must deal with Cedric Diggory in the very same book.
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** Harry still manages to beat them all, mostly by being way more [[Badass]], and maybe a little more clever.
** His [[Codex Alera]] spends a lot of time building up Aldrick as the best swordsman in existence, and then has his presumed dead former rival come back and beat the stuffing out of him at the climax of the first book.
* In ''[[Chalion|The Curse of
** Also, in the sequel ''Paladin of Souls'', Illvin muses that his elder half-brother was always better than him at everything they tried... {{spoiler|the one thing Illvin could do that his brother could not was fall in love with Ista. Aww.}}
* In ''[[The Wheel of Time]]'' the mythic hero Lews Therin Telamon inadvertently caused several of his own followers to switch sides by being too good and making them look too bad. Most notable is Demandred, who was slightly inferior to Lews Therin in appearance, height, age, power, romantic success, et cetera.
* In [[Child Ballad]] #132 ("The Bold Pedlar and Robin Hood"), [[Robin Hood]] & [[Little John]] meet a pedlar in Sherwood Forest who beats both of them in hand-to-hand combat. He finally reveals his name to be "Gamble Gold" and himself to be an exile from England for murder—at which point it is determined that he is Robin Hood's cousin (specifically, the son of his mother's sister, so that their relationship is in no doubt). This actually seems to make the beatings more acceptable, as all three then finish out the song merrily drinking together at an alehouse.
* In David Duncan's ''[[The Reluctant Swordsman]]'' series, Wallie Smith, transported into the body of the seventh level swordsman Shonshu, is given all of Shonshu's skill and ability with a blade. He's literally unbeatable except that a god tells him there's "one as good" out there somewhere. The climax of the book comes after Wallie has faced that one and discovers that {{spoiler|his protege, Nnanjji, has gone from being a second level to being the youngest seventh in history-- and easily bests the "one as good," making ''him'' the true destined wielder of the Goddess's Sword.}}
* Hiro Protagonist of ''[[Snow Crash]]'' [[Inverted Trope|actually expresses relief]] at meeting Raven, who is infinitely more badass than Hiro (or ''anyone'') could ever hope to be. Now that he knows that Raven will always be better than him, he reasons, he'll never again have to bother trying to be badass and can just get on with things.
* In ''[[Cryptonomicon]]'', another [[Neal Stephenson]] book, concerning weirdness instead of baddassness:
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* Averted in Lawrence Watt-Evans's ''[[Lawrence Watt-Evans|The Annals Of The Chosen]]'' series. The main character is (magically) the greatest swordsman in the world, and this is never contradicted, nor is there ever any suspense over him losing a (sword)fight. Of course, he has to worry about [[Sorcerous Overlord|everything else]].
* In the book ''[[Holes]]'', The main character always says that no matter how tough and scary you are, there is always someone that is tougher and scarier than you.
* A variant occurs in ''[[
* Pretty much the whole point of Wesley in ''[[The Princess Bride]]''. He outfights the world's greatest swordsman, beats up the world's strongest man, and fools the world's smartest man.
== [[Live Action TV]] ==
* The ''[[Six Million Dollar Man]]'' episode "Day of the Robot" features a robot that's stronger than Steve's bionics. Also, on the ''[[Bionic Woman]]'', the Fembots are stronger than Jaime Sommers.
* In ''[[Friends]]'', Chandler panics when Monica refers to a colleague as the funniest guy she's ever met.
** Chandler can also be seen to be paranoid about Richard being better than him, due to Monica having been in love with him, as well as being suave, rich and able to grow a
* ''[[Angel]]'' had the [[Buffy-Speak|weird undefined demon-ish...thing]] The Immortal, who in his single not-quite-appearance managed to embody Spike and Angel's insecurities, by constantly one-upping them at everything they did—without even trying. He did both Darla and Drusilla while they were still seeing Angel and Spike respectively, and in the present day was supposed to be dating ''Buffy''. The entire demon world, of course—and some of the magical world that wasn't fond of demons—fawned over him and considered him an idol. In a subversion, at the end of the episode, Spike and Angel were no more over their inferiority complex than before. (In fact, the whole episode played out like the [[Author Appeal|writer had]] a huge [[Fetish Fuel|cuckolding fetish]].)
** Of course, later, it is established in the in-canon ''[[Buffy the Vampire Slayer|Buffy]]'' comics that {{spoiler|the Immortal wasn't dating Buffy, Spike and Angel had been fooled (by ''Andrew'', of all people) to keep Buffy a bit safer}}.
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* ''[[Frasier]]'': The new radio host Clint Webber is everything Frasier prides himself on being but more, (a polyglot, a gourmet chef, a great chess player, etc.) At the end of the episode Frasier has his revenge when he discovers that Clint's a terrible singer and tricks him into humiliating himself by suggesting he serenade Frasier's party-guests.
** Both Frasier and Niles live in terror of it some day being proven that one is Always Someone Better to the other, which is one of the contributing factors to their [[Sibling Rivalry]]. Once, it was revealed that Niles possessed a greater IQ than Frasier which, as they were meeting Nobel Laureates for lunch the next day, prompted much scrambling from each to prove that each was equal to / better than the other. The [[Hilarity Ensues|resulting chaos]] demonstrated that whilst Niles might have the edge in IQ, they were about equal for common sense and maturity.
* ''[[Stargate Atlantis]]'': In another example of the sibling being the rival,
** He also has to accept Samantha Carter.
*** Well, there's a reason why it's easy to accept [[Hot Scientist|Samantha Carter]]...
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* In ''[[Red Dwarf]]'', Arnold Rimmer's alternate-universe counterpart shows up and is better than him at ''everything''—simply because he got the right kind of motivation in his early adult life.
** One of them was held back a grade in school. Instead of destroying his life it taught him that failure has real consequences. Consequences that can be overcome by effort.
* ''[[The Vampire Diaries]]'' - Caroline feels this way about Elena.
* In the first episode of season 2 of ''[[Glee]]'', Rachel discovers that the new exchange student is a better singer than she is.
** Rachel herself functions as the Always Someone Better for everyone else in New Directions, particularly in Season One - though one who's heavily invested in having them all recognise and accept her superiority. This is interestingly inverted in Season Two, however, as she's increasingly shown not to be definitively ''better'' at anything than all the other members of the club - she has vocal equals in Mercedes and Kurt, and is relegated to the back row with the weakest dancers in several numbers while Tina and Kurt move to the front row alongside Brittany, Santana and Mike.
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** As well as the character in the pilot constantly described as "The Second Best Assassin In The World" much to his annoyance.
* In ''[[Downton Abbey]]'', Mary (and to a lesser extent, Sybil) for Edith.
== Newspaper Comics ==
* The character Topper from ''[[Dilbert]]''. He is really a better example of this trope than any of the examples in the other, more obscure categories like "Film" or "Television".
== [[Web Original]] ==
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* The Moriya shrine in ''[[Touhou]]''. The heroine, Reimu Hakurei, is a [[Miko]] who is jaded, lazy, sharp-tongued, and surrounded by [[Youkai]] friends and hang-ons that she was supposed to be exterminating. She's also [[Perpetual Poverty|completely broke]] because none of the humans want to venture into the shrine of a youkai exorcist when the shrine is full of partying youkai. Enter Sanae, an apparently kind and cheerful, if naive, foil to Reimu's [[Deadpan Snarker]] personality, whose shrine grows to be extremely popular in a short time and who later becomes a playable character when she tries her hand at Reimu's job. However, the game in which the rivals are ''introduced'' is not this, as they take aggressive action against her without understanding Gensokyo's political climate or her shrine's status as a [[Cosmic Keystone]].
** In general, Reimu is this to Marisa, along with [[Hard Work Hardly Works]].
* ''[[Inazuma Eleven]]'' in general.
* In the reboot of ''[[Syndicate]]'', Eurocorp is this to the multiplayer characters' syndicate Wulf Western. Tooltips for much of their equipment reveals that it was imperfectly replicated from Eurocorp's.
== Web Comics ==
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* In the ''[[Thomas the Tank Engine]]'' [[The Movie|Movie]] ''The Great Discovery'' an engine named Stanley is introduced. The narrator describes him as "Shinier, bigger and stronger than Thomas". He's also instantly popular with all the other engines ''including'' the arrogant ones like [[Upper Class Twit|Gordon]] and [[Jerkass|James]]. Thomas' jealousy towards Stanly (which is amusingly similar to that of Homer Simpson's attitude towards Ned Flanders, pointed out above) is a major plot driving force of the film.
* ''[[Codename: Kids Next Door]]'', "Op DOGFIGHT" had a pilot known only as "The Kid" who kept shooting Numbuh Two down through most of the episode. It was never established whether he was truly a better pilot, or if it was due to his superior equipment. Given that Numbuh Two ''[[Gadgeteer Genius|builds]]'' all his own aircraft, neither of those possibilities is easy for him to live down.
* ''[[Batman: The
** Making it even more appropriate, the words "Always Someone Better" appear in the episode.
** The first episode plays out as if Bruce simply has performance anxiety while fighting someone on his own level in front of others. During a flashback of him and Kyodai training in the dojo, Kyodai soundly defeats him in front of their master and class. The fight at the climax of the episode plays out more or less the same way until some padding falls on top of Bruce's love interest, leaving her unharmed but obstructing her view of the fight. There might be some [[Fridge Brilliance]] here when you realize that Batman's persona and power are built around two things; being seen as little as possible in general, and being so skilled as to utterly dominate his enemies as quickly as possible. When both of these factors are taken away, Bruce freezes up.
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** Note also that the kid was specifically trying to be low-key about his talents---as he points out near the end of the episode, everybody else only found out how great he was at everything because ''they'' kept challenging ''him,'' trying to find something he wasn't perfect at. He only went along with it because they kept insisting.
* In one episode of ''[[The Powerpuff Girls]]'', the girls found themselves upstaged by "Major Man", a fairly conventional [[Superman]]-type hero, to the extent that the Mayor even called the girls to break off his (professional) relationship with them. Needless to say, Major Man was [[Fake Ultimate Hero|not all that he appeared]], and once again the day was saved... no thanks to him.
* Mandark in ''[[Dexter's
** And then came an episode where a ''female'' new student outdoes both of them, leading to some Roadrunner-esque attempts to take her out... until she says at the end she moved on to a different subject to excel at.
* Jonas Venture Jr. in ''[[The Venture Brothers]]''. Despite being eaten by his twin brother in the womb and spending 40 years inside him, within weeks of escaping he's already become a better super-scientist, has more friends, still has his hair, and is much more successful with the ladies (actually winning over Sally Impossible, the one female that Dr. Venture had any chance with). He even somehow has a better tan than Dr. Venture right after spending 40 years in his stomach.
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* [[Big Bad]] Vlad Masters of ''[[Danny Phantom]]'' is the better of the two half ghosts. Better fighter, better strategist, better brains and brawn. Having twenty more years of experience certainly helps. Danny eventually [[Character Development|grows in power and is able to go toe-to-toe with him.]]
** In the last episode Vlad puts together a team of ghost fighters known as Masters' Blasters that proceed to hunt down and stop any ghosts before Danny can.
* In ''[[Lilo & Stitch:
* ''[[Avatar: The Last Airbender
** Subverted, too, when Zuko's comments about Azula's insanity growing to the point where he can actually notice her bending being off makes it seem like he'll be able to beat her now...and he can't. Or at least he would've, but Azula is still smart enough to fight dirty. Katara, however, proves that ''she's'' this trope to Azula shortly thereafter, and even beats her in the same way Azula beat Zuko; improvising something unexpected when put on the spot, just more badass.
* In
* ''[[Squirrel Boy]]'' had Rodney's [[Jerkass]] cousin Eddie, a flying squirrel who constantly looked down on Rodney because he was a land squirrel. Typically Rodney would find a way to spite him such as invoking his phobia of rattlesnakes or stealing his favorite comb.
* In the ''[[My Little Pony:
* In ''[[Aladdin (Disney film)|Aladdin]]'', Chaos is a cat-like trickster being with godlike powers, with "more power in his little whisker than a palace full of genies!" However, by his own begrudging admission, Chaos' power is second to that of Fate, someone he can't help but dislike for this reason. Well, that and because Fate cheats at cards.
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