1. The Myth of the Complex Villain: Reality is Simpler.
Many users express a growing sentiment that the nuanced, intelligent, and sympathetic villains common in modern fiction are a stark contrast to real-life evil, which is often perceived as banal, stupid, and lacking any redeemable complexity. This has led to a re-evaluation of what constitutes a "realistic" antagonist.
- If you've ever tried to write any sort of fiction you learned early on that villains who do things for the sheer evil of it are considered unrealistic. Or at least they were.
- Fiction writers: gotta give my villains motivations readers can identify with so they seem realistic. Real life villains: i hate people in the least interesting way possible.
- I'm less likely to fault a piece of fiction for writing a villain with flimsy or contradictory motivations because it turns out a lot of real-life villains are like that.
- We see so many villains in fiction these days who do monstrous things because they think they’re serving a greater good, and while that’s definitely more interesting, i think many people have mistakenly concluded it’s also more realistic and believable.
- Any time in the history of fiction that a reader or critic have said a villain was too straight-up, no redeeming qualities, pure eevil to be realistic, they were wrong. It turns out the nuanced, conflicted, complicated villains were the unrealistic ones.
- We gave up on one-dimensional villains for moral complexity in fiction, but we live in an era of one-dimensional villains in real life.
2. A Case for Unambiguous Evil in Storytelling.
A recurring argument is that fiction needs more unapologetically evil characters. These antagonists serve to create clear moral stakes, drive the narrative, and remind audiences that some actions are simply wrong, reflecting the existence of irredeemable people in the real world.
- Something i don't like about fiction today is the lack of evil. It's a slippery slope to say that every villain is and should be relatable. Yeah, humans are nuanced. But there come event horizons. There are points where people are irredeemable. That isn't unrealistic.
- You wanna know what kills narratives and makes series just die in time but has been a ongoing dogma in current fiction? forced sympathy for extremely evil people.
- Having evil characters is an extremely good thing to have in fiction. Remind people that certain things are *bad.*.
- I think fiction in general (especially nowadays) needs more ontologically evil villains, fuckers that just ask to be beaten to death with hammers. Not everyone needs a redemption arc or some tragic backstory.
- Another trope in fiction that needs to die is the villian with a sob story aka as the "misunderstood" villian!
- From now on anyone who goes 'nobody is just one-dimensionally evil' regarding a work of fiction is getting the paddle, i'm afraid.
3. Separating Fiction from Reality: Liking the Bad Guy.
Users frequently defend the act of enjoying or being fascinated by fictional villains, emphasizing the crucial difference between appreciating a well-crafted antagonist in a story and endorsing their harmful actions in reality. This highlights a frustration with those who conflate fictional engagement with real-world morality.
- It's baffling to me how many people don't seem to understand that there is a difference between depicting something in fiction, and endorsing that thing in real life. Especially when it's the story's antagonists doing something obviously bad.
- Pov: people tell you liking fictional bad people makes you bad no internet, i’m not ok with criminals because i like a fiction character who commits crimes.
- You can enjoy characters who are bad people! it's just fiction, it's not that big of a deal!! that's not the same as endorsing their actions! learn the difference!!
- I must be insanely evil according to those types lol. Because i have a lot of villains who do abhorrent stuff that i would never support irl. Such people seem unable to differentiate between fiction and reality for some wild reason.
- Who gives a shit how bad the fictional character is. That's what fiction is for. To explore things, and sometimes those things are (gasp!) bad!
- People that make hating fictional characters their personality is so bizzar to me. It makes me think they’re incapable of decering reality from fiction.
4. The "Evil Genius" Trope vs. "Stupid Evil" Reality.
A common observation is that fiction over-represents "evil geniuses"—cold, calculating, and brilliant antagonists—while under-representing the more common real-world phenomenon of "stupid evil." Reality, many argue, is filled with villains who are not masterminds, but rather banal, ignorant, and driven by simple greed or bigotry.
- Fiction over-represents evil geniuses and underrepresents stupid evil people. That’s part of what’s happening here.
- In fiction we are led to believe that evil geniuses fight for control of the world's wealth. In reality, evil is grindingly stupid and bigoted.
- Bad fiction has given us the idea of evil genius, so we’re surprised by the stupidity of the genuine article.
- The villains in real life, on the other hand. They're even more one-dimensional than the worst written marvel characters.
- Every fiction novels, movie and books show the villain as being this very intelligent, but morally bad person. And turns out in reality villains are just selfish pricks who are the most stupidest people you can conceive.
- Fiction prepared us for evil masterminds, and i don't know how to process an overlord ike this.