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Why Did It Have To Be Snakes
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alt title(s): Phobia; Why Did It Have To Be Agatha: Yesterday you took out a whole army of Clanks! Gil: That was a small army, this is a BIG spider!
A seemingly invulnerable character reveals that they are actually deathly afraid of _____... and whatever the character is afraid of is certainly going to be a recurring obstacle, no matter how unlikely. This trope is named for Indiana Jones who reveals early in Raiders Of The Lost Ark that he hates snakes and later asks the titular question when snakes prove to be an obstacle.
A subset of Fatal Flaw. Fear Of Thunder (also known as brontophobia) and Claustrophobia are specific variations of this. See Also Afraid Of Needles (trypanophobia).
This is common is horror/sci-fi stories dealing with a "master of fear" (such as Freddy, Pennywise or the Scarecrow), in which the monster uses his powers to guess his victim's worst fear, and then use it against him/her to make them a quivering heap.
As you can imagine, Truth In Television. Compare Primal Fear for examples where common phobias are gleefully exploited in horror fiction. Head to the Troper Tales page if you want to put down your own examples of phobias. Not to be confused with Snakes Are Evil, but it helps to explain it some.
Examples
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Snakes (ophidiophobia), Reptiles (herpetophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Motoko Aoyama from Love Hina is afraid of turtles. So, of course, her fellow tenants adopt one that can fly.
Comics
- During the "Knightfall" saga of Batman, the mayor of Gotham is revealed to have this fear (as revealed by Scarecrow's fear toxin). Joker, who is partnered up with Scarecrow, naturally exploits this for all it's worth by terrifying the mayor with a baby rattle (to remind him of rattlesnakes).
- Susanita from Mafalda is terrified of turtles. Unfortunately, her best friend Mafalda is unaware of her phobia and invites Susanita to her house just to show her the family's new pet turtle, Burocracia. Cue Susanita cowering in a corner.
Films — Live Action
- Indiana Jones (snakes), who coined the trope's name. It should be noted that he wasn't always afraid of snakes. As Last Crusade showed, his fear came from when he fell into a circus train car that was full of them, and they weren't particularly nice snakes either.
- One episode of Kim Possible parodies Indy's fear. When Kim arrives in a spiked pit while searching an abandoned underground temple, she jokingly asks, "Where are the snakes?" When hundreds suddenly appear, she retorts, "I was just being sarcastic!"
- Also parodied in at least one Tomb Raider comic. "I met this man once who would have been a good archaeologist, but he just couldn't get over his fear of snakes..."
- Launchpad also parodies it in the Five Episode Pilot of Duck Tales: "Yah, a snake! I hate snakes! No... that's somebody else. I sorta like snakes." Then one nearly eats him: "Now I hate snakes."
- World of Warcraft has a shout out in the form of an NPC with a strong fear of snakes who's named Harrison Jones.
- Pee Wee Herman (snakes), at least in Pee-Wee's Big Adventure, when he rescues them last from a burning pet shop.
- The FBI agent who's not Samuel L Jackson from Snakes on a Plane has ophidiphobia. Unfortunately, cos... well yeah...
Literature
- Snakes (especially the enormous constrictors that always crop up in Robert E. Howard's stories) are the only thing that Conan is afraid of, besides some displays of sorcery. The ancient god Set, pretty much the embodiment of evil in Howard's stories, is represented as a serpent.
- This probably explains why the Conan RPG system has the spell "Dance of the Cobras", which is Exactly What It Says On The Tin. Cobras are hypnotized to circle a person, doing damage each round until the victim either dies from the damage or kills all four of the cobras, which are specified as at least Medium size.
- The spell in question comes from the Conan story "The Man-Eaters of Zamboula," which had Evil Sorcerer Totrasmek doing this to the Love Interest Zabibi, who is forced to literally dance for her life against the snakes.
- Rincewind is actually afraid of almost everything, but ends up sent to the snake pit after he accidentally reveals to the Evil Chancellor that he "doesn't like snakes very much." Of course, being Rincewind, he tries to cover up with "Well, I mean, some snakes are okay..."
- Kahlan, the primary female character of the Sword Of Truth, hates snakes. She becomes highly nervous and uneasy when Richard mentions he saw snakes in the water, later has nightmares about a large snake wrapping around her legs. Her aversion to snakes is mentioned several times again over the course of the series. As you'll see if you read the examples below, this is a fairly common syndrome among female characters from this series.
Live Action TV
- Flabber showed it once in Beetleborgs.
Music
- Former Hello Project member Yoshizawa Hitomi is afraid of snakes, even rubber ones.
Pro Wrestling
- Savage wrestler Kamala was also afraid of snakes which was quite a problem when he was feuding with Jake "The Snake" Roberts.
- Jake "the Snake" Roberts isn't afraid of snakes, but carries around a big one because a rather large number of his opponents are and it helps him win matches.
Stand-up Comedy
- Bill Engvall has stated in his comedy routines that he hates snakes.
Video Games
- The Spelunker from Spelunky, being kind of an Indiana Jones expy hates snakes, too. Doesn't really seem to stop him, though.
Western Animation
Spiders (arachnophobia)
Comics
- Doctor Octopus once received such a beatdown as to develop this phobia. He had to be talked out of it in order to help Spidey with the current crisis.
Films — Live Action
- Sean Connery. In the scene in Dr. No where a tarantula crawls on James Bond, the leg you see belongs to a stuntman, and when it crawls past his head, there is a glass plate between him and the spider.
- The protagonist of (surprise) Arachnophobia, a doctor who moves his family to a small town to escape the dangers of big-city life, only to come up against an invasion of deadly hybrid jungle spiders.
- Technically speaking, "arachnophobia" can refer to fear of scorpions, like Mutt from Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull.
- Mutt probably wasn't supposed to come off as scorpion phobic, any more than any normal person. Nobody likes being stung by half-foot long scorpions.
Literature
- Ron Weasley of the Harry Potter series is deathly afraid of spiders, due to his brothers transmogrifying his teddy bear into a massive spider for a joke when he was much younger. During Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets, he and Harry end up having to "follow the spiders" into the Forbidden Forest. In the movie version, Ron quips "Why spiders? Why couldn't it be 'follow the butterflies'?"
- In a fortuitous bit of casting, Rupert Grint, who plays Ron in the movies, is also deathly afraid of spiders. All of "Ron"'s expressions of fear in the movies are actually those of Rupert.
- "Ayatollah", the crime boss in Boris Strugatsky's The Powerless Ones of This World, fears nothing except members of the class Arachnida. Unfortunately for him, one of the friends of his victim is commonly known as "Beelzebub, Lord of the Flies" for his amazing ability to control insects and spiders...
- Spiders show up a lot in Tolkien's works, especially in The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings. Among all other creatures in Middle Earth, nothing creates more fear in the characters than spiders (except for maybe a Balrog, which only scared the characters who knew what it was). Most people believe this stems from Tolkien having been bitten by a tarantula as a very small child, but he adamantly denied this in life.
Live Action TV
Video Games
- Ryoh from Warbears, to the point where he climbs out of a window and across a ledge, then through another window to avoid a spider.
- Ryu of Street Fighter, after waking up with a spider in his mouth once, has an intense dislike of spiders.
- Artur from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones.
- Apparently Matt "Positron" Miller, current lead developer of City of Heroes, is afraid of spiders in addition to clowns (see below). When half of the game is jam-packed with them, you gotta wonder...
- Various spirits from Ghost Master specialize in exploiting certain fears, one of them in a giant spider.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- Norman from Mighty Max. There is a possible nod to this in the introduction, where every encounter Max faces in the introduction is handled by Norman. The only encounter Max directly deals with himself is the large spider.
- "Spiders. Why did it have to be spiders?"
- This is at least partly to do with a prophecy that a spider would kill him, which happens in one of the final episodes. If you knew that was going to happen, wouldn't you be antsy around arachnids?
- Optimus Prime of Transformers Animated, though given what happened to Elita-1, it's not exactly an irrational fear.
- Due to the same incident, Sentinel Prime became terrified of all things organic. He eventually got over it at least enough to leave the spaceship.
- Salem on Sabrina The Animated Series faced a spider and nervously said, "Why couldn't it be snakes? I like snakes." But the desperate situation lent him the courage to shred the web and make the spider fall.
Real Life
- Most Steve Irwin fans found it simply hilarious that Steve could wrestle crocs, get unbearably close to cougars and bears, and handle venomous snakes, but he squirms like a little girl when a harmless spider crawls towards him.
- Anyone living in Australia wouldn't be surprised, as this country has a ridiculous amount of spiders capable of killing you dead with one bite.
- Yes, but we also have an absurd number of deadly snakes, which Steve had no problem wrangling. Most of those deadly spiders are reasonably well-behaved if you're calm, though handling them is best left to experts. Funnel-webs and white-tails, though, are just nuts.
- He was also terrified of parrots, apparently.
- Apparently Sir Peter Jackson is arachnophobic. When it came time to do the Shelob scenes for Lord Of The Rings, he told the effects crew to keep enhancing them until he couldn't stand it.
Insects (entomophobia)
Anime & Manga
- The English dub of Yu-Gi-Oh 5Ds gives Yusei Fudo a fear of bugs in Episode 2. This gave them some potential 40 episodes later, when his opponent had a deck full of spiders, including one really big plot-related Nightmare Fuel one. It's a mystery how they didn't realize that Yusei being scared of something like bugs is just... laughable.
- Misty of Pokémon has three things that she hates most of all and bugs are one of them, as exhibited when Ash catches a Caterpie in one of the first episodes of the show and Misty cannot stand being near it. (She also displayed an aversion to Gyarados, the very ill-tempered sea serpent Pokémon. Of course, this makes for a Crowning Moment Of Awesome when she guest stars and uses her own Gyarados, and kisses its Pokéball before throwing it.)
- Miyabi Kagurazaki of Ai Yori Aoshi is a tough, all-business Office Lady / Harem Nanny capable of hurling anyone who threatens "Lady Aoi" across the room. She completely loses composure in the presence of bugs, especially roaches. Unfortunately, Weasel Mascot Uzume has the cat-like tendency to kill bugs and bring them as a gift.
Literature
- Nicci of the Sword Of Truth suffers from a fear of lice (pediculophobia), as a result of being repeatedly infested with them during her childhood in the Old World. Upon seeing a young girl who has a lice problem, she forcibly cuts the girl's hair and washes her head, then instructs her to burn her clothing and bedding.
Films — Live Action
- When descending into the tomb in The Mummy, Warden Hasssan says "Watch for bugs. I HATE bugs." Boy is HE in the wrong movie...
Live Action TV
- Bees, Wasps, Hornets, Yellowjackets (apiphobia) — Adam Savage from Myth Busters.
- Richard Hammond from TopGear, if the Bolivia special is to be believed.
Video Games
- Adelbert Steiner in Final Fantasy IX, sort of. He's deathly afraid of oglops, an otherwise harmless insect.
Mice & Rats (musophobia)
General
- Elephants, in many, many stories. Always played for comedy as the world's largest living land animal retreats in fear (or panics and destroys things) at the sight of a tiny mouse.
- Bizarrely, this one seems to be true. Myth Busters did it
 .
- As I recall, it's because mice are big enough to be noticeable, but small enough that it's hard to keep an eye on them, particularly when they dash right between elephants' feet.
- Exceptions: the baby elephant who makes friends with Jerry, and Dumbo. (The other elephants in Dumbo's circus certainly are, though.)
Anime & Manga
- Rassha in Ruin Explorers. Inconvenient in that one of her traveling partners has a curse that turns them into a mouse whenever they do magic.
- Doraemon: The titular character is afraid of mice despite being a robotic cat.
Films — Live Action
- In Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade, it's revealed that Indy's dad is afraid of rats. Must be a family thing (see also Indy's son being afraid of scorpions, above).
- Narnia star Anna Popplewell (Susan) was so afraid of mice that the scene where the mice chew through the ropes binding Aslan's dead body had to be filmed in two separate places; one with poor Anna and one with the mice.
Literature
- Winston Smith from 1984 is terrified of rats, a fear which is used against him in the most horrible way possible in Room 101.
- A short parody of this had the Ministry of Love turn out to be short of rats — and Smith wasn't scared of anything else they had to offer. He wound up actually trying to help them find a creature they could torture him with:
"If it's any help, I can't stand moths."
"Moths?!" Esmond screamed. "What do you think we are, ruddy Harrods? We can't get moths for love nor money!"
"Comes in here asking for moths," muttered Esmond's assistant.
- In the novelization for Metal Gear Solid, it's hinted that Snake at the very least dislikes rats — having to be assured that there's only "harmless brown mice" in the Shadow Moses vent by campbell is the strongest suggestion of this. How much of it is actually canon for the character is debatable.
- Possibly justified in the fact that Big Boss used Zanzanibar Poison Hamsters to defend parts of Outer Heaven.
- Mord-Sith Cara of the Sword Of Truth. Due to being harassed by rats while locked in a dungeon as a child, she becomes highly uneasy around them. Though she is able to stomach their presence a bit in the fourth book, her phobia is exploited and intensified when Drefen Rahl tortures her by allowing a group of agitated rats claw at her stomach.
Live Action TV
- In the Are You Afraid of the Dark? episode "The Tale Of Watcher's Woods", a girl is captured by three witches and put in a wooden cage. One witch asks her if she'd like to "play with some rodents" and proceeds to put a bucket of rats into the cage with the girl, who happens to be terrified of rats. The girl then freaks out and says: "Why did it have to be rats?!"
- Topher in Dollhouse which Dr. Saunders/Whiskey takes advantage of.
- Knit Knots on Imagination Movers seems to be at least somewhat afraid of Warehouse Mouse, telling the Movers to keep the "furry, woodland creature" away from him.
- The warden in one episode of The Mentalist was afraid of mice/rats. What does Jane do? He uses a muffin and some other tools to catch a mouse/rat, and as part of his plan to break out of jail, essentially scares the crap out of the warden so he won't stop him. It was rather awesome.
Puppet Shows
- Lady Penelope from Thunderbirds; otherwise the formal, impossibly calm British spy.
Stand-up Comedy
- One comedian recalls a time when his wife called him home and he was terrified because she didn't elaborate on the phone... and then finds her standing on a stool, holding a baseball bat, because there's a mouse in the kitchen. And she's telling him to kill it. When he refuses, she brandishes the bat at him and says in a threatening voice, "Kill it!"
Video Games
- Zelda from The Legend of Zelda Spirit Tracks doesn't like mice. Used as a gameplay as Link has to get rid of those rodents before she will move on. Understandly it comes up as the third part of the final boss fight where if she gets touched by one, she fall under Cole's control.
Western Animation
Bats (chiroptophobia)
Films — Live Action
- Ace Ventura, as revealed in the second movie, when the sacred animal of the Wachatis turns out to be one.
- When Alfred asks Bruce Wayne why he uses the bat as his symbol in Batman Begins, Bruce responds, "Bats frighten me. It's time my enemies shared my dread." This fear is also present in his initiation into the League of Shadows, his first encounter with the Scarecrow, and when he first finds the cave and is surrounded by swarming bats.
- Interestingly, in Batman Forever he specifically says that a vision of bats only scared him at first.
- In the same movie, The Riddler reacts with absolute terror after being beaten by Batman, going so far as to envision him as the same bat that young Bruce saw flying toward him as a child.
- In some versions, Scarecrow himself has a fear of bats owing to his encounters with Batman.
Literature
- Mary Roberts Rinehart's The Bat is about a thief and killer who is only known as "The Bat". He always leaves a bat of some sort at the scene of his crimes. Chiroptophobia begins to affect the city.
Live Action TV
- Mr Smoketoomuch in Monty Python gained his odd speech impediment (pronouncing the letter "C" as "B") after being attacked by a bat. No, not a cat — a bat.
Video Games
- Naked Snake has a fear of bats, and (by extension?) Dracula.
Web Animation
- Grif from Red Vs Blue is mortally afraid of bats despite, as Simmons points out, he's wearing power armor and bats couldn't possibly hurt him.
- Simmons, on the other hands, gets spooked at the mere mention of snakes. Cue pointless arguing.
Western Animation
- Hank Hill from King of the Hill is deathly afraid of bats in one episode, going as far as locking Bobby in the garage with a bat!
Cats (ailurophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Ranma from Ranma ˝. Except there's a stinger in the tail — Ranma's fear can drive him into a temporary psychotic state where he becomes a mindless but unbeatable berserker, and only Akane can bring him outta his funk.
- Psychopathic Manchild Pierrot le Fou from Cowboy Bebop also hates cats, due to his association of them to his experimental trauma. It also turns out the cat that was present during the experimentation had heterochromia just like Spike has, which makes him freeze up at a crucial moment during their final showdown and allows Spike to defeat him.
- The wolf Toboe from Wolf's Rain says that cats creep him out. However, after the world's death and rebirth Toboe is seen in human form cradling a stray kitten.
- Saiyuki: In the Saiyuki Party Drama CD Sanzo is terrified of a small kitten that Goku brings in from the rain, so much that when it hides under his kimono he starts screaming (in some fan's minds) like a sissy.
- This is played with in the Reload anime with a mixture a fear and a supposed allergy. He got over it.
- Gilbert from Pandora Hearts.
- Every single mermaid (except Masa) in Seto No Hanayome is utterly terrified of cats, to the point that San's father (who is the head of a Yakuza clan) evacuates a school because Nagasumi had a kitten with him. Mikawa goes even further, using his contacts to bring in the military.
Live Action TV
Films — Live Action
- Imhotep from The Mummy cannot stand cats due to his supernatural curse — cats being the Egyptian guardians of the Underworld.
- In the Stephen Sommers version, anyway. The original Imhotep has a pet cat. Who kills dogs.
Video Games
- Serge from Chrono Cross was said to have this (though he's apparently grown out of it by the time the player controls him). Justified in that he was attacked and nearly killed by a panther demon as a small child. We learn later that Serge's father, Wazuki, was turned into a cat-like form by FATE because that was the thing that Serge feared the most.
Real Life
- Napoleon was scared of cats. Maybe if his enemies knew that, he would have been defeated after his first battle.
Dogs (cynophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Shun Mitaka of Maison Ikkoku has an inconvenient fear of dogs. Problem is, the object of his affection (Kyouko) has a big dog she is really fond of, and his arranged fiancée (Asuna) has a whole bunch of them in all sizes. He beats his fear, by getting his own dog, who then gets him into a compromising (marriage) position.
- To Love Ru has Oshizu, who has a crippling fear of dogs, despite being a ghost. The characters point out that the dogs cannot do anything to her, as she's already dead, but it doesn't help.
- Justified now that she does have a physical body to inhabit and dogs can now do something to her... and she is definitely aware of this, and it only makes her fear worse.
- Yōko from Inukami has a fear of dogs, which one might think as strange, given that she's an inukami (dog god) herself... except that she's actually a kitsune.
Literature
- In The String Of Pearls, the original story of Sweeney Todd, Sweeney is terrified of dogs. Unfortunately for him, Mark Ingestrie's dog Hector is rather persistent.
Video Games
- A short time into the events of Geist, it is revealed that Big Bad Volks's Dragon Rourke is afraid of dogs. Close to the end of the game, Volks holds a meeting behind locked doors and gives specific orders to shoot anyone who comes close who isn't himself or Rourke. The solution is straightforward: possess Rourke. To possess someone, you must first terrify him. Thus, you undergo a series of short missions for the sole purpose of getting a dog into the same room as him.
Real Life
- Apparently, Genghis Khan was terrified of dogs as a boy, Or So I Heard.
Rabbits (leporiphobia)
Live Action TV
- Anya from Buffy The Vampire Slayer. She dressed up as a bunny for Halloween ("Bunnies frighten me."), sang about bunnies in "Once More, with Feeling!", then was standing on a table when misspoken incantations had filled the Magic Box floor with rabbits of all shapes and sizes, calling it a "cotton-top hell".
- Somewhat justified, in that a highly traumatic incident involving an unfaithful husband, angry villagers, and rabbits which was the catalyst for her becoming a demon in the first place.
- Bishop Brennan in Father Ted — apparently he was once stuck in a lift in New York with about a hundred rabbits, and "they began nibbling at my cloak and everything". Obviously he is destined to wake up in a room full of rabbits in "The Plague" episode of season 2.
Frogs & Toads (batrachophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Choutaro Ohtori in the anime version of Prince of Tennis. Just watch him scream in horror when a cute li'l frog jumps on his face...
- Kaede Nagase of Mahou Sensei Negima, the badass Ninja, and easily the most calm of the entire cast seems to only be thrown off by the mere sight of frogs. Any frogs.
- In the Naruto anime, the first time Sakura sees Naruto summon a toad, she cringes and tells him she can't stand frogs. Great, he had enough trouble getting dates with her already.
- Sai from Hikaru No Go has expressed a terror of frogs... or at least of a spectacularly ugly man whose smile was frog-like, to the point of distracting Sai from his favorite game.
- Big Bully Troy from Max Keeble's Big Move is terrified of a giant Barney-like Scottish frog named McGoogles. That's, like, four fears in one.
Live Action TV
Video Games
- Cornet of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure suffers from this. Unfortunately, frogs are hiding in just about every other container in the Marl Kingdom. Oh, and there's a kingdom of bipedal, sentient frogs.
- Volgin from Metal Gear Solid 3. The phobia is so strong that if you toss a live frog at him during your boss fight with him, he'll stop attacking you to kill the frog, allowing you to get a hit in.
- Lucca of Chrono Trigger. Becomes awkward when it comes up immediately after they meet with one of the party members, a giant anthropomorphic frog.
- Refia of Final Fantasy III has a fear of frogs, which makes for a fairly amusing conversation the two times where you have to transform into one to enter a dungeon.
Bears (arctophobia)
Live Action TV
- Stephen Colbert, obviously. It's why he spreads the message that they are soulless, godless, killing machines who are the number one threat to America.
- Bear propaganda! They truly are soulless evil killing machines that have blinded you — they are going to get us gahahgag... (Deep, bear-growly voice) You saw nothing citizen.
Western Animation
Birds (ornithophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Tetsuya Tsurugi from Great Mazinger and Kyouichi Shidou from Idaten Jump. Both of them were attacked by birds when they were small children. Naturally, the omake of the Idaten Jump episode featuring Shido's hate of birds milked it for what it's worth.
- Blue from the Pokémon Special manga is afraid of birds for roughly the same reason. She gets over it by confronting Ho-Oh, the Pokémon who kidnapped her, and capturing Articuno, Zapdos, and Moltres, also known as the legendary birds. She then sics them on The Mask of Ice.
- Sengyoku of Houshin Engi is afraid of birds after being stalked by a guy with birds.
Film
Western Animation
Comics
- Scarecrow, the Master of Fear and Lord of Despaire, is sometimes depicted as having a crippling fear of birds, explained by some writer's description of creative abuse on his grandmother's part. Makes sense — who wouldn't want their alter ego to be the thing that scares the thing that scares them?
Live Action TV
- Gueničvre in the French series Kaamelott is afraid of birds.
- Hamilton "Ham" Dewey, from the series "Saving Grace", is terrified of birds. He becomes agitated at a crime scene when he catches sight of the victim's small pet bird; later in the episode, his friends change his work computer's wallpaper to a close-up image of a baby bird's open mouth, which has him leaping back from the desk when he jiggles the mouse to deactivate the screen saver. His comrades also scatter birdseed in the courtyard just outside the squad room to attract large numbers of wild birds for the express purpose of freaking him out.
Slugs & Snails (molluscophobia)
Anime & Manga
- The heroine of The Slayers, Lina Inverse, Sorceress Genius, Dragon Spooker and Enemy Of All Who Live, is terrified unto death by two things: Slugs, and her big sister Luna. Even the merest suggestion that Luna might visit is enough to convince her to embark on a life-risking mission to save the entire dimension. To be fair, there are very good reasons for Lina to fear Luna.
- Though we never do find out why she fears slugs.
Video Games
- Ursula of Breath of Fire IV is utterly terrified'' of sea lice (a harmless bug). Especially hilarious as this ends up being revealed in a What Do They Fear Episode segment between her and The Princess Nina, and Ursula is normally a Type A Tsundere who tries to be tougher than most men...
Other Animals
Anime & Manga
- Ferrets: Inori from Fresh Pretty Cure is afraid of ferrets at first, but after switching bodies with Tart (who just happened to be a ferret), she got over it.
- Miyabi from Ai Yori Aoshi has physically thrown Kaoru across a room when she thought he was raping Aoi — but the sight of Uzume the ferret bringing her a large dead bug makes her climb onto Kaoru's back and wail, "NOO!" And Uzume, like a cat, brings her lots of bugs as a token of love....
- Kaitou Kid, the titular character of the manga Magic Kaito and an Ensemble Darkhorse character in Detective Conan is afraid of... fish. To the point where only a bomb going off on a boat urges Kaito to scuba dive to find out what happened to his not-girlfriend Aoko and Silver during a chapter in Volume 1.
Web Comics
Western Animation
- Monkeys (maimouphobia) — Ron from Kim Possible. Especially difficult given the reccuring monkey-themed super villain Lord Monkey Fist. For further irony, in the episode introducing Monkey Fist, Ron is granted the Mystical Monkey Power the villain sought.
- Twister from Rocket Power develops a fear of giant monkeys in one episode.
Flying (aviophobia) or Heights (acrophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Gene Starwind (space travel) from Outlaw Star (Conveniently, the titular Cool Ship has Applied Phlebotinum that keeps the fear from taking effect.)
- Sailor Jupiter (her parents died in a plane crash), although apparently the writers forgot about it when they put her on a plane in an episode of the final season.
- That, and it was only mentioned in the manga.
- One villain in 666 Satan took this to a ridiculous degree: he's so afraid of heights that he is scared crapless if he needs to stand up.
- Katsura Hinagiku is deathly afraid of heights.
- Masayuki from Ghost Hound became deathly scared of heights for perfectly understandable reasons. He got over it by spending hours at a time playing a virtual reality flight simulator game. Actual flight didn't hurt either.
- Yuri from Wandaba Style is afraid of heights, as The Professor learned when he sent her (and the other girls of Mix Juice) into space.
- Esteban from The Mysterious Cities of Gold. This is established in his very first appearance, and a recurring plot point throughout the series.
Comics
- Cutter, chieftain of the Wolfriders and main character of the storyline, in the comic book series ElfQuest. The revelation of this phobia is a significant plot point, midway through book one in the series: Cutter is required to 'fess up (from his subconscious, even) his worst fear specifically so he can be compelled to face and defeat it. Oh yeah, and there's also his rival Rayek and his fear of losing, but eh, who cares about him.
- Bigby Wolf from Fables really doesn't like heights (since his ancestors weren't apes, he says).
Films — Live Action
- Most famously, Jimmy Stewart's detective character in the aptly-named Vertigo.
- The lead character's love interest in Say Anything.
- Bastian in The Neverending Story 2.
- Danny Glover's character from Predator 2. What a mind-boggling surprise that he ends up chasing the alien in question across some very high and precarious bits of the city. Screenwriting elegance at its best...
- Richard Gere's character in Pretty Woman is an acrophobe. So he must really love the heroine when at the end he climbs up a rickety metal fire escape to her.
Literature
- Most of Tolkien's hobbits are stated to be uneasy if they are any distance off the ground, this perhaps being one of the reasons why they live in "hobbit-holes" and one-storey houses.
- Keladry of Mindelan is terrified of heights after being held over the edge of a tower by her brother. It mostly goes away at the end of the second book, but never completely.
- Jack Ryan, from The Hunt for Red October, not only lost both of his parents to an airliner crash, but early in his (aborted) military service the helicopter he was riding in, for an exercise, crashed, leaving him needing significant surgery, and ultimately having a fear of flying. He eventually got over it later in the Ryanverse series, though.
- Percy Jackson in Percy Jackson And The Olympians is scared of heights. Justified in that he is a son of Posideon, and the sky is part of the sphere of influence belonging to Zeus. The only exception is with Pegasai, because Posideon created horses, which means that they are neutral territory
Live Action TV
- BA Baracus in The A Team. He typically has to be rendered unconscious before flying him anywhere.
- In the "Hammer Drop" episode of Mythbusters, we find out that Jamie Hyneman apparently has a mild case of acrophobia.
- This comes up again in the "Outtakes Special". In some unaired footage from "Plywood Builder", Jamie is trying to reassure Christine about her impending (until she decided not to) zipline ride, and says "You know I'm afraid of heights".
- And he jumps off a building in "Dumpster Dive".
- Lori from Big Wolf on Campus.
- Supernatural's Dean Winchester is terrified of flying. Why do you think he drives everywhere?
- MacGyver, at least in the early seasons. He seems to get over his problem with heights as the show progressed.
- Sam Beckett from Quantum Leap.
- Both versions of Neverwhere have Richard Mayhew say he dislikes heights rather early on. The series has it in the introduction of the very first episode, where Richard talks about himself including his dislike of rats, blood, and heights. He encounters all three, of course.
- Daniel Jackson from Stargate SG-1 mentions in a throwaway line in one episode that he has a problem with heights. This came up right before he and Sam had to crawl across a tiny strip of floor over an apparently bottomless pit. He did fine with it, and eventually threw himself off their "bridge" to save their companion, 'cause he's Daniel.
- Presenter James May on Top Gear gets height vertigo (a spinning sensation when he looks down from a height). He took flying lessons and acquired a private pilot's license to help himself learn to cope with it.
- Alice from Alice. Most likely to balance the fact that she is an Action Girl.
Pro Wrestling
- Rey Mysterio has admitted in several interviews to being terrified of heights. It hasn't stopped him from jumping off something high yet, but he's oddly specific about it...
Toys
- Grizzler of the werebears toy line is very afraid of heights and transforms when he's up on a very high place.
Video Games
- Aleister, Lara Croft's Non Action Guy partner from the Tomb Raider series, does not like heights. At all. They make him "positively nauseous," as he comments at one point in the Japan mission of Tomb Raider Legend where Lara is making a dangerous climb up a really tall office building.
- Blaze the Cat from the Sonic Rush series is often implied to have a fear of heights, especially when they reach a zone like Sky Babylon.
- Emma, Hal's sister in Metal Gear Solid 2 doesn't like heights when asked about it by Raiden, but stated it's preferrable to Water.
- In Metal Gear 2, Solid Snake can't be made to jump off the Tower Building in Zanzibar Land unless you first equip the cigarettes and leave him long enough for the smoking Idle Animation to start — presumably to soothe his nerves.
- Bartz Klauser in Final Fantasy V has a fear of heights ever since he almost fell down from the roof of a two story house while playing hide and go seek.
Western Animation
Water (aquaphobia)
Anime & Manga
- Asumi in Twin Spica.
- Tasuki of Fushigi Yuugi, who naturally is the first person overboard when the ship hits a violent storm. Additionally, vitriolic best bud Tamahome's preferred method of torment is dangling him over a body of water.
- Any and all Devil Fruit users in One Piece have this to some degree, and with reason.
Comics
- Smudgy in Monica's Gang takes this fear to the extreme of not taking baths, which originates his nickname.
Films — Animation
- Lilo and Stitch: Stitch is too dense to swim, so he fears deep water. Naturally, he winds up living on an island with people who love to surf.
- Diego from Ice Age has the fear of water in the second movie despite the fact that he never showed fear of it before but he gets over it with the help of one of his Heterosexual Life Partners.
Films — Live Action
Literature
- In Terry Pratchett's The Colour of Magic, we meet dedicated "hydrophobes", who are raised on a deathly fear — indeed, loathing (not hate, which is the opposite side of love) of water. This fear is so strong that they can pilot a hovering board over the ocean, since their aversion to water forces it away from them. Unfortunately most of them end up dying early, overcome with revulsion over the water in their own bodies.
- Tobias from Animorphs. He says it's a bird thing.
- Which is a bit of Did Not Do The Research, since he's a hawk. Most birds of prey will quite happily dive near or even in water to eat fish. Some even eat primarily fish.
- Perhaps, but not red-tailed hawks, which Tobias happens to be. They're not water-going birds, and especially not deep water, which is what Tobias is particularly scared of.
- The Wonderful Wizard of Oz: "I'm meeeltiiing! I'm meeeltiiing! Oh, what a world!"
- Oddly enough, Data, the android of Star Trek TNG fame, gained a fear of water during the novelisation Metamorphosis in which he was turned human. (Yeah, it's that kind of book.) This fear is absent from the series. Probably because he can't, you know, actually drown (though the few encounters he has had with water lead to him sinking abruptly to the bottom due to his heavy weight, and having to spend several weeks draining out his servos.)
- Apparently Dr. John Watson, of Sherlock Holmes fame was an aquaphobic.
- Stephen Dedalus in Joyce's Ulysses is mentioned to be a hydrophobe (same thing), although this is probably symbolic of his antipathy toward baptism/Catholicism.
- Jayfeather from Warrior Cats.
Live Action TV
- Merton's sister Becky from Big Wolf on Campus.
- Malcom Reed from Star Trek Enterprise has a fear of drowning that prevented him from carrying on his family's naval tradition. Oddly enough, this fear doesn't extend to the vacuum of space.
Video Games
Western Animation
- Alan Powers (The Brain), Arthur. He gets over it after falling into a fountain.
- Tommy Pickles, All Grown Up!, "River Rats".
- This is one of the two things that Dick Daring from The Replacements is scared of.
- Yoshi in the Super Mario World cartoon.
- May have gotten a Continuity Nod later with the tendency of Super Mario Sunshine's Yoshis to dissolve on contact with water.
- Looney Tunes character The Tasmanian Devil, namely in his series Tasmania. "Taz hate water! Taz hate water!"
- Archie from Class of the Titans.
- On Codename Kids Next Door, Numbuh Four can't swim, so he's very afraid of water. Even he learns how, he still avoids doing it whenever possible.
- In the show The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin, Grubby is afraid of the sea. This is because of an accident that happened when he was young.
Real Life
- People used to think rabies caused this and thus named it hydrophobia. In reality it simply causes you to choke when you try to drink water.
Fire (pyrophobia)
Anime & Manga
Comics
- J'onn J'onnz, the Martian Manhunter of Justice League fame. Depending on who's writing him, his "vulnerability" to fire has sometimes been portrayed as a psychological issue, rather than a full-blown Kryptonite Factor. (In the Justice League Unlimited animated series, they simply ignored it.)
- The Batman chalked it up as a psychological fear, as he would stop fighting the moment a flamethrower appeared in range. Once Batman disabled the flamethrower J'onn was back to normal.
- In A New Frontier, Batman observes this and tells J'onn: "Make no mistake. I have a $70,000 sliver of a radioactive meteor to stop the one from Metropolis. All I need for you is a penny for a book of matches."
Fan Works
Films — Live Action
- Frankenstein's monster in some iterations, beginning with the 1931 Boris Karloff movie, in which Dr. Frankenstein's cruel assistant Fritz taunts the chained-up monster with a torch.
- Parodied in Young Frankenstein when a blind hermit offers the monster a cigar and accidentally lights his thumb, giving him a perfectly understandable reason for his subsequent pyrophobia.
- On Saturday Night Live, Phil Hartman played a recurring version of the character whose Hulk Speak catchphrase was "Fire bad!"
- Camille from Quantum Of Solace.
Literature
- Sandor Clegane, a.k.a. the Hound, in A Song of Ice and Fire. Quite a reasonable fear, as half of his face has been burned as a child by his evil older brother. He lives in a world with Greek Fire and priests of a fire-god who can, well, magically create fire, and naturally runs into both.
- Journey to the West: Monkey.
- Harry Dresden of The Dresden Files, after his left hand is burned beyond use in Blood Rites, becomes reluctant to even attempt fire magic at all. He eventually overcomes his fears and concerns by the end of Dead Beat, though a villain in White Night mistakenly assumes he's still very afraid of fire and makes a failed assassination attempt based on that.
Live Action TV
Video Games
Web Animation
- At the height of the Napster controversy, the folks at Camp Chaos created a series of flash animations featuring Metallica's Lars Ulrich and James Hetfield. James, aside from being a caveman mentally, was also terrified of fire. So naturally, in their Celebrity "{{Who Wants to Be a Millionaire"? parody, he gets lit on fire.
- Probably alluding to the fact that Hetfield was badly burned by stage pyrotechnics during Metallica's 1992 tour with Guns N' Roses, thus proving that no matter how much they called Metallica a bunch of dicks, their detractors could still out-dick them rather easily.
Western Animation
- In Avatar: The Last Airbender, Appa the Flying Bison grows a fear of fire in the episode "Appa's Lost Days".
- Transformers Armada: Hot Shot, who was forced to leave a friend behind in a fire because he'd passed out from the heat.
Other Things in Nature
Anime & Manga
- Astrapophobia, Ceraunophobia, Brontophobia (fear of thunder and lightning) or Tonitrophobia (fear of just thunder): Haruhi from Ouran High School Host Club has this (these) fear(s), after being discovered to be afraid of little else.
- Himawari on Wandaba Style has a fear of running out of air while in space, which is bad, since she and the other members of Girl Group Mix Juice are trying to get into space to perform a concert on the moon.
Video Games
- Earthquakes (seismophobia) — Miles Edgeworth from Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney. The first major crack we see in Edgeworth's stoic facade is that he turns into an absolute blubbering mess at the slightest of tremors. It's no better in Trials and Tribulations, when he passes out after an earthquake hits Hazakurain. The press release for his own game also implies that this can extend to airplane turbulence.
- Well, in fairness to the guy, after one of these he did spend hours trapped in a darkened elevator while slowly suffocating with two other people and then his father was killed, which he blamed himself for for fifteen years under the assumption that he did the deed as a direct result. That sort of thing leaves a mark on a young kid.
- Jonathan Ingram in Policenauts is a cosmophobe by his own admission, and also appears to show some level of claustrophobia. This clearly doesn't work in his favour when he has to leave the Moon via a material transport relay. Depending on the players' responses to Ed, and how long it takes the player to make the decision to leave, it will extend the action sequence. The first time you beg Jonathan to enter the pod, he will refuse.
- One of the player characters, Rikku from Final Fantasy X has a phobia of lightning (astraphobia), which she gets over in the sequel.
Web Comics
Clowns (coulrophobia)
Anime & Manga
Films — Live Action
Literature
- Bobby Pendragon in The Pendragon Adventure.
- Nita from Young Wizards. Naturally, this comes up shortly before she has to dive into the mind of someone who represents himself using a clown.
- Nobody likes clowns. According to the Discworld book Making Money, that is the point. Their purpose is not to make you laugh, but to make you realize that however miserable you may be, someone has it worse.
Live Action TV
Video Games
- The players of City of Heroes often ask for a Clowns powerset for the Mastermind (pet summing class based on minion-commanding villains), but are denied because Matt "Positron" Miller, the lead developer, is afraid of clowns.
- Barry Dejay in Backyard Sports. He plays worse on the Bling-Bling Brothers Circus in Backyard Basketball just because he is afraid of clowns.
Western Animation
- Ben in Ben 10
- Wakko Warner in Animaniacs. Of course, in Wakko's case, the clowns are the ones who will get the worst out of it.
- On a similar note, Billy of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy thinks clowns are plotting to "DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL! DESTROY US ALL!"
- Likewise, in ''Big Boogey Adventure, Billy's given a spider clown mailman as a hybridization of all his fears courtesy of Horror's Hand. Since Billy must battle his own demons before touching the Hand, Mandy's laser rifle has no effect on said aberration.
- Bart Simpson suffered a temporary case of this when he was younger, no thanks to the badly-crafted clown bed that Homer made for him. Origin of the phrase, "Can't sleep, clown will eat me."
- Tino from The Weekenders.
- Dick Daring from The Replacements.
- Velma Dinkley in What's New, Scooby Doo? at least. A Monster Clown showing up caused her to swap personalities with Shaggy (who was concentrating on winning a mini golf contest so he went all Velma-esque). They reverted eventually.
- Chuckie from Rugrats, although they come second to "the guy on the oatmeal box."
- Caillou's sister Rosie on Caillou, but Caillou helps her to get over it.
- In an episode of The Fairly Oddparents, Timmy admitted to being afraid of clowns.
Real Life
- Lots of people who watched the mini-series It, where Tim Curry plays a murderous clown, ended up developing fear of clowns. Specially if they saw it as children or teens.
- Johnny Depp is scared of clowns too.
- Two to one odds that Heath Ledger's interpretation of the Joker in The Dark Knight will be the cause of a lot of clown-based nightmares.
- Lon Chaney, Sr., "The Man of a Thousand Faces", and perhaps the single most iconic horror actor from the silent film era once made the observation that "Nobody laughs at a clown at midnight."
Women (gynophobia)
Anime & Manga
- The male lead from Girls Bravo. Then his so-called rival (?) is terrified of men (arrhenphobia).
- Yamcha from Dragon Ball. He wanted the Dragon Balls to actually cure this phobia, since he also wanted a girlfriend but was too terrified to ask any girl out. He got over himself after hanging out with Bulma, though.
Comics
Video Games
Live Action TV
- Although he's certainly not afraid of women, Jayne from Firefly purportedly "never kisses 'em on the mouth'', for fear they'll knock him out with drugged lipstick. Long story
Blood (hemophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Tsunade from Naruto, after her lover died and she couldn't do anything about it. Should have been quite a cramp on her superninja-doctor career... until she overcame it during a high-stakes battle at a point of near mortal defeat, thus leading to overcoming her opponent as well (this must be a trope somewhere).
- Heart, from Fist of the North Star. Like Ranma, he flips out and becomes a berserker if he sees his own blood.
- Naga the White Serpent from The Slayers is also quite afraid of blood, since she walked on the place where her mother was assassinated, which was all blood-splattered.
Literature
- Bella from Twilight isn't afraid of hanging around werewolves or vampires, but she faints at the sight of blood... a weakness that suddenly disappears when the plot requires it in Breaking Dawn.
Live Action TV
Web Comics
Western Animation
- The Simpsons: One of Doctor Nick's many undoctorlike traits.
Ghosts (phasmophobia)
Anime & Manga
- Having a character who's very scared of ghosts and anything supernatural is often a Running Gag in anime. Double the fun if the chara's otherwise unflappable.
- Hikaru Himuro from Dragon Drive also has that fear. Unfortunately, Chibi is a vicitim of his fear, as he grabs on to Chibi's tail for some reason (maybe a reflex to help calm himself?), and doesn't let go when he passes out from fear, much to both Chibi and Reiji's annoyances.
- Similarly, the Action Girl Ran Mouri of Detective Conan.
Comics
- (Popey) has an admitted fear of ghosts. (Or, "Evil spiriks" as he calls them)
Video Games
- Luigi from the Super Mario games is deathly afraid of ghosts (and possibly Waddle Dees as shown in Super Smash Bros Brawl).
- Yukari Takeba from Persona 3 is also afraid of ghosts.
- When Roxis was still a freshman during the early parts of Mana Khemia Alchemists Of Alrevis, he was, er, traumatized (he was foaming at the mouth!) by Pamela, the school's resident Cute Ghost Girl. Since then, he would have a hard time searching for items anywhere that could possibly be haunted (ranked as Super Hard for him), which, incidentally, are ranked Super Easy for Pamela.
- Luso from Final Fantasy Tactics A 2 revealed his fear of ghosts when the clan must defeat a group of Undead. Adelle teased him afterwords.
- Youmu Konpaku from Touhou is scared of ghosts — which is ironic, because she just happens to be half-ghost herself, and has a Cute Ghost Girl as a mistress.
Western Animation
Various (these tend towards the weird)
General
Anime & Manga
Comics
- The Earth-2 Batman suffered an attack from the Scarecrow which caused him to hallucinate his greatest fear. It was fear of being alone, and he hallucinated his friends vanishing before his eyes.
- In his Brazilian Comic book stories, José Carioca is so lazy that he's often depicted as having an outright phobia of work.
- In Empowered, the villain Rum, Sodomy and the Lash is scared off by a fabric store. Apparently it brings up bad childhood memories.
- In Geoff Johns' TeenTitans, Superboy and Beast Boy have a phobia of doctors, due to both of them being experimented on as kids. Beast Boy in particular has a special hatred for needles.
Literature
- Fear itself (phobiaphobia) — Harry Potter seems to have it... well, sort of.
- As much as he claims a fear of everything in the known universe, Ciaphas Cain has one true, overriding fear: Necrons. They are the one foe that he will never face in direct combat. And this is someone who will fight The Legions Of Hell without flinching (albeit with much internal second-guessing).
- The protagonist of Iain M. Banks' ''Use of Weapons'' has an odd phobia of chairs. It makes a lot of sense when you learn what the original chair was made of.
- Throughout the Discworld series, Rincewind has developed a violent fear of many things, some justified (the Things of the Dungeon Dimensions), some not (having good things happen to him, because it usually means something worse is coming along later), but the thing he seems to dread the most is plots, because if a plot starts happening anywhere near him, eventually he will get sucked into it.
- Hey, he managed to get through Mort fine.
Live Action TV
- Beards (pogonophobia) — Frank, from The Adventures of Lano and Woodley. And of course everyone he runs into throughout the episode in question has a beard. It's cured at the end, though.
- Noise — Leonard Hatred in Look Around You, invented "Psilence", a type of liquid skin that blocks the ears, as a response to being subjected to loud noises all his life. (Unfortunately the mental instability caused by his condition ultimately led him to attack Sir Prince Charles at an award ceremony.)
- Tommy from Big Wolf on Campus is afraid of ending up alone due to people finding out about his lycanthropy. And Merton is scared of monster movies (which is kind of weird, because he's a Goth).
- Balloons (globophobia) — Lacey and Davis in an episode of Corner Gas. Also, by the end of that episode we find out that Brent seems to have a fear of globes.
- As revealed on Attack of the Show, co-host Olivia Munn is also afraid of balloons. Needless to say, fellow co-host Kevin Pereira takes so much delight in tormenting her whenever the subject comes up.
- Embarrassment: Richard Hammond. "I have several recurring nightmares. One in which I am presenting a radio show and can't work the desk, another in which I find myself on stage with a truly catastrophic band. I am only waiting now for Top Gear to make me run naked through a shopping centre on a Saturday and I will have completed the set."
Video Games
- Porcelain (porcophobia?) — Guybrush Threepwood. Speculated to have been caused by being hit over the head with a porcelain vase in the first game.
- The developers have said they added this just as a gag. After all, who the heck is scared of porcelain?
- Guybrush Threepwood.
- Referenced in Tales of Monkey Island Episode 1: Launch Of The Screaming Narwhal, when you have to pick up a porcelain action figure. Guybrush grits his teeth and reassures himself "Calm down, Guybrush, it's only a little porcelain..."
- AGAIN Emma Emmerich shows up on this list: she doesn't like sea lice at all.
- And we also have Big Boss himself, scared of vampires.
- Bald people: May of Guilty Gear has an extreme fear of bald men, and can even sense when someone is bald, as shown during the Story Mode in XX when she runs into Dr. Faust (who, under the paper bag, is bald).
Web Comics
- Hats: Trel from Cwen's Quest has either violent fits of terror or near psychotic reactions to hats due to childhood trauma.
- Riff from Sluggy Freelance is afraid of orphans, and won't go near an orphanage without a missile launcher handy.
- Xenophobia: Insecticomics Dreadmoon. Due to the humorous nature of the comic it's more a strong disgust than outright fear; in Wayward's more serious fanfiction he's uncomfortable around non-Cybertronians and outright terrified of organics.
Western Animation
- The Total Drama Island episode "Phobia Factor" delved into the phobias of every cast member. Even tough guy Duncan revealed his secret fear: cardboard cutouts of Celine Dion.
- In The Replacements, Agent K suffers from crippling stage fright.
- Chuckie of Rugrats is anxious about many things; his fears include clowns, bunnies, green jello, shoes, and the guy on the oatmeal box.
- Homer Simpson is shown to have a crippling fear of sock puppets in the episode "Fear of Flying".
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