: Re: Why do readers enjoy reading about "bad" or evil characters? I've changed a secondary character into a murderer, and it changes everything. This change also opposes my core philosophies, that

@Rivera824

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I'm throwing out a possible answer to my own question. Mostly because I am trying to think through this.

I do believe that stories and storytelling are evolutionarily written into our being as a means of teaching and succeeding evolutionarily. All animals teach their offspring. We have language. We can teach through story.

It may even be enjoyable for us.

Perhaps, a thousand years ago, for most people, the story of a murderer would be metaphorical. In those days perhaps few people had any knowledge of actual murderers - any more than ... the people in my neighborhood are not actually murderers. My tribe is 'normal.' We don't kill one another.

So, the desire to read about murder as a metaphor for a wrenching change, was divorced from any traumatic realism of murder. A thousand years ago. (= nothing in evolutionary time.)

But now, with our global community, we can feel connected on any day to murders, real ones. On any day!

Answer: We understand murder as a metaphor. It's written into us. A thousand years ago, for most people, murder was a metaphor for 'the thing (anything) that changes you irrevocably.' Which we all experience. Breakups. Childbirth. Divorce and death. Financial ruin. Addiction.

The problem is now, we see murder in our daily dialog...

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