I like characters who hold my attention, which often means characters who act in ways I couldn't bear in real life. I like Andy Sipowicz as a character, even though he is a racist and has a streak of cruelty I would not be able to stomach in an actual person. I am very fond of many of Shakespeare's villains, even though they are horrible, murderous people.

I have very different standards for real people I interact with than for fictional people, and I hope you do too.

You like people that murder innocents? In preference to people who don't?

Don't rewrite my posts -- I said characters. Not people. There's a difference.

It's kind of the same to me; I tend to judge characters much the same as I do people.

As a viewer, yes, I prefer characters who murder innocents to characters who almost-but-not-quite covered up malpractice, characters who almost-but-not-quite die, and so on.

See, I find bad boys boring. To me, evil is easy. Doing good is hard, so characters trying to do good despite their own damage are far far more interesting to me.

Well, define evil. Especially in relation to "surviving damage". Sawyer's pretty obviously damaged. That he is also a con man and a twerp -- is that evil in him, or weakness, or a symptom of the damage? Or just habit?

Sawyer is malicious, Boone (except towards his sister) is not. They're both floundering in the disasters of their own lives, however. I find them both interesting, although in different ways, and I would ferociously vote both of them offa the island in real life.

It's kind of the same to me; I tend to judge characters much the same as I do people.

"Judge" is not the same as "enjoy". As Scrappy says, Macbeth is a lousy human being but absolutely riveting to watch.

I enjoy stories with villains all the more for the villains in them, and a well-written villain is a delight.

eta: Not that I think Sawyer is a villain -- I think they're just going for damaged

My take on it is that I like, or perhaps more correctly enjoy, Angelus as a character much more than Angel, despite the first version being essentially irredeemable and the second morally complex and striving for improvement. But were I sharing their frame of reference I'd never want to be within sight range of the one, and probably wouldn't want to spend any time around the other either.

Well, give me a villain. Not some wackass bad boy who feels sorry for himself. That's Sawyer to me. Intolerant asshole who likes to coerce and boo hoos by himself.

I move back and forth between liking and despising Sawyer, which I think is good writing. The "I Never..." game was crackerjack writing and acting.

Except that Sawyer, sweet young thing that he is, was still being dressed by his mother in the '80s.

Angelus is also a much better actor -- more expressive vocally and physically. That really struck me, the first time I realized it wasn't David Boreanaz who was constipated, just the character he played.

I'm always interested in people who don't know they are villains, or don't want to be but can't help it. Angelus is entertaining, but his psychology is pretty dull once you get into it. (His ability to use psychology on others is pretty exciting, but he's not exactly a deep person.)