Question Why do people like evil/ruthless/a hole protagonists?

They are one of the worst types of characters, often paper thin in characterization and so boring and predictable. Look lotm, Mao ni novels and others. They atenliterally the best novels with the best characters.

 

I like ruthless people like Fang Yuan in Reverend Insanity because they usually have powerful will that has been tempered by society

 

Repressed anger? If you are angry at something or someone and read about the protagonist acting in the violent way you wish you could act, it's probably quite nice.

 

Because its far from reality. Human dont want to know about real thing for it will mirror of them.

Their like evil MC for the know that their can only do that in imagination only can to anything without follow the rule. Because of that many dont like Japan MC for being kind that reflect their daily life that needed to obey the rule. Lol

 

Characters like them are umeasy to used in novels. They can be place in many scenes. Specially if they were given some back stories, it was really good.

And authors can also arrange many plot twist using them u see.

For short characters like that were pawns that can change to strongest or remain weak.

 

universe’s ultimate boss has a unique evil protagonist. Evil and shameless.

 

I like it when they're done right, so basically less than 1 out of 100 of the novels tagged as such.

 

partially anger/destructive wish fulfillment: there are a lot of annoying people readers may want killed/seriously injured in real life, but law/fear of retaliation stops us from doing it. so when a fictional protagonist has the power to do it regardless of the law, readers may cheer the evil protagonist on.

this is VERY subjective, I personally think 'good' protagonists are more predictable: because they are more likely to be good as often as possible, whereas evil/ruthless protagonist can be both good/evil depending on their assessment of the situation: they could be good/avoid killing pretty often to fool other into not suspecting them/manipulate others into helping them when they really want to kill someone/be evil.

 

cz you cannot be evil ruthless a-hole in real life

 

Stress: The feeling you get when your mind overrides your body's natural desire to strangle the shit out of some asshole who desperately deserves it.

People love evil MCs because it lets them release the stress from their daily lives.

 

After reading Leylin in magus world, I don't mind the ruthless characters that much... if done correctly.

 

Cause reading about someone constantly humbling themselves, being kind to ungratefuls, excessive mary sue is too annoying.
Maybe to release some overdue, pent up emotions against people they wish to torture but cannot.
I love reading them because deep inside most of us are ruthless. Very rarely will anyone step up for an innocent person to avoid getting in trouble. Nor is to common to see anyone give up self interest just for a kind label. You get the jist.

 

I personally feel as though an evil/ruthless mc shows more realistic picture of what people are like. Where people will push you down in order to thrive and that there is really no such thing as good or bad just perspective. While a good mc shows a less realistic person where in order to thrive all a person needs to do is be nice and kind to everyone and that there is a clear divide between good and bad.

 

release da beast inside~
similar with game about destroy thing around~
meh good or bad mc if the story suck it still suck~

 

i'm quite disagree with you. you just happened to read novels with evil/ruthless character that are poorly written. there are some gems with evil/ruthless MC like ouroboros record. oh, MC of lotm is a big hypocrite so don't put him into the "good guy" category.

 

Most people , including me, read novels as a form of escape from our real life. In real life, almost everyone is repressed in some way or another by law and society. I personally meet at least one person every day that I kill in my head, or at least beat the shit out of. As such ruthless characters in novels act as a release for us readers, kinda like a wish come true thing. Also, as you said, such characters are paper thin and predictable. Put it another way, you don't need to think too much and your expectations will be definitely answered.

 

this is what i feel for good MCs. you must have a very twisted mind if you find them boring let alone predictable.

 

Because they are more realistic in nature. The good guy protag actually feels fake more often than not.

When someone becomes as powerful as these folks, the ruthless protag seems more real and honest.

 

I doubt this would be good for mental health.

 

I know people like ruthless protagonists because there are a lot of protagonists that are OP yet barely use their powers. That makes people annoyed so they search for ruthless protagonists so they can read about an OP protagonist who uses their powers liberally.