Why Did It Have To Be Snakes / Video Games

Snakes (ophidiophobia), Reptiles (herpetophobia)

• The Genesis Beavis and Butt-Head. At the Turbo Mall, bring the Army recruiter a snake from the pet shop and he'll be cowering on the floor, leaving you free to take the folder on the desk^note Can be used for couch-fishing—But that's a different trope and the ticket piece it was covering.
• Born Under the Rain: There's the "Paralyzing Fear Of Snakes" Status Effect, that prevents the character from acting on the party's turn. For when a certain character is fighting snakes. Rashida.
• The Spelunker from Spelunky, being kind of similar to Indiana Jones, hates snakes, too. Doesn't really seem to stop him, though.
• Mega Man (Classic)
  • Gemini Man from Mega Man 3 hates snakes. Not surprisingly, he takes massive damage from Snake Man's Search Snakes.
  • According to Mega Man & Bass, Toad Man is also afraid of Snake Man, due to Animal Jingoism.
• World of Warcraft has a shout out in the form of an NPC with a strong fear of snakes who's named Harrison Jones, which takes Indiana Jones's last name and his actor's first name.
• The last line of a journal entry in Vesuvia that mentions the discovery of a charred snakeskin is "Snakes - anything but snakes..."
• Part of a certain side quest chain in The Lord of the Rings Online involves retrieving some baby turtles from the work shed of a hobbit named Grobo Dogroot who happens to be deathly afraid of turtles. When you go to pick them up, each and everyone is called "Grobo's Greatest Fear."
• In LEGO Indiana Jones, several puzzles revolve around Indy's fear of snakes. You have to get rid of the snakes with another character (and it's not as easy as attacking them, since they're often in deadly mud) so Indy will join you where his skills are needed.
• The Bishop of Southwark in Fallen London, who asks you to bring him deadly beasts to breed an Evil Detecting "Hound of Heaven", repeatedly reminds you "no serpents!" Naturally, the Hound turns out to be just that — a huge white snake with a devil-detecting gaze.
• Rikku from Final Fantasy X-2 freaks out when fighting the Battlesnakes screaming "Snake! Snake?! Snaaaaaaake!!!". Strangely Riku has no problem with the Anaconda in Final Fantasy X despite them being far more terrifying than the Battlesnakes.
• In Diablo II when the Druid enters the Claw Viper Temple, he mentions he hates snakes.
• The Shieldbreaker from the Shieldbreaker DLC of Darkest Dungeon, though her fighting style is based on snakes, is absolutely terrified of them due to a traumatic encounter with one during her escape from a wagon bound for a horrible vizier that she was being sold to, which ended with her having to cut off her hand to halt the spread of its venom and free herself from the wagon. On several occasions upon camping, she has the chance to have a nightmare about giant deadly snakes, which throws her immediately into Horror mode and draws any other heroes with her into it for the battle of their lives.
• Assassin's Creed Origins: Bayek has a severe dislike of snakes, even quoting the Trope Namer in one quest. Understandable, since regardless of how strong Bayek is, those scaly bastards will take off an entire bar of his health in a single bite.
• One of the towers in Far Cry 4 was abandoned when The Golden Path dumped a bunch of snakes near it, freaking out the guard who had a phobia about them.
• Daxter: This exact line is uttered by the namesake Ottsel after he wakes up from his Indiana Jones-themed dream, which to say the least, included no shortage of serpents for him to take care of.
• Implied in ARMS. If Dr. Coyle wins the match against Kid Cobra, there is a chance she'll have a quote saying "Snakes?!" followed by the sound of disgust.
• Though he shakily attempts to deny it, Hugo in Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country is terrified of Aspar (giant snake-like enemies). Addam claims this is due to an incident in his childhood where he found one under his pillow.

Spiders (arachnophobia)

• 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. He even lampshades it when fighting Spider-Man in Marvel vs. Capcom 3
  Spiders... I hate spiders.
• Ryo Sakazaki from Art of Fighting and The King of Fighters. It was a prank from his friend Robert (putting a spider in his mouth while he was sleeping) that caused it.
• From Resident Evil, Claire Redfield has no problems gunning down zombies by the truckload. She dislikes spiders. Especially those seen in Raccoon City and Rockford Island.
• Artur from Fire Emblem: The Sacred Stones. His best friend Lute once tried to help him... by placing spiders on his face when he was sleeping. Yep, Lute is special.
• 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.
• One of the quests that you can do in Stormreach Harbor in Dungeons & Dragons Online involves a guy named Berne Jorn who's been afraid of spiders ever since he was a kid. The quest he sends you on, which is called "Arachnophobia," has you clearing the eight-legged bastards (including a huge boss-level one) out of his family crypt.
• Pokémon Black and White have Joltik and Galvantula◊, who have Unnerve as one of their abilities. Said ability makes the opponent afraid and unable to use berries. How Joltik has this is anyone's guess.
• Toonstruck's Drew Blank exclaims "Spiders! Why did it have to be spiders?" upon seeing a couple of them crawling on the wall.
• Bounder Boffin of The Lord of the Rings Online is terrified of spiders, which you have to kill during the introductory instance for Hobbits in order to help him cut through Old Odo's Leaf-farm to escape a Black Rider.
• Farkas, an otherwise fearless warrior of Jorrvaskr in The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, at one point refuses to go any further in the Tomb of Ysgramor after encountering giant spiders there due to his experience with them back in Dustman's Cairn.
• Mass Effect:
  • Tali is apparently afraid of spiders, judging by her reaction to the Gestation Pods hatching if you should take her along on Grunt's mission in Mass Effect 3.
  • Garrus also dislikes spiders, though to a lesser extent.
  "If I never see another spider again, I'll die a contented turian. Unless they have spiders in the afterlife. Damn."
• Wilson from Don't Starve hates spiders.
• The only time we see Sarge or Vikki from Army Men show any signs of nervousness around anything is when they have to fight spiders.
• Kormac from Diablo III does not like spiders. At all.
• Petra from Minecraft: Story Mode apparently has a thing against cave spiders, even referencing the Trope Namer. She takes on normal spiders earlier in the game with no hassle, though.
  "Cave spiders. Why'd it have to be cave spiders?"
• Uninvited: Use the Spider Cider on the porch railing and you can catch a spider that'll get rid of that ghost that appears when the lamp is used in the bedroom.
• Reyn in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 develops a fear of spiders after almost being killed by a giant Arachno Queen in Tephra Cave.

Insects (entomophobia)

• Adelbert Steiner in Final Fantasy IX, sort of. He's deathly afraid of oglops, an otherwise harmless insect. So is Blank, though not to the same degree (he says he "can't stand them", but is able to put up with them for the sake of the plan to kidnap the princess). Though when Blank's armour breaks and the oglops are released, both Steiner and Blank begin running around in a panic. Garnet/Dagger later fakes a fear of oglops in order to make her "ordinary girl" act more convincing.
  • Steiner even punches Regent Cid clear across the room and begins ranting ("Get that repulsive bug off the throne and call the Regent!") when he first reveals himself to the party, having been cursed with an Oglop body.
• Fiona from Haunting Ground is terrified of insects, when she kicks open a wall to get an item and dozens of bugs come out, Fiona is less than thrilled.
• In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, Marz is deathly afraid of insects, especially the Big Creepy-Crawlies found on Vertumna. The third Organizing event with your mom reveals that Marz needed your help to deal with a 'bedbug' infestation because the insects, which were the size of her toes, burped up acid all over her bedroom.
• Kick Chick Chie Satonaka from Persona 4 will happily take on all kinds of shadow demons and murderers, but little bugs? Count her the hell out◊.
• Blathers the Owl from Animal Crossing hates bugs of all sorts, as made obvious by how he reacts every time you turn in something for the museum's bug collection.
• Lyle Smithsonian of Metroid: Other M really hates bugs. Guess what's invaded the Bottle Ship?
• Fire Emblem:
  • Florina from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade is terrified by bugs (a support conversation shows her panicking when a bee flies around her), among a few other things.
  • Fire Emblem Fates also has Ignatius, who has a handful of fears (like clowns and ghosts), but insects are his biggest fear according to many of his support conversations.
  • Leonie from Fire Emblem: Three Houses can't stand to even look at spiders, centipedes, or other creepy-crawlies. In her supports with Shamir, Shamir uses this fear as a tool to help Leonie improve her archery skills. Shamir herself dislikes bugs as well.
• Mega Man 9: Bees are Splash Woman's worst enemy, so her weakness is Hornet Man's weapon, Bee Chaser.
• Cyllene in Pokémon Legends: Arceus is terrified of bugs, as shown when she orders her Abra to teleport a Wurmple out of her office at one point.
• Ashley from Until Dawn hates bugs, and will freak out when she sees them crawling on the objects she just picked up.
• Karol in Tales of Vesperia is shown to be petrified of them when the party visits a forest teeming with insects. In a rare show of kindness, Rita gives him a can of bug spray, which becomes a skill called 'Bug Busters' for him.
• In the Resident Evil 2 (Remake) when exploring morgue there's a drawer crawling with huge cockroaches. Leon gives a startled yell when he pulls the draw out but is otherwise fine, but in Claire's scenario, she cries out loudly and makes noises of disgust at the sight of them.
• Noel Vermillion from BlazBlue is afraid of bugs, especially ones with lots of legs. Keep in mind she's only five, even if she doesn't look like it. When one considers Arakune uses them in his attacks, her battles with him are... an experience.
• Pikmin 2: Pikmin will flee in terror from otherwise harmless Mitites.
• Grendel in Labyrinths of the World 4: Stonehenge Legend is afraid of bees.
• In The Vagrant, before and after the boss fight with the Ground Shaker, Vivian rants about how much she hates bugs.
• Kirby: Planet Robobot: The pause screen description of Dedede Clone 2.0 implies that the events of Kirby: Triple Deluxe left Dedede with a fear of wasps.
• A party chat in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth reveals Seonhee hates cockroaches, to the point she was ready to kill one with a karambit knife.
• Shulk in Xenoblade Chronicles 1 is scared of caterpillars. A late-game Heart-to-Heart explains that this comes from a time when Reyn hid one in his shoe as a prank when they were kids.
• Agate in Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is utterly petrified of all sorts of insects. She even has a unique dialogue interaction relating to this if she is called into battle against insect enemies.

Mice and Rats (musophobia)

• The Good Fairy in Ceville. Obviously, you have to exploit her weakness to solve a puzzle.
• Zelda from The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks doesn't like mice. Used as a gameplay mechanic, as Link has to get rid of those rodents before she will move on. Understandably 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. This creates the amusing sight of an imposing suit of Animated Armor (which Zelda possesses) shivering in fear at the sight of a mouse.
• The title character in Nick Chase and the Deadly Diamonds announces at one point that rats are his one weakness, his Achilles' heel.
• Monokuma and Monomi in Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair both reveal that they hate mice when the player approaches Nezumi Castle on the fourth island (which isn't supposed to resemble any castle from the Disney Theme Parks, honest!). As such, they can't even go near it. This turns out to be plot-relevant. Because Jabberwock Island is all a Virtual Reality simulation, the Future Foundation, the creators of it, decided to implement a failsafe if it all went pear-shaped. Anyone in the teacher role is made to be scared of mice so that they can't go anywhere near the castle, which contains the code to access the inside of the ruins, where the means of activating the Forced Shutdown lies.
• Ellie the Elephant in Donkey Kong Country 3 hates mice. In one level she has to navigate a dark lumber mill with lamps and mice; if she sees a mouse in the light, she'll turn and run.
• Edelgard of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is frightened of rats, which Claude once used to tease her during a mock battle by claiming a rat scurried past her feet, making her give a very uncharacteristic shriek of fear before getting ahold of herself.

Bats (chiroptophobia)

• Metal Gear: Naked Snake has a fear of bats, and (by extension?) Dracula.
• Mr. Driller: Ataru is deadly afraid of bats, especially vampires.

Cats (ailurophobia)

• 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.
• Minecraft: Creepers and phantoms flee from cats and ocelots.
• Ushnar gro-Shadborgob in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Shivering Isles. He provides a quest of getting rid of a Khajiit beggar (which is obviously unavailable to Khajiit PCs). Even moreso on how he comments on the current events based on the stage(s) of the main quest, thinking that cats and Khajiit are the root of the problems.
• Celine from Asdivine Hearts absolutely adores domesticated animals but is also deathly afraid of them due to being attacked by a dog when she was a child. This is revealed in the game when the talking cat in the party gives Celine permission to pet him and approaches, only to be thrown into the wall by her reaction. She compensates for this fear by having a large collection of stuffed animals instead.

Dogs (cynophobia)

• A short time into the events of Geist, it is revealed that 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.
• Alessa Gilespe from Silent Hill was terrified of dogs, which due to her and the town itself being a Reality Warper who brings fears and abstract concepts to "life" is responsible for several monsters you see throughout the series; Split Head, Groaner, and possibly the Caliban.
• According to the Drama CD of Guilty Gear XX, Zappa is terrified of dogs (then again, he seems to be scared of everything). Guess what? One of the ghosts possessing him takes the form of a huge, hulking black dog.
• Frederick from Fire Emblem: Awakening is afraid of wolves due to nearly getting killed by one when he was younger. Even something that looks like a wolf, like a taguel, can trigger this.
• Tron Bonne, from Mega Man Legends, is afraid of dogs and was once chased up a street lamp by a dog.
• Marcus Fenix from Gears of War received his trademark facial scars from being mauled by guard dogs in prison, and has been nervous around them ever since.
• Daruk from The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild has been afraid of dogs ever since they were a child. Zelda finds this very amusing.
• Dragon Quest IV: Hardie has a fear of dogs, and thus won't join Torneko while his dog Fido is with him.
• Clementine from The Walking Dead (Telltale) is afraid of dogs from season two onwards, due to a bad experience with a homeless dog who tried to maul her to get the canned beans she was eating. She can overcome it in season four, if she keeps seeking out interactions with Rosie, a pitbull living in the Ericson's boarding school.
• Lev from The Last of Us Part II is very tense around them due to the rival faction, the WLF often using attack dogs to fight. He gets it under control after he gets to interact with Alice, Abby's favorite dog.
• NinNin Days: Sumire states that she's afraid of dogs, which was apparent earlier after climbing a flagpole to get away from one. The reason for this is that, when she was training a ninken (dog ninja), she got careless and stepped on its tail. In response, the dog got mad and bit her on the hand. She's been afraid of them ever since.
• Baldur's Gate III: Shadowheart suffers from a fear of wolves, which she earned from an encounter with a wolf while wandering alone in a forest at night as a child until she was rescued by an armed group of Shar worshipers. This becomes quite ironic when it's later revealed that the wolf she encountered that night was actually her werewolf father, who was keeping watch on her during her Rite of Passage before they were abducted by the Sharrans due to them being worshipers of Selûne, Shar's sister and sworn enemy.

Frogs & Toads (batrachophobia)

• 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 the 3D versions 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. It's even better if she is the character who has to cast the "Toad" magic.
• 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.
• Cornet of Rhapsody: A Musical Adventure suffers from this. Unfortunately, frogs are hiding in every other container in the Marl Kingdom. Oh, and there's a kingdom of bipedal, sentient frogs.
• In The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess, Midna is very grossed out by frogs and toads, to the point that she refuses to give you any hints when fighting the Deku Toad miniboss in Lakebed Temple.
• Genshin Impact: Xinyan is terrified of frogs. One of her idle animations has her cringing in fear after hearing a frog ribbit.

Slugs & Snails (molluscophobia)

• 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 Princess Nina, and Ursula is normally a Type A Tsundere who tries to be tougher than most men...
• Carol Palecki in Mitsumete Knight. It's one of the rare things that makes her lose her permanent Genki Girl attitude or rather, her permanent Genki Girl façade. Do not pull a prank of putting a slug on her, or she'll immediately cut all ties with you.

Birds (ornithophobia)

• Shale loathes birds in Dragon Age: Origins due to its stint as a statue in Honnleath. as a prank you can give her an unsquishable pigeon and force her to wear it instead of armour, all the time with the Feast Day DLC.
• Portal 2:
  • GLaDOS comes to hate them. During her stint as a potato, one picked her up against her will, escorted her to its nest and started pecking at her, so she has good reason to be distrustful.
    GLaDOS: AAGH! BIRD! BIRD! KILL IT! It's evil!
  • Wheatley also demonstrates a dislike for birds after he's attacked by one (perhaps even the same one GLaDOS had a run-in with). To be fair, he did break its eggs.
    Wheatley: AAH! BIRD, BIRD, BIRD, BIRD!
• The Secret of Monkey Island: Meathook is afraid of birds, specifically parrots. Apparently a parrot is the reason he lost his hands, though we dont' find out more details.
• Mike from Until Dawn hates birds calling them "rats with wings" after one bird startles him to the amusement of his girlfriend Jessica.

Flying (aviophobia) or Heights (acrophobia)

• All playable lawyers, save Mia Fey and Athena Cykes, seem to suffer from this in the Ace Attorney series. Miles Edgeworth suffers from this as well as seismophobia, and claustraphobia due to his childhood trauma — he has a hard time on airplanes and even needs Gumshoe to fetch him books from the higher up shelves in his office. Phoenix Wright has to have Maya hold his hand when crossing a bridge and mutters "Objection" over and over to stay calm when he's near-vomiting on a ferris wheel. Apollo Justice can't ascend as much as 10 meters without starting to shiver like a dry pile of leaves, and similar to Phoenix, needs Athena to hold his hand when they're up in the rafters of a theater.
• Chrono Trigger has the example of Golem Boss who, after Dalton summons on top of the wing of an airship, cowers in fear from the height, without attacking. If not killed quickly, he then runs away.
• Deacon of Fallout 4. He's very apprehensive about getting in a vertibird, and finding the wreck of a pre-war plane leaves him cringing at the thought of flying that high.
• Final Fantasy:
  • 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. He reveals this the first time the party rides the wind drake, and Galuf physically hurls him onto its back. Later on, he hesitates before jumping off the relatively low height of Bal's drawbridge into the moat.
  • In Final Fantasy VII Remake Barret's got a fear of heights, most notably when traversing the Sector 4 underplate, which has been left in disrepair and leaving a lot of treacherous terrain dangling just over a drop hundreds of feet down. Related to this, he also dislikes ladders, not just because of the heights but the difficulty in climbing them with one arm.
    Barret: I see a console on top of that ladder. Um... a really tall ladder...
  • As part of its many Call Backs to earlier Final Fantasy games, Vivi Orunitia from Final Fantasy IX, just like Bartz, has a fear of heights stemming from falling from a great height when he was young (specifically falling out of the cargo ship.)
• In one mission in Grand Theft Auto IV, Niko seems nervous about having to take a lift on the outside of a building to get to its roof. And in San Andreas, Cesar refuses to get into a crane because he's afraid of heights.
• Abby in The Last of Us Part II is terrified of heights. This causes her great distress when she has to cross a narrow path between two buildings that are at least 20 stories tall. In gameplay Abby becomes visually distressed if the player gets too close to a ledge at high altitudes, and the camera will even pan out when looking down to indicate her vertigo. This can lead to some Video Game Cruelty Potential.
• Emma, Hal's sister in Metal Gear Solid 2 doesn't like heights when asked about it by Raiden, but stated it's preferable to Water.
• Margaret in Rune Factory 4 is terrified of heights. Ironically, her house exits out onto a wooden boardwalk bordering a cliff. In one event, she trips on the boardwalk and remains where she is for a time because she was too afraid to move.
• Blaze the Cat from the Sonic Rush series is often implied to have a fear of heights, especially when they reach Sky Babylon.
• Sticky Business: In Plan With Me, Sanjay is afraid of flying, which makes it hard for him to meet his Pen Pal Tim in person, so the former asks you for some airplane stickers to help him overcome his fear.
• Alister, 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.
• Leo in A Way Out fell out of a tree when he was eight and has had trouble with heights ever since. As a result, whenever there's a choice involving heights (going over or under a bridge, skydiving vs walking through a jungle, etc), he'll always prefer the option that requires him to be near ledges as little as possible. It even affects his side of the screen, as his depth perception gets distorted the further off the ground he gets.
• Following his resurrection, the normally unflappable Cammuravi in Xenoblade Chronicles 3 inexplicably develops a fear of heights. This is particularly odd given his previous penchent for standing perched atop his Ferronis.

Water (aquaphobia/hydrophobia)

• Sonic the Hedgehog displays a fear of water in some adaptations (such as Sonic X, for instance), though not actually in the Modern games.
  • LEGO Dimensions shows Sonic having a borderline Trauma Button when he realizes he has to visit the Labyrinth Zone, complete with Sonic 1's infamous drowning music.
• Ramses III has a good reason why he is afraid of Water
• Raine Sage, Tales of Symphonia. An optional skit reveals that this is because when she was young and she and her family were being chased, she fell from a boat and nearly drowned.
• Curly Brace in Blade Strangers due to being a Robot Girl and almost drowning in the Labyrinth in Cave Story she hates water. She even has a Nightmare Sequence about drowning.
• Raz from Psychonauts, because of a family curse.
• Metal Gear Solid: Emma Emmerich is terrified of water thanks to a Childhood Trauma. Ironically, Hal stated she used to swim like a fish and it's hinted she could still do that.
• Ayako Katagiri in Tokimeki Memorial. A fear very well known in the series' fandom, and milked for all its worth by the creators, as antics-wise, she's regularly paired with Nozomi Kiyokawa, the resident swimming-lover and champion (who, ironically, suffers from a primal fear of her own, thunder).
• Lesley Lopicana in Mitsumete Knight, a Spiritual Successor of Tokimeki Memorial. She's similar to Ayako, but unlike her where the origins of her fear were never explained, we get to know how Lesley got this fear of water (long short story - that you can read in the game's Character Sheet, - it's due to a Childhood Trauma).
• The Dahaka from Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. There's even an alternate ending where you kill it with the Water Sword. Also, any sand monster in this game loathes water. Strangely, the ones in the prequel can be fought in ponds.
• Chloe Valens from Tales of Legendia.
• CJ from Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas claims to be afraid of water at one point, after getting a discarded condom on his face while swimming as a child. Ironically, he's the first character in GTA not to suffer from Super Drowning Skills.
• John Marston couldn’t swim in Red Dead Redemption so you wouldn’t go places before the game allowed you to. Come the prequel,Red Dead Redemption II , he’s terrified of water and that’s why he can’t swim. He constantly gets teased about it. If he’s near a body of water, he can be heard breathing much heavier.

Fire (pyrophobia)

• Rydia's fear of fire can be chalked up to Cecil and Kain's delivery burning the village of Mist to the ground in Final Fantasy IV. Very soon after, she's forced to confront this fear and cast fire magic to melt a wall of ice blocking the party's path to Fabul, as she is the only one capable of doing so.
• In Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney – Spirit of Justice, Armie buff is severely pyrophobic. Justified as she only survived an arson from her mother's Heroic Sacrifice.
• The dragon in Loom is afraid of fire, a fact Bobbin uses against her with either the Terror or Sleep draft to set her hoard — transformed by him from gold into straw — ablaze.
• It's hinted that Milla Vodello of Psychonauts is a pyrophobe due to the orphanage where she worked burning down with the children inside it.
• Heather in Silent Hill 3 is afraid of fire. She comments that "it's scary somehow..." This is because she is the reincarnation of Alessa Gillespie, who was subjected to a ritualistic immolation as a girl and barely survived it. She was still in bandages from it when she was reincarnated as Heather.
• Being ghostly tree monsters, Trevenant of Pokémon X and Y are noted to be justifiably uncomfortable around fire type Pokémon in their Ultra Sun Pokédex entry. Since Trevenant are extremely hostile to lumberjacks that cut trees in the forests they live in, this is why lumberjacks will usually bring a fire type with them for warding purposes.

Other nature phobias

• One of the player characters, Rikku from Final Fantasy X has a phobia of lightning (astraphobia), which she gets over in the sequel by camping in an area in Spira where lightning is striking down nonstop.
• Tails of Sonic the Hedgehog also has astraphobia. He first displayed this in Sonic the Hedgehog: The Movie, but wasn't displayed in the games until Sonic Mania Plus.
• 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 mess at the slightest of tremors. It's no better in Trials and Tribulations, when he passes out after an earthquake hits Hazakurain. It also extends to airplane turbulence (which can resemble tremors) and elevators. Justified in it being the result of a traumatic and tragic incident he experienced as a kid where he was trapped an elevator for 5 hours because of an earthquake, and he thought for years that he'd inadvertently killed his father in the elevator.
• 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 favor 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.
• Timbersaw from Dota 2 has a severe fear of trees, to the point that he built a mechanized suit for the purpose of cutting them down.
• Tales of Symphonia:
  • Sheena Fujibayashi is afraid of lightning, thanks to a very traumatic incident when she was a little girl. She has to face her fear in the game to make a pact with Volt, the summon spirit of lightning.
  • From the same game, Zelos is afraid of the snow - every year when it snows in Meltokio, he goes on a pilgrimage to get away from it. Because it was snowing the night his mother was assassinated in front of him.
• Implied in ARMS. If you have Springtron pit against Ribbon Girl, she is revealed to be afraid of lightning. Biff wonders why would Ribbon Girl carry Sparky, her primary ARM to the battle in the first place.
  • It is also implied in the same manner that Kid Cobra is afraid of mongoose. This technically fits the King Cobra motif, as the cobra are the prey to mongoose.

Clowns (coulrophobia)

• Barry Dejay in Backyard Sports. He plays worse on the Bling-Bling Brothers Circus in Backyard Basketball just because he is afraid of clowns.
• 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.
• Nathan Drake from the Uncharted series. At the end of Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Elena asks him on a scale of 1 to 10 how scared he was that she would die, he gives it a 3 or 4. Guess what was at 10?
• Trevor Philips from Grand Theft Auto V hates clowns, which unfortunately are what he sees after sampling someone's marijuana.

Women (gynophobia)

• Sexy Women (venustaphobia) — Laharl from Disgaea He becomes a beautiful woman in D2.
• Lon'qu from Fire Emblem: Awakening, which stems from his guilt of feeling responsible for the death of a childhood friend. He'll eventually make an exception for whichever female you decide to pair him with (and his daughter, should he have one).
• Guy from Tales of the Abyss, due to a VERY traumatic event in his childhood.

Ghosts (phasmophobia)

• Ragna the Bloodedge's Joke Ending in BlazBlue: Continuum Shift reveals that he is terrified of ghosts. So his joke ending turns him and most of the cast into ghosts. It's canon too; he is freaked out by Sena, one of the personalities that make up Platinum the Trinity, when Sena threatens to haunt him for the rest of his life in an attempt to mooch a meal off of Ragna. To top it all off, the true form of the Big Bad Terumi is a creepy grinning green ghost.
• Princess Pitts in Chibi-Robo! possesses a lady-like terror of monsters and the like. As Chibi-Robo, you can use a Ghost suit to help train her to overcome her fear, though it takes a while and she faints a couple times initially.
• In Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, Officer Jorji reveals to the Barista that he's afraid of ghosts, which is why he's scared of the possibility of the dead hawthorn tree, which was left behind by the fairy that was killed by a drunk driver, being haunted.
• Fate/Grand Order: King Leonidas of Sparta can take anything that has a shape, ranging from men to even dragons. But he's scared shitless of ghosts that when he went to rescue his comrades from a haunted apartment, he was instead surrounded by ghosts and his fear took over him that he looked like he's been possessed by his (non-existant) inner dark side. This is the same Leonidas that said this to his men during the Battle of Thermopylae, "TONIGHT! WE DINE! IN HELL!!" by the way.
• Final Fantasy:
  • Tifa in Final Fantasy VII Remake is shown to be afraid of ghosts when the party visits the Train Graveyard (in the original game, it was just a short level but in the remake, it's a full chapter). Aerith even beckons Tifa to get behind her and hold her for comfort. Even badass former SOLDIER Cloud admits "Ghosts aren't my thing" and displays reluctance to go into Train Graveyard, having to be encouraged by his female companions holding onto both of his arms and guiding him in.
  • Luso from Final Fantasy Tactics A2 revealed his fear of ghosts when the clan must defeat a group of Undead. Adelle teased him afterwards.
• Lysithea of Fire Emblem: Three Houses is frightened of ghosts and doesn't like walking around the monastery alone at night because of it, though she tries to pretend otherwise as she doesn't like people treating her like a kid.
• Hometown Story has its physically extremely strong female blacksmith be 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.
• Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater: Naked Snake is terrified of anything involving the undead. Bats make him think of Dracula, and merely mentioning Dracula is enough to give him nightmares. Because Hideo Kojima loves to screw with his own character's minds, Naked Snake gets to face the ghosts of every person he's ever killed in the game. It's a little unsettling for us, the players, but it's horrific for him. In Peace Walker, there are more ghosts in some bonus levels. When Chico, a fan of cryptozoology, starts describing an optional boss as an "undead dinosaur" brought back to life by Haitian zombie-makers, Snake's phobias kick right back in and he starts trying to rationalize it as just an "ordinary" dinosaur that happens to be skeletal and immune to conventional weapons.
• Yukari Takeba from Persona 3 is afraid of ghosts.
• Judging from what she says about the Old Chateau (a place where Ghost Pokemon and actual ghosts lurk), Gardenia, the Eterna City Gym Leader from Pokémon Diamond and Pearl has this phobia. (Oddly enough, if you challenge her with actual Ghost Pokemon on your team, it doesn't make any difference.)
• Ringo Andou from Puyo Puyo is REALLY scared of ghosts. The mere sight of Yu and Rei (who are harmless and just like having fun with quizzes and puns) is enough to have her scream in terror. In an ironic twist, she discloses that she's into paranormal phenomenons.
• Sonic the Hedgehog:
  • Knuckles the Echidna of was revealed to have this in Sonic Adventure 2, but he managed to overcome it by fighting and defeating the king of ghosts, so he doesn't mind them anymore in latter games.
  • Chip from Sonic Unleashed, as seen in the short Night of the Werehog.
• Seiji from Spirit Hunter: NG is terrified of the supernatural, to the point that just hearing about them causes him to seize up in a way similar to an allergic reaction. Unfortunately for him, he's a main character in a horror adventure game.
• Super Mario Bros.:
  • Luigi is afraid of a lot of things, but most of all, he's deathly afraid of ghosts, Boos especially. Despite this, he has to fight hordes of them in Luigi's Mansion to save his brother, Mario. He finally, if only mostly, overcomes this fear at the end of Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, even going so far as to adopt the Polterpup as a pet.
  • Yoshi is afraid of ghost houses, so he stays out of them while Mario and Luigi explore them. In spite of this, two bosses in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island and one in the remake are ghosts. Also in both games, one Yoshi's relay leg consists entirely of fortresses while another has all castles.
• Tales Series:
  • Tear Grants from Tales of the Abyss is scared of ghosts despite being a Kuudere.
  • Tales of Vesperia: Rita Mordio really hates ghost-ships.
• Elie MacDowell and Millium Orion in the Trails Series hate ghosts and do not want to be near them whatsoever. Though to be fair to them, when ghosts can and will kill you as they do in this series, there's a really good reason to be afraid of them.
• Youmu Konpaku from Touhou Project 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.
• A sidequest in Xenoblade Chronicles 2: Torna ~ The Golden Country reveals that Haze is scared of ghosts, something Brighid takes some amount of joy in teasing her over before being asked to stop.

Darkness (nyctophobia)

• Alan Wake: Alice has a crippling fear of the dark. And don't tell me you didn't flip on a few lights yourself after/while playing through the game.
• Daniel from Amnesia: The Dark Descent has a bad fear of the dark after an incident from his childhood. Staying in the dark too long makes his sanity lower and causes hallucinations, blurred vision, and teeth grinding. Too bad they didn't have very good lighting in 1839.
• In Coffee Talk Episode 2: Hibiscus and Butterfly, Lucas is afraid of the dark, and when a blackout happens, he nervously darts his eyes about. Jorji asks him if he's alright, but he claims that "everything's peachy".
• Wolfgang from Don't Starve is afraid of the dark, which causes his Sanity Meter to drop faster during the night.
• Hayato in Fire Emblem Fates tries to act mature and Wise Beyond His Years and hates being treated like a kid, but a fear of dark places is his weak point. The Boo Camp DLC (fighting Faceless monsters on a dark mountain) even has him in tears during his pre-battle quote.
• Nobody in LEGO The Lord of the Rings can go into dark places without some light source; they back out shaking their head. This gets downright silly when you consider that Dwarves typically live underground, and that Gollum is very well-adjusted to darkness and light actually hurts him. They should be fine in the dark, but no. You have to send Frodo (who carries a light) into a dark cave first so that Gollum can go in and climb up the wall that starts there.

Various Phobias

• Artix, normally fearless paladin extraordinaire in AdventureQuest Worlds, is utterly terrified of the color pink (which Beleen mercilessly teases him about).
• In Baldur's Gate II, the elf Aerie is claustrophobic. When the party finds that the Big Bad has fled through a magical portal, one character speculates may very well lead into the Underdark, an underground world evil enough to compete with hell itself. If Aerie overhears this, she immediately freaks and makes it very clear that she doesn't want to go there. Guess where the whole of the next chapter takes place...?
• Parodied in Deadfall Adventures, where James Lee Quatermain's nonhuman archnemesis is... math. Naturally, he comes across not one, but two puzzles involving math — in the Mayan numeral system, no less.
• Sam from Death Stranding is afraid of touch. He will recoil if somebody extends a hand to greet him, or even tries to sit next to him. Due to Sam being a repatriate, certain touch causes him to develop rashes. With that being said, he works as a porter, and his job forces him to traverse the territories of ghosts called BTs, that will try to grab him and pull him under the tar they produce to kill him.
• Disgaea: Hour of Darkness: In addition to fearing sexy women, Laharl is also horrified by declarations of love and positive thinking (claiming that "Eternal Love" is the worst of all. He's mostly over it by the end of the game.
• All dwarves in Dragon Age (apart from those born on the surface, obviously) tend to have some fear of the sky (possibly Agoraphobia or Ouranophobia) due to the vast majority of them living in underground cities. They fear that going to the surface will not only make them lose their 'stone sense', but that they will fall up into the sky (this is called Casadastraphobia). Of the three dwarves you can recruit, one is a surfacer anyway, and the other two overcome their discomfort fairly quickly. Anders the mage appears to have claustrophobia, given his comments whenever you venture to the Deep Roads in Dragon Age: Origins – Awakening and Dragon Age II. There are also plenty of people who are terrified of mages/magic/demons, and of those, plenty are justified.
• Dragon Quest V: Madchen is afraid of heights, and extreme darkness to a lesser extent. Despite this, she soldiers through all the towers and dungeons with little more than asking Daddy to hold her hand a few times.
• Evolve: Bucket seems to suffer from chapodiphobia (fear of octopuses), judging by how utterly terrified he is by the Kraken, the only monster to get such a reaction from him:
  Kraken engaged! NOT LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS!
• Florina from Fire Emblem: The Blazing Blade isn't only afraid of insects, but is terrified by bows (justified, because as a flying unit, she is vulnerable to them) and suffers from a mild case of androphobia.
• 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).
• In Ib, Garry is utterly freaked out by all the blue dolls. Can't blame him considering one of them stalked him down a hallway and there was another time where a whole bunch of them captured him and forced him to play a game with them, but he found them disturbing even before any of them did anything.
• I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream: Ellen has claustrophobia and is also terrified of the color yellow. She's repressed the memory responsible for those phobias, so she doesn't know why she can't bring herself to pick up the yellow items that litter her scenario. A while into her scenario, you learn that it stems from an incident where she was trapped in an elevator and raped by a man dressed in yellow. Shortly after you learn this, Ellen manages to overcome her fears.
• In I Was a Teenage Exocolonist, Cal has trypophobia, or the fear of tiny clustered holes especially on flesh, which is why he lets you milk the squeedger, a large bee-like alien with a spongy, porous abdomen, at Geoponics instead.
• According to Mordin Solus in Mass Effect 3, Urdnot Wrex, krogan badass and leader of his people, is Afraid of Needles.
• After reaching the Empty Room in Maze: Subject 360, the villain appears out of nowhere and asks which is the main character's greatest fear. You get to pick from a list which consists of nyctophobia, claustrophobia and fear of injury.
• Metal Gear Solid: AGAIN Emma Emmerich shows up on this list: she doesn't like sea lice at all. We also have Big Boss himself, scared of vampires and zombies. This is a subversion in terms of the 'recurring obstacle' trope - vampires are in the series (in a form, anyway), but Big Boss never encounters one.
• Monkey Island: Guybrush Threepwood has Porcelain (porcophobia?). It's 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 is scared of porcelain? 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..."
• In The Outer Worlds, the player can elect to take on flaws in exchange for additional skill points, many of which are phobias that inflict penalties when confronted by certain enemies or situations, including (but not limited to) acrophobia, raptiphobia, and robophobia.
• The Rattled ability introduced in Pokémon Black and White likely runs off of this trope, since the attack types that activate it—bug, dark, and ghost—are common phobias.
• Flora, Layton's ward in the Professor Layton games, is afraid of being left alone (monophobia).
• A Series of Unfortunate Events (2004) combines several phobias at once. Violet doesn't like rats or toads and Klaus doesn't like spiders. As such, Klaus has to clear out any rats or toads he encounters and Violet has to be the one who takes care of the spiders.
• Umineko: When They Cry: Battler Ushiromiya is terrified of any vehicle that shakes when it moves, as was his late mother Asumu.
• In XCOM 2: War of the Chosen, soldiers can develop phobias under certain conditions, which have a chance to induce panic in them when they are exposed to the source of their fears. Some of these include pyrophobia (fear of fire), kinemortophobia (fear of zombies, including the Lost), demonophobia (fear of demons and other evil supernatural beings, which include the Chosen), and phobophobia (fear of fear itself, set off by others panicking).

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