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If you want people to sympathize or identify with a character who does awful things, then the people she's doing those things to have to be worse than her. They have to deserve the manipulation and...
Answer
#4: Attribution notice removed
by
System
·
2019-12-13T12:00:43Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27308 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#3: Attribution notice added
by
System
·
2019-12-08T06:16:40Z (about 5 years ago)
Source: https://writers.stackexchange.com/a/27308 License name: CC BY-SA 3.0 License URL: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/
#2: Initial revision
If you want people to sympathize or identify with a character who does awful things, then the people she's doing those things to have to be worse than her. They have to deserve the manipulation and destruction. Think of an anti-hero taking down villains. Dr. House deflating officious bureaucratic Vogler or obsessed detective Tritter, the Leverage team ruining profiteering scammers and corrupt politicians, Sherlock insulting idiotic pathologist Anderson, Spike killing demons, that sort of thing. We woud find her abhorrent if she's manipulating innocent people for her own gain. We'll cheer if she's manipulating a racist to expose his disgusting beliefs in public so he gets shamed and fired.
#1: Imported from external source
by
System
·
2017-03-22T21:18:31Z (almost 8 years ago)
Original score: 1