Does anyone else empathise and sympathise with villains a lot? Idk I guess part of me sees this as a good thing because if I can feel bad for someone so evil, I guess I must be empathetic and open minded. It’s just really hard when it happens in real life situations. Like I’ll feel bad for terrible terrible people and sometimes see things from their point of view and it makes me feel evil and guilty.

I do this too, but I think it’s a good thing. Some people do terrible things, but it’s nice if you can understand why they do. Like maybe they were abused their whole lives or they were defending themselves or something like that. I think sometimes we forget that when people break the law or do something wrong that a lot of time, they’re doing it because that’s all they know or because they’re damaged and haven’t healed yet or were taught bad things or are just trying to survive. It’s important to know why people do things because it makes us more open and compassionate and it also makes us more likely to come up for solutions to help them so they don’t do bad things again. It’s seeing that people often steal and hurt others because they are fighting for resources they barely have, so we feel more compelled to increase resources in those areas. It’s people like you that help to see the complexity of humans and help drive us to places of understanding that ultimately helps those people rehabilitate and get better. If everyone just saw someone do something bad and only saw a shitty person deserving of nothing, there would be no push to improve quality of life for people in rough areas. There would be no push to fix the justice system. There would be no rehabilitation centers. People that can see that duality in others like you make all of these wonderful pushes for expanding humanity and making life better possible. Remember that. My favorite saying involving this type of stuff is “you can understand why someone did something but not agree with the action itself”. It’s not evil of you to understand the whys. It’s good. There’s a difference in agreeing with the why and agreeing with what they did. I feel like we all need to get a little better at understanding people’s whys. Maybe we’d be nicer to each other lol.

I DO THIS!! And I’ve felt the exact same way because of it, I feel so guilty for empathizing with people who do bad things and I think it makes me feel like I’m capable of those bad things and I’m hiding it etc

My honest belief over this (I don’t have this theme) that it’s okay to relate to villains in a way. That doesn’t make us bad people, or good people, it just means we’re people capable of seeing things through someone else’s perspective and that is an asset. I know a lot of people (esp in fandom) make a big deal over it but it’s not like you’re approving of what they did. It’s just understanding why they did it. It helps move the story along, and makes it richer too.

I get this too, I think I do it because sometimes OCD makes you feel really guilty and evil so you feel as though you relate to them even though you don't. Idk though, but yeah I think its good that you're open minded eve if you're not in their situation

i do this a lottttt

Thank you all so so much for your replies 💜