Gilgamesh: BAAAAARTZ! I'm back with a vengeance!
Bartz: And... you are...?
Bartz: And... you are...?
Two characters can be competing for the same goal, without one of them even aware of the competition. Maybe the reason they haven't picked up on the rivalry is that it is hard to take their rival seriously. Maybe they're a Consummate Professional for whom what they do is "just business." Maybe the rival simply hasn't shown up onscreen at the same time. Perhaps they do acknowledge the would-be rival's skills, but someone far superior has already taken the coveted spot. It might just be that the rival is so much weaker, that they can't be considered a serious threat. Whatever the reason, the rival is competing for the same thing as the other character. Objectives for competition may be the fair maiden's hand, simple revenge, a pot of gold, the title of "World's Best Whatever" or the extra-special MacGuffin of the week.
This is common with non-evil antagonists, giving writers a character who can be a source of tension without necessarily being a bad guy. Compare But for Me, It Was Tuesday. See also We Meet Again, which is usually followed by a "Have we met before?", much to the would-be-rival's chagrin.
A Super-Trope to Enmity with an Object, in that there's no way an object can be aware that someone has a grudge on it. Likely to become Offended by an Enemy's Indifference.
Differs from Unwanted Rival in that this trope involves a character being unaware that someone sees them as a rival, while the other has someone being aware of it and rejecting the rivalry.
Example subpages:
Other examples:
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Asian Animation
- Happy Friends: With at least one exception in Season 8 where Sweet S. nearly discovers Big M. is a villain before Huo Haha manages to convince her otherwise, the Supermen are completely unaware that Big M. and Little M. are trying to invade their home planet and send out most of the monsters they fight — even if the evidence is right there in plain sight. It isn't until Season 13 when the Supermen finally learn of their former plans to invade Planet Xing.
Comic Strips
- In Tom the Dancing Bug, wealthy Holligsworth Hound is constantly offended by impoverished Lucky Ducky's existence as an beneficiary of government services paid for by Hollingsworth's taxes. Some strips end with Lucky Ducky declaring "Gotcha!" to underscore Hollingsworth's outrage, but in general he doesn't bother to acknowledge the hostility.
Films — Animation
- In Hercules, throughout the majority of the film, the titular hero was completely unaware of Hades' existence, that he was behind him losing his godhood as a baby, and was the one responsible for all the seemingly random monsters he had been defeating. It isn't until the final act that Hades introduces himself to Herc and the hero finally learns the extent of Hades' manipulations. Zeus is also completly unaware that his brother hates him and is the one behind Hercules' kidnapping as a baby, only recognizing what Hades is up to when he frees the titans and attacks Olympus. Interestingly, Hercules: The Animated Series, despite being intended to serve as a Prequel to the movie, completly ignores that part of the movie and has Hades openly opposing Hercules and the Oylmpians.
- In How to Train Your Dragon, Hiccup is completely oblivious to how jealous Astrid is of him suddenly outperforming her in training. When she confronts him after he officially becomes top of the class, he has no idea how mad she is or why she's getting so physical with him.
- Kung Fu Panda 2: Lord Shen has spent the greater part of two decades meticulously preparing for his eventual battle with Po, but Po sees Shen as just some random baddie to stop. Po is completely unaware of the deeply personal role Shen played in his history, having only learned he existed a few days before meeting him. Even after he learns the truth, he refuses to make their conflict personal, which absolutely baffles Shen.
- In The Lion King II: Simba's Pride, Kovu never seems to have any idea that Nuka resents him. In fact during the few scenes the two are shown interacting, Kovu never shows anything but love and care towards his brother.
- In Penguins of Madagascar, Dave's disdain for penguins started out when the Penguins stole his glory back at Central Park Zoo back when they were younger. They never really met the guy until this movie and Skipper especially has trouble remembering his name.
- In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Bowser's anger towards Mario stems from discovering he is another human traveling with Peach, leading Bowser to view him as a romantic rival and murderously loath him. Mario is never aware of this and is in fact only after Bowser because he kidnapped Luigi. He and Peach do have moments that appear flirtatious as they bond, and some other characters (Toad and, to an extent, Luigi) see them as a good couple. While Peach is a Love Interest for him, Mario is unaware of any feelings he may have for her, and even if he is, he keeps them to himself because his focus is on finding and saving Luigi.
Films — Live-Action
- Salieri in Amadeus hates Mozart with a passion. However, he never lets on that he does, and actually is rather nice to the younger man when they are in each other's company.
- In Big Fish, Ewan McGregor's character unknowingly grew up with a rival who was constantly overshadowed by him. They end up fighting over the same girl when they become adults.
- Sort of happens in Black Swan. While Nina feels threatened by the new dancer Lily, Lily's not really threatened by her.
- In Casper Meets Wendy, the Big Bad Desmond Spellman is this to Wendy. He wants to destroy the Good Little Witch because he is currently the world's most powerful magic user, but the Magic Mirror which decides such things has foretold that Wendy will usurp him. Wendy, meanwhile, is only about twelve years old and has no idea who Spellman even is, much less why he's trying to kill her.
- In Country Strong, much drama comes from Kelly Canter worrying that Chiles Stanton is going to replace her as the hot new thing. Chiles meanwhile is oblivious to this.
- DC Extended Universe:
- Wonder Woman (2017): General Ludendorff and Dr. Maru spend almost the entirety of the movie completely unaware that Diana even exists, let alone that she's working with Steve to foil their plans. However, the ignorance (and irrelevance) of Ludendorff is supposed to be more of a minor plot twist, since throughout the movie Diana believes that Ludendorff is actually Big Bad Ares, who naturally knows about Diana and all the other supernatural secrets of the world, but is merely pretending to be an ordinary human. The climax shows that Ludendorff really is just an ordinary human and that Ares was really disguised as another, seemingly harmless, minor character.
- Aquaman (2018): When David Kane meets Aquaman, Kane says as a pirate, he's dreamed of fighting the protector of the ocean for some time and considers him his Arch-Enemy. Aquaman is just meeting him for the first time and has no idea who he is and doesn't care. After Aquaman defeats him and refuses to rescue his father from death, Kane reinvents himself as Black Manta, obtains some Atlantean technology, and forces Aquaman to take him seriously.
- Enchanted: Queen Narissa ploted to destroy Giselle because she thinks Giselle is going to remove her from her throne once she married her son Prince Edward. Until Narissa reveals herself at the climax, Giselle has no idea about any of this and sincerely wants to become friends with her.
- Enter the Dragon has the Big Bad confront two minor characters before he ever meets the protagonist of the movie, played by none other than Bruce Lee. Oddly enough, Lee was sent there for the specific purpose of bringing the villain down while the two minor characters were at the tournament for unrelated reasons.
- Odd example from The Fifth Element: Korben, the hero, and Zorg, the villain, never actually meet in the entire movie, despite being clearly the good guy and the bad guy. It's not even clear that the two of them realize they're in competition with each other over the stones. The closest they ever get to interacting is either when Zorg orders one million of his employees fired, a pink slip shows up in Korben's mail tube in the next scene, or when Korben and Co. enter one elevator as Zorg steps off the one next to it. The pink slip part is about as impersonal as it gets, as well. An underling tells Zorg that due to possible economic troubles, they want to fire 500,000 employees, possibly in one of the smaller cab companies where no one will notice. Zorg, being a Card-Carrying Villain, orders one million fired instead.
- Godzilla vs. Kong: Godzilla is this to Kong. While Godzilla views Kong as a potential rival to his position as the Alpha of all Titans on Earth, Kong is completely uninterested in the position and would rather be left alone in his own territory, be it Skull Island or Hollow Earth. It's unclear if Kong even knew he was a legitimate contender for Godzilla's position. Hell, it's entirely possible that prior to Godzilla's first attack against Kong, Kong had no idea who he was or that he even existed. Even after that attack, Kong made no move to seek out a rematch until Godzilla used his atomic breath to blow a hole into Hollow Earth and destroyed part of Kong's ancestral home, provoking him.
- In A Guide to Recognizing Your Saints Mike merely thinks Antonio is a jerk to everyone. He doesn't know that Antonio is jealous that Dito is blowing him off to hang out with Mike.
- Hatley High: Shaun is certain that Tommy, the son of a hometown chess prodigy, is out to usurp him as the school champion and acts like an aggressive alpha male toward him as a result, while Tommy is barely interested in chess (despite being much better at it than he realizes) and assumes Shaun is just a bully by nature (to be fair, he kind of is) or is hazing the new kid, and mostly ignores him.
- Kaamelott: First Installment: Kolaig declares himself a rival to King Arthur over Guenièvre... during a time Arthur doesn't even care about Guenièvre in the first place (at least until they are reunited). When he attempts to kill Arthur, Arthur doesn't even know who he is.
- Tien Hao in Legendary Weapons of China is in a quest to kill off every rival martial artist who knew the skills of all 18 titular weapons, regardless of their allegiance. This is naturally confusing th Uncle Yu, the heroine's mentor, who was ambushed by Tien and had to knock him out in self-defense, and later as Tien recovers from his injuries, upon waking up one od the first thing he did is attacking Uncle Yu again.
- This is the case for the first half of The Man with the Golden Gun. James Bond is tracking down Scaramanga on the basis of the bullet carved with his number which was sent to MI6 and interpreted as a threat. The bullet was actually sent by Scaramanga's assistant Andrea, who wanted Bond to kill him, and Scaramanga even admits when he meets Bond that he has nothing against him. He still has a training dummy of Bond in his funhouse and desires a one-on-one duel to prove who's the best killer, but he didn't actually plan on summoning Bond until Andrea's interference brought him into the plot.
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- In Guardians of the Galaxy, Drax wants revenge on Ronan the Accuser for murdering his family. He's outraged when he can barely get Ronan to pay attention to him, as shown when he challenges Ronan to a fight and charges him, only for Ronan to nonchalantly walk away mid-charge. When he finally gets Ronan's attention, Ronan effortlessly beats him up.
- Ant-Man: Hank Pym and Howard Stark had a bitter falling out after the former found out the latter was trying to replicate his shrinking technology to use in military weapons. Hank is so bitter about it that he refuses to contact Howard's son Tony to help him with a mission. Then in Captain America: Civil War, Hank's protégé Scott Lang is furious at Tony for locking him, Hawkeye, Scarlet Witch, and the Falcon in prison and tells him that Hank was right about the Starks. On the other hand, this is the first time Tony has ever met Scott and he has no idea who he is or what he's talking about.
- Spider-Man: Homecoming: In the wake of the Chitauri invasion, Tony created the Department of Damage Control to oversee the cleanup of all the disaster areas. However, Adrian Toomes, who was employed by the City of New York to do just that and invested a lot of money in the operation, to lose the contract and not be compensated. This causes Toomes to develop a hatred for Tony Stark and get indirect revenge by using stolen alien and Avengers technology to create weapons to sell for profit. Interestingly, Toomes is savvy enough to exploit the "unknown" aspect of the trope by using it to stay off Stark's radar and sell his weapons with him none the wiser.
- Black Panther: Prince N'Jobu had teamed up with Ulysses Klaue to steal Wakandan vibranium as part of a plan to arm oppressed African-Americans. However he was killed by his brother, King T'Chaka, when he found out and N'Jobu attempted to pull a gun on Zuri, the spy who sold him out. This results in N'Jobu's son Erik developing a burning hatred for the Wakandan royal family and spending the rest of his life training to get revenge on them. T'Chaka's son T'Challa on the other hand is completely unaware of the incident in question and doesn't even know that Erik exists until he reveals himself decades later.
- In the Final Battle of Avengers: Endgame, Thanos is this to most of the Avengers since most of them don't realize he is not the version that dusted half the universe. He knows the Avengers who were around in 2012, since his underling loaned Loki the Chitauri to invade Earth, but others, he has no idea what his future self did that would make them specifically want to kill him.
Wanda Maximoff: You took EVERYTHING from me!
Thanos: (almost bewildered) I don't even know who you are.
Wanda Maximoff: You will.
- In Repo! The Genetic Opera, Paris Hilton plays Amber Sweet, a spoiled brat heiress with pretensions of being a gifted singer. Amber believes she is due to replace Broadway legend Sarah Brightman's character, Blind Mag, a world-famous opera singer who headlines the Genetic Opera for the all-powerful Gene Co company. Mag must know who Amber is due to her association with Amber's father, but Mag doesn't even acknowledge Amber.
- In Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan from Kirk's perspective the encounter with Khan was a one-off event that happened 15 years ago and ended with Khan and his people voluntarily leaving to peacefully set up their own colony free of Federation control. Meanwhile, the colony suffered a massive natural disaster and complete ecological collapse almost immediately afterwards and Khan watched his wife and most of his friends die horribly with no way to leave the planet. Khan is enacting 14 years of pent-up revenge for something Kirk is completely unaware of.
- Street Fighter (1994) has a situation similar to the above Superman one. Chun Li pledged her life to bring down M. Bison for having her father shot. But for Bison, it was Tuesday. Bison acknowledges his actual arch-enemy to be Colonel Guile.
- Superman (2025): Lex Luthor is shown and said to have studied Superman in the whole three years since the former made his existence known to the public, being obsessed with taking Superman down. The two never met and for that, the hero isn't aware that Lex is behind some of his struggles in the movie until Luthor breaks into the Fortress of Solitude and kidnaps Krypto—from that moment on, the rivalry is mutual. Granted, this example is notable in that Lex is completely aware that he and Superman have no personal history prior to the film's events; he's just so narcissistic and petty that he finds Superman's existence in itself to be a personal affront against him.
- X-Men (Film Series):
- X-Men 1: Everybody assumes Magneto is trying to kidnap Wolverine, presumably to experiment on him because of his Healing Factor. When they meet face to face, Magneto reveals he doesn't care about Wolverine and was really after Wolverine's companion, Rogue.
- Deadpool 2: Deadpool assumes Cable is an assassin sent to kill him, until Cable reveals he doesn't care about Deadpool and was really after Russell Collins.
Literature
- Alexis Carew: In the backstory, Rashaed Coalson for Dunholm Carew, which leads to a one-sided family feud. When it was Dunholm's turn to pick first on land claims during the colonization of Dalthus, several times he happened to pick out claims that Rashaed wanted. Dunholm insists to the Coalsons to this day it was pure coincidence, but Rashaed became convinced Dunholm was deliberately screwing him and taught the hatred to his sons and grandsons. Later Rashaed sabotaged the colony's antigrav hauler when it was headed to the Carew estate to bring Dunholm's wife to Port Arthur for treatment, leading to her Death by Childbirth. Later his son Daviel made a high-speed pass over Alexis's parents' buggy, spooking the horses to a crash that killed both of them.
- The Black Tulip: Cornelius van Baerle is completely unaware that he's become Isaac Boxtel's archenemy, and only vaguely remembers him as a next-door neighbor when he finally sees him at the end of the novel..
- Buffy the Vampire Slayer: Tales Of The Slayer: And White Splits the Night: As the current Slayer, Asha Sayre spends years training herself to fight the local rural vampires, and develops It's Personal feelings toward fighting them once she realizes that they compose the local Ku Klux Klan cell and that You Killed My Father. The vampires have never even heard of the Slayer line and have killed so many people that there is almost no chance that they remember one specific murder of a black man who they viewed as subhuman twelve years earlier.
- In Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian stories, the titular barbarian and Thoth-amon never actually meet and Conan is never the direct object of Thoth-amon's attacks. In The Phoenix on the Sword Thoth sends a demon to kill the man who enslaved him after he lost his powers who is leading an assassination attempt on then king Conan, actually inadvertently saving him although he also tells the demon to kill everyone with his erstwhile master, thus putting Conan in danger again. In The God in the Bowl Conan just happens to be robbing the museum where a deadly gift from Thoth-amon to a rival is being kept. In The Treasure of Tranicos Thoth-amon is after one of several parties after the title treasure, Conan, once again just happens to inadvertently get in the way. In The Hour of the Dragon Thoth-amon is just mentioned by a group of Stygian priests seeking a way to combat him after his return to power.
- Dear Dumb Diary: Jamie hates Angeline, and significant portions of each book are about how much she sucks, that she must be secretly evil, wishing bad things would happen to her. Angeline, on the other hand, seems to have no clue and assumed the two of them were close friends from the very beginning (most readers will probably have realized this very quickly). It takes a long time before Jamie is able to accept that this friendship is genuine and not just a manipulation tactic and largely puts the one-sided rivalry behind her.
- In The Dinosaur Lords, Falk considers Jaume to be his rival and contantly attempts to one-up him, undermine him and, above all, prove that he's worse than Falk. Jaume, on the other hand, has no idea of this and considers Falk to be little more than his co-worker, though one who ascended through ranks admirably fast.
- The Doctor Who Past Doctor Adventures novel "Palace of the Red Sun" features the Sixth Doctor coming into indirect conflict with self-proclaimed Protector Glavis Judd, a conqueror who perceives himself as "liberating" planets from bad rulers when in reality he either subtly causes the problems he's then asked to "solve" or just attacks planets because he disagrees with their system of government. There's nothing to indicate that Judd even learns that the Doctor exists, but once the Doctor's read enough of the available files about Judd, he vows that Glavis Judd won't continue. The Doctor ultimately manages to stop Judd by banishing him five centuries into his own future, with Judd last shown being taken to an asylum full of people who think they're Glavis Judd, with Judd's last scene suggesting that he's starting to doubt his own identity.
- Allan Vaughan Elston:
- Grass and Gold: Lance Morgan develops increasingly homicidal feelings toward Clay Gentry (who could recognize him as an escaped convict) after he has to make up an excuse to call off his event-of-the-season wedding to Judy Marsh to avoid Clay seeing him before he can grow a beard to disguise himself, forcing him to spend a fortune buying a ranch he could have inherited through his wife and also making him suffer an ego blow about how his fiancée got over his jilting and is moving on to Clay. Clay spotting a crooked game at a casino Morgan owns and getting the place shut down (also making Morgan suspend all of the profitable cheating at his other joints in case they get caught the same way) just makes Morgan madder. Clay, for his part, rarely thinks of Morgan at all except to reflect on how he was the man who stood up Judy with mild reproach and a sense of amazement that Morgan let her go.
- Sagebrush Serenade: Roger does win Mary's esteem and admiration while trying to seduce her away from Johnnie for her money, but she never shows any romance toward him, just friendliness, and Johnnie never even notices Roger's efforts prior to Roger abandoning them.
- In The Fountainhead, Toohey considers himself Howard Roark's arch-rival. When he confronts Roark and asks him, "Why don't you tell me plainly what you think about me?", Roark replies, "I don't think about you."
- In the Gotrek & Felix series, the Skaven wizard Thanquol spends decades plotting how to defeat the titular duo after they hunted him for so long and destroyed all his plans. When he finally catches them he finds out that they have no idea who he is, or that the various Skaven attacks they had blundered into over the years were even connected. Subverted after Thanquol tortures and kills Felix's father, at which point the hatred becomes very mutual; in Realmslayer, Gotrek declares the rat to be his Arch-Enemy.
- Halo Expanded Universe: The Inter-Service Rivalry between the Orbital Drop Shock Troopers (a.k.a. ODSTs or Helljumpers)—the UNSC Marine Corps equivalent of paratroopers—and the SPARTANs—Super Soldiers like Player Character MCPO. John-117 that make up UNSC Navy special warfare units. The ODSTs have a grudge against the SPARTANs both for being a Spotlight-Stealing Squad in the press, and because John accidentally killed a couple of them in a sparring match and wasn't punished (mostly because the Helljumpers started it), while the SPARTANs... are Consummate Professionals that don't care overmuch what the Helljumpers think of them off the battlefield.
- In the Heralds of Valdemar series, Tremane — a potential heir to the Eastern Empire's throne — defects to become king of Hardorn, the land he was supposed to conquer for the Empire. His replacement, Melles, imagines that Tremane is his great arch-rival and thinks about him frequently while consolidating his own power: Tremane for his part is too busy managing his people and new kingdom to spare a thought for Melles.
- The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy takes this to an extreme. Mild-mannered and mostly confused Arthur Dent is captured and accosted by Agrajag, who claims that he keeps being reincarnated only to be killed by Arthur Dent every single time, including the times he was a bowl of petunias, a bystander at a cricket match, and one in a time and place Arthur has yet to visit. This, as one may imagine, has left Agrajag rather unhinged, so that when Arthur insists that he's not doing it on purpose and the universe is just "playing silly buggers" with them, Agrajag point-blank refuses to believe it.
- In the Marla Mason series, the chaos witch Nicolette is obsessed with becoming Marla's nemesis, while Marla considers her nothing more than a minor nuisance. In the novel Lady of Misrule, several characters outright tell Marla that her refusal to take Nicolette seriously has motivated her to become a far greater threat than she might otherwise have been, as she is trying to become so dangerous that Marla won't be able to ignore her anymore.
- The New Jedi Order: Viqi Shesh eventually develops a frothing mad hatred for Luke Skywalker. He barely knows she even exists, and even if he did has plenty of other politicians out to get him, never mind the swarm of hostile alien invaders.
- Reign of the Seven Spellblades:
- From volume 2 on, Tullio Rossi fancies himself a rival to main viewpoint character Oliver Horn, both as a swordsman and for the affections of Nanao Hibiya. Oliver never considers Rossi much more than a minor annoyance and defeats him with relative ease all but one time they cross swords,note and for her part, Nanao only has eyes for Oliver.
- Rita Appleton develops an irrational dislike for Katie, jealous of the older girl's relationship with her crush, Guy: among other things, Rita thinks Katie is treating Guy as a Consolation Prize since she has no chance of beating Nanao for Oliver's love, which isn't fair to Guy. It's unclear if Katie is even aware of this before Rita brings it into the open in volume 12.
- Played With in the Oliver-Katie-Nanao Love Triangle. Nanao is fully aware that Katie also has feelings for Oliver, but—as she explains in volume 15, to Katie's dismay—Katie's general aversion to violence and and kindhearted nature, compared with Nanao having fallen for Oliver as a fellow warrior, means she doesn't even register to Nanao as a competitor. In fact, she's completely fine with the idea of them also getting together and even helps Oliver with some Intimate Healing of Katie in volume 13. Volume 4 indicates Nanao subconsciously considers Chela the greater threat: they're Like Brother and Sister and Chela is a duelist of comparable skill to herself and Oliver.
- The Rising of the Shield Hero: First Princess Malty Melromarc has a one-sided rivalry with her younger sister Melty, since Melty was designated heir instead of her by the Queen's decree... which is entirely because Malty is a habitual troublemaker, Consummate Liar, and Manipulative Bitch who would inevitably become The Caligula if she ever got anywhere near the throne. While Melty herself knew that she and Malty didn't have a good relationship, she never thought that her older sister despised her enough to scheme for her death until Naofumi saved her from an attempt.
- A Song of Ice and Fire has a couple of possible examples.
- Cersei very definitely sees Margaery Tyrell as a rival, but it is not clear whether Margaery is actually trying to undermine Cersei or not. It is certainly true that Margaery's family is trying to increase their power at Cersei's expense, but it is unknown if Margaery is knowingly assisting in their schemes, or is genuinely trying to be friendly with Cersei and is upsetting her largely by accident. The latter seems unlikely, since she is shrewd enough to immediately see through Cersei's plan to get her damned in trial by combat, and calls her a "vile, scheming, evil bitch". Cersei's main reason for antagonizing Margaery is because of a prophecy that says she will be brought down by a younger and more beautiful queen. The reader is well aware that this could just as easily be Daenerys, whom Cersei has never even considered.
- Viserys Targaryen sees himself as the Big Good to Robert Baratheon's Big Bad, but Robert (correctly) sees Viserys' sister Daenerys as more dangerous (though for the wrong reasons). Despite this, Robert still considers him a threat, but would likely reconsider this if he knew just how staggeringly incompetent and useless Viserys really is, making this a strange example of Viserys being a Partly-known Rival who deserves to be treated as an Unknown Rival, and probably would be treated as an Unknown Rival if Robert actually knew anything about him. Viserys is also convinced he's been staying just ahead of Robert's assassins for his whole life, but Robert had never actually tried to have him killed since he got to Essos.
- In Austin Grossman's novel Soon I Will Be Invincible, the relationship between the hero Core Fire and the villain Dr. Impossible is like this and Invincible is chagrined at how little his archenemy remembers him.
- The Steps: Wheaties spends most of the sequel jealous of how much of a heartbreaker Ben is around the girls in their life and plotting to undermine him, while Ben barely even knows who he is and is nice enough to make Wheaties drop these ideas once he finally meets Ben in person.
- Wendy Mass' short story "The Stars at the Finish Line" subverts this — the protagonist's academic rivalry with a girl he has a crush on has nabbed him excellent grades. When he mentions this to her close to the end of the story, she acts confused...then laughs and reveals that of course the rivalry was mutual; she was just messing with his head.
- Super Supportive: Alden manages to unwittingly antagonise multiple other students who viewed him as a competitor or rival but whom he didn't take seriously, since he's not focused on high school level problems, having faced much more serious issues.
"Nothing I can do is fast enough to catch up to a professional AgiBrute. I was just wondering about strategy in general."
There was a thud behind him as Mehdi leaped down from a higher bleacher. "A professional AgiBrute? Do you think a B-rank Rabbit could even beat me?"
"I haven’t bothered to consider it," Alden said absently, still staring across the gym at Klein. - The Sword of Saint Ferdinand: Neither García nor his brother Diego have the slightest clue what Pedro de Guzmán hates them to death and is constantly plotting ways to destroy them.
- Tolkien's Legendarium:
- The Lord of the Rings: Saruman has always envied Gandalf for being the more popular of the two (which was in no small part thanks to him being humbler and wiser). Gandalf on the other hand always respected Saruman and apparently had no idea how much his fellow Maia resented him, being sincere and personable right up to the moment Saruman revealed his true colours and attacked him. Also, Saruman view himself as an equal of Sauron and desires his powers. While he allies himself to the Dark Lord, Saruman actually plans to claim the One Ring as his own and use its powers to backstab Sauron in order to claim his throne, while only using the alliance as a way to buy himself time to prepare his Isengardian troops for the inevitable post-victory war against Mordor. Sauron, meanwhile, dismisses Saruman as an upstart Big Bad Wannabe whose treacherous plans the Dark Lord is very much aware of and whose hubris Sauron plans to crush as soon as the war with Gondor has been won.
- The Fall of Númenor: Erendis loudly declares that Uinen is her foe when she is called Uinéniel ("Daughter of Uinen"), since Uinen is the Maia associated with the seas and she is jealous of her crush Aldarion's love of sailing. For her part, it is highly doubtful that Uinen even knows that Erendis -who never even left her island- exists; and the thought of being involved in a love triangle with two humans would never occur to the Lady of the Seas, who was already married to another Maia before the world was created.
- In Warrior Cats, (spoilers for Rise Of Scourge and The Darkest Hour) Scourge desperately wants to kill Tigerstar, who has no idea who he is.
Music
- Jonathan Coulton has the song "Nemeses" which is eventually driven by this trope. Once the protagonist catches on, he begins to exploit the trope... though the song's tone suggests heartbreak, rather than triumph.
Ah yes, my old friend
You are a master of this game
The hidden blade when you pretend
That you don't even know my name
Well played
Sometimes it's hard to tell
If you even notice me
Maybe it's just as well
It's better you don't see
The way I'm running just to keep your back in view
In your shadow, waiting for the perfect moment - During the beginning of Lil Bow Wow's rap career, he made a few songs, calling out Will Smith for not making hardcore gangsta rap songs during his career. Will Smith, who's now more into acting than rapping, was unaware of Lil Bow Wow's jabs, until someone finally asked him about it in an interview. He ended the possible rivalry simply saying "I don't respond to children."
- Dave Pirner of Soul Asylum started a feud with Primus because he thought their song "Wynona's Big Brown Beaver" was mocking his girlfriend Winona Ryder, and at a Soul Asylum concert renamed a song to "Les Claypool's a Big Fucking Asshole". Meanwhile, Primus mastermind Les Claypool pointed out that the song wasn't about her, and Ryder said she didn't mind anyways.
- Henry Rollins cheerfully admits
to having been one (along with a dash of Always Someone Better) to Iggy Pop. Rollins admired the hell out of Iggy, but also was determined to try to outplay and upstage Iggy if they ever performed together. He got that chance 3 times in the early to mid 90s. The first two times not only did Iggy blow Rollins off the stage, but he acted like he wasn't even aware of what Rollins had tried to do and humbly thanked Rollins for the honor of playing with him. Naturally, this just made Rollins more determined to upstage Iggy. So, upon learning that there's a third gig where they'll be playing together, Rollins sets up a punishing, months long training regime so he can play harder and long than he's ever played before. He gives the performance of a lifetime... and Iggy still blows him off the stage. But at least Iggy acknowledged Rollins's attempt for the first time and had to put slightly more energy into destroying him.
Rollins: "What are you doing in Denmark?" I-I played tonight! "You did?" Yes, I was the opening band, I saw you staring at me! "You played? I just remember Iggy Pop." [Iggy]'s just like *finger flick* dink.
Myths & Religion
- The Bible: In the Book of Job, Satan works to undermine Job's faith by ruining his life, intending to prove to God that Job's piety is superficial. Job variously lays blame for his misfortune on bad luck, unkind fate, or his own mistakes, and resists the temptation to blame God, but he never even suspects that Satan might be engineering his misfortune.
Others
Podcasts
- Find Us Alive has Dr. Harley, who harbors a barely-concealed seething hatred towards the Botany department just because he can't keep plants alive. They behave perfectly pleasantly towards him in return (minus a few wisecracks).
Harley: (mocking a Botany employee) "Hi, Harley, are you here for the meeting? You having a good afternoon?" I WAS having a good afternoon, what of it? I don’t need to tell YOU anything about my life. Who do you think you are, the Harley’s Life Police Department?!
- Quest in Show: When Sylvester Strand encounters goblins in the cottage at the Moondew Glade, he assumes they’re simply there to rob the vacationing king. He does not realize the goblins have a personal interest in the Holy Ground he’s trying to claim.
Professional Wrestling
- Perhaps the most well-known wrestling example: Starting in the mid-nineties, Shane Douglas has spent over a decade running down Ric Flair. Flair barely paid him any attention. This didn't stop even after Douglas finally got a program with Flair in WCW in 2000 (and beat Flair twice).
- During the last year of WCW, Booker T was clearly being modeled as a copy of The Rock with promos, popularity and a finisher ("The Bookend") that was a copy of the Rock Bottom. When Booker joined WWF in 2001, he interrupted the Rock in the ring to run the Rock down and say he was the better man. The Rock's reply: "Who...in the blue hell...are you?"
- TNA, as part of its campaign to compete with WWE, markets itself as a Darker and Edgier alternative to WWE, being more violent and bloodier, even going so far as to make occasional not-so-veiled quips at their "competition". WWE responds by...going about their business as usual, not paying any mind to them.
- Then there was that ridiculous and pointless storyline where BG James and Kip James as the "Voodoo Kin Mafia" would spend weeks mocking Shawn Michaels, Triple H, and Vince McMahon. They would often challenge the three to a fight with $1 million on the line, wait a few minutes, then denounce them as cowards for not showing up. The three never gave any indication they were aware of this, and when Michaels did make a reference to someone "jerking a curtain", even the fans mistook it as a jab at Kurt Angle rather than the James gang.
- According to some backstage reports, this wasn't simply a "dig at the WWE" angle — this was a genuine attempt by TNA to do a crossover with WWE, the $1 million prize money was apparently real (at a time when many of their top draws worked second jobs to pay the bills). They actually sent a message to the WWE front office, asking if the head of the largest wrestling promotion in America and two of his biggest stars would appear on their show broadcast from Universal Studios. Apparently, Dixie Carter was legitimately shocked when they ignored her, and kept checking at the TNA office to see if Vince had left her any messages.
- It's educational to compare WWE's reaction to TNA with their reaction to the formation of All Elite Wrestling in 2019. For pretty much their entire history, WWE has basically treated TNA with bemused indifference, just keeping half an eye on them to see if they have anyone leaving who'd be worth signing (most notably AJ Styles in 2016). When AEW started up, WWE went into overdrive in an attempt to drive them out of business by immediately moving WWE NXT from the WWE Network to live TV on Wednesday night to counter-program against AEW Dynamite, going into a frenzy of signing as much new talent as possible while resigning existing talent to much longer contracts in an attempt to keep performers from leaving WWE for AEW, and generally trying to screw with AEW as much as possible e.g trying to keep them from booking large venues such as Madison Square Garden. Mind you, WWE isn't in quite as unassailable a position in the industry in 2019 as they were back in 2002, with a much more dissatisfied employee roster and fanbase, which is possibly just making Vince McMahon much more paranoid than he once was about competition.
- John Cena's first major feud was as the Unknown Rival to Brock Lesnar. Lesnar injured Cena in a match, leading up to months of Cena putting out videos trash talking Lesnar while he recovered. When he returned, Cena would even adopt a new Finishing Move, the F-U, as a mockery of Lesnar's finisher, the F-5. Lesnar showed absolutely no response to Cena, and when they met again... well, Lesnar beat him again, though Cena actually looked really good in the match, even in defeat, solidifying his status as a rising star.
- In 2004 H2Wrestling acted as such to Ring of Honor, running directly against it with fired ROH wrestler Teddy Hart. ROH was in a moment of weakness, having lost its distributor to the RF Video Scandal, but for the same reason didn't pay H2 or Hart any mind and Hart made a brief return to ROH in 2009 after H2 went under.
- The Miz was this to John Cena during their first feud in 2009. Averted since then, however. He got this again in 2011, where The Miz was WWE Champion and was supposed to be the main event at Wrestlemania against Cena. Unfortunately for Miz, Cena and the audience were far more concerned with Cena's problems with The Rock. It wasn't until Miz ambushed and practically murdered Cena that anybody really remembered that he was actually in the equation at all.
- TNA had its own unknown rival in the form of Pro Wrestling Syndicate, who it actually did acknowledge...after eight years, during a conflict with its much more known rival Global Force Wrestling. Though the Syndicate was very tongue-in-cheek on their own end, nowhere near as persistent or antagonistic as TNA was towards WWE.
- Within Ring of Honor itself, the Briscoes Decade feud was setup by BJ Whitmer encouraging Adam Page to call out Jay Briscoe while Briscoe was not around in an attempt to make Jay look bad. Page, not really getting the point, went on to confront and challenge Jay on the first show they were both on together after this. Jay accepted, but not before admitting he had no idea who Page was.
- Brandi Lauren was this to Allysin Kay in Shine Wrestling. Lauren did get Kays (divided)attention after using Kay's own(possible stolen) disguise to help LuFisto retain the single's title belt against Kay, but Kay could never quite remember what it was that made Lauren hate her in the first place. What was worse, the fans couldn't remember seeing Brandi Lauren before, so her whole gimmick in Shine became bragging about how she had been a "star" on bigger shows like EVOLVE and WWE NXT.
- Matt Riddle constantly badmouths Goldberg and Brock Lesnar, calling them horrible wrestlers and boasting that he will one day face Lesnar and force him to retire. They mostly ignore him, but Goldberg eventually confronted him backstage and told him to knock it off, while Lesnar said he'll never face him because of his attitude.
Theatre
- In Romeo and Juliet, although Count Paris is technically Romeo's rival for Juliet, he's never made aware of that fact. He dies without ever realizing that the girl he wants to marry loves someone else. Romeo is vaguely aware of Paris's interest in Juliet, but he doesn't learn of it until after Juliet's seeming death; when he does, his reaction is more a feeling of kinship with Paris over their shared loss than rivalry.
Tabletop Games
- BattleTech
- The Taurian Concordat (size: Roughly 30 systems) considers the neighbouring Federated Suns to be their Arch-Enemy and live in a state of constant mobilization in case the Federated Suns attack them again like they did during the Reunification War. The Federated Suns (size: 300+ systems), on their end, consider the Concordat Beneath Notice and Not Worth Killing (mostly because the Concordat have a history of fighting extremely dirty on home terrain) and are way more concerned with the Draconis Combine.
- Wayne Waco of The Waco Rangers had sworn eternal enmity towards Wolf's Dragoons over an incident where Waco's son was allegedly crushed under the foot of a Dragoons 'mech after he'd ejectednote . In fact, Waco made a point of immediately repudiating any mercenary contracts if his employer eventually hired Wolf's Dragoons. However, he never got around to telling Jamie Wolf of his undying hatred, and so the Dragoons were mostly blithely unaware. At least until the Waco Rangers attacked the Dragoons' HQ planet Outreach, with Waco killing Wolf (and being killed simultaneously himself) in a grudge-match duel.
- In Eclipse Phase, the Jovian Republic is terrified of the threat posed by the Titanian Commonwealth, and is convinced that the Commonwealth will nuke them if it gets the chance. The Titanian Commonwealth doesn't actually care about the Jovians, viewing them as a tedious bunch of Evil Luddites who are more of a threat to their own citizens than anyone else, and is more likely to send humanitarian aid than anything military unless the Jovians are trying to start something with a Titanian ally.
- Cyberpunk: The rivalry between Adam Smasher and Morgan Blackhand in a nutshell. As far as Smasher is concerned, Blackhand's status as the World's Best Warrior is antithetical to Smasher's "Metal strong, meat weak"-philosophy, and Smasher therefore has to kill Blackhand or see his core beliefs invalidated. As far as Blackhand is concerned, Smasher is just another psychopath with a cyberware fetish he sometimes runs into professionally and otherwise does his best to stay away from.
- Warhammer 40,000: Zigzagged with the Tau. The average Tau citizen thinks converting the Imperium to the Greater Good is only a matter of time as they've already converted several Imperial planets, and if not the Tau have the technological advantage. However, that's because the Ethereals keep it very carefully hidden just how tiny the Tau empire is compared to the Imperium, and just how badly outnumbered they are (Imperial planets can contain billions if not trillions of people). While it's true that the Tau appear to have the advantage in term of technology, Imperial forces are very good at the "throw more men at the problem" strategy-which along with their better technology once they get serious and bring out the good stuff-were pounding the Tau into the ground until the Tyranids forced a ceasefire. The good stuff being whatever the local sectors were able to throw up at short notice. The Imperium has bigger fish to fry and the Tau happen to be in the perfect spot to provide a barrier against multiple regional threats.
Visual Novels
- Parodied several times in the Ace Attorney franchise.
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
- Butt-Monkey Gumshoe announces himself to be Phoenix's rival, who is both confused and flattered — but mostly amazed.
- Even more so with Winston Payne, who is hardly remembered by Phoenix and completely ignored by fellow prosecutor Edgeworth.
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Dual Destinies, Phoenix's reaction to Gaspen Payne claiming that his older brother Winston is Nick's "longstanding rival" is suitably incredulous.
Phoenix: ("Longstanding rival"...? When were we ever rivals, let alone "longstanding"...?)
- Played for Drama in Apollo Justice: Ace Attorney: Seven years before the game starts, Phoenix received a last minute request to defend Zak Gramarye. Before the trial began, he mentioned to Zak that he received all of the files from Zak's previous attorney. And at the time, that seemed to be the full extent of his interactions with the previous attorney. Unbeknownst to Phoenix, the previous attorney, Kristoph Gavin, was so angry about being fired that he decided to frame Phoenix for forging evidence to win the case, which resulted in Phoenix losing his badge. Then he spent seven years pretending to be friends with Phoenix to make sure that he never found out. When the truth comes out, the culprit goes on a Motive Rant about Phoenix being a "second-rate attorney" who never should have been hired over him. Phoenix had figured things out by that point, though the timey-wimey nature of the gameplay set in the past makes it unclear exactly when he did.
- In The Great Ace Attorney, Soseki Natsume blames Herlock Sholmes for leading the police to him and arresting him twice and even called Sholmes his arch-rival, to the point of hearing Sholmes's name causes him to become infuriated. Meanwhile, Sholmes barely remembers Natsume's name or the circumstances that led to his arrest.
- In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney:
- Downplayed in Café Enchanté in Misyr's route where Asmodeus is quick to proclaim that he is in love with Kotone and she is his bride whereas Misyr doesn't take any his claims seriously.
- In Code:Realize, Nemo is very impressed with Impey and Victor and declares them to be his equals and considers them to be his Worthy Opponent in engineering and science respectively. Whereas Impey doesn't mind, Victor is especially unenthusiastic about being Nemo's "eternal rival" and would decline that honor.
- In Fate/stay night, Issei considers Rin to be his arch-nemesis. Rin never responds to his enmity, which only makes him more suspicious and jealous. And on a less humorous note, Shinji has this going on towards Shirou, but this grudge reaches extreme levels fairly quickly.
- Gnosia: The Guardian Angel is a hidden role that can protect a member of the crew from Gnosia attacks per night. If they never pick the person the Gnosia decide to attack during the night, the whole round can go as if they weren't present. In addition to this, their power is subject to No Self-Buffs, which means that putting them in cold sleep or making them the Gnosia victim will go as if them same had happened to a standard crew member.
- Hatoful Boyfriend has Nishikikouji Tohri in Holiday Star and the drama CD. He's always trying to go after Shuu, and he's never able to even encounter him. Yuuya tells Shuu about one of his attempts, once.
Shuu: Nishiki...kouji... The client from four years ago? No, that's not right. The other witness from the third toucan trial... isn't right either, is it?
Yuuya: You really don't remember? It's rare for Iwamine-sensei's world-renowned preeminent memory to be so troubled.
Shuu: You're making too much of it. I won't remember each and every thing about anybirdie I have no interest in.
Yuuya: Somehow or another, it looks like Nishikikouji Tohri has some catastrophically one-sided feelings. Life doesn't always go as planned. - Little Busters!: Sasasegawa Sasami and Rin. Sasami interprets their constant battles as them being fierce rivals and takes them very seriously. Rin interprets their battles as Sasami being annoying and can never remember her name.
Web Animation
- Beast Boy Lone Wolf: The Black Witch, villain of the episode "Beast Boy vs. The Black Witch", is this to Beast Boy. When she teleports him to her realm so that she can take revenge on one of the Teen Titans who defeated her, he expresses confusion, not remembering who she is even with her clarification.
- The Dorkly series Pokémon Ralphie focuses on Ralphie, a former Bug Catcher who Red beat when he first became a trainer. He's now a middle-aged man with delusions about being Red's number one rival and is intent on proving it. Red has become the head of a multi-million dollar Master Ball company and doesn't even remember him, saying that Blue is his only rival.
- Helluva Boss:
- Painfully Played for Drama with regards to Blitzo and Octavia. Octavia hates Blitzo for being a homewrecker who blew up (what she perceived to be) her parent's happy marriage and for "stealing" her father from her, going on a rant about how much she resents that her father prefers his company over hers. Blitzo, on the other hand, has absolutely no ill will towards Octavia and would happily accept her as a daughter if she gave him the chance, and is genuinely saddened by her rant.
- Brutally deconstructed with Striker. The fact that he is this to Blitzo makes him so enraged that he abducts and tortures Stolas just so Blitzo will have something to remember him for. Furthermore, the fact that Blitzo does not know nor care about Striker is precisely why he did not warn Stolas about the possibility of Striker abducting him until it was too late.
Webcomics
- Bravoman: Anti-Bravoman tries to play himself up as a dark anti-heroic rival to Bravoman, who goes about without noticing him, when he does find Anti-Bravo, he befriends him and still remains ignorant to Anti-Bravo trying to set up a rivalry. When Bravoman goes to an alternate Dimension where Anti-Bravoman has leveled the world all in the pursuit of power he tells Anti-Bravoman that he can be a real threat, and to keep up the good work.
- Played straight in Cosmic Dash where the space pirate Vid Seng, and by extension his larger crew, has a rivalry with Dash Kameku and his cohorts. Dash doesn't see Vid so much as a rival but more of an annoyance... when and if he remembers him.
- Jango Fett from Darths & Droids is the Unknown Rival to Obi-Wan Kenobi, complete with Obi-Wan saying "Sorry? Do I know you?" as Fett prepares to gloat about his plans for revenge. Although unlike many of the other examples on this page, Obi-Wan really has never before met or seen Fett, or indeed had any inkling of the man's existence. Fett is well aware of this too, and takes great pleasure in watching Obi-Wan squirm while trying to figure out why this random bounty hunter is trying to utterly ruin him.
- In Dumbing of Age, Becky sees Dorothy as her implacable rival for Joyce's affections. (Platonic affections; Becky is gay and in love with Joyce, but knows that both she and Dorothy are straight.) Dorothy sees Becky as another of Joyce's friends, who's a bit weird around her for some reason. This eventually gets developed to the point where Dorothy know Becky thinks of them as rivals, but doesn't take it seriously, and it increasingly appears that Becky doesn't entirely take it seriously either and it's just becoming a bit. In fact, when it turns out that oops, Joyce and Dorothy totally aren't straight after all, it's playing up to being enemies that lets Dotty and Becky remain friends.
Becky: So I betcher wonderin' why you're invited. Well, I keep my friends close but my enemies closer.
Dorothy: Becky, we're not enemies. We routinely come to each other for advice.
Becky: Do you prefer cheese pizza or pepperoni?
Dorothy: Pepperoni.
Becky: Then you're only allowed cheese pizza, nemesis. - Las Lindas has Alejandra to Mora. This is more a Deconstruction of the trope, since Mora doesn't really care and is more worried about keeping her farm up and running, Alejandra's near-overwhelming desire to crush Mora into dust mostly just harms her mental state and her company's reputation and financial state.
- Mechagical Girl Lisa ANT: Lisa is too oblivious to realize that Pink Flash is her enemy.
- Nebula: Jupiter devotes the majority of his waking moments to trying to find a way to kill Sun and take his place as leader. Because he's incredibly obvious about it, Sun knows, but finds him to be so little of a threat that he's just vaguely concerned about the possibility of Jupiter injuring himself in the course of a Zany Scheme to try and kill him instead of holding him as any sort of serious rival.
- The Order of the Stick:
- Main character Roy Greenhilt is the Unknown Rival of the Big Bad Xykon, who's vaguely aware that there's a guy called Redpommel or something who swore revenge on him for some reason or other. Even after Roy personally thwarts his plans and destroys his body and lair, the most he gets from Xykon is casual dismissal. Double Subverted later when Xykon makes a Call-Back to his last encounter with Roy... except it was All Just a Dream. When Xykon actually faces Roy again in the desert, he's already forgotten everything about him.
- Interestingly, Redcloak, who isn't the Order's main target, actually recognizes them every time they meet, and even gives Xykon a recap of their previous fights when they arrive at the pyramid. Even he is a bit fuzzy on who they are beyond a recurring enemy, though. The Monster in the Darkness doesn't recognize them at first, but remembers the name of the Order, and when in the desert, actually recalls Roy (alias Flopsy).
- Also the case with Ian Starshine, who thinks his own plan to topple Tarquin is significant to the latter, to the point that he (falsely) believes that Elan was sent by Tarquin to infiltrate the Order of the Stick to get close to Haley and then, by extension, Ian himself. The real reason Ian was being held by Tarquin? Bozzok was paying him to. Other than that, Tarquin didn't care about him. Tarquin does later frame Ian for assassination, but it's over a petty argument and to "test" Haley, more or less the opposite of what Ian imagined. Although Tarquin does state he vaguely remembers Ian at one point (but not his name), so he may be partially right.
- The trope is Played With in regards to Tarquin and Julio's rivalry. The two men are fairly powerful characters in the context of the story, Julio being a world-famous adventurer and Tarquin being a feared dictator that's gradually conquering a continent with his friends. Both men also serve as foils to one another in the story being Genre Savvy father figures to Elan. However, while the pair do have a rivalry, Julio considers Tarquin to be a B-list villain while Tarquin sees Julio as more of a nuisance and obstacle to his goals rather than an arch-enemy.
- In Questionable Content, Hannelore's archenemy is a woman who lives in her apartment building who left a pair of underpants in the washing machine, meaning OCD Hanners had to get rid of all her clothes, and was later spectacularly rude to her in the coffee shop. The woman did not interact with Hanners the first time, and barely acknowledged her the second time (which was the problem), so she's completely unaware of this.
- Inverted in Shortpacked!, Sydney Yus has a whole speech about how Galasso will remember her now, which she insists on saying despite Galasso making it clear that he knows exactly who she is and always saw her as his most dangerous enemy.
- In Solver, a Bobbinsverse comic, it is eventually revealed in flashback that lead characters Lottie and Claire had a rather pathetic rival they didn't even know about when conducting an investigation in Switzerland a few years ago. This comes back to bite them hard, as the rival, having turned crazy and evil, has had plastic surgery to look like Lottie and unleashes a series of Frame-Up-based plots to destroy her.
- In Something*Positive, Ollie sees Davan as his Arch-Enemy. Davan wasn't even aware that Ollie hated him until Ollie recently confronted him and declared that they were enemies. This is because Ollie blames Davan for derailing Ollie's theater career years ago when it was really Ollie's own incompetence that did it. Davan is actually a bit upset by this.
- Van Von Hunter has a recurring character named Vengeance Joe who swears revenge against the title character... for failing to introduce himself when they passed on the street.
- In The Wotch, Cassie is this to Anne. Anne is oblivious to most of the goings-on in her world and just sees Cassie as a friend, not realizing that she's jealous about Robin's affection and Anne's magic power, which Cassie thinks Anne did nothing to earn. Though Cassie later wins Robin, she's still upset about the magic thing.
Web Original
- The Babylon Bee: Parodied by way of exaggeration when Neil Young demands Spotify to unperson Joe Rogan. Nobody knows who Neil Young actually is. Even Google returns blank pages.
- Back when it was still a parody magazine, Cracked relished in taking pot shot after pot shot at MAD. Not once did MAD ever even acknowledge that Cracked existed. This was averted in Real Life, as MAD publisher William Gaines was so acutely aware of knockoffs that he had a voodoo doll in his office, each pin labelled with the name of a different magazine. To Cracked's credit, theirs was the only pin left in the voodoo doll by the time Gaines died in 1992.
- Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog: Not quite unknown, but Johnny Snow apparently repeatedly writes to Dr. Horrible, challenging him to showdowns, and doesn't seem to get that the feud is entirely one-sided.
"…Okay. Dude. You are not my nemesis!"
- Dragon Ball Z Abridged:
- After the Freeza saga, there's a Running Gag of the villains either not knowing or not caring about Vegeta.
- Garlic Jr. is dispatched easily by Mr. Popo without ever encountering any of the main cast.
- The YouTube history channel Drawn of History depicts obscure conquistador Pánfilo de Narváez as one to the infamous Hernán Cortés. When Cortés went rogue and decided to conquer modern day Mexico independent of the governor of Cuba (who Cortés was supposed to be serving under), Narváez was sent to arrest Cortés. This attempt ended in humiliating failure, as Narváez's men defected to Cortés for the promise of riches, Narváez was taken prisoner, and lost an eye. (And just to complete the humiliation, Cortés gave Narváez a big "The Reason You Suck" Speech after Narváez was imprisoned for two years about how Narváez was an utter failure and incompetent who could never measure up to the real conquistadors.) Narváez is depicted as having been haunted by his failure and the memory of Cortés for years afterward, and became obsessed with Cortés (to the point of Sanity Slippage) and driven by the need to prove himself as an equal to Cortés and the other infamous conquistadors of the time. When Narváez finally got a chance to lead another expedition, it turned into an unmitigated disaster, resulting in nearly everyone including Narváez dying. When the few survivors reach Mexico and tell the tale to Cortés, it turns out that Cortés has completely forgotten Narváez and is confused about why, as far as he's concerned, some random guy had such an obsession with him.
Vaca: Of the four hundred that left Cuba eight years ago, [gestures to himself and three other survivors] we are all that is left of the expedition of Pánfilo de Narváez.
Cortés: ... your vibe says that name should ring a bell, but for the life of me I can't even remember who that is. - From The Hard Times: ""Rival" Band Totally Indifferent to Your Existence". The band Gift Horse deeply hates the band Weed Killer, and are constantly playing pranks on them and trying to sabotage their success, which always backfires. Meanwhile, Weed Killer consider Gift Horse to be nice guys that they dimly remember meeting once.
- At the end of the pilot of Hazbin Hotel, Sir Pentious attacks Alastor, giving a hammy We Meet Again speech. Alastor's response is "Do I... know you?", although Alastor being Alastor, he might have been just trying to make Pentious mad.
- A variant in Kung Tai Ted. After being attacked by a hitman sent by bitter rival Solomon in his The Angry Dragon review, Ted pledges to find and defeat him. However, he takes so long in doing so that by the time he manages it in Golden Ninja Warrior, Solomon has long since forgotten about him.
- Not Always Right: One story has an accountant recognize a janitor from high school (where the janitor was better in every way) and ty to make his life hell. The janitor never noticed, other people did, leading to the accountant being fired.
[Senior Accountant] had made life unnecessarily difficult for [Custodian] the entire time they worked there, intentionally making messes that he thought would drive [Custodian] crazy and isolating [Custodian] from any social activity around the office. [Custodian] had never even realized any of it was happening – he was there to clean messes no matter how difficult they were, and the nature of his position meant that he was usually busy when everyone else was socializing anyway.
- In SynthOrange's Let's Play of Princess Maker 2, Lizzie Shinkicker earned the rivalry of Wendy because her magic prowess was slightly better then the rest. Every encounter with Wendy was hilariously short, as Wendy was a Squishy Wizard and Lizzie was well-rounded enough that she could often One-Hit Kill Wendy with her sword. Cube even comments on Wendy's desire to beat Lizzie as a "suicidal delusion."
- Sword Art Online Abridged:
- During the "Fairy Dance Arc", Kirito brings Yui up to speed on the situation regarding Asuna being held captive by Sugou within ALfheim Online. Yui decides to use all her power to help her father rescue her mother from Sugou. Vowing to kill Sugou "By Any Means Necessary". Sugou being the System Admin of ALO; who built the game off of the same coding as Sword Art Online is unaware of Yuis' existence as SAOs' Admin-grade AI, or that Kirito has her.
- True Capitalist Radio has Ghost's enthusiastic and entirely one-sided vendetta against Alex Jones.
- Anthony "A-Log" Logatto is this to Chris "Chris-Chan" Chandler; A-Log gained notoriety for his commentaries on Chris-Chan's videos, and would also wish harm towards Chris for, among other things, "giving autistics like him a bad name". Despite this, there has been no indication by Chris as to knowing who A-Log is.
- After Chris lost a talent contest for the video game PaRappa the Rapper, Chris subsequently started a one-sided beef with the winner, a guy named Adam Stackhouse, who (at the time) had no idea who Chris was.
- Mythical Kitchen: Mythical Chef Josh claims to be trying to start a feud with Gordon Ramsay. It's not clear to what extent Gordon Ramsay even knows who he is.
- The Nostalgia Critic invokes this trope when he made a video telling The Angry Video Game Nerd to stop letting his fans draw comparisons between them.
Critic: So, please, leave this petty, jealous rage behind you and simply acknowledge that I'm the better man. If you accept this defeat, please respond by leaving absolutely no comment whatsoever. In fact, don't even respond to this video. In fact, act like you have a million other things going on in your life that you wouldn't even have time to WATCH this video, let alone respond to it. Do that, and I will accept your apology.
- The Pittsburgh SOAPranos has Sami entirely unaware that she has a rival soap shop, let alone that it's run by The Mafia and that they've attempted to issue death threats to her.
- In Transformers: Elite, Flamewar is absolutely obsessed with Arcee to an unhinged degree, ranting about how she can predict Arcee’s every move and needs to get closer to her to destroy her. She attacks Thunderblast and sniffs her because she can “smell” Arcee on her, much to Thunderblast’s disgust. Arcee, for her part, doesn't care about any of this and treats Flamewar like any other Decepticon.
- In Welcome to Night Vale, Cecil will express disgust with the rival town Desert Bluffs whenever they come up in his broadcast and will go on about how awful it is. When Night Vale comes up in Kevin's broadcast to Desert Bluffs, however, he makes no mention of any negative feelings between the towns and says that he bets Night Vale is wonderful and beautiful.
- Cecil also very vocally declares his disdain for his supposed Sitcom Arch-Nemesis Steve Carlsberg. Steve is actually the human personification of a puppy dog, and treats Cecil with happy excitement.
- There's a couple of cases in the Whateley Universe.
- One is Phase and Golden Girl — Golden Girl wants to be the boss of her martial arts class, but Phase continually blows her out of the water by combining his weapons, his damn good powers and his gift for strategy. Phase really doesn't care about Golden Girl beyond 'she's an occasional annoyance', because he has real problems to deal with, while Golden Girl despises Phase utterly.
- Another is Nemesis and She-Beast — She-Beast's father, Dr Diabolik, attacked a city and ended up killing over a hundred people, one of whom was Nemesis' grandfather. Nemesis blames Jadis personally, and Jadis' only response to her declaration of war was 'Take a number and get in line, bitch.'
- TV Tropes versus Wikipedia (That Other Wiki if you're feeling bitter about it) with TV Tropes as the unknown one. Well, mostly unknown — they do have an article about us, at least.
- Played far straighter with Uncyclopedia vs Wikipedia. The former can't stop badmouthing the latter. It is a shitpost site, after all.