I need to know, why do people like this?

[forli]

First of all, I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to be insulting to anyone here and that I'm being 100% genuine. This is not a shitpost.

I have an unhealthy obsession with a certain type of fantasy novels that crap on "humans". By having some powerful main character commit genocide on humans (and having that be done as a power fantasy) and/or by making humans cartoonishly evil and weak so that the main characters don't seem bad for constantly crapping on them.

This seems to be very popular, and I cannot stop myself from overthinking why, especially about the usual comments they get that go something like "Exterminate all those insects!!!". My negative personality just makes me assume the worst.

The thing is, this didn't always bother me as it does now, but I ended up convincing myself that the fans of these novels must be horrible people. So now I'm thinking that maybe the solution is to just ask instead of continuing to have this debate only with myself.

That's why I need to know, if you like this type of novel, why?

 

[SailusGebel]

I like this type of novels because I don't think about anything when I read them. I turn off my brain completely, suspend my disbelief and just consume. More times than not after a day of work I don't have any strength left. I'm too tired to read something with a good message, to read something that would make me think and debate with myself. I just want pure entertainment and escapism. So I read shitty harems, shitty romcoms, bad cultivation novels, novels like the one you hate, and so on.
I think that a lot of readers are the same. Not the ones who frequent this forum, or RR forums, and not the ones who leave comments. I sincerely believe that at least a big chunk of silent readers, readers that you've seen in the stats of the novel that you dislike, are the same as me. Some readers are not silent because they are shy. They simply don't have any strength left to type, "thanks for the chapter" after a day of work. And you might think that they read nothing but novels with blatant racism, but I'm sure that they read all kinds of badly written novels. Bad GL+GB, trashy fanfics, trashy harem smut, and so on.

 

[LilRora]

Consider this:

In dramaturgy, the term [catharsis] usually refers to arousing negative emotion in an audience, which then expels it, making them feel happier.

There was a reason why many ancient greek (as well as some inspired by them) dramas were about family feuds, sometimes even including killing siblings/parents/children. I'm pretty sure most today's authors don't really think about it, but even unintentional and imperfect that might have an impact.

Apart from that Sailus already said everything I wanted to.

 

[K5Rakitan]

I don't enjoy that stuff, but my guess is that people who do enjoy it are having too many negative interactions with other humans. These humans could be classmates, coworkers, teachers, parents, siblings, karens, cyber bullies, etc. It's calming to forget that you are one of them while you watch humanity crumble for its crimes.

 

[RynnTheTired]

I think the key there is "power fantasy."

For most people, life is hard. We're surrounded by things and people we can't control (sometimes including ourselves...). We feel weak and inadequate a lot of the time. So sometimes people like to get away from all that by fantasizing about being powerful enough to destroy all the things and people that annoy and hinder them in everyday life. Like others have said, it's a type of catharsis or stress-relief.

Not everybody wants something as intense as genocide (I'm not too into that kind of thing, personally), but pretty much everybody enjoys the vicarious experience of watching a character overcome obstacles and defeat villains. That's what storytelling is all about, right? The stories you're talking about are just a more extreme version of that. I don't think enjoying them makes someone a terrible person as long as they can keep the distinction between story and reality.

 

[BlackKnightX]

It's called wish-fulfillment, my dearest new friend. It's been around since the dawn of time. I think the reason why it works so well is because it responds to our raw instinct, desires, and emotions. Maybe something we all want but don't have the gut to do it.

Have you ever been so mad at someone, like real mad, and want them to suffer so bad? Some people will yell, "I'll fucking kill you!!!" But will they do it? Mostly no. They would stop when their anger subsides, and that's about it.

But in fiction, you can express all your raw emotion here. If you really feel like killing someone—maybe only for a brief moment out of anger—you can do it right here without fear of the consequences. Why? Hell, you're OP as hell. Who's gonna stop you? You can slap God's face if you want to, so what's there to be afraid of, right?

And that's just one desire and emotion. Another one you might have already seen a lot in web novels are love and lust. Let's say you're an awkward person and are completely lacking in the love department, but you want it so bad, so desperately, what can you do? Yep, go to fiction and suddenly you're a stud with an 11 inches dick ready to penetrate any dragon caves you've come across. Suddenly, you can make any jade beaties soak their panties just by looking at them. Suddenly you are the legendary harem king, sitting on your thrown, with robotic bombshells responding to your every command.

Do you want that in real life? Probably not. Too much trouble. Such a hassle. But in fiction? Hell, yes! It's a fantasy. A dream. So why not indulge in it?

Is it unhealthy? Not really, unless you consume it excessively. As with all things, do it with moderation and you'll be fine.

You have to understand, though, that this is a form of escapism. You can take a short break from all the shitty things in your life, but you can't run away from them forever. Use these wish-fulfillment materials to relax and have fun, to catch your breath, and then start living your life again. Struggle until you solve the problems and achieve what you want. Life is wonderful when you're really living it.

 

[Dearest_Violet]

The thing is, this didn't always bother me as it does now, but I ended up convincing myself that the fans of these novels must be horrible people

I'm not too familiar with the style of novel you're depicting, but I've found that people are strange and like strange things. Though just because they entertain the medium and genre doesn't mean they'll let it impact their daily life. Killing people in video games don't make people murderers right?

Best just to let them enjoy what they enjoy.

 

[Zinless]

I agree with Sailus. Some people are just very stressed about things and these kind of stories kinda fit their needs. Let's take a look at a similar trope.

There's a lot of Japanese light novel that focuses on "I got kicked out of X because Y" and it's usually about the MC getting revenge by showing the X, that they're doing fine, heck, even better than they were back in the X.

Now, take that story premise and apply it to Japan's work culture. Imagine someone being fired for reasons that might or might not be valid, if he feels that he was fired under unfair circumstances, he would want to prove his real worth/revenge of some kind. These "Kicked out so I get revenge" stories would satisfy their need for stress relief. Which is why they are very popular.

I assume the stories you mentioned fulfill this specific niche also. I, myself, don't personally like it, but I've read a few good stories where it exists.

But, just because it is normal to have these kinds of topics in a story, writing it well shouldn't be ignored. Take the "I got kicked out of X" trope for example. There was one translated WN in Novel Updates (I think?), a book about the real saint being exiled for a fake one and the story focuses on how fked the kingdom is after the real saint left them out of spite. It didn't hide what it was doing pretty well, so it felt unnatural.

 

[Corty]

Revenge is a dish best-served cold.

Humans depicted evil is normal. We can be evil. Herd/mob mentality is a perfect example of that. Just flip open any history book, and you can see people many times committed way worse things than genocide against another group of people. And I am not talking about WWII. It has been going on since humans are able to grab a spear.

We were simply wired to group mentality as we evolved as such. Group A is good Group B is bad. While Group B is good, Group A is bad. To depict the MC as the hero and non-human is just the author's way of putting him/her into Group A and sending it against Group B. There are many books where demons enslaved humans, so MC is in Group B, going against Group A as a hero. Same shtick.

We enjoy being part of a group and defeating the other bad group(s). Simple. There is few sweeter taste than a good revenge story that people can resonate with. It is human nature.

And why would anyone be horrible people for liking a quick, entertaining revenge story? Most of us are not sociopaths who can't tell reality from fiction. I love me some face slapping, enemy beating, be-gone foul wretches, kill them down to their 9th ancestor moments. It is fun.

How many times do people think how good it would feel to bash in an annoying person's head? Yet not doing it? Same thing. That does not make any of us terrible people.

 

[ACertainPassingUser]

Revenge fantasy and bored readers, that's my opinion on why those exist.

It also one of the point of Slime Tensei bring to limelight when Rimuru decided to massacre human army that tries to attack his monster country.

And usually reader of fiction never actually saw or getting involved with massacre, war violence, and mass murder, and ethnicity genocide.

 

[Gibbs505]

It can also be like Richard Wagner operas. E.G: 'Ride of the Valkyries’ is not only one of Wagner’s most recognisable pieces of music, but one of the most popular opera songs in the whole canon.
He also wrote Götterdämmerung, or Twilite of the gods. There is a reason why they are popular!

 

[Paul_Tromba]

I don't know. I don't enjoy it personally and haven't looked into why others do, so I wouldn't know.

 

[EnoraTwilight]

I don't think reading a novel with depictions of evil or routing for evil person makes a person evil. People route for Dexter in the show with the same name. He is a serial killer.

 

[bokhi]

Revenge is a dish best-served cold.

Humans depicted evil is normal. We can be evil. Herd/mob mentality is a perfect example of that. Just flip open any history book, and you can see people many times committed way worse things than genocide against another group of people. And I am not talking about WWII. It has been going on since humans are able to grab a spear.

We were simply wired to group mentality as we evolved as such. Group A is good Group B is bad. While Group B is good, Group A is bad. To depict the MC as the hero and non-human is just the author's way of putting him/her into Group A and sending it against Group B. There are many books where demons enslaved humans, so MC is in Group B, going against Group A as a hero. Same shtick.

We enjoy being part of a group and defeating the other bad group(s). Simple. There is few sweeter taste than a good revenge story that people can resonate with. It is human nature.

And why would anyone be horrible people for liking a quick, entertaining revenge story? Most of us are not sociopaths who can't tell reality from fiction. I love me some face slapping, enemy beating, be-gone foul wretches, kill them down to their 9th ancestor moments. It is fun.

How many times do people think how good it would feel to bash in an annoying person's head? Yet not doing it? Same thing. That does not make any of us terrible people.

I think @Corty nailed most of it.

First of all, I want to make it clear that I'm not trying to be insulting to anyone here and that I'm being 100% genuine. This is not a shitpost.

I have an unhealthy obsession with a certain type of fantasy novels that crap on "humans". By having some powerful main character commit genocide on humans (and having that be done as a power fantasy) and/or by making humans cartoonishly evil and weak so that the main characters don't seem bad for constantly crapping on them.

This seems to be very popular, and I cannot stop myself from overthinking why, especially about the usual comments they get that go something like "Exterminate all those insects!!!". My negative personality just makes me assume the worst.

The thing is, this didn't always bother me as it does now, but I ended up convincing myself that the fans of these novels must be horrible people. So now I'm thinking that maybe the solution is to just ask instead of continuing to have this debate only with myself.

That's why I need to know, if you like this type of novel, why?

It's the perception of bad people getting what they "deserve." It's rather interesting. I've put my post under spoiler tags in case there are any Stormcrow readers on the forums.

Spoiler

I have a few chapters in my own novel where a bunch of slaving gangsters get killed by the M!Lead and his friends in very violent ways. One of the men who get killed is an overseer named Jaadi, and he is also a slave. One of the slaves notes that Jaadi is the type of guy who never does anything but "bark and bark", but he's the first guy M!Lead kills (pretty brutally). Surprisingly, pretty much 99% of readers (that commented and/or DM'd me--it's entirely plausible and even likely that the silent readers picked up on these points already and are tapping their fingers together) thought this was awesome and that killing an entire apartment complex full of people was totally cool (note: In-universe this is not cool. One of the characters even points out that this will accelerate a gang war and make things worse for commoners, but this thus far, no reader has commented on this aspect of the issue).

I was initially a little surprised by this since most of my vocal readers are very kind and sensible people, but upon some thought, it did make sense: Jaadi thinks very horrible things about people and he allows terrible things to happen around him. He's also tainted by his group affiliation. His greatest moral failing is cowardice. This makes him an intensely unlikeable guy.

But here's the rub: he doesn't do anything. Now, his inaction does lead to bad things happening for other people, but this is also self-preservation (he's also a slave--going against orders is death). So in a way you could say he does share some moral responsibility for the misery and death of the slaves under his "care." But I also think most people in Jaadi's situation would do the same thing because most people don't want to be beaten to death by their owners, especially if he owner is well-known for being a violent sociopath (he is).

To be fair, I think a part of it also that I didn't make it super obvious that Jaadi is also a slave. It's apparent if you're familiar with how slaving societies are run (slaves are often given power over other slaves), but I probably shouldn't have assumed this was common knowledge (because it isn't. Oops. I guess I'll save that for the rewrite). So this was probably an oversight on my part, and reader reactions might change if I edit those sections to make his status clearer.

Now to be clear, what I'm writing isn't even a power fantasy. But the existence of slavery and people being involved in this really triggers readers' emotions and outrage, and this leads to a demand for catharsis through justice via the narrative. So that is also an explanation for the tendency.

Tl;dr: It's not necessarily that there's anything all that different or unique about readers who read stuff like that. It could be that their sense of injustice, depending on the setting, has been triggered and now they want justice, whatever form that may take.

Edit: Oh, but The Stormcrow Cycle definitely craps on humans. Every civ is horrific in its own way, so there's probably no civ to really root for, lol. So yeah, I guess it actually is a story like that, except the MC isn't exactly that moral, either.

Edit 2: Realized that someone commented on the M!Lead being kinda stupidly impulsive, so changed the 100% figure to 99%, lol.

 

[Anon2024]

Hmm… I think I’ve liked stories like this before but my reason for liking it is different.

Humans in general are beings that are very idiotic, do a lot of infighting and are also usually a very large group of which only a small portion of us are actually able to take up arms and fight effectively.

When humans are being exterminated however, there is a sense that there is a need to unite, however I like it better when humans don’t unite and there are even more that die because of their own stupidity.

For me though, I see humanity as a stupid group with some intelligent individuals. I also subscribe to the theory that power doesn’t corrupt, but instead it is the corrupted who seek power.

So when people are massively killed in large amounts, that’s the only time when humans will actually think about what matters, especially in fiction, and often the end result is that many need to die before humans as a group realize how stupid they are.

In a sense, it’s Darwin at its finest. Cull the herd and only the smart are left. This also comes in the form of the stupid group of humans putting in corrupted leaders because they couldn’t care less about who is in power as long as that corrupted leader feeds their own ego or need to virtue signal.