Arch Enemy / Other Media

"There is nothing on Earth that we share! It is either Valjean or Javert!"
^{Top to bottom}Les Misérables, Les Misérables, Les Misérables (2018), and Les Misérables: Shōjo Cosette

Though I do admit it came on fast,
Still I do believe that it can last
And I will be loathing, for forever, loathing, truly deeply loathing you,
My whole life long

— Galinda and Elphaba, Wicked, "What Is This Feeling?"

Examples of Arch-Enemy in other media.

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Asian Animation

• Krishna Aur Kans: Krishna has King Kans, his Evil Uncle who imprisoned his parents, killed his older siblings as infants, and has been sending demons after him to prevent their Final Battle which will doom the latter.
• Pleasant Goat and Big Big Wolf: Wolffy and Weslie are constantly fighting due to the former wanting to eat the latter and his friends.

Comic Strips

• Buck Rogers had Killer Kane.
• Dan Dare has the Mekon as his most enduring foe.
• Dick Tracy had Flattop. Flattop was Killed Off for Real decades ago, but he was so popular that Legacy Characters kept popping up afterward.
• Flash Gordon has Ming the Merciless.
• Garfield has a weird example: Mondays. While usually shown to be just a worst day of the week for Garfield, they also had at least two different personifications, one looked like a bunch of generic monsters and one like Frankenstein's Monster. It's definitely mutual, as Mondays manage to have any kind of problem for Garfield, sometimes exceeding the limits of reality outright.
  • Garfield also has Nermal, a kitten who constantly annoys him. Garfield keeps trying to send him to to Abu Dhabi.
  • In his "Caped Avenger" persona he had proclaimed Odie as his archenemy, but considering that Odie is usually a frenemy and they does not necessarily share the mutual enmity, Mondays are a more real deal. Moreover, "Caped Avenger" later proclaimed Odie as his sidekick as well.
• The old melodrama spoof Hairbreadth Harry had the title character fighting a Dastardly Whiplash named Rudolph Rassendale — although Rudy was the real star of the strip.
• Mandrake the Magician has Cobra.
• From Peanuts:
  • Charlie Brown and the Kite-Eating Tree.
  • Snoopy and the Red Baron.
• Annie Mae the sea anenome to Pig in Pearls Before Swine.
• Prince Valiant had Sligon, the tyrant who usurped his father's throne.

Films — Animation

• All Dogs Go to Heaven: Charlie B. Barkin has Carface Carruthers, his former business partner who betrayed him.
• Anastasia: Anastasia Romanova has Rasputin, who is responsible for most of her family being killed.
• Battle for Terra: Mala has General Hemmer, who seeks to exterminate her people and uses her as a captive for a Sadistic Choice he gives to Jim Stanton, a human who Mala befriended.
• Bee Movie: Barry B. Benson has Layton T, Montgomery, a lawyer fighting against Barry's lawsuit against humanity, who provokes Barry's friend Adam into stinging him (Motngomery), which harms Barry's case and harms Adam physically. Barry also has Ken, a man allergic to bees who tries to kill Barry out of jealousy for being close to his girlfriend Vanessa.
• Coraline: Coraline Jones has the Beldam, who schemes to ensnare her by pretending to be an idealized version of Coraline's mother, and later by kidnapping Coraline's real parents.
• Corpse Bride: Victor Van Dort, Emily, and Victoria Everglot have Lord Barkis Bittern, Emily's ex-lover, who eloped with her and murdered her. Barkis later convinces Victoria's parents to marry her off to him instead of Victor, and kidnaps her in the climax, prompting Victor to fight Barkis.
• Disney Animated Canon:
  • Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Snow White has Queen Grimhilde, her Wicked Stepmother who sends her Huntsman to kill her out of jealousy for her beauty. After the Huntsman defies her by sparing Snow White, Grimhilde, under the guise of an old woman, personally tricks Snow White into eating a poisoned apple.
  • Cinderella has Lady Tremaine, her Wicked Stepmother.
  • Peter Pan has Captain Hook, a pirate who seeks revenge on him for taking his hand.
  • Sleeping Beauty: Prince Phillip has Maleficent, who put a curse on Princess Aurora, his wife-to-be.
  • 101 Dalmatians: Pongo and Perdita have Cruella de Vil, who seeks to have their puppies killed for their fur.
  • The Black Cauldron: Taran has the Horned King, who seeks to use Hen Wen, the pig of Taran and his his guardian Dallben. The Horned king has Taran imprisoned after he (Taran) helps the pig escape. After Taran escapes, the Horned King uses him and his companions as a MacGuffin Delivery Service.
  • The Great Mouse Detective: Basil of Baker Street has Professor Ratigan, who he spent years trying to catch.
  • Oliver & Company: Oliver has Bill Sykes, a Loan Shark who kidnaps Jenny Foxworth, a human girl who adopted Oliver.
  • Beauty and the Beast: Belle has her Stalker with a Crush Gaston, who arranges to have her father sent to an asylum to force her to marry him, and then tries to kill her Love Interest the Beast after she confirms his (the Beast's) existence.
  • The Hunchback of Notre Dame (Disney): Quasimodo and Esmerelda have Judge Claude Frollo, who is the former's abusive guardian and the latter's Stalker with a Crush.
  • Mulan has Shan Yu, a Hun whose invasion of China led to her father's conscription, resulting in Mulan disguising herself as a man to fight the Huns in her father's place. During her time disguised as a man, Mulan causes the destruction of most of Shan Yu's army, and when she confronts him again at the end of the film (and ties up her hair in a knot like the one she had while disguising herself), Shan Yu recognizes her as "the soldier from the mountains" and attacks her.
  • The Emperor's New Groove: Kuzco has Yzma, his disgruntled ex-advisor who schemes to murder him.
  • Bolt: In the Show Within a Show, Bolt has Dr. Calico, who kidnapped the father of Bolt's human companion Penny.
  • The Princess and the Frog: Tiana and Prince Naveen have Dr. Facilier, who turned Naveen into a frog, which led to Tiana being turned into a frog as well when she tried to break the spell by kissing Naveen.
• Finding Nemo: Marlin has P. Sherman, who kidnapped his son Nemo.
• Fire and Ice (1983): Lord Nekron to Larn, Teegra, and Darkwolf. Nekron is responsible for the destruction of Larn's village and the death of Teegra's brother. Darkwolf has a personal conflict with Nekron for undisclosed reasons, and is ultimately the one who kills Nekron.
• Ice Age: Continental Drift: Manny has Captain Gutt. Manny refuses to join his crew, destroys one of his ships, stealing his replacement ship, and stealing Shira's loyalty. Gutt retaliates by taking Manny's family hostage with the intention of killing them.
• The Incredibles: Mr. Incredible has Syndrome, his former fan who killed several of Bob's fellow supers and shot down a plane piloted by his wife (which Bob's two eldest children were aboard).
• Incredibles 2: Elastigirl has her False Friend Evelyn Deavor, who manipulates her into capturing an innocent man (who was brainwashed by Evelyn into acting as the Screenslaver), puts hypnotic goggles on her, with the brainwashed Elastigirl in turn putting hypnotic goggles on her husband Bob.
• The Land Before Time: Littlefoot has Sharptooth, who killed his mother.
• The Last Unicorn: The Unicorn has King Haggard and the Red Bull, who are responsible for driving her kind into the sea.
• Latte and the Magic Waterstone: Latte has King Bantur, who caused a drought in her forest by stealing a magical item known as the waterstone.
• The LEGO Movie: Emmet Brickowski has Lord Business, who Emmet used to respect before discovering his evil nature. Business tries to have Bad Cop melt him, kills Vitruvius, tries to kill the Master Builders (forcing Emmet to throw himself out of the LEGO world to save them), and plans to freeze the LEGO world in Kragle. Business is a representation of the Man Upstairs, the Archnemesis Dad to Emmet's creator Finn.
  • In the second film, Lucy has Rex Dangervest, Emmet's evil future self, who is the embodiement of Wyldstyle's wish for Emmet to become a tough person Gone Horribly Right.
• The Lorax (2012): Ted Wiggins has Aloysius O'Hare, a Corrupt Corporate Executive seeking to prevent Ted from bringing trees back, which would render O'Hare's bottled air company obsolete.
• Kirikou and the Sorceress: Kirikou has Karaba, an evil sorceress terrorizing her village, only for her to be repeatedly outsmarted by Guile Hero Kirikou.
• Kung Fu Panda:
  • Shifu has Tai Lung, his evil former pupil.
  • Defied between Po and Lord Shen. One one hand, Shen is technically the most influential villain in Po's life. massacred Po's people, killed Po's mother, and sought to kill Po himself to avert a prophecy of his own defeat. Additionally, Shen's red-eye symbol, and Shen's feathers which resemble it, are a Trauma Button for Po. On the other hand, Po was too young to know his biological family, and when Po finally learns what happens, Po overcomes his truama, finds inner peace, and offers Shen forgiveness.
  • In the third film, Po has Kai the Collector, who stole the chi of his friends. Unlike with Shen, Po doesn't bother trying to redeem Kai.
  • Oogway has his Evil Former Friend Kai.
• Madagascar:
  • In the first two films, Alex has Nana, an old lady who beats him up in Grand Central Station during the first film. She beats him up again in the second film when he encounters her on the latter's safari in Africa. During the climax of the second film, she tries to kill Alex for food. In the third film, Alex has Chantel DuBois, an animal control officer who seeks to kill Alex, even after he returns to the Central Park Zoo.
  • Zuba has Makunga, who schemes to supplant him as the alpha lion.
• Monsters, Inc.: James P. Sullivan and Mike Wazowski have Randall Boggs, who is the former's resentful rival and the latter's Evil Former Friend.
• Rango has Rattlesnake Jake, who exposed him as a fraud and ran him out of town, only for Rango to return to town and humiliate Jake in turn.
• Rio: Blu has the villainous cockatoo Nigel. In the first film, he labors to kidnap Blu and Jewel on behalf of his owner Marcel. However, while Marcel's actions are motivated by greed, Nigel is motivated by his hatred of "pretty birds" such as Blu and Jewel, and even wishes to make them ugly. Blu's confrontation with Nigel in the first film's climax costs Nigel his ability to fly, causing Nigel to seek revenge against Blu in the second film.
• Robots: Phinas T. Ratchet and Madame Gasket to Rodney Copperbottom, whose repairing of outmoded robots is a threat to their plans to force robots to buy their upgrades.
• Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer (1964): Rudolph has the Abominable Snow Monster, who attacked Rudolph on his journey, and later captured his parents and his Love Interest Clarice.
• Santa Claus Is Comin' to Town: Kris Kringle, who seeks to bring toys to the children of Sombertown, has Burgermeister Meisterburger, a Fun-Hating Villain who attempts to undermine his attempts to bring toys into Sombertown, has Kris and his family imprisoned, and brands him an outlaw when he escapes.
• Shrek: Shrek has Lord Farquaad, Prince Charming, and Rumpelstiltskin.
  • Lord Farquaad is the Big Bad of the first film and Shrek 4D. He sends fairy tail creatures to Shrek's swamp, and forces Shrek to go on a dangerous quest before agreeing to remove them, and plans to have him drawn-and-quartered when Shrek interferes with his wedding to Fiona. Although he is eaten at the end of the first film, he returns as a ghost in Shrek 4-D, seeking revenge on Shrek.
  • Prince Charming is the secondary antagonist of Shrek 2 and the Big Bad of Shrek the Third, whose goal of marrying Fiona to become the King of Far Far Away was inadvertently spoiled by Shrek marrying Fiona instead. In Shrek 2, he tries to steal Fiona away from him. In Shrek the Third, he tries to publicly kill Shrek.
  • Rumpelstiltskin is the Big Bad of Shrek Forever After. He despises Shrek for rescuing Fiona, therefore ruining his plan to have King Harold sign Far Far Away over to him. Rumpelstiltskin seeks to erase Shrek form existance so he can become King of Far Far Away.
• Sinbad: Legend of the Seven Seas: Sinbad has Eris, who framed him for the theft of the Book of Peace, resulting in Sinbad being sentenced to death. However, when Sinbad's childhood friend Proteus offers to be executed in Sinbad's place, Sinbad goes on a quest to retrieve the Book of Peace from Eris to save Proteus' life.
• Sing 2: Buster Moon has Jimmy Crystal, who threatens him for lying about knowing Clay Calloway. After Buster has Jimmy's daughter Porsha switch roles with Rosita, Jimmy, believing Buster fired Porscha, tries to murder him.
• Speckles: The Tarbosaurus: Speckles has One-Eye, who killed his family.
• Surf's Up: Cody Maverick has Tank Evans, a rival surfer who vandalizes a memorial to Cody's idol Big Z, defeats Cody in a surfing match that nearly costs him his life, and tries to throw Cody's friend Chicken Joe off of his surfboard in a later match.
• Team America: World Police: Team America has Kim Jong-il, a terrorist mastermind who allied with the Film Actor's Guild, whose leader Alec Baldwin publically denounces Team America for provoking terrorists into destroying the Panama Canal. Said terrorists were allied with Kim Jong-il, although they carried out the attack earlier than Kim Jong-il intended. Later in the film, Kim Jong-il captures most of the team's members.
• Thumbelina (1994): Thumbelina and her Love Interest Prince Cornelius have Grundel Toad, Thumbelina's Abhorrent Admirer who seeks to marry her.
• Toy Story 3: Woody has Lots-o'-Huggin' Bear, who imprisons his friends, brainwashes Buzz, and leaves Woody and his friends to die in an incinerator.

Multiple Media

• BIONICLE:
  • Mata Nui has Makuta Teridax, his treacherous former ally who put him in a deep sleep. When Mata Nui was finally awakened one thousand years later, Teridax stole his body and banished him, leaving Mata Nui Brought Down to Badass.
  • Lesovikk has Karzhani, as Lesovikk's fellow villagers, including his friends Sarda and Idris, were handed over to Karzhani by an insane Turaga.
• Casper the Friendly Ghost: Casper has Kibosh, who wants Casper to become a scary ghost. Kibosh serves as the Big Bad of Casper: A Spirited Beginning, Casper's Haunted Christmas, Casper: Friends Around the World, and Casper: Spirit Dimensions.
• G.I. Joe: In most media, the most recurring opposition to the G.I. Joe team is Cobra, a terrorist organization most frequently led by Cobra Commander.
• The Lone Ranger has Butch Cavendish, an outlaw responsible for the deaths of his fellow Texas Rangers, including his brother.
• Sam & Max have Mack Salmon, a Diabolical Mastermind with a fake human body and fish in a bowl instead of a head, who blames Sam and Max for his state of existence.
• Transformers:
  • Optimus Prime's most prominent enemy is Megatron. In some continuities, the two used to be friends.
  • Primus has his brother Unicron.

Mythology & Religion

• Arthurian Legend: Guinevere has Morgan le Fay, who schemes against her and seeks to expose her affair with Lancelot.
• Hindu Mythology: Krishna has Kamsa, who killed his six eldest siblings.
• Loki and Heimdall in Norse Mythology. Fittingly enough, they kill each other in Ragnarok. There's also Thor and Jormungandr who do the same.
• Older Than Dirt Egyptian Mythology examples:
  • Re/Ra and Apophis/Apep.
  • Osiris and Set. Also Horus and Set.
• Satan and the Archangel Michael, being the one who cast Old Scratch out of Heaven.

Podcasts

• The Executive from Fallout Is Dragons fits this trope for Powder Keg, as he forced the young unicorn to shoot his own brother for no reason other than his own amusement.
• Welcome to Night Vale: Cecil could be said to have one in the form of Steve Carlsberg, although it's quite one-sided and falls into Sitcom Arch-Nemesis territory. He eventually gains a true example when Kevin comes along.

Tabletop Games

• This is actually a game mechanic in Adventure. The "Nemesis" background allows the player to create an arch-foe for their hero, and the hero gets certain advantages when facing their hated enemy. How many ranks you take in the background determines the level of their enmity.
• Dungeons & Dragons often uses this in its various subsettings.
  • One of the more traditional and well-known examples is the three-way hatefest between Demogorgon, Orcus and Graz'zt; Demogorgon is the current Prince of Demons, and both Orcus and Graz'zt are the most likely challengers to his title.
  • Another Evil Versus Evil case is the demon princes Baphomet (patron god of minotaurs) and Yeenoghu (patron god of gnolls). There's no real reason behind this hostility, they just loathe each other — although, in the World Axis cosmology, it's believed that Yeenoghu once betrayed Baphomet at a critical battle and almost cost the other demon prince his life, which Baphomet has never forgiven.
  • The draconic gods Bahamut (god of the good-aligned Metallic dragons) and Tiamat (goddess of the evil-aligned Chromatic dragons) absolutely detest each other, whichever setting you go to. Taken to new heights in the Nentir Vale setting, where they are literally the manifest good and evil halves of a slain deity called Io, and the Dragonlance setting, where under the new names Paladine and Takhisis they are the Supreme Gods of Good and Evil, respectively, and the setting's entire history is basically an ongoing battle between them for supremacy.
  • Corellon (god of elves) and Gruumsh (god of orcs) hate each other, a rivalry that was only cemented when Corellon cut out one of Gruumsh's eyes in a duel. Whilst some settings offer possible explanations for this rivalry, the default seems to be that they are inherently opposed to each other's very existence.
  • Gruumsh also has an Evil Versus Evil arch-enemy in the form of Maglubiyet, god of goblinoids.
  • Laduguer, the god of the evil dwarves known as duergar, hates his counterpart Moradin, the patron god of dwarves.
  • The derro, the other evil dwarf subrace, have two patron gods; twin brothers called Diirinka and Diinkarazan. Diirinka attained godhood by abandoning his brother to the wrath of the illithid god Ilsensine when it caught them stealing some of its divine power; it promptly imprisoned Diinkarazan in a magical prison designed to afflict him with constant pain and raving insanity. Not surprisingly, the only thing really left in Diinkarazan's mind is how much he hates Diirinka, and Diirinka makes himself very scarce during the once-a-century time when Ilsensine lets Diinkarazan out of his prison to seek revenge on his prother.
  • In the gnomish pantheon, Urdlen, the original gnomish God of Evil, hates... well, all of the other gnome gods, but he especially despises Garl Glittergold, the head of the pantheon. In 3rd edition, the evil gnome god Gelf Darkhearth was added, whose entire thing is that he's Garl's Evil Twin and exists only to destroy Garl and everything Garl holds dear. As in, he doesn't even really dislike the gnomes themselves, but Garl loves them, so he feels obligated to kill them all to hurt Garl.
  • In the Forgotten Realms, the evil gods Bane (god of tyranny) and Cyric (god of murder) detest each other above all other gods.
  • In the Nentir Vale, many members of the pantheon have these kinds of rivalries. Avandra (goddess of freedom, luck and heroism) detests Zehir (god of assassins, murder and slavery), whilst Moradin (god of community) hates Asmodeus (god of tyranny and corruption). Additionally, the Raven Queen, as goddess of the dead, is in an eternal struggle with Orcus, who as demon prince of the undead wants to take her job.
  • Eberron: The three main ancient or arcane conspiracies generally have an opposed faction to keep them in check. The Gatekeeper druids exist to fight daelkyr and their aberrant creations, the Dreaming Dark and the kalashtar of the Path of Light struggle over the future of Dal Quor, and the dragons of the Chamber have been fighting the Lords of Dust since before humanity existed.
• In Nomine: Several pairs of archangels and demon princes are bitter enemies, some because they share the same concept or are otherwise metaphysically opposed and others because of specific incidents.
  • Blandine, Archangel of Dreams, opposes is Beleth, the Princess of Nightmares and her former lover. They fight a constant battle over the minds and dreams of mortals, where Blandine seeks to inspire them to greater heights and Beleth attempts to drown them in fear and horror, and have ever since Beleth betrayed her lover during the Fall.
  • Christopher, Archangel of Children, has never forgiven Kobal, Prince of Dark Humor, for the Children's Crusade.
  • Eli, Archangel of Creation, has a particularly bitter enmity with Andrealphus, Prince of Lust. Once, very long ago, when Andrealphus was the Archangel of Love, the two were close allies. In the modern day, they furiously oppose everything the other stands for. Eli embraces love as a spiritual and physical sacrament, a selfless sharing of joy, and a means of creating new life; Andrealphus' lust stimulates the body while neglecting mind and soul, and is for the benefit of nothing and nobody but the individual. Each views what the other champions as a repulsive heresy, and both particularly value the chance to turn each other's agents to their side.
  • Gabriel and Belial, Archangel and Demon Prince of Fire. The two struggle constantly for control of their Word in an enmity that has become legendary among Celestials, and this conflict is credit as a major reason for Gabriel's poor mental state.
  • Jean, Archangel of Lightning, struggles constantly against Vapula, the Prince of Technology. While Jean seeks to carefully manage technological progress, Vapula wants for it to spiral out of control and for humanity to gain powerful, destructive devices before it's ready to properly manage them. Jean views Vapula as a monstrous danger to human developement, while Vapula views Jean as his counterpart, opposite, and fated nemesis and directs his minions to oppose the agents of Lightning above all other Heavenly factions.
  • Litheroy, Archangel of Revelation, opposes Alaemon, Prince of Secrets and — probably — Litheroy's own former servitor. As Litheroy works to reveal the world and make truth available to all, Alaemon seeks to make the world a place of ignorance, obfuscation, and selfish hoarding of knowledge.
  • Marc, Archangel of Trade, has a cold, intellectual loathing for Mammon, Prince of Greed, seeing him as the embodiment of profit over principle. Mammon, on the other hand, sees Marc as a fellow profiteer.
  • Michael, Archangel of War, and Baal, Demon Prince of the War. The two were once peers, before the Fall. Nowdays, the look forward to nothing so much as their prophesied duel on the plains of Ha-Megiddo, where one shall strike the other down and prove himself the greatest warrior in Heaven, Earth, or Hell.
  • Yves, Archangel of Destiny, and Kronos, Prince of Fate. They share a unique connection to the Symphony and represent a higher class of beings than common celestials, but have diametrically opposite natures — they embody nothing less than the bright Destiny and dark Fate of God and the Symphony, and struggle endlessly for control of the world's final end. Where Yves seeks to bring it towards a grand finale and completion, Kronos would see it all dragged into the Pit.
• Magic: The Gathering:
  • Urza and Yawgmoth is the best known Archenemy pairing, although there are dozens of individual hatreds. They've even released a variant named Arch Enemy, although that's dedicated more to a dynamic of Big Bad vs. Enemy Mine.
  • Ugin has Nicol Bolas, his Evil Twin.
  • The dark mage Mairsil considered the archmage Jodah to be his greatest foe, as Jodah was responsible for ending Mairsil's reign over the Conclave of Mages and for his physical death as well. Most of Mairsil's activities after he became trapped inside his ring were intended to bring about Jodah's downfall and death.
• Antagonist, an available bad trait in Rocket Age can either give you a minor enemy or a full blown antagonist, depending on the level of the trait.
• As it is heavily influenced by comic books, Sentinels of the Multiverse uses Arch Enemies quite a bit. Every playable hero character has a Villain nemesis (though there are some cards in villain and environment decks that have nemesis icons). Damage one deals to their nemesis is increased by one. For some pairs, this is one sided, such as the Argent Adept, a support hero who has few attacking powers, and his nemesis Akash'Bhuta, who has several ways to deal damage though her Limbs.
  • The Villain Team-Up expansions take this a bit further. The five main villains of Vengeance and ten of Villains of the Multiverse have several targets in their decks that gain special effects that specifically weaken their nemesis if their nemesis is active. Calypso (a nemesis of Ra) reduces fire damage if Ra is active, which is the only damage type Ra deals. Hilariously, Fanatic's mini-nemesis in Vengeance, the Seer, can actually work in your favour because he prevents heroes from inflicting damage to themselves: while this is a problem for Fanatic (who has a number of "damage yourself for a benefit" effects and likes to put her HP at risk), it becomes hilarious if you have Sky-Scraper on the same team, because Sky-Scraper's Large form has an awful lot of effects that deal splash damage recklessly.
  • Usually, the nemesis icon comes from the hero: the various Baron Blades, for example, have Legacy's lantern symbol, while Deadline has the Naturalist's star iconography. The one exception is OblivAeon; as the Final Boss of the entire timeline, and a character who forced multiple villains to pull a Heel–Face Turn or at least an Enemy Mine with the heroes, his record-setting seven archnemeses^note at least, nemeses who have their own decks; if you count the number of actual cards with nemesis icons Ra has twelve have his symbol on them, rather than the other way around.
  • Notably, nemesis icons provide their damage boost no matter what side the target is on. In the case of heroes who share a symbol (usually this will happen in cases like the OblivAeon ex-villain characters), this can be a detriment; for example, if Stuntman's mine goes off and hits other ex-villains it will deal bonus damage to all of them. Other times, such as if you have ways to get villain cards to hit each other, it's hilarious.
• The nemesis relationship is a gameplay element in Villainous. "Hero" cards act as obstacles to players and often need to be defeated to regain their abilities. For some players, like Captain Hook, their victory condition is to defeat their arch-enemy character.
• Warhammer 40,000: While everyone will gladly fight everyone else, there are some special rivalries and hatreds. The Imperium of Man is the staunchest enemies of the Forces of Chaos, the Eldar fought the Necrons once before and have taken it upon themselves to take them down now they have re-awoken, the Tau view the Tyranids as the single greatest threat to their survival (and they may not be far off from the truth), the Space Wolves and the Thousand Suns and the Ultramarines and the Word Bearers Space Marine chapters have intense rivalries stretching back millennia, the Chaos Gods Khorne and Slaanesh battle constantly to one-up each other, and the Orks are constantly this to everyone including themselves.
  • As an illustration of how deeply the Ultramarines vs Word Bearers hatred runs: in the Horus Heresy novels, it is revealed that the Ultramarines keep a precise count of time since the beginning of a battle - known as the Mark. The Mark of Calth, for the battle in which the Word Bearers first attacked the Ultramarines, will be left running until every Word Bearer is dead. Meaning that an Ultramarine can give you a precise count of how long it is they have wanted the Word Bearers to die, even ten thousand years after the original battle. Now that is enmity.
  • On a smaller, more individual basis, there's Commissar Yarrick and Warboss Ghazkull Mag Uruk Thraka; Ghazkull thinks Yarrick is the greatest enemy he has ever fought and takes great enjoyment out of battling him, and Yarrick thinks Ghazkull is a hideous abomination and has vowed to kill him personally. They're still fighting to the death.
  • The Eldar and Slaanesh have a very deep and personal enmity. The Eldar actually created Slaanesh through centuries of murderous hedonistic depravity. The birth of Slaanesh and its rampant slaughter of the Eldar pantheon is the entire reason the Eldar are a Dying Race. Slaanesh also claims any unprotected Eldar soul as its plaything after death. The various cultures of the remaining Eldar revolve entirely around finding ways to prevent She Who Thirsts from getting its disgusting appendages on their souls. The Eldar hate and fear Slaanesh more than anything else. Slaanesh for its part considers Eldar to be particularly amusing playthings.
  • Ahzek Ahriman seems to be becoming more and more of one to the Eldar Harlequins due to his obsession with the Black Library they guard. He's killed a lot of Eldar during his mad quest to unlock the Library's secrets.
  • The Emperor of Mankind to the Chaos Gods and vice versa. The Emperor tried to create a galaxy wide Flat-Earth Atheist empire for the sole purpose of killing the gods by depriving them of worship. While this probably wouldn't have worked since the Chaos Gods are sustained by emotion itself, the Chaos Gods still feared the Emperor of Mankind enough to directly interfere in the physical realm as opposed to acting indirectly through daemons and cultists just to throw a wrench in his plans. They notably haven't done anything like that again since the Emperor was placed on the Golden Throne. The Emperor was also the only being who actually hurt the Chaos Gods directly when he blasted their host Horus with psychic power.
  • The Iron Warriors utterly hate the Imperial Fists for sharing their specialty — siege warfare — but getting a lot more honour and praise for it. It began one-sided, with Perturabo nursing a grudge over Rogal Dorn offhandedly saying his Legion was better at it, but given the number of times the two have fought, it's become much more notable on both sides now. The protagonist of the Iron Warriors novels, Honsou, has as his arch-enemy Uriel Ventris of the Ultramarines, because he's not motivated by the enmities of his Legion but by who's pissed him off specifically.
  • Generally, on the tabletop, enmity of this depth is handled with Hatred (Enemy Goes Here), which means that in the first round of any close combat, the hateful unit gets re-rolls to hit against their targets. Some rules, such as those in Traitor Legions, go beyond this into a sort of super-hatred that applies these re-rolls in all rounds of close combat: Word Bearers against Ultramarines, Iron Warriors against Imperial Fists, Thousand Sons against Space Wolves, and Black Legion, who aren't picky and get this against all Loyalist Space Marines. This would probably not have been necessary had the Veterans of the Long War upgrade, which is mandatory and generally free to all Legions using these rules, not given them ordinary Hatred of loyalist Marines already — gaining Hatred (Imperial Fists) isn't super-impressive when you already benefit from Hatred of the Imperial Fists, and also the Ultramarines, Salamanders, Black Templars, Grey Knights and basically everyone else into the bargain.
  • 8th edition has Chaos Marines losing Hatred specifically, but gaining a new rule called "Death to the False Emperor": whenever a Chaos Marine unit rolls a 6 to hit in melee against an Imperial unit, they immediately get another attack. Get enough Chaos melee troops into close proximity with an Imperial unit and watch the mayhem. Some, like the Thousand Sons, can use strategems to make these additional hits happen more often with specific targets of their ire (for the Sons, it would be the Space Wolves).
  • Knight Houses and Titan Legions often have their own hostilities, ranging from rivalries between allied organisations to open warfare, particularly in the wake of the Heresy. For example, the "Firebrands" of the Legio Atarus Titan Legion have a seething hatred for the traitorous Legio Mortis after a maniple of Atarus Titans were killed at the Drop Site Massacre at the dawn of the Heresy. The Legio Mortis also had a notably hostile rivalry with the Legio Tempestus, which became hilarious when they both ended up fighting for Horus.
• In the Yu-Gi-Oh! card game, this seems to be the case between D.D. Warrior Lady and Warrior Dai Grepher. They are seen fighting on several Spell and Trap Cards in a feud that started when she was Warrior Lady of the Wasteland and continued when he became Dark Lucious. The first one was Simultaneous Loss, but there were several others.

Theatre

• Amadeus: Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart has Antonio Salieri, a rival musician who plots against him out of jealousy.
• The Crucible: John Proctor has Abigail Williams, who is infuriated when he ends his affair with her and starts the entire Salem Witch Trials to do it.
• Hamilton: Alexander Hamilton has Aaron Burr, who defeats Hamilton's father-in-law in an election. Hamilton later ruins his bid for the Presidency by backing Thomas Jefferson, and ther feud ends in Burr killing Hamilton in a duel.
• Hamlet: Prince Hamlet has King Claudius, who murdered his father.
• Macbeth: Macduff has Macbeth, who has his family killed.
• Les Misérables: Jean Valjean has Inspector Javert, who is obsessed with capturing him.
• Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street: Sweeney Todd a.k.a. Benjamin Barker has Judge Turpin, who wrongfully condemned him to a penal colony in Australia and raped his wife.
• Titus Andronicus has Tamora and Aaron the Moor. Tamora despises Titus for killing her son Alarbus as retaliation for the loss of twenty-one of Titus' sons, and Aaron was once Titus' captive. Tamora and Aaron are responsible for the rape and mutilation which Tamora's sons Demetrius and Chiron inflict on Titus' daughter Tamira. Furthermore, Aaron frames Titus' sons Quintius and Martius, leading to their execution, and tricks Titus into sacrificing his own hand in a futile attempt to save Quintius and Martius.

Toys

• This makes up one of the major collection gimmicks of SuperThings. Each SuperThing and Kazoom Kid are matched with an opposite enemy. The theming will be opposite of each other, being an item of hindrance, contrasting flavors, or items in a shared category, such as milk vs. cereal or ice cream vs. pizza.

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