Jerkass Dissonance

""HA, now do you understand why so many people love me, even though I'm the biggest dick in this entire show? It's because I'm Seto f'rickin Kaiba. Accept no substitutes.""

- Seto Kaiba, Yu-Gi-Oh the Abridged Series

So you've created a fictional character. And they are, to be quite frank, a complete asshole. You're absolutely sure that the audience is going to absolutely loathe them and everything they stand for by the time they read... what's this? A fan website for them? What?!

It seems like in fiction, certain characters can get away with a lot of bad behaviour without losing the loyalty of the audience. Characters who you would think would be loathed and hated because of their actions can become the objects of the admiration and even lust of the audience. Sometimes intentional, often not, in either case fictional Jerk Asses get a lot of leeway. A principle behind many a Magnificent Bastard, Draco in Leather Pants or Misaimed Fandom, Jerkass Dissonance occurs when the audience excuses the behaviour of a fictional character when it would most definitely not condone similar behaviour in real life.

The dissonance can be best summed up thus; where a fictional jerk may possess an intense and devoted fan-base of admirers and may, in-universe, be surrounded by a loyal (if long-suffering) group of friends and followers, in Real Life people considered to be jerks tend to be ostracized, and few choose to willingly associate with them. People in reality are quite intolerant of Jerkass behaviour, particularly when directed towards them or those they care about, and being considered a jerk means that people don't actually like you very much. Just look at the Deadpan Snarker; they say rude, hurtful things to everyone around them, but the viewer eats it up because they're funny. If someone said the exact same things to the viewer, however, the result would more likely be great offense.

Of course, the scale varies. Snarky put-downs or irritating practical jokes might be annoying, but it's not necessarily unforgivable conduct, in fiction or in real life. The Dissonance really begins to take strange effect when the character who is the subject of the fandom is engaging in conduct which, in Real Life, would see them comfortably identified as one of history's greatest monsters. There's reasons why people such as Adolf Hitler, Josef Stalin, Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacy are considered some of the most hated and evil figures in history, but there are certain fictional characters who can do the same as them and more besides, but no matter how far they dive over the Moral Event Horizon someone, somewhere, will be rushing to add it to the Crowning Moment of Awesome list on this very site.

Some possible reasons for this phenomenon include:


 * 1) Fiction is, on some level, wish-fulfillment; we live vicariously through the characters and their actions. At some level, almost everyone wishes that they were brazen enough to flout society's rules and conventions and tend to latch on to characters who do so in stories, especially if done in a fashion where, regardless of how offensive their behaviour would actually be, you can't help but be impressed. Similarly, writers and actors tend to have more fun creating and embodying villains than heroes for similar reasons, which can show in the work.
 * 2) The reader is not affected by the consequences of the actions depicted. Whilst the behaviour of a real life bastard can have a direct impact on you, in fiction it's happening to someone else, and since they don't really exist it's not really happening to them either. Their behaviour is thus easier to forgive or overlook.
 * 3) We tend to empathize more with the characters who are drawn in more detail because, in a way, we get to know them better. We learn about who, say, the world-killing megalomaniac is and why he acts the way he does; we know his Freudian Excuse and motivation. As such, we find ourselves sympathising with him more. Conversely in real life we may not really know the person who was needlessly rude to us on the bus when we asked them for the time or why they felt the need to behave in such a poor way, and as such feel little motivation to sympathise with them.
 * 4) Similarly, the jerkass may be drawn in more detail than the people he's being a jerk to; we learn a lot about Darth Vader, but we never meet most of his victims, so to all intents and purposes they don't exist in the same way that Darth Vader does for us. Similarly, we tend to find actions they commit against the main characters harder to forgive than actions they commit against minor / background characters, because they're affecting people we care about more.
 * 5) It's said that The Villain Makes the Plot. That is, the villain is the driving force of the story's conflict; the more interesting and dynamic the villain, the more interesting the story. This has the effect that people can gravitate to the villain, especially if the hero is comparatively less interesting.
 * 6) Notice how most of the characters on the Draco in Leather Pants page are described or depicted in the works they appear in as being physically attractive. Not a coincidence. Evil Is Sexy and people can be shallow. The 'halo effect' -- the idea that we tend to excuse the conduct of physically attractive people or imbue them with more inherent decency (justifiably or not) because of their physical attractiveness—can have a powerful effect in fiction.
 * 7) Comedic Sociopathy plays a part; Jerkass behaviour is funny... so long as it's happening to someone else.
 * 8) The character may simply be well-written and interesting; people gravitate to such characters, hero or villain.
 * 9) In works with a Designated Hero, the character's behaviour may not actually be any worse than the good guys', leading to a backlash among fans who don't see why they're considered so bad while the heroes get a more-or-less free pass.

This phenomenon doesn't relate solely to villains; heroes who commit morally dubious actions can also fall here, since we're supposed to sympathize with them from the start. However, the hero is supposed to reflect the reader's values more than the villains, which means that we hold our heroes to a higher standard and expect them to live up to it more than the villains, and can be harsher to judge them when they cross the line than we would a villain (who, being the villain, is kind of expected to do that anyway). This can, in extreme cases, lead to instances where a villain appears to be liked more than a hero, even if the villain is a Complete Monster whom even the hero's worst actions do not compare to. Moral Dissonance usually happens when we notice the Jerkass tendencies of a hero, but the other characters don't appear to. What The Hell, Hero? occurs when the writers themselves notice and have other characters call the hero out on it.

Tropes affected include

 * All Girls Want Bad Boys: An in-universe example, in which the Jerkass character is desired by characters of the opposite gender in spite of or even because of their overt Jerkass tendencies; many of these characters also go on to be desired by the fans.
 * Anti-Hero
 * Bastard Boyfriend: Another example of a character who is presented in-universe as desirable despite - or because of - his jerkassness.
 * Crosses the Line Twice
 * A Darker Me: A real-life, online-based variation; people are often more likely to conduct themselves in ways that they would never dream of—or dare to—act in Real Life due to the anonymity of the Internet.
 * Draco in Leather Pants: When fandom downplays their more undesirable flaws.
 * Ensemble Darkhorse: The "darker" character tends to become one of these quicker.
 * Evil Is Cool
 * Evil Is Sexy
 * Evil Is Stylish
 * Freudian Excuse: Where a lot of this comes from.
 * Insult Comic: Some comedians have make a career out of insulting their audiences.
 * Jerkass
 * Jerkass Woobie: When the populaity of a Jerkass is directly proportional to his or her own misery.
 * Jerk Justifications: If the fans believe them.
 * Jerk Sue: Authors who attempt to invoke this dissonance deliberately—and, usually, do so badly.
 * Magnificent Bastard
 * Misaimed Fandom
 * Refuge in Audacity
 * Ron the Death Eater: A curious inversion, wherein a typically non-Jerkass character is twisted in order to be considered one, usually as a result of an attempt to balance a Draco in Leather Pants situation wherein the fandom is downplaying the faults of an actual Jerkass character who exists in opposition to the former character.
 * Rooting for the Empire
 * Satan Is Good
 * Tsundere: When the "Tsun" side is played up for laughs.
 * Unsympathetic Comedy Protagonist
 * Well-Intentioned Extremist: Where a tragic backstory or noble enough ideals completely balances out any of their villainous actions.