Sibling Pairs
A pair of siblings, whether a girl and a boy as in Hansel and Gretel or two girls as in Snow-White and Rose-Red or Kate Crackernuts, or two boys as in The Gold-Children, often features them as co-protagonists rather than as rivals. This is, in fact, the more common pattern when the children are of the opposite sex, or when they are boys (usually twin boys).
The story of the "kind and unkind girls" often features a pair as rivals. They are more often stepsiblings than siblings, but as siblings, the younger is generally the favored, as in Diamonds and Toads or some variants of The Red Ettin.
Read more about this topic: Youngest Son
Famous quotes containing the word sibling:
“Take two kids in competition for their parents’ love and attention. Add to that the envy that one child feels for the accomplishments of the other; the resentment that each child feels for the privileges of the other; the personal frustrations that they don’t dare let out on anyone else but a brother or sister, and it’s not hard to understand why in families across the land, the sibling relationship contains enough emotional dynamite to set off rounds of daily explosions.”
—Adele Faber (20th century)