Characters You Love to Hate

[rowyn]

ankewehner wrote on tumblr about not relating to the "love to hate" phenomenon, where a large part of the audience hates a character but enjoys seeing that character anyway.

I don't have the same "how could you feel this way?" reaction to it that Anke expresses, so I was pretty sure I must have felt this way about some villain at some point. But it took me a while to think of an actual example. Some counter-examples:

DC's the Joker: I don't love to hate the Joker. I just hate him and wish Batman (or anyone) would kill him. Lut was talking about watching the intro to one of the Batman video games, where Batman is escorting the Joker back to the asylum and the Joker is apologizing for not killing more people on his way out the last time and gloating about how many more he'll kill during the next escape. Me: "And the game doesn't let you kill the Joker here." Lut: "NO." Me: "See, this is why I wouldn't want to play it." Lut: "Y'know, if I were one of those armed guards standing around while the Joker was brought in AGAIN, I'd shoot him dead. And then I'd hand Batman my gun and say 'You can arrest me if you want to. But the only two people who are going to be sorry that bastard is dead are you and Harley Quinn. AND I'M NOT SO SURE ABOUT HARLEY.'" That would be AWESOME. Anyway, I know a lot of people like seeing the Joker vs Batman conflict play out again and again, but I am not one of them.

Marvel's Magneto: I don't love to hate Magneto either, but unlike the Joker, my response to Magneto is generally BE GOOD ALREADY DAMMIT. I like Erik and I want him to do good things and stop being so Machiavellian. I don't want him to be an unforgivable murderer. I sympathize with him, but I don't like watching him be a villain.

I can readily think of other characters that fall into one of those two camps: unsympathetic villains that I hate, and sympathetic ones that I want to see reformed. But coming up with a villain that I enjoy as-a-villain is much harder. The one I did produce is an actual classic:

Shakespeare's Iago: No, not Disney's snarky parrot, but the antagonist of "Othello". Iago is throughly villainous and almost completely unsympathetic, but he is very good at being a villain. It's been a long time since I read "Othello" and I've never seen it performed, but here's how I remember the play's structure: Iago comes on stage, gives a soliloquy listing his resentments and desires, and then explains how he's going to manipulate everyone in the next few scenes into doing what he wants them to. In the next few scenes, Iago uses a masterful combination of fabrications and apparent empathy and feigned good intentions to get everyone to do their part, most of them unwittingly, in his plan. Repeat until end of play. I cannot like him, or root for him, but there's a certain admiration for how well he executes his plot.

I am not sure that's the same emotion that most people associate with the phrase "villains you love to hate", but I think it's as close as I come. It's a hard category to get into, because it requires the character to be an unsympathetic, unapologetic villain, and yet have enough class/style/brilliance to make them entertaining despite that. And of course, it's subjective -- I'm sure there are people who feel that way about the Joker, or Moriarity, or Loki*, but I don't. So I'm curious -- what villains make the cut for you?

* Loki (in both the Norse myths and the recent films, oddly) is more in the want-to-see-reformed camp , although the end scene of Thor 2 was pretty awesome. Moriarity, I just hate.

Comments

[octantis.livejournal.com]

To my interpretation, the "love to hate" phenomenon does not entail finding the villain appealing or likeable. If someone thinks Sephiroth is so cool, they don't "love to hate" him. They love to love him.

As I see it, a villain we love to hate is one we enjoy hating. This is an effectively villainous character who is convincing, threatening enough, and reacts in the ways that make us truly enjoy his comeuppance. These are the villains that give our heroes a good fight, give the scene a lot of color, and satisfyingly shake their fists and rage when their evil plans come to ruin.

In short, a villain we love to hate is one who makes the story great.

They may not necessarily be the scenery chewing guys I describe above. But I think the phenomenon is NOT the same as villain worship or a villain we want to know more about. Those may overlap on the Venn diagram, but they're a distinctly different phenomena to grouse about.

[okojosan.livejournal.com]

lol! see my response below.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Ha! I was even going to mention Burke. :D His fate was just so satisfyingly poetic.

[octantis.livejournal.com]

Oh, and his comeuppance can most certainly entail his dramatic and satisfying demise. You don't have to want to see him again.

[rowyn]

I don't ever have the reaction of "I enjoy the experience of hating itself". I have seen characters that I just hated, and I don't ever love the feeling. I don't want to watch the Joker murder hundreds so he can get killed by Batman at the end. I may enjoy a movie where that happens, but it's never because I wanted to watch the Joker or was interested in what he was going to do next or in any part of his schemes.

For me, the villain has to be far more than just "hateable" in order to get a love-to-hate reaction: he has to be interesting. Not likeable, or loveable, but fascinating despite being hated. That's not "loving to love", because I don't want the character to succeed or good things to happen for them. I still want him thwarted and punished, and I still hate him, I just find his performance also entertaining. Instead of just "ugh so much hate".

[octantis.livejournal.com]

I think we're basically in agreement, then. "Hate" is relative. Like I say, "in short, a villain we love to hate is one who makes the story great." He's an effective character in a specifically villainous sense, whether that's because he inspires in you such intense loathing that his defeat brings you satisfaction, or because he's convincing and relatable in the context. It's definitely a distinction from 'love to love' or 'want to see reformed' or 'dislike so much that the story itself is ruined'.

That last one is one of the major subjective differences that drives people to their favored styles. Personally, I don't get off on [redacted] torture porn, but I like the amount of grit that Burke the sleazy corporate agent adds to Aliens.