Basic Trope: The youngest sibling is The Hero or the best in life success/luck in general.
- Straight: There are three siblings: Alice, Bob and Chris. Alice and Bob look down on Chris, thinking him a fool, yet when it comes time to venture out and prove themselves, both Alice and Bob fail miserably, while Chris saves a kingdom and earns the Standard Hero Reward.
- Exaggerated: Lance is the youngest of twelve siblings, and the only one who achieves anything of importance with his life, going from a simple Farm Boy to ruler of half the world. His siblings all become beggars and die young.
- Downplayed:
- There are two siblings, David and Emily. Emily proves herself, while David does not.
- Chris ends up wealthier than Alice and Bob, but they all manage to earn a living in the end.
- Chris ends up wealthier than Alice and Bob, but only because he married into money.
- Justified:
- As the youngest, Chris won't inherit much of their family's fortune, and so has more invested in finding his own riches.
- Chris learns from the mistakes of his siblings and therefore makes fewer of his own.
- Alice and Bob did not prove themselves the way Chris did, because Alice is a jerkass and Bob is Too Dumb to Live.
- Chris is The Chosen One because of the timing of his birth.
- Threshold Guardians gave the siblings a Secret Test of Character, and only Chris passed.
- All three siblings learn trades, but what Chris learns happens to pay better than what the other two learn.
- Their parents didn't think they did a good enough job of raising Alice and Bob, so they tried harder with Chris and didn't repeat their parenting mistakes. In fact, Chris was a "do-over" child.
- Both Alice and Bob were born with crippling physical and/or mental disabilities, and Chris is the only one who was born "normal".
- Chris note was young enough for Video Games to affect his upbringing, whereas to Alice and Bob note it just seemed like a fad that ended in 1983.
- Inverted:
- Alice, the oldest child, wins.
- Alice and Bob are a Brother–Sister Team who set out to do everything, with Alice as The Leader and Bob as The Lancer, while Chris is lazy and spoiled.
- Sibling Seniority Squabble
- Subverted:
- The parents describe Chris as their most talented child, but he appears to be nothing special compared to Alice and Bob.
- Chris doesn't realize he's in the wrong genre; this isn't a "youngest kid is the cunning one" story, this is an "overlooked middle child proves himself the well-adjusted happy medium" story, and Bob is The Hero.
- Chris' luxurious life circumstances and/or Alice and Bob's less-than-luxurious conditions are illusions.
- Double Subverted:
- No one thinks much of Chris at first, but he turns out to be smarter and better skilled than they realized.
- Chris was Brilliant, but Lazy at first, but outshines Bob in a sequel.
- But Chris is working much harder than the other two to get to luxury and it finally comes to fruition.
- Parodied:
- Chris is so skilled that even the narrator forgets that Alice and Bob exist.
- Chris is very spoiled and lazy, but is Genre Savvy enough to realize that he's immune to bad endings because he's (A) in a fairy tale, (B) the youngest child, and (C) the main character.
- Zig-Zagged: First, Bob appears to be on top. Then, Chris outshines him. And finally, Alice wins.
- Averted:
- Bob, the middle child, wins.
- The three are equals throughout their lives.
- None of the characters has any siblings.
- Enforced: "We need to provide Wish-Fulfillment for our target demographic of young kids." "Let's have Chris, the baby of the family, get rich, while his Big Brother Bully Bob and foolish sister Alice end up homeless."
- Lampshaded: "Why am I not surprised the youngest of us gets to be The Chosen One?"
- Invoked:
- Chris earns his happy ending.
- Chris deliberately screws up Alice and Bob's attempts to earn a living.
- Exploited: Alice and Bob are lazy and mooch off Chris.
- Defied:
- Chris, Alice, and Bob agree to work together and share the reward fairly, and even after decades, none of them is better than the other.
- Chris shares his wealth with his brother and sister.
- Discussed: "I wonder who will come out of top?" "Probably Chris, because he's the youngest, but you never know."
- Conversed: "Why does the youngest child always win out? It's terribly unfair. Some of us viewers are older siblings, you know."
- Implied: Chris lives in a Big Fancy House, while Alice and Bob have shacks.
- Plotted a Good Waste: In a last-minute revision, the writer decides to change the main character from the middle child to the youngest.
- Deconstructed: After Chris finally outshines his brother and sister, they fall out of communication.
- Reconstructed: Alice and Bob finally talk to their younger brother after realizing they need his help, and Chris finds he is no better than them if he ignores them.
- Played for Laughs: While Alice and Bob work their hardest to achieve their goals (and fail because they're older than Chris), Chris gets daily rewards from the magical fairy who will later be his wife. Said fairy also happens to be a transformed horrendously ugly dog he took care of years ago, knowing that it would somehow help him.
- Played for Drama:
- After proving himself better, Chris arrogantly pays them back for all the years Alice and Bob spent tormenting him as their "foolish, worthless baby brother". They struggle with how he's completely overshadowed him, and their resentment breaks the family apart.
- Chris murders Alice and Bob.
Back to Youngest Child Wins.
