History Main / UnknownRival

* In ''WesternAnimation/{{Hercules}}'', throughout the majority of the film, the titular hero was completely unaware of Hades' existence, that he was behind him losing his godhood, and was the one responsible for all the seemingly random monsters he had been defeating. It isn't until the final act that Hades introduces himself to Herc and the hero finally learns the extent of Hades' manipulations.

* ''WesternAnimtion/RockosModernLife'': Rocko's relationship with Ed Bighead {{downplay|ed Trope}}s this. Rocko, Heffer, and Filburt all know that he's [[{{Jerkass}} a prick]] (though they don't let it bother them), but "Wacky Delly" reveals that he has a team of scientists dedicated to exterminating them, which they probably don't have a clue about.

** Also, Takane D. Goodman to Negi Springfield. In the Mahora Festival arc, she's all about "punishing" Negi for being an irresponsible teacher and is kinda boisterous about showing how much better she is. Needless to say, she's always defeated (and naked) almost every time she insists on picking a fight with him. By the end of the manga, it's mostly her being an unsufferable tsundere towards Negi and [[FoeYay wanting to marry him]].

'''Yuuya:''' [[FoeYay Somehow or another]], it looks like Nishikikouji Tohri has some catastrophically one-sided feelings. Life doesn't always go as planned.

** Back during the fifth generation of consoles, multiple ads for the UsefulNotes/SegaSaturn in North America bashed the UsefulNotes/PlayStation and UsefulNotes/Nintendo64, [[StrawmanProduct nicknaming them "Plaything" and "Pretendo"]] and proudly boasting about the Saturn's large library and additional processors. This was likely an attempt to duplicate the success of Sega's original marketing campaign with the Genesis. Sony and Nintendo's ads never mentioned the Saturn, in large part because neither company saw it as even remotely a threat: the Nintendo 64 outsold it tenfold in North America, and the PS1 sold double ''that.''

* '''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy''': Played With, Peter and the Giant Chicken are both fully aware of their rivalry, however since their fights have never been relevant to the plot of any episode, Peter's family are unaware of the Giant Chicken. So Peter celebrating the Giant Chicken's upcoming death in ''Fecal Matters'' is lost on them.

* [[http://logattopedia.wikinet.org/wiki/Main_Page Anthony "A-Log" Logatto]] is this to [[WebComic/{{Sonichu}} Christian Weston Chandler]]; A-Log gained notoriety for his commentaries on Chris-Chan's videos, and would also wish harm towards Chris for, among other things, "giving autistics like him a bad name". Despite this, Chris doesn't know who A-Log is.
** When Chris-Chan lost a talent contest for the video game, ''VideoGame/ParappaTheRapper'', he started a one-sided beef with the winner, a guy named Adam Stackhouse, who (at the time) had no idea who Chris was.

** The Team Skull trio, being NotSoDifferent counterparts to Team Rocket, have a similar relationship with the heroes, ironically the odd times Team Rocket meet Team Skull exist as a rare mutual rivalry for either of them.

* [[LetsPlay/TheKingOfHate DarkSydePhil]] frequently makes antagonistic comments toward Creator/HideoKojima whenever he struggles on one of Kojima’s games, which is often. Phil seems to view Kojima himself as his ultimate rival and really pushes how much he hates Kojima in some creative ways, such as deliberately killing Kojima’s character avatar several times in ''VideoGame/MetalGearSolidVGroundZeroes'' and having a blast while doing so. By contrast, Kojima has never directly acknowledged Phil’s existence, only sending out one tweet that was possibly about Phil (“Fan sent me video of angry man playing [[VideoGame/MetalGearSolid3SnakeEater MGS3]]. Couldn’t figure out simple instructions. He said, “Fucking Kojima,” a lot. Lol.”) Phil seems to be aware that his rivalry is one-sided however, though he plays it up anyway. [[NotSoDifferent Phil himself is also ironically on the receiving end of this at times in the exact same way as Kojima is to him]], whenever a vocal member of his {{Hatedom}} tries to get his attention and goes ignored.

* In [[https://lparchive.org/Princess-Maker-2/ SynthOrange's]] LetsPlay of ''VideoGame/PrincessMaker 2'', Lizzie Shinkicker earned the rivalry of Wendy because her magic prowess was ''slightly'' better then the rest. Every encounter with Wendy was hilariously short, as Wendy was a SquishyWizard and Lizzie was [[LightningBruiser well-rounded]] enough that she could often defeat Wendy in one hit from her sword. Cube even comments on Wendy's desire to beat Lizzie as a "suicidal delusion."

* Dr. Destiny in the ''WesternAnimation/JusticeLeague'' episode "[[Recap/JusticeLeagueS2E5And6OnlyADream Only a Dream]]". When the Justice League originally busted him, he was just another of [=LexCorp=]'s many {{mooks}}. He wants revenge for this. They have no idea who he is, or why he's so intent on killing them. Though Batman, [[GenreSavvy being Batman]], is quick to realize that it's this trope that makes Dr. Destiny dangerous and only by his willingness to treat Dr. Destiny as a genuine rival does he saves the Justice League from Dr. Destiny's [[MindRape mind rapes]].

* In certain episodes of ''WesternAnimation/ButterbeansCafe'', specifically "The Grand Opening!" (the first episode), "The Perfect Picnic!" and "Poppy's Lost Cookbook!", Butterbean and her friends are unaware that Miss Marmalady is around and trying to ruin their fun.

* In certain episodes of "Butterbean's Cafe", specifically "The Grand Opening!" (the first episode), "The Perfect Picnic!" and "Poppy's Lost Cookbook!", Butterbean and her friends are unaware that Miss Marmalady is around and trying to ruin their fun.

* ''Film/{{Enchanted}}'': Queen Narissa ploted to destroy Giselle because she thought Giselle was going to remove her from her throne once she married her son Prince Edward. Until Narissa reveals herself at the climax, Giselle had no idea about any of this and sincerely wanted to become friends with her.

** In ''Film/GuardiansOfTheGalaxy'', Drax wants revenge on Ronan for murdering his family. He's outraged when he can barely get Ronan to pay attention to him. Ronan effortlessly beats him up and boasts that he won't remember Drax after he is dead.
** ''Film/SpiderManHomecoming'': In the wake of [[Film/TheAvengers2012 the Chitauri invasion]], Tony created a government agency to oversee the cleanup of all the disaster areas. However, this leads to Adrian Toomes, who was employed by NYC to do just that and invested a lot of money in the operation, to lose the contract and not be compensated. This causes Toomes to develop a hatred for Stark and get indirect revenge by using stolen alien and Avenger technology to create weapons to sell for profit. Interestingly, Toomes is savvy enough to exploit the "unknown" aspect of the trope by using it to stay off Stark's radar and sell his weapons with him none the wiser.
** ''Film/{{Black Panther|2018}}'': Prince N'Jobu had [[spoiler:teamed up with Ulysses Klaue to steal Wakandan technology as part of a plan to arm oppressed African-Americans. However he was killed by his brother, King T'Chaka, when he found out and N'Jobu attempted to hold Zuri hostage to avoid punishment.]] This results in N'Jobu's son, Killmonger, developing a burning hatred for the Wakandan royal family and spending the rest of his life training to get revenge on them. T'Chaka's son King T'Challa on the other hand was completely unaware of the incident in question and didn't even know that Killmonger ''existed'' until he revealed himself decades later.
** In the FinalBattle of ''Film/AvengersEndgame'', Thanos is this to most of the Avengers since he's [[spoiler:[[FishOutOfTemporalWater not the version]] that dusted half the universe]]. He gets a couple of ItsPersonal moments with the characters but just rolls with it even though he doesn't know why they specifically want to kill him.
--->'''[[ComicBook/ScarletWitch Wanda Maximoff]]:''' You. Took. EVERYTHING. From me.\\
'''Thanos:''' ''(almost bewildered)'' I don’t even know who you ''are''.

* ''Film/StreetFighter'' has a situation similar to the above Superman one. Chun Li pledged her life to bring down M. Bison for having her father shot. [[ButForMeItWasTuesday But for Bison, it was Tuesday.]]

* ''VideoGame/Persona4'': [[AlphaBitch Ai Ebihara]] is one to both [[TomboyWithAGirlyStreak Chie Satonaka]] and [[TheOjou Yukiko Amagi]]. With Chie, it's because the guy Ai has a crush on confessed to having a crush on Chie instead. This devolves into a small CatFight in [[Anime/Persona4TheAnimation the anime adaptation]], though Chie still has no idea why Ai holds a grudge against her. With Yukiko, it's because they are both popular rich girls in the same small town. If the player has them run into each other, it turns out Yukiko has no idea who Ai is. Ai ends up walking away in annoyance.

* ''Fanfic/TheImmortalGame'' has an inverted example. [[MookLieutenant The Cadet]] claims that he and [[CrazyAwesome Sir Unimpressive]] have been {{archenem|y}}ies for years even before the war. Unimpressive doesn't remember him at all.

* ''Fanfic/HarryIsADragonAndThatsOkay'': Draco Malfoy still has an axe to grind with Harry and goes out of his way to cause trouble — and mostly falls flat. For Harry's part, he just shrugs off Draco's attempts and finds him rather strange. Eventually Draco realises it works far better in his favour to team up with Harry than antagonize him all the time and forms the Defense Club with him.

* ''Fanfic/HarryIsADragonAndThat'sOkay'': Draco Malfoy still has an axe to grind with Harry and goes out of his way to cause trouble — and mostly falls flat. For Harry's part, he just shrugs off Draco's attempts and finds him rather strange. Eventually Draco realises it works far more in his favour to team up with Harry and their one-sided rivalry is completely discarded in the Fifth Year.

* The England vs. Germany football rivalry continues to rage harder and harder into the 2010s... or at least it does in England. The Germans could not care less about England and are much more concerned with their actual arch-rivals, the Dutch. One thing about the 1966 match that ''did'' rankle with German fans for a long time was England's controversial third goal; as a result of that, when in a 2006 World Cup match a bad refereeing call deprived England of a ''valid'' goal, there was much celebration of a 40-year-old injustice being righted.

* Inverted in ''Webcomic/{{Shortpacked}}'', Sydney Yus has a [[http://www.shortpacked.com/index.php?id=804 whole speech]] about how Galasso will remember her now, which she insists on saying despite Galasso making it clear that he knows exactly who she is and always saw her as his most dangerous enemy.

* ''VideoGame/DragonQuestIV'': The Japanese version of the DS remake hints at Kyril considering the male Hero to be his rival; though, the Hero is completely unaware of it.

* Haruka in ''Anime/MyHime'' and ''Anime/MaiOtome'' (all adaptations) apparently has an ongoing rivalry with Shizuru, which Shizuru never seems to acknowledge. Late in the ''My-Hime'' anime, Yukino calls out Shizuru on it, saying that Haruka knew she could never hope to surpass Shizuru, but just wanted to be acknowledged.

** ''Film/WonderWoman2017'': General Ludendorff and Dr. Maru spend almost the entirety of the movie completely unaware that Diana even exists, let alone that she's working with Steve to foil their plans.
*** However, the ignorance [[RedHerring (and irrelevance)]] of Ludendorff is supposed to be more of a minor plot twist, since [[spoiler: throughout the movie Diana believes that Ludendorff is actually BigBad Ares, who naturally knows about Diana and all the other supernatural secrets of the world, but is merely [[PlayingDumb pretending]] to be an ordinary human. The climax shows that Ludendorff really is [[ShaggyDog just an ordinary human]] and that Ares was really disguised as another, [[BitchInSheepsClothing seemingly harmless]], [[ChekhovsGunman minor character]].]]