: Re: How to make my evil genius, evil and likeable? I am working on a story from an 'Igor'/lab assistants' point of view. They work for a modern day 'Evil scientist', Dr Levo. Igor has a good

@Harper186

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Depends on what route you want to follow.
The Pre-Emptive bad guy route for example.
Take X-Men's Magneto, a popular and well liked character who is Evil (seeing he wants to commit genocide on the human race). But he does get a lot of sympathy from the reader because in a way his actions are understandable and one can see why he would deem them necessary. As an holocaust survivor he sees the same events happen with mutants as when he was growing up as a boy of Jewish faith.
Perhaps your character does what he does out of a sense of pre-emptive strike, either he attacks them now or they will attack him later, perhaps because of their misplaced fear of him?....self defense and nothing else?
The ends justify the means...
I am staying in the comic world for now, let's take DC's Mr.Freeze. He isn't truly evil but he has no problem with doing evil deeds for a simple reason, it's his only hope to save his wife. And another character would be Thanos, who want's to sacrifice half the universe to save the remainder. Both characters are clearly evil in their way, but again understandable because Freeze is motivated by love and Thanos by a sense of greater good. Both might have logical flaws but both are understandable in their actions.
Perhaps your character has lost faith in humanities ability to save itself/the world and so he takes it upon himself to do it no matter what cost. Or a bit more selfish...he wants to save a person and is willing to pay whatever price there is.
Lawful Evil
Again with the comics, The Fantastic 4's main villain(and probably the best villain Marvel has ever created!) Dr.Doom. He is evil but still plays by a rule book/code of honor. For example, at a time he was able to kill Reed Richards, which is pretty much his life goal but instead saved him...why? Richards was wounded by a other foe, there would be no honor/satisfaction in killing him. And another point is, he does not see himself as evil...and he isn't. In the Spider-Man secret wars series (Animated show version) he ruled as a dictator on an alien world divided in several kingdoms split between several Marvel villains. His kingdom is rather distinct seeing it's an utopia, an utopia under a dictatorship but still an utopia.
Having your character have a code of honor goes a long way in likeability, for example doesn't hurt kids/dogs.
Flamboyant D-Bag.
Some bad guys are liked more for their style then substance, take Damon from The Vampire Diaries or Klaus from The Originals. Both are ruthless killers without any regard for human life but they are like both in and off the show because they sell it. Why are cool people generally liked in high-school? because they are cool. Damon sells it with the rebel without a cause attitude while Klaus has a puppeteer attitude displaying his strategic intelligence whenever he can and giving speeches on how everybody sucks compared to him...sure you hate him but you also do love to hate him.
Edit for OP:
Neutral Evil, Boring unless they are a puppet master.
Personally I find Neutral Evil to be hard to like because they aren't that compelling. They are often one dimensional characters motivated by nothing other then greed or power. This is because bad guy are often defined by their motivations. But this can be remedied by the way they obtain it.
An example would be Emperor Palpatine, he's a simple man with a simple plan...to rule the galaxy. But his methods is where it gets interesting. (The pre-Dinsey version that is) One of his greatest manipulations was the hatred he created towards the Jedi from their clones. He as the leader of the republic and secret enemy of the Jedi ensured that the Jedi got high-ranking militarily positions in the clone army. And in first glance it would be stupid to appoint the enemy as high ranking officers in your own army, but it was genius in two simple ways.
1: The Jedi were arrogant, by hiding in plane sight (as the head of the Democratic government he wanted to overthrow) he was able to direct the attention away from him towards people like Count Dooku. And appointing the Jedi in charge of the clone armies made them ignore the fact that such a massive army was a threat.
2: The Jedi were peacekeepers, negotiators, and self righteous hippies. They viewed the clones as little more then machines because they were unnatural. And their total lack of military experience or passion made sure that a lot of clones died for next to nothing. And although they were brainwashed/bread to be loyal to the Republic this wasn't full proof. In fact a few clones deserted the Republic to side with the Jedi but most didn't because Palpatines plan. Most of the clones were so used to being mistreated by the Jedi that they didn't have a second thought when the order came to kill them all.
If your bad guy can be like that, a master manipulator he would not be likeable but he will be respectable due to his sheer level of skill.
Chaotic Evil, insanity justified
2 characters I mentioned as Flamboyant D-Bag's are Klaus Mikaelson and Damon Salvator. They aren't fully Chaotic Evil but had their periods. Klaus, a creature that has lived for hundreds of years always had one thing that defined him, his family. It was his obsession but at a time he could no longer be close to them. It drove him mad and violent randomly killing people for no reason. And same goes for Damon who did his malice because he was heartbroken.
But they were still likeable to the audience because they were acting out due to emotional pain, something most people can relate to.
Chaotic characters (Good, neutral or evil) are defined by their unpredictable nature and their disregard/inability to see the long term consequences of their actions. Or how it would effect a third party. And here comes the motivation, there must be a reason to why they became chaotic, a form of trauma that made them depressed or lose faith in others which caused them to no longer care about anyone or anything. If your character is evil because he has no reasons left to be good (Lost loved ones, or a other form of defeat) can generate sympathy form the reader to him.

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