this post was submitted on 01 Apr 2023
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The rival.

Especially the douchebag Machiavellian type rivals that the main character ends up friends or teaming up with after the main character 'proves their worth' to them by being stronger. No character growth outside of now they work with the protagonist.

I really want this trope to be subverted one day, like the douchey rival shows up and everyone is just like "Wow what a dickhead" and just relentlessly bullies him until he goes away.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

It is kinda subverted in Death Note.

Two Machiavellian rivals team up together and on the surface they’re chasing another enemy, but in reality they both know that it’s all a farce and they’re both the real enemy. Light infiltrates an investigation on him with fake friendship but real ego :keikaku:

When they find out who Light was and what he did, one of his own ‘friends’ immediately killed him

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Lights death is so fucking good.

Here he is, self-proclaimed god, dying alone in an ally like a rat, crying shidding and farding.

Also, bless Matsuda.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Counterpoint: I will never get tired of watching the protagonist and their rival team up to defeat the greater villain

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

Goku and Frieza fighting together for just one episode of the last fight in Dragon Ball Super was :chefs-kiss:

Also, for the old heads out there, Anubis teaming up with Ryo in Samurai Troopers/Ronin Warriors was so good.

The anti-hero becoming a reluctant ally is my favorite trope.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

I agree it was super wholesome when Goku teamed up with Space Hitler

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

I mean you have a superpowered derelict father/husband and ubermensch with a god complex teaming up with an arch-capitalist corporation to galavant across time and space to do a colonialism and steal artifacts, but did you know he talks like a farmer, hee-yuck.

:joker-troll:

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Freiza does genocides purely for profit as a galactic landlord/ real estate guy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

How about Gary Oaks? Huge douchebags, but ultimately harmless, and the respect they gain for the main character is more a slow growth rather than one defeat.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

He follows the arc of Blue, in which he just grows up and gets a fucking job. Meanwhile Red is like a hermit I dunno.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

"A volcano erupts, and just like that, a whole town disappears. We can go on winning and losing in Pokémon, but if nature so much as twitches, we can be overwhelmed in a second…" -Blue in Gold/Silver/Crystal

That's a hell of a character arc from "Smell ya later!" ~jaunty music~

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

i think that's a genuine cultural misalignment, rivalry in like kids sports or whatever isn't designed to be hateful like they are in the US and i assume most of the commonwealth has similar brainworms.

you're supposed to push eachother to do better, not throw eggs or drop a toilet off at the highschool across town.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

Yeah but so often the rival in these stories is an outright horrible person.

Like Vegeta for example, he was an outright fascist. He never stopped being an outright fash.

Like he would straight up abuse his kid 'to make him stronger'.

My whole generation grew up thinking "wow, he's so cool!"

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

not defending being the seat of power in a fascist warrior society, but uh, he was raised in a tank without parenting on a fascist warrior planet, did you expect him to be a good dad?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

No, but I also don't expect him to be welcomed by the heroes with open arms and be treated with kid gloves for the rest of the series.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

it's been a minute but i don't think vegeta really fits the rivals thing in the first arc at least, he's just straight up enemy until... i forget how they get from that first fight into the android saga. i know they kinda let him off the hook later but that could just be liberalism.

i always thought he kinda sucked, i think at my school we liked piccolo and gotenks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

vegeta was forced to team up with goku and the bois to fight frieza on namek and after he died and was wished back along with all the nemekians, then he just kind of moves in with bulma I think??

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 years ago (1 children)

Dio gets a pass because he's treated as an irredeemable villain which exactly how I wish this type of character was treated more often

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

Jonathan doesn't treat Dio as an irredeemable villian. Literally everyone else (including Dio) sees him as an irredeemable villian which is hilarious as Dio basically does everything he could possibly do to make him being victim of this trope be comically silly only to succeed not because Jonathan gave up on him but because he fucking died. Leaving him to cope with absorbing his friend's body and starting a cult in Egypt. Actually thats kinda the reverse of this trope isn't it? Yeah we need more Dios.