Headbutting Heroes/Playing With

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.


Basic Trope: Two heroes dislike each other.

  • Straight: Steve and Pete are both heroes, despite the fact they hate each other.
  • Exaggerated: Steve and Pete are superheroes, despite the fact that they have an epic battle every time they meet.
  • Justified: Steve is a Lawful Good cape who does not kill, while Pete is an Chaotic Good Anti-Hero who often shoots the dog. Their personalities are too vastly different for them to be good friends.
  • Subverted: Vitriolic Best Buds
  • Double Subverted: But then, Steve pisses off Pete, turning the two into enemies.
  • Parodied: The two have contests of "Heroics", with each trying to out-hero the other, while inadvertently causing Amusing Injuries to by-standers.
  • Deconstructed: The enmity between Steve and Pete causes them to neglect their duties in order to one-up the other. The Rogues Gallery takes this time to cause major damage.
  • Reconstructed: The heroes still disagree about how to best rebuild the city.
  • Zig Zagged: Steve and Pete hate each others' guts in one episode, but they team up to fight the Big Bad and become friends, only to fall out with each other again. This cycle repeats itself for the entire season.
  • Averted: Steve and Pete don't hate each other.
  • Enforced: "This show needs more drama! How about we make the two heroes hate each other?"
  • Lampshaded: "Geez, and I thought all heroes were buddy-buddy with one another..."
  • Invoked: Pete knows that Steve disapproves of his methods, and uses this knowledge to goad Steve into defeating The Dragon for him, whilst he takes on the Big Bad himself.
  • Exploited: The Big Bad pits the Steve and Pete against each other in order to distract them from his plot to Take Over the World.
  • Defied:???
  • Discussed: ???
  • Conversed: ???

Back to Headbutting Heroes