: 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

@Phylliss352

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I don't have any references other than the other thorough answers here, But I'd like to add another perspective.

No remotely "normal" person is either all good or all evil. There are many competing aspects to any real personality.

Aside from someone who might be biologically psychopathic (I don't know if that's a real thing or not), most serious negative acts fall into one of two categories (and, perhaps, a spectrum between the two). They are impulsive (with links to a person's development) or they are premeditated.

A crime of passion occurs when something triggers a deep response which may be largely unconscious. It happens in the moment, often without much thought at all. These may appear evil, but they are more of a gut reaction than a conscious decision. Because of this, courts often consider leniency in such cases - even though they cannot and (usually should not) condone the act.

A premeditated crime may be thoroughly thought out and planned. For this to occur, most people need "good" reasons for doing so. They don't usually do things just because they "feel like it". These reasons may or may not have anything to do with external reality (as defined by society, etc.) The point is that the person either knows they are "right" or convinces themselves that their actions are justified.

This whole psychological, societal, (and, perhaps, spiritual) landscape is what the reader must assemble (with the writer's assistance!) to determine how they feel about these actions and the character themselves.

As in real life, there are huge gray areas in these landscapes. These are a major part of what makes stories and real events interesting or even captivating.

We long for meaning and want or even demand to know why things happen (especially in fiction!)

Because we are neither all good or all evil, this ambiguity makes a character believable and one we can identify with to some extent. If we don't care about the character, they might as well not be there unless they fill a very small specific function. A doorman may be an important character or not much different than a doorbell.

Villains that we care about invariably have a back story.
"If that happened to me, maybe I'd be more like them." Then, we get into all the feelings of what it is like to be them. How their actions are possible - or even considered? We want to know. We want to understand.

Contrast the arc of the main villain in a story who we deeply care about (either positively, negatively, or both) and all of his soldiers that get mowed down by the hero with not the slightest thought by the hero (or by us!) that almost all of them have families and other people who care about them and that each death is a tragedy.

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