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Green-Eyed Monsters in Literature.


  • Ai no Kusabi: Iason flies into fits of jealous rage every time Riki even looks at someone else but Guy actually takes it up to eleven and tries to Murder the Hypotenuse.
  • Angela Nicely:
    • Discussed in "Pony Party!", when Maisie claims that Tiffany only invited Angela to the eponymous party because she was "up to something", but Angela thinks Maisie is just jealous that she wasn't invited.
    • In "Supermodel!", Angela complains to herself that Tiffany always gets to brag during News Time at school, but she never gets a chance to.
    • In "The Big Bike Ride!", Angela thinks it's unfair that Laura and Maisie can afford sweets and she can't.
  • In the Anne of Green Gables series, Anne is jealous of any girl who gets too close or mentions they would like to get close to Gilbert. She doesn't recognize this as jealousy, and frustratingly, it doesn't lead to a Love Epiphany, though everyone else can see she's jealous.
  • The Berenstain Bears and the Green-Eyed Monster has Sister get envious when Brother gets a bike for his birthday that she wants for herself. She has a dream where a literal green-eyed monster talks her into secretly riding his bike, only for the bike to get bigger and bigger as she rides it until it crashes and falls into pieces, which snaps her out of her green-eyed phase.
  • In the Chinese "Cinderella" story Bound by Donna Jo Napoli, this was why Xing Xing's Wicked Stepmother treated her like she was a slave. Xing Xing's mother's last request was that Xing Xing would take care of all her father's needs more than anyone else, which she happily did and her father loved her more than the stepmother and his stepdaughter. In some ways, Xing Xing was closer to her father than her stepmother was to him.
  • The Calf Of The November Cloud: Parmet begins resenting and later hating Konyek when he realizes that his cousin is the favorite of their grandfather Ol-Poruo -who is also their tribe's leader-, and their village's girls prefer him over Parmet.
  • Captive Prince: The illegitimate Prince Kastor spent his childhood expecting to inherit the throne, then got replaced as Crown Prince by his legitimate younger half-brother. He then spent all of Damianos' life envying everything Damianos got by birthright.
  • The Cask of Amontillado: One of the motives for the murder considered by scholars is Montresor's envy of Fortunato's wealth and popularity. His sociopathy is shown clearly when he implies that he blames Fortunato for his fall from grace and wealth rather than himself.
    Montresor: You are rich, respected, admired, beloved; you are happy, as once I was.
  • The Cat Who... Series: Jealousy is described as Polly Duncan's primary flaw. Once Qwilleran starts dating her, he is wholly committed to her. This doesn't stop Polly, however, from being jealous of very nearly any other woman whom he spends time with, or who expresses an interest in him. (It also doesn't stop her from occasionally going out with other men.)
  • Taran deals with this during the third part of The Chronicles of Prydain. In The Castle of Llyr, he's finally starting to realize that he's in love with his longtime friend Princess Eilonwy... who has just been shipped off to the realm of Mona, to be fostered in their royal palace and, the king and queen hope, eventually betrothed to the kindly but hapless Prince Rhun. Throughout the story, the increasingly agitated Taran is trying to both protect Eilonwy from danger and resign himself to her eventual marriage to someone else. Eilonwy tells him flatly at the end of the book that she has absolutely no intention of allowing herself to be betrothed to Rhun.
  • Invidia of the Codex Alera, who, in the backstory, had Gaius Septimus killed because he chose a commoner, Isana, over her. She spends most of the series attaching herself to powerful figures and aiding them while waiting for an opportunity to stab them in the back.
  • Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories:
  • In Cooking With Wild Game, Ai Fa is occasionally possessive of Asuta — partly because he's her love interest, but also because he's the first close social contact she's had in a long time (her other friends needing to stay away for their own protection).
    「I see, you still think of yourself as an outsider. Your attitude really makes me angry sometimes.」 Ai Fa said coldly and turned her face away.
    Her words and actions might have returned to normal, but her hair was still covering her eyes, so I couldn’t guess what she was feeling.
    「You are a member of the Fa house. You are staying in Forest's Edge and living here. You have to express your thoughts from the perspective of a denizen of Forest's Edge.」
  • In The Count of Monte Cristo, envy is the motivating force of two of the conspirators — Danglars is jealous of Dantes' success, and Fernand of his fiancée.
  • In John C. Wright's Count To A Trillion, when Menelaus comes out of his other personality, Blackie fiercely accuses him of trying to steal his fiancee, whom he's never met.
  • A Court of Thorns and Roses: Tamlin is not a pleasant ally to work with once he accepts that Feyre willingly left him for Rhysand.
  • In Daddy-Long-Legs, a man who is in love with Judy (Jervis Pendleton, aka Daddy Long Legs) tries to keep her away from Jimmie McBride, whom he mistakenly believes is his rival.
  • Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Whenever Rowley is getting more attention, Greg tries to steal his limelight.
  • Lief in Deltora Quest has a moment of this when he spots Dain giving Jasmine an admiring look. In the second series, Jasmine goes through this when she believes Lief is betrothed to Marilen causing her to leave the castle out of jealously. Turns out it's actually Lief's cousin and she need not have worried.
  • In the Deryni works by Katherine Kurtz, Conall Haldane becomes envious of his cousin King Kelson's political and magical power, and he covets Rhothana Nur Hallaj, partly because she's a beautiful princess, and partly because he knows Kelson loves her.
  • In The Dinosaur Lords, Pere is jealous of his lover's Jaume's affection for Melodía, even though Jaume makes it clear he loves him as much as her, if not more. This particular plotline goes away when Pere is killed in battle.
  • Green-eyed Ozonne of the Disgaea novels is jealous of her big sister Flonne because of her fallen angel status, her disposition in the Netherworld and their parents' favoritism of her.
  • The second-lowest part of The Divine Comedy Purgatory is reserved for the envious who repented. There, you'll find people like Sapia, who prayed for her enemies to be attacked and rejoiced when they were forced out of her city. As penance, her eyes are blinded as she hears the cautionary tales of Cain and Aglauros, both of whom were jealous of their siblings for their closeness to the divine.
  • In a trilogy series called Dogs of the Drowned City, Shep's friend Zeus gets jealous because Shep seemed to care more for the smaller dog breeds instead of him and the bigger breeds. Shep had only cared for the bigger dogs and himself more than the "yappers", but he sees that they need his help too. Zeus calls him out on it, and this causes him to run away from the pack and form one of his own.
    • Shep himself feels this way whenever he hears Callie giving out orders, briefly thinking that he's the one who gives orders before telling himself that that's not acting like a team.
  • In Don't Look Back, Sam's deceased best friend, Cassie, is described by other characters to have been so envious of Sam that she copied everything she did and wanted what she had, down to attempting to steal her boyfriend Del. And for good reason, as she did want Sam's life: she had the same father, and wanted to be acknowledged as his daughter too.
  • Inga in All Stays In The Family is jealous of Dora and Olaf's (her love) obvious infatuation. She cannot hide it anyhow and it's strong enough that Dora starts suspecting Inga was one of the she-werewolves that attacked her earlier. Even after she finds out that "obvious infatuation" was an act to draw out the attackers, Inga still does not trust Dora.
  • In Dragon Bones, Tosten admits that he acted cold and distant, and was a jerk towards Ward because he was jealous that his big brother Ward gave more attention to Oreg, someone Tosten believed to be a distant cousin, than himself. Ward promptly forgives him, comparing Tosten to a frightened horse. As Ward always protected his siblings from their abusive father, it is quite understandable that Tosten feels threatened by the fact that Ward seemed occupied with protecting someone else.
  • Dragonlance: Raistlin is very jealous of his brother's looks, charm, health, strength, and popularity.
    • Likewise Kitiara is incredibly jealous of her romantic rival Laurana's impossible beauty. This jealousy causes Kit to relentlessly stalk Laurana and attempt to kill her rival. Even after Kitiara defeats Laurana and has the elfmaid as a prisoner completely at her mercy, she still cannot let it go and continues to obsess about how Laurana is more beautiful than her.
  • Friedrich "Fritz" Ivanov, the protagonist in Dream, Delusion, and Reality, is jealous of (or at least sensitive toward) his Missing Mom's close relationship with her niece Elsa, as their relationship looks so much like mother-daughter despite they're just aunt and niece.
  • In Jim Butcher's The Dresden Files novel Turn Coat, we learn that in the Back Story Morgan was in love with Luccio and so became jealous of Harry. In fact, Luccio was afraid he had hunted Harry down out of it. Then Morgan dies, and Luccio learns that she had been magically manipulated to "love" Harry.
    • Part of the reason that Karrin Murphy ends up in a casual but definite romantic relationship with Jared Kincaid is that Harry didn't stop her from going with him to Hawaii. Harry doesn't put together that he's jealous until after she leaves, so he's stuck with intense feelings for her that don't get addressed aloud until Proven Guilty. It's implied if he'd just realized it sooner and stopped her from going, something may have come out of it long before it does in the actual canon.
  • Ella Enchanted: Hattie is jealous of Ella because she's brave, smart, and pretty. It's mainly the reason why she treats Ella so miserably.
  • In another Jane Austen novel, Emma...
    • Jane Fairfax rejects efforts by Emma to be friendly, because she's secretly engaged to Frank Churchill, who pays attention to Emma as part of the coverup, and though she knows Emma's completely out of the loop she doesn't like it. Later, after The Reveal, she does admit to having been unreasonable about it.
    • And meanwhile, Mr. Knightley is hideously jealous of Frank Churchill for the same reason, because he's secretly in love with Emma.
  • In Wen Spencer's Endless Blue, Mikhail feels deeply guilty that (in the Back Story) in his jealousy that Turk did not have to attend formal functions and got a trainer rather than a tutor, he did not consider what the trainer did until he accidentally stumbled on the Cold-Blooded Torture that was training for Reds. He put a stop to it at once but thinks he should have thought earlier. Hardin reveals that he was jealous of Mikhail, because his Royal Blood ensured that he would be, at least, a footnote in history, and deliberately sabotaged his career because of it.
  • Malbecco is The Faerie Queene's greatest illustration of envy. He wants little more than to possess things for no purpose other than to keep others from having them, and he only leaves his home to deny others the things he wants. In the end, he ends up alone in a cave, living forever in squalor until there's nothing left of him but his unending jealousy.
  • In G. K. Chesterton's Father Brown story "The Man in the Passage", the jealousy between Miss Aurora Rome's rival lovers is quite palpable.
  • Jealousy is a major theme of Cold Comfort, and the driving motive of the murderer.
  • In Flawed Dogs, it's Cassius' jealousy of Sam that drives him to ruin Sam's life.
  • In C. S. Lewis's The Four Loves, he discusses how this trope is common with either erotic love or affection; agape is needed to withstand it.
  • In Aaron Allston's Galatea in 2-D this trope was the reason why Kevin turned on Roger and Donna with such vindictiveness.
  • In Dan Abnett's Gaunt's Ghosts novel Ghostmaker, Inquisitor Lilith actively tries to foment this between Gaunt and Corbec. Gaunt slaps her down because he realizes she is doing it, and she does not need to when he is willing to work with her. She apologizes, saying she is too used to having to manipulate people to get them to do what is needed (although at the end, she reveals that she had actually found Gaunt attractive).
  • Vicki Kirchhoff's short story "Green Eyed Monster," aptly enough, starts out with this...although You're Just Jealous may be a more apt trope in the end, seeing as the subject of the heroine's envy turns out to be a Honey Trap assassin for an evil cult.
  • Kludd from Guardians of Ga'Hoole feels jealousy towards Soren because he thinks his little brother gets more attention. He does not get better, though.
  • Harrison Bergeron is about a society built on appeasing envy in the only logistically possible way — reducing everyone to ciphers.
  • Harry Potter:
    • Ronald Weasley has a mild case of this throughout the series. While he does not envy his brothers, he finds himself in their shadow because of everything they have done while his sister was implied to be his mom's favorite, having always wanted a daughter. It went From Bad to Worse as his best friend Harry Potter got more fame and glory year after year (though Ron did get made a Prefect instead of Harry in their fifth year) and having his insecurities be mounting over. It is also implied that Ron suspects (perhaps subconsciously) that his mother saw him as a disappointment, as she really wanted a daughter. In the last book, Voldemort's locket Horcrux exploits this by tormenting Ron and attacking his insecurities for weeks before an argument led to a fight and for Ron to temporarily leave (he immediately tried to come back, but ran amok of some Death Eaters. There was also a little thing of a spell that Hermione had put on their tent to make it hard to find). He ultimately conquers his envy when he faces the full brunt of the Horcrux's wrath and saves Harry.
    • In Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, Hermione of all people gets jealous of Harry's skill in potions thanks to the titular prince’s book and becomes increasingly annoyed and bad-tempered to the point of being an outright Sore Loser. True, in Hermione's defense, Harry is kinda cheating since he's copying someone else's skill but on the other hand, Hermione refusing to sway from the textbook is prosaic and it's also implied she would’ve been jealous even if Harry was not using shortcuts. J.K. revealed that Hermione has an inferiority complex so she is just as susceptible to envy as Ron is.
    • Also, we learn in the last book that Petunia wished she were a witch, just like Lily. It does not help that Lily was also the smarter and prettier sister.
    • Harry also experiences this when he sees Ginny kissing Dean. It's described as a roaring monster in his chest. And Harry having green eyes is frequently emphasized.
    • Arguably the series' biggest example was Severus Snape. He had a famous and bitter hate of James, who reciprocated it. While James' reasons are not given explicitly given (though it was said he despised the Dark Arts and Snape was a natural at it), Snape was envious of James' life compared to his (James was well-off, talented at Quidditch, intelligent, good-looking and a pretty nice guy, albeit prideful). This got worse when he discovered James liked Lily Evans (his only friend and also one-sided romantic interest). He never got over this as an adult and in fact, passed the hate down to James' son Harry.
    • A smaller but recurring example is Argus Filch, the caretaker of Hogwarts, who is unrepentantly nasty to everyone not in authority over him and a total suck-up to anyone in authority over him. Ron suggests that this is because he's bitterly jealous towards the students because they all have magic, while he's a Squib who'll never have that power.
    • In The Cursed Child, Draco Malfoy confesses that he has always been envious of Harry's genuine friendship with Ron and Hermione while he himself never saw his minions Crabbe and Goyle as more than "two lunks who wouldn't know one end of a broomstick from another." Even Ginny admits she was jealous of the trio as well.
  • Bee Bye Simms is envious of David Perrin's riding ability in The Horsemasters.
  • In Diana Wynne Jones's Howl's Moving Castle, Sophie becomes increasingly jealous of Howl's attempts to court Miss Angorian, a pretty teacher in Wales. However, when the Witch of the Waste kidnaps her to lure Howl out, Sophie goes out to rescue her, believing that Howl loves Miss Angorian and attempts to pull I Want My Beloved to Be Happy. Turns out Miss Angorian was the Witch of the Waste's fire demon and that Howl loved Sophie the whole time.
  • Claude Frollo from The Hunchback of Notre Dame twice, first when after stalking Esmeralda he spies her about to make love to Phoebus causing the priest to snap and stab Phoebus in the back with a knife almost killing him. The second time is when witnessing Quasimodo's friendship with Esmeralda and after his attempt to rape her fails thanks to Quasimodo, Frollo's inner monologue reveals he is just as jealous of his disfigured son as he was of Phoebus!
  • In Suzanne Collins's Catching Fire, Peeta confesses he feels this about Gale.
  • In L. M. Montgomery's Jane of Lantern Hill, the grandmother toward anyone who gets some of her favorite daughter's attention.
  • In Edgar Rice Burroughs's John Carter of Mars series:
    • In Thuvia, Maid of Mars, Jav is second only to Tario but must cringe before him and knows that Tario is awaiting the slightest excuse to be rid of him.
    • In The Chessman of Mars, O-Tar is jealous of his son A-Kor because A-Kor would be much better for the throne than O-Tar is, and everyone knows it.
  • Journey to Chaos: When Tiza admires Neuro, the Church Militant, Nolien becomes uncharacteristically rude and suspicious. Tiza tries to nip this in the bud by pecking Nolien's check but his envy continues to grow as Neuro continues to upstage him.
  • In Stephanie Burgis's A Most Improper Magick, the story about Sir Neville is that possessed by this trope, he locked his wife into a tower, where she died.
  • Each of the villains in the Keys to the Kingdom series represents a deadly sin, with Superior Saturday representing envy. She has become absolutely consumed by the fact that Lord Sunday controls the Incomparable Gardens (the epicenter of the universe), and she does not. She spends ten thousand years attempting to correct this fact through the following means:
    • Turning her demesne into an immense tower to try to breach the underside of the Gardens.
    • Attempting to destroy the four Drasil trees which are forever growing and taking the Gardens out of reach.
      • In her titular book, she succeeds by sinking two-sevenths of the House into nothing, an action of such catastrophic affect that by one of the last chapters of the book, nearly all of the House has been consumed.
    • Attempting to assassinate various figures of power.
    • Attempting to remove Arthur, the protagonist and rightful heir to her demesne and Lord Sunday's, from power via various means.
    • Betraying one of her closer friends and turning her into a Leviathan rather than letting her give power to Arthur or another heir.
    • and inflicting amnesia upon the Piper's Children because of a prophecy that states that doing so will prevent Arthur from winning.
    • In short, she would be the Big Bad if it were not for the fact that Lord Sunday was so much more powerful than she.
  • Life's Little Instruction Book advises against this:
    321. Refrain from envy. It's the source of much unhappiness.
  • In Lockwood & Co., Lucy is incredibly jealous of new colleague Holly for her beauty, brains, and competence and especially for the attention Lockwood pays her. Though she gets better later in the series, Lucy's attitude towards Holly is so vitriolic at first that she very nearly drives Holly to resign, and Holly is not even interested in Lockwood that way.
  • In Memoirs of a Geisha, it was Pumpkin's jealousy (along with a healthy dose of her mentor's influence) of Sayuri's popularity that would eventually cost them their friendship and would lead Pumpkin to betray Sayuri at a crucial moment.
  • In Teresa Frohock's Miserere: An Autumn Tale, Catarina's attitude toward Raechel is that she stole her brother Lucian away from her.
  • In Edgar Rice Burroughs's The Monster Men, von Horn toward Number Thirteen.
    A sudden wave of jealous rage swept through the man's vicious brain. He saw that the soulless thing within was endowed with a kindlier and more noble nature than he himself possessed.
  • In The Moon Maid by Edgar Rice Burroughs, the villain is the second-in-command of the space mission, who's bitter about not getting the top spot when it was his technical genius that made the space mission possible. His grudge against the mission's commander gets worse as the story progresses, to the point that in the sequel he spends decades winning over one of the Moon's warlike tribes, equipping them with weapons and space travel, and talking them into conquering Earth — primarily as a way of getting revenge on his nemesis.
  • In Alexander Pushkin's Mozart and Salieri, Salieri explains how he hates Mozart for being so talented while never having to strain where he, who dedicated his life to music, lacks such talent. This is definitely a Historical Villain Upgrade.
  • A Necklace of Fallen Stars: Downplayed. Tamera does envy her sisters, Kaela and Melina, but she limits her shows of envy to petty displays.
  • In One of Us is Lying, Simon has a huge crush on Keely, Cooper's girlfriend. Although Cooper is officially made a suspect in Simon's "murder" for blacklisting Simon from a party, this probably isn't a coincidence. Nate is explicitly implicated for hooking up with her. More generally, Simon is secretly envious of the popular kids despite his open contempt for them and those who worship them.
  • Susie Peters and Mimi Barron are envious of each other's dancing ability in On Your Toes, Susie!. Oddly, neither realizes how the other feels.
  • In John Milton's Paradise Lost, Satan tells the other fallen angels that his position in Hell is not occasion for envy, unlike in Heaven.
    The happier state
    In Heav'n, which follows dignity, might draw
    Envy from each inferior; but who here
    Will envy whom the highest place exposes
    Formost to stand against the Thunderers aime
    Your bulwark, and condemns to greatest share
    Of endless pain?
  • More like Glowing Yellow Eyed Monster with Erik The Phantom of the Opera, who gets very jealous when Raoul begins to get close with Christine again. Taken up to eleven when he sees Raoul and Christine kiss, he gives a roar of rage and causes the young couple to flee from his burning eyes, then he kidnaps Christine and tries to force her to marry him.
  • In Phenomena Tarkan is more or less a Green Skinned Monster with red Glowing Eyes of Doom. He's possessing Mentor, one of the character's twin brother, but unlike his brother never got rewarded for his hard work, and this is his Freudian Excuse for his Face–Heel Turn.
  • In Power, there's a rather twisted example, with Omishto's mother being jealous of her for being the object of her stepfather's interests, despite Omishto not finding herself all that attractive and being very uncomfortable around her stepfather for this very reason. It's assumed that her mother is still hurting from her first husband leaving for another woman, causing her to become jealous of anyone who might get more physical attention than her.
  • Caroline Bingley is venomously jealous of Elizabeth Bennet in Pride and Prejudice because Mr. Darcy clearly admires Elizabeth and is completely oblivious to the fact that Caroline wants to marry him. In her mind, at least; while Darcy clearly admires Elizabeth from early on, towards her it's suggested that he's adopting the time-honoured 'ignore-her-long-enough-and-maybe-she'll-go-away' approach.
  • In A Reluctant Queen by Joan Wolf, a retelling of the story Esther from the Bible, King Ahasuerus's close friend Haman grew jealous of Ahasuerus's new wife Esther, with whom the king was deeply in love. He also grew envious of Coes, another close friend of Ahasuerus, when the king had summoned Coes during an assassination attempt on his life but not Haman, and his jealousy towards Esther's uncle Mordecai, whom the king grew to like, would eventually lead to his own death.
  • Detective Jane Rizzoli is jealous and resentful of beautiful women because she's plain-looking. It's cranked up to eleven in the very first book of the series, The Surgeon, where she takes an instant dislike to Dr. Catherine Cordell both because she's beautiful and because her partner Detective Thomas Moore, who she wants for herself, falls in love with her.
  • Roys Bedoys:
    • Downplayed in “No Littering, Roys Bedoys!”, where Roys learns not to litter, but the focus is more on how trash is ugly and gets in the way than on the environmental impact.
    • Downplayed again in “Stop Wasting Water, Roys Bedoys!”, where Roys learns not to waste water, partly because of what Maker said about how only 1% of water on Earth is usable, but partly to save money.
  • In Agatha Christie's Sad Cypress, Elinor Carlisle is jealous of her romantic rival to the point of being suspected of her murder. However, she's a rare case, because she pulls an I Want My Beloved to Be Happy, breaks up with the guy so that he can be free, and actually gives him relationship advice. (That's before the murder, obviously.)
  • In Robert E. Howard's "The Shadow Kingdom", Kull envies the lack of formality at the Pictish banquet.
  • Witkacy of Shaman Blues takes a few levels in nasty for a few moments when his ex, Konstancja, implies that she has a partner.
  • Shatter the Sky: Kaia grows increasingly jealous of Maren's feelings for Sev when they reunite, becoming paranoid Maren wants him instead of her. Maren is loyal to her though at first, but Kaia's envious attitude ironically serves to slowly drive them apart, along with other things.
  • The Sherlock Holmes story The Adventure of the Cardboard Box is about a murder which resulted from jealousy. A woman fell in love with her younger sister's husband, and when he rejected her (because he loved his wife), she conspired to get her sister to have an affair with another man.
  • Lalla Moore is envious of Harriet Johnson's skating ability in Skating Shoes.
  • Used in A Song of Ice and Fire as part of the complicated Psychotic Love Triangle that forms the backstory of the Tully Sisters and Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish. Lysa is jealous of Catelyn for being the object of Petyr's (unrequited) affections, whilst Petyr is jealous of Brandon and ultimately Ned Stark for marrying Catelyn. Both characters take this envy to extreme Yandere levels, resulting in Petyr manipulating Lysa into becoming his accomplice in kicking off a continent-wide civil war. Bonus points for Littlefinger actually having green eyes.
    • When a Lannister truly sets their heart on something, things have a habit of turning horribly rotten. Note their green eyes and golden hair.
      • Tywin wants his son (Jaime, not Tyrion) to rule the Rock, his daughter to rule as queen, his blood on the throne in the shape of a grandchild and any mocking laughter stilled — and to one-up House Targaryen with an even more golden Lannisters dynasty. Whatever the cost in blood. The various results of his uncompromising drive are wrecking the very House he's fought to improve.
      • Cersei wants the respect Jaime gets, personal power of her own, to always be the most beautiful woman in the room, the freedom to claims Jaime as the father of her children in public, and the ability to crush any and all opposition — especially if female and more than simply pretty. Anything that could possibly impede her? Manipulate it into servile obedience or destroy it. It poisons everything she touches as her paranoia outstrips her ability.
  • In Gene Stratton-Porter's The Song of the Cardinal, the cardinal envies the other birds while awaiting a mate.
    he envied the blackbird his glossy, devoted little sweetheart, with all his might. He almost strained his voice trying to rival the love-song of a skylark that hung among the clouds above a meadow across the river, and poured down to his mate a story of adoring love and sympathy. He screamed a "Chip" of such savage jealousy at a pair of killdeer lovers that he sent them scampering down the river bank without knowing that the crime of which they stood convicted was that of being mated when he was not. As for the doves that were already brooding on the line fence beneath the maples, the Cardinal was torn between two opinions.
    He was alone, he was love-sick, and he was holding the finest building location beside the shining river for his mate, and her slowness in coming made their devotion difficult to endure when he coveted a true love; but it seemed to the Cardinal that he never could so forget himself as to emulate the example of that dove lover. The dove had no dignity; he was so effusive he was a nuisance.
  • In Michael Flynn's Spiral Arm novel In the Lion's Mouth, Ravn recounts how she seduces Donovan to give them a pretext to talk, and Bridget is furiously jealous despite not having any oaths between them, and despite her long having used such a tactic.
  • Stick Cat: In "Two Cats and a Baby", Stick Cat's and Edith's owners, Goose and Tiffany, are now married and have a baby, a girl named Millie. Stick Cat is okay with Millie being around, but Edith is insanely jealous of her because she gets all of Toffany's attention now. Her jealousy is further exacerbated when Tiffany's mother, Grandma Cobb, comes over and starts doting on Millie as well. She finally accepts Millie into the family when Stick Cat convinces her Millie can understand her, whereupon Edith starts saying Millie is saying a lot of nice things about her.
  • The Stormlight Archive: This is King Elhokar's biggest problem. He is well aware that he is an Inadequate Inheritor, and ends up acting like a child whenever someone seems better than him. In Words of Radiance, he ends up derailing his own plan in order to punish Kaladin for being more heroic than him when Kaladin saves Adolin, and nearly executes Kaladin in the process. By the end of the book, he has begun to recover. At one point he apologizes to Kaladin and begs him for "the secret of leadership."
  • Morgan Sloat in The Talisman is driven by equal parts envy and ambition. By the end, they and the even worse Morgan of Orris have completely consumed him, leaving him a threat to the multiverse who cares for no one.
  • In C. S. Lewis' Till We Have Faces, a retelling of Psyche and Cupid, Orual hears that she persuaded Psyche to bring in the lamp at night and so lose him because she was jealous. Infuriated by this injustice, she writes her story to make the truth known. Writing it, and the events afterwards, reveal to her that she was jealous: having raised Psyche from childhood, she was jealous of Cupid.
    • In The Voyage of the Dawn Treader, one temptation for Lucy to cast the spell to make her beautiful was that it would make Susan, always the beauty of the family, jealous of her.
  • Tolkien's Legendarium:
    • The Lord of the Rings: Denethor's jealous attitude toward Aragorn was a major factor in his suicide; even if his side won, he would be demoted. It's also jealousy of Gandalf that causes Saruman to reject his offer of a Last-Second Chance.
    • The Silmarillion:
      • Daeron's jealousy of Beren leads to him revealing Lúthien's plans to her father Thingol. Twice.
      • Fëanor resents his step-mother and younger half-siblings (especially Fingolfin). His jealousy leads to him drawing a sword on Fingolfin, and later abandoning him and going on to Middle Earth. Imagine how even more jealous Fëanor would've got if he ever learned that the three locks of Galadriel's hair he sought and was denied, were freely given to a Dwarf by Galadriel.
  • The Traitor Son Cycle: in the first book, Ser Jeret is very envious the fact that it's the Red Knight, and not him, who commands the company, as Jeret is a professional soldier and had ten years of mercenary work under his belt, while the Knight is a noble kid with half as much experience. Other characters are quick to point out that he's not nearly charismatic enough.
  • Prismia from Twilight Sparkle and the Crystal Heart Spell lived alone and was jealous of a nearby earth pony village for the love they had for each other.
  • In Vampire Academy, Rose leaves Lissa to travel to Russia and resolve her issues with Dimitri. Lissa is not happy about this. (No homo.)
  • In Sandy Mitchell's Warhammer 40,000 novel Scourge the Heretic, Horst finds himself quite envious of how obviously Lord and Lady Tomis are Happily Married after they jumped to their deaths together.
  • In James Swallow's Warhammer 40,000 novel Deus Encarmine, Arkio, primed by Sanchiel, accuses Rafen of being envious — although when Rafen declares he is concerned, Arkio immediately drops it to say that Rafen still thinks of him as a child.
    • In Deus Sanguinius, Inquisitor Stele plays on Rafen's fears of envying him to convince him that he ought to die to free Arkio; Rafen has a desperate time breaking free, receiving assistance toward it. Later, when Arkio believes that he has killed Rafen, he feels a freedom he had coveted a long time.
  • In William King's Warhammer 40,000 Space Wolf novel Wolfblade, when Ragnar speaks of having lost the Spear of Rus, Haegr, with open envy, says that he had wielded the Spear of Rus and struck down a primarch with it, which shows he was marked for greatness.
    "Do you think any man could cast such a weapon? Even a hero such as I?"
  • In Ben Counter's Warhammer 40,000 Horus Heresy novel Galaxy In Flames, Lucius is envious of how easily Tarvitz assumes command of the betrayed Emperor's Children, which motivates his betraying them to Horus.
  • In Graham McNeill's Warhammer 40,000 Ultramarines novel Courage and Honour, Uriel is warned of Leachrus, who had commanded his company in his absence. Later, he has it out with him: when Leachrus claims not to resent him, Uriel accuses him of lying, and Leachrus reluctantly admits that he wants Uriel's post, and with Uriel gone so long, he had gotten used to it. Uriel agrees that his ambition is not wrong and predicts that he will get a captaincy, one day.
  • Ivypool from Warrior Cats has this towards Dovewing because of her powers. However, she overcomes her jealousy when Dovewing reveals her powers after hearing Tigerstar's plan.
    • Foxheart in regards to Yellowfang liking Raggedstar, so she makes the former's life hell for her.
  • In The Watchmaker of Filigree Street, Mori and Grace are both jealous of the other's influence on Thaniel, to the point where Grace accuses Thaniel of becoming like one of Mori's clockwork toys, and engineers a disaster that she hopes to blame on Mori and use to push them apart.
  • Demandred in The Wheel of Time became evil because he envied the fact that Lews Therin was slightly better than him in every way. Also, Lanfear envied Ilyena for marrying Lews Therin. The same applies to Sammael, who was as skilled a general and sportsman as Lews Therin but felt that his height was the reason he was the less honored of the two. Be'lal (one of whose nicknames is "The Envious" was reputedly extremely jealous of virtually everyone; Lews Therin, Lanfear, and Ishamael amongst them). A case could be made this was true of a lot of the Forsaken, many of whom were prominent Light side generals or otherwise decent figures but jealous of the acclaim given to the chosen leader Lews Therin or perceived general lack of acclaim for themselves. Not all though. Semirhage in particular may have been the greatest healer in the world but she was also a vicious sadist long before the Dark One appeared, and Ishamael, as Elan Morin Tedroni, seems to have switched sides for philosophical reasons.
  • In Dorothy L. Sayers's Whose Body?, Lord Peter Wimsey deduces the motive for murder was envy.
  • In Wicked, Elphaba is jealous of Nessarose, for the latter being the one with the attention and affection from their father as well as the special shoes. It never gets better.
  • The Wings of Fire series provides a non-romantic example. The other NightWings ostracize Moonwatcher because she grew up in a prey-rich rain forest with clean air. (They, on the other hand, lived on an active volcano that could barely support life and was covered in smoke.) Contributing to their envy, Moon's relatively comfortable life made her visibly healthier than other NightWings.
    An unnamed NightWing: I wonder what it must be like to eat every day.
  • The Witchlands: Vivia is extremely jealous of her brother, especially his status as an admiral, and she's convinced that Merik had everything handed to him on a silver platter whereas she had to work for all she now has.
  • Wuthering Heights:
    • This is the main reason for Hindley's cruel treatment of Heathcliff, although it could also be down to a form of prejudice towards gypsies and dark-skinned people (Heathcliff is mentioned as being dark-skinned) that existed in the 18th century. Hindley takes an instant disliking to Heathcliff, possibly due to a long-term Inferiority Superiority Complex regarding his father's affections which manifests itself upon Heathcliff's arrival. Mr Earnshaw is often shown to be warmer towards Heathcliff than his own son, which Heathcliff taunts him about. This envy makes Hindley hate Heathcliff for almost his entire life, culminating in Hindley attempting to murder Heathcliff with a pistol after Heathcliff swindles him out of Wuthering Heights.
    • As well as the humiliation he faced, another possible reason for Heathcliff wanting to get back at Edgar Linton was envy of Edgar being married to Cathy (I) while Heathcliff felt that it should have been him marrying her. He doesn't just take this hatred out on Edgar, but on his sister too.
  • Yellowface: June is practically sick with envy towards Athena, her college frenemy and fellow author, since Athena is a literary darling and smash success with multiple bestsellers, while June herself has only put out one novel, which bombed badly. June sees Athena as undeserving of her success and completely phony, and always feels like shit whenever she compares their careers. So when Athena dies in a freak accident, and June gets her hands on a finished first draft of a novel Athena never told anyone she was working on, June steals it to pass it off as her own so she can finally have Athena's success.
  • Zomboy: Bob doesn't like Imre mainly because he's jealous that Evil-O likes him so much.


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