The Resenter

He looks upset.

"His resentment boiled up behind his eyes like sinus pain. All this bloody hero worship, or whatever it was. All for Naismith. For Naismith, and not for me... never for me..."

— Mark Pierre Vorkosigan, Mirror Dance

So you have got your hero. The Call to Adventure has found them. By birth, supernatural aid, or just plain luck, he is the Only One to be granted everything needed to save the world: Cursed with Awesome powers, a suit of Plot Armor in their exact size, the plucky supporting cast. He has basically caught the Hero Ball and is running with it as far as he can, but hiding in the shadows, there is someone with a problem. He might be the villain of the piece, but he is just as likely to be working on the same side as the heroes. Really, this is something that goes deeper than good and evil, love and hate.

It is resentment.

Maybe he is the Determinator, sick of seeing fate grant the hero the world on a silver platter when he himself has spent his whole life trying to achieve it. Maybe he is the Butt-Monkey, and he has had enough of it. Maybe he is The Smart Guy, sick of seeing the Idiot Hero be more successful than him despite numerous Too Dumb to Live moments. Maybe he is the Internal Affairs guy, hating how the Cowboy Cop gets away with breaking the rules time and time again. Maybe he discovered, after striving to his utmost to win a competition, that it had been a Secret Test of Character and his effort had only ensured his loss. Maybe he was Refused by the Call after all his effort.

In any case, there is one thing they certainly agree on: Whoever it is that chooses The Chosen One has clearly chosen the wrong one. The grapes are just out of reach, and that makes them all the more sour. This trope makes for prime Motive Rant bait as, if the resentful one makes a full Face–Heel Turn because of it, expect them to go down screaming about how unfair things are and how much better everything would have been if things had gone the "right" way.

One of the key traits of many a Beta Test Baddie. If the resentment is seen as truly justified, the character has been made Unintentionally Sympathetic.

Compare The Rival and Rival Turned Evil. If the resentment is over a girl, see Two Guys and a Girl.

Contrast Sour Supporter, who just thinks The Hero's insane. See Bastard Bastard for (Half)-Sibling Rivalry.

May turn into an Arch-Nemesis, unless of course the hero doesn't notice. Which is likely to piss them off even more. Or they may redeem themselves somehow, which is odd if you think about it.

See also Driven by Envy and Dude, Where's My Respect?.

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Examples:

• Anime & Manga
• Fan Works
• Video Games
• Western Animation

Comic Books

• Superman:
  • While Lex Luthor's motivations for hating Superman depend on the writer, very often it's because he resents his self-made Badass Normal accomplishments being upstaged by some alien creature who won the Superpower Lottery and can now lord over humanity as the Beloved Favorite Son of Metropolis. He believes he could save the world if not for Superman, as defeating him diverts his attention from real problems he could solve (which Superman points out he would be perfectly fine with letting him do). The Silver Age stretched this back to his Teen Genius years, with an added wrinkle: in Adventure Comics #271: "How Luthor Met Superboy!", Superboy saved Lex from a fire lab -accidentally caused by Lex, mind you-, and Luthor claimed Superboy caused the fire and ruined his experiments out of envy.
  • Action Comics #900, the climax of The Black Ring, gives Luthor an additional reason to resent Superman: he discovers his secret identity and finds out that he grew up in a happy family despite being an alien — while Luthor himself had to grow up with an abusive father.
    Luthor: I was happy to be rid of what I had for a father! But you... You got them! You're not human! You don't deserve to be Clark Kent!
  • In Generations, Joel Kent, the son of Superman, loses his powers in the womb, and grows up with a sister who didn't. They tried to keep it all from him to avert this, but fellow resenter Lex Luthor told Joel and began manipulating his resentment from an early age for his own purposes. Intriguingly, Lex was ultimately responsible for Joel's plight in the first place.
  • In Superman and the Legion of Super-Heroes, Earth Man and his so-called "Justice League" hate the Legion because they wanted to join and were turned down. Earth Man argues that the Legion made young pencil-neck geek Clark "Superboy" Kent an honorary member not because of who he was but because of who he would become.
  • Lucy Lane. As revealed in Who is Superwoman?, Lucy Lane hated the fact that she worked hard to earn her father's approval, whereas her sister Lois, who was the obvious daddy's girl, couldn't care less for Sam Lane's affection. Ultimately, Lucy's envy and resentment led her to join Sam's genocidal conspiracy so he loved her more than her sister.
  • As seen in The Unknown Supergirl, Lesla-Lar hates Supergirl because, as an Earth super-hero, Kara will receive more adoration and accolades than Lesla ever earned.
    Lesla-Lar: I envy and hate her! The honors that I, Lesla-Lar, have earned in Kandor as a scientific genius are as nothing compared to the acclaim the people of Earth will give Supergirl when they learn of her existence!
• Batman:
  • The Long Halloween portrays DA Harvey Dent's feelings toward Bruce Wayne after the latter is acquitted of murder as resentment: that someone as dedicated to doing justice and right as Harvey must see his family live on the edge of poverty, while the supposedly Idle Rich Wayne can live a life of ease, buying anything, even a Not Guilty verdict.
  • Damian "Robin" Wayne resents Tim Drake for having a closer relationship to his father and holding the position of Robin, which Damian considers his birthright. It doesn't help that Damian considers Tim an outsider rather than a brother despite Damian being the outsider, and that Tim will never be able to really trust Damian due to Damian's repeated attempts to murder him. Jason Todd also resents Tim for replacing him and, from his perspective, helping Bruce forget about Jason and the revenge he feels owed. This means that out of the three brothers Tim gained when Bruce adopted him, two have made multiple attempts on his life.
  • Hush is a particularly twisted case, resenting Bruce Wayne for having dead parents and not him (Hush's parents were particularly abusive, leading to his becoming a Self-Made Orphan).
• Rayek in ElfQuest, in almost every flavor of the trope at some point in the story or another. Since the story unerringly paints the Wolfriders as heroes, Rayek's situation is drawn in a rather unsympathetic light no matter what it is.
• Guy Gardner in Green Lantern is resentful for having lost out largely because another candidate was closer to the guy handing out the Hero Ball. He gets over this eventually.
• Sabretooth is this to Wolverine. He has repeatedly expressed the belief that Logan is exactly like him, only he's a hypocrite who won't admit it and tries to act superior. Because of this belief, Sabretooth hates the success Logan has. Logan has numerous women who love him, comrades who respect him, and is overall celebrated as a hero. Meanwhile, Creed is called an animal and looked down on for having the same qualities everyone seems to love in Logan. It's been outright stated by Creed, and shown on a few different occasions. One example being the nightmare Creed has in Death of Wolverine. Logan appears in his nightmare to remind him that even though they're the same, everyone always liked him better and welcome him with open arms in spite of his killing. What Creed refuses to see is that Logan kills for a greater good, while Creed kills for pleasure.
• The initial antagonism between Spider-Man and the Human Torch was because they both resented one another. Peter is envious of Johnny's fame and public status, while Johnny is envious of Peter's relationship with his Aunt May and his status as a Chick Magnet.
• Wonder Woman Vol 2: Veronica Cale's hatred and envy of Wonder Woman was so powerful that she did everything she could to ruin her during Greg Rucka's run on the comic. She ran a smear campaign against Diana, helped turn an innocent acquaintance of Diana's into the next Silver Swan, and released Doctor Psycho in an attempt to turn a crowd of people against Diana. In 52, this trait was eventually dropped, and she became a more typical Mad Scientist after working on the Horsemen of Apokolips project had driven her (more) insane.
• Doctor Doom greatly resents his Arch-Enemy Reed Richards of the Fantastic Four. The reasons for his blinding hatred of Reed are numerous, twisted, personal, and all-around batshit insane, but what has kept it running for two decades in-universe (and five in real life) is a constant dose of this trope. Reed has everything Doom doesn't quite have: a family, loyal friends, public acknowledgement, admiration from people who aren't brainwashed subjects of his own dictatorship, good looks (which Doom once had, and blames Richards for their destruction), acknowledgment as a hero, and most important of all, a handful more IQ points, which he has used to defeat Doom and foil his plans time and time again. In short, Doom cannot stand the fact that Reed is always just one teensy bit better than him at everything and he never admits it all.
  • Comes to an absolute head in Secret Wars (2015). While leading the charge to restore the Multiverse from God-King Doom's Battleworld, the two finally lash out. Doom tries to rub his successes over what he saved into Reed's face while Reed is just pissed that Doom pretty much stole his family from him. As the fight goes on, Doom just accuses Reed that if Reed had all the powers of the Beyonders accumlated by the Molecule Man, that he could've done a better job. Reed finally tells Doom that yes he would've before saying that they both know it. After decades of comic history, Doom finally admits Reed is superior to him before trying to kill him. However, the Molecule Man gives Reed the power to begin restoring the Multiverse. Reed meanwhile leaves Doom a parting gift: he restores Doom's face as a gesture of good will.
• In Gotham Central, Lieutenant Ron "The Probe" Probson greatly resents the fact that Captain Maggie Sawyer received the position of head of First Shift of the Major Crimes Unit instead of him. It's also strongly implied that he dislikes her sexuality and only stays quiet to avoid a discrimination lawsuit. The two characters are forced to work together, but over the course of the story they eventually develop a growing mutual respect.
• The Flash:
  • Prior to his Face–Heel Turn, Hunter Zolomon resented Wally West for being able to run around, solving crimes, while he himself was stuck at a desk job in the Keystone City Police Department due to a previous knee injury. He also felt that Wally couldn't truly be a hero because he has never known personal tragedy. Following his transformation into Zoom, Zolomon became determined that Wally should see things his way, even if it meant attempting to kill Wally's Love Interest in front of him — though, by this point, his resentment had given way to pure insanity and general anger at the world as a whole, with Wally simply being a convenient target.
  • Barry Allen's previously-unknown Evil Twin Malcolm Thawne, better known as the super-villain Cobalt Blue, was separated from his real family at birth to cover up the attending doctor's accidental killing of another child on the same night. Malcolm grew up with the second couple, who were Abusive Parents and con artists; the abuse was exacerbated by them knowing he wasn't really theirs (something Malcolm himself wouldn't learn until years later). It got worse when he learned that Barry was also the Flash and had superpowers he didn't.
  • Barry's grandson Bart had a similar situation with his evil clone Thaddeus, who, like Malcolm, was raised by the Thawnes, specifically Earthgov president Thaddeus Thawne I, who treated him even worse than Malcolm's parents. He eventually devolved into simply being an Axe-Crazy sociopath, however.
• In the Blood & Glory crossover miniseries featuring The Punisher and Captain America, Punisher resents Cap for being hailed as a hero of the World War II, whereas he and other Vietnam veterans were branded as murderers of innocents for just being part of an unpopular war. This makes it all the easier for the bad guys dupe Punisher into believing that Cap is corrupted and part of the illegal weapons deals that had been happening recently, which leads him to try to assassinate him.
• Knights of the Old Republic's Haazen, the Draay family's apparent Old Retainer. Formerly an inept Padawan, he held his rich and talented friend Barrison Draay responsible for his failure to be accepted as a Knight (expecting that Barrison had bribed his way in and would do the same for himself) and for Barrison's marriage to Krynda. He decided to be Barrison's servant and aide rather than find something else to do, which made his resentment worse, and jumped at the chance to betray Barrison to his death. Every action he takes in the present has its roots in his desire to spit on Barrison's grave forever.
• Subverted in a Hellboy comic where a woman gives birth to two daughters, one as beautiful as the other is ugly. Despite the difference, they love each other dearly, and when the beautiful one is turned into a cow by trolls the ugly sister goes out to avenge her.
• The Transformers: Robots in Disguise:
  • Prowl due to the fact that he wanted nothing to do with the war, but was pretty much forced into it by Optimus Prime, since he's good at whatever he does. It's pretty much the reason why he hates NAILs, because he didn't get to be one of them and escape the war like them.
  • Starscream suggests that Rattrap is this as well, because he spent centuries, if not millions of years, stuck on an unimportant, dead-end backwater world fighting Decepticons, and as a result wasn't able to move up the command structure to become someone important, like one of Optimus Prime's inner circle. So Starscream offers him a job in his government.
• Guardians of the Galaxy (2020): Earth-616 Moondragon shows up in issue 3, and (somewhat understandably) turns out to be not a fan of her much more successful, heroic, happier and just generally better alternate counterpart, who for added insult is happily married to her reality's version of Phyla-Vell (still very much dead in our reality).
  Moondragon: Imagine spending your whole life fighting darkness - and then finding out you've been replaced with a version of you from some perfect parallel universe. A Moondragon who never knew what darkness was. A hero wearing your face. How would you feel?
• Heroes Reborn (2021): Despite functioning as a Captain Ersatz of Jimmy Olsen, Peter Parker is revealed to be this in the Amazing Shutterbug one-off. He actually resents Hyperion despite putting on a friendly front, due to the fact that Hyperion keeps blowing off Peter's requests for interviews and etc., seeing Peter as an insignificant nobody. Nothing comes of this as all Peter can do is trash-talk Hyperion behind his back.

Film — Animated

• The Incredibles: Syndrome started out as a sort of Loony Fan who thought he was Mr. Incredible's Kid Sidekick. When Mr. Incredible spurned him, he became the Resenter and worked in adulthood to undermine and destroy Mr. Incredible and his family.
• Snatcher from The Boxtrolls despises the White Hats for looking down on him and people like him and spends his entire life scheming in hopes of reaching the top.
• Tai Lung of Kung Fu Panda so much so, that the fact that his resentment seems so justified makes him Unintentionally Sympathetic.
  • Tigress as well. While it was assumed by all of the Furious Five that one of them would be given the Dragon Scroll, she seemed the most focused on such a goal, believing Oogway had been pointing at her—and when this proved not to be the case, she spent the rest of the movie resenting, belittling, even outright insulting Po every chance she got. Only after she got her ass handed to her by Tai Lung did she start to realize that, whether or not Po was right to be chosen, perhaps she didn't deserve the scroll after all. When Po manages to not only understand the symbolic value of the scroll but use its wisdom to defeat Tai Lung, she is convinced and is at peace with that to the point of growing much closer to the panda.
• Megamind is made of resentment. He and his Born Lucky rival Metro Man arrived on Earth at the same time; Metro knocks his ship off-course and he lands in a prison, while Metro got to live "the good life". Years later, Metro is beloved by his shool, while Megs is ostracized, leading Megs to become a supervillain since everyone hated him anyway. Megamind gets a chance to be The Hero when Metro Man appears to die but fakes his death, but his resentment leads him to ignore the Call.
• Frozen (2013): Part of Prince Hans's motivation to seek a throne for himself is that he hated being last in line for his kingdom's throne, hence the reason why he fakes his romance with Anna so he could get closer to the Arendellian throne and overthrow Elsa by "arranging an accident" for her.

Film — Live Action

• In Amadeus, Salieri is envious of the childish and vulgar Mozart's gifted talent with music. He's also mad at God for giving someone as unworthy as Mozart that level of talent; it's implied that he tried to become a Celibate Hero in some strange bargain with God to be that talented.
• The Batman (2022): Edward Nashton/The Riddler reveals he hates Bruce Wayne because they are both orphans, but while Bruce was rich and well-known, Edward was practically abandoned to freeze and starve. This was incidentally because Bruce's father Thomas, who had promised to fund Edward's ophanage, was murdered, causing the orphanage to go under.
• Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice: Batman's motivation against Superman, aside from the threat he potentially poses to humanity is that in the relatively short time since his debut, Superman has made a genuine difference in making the world a safer place to live, while Batman has made zero progress in saving Gotham City from crime. The moment he sees a way to get rid of Superman, he takes it without thinking about the consequences. Do we even need a spoiler tag to say this ends badly for everyone involved? No, we don't.
• Implied rather subtly with Lady Tremaine's Motive Rant in Cinderella (2015). She reveals that she once married for love but was then left a widow with children and in debt. She implies that she despises the fact that Cinderella was not broken by grief like she was.
• In The Dark Crystal, SkekZok the Ritual-Master is visibly resentful of skekUng the Garthim-Master's rise to power. He even questions the new emperor's competency when it seems the Garthim have failed to capture Jen. In the written material, skekZok was described as the old emperor's favorite and he had his own ambitions to take the throne when the emperor died. Unlike skekSil the Chamberlain, skekZok just didn't have the balls to make his play for the throne against skekUng.
• Miles from Don't Think Twice becomes more and more resentful of his friend (and former student) Jack's success, to the point of eventually crashing a party and punching Jack in the face.
• This is Jeannie's entire motivation in Ferris Bueller's Day Off. Her brother gets away with everything, while she Can't Get Away with Nuthin' and can't even convince others of her brother's con when she unravels it.
• The Godfather Part II: Fredo Corleone resents his younger brother Michael's ascension to Don, feeling it's because everybody else thinks he's The Ditz and can't be trusted with anything important. For his part, Michael sees him as a liability and arranges his death.
• Maria Full Of Grace: María is only 17 but she already works to help support the family. She quits her job after her boss denies her a bathroom break. Her Struggling Single Mother sister, who stays at home caring for her son, criticizes Maria for her decision toward the household. Maria points out to her sister that her son is her responsibility, not Maria's.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe:
  • Obadiah Stane from Iron Man is driven at least in part by his resentment of Tony acting like a Millionaire Playboy while he feels that he does most of the actual heavy lifting behind the scenes, especially since Stane himself did run Stark Industries after the death of Tony's dad and Stane's friend Howard before handing it over to Tony, shouting in his Motive Rant that he's been holding Tony up "for thirty years!" Ironically, Villain Has a Point, and it's because of Obadiah's actions that Tony even starts growing as a person.
    Stane: Do you think just because you have an idea, it belongs to you?
  • Loki from Thor onward is driven in large part by his resentment of his brother Thor, largely as a result of being The Unfavorite to their father. In The Avengers, his motivation for trying to enslave the entire human race is basically that Thor has grown rather fond of them.
  • Adrian "The Vulture" Toomes from Spider-Man: Homecoming is highly resentful of the rich and powerful, particularly Tony Stark, whom he blames for ruining his legitimate business and forcing him into a life of crime. Tellingly, he uses his ill-gotten gains to buy a Big Fancy House right in New York City.
  • Clint Barton in Avengers: Endgame becomes a brutal vigilante after the Snap, bitter and angry that so many scummy criminals lived when his family died.
• Rotti Largo from Repo! The Genetic Opera is full of resentment. First, his love married someone else, to which he responded by killing her. Then his children grew up to be astoundingly psychotic failures. Then he became terminally ill. He would have been Maddened Into Misanthropy if not for the fact that he was always a bastard.
• Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves: Will Scarlet resents Robin for most of the film, though we don't find out why until the last third of the movie. Will is Robin's half-brother and the illegitimate son of their father, who sent him and his mother away because the affair upset Robin. Will and his mother wound up living in poverty, while Robin remained with his family's wealth and legitimate status.
• In Star Trek: The Motion Picture, Decker clearly resents Kirk for having command of the Enterprise given back to him. He delivers a Shut Up, Kirk! after the latter tries to reprimand him for countermanding an order of his when the latter's inexperience with the redesigned ship nearly killed them all. When McCoy enters and speaks with Kirk privately, he suggests that it's Kirk who is resentful of Decker as he has the one thing Kirk doesn't: permanent command of the Enterprise.
• Lt. Col. Tall from Terrence Malick's The Thin Red Line feels slighted due to having been passed for promotion. However, he displays no such characteristics in the novel the film is based on and enjoys a very successful career.
• In What Ever Happened to Baby Jane?, eponymous titular "Baby Jane" Hudson, a forgotten Former Child Star, greatly resents her sister Blanche for having a much more successful career than she did.
• In The Wolverine, Lord Shingen hates the fact that his father prefers his own daughter over himself. He tries to kill her over it.
• Doctor Robotnik in Sonic the Hedgehog was an orphan who had a particularly miserable childhood that drove him to become the sociopathic misanthrope who only loves machines, and according to Jim Carrey he resents Sonic most of all because the blue hedgehog represents the youth and happiness Robotnik never had.

Jokes

• A common joke in many armies is that Anti-Air defenses are manned mostly by Air Force rejects for the extra psychological edge.
  "Why should they get to fly when I can't!?!"

Literature

• Bazil Broketail:
  • This is most likely the main reason behind Turrent's attitude towards Relkin (and, to lesser extent, other dragonboys in the 109th). Despite his long line of service — and officer rank that comes with it — Turrent saw little real action and never got much recognition because of it. Relkin, on the other hand, is a decorated war hero with multiple victorious battles under his belt.
  • Unlike Turrent, who at least had well-established and somewhat understandable motives for resenting his subordinates, Wiliger keeps finding new, increasingly petty reasons for hating them. They range from throwing a tantrum over the fact that he cannot keep his beloved giant "109" sign plastered to his headgear or being knocked out at the beginning of a battle and the dragonboys doing the entire job without him.
• Chalion: Ser Illvin dy Arbanos in Paladin of Souls is widely presumed to be this, being the bastard half-brother of Arhys dy Lutez, March of a critical border fortress and son of a great statesman. However, aside from traces of irritation over his brother's Chick Magnet status ("You could duck, try it sometimes"), Illvin's main feeling toward Arhys is filial affection leavened with pity for what amounted to a fatherless upbringing.
• In Tolkien's The Children of Húrin, both Gwindor and Brandir resent the hero Túrin for stealing their loves and undercutting their authority, but while Gwindor stays a loyal friend, Brandir ends up taking his resentment too far and gets killed by Túrin.
  • Brandir maybe was resentful, but he only spoke the truth—he informed Túrin that he is a Doom Magnet: a curse on his own lineage and those that help him. Túrin killed him and later found out he spoke the truth, then asked his sword Gurthang to kill him, the sword does it to forget Brandir’s blood, because his death was unjust.
• The title character from Cousin Bette towards her wealthy relatives.
• The Fifth Elephant: Much of the reason Dee is so vitriolically opposed to city dwarfs being allowed to demonstrate that they're female is that she's not allowed to.

• In John C. Wright's The Golden Age, The Phoenix Exultant, and The Golden Transcendence, the defining trait of the Nevernexters, and the cacophiles: with the invention of personal immortality, they will never inherit their parents' wealth, and they openly base their entire program on resenting that.
• The demons in Tosca Lee’s Demon: A Memoir are totally consumed by a double dose of resentment: towards God for rejecting them, and towards humanity for not suffering the same fate.
• Friedrich Nietzsche argued in his work The Genealogy of Morals that ressentiment, the essential reassignment of the pain that accompanies a sense of inferiority onto an external scapegoat, is the central effective force for the creation of identities, moral frameworks and value systems. Most particularly, Judaism and Christianity are presented as the creation of the weak who resent how the strong are able to lord over them, and thus create a system of morals to "invert" the natural order.
• In Harry Potter:
  • Severus Snape is the series' biggest example of this. He resents and loathes James for a variety of reasons: James was the Big Man on Campus who was a skilled athlete, handsome and popular on top of being a very skilled wizard along with having a loving family. Snape meanwhile had an abusive father and a neglectful mother, and while a very skilled wizard, he was a Creepy Child with No Social Skills and a massive amount of Pride. Given how James was a notorious prankster and Snape had Moral Myopia, it was only a matter of time before their natural disdain just exploded. James meanwhile hated Snape for embodying every negative aspect of Slytherin and the Dark Arts, though also because he was friends with Lily. Despite this, James was still willing to risk his life to save Snape after his attempts at trying to get the Marauders expelled led to Sirius setting Snape up for a dangerous prank. This just made Snape loathe him more for being in his debt. However, while Snape would double down on his bad behavior (to where Lily finally cut him out of her life), James did mature to where he and Lily went from acquaintances in fifth year to dating by seventh year and marrying a couple years later.
  • Harry's Aunt Petunia resented her sister Lily becoming a witch, but it goes back and forth between whether she thought Magic is Evil, or that she was just envious of Lily for getting into Hogwarts when she didn't (and supposedly became The Unfavorite). Much like Snape, she carried that resentment toward Lily's son Harry and it's why she is obsessed with "normality".
  • Draco Malfoy's motivations are never entirely clear, but it's strongly implied that he resents Harry's fame and his inability to rope Harry into his own social circle. This usually manifests itself in him mocking the unpleasant aspects of Harry's celebrity and generally spending more time than he should trying to upstage him.
  • Ron Weasley is an interesting example because he has to fight through the temptation to become a Resenter throughout the whole series. He's the youngest son in a large family of talented children who are either remarkable or accomplished, resulting in Ron feeling like The Unfavorite. His family is poor, which others mock him for, while his best friend is relatively well-off. Ron is Harry's best friend, but it is Harry whom people notice and pay attention to while Ron feels like the Butt-Monkey. This escalates in the later books as he struggles with his feelings toward Hermione, who is both remarkably talented and intelligent, while she also harbors feelings toward Ron, but he suspects she has feelings for Harry. Ron struggles both with his feelings of resentment and emotions born from it, and often keeps them inside (though Stiff Upper Lip in British culture would account for why they don't just talk it out and There Are No Therapists is in play here). Despite all of this and a few spats between them, Ron remains Harry's closest friend and eventually overcomes these issues. (Fandom, on the other hand, loves playing up this resentment so much that they named a trope.)
  • Aberforth Dumbledore resented his brother from the time they were teenagers until Albus's death, partially because he's lived his entire life in the shadow of the greatest wizard of the era and mostly because Albus pretty directly caused the death of their sister.
• An aversion is found in Christopher Moore's Lamb with young John the Baptist. When Joshua and Biff meet John (Josh's some number of cousin some number of times removed), he's convinced he's the Messiah and has taken to aggressively baptizing younger kids. When Biff and Josh tell him that Josh (Jesus) is the Messiah, and that he's actually mostly raised the dead, John wants to be absolutely sure... and is then grateful to have that load off his shoulders. He wants to help Josh, though, so he keeps baptizing people.
• Lucifer is portrayed as this in the Left Behind series, resenting the worship that he felt belonged to him as God's "anointed cherub" being given to God and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ instead, which led to his rebellion and being cast down to Earth.
• In The Lord of the Rings, one of the reasons Saruman fell from grace was because he resented Gandalf. Saruman the "Wise" might have been the one who everyone turned to for advice and counsel, yet Gandalf was the one who everyone liked and trusted. Basically, Saruman was the guy people would visit only when they wanted something, while Gandalf was the guy people would invite to parties.
• In Memoirs of a Geisha, Chiyo and Pumpkin are taken under the wings of the famous geisha, Mameha and Hatsumomo respectively. They each teach Chiyo and Pumpkin to become top-ranking geisha. Initially, Chiyo and Pumpkin are good friends but, because they're being taught by geisha who are rivals to each other and want to get their "little sisters" on top (Chiyo and Pumpkin) as part of their rivalry, Chiyo and Pumpkin's friendship is effectively ended. Despite this, Chiyo and Pumpkin remain on good terms until Chiyo, now named Sayuri, becomes so successful that she displaces Hatsumomo as the breadwinner for the okiya, and is adopted by the woman who owns it as her daughter and heir, while Hatsumomo's career goes down the drain. However, unfortunately (and tragically) Sayuri never realises that by getting rid of Hatsumomo, she's effectively torpedoed Pumpkin's chance to be a very successful geisha. Pumpkin not only realises this, but she becomes very angry at Sayuri as time passes.
• Nina Tanleven: In The Ghost in the Big Brass Bed, Phoebe Watson was married, has a big old house, and family who loved her, even those she never met. Carla Bond lost her father to suicide, her brother to the streets as a bum, and was raised on the dole through the Great Depression by her mother. She had to work for years to make something of herself, all while blaming the Fletcher family for her family's hardship and vowing to one day get what she felt she deserved.
• In Persuasion, Captain Wentworth takes a long time to stop being angry that his love Anne Elliot broke their engagement while he was Lieutenant Wentworth, as she was persuaded by her godmother that he was Unable to Support a Wife. She thought she was doing him a favor by freeing him from an unwise engagement, but Wentworth was sure that he'd soon win prizes and get rich, and as fortune of war resulted in his optimism bearing fruit, he didn't see any justification to Anne and Lady Russell's misgivings. It's brought up that he could have renewed his addresses after gaining his own command but chose not to, and when he returns as a rich captain he talks a whole lot about how he thinks firmness of mind is the most important trait in a woman while flirting with the spirited Louisa Musgrove. (He later comes to deeply regret this.)
• Red Dwarf: Rimmer is pathologically resentful of pretty much everyone. This can even include himself, when he creates a duplicate Rimmer, the two start being resentful towards one another. Much of Rimmer's behaviour is dedicated toward acting out that resentment in petty fashion.
• This is basically Sir Apropos of Nothing's defining character trait. Eventually comes to a head when he beats the shit out of the Designated Hero and hijacks the entire plot.
• In A Song of Ice and Fire, Petyr "Littlefinger" Baelish became resentful of Brandon Stark, after Brandon soundly defeated him in a duel over the girl Petyr loved and she tries to protect Petyr by dismissing him as "just a boy". So he started developing a plan that resulted in the death of her husband, the Seven Kingdoms being deep in debt, hundreds of thousands of people dying in a pointless war, and consequently being totally unprepared for oncoming Zombie Apocalypse... all because he did not get the girl he loved (or, rather, lusted after).
  • A downplayed example with Arya. She resents her sister Sansa for being so effortlessly good at most skills required by their culture while Arya, no matter what she does, simply cannot catch up. Although she is indulged by her parents, her behavior is not as celebrated when compared to Sansa's. Also, Sansa isn't terribly kind to her either as she disapproves of Arya's behavior — but in the vein of typical sibling rivalry.
  • Catelyn resents her husband’s illegitimate son, Jon Snow, for several reasons — but it has little to do with Jon’s own character, but with circumstances which have affected her: 1) Jon being Ned's illegitimate son who Ned brings home to raise alongside the trueborn children Catelyn has with Ned; 2) Ned's fierce protectiveness of Jon, who Ned loves and openly acknowledges as his own son. From this, Catelyn concludes that Ned must have loved Jon's mother deeply and when she asks Ned who Jon's mother is, Ned is so intimidating that he actually scares her — leading to her fears that maybe Ned loved Jon's mother more than her; and 3) that Jon looks more like a Stark than any of the children (aside from Arya) she bore Ned, who all inherited more of her features. As a result of Westerosi societal prejudice against illegitimate children and the history of the Blackfyres pretty much being responsible for these negative connotations, Catelyn fears that someday Jon or his children might be a threat to the inheritance claims of her own trueborn children and grandchildren — despite Jon's deep love for his trueborn siblings and loyalty to them (unbeknownst to her, Jon ends up turning down inheriting Winterfell). In the television adaptation, she admits that she was unfair to Jon, who she recognizes is an innocent child, and feels guilty over it. In the book series itself, she never interferes in the close bonds Jon shares with his half-siblings and she has moments of softness wherein she wonders if Jon's mother prays for him as she prays for Robb.
    Whoever Jon’s mother had been, Ned must have loved her fiercely, for nothing Catelyn said would persuade him to send the boy away. It was the one thing she could never forgive him. She had come to love her husband with all her heart, but she had never found it in her to love Jon. She might have overlooked a dozen bastards for Ned’s sake, so long as they were out of sight. Jon was never out of sight, and as he grew, he looked more like Ned than any of the trueborn sons she bore him. Somehow that made it worse.
  • Stannis, whose status as the least-popular Baratheon, a string of achievements that were ignored, the main reward he did get being custody of a barren rock miles from anywhere (admittedly also the traditional seat of the rightful heir), and a lengthy list of other grievances, have combined to produce a bitter and rigid man. And his incredible memory means he can't just forget them. He still manages to be one of the more honourable claimants to the Iron Throne, though.
  • Barbrey Dustin, the ruler of one of the Houses of the North, bitterly resents Ned Stark, even after his death. She was wedded to one of his friends and allies, Willam Dustin, who accompanied Ned on his mission to rescue his sister, Lyanna. Before he left, Willam swore to his bride that he would return to her riding the horse she had given him as a wedding present; however, Willam was killed on the mission, and Ned returned the horse to his widow, but not the corpse of her husband. Barbrey is still furious about this years later, so much so that she tells Theon that should Ned Stark's bones ever reach the North, she will take them and scatter them so they can never be buried in Winterfell, as retribution for his leaving her husband's bones behind.
  • Tywin Lannister's younger brother Tygett had some reputation as a warrior, to the point his nephew Jaime is frequently compared to Tygett, but for all his accomplishments, Tygett could never step out of his elder brother's shadow as a skilled general and politican. According to their sister Genna, being overshadowed by Tywin all his life made Tygett more bitter and angry as the years went by.
• Vorkosigan Saga: Mark Vorkosigan's background as a clone commissioned, biosculpted, trained, and tortured into an effective copy of Aral Vorkosigan's son pretty much ensures this attitude at least as an undertone toward the little twerp in question for all that Miles seeks to claim him as a sibling. He gets a lot better in later appearances, at least in part because Aral and Cordelia treated him as being just as much their son as Miles is (which he legally is on Cordelia's homeworld; the situation on Barrayar, where Uterine Replicator technology is relatively novel, is a bit more complicated) and his brother is a genuinely honourable, compassionate and likeable man who sticks his neck out to get his brother out of trouble more than once.
• Warhammer 40,000:
  • In Ben Counter's 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 James Swallow's The Flight Of the Eisenstein, Grulgor resents Garro, claiming that he thinks himself above the rest of them because he came from Terra, and that is why he will not join a lodge. A major factor in his willingness to join Horus.
  • In James Swallow's Deus Sanguinius, believing Rafen to be dead, Sachiel admits to himself how much he resented him, from his quiet strength to his contempt for Sachiel to the way he won the respect of his men.
  • In Red Fury, the Flesh Tearers resent the Blood Angels, assuming out of hand that they are proud and will lord it over the other Chapters derived from Sanguinius because they came from the First Founding. Seth, their Chapter Master, tells them he intends to exploit the Blood Angels' weakness and wishes to take their position on Baal. He openly declares their chapter should be dissolved. After their battle with the Bloodfiends, and Dante's saving his life, Seth declares that these events came about so that they will remember that they are brothers not cousins.
  • In the Ciaphas Cain novel The Traitor's Hand, Tomas Beije profoundly dislikes his old classmate Cain. It's difficult to pin his resentment on any one event without bringing in almost every personality trait of Cain's, but in a quick comparison, Cain is fun-loving, mischievous, not particularly pious, incredibly likable, Really Gets Around, and frequently tackled Beije whenever a scrumball game came up (to be fair, so did every scrumball player opposing him, Beije's attitude never won him many friends). As of him growing up, not much of that changed, through he also seemed decidedly slack on discipline (In other words, he wasn't a trigger-happy task master) in his regiment, and appeared to spend a significant amount of time away from his official duties as a commissar. Beije is... none of those things, and was devoutly religious and a tattletale. However, one of them was stuck with an unremarkable Tallarn unit, while another happens to be regarded as one of the Imperium's greatest heroes, and is the current Commissar to the famed Valhallan 597th. Given the title, you can probably guess which is which. Eventually, Beije attempts to discredit Cain, due to his envy over Cain getting everything handed to him and having everything come easy. This backfires spectacularly: by bringing a Tallarn squad to arrest Cain for desertion (because Cain is investigating a ritual site instead of fighting on the front lines), he only ensures Cain has plenty of witnesses to testify that Cain was right to suspect daemonic influence when Emeli returns as a daemon princess, and that Cain easily fought off her seductions before defeating her, while Beije underwent minor Mind Rape when she touched him. Not only do the Tallarns end up adding Cain to their saints, worshipping him as an incarnation of the Emperor's will, Beije is the one to get officially reprimanded for wasting everyone's time. Cain also officially challenges him to a chainsword duel due to insulting the Valhallan's Colonel Badass unless Beije apologizes (he does so). Cain notes afterwards that he'll pull enough strings to pull Beije's ass out of the fire he lit under himself (Beije's reaction to that is unknown).
• Warrior Cats has Ivypool being envy of all the attention Dovewing has been getting from the older warriors and Firestar himself...though she's never realized her sister's powers yet. When she's told the truth, she's not happy at first about being lied to, but then she promises to help Dovewing out whenever she can.
  • Tigerstar reveals during his and Firestar's Final Battle that he became nothing the moment Firestar joined the Clan. Thus, he had waited for so long to get vengeance on his rival.
• Several of the Forsaken in The Wheel of Time series were originally good guys who switched sides because they couldn't compare to The Chosen One leading humanity's forces. Especially notable is Demandred, who was Always Second Best, in every single way, up to and including height. Sammael and Be'lal were also notable resenters, though their resentment for Lews Therin was said to pale in comparison to Demandred's, even though they had more direct reason.
  • See also Mazrim Taim, who fulfills exactly the same role towards Rand that Demandred did towards Lews Therin Telamon, to the extent that it was a popular fan theory that the two were one and the same, until it was Jossed.
• Yertle the Turtle and Other Stories: Gertrude McFuzz is unhappy with her plain tail, and it doesn't help that another young bird, Lolla-Lee-Lou, has a longer and more feathery one.
• In The Neverending Story, this is Gmork's reason for wanting to see Fantastica destroyed; the Fantasticans have a world to call home, and he never did.
• Spy School: Spyder Agent Ashley Reeves is very bitter over an Olympic Trials judge saying she didn't stick a landing. Ben's classmate Warren is also pretty envious of him and relishes the chance to put him down.
• The Witch of Knightcharm: An older student named Lorelei clearly despises how she's one rank below Lauren and has been forced into being her servant. Unfortunately for the protagonist Emily, who has been 'favored' by Lauren, Lorelei seems to hate her as well.

Live-Action TV

• It is implied that this, along with Sibling Rivalry, was what came between Shawn Farrell and his brother Danny in The 4400. To be fair to Danny, Shawn kind of stole his girlfriend and their mother's attention, was basically a dick for the first season, and then got superpowers. This probably contributed to Danny's decision to take Promicin in the last season.
• Colonel Ari ben Zayn in the Babylon 5 episode "Eyes" turns out to be this; he was one of the top candidates to run the station, but the Minbari, who had veto power, rejected him and many other top candidates for Sinclair, who was well down the depth chart. His "investigation" of Sinclair is specifically meant to get the latter decommissioned. Of course, Colonel ben Zayn showed massive signs of mental instability which would have gotten him passed over anyway even if the Minbari hadn't interfered. His own aide turned on him and sided with Sinclair as a result.
• From the look he gave him, this was probably the reason Walter White of Breaking Bad blew up the car of the jerkass with the license plate KEN WINS at the service station. It seems logical that a man with many problems in his life including financial yet at that time still did his best to be a kind, moral man would have a general resentment of a rich jerkass with few responsibilities. However, envy can hardly be considered Walt's primary sin, and over the course of the show he starts to ease out of it as he starts getting what he wants more and more.
  • This is also Walter's central motivation in building his meth empire. He eventually confesses that resentment over Eliot and Gretchen's success in Gray Matter while he was stuck as a high school chemistry teacher meant he would never stop cooking.
• Buffy the Vampire Slayer:
  • Faith, whose Face–Heel Turn came largely as a result of resenting that, although she was the Slayer, Buffy had the family and friends she never had, the role of leader, and all the respect and credit Faith feels she deserved as well.
  • Willow is also revealed to be one. "Six years as a side man, now I get to be The Slayer."
• Colonel John Casey made it clear from day one that he resented having to guard "that moron" Chuck. Strangely, he had a problem with his orders to kill Chuck upon completion of the Intersect. The series constantly played with the idea that he might Face–Heel Turn. (He still might.)
• Cobra Kai: Downplayed. Johnny starts out resentful of Danny's success, but mellows considerably once his own fortunes turn, even though he is nowhere near as successful.
• Downton Abbey: Miss Sarah O'Brien, Lady's Maid to Lady Grantham. Despite her skills, it's clear that a life serving her social superiors has rendered her embittered and underhand.
• Game of Thrones:
  • Catelyn always resented her husband Ned Stark's illegitimate son, Jon Snow, for being Ned's son by another woman and not her own.
  • Locke holds a bitter hatred for highborn nobles, believing they're all snobs who look down upon people like him. Although this doesn't extend to the Boltons.
  • Cersei Lannister is this especially for Jaime, but also for her father, husband and even Tyrion due to their respective positions of power which she believes came from the fact that they're men. While the society of Westeros is very sexist and she may have had a point back then, she's filled about twenty years since with resenting others and doing nothing constructive with her own position of power as the damn queen, which has led to the present situation where Cersei's completely justifiably being denied power due to her incompetence. She also is visibly this towards Brienne of Tarth, who by her achievements and not being nearly as reliant on being a Tarth as Cersei is on being a Lannister, much less on being beautiful, pokes a sharp hole in Cersei's worldview.
  • Stannis Baratheon was highly embittered and melancholic before the outbreak of the war, as a result of not having his contributions recognized and properly rewarded, and this gets out of hand when he learns that his claim to the throne was usurped not only by the Lannister-Baratheon bastards but also by his own brother Renly.
    Stannis Baratheon: My enemies think they've destroyed me. They're laughing at me, the way Renly laughed at me. I want Joffrey dead. I want Robb Stark dead. Make me another son.
  • Renly believes that he would make a far better king than either of his brothers or Robert's sons, but he's fourth (becoming second after the incest revelation) in line for the throne. He is one of many people with no legitimacy to rule who would want to do this anyway.
  • Euron has some massive resentment issues over Balon being chosen as King rather than him.
    Balon: Move aside for your King!
    Euron: Haven't I always, brother?
• Iron Fist (2017): Davos was once Danny Rand's best friend and sworn brother. When Danny was chosen to receive the power of the Iron Fist instead of him, he eventually lets his envy and resentment boil over until he cooks up a plan to steal Danny's power.
• Jupiter's Legacy: In the flashback of episode 7, Walter hated how Sheldon always had it easy and people listen to him because he's the favorite, the "golden boy", while no one ever listens to Walter or took him seriously, not even their dad. If he had then he might never have Driven to Suicide when their company went under. It may have also contributed to his descend into villainy.
  Walter: (to Blackstar) I'm not my fucking brother!
• Johnny Crowder in Justified resents Boyd over a gunshot wound he received in season 1, leaving him disabled. Although technically that was his own fault for trying to play sides between Boyd and Bo, the latter of whom caught wind of it and Boyd was genuinely sorry about that. He also resents Boyd and Ava for their plans to move to the suburbs and leave him behind. His endless plotting against Boyd, including his decision to tell the Marshals about Boyd's arrangement to deliver Drew to the Tonins, stems from his deep-seated resentment. It finally boils over to full-on feuding in Season 5 when Johnny gets a gang of his own and goes to war, and he meets his end by Boyd's hand.
  • Johnny also resents Colt, disgusted that Boyd would trust a man outside the family and region. Colt's incompetence and violence toward Teri only exacerbates Johnny's resentment. To be fair, however, Colt was disrespectful to Johnny when they first met.
• Kamen Rider Gaim: Mitsuzane "Mitchy" Kureshima starts off as Kouta's best friend and The Smart Guy - the youngest son of an important family, he acts serious and studious at home to keep his Aloof Big Brother Takatora happy, and only around his friends in Team Gaim can he "let his hair down". Except then Takatora reveals that he's been carrying around an incredibly weighty secret, and appoints Mitchy as his Secret-Keeper and heir ("What we do is monstrous, but it must be done. Not everyone can see the big picture like we do, Mitsuzane; you're one of the only people in the world I'd trust with this."). As Kouta continues to fight his brother's "evil organisation", Mitchy increasingly comes to see him as a dangerous moron, eventually feeding him deliberate misinformation in an effort to get him killed. When it looks like Takatora is actually coming around to Kouta's point of view, and willing to abort his Necessarily Evil plan in order to follow Kouta's more idealistic one instead, Mitchy snaps and (apparently) murders Takatora, then uses his armour as a disguise to directly assault Kouta.
• Mako Mermaids: An H₂O Adventure: Cam grows increasingly envious over Zac's merman powers as the first season goes on. While the two of them have fun sharing Zac's secret and using the magic trident they found against the mermaids, Zac abandons the rivalry after he nearly kills Lyla, leading Cam to conclude that helping Zac was All for Nothing. He then manipulates Nixie and Evie into helping him steal the trident and tries to use it to gain merman powers for himself.
• In Noah's Arc, this is a big part of Guy's motivation. He resents Alex for having a man like Trey and treating him the way that he does, so he goes out to get Trey for himself.
• Though they didn't become villains, Taylor of Power Rangers Wild Force and Sky of Power Rangers S.P.D. are this towards the Rookie Red Ranger of their series, Cole and Jack respectively. For Taylor, it's because she was the first and the leader for a year before Cole came to Animarium and he ended up becoming leader because his chosen Power Animal had a higher rank than hers. She got over it after awhile. For Sky, he was top of the class in SPD, but his arrogance (and a dash of sexism) caused him to fail a test of character, leading to Cruger to give Jack, who was basically on Community Service, the role as a bit of ego-deflating. Sky does get the role in the end, after having that ego brought down big time.
• More than a few characters on Scandal are plagued by resentment. One example is Abby, who owes Olivia a debt for getting her out of an abusive marriage. In the episode "Seven Fifty-Two", Abby reveals she is starting to resent Olivia for that debt, and how the debt cost her a chance to be genuinely happy with David.
• Smallville: Davis Bloome learns he is a Kryptonian and the son of General Zod and Faora. His parents snuck his infant self into Kal-El's rocket just before it launched, but when it landed, he crawled away into the bushes, so Jonathan and Martha Kent didn't notice him and left him behind. Lionel Luthor picked him up and experimented on him before rejecting him, then he was bounced through several foster homes. When he finds out, he gets pissed at Clark for growing up with loving parents while he didn't.
• Star Trek:
  • Star Trek: The Original Series:
    • In "Court Martial", James T. Kirk and Ben Finney were friends when they were younger, until Kirk logged a mistake Finney had made aboard the Republic that could have blown up the ship had it not been discovered. This caused Finney to be reprimanded and dropped to the bottom of the promotion list. Years later, Finney, still burning with resentment of being denied the captaincy he believed Kirk had taken from him out of envy but pretending to have forgiven him, faked his death and framed Kirk for it. When discovered, Finney breaks into a tirade about how he has "killed" the Enterprise (by causing the ship's orbit to decay) and that he doesn't care about the people he'll kill as they are "officers and gentlemen, captains all...except for Finney, and his one mistake!"
    • Janice Lester in "Turnabout Intruder" combines this with Yandere resulting in Grand Theft Me.
  • Star Trek: Deep Space Nine:
    • As explained by Kira at one point, Vedek/Kai Winn hates Sisko because her crowning achievement, being appointed as High Priest of the Prophets and spiritual leader of her entire planet, is overshadowed by the arrival of The Chosen One himself (Sisko), who turns out to be an alien, no less. Top it off with her secret shame that the often chatty (if confusing) deities have never spoken to her, and this eventually leads to a Face–Heel Turn. Which is probably why the Prophets (who experience the past, present, and future all at once) never liked her.
    • Gowron becomes resentful of General Martok's military successes and popularity that he starts sending Martok on highly dangerous missions in the hopes of getting the man killed or at the least defeated badly enough that it costs him popular support. Gowron's behavior causes massive losses to the Klingons and badly effects the allied war effort at the worst time possible, until Worf does what he has to with Sisko's approval to put a stop to Gowron.
  • In Star Trek: Enterprise's Mirror Universe episode, Mirror Archer reads the biography of his more successful counterpart. This pisses him off so much and makes him so envious that he starts hallucinating his prime counterpart either taunting him or encouraging him to commit more evil acts in his quest for power.
• Vice-President John Hoynes on The West Wing. He was a lock for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination, until dark horse candidate Bartlet came out of nowhere and started winning primaries — with the help of a team that included Josh Lyman, formerly Hoynes's most trusted lieutenant. Worse, after Bartlet got the nomination, Hoynes was insulted by the offer of the VP slot, and accepted it largely on the understanding that it would be "his turn" next time (and that "next time" would come after only one term, because of Bartlet's MS). His resentment was routinely exacerbated by the fact that the VP is traditionally more or less a prop for the White House's agenda, so he's generally ignored unless Bartlet wants to wheel him out to lend moderate credence to his more radical policies, which Hoynes doesn't necessarily even support. (This last in particular has some Real Life parallels with John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson.)
• The White Queen: George of Clarence is envious of both of his brothers because he feels that he's not their equal. His older brother Edward IV is king and thus the most powerful person in England, and it's a position that George covets. He's also envious of his younger brother Richard of Gloucester because the latter owns more titles and lands than he does, so Richard has more prestige.
  Richard: (suspicious) A very sudden interest in the honour of your country, George. Could there be something in it for you?
  George: Why not, you both have enough already. When we take France, you will need a regent, I could do that, seeing as [Edward] will be busy being king and [Richard's] got ten titles as well as the whole of the north of England virtually to himself.
  Edward: (amused) Have you been counting, George?
  • And later:
    Richard: [Edward] may have forgotten your turn to Warwick, but I have not.
    George: And I've not forgotten that you've got Warwick Castle, despite the fact that the title belongs to me. You both have more than your fair share already, so maybe it's time I started to take things.

Music

• P.D.Q. Bach's A Little Nightmare Music, features a mysterious playwright from another century, appearing to accuse Salieri of murderous resentment toward Mozart. Salieri does inadvertently kill Mozart, but only because the servant PDQ Bach bumps him as he tries to poison the mysterious playwright.
• Uncrowned by Celldweller is written in the perspective of one.
• The Megas:
  • Protoman. To be fair, if you were taken apart to build your father's new child, who is now living in your place with no knowledge that you ever existed, you would probably not be overly pleased either when you came back. He eventually lets go of it after a Kirk Summation from Mega Man, deciding to move on and find a new path.
    They lost me, forgot me/Made you from parts of me/If you're the one, my father's son/Then what am I supposed to be?
  • Wily, too, seems to - among other things - resent that either Light or Mega Man is considered to be a hero and he isn't, despite the sacrifices he's made in pursuit of what he believes to be a better world.
    So tell me why/I'm the one that they fear/And for him they cheer

Professional Wrestling

• One of the most widely used angles in any form of wrestling, typically between two faces where one is arguably more popular than the other, in a Tag Team, or within a family.
  • The epic feud between brothers Bret and Owen Hart, where Owen even called his rise towards main event status as him "leaping out of the shadow" of his more accomplished older brother. Even when Owen made his Face–Heel Turn at the Royal Rumble in '94 after months of build-up and tension, he was unable to get the match he craved with Bret until Bret finally relented and they opened that year's WrestleMania with one of the event's greatest ever matches, where Owen beat Bret cleanly, but was still overshadowed by Bret winning back the WWF Championship in the night's main event.
  • Resentment at Hulk Hogan's popularity, combined with his intense envy for Miss Elizabeth led to Macho Man Randy Savage become this ("OH YEAH, YOU'VE GOT JEALOUS EYES, HULK HOGAN!"). Bonus points for the two of them actually forming a tag team known as The Mega-Powers, and their WrestleMania match was famously known as "The Mega-Powers EXPLODE!"
  • After Edge won the King of the Ring tournament in 2001, it eventually led to his tag team partner Christian turning on him and beating him down with his own trophy, as well as a one man Con-chair-to, the team's signature move.
  • Molly Holly was portrayed as this in 2003 against Trish Stratus. Molly also convinced Gail Kim to help her in her cause, prompting Jim Ross to name the two "The Jealous Jezebels".
    • On the other hand, considering how Trish treated Molly, it's not too hard to sympathize with Molly hating her.
  • CM Punk plays with your emotions because he hates each and every single one of you and he will not stop until he has proven he is better than Low Ki, AJ Styles and Samoa Joe.
  • Daizee Haze turned on her fire forged friend Mickie Knuckes after Knuckles won the IWA Mid-South\NWA Midwest Woman's title in a triple threat match with a disputed finish. NWA Midwest agreed with Haze, but awarded the belt to MsChif(who Haze was already at odds with) while Knuckles remained IWA M-S's title holder.
  • Matt Hardy's 2009 feud with Jeff Hardy. Matt just lost his ECW championship and became envious of Jeff's rise to the top. As a result, he sabotaged Jeff's match against Edge, thus destroying their brotherly bonds.
    • In fact, a lot Matt's feuds with Jeff have always had envy as the underlying factor. The fact that Matt always seems to be the one resenting his brother makes you wonder if he really does have a chip on his shoulder.
  • Austin Aries's turn against Ring of Honor had to with the fact that despite him doing more than anyone to take down Age Of The Fall, the ROHBots cheered more for Tyler Black than himself, the same Tyler Black who helped start Age Of The Fall.
  • Alissa Flash resented the foreign knockouts Sarita and Ayako Hamada coming in with video packages and fan fair while she was largely ignored. After the other knockouts helped her defeat Cody Deaner, "tainting" what should have been her first win, she showed her frustration by throwing Hamada down the bleachers.
  • Angel Orsini toward Jazz (whom she doesn't need much motivation to hate anyway) and Mercedes Martinez in WSU 2010. Orsini had been on a role for there for years but in comes Homicide, singing the latter two's praises, then comes Pro Wrestling Illustrated, naming Mercedes MVP of the promotion and second best wrestler in the world that year (#1 was Madison Eagles).
  • Both Jesse Ventura and Carlito supported Sheamus on Monday Night Raw, simply because Sheamus wasn't John Cena. Ventura lamented that he never got a title shot while WWE conspired to keep John Cena champion while Carlito said he did not even like Sheamus but that Sheamus represented everyone in the locker room who hated John Cena.
  • On Monday Night Raw it was revealed that The Usos and Tamina Snuka attacked the Hart Dynasty because they felt their families did not get the deserved recognition the Harts got in comparison and resented the Dynasty for it.
  • Smith "Big Game" James revealed that he resented Carlito Colón "for being handed everything he ever wanted in wrestling." and supposedly throwing it away. (presumably, this being in reference to Carlito's WWE run) during their time in NWA New Jersey.
  • CM Punk's 2011/2012 feud with John Laurinaitis stems from Johnny's envy and resentment. His brother is one half the legendary Road Warriors and his tag team partner in the Dynamic Dudes was Shane Douglas, one of ECW's perennial main eventers. Yet despite having the look, Johnny was so bland that he couldn't land a decent job in the states and eventually had to trade in his tights for a suit to get anywhere in the business. Compare that to Punk, who doesn't have the look, doesn't fit the mold, wasn't made to succeed in the WWE, yet has achieved more in one year of his career than Johnny has his entire life. Johnny's so bitter over it that he spent a good chunk of his tenure as General Manager making Punk's life miserable and attempting to rid him of the WWE title. Just to rub salt in the wound, Punk would end up holding the title for 434 days, making him the longest-tenured WWE Champion of the modern era and pretty much immortalizing him in WWE history, while Johnny got fired from his position as General Manager.
  • Roderick Strong toward Kevin Steen, who continued to be cheered for by the fans despite burying everything Ring Of Honor then stood for and trying to destroy the company with S.C.U.M. He was also this way in Pro Wrestling Guerilla, partially at then champion Kyle O'Reilly but mostly at the fact he realized the promotion had basically set him up as a fall guy.
  • During 2012, La Amapola revealed that she resented that Estrellita was accepted by CMLL's tecnicas even though she was a former AAA luchadora who joined with other invading luchadors who were out to prove that even though they had left AAA for the independent circuit they were still better than CMLL's locker room back in 2010. It should be noted Amapola had no problem aligning Estrellita or anyone else in that group prior to Estrellia's Heel–Face Turn.
  • Roderick Strong, Jimmy Jacobs and BJ Whitmer's combined resentment over wrestlers leaving Ring Of Honor for larger companies lead them to found Decade, as that is how long each of them had been in the company.
  • James Storm already did not like The Great Muta, for apparently disrespecting him while they were both in WCW but he started actively resenting Muta when TNA struck up a deal with Wrestle 1 and he saw the morale in TNA's locker room rise since many of the wrestlers regarded the Great Muta as a legend. James Storm believed himself to be the legend TNA wrestlers should be excited about, so he started bullying the Seiya Sanada from Wrestle 1, whom Muta put much hope in.
  • Taeler Hendrix hated the fact she had to pay for her wrestling training in pennies and live out of a car while Ring Of Honor, who originally only used Hendrix as a tomato can, gave Mandy Leon a much fairer chance to sink or swim straight out of the dojo.
  • Silas Young resented that the four way dance he won during ROH's 14th anniversary was taped as an internet exclusive instead of being shown on the pay per view, claiming the New Japan wrestlers were stealing all the best spots while his was relegated to a place only nerds could see and that New Japan guys couldn't be so tough since Gedo was a part of that four way. So Young challenged Katsuyori Shibata to defend the NEVER Openweight Title belt against him at Death Before Dishonor.
  • Chris Jericho's 2016 feud with AJ Styles where he was envious of AJ Styles getting all the attention, so he turned heel on Styles after they had a match against The New Day

Religion and Mythology

• Older Than Feudalism The Bible examples:
  • The Old Testament tells us that this is the motive for Cain's murder of Abel. God told him that his sacrifice was unacceptable and Abel's sacrifice was acceptable. He was even told that if he did right, he would be accepted.
  • In the New Testament, the older brother in Christ's parable of the Prodigal Son is understandably resentful when his father not only welcomes back his ne'er-do-well younger brother, but also throws a huge party in his honor. The father has to gently remind him that he's still set to inherit everything the old man owns — while the younger brother blew his entire wad when he left — and to just be happy that his brother is okay.

Tabletop Games

• A number of the fallen Primarchs in Warhammer 40,000 resented the Emperor, one or more of their brother Primarchs, or both. Perturabo has to be the standout example, as his hatred of Rogal Dorn played a major role in driving him to the dark in the first place.
• In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, the Shadow Lord tribe serves as this to the Silver Fangs, the royal tribe that rules over the Garou Nation.
• In Battletech, Clan Jade Falcon has a long grudge against Clan Wolf, as they were Kerensky's chosen Clan and have exclusive rights to his genetic material.

Theatre

• In Jasper in Deadland, Mr. Lethe resents being given only a river for his troubles when the other gods got the heavens, seas, and Underworld.
• This is a large part of Don John's motivation in Much Ado About Nothing. He's the heroic Don Pedro's bastard brother, and recently lost a battle to him. Don Pedro forgives him and John joins the former's party, but remains bitterly resentful. The other part of Don John's motivation is that, by his own admission, he's just a massive prick who enjoys doing dickish things.

Visual Novels

• Ace Attorney:
  • In Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney, Kristoph Gavin became very angry when he found that Phoenix Wright had been chosen over him to represent a defendant; from Kristoph's point-of-view, it looked like said client had chosen Phoenix over himself because Phoenix had beat the client at poker and he hadn't. In actuality, the client wasn't paying attention to the results so much as how they played the game; he saw a ruthless streak in Kristoph's play that he deemed dangerous. It turned out that his judgment was absolutely right; Kristoph would go on to destroy Phoenix's career by tricking him into using falsified evidence and later personally killed that defendant. The Hiimdaisy comic at the top of this page actually outlines Kristoph's view of the situation very well.
  • Before that there was Justice For All's Morgan Fey, who is very bitter that her younger sister had better spiritual powers than her and became the Kurain master, while she was shuffled off to one of the Branch families. So much in fact that she tries to get her sister's last daughter, Maya, arrested for murder and then murdered herself. Trials and Tribulations reveals that the entire Fey clan is full of Resenters, which is important for the backstory of the last case.
• Dennis from Double Homework clearly has significant envy for the popularity and charisma of the “Esau” of a protagonist.
• Sakura for Rin in the "Heaven's Feel" scenario of Fate/stay night. It doesn't become an issue... Except until the point where it ought to stop being an issue because she's already won.
  • Illyasviel von Einzbern for Shirou in all three routes due to being convinced that Kiritsugu abandoned her in favor for him and it's the main reason she kills him in a few of the Bad Endings. It's not until Taiga tells her about Kiritsugu's circumstances that she drops the resentment and accepts Shirou as her brother.
• Sakazaki Yuuya shows slight hints of this for his brother Sakuya in Hatoful Boyfriend when speaking to a third party. Yuuya is absolutely devoted to his brother and would willingly sacrifice himself for him, longs for his happiness, is proud of his better traits... and Sakuya detests him and is a hyper-pampered aristocrat with some very obvious blind spots. Yuuya's devotion has a degree of spite mixed in with the love, and he does think of Sakuya with a degree of condescension.

Webcomics

• Drowtales: Quaintana might be the Drowtales equivalent of Big Boss, but her abusive and ruthless nature has caused many of her closest followers to develop agonizing grudges against her less-than-heroic actions; her daughter Syphille never forgave her for being passed over as the heir just because she took an "abnormal" style of combat (bonus points for being forced to raise the ignorant brat who was the heir), Su'ube spent centuries as her lieutenant but she felt betrayed when Quaintana rejected her daughter for the position of general in favor of a gullible kid with humanitarian pursuits, and a good chunk of her Saghress army thought it was hypocritical when she formed an alliance with one of the Sharen queens after they had sacrificed so much to conquer Chel from said Sharen (ignoring the very real threat of starvation as the Sharen seized all of the Saghress' agricultural sectors in the war). They all try to kill Quaintana out of revenge, and she gladly accepts their challenges until they finally succeed.
• In Tales of the Questor Rahan is revealed, at the eve of Quentyn's departure, to have tormented Quentyn so long out of resentment — for his status as the Woobie, for seemingly skating off scot-free whenever he brings trouble down on the village, and for how he always lands on his feet.
• Hoh from Tower of God absolutely loathes Bam for being crazy talented and really humble and friendly about it, especially since Bam's talent put him in a very difficult position. Or as Serena Linnen put it, he shines so bright, you can only close your eyes and be bitter. This leads to Hoh's parting words: "Right [...] I just for some reason really hated you, Bam!"
  • Rachel also hates Bam because the only thing worse than watching someone who lived his whole life in the dirt do better than you ever will on his very first trial, is the very real fear that same moronic person would reach the top of the tower and make the very tiny and tormenting wish for both of them to go back to his home in the dirt. In other words, he is better than everyone else, and he will waste the wish that everyone wants on something that nobody else would ever want.
• In M9 Girls! Vero resents best friend Karla spending time with the M9 Girls instead of her.
• Homestuck: Karkat, towards John, so much that he ends up getting a crush on him, in a weird troll romance sort of way.
• In Prophecy of the Circle Yaren towards his former friend Jacind, for losing to him in a contest determining which of them would become the leader of Oros, even though Jacind should technically have been disqualified before the final challenge.
• Magick Chicks: Hoo boy, does Cerise have issues with Melissa.
  • According to Jacqui, Cerise never forgave Melissa for diverting everyone's attention from her, back when they were kids. It didn't help matters any that everything always seemed to go her way, or simply fell into her lap, or the fact that even Hecate favored her, despite all Cerise's efforts. It was only a matter of time before she snapped.
• In El Goonish Shive, after losing a match to Sarah, Larry mutters that she's a "fake geek lesbian".

Web Original

• On Game Grumps, Arin has admitted he initially felt this way about Dan. After Jon left the show and Dan took his place, Arin explained there was a period of time where he felt threatened by his new co-host and felt that Dan was much funnier than him, and actually came to despise him for a while. The feeling has long-since passed of course, and when Arin admitted it during an episode of Grumps Dan was simultaneously amused and flattered by the notion.
• This also seems to be the only thing driving Kismet forward in the Whateley Universe. She hates Fey because Fey gets everything. Fey is prettier. Fey is a better and more powerful wizard, even though Fey is younger. Every time she tries to one-up Fey, it fails. She's put her team into a Team Tactics course solely to show up Fey and Fey's team. If she wasn't such a Bad Boss, her team might even succeed at it.
  • Also, Sharisha/Tempest, who utterly hates Chaka for being pretty, smart, having awesome powers, a team full of real friends and having heaps of people wanting to date her, especially since Chaka used to be male. Sharisha, who is fat, plain, doesn't have many friends, isn't very good at using her powers and doesn't have anyone after her, hates that a boy (which is how she sees Chaka, who is very female) gets everything she doesn't. Sadly, she doesn't realise that if she and Chaka weren't fighting, Chaka could probably help her with her powers, and if she didn't lash out at everyone, they'd like her more.
• In Worm, Armsmaster is this to Dauntless, as Armsmaster is a Badass Normal Gadgeteer Genius who needs to spend hours improving his technology, training, and practicing, whereas Dauntless' powers mean that he effectively gets stronger every day with no effort. It's this resentment that eventually pushes Armsmaster to become a Fallen Hero, endangering the truce between heroes and villains which gives everyone a slight chance against Endbringer attacks for the sake of his own glory. Ironically, Dauntless is trapped in a bubble of frozen time during that same fight.

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