Is it Weird if I Often Sympathize with Villains in Stories?

[Snigger]

I very often will end up rooting for the antagonist in stories, and I'm wondering if that's some kind of character flaw on my part. The Empire from Star Wars, David from Prometheus / Covenant, Ozymandias from Watchmen, Thanos, I can name quite a few.

 

[The Mass Shooter Ron Soye]

"It's fun to do bad things."
-Latarian Milton

 

[fcgh vgcf]

i imagine myself as hitler but im like, the good hitler. like yeah whites are right but like, jews can stay alive. those blacks theyre fine but theyre not white you know. like, i would speak to the blacks all like "ayo whats good mayne" like a black person talks so they would get that i get what its like being black but im not black so, yeah. asians i would walk up and say, like, nihao or something, idk what those people do aside from eating rice. i am imagining myself as hitler so im still, like, you know, racist, but im better than what that hitler guy did. a good hitler, if you will.

 

[Philier]

It's pretty common when the villains are well written. Or in the case of current year media, when the supposed "heroes" are poorly written retards that only win because they are written as "the heroes".
It gets worse when "the heroes" are just a vehicle for the writers to clumsily insert their politics into media because media is no longer about escapism, is about "creating change" or whatever the fuck the phrase is

 

[Snigger]

Another thing, is anyone else tired of "nuanced" villains? There's something more terrifying to me about evil that just exists implicitly.

 

[The Cunting Death]

No. Usually the best villains in fiction are the ones that have a cause that makes you think they may have done something that warrants their actions

 

[HexFag]

Lists like this wouldn't be true if people found it weird. A compelling villain is way more interesting than a bland hero.

 

[Philier]

Another thing, is anyone else tired of "nuanced" villains? There's something more terrifying to me about evil that just exists implicitly.

You can do both if you are a good writer. The problem is hack writers who try to make their villains complex or nuanced but lack the skills to do so, which invariably leads to them doing the whole "tragic background" shit ( was abused as child/lost family members/was oppressed ), usually in some flashback or trough awful exposition.
It's better to have a simple, well executed villain than one where the writers tried to make him complex and failed miserably.

 

[eDove]

I felt so bad for Plankton growing up.

 

[Smaug's Smokey Hole]

Sure, unless you're a woman because you will try to marry them so they can change.

 

[BroccoliBrain]

No, it's really common that people root for villains. They're just as much a part of the story as the heroes are, and aren't constrained by the purpose to be morally good which opens up the story to explore interesting dilemmas and situations that wouldn't otherwise be possible with someone who can't be too evil.

 

[Retink]

A well written villain will be one that makes sense and can get you to see their point of view, because every villain is the hero of their own story. Inversely there are the villains who are intentionally monstrous, but those tend to be more confined to shorter and limited stories.

Another thing, is anyone else tired of "nuanced" villains? There's something more terrifying to me about evil that just exists implicitly.

No, but I am tired of poorly nuanced villains where the nuance is very surface level and boils down to something shitty like "I was just doing it to stop a greater evil" or "I was spanked too much as a kid."