Fictional Brothers

[opengoal]

I've stopped and started with this idea but never found the time to do a thorough research or flesh out my idea. So I thought I'd just write it down now or else I'll fuck up again at work (I've just sent an invitation email to 30-odd people with the subject line "Draft invitation email") because of my preoccupation with this.

The thought first struck me when watching Slumdog Millionaire because Salim and Jamal were quite a lot like Nathan and Peter (a pragmatic vs a dreamer) and also quite a lot like Dean and Sam. Then I went through a list of memorable brothers on film and TV: Lincoln and Michael (Prison Break), Del-boy and Rodney (Only Fools and Horses), Edward and Alphonse (Fullmetal Alchemist)... 

It seems that more often than not the older brother acts as a sort of surrogate parent to the younger one rather than the competitor relationship that seems more common in real life. While it's very real for a close relationship to flourish between brothers who are orphaned or have parents who are so distant they might as well not be there, I cannot but wonder: Is it really so hard to write a supportive brotherly relationship without taking the parents away? Is it really so hard to write ordinary siblings at all?

Comments

[litalex.livejournal.com]

Actually, it could be because the idea of brothers pitted against each other is so prevalent (especially in the Bible, with Cain and Abel, Jacob and his brothers, Moses and his foster brother, the Pharaoh, etc.) that the shows are reluctant to write the characters that way...