Always Someone Better / Live-Action TV

There's Always Someone Better in Live-Action TV.

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• 3rd Rock from the Sun:
  • John Cleese guest-starred as a new professor who was exactly like Dick, but way better in every way possible. At the end, it turned out he was another alien.
  • In another episode, Sally obsessed over trying to take down a buff woman, played by Chyna, who repeatedly subdued her effortlessly.
• Angel:
  • The show had the weird undefined demon-ish...thing The Immortal, who in his single not-quite-appearance managed to embody Spike and Angel's insecurities, by constantly one-upping them at everything they did—without even trying. He had a threesome with Darla and Drusilla while they were still seeing Angel and Spike respectively (the girls never allowed Angel or Spike to do this), and in the present day was supposed to be dating Buffy. The demon world—and some of the magical world that wasn't fond of demons—fawned over him and considered him an idol. In a subversion, at the end of the episode, Spike and Angel were no more over their inferiority complex than before. Later, it is established in the in-canon Buffy comics that the Immortal wasn't dating Buffy, Spike and Angel had been fooled (by Andrew, of all people) to keep Buffy a bit safer and because he thought it would be funny.
  • Spike also feels this way towards Angelus - who is more skilled, tougher, and more attractive to Drusilla. And then both get souls and he feels this way towards Angel, who is skilled, tougher and more attractive to Buffy. Poor Spike just can't win.
  • Angel seems to feel this way about Spike, who lacks his self doubt and brooding angst, and ended up sleeping with Buffy after Angel left Sunnydale so Buffy could find herself a normal boyfriend.
  • Angel himself felt paranoid that The Groosalugg was taking over his life. The Groosalugg could do everything Angel could, and in the daylight. The Groosalugg won Cordelia's heart and could sleep with her without risking unleashing a Superpowered Evil Side. The Groosalugg got cheered after slaying a demon in public, when Angel earlier got feared. The Groosalugg was oblivious to this and cheerfully saw Angel as a comrade in arms. Later, when Groosalugg got tripped up by his Leeroy Jenkins nature and Angel had to rescue him, Groosalugg admitted Angel was wiser than him.
• The Big Bang Theory:
  • In the episode "The Jerusalem Duality", Sheldon meets a young version of himself in Dennis Kim, who proceeds to shake Sheldon's confidence in his research. Hilarity Ensues.
  • Penny meets her own better version in "The Dead Hooker Juxtaposition" when Alicia, a gorgeous new neighbor, moves into the building and steals the guys' attention away from Penny. There is some Hypocritical Humor as Penny condemns Alicia for the same kind of I Have Boobs, You Must Obey! behavior of which Penny herself is guilty. Alicia is also a much more successful actress than Penny, having secured "a couple of national commercials and this recurring thing on a soap" after just three months in L.A.
• The Brady Bunch: The Season 3 episode "My Sister, Benedict Arnold," where Greg is upstaged by rival classmate Warren Mullaney every which way. Two of these examples are stated outright: being beaten out for the final spot on the first-string basketball team, and losing in a bitter race for class president. Greg refuses to cool down and (what his father, Mike, was trying to help him understand) figure that this may simply be the trope taking effect — ergo, Warren simply is better than he is at basketball and was the better candidate for class president. Instead, Greg lets it fester in him, calling Warren a phony who lies to his classmates and kisses up to his teachers and coaches ... and it boils over to help form the backbone of that episode's plot ^note (Marcia getting a date with Warren, the two mutually deciding they weren't really right for each other, but then Greg threatening Marcia to not date Warren again or else there would be serious trouble).
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • It's subverted in the episode "Superstar" when previously nerdy Jonathan shows up everyone on the cast. He even takes over the opening credits montage. Unfortunately, being perfect created an Evil Twin which doubled as his Kryptonite Factor, which only Buffy was able to destroy.
  • When other slayers turn up (ironically, since there is only supposed to be one slayer, so Buffy is not used to rivals). Kendra is the model slayer in contrast to Buffy's casual and rule-breaking attitude. Faith is much cooler and more fun than Buffy, telling stories of her naked demon-fighting exploits, fascinating all Buffy's friends and Buffy's boy-toy of the week, etc. However, averted in that Buffy turns out to be a better fighter than both.
  • While Faith effortlessly draws all the attention away from Buffy in the episode where she first appears, later in the season she is complaining that Buffy is this for her . Apparently Faith is great at making a first impression, but Buffy is the one who can inspire long-term loyalty.
  • In "A New Man", Giles feels his raison d'être slipping away when – among other things – Buffy tells him that Professor Walsh is the smartest person she's ever met. Buffy seems oblivious to the implied slight, though.
• Community:
  • In "The Politics of Human Sexuality" Abed turns out to be this for Troy with regards to athleticism. Parodied, in that Abed is clearly not interested in athletics where Troy is immediately driven into a fit of paranoid insecurity by the fact that Abed manages to throw a piece of trash into a garbage can when Troy misses, and it just gets worse from there.
  • In the paintball special, Josh Holloway guest stars, and Jeff becomes unnaturally jealous of his good looks.
  • Played straight as an arrow in "Beginner's Pottery", where Jeff — always believing he was special because he was good-looking, intelligent, and could just coast through life — encounters Rich, who is everything Jeff is (but a doctor rather than a lawyer), and can make better pottery than him.
• Afonso in Deus Salve O Rei is this for his younger brother Rodolfo by virtue of being a better leader, fighter, statesman and being beloved by the people, while Rodolfo was pretty much inept in literally anything else. Though he initially didn't mind this as he preferred to spend his time partying, drinking and whoring, when Rodolfo becomes king after Afonso abdicates to marry a peasant girl, he becomes very resentful of his older brother's achievements and being compared unfavorably to him becomes one of his Berserk Buttons.
• Doctor Who:
  • The Doctor is this to the Master, and in the classic series at least it's heavily implied (if not outright stated at times) that a lot of the Master's actions are based on his constant feelings of inferiority towards the Doctor and desire to finally get the better of him one time. In one novelisation, the Doctor reflects on how the Master always wanted the credit and victories that the Doctor received but was never that bothered with when they were growing up, and ruefully reflects that so much bloodshed and misery could have been avoided if he'd just let the Master win at chess one time.
  • Pyramids of Mars has Sutekh the Destroyer, who is so powerful that the Time Lords wouldn't be able to stop him from destroying the entire universe even with all of their technology! It even took the combined effort of 740 Osirians to merely imprison him!
  • "The Lodger" has the Doctor as this to his temporary landlord Craig, particularly in regards to football and Craig's own telemarketing job.
• In Doogie Howser, M.D. Doogie is this to Jack. He happens to be a perfectly competent doctor (perhaps equal to Doogie in skill) but can never get out of the shadow of his teenaged co-worker. This frequently leads to them being (friendly) rivals and attempting to one-up each other. Doogie, in order to compensate for his youth, feels he has to be the best so he isn't underestimated, while Jack also needs to prove himself equal to the exceptional Doogie. This eventually leads to him leaving about halfway through the series.
• The Dukes of Hazzard:
  • Once the series became a hit, the writers decided to introduce several new adversaries that were intended to be more focused, smarter and determined than usual antagonists Boss Hogg and Rosco. The most notable of these recurring characters were Hughie Hogg, Boss Hogg's nephew who was college-educated and seemed to come up with a more nefarious plan to defeat the Duke family once and for all; and Chickasaw County Sheriff "Big" Edward Little, who while not a villain per se, was far superior in law enforcement ability than Rosco ever hoped of dreaming ... and also saw the Dukes as disrespectful scofflaws.
  • In Season 5, when series stars John Schneider and Tom Wopat walked off the show due to multiple issues with the producers, two new Duke boys — Coy (Byron Cherry) and Vance (Christopher Mayer) — were introduced as the long-absent nephews of Jesse Duke. At one point during their first episode, Boss is alarmed that Coy and Vance are returning, suggesting that when in Hazzard County earlier, they made the now-departed Bo and Luke "look like choir boys." The idea was to reinforce in the viewers' minds that Schneider and Wopat were gone, possibly for good, and that the Coy and Vance characters would prove in time to be far better than their predecessors.
  • Occasionally done in-universe, with Boss Hogg firing Rosco or other deputy Enos Strate for various reasons, and replacing them with "better" officers (at least in the case of Rosco, that was true) who were more willing to do Boss' bidding and show little to no mercy when they confronted Bo and Luke. (In the end, the "new" deputies always proved to double-cross Boss and were criminals themselves.
• A less clear case in Elementary, where Sherlock claims that Mycroft is wasting his intelligence on something as unimportant as a restaurant business. The one time Mycroft earns some of Sherlock's respect is when he blows away all of Sherlock's belongings (that Sherlock left in his London flat) with a bomb made by following instructions in one of Sherlock's books.
• In an Everybody Loves Raymond episode, Debra hires a babysitter... then regrets the decision when the sitter turns out to be more popular with the kids than she is. And then she regrets the decision to let her go when she sees what the kids do to Marie when she babysits...
• Everwood:
  • Doctor Abbott loved being admired and looked up to as a doctor of the community. He couldn't beat his late father's reputation, and then a brilliant neurosurgeon moved to town. Then later another wunder-kid baby-faced doctor to top it all. Drs. Abbott and Brown mostly shared a friendly rivalry. One episode showed Harold Abbott being obsessed with medical inventions after he fond out that both doctors had their patents.
  • Ephram is a brilliant pianist. He's mostly the better one who overshadows others, but if he has times when he doesn't practise and struggles with himself, there are driven musicians who he feels might get better.
• Firefly:
  • River makes Simon (for whom "'gifted' is the term") look like "an idiot child". However, that doesn't seem to bother him. He's just that kind of Big Brother.
  • Saffron is an expert seductress, but she meets her better in the form of Inara. It's unclear whether Inara is supposed to be better, or rather "just good enough to realize what Saffron is doing." The reason she can't win in spite of these advantages is, as Mal explains, "That's 'cause I got people with me. People who trust each other, who do for each other, and ain't always looking' for the advantage."
    Inara: Never try to play a player.
• Frasier:
  • The new radio host Clint Webber is everything Frasier prides himself on being but more, (a polyglot, a gourmet chef, a great chess player, etc.) At the end of the episode Frasier has his revenge when he discovers that Clint's a terrible singer and tricks him into humiliating himself by suggesting he serenade Frasier's party-guests.
  • Both Frasier and Niles live in terror of it some day being proven that one is better than the other, which is one of the contributing factors to their Sibling Rivalry. Once, it was revealed that Niles possessed a greater IQ than Frasier which, as they were meeting Nobel Laureates for lunch the next day, prompted much scrambling from each to prove that each was equal to / better than the other. The resulting chaos demonstrated that whilst Niles might have the edge in IQ, they were about equal for common sense and maturity. This same episode also played this trope as having some positive effects, rather than the straightforward "jealousy only creates misery" aesop this trope usually has. Both Frasier and Niles, ruefully reflecting on events, come to realise that while their feuding has undoubtedly created a lot of trouble and embarrassment for each other, it's also driven them to excel where perhaps they otherwise wouldn't have, which has ultimately made both men happier and more successful.
• The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air: This is the main reason for Will and Carlton's rivalry. Despite the fact that Carlton has better grades, several alumni, lives in a mansion and is wealthy, he just can't keep up with Will when it comes to people skills, sports and dating women. An example of this is in the episode "The Alma Matter". Will, despite not wanting to go to Princeton, impresses the interviewer with his wise cracks and street smarts. Jealous, Carlton emulates Will, but all this does is make the interviewer believe he is clinically insane. After begging and bribing doesn't work, he ends up threatening the interviewer, resulting in him getting suspended. In "I, Bowl Buster", Carlton thinks this of his brother, who is going to study at Yule, and it causes him many an insecurity about his own potential and worth.
• Friends:
  • Since Chandler and Monica were friends for years before they became a couple, they know each other's dating history. As a result, Chandler was there as a friend when Monica was going through her relationship with (then) love of her life, Richard, and how hard it was for her to get back on her feet when the relationship ended. Richard was also very popular with the entire gang for being a very nice, respectable, successful man. Chandler is sometimes haunted by this knowledge even though he's also a very nice, respectable, successful man who completely surpassed Richard as the love of Monica's life. As an Insecure Love Interest, he sometimes has trouble believing this. Case to point, Season 9 reveals Chandler still feels threatened by Richard even though he and Monica have been Happily Married for a year, together for four years and she and Richard haven't dated in six years. The fact he still views Richard as the better man prompts Monica to point out than given she chose him he should feel sorry for Richard not envious.
• In Full House, Stephanie is the best speller in her class and is pumped for the spelling bee. When she loses that, and a subsequent unofficial rematch to classmate Davy Chu, the wind is knocked out of her sails and she storms off in a tantrum. Danny then gives her the "always someone better" speech. There's also an episode dedicated to Stephanie's Middle Child Syndrome, where she imagines both of her sisters upstaging her at everything. This being her sisters being praised for getting the mail and finding the remote while she is ignored despite being an astronaut.
• Game of Thrones:
  • The show has both Jon and Theon talk about coming to terms with growing up feeling this in regards to Robb. Jon reminisces that Robb was better at fighting, riding, hunting, and being a ladies man while they were growing up together, just the same way Sam feels compared to Jon, while Theon always looked up to him and felt he stood in Robb's shadow.
    Jon: I was jealous of Robb my whole life. The way my father looked at him? I wanted that. He was better than me at everything. Fighting, and hunting, and riding. And girls. Gods, the girls loved him. I wanted to hate him, but I never could.
  • Ser Arthur Dayne is this to Ned Stark, as even Bran admits on seeing the Tower of Joy vision, Ned fought hard against him, despite the former using two swords and was inches from dying before Howland Reed saved his life.
• In the first episode of Season 2 of Glee, Rachel discovers that the new exchange student is a better singer than she is. Rachel herself functions as this for everyone else in New Directions, particularly in Season 1 — though one who's heavily invested in having them all recognise and accept her superiority. This is interestingly inverted in Season 2, however, as she's increasingly shown not to be definitively better at anything than all the other members of the club — she has vocal equals in Mercedes and Kurt, and is relegated to the back row with the weakest dancers in several numbers while Tina and Kurt move to the front row alongside Brittany, Santana and Mike. And Vocal Adrenaline as a whole is one for New Directions as a whole.
• In one episode of The Golden Girls, Blanche gets Dorothy some temp work at her museum, and becomes extremely insecure and jealous when Dorothy seems to be doing the job better than her almost immediately.
• The Good Place: Tahani Al-Jamil was incredibly successful. During her life, she raised $60 billion for non-profit groups and also worked as a museum curator, a fashion model, an "It Girl" and was Baz Luhrmann's muse. She frequently name-drops extremely famous celebrities as friends or people she's influenced, and when she does so in front of a truth-testing device, it confirms it as true. And yet despite all that, she is constantly looked down on as a weird little troll when compared to her sister. Kamilah was the youngest person to ever graduate from Oxford University, world-class painter, sculptor, social activist, iconoclast, Olympic archer (for which she won the gold, of course), Grammy award-winning musician, youngest person ever inducted into the Rock-n-Roll Hall of Fame (her album was so good the Hall of Fame waived the mandatory 25 year waiting period and inducted her just six months after her album was released), BAFTA award-winning documentarian (for a documentary she did on her own previously mentioned Grammy award-winning album), and person voted "Most Likely to Be Banksy". Indeed, when Tahani is told that Kamilah's music was capable of curing malaria she doesn't even question it.
• Home Improvement has Tim Taylor's one-sided rivalry with recurring Guest Star and real-life TV carpenter Bob Vila, formerly of This Old House. Although Tim isn't really in any position to consider himself even second best, since his own co-host is vastly more competent than he is, so it borders on a parody of this trope.
• Homicide: Life on the Street: Bolander frequently claims his old partner Mitch was better than Munch in every way imaginable. Munch invariably got angry whenever Bolander brought it up, and complained to anyone who would listen about how much he despises Mitch. Mitch eventually appears during a three-parter, and reveals that Bolander was equally as hard on him as he is on Munch; the two wind up commiserating about having to deal with Bolander's grouchiness.
• Kaiketsu Zubat: The titular hero inverts this trope in every episode. No matter what sort of skill his enemies have, he will always prove that they are just #2 in Japan.
• Obi-Wan Kenobi plays on this dynamic between Obi-Wan and Anakin/Vader, which was hinted at in the films and Star Wars: The Clone Wars. Anakin is The Chosen One, brilliant at everything he does, and one of the msot powerful Force Users in history even after his mutilation stripped him of much of his potential, and a Master Swordsman who treats everyone who isn't Ahsoka, Obi-Wan, or Luke by Episode VI as a light workout/passing amusement, and an unsurpassed pilot. However, he's always in Obi-Wan's shadow as a Jedi, a General, and a swordsman - one flashback has a training session where Obi-Wan beats Anakin, then chides him for his rashness and need to show how good he is, saying that until he gets over that, he'll always be the apprentice and never the master. Vader is shown obsessing over Obi-Wan and his defeat on Mustafar, and Obi-Wan is able to use his arrogance and need to prove himself against him, luring him into their second duel of the series and away from the refugees (Leia included). Like on Mustafar, Obi-Wan curbstomps him through pure skill and brutal Flaw Exploitation, demonstrating who is the Master and who is still the Apprentice. This plays into his famous line in A New Hope and his much more cautious fighting style (and even then, Obi-Wan casually ascends, showing that he is still the Apprentice).
• Sterling from Leverage is simply better than Nate at just about everything. At best the team escapes him by the skin of their teeth or at great cost. He usually finds a way to benefit even from his apparent losses.
• M*A*S*H: Frank thinks he's a shoo-in for the position of the 4077th chief surgeon. He takes severe umbrage when Henry assigns it to Hawkeye.
  Frank: This is unheard of!
  Henry: Face it, Pierce is the best cutter in the outfit. He's certified in chest and general surgery. Frank, in case you haven't read the papers, there's a war on. We're here to patch guys together! We can't be so G.I. we lose patients!
  Frank: Are you implying he's a better doctor?!
  Henry: Yes, when the heat's on!
• Monk:
  • Mr. Monk and the Other Detective — another detective starts showing up Monk at the scene of a crime, using clues such as smelling a bag of dog poop, smelling the dog itself, tasting mud, and other such egregious acts to deduce exactly what happened. It gets to a point where Monk accuses the man of cheating. It turns out he really is cheating...
  • Adrian's brother Ambrose might, in fact, have superior investigation skills, but is crippled by his severe agoraphobia.
  • Inverted in "Mr. Monk and the Daredevil", where Monk is traumatised when he thinks that his arch-rival Harold Crenshaw (another OCD sufferer who goes to the same doctor he does) might have recovered from his condition, because "no matter how bad things got, I could always say to myself "at least I'm not Harold Crenshaw"".
• Once Upon a Time: The story of Zelena's life; she's been upstaged by Regina and then by Dorothy.
• Psych:
  • Shawn Spencer encountered an FBI detective who was everything he wasn't in the episode Psy vs. Psy. He got to upstage her in the end , especially since she was involed in the crime..
  • Happened again with Declan Rand, who has become something of a recurring foil and romantic rival. A (fake) criminal profiler, he solves mysteries, but not to make money, rather because he's a bored rich genius.
    • Beyond having the lead singer for Tears for Fears over for lunch, owning the airspace above his place, and his own personal dessert chef, he was viewed as more impressive due to the fact that everyone perceives his abilities as talent rather than Shawn's "psychicness." He was also more capable of being honest with Juliet (due to the fact she didn't Shawn wasn't a psychic), hence the romantic rival angle.
• The Princess Wei Young: The reason Chang Ru is a Bitch in Sheep's Clothing is because Chang Le always comes on top socially, even after being disgraced multiple times. The first of such incidents is when she weaves for months for Grandma's birthday, and a better tapestry is rolled out right in front of hers at the event.
• In Red Dwarf, Arnold Rimmer's alternate-universe counterpart shows up and is better than him at everything — simply because he got the right kind of motivation in his early adult life. This version of Rimmer, nicknamed "Ace", was held back a grade in school. Instead of destroying his life it taught him that failure has real consequences. Consequences that can be overcome by effort.
  • Early into Series 7, Lister encounters a parallel version of himself and of his long-dead love interest Kochanski from a universe where Kochanski was put into stasis and so Lister died during the radiation leak. To his visible horror, Kochanski regards her universe's version of Lister — a sensitive, well-groomed, thoughtful, new-age guy — to be far superior to the proudly lowbrow, slobby, and "blokish" original. Her only interest in Lister is the fact he can provide a sperm sample so she can have children, which her hologramatic lover cannot provide. Throughout Series 7 and 8, Lister tries to woo this alt-universe Kochanski into loving him back without having to change himself, but it ultimately fails and she abandons them all to find a way to get back to her own universe.
• Scrubs:
  • An early episode has JD frustrated since even though he's at the top of his game, there's another intern who keeps outshining him. However the other intern ends up not being able to handle the emotional stress of working with sick people, and quits.
  • "My Catalyst" is a whole episode on this subject, with Michael J. Fox guest starring as the super-medic who upstages Cox and outdoes Turk. However he suffers from OCD, which although contributing to his ability to learn medicine incredibly frustrates him, the moral being that even the best have problems of their own. The main problem being that he can't even walk through a doorway without repeating it until it's perfect. When JD, Turk, and Cox go to confront him, they find that he's been stuck washing his hands for hours, frustrating himself nearly to tears.
• In Seinfeld minor character Lloyd Braun was this to George, to the point that even his parents preferred Lloyd to him. To be fair, it wasn’t hard to be this to George. Following a mental breakdown, Lloyd becomes a pathetic, incompetent wreck who even George can easily outperform; however, his parents still prefer Lloyd.
• As expected, Sherlock's older brother Mycroft is a big example of this trope. Unlike the book version, this Mycroft is actively involved in running the British government (while, technically, only holding a minor post). He is a lot smarter than Sherlock. In fact, when they were kids and had not yet been introduced to other children, they assumed that Sherlock was stupid.^note  Sherlock views most people as "goldfish". Mycroft sees Sherlock the same way. However, even Mycroft admits that Sherlock might be able to best him once in a while, like the case with Irene Adler, whom Sherlock saves from her executioners, while convincing Mycroft that she's dead. You can understand why John is the most important person in Sherlock's life.
• The Six Million Dollar Man episode "Day of the Robot" features a robot that's stronger than Steve's bionics. Also, on The Bionic Woman, the Fembots are stronger than Jaime Sommers.
• Stargate Atlantis: In another example of the sibling being the rival, Rodney McKay's sister Jeannie is possibly even more brilliant than he is-but has chosen to settle down and have a family, rather than become a "real" scientist like him. There's also his one-sided rivalry with Samantha Carter; early on Rodney arrogantly dismissed her abilities, but he was eventually forced to accept that she's smarter than him.
• Star Trek
  • Star Trek: The Next Generation:
    • Lore had emotions and humor while Data didn't. But Data turned out to be this to Lore. While Lore had emotions, they caused his behaviour to be erratic and sociopathic, which frightened the other colonists. Data was built as a replacement for Lore, possessing no emotions whatsoever so they couldn't overpower his logic. When reactivated, Lore is obsessed with killing his brother and taking his place as the "better" son. Oddly enough, their creator Dr. Soong claims neither is better than the other and they're identical save for a few lines of programming code.
    • Commander Shelby was this to Riker for nearly the entirety of "The Best of Both Worlds, Part 1", at least when it came to being the ideal first officer of the Enterprise.
  • In Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, most other Changelings are better at shapeshifting than Odo is. The Changeling infiltrators that Odo meets are quick to point out how poor his skills are, but the Female Changeling mimics his blocky facial structure.
  • TNG may have introduced the Tal Shiar, the Romulan Secret Police feared by all Romulans and their enemies, but both DS9 and Star Trek: Picard one-upped them twice over.
    • First, DS9 brought in the Obsidian Order, the Cardassian State Sec even more effective than the Tal Shiar. Then came the Federation equivalent: Section 31, so good at being secretive that unlike the aforementioned organizations, most people (even within Starfleet) didn't even know about 31.
    • Picard then revealed an even more secretive cabal within the Tal Shiar: the Zhat Vash, whom most TS operatives dismissed as a "boogeyman". In addition, there's also the Qowat Milat, an order of Romulan warrior nuns who are so deadly in combat that the Tal Shiar fears them.
  • Star Trek: Picard: Narissa revels in dishing out violence, but when it comes to melee combat, Elnor and Seven of Nine are better at it than she is. Narissa even resorts to using dishonest tactics in an attempt to beat her rivals, yet she still doesn't win against them.
• The Twilight Zone episode "A Game of Pool" combines this with a case of Be Careful What You Wish For when a pool player wishes he could play one game with a deceased pool champ and defeat him so that he can be considered the best in the world. He suddenly gets challenged to a game by the ghost of said champ with the stakes being that if he wins he will be considered the best in the world, but if he loses he will die. He wins, but finds out that it means taking the previous champ's place and having to spend the afterlife defending his title until someone else defeats him. Remade for the 80's version, where as intended by the original author, he loses but discovers that the "death" is only metaphorical. If he'd won, he would've been remembered forever.
• President Bartlet invokes this in The West Wing with his Chief of Staff, Leo McGarry. It's repeatedly pointed out that Leo is a party elder with a great record, as well as military experience that Bartlet lacks, and could probably have been President himself if not for his history with alcoholism and painkiller addiction.
  "You got a best friend? Is he smarter than you? Would you trust him with your life? That's your Chief of Staff."
• Wizards of Waverly Place: In the series, Justin is always referred to as the superior to Alex. In the movie, however, which sibling is superior changes from one to the other.

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