Rivalry according to the English dictionary can be seen as a competition, which involve having the same goal as another or trying to attain the same thing. In most cases of rivalry, trying to defeat the opponent is the primary objective as this will be the utmost indicator of success.
But not all rivalries is attributed to having the same goal, as some rivals seek not just to defeat their opponents, as it is the case in sports but to utterly destroy or subject their rivals to servitude. Most of this form of rivalry can be found in movies of wars, kingdom and empire forging related conquests.
The movie that shows me an impression of bitter rivalry that raged on for a decade and finally led to thousands of deaths and a subsequent destruction of an entire nation is TROY. The famous war movie that according to written Greek history has the highest record number of gods and demigods fighting alongside humans. The rate of rivalry in this movie was so great and bitter and more interestingly, it involved a couple of persons being rivals in different forms and for different reasons.
In the movie, it started with Agamemnon, the Greek king invading Thessaly and when his champion fighter, the demigod Achilles defeated the champion of the king of Thessaly, it became his vassal nation.
Although Achilles, the leader of the fierce myrmidons was fighting for Agamemnon, since he was a Greek, they were bitter rivals. Agamemnon despises the arrogance of Achilles. This rivalry was so great and bitter that Agamemnon once made a statement concerning Achilles. He said, "of all the warlords favored by the gods, I hate him the most!"
Next, while representing Troy as an envoy of peace, Paris the second son of king Priam, king of Troy feel in love with Helen, the beautiful wife of Menelaus, Agamemnon's brother and on the day of their departure, he took her secretly with him. This act pissed off Menelaus who sort the help of his brother to attack Troy and salvage his wounded pride. In this part of the rivalry, I found out that, your rival will use the slightest opportunity to attack you even if you first act of provocation does not warrant an attack or invasion.
Menelaus approached his brother to help him bring back his wife, Helen and punish the impudent young prince, Paris but Agamemnon who is power hungry and wants to bring all the nations around to be under his rule, used the opportunity as an excuse to invade Troy instead of just taking back Helen and punishing Paris.
This gesture shows how bitter this kind of rivalries are and how the hatred it breeds is so dark that it leads to the lost of lots of lives, homes, families and even kingdoms. The rivalry between Troy and Greece was so grim and great that it lead to a decade of siege on Troy and the subsequent destruction of the country. Bloating it from history, only to be heard of and remembered in tales.
Another bitter rivalry that ensued in the movie was the one between Achilles and Hector. Achilles while attacking the temple of the god Apollo, the patron god of Troy, he found Briseis, the beautiful cousin of Prince Hector and Paris and he immediately fell in love with her (this profanation of his temple by Achilles struck up a rivalry between Apollo and Achilles and it is believed that it was the reason Apollo guided the arrow shot my Paris to the only mortal part of Achilles, which was his heels, this led to the death of Achilles).
He took her to his tent but Agamemnon who initially hated Achilles due to their background of rivalry claimed her as his price. This angered Achilles and he refused to go out to battle with a resolve to even sail back to Greece with his elite fighters, the myrmidons. This lead to Patroclus, Achilles cousin brother, putting on Achilles' armor and charging with the myrmidons into battle. In that particular battle, he was killed by Prince Hector who thought it was Achilles. The death of Patroclus so angered Achilles that it led to another rivalry that saw Achilles killing Hector after a dramatic show down.
The movie Troy is so full of rivalries that breeds betrayal, death and jealousy. I even went on to learn more about it that according to the Greek mythology, many gods took their sides and I even found out that the genesis of the war was the rivalry between the three most beautiful goddesses on Olympus; Hera Athena, and Aphrodite.
It was said to have started when Zeus refused to invite Eris, the goddess of strife and discord to the marriage ceremony between Peleus an Thetis (who later became the parents of Achilles). The goddess came to the feast but stayed outside and sent in a golden apple on which she inscribed 'TO THE FAIREST' on it. The three leading goddesses, Hera, Athena and Aphrodite competed for it and in other not to offend any of them by making a judgement, Zeus, the king of the gods asked Paris, the Trojan prince to make the pick. After they each made their promises to him, (Wisdom, power and love), Paris declared the goddess Aphrodite (who promised to give him love, that is the most beautiful woman on earth, which incidentally was Helen of Sparta, the wife of Menelaus), the fairest. This angered the other two goddesses and made Hera to take the side of the Greeks during the Trojan war.
This movie shows that negative effect of unhealthy rivalries and also the result of rivalries borne out of greed, anger and jealousy. Hera was jealous, Menelaus was angry and Agamemnon was greedy and these led to the destruction of Troy.
All images are screenshots from the movie
