Why are we fascinated with ‘Bad Guys’?

Scott Myers
Go Into The Story
Published in
4 min readOct 17, 2019

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So many current TV series feature anti-heroes. Why?

“Who you calling a Bad Guy?”

Why are we fascinated with Bad Guys?

How can we find ourselves rooting for them in TV series like The Wire, The Sopranos, Dexter, The Shield, Sons of Anarchy, and Breaking Bad?

After all, they’re… you know… Bad Guys.

Hell, every single main character in Succession is pretty much despicable… well, except for Greg, but even he is starting a descent down the slippery slope of greed and narcissism.

Hey, Greg, beware the path which lies in front of you marked ‘Bad Guy’!

Here’s my quick take.

People find the Dark Side fascinating. For the most part, we don’t live like that, so stories are a safe way to indulge our more negative impulses. And…

We all have a shadow per Carl Jung. Generally, because of societal expectations, laws, upbringing, and so forth, we try our best to repress, suppress, avoid, and ignore these instincts, but they are there nonetheless.

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