This list is a response to the list entitled Top Ten Ultimate Rivalries published in The Ultimate Book of Top Ten Lists. The premise is simple: to count down ten great rivalries that include not just two, but exactly three diametrically opposed sides from categories ranging from history and sports to beauty and business. So with that, we might as well say it right now: Let’s get our three-way on.

This rivalry is merely the most recent in a long, complicated history of video game console rivalries that, itself, could probably merit a top ten list on its own, so it’s worth examining. In 1983, there was a big video game crash, as the popularity of arcades and home systems plummeted sharply. This was mainly caused by the overproduction of expensive, yet extremely low-quality, games, and a seemingly countless array of consoles to play them on, including the Wonder Wizard, the Magnavox Odyssey, the Mattel Intellivision and, most famous, the Atari 2600. Coming out of the crash in 1985 was the release of the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES), which achieved an unprecedented level of popularity with games such as The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Bros, with which it was packaged.

Nintendo’s only serious rival came when the Sega Genesis was released later that decade (1988 in Japan and 1990 in North America) with its Sonic the Hedgehog franchise. The Sega Genesis was a 16-bit machine, giving it superior graphics and sound to the 8-bit NES and Atari. Nintendo countered in 1990 with the release of 16-bit Super-NES. Following this, the bit wars escalated from 16 to 32 with the development of the Sega Saturn and a new console from Sony, the PlayStation. Then, it went from 32 to 64 with the Nintendo 64, the Atari Jaguar and the Sega Dreamcast, the latter two marking the sad demise of each company respectively. In the early 2000s, Nintendo released the GameCube, which from a business standpoint paled in comparison to its predecessor (the N64) and was hammered by the PlayStation 2 and newcomer XBOX by Microsoft. In 2006, Sony and Microsoft released their much-anticipated follow-ups, the PlayStation 3 and the XBOX 360.

At this time many had counted Nintendo out of the game, as it were, but it proved to be Nintendo’s ability to innovate rather than imitate that saved them. The Wii, with a design intended for a wider user base and a two-part controller device (the “Remote and Nunchuk”), proved to be an instant hit. As of today it has sold more than 75 million units worldwide, eclipsing PlayStation 3’s 41 million and XBOX 360’s 44 million. To be fair, the PlayStation 2 is the all-time leader in units sold with over 140 million.

Across the globe it seems like almost every local professional soccer league has two great, legendary clubs that play against each other in a colossal rivalry. Real Madrid and Barcelona in Spain, Boca Juniors and River in Argentina, and so on. Italy is somewhat different in that there are three teams that have historically done battle at the top. For AC Milan a.k.a. “i Rossoneri” (the Red-and-Blacks), FC Internazionale Milano a.k.a. “i Nerazzurri” (the Black-and-Blues), and Juventus FC a.k.a. “i Bianconeri” (the White-and-blacks), this special rivalry nothing of short of epic.

To start, the three clubs are in very close proximity in Northern Italy, and more importantly, they dominate their league, Serie A, having won a combined total 62 national championships (more than 50% all-time). As of 2010, Juventus has won the most with 27, although Inter has recently won 5 in a row. The three have also been the tournament runner-up a combined total of 49 times and are the only clubs in Italy that display gold stars on their jerseys—signifying at least ten championships each.

They are further renowned for their strong international play. Together they have won 37 officially recognized international championships including 12 UEFA Champions League titles (ACM has the most with 7), as well as 7 UEFA Super Cup titles and 7 Intercontinental Cup titles. And if all this greatness isn’t enough to convince you that it would be intense when they take to the pitch against each other, then consider this: There is a .com list of the top ten soccer club rivalries and two of the selections are ACM/Inter and Inter/Juventus, so please reference that list for more detailed information.

Attention to any American readers who may not know and/or care what all this is about: Just wait, there is something for you coming up later.

On June 29, 1956, U.S. President Dwight Eisenhower signed into law the Federal Aid Highway Act, which authorized the construction of over 41,000 miles of interstate highways, the largest public works project in history. Now all America needed was cars to drive on it. Enter The Big Three: Ford, Chrysler and GM, all headquartered near Detroit, Michigan.

This rivalry is intense not so much in the competition for overall production or sales, which GM dominates, but more specifically in the evaluation of the automobiles themselves. It isn’t always easy to compare cars across company lines because of the industry tendency to blend categories and find untapped markets between existing ones. Nonetheless, there are abundant occasions in which the sizes and styles match up nicely. For example, the Ford Pinto, Dodge Colt and Chevrolet Vega; the Ford GT, Dodge Viper, and Chevrolet Corvette; and the Ford Mustang, Dodge Challenger, and Pontiac Firebird. There are numerous more instances of overlap, especially when you consider other vehicles such as trucks, minivans, and SUVs.

While the heyday of these rivals is long in the past and the three of them combined is barely able to compete against German and Japanese manufacturers, to many people the cars these companies sold for years represent the very spirit of what it means to be free and American.

The creed of the Miss Universe Pageant, despite its many detractors, is to spread a message of “peace, tolerance and mutual understanding” to the world. At the top of the crop are three nations (USA, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico) that come every year not just to play, but to win. The United States, where the competition originated, has 7 all-time wins, the leader; 15 all-time top-two finishes, the leader; and 54 all-time top-ten finishes, again the leader. It has been a staggering 13 years, however, since Brook Mahealani Lee from Hawai’i last delivered an American victory.

In Venezuela, where Miss Universe is the national pastime, they boast the following: Six all-time winners (including two of the last three and the only ever back-to-back winners); six more first-runner-ups; five more second-runner-ups; four third-runner-ups; and an unmatched 13 consecutive top-six finishes (1991-2003). Venezuela is also the only country that can claim multiple awards for Best-in-Swimsuit, of which it claims a total of 4, and in 1993 Venezuelan contestant Milka Chulina matched beauty with brains when she recorded the highest-ever score (9.843) in the interview portion.

Last but not least, the humble island territory of Puerto Rico, of approximately 4 million people, has won Miss Universe an impressive 5 times, which is more than double what the world’s two most populated nations, China and India, have combined. Puerto Rico has won the Miss Photogenic award an equally impressive 5 times, second only to the Philippines, and is one of only two countries (with Venezuela) that can claim at least one victory in each of the last four decades. In 2001, Puerto Rican contestant Denise Quiñones completed perhaps the most dominant performance ever, winning Miss Photogenic, Best-in-Swimsuit, and Best Hair, to go along with the—gloriously astronomical—title of Miss Universe.

For fans of American college football there is no lack whatsoever of intense rivalry. But when it comes to three-ways, one trio stands out from the crowd. The top three Florida schools have competed valiantly for bragging rights within their state and on a national scale. They are the University of Florida, a.k.a. “U.F.” or “The Gators” (as in alligators); Florida State University, a.k.a. “F.S.U.” or “The ‘Noles” (as in the Seminole tribe); and The University of Miami, a.k.a. “The U” or “The Canes” (as in Hurricanes).

Since 1983 they have combined for 10 AP National Championships and 6 Heisman Trophy winners. In that same period, Miami has set NCAA records for most consecutive home wins (58) and most consecutive years with a first-round NFL draft pick (14). Florida has won the two most recent AP National Championships (‘06 and ‘08) and the most recent Heisman Trophy (‘07). In 1999, Florida State became the first ever wire-to-wire #1 ranked team in the AP poll and they played in each of the first three BCS Championship games.

The Miami-FSU matchup many people feel is the best out of the three as they currently compete in the same conference and have played some of the closest games, many ending notoriously in missed [would-be] game-winning field goals. The Florida-Miami matchup is the most infrequent of the three, as Florida prefers not to schedule talented teams, although this fact seems to have the effect of making their rare meeting even more intense. (Even though they avoid Miami, UF is required by state legislature to schedule FSU annually). Perhaps the greatest single year in this rivalry came in 1996 when the #2 ranked Seminoles defeated the #1 ranked Gators 24-21 at home in Tallahassee. Florida had it’s revenge soon enough when the two were paired in a Sugar Bowl rematch on January 2, 1997. The Gators won 52-20 and ended the season #1 once more.

Among shallow white women an antagonism exists between these three hair-colors, and it is 100% based on stereotype. Blondes, to begin with, are typically thought of as less intelligent than brunettes, but also more attractive and—presumably because of this— they “have more fun”. While it is true that poll results show most men would rather date a blonde woman, a majority report preferring to marry a brunette one, following the belief that brunettes are smarter and more competent. Redheads, the least common group, are the X-factor in this dynamic. They are said to be more passionate, less patient, and far more sexually energetic. One juicy piece of trivia: Redhead are scientifically proven to be more tolerant to electrically-induced pain than are non-Redheads. They are, however, more vulnerable to pain that is thermally-induced. You’re welcome for that.

In classical Greek mythology, Zeus, Poseidon and Hades were three brothers who, after defeating the Titans, became the ruling gods of the universe. As it is told in the Iliad, Zeus became the god of the sky, Poseidon the god of the sea and Hades the god of the underworld, with the remaining lot—solid earth—presumed to be the domain available to any of the three, and thus the crux of the rivalry. Their often clever, but generally moody, escapades against each other and with mankind constitute some of the most well-known stories in the hundreds of generations between Homer and Homer Simpson.

Because Zeus is often called the “father of the gods” he is often erroneously thought of as the father of all gods, but this title simply refers to the large amount of godly offspring he sired in his many random sexual conquests; offspring such as Apollo, Athena, Dionysus, Helen of Troy, Hephaestus, Heracles, Hermes, Minos, Persephone, Perseus, among several others. Yet with that established, Poseidon was a playboy in his own right. It was his erotic tryst with Medusa in an Athenian temple that caused her to turn into the hideous beast whom Zeus’s son Perseus beheaded in the movie, Clash of the Titans. He also fathered various other figures such as Polyphemus the Cyclops, who fought Odysseus in the Odyssey, and Triton the Merman, who assisted Jason and his Argonauts in their quest for the Golden Fleece, after Zeus refused to. Hades had less luck than his brothers and is usually featured in tales involving kidnap and/or attempted rape (opposed to successfully executed rape which is sometimes the case with Zeus and Poseidon), most notably with Zeus’s daughter Persephone. The Roman equivalents to Zeus, Poseidon and Hades are Jupiter, Neptune and Pluto.

This three-way relationship achieves status as an all-time great for two reasons. First, for the rivalry between each of the monster franchises, and secondly for the rivalry that exists between the three monsters themselves. In 1931, Universal Pictures released two horror films. One was “Frankenstein,” based on Mary Shelley’s 1818 gothic horror novel, with Boris Karloff playing the Monster. The other was “Dracula” starring Béla Lugosi, based on the 1897 novel by Bram Stoker. Both films proved immensely popular and spawned two sequels each within five years. But it wasn’t until “The Wolf Man”, starring Lon Chaney Jr., was released in 1941 that the trio was complete and the three characters could begin crossing over.

In “Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man” (‘43), the Monster and the Wolf Man fight each other in the first ever intra-trio battle (spoiler: they both die by drowning). Then in “House of Frankenstein” (‘44) and “House of Dracula” (‘45), the Wolf Man fights against each titular character correspondingly. Next came “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” (‘48) in which all three come together, with Dracula controlling the Monster in a fight against the Wolf Man. For most of these films, and a few others, Chaney, Karloff and Lugosi reprised their signature roles.

Later in the early seventies, two films, called “Dracula vs. Frankenstein” and “Dracula: Prisoner of Frankenstein”, featured all three characters, yet again. And later still, the three appeared in “The Monster Squad” (‘87), “Monster Mash” (‘95), another “Monster Mash,” (‘00), this one a cartoon starring Alvin and the Chipmunks, and “Van Helsing” (‘04). Needless to say, the three can’t get enough of each other, and this description is not even close to being exhaustive. One fun take was the sitcom The Munsters, in which the dad is Frankenstein’s Monster, the mom is Dracula’s daughter and the son is a young werewolf.

In the psychological model given by Sigmund Freud, the Id, the Ego and the Super-ego, or, in German, das Es (the “It”), das Ich (the “I”) and das Über-Ich (the upper “I”) are the three substructures that compose the whole of mental activity. The Id is the “dark, inaccessible part of our personality” that we inherit at birth and which acts according to physical pleasure and satisfaction. It is also described as “chaos” and “a cauldron full of seething excitation.” The Ego, on the other hand, is the part that acts according to reason, common sense, and other principles influenced by the external world. In this sense, the Ego is fundamentally opposed to the Id.

The Ego, however, also serves as the mediator between the demands of both the Id and the remaining third, the Super-ego, which is the part acting according to ideals, goals and the aim for perfection. The Super-ego therefore is also fundamentally opposed to the Id, and it is the part responsible for the feelings of guilt that follow pleasure. We can think of this rivalry as an ever-present struggle going on in each of our minds all day every day. It should be stated, though, that this is only one of three different schools of thought, which together form a three-way rivalry on their own.

The rivalry between the three great, monotheistic religions (Christianity, Judaism and Islam) earns the top spot because it is without a doubt, and by a huge margin, the bloodiest conflict on this list.

Historically, it’s may be difficult to pinpoint an exact time when it all got started. The Islamic religion, marking its beginning with the writing of the Quran in 610 AD, is surely the latecomer of the three. Long before this, however, the Christians and the Jews had been going at it pretty bad, beginning with Jesus Christ’s crucifixion in 33 AD by Roman executioners following a Jewish conviction (this was complicated). This enmity intensified incalculably with the Roman Emperor Constantine I’s conversion to Christianity in 312 AD, an event argued by some authors, such as James P. Cook, to have paved the way for Christian persecution against Jews for the remainder of European history.

But we could go even further back than that. In the year 701 BC, an enormous Assyrian army under the command of Sennacherib attempted to conquer the Israelite city of Jerusalem. Had this attempt succeeded, perhaps the very notion of monotheism, which at the time was unique to the Israelites, would have been lost forever. On the contrary, the Israelite victory further cemented their faith in a single God, so much so that it persevered even when they were conquered and enslaved by the Babylonians shortly after. Further back still, all three religions ultimately trace their legacy to the prophet Abraham, who lived in Ur around 2,000 BC, which is pushing the limits of what we would consider civilization itself.

So anyway, once the Arab Muslims sprung up and conquered Jerusalem in 638, the real commotion began. Going down the timeline, there is no shortage of barbarism between all three groups, including but not limited to the following: No less than ten Crusades to Jerusalem by European Christians; the persecution and purge of Jews, Muslims and even Christians, by Christian inquisitors in Spain; and of course, most tragically and notoriously, the mass extermination of Jews in German occupied lands by, and I use this application hesitantly, Christian Nazis in World War II. The Jewish holocaust of the 20th century, a fact openly denied by some prominent Muslims, no doubt was highly influenced by a previous and less-talked-about conflict, namely, the genocide against Armenian Christians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks (a German ally, notice) during the first world war. All this is in addition to singular acts of violence, such as the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre.

This past year, as one last example of how the fire continues to rage, a self-ordained Christian pastor in Florida zealously proclaimed 9/11 to be “International Burn-A-Koran Day” as a way of commemorating the WTC attacks, which were quoted by Osama Bin Laden as being necessary because of the American support of Israel. Those attacks killed over 3,000 Christian, Jewish and Muslim people.

Owing to the enduring need to write supplemental lists (a need that rises out of great user comments and ever-abundant research material) I have decided to write a follow up to a previous list of mine, the Top Ten Intense Three-way Rivalries from November 16, 2010. This is 10 MORE Three-Way Rivalries.

As you can guess, I find three-way rivalries to be quite fascinating, and a lot more than just 50% more complex than the standard two-sided ones. Also, having a theme like this is a good excuse to discuss a wider range of topics that might not otherwise be related: a better chance for everyone to learn something new. I’ve also snuck some personal reading recommendations in here. So I hope you enjoy my latest selections which incorporate past suggestions, explore new territory and round-out the collection at an even twenty.

You’ve played it, but do you know the origin? Well, according to the World Rock Paper Scissors Society, the earliest probable occurrence of the game was in Japan, circa 200 BC. The game then somehow migrated to Europe and then to America, by way of Jean-Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, comte de Rochambea, who commanded the French Expeditionary Force in the American Revolutionary War. In fact, if you were so inclined, you could call the game “Roshambo,” as it is thus alternatively known.

Other variants of the game exist, including a version (also from Japan) that includes a chief, a tiger and the chief’s mother. The chief beats the tiger, the tiger beats the chief’s mother, and, naturally, the chief’s mother beats the chief. I couldn’t find the hand signals for that one. Incidentally, if you want to know how to always win rock paper scissors, go here.

What political shift in all of history was more momentous than the transformation of Rome from a republic to an empire? At its core, roughly 44 BC – 30 BC, there was a three-way super-rivalry: Octavius, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus and Mark Antony

The story of the Second Roman Triumvirate has it all: Conspiracy (the assassination of Julius Caesar), an alliance (the Brundisium Treaty), spiteful convictions (Quintus Tullius Cicero, among others), unceasing power grabs (Sextus Pompeius among others), marriage (Antony and Octavian’s sister Octavia), romance (Antony and Cleopatra), the end of one dynasty (Cleopatra and the pharaohs) and the dawn of another (Augustus, Caesar of Rome).

In the early 1940’s there existed a running rivalry between two Swedish athletes, Arne Andersson and Gunder Hägg (above), who, pushing each other gradually, and pushing the human limits, would push the world record mile time to 4 minutes and 1.3 seconds. Breaking the 4-minute mark would be prove something too difficult for either to achieve. That feat would require a three-way rivalry a decade later.

Enter Roger Bannister, a self-taught (at running) Oxford medical student; John Landy, an Australian who had built endurance as a child by chasing butterflies for his collection; and Wes Santee, an abused American boy from a Kansas farm. The mission was self evident and mutually exclusive: to be the first person ever to run a mile (1,609 meters) in under 4 minutes. The winner was Bannister, who earned immortality on May 6, 1954, in Oxford, where a plaque still hangs in his honor. His time (3:59.4) would be broken a month later by Landy (3:57.9). Bannister was first, however, and Bannister would defeat Landy in a head-to-head, double sub-four race the following August, in Vancouver. In 1955, Santee ran his personal best-ever time at 4:00.5.

Professional wrestling is built on the idea of a rivalry. Fighters and bookers spend months building up “heat” and fans pay to see the dramatic climax. Sometimes, though, the lines between show and reality become blurred and no time is a better example than in the WWF, in 1997. That year, a feud had been established between Bret “The Hitman” Hart and “Stone Cold” Steve Austin. Their submission match, at WrestleMania 13, is considered to be one of the best of all-time, and it wasn’t even a title match or the main event that night (it did win Match-of-the-Year and remains an extremely rare example of the “double-turn” in wrestling jargon.)

Also in 1997, and this is where it gets thorny, Vince McMahon found his WWF brand struggling against up-and-coming competitor, WCW. The WCW had been raiding the WWF for talent and had made on offer to Hart, who had by early fall begun his fifth reign as WWF champion . After a sordid sequence of events involving spying, lying and lawsuits, the decision was made that Bret and the WWF had to part ways. To make a long story short (it would take chapters to do it justice, but if you’re interested try Bret Hart’s autobiography “Hitman”), on November 9, 1997, Bret was screwed out of the WWF title and out of his WWF career (real-life screwed, not just storyline screwed) in a notorious event known as The Montreal Screwjob.

The double-crossing is also what created the McMahon’s heel charicature, a rivalry with whom Steve Austin would work, taking WWF to new heights and essentially crushing WCW, by 1999. It took years, during which Bret’s younger brother Owen was killed at a WWF event, but Bret Hart eventually forgave Vince and returned to a role in the WWF. In a nice twist, Steve Austin acted as Master of Ceremonies at Bret Hart’s induction into the Professional Wrestling Hall of Fame.

My original list contained an entry about the Miss Universe pageant, but before we could get to that luxury we first needed to decide on an actual model for our universe. In the late sixteenth century there were three clear contenders. The first was by the great librarian, Ptolemy, who had the Earth at the center, surrounded by the moon, the sun, and the stars. This “geocentric” view represented all of ancient philosophy, and prevailed as the status quo well through the middle ages.

The second was by Copernicus, who, as his last act before death in 1543, authorized his “heliocentric” model, which had the sun at the center surrounded by the revolving Earth and other planets. A short time later, a third model was offered by the Danish astronomer Tycho Brahe, who had the earth fixed at the center again, with the sun revolving around it, but this time with the planets and stars orbiting around the sun. It was sort of a mix between the previous two, and he, impressively, included the path of a comet. (There were no serious theories that had the moon not rotating around the Earth. That was apparent.) Each of these theories had its practical arguments for and against, and its stringent supporters. Well with Galileo’s newly fashioned telescope, and with a little help from Kepler to work out the kinks in the math, the Copernican model was settled on, but not before a few burnings at the stake.

Now, we all might think we’re smart for knowing what they didn’t, that the Earth travels around the sun. Remember, though, another scientist named Albert Einstein would come along with a theory that all motion is relative to any individual point of reference, which, in a way, would bring the center of the universe right back to the Earth, where we started.

Bizarre tangent: Tycho Brahe died of a ruptured bladder after failing to receive permission to excuse himself from a courtly dinner.

Without getting bogged down in a weighty discussion on the causes of the first world war, let’s focus solely on the peculiar fact that three of the four biggest belligerents in that horrible episode were lead by three men who had the same grandmother. They were Kaiser Wilhelm II of the German Empire, Czar Nicholas II of the Russian Empire and King George V of the United Kingdom. Here’s how it went: George V’s father, Edward VII, was the brother of the Kaiser’s mother. The Czar (which is Russian for Caesar, as is Kaiser in German), despite having an uncanny resemblance to George V in portraits, was only the King’s (and the Kaiser’s) cousin through marriage, a fact that is true twice: his mother was the sister of Edward VII’s wife (also the Queen of Denmark) and his own wife, Czarina Alix, was Edward VII’s niece.

Britain had joined France and Russia in a Triple Entente, but this hardly meant that they were true allies, obligated to assist in a continental war. The British would do exactly that, but in the precarious years, and even days, leading up to the outbreak, it is was nowhere near a given. After all, the ties between Britain and Germany were real. Queen Victoria (their grandmother) preferred Germany over France, and the Kaiser not only attended Edward VII’s funeral, dressed in British military regalia, but also held the late King’s widow’s (the Kaiser’s aunt’s) hand. As for Wilhelm and Nicholas, consider this heartbreaking piece of trivia: when they were corresponding with each other, in July, 1914, in a doomed search for a way out of war, the two great emperors actually referred to each other as “Willy” and “Nicky.” The political situation among nations had reached critical mass, yet the kinship between the two cousins still had a tender side to it. The darker side would follow.

For a detailed account of the events leading up to “The Great War,” allow me to strongly recommend The Guns of August, by Barbara Tuchman. It won the Pulitzer Prize (in my opinion for the first chapter alone), and was made required reading, by President John F. Kennedy, for all his cabinet during the Cuban Crisis of 1962. The Tsar and his cousin, the Kaiser, are pictured above.

These are the media conglomerates that control much of what we get as information and entertainment. They are not the only conglomerates (others include Viacom and NBC Universal) but they are the three biggest. And they are massive. The Walt Disney Company, for example, owns and operates the American Broadcasting Company (ABC), several movie studios, including Pixar Animation Studios, and a plethora of cable/satellite channels including The Disney Channel, The History Channel, Lifetime, the entire ESPN family of networks and ESPN, the Magazine. And Marvel Comics. This is in addition to its famous parks and resorts, and a cruise line.

News Corp boasts as its assets the following: 20th Century Fox, Fox Television Studios, Fox News Channel, Fox Sports, The Sun and The Times, The New York Post, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other endeavors including National Geographic and MySpace. Time Warner (formerly Time Warner AOL) is known primarily for its two merged namesakes; Warner Bros. and Time Inc, the publisher of Time, Fortune, People, Sports Illustrated, Entertainment Weekly, and over 100 other magazines. Their holdings also include yet another blitz of cable/satellite channels including HBO, CNN, TBS and Cartoon Network.

There also exists, it should be noted, virtually countless possibilities of three-way rivalries existing within this complex. Such as: Bugs Bunny/Daffy Duck/Elmer Fudd from Looney Tunes (Warner), or Batman/Joker/Catwoman from DC Comics (Warner again), or even Humans/Elves/Dwarfs from the Lord of the Rings film trilogy (distributed by New Line Cinema, a subsidiary of Warner.)

This might seem like an odd pick to make the top 3, just because of how deliciously well they go together. Historically parallel, all three were “discovered” by the Spanish during their conquest of Aztec Mexico. They were also, and by an insurmountable margin, the most popular milkshake flavors of the classic hamburger diners deemed by this writer to be of great cultural value, nearly attaining relic status. Maybe I’m just a sucker for the nostalgic, and a cynic, but I’m always mildly shocked when new “old-fashioned”-themed restaurants even serve a milkshake in an actual “glass” glass, and even more so when they give you two straws without asking.

They’re also the three flavors of high-protein muscle drinks used by weightlifters and bodybuilders, so I suppose the milkshake legacy lives on in that new form. The trio is also quasi-analogous to a rivalry featured on my original list: Blondes, Brunettes and Redheads, but that might be stretching it.

What it boils down to is simply this: With all three flavors so perfectly unique, and uniquely divine, and all three vying for your predilection, which one do you chose? Which bite of Neapolitan ice cream do you eat first? Which bite do you save for last? Decisions, decisions, decisions.

This rivalry is legendary for many reasons, the most obvious of which is that it’s the most common and severe type of rivalry: the sibling rivalry. It’s certainly the best example of one in Shakespeare, and arguably in all of English lit.

In King Lear, the old king asks each of his three daughters, Goneril, Regan and Cordelia, to express how much they love him, in order to receive their division of the kingdom. The two eldest daughters humor him with grand elaborations of their love, but the youngest daughter (Cordelia), who loves him the most, refuses to participate in the shallow public display. The king subsequently banishes her from Britain and she marries the King of France. Goneril and Regan then conspire to affect the demise of their senile father, but are ultimately consumed with jealousy and hatred for each other. In the end, Cordelia is executed, Goneril poisons Regan (to death) and then stabs herself (to death), and Lear dies with Cordeia’s dead body in his arms. It’s the archetypal Shakespearean corpse heap.

Of course, we cannot talk Shakespeare without at least one close textual reading. So consider this passage from the fourth act between Cordelia and Lear, in which the king admits his mistake: He tells her, “If you have poison for me, I will drink it. I know you do not love me; for your sisters have, as I do remember, done me wrong: You have some cause, they have not.” Cordelia responds plainly, “No cause. No cause.”

Ron Rosenbaum, in his book The Shakespeare Wars, makes the case that this one line unlocks a certain “forgiveness as pleasure.” He even calls it the “ultimate pleasure,” stating, “Of course there is cause, but nothing he’s done is unforgivable, nothing he has done is ‘cause’ enough, is cause anymore. Forgiveness suspends the old laws of cause and effect.”

Something positive to think about, I thought.

We all know the ultimate battle in life is between good and evil. But what happens when that old dynamic is warped into a three-way confrontation? Edmund Burke is often attributed with the line, “The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.” This might create three groups of people: the good, the evil, and the reluctant and/or complacent. But, perhaps its more fun to approach the question the way Italian film director Sergio Leone did, in his 1966 western The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, starring Clint Eastwood (“il buono”), Lee Van Cleef (“il brutto”), and Eli Wallach (as Tuco Benedicto Pacífico Juan María Ramírez, or “il cattivo”). The story, the third in a trilogy, is about a search for lost gold, and in the final scene the three armed men face each other in an epic three-way showdown to the death, or categorically, a Mexican Standoff. No spoilers here.

This item tops the list because it is not merely a three-way rivalry, but the absolute culmination of one; it’s rivalry reached a guns-drawn apex. Also, no other three-way rivalries on this list have the added effect of an Ennio Morricone musical accompaniment. Can’t beat those horns. Quentin Tarantino (who is also noted for making use of the Mexican Standoff, and for employing Morricone scores, yet I can’t say he’s done both at the same time) called The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly “the best directed film of all-time.” And if imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, then his praise is, moreover, high indeed.