Board Thread:General Discussion/@comment-1705775-20170901162345/@comment-1705775-20170904183432

problem with Tom and Jerry is lack of constant canon - they are toons and can be neutral or kind one moment, then villainous the next.. the same as Butch the Bulldog.. though Butch has been more constant in his antagonism (he softened over the years, originally Butch was an enemy of both Tom and Jerry).

usually in Tom and Jerry the pair are rivals but the real villains are someone else - like the tomcats (not Tom) or some human antagonist (if we observe movies) or other wild antagonist (like martians etc).

Tom is by far the more antagonistic of the two but even then he's really more of a jerk and dimwit than truly vicious - again, the show has wildly varying canon and the pair act very different depending on the short in question.

usually Tom and Jerry are just rivals, who frequently team up when bigger threats arrive.