Why Nemesis’ Hands Are Cut Off In Rebel Moon

Warning: This article contains spoilers for Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire.

Nemesis, a character from Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire, is a talented warrior with bionic arms, yet the film never makes it clear why her arms were cut off. Rebel Moon‘s cast of characters is led by Kora (Sofia Boutella), a farmer with a mysterious past. Kora lives on Veldt, a moon of the Motherworld. When military forces land on Veldt and threaten the entire farming community, Kora teams up with Gunnar (Michiel Huisman), another community member, to travel across the universe and recruit fighters to protect Veldt.

One recruited fighter is Nemesis, a woman with burning metal swords and her reasons for rebelling against the Realm. Her skill with her dual blades, and her robotic arms, are some of the most striking and mysterious things about her. While not a lot is revealed about Nemesis in the movie, pieces of dialogue in the film, as well as comments from writer and director Zack Snyder, shed some light on Nemesis’ backstory.

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Nemesis Cut Off Her Arms To Wield Her Swords

This is part of a rite of passage for warriors from her home world.

Not much is revealed about Nemesis’ backstory in the film. During her fight with Harmada, it’s revealed that Nemesis has robotic arms. When Harmada stabs one of Nemesis’ forearms, it sparks and crackles, revealing it’s bionic. The film never discusses how Nemesis came to have robotic arms, but Zack Snyder, the director of and a writer behind Rebel Moon, explained (via Variety) that Nemesis comes from a world in which cutting off your arms is a rite of passage for warriors, which is followed by adding the robot arms and the energy gauntlets.

Nemesis’ robotic arms and the blades she wields, then, prove even more just how fearsome of a warrior she is. Her skills as a fighter are clear, as seen in her fight scenes in the film and through the revelation of how many imperial officers and guards she was able to take out by herself. The fact that she managed to cut off her arms, and completed a rite of passage to wield her signature blades, is even more of a testament to how cunning and capable of a fighter she is. In addition to her origins as a warrior, Nemesis also has a very tragic backstory.

Nemesis’ Children Were Killed By The Motherworld’s Forces

She is portrayed by Doona Bae.

Nemesis is first introduced when Kora, Gunnar, Tarak (Staz Nair), and Kai (Charlie Hunnam) travel to Daggus, a highly industrialized, cobalt-mining planet with polluted orange skies. After they arrive, Nemesis becomes preoccupied with a fight against a spider-like creature named Harmada (Jena Malone), who’s stolen a child from a terrified mother. After she defeats Harmada, she explains that she sees her death as a tragedy. She sympathizes with Harmada’s hatred for the Motherworld, whose pollution of Daggus made Harmada unable to have children, which led to her stealing someone else’s child.

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Nemesis reveals that she knows “a mother’s pain” and tells the characters that any of them could end up dead “in a forgotten world,” just like Harmada. This dialogue gives insight into why Nemesis ends up joining the cause to protect Veldt: she, like Harmada, also lost her children to the Motherworld. This is confirmed after the group is captured by Admiral Atticus Noble (Ed Skrein), who reveals that Nemesis “assassinated 16 high-ranking imperial officers and their security details” to “avenge her slaughtered children.” Whether more about Nemesis’ past will be revealed in Rebel Moon‘s sequel remains to be seen.