Why Evil MC's?

[Rhaps]

What makes people attracted to evil mc's? What is it about stories centred around villains people enjoy?

Most simply boil down to being evil is cool, cool weapons, cool personality, a conviction to their path, and most importantly, the drip.

 

[Lysander_Works]

This lowkey reminds me of the anime Trapped in a Dating Sim: The World of Otome Games is Tough for Mobs.
That show should of had a second season.

 

[slade_lilo]

We all want what we don't have. it's only natural to want to pry into the mind of someone with a completely different thought process from yours, so it's probably just curiosity. That's just me though. I don't have any fictional characters I can confidently say I hate or love. All of them are just as interesting, maybe some more than others, and even the most universally hated characters still interest me to some degree. So yeah, curiosity.

 

[kapidrama]

What makes people attracted to evil mc's? What is it about stories centred around villains people enjoy?

Because childhood trauma

 

[ThrillingHuman]

The feeling of freedom. That's the thing with evil protagonists for the most part. Unbound by anything, acting however they please or - doing what needs to be done.
Hardly anybody portraits villains as pathetic losers when they are protagonists after all.

 

[Zagaroth]

In most cases, people relate to the villain because well... Realism

What?

No, I very, very rarely sympathize with a villain, and most of the time when a villain is written well enough to get some sympathy from me, my reaction is "I get your point I understand why you were upset enough to lash out, but that is entirely the wrong way."

Villains are, generally, bad people. There's nothing realistic about sympathizing with the Jeffrey Dahmer's of the world. Villains are, generally, awful, selfish people who hurt other people. I don't like that. The rare 'villain' who is sympathetic is usually more just an antagonist than a villain.

I just can not wrap my head around how relating to a villain is 'realistic'. I don't relate to them, I want to punch them in the face.

I think most Evil MC are just unrestrained (?). Like they'll do anything to achieve their goals whether it's through arson, murder, and jaywalking. And readers enjoy it since there's no burden on the MC, no romantic drama, just pure skill, wit, and rage.

That does not sound like an enjoyable story to me.

 

[Nolff]

What?

No, I very, very rarely sympathize with a villain, and most of the time when a villain is written well enough to get some sympathy from me, my reaction is "I get your point I understand why you were upset enough to lash out, but that is entirely the wrong way."

Villains are, generally, bad people. There's nothing realistic about sympathizing with the Jeffrey Dahmer's of the world. Villains are, generally, awful, selfish people who hurt other people. I don't like that. The rare 'villain' who is sympathetic is usually more just an antagonist than a villain.

I just can not wrap my head around how relating to a villain is 'realistic'. I don't relate to them, I want to punch them in the face.

Then, what's the difference between an antagonist and a villain?

 

[Zagaroth]

An antagonist is a person with goals opposed to the protagonist's goals. The protagonist is the story's PoV character. This is not a value judgment, it is simply their roles in the story. There are stories where both the protagonist and the antagonist can be considered heroic, but they have opposed goals so much work against each other.

A true villain (i.e. not some deconstruction of the trope or 'villain light' or what have you) is an evil person who is willing to hurt people for selfish gains or even just simply from sadistic pleasure. These are bad people, and in the real world range from direct murderers and rapists to the people who dump toxic waste someplace where it will end up hurting other people because they don't care. I would consider Bernie Madoff to be another example of a real-world villain. I hate people like him.

 

[CharlesEBrown]

Then, what's the difference between an antagonist and a villain?

An antagonist works against the interests of the MC - they may not be a villain, may even be another hero as mentioned above, but they are at odds with the MC.
A villain is just a bad dude. Note that villains may not always be antagonists (I frequently have villains who work with the heroes for various reasons, at least for a while - and sometimes a villain is needed to "get the job done"), and antagonists are not always villains.

For example, in "Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus" Victor Von Frankenstein is pretty much a villain - robs graves, abandons his child, runs away from his responsibilities after his fiancée is murdered on their wedding night, yet is pretty much the MC... The Creature becomes an antagonist after being rejected, and a villain after Victor destroys his second Creature instead of giving her life, but until the moment his Creator betrays him, The Creature is mostly innocent, and very naive.

 

[Nolff]

An antagonist works against the interests of the MC - they may not be a villain, may even be another hero as mentioned above, but they are at odds with the MC.
A villain is just a bad dude. Note that villains may not always be antagonists (I frequently have villains who work with the heroes for various reasons, at least for a while - and sometimes a villain is needed to "get the job done"), and antagonists are not always villains.

For example, in "Frankenstein: Or the Modern Prometheus" Victor Von Frankenstein is pretty much a villain - robs graves, abandons his child, runs away from his responsibilities after his fiancée is murdered on their wedding night, yet is pretty much the MC... The Creature becomes an antagonist after being rejected, and a villain after Victor destroys his second Creature instead of giving her life, but until the moment his Creator betrays him, The Creature is mostly innocent, and very naive.

An antagonist is a person with goals opposed to the protagonist's goals. The protagonist is the story's PoV character. This is not a value judgment, it is simply their roles in the story. There are stories where both the protagonist and the antagonist can be considered heroic, but they have opposed goals so much work against each other.

A true villain (i.e. not some deconstruction of the trope or 'villain light' or what have you) is an evil person who is willing to hurt people for selfish gains or even just simply from sadistic pleasure. These are bad people, and in the real world range from direct murderers and rapists to the people who dump toxic waste someplace where it will end up hurting other people because they don't care. I would consider Bernie Madoff to be another example of a real-world villain. I hate people like him.

Then, ignore my first comment.

It was just a random blabber that my fuzzy mind could think of at that time.