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Where Did The Proverb The Enemy Of My Enemy Is My Enemy Spread?
Anyone recall which classic stories or political thrillers made this anti-proverb twist popular? It's often subverted in dark fiction, right?
2025-08-28 13:38:57
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Mindset
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That saying became popular in online forums discussing backstabbing political dramas or complicated revenge stories. I think its exact origin is murky, but you see it pop up a lot in comments for books where former allies turned on each other. The title 'Fated to the Enemy' plays with a similar idea—the main character finds out the person she's magically bound to serve is the same ruthless general who destroyed her kingdom. Their whole dynamic is forced into an alliance that's constantly on the verge of collapsing into real violence, which keeps the tension pretty sharp.
2026-08-02 02:40:03
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Vesper
Twist Chaser
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I've always liked spotting how proverbs jump cultures. From what I've read and overheard in classrooms and cafés, the sentiment behind 'the enemy of my enemy' shows up across South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe. Scholars often point to Indian works like the 'Arthashastra' and to Arabic political maxims as places where similar ideas were discussed, but there's no single birthplace everyone agrees on. It spread not only through books but through realpolitik: trade, conquest, diplomats and translators carried the idea along roads like the Silk Road and through medieval courts.
Today it's even more global—newspapers, novels, and online debates sling the proverb around. People twist it into catchy forms depending on context—sometimes to praise opportunistic alliances, sometimes to criticize backstabbing politics. I think that flexibility is why it spread so widely.
Today it's even more global—newspapers, novels, and online debates sling the proverb around. People twist it into catchy forms depending on context—sometimes to praise opportunistic alliances, sometimes to criticize backstabbing politics. I think that flexibility is why it spread so widely.
2025-08-30 09:22:05
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Ivan
Book Scout
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I tend to hear this kind of proverb everywhere—on history podcasts, in debates at city meetups, and when older relatives tell war stories. The saying (and its variants) spread not through one neat route but through trade, translation, and diplomacy: think South Asia, the Middle East, and Europe exchanging ideas along caravan routes and in courts. Later, printing presses and colonial administrations amplified it, and modern mass media pushed it global.
Sometimes games and pop culture—I've even seen nods in strategy titles like 'Civilization'—help keep the concept alive, turning an old diplomatic insight into something everyday players and readers intuitively understand.
Sometimes games and pop culture—I've even seen nods in strategy titles like 'Civilization'—help keep the concept alive, turning an old diplomatic insight into something everyday players and readers intuitively understand.
2025-09-01 07:00:44
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Bria
Clear Answerer
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Growing up curious about geopolitics, I noticed the phrase pop up in unexpected places: campus lectures on international relations, footnotes in translations of Persian and Sanskrit texts, and even in wartime memoirs. The proverb’s spread seems less like a single migration and more like many converging streams. Traders, translators, and conquerors carried the idea between India, the Middle East, and Europe; scribes and later printers helped fix it into popular sayings. Intellectual exchanges during the Islamic Golden Age and later Renaissance translations likely amplified it across continents.
What's funnier is how modern media reinterprets it. Cold War-era commentators used it to explain proxy wars; bloggers and podcasters now use it as shorthand for messy alliances. I've been part of debates where someone flips it into a cynical twist—saying the enemy of my enemy is my enemy—to underline how messy loyalties can be. That flip itself has spread through social media and political satire, showing the proverb’s life is still changing with each retelling.
What's funnier is how modern media reinterprets it. Cold War-era commentators used it to explain proxy wars; bloggers and podcasters now use it as shorthand for messy alliances. I've been part of debates where someone flips it into a cynical twist—saying the enemy of my enemy is my enemy—to underline how messy loyalties can be. That flip itself has spread through social media and political satire, showing the proverb’s life is still changing with each retelling.
2025-09-03 00:55:49
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Emma
Longtime Reader
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Funny how a short line can wander so far. In my digging through history books and casual reads, I've seen the kernel of the idea pop up in several places: ancient Indian political writing like the 'Arthashastra' is often cited as an early seed, while fragments of similar thinking show up in Middle Eastern and Greco-Roman diplomatic advice. Those regions were connected by trade routes and translators, so the notion—about how alliances shift when enemies overlap—migrated along with goods and ideas.
By the medieval and early modern periods the proverb, and variations of it, were part of courtly and statecraft discussions across Europe and the Islamic world. Later, colonial encounters, printed newspapers, and diplomatic correspondence spread the phrase even further. In modern times the line mutated into memes, Cold War shorthand for shifting alliances, and snappy quotes in political commentary. I still find it fascinating how a phrase about pragmatic relationships has traveled from carved clay tablets and manuscripts to timelines and Twitter threads—always reshaped by whoever uses it next.
By the medieval and early modern periods the proverb, and variations of it, were part of courtly and statecraft discussions across Europe and the Islamic world. Later, colonial encounters, printed newspapers, and diplomatic correspondence spread the phrase even further. In modern times the line mutated into memes, Cold War shorthand for shifting alliances, and snappy quotes in political commentary. I still find it fascinating how a phrase about pragmatic relationships has traveled from carved clay tablets and manuscripts to timelines and Twitter threads—always reshaped by whoever uses it next.
2025-09-03 20:23:58
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When did the proverb the enemy of my enemy is my enemy appear?
4 Answers2025-08-28 04:50:20
History nerd hat on: I get a little giddy about origins like this. The version most people recognize is actually 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' and its basic logic goes way back. Scholars usually point to ancient India — specifically the treatise known as 'Arthashastra' attributed to Kautilya (also called Chanakya) — as among the earliest textual expressions of that diplomatic idea, roughly around the 4th century BCE. So this kind of pragmatic alliance-making is at least two millennia old.
That said, proverbs and diplomatic maxims have popped up independently in many cultures, so similar formulations show in later Greek, Arabic, and medieval European writings too. The twist you asked about — 'the enemy of my enemy is my enemy' — reads like a modern, cynical inversion used to warn against short-term alliances that breed long-term problems. I’ve seen it in opinion pieces and alt-history novels where alliances backfire; it’s less of an ancient proverb and more of a contemporary rhetorical spin. If you like digging, read a bit of 'Arthashastra' and then scan some 19th–20th century diplomatic histories to see how the saying has been repurposed over time.
What are the best proverbs in Olelo Noeau: Hawaiian Proverbs and Poetical Sayings?
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What is the origin of the phrase the enemy of my enemy is my enemy?
5 Answers2025-08-28 12:15:31
I get a kick out of tracing how sayings twist over time, and this one is a neat little example of that. The straightforward proverb most of us know is "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," and that idea goes way back — you can find similar sentiments in ancient sources like the Indian political manual 'Arthashastra' and in Arabic proverbs. The original captures a practical, coalition-building logic: two foes of a common threat might cooperate to knock that threat out.
But the flipped line, "the enemy of my enemy is my enemy," reads like a sarcastic retort or a realist's warning. Its exact origin is murkier; it crops up in 20th-century political commentary and satire more than in antique texts. People started using it when they wanted to reject naive alliance logic, pointing out that a shared enemy doesn't erase deeper conflicts of interest, ideology, or morality. I first noticed it in op-eds and cartoons critiquing Cold War-era alignments and later in discussions about proxy wars and strange bedfellows in geopolitics.
To me, that inversion is useful: it reminds me to look beyond convenience in alliances. History gives us plenty of cases where cooperating with one adversary created worse long-term problems. It's a pithy way to flag that danger, and I still grin a little whenever someone drops it in a debate — it always sharpens the conversation.
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5 Answers2025-08-02 19:12:17
I've come across spreads like -5 and had to figure out what they meant. A -5 spread means the favored team is expected to win by more than 5 points. If you bet on them, they need to win by at least 6 for your bet to pay off. If they only win by 5, it's a push, and you get your money back. If they win by fewer than 5 or lose, you lose the bet.
Spreads are used to even out betting action by giving the underdog a virtual head start. The -5 indicates how much the favorite is favored by. It’s common in sports like football and basketball where point differentials matter. Understanding spreads helps in making informed bets, especially when you believe a team will outperform expectations.
How does We Spread end?
3 Answers2025-11-14 17:32:57
The ending of 'We Spread' left me with this haunting, lingering feeling—like waking up from a dream you can't quite shake. Penny, the protagonist, spends the novel grappling with memory loss and isolation in this surreal assisted living home. By the finale, the lines between reality and her unraveling mind blur completely. She either escapes or imagines escaping, but the ambiguity is the point. The last pages feel like a whisper, leaving you wondering if Penny ever had control or if the house itself was some kind of sentient trap. It's not a clean resolution, but that unease is what makes it stick with me. The way Reid plays with perception reminds me of 'I'm Thinking of Ending Things'—unsettling and open to interpretation.
What really got me was how the ending mirrors the dread of aging itself. The loss of agency, the way time distorts... It's less about the 'what' and more about the 'how.' Reid doesn't hand you answers; she hands you a feeling. And that feeling clings. I reread the last chapter twice, searching for clues, but maybe the beauty is in admitting some mysteries stay unresolved. Like Penny, we're left reaching for something just out of grasp.
Which films quote the line the enemy of my enemy is my enemy?
8 Answers2025-08-28 10:02:44
I love digging into lines like that — they feel like little Easter eggs in political thrillers and spy movies. From my movie-buffing, the exact sentiment 'the enemy of my enemy is my enemy' is pretty rare on-screen; filmmakers usually prefer the punchier classic 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend' or they paraphrase the idea. I can’t give a definitive, exhaustive list from memory, but I can share how I track these and what I’ve stumbled across.
When I want to confirm a quote I search subtitle databases like OpenSubtitles and script archives, or use websites that index film quotations. From that sleuthing habit, I’ve found a few instances where the line — or a near-exact phrasing flipping the usual proverb — pops up in political thrillers and noir-ish revenge movies. Often it’s used to highlight cynical alliance-making: a secondary character or a weary politician will drop it during a betrayal scene. If you want, I can walk through checking a specific film script with you or point to the best subtitle-search tricks I use to verify the exact phrasing.
Can cartoons use the line the enemy of my enemy is my enemy?
5 Answers2025-08-28 08:05:07
Hearing that twist made me grin — cartoons absolutely can use the line 'the enemy of my enemy is my enemy'. I say this as someone who loves when writers flip familiar sayings on their heads. In comic timing, that line is a tiny sledgehammer: it tells you a character sees alliances as zero-sum, or that they’re bitterly pragmatic, or that they just don’t trust anyone. It works for villain monologues, jaded mentors, or post-betrayal confessionals.
If you’re thinking practically, it’s not a copyright issue — proverbs and common sayings live in the public domain, so using or twisting them is fair game. What matters more is tone and context: in a kid-focused cartoon you’d probably play it up as comedic misunderstanding; in a noir-ish or satirical show like 'The Simpsons' you’d layer irony and subtext. I once scribbled that line into a scene and it immediately clarified the protagonist’s worldview without exposition.
So yeah — use it, but be intentional. It can signal paranoia, moral complexity, or a punchline, depending on delivery. Play with cadence, who says it, and what they expect the audience to take away, and it’ll land really well.
what does a spread of -7 mean
3 Answers2025-08-01 20:24:28
A spread of -7 in sports betting means the favorite team is expected to win by more than seven points. If you bet on the favorite, they need to win by at least eight points for your bet to pay out. If they win by exactly seven, it's a push, and you get your money back. Betting on the underdog at +7 means they can lose by up to six points or win outright for your bet to win. This is common in football and basketball where point differentials matter a lot. Understanding spreads helps in making informed bets, especially when you know the teams' strengths and weaknesses.
How do authors use the trope the enemy of my enemy is my enemy?
4 Answers2025-08-28 01:53:33
I get a little giddy when authors flip familiar proverbs on their heads, and the twist 'the enemy of my enemy is my enemy' is one of those deliciously bitter reversals. In stories, it functions as a way to strip away naive notions of alliance and force readers to see relationships as tangled, asymmetric webs. Instead of a neat coalition against a common foe, you get temporary truces, opportunistic betrayals, and a sense that violence only multiplies itself. I think of scenes where two factions unite against a tyrant, only to reveal their true incompatibility once the tyrant falls—it's dramatic because it follows human patterns of mistrust and competing ambitions.
On a craft level, authors use this trope to ratchet tension and complicate moral clarity. It creates dramatic irony: readers may spot the eventual betrayal before characters do, which fuels suspense, or it can be used to puncture hubris, showing that convenience-based alliances were doomed all along. Sometimes it mirrors real politics—think of shifting wartime alliances—other times it serves as thematic commentary about cycles of revenge and the futility of short-term thinking. When an author wants to underline tragedy or cynicism, this trope is perfect for the job; it makes the victory hollow and the aftermath messy, which often feels more honest to me than tidy happy endings.
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