Edgy Protagonist/Evil Protagonist

[Baconbread]

I will be talking about both Of these types Of characters From One standpoint, Them being the protagonist Of the story.

I will talk about how I view them from a Protagonists perspectives In this, But I will not go in depth.

To start this off this We will be talking about What makes a Edgy Protagonists Different from an evil protagonist. (Note Protagonists And characters are the same The only difference is That a Protagonists Is the focus Of the story)

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Edgy Protagonists are stand offish Usually, Usually something bad happens to them that makes them reclusive. Usually They don't socialize, They Usually don't like making friends. They Usually perceive people as burdens, You get the picture. (Note I'm saying that they usually have a reclusive/Moody or Act out emotionally Are the usual traits Edgy Protagonists Will have)

Edgy Protagonists Are social Recluses That usually have an emotional burden/Wounded emotionally, Usually brooding or acting cold.

Some authors have decided, That making a Edgy Protagonists Means making them act like an asshole All the time is what makes them Edgy. Despite the fact That this is not Needed For a Edgy Protagonists.

I'm going to bring up other characters From anime, games And shows

All the iterations of the Doom Slayer/Doom guy. Geralt From the witcher. The punisher Both the comics and the show. Goblin slayer From goblin slayer. Kratos From God of War. Kaneki From Tokyo Ghoul.
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Evil Protagonists Defined by their gray morals Or lack there of. There's nothing more to say on this Since they can have any type of personality. They can be vain, Narcissistic, Egotistical, Psychopathic, Crazy Or anything.

Which makes it weird That Some authors on this site Make Evil Protagonists Lack any personality Trait, I also see this occur a lot on other sites too.

Evil people have hobbies, Favorite colors, Favorite food, And usually have an opinion. They're not a void, The author Thinks that Them wanting money and power Is all the personality they need Which would work If they weren't the Protagonists In this case.
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Now I have clarified how I perceive Evil From Edgy. Foremost Edgy Is being hurt, Defensive And Emotional.

Evil Is an Action taken too far, Excessive And unneeded. [Example You do not need to kill people to succeed, You do not need to destroy people's lives to succeed.]. Do So makes you evil. Because there is no purpose, When the action is not needed to be taken On your part And you take it anyways For a little reason.

Evil is a choice, Not a necessity. If an action becomes necessary for you to do to, It is not evil. If an action seems necessary to you at the time And you act It can be judged whether or not it was evil.

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The Edgy Protagonists Do not take unneeded actions, Unless They are an evil Protagonists With Edgy Trait Or they are Edgy Protagonists With an evil Trait? However you want to view it

(Note That this is supposed to start a conversation to see What you guys think About this, Also a dislike trying to cover everything About a certain topic.)
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[RepresentingWrath]

When author tries too hard to make protagonist cool, but has dubious interpretation of what is cool, you end up with edgy characters.

Btw, Geralt is not edgy. Geralt was a parody in books. He is a parody of all Aragron-like characters. That's why he sleeps with everyone, doesn't look good, his personality isn't noble, and so on.

 

[BearlyAlive]

Evil Characters are just those that don't conform to the established social and societal norms and/or morals. An evil Character can be caring, righteous, and just, but as long as society and/or our moral compass perceives them as "wrong" (and they aren't an Isekai MCs) they will be perceived as "evil".

Edgy Characters are either those jaded "have seen too much and stopped caring" survivors or "I have seen those who've seen too much and care too much about how they see me" delusional try-hards, imo. A grim and grizzly war veteran can be just as edgy as the kind of teenager that does Jojo poses while telling people that the evil dragon sealed in their right hand hungers for the soul of the uninitiated heathens and should cover before the true might of the Crimson Lord of Eternal Edge.

 

[ThrillingHuman]

This is edgy protagonist

 

[KonoKei]

Edgy is usually just an antisocial loser (aka the author and his target audience) who is somehow important, usually magic isekai adjacent nonsense. I wouldn't say goblin slayer is edgey.

 

[Thraben]

I don't really know what sort of discussion you're trying to start, because first and foremost I don't think your definition of edginess specifically even applies to at least two of the characters you mentioned despite me agreeing with you that they're edgy characters...

And your evil definition is... questionable? Like I can clearly see the style of evil you don't like but you can't define a category by what's excluded from it for reasons of personal preference.

So, I'm going to define edginess and evilness in characters in a more robust way.

Edginess: Broadly speaking, we use the word edgy to indicate a sort of surface level darkness and deepness; Kratos and Doom Slayer's stories aren't actually as thought provoking and tragic as the characters at the focal point want you to think, IS WHAT I WOULD SAY IF I WERE WRONG! No, Edginess is one of the most potent tools in a writers arsenal to communicate to an audience the vibe of a story. Doom Slayer alone, just the guy, tells the audience everything they need to know about what type of stories Doom 2016 and Eternal are going to be, he's a big angry guy that wants to kill demons and has no other personality traits that matter. Goblin Slayer communicates the vibe of... Goblin Slayer (god damnit) perfectly as well, he wants to do what his name implies he does, he's doing it for a reason, and he's doing it to an extent that is harmful to him.

See, I mentioned the first part of edginess referring to surface level darkness and depth because when (typically amateur) writers think that's what makes edginess successful, that's what they end up writing, but the entire reason edginess is so effective with such a large audience is because when edginess isn't just surface level, or if the edginess is fully subverted (like Goblin Slayer), it creates an impactful response with that audience. The problem, as always, is that negativity bias exists, you remember things you experienced negatively in more clear detail than positive experiences. Lesser critics tend only remember the bad edgy stuff as being bad AND edgy, but you remember the good edgy stuff as being just good.

Evil: Ok so this is going to require either a Master's level thesis paper or an incredibly surface level overview and I'm going with the latter. 'Evil' is most often a shorthand for one of three specific things:
Stuff/Groups of people/ideologies the Author doesn't like
Thematic Mirrors to whatever the protagonist is like
And Selfishness.
The first two are obvious and kinda self explanatory as to why evil in a fictional context might constitute that, but the last one is by far the most common. Selfishness is one of the view things that almost everyone in the world is raised to believe is 'bad' or at least a negative trait, and for good reason! Some of the most tangible evils a person will ever encounter over the course of their life is directly related to the selfishness of other people. Politicians selling away laws to bribes, shareholders demanding companies exponentially increase earnings and raise prices for consumers, nations committing genocides because of a handful of old men wanting more land/whatever for 'Us' and not for 'Others', etc. Selfishness is the most readily apparent evil in the real world, so obviously it's the most both relevant and understandable derivation of the fictional concept of evil. If you want a simply villain, just make them someone selfish with enough power and loose enough morals to follow through on that selfishness. That's it.
Evil can be a shorthand for other things, but yes, the assumption is that if those other things aren't readily apparent to an audience, they're going to think that the evil is selfishness.
That's not a bad thing, and in fact having antagonists that aren't any more complex than that means the author is liking trying to send a very clear message about exactly what type of evil they think exists in the world that they'd like gone.