Discussion Main / JerksAreWorseThanVillains

Is the trope supposed to explain how overblown the audience's reactions are?

I want to take the opportunity to ask despite being tangential at best, is the dearth of true hate reaction YMMV tropes (way beyond Love to Hate) because of the Flame Bait too strong to be worth it?

Original TLP link, posting here for reference

Would the main characters of Teen Titans Go! be applicable here?

One thing that I would like to add to the main page on the reason for this phenomenon is that villains often are driven to villainy or go into villainy for reasons that the audience can relate to, even if they ultimately go down deep into the line. Like a villain who has gone through a Trauma Conga Line and Break the Cutie or even Forced into Evil and then changes or perhaps rejects redemption is more compelling, and makes the audience question whether they themselves would not go bitter and become misanthropic after everyone they loved was murdered and not be paranoid about losing more friends when offered friendship from the hero. Which is simply frustrating to watch, and makes you wonder why they even did it. A villain who wants to flood a valley that has innocent people in order to kill a plague that may destroy the world is something that people can understand, while a character who shoots the woobie during a cool down hug has done something that the audience cannot understand.

Why is Joffrey on here? He's definitely a villain.

Under Doctor Who, I'm thinking of putting a listing for "The Christmas Invasion" episode, but not sure if it really counts, or if I could phrase it better. Here's my proposed addition:

Depending on who you ask, the Doctor or Harriet Jones could count as this in "The Christmas Invasion." The main villains of the story, the Sycorax, are actually killed at the end of the story and are thus barely mentioned in fan discourse. Meanwhile, the argument of whether Harriet was the jerk for killing the retreating villains or whether the Doctor was the jerk for ruining Harriet's career for this act, which prematurely ended a future golden age for London and paved the way for The Master to become prime minister, is still debated in the fandom.

I don't think that Avengers Infinity War example counts. That's a case of Nice Job Breaking It, Hero.