This video was sponsored by world anvil. Because sometimes the real arch nemesis was your own disorganized brain. If you've ever taken a writing class, You've probably had it drilled into your head that a villain and an antagonist are not the same thing. A villain is an evil character, where an antagonist opposes the protagonists because they have opposing goals There's a lot of overlap, but they're not strictly the same kind of character Even if practically speaking most of the time the terms are used interchangeably A villain is defined by their evil methods, where an antagonist is defined by their opposing motive But there's this subtext to this split that sometimes makes it seem like a villain is by default more antagonistic than just a regular antagonist; I mean an antagonist doesn't have to be evil but a villain is usually gonna wind up in opposition to your heroes just by virtue of how dagnasti bad they are. And because of this evilness, they can be a lot more destructive than their simple antagonistic counterparts. It's almost like villains outrank garden-variety antagonists on the enemy hierarchy. But there's a wildcard that disrupts this hierarchy, the absolute top tier threat in almost any narrative: The nemesis. And if you want to get technical a nemesis is a kind of antagonist, not strictly a villain. But unlike a standard antagonist the motivation of a nemesis is typically anchored in the character they're the nemesis of. Where a typical antagonist is pitted against the heroes by virtue of opposing goals And a villain is often pitted against them because the heroes feel a moral obligation to stop them, A nemesis is pitted against the heroes because they personally hate one of them. This is a lot more emotionally loaded than most antagonists get. A nemesis is, quite simply a personal antagonist. They don't have to be the biggest baddest evilest or even most dangerous threat. Just the most personal one They don't just fight their nemesis They have a lot of feelings about it. A lot of feelings. Now while it's common for two characters to be nemesis of each other, all nemesis relationships start out asymmetrical. One participant is always the first to decide that the other is their nemesis now. Over time as the conflict escalates, it can become a symmetrical nemesis relationship, but it never starts out that way. In fact how the relationship starts determines a lot about what kind of nemesis relationship you're gonna get. Let's start with an easy one: former friends. For the record I also include former loved ones in this category. Basically, these nemesis used to like each other a lot, But as a result of some kind of falling out they're now mortal enemies. This can be very rough because these characters used to be so close, so their conflict is automatically very emotionally loaded. The exact nature of the falling-out can vary, sometimes it's the culmination of a long-standing simmering resentment, Like if one of them was jealous of the other but sometimes it's just a sudden turn around or betrayal. Now, it's not uncommon for Nemesis-A to Decide Former Friend-B is their mortal enemy long before Former Friend-B comes to the same conclusion, And Nemesis-A will spend a lot of time doing truly awful things to Nemesis-B before Nemesis-B gives up On trying to appeal to their friendship and accepts that they're properly nemeses now. In fact, It's not uncommon for Nemesis-A to realize at this point that they might be kind of screwed once Nemesis-B decides It's time to stop messing around and put an end to their shenanigans once and for all. And I personally love nothing more than seeing a beaten-down protagonist finally stand up for themselves in such a terrifyingly bad-ass way as to Make their frustratingly smug nemesis sh*t their pants in fear and realize they've only been getting away with their nonsense Because their nemesis was too nice to retaliate in full. Mmm. That's some good Catharsis. Anyway, this is a favorite of mine because it's really dramatic, but it's far from the only option. Another popular variant is former rivals, where the characters never liked each other and were actively competing in some way; Like being rival students or two sides of a love triangle. Anyway, one escalates into villainy and the rivalry escalates in kind. So now these former rivals are full-on nemeses. This has some overlap with the first category if they were friendly rivals and often precipitates into nemesisness the same way; One member boils over and takes it way too far, and the other has to deal with their former rival turn full-on life wracking super villain. And then there's a very emotionally loaded option, nemesis relatives: Parents, siblings, kids- If your nemesis is someone you're related to, your dynamic is gonna be very complicated. It's definitely gonna be loaded if it's a relative you grew up with, but even if it's a surprise villain reveal that the distant Big Bad was your bio dad all along, It still usually produces a much more personal villain connection than would otherwise be present. Evil secret dads are not uncommon, evil siblings show up sometimes. Evil uncles are extremely common in the true heir to the throne stories, But evil relatives of all stripes can show up. As with all family dynamics, these nemeses will usually fall on either extreme of the forgiveness bell curve- Either hell-bent on redeeming their nemesis relative, or hell-bent on making them pay for every familial misdeed for the last two decades. The no-mercy variant is much more common with nemesis siblings, as anyone with real siblings can confirm. But the characters don't have to have had a relationship before becoming nemeses. Sometimes the characters are nemeses because one of them did something the other one never forgave and swore vengeance about. It's extremely common for these dynamics to be one-sided for a really long time, with the aggrieved nemesis nurturing a grudge And the subject of their hate not even noticing. It's actually surprisingly common for the aggrieved nemesis to be a villain, with the hero having done something bad or upsetting to them that nudged them into full-on Evil. But it's also pretty common for a villain to, like burn down someone's house and kill their family And not even remember who they are when they show up 10 years later looking for vengeance. Similarly, sometimes a hero and villains start off with a normal side versus side dynamic, But then the villain becomes personally interested for whatever reason. Maybe the hero's got a lot of potential in their eyes, or they remind the villain of someone or something, But whatever the reason the villain starts taking a personal interest in the hero. And this is usually pretty bad for the hero, and quickly escalates into a nemesis dynamic. On a similar note, sometimes you get what I like to call a dark reflection nemesis, where the thing that pits the characters against each other is how similar they are. Most commonly a hero will notice similarities they share with an antagonist and they'll take immense offense to this dark parody of themselves. They become nemesis because they can't stand to see themselves reflected in each other. This isn't always explicitly stated, and sometimes it doesn't even seem like the characters realize why they annoy each other so much, But it's basically a villainous foil taken to its logical extreme; A hero facing down someone they could have easily become and violently rejecting them. Expect quite a lot of "We're not so different you and I" if the villain nemesis is even a little bit self-aware. Of course there's also a slight variant where the hero actually sees the villain as a better version of themselves; stronger, more powerful, stuff like that. This can lead to a hero kind of spiralling down a dark path trying to make themselves more like the villain while simultaneously hating their guts. This usually requires a protagonist intervention to get them to chill out and stop self-destructing. And now we come to the arranged marriage of the Nemesis world, the prophetic nemesis. One member of the Nemesis relationship is a prophesied enemy of the other. This nemesis relationship starts off impersonal, but the villain nemesis who hears the prophecy usually goes haring off to try and kill their prophesied destroyer, In the process, wreaking untold havoc and doing very bad things to that character, pissing them off enough to develop a personal grudge against the villain. This asymmetrical nemesis relationship is unique in that both characters are fully on board with being nemesis, but for totally different reasons. The prophecy nemesis is upset at the villain for doing bad things to them, while the villain is upset at the prophecy nemesis for being destined to defeat them. It's a pretty overt at case of creating your own nemesis, which is probably why it's so popular in classics and mythology. Now, there's a ton of different nemesis dynamics, but one key factor to the nemesis trope is that it's flexible. It develops with the characters involved. For instance, it's not uncommon for a hero to start going down a kind of dark path while dealing with their nemesis, And the other heroes might need to stage a nemesis intervention to keep them from becoming something they hate. It's also not uncommon for villain nemeses to get progressively more unhinged and dangerous. Both members of the dynamics are very likely to both undergo and induce major character development in each other, So it's kind of a stable feedback loop of character drama Nemeses almost always have an element of obsession to them, and a popular way to leverage that for trauma is To give one or both of the nemeses an opportunity to abandon their nemesis and maybe find peace without them. This can be an opportunity for redemption, but it can also be a tragedy if they fall back into the obsession, and destroy their chance at happiness in the process. The nemesis has to ask themself what really matters; destroying their nemesis or literally anything else. Now, if both nemeses independently decide that they have more important things to do than kick each other's asses, then the Nemesis relationship is functionally over, So that doesn't tend to happen, but sometimes the more protagonist-y nemesis will realize their nemesis is just too destructive to indulge in this drama, and they just have to be stopped. The protagonist nemesis will then put aside their personal feelings on the subject and just start trying to take him out. No special treatment for the Nemesis anymore. While this is still a protagonist antagonist relationship, It's almost healthier than a more typical emotionally volatile Nemesis relationship, because instead of having a ton of conflicted feelings about this former buddy or whatever, they're just gonna put him down and feel bad about it later. This can sometimes prompt a bit of an "oh crap" response from more antagonistic nemesis who's typically still personally invested in their heroic nemesis and wasn't prepared to deal with someone who's utterly done screwing around. This particular flavor of Nemesis development was very well executed in the new She-ra season 3 finale. To simplify protagonist (and occasional eight foot tall sword lady Adora) and villainous aptly-named cat girl Catra were raised together in the evil bad guy Horde with Adora being taught that she was fully responsible for Catra's behavior and if Catra was punished for misbehaving that was also Adora's fault. As a result, Adora developed a complex about being responsible for everything (not a great combo with being a chosen one) And Catra (when she decided to stick with team bad guy and become a Adora's nemesis) Rapidly demonstrated that she has no idea how to take responsibility for her own actions, since that has always been Adora's job. After spending three full seasons beating herself up over Catra's escalating villainy, Adora finally undergoes some character development when Catra, Out of raw spite, triggers the whole ass end of the world and tells Adora she's responsible for not having stopped her. This causes Adora to snap, finally recognize she's not responsible for other people's behavior, And full-on decks Catra while yelling at her to take responsibility for her lousy behavior for once in her life. In the process of fixing the end of the world, a major character sacrifices herself to bring everything back, And when the world unscrews itself there's an absolutely beautiful shot of Adora death glaring a formerly smug Catra So viciously she looks actually afraid and slinks off to get a makeover for season four. Pretty sweet character development, and all it took was a major character death and literal Armageddon. Another common facet to the Nemesis relationship is a concept I like to call the OTV: the one true villain. Much like shippers have OTPs nemeses have OTVs, and sometimes they can get pretty cranky when their OTV isn't giving them enough attention. Some nemeses escalate into only one allowed to defeat you territory, and if another character intercedes to try and take out one of the nemeses They might raise some objections. Now, this is generally a villains only attitude. A hero might get cranky if they're not the one to take out their lifelong nemesis, but a villain might straight-up drop an antagonist who tries to take out their murder soulmate before they get a chance. Because of this, some writers have realized you can get a lot of mileage out of subverting this "only one allowed to defeat you" thing, Usually by letting a protagonist the villain nemesis dismissed as irrelevant successfully take them out. It essentially robs the villain of their final personal victory: being defeated by their worthy nemesis. This has been done well in a number of places, But my personal favorite example is in Batman Beyond, where the Joker returns from the dead (fifty years after the original series) to wreak havoc and take some final victory over the now old and retired Bruce. And is instead very frustrated in having to deal with some new young punk dressed up as Batman, And becomes even more frustrated when this new Batman manages to get under his skin in the way the old Batman was much too stoic to ever pull off. He starts heckling him, pointing out how he's a lousy comedian with a stale bit who only ever got away with it because Bruce had zero sense of humor. It's really fun. I know I've talked about it before but go watch it. One thing to keep in mind is that nemesis relationships don't need to be, well, monogamous. One character can have multiple nemeses and nemesis relationships can get pretty intricate If you start mapping them out. A nemesis relationship is just one kind of character dynamic and can thus easily exist between several characters. Many superheroes, for example, have many nemeses whose conflicts are personal for all different reasons. Superman's most iconic nemesis is Lex Luthor, who spends most of his time trying to destroy him for various reasons. But he's also got a nemesis in Zod who's basically a dark reflection of him And a recurring nemesis in Brainiac who just will not stop trying to blow up the earth. Now nemeses are emotionally powerful writing tools, but they're not unilaterally better than non nemesis kinds of antagonists. So, let's run down a few pros and cons. Now, the biggest pro of a nemesis is that their dynamic with the hero is personal meaning you can get a lot of emotional drama out of their conflict. This is good. Emotional drama is very useful, and if your goal is character development, this is a handy tool. Nemeses are constantly challenging each other and how each one responds to the other can show some pretty serious growth. Or they can fall apart. In Avatar, Zuko and Azula have a pretty interesting nemesis dynamic that technically begins when Azula is born, And waxes and wanes throughout the show, coming to a head in the final ten episodes, Where Zuko breaks away from team bad guy, manages to develop some healthy emotional stability, gets a nifty dragon powerup, and a stable support network of friends and loved ones, While in contrast Azula steadily drives away everyone she relied on, isolates herself, and has a mental breakdown. The most telling part of their respective character development is that when Azula is defeated and breaks down, Zuko just looks deeply sad. Half a season earlier, he'd be furiously celebrating that he managed to take her down, But he's a much more compassionate, chill dude now and all he sees is the tragedy. Lots of emotional mileage from this kind of thing. The trade-off, however, Is that the conflict becomes simpler. An impersonally motivated antagonist can have all kinds of goals that put them in conflict with the hero, And thus their conflict can have a lot of complexity and nuance to it. But in the case of a nemesis, the motivation is almost always personal, and simply directed at hurting the nemesis. If a protagonist-antagonist conflict is a chess game, a nemesis conflict is a boxing match. It might be more emotionally loaded, but it's got a much less complicated plot. This is why it's good to have a distribution of antagonists that fall along the bell curve of fully personal motivation to fully impersonal motivation. It gives you more options. Your antagonists aren't just a faceless Armada of evil, and they're also not a quirky mini-boss squad of thinly veiled analogies to everyone who bullied you in middle school. The more range you have, the more options you give yourself. Superhero stories with rogues galleries usually give the heroes a wide array of antagonists with varying level of personal motives. For example Batman's rogues gallery is almost entirely composed of villains with motivations like: steal shiny things or commit eco-terrorism. So the Joker stands out as a wild card, heh, as the one villain motivated solely by what'll piss off Batman most this week. In a sense, he's the best possible villain for a detective hero. His only motive is causing chaos and screwing with Batman, So his movements are much more unpredictable than any of the other rogues. But he works best because he's contrasted against the more normal everyday antagonists Batman has to deal with that remind us Batman's main job is busting up organized crime and threats the cops can't easily deal with. The Joker loses a lot of his impact if he becomes the only problem Batman deals with, because that reduces the impact of Batman himself, Making it seem like he only exists to opposed the Joker when the reality is kind of the inverse. Anyway, that was my extremely subtle "Stop making everything about the Joker because it reduces his impact as a villain" rant. Glad I snuck it in there before the conclusion. Moving on. So basically, nemeses are a lot of fun to write, they give you a lot of potential emotional drama, and they're excellent character development tools, But you got to be careful not to overuse them because they stand out best against the backdrop of more impersonal antagonists. So... Yeah. Real quick, Thanks again to World Anvil for sponsoring this video. 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Very useful episode on a villain archetype no one really explores.
Great video, adds a lot to what can be considered a "nemesis relationship" beyond the directly obvious.
(Also, yay, new episode.)
ma nema nema!
Great job
Also, I'm officially adding the phrase "big bad bio daddy" to my lexicon.