By: Emanuelle Welter 
Dec 4th, 2024

A curious phenomenon that happens when people watch movies with good and bad sides is that people tend to choose the bad side. But why? There are many explanations for that. One of them is that the audience is drawn to them if the main character is a villain (in Chucky, for example). But what about when they aren’t the main character? Well, people tend to side with characters they relate to the most. Sometimes writers make villains more relatable than the “good guys”. They can feel too “perfect” or flat. That makes them boring and drives the audience away. 

Another reason is because writers make villains “cooler”, the clothes are more detailed, usually sharper, and sometimes they use darker colors. In Harry Potter, for example, many people’s favorite character is Bellatrix Lestrange. Her hair and clothes are detailed and very specific to her character, as opposed to Harry who wears normal clothes all the time. That is not to say it is a bad thing for costuming to not be as detailed for the main characters, especially when the main character is a normal person. But that drives the audience to like other characters more.