: Re: Characterisation: What lines can an antihero cross while retaining reader sympathy? Now, to clarify ahead of time; I'm quite aware that compelling doesn't necessary equal sympathetic and vice versa.

@Cofer669

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These are the factors that influence where the line is. It will be floating, depending on context. The following would increase reader sympathy, given a morally dubious main character:

Motivation - Give the character a compelling reason for their reprehensible actions.
Information - Create a scenario where the bad actions are the result of misinformation the character receives.
Comparison - make other worse characters to compare your character against. You can even make your main character antagonistic to them.
Feedback - produce negative repercussions for your main character's bad behavior.
Enjoyment - as other answers have noted, a character that enjoys doing bad things has severely damaged relatability.
Flaws - a subset of (1), your character may have tragic or otherwise blameless reasons for being morally flawed.
Context - maybe your main character's bad actions are, relative to other options, far superior. The executioner who kills torture victims may personally loathe their work, but consider himself to be a merciful figure.
The victim - make the victims even worse people, a subset of (3). We root for Dexter not because he's a murderer, but because his targets are (arguably) acceptable targets of violence.

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