Designated Villain/Quotes

And I still refuse to believe that the old way of life was that peaceful, especially if it needed dragon riders to keep everyone in line. Also, we haven't been told that they operated under a democratic system or anything, so as far as we know, it was still a dictatorship, only with more than one person dishing out the orders. Seems to me that having just one dictator would bring a bit more stability. But you can't expect a nineteen-year-old fanfiction writer to understand that sort of subtlety. The King is evil because he says so, period, and that applies to the movie, too.

—Agony Booth recap of Eragon

"What does your character want? What motivates him?" Ed prompts.
"Uh," I say, "he wants to be chaotic and evil?" I offer.
"But *why*?" Ed asks, "That's the real question."

"Oh," I say, finally understanding. "Because he's a jerk, of course."

—Jeff Freeman, Background: I'm Evil!

If Tesch is going to have our main villain devote this book to working on his relationship with his son…that would actually be fucking hilarious. You know, Apollyon is actually a much richer, more developed and interesting character than Maya or Joey. We know that he cares about nature, loves unicorns and mermaids, has a fine singing voice, and cares about his sons. Aside from wanting to enslave the world, he doesn’t seem like a bad chap. And his desire to kill Maya and Joey only makes me like him more.

—ImpishIdea's sporking of the Maradonia Saga

I found myself symphatising with the "bad guy" and being irritated by the heroes. Rather than have the villain actually do anything bad, the other characters simply constantly behave like he was a terrible person and stated how much they didn't like him. The situation was so poorly put together that when the villain was killed it felt incredibly disproportionate to his relatively minor crimes!

—Harkovast, The Webcomics Review Comics On The Web about The Chronolicles Of Wyrden.

As you say yourself, the "bad guy" was not really that bad, and yet the story seemed determined to heap every punishment imaginable on him while having EVERY character in the story (even ones who had barely met him) say how much they wanted to see him die!
Interactions like "I want to rip out his heart!" "Does he even have heart?"
What the hell did this guy do to get so much hate?
Yeah he seems like a jerk, but they talk about him like he's the second coming of super hitler!
The guy finds someone is shagging his wife AND both daughters (urrggh!) they brutally shoot him the face and then his soul gets eaten by a giant demon wolf!

Even fucking death insults the poor bastard!

The universe lines up to piss on this man and everyone says he deserves it.

—Harkovast, in the forum thread about Chronolicles of Wydren.