Bart and Lisa's relationship is very contentious. Bart and Lisa are very close age-wise, which means that they are the right age to be able to get along as friends-which they sometimes do. More often we see the conflict produced by their wildly different personalities. Bart is very much the polar opposite of Lisa: reckless, antiauthoritarian, impulsive, and lazy. While Lisa works hard for her grades, Bart is more one to play tricks on the teacher and create general chaos. Both have a desire to be at the center of attention, but employ different means; Lisa works hard and develops her artistic skills, while Bart, perpetual underachiever, seeks attention but breaking the rules and generally acting up. As a result, Bart gets the negative attention, and Lisa gets the praise. Bart is not usually envious of the positive attention his sister gets, but can become jealous or angry with her when she upstages him, as seen in “My Sister, My Sitter".
Bart does very much love his sister. A good example is in "Round Springfield", in which he uses his settlement money to buy her Bleeding Gums Murphy album. Bart's feelings towards Lisa are almost entirely summed up in "Moaning Lisa", where Marge asks him if he loves his sister – to which Bart replies that everyone knows the answer to that, but he doesn't want to say it out loud. Bart does love his sister, but feels it would be uncool/not macho/just plain uncomfortable to openly express this. The majority of the time he's happier bugging Lisa, which involves being annoying/teasing her/hiding her stuff. In "Bart vs. Thanksgiving", Lisa proclaims that some of this is due to territorial instincts, and that’s not a bad thing to work from. As far as Bart is concerned he’s number one with his mom and dad (first rule – he’s the star, they should be praising him while Lisa backs them up), and is keen to protect that position, and as it were stay 'above' Lisa. Note he’s never malicious in all this.
An episode that is a good example of Bart and Lisa's relationship, and I think summarizes what they feel for each other, is "Lisa on Ice", from the 6th season. Despite their rivalry, common between siblings, Bart and Lisa really love each other and that's what really matters in the end.
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