Friendly Enemy/Real Life

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Examples of Friendly Enemies in Real Life include:

• During the English Civil War, several battles were fought between parliamentary general Sir William Waller and royalist general Ralph Hopton. The two were close friends, and at one point, Hopton asked for a meeting, hoping to persuade Waller to change sides. Waller declined, but wrote in his letter, "...Certainly my affections to you are so unchangeable, that hostility itself cannot violate my friendship to your person, but I must be true to the cause wherein I serve... That great God, which is the searcher of my heart, knows with what a sad sense I go upon this service, and with what a perfect hatred I detest this war without an enemy, but I look upon it as an Opus Domini, which is enough to silence all passion in me... We are both upon the stage and must act those parts assigned to us in this tragedy. Let us do it in a way of honour, and without personal animosities, whatsoever the issue be. I shall never willingly relinquish the dear title of Your most affectionate friend..."
• It's said that, despite being truly bloodthirsty against each other's armies during the Crusades, Richard the Lionhearted and Saladin often exchanged gifts and had great respect for one another insofar as their roles allowed. Saladin supposedly offered his physician when Richard fell ill, for instance. Amusingly, when Richard's army was dying of heat stroke on the march to Jerusalem, Saladin allegedly had snow sent to them.
  • There's also talk of them once considering a marriage between their families and having Jerusalem as the wedding dowry.
  • For the most part, they had similar ideals of honor and understood that they were both fighting for their religions. They even had the same taste for music and were patrons of the arts and sciences. It's possible that they saw the other as a Worthy Opponent, and were hoping to eventually end the war so that they could get along and possibly convert the other to their own religion.
• Takeda Shingen and Uesugi Kenshin were two rival samurai in Medieval Japan. Shingen's territory didn't have any salt, and he usually bought it from the Hojo clan. When they cut him off, Uesugi Kenshin secretly sent salt to Takeda Shingen. Later, Takeda Shingen was killed facing Oda Nobunaga's allies, and a very angry Uesugi Kenshin fought a (winning) battle against Oda Nobunaga as a result.
• Seth MacFarlane and Matt Groening. While it is implied on both of their shows that they hate each other, they are actually pretty good friends.
  • Seth MacFarlane and Rush Limbaugh too, despite being near polar opposites on the political spectrum. They are actually friends, who each see their own highly-politically-charged works as chiefly a matter of entertainment. Rush has even guest voiced on Family Guy more than once, occasionally parodying himself.
• Another, though involving more people, was the so-called Christmas Truce between the British and French troops and the German forces during World War I. Men left the trenches and started playing football (soccer) with each other on No Man's land (the war scarred area between the opposing trenches) and generally having a good time. That's right, in the middle of a war. Understandably, the higher-ups thought this might hinder the war effort, as humanizing the people you're supposed to kill often does. More about it at the Other Wiki.
  • Reportedly, there were many such instances between Union and Confederate forces during The American Civil War - brother against brother and all that.
    • Northern and Southern troops were eager to get together for pragmatic reasons, too: the Confederates had all the good tobacco, and the Union soldiers had all the good coffee. Informal trading went on whenever possible.
  • During the Bangladeshi War of Independence, the Pakistani commander (occupying Bangladesh) and the Indian commander (invading in support of the independence movement) were personal friends who had studied together at Sandhurst military college.
• At the end of the African Campaign a number of Germans were in a holding cage at prisoner processing. They were bored and didn't like losing but they had fought well and were out of the war. So they started singing Lili Marlene. While they were doing that they recognized the Desert Rats (that is the British Seventh Armored) driving past singing Lili Marlene in English.
• In eighteenth century Europe there was an unofficial "soldiers union" composing every soldier in Europe. Two unions, really, an enlisted union and an officers one(the later overlapped with the aristocrat's union naturally as the aristocracy was a clique of landholding Military Brats in any event). This did not stop them from fighting hard but it did make them wish to keep the war from being harder then it had to be. For instance sentries did not shoot at each other unless there was a commando raid on as everyone wanted sleep when there was to be a battle the next day. Likewise victorious officers would entertain defeated. Similarly enlisted men would fraternize freely with their supposed enemies whatever the officers said. The memory of this explains Montgomery's controversial habit of entertaining German generals in World War II.
• Athletes on rival sporting teams often form friendships even while their fans are pummeling each other in the stands. One notable example of this is when Green Bay quarterback Brett Favre practically threw himself under Michael Strahan of New York so that the latter would break the sack record.
  • The physios, too. When Alan Smith broke his leg playing for Manchester United against Liverpool, the Liverpool physio was first on the scene to do what he could to help. The Liverpool fans stayed true to form by bricking the ambulance taking him to hospital.
  • North of the England-Scotland border, Kevin Thomson and Scott Brown were inseparable when they came through the youth ranks together at Edinburgh side Hibs, but are now opponents as the midfield enforcers of beyond-fierce Glasgow rivals Rangers and Celtic respectively. Despite this, they've remained friends - when Brown was recently sent off in a match between the teams, it was Thomson rather than any of his teammates who calmed him down.
  • It is a common occurrence in the NBA.
    • Rival centers Wilt Chamberlain and Bill Russell spent thanksgivings together, talking about model trains.
    • Larry Bird and Magic Johnson started developing a friendship after shooting a commercial together in the early 1980's and have remained close friends since. They even worked with each other on a book released in 2009
    • Rival point guards Chris Paul and Deron Williams play poker together and exchange texts.
    • LeBron James and Carmelo Anthony once embraced one another after a game in the 2012 playoffs.
• Most of the Founding Fathers fell into this kind of dynamic.
  • John Adams and Thomas Jefferson could write this trope. During the Revolution, they supported each other in the Continental Congress, and later, as ambassadors to the European courts; Abigail Adams treated Jefferson's daughters as her own. Later, they were political rivals on the opposite sides of many issues, especially federalism versus states' rights. The early elections rules caused Jefferson to be Adams's vice president because he came in second. The following election, Jefferson's revolution of 1800, was the source of what seemed to be the final bitter dispute between them. Despite a quarter century of political bickering, they were convinced to reconcile and wrote letters to each other after they retired from public life, including Adams' vow "While I live, I will be your friend." John Adams' last words, when he died on the 50th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, were, "Thomas Jefferson still survives." (Ironically, Thomas Jefferson died earlier that day.)
  • During a battle in the Revolutionary War, the English general's pet dog wandered into the Americans' camp. Washington had his aide return the dog to the British camp with a friendly note, and the English general expressed his admiration for Washington's gentlemanly conduct.
• General Lewis Armistead was a commander of the Confederacy. Winfield Hancock was a general in the Union Army. Both men went to school at West Point and became closer than brothers. Both would not meet again - until at the Battle of Gettysburg. Sadly, General Armistead died on the battlefield.
  • A more impromptu case: Nathan Bedford Forrest once rode up to the Union lines, having mistaken them for the Confederates. The Union soldiers, rather than taking a shot at him, told him where he was and suggested that he return to his camp; Forrest saluted them and rode off.
• Disney and Warner Bros That would probably explain why Pinky and The Brain is on Disney XD (in spite of it making several jokes at Disney's expense).
  • The comic book publishers that these companies acquired (Marvel Universe and DC) relationship have regularly slipped into this trope. Their bosses used to play golf together. Also, Bob Kane (creator of Batman) and Stan Lee (creator of basically most of the more well-known Marvel superheroes) were friends.
  • Greg Weisman noted in one of his "Ask Greg" posts that when he was on staff at DC, there was a gentleman's agreement in place that saw Marvel and DC supplying complimentary copies of all their books to each the other's employees.
• Senators Orrin Hatch and Ted Kennedy were supposedly very good friends, despite their wildly differing political ideologies.
  • John McCain and Morris Udall were a similar case.
  • Antonin Scalia and Ruth Bader Ginsburg, too.
  • Ronald Reagan and Tip O'Neill went fishing a lot. They were enemies only from nine to five, and even made it an in-joke between the two of them.
  • Daniel Inouye and Ted Stevens, until the latter's death in a plane crash.
• Speaking of Reagan, he was good friends with Mikhail Gorbachev despite their respective countries' rivalries during the Cold War. This was said to have helped ease tensions between the United States and the Soviet Union, especially when both leaders signed the IMF Treaty in 1987 which mandated the removal of certain ballistic missiles from their respective arsenals.
• A Trans-Atlantic Equivalent to the previous example: Dennis Healey and George Howe, though being literally on opposite sides of the aisle for over a decade, were actually really good friends and got on really well. This is especially poignant when you consider that British politics involves the two parties shouting ad hominem at each other and Healey stating that hearing Howe give a report was like "being savaged by a dead sheep", yet they have been and still remain to this day good friends.
• On the one occasion that Oliver Cromwell and Charles I met after the English Civil War, during which Cromwell essentially threw Charles off the throne, they reportedly got on quite well. One (probably apocryphal) story has Cromwell visit the grave of Charles in secret after the king was beheaded for treason and mutter "Cruel necessity" to himself.
• Most of the friends of C. S. Lewis seem to be also his intellectual rivals, and they spent time arguing about various nerdy stuff. His "Frenimies" included Tolkien, Sayers, and a few less famous but noted-at-the-time writers. They do not seem to have included his brother Warren who happened to have differing interests. Warnie was just his friend. And his brother of course.
• Prince and Michael Jackson, though it's reported that they never really got along (mostly due to sales rivalry and philosophical differences over music rather than any real nastiness), they respected each other's work and made it a point to never say anything negative about each other in public.
  • It should be noted that Michael's hit single "Bad" was originally envisioned as a duet with Prince. The only reason Prince declined was because he felt that the song was good enough without him.
• Picasso and Matisse would send each other paintings as challenges, and they both expressed disdain for the other's style, but when Matisse died, Picasso was devastated.
• In 1484, at the field of Badh na Fola, John of the Isles, supported, among others. by the Macleans and the Macleods, met Angus Og, to decide the title of Lord of the Isles according to the Good Old Ways of Bonnie Scotland. Angus prevailed and sent around a man to eliminate the more prestigious of the prisoners, including a Maclean titled the Chief of Ardgour. However, one of Angus' followers, Macdonald of Moidart, an old rival of the Chief's, intervened, saying, "If Maclean were gone, who should I have to bicker with?"
• This trope even exists in nature. Baboons and Chimpanzees often compete for food, yet they have been known to play together.
• In the realm of Catholic Theology, Hans Kung and Joseph Ratzinger (now Benedict XVI) have, shall we say, conflicting views on the Church and the future. Yet they're personally friendly with each other's company. It helped that they were also friends in the seminary back in the day.
• According to Harry Blackstone, Junior, His father and Harry Houdini were both "Friendly Enemies". Both respected each other's talents, though both mocked each other at times.
• This is how many diplomatic analysts describe the relationship between the United States and China. Not only are both strong economic trading partners and strongly economically dependent on each other, but both are willing to work together to stop worldwide terrorism, nuclear proliferation and maintaining world peace. On the other hand, both China and the United States are suspicious towards each other politically and militarily. In addition, certain political issues like human rights, Taiwan, and Tibet are usually the hotbed topics between China and the United States. And it doesn't help that China and the United States are engaged in a small cyber-warfare. Thus, any fiction that depicts a hypothetical military war between China and the United States usually fall into Did Not Do the Research or You Fail Economics Forever.
  • You Fail Economics Forever? Politics have always won against economics. Just look at the first and second World War. Germany has waged war both times against her primary trade partners. Ok, more a situation of Germany failing economics forever, but still, wars are kind of always against trade partners.
  • Japan's diplomatic relationship with China and their former occupied Asian states during the Imperial Japanese era is also like this as well. The only major difference is that the enemy part is relating to Japan's own denial of their war crimes during World War II (and in the case with China, the Rape of Nanking). But perhaps the most sour relationship in regarding the Friendly Enemy thing is with South Korea, see No Koreans in Japan for more details on this.
  • Progressively avoided with Chinese-South Korean relations: being a partner of North Korea, China's relations with South Korea was strained, though not vitriolic. In recent years, the two countries started cooperating economically and decided that they liked the arrangement and the tension between the two fizzled out since. The most amazing sign of that came with Wikileaks, when the Chinese indicated that they would be cool with a South Korea led unification so long as Seoul can ensure that the Chinese-Korean border will not have a US base. It helps that both countries have mutual memories of the Japanese occupation.
• Bill Maher and Ann Coulter are good friends, frequently hanging out with each other.
• While there is a strong competitive and economic rivalry between Apple and Microsoft, their respective CEOs and founders, Steve Jobs and Bill Gates, were good friends. This relationship is more noticeable in the biographical film Pirates of Silicon Valley.
  • Which just makes Steve Jobs' recent death a Tear Jerker on many levels. You can almost guarantee that the iconic head of Microsoft cried at the news of the death of the iconic head of Apple.
  • Also, whenever Mozilla releases a new major version of Firefox, the Microsoft Internet Explorer team sends them a cake.
    • So that's why they started treating every new feature release as a major version update after 4.0 -- they get free cake for it!
• Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa.
• G. K. Chesterton and George Bernard Shaw. Chesterton was a staunch Catholic and one of the great Christian apologists of the 20th century. Shaw was an atheist and a leader of the socialist movement. Despite their almost total disagreement about philosophy and politics, they were great friends and had enormous respect for each other.
  • As an illustration of how their rivalry was regarded, C. S. Lewis as a boy once met a pair of boys from a more intellectual school who talked about the two of them as if they were rival boxers.
• Werner Herzog and Klaus Kinski, as lampshaded in Mein liebster Feind ("My best enemy", translated as My Best Fiend).
• Current Israeli Minister of Foreign Affairs, Avigdor Liebermann, who has a very right-wing view of security and nationality (the most dominant aspects of Israeli political discourse, at least up until the protests started on July 14), was reported to be close friends with Yosi Sarid, former Minister of Education and a die-hard leftist. Despite this, Liebermann declared, back when both were in parliament, that his party would not be in the same coalition as Sarid’s.
• Stephen Hawking and Leonard Susskind have long been good friends, despite opposing each other diametrically over the black hole information paradox, and having a friendly scientific "war" with each other until they can find a way to prove one of them wrong.
• Lawyers are like basketball players. Despite being on opposite sides in court, they often get along quite well with each other. One troper has witnessed lawyers joking with each other and sharing hearty laughs while walking to the courtroom and, once, both lawyers and the judge cracking the occasional joke during a trial.
  • You work for your client for a few months or years. You'll be seeing your opposing council for the rest of your career unless you work in a crowded market where you can afford to burn bridges. Staying on good terms is just common sense, and both sides know that their "enmity" is just professional duty to their clients anyway.
• Pornographer Larry Flynt and Reverend Jerry Falwell, who once argued all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, later became friends and remained so up to Falwell's death, though they never came close to an agreement on what they were selling. They even capitalized on their friendship through a series of debates.
• Stephen Harper, leader of the Canadian Conservative party mentioned missing his recently-departed friend Jack Layton, leader of the New Democratic Party. He said once during an exceedingly tedious session, he just walked across the parliament floor and sat next to him, talking about music (both being musicians) and family for a few minutes.
• During the battle for Gallipoli in 1915, there were times when opposing armies' trenches were only a few yards apart. There are records of Turks and Australians tossing food to one another, and of a Turkish soldier carrying a wounded Allied soldier back to the Allied side...mid-battle.
• During the 2016 US presidential primary after Donald Trump won the Republican primary while the Democrat primary remained contested between Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Trump repeatedly spoke positively of Sanders. The media universally acknowledged (regardless of outlet leaning) this as a shameless and transparent attempt to pull votes away from his expected opponent in the general election, but were more divided on if he really meant it. This reflected the general consensus among Republicans that while Hillary was painted as deeply vile, Sanders was seen to be at worst merely a crazy old man. The feeling seemed mutual as Bernie supporters were reported by pools to overwhelmingly favor not voting or even voting for Trump in a Trump v. Hillary matchup.
• The first American to receive the surrender of the IJN Captain Tameichi (who had survived his professional relationship with the United States Navy) approached him politely and addressed him "more like a friend than a conqueror" to quote Hara's memoirs. Curiously one of the things he did was ask permission to have one of the speedometers of the Suicide Torpedo Boats which were being mustered as a souvenir. This of course was Japanese government property and so was forfeit in any event. Actually asking was a courtesy, probably meant to make it less awkward.
  • Hara was always generous to his opponents in the American Navy in his writing. Sometimes he treated them with more regard than his superiors.

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