"I never thought I'd have so many enemies that I'd need to make an actual list but it's just getting to be more than I can keep track of. I mean what the hell, it worked for Nixon, should work for me right?"
— Gordon Freeman, Freeman's Mind
A character is making a list of people they don't like. This list doesn't have to be shown, nor does what they plan on doing with those people ever have to be said.
Compare Rogues Gallery, the out-of-universe version, and Gotta Kill Them All. Compare Listing the Forms of Degenerates.
Examples:
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Anime & Manga
- In the English dub of Naruto, when Ino hears Naruto ambushing Sasuke in the third episode (in order to tie him up, take Sakura's appearance and find out what Sakura thinks of Naruto), she gets angry and says that he's on her enemies list.
Comic Books
- Back to the Future: In "Biff to the Future", Richard Nixon advises Biff Tannen to make a list with his enemies. Biff likes the idea but says he would need a whole library to keep track of his enemies and Nixon says the both of them would.
- In an issue of Twisted Toyfare Theatre a mishap between Dr. Doom and Reed Richards ends up turning Doom's head into a giant "Have-a-nice-day" face. When Doom is walking home, Spider-man (enjoying a coffee on his porch while in a bath robe) yells out "Hey! Kool-aid!" Doom yells "YOU'RE ON THE LIST, ARACHNID!" "There's a list?" Spider-Man asks.
- Very dark version with the Decepticon Justice Division's List in The Transformers: More than Meets the Eye. It's a list of Decepticons who have defected, deserted, or otherwise ended up as targets for the DJD. A lot of the darkness comes from us knowing exactly what the DJD plans to do to the people on the List. And, because Tarn is a bureaucrat at heart, they plan to go through it in a strict order, no delays, no diversions, just agonising pain followed by death.
Comic Strips
- Calvin and Hobbes: Calvin once built snowmen to represent every person he hated, so that he could enjoy watching them melt when spring came.
Calvin: The ones I really hate are smaller, so they'll melt faster.
Hobbes: I wasn't aware you even knew this many people.
Fan Works
- In Hit List, Ganondorf doesn't particularly care about any of the hostages he takes, but he has a small list of people he definitely wants killed out of personal revenge. Most of them relate to Link, due to him despising Link for getting him sent to juvenile hall. This is how the readers find out that he lied about letting Aryll live in exchange for Colin's cooperation. She was on the list as well.
- In An 'April Fool's' Errand, Hades has an Afterlife Revenge List, a list of names of people that Hades has a grievance with. He isn't allowed to go after them while they are alive, so he makes a list (adding tallies next to them overtime whenever he gets pissed off about them) so that he can inflict revenge on them after they die, the number of tallies dictating the severeness of his vengeance. Names on the list include Orpheus, Asclepius, Hercules and Homer.
- In the Dusk to Dawn series, Batman has an archive of files for every baddie he's ever faced, and Catwoman remarks that being alphabetized next to Clayface is insulting. Selina writes up her own in the sixth novel to figure out who is framing her, but it reads more like a List of Transgressions, since the "enemies" are whoever she has beaten up, cheated, stolen from, damaged property of, or slept with and never called. It adds up to a long list.
- Parodied in The Official Fanfiction University Of Middle-earth. Lina is supposed to write a "How to Take Over Middle-Earth" essay for Sauron's class, but she accidentally hands in a list of make-up elven-sounding elvish names she was writing down with the -hopeless- purpose of wooing Legolas (long story). Fortunately, Sauron thinks it's a kill list -"evil in its simplest form"- and Lina passes.
Films — Live-Action
- In the film Jimmy Hollywood down-on-his-luck actor Jimmy (Joe Pesci) has a catchphrase for this: "You're out of the Oscar speech!"
- In Billy Madison, Billy calls up an old high school acquaintance (played by Steve Buscemi) to apologize for treating him poorly years ago. After the phone call, a thoughtful look appears on Buscemi's face, and he crosses Billy's name off of a list titled "People To Kill." This turns out to be a very good thing, since Buscemi's character saves Billy in the climax.
- In the 1970 version of The Out-of-Towners, Jack Lemmon's character makes out an ever-growing list of people and institutions who are making his stay in New York miserable.
- In the film The Devil and Miss Jones, the tycoon going undercover as an employee discusses keeping one with a Mean Boss, an old lady who's a store shopper, looking to find out who's a bad salesman. All the while, they don't know that he has the power to fire them (which he completely intends to do).
- Kill Bill. The Bride draws up a literal list of people she intends to kill for her Roaring Rampage of Revenge.
- I Stand Alone: The Butcher steals a revolver in a bar fight with three bullets in it. He then tries to decide which three of his various enemies deserve the bullets.
- In The Hit List, Jonas gets Allan to write down a list of five people he would like to see dead on a napkin; offering to kill them for him, starting with #5. Allan, drunk and assuming that Jonas is joking, does so.Only when the fifth name on the list—his boss—is murdered does he realise that Jonas was serious.
- A variant in Happy Death Day, Tree makes a list of people who might want to kill her. When she starts listing such people as "the Uber driver I spit on after the ride", she starts realizing just how unpleasant a human being she really is.
Literature
- Arya Stark in A Song of Ice and Fire has a long list of people she wants to kill, which she recites every night before falling asleep, bordering on a Madness Mantra. After the Starks fall out of grace and Arya is forced to flee for her life, she murmurs a list of people she considers responsible for her suffering as a sort of promise to herself to take revenge on them. Other people point out how disturbing this is for a nine-year-old girl.
""Weese," she would whisper, first of all. "Dunsen, Chiswyck, Polliver, Raff the Sweetling. The Tickler and the Hound. Ser Gregor, Ser Armory, Ser Ilyn, Ser Meryn, King Joffrey, Queen Cersei.""
- Gregor from Super Minion doesn't have a list of people, but he does have a list of things that annoy him about his mutant status or the way society reacts with it.
- Invoked in Wasp (1957). Every time someone ends up dead (by Mowry's hands, or a contract killer he hired), he mails threatening letters claiming responsibility and stating that "the list is long", as part of his actions to fake the existence of a vengeful secret organization.
- In The Survivalist series by Jerry Ahern, the head of the KGB in the Invaded States of America refers to a list of American 'reactionaries' which the KGB has kept updated over the years. He wants those on the list purged before they can form La Résistance to the Soviet occupation. The Soviet general agrees, but specifies that he's only authorizing those on the list to be killed, as he has no intention of giving the KGB a tool that could be used against him some day.
- The Godfather. Tom Hagan is shocked when he sees the size of the death list Sonny Corleone is drawing up after his father is gunned down in the street. He points out they only need to kill Sollozzo and the mob boss who's bankrolling him.
- Early in Robert Louis Stevenson's The Black Arrow: A Tale of the Two Roses, the avenging 'John Amend-All' leaves a rhyme listing the people who have wronged him, and promising that he has one of his black arrows ready for each one.
- Fanboy keeps one of these in The Astonishing Adventures of Fanboy and Goth Girl consisting of people who've wronged him in some way.
Live-Action TV
- Arrow. In Season One, Oliver Queen has "The List", a book left for him by his deceased father of corrupt businessmen and criminals who are bringing harm to Starling City. At the start of Season 2, he finds himself somewhat at a loss without the List to give him motivation and guidance for his vigilante activities (however new criminals filling the Evil Power Vacuum quickly make that moot).
- In The Big Bang Theory Sheldon has a list of his "mortal enemies". It's said to be extensive, and includes his grade school bully that put a Mexican peso up his nose (it's still there) and Wil Wheaton. After he reconciles with Wheaton, Brent Spiner opens a collectible Wesley doll and takes Wheaton's spot on the list. Wheaton calmly tells him that it won't take up much of his time.
- Ryan on The Office (US) kept a list of people he wanted to get back at after getting demoted from VP to temp. For the most part he never got around to doing anything.
- Stephen Colbert has two separate lists on The Colbert Report. The first is his On Notice list. If the person (or thing) on the list does not apologize to him, then it is moved to his second enemies list, his Dead To Me list.
- "The Deadly Attachment", one of the most loved episodes of Dad's Army, had a captured U-Boat commander threatening to put members of the platoon on a list, every time someone says something he finds a bit disagreeable.
German Captain: Your name will also go on the list. What is it?
Mainwaring: Don't tell him, Pike! - Veronica Mars: In the episode "Lord of the Bling", Keith's client has a list of enemies who are all potential suspects.
- In the Malcolm in the Middle episode 'Experiment', Reese mentions that earlier that day he had planned to update his enemies list, before remembering that he had homework.
- Psych: Lassiter keeps a written record of the people on his crap list. This is not to be confused with the notebook of all the criminals he has ever put behind bars.
- In Friends, when Phoebe is mad at Ross, she says he's on her list.
Phoebe: Has anyone seen my list? It's a piece of paper, and it says "Ross" on it.
- Rome: When Marc Antony and Octavian form an Enemy Mine alliance, they draw up a list of mutual enemies to be purged (plus some wealthy citizens whose assets can then be confiscated). The next day Antony supplies more names for the list, explaining that he's acquired so many enemies over the years, it takes him a while to remember them all.
- Outnumbered: Karen, who's unusually vengeful for a little girl, keeps a list like this, mostly containing members of her family. When her dad finds out and tells her it's not nice to keep track of your grudges, she casually adds "Daddy" to the list.
- Season 2 of Iron Fist (2017) gives us Golden Tiger turned dragon Chen Wu, who, in order to save himself from Davos, offers to write a list of all the people in the criminal underworld he knows so that Davos can hunt them down and kill them. He keeps them in a little spiral notebook, and scratches them out as he drives Davos around the city. When Joy Meachum appears to threaten his position, Chen brandishes the notebook at her as an Implied Death Threat.
- Hitler: The Rise of Evil. Ernst Rohm, head of the SA, assembles an enemies list of those opposed to the Nazi Party. After the Reichstag is destroyed in an arson attack by a lone communist, Adolf Hitler has those on the list put into 'protective custody' under the pretext of rounding up conspirators in a Communist terror plot.
- In Revenge (2011), Emily has a photograph of a Grayson Global executive retreat that she uses to identify the people responsible for framing her father. As she exposes some wrongdoing of each one, she draws an X over their face with a red Sharpie.
Music
- L7's "Shitlist"
When I get mad and I get pissed
I grab my pen and I write out a list
Of all the people who won't be missed
You've made my shitlist
For all the ones who put me out (shitlist)
For all the ones who filled my head with doubt (shitlist)
For all the squares who get me pissed (shitlist)
You've made my shitlist - "Look What You Made Me Do" by Taylor Swift: "I've got a list of names and yours is in red underlined."
- Exodus's "Blacklist"
You'd better start running 'cause you know that I'm coming
Cocked and loaded and I never miss
I'm onto your game and I'm laying the blame
And I'm adding your name to my blacklist
You should have thought twice 'cause you're playing with your life
You must have some sort of death wish
I haven't any doubt that your time's running out
'Cause I've added your name to my blacklist
Pro Wrestling
- In 2005, Lexie stated she had an enemies list on her website and was adding Missy Hyatt to it for being the referee of a match she lost on !Bang! TV.
- In 2006, Bryan Danielson listed Nigel McGuinness, Colt Cabana, Marufuji, Lance Storm, KENTA and Samoa Joe when explaining that he had always been at the top of Ring of Honor while Homicide had only been around the top during its entire history and would fail to beat him for the title just like they all had.
- La Rosa Negra listed "Santana Garret The Model, Leva Bates The Superhero, Sienna Duvall The Diva Beater, Su Yung and the best wrestler in the world Kacee Carlisle, the NWA Women's World Champion." to emphasize why Caged Heat Radio Host Amber Rodriguez didn't scare her.
- When talking about how and why he was going to beat Randy Orton, Chris Jericho listed some wrestlers he had already beaten, and to prove his point, continued to list them, and list them...cut to the commercial break and Jericho is slumped against the ropes, still sputtering off names till Randy Orton finally interrupts him.
- This was a Call-Back to his famous "1,004 holds" promo back in WCW, which contained many repetitions ("ARMBAR!"). As if to reference this, many of the wrestlers he mentions in this later promo are actually the same wrestlers under different names (e.g. Kevin Nash and Diesel).
- And now he has the List Of Jericho, a literal written list on a clipboard filled with the names of people with whom he has grievances. It isn't unheard of for wrestlers to be on the list more than once, like The New Day (once as a collective, once each as individuals).
Chris Jericho: Questioning our (himself and fellow Canadian Kevin Owens) friendship? Y'know what..? YOU JUST MADE THE LIST!!
Tabletop Games
- Champions supplement C.L.O.W.N. (Criminal Legion Of Wacky Non-conformists).
- The C.L.O.W.N. member Tag has pictures of superheroes and supervillains in his room with red bullseyes and the notation "I owe you one!" scrawled on them. A pictorial list, as it were.
- Because of their long history of conflicts, C.L.O.W.N. is on V.I.P.E.R.'s "Top Ten to Trash" list.
- Warhammer: The entire race of Dwarves in the Warhammer [fantasy] universe each have a personal as well as racial "book of grudges" that they keep for generations. The grudges in said book can be anything from a small slight, to a major event, but all are held up with equal contempt to the person(s) or race(s) that caused the grudge. Dwarves really have a lot of enemies.
- The sad part is, since resolving a given grudge almost invariably costs more dwarven lives, the Book has only ever gotten longer... meaning the dwarves are just going to keep retaliating until there aren't any of them left.
- Rifts: Erin Tarn has been the Coalition's #1 most wanted for years, and in the top 20 for decades.
Theatre
- The Mikado has the titular character making a list of all the people (more, classes of people) who he believes should be executed, and sings a song about it no less (since it's an opera).
The Mikado: "I'm sure they'd not be missed! / I've got them on my list."
Video Games
- Goto Matabe in Sengoku Basara 4 has what he calls a 'Matabe Enmacho' (which is a pun on the markbooks used by teachers) of those who've dishonored him that he wishes to kill. Date Masamune is currently at the top of his list.
- "Dragovich... Kravchenko... Steiner... All must die!"
- One sidequest in The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion: Shivering Isles has a supremely arrogant mage who keeps a list of everyone who annoys or displeases him, which is almost everybody, including the player character. The mage was also born without the ability to regenerate Magicka automatically, and requires a special dagger with an Absorb Magicka enchantment to recharge. After finding it for him, he says that he now needs to stab someone in order to siphon their Magicka. Someone close by. Someone on "The List". Three guesses who he chooses.
- Reaper from Overwatch. Killing someone involved in his backstory will occasionally cause him to say, "Another one off the list" or something similar.
- Pyke from League of Legends has a list of the people who abandoned him to drown, and now he's hunting them down one by one. He doesn't notice when the list has been altered, though.
- Seifer Almasy from Final Fantasy VIII has his 'tough-nut-to-crack' list. You first hear about it early Quistis Trepe makes the list by angering Seifernote , causing him to tell Fujin and Raijin to "add Instructor Trepe to the list!" It's later made more clear when he's subjecting his rival Squall Leonhart to Electric Torture and says that he didn't think he'd talk easily.
- Tyler Morgan from Need for Speed Payback has one mostly for people who have betrayed him or his crew, such as Lina Navarro (for backstabbing everybody in the prologue heist), Mitko Vasilev (for calling the cops on Tyler and running after Ty beat him in a drag race) and his friend Mac (for taking Ty's favorite wrench without his permission one time). Ty insists the last one counts as a betrayal.
- In Might and Magic VI, Charles D'Sorpigal asks the party to gather evidence of the corrupt Silver Helm organization's murdering innocents. The evidence in question is an "enemies list," which mentions Charles as one of the organization's greatest enemies, along with a few others.
- In Draugen, store owner Fredrik Fretland keeps a list of people in town he considers traitors. His twin brother, Johan, is at the top of the list and even has his name underlined.
- In Kid Icarus: Uprising, Goddess of Nature Viridi apparently has a "to-kill list", and Pit destroying her Reset Bombs puts his name on it.
- As you go about your daily tasks in Postal 2, you anger multiple groups of citizens for mostly arbitrary reasons, and The Dude keeps track of these 'Hate Groups' on the map screen. It doubles as a useful mechanic as well, since Non-Player Characters that are part of these groups will attack you on sight.
- Bloons Tower Defense: Gwendolin apparently keeps a list of enemies. Click or tap on her too many times, and she'll put you on it.
Visual Novels
- In Psycholonials, Z maintains a list of "antis" that have opposed her in the past. At the end of Chapter 7, she sends orders to have them all killed by her followers.
Web Original
- Hok from AsteroidQuest keeps a book of people who want to kill him. Or as he says, people who have him in their hit list. While his is more of an avoid list, if an opportunity arises to rub one name off it, he doesn't see taking it as below him.
- Freeman's Mind: In the third episode, Freeman decides to make one of these, starting with a rude scientist. It gets dropped fairly early, but one presumes that the aliens and the 'rescue team' are also on it, if Freeman didn't forget altogether.
- Wiiviewer has The Rival in Princess Peach of Super Mario Bros., who has a list of people that piss her off. After pissing her off twice, she says they just got higher priority.
Webcomics
- One Frog Raccoon Strawberry comic featuring a Take That! to a John Kricfalusi expy had him put Strawberry on his enemies list simply for her calling him out on his arrogance, alongside other, more successful contemporaries including Trey Parker and Matt Stone, Bruce Timm and anyone who draws in Cal-Arts style.
- Grrl Power: Sydney has "the List," where she writes down everyone and everything that attacks her. She tends to anthropomorphize random annoyances. One thing that ends up on the List a lot is her tube that she carries everywhere, soon revealed to be filled with the Clingy MacGuffins that she's hiding, but that can't get more than a certain distance from her. It causes her a lot of problems. One of her early signs of Character Development is when Math beats her in a spar, she takes out the List... and she puts it away without writing his name down.
- Robin of Shortpacked! keeps a list of people who hate her.
- Scott of Basic Instructions has one. Unsurprisingly, many of the names are the same as his friends list.
Western Animation
- The Simpsons:
- In "Homer's Enemy", Moe has an enemies list - actually, it's the same list as Richard Nixon's but with Nixon's name crossed off and Moe's written in. Moe puts Barney on the list for pointing that out.
- In "Homer the Great", Homer Simpson comes to work and sits on a stool, which promptly collapses. Homer checks the stool and sees it was actually a budget stool produced by Econo-Save. Homer promptly adds the company to his revenge list, which includes (among other things) Stern Lecture Plumbing (the plumbing service he had to deal with at the beginning of the episode), H2Whoa! (the water slide in which he got stuck from "Brush with Greatness"), God, gravity, the Bill of Rights, Grandpa, and "the boy" (Bart).
- The fifth season of Teen Titans reveals that the titular heroes have made a list of their most important enemies. Control Freak is quite upset when he finds out that his name is not on the list.
- Animaniacs had a stuck up character named Charlton Woodchuck. Whom, when feeling put-upon, would ask people to write their name in a book he carries about. Then he'd say "Thank you. When I'm famous I'll make it a point not to like you."
- Dan on the show Dan Vs. has a Revenge List, for everything that he wants to take revenge on. This includes anything from William Shatner to Whatever's Causing That Rash. One episode has him put Elise on the list after she pisses him off, but when she beats the crap out of Chris's old boss to get some keys they need, he promptly scratches her off the list.
- In "Dan Vs. Anger Management", we're given a glimpse of just how long the list is, and, unsurprisingly, it's a BIG list.
Dan: "Um, I don't have the whole list here... Most of my notebooks are in a storage facility in Sherman Oaks." - In Mysticons, the episode "Eye for an Eye" revolves around Zarya's list. It's mostly just petty things (Arkayna flipping her hair in her face, Emerald apologizing too much,) but after being cursed to become a monster when she sleeps, Zarya starts hunting the offenders down.
- In Amphibia episode "Escape to Amphibia" Polly reveals that she's got one of her own. When Mr. X decides to dissect her, she adds him to it.
Real Life
- Richard Nixon had his infamous "Enemies' list" that became the Trope Namer and Trope Codifier.
- The list, compiled in 1971, was meant to be used during Nixon's second term to have the IRS intimidate those named with harsh tax audits, and to have other federal agencies investigate or harass the people under rumored pretenses. It never got farther than the planning stages, and at least the head of the IRS refused to go along with it.
- When the list came out during the Watergate investigation, the people named on the list took it as a point of pride that they made it. Actor Paul Newman claimed it was better than winning an Oscar. Writer Hunter S. Thompson, who considered Nixon to be his nemesis and vice versa, was upset that he wasn't on the list.
- Nixon (or his aides) were also rather sloppy in compiling the list; a number of "enemies" were either apolitical, Nixon supporters or deceased (one journalist had been dead for several years when he was added). Football player Joe Namath, who almost never spoke about politics, was unaccountably listed (though he was also named as playing for the New York Giants, rather than the Jets); John Dean suggests that Nixon, an avid football fan, had ranted about Namath after watching a game on TV and an aide misinterpreted his conversation.
- The Donald Trump campaign kept one, at least according to his surrogate Omarosa Manigault, consisting of people who didn't support his campaign. The failure of the GOP-controlled Congress to pass a healthcare bill resulted in Steve Bannon urging Trump to compile another list.
- The Black Book, the arrest list compiled for a Nazi invasion of Great Britain. It was a point of pride to have been on it, while others like Lady Astor who had been accused of being Nazi sympathisers during the war saw it as vindication. It was rather sloppy, including several people who had been dead for over a year by the time it was created (1940), one who had been dead since 1932, at least one person who had been living in America since 1936 (and another who had been living there since 1939), one person who was a member of the British Union of Fascists, several people with misspelled names, and it listed Clement Attlee twice.
