Fern: It's true that the journey ahead may be safer with a priest. What do you not like about the idea, Ms. Frieren?
Frieren: Hm... It's an aversion to my own kind, I guess.
Frieren: Hm... It's an aversion to my own kind, I guess.
— Frieren: Beyond Journey's End, discussing bringing a dour priest into the party
Two characters have a difficult relationship not because of their differences, but because of their similarities. This is most commonly seen between parents and children or romantic couples, but there's plenty of room for it in other relationships.
This can be a sign of self-loathing: the character hates himself, so he also hates people who remind him of himself. Or it can be a matter of certain traits needing to be complemented rather than mirrored in a relationship: someone who talks all the time and someone who would rather listen are obviously better off with each other than with partners like themselves. Still other times, the two might be able to get along well enough if it were not for one key difference between the two, but with that key difference, the similar personality factors come into play and escalate the conflict.
A particular, but also very popular example of this includes two characters who both have such massive egos that they inevitably end up butting heads with one another, as a result of naturally perceiving the other as a threat to their own dominant, attention-seeking attitude. For those same reasons, they have nowhere near enough humility themselves to ever back down, requiring the Only Sane Man to restrain them or calm things down.
For the Inverted Trope, see Birds of a Feather — they're similar but they like each other for it — and Opposites Attract — they like each other because they're different.
Very frequently a Mirror Character. See Foil for a list of examples of how differing personalities can be better together. Often overlaps with You Remind Me of X and You Are What You Hate. Compare "Not So Different" Remark, Shadow Archetype, Hypocritical Humor, Your Approval Fills Me with Shame, Doppelgänger Dating, Territorial Smurfette, Other Me Annoys Me and I Hate Past Me.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- Brave10: Rokuro and Nanakuma are a pair of Tsundere identical twins with Undying Loyalty to their respective masters, but that only fuels more conflict between them.
- Frieren: Beyond Journey's End: Frieren and company are asked by a local village priest to bring his dour brother, Sein, with them on their journey, as he's spent a good portion of his life moping and being stuck in a depressive rut due to his decision not to follow his childhood friend on his own adventure. Fern and Stark are amenable to the idea, but Frieren has more mixed feelings about it due to this trope. She herself was stuck for nearly a thousand years waiting for the right moment to hunt demons and put her training to the test, but never finding it. Eventually, she decided that it was too late for her to do anything at all, before the hero Himmel came along and convinced her to join him. After one conversation with Sein a hundred years later, Frieren decides she doesn't like people like Sein (and by extension herself), and for that reason he must absolutely join their party.
- Kaguya-sama: Love Is War: One reason Iino and Ishigami don't get along is because both of them are forthright and critical. Without other people around to mediate them, they just get deadlocked in endless arguments. There's also the fact that neither tells the other how they keep each other from harm. Iino did her best to keep Ishigami from being expelled in middle school and shields him from the other public morals committee members, while Ishigami secretly (and sometimes openly) does his best to spare her from humiliation or keeps her away from suspicious people. However, since they both think true altruism doesn't need any recognition, neither of them knows and interprets each other's actions as being hostile.
- Neon Genesis Evangelion:
- It's mentioned at some point that Asuka and Shinji are something like this, which comes across as somewhat humorous considering she's the poster-child for Fiery Redhead and he's a neurotic Extreme Doormat. However, later on, it's revealed that they actually have very similar backgrounds — both having the same internal struggles and abandonment issues — and the main difference in is how they handle their problems.
- This is also the case with Shinji and his father Gendo. Both are brooding, quiet introverts who struggle with forming interpersonal relationships, are Perpetual Frowners, and have pretty much the exact same Fatal Flaws, being an immense self-loathing caused by a subconscious belief that they don't deserve to be loved. In fact, this is the reason for Gendo's Parental Abandonment, as he had no confidence in his ability to be a father, and thought that Shinji would be better off without him.
- The Quintessential Quintuplets: Zigzagged with Nino and Itsuki, who have the most similarities between any of the sisters, namely being practical, realistic Tsundere who are nostalgic about the past. While this means that usually they're the two that get along with each other the best, one of these similarities is that they're also the two most stubborn and prideful of the quintuplets and the last two who accepted Fuutaro as their tutor, resulting in the two of them arguing with each other the most as well. The entire Seven Goodbyes Arc is kicked off by a massive clash between the two, stems from Itsuki calling out Nino's unfair treatment and rash judgment towards Fuutaro and her treatment towards Miku. While they both dislike Fuutaro (granted, the man himself acts Jerkass towards them from time to time), Itsuki is more than willing to give him a chance and later learns more about him that ties of her personality being more like a peacekeeper who wants to maintain the harmony among her family, while Nino barely even gives him a second thought, immediately judges him as an interloper and does illegal lengths to keep him away from her sisters, and she has temperamental streak in her that causes her to instigate conflicts. The youngest quintuplet's comments through the arc imply that they've had similarly fierce arguments in the past.
- Ranma ½: This is the crux of the romantic issues that Ranma Saotome and Akane Tendō personally bring to the table. Both suffer from a unique blend of pride, stubbornness, personal insecurity, and a certain lack of trust; this leads to them constantly arguing over often minor issues, and this bickering can swiftly turn violent. In the later parts of the manga, it's also shown that a major problem facing them is that, despite their mutual attraction, each wants the other to be the first to admit their feelings, due to their insecurity about whether the other reciprocates their feelings.
Comic Books
- In one Archie Comics story, Betty and Veronica bump into two cute guys in the mall, Jon and Benny, who are pretty much their Spear Counterparts. By the end of the story, Betty and Veronica decide that they wouldn't make a good match because they have too much in common.
- The DCU:
- Green Lantern/Hal Jordan and Batman/Bruce Wayne both have a longstanding animosity towards each other. This may be due to both of them being very headstrong, prideful individuals to a fault, but while Hal is improvisational as befitting a Green Lantern, Bruce relies just as much on planning ahead and accounting for as many variables as possible, with the two methods naturally butting heads and neither being willing to compromise or apologize.
- In the New 52, one of the reasons why Superman and Wonder Woman can’t maintain their Battle Couple relationship, is simply because they have too much in common with each other.
- Art Spiegelman, the author/narrator of Maus, mentions this off-hand to his fiancée, as he once had a girlfriend who was also Jewish and middle-class, but Art then mentions that because they were so similar that it was weird to get erotic with the girl.
- Marvel Universe:
- This (along with Depending on the Writer) is likely one of the reasons why Magneto treats his only son Quicksilver so appallingly. His reasons for disliking Pietro, that he's too "brash, arrogant, vain and foolish", all directly apply to Mags himself, not helped by the fact that Pietro looks nearly identical to him. Magneto can't properly love or respect his son because looking at Quicksilver is looking like into a mirror and seeing himself and all his own inherit flaws reflected back at him.
- In the Thor (2014) series, Lady Sif suggests that this is why she and Thor never worked as a couple.
Thor: You speak your mind with the same fury with which you cross swords. 'Tis why I've always loved you, my lady.
Sif: Aye, and 'tis why our love has always ended so badly. I fear we are too much alike, you and I. - For that matter, early in Thor's book's run, Loki proposes a romantic entanglement with Amora the Enchantress, which she refuses, citing that the two were "much too alike", and thus could "never fully trust each other". Loki immediately realizes she's right.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes
- Taken to an extreme when Calvin completely clashes with his duplicate.
Hobbes: He's a duplicate of you, all right.
Calvin: What do you mean? This guy is a total jerk!- Calvin and his dad are both equally inflexible, which results in a lot of misery for all involved (good thing it builds character). Calvin's dad is forever dragging the family to a yearly Horrible Camping Trip, and of course Calvin has Never My Fault down to an artform.
Fan Works
- The Harry Potter fic A Bitter Goodbye
posits this to be the case between Godric Gryffindor and Salazar Slytherin. Both are stubborn, prideful, and unwilling to compromise on their beliefs.
- Cat-Ra:
- Just like the source material, this is the main reason Shadow Weaver abused Catra. She states that pretty much everything about Catra's behavior and personality reminds her of herself, a fact neither is exactly fond of. However, she does go on to say that the one shared aspect that she is truly proud of Catra for is their shared resilience in the face of adversity, calling it her greatest trait.
- Catra realizes during a one-on-one conversation that Frosta reminds her of herself at that age. Frosta takes it as a compliment when told this, before Catra explains that this a bad thing, since the attitude she had at the time led to a lot of regrets. As such, she urges Frosta to not repeat the same mistakes she did growing up. The exchange causes Frosta to start treating Catra as a Cool Big Sis, with the duo further bonding over a shared love of pranking.
- Played for Black Comedy in The Longest F***ing 24 Hours where Kainé, Zero, and A2 are brought together when their respective timelines merge. As all three are aggressive, frequently swearing Anti Heroes, it's not long till they're killing each other, forcing Accord to turn back time so the trio decide not to kill each other and work together against the machines.
- The Omnitrix Hero: It is said several times throughout the story that it isn't healthy for couples to be too similar to each other. Shining Armor says that he and Cadance like different stuff but still have common ground with each other and thanks to it have gotten each other to try new things. Even a blind dating site notes this by matching users that are within a certain range of compatibility, noting that differences in partners breed compatibility and have room for growth. Hence, Twilight and Timber aren't depicted as a very good couple since Timber doesn't balance Twilight's nerdy side with any of his own interests and often comes off as trying way too hard to make her laugh instead of it happening naturally. Timber is also so full of himself that he ends up Dramatically Missing the Point when this is brought up, where despite seeing how Shining and Cadance are so good together as a couple despite being so different, he arrogantly believes he and Twilight must have an even better relationship due to them having so much in common.
- In Pokémon: Equestrian Adventures, Twilight gets along great with Timber because they are so similar and think the same way about a lot of things, but she realizes that the two of them are both too similar. Spending time with him made her forget everything she learned traveling with Flash and revert to her old way of thinking. So she ultimately decides to stay with Flash instead of go traveling with Timber, because if she stayed with Timber she would never learn anything new and just become stagnant.
- In Prehistoric Park: Reimagined, the past romantic relationship between Drew and Cynthia started out as a fairly loving case of Opposites Attract brought about by an instance of Single Woman Seeks Good Man, but ultimately derailed and headed irreconcilably south when it became clear how the incredibly headstrong and rebellious personality and hatred of being told no that they both shared ultimately brought out the worst in them via the naturally reckless and short attention spanned Drew proving resistant to Cynthia's efforts at reining in his more self destructive tendencies and bringing order to his chaotic lifestyle and the more cautious and orderly Cynthia taking umbrage to Drew's seeming refusal to abide by her attempts at 'helping' him improve his lifestyle.
- Among the reasons that Kyoko and Charlotte have trouble getting along in Resonance Days is because both are brash and blunt and these traits do not rub off on the other well.
- In RWBY: Duelling Roses, this is why Yang isn't allowed to summon Red Dragon Archfiend: She resonates with all four of the aspects that the Monster Spirit represents (passion, pride, righteous fury and rage) to the point that she flew into a berserker rage the one time she summoned it without Taiyang's help.
- To the New World: While Vilhelm and Dunstan eventually bury the hatchet, they’re unable to get along because each sees in the other what he hates in himself—bitter sarcasm masking pain.
- In When the Day Met the Night, this is why Adrien has difficulty talking to Kagami, who also has Abusive Parents. When he looks into her eyes, he sees his own pain reflected back at him, and it's too much to bear.
Films — Animated
- Rebuild of Evangelion decides to do this with Shinji and his father Gendo. Shinji is an introverted kid who doesn't deal well with social situations but tries his best anyway, even very nearly ending the world to save Rei at the end of the second movie. Gendo manipulates everyone around him, and his plans are to reunite himself with Yui by ending the world. He goes as far as to engineer Rei's demise in the final movie so that Shinji can understand the pain he feels. This comes to a head during the final battle when Shinji fights Gendo in the Minus Space, with both characters piloting Unit 1 and Unit 13, who look very similar to each other and whose moves are evenly matched. After being thrown around enough, Shinji is forced to finally understand Gendo and realizes that Gendo's younger self is very much like him.
- In The Super Mario Bros. Movie, Mario and Donkey Kong have a lot more in common than the latter is willing to admit, as they are both incredibly headstrong and determined individuals who desperately want to earn their respective fathers' approval. This personality clash naturally fuels much of their antagonism, but the two eventually manage to form a Friendly Rivalry by the film's climax.
Films — Live-Action
- Do Revenge: During Max's Motive Rant when he confronts Drea and Eleanor in the climax of the film, it is revealed that this is the primary reason why he leaked the intimate video between him and Drea and angered her into breaking up with him. For the exact same ruthlessly selfish and sociopathic nature that he and Drea both shared caused him to view her as a threat to him, at which point he decided he needed to get her out of his life.
- Fight Club: The narrator initially has a strong distaste for his eventual Love Interest Marla due to the circumstances in which he first meets her causing her to come across to him as an uncomfortable mirror of his own dishonest nature at the time.
- Marriage Story: One trait that Nicole and Charlie both identify as liking about the other is competitiveness. Guess what happens when two highly competitive individuals who are married to each other and subsequently find themselves undergoing a divorce decide that they both want to "win" the divorce proceedings?
- Marvel Cinematic Universe:
- Ant-Man: Hank Pym took in Darren Cross as a protégé because, in his own words, "I saw myself". When Cross asks why Hank then pushed him away, Hank answers "because I saw too much of myself."
- Avengers: Infinity War: Tony Stark and Stephen Strange share a strong mutual dislike of the other, primarily because they're both Insufferable Genius Deadpan Snarkers who are evenly matched in both capacities.
- Nope: OJ suggests that the reason his sister Emerald and their late father, Otis Sr., frequently butted heads is that they were too similar.
- In Road to Perdition, Michael Sullivan, Jr., feels like The Un-Favorite and eventually asks his father straight out if he liked Michael's murdered brother better. His father says that he didn't, and that if he treated them differently, it was because Michael reminded him of himself, and he didn't want his own son to turn out too much like him.
- In Tombstone, the Deadpan Snarker, Death Seeker, alcoholic, and professional gambler Doc Holliday flat-out states that he hates prominent Cowboy gang member Johnny Ringo precisely because the latter reminds him too much of himself.
Literature
- Books of the Raksura: Pearl and Malachite are both Queens who feel isolated by the aftereffects of trauma and their need to stay strong for their respective Colonies despite their personal issues. Being a pair of dominant and very prickly personalities, this only makes them butt heads at first, but they form a strong friendship later in the series.
- The Camp Half-Blood Series: Percy and Thalia, as children of Poseidon and Zeus (respectively), two of the most powerful gods amongst the Greco-Roman pantheon, are both incredibly powerful demigods who can easily cause some serious damage whenever they really decide to cut loose while also being incredibly determined and slow to give up as well as resistant to acting under any command apart from their own. This flares up when they are in the same line of command most of the time, but when they have their own chains, they get along quite well.
Annabeth: You guys are so much alike it's scary. I mean, either you would've been best friends or you would've strangled each other.
- Chronicles of the Kencyrath: One of the key reasons Jame makes Torisen so uneasy is that she reflects back at him all the parts of himself that is uncomfortable with and represses — his Shadow Archetype. And yet at the same time, he loves her, and loving those parts of her helps him come to terms with them in himself.
- Constance Verity Saves the World: When Tia points out how much in common Connie and Larry have, Connie retorts that that is exactly why it would never work if they ever actually started dating for real. Not to mention his mother is one of her Arch-Enemies.
- Goblin Slayer: High Elf Archer gets into an argument with the titular character because of their differing degrees of compassion: she wants to go after the big-picture enemies that are threats to everyone, and he's only interested in eliminating his personal nemeses, who have caused a lot of trauma to individuals but are not nearly strong enough to threaten civilization. The story takes the view that both characters have valid perspectives and could stand to learn from each other.
High Elf Archer: [distressed] Hordes of demons are going to attack! Do you realize that the world is at stake here?!
Goblin Slayer: Yes. But before the demons destroy the world, the goblins will destroy the villages. - Harry Potter:
- In Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix, Harry and Cho's relationship is sunk by their emotional volatility. Cho is so sensitive that she cries frequently over Cedric's death a year ago; Harry can't understand why anyone would succumb to sadness when there's still fighting to be done.
- It's heavily implied in the saga that the ongoing animosity between the houses of Gryffindor and Slytherin stems from the fact that their members are similar to one another in more ways than the students of either house would like to admit. Both Gryffindors and Slytherins tend to be rather prideful and have strong drives to prove themselves, although they manifest them in different ways (Gryffindors tend to jump headfirst into challenges, while Slytherins are more cautious but also more ambitious).
- The Hunger Games:
- Katniss and Gale. In the line when Katniss resolutely picks her other suitor over Gale, she cites this reason:
That what I need to survive is not Gale's fire, kindled with rage and hatred. I have plenty of fire myself. What I need is the dandelion in the spring. The bright yellow that means rebirth instead of destruction. The promise that life can go on, no matter how bad our losses. That it can be good again. And only Peeta can give me that.
- This is the reason why Katniss and Haymitch have such a combative relationship enough that Peeta and Effie need to step up— he observes that they're far too much alike.
- Katniss and Gale. In the line when Katniss resolutely picks her other suitor over Gale, she cites this reason:
- I'm In Love With the Villainess: Rei strongly dislikes Prince Rod Bauer for being determined, assertive, and unrelenting in his pursuit of whatever or whomever he wants. She displays the exact same traits when chasing her love interest, Claire. Ironically, Rod eventually finds himself quite smitten with Rei, though she unquestioningly, unfailingly rejects his advances—part because she doesn't like him, part because she's firmly, 100% lesbian.
- In The Irregular at Magic High School, the motorbike club and the robotics club have a ferocious rivalry that started when the former split from the latter. It doesn't help that there is only one garage on campus, so the bikers have to rent a less convenient place nearby.
- Little Women:
- Jo and Laurie are one of the most famous examples of a potential romantic couple who are ultimately Better as Friends because of this trope. Although when Jo turns down his proposal she also points out the things that are too different about them (she wouldn't like high society, and he wouldn't like her writing). Laurie ends up marrying Amy, who is quite different than Jo, while Jo marries Friedrich Bhaer, who is very different than Laurie.
- Jo and Amy also have shades of this in their Glorious War of Sisterly Rivalry. Despite being extremely different, they both have the liveliest, most forceful personalities of the four March sisters, and both have hot tempers, so they both generally get along better with their milder-mannered sisters Meg and Beth.
- Malory Towers: The reason why Gwendoline can't stand Maureen: being around her is like looking in a mirror in an uncomfortable way. Maureen has all of her flaws and Gwen sees her the way the other girls see her which is a horrifying experience for her.
- Maria Watches Over Us: Sei and Suguru are the same character in male and female version. They can barely tolerate each other.
- Old Kingdom: In Clariel, the conflict between Clariel and her mother Jaciel is driven by the fact that they're very similar: obsessive about their own interests, self-centered and introverted by nature, and prone to deep anger. Their interests aren't compatible, so Jaciel alternately ignores Clariel and tries to force her into obedience, Clariel pulls further away, and both of them accept the growing rift rather than try to bridge it.
- Red Mars Trilogy: Maya and Frank are attracted to each other, but they're both such Manipulative Bastards that it turns into a miserable time for both of them.
- A key element of the novel The Stone Angel is that Hagar Shipley insists that her younger son John is just like her while his older brother Marvin is like their father. In reality, the opposite is true and Hagar is simply deceiving herself. The stodgy, proper Marvin is just like his mother which is probably why she dislikes him so much.
- Tortall Universe: Alanna's relationship with Liam doesn't work out because they're such similar people: stubborn and temperamental warriors with Chronic Hero Syndrome who aren't willing to adjust for each other, or for anything. George (the man she marries) is a much more laid-back, humorous type.
- In Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs, this is the basis of the Sitcom Arch-Nemesis dynamic between the protagonist Leon, and King Roland Holfort. They are both jerks who do the right thing in the end, Brilliant, but Lazy, and both womanizers. At first Leon thought that the King hated him because he seduced The Queen and beat up his son, but Roland's stated motivation is Leon stealing his thunder during a crisis. The similarity between the two helps Roland feel confident that Leon won't kill him some day.
- A Tree Grows in Brooklyn: Of Katie's two children, her daughter Francie takes after her — striking Katie as ordinary — while her younger son Neeley takes after his father, who was a handsome and loving but unreliable alcoholic. Katie devotes herself to making sure Neeley grows up to be like the man she fell in love with, but without his flaws, leaving Francie to fend for herself. She tries to hide her Parental Favoritism, but Francie understands her mother's motives instinctively.
- The Unexplored Summon://Blood-Sign: It's lampshaded that the war between Kyousuke and the White Queen will not end until one of them kills the other or converts them to their way of thinking. They're so proud and so driven to excel that it can't end any other way—even though, when they're not fighting over philosophical differences, they quite like each other.
- In You Don't Own Me, the affair between Leigh Ann and Martin and subsequent fall-out is a dark example of the pairing of two ruthlessly ambitious, self-absorbed people with narcissistic tendencies. Leigh Ann wasn't interested in a serious relationship with Martin and definitely wasn't keen on standing in his shadow. Martin wasn't willing to accept her refusal and tried to manipulate her into caving to his demands, prompting Leigh Ann to respond with violence.
Live-Action TV
- 30 Rock:
- Liz and Carol reach a boiling point because of their shared stubbornness and refusal to admit wrongdoing when they find themselves in a Mexican standoff aboard one of Carol's flights, with Carol pointing an air marshal's pistol at Liz and Liz taking an old man hostage so he'll have to shoot through him. They pause and realize both how insane they're being and how bad they are for each other before tearfully standing down.
- When Liz and Criss get together and eventually marry, it's made explicit that they're such a good fit because of their differences.
- There was an episode where Liz and Jenna had a fight and went looking for new best friends more like themselves, only to realize why they needed each other: Jenna is an Attention Whore who can't be around other people who will compete for the spotlight, and Liz is so negative that having another negative person to bounce off is just "exhausting"; she needs someone so vacuous and self-absorbed that they'll just let her vent because they're not even listening. (This helps answer the oft-asked and oft-lampshaded question of how these two were ever friends to begin with.)
- Babylon Five:
- This was the reason for John Sheridan's divorce from his first wife, Elizabeth Lochley. They had a lot in common, including their commanding dominant personalities. They quickly realized that getting married was a mistake, and claimed that the divorce saved their friendship.
- It also was the reason that Lochley and Michael Garibaldi clashed so much at first, because they had a lot in common with each other, right down to both being alcholics. They later become friends after she helps him climb back on the wagon after a relapse.
- The Borgias: Rodrigo and Cesare's increasingly strained relationship is in no small part because they're so similar to each other — "all the fire and the fury, the drive, the pitiless ambition" — which makes Cesare bridle at his constantly being denied real power, and Rodrigo's guilt for what they do gets exacerbated when he sees his own traits in Cesare. At the end of Season 2, Rodrigo starts to explain to Cesare that Rodrigo favoured Cesare's idiot younger brother Juan because Juan didn't continuously remind Rodrigo of his own faults, but the conversation is interrupted by Rodrigo being poisoned. The conversation finally gets finished at the end of Season 3 (after spending most of the intervening time undermining each other in various ways,) when Rodrigo blurts out to the man trying to reconcile them, "I look into his eyes, I see myself! Do you expect me to love that!?"
- Frasier: The recurring gag with Frasier's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis, Cam Winston, is that Cam is almost exactly like Frasier (a hammy, upper-middle-class snob), just slightly more successful at it. It's also a problem between Frasier and his brother Niles, which fuels their rivalry.
- Friends:
- Monica's boyfriend Pete in Season 3, like her, was a Competition Freak and Control Freak. She eventually broke up with him because she couldn't deal with his stubborness. In the next episode, her easy-going friend Chandler implies he has feelings for her, laying the groundwork for them falling in love a season later. Their subsequent relationship and eventual marriage is a very happy one.
- Chandler with Kathy, his last girlfriend before Monica. They initially bond over their favourite tv shows and books and share a similar sense of humour. However, in hindsight they both struggle with communication in a relationship and have Commitment Issues, which leads to their break up. The stable and level-headed Monica however, helps him overcome these problems rather than making them worse.
- Non-romantic example: When Rachel starts dating Ross's doppelganger, Ross is the only person (apart from Rachel) who doesn't notice the similarities. And he hates Russ.
Ross: And it takes him, what? ... like ... I dunno ... uh, hello? ... a week just to get out a sentence?
Chandler: Annoying, isn't it?
- House: Dr. House gets rid of one of his candidates, Dr. Henry Dobson, because they think too much alike; the purpose of House's team is to challenge him and provide avenues of investigation he wouldn't have thought of alone. And as Dobson, who all around proves a good sport about the whole matter, swiftly points out upon it becoming clear that he's the one who has to be fired this time around, House doesn't need someone telling him what he's already thinking.
- How I Met Your Mother: What sunk Barney and Robin’s first time in a relationship and what destroyed Barney and Quinn's engagement since they were so much alike they couldn't trust each other.
- Interview with the Vampire (2022): Louis and Claudia are the close ones — they look like blood kin, they share a telepathic bond, and Louis has a far greater parental role to her. But in personality, she's more like her maker Lestat — namely they're both vicious in a way Louis almost never is. This is also the reason they butt heads frequently.
Louis: In many ways, [Claudia and Lestat] were more like each other than they wanted to admit. They both sought out weakness. They reveled in the exploitation of it, and they romped with joy as I played audience to their joyless exchanges.
- Malcolm in the Middle: Francis and Lois' constant antagonism is owed largely to both being incredibly stubborn and reluctant to admit they are wrong.
Hal: Francis, there’s nothing that I could do. You know the problem here: You and your mother are exactly alike.
Francis: That’s a lie.
Hal: It's true. You’re both stubborn and unwilling to bend. - Motherland: Fort Salem: Raelle and Abigail. They often butt heads due to both of them being so stubborn.
- Murderbot: It eventually becomes clear Murderbot and Gurathin don't get along because they're way too similar—they each reflect the things they don't like about themselves back at each other, and they are each too good at knowing what the other is thinking for comfort, because they have such similar thought processes. (Oh, and they both like Mensah best, and then get jealous because they worry she'll like the other one more.) By the time episode 9 rolls around, Gurathin is able to regularly suss out when Murderbot is lying, because Murderbot tells the exact same kind of lies Gurathin would (ie, downplaying how bad their chances of survival are to keep everyone calm).
- Red Dwarf:
- In "Me", Rimmer's self-loathing means that two copies of him end up unable to talk to each other, with one of them openly desiring the other's death.
- In "Parallel Universe", Lister and Rimmer meet their female versions. Dave Lister thinks Deb Lister is gross for a girl, but they avert the trope as they actually get on very well. However, Arnold Rimmer is completely disgusted by Arlene Rimmer.
- In Roseanne, the reason why Roseanne and Darlene had such a tumultuous relationship during Darlene's teenage years is because Darlene is her mother's daughter to a T.
- Seinfeld: Jerry, being a narcissist, falls in love with a woman (played by Janeane Garofalo) who is exactly like him in every way. However, being a self-loathing narcissist, he gradually comes to realize that he can't be with her because he hates himself too much to put up with his own personality all the time. Of course, because they're so exactly alike, she comes to that exact same realization at the exact same time, and they have what Jerry believes may very well be the world's first truly mutual breakup.
- Star Trek: Voyager: In "Life Line", the Doctor gets a chance to meet his "father", the scientist who designed him. They clash immediately. Troi, who had been trying to counsel them, eventually gets tired of their crap and exclaims that she expected them to be similar but different, "like two sides of the same coin", but now she realizes that they're exactly alike — they're both jerks!
- Supernatural: While Sam's main issue with his father John is that he and Dean were basically raised as child soldiers, after a not-so-different moment Dean notes that this was probably a factor as well. And considering how Sam and John both have an incredibly stubborn streak and easily become obsessed with achieving revenge no matter what against supernatural beings and creatures that they have personal grievances against, Dean's claim certainly isn't without merit.
Dean: Y'know, I finally get why you and Dad butted heads so much. You two are practically the same person.
- Reno and Sam in the Tales from the Crypt episode "Cutting Cards" are a lot more alike than either of them would be willing to admit. They're both The Gambler and The Gambling Addict with too much pride to just call it a draw and see each other as The Rival that must be defeated in The Bet, wherein the loser must leave town for good so as to not meet the winner, no matter how much it costs each of them, after years of winning and losing to the other. This results in both losing their own limbs in an Absurdly High-Stakes Game — and they're still trying to outdo the other at the end of the episode.
Professional Wrestling
- In Osaka Pro, Gamma was basically an expy of WCW, Toryumon System and Dragon Gate wrestler CIMA. CIMA wasn't too thrilled when Gamma jumped over and it would take years of fighting before the two finally became friends.
- Ring of Honor tag team The All Night Express were incredibly similar to Wrestling's Greatest Tag Team, even taking up similar entrance attire to the latter when they showed up in the promotion. Kenny King and Rhett Titus were quintessential jerk jocks who had spent their ROH careers belittling and bully any 'vulnerable' members of the roster but were none to pleased to be on the receiving end from Charlie Haas and Shelton Benjamin.
Tabletop Games
- In Dungeons & Dragons' Greyhawk setting, Saint Cuthbert and Pholtus seem incredibly similar at first glance: they're both gods that sit right on the border of Lawful Good and Lawful Neutral, they both fill the God of Order role and despise Chaos as a result, they both have a strong Good Is Not Nice streak, and they're both known for having a highly evangelical following. However, their relationship is consistently described as one of general dislike at best, seething rivalry at worst. This is largely because of two other shared traits: they're both very proud, and tend to think that anyone who doesn't agree with them is simply wrong. Because of this, whenever they deal with the few places where they do disagree with each other, they're mutually incapable of ever letting it go.
Video Games
- Implied in Dragon Age: Inquisition. The one time Dorian mentions his betrothed, he strongly indicates that the two of them dislike each other for this reason.
- In Fire Emblem: Three Houses, prince Dimitri and princess Edelgard are destined to fight each other no matter what route you take because they're both charismatic idealists willing to resort to violence to build the world they want. He's for the status quo (to an extent), she is very much against it.
- In A Hat in Time, The Conductor and DJ Grooves are two filmmakers who share a similar backstory of being inspired by childhood movies to pursue filmmaking. Unfortunately this means that as adults they've become rivals when forced to share the same movie lot since both of them were egomaniacs.
- Horizon Forbidden West: One reason Elisabet's relationship with Elisabet tanked was because they were both ambitious introverts who felt driven to preserve the parts of Earth most important to them.
- If (male) Shepard decides to break up with Miranda in Mass Effect 2, he uses this exact phrase.
Shepard: This won't work, Miranda. We're too much alike.
- NieR: Following the Time Skip, the protagonist finds himself uncomfortable with Gideon's hatred towards all robots due to believing that Beepy killed his brother Jakob (while unaware that it was his carelessness that caused Jakob's death), as it reminds him of his hatred towards Shades after the Shadowlord kidnapped Yonah.
Grimoire Weiss: Hatred and madness will never heal a wounded heart.
Protagonist: Maybe it's all [Gideon's] capable of right now.
Grimoire Weiss: Revenge is a fool's errand.
Protagonist: ...Yeah. I know. - Persona 2: In the early game Tatsuya and Yukino cannot really do joint negotiations because according to their relationship description, they are "too alike". Considering Yukino is a tomboy and ex-delinquent, Tatsuya is currently a delinquent, and they're both rather cool-headed fire users, it's not all that wrong. Later on in the game Yukino takes a mentor role to Tatsuya.
- The Sims 3: Most traits you can give a Sim strengthen the relationship when encountered in another Sim, but the "snob" trait conflicts with itself. Snobby Sims prefer someone with the "easily impressed" or "schmoozer" trait, who will agree that the snobby sim is superior.
- Six Ages: Relations between Riders and Wheels are usually acrimonious because they have a shared heritage and religion that they can disagree about. Foreigners' total disbelief in Elmal is bad, but it's still less insulting than the Wheels insisting that Elmal is a dogmatic, misogynist slave owner because that's what their culture deems the ideal male. Similarly, the Wheels find the Riders' claim that their founder Hyalor became a god in their shared pantheon to be a worse blasphemy than foreigners not worshiping any solar god at all. A Rider myth lampshades that it's often easier to make peace between strangers than a feuding family.
- Tyranny: Lantry, a Tagalong Chronicler whose Wall of Blather can cause hour-long timeskips and test the Fatebinder's mental resolve, mentions he had issues with his mentor over this.
Lantry: Sage Chiasmus. Provost of the School back before the war. Vapid bloviator, insufferable pedant — needless to say, our similarities made us utterly incompatible.
Visual Novels
- This is the reason why Rin and Luvia can't stand each other in Fate/hollow ataraxia. It's implied that in addition to having similar personalities, they're also distantly related.
- In Fate/stay night, the "Heaven's Feel" scenario has Shirou realize that he and Kotomine are actually very alike in some regards, and his refusal to admit it was why he antagonized the man so often. It's because of this he knows he'll need to kill Kotomine, because their goals are mutually exclusive and, just like Shirou, Kotomine will not stop pursuing his.
Webcomics
- In El Goonish Shive, when Tedd plays Luke at Magickal Cards, neither of them seem to notice that it's practically a Mirror Match. They do, however, both think simultaneously, "This guy has a really annoying play style."
- Kaff Tagon in Schlock Mercenary has just enough traits in common with his father Karl that they don't get along for most of the comic. The biggest rupture came when Karl couldn't Shoot the Dog during a nanite attack, but expected Kaff to, despite neither being emotionally equipped for that.
- Sluggy Freelance: In "Oceans Unmoving", this is the core of the dynamic between Bun-bun and his Arch-Enemy Captain Blacksoul. Both of them are unbeatably badass Determinators who make everyone else do exactly as they want and don't have patience for much talk. And then they want different things, or at least think they do. In the same story's twist ending (so you have been warned), it's also revealed that Blacksoul is also Bun-bun, from a different time, disguised inside a powerful flying robot dressed in robes. He knows he's in the Timeless Space for the second time but has amnesia about how he got out before, so he wants to follow his earlier self to find out. He can't just reveal himself since he knows he'd attack anyone trying that since he knows the real him would know that and not try it. He's really annoyed at his other self by the end.
- Stand Still, Stay Silent: Lalli, who has low-key cat-oriented Delusions of Doghood, tends to have a difficult relationship with actual cats.
- Tower of God: Anaak Jahad and Khun Ran are both used to being rudely dismissive of other people and beating up anyone who annoys them with superior power. They automatically clash because both can't successfully do this at the same time.
Web Videos
- In Noob, Omega Zell is a misogynist and Gaea a woman who doesn't like being demeaned. Gaea, on the other hand, displays behaviors that Omega Zell tends to not approve of in general. Aside from this, the two don't get along simply from both being self-centered, ambitious and taking every opportunity they can to bring their goal closer. The situation is such that if one of them has a opportunity to make a big step toward their objective, they (often correctly) assume that the other has the same idea in mind.
Western Animation
- Alvin and Brittany in Alvin and the Chipmunks. When you have two Attention Whores with big egos headbutting, getting along isn't on the list of priorities as much as besting each other is. Naturally, their dynamic is far more tense and combative compared to those that Alvin's brothers Simon and Theodore have with Brittany's sisters Jeanette and Eleanor (respectively).
- Dinosaur Train: Buddy wants to make friends with Dennis at the Junior Conductors Academy, but keeps getting annoyed that Dennis answers most of the Conductor's questions first because they both know a lot about dinosaurs.
- Eddy and Kevin in Ed, Edd n Eddy have many similarities. They are both the leader of their respective group of friends. They have both called Jimmy "Fluffy", which nobody else has. And in the episode "Fa la la la Ed", where the kids decided to celebrate Christmas in July, they both felt that it was stupid at first, while nobody else objected to it. But they are pretty much sworn enemies, because they also have two more similarities: they both want to be the most popular kid in the Cul-de-Sac (even though Eddy has no chance of beating Kevin in that department), and they can both be huge jerks. Though after seeing that Eddy's brother outdoes either of them in The Movie, Kevin is willing to help Eddy bury the hatchet now that they among the other kids are ready to move on.
- My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic: Discord and Trixie have a highly argumentative relationship due to their mutual massive egos and love of the spotlight.
- She-Ra and the Princesses of Power has Shadow Weaver give this as the reason she was abusive towards Catra as a child. Both are highly ambitious individuals who resent those who are naturally gifted due to how hard they themselves had to work to get even a fraction of similar recognition. And since Shadow Weaver always had to struggle to get ahead in life, she figured it shouldn't be any different for Catra. Even if she wasn't fully sincere about this being at least one of the reasons she treated Catra so poorly, as she was intentionally playing on Catra's desperate need for affection as part of an escape plan at the time, the parallels are still there.
- Total Drama has Heather, the Queen Bee, and Courtney, the Type A. They are both contestants who are very strategic and highly determined for winning the competition and the cash money prize, but often do not get along each other very well, especially as teammates, primarily because of both of their frequently selfish and harsh behaviors towards others.
Real Life
- This trope is the main reason why Drag Queens, despite the fact that so many of them are gay men, rarely date each other ("kai-kai"). Some are okay with it, while others see it as endless Ham-to-Ham Combat and prefer to date quieter, more low-key men to balance out the craziness of their lives. This is precisely why RuPaul himself is married to a Wyoming cattle rancher.
- This was the relationship between Michael Jackson and Prince, who shared many similarities.note The feud was likely rooted in them getting annoyed at being constantly compared despite their very different respective career pursuits. Reportedly, Jackson viewed Prince as a vulgar womanizer, while Prince viewed Jackson as overcommercialized. The two frequently traded snipes and were known to actively avoid each other. Mega-producer Quincy Jones even swears that Prince once tried to run over Jackson with his limo.
- Comic book writers Alan Moore and Grant Morrison can't stand eachother. Both are high-concept writers, into the occult, silver age fans, make heavy use of metafiction and try to torn comics into something more literary. They're both from the UK to boot.