Nemesis Magnet

"I'm only ten years old, and I already have two mortal enemies..."

— Bart, The Simpsons

A character will often find themselves with a nemesis after affecting someone else's life in an extremely negative way. But sometimes a character may garner the hate of many to the point where multiple characters are out for their heads.

A Nemesis Magnet is a character who has several people who consider them their Arch-Enemy. The most likely cause of this will be that the character has great influence to the point where their villainous actions are felt by an incredibly wide scale of people. Some of those people after experiencing traumatic events due to this villain's actions, will swear Revenge, vowing to take them down at all costs and through any sacrifice.

In all likelihood, the Nemesis Magnet will be a villainous character whose widespread cruelties are committed for the sake of a larger goal. There is a chance that the villain themselves won't care all about these nemeses or why they want them dead. Or perhaps the villain is aware of all the damage they're doing to the people around them, but believes it to be a necessary sacrifice, to even sympathizing with the ones they hurt, but will not let that deter them from their goals.

The character doesn't have to be a villain. As a result of constantly thwarting their plans, a hero is equally likely to be targeted by several villains who view their conflict with personal animosity. The hero is likely to take the conflict with these villains just as personally.

Compare Hated by All, where a character is generally detested by the people around them, and 0% Approval Rating, where a character in a position of authority is disliked by peers and subordinates. Also compare Hate Sink, where a character is written to be disliked by the audience.

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Examples:

Anime and Manga

• Death Note: Light Yagami, alias Kira, is a Villain Protagonist and a Satanic Archetype. His actions that involve killing criminals (and later law enforcement agents) don't meet the approval of police and many detectives like Near, L, Watari, Matsuda or his own father Souchirou.
• Ranma ½: Ranma has a variety of rivals, from the High School upperclassman Tatewaki Kunou, who sees him as a rival for Akane's affections, to Mousse, who is trying to win Shampoo's love, which Ranma is in the way of, to the eternally-lost Ryouga, who blames Ranma for everything that's ever happened to him. While they are sometimes at odds with each other, they consider Ranma their chief opponent, and will on occasion team up against him. Otherwise they pretty much ignore each other for the most part.

Comic Books

• Atomic Robo: In a heroic career spanning a century, Robo has acquired several arch-enemies, starting with Thomas Edison, who was previously his father's arch-enemy. There's also the Mad Scientist Helsingard, the incomprehensible but weirdly effective Dr. Dinosaur, and the evil conspiracy Majestic 12.
• Batman: While The Joker is considered Batman's archnemesis, he has also drawn the hatred of two other members of the Bat-family; Barbara Gordon, the original Batgirl, who was shot and crippled by him in The Killing Joke and Jason Todd, the second Robin, who was killed by him in A Death in the Family.
• Daredevil: There are three main opponents whom Daredevil shares a personal rivalry with; the vile Psycho for Hire Bullseye who has made it his life's mission to make Daredevil miserable; The Kingpin who serves as the source of various criminal activities which Daredevil fights against; and finally the ninja clan known as The Hand who are amongst his most persistent foes and the greatest enemy of his mentor, Stick.
• Darkseid has a mutual enmity with his adopted son Scott Free and his biological son Orion whom he frequently tries to sway back to his side. Highfather, Darkseid's counterpart on New Genesis is also a major enemy of Darkseid's. Darkseid has also been viewed as one of Superman's greatest foes, largely due to their enmity in the DC Animated Universe.
• Iron Man: The Mandarin, Obadiah Stane, Obadaish's Son Ezekiel Stane, and Justin and Justine Hammer, all of whom tend to attack Iron Man both as a superhero and a businessman.
• Spider-Man: The iconic protagonist has three personal rivalries. His first being with his best friend's father, the Green Goblin. The second is with Doctor Octopus, the founder of the Sinister Six, and the last is with the final product of his former symbiote partner bound to a journalist he unknowingly disgruntled, Venom.
• Wolverine: Logan has an extensive Rogues Gallery, but his enmity with three villains, in particular, is enough to consider them his arch-nemesis. Sabretooth and Cyber both have extensive histories with Logan and have terrorized him in multiple ways, including killing people close to him and savagely beating him. Lady Deathstrike has a massive (and unhinged) grudge against Logan tied to her father's death and has sworn to kill him as an act of vengeance.
• Wonder Woman: There are three villains who can contend for the position of her archenemy; the Cheetah, her longest-running foe and the most well-known one among even casuals; Ares, the God of War, who seeks to sow discontent and hatred among humanity; and Circe, an evil, misanthropic sorceress who seeks to create terror, chaos, and conflict where Diana seeks to promote peace and harmony.

Films — Live Action

• Lord Luo Yi-hu, the villain of the martial arts flick Kid from Kwangtung, made himself enemies to all the three heroes after killing the protagonist He Jia-yu's father, The Lancer Wu De-zhi's uncle, and the Action Girl heroine Chen Xiao-wei's mother. Oh and for bonus points, prior to the final battle, Lord Luo also killed Jia-yu and De-zhi's teacher, who serves as a surrogate father figure to the two.
• Marvel Cinematic Universe: Thanos, being the Big Bad of the series overall, finds that many people are out for his head. Including Iron Man and Thor of the Avengers, Starlord and Drax of the Guardians of the Galaxy, and even his two adopted daughters, Gamora and Nebula.

Literature

• Harry Potter: Harry has this problem, being famous and walking into a world of history he is involved in but knows nothing about but. He's pretty much born with Voldemort as a nemesis, and by the end of his first week at Wizarding School he's also racked up Draco Malfoy and Professor Snape. Later, the Death Eaters and Dolores Umbridge join the party too.
• Redwall: In Mariel of Redwall, the main characters have a short argument over who will kill the searat captain Gabool the Wild, as they all have good reason to want him dead: Mariel for the attack that separated her from her father Joseph, Joseph for the same reason, Rawnblade the Badger Lord because it's his duty to exterminate vermin, and Dandin the Abbey warrior on general principle. Tarquin the Spoony Bard defuses the situation by requesting that he be allowed to beat the searat over the head with his harolina before everyone else goes for the kill. In the end Gabool is killed by his own pet scorpion.
• The Wheel of Time: Several of the Dark One's Forsaken treat The Chosen One Rand as their Arch-Enemy due to their history with his previous incarnation, Lews Therin Telamon:
  • Ishamael believes he's Rand's Evil Counterpart, The Antichrist to his Messianic Archetype. As The Dragon to the Dark One, he insists that only he has the right to kill or corrupt Rand, and is the last enemy Rand faces in the Final Battle.
  • Sammael is Rand's most powerful and visible opponent for Books 4-7, both to feed his Big Bad Wannabe aspirations and out of personal enmity for Lews Therin scarring his face over 3000 years ago.
  • Demandred fell to the Shadow out of resentment at being Always Second Best to Lews Therin and is said to hate Rand more than anyone has ever hated anything. In the final battle, he squanders his overwhelming forces by demanding that Rand come out and fight him personally, unaware that Rand is dealing with more important business elsewhere.

Live-Action TV

• Doctor Who: The Master as well as Davros and his creations, the Daleks serve as the arch-enemy to the Doctor as a whole. The Master is his Evil Former Friend and is ultimately meant to act as a dark mirror to the Doctor showing what he would become if he gave up on morals. As the creator of the Doctor's most hated enemies, The Daleks and the second most recurring villain, Davros also shares this position with The Master with even the Doctor himself considering him his personal nemesis. The Daleks as awhole are a monstrous A Nazi by Any Other Name race are his most hated and persistent foes with the feeling being very mutual.
• Charmed (1998): The Charmed Ones had 3 foes who were their most personal and dangerous. The first is The Source of All Evil who served as the ruler of the Underworld and the source of the various foes they fought in the first three seasons with it being their destiny to put him down for good. The second was Barbas, the Demon of Fear, who was their longest running and most persistent foe with him possessing a great hatred of them and vice versa. Finally, Zankou was a cunning and ruthless demon who was able to manipulate and play on their emotions like no other and came the closest to defeating them.
• Oz: Literally everything Alvarez results in someone actively baying for his blood. Being as Oz is the ultimate Hellhole Prison, this proves to be very bad for him, especially since one of his enemies is the prison's warden.

Video Games

• Metroid: Samus Aran has several characters that could be considered her archnemesis:
  • The clearest contender is Ridley, who killed Samus' parents when she was a child, and keeps coming back from near-death to continue antagonizing her. On Ridley's end, he despises Samus for surviving the raid that took her parents' lives, and for humiliating him time and time again whenever they fight.
  • Another series-wide candidate is Mother Brain. The manga reveals that Mother Brain was created by the Chozo, who raised Samus after she was orphaned. She then allied with the Space Pirates and helped them wipe out the Chozo. Samus would fight Mother Brain two more times, with their final confrontation ending with the deaths of both Mother Brain and the baby Metroid that Samus grew a bond with.
  • Within the Metroid Prime Trilogy is Dark Samus. After being defeated by Samus as the Metroid Prime, Dark Samus began to stalk her throughout Dark Aether, trying to kill Samus every time they met. Their feud eventually became much more personal when Dark Samus corrupts Samus' bounty hunter friends, forcing them to fight her and killing them off when they failed.
• Mortal Kombat:
  • Shao Kahn and Raiden are at each other's throats for control of Earthrealm. Liu Kang becomes personally invested with Kahn's defeat after he murders Kung Lao. And his adopted daughter Kitana grows a personal vendetta towards him after learning about what he did to her true father, and specifically after replacing her with Mileena.
  • Shang Tsung was the final boss of the first game and was defeated by Liu Kang. In Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance, Tsung kills Liu Kang in revenge and earns himself the anger of Liu's friend Kung Lao who dies trying to avenge him. Deadly Alliance also introduces Kenshi, a swordsman who was blinded by Shang Tsung's treachery and seeks to slay the sorcerer.
  • Due to his role in the death of the former's older brother and the destruction of the latter's family and clan, both Sub-Zero and Scorpion have a personal enmity with the sorcerer Quan Chi.
• M. Bison is this for the Street Fighter series, becoming not just the Big Bad since his first appearance in Street Fighter II but an Arch-Nemesis for various of the fighters, as seen for first time in the first two Street Fighter Alpha when the half of the characters have him as their Rival Final Boss. By the time of Street Fighter IV and Street Fighter V, the list of fighters after his head has only gotten larger.
• As the pivotal character behind the Third War and all that surrounded it, Warcraft's Arthas Menethil, The Lich King has no shortage of people with personal reasons to stop him when he begins his war on the living. From the key figures of his former life as the Prince of Lordaeron his mentor Uther the Lightbringer, best friend Muradin Bronzebeard, and lover Jaina Proudmoore, Sylvanas Windrunner and Prince Kael'thas Sunstrider of the High Elves he crushed as a Death Knight, the egotistical Heroic Wannabe Illidan Stormrage, over half the major characters of Warcraft III are in some way alternatively working together or jockeying for position to take him down first come his return in the MMO that needs no introduction. And then we get into everyone who personally want him dead who weren't from the RTS series.

Web Video

• Scootertrix the Abridged: Princess Celestia thinks having an arch-nemesis is a sign of greatness, and she takes great pride in the fact she has five of them. Three of these nemeses are villains who want Celestia dead (King Sombra, Queen Chrysalis, and Sunset Shimmer) and the other two are decidedly more petty rivalries (Spike just sends Celestia hate-mail, and Celestia resents Kevin Bacon for being better than her at everything). Her sister Princess Luna just thinks it's all stupid.
  Luna: [sighs] Okay, what's so great about having an arch-nemesis?
  Celestia: Are you kidding me? Two ponies trying to outwit each other in maniacal schemes of brilliance! It's amazing! I've got five!
  Luna: [laughing] You have five arch-nemeses?
  Celestia: Uhhh, what's so funny?
  Luna: [still laughing] Well, I've never had to use the word "nemesis" in the plural sense before...

Western Animation

• Ben 10: The first series alone introduced a plunder of villains that made recurring appearances throughout the show. All of them wanted to destroy Ben, steal his Omnitrix, or both.
• Spider-Man: The Animated Series: The Kingpin is the Big Bad of several arcs in the series and his actions have lead to a number of people metaphorically and literally after his head.
  • He commissioned the Insidious Six and the original three Spider Slayers for the purpose of killing Spider-Man.
  • Drove Norman Osborn into becoming the Green Goblin which led to the Goblin trying to kill Fisk in a Kangaroo Court.
  • His murder of Matt Murdock's father led to him becoming the vigilante Daredevil.
  • Felicia Hardy doesn't have much love for Fisk either due to him kidnapping her and her father, and experimenting on her in his plan to create an army of Super Soldiers.
• Superman: The Animated Series: Superman has three villains who had the most impact on him; Lex Luthor, who is his most iconic human enemy and was responsible for the first battle Superman ever fought; Brainiac, who was responsible for Krypton's destruction; and Darkseid who was the villain for the final season and whose brainwashing of Superman had long lasting consequences all the way into Justice League Unlimited.

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